So 2009 is here, and what's so great about that (at least, for this week), is that I get to go to another Macworld. And while expectations for this year's Macworld are down (due to the lack of Stevenote), I'm still expecting some solid product updates from Apple. And it's a double bonus for me, because in contrast to years past, I'm actually going to be paying attention to CES this year. I think that there will be several new products announced in the netbook space, and due to the fact that I couldn't find the HP mini 1000 in stock at Best Buy last year, I've decided to wait until CES is over before I make a purchase. I'm also interested in what Palm is going to announce. While I don't think that I'll actually buy one (I'm not going to be in the market for a new phone until at least July), I still think that Palm has absorbed enough ex-Apple employees that they could announce something interesting.
But enough about CES! I really want to talk about Macworld. In terms of rumor round-up, here's how I think the Keynote (Philnote?) might go:
Traditionally, things kick off with an Apple state-of-the-union. Phil will talk about the "3 legs" of Apple's stool -- the Mac business, the iPod business, and the iPhone business. I think they'll pay particular attention to the momentum behind the iTunes store (music, TV, and movies) and the iTunes App store.
This could segue into some new announcement with the iTunes store. I'll be on the lookout for new content providers, more DRM-free music, and potentially the ability to rent HD movies on the Mac.
From here, it's anybody's guess. I think it's pretty likely that we're going to see a new 17" MacBook Pro, a new Mac mini, and a bumped iMac. If the power draw isn't too high on Intel's new Quad Core CPUs, that might show up in the new iMac. If it's true that the 17" MacBook Pro has a sealed-in battery, it too might get a Quad Core CPU (the extra battery juice could offset the increased power draw).
I would also like to see a new Mac Pro -- supposedly, Intel's new Nehalem (er, "Core i7") CPU is totally amazingly stupendous, so the new Mac Pro should be really fast. However, it looks like Intel isn't quite ready to ship the Xeon flavor of Nehalem in time for Tuesday's keynote. I still think that Apple might announce the new Mac Pro and not ship until February or March. I mean, we all know that it's coming (because Intel makes their roadmap public), so I don't think that Apple will lose too much by pre-announcing. But then, that's just me.
But what else? I'm also skeptical of these "iWork in the cloud" rumors. One thing that I think we could see is maybe "Quick Look in the cloud" -- whereby if you stuff some Pages, Numbers, or Keynote files on your iDisk, you can view them in a web browser by accessing your MobileMe account. Apple could even go so far as to allow some light editing of these files in a web browser, but I think that totally killing off the Cocoa-based iWork in favor of something browser based isn't going to happen in 2009.
But speaking of iWork (and iLife), it has been well over a year since those software packages saw updates, and Macworld in January is the traditional time when they are updated, so there could be updates here. I have no idea what new features there might be -- I'm pretty bad at predicting the contents of iLife and iWork updates. Probably because I don't use any of those apps enough. :( It's also possible that iWork and iLife won't be updated yet, and that Apple will hold out to update them alongside the next version of Mac OS X, Snow Leopard.
Speaking of which, maybe Phil will talk about Snow Leopard! While I really hope that he does, my guess is that the next version of Mac OS X will make a brief appearance in the keynote, if it appears at all. While I'm really looking forward to Snow Leopard, most of the new features (Grand Central, OpenCL, 64-bit, re-written Quicktime) are under-the-hood stuff that only developers and OS geeks care about. So, I'm not sure that Snow Leopard gives good demo. And it's probably still far enough from release that Apple won't feel comfortable giving a final release date and price.
The only other rumor that I think deserves merit is this "Apple Home Media Server" idea. This one seems plausible, just because it not only fits in well with Apple's current product set, but also with how I see Apple's products evolving over the next few years. Let's examine how Apple's product line has shaped up the last few years:
- There has been an emphasis on portability -- both with Apple focusing on notebooks for the Mac, and on the iPod/iPhone.
- Apple has been shifting away from hard drives, in favor of SSD's. While SSDs have many great properties in terms of size and power draw, they continue to lag behind hard drives in terms of storage capacity.
- At the same time, Apple is trying to encourage it's customers to consume more and more content from the iTunes store. In addition, much of that content now comes in HD, which takes up dramatically more storage space.
- Broadband Internet, at least in the US, is going to continue to be slow, which will make storing your entire iTunes library in the cloud unfeasible.
So basically, Apple is in a situation where they want to sell devices with smaller amounts of storage, but at the same time, they want people to devote lots of storage to purchases from the iTunes store. Thus, having some sort of home storage solution would be a nifty solution to this problem. That being said, I'm not so sure that Apple will actually ship a device like this, and if so, if it will be announced this week. While Apple does have a lot of the necessary infrastructure in place (Back to my Mac, AirDisk, iTunes music sharing, NAT-PMP, etc.), taking those raw technologies and crafting a solution that is highly reliable and performant (i.e. the last 20% of the work) would be pretty killer.
The other killer for this idea could be the music and movie studios -- it's apparently OK for Apple to allow it's customers to stream their content within the house, but my guess is that it wouldn't be okay for Apple to allow streaming over the Internet. Just because Slingbox is getting away with it doesn't mean that Apple will, unfortunately.
So, there you have it. Maybe they'll be some things announced on Tuesday that I will be forced to spend money on. I of course will be watching the entire keynote on Tuesday night, no matter what!
-Andy.