Macworld Rumor Roundup
January 15th, 2008

Tomorrow, Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs will deliver his annual Macworld keynote, often referred to as the “Stevenote”. As with previous years, speculation about future product announcements began pretty soon after last year’s presentation, which focused primarily on the iPhone - disappointing many expecting Mac related announcements, yet pleasing those that had been waiting for the device which had been the subject of rumors for years. According to our sources, this year’s keynote - which has the catch phrase “there’s something in the air” - will go down in history as one of the greatest yet. The prime focus will be on a new ultra-portable laptop, which like the iPhone, has been long rumored and much anticipated. There will also be several more secondary product announcements, but we’ll deal with each of those in turn below.

What We Won’t See

While Apple may launch a 16GB iPhone at US$499, an outline of the software development kit (SDK) due out later this quarter and a brief summary of sales figures is all that can be expected at Macworld. The second generation iPhone will not be announced until March or April at a special media event. There has also been speculation that the Newton may come back from the the dead. At least for the short term, no such product can be confirmed, other than Apple investigating the benefits of offering a larger screen on the second generation US$499 model. Additionally, the iPod lineup, iMac, Mac Pro and Xserve have also received recent updates and will therefore receive little attention at the keynote. Most software products associated with this event have also been recently updated, and thus the focus will be on new portable hardware and entertainment products.

The Elusive Nano

The reality is that with enough time, most rumors will likely become reality. This is perhaps one of those rumors. Ever since Apple removed the 12-inch PowerBook from its lineup, there has been speculation that they will relaunch a similar product. The question that remains is when and where it will fit into the current lineup. Will Apple launch a 13.3-inch MacBook Pro with all the associated specifications, or will it really take on the full meaning of ultra portable and do away with a disk and hard drive in favor of flash memory? As the Mac, iPod and iPhone have done before it, the MacBook nano (this may not be the final product name - MacBook Air is currently expected based on website log files, but many suspect this may be a fabrication to set people down the wrong path) will redefine the whole concept of an ultra portable laptop. When speaking to The Guardian, former Apple employee Chuq von Rospach who worked for Apple almost 20 years, speculated that a “really tiny super-portable seems likely, but probably with some kind of ‘Steve’ twist. It won’t just be a ‘road warrior’ box, it’ll be something more than that.” This essentially sums up the information we have received. Bar integrated graphics, the existing MacBook product line simply doesn’t leave room for a MacBook Pro smaller than 13.3-inchs. To fill the gap, Apple may introduce dedicated graphics in the high end model, but is apparently in no hurry to do so.

So what will the MacBook nano be then? Revolutionary would be putting it lightly. Many people associate ultra portables with small screens and even smaller keyboards. This will not be the case. Instead, Apple will use advances on solid state memory to build an ultra thin laptop with solid state memory being spread across the interior of the case rather than in the traditional hard drive enclosure. Capacity is expected to be around 64GB and the product will be priced at approximately US$1799-$1999. Other specifications at this stage are simply to speculative to publish. However, users can expect similar power to the current MacBook lineup. It will not be considered a pro machine, but will herald the introduction of multi touch functionality as seen in the iPhone, to Apple’s computer line up. When Apple introduced the iMac in 1998, USB became standard on the Mac amongst other things. Ten years from now, the MacBook nano will be remembered in a similar way.

MacBook Magic

Pure logic suggests that the MacBook will receive a case redesign sooner rather than later, with it being the only computer left in white plastic. It is also expected the MacBook Pro will also receive modifications to tie the entire laptop line together, although they will not be as significant as other laptop announcements and may not ship immediately, if they are in fact announced tomorrow.

Video on Demand

And there’s just one more thing. iTunes pioneered the the digital music market and has become the leading online music retailer. However, video sales have not meet expectations, with NBC pulling its content in favour of other distribution methods. Steve Jobs has made his stance on ownership of music, as opposed to the renting of, clear. An expected announcement that Sony’s offerings will soon be available DRM free on iTunes as they have been made available on competing services reflects the industry also coming around to this concept. However, the same can not be said for video. Whether Apple’s avoidance of a rental system is due to its own error in assessing the market or whether it comes down to the demands of the studios that supply the content, we are unsure. However, if Apple is to redeem itself in this area, it has to do so soon and better than existing solutions.

Apple TV was originally said to be a hobby product for Apple. A new model is expected to offer greater capacity and tie into iTunes, just like the store functionality on the iPhone and iPod touch.

Well, there you go. That’s what we expect to happen. Agree or disagree? Post below…

macman says:
Well, those are basically my thoughts. But I think the phrase “its in the air” may relate to a WiMax announcement or perhaps some sort of tuner in the AppleTV, maybe even DVR functionality.
January 15th, 2008 at 5:01 am

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