TUAW predictions roundup for Macworld 06 keynote

I can imagine Steve Jobs announcing some deal where the video offerings of iTMS include Japanese Animation, of which there are a lot of fans amongst geeks. I hope this happens.

Let's go way out in left field:

Apple Computer announces a merger with Apple Corps, and the subsequent spin-off of Apple Entertainment.

It reinvigorates the Apple Corps, which is a dessicated but litigiious shell of its former self, removes the "no WE'RE the music Apple" arguments, and paves the way to the eventual - inevitable - addition of the Beatles' catalog to the ITMS, once Jackson is willing to allow it (to pay off his vet bills).

Okey, you heard that first from me Mohamed (AKA The Wizard). Steve will blow us all away. i.e. He will boldly introduce a new piece of hardware with a new name. I think that it will be a laptop that will carry the name of "LiteBook", and it will be intel based, very light and so slim and it might be a tablet.

If not a laptop, then it might be a mac PDA, but I don't think he will introduce it now as the iPods are doing fine for apple as portable entertainment devices with tiny organizer features and the PDA is just for business users and Apple is not in that market yet.

The Year of Productivity via mobile interactive content creation and storage. Spreading information to empower people.

Steve will introduce One More Thing: Larry Page will be the featured guest announcing that the Google Cube (G-Pod) will be delivered with Apple. Potentially, Google will announce that they will purchase 5% of Apple ($3.3B) with similar terms to the AOL announcement.

G-Pod = A mesh networked devise minaturized with NanoAirport modules supporting WiMax, WiFiber & UWB/USB devises starting @ $299.00. Sony will announce a Nano Blue Ray Disc available in the NanoBlu-Mac for the media interactive content delivery and storage. X-Grid comes to the home. The iPod Economy expands exponentially mashing services - creating new categories is Apple's advantage.

(9). CEO = CEO of Motorola. oooops

My Stevenote predictions:

1. 2 gig nano dumped and 512 gig Shuffle dumped for 2 gig Shuffle and either 6 or 8 gig nano. Nano will become scratch resistant. Steve will drop nano, grinding it into the stage, to prove this.

2. iwork will see the "Numbers" spreadsheet. Pages will have text frames. It will be announced that, with the introduction of Leopard, Desk Work will be introduced, a professional office suite. A video conference will ensue with Bill Gates, the conclusion of which will electrify the audience because Steve tells Bill to go pound sand.

3. iWeb will be introduced, an app to create blogs and/or web pages. Will be packaged both in iLife and iWork, with a blog only version offered free to .Mac customers

4. The CEO of Intel will join Steve on stage. The Intel CEO will state that Apple Macs are the highest quality computers to sport the Intel x86 processor, and that OSX will blow any Windows upgrade out of the water. It will be announced that all Intel iMacs and PowerBooks will feature dual core processors and 1 gig of memory. Models are 6 months away.

5. The first Intel Mac will be introduced for immediate ordering - the iMac nano. 1.8ghz processor with semi-rounded, weighted, mini sized base with a support rod to hold 15" LCD fixed screen. It will come with 512megs of ram, 64 megs of vram, and 100gig HDD. Also, a Mac mini Media Center will use this platform, also for immediate release. Differs from iMac nano in that it sports 1 gig of ram, 128 megs of vram, and 250gig HDD. Will also have video in/out, and HD capabilities. Both models will be $699

6. Front Row 2 will ship with Mac mini Media Center and iMacs only. Will feature DVR recording and DVD to iPod ripping via iTainment, the successor to iTunes.

7. iTunes Music Store will change its name to iTainment Entertainment Source. It will be your one stop stop for music, TV shows, and movies. Major agreements with Lucas Arts and Steven Speilburg announced.

8. New DRM rules announced - A person will be able to use their iTainment bought content on any machine as long as the machine's serial number is registered under that person's name. Content can be distributed to other people, but use on their machine will be limited to 20 plays or 60 days. At the end of that period, user will be asked to purchase content. If users doesn't buy, files are automatically deleted.

9. ROKR 2 will be introduced. However, when Steve can't get a feature to work, he will toss the POS into the air and will shoot it with his side arm pistol. The CEO will be lead onto the stage in shackles, an apple will be placed atop his head, and an interesting game of William Tell will ensue. No blood will be shed, but stage hands will still have to mop up bodily fluids.

10. One more thing - iConnect, Apple's own cell phone with iTunes, PDA, email, web, picture and camera capabilities.

That's my warped dream =).

Wireless. Mighty. Mouse.

Seen this demo? RSS feeds showing IP-TV in Front Row. Version 2.0? http://www.vodcast.nl/feeds/vodcast-frontrow-iptv.mov. Windows Media center relies on tuner hardware for television features and Microsoft-dominated EPG, but with IP-TV, a Front Row media center needs no expensive (and hard to program) hardware and the EPG is open for everyone to add TV channels...

Don't know whether this is coming tomorrow or not, but I sure hope it's in developement somewhere in Cupertino: a consumer RAID stack capable of hosting multiple terabytes of storage.

It's all very well having iMovie do HD and - hopefully - allowing HD video streaming to your TV from the desktop via Airport Express - but HD video consumes massive amounts of disk space and we need a simple, elegant, Apple solution.

Yours,

A new Sony HDV camcorder owner!

This is so much fun. Great conversation. Yes I'm a nerd shut up. ;)

C.K. - I think we'll see intel portables announced, shipping a couple months later.
D B - I think we'll see a Mac Mini with Front Row and remote, not programmable. Every mac will have iLife 06 once it ships.
D C - See Above.
David C - I think we'll see Leopard announced to get the hype up, as not many consumers even know what a WWDC is, but mostly it'll be about how good Tiger has done. More Vista bashing.
L A. D - I think iWork will see a spreadsheet, I don't think they're worried about putting a dent in MS' armour, MS does that pretty good all on their own.
S McN - The selling songs and vlog streaming seems like a no go, iWeb will be Apple's website/blog/podcast tool of choice with integration of iMovie, Garageband, and .Mac if you have it.
V A Jr - I think we might see some video streaming products, I can't rule it out. Why bother with a Media PC if you can get a mac that's also a full-fledged computer.

All great conjecture, I have my opinions but can't discount anything with evidence really. Can't wait for the Stevenote, anything can happen. As far as my hopes and thoughts:

With .Mac services going down during the keynote, I hope we see an update to Homepage with hopefully some PHP and MySQL features to complement what we see in iWeb, which I'm super excited for also.

I don't think we'll see a Mac Mini that's only designed to be a Media PC, just including the remote and Front Row functionality. It'll need some graphics and processor bumps. Wouldn't doubt this being the first shipping intel macs with portables intels macs announced. For this functionality to matter on the mini I think we will see an Airport with video capability. Good call V A Jr.

iPod and iTunes won't see new hardware and versions obviously, but I think we will see a WHOLE bunch of new content, enough to make it it's own store within the store possibly. I also hope that we see the content available outside the just the states.

The huge television macs don't seem very feasible, maybe if the price was right.

I'll cya all after the show. ;) Again, I kind hope everyone is right. lol