“By the time of my next deadline for this column, Steve Jobs will have already addressed the crowds at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco, and all the rumor and speculation about what Apple Computer has up its sleeve will subside to its usual dull roar,” Arik Hesseldahl writes for BusinessWeek. “This fact — plus the beginning of the new year — makes for a perfect time to look back on 2005, but more importantly look ahead to what I want from Apple in 2006. If ever there was a tough act to follow for Apple, 2005 was it. Consider where the company was at this time last year. The iPod shuffle hadn’t happened yet. Nor had the Mac mini or the fifth-generation iPod known popularly as the iPod video. Apple’s 2005 product-release schedule was nothing short of extraordinary.”

“Apple’s 2005 numbers say it all… Those who went long on Apple during its crisis days in mid-1997 found their faith rewarded in spades this year,” Hesseldahl writes. ” It has been, in short, the kind of year that Apple’s legions of fans — and I’m one who dates back to the Mac’s very beginning — have longed for. And that’s going to raise the bar for success in 2006 rather high… The big news for 2006 will be the shift to Intel-based machines. It could be challenging — or the start of a major upgrade cycle… I hope the new PowerMac is a super-box. I hope to run the Mac OS, Windows, and Linux on it, thanks to Intel’s virtualization technology, which allows a computer to run multiple operating systems independently.”

Hesseldahl writes that Ultra-Wideband (UWB) wireless data technology “could make it very easy to push digital video and music from a computer to any TV or set of speakers in the house. I think UWB should start showing up in products by the second half of the year. I’m eager to see how Apple might implement it.”

“In short, I want the very firmament of the personal computing world to rattle and shake when the next PowerMac enters the scene. After years of unceasing debate about the perceived performance gap between x86 chips like Intel’s and PowerPC chips like those from IBM (IBM) and Freescale Semiconductor (FSL) — an apple/orange comparison if ever there was one — I want those geeks who favor Microsoft’s Windows platform to look upon the Mac and feel a combination of envy and remorse. I want them all to take note of the Mac OS and the computers that run it, and in large numbers say at once: Now that’s the way personal computing should be,” Hesseldahl writes. “This would indeed, in the annals of Apple history, make 2006 a suitable follow-up to what has been the greatest year in its history.”

Full article with much more (check out Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Alsaud’s return on the $115 million he invested in Apple in April, 1997) here.

Advertisements: The New iMac G5. Built-in camera and remote control. From $1299. Free shipping.
Apple USB Modem. Easily connect to the Internet using your dial-up service. $49.00.
The New iPod with Video. The ultimate music & video experience on the go. From $299. Free shipping.
Connect iPod to your television set with the iPod AV Cable. Just $19.00.

Related MacDailyNews articles:
Is Steve Jobs prepping ‘The Cupertino Project’ – Intel-based Macs that will run Windows apps, too? – December 27, 2005
Defending Windows over Mac a sign of mental illness – December 20, 2003