It's that time of season again, oh dear TUAW readers: the time just before a major Apple event when we TUAW bloggers look deep into our crystal balls to make both wild and sensible predictions as to what WWDC 07 might bring us next week. This time around we have a fairly rich selection of rumored products (like iMac updates) and updates we all thought we would see at Macworld 07 (iLife 07 anyone?).
Without further ado, and without any of that silly 'insider knowledge' tainting the perspective of our crystal balls, here are the predictions of some of our TUAW bloggers (in no particular order) for what WWDC 07 might bring us next week.
Dave Caolo
- iLife 07
- iWork 07
- Both iLife and iWork integrated into Mac OS X package; no longer stand-alone purchases
- Full disclosure of Mac OS X Leopard's secret features
- Windows on the Mac becomes "insanely easy." Maybe even running right on top of Mac OS X - no need for Parallels or a Boot Camp reboot
- New iMac
Michael Rose
- The 'thinBook' finally shows up
- Blu-Ray drives as a BTO option on all hardware
- We get to see 'Finder3D' as Leopard makes a real bow
- way, way left field: 'TouchFinder' gives iPhone UI to Mac OS X
- .Mac supersize -- the Sync Services APIs opened up without .Mac subscription and the .Mac offering becomes an Apple-branded version of Google Apps Premier + iTunes online locker
Dan Lurie
- Leopard full feature set
- iPhone SDK
- Maybe new Mac Pro's and Cinema Displays
Mat Lu
- Dashcode for iPhone
- Mac mini revised or canned
- everyone disappointed with the "secret features" of Leopard
Victor Agreda Jr
- .Mac has something to hide
- Finder goes to Oz for a makeover
- still a few Mac OS X Leopard secrets (October is forever away)
- new iMacs
- iPhone pipeline for 3rd party promised-- no details
Scott McNulty
- New look for the Finder
- Blu-ray in Mac Pros
- iPhone will ship with some Apple approved 3rd party apps (other than Google Maps)
- Lots of Leopard talk
David Chartier
- iLife and iWork 07 are definitely a long time coming, but debuting them at the World Wide Developer's Conference just doesn't sound right to me. Our bloggers' idea to integrate them into Mac OS X (with a possible and slight price increase on retail boxes), however, sounds like a killer move
- .Mac needs to debut some new features, allow more developer access and integration and offer less suck, especially since Jobs just admitted it's due for an overhaul
- All of Mac OS X Leopard's secret features revealed. Vista has been finished and on the market for a few months, which means it's time for Apple to lay all their cards out on the table in order to catch as many customers as possible who are still on the fence between a new Vista PC and a Mac
- The iPhone will be mentioned but it won't steal WWDC like it stole Macworld 07. Jobs will focus primarily on any incentives for developers Apple might have ready, like an official system for allowing 3rd party apps
And there you have it, TUAW's predictions for why your credit card might be crying for mercy by the end of next week (assuming that any announced products are available immediately, or at least ready for pre-order). Not surprisingly, it looks like iLife, iWork, Leopard and the iPhone are all in the lead, but left-field predictions like the thinBook are always fun to dream about, right?
As always, take these with a grain of salt. We're just having fun here, and none of us (at least to my knowledge) have any insider information of any kind. Feel free to discuss and have fun with your own predictions in the comments.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
6-06-2007 @ 11:08AM
Moocha said...
Please, without further ado.
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6-06-2007 @ 11:21AM
iHubie said...
I have one : a 30" touchscreen and a demo of the Leopard 'Multitouch Surface Computing' secret feature.
Look-a-like Microsoft's over-sized bar table, only better, usefull and pretty soon (september) available.
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6-06-2007 @ 11:22AM
bryan ribas said...
I hope it will be good. The last KN kinda disappionted me. :(
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6-06-2007 @ 11:26AM
fraserdrew said...
i'm hopeing for a multi-note. Lots of new things, not just one ma-hu-sive(say as you see) thing (eg MWSF07)... please Mr J!
