Macworld 2008 Predictions

MWSF is in only a few hours from now since I’m doing this in the middle of the night so most of you won’t see this first but I present my bets here for posterity’s sake. Look for more through analysis elsewhere. In any case, here are my thoughts:

Update: Now with correct-o-meter.

The Yes

  • New Small Form Factor Notebook: external optical drive, regular (non-flash) hard drive (though it may use flash memory on the motherboard to cache the hard drive & improve speed/battery life). Correct.
  • iTunes Movie Rentals: DRMed? Very. HD? Maybe a few titles. Correct (number of HD titles remains to be seen).
  • Managed iTunes DRM Movies on DVDs: Although few discs will have this feature. Correct, it slipped through the Keynote cracks though.  Unfortunately only on select Fox discs (what, no Disney?), see details here.
  • Time Machine Supports Wireless Backup: Expect to hear lots about Time Machine during the keynote, but I wouldn’t expect new hardware. Correct, but wrong about new hardware (Apple couldn’t help themselves with Time Capsule).
  • AppleTV Upgrade: Software only (no new hardware). Correct, free update for existing users, cheaper entry price.
  • iPhone 16 GB: Easy yes. Wrong, look for this in a February Media Event with the iPhone Dev Kit release.
  • Mac OS 10.5.2, iTunes 7.6, & iPhone 1.1.3: With demos (especially for iPhone), see above for reasons. Correct.

The No

  • iPhone 3G: See you in Q3 (AT&T doesn’t have the HSPDA backbone for this yet). Correct.
  • New Cinema Displays: Still in the pipe. WWDC perhaps. Apple wouldn’t have dropped the new Mac Pro models last week without them. Correct.
  • More DRM Free Labels: Not the big ones. They want to leverage that power to Amazon. The indies are all in though. Correct.
  • Tablets or Newtons: If it’s not an iPhone or iPod touch, you wont hear a peep. Correct.
  • iPhone SDK Demo or Details: Sadly nothing firm on the SDK. Correct.
  • New iWork/iLife: Obviously still too soon. Latest versions are 2008 anyway. Maybe next year. Correct.

The Maybe

  • The Beatles on iTunes: If not now then certainly soon (perhaps an iTunes/iPhone media event in February for the iPhone SDK). Not yet.
  • iPhone Third Party Developer Demo: I’m thinking they’ll demo with Sling or Google (Gears or Docs perhaps?) if anything. (Note this is different than SDK details.) Didn’t happen.

Overall, a pretty good batting average.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 4:59 amand is filed under Apple, Rumors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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