David Emery OnlineRunes and tea leaves
14 January 2008
I am, historically, pretty rubbish at predictions. Probably no worse then anyone else, mind, but still not exactly great.
I am – of course – talking about the Macworld Expo, that yearly preach to the faithful flock. I can’t help but think that while this years cannot beat the last one, which could well go down as one of the best in history with the announcement of the iPhone, we’re still going to get something interesting.
What leads me to think that is that we really haven’t heard anything – everyone is talking about MacBook Thins and Movie rentals but there has been nothing substantial. I really get the feeling that we’re either going to be disappointed (which normally happens anyway) or going to see something entirely unexpected.
Anyway, let’s cut to the chase:
MacBook Thin
...although I hope it won’t be called that. This will be some form of small form factor laptop, which I think could start a new look for Apple’s ‘Pro’ laptop lines – something similar to the iMac and iPhone with glass, black bits and shiny bits. A lot of people are talking about it having a solid-state flash disk but I’m not convinced as it’s still a technology that’s fairly pointless considering the cost. Look for it to use the 80GB and 160GB disks from the iPod Classic.
Apple TV 2
It’s either going to get killed or overhauled, and I think it’s too important for the overall video strategy to die quite yet. I can see it going in one of two directions: either it’s going to get more sophisticated – bigger disk and more functionality – or it’s going to get simpler (and hence cheaper) – remove the disk and turn it into a video equivalent of the Airport Express. Also, the iTunes store must be coming to the TV now it’s on iPods.
iTunes Movie Rentals
This goes hand in hand with the Apple TV and seems like a no brainier. Apple have been having a lot of problems with video (compared to the success with music) so it wouldn’t surprise me if the fine details aren’t quite as nice as we (and Apple) would normally like.
MacBook Touch
I’d be really surprised if we saw either a larger iPod Touch, or a Mac tablet with a touch interface, but stranger things have happened. I can’t quite figure out why – other then it just being cool – anyone would want to buy one, as it seems to couple the bad points of both form factors (difficult data inputting from the Touch and the large size from a MacBook).
iPhone
I wouldn’t be surprised if – other then a ‘it’s doing very well’ – we don’t get a mention of the iPhone but if we do I can see it only being either about the SDK/forthcoming software features or maybe a memory hike + price reduction. We’re not going to see a 3G iPhone yet – I don’t think they’re in any rush. Just to add (on an off chance) – we haven’t heard any rumours yet about a smaller form factor iPhone as a companion to the full size one; an iPhone Nano. I don’t think we’re going to see one yet, but we could well sometime this year.
What we won’t see
We’re not going to hear about Mac OS X 10.5.2 (unless briefly as part of a Leopard sales figures roundup) – they’ve never talked about a point OS update before so I don’t see why they would now.
Aperture 2.0 we won’t hear about, as it’s not consumer facing enough (although I’m sure it’s on its way). I’m also not sure we’ll hear about new Cinema Displays either, as they’re just a bit boring to clutter up a keynote (unless a) there’s not much new or b) they do something special).
Something else
I really get the feeling Apple have got something up their sleeve this time around. Something out of left field – something to do with WiMax, maybe – but something that no one has thought of.
Not long to go…