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6-06-2007 @ 11:27AM
mentalsticks said...
I hope all of you are right on each count. And oh yes, world peace, too.
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6-06-2007 @ 11:29AM
LJD said...
What?! You were dsapointed by the awesomely awesome announcemnt of the awesome iPhone?
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6-06-2007 @ 11:30AM
Jon said...
It's June now so I'm not sure if there'll be an iLife '07. Most likely an iLife '08 bundled with Leopard.
Bluray in Mac Pros - I believe Apple invested in the Bluray format but they still haven't produced anything supporting Bluray yet, which makes me wonder if they're waiting until the format war is over.
Everyone hates having to reboot for Bootcamp so they'll probably offer something to help this - maybe something similar to "fast user switching" or virtualization support.
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6-06-2007 @ 11:33AM
Brian said...
I'll take all of the above, plus a bushel of fairy farts, please.
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6-06-2007 @ 11:39AM
fraserdrew said...
LJD, no, it's the best thing ever from apple, just didn't need soooo long, just a 'preview'.... it wan;t coming out for 6 months! And, i;m hoping for a multinote at WWDC as we haven't seen anything big in AGES!
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6-06-2007 @ 11:51AM
Anon said...
iChat will gain full SIP and Jingle support, making it able to be used as either a softphone client (connectable to all the various SIP providers) and able to have voice chat with Google Talk users (and other clients using Jingle).
iLife and iWork will no longer exist as separate packages (they'll be no iLife '07 or '08, etc) but the apps will be merged into the OS and will only receive major updates when the OS does.
The new, unified, UI will be rolled out OS-wide and the Finder will finally be fixed.
It's unlikely that something like KDE's Kioslaves will make it into the OS at this point, though i hope to see such a feature in 10.6
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6-06-2007 @ 11:57AM
stainboy said...
@#8 Brian: thanks for making me spew coffee all over.
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6-06-2007 @ 11:58AM
Michael said...
... one more thing....
Al Gore comes out on stage and declares he's running for president. Every other democratic candidate promptly withdrawls.
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6-06-2007 @ 12:27PM
SD said...
I would like some kind of indication as to when Logic 8 would be released...
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6-06-2007 @ 12:28PM
Otsego said...
the audience then proceeds to mock him and throw tomatoes.. which wont be hard to do due to the size of his carbon footprint.
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6-06-2007 @ 12:30PM
Hank Cazorp said...
"Everyone disappointed with the 'secret features' of Leopard"
The only sure bet in the bunch.
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6-06-2007 @ 12:31PM
Russell said...
i know it says no insider knowledge
but this guy brough his old imac the sphere one to the apple store and he told the guy it was slow blah blah and he had a cube one too the current one and they guy told him the new imacs are do pretty soon
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6-06-2007 @ 12:33PM
THATSteve said...
Ah .. AND new displays and all future hardware (including recent Mac Book Pro's) ... support HCCP endpoint decoding so you can watch HD content on your new MacBook, or you new Apple Displays ..
perhaps with camera, and touch surface support!
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6-06-2007 @ 12:45PM
Eddie said...
I agree with Dave Calolo ... I think that when Leopard is released ... one will be able to run windows and windows programs very easily without bootcamp or Parallels. Taking it one step further ... I think that Leopard will be able to run Windows programs WITHOUT Windows!!! If that happens and works well, that will rock the balance of computing.
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6-06-2007 @ 12:59PM
Tony said...
Repeat after me:
WWDC is not MacWorld
WWDC is not MacWorld
WWDC is not MacWorld...
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6-06-2007 @ 1:04PM
Jay said...
I agree with Dan Lurie other than new Mac Pros. That one has been done already.
And I agree that there will much post-keynote gnashing of teeth regarding Leopard.
I'd love to be able to run Windows apps as an OS X process ala Classic. And I'd like to see a thin MBP entry.
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