Note: I shamelessly stole the title and source of this post from one of John Siracusa's tweets.
Neil Pomerleau does a great job of predicting the MWSF 08 keynote that takes place a week from this Tuesday. Instead of a bulleted list of predictions, he wrote what Steve will say and how he'll probably say it, complete with photos from the event. His predictions are pretty sound, and while I'm not entirely convinced we'll see a subnotebook or tablet, the level and credibility of the rumor is at about the same as iPhone rumors were last year the weeks prior to the keynote. That said, if I had to choose, I'd pick the subnotebook. The iPhone's largest criticisms are the lack of 3G and the on-screen keyboard. People were getting along well enough before full QWERTY keyboards appeared on cell phones. I don't think Apple would offer a no-keyboard computer as it's subnotebook solution (i.e., the long-awaited 12" PowerBook replacement).
A 12" notebook that's under an inch thick with a solid state drive sounds very reasonable, but I'm pretty sure it will have a keyboard. There's simply no software support: desktop OS X is meant for pixel-precision, meaning our fat fingers would be hitting multiple targets on the screen; iPhone OS X seems too limiting to justify a most-likely >$1500 purchase; and a new in-between OS X would begin with zero software support and further fragment Apple's and third-party developers' efforts.
Technorati Tags: Apple, Macworld 2008, predictions, rumors, MacBook mini, OS X
Apple's "It's Showtime!" event starts in less than three hours. The iTunes Music Store is already down in anticipation, but the online Apple Store is still a go.
I'll be in class (but with my MacBook) during the event. As always, however, MacRumors or Engadget are the best places to go for coverage in this post-"live stream" world that we live in.
Here's a small recap of what's expected to be announced:
- iTunes Movie Store, debuting with Disney movies going for $9.99-$14.99.
- iTunes 7, which will add support for the Movie Store (perhaps as a seperate item in the source menu) and will hopefully improve the video playback features.
- iPod nano with new aluminum enclosure that does better against scratches. Capacities somewhere in the 4-8GB range.
- iPod capacity upgrades. A true "video iPod" with touch screen scroll wheel is possible, but unlikely
That is what is >90% guaranteed to be announced. Any surprise announcements are anyone's guess - we've already seen fake shots of a MacTower (smaller version of the Mac Pro), the wide/touch-screen iPod video, and even a USB -> TV device named TubePort.
Technorati Tags: Apple, It's Showtime!, special event, iTunes, iTunes Music Store, MacRumors, Engadget
After watching the Leopard Sneak Peek videos, I found two little things that may be of interest. They may be nothing, but since everything going on at the WWDC isn't for public consumption, I have to entertain myself somehow.
Should we expect an announcement on August 24 so huge that we'll want to fly to the 5th Avenue Apple Store to buy it? Remember Steve's Spotlight demo where he searched for iMac, Paris and anniversary at WWDC 04 (and the iMac G5 was introduced at Apple Expo in Paris)? It could be something, but this is so vague it probably means nothing.
What's that Airport/RSS-like icon doing next to Oliver Butcher? Conversation histories by RSS? Or maybe something as lame as Bonjour buddies and regular buddies on the same buddy list?
Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, Mac OS X, Leopard, Mail.app, iChat, Worldwide Developers Conference
Apple WWDC Banner Revealed
Originally uploaded by Martin Gordon.
Someone was able to sneak into the Moscone Center and snap a photo of a banner they were putting up. I've gone through and added notes for most of the icons (check out the image's Flickr page), but there were a couple that I was unable to identify. This is also the first glimpse we get of the Leopard "X" design. It's hard to tell whether its the image itself or not, but it looks to be darker than the Tiger "X".
The keynote kicks off the conference on Monday morning, so we should know what Apple's been up to soon enough.
Technorati Tags: Apple, WWDC, Worldwide Developer's Conference, Leopard, Mac OS X, Mac, rumors, icons
