WWDC Predictions from TUAW

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.
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