Think of Macworld as Apple's own CES. While once ridiculed for having its own show, today Apple's influence over so many consumer product categories justifies producing its own show.
When I worked at Apple in the mid-'90s, developers were abandoning the Apple platform in droves and Apple notebooks couldn't compare to those from Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) and IBM (NYSE: IBM). Now Apple is one of the world's largest sellers of music and music players, has the hottest cellular phone, the best operating system and, according to PC Magazine, one of its desktop models is the best performing Windows computer.
So what can we expect next week? Apple is notorious for going to great extremes to prevent new product leaks. The company recently sued a blogsite for leaking information. According to a story in this month's Wired Magazine, the iPhone development was done under so much secrecy that the software engineers knew nothing about the final hardware and the hardware engineers knew less about the software. Fewer than 30 employees had any idea of what the final product would be until it was announced.
But there have been a few clues about what might be revealed at the Macworld Expo starting today in San Francisco:
- An upgrade to the iPhone software -- adding a number of missing features such as cut and paste and syncing of to-do lists, and more new applications.
- A new notebook -- Apple has lagged in the thin and light category. It's lightest notebook, the MacBook, is five pounds, while some PC models are as less than three. So to fill this gap there's likely to be a thin and light notebook with a 13-inch screen, LED backlighting and a solid-state hard drive, built into a metallic enclosure. It may also have a special touch screen or touch pad that responds to gestures like the iPhone, and may cost $1500.
- An announcement of an expansion of video and music services, including downloadable movie rentals and iTunes for rent.
- Upgrades to current products including new Intel processors and more memory.
- While there's a 3G iPhone in the works, it won't be available until the spring.
- iPods are generally introduced in the fall, but we may see an expansion of the iTouch line, the iPod that looks and works like the iPhone.
One significant new Mac product that has already been announced by Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is Office 2008 for Mac. This is the first version designed specifically for Macs with Intel processors. The current version is slow to open and its files are not compatible with some of Window's latest formats. The new Office has an improved user interface and, like the Windows version, provides better previewing.
Can't wait till MacWorld :)
Posted by: free ipod touch | January 12, 2008 at 08:22 PM