50 Leaves Macworld Predictions for 2008
January 14th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
If your like me, macworld is like Christmas all over again. There’s lots of rumors out there, some of them possible and most of them extremely fake.
Lets go over some of the fakes first.
Jay-Z + Apple = Record Label - As much as this sounds cool, it most likely wont happen. There’s much more profit owning a regular record label vs starting a iTunes record label. You have to remember record labels charge crazy fees when you buy a CD vs iTunes. Remember when CD’s came out and they increased the price? The odd thing is CD’s are cheaper to make than tapes and record companies reaped in profits for no reason.
Newton 2.0 - Not going to happen and I doubt ever. Steve Jobs clearly said PDA’s are dead and phones will replace them (meaning the iPhone). Sure the iPhone will get more PDA like features sooner or later, but don’t expect a separate PDA Device, except maybe built into an iPod touch if anything.
New iPods - No way, way to early.
New iPhones - No way, not until a few more months possibly. You have to remember the iPhone just came out in some countries, I think they would be shooting them selfs in the foot if they came out with a newer iPhone so fast.
Apple Bought Macbookair.biz, .us etc.. - No way, a bunch of bs. Apple to my knowledge has never bought any .biz or .us domains. Some sucker bought these for rumors or hoping to get profits over the name.
The Unknowns
Mac Mini - This is an unknown. If it does no come out tomorrow, we might as well say R.I.P. Mac Mini.
New Nike Plus -Nike will have a new product for the iPod.
Starbucks iPhone Ordering - Order your drinks or food from starbucks using your iPhone.
WiMax - I kinda doubt it.
Stuff We Can Pretty Much Count On for Tomorrow
Ultra Portable - We can count of a ultra slim portable laptop. My guess it wont be that powerful, but I could be wrong.
iTunes 8 - Will introduce iTunes 8 along with rentals from Fox, Paramount, Disney, Pixar, Lions Gate and Warner. This will be hot!
Leopard 10.5.2 - Introduction of 10.5.2 for leopard. It’s pretty lame to wait to put out a patch during macworld, especially when theres a few annoying bugs in leopard, but they may introduce new things in the patch.
iPhone 1.1.3 - Introduce this patch for the iphone, to include a weaker than GPS type of map tracking, better bookmarks (you can see on main screen), and movement of icons. This is needed for the upcoming developer kit coming out for iPhone.
iTV2 - a 1080i Resolution iTV for better HD.
A New Product No One Touched Yet- Something in the air banners are all around, but I believe it has nothing to do with WiMax.
January 14th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
I’m hoping the subnotebook (light as air?) is the main attraction. My Mini is going to turn 3 next month and I’d love to make the jump into Macintel and get a laptop to do it. The Pro is too expensive and overkill. The Macbook is just about right, but the price is a little more than I’d like. A subnotebook (10 or 12 in range) with a price under $900 would just rock!
January 15th, 2008 at 12:08 am
I find the rumour that Apple bought all the macbookair domains hilarious. They don’t even own macbook.com, why would they purchase sites like macbookair.us
I think we can count on something happening with the mini, either a big update or a discontinuation - perhaps the rumoured ultra-portable will replace it.
I don’t think we’ll see iTunes 8 yet, but rather just a point update (7.6), enabling rentals and fixing a few more interface inconsistencies in leopard, I also don’t think 10.5.2 will be mentioned at the keynote, but do think it’ll be released
My thought for the main announcement at macworld - a new Macbook Pro - an entirely new design, and some major internal updates too. I’d love to see a 11″ version!
In the totally left of field - Mac Air - Minority report style control of any Mac from a distance - Built into every new mac, and available separately in an iSight-like package.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:16 am
Yeah I was pretty dubious about the whole domain name buying thing… sounded silly to me.
Who knows what’s ‘in the air’ but I guess we’ll all know soon enough now, eh?
Definitely waiting to see what’s in store for the ultra portables… sounds like a cool idea, but might take a few generations to get things worked out to make it a really exciting product.