My MacWorld 2009 Predictions

Here’s what I’m expecting for Macworld 2009- “the finale”

Apple State of the Union- A general update on the health of Apple.  With Phil Schiller on stage, he may try to justify the action of effectively canceling MacWorld.  (Something Steve would never do.)  A painful move for the community, but necessary for the health of Apple.

Updates on holiday Mac sales- I wouldn’t be surprised to see some growth from last year.

State of the iPhone- Unit sales, marketshare & of course- the phenomenal app store.

Snow Leopard aka Mac OS X 10.6- Probably the bulk of the keynote will be devoted to this important release.  Perhaps we’ll even see a few new gee-whiz features.

Mac Mini- Time for an update on the underdog of the Apple lineup.  Look for a refreshed design to bring it in line with the rest of curent Apple “iPhone” design scheme.

Apple TV- We’ve seen an update around this time for the past couple years. This year should continue the trend.

17” MacBook Pro- I’d love to see “Lapzilla” come back and quad-core would be a good bet.

iLife ‘09- Perhaps some new effects and refinement or better online integration?

iWork ‘09- The buzz is that this gem is going online and into the cloud as a web app.  This doesn’t strike me as one of Apple’s core competencies, but it would be a timely move.

iPhone Nano- A lower-lost version could certainly move more units, but a decrease in screen size would cause incompatibility with the 10,000+ iPhone apps already out there.  Of course, the screen rez could probably be increased to handle this issue, but it would leave users with even smaller on-screen buttons to tap.  The solution to that would be a physical keyboard.  Or why not a new form-factor?  We’ll see.

iPhone Tablet- Ever since first playing with the iPhone, I’ve expected to see this.  Supposedly this is where the iPhone concept came from- “Safari Tablet.”  Personally I’d love to see one, but I think it is still a ways off.

Apple Media Server- This seems to be logical progression of the iTunes sharing and Time Capsule lines.  Most power users have rolled their own solutions to enhance the sharing and backup solutions, but I’m not sure that the average consumer really needs or understands either of these two technologies as a base to build a new product upon.