It's prognostication time again. Before every major Apple Event, TUAW bloggers offer their predictions on what, if anything, Apple will release or announce. Sometimes we're right; sometimes we're wrong. With WWDC less than one week away, it's time to dust off our psychic hats and offer up what we see coming from Apple:Conrad Quilty-Harper
Pretty certain
- Mac minis move to 1.66 Core Solo/1.86 Core Duo (with lower price points?)
- New Intel Xserves
- New Cinema Displays
- Mac Pro
- 10.5 demo, beta disks to developers, new naming scheme (big cats are old)
Not so certain
- Core 2 Duo iMacs
- 6G iPods? Smaller, cheaper shuffles? Bigger capacity nanos? OLED displays
- New hardware all feature Nvidia cards/Intel integrated, no more ATI
Damien Barrett
The safe money is on the Mac Pro as a replacement for the G5 PowerMacs, utilizing the new Intel Core 2 Duo processors. Probably a new case design with a smaller footprint.
A longer shot, but still likely, is the release or announcment of Apple's iPhone. The new iPod software appears to include references to phone-related functions and other industry people have been talking openly about Apple's foray into this market.
Unlikely, but I just can't let a prediction cycle pass without wishing for it: an iTablet. Work bought me a Dell Axim X51 and it's nice, but using it is just as clunky as using Windows. I want the elegance of OS X but in a largish PDA or tablet form factor. If anyone can do it, Apple can.
Dave Caolo
I'm keeping it simple. Mac Pro, 10.5 ship date (and demo, of course).
Dan Lurie
I'm sticking with Dave in that I'm only predicting 10.5 ship date and Mac Pro's as a certainty. Less certain but still possible is the iPhone, which analysts are expecting. They know a lot more than we do.
David Chartier
- Mac Pro with Core 2 Duo - those chips will be reserved for these machines, not the consumer line
- Shiny new Cinemas to go with said Mac Pro
- iPod nano bump (they haven't been touched since their introduction, hey? Besides the 1 GB of course. But going down in size doesn't count)
- 10.5 preview with a really close launch date of Oct/Nov at latest. Probably Sept. Just in time for the holidays!
- Jobs will be wearing Nikes again. All hail Nike. Also: finally a public apology for letting the Finder suck so bad for so long (hah).
Scott McNulty
As for predictions, I'm just going with a Leopard ship date and that's it.
Victor Agreda, Jr.
Quad Core Xserves, Brainwave-controlled 6G iPods, Leopard will ditch Finder for an OpenDoc-esque system based on Spotlight, and Nanos in Tiger fur...Oh, and clearly the Cinema displays with built-in iSights are a lock.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
8-01-2006 @ 1:39PM
chris said...
Don't forget that the nanos were introduced last year in October... perhaps there'll be another music event in October to mess with the iPods / music store.
This event is all about 10.5 and the new hardware (macPro, displays)
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8-01-2006 @ 1:43PM
morgan said...
the event has to do with people called developers, i forget what they do, but they generally dont do stuff for ipods and mac minis. but i dunno.
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8-01-2006 @ 1:44PM
KennyB said...
Macbook Pro anyone???
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8-01-2006 @ 1:44PM
nick said...
I think Apple will pull somthing out of there pockets, somthing that we werent seeing while the rumors of the iPhone and new nanos were infront of us.
Cant wait for the macPro, and iSlights in the new Displays is almost a perfect match.
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8-01-2006 @ 1:47PM
Jon said...
#2:
Developers don't develop for Mac Minis?
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8-01-2006 @ 1:49PM
arkowi said...
-i bet we will see the cinema display with built in isight. i just bought a cinema display *and* an isight, so the laws of me getting screwed over by new products would indicate this happening.
-mac pros would be killer to see...i hope the rumors of them looking very similar to the old pro line hold true (brushed metal look). it would be nice to be able to replace my dual g5 with a mac pro in a few years and have it look cool with my cinema display.
bold predictions:
-apple releases a non-pro line of monitors in white (and maybe matte black) to match up nicely with imacs and macbooks.
-apple surprises everyone with new ipods (video and nano)
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8-01-2006 @ 1:54PM
cozart said...
no one's predicting an update for the MacBook Pro?
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8-01-2006 @ 1:54PM
Peter Koritschan said...
New refreshed displays would be great, the current line up looks more like it would go nicely with the cube or the G4 macs... as for built in iSight, why not...
I am dying to see an Apple phone (I refuse to use the "i" except in iPod :) how about iPod phone
I would go as far as saying phone and pda would be one device (tablet, whatever)... a far out prediction, but a wish nevertheless :)
New magnesium iPod nanos wouldn't hurt, so I can finally buy one too...
And I am waiting feverishly for the iPod (regular) to be refreshed, as I just had my iPod photo 60GB stolen out of my car this last weekend and am currently iPod-less, listening to old CDs (eeewhhh).
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8-01-2006 @ 1:55PM
Peter Koritschan said...
I am with cozart on the mac book pro refresh: would be nice to see that, especially e.g. with updated keyboard to match those in the mac books....
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8-01-2006 @ 1:58PM
victor said...
Any reason to believe that a Merom revised MacBook Pro will show up? A quiet update on the site?
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8-01-2006 @ 2:00PM
arkowi said...
"New refreshed displays would be great, the current line up looks more like it would go nicely with the cube or the G4 macs... as for built in iSight, why not..."
really? i think the current displays are beautiful. are you sure you are not thinking about the plasticy older cinema displays and not the brushed metal ones?
http://www.apple.com/displays/
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8-01-2006 @ 2:01PM
jason said...
Core 2 Duo for the Macbook Pros...
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8-01-2006 @ 2:05PM
Jon said...
I'd like to see a Final Cut Pro update. It's been ages since the last one (the Universal update doesn't count) and FCP is being left behind by its competitors.
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8-01-2006 @ 2:06PM
code said...
arkowi: "apple releases a non-pro line of monitors in white (and maybe matte black) to match up nicely with imacs and macbooks."
You do realize that both, the iMac and MacBook lines have built-in displays?
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8-01-2006 @ 2:09PM
Chris said...
Video-out enabled Airport Express?
Gotta be possible now that iPods do it.
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8-01-2006 @ 2:13PM
Brett Thomason said...
Does anybody remember when apple filed for the LED color changing computer? Do you think that will be incorporated in the new Mac Pro, I think the old brushed metal look is dead, and it will be something radically different.
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8-01-2006 @ 2:15PM
Carlos said...
What do you guys think about Apple putting the new Merom, Core 2 Duo Notebook chips into the MacBook Pro. I need to purchase one soon, so what might be the likelihood that that will happen relatively soon?
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8-01-2006 @ 2:26PM
cozart said...
i'm in the same boat, carlos. our tax free holiday is this coming weekend (it ends the day before WWDC, of course) and i was hoping for a silent release of a MacBook Pro update today.
still hoping for it, but as each minute goes by, the more it seems like i'll have to wait for WWDC and not get the tax-free MBP that i was hoping for.
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8-01-2006 @ 2:29PM
Vishal said...
if you look at the refurbished page, you will notice that the ipod nanos just had a huge price cut!!!
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8-01-2006 @ 2:30PM
R031E5 said...
I would like to see 6G ipods with Wi-fi and an airport express upgrade, why not? You could do lots of stuff with that, you could stream music from a shared itunes library in a local wireless network, you could stream radio, you could transmit audio/video to your airport express base station, you could transmit audio/video from itunes...
I would like to see some features from philryu's contest's "screenshots" like taking a peek directly from the finder or a new aqua interface
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