I’ve previously posted things as fact about MWSF, but those weren’t my predictions. Once again, there’s a difference between me thinking something is likely to happen and me being convinced that someone else isn’t lying in telling me something.
So here are my predictions. These are ANDs, not ORs. If any one of these turns out not to be announced during the week of MWSF, partial fail.
iPhone nano. With two case manufacturers having shown signs, I think it’s likely, but I’m still really unsure how they’re gonna shrink the product. They can’t shrink it by lots until the screen is made useless, and if anything, the damn thing needs more technology in it, not less.
Mac mini remade. Either a smaller version that’d go down in price or one that’s noticeably more like the revered “xMac” (more ports, better, maybe even putty-knife-less, expandability) that’d go up in price.
10″-ish tablet with something that qualifies as “full Mac OS X”. I believe in my source. My source said “the first half of 2009″, and this could perhaps be a special event of its own later in the year, but I think it’ll go down now while the world’s watching anyway.
In my mind (and for the purposes of scorekeeping), “full Mac OS X” doesn’t disqualify something that’s Mac OS X and UIKit, but it does disqualify something that’s not full Mac OS X, where one or several functionality pieces that would make sense (say, manual software installation) have been ripped out and possibly replaced (say, by some App Store-like creature); and by “make sense”, I mean that not including mouse drivers for a multi-touch tablet wouldn’t qualify as crippling anything of being “full Mac OS X”. I am now done qualifying my earlier statement.
Apple TV ignored or dramatically revised. Dramatically revised means “unconditionally a bigger revision than last year’s remake”. It still hasn’t set the world ablaze.
iLife ’09, even if it’s not released immediately, or only works with Snow Leopard.
Snow Leopard preview. A price is announced (and if the price is $0, I still count that as “announcing a price”), a release quarter (or finer) is given, features are demonstrated or a speedup comparison chart (2x or faster or they wouldn’t bother) is presented.
More DRM-free iTunes music. At least one of the three abstaining major labels, likely two or more.
MacBook Pro 17″ in a unibody case. Possibly labelled something like “thinnest full-featured notebook ever”.
Steve Jobs on stage some time during the keynote, possibly to present “one more thing”.
Moreover, I advise that the iPhone software platform must be opened.
Jobs showing up seems way too melodramatic, even for him. The tablet seems ridiculously unlikely. A new 17″ laptop sometime soon is a given.
5 device announcements at one event seems absurd.
By Fred Blasdel · 2008.12.30 03:18
It wouldn’t necessarily be about drama as much as it’d be about once again calming shareholders and asshat analysts.
I’ve reiterated my view on the tablet. I don’t necessarily see its killer app right now, but I have come around to the idea that Apple could provide a better tablet implementation than Microsoft and their bucket of hardware providers have been trying to for the past five years. And who knows, maybe doing that just for the sake of it will be worth it. The only thing the tablet could deliver beyond any existing Apple product would be something that required a big multi-touch screen or more horsepower than the iPhone processor.
You’re right that this seems too many devices at once. They have a habit of releasing some of the more lackluster deals the week before or after.
By Jesper · 2008.12.30 11:46