Apple iPhone event: U2, fashion editors, top models?

Please, gods of tech, no Tim Cook on the catwalk.

Apple's big product launch Tuesday has created a cottage industry of speculation on what the consumer tech giant will unveil in terms of a bigger iPhone 6, a smartwatch, and/or mobile payments.

Here's a newish one: It's going to show off its new wearable tech device on a catwalk. Or maybe it's a special sound stage for rock band and 1990s style icons U2 to help show off the new gizmos.

The construction of a large white building at the Flint Center for the Performing Arts in Cupertino, Calif., which will host the event, has given ground to speculation Apple is planning something that departs from the traditional stage format.

The cube-like building looked a lot like the tent constructed for New York Fashion Week, wrote CNET.com.

Plus, Reuters reported Apple invited top fashion editors and bloggers to the Sept. 9 event, "further evidence that the iPhone maker is preparing to take the wraps off a smartwatch."

"I assume it's because they are unveiling a wearable," Lea Goldman, features and special projects director for Marie Claire magazine, a first-time invitee, told Reuters. "This suggests Apple is serious about tapping into the fashion world, which often sits on the sidelines."

And lastly, the New York Times reported U2 "will play a significant part in Apple's event." They'll perform. And they will reveal an integration with Apple's products connected to their next album, wrote the New York Times, citing three unnamed people familiar with the matter.

Apple events have been part show biz for some time -- and the rest of the consumer electronics industry has followed suit, with secret unveilings, guest celebrities, and a lot (a lot!) of media coverage.

This Oscars-meets-Silicon Valley treatment has increased as computers and the Internet become more closely integrated with consumers' ordinary lives.

And you don't get much less extraordinary than putting on clothes and maybe a watch every day.

Except, of course, if it's a watch that can also take phone calls, alert you to emails, and tell you the score of your football team.

Apple's expected to show off a much-discussed smartwatch on Tuesday. It won't be the first to do so. But for aggressive rivals at Motorola, Google, Microsoft and Samsung, Apple has shown before that it doesn't have to be first to a new technology category to dominate it.

All this means that Apple's foray into wearable computers could elevate the category from ultra-niche to mainstream, as well as give CEO Tim Cook some bragging rights. Which raises the question: Is trotting out a bunch of razor-thin models -- if that's what's planned -- the route to the masses?