Macworld 2008 predictions

Sun, 6 January 2008

With only about a week left until Steve’s keynote, here are some predictions, or wishful thinking if you like to call it that way.

macworld.jpg

Steve comes to the stage, tries to beat Obama’s 11 ‘Thank Yous” but manages only four, before applause stops (bummer!). What follows is Mac, iPod and iPhone sales report, the strongest year, quarter, month, whatever … But he also mentions the Mac market share. It’s been reported to be around 7%, no doubt it will go up to 8 or 9 percent just before Steve opens his mouth.

Now, some real stuff.

Sub-notebook - I’ll go with the flow and predict that Apple will announce a 12″ wide screen notebook. No touch screen, but this thingy will be ultra light, no optical drive (external only), will have an option of flash memory instead of the hard drive and will be very expensive. This will probably come as ‘One more thing’.

Blue-ray support - Apple will announce their support for Blue-ray technology, not sure if they will announce immediate availability of the products, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they have one or two products with a Blue-ray drive option.

OS X - 10.5.2 release, available immediately, including tons of improvements and one or two surprises.

iPhone - 1.1.3 firmware, a few new functions and possible 3G announcement, to be released mid-2008.

iTunes - thinking of renting the movies? Now you can. But the pricing will be somewhat disappointing.

Guest speakers - someone from Microsoft, not excluding Bill Gates. Office 2008 is due out on 15/01/2008 and this is a good opportunity to use it to sell more Macs (“no more excuses not to switch”).

One thing that is very unlikely to happen - announcement of a medium headless Mac desktop, sort of Maxi-MacMini or Mini-MacPro.

One thing that is very likely to happen - is that I will be off the mark with my predictions this time, as most of us usually are.

Things that could happen behind the scenes - Apple upgrades processors on most Macs and replaces TN panel on 20″ iMacs.

Stumble it!

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Category Posted in Apple, Mac

7 Responses to “Macworld 2008 predictions”

  1. tintinaujapon said: Mon, 7 January 2008 at 00:13

    I’m looking forward to Blu-ray support (that’s how they like you to write it). Sometime when I wasn’t looking, DVDs became too small to backup the things I want to keep. One Blu-ray disc will hold quite a bit and with Warner’s recent decision to go solely Blu-ray it looks like it might be the winner of this format war.

  2. anna said: Mon, 7 January 2008 at 10:40

    Eehhehe ..those 11 thanks.. :) those mini-mac-mini pro-nano-mac :D….
    good predictions. Hope they’ll come up with a gorgeous new Cinema Display from 20” ahead including iSight camera and without changing anything else on the chassis.

  3. Lisa Melnick said: Mon, 7 January 2008 at 12:59

    A lot of people have been speculating that there will be an announcement of new mac pros with the Penryn processors.
    I couldn’t wait, and of course, bought a mac pro in November.
    I’m excited to see what the new pros will have. Thank goodness for good resale value if I decide to upgrade.
    Anyhow, I agree that unlikely will be middle unit somewhere between imac and mac pro, and that is a shame because it would be a great seller.
    And when iphone goes 3g, i am getting one.

  4. Lonon said: Wed, 9 January 2008 at 08:37

    No blu-ray.
    No fancy 10.5.2 thing. It’s just an update.

    New dark silver Macbook. The same as we knoe it, but maybe lighter. New displays. New Mac Mini. Details about the iPhone SDK.Movie rentals.

    That’s it.

    I’m done hoping and hoping just to be crashed again and again.

  5. twibe.com said: Wed, 9 January 2008 at 08:52

    blu-ray? i was sure of this too until they announced the Mac Pro updates today. why would the most powerful Mac not be outfitted with blu-ray?

  6. mcubed said: Fri, 11 January 2008 at 11:41

    What about Airport Express with HD Video? It seams that wireless HD big big discussion at this years CES, so it would only make sense that Apple would try to expand their Airport lineup with some sweet ways to stream HD other than the Apple TV. Although it isn’t exactly the same as the other approaches to wireless HD.

  7. alex coleman said: Mon, 21 January 2008 at 11:57

    Now that the keynote is out, alot of these are very close.

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