“Another January means another round of fortune telling. The week leading up to Macworld Expo is when pundits predict what Apple has in store for us in the new year. With that let’s dive into what Steve Jobs could announce at the Moscone Center in San Francisco one week from today,” Jason D. O’Grady blogs for ZDNet.
O’Grady’s list from most to least likely (with his odds):
• iLife & iWork ’07 (1:1)
• “iTV” (1:1)
• Mac mini goes Intel Core 2 Duo (1:1)
• Mac OS 10.5 possible release (2:1)
• Mac Pro with quad-core Intel Xeon (2:1)
• New Cinema Displays with HDMI (2:1)
• iPod bump to 100GB (2:1)
• Apple Phone (10:1)
• Thin 12-inch MacBook Pro (50:1)
• Mac Tablet (100:1)
• iPod with WiFi and/or Bluetooth (100:1)
Full article with discussions of each of the listed items above here.
Remember, Macworld Expo doesn’t contain the word “Mac” for nothing. With so much on the plate for Macintosh (Leopard) this year, iPods and iPod phones (unless they run Mac OS X or a variant thereof) may have to wait for special event(s) in order to not dilute Apple’s Mac message next week.
As far as MW predictions go, I agree with Shadowself.
Apple are generally very conservative with their version 1 releases. What they do do extremely well is adapt their products to address customer needs. iLife is a great example. The first few versions were okay but now they are fantastic.
I want to see where Apple are going to go next with the iPod. I could drop 400 on a new video pod if it is a significant improvement on the current version. My old 3G is getting long in the tooth.
The iTV is also something I could be interested in but probably not the first version. I want something to archive my DVD collection but I doubt that capability will come from Apple. However having a good interface with the Mac will be a good start.
Making the laptops cooler, lighter and with better battery life would be a good thing too IMHO.
My only prediction
Beatles albums on iTunes store
If iTV has a high bandwidth WiFi system built in, doesn’t it follow that it will need something that it can talk with ? A one-ended radio system is pretty pointless.
We’ve suspected for some time that new Macs are shipping with faster AirPort cards that are currently throttled back to normal speeds. Presumably there will be an announcement that those existing cards will be unlocked and there will also be a need for AirPort base stations that can handle those speeds too.
While they are re-building the AirPort base station, they might also add a facility to add a hard drive to it as well. Or better still, release a dedicated mini-server, Personal Server or iServe.
@justducky
accordinng to macrumors.com, the looprumors site had a post about “Apple developing a “light” version of Mac OS X”.
Maybe the Apple Legal webninjas are afoot.
Here’s my realistic predictions, with a new feature! I’ll actually bold what I think that we may see.
• Recap of iPod/Mac sales for holiday quarter ’06 + Retail Update
• iLife ’07 (1:1)
• iWork ’07 (1:1)
• Mac OS 10.5 demonstrated and the remaining “secrets” are revealed (1:1)
• Mac OS 10.5 release date set (2:1)
• Mac Mini speed bump to C2D (coincides with bolded prediction below) (2:1)
• New alliances for content for music and video (3:1)
• “iTV” (4:1)
• New Cinema Displays with HDMI (5:1)
• New Cinema Displays higher resolution (ties into resolution independence of Mac OS 10.5) (5:1)
• Mac Pro with quad-core Intel Xeon (eight cores total) (7:1)
• All Macs go Santa Rosa (C2D across the line + 800Mhz FSBs in laptops and 802.11n standard across the line –> for “iTV” compatibility later on) (10:1)
• Mac OS 10.5 release (25:1)
• iPod bump to 100GB (25:1)
• Apple Phone (40:1)
• True “video iPod” (rather than the current “iPod with video”) (50:1)
• Thin 12-inch MacBook Pro (100:1)
• iPod with WiFi (250:1)
• Mac Tablet (500:1)
That’s right. All Macs get updated, but only slightly. The oldest case design right now is the Mac mini, and it, coincidentally, is also the only product without a C2D in it now. If any individual product gets a bump, I think the Mini will be it. But, I also think that Apple will need to get the entire line-up officially on 802.11n (for HD streaming through iTV) and Intel’s new Santa Rosa platform is the ideal way to do that. Intel will give Apple a head-start on the next-gen products (Santa Rosa) and Apple will debut them at MWSF. A release of Leopard is highly unlikely, and the an Apple Phone is even less likely. Everything beyond that is truly unrealistic at this point.
