Knowing When to Buy Apple Products

I have been an Apple computer user as long as I have used computers.  I am an Apple brand evangelist and regularly cite Apple as one of our great lifestyle brands.  But one issue has bothered me ever since I began buying my own Apple computers - the company's secrecy.  While Steve Jobs' keynote presentations are amazing and have me frantically refreshing the Apple home page to see what the latest, greatest Apple product will be, it also has regularly prevented me from buying Apple products, or at least delaying those purchases.  When I was in the market for my PowerBook G4, I constantly read the Apple rumor sites to see if a new model was coming out that would make my new computer out of date in a matter of days.  The same thing goes for the iPod - I love my third-generation, 10 GB iPod and have been interested in moving up to a newer, color-screen model.  But with so many revisions to the iPod line, including capacity increases, new models like the Nano and video rumors (now true), I wait instead of buying.  And now, the proximity of the iPod Nano release to the new iPod Video models has some consumers fuming.  I understand - it's part of being an Apple fan.