Originally published on ReadWriteWeb

As you get older, you start to see the great cycles of life emerge. Hope and disillusionment and hope again; pride crushed by defeat and then rising again; and of course, the rising wave of speculation in advance of every Apple product launch.

No surprise, then, that Morgan Stanley analysts are getting buckets of news coverage this week for predictions of a March iPad 3 release and aJune iPhone 5. They join plenty of other pundits, and the predictions are more or less coalescing around quad-core chips, a higher resolution screen for the iPad and a slimmer profile for the iPhone.

Here is the part where I’m supposed to write that people who obsess over those product rumors (unless they’re investing in Apple or its competitors) are shallow fools destined to spend the next Apple keynote gnashing their teeth in fury that the latest new iDevice doesn’t come with the tachyon emitters that MacRumourLicious.com swore were coming.

Except that I get it. I understand the appeal. For a lot of us, speculating about the next iPhone’s processor or whether the iPad’s touch-screen will be pressure-sensitive (yes, fine, I’m the only one speculating about that) or what the next version of Android will offer is about more than just speed ratings or raw performance. It’s about what we can do with the new features or increased power of the device: what we’ll be able to create, how we’ll be able to collaborate, and how we can foster richer and more satisfying connections with each other.

OK, it’s also about whether the next version of Angry Birds will be able to have 3D-rendered shadows and photo-realistic explosions. But it’s also about that humanity-lofty stuff, too.

P.S. – MacRumourLicious.com is actually available. This is your chance to launch your Mac rumour empire.