–mAc
Nice Jason O – just throw everything at the wall and hope something sticks. Let’s to with what will be released at MWSF ’07:
First, one must think about the theme/s of the show, to which two quickly emerge.
1. The living room
2. Leopard.
To add a mobile device creates too much for the media to effectively cover, and too much for Apple to execute each message effectively – something will get lost in the shuffle.
Now that a clear picture has been painted, without further adoo:
1. iLife, iWork (07) – I work gains spreadsheet.
2. Leopard launch – no stone unturned. All new feature sets revealed. Ship date announced (early April) along with price. Windows Vista put to shame. Let the hype begin.
3. iTV. Ship date announced for late January… Will get HD movie downloads on iTunes. iTunes connects directly to iTV, so one can order movies directly from living room. Rentals available for $3.99 per. Choose to buy the movie rented, $3.99 off the purchase price – huge hook for upselling people into purchasing.
4. iTunes receives HD content (20th Century Fox onboard and with Star Wars franchise). Count on Lucas joining Steve Jobs on stage. 720p HD with new Apple compression (h.264 bu-bye. Count on this compression being a new form of the vanished Pixlett compression technology).
5. iPod HD. New full-screen video iPod with touch screen. Take HD movies with you (again 720p with pixlett compression), watch anywhere, anytime, in hand, or on big-screen. 100 GB iPod versions.
Oh, one more thing:
6. New MacBook Pro mobile. $1,799. “Mobile” referring more to smart phones and other such small mobile devices.
Let out of Keynote but will arrive online:
New LCD’s with iSight. 23″ model replaced with 24″ and 17″ widescreen arrives for sell-through hopes with Mac mini sales, hoping increase cynergies sales of both.
Mac mini silently receives Core 2 Duo upgrade.
SUMMARY:
The focus with the iPod HD and iTV are HD movies in the living-room and on the go. Anywhere, anytime. Leopard hype begins, and Apple delivers a new laptop for the ever expanding Mac market.
My Prediction of the Keynote:
Welcome
Stats
iTV debut
More Movie Studios
Display Upgrades
iLife+
(+a new program in the suite)
(+an iWeb Pro app)
A Mac Hardware Announcement
– – –
OMT: Ten More Leopard Features
Nothing iPod will be shown. The new iPod will have max functionality with now top-secret Leopard features. They’ll be debuted together later this year.
Giving odds is stupid. This is not a football game. Apple either has or has not an iphone, iTV, etc. The results are already in; we just don’t know yet.
Remember, Macworld Expo doesn’t contain the word “Mac” for nothing.
Let’s guess: It’s because all of Apple’s products center around Mac?
Apple Computer doesn’t contain the word “computer” for nothing either.
Until Apple’s consumer media market (iPod, iTunes, iTV) gets big enough to drive its own expo & still give rest of Apple the halo effect, I say leave things the way they are.
I don’t understand the big deal over HDMI connections. Cinema Displays are not large enough to take the place of an HDTV, and as a connection protocol, HDMI offers nothing that DVI does not. In fact, DVI <-> HDMI cables are even similar in price to HDMI<->HDMI cables.
So really who the hell cares?
“Oooooh!!!! HDMI! Why, that’s a different and longer acronym! It must be better!”
Puh-lease.
Apple likes to innovate, not sideways-migrate.
O’Grady forgot the announcement of the Beatles’ catalog in iTunes
HDMI carries the audio signal, DVI does not. One cord is handier, it also carries copy protection options for content providers.
These’s a big difference. HDMI is now up to 1.3 It leaves DVI in the dust in all ways.
http://www.hdmi.org/press/pr/pr_20060622.asp
Compare that to DVI.
Thankfully they won’t be needing the iCuffs this year.
iKidGlove you not.
I predict at least one of the new products will have something iSight related. It has been missing from the Apple website now starting about two weeks ago. It’s been such a long time since any updates have been made. Most likely a camera being built into their Cinema Displays along with new iSight cameras.