The first Macworld where I’m actually a Mac owner takes place on Tuesday. So like other geeks here are my predictions for the two hour keynote.
- iPhone – maybe. But is it a phone with iPod type functionality or is the emphasis on the iPod which has additional phone capabilities.
- iTV. With flash disk, support of external drives via USB2, HD playback, HD downloading from iTunes, playback of media from home pc’s Macs and NAS devices, a mini OSX – the community at large could then add so much functionality over time – some of the dashboard widgets would look great on the big screen, controlled from bluetooth keyboard or Macbook/Macbook pro. We’ll also get the proper name which if it has to include ‘Mac’ will make it the MacMedia or something corny like that.
- Updated Airport to take advantage of the pre N hardware in Macbooks. Macbook Pro’s and iMacs. Maybe driver support won’t be available until leopard though.
- Leopard – a new look. Maybe the reason why the Apple logo was black- a new dark look to Mac OSX? Will also get release date and some previews of new’ish functionality. Built in virtualisation or is Parallels to good to compete with?
- iLife – updates but I don’t think there will be that much of a change
- .Mac – never thought this was much value with so much web competition doing it better and for free. Maybe this is where some Google integration will come in.
A couple of days from now we’ll know how close the list is. if I was to pick one thing off the list it’s iTV – I really want something new that works with all my media to replace XBMC which is getting a bit long in the tooth.
I’ll be heading to Scotsys on Tues for GlasMUG and hope to watch the keynote there. (webcast permitting)
As for predictions I’d love to see a specific launch date for Leopard but doubt we’ll get it.
iTV specifics will be interesting. As will the iPod mobile or whtever they’ll call it.
I’d never heard of GlasMUG until now. At least I’ll know where highest geek per square inch count is on Tuesday night.
Not true – the 1st meeting was last month and was not nearly as geeky as you make out. I met a professional photographer who uses a Mac all the time but had never seen the terminal app before. (And when I showed him he didn’t seem too impressed). Contrary to being all talking “pixels and megabytes” as someone commented last month, chat was decidedly more round “What do you use your Mac for?” and playing on the display Macs.
A couple of smartly dressed guys joked “I’m a PC!” and as there weren’t any others in suits the whole thing didn’t degenerate into an “I am Sparticus” cliche.
And there were two Mac affianados of the female gender there too.
I’m being a bit too defensive to be believable here aren’t I?
The geek world is indeed very small..
As Ian knows, my boss here at PBS is a complete Mac nut as is his mate (David Masters) who may have been at that very GlasMUG event you mention. What makes it even weirder is that I actually remember quoting for his business insurance last year when I worked at AXA – before I knew my Boss, PBD or this guy Masters at all. The name is a play on words (its a type of apple) and not the kind of thing you forget easily (lets be honest, there’s not a lot of techy highlights in the insurance day). Henry, you might have met David at said event – think he’s going tomorrow too…
http://www.pyrusmalus.com/blog.html
… there’s only so much peer pressure I can take before forking out of for one of these MAC things…
I was trying to make the point that you were in attendance and hence geek quotient was high. Indeed the very fact you were talking terminal app’s seems to back up my theory 🙂
I might pop along tomorrow – I’ll let you know.
Doh! Can’t argue with that.
Hoisted by my own petard.
How come you can’t edit posts – some of us can’t spell for teffee.