First off let’s do some accounting on my Pre-MacWorld Predictions:
OS X 10.5 Ships today– Okay, Dead wrong on this one. I thought releasing the new operating system before Windows Vista was available to home users would be a huge deal. From what I’ve heard 10.5 is already a pretty stable build and beating the competition to market with the same (and better) features could kill a lot of the buzz around Vista.- New iPod
s, full screen with video (New studios announce partnerships too) – I think I should get partial credit for this one. Technically, a full-screen video iPod was announced, it’s just in the iPhone(More on that later…). Paramount Pictures did join the lineup of studios now selling movies on iTunes (although its newest movies are absent) - iTV previewed, ship date announced – I was spot on in this case. Everybody knew that “iTV” was the working name so when it was announced as AppleTV it wasn’t a big suprise. I wish I would have expanded the prediction on this. I would have included hard drive space, HDMI inputs and DVR capability. I’d have been wrong on the DVR part but, that’s what I would have guessed, mostly because that’s what I’d like it to be. More on the AppleTV later…
Large Displays with HDMI inputs – LCD, 42″ LCD & 60″ plasma– I think this will come true, but I was wrong for this event.Blu-Ray Disc burner in MacPro– I’m beginning to wonder about this one. I’d really like to see Blu-Ray win the High-Def DVD format war because of its larger capacity and cooler name but HD-DVD is gaining some traction. Then again, if we can get faster internet pipes DVD’s will be a distant memory, like 8-tracks and Beta max.
8 Core MacPro– Mark my words, we will see a 8 Core MacPro, maybe not within the next 6 months, but we will see one. Multicore is the way of the future.iSight Camera in all displays (except 42 & 60)– This will be announced in the next 3-4 months. Note that the iSight camera is noticeably absent from Apple Online store.- Apple phone
won’t have “I” in the name, will be a metal/ceramic material and available toVerizon & Sprint– Well, if you’ve seen any of the news you know why I guessed it wouldn’t be called iPhone. As for the material I was wrong also, it’s a combination of aluminum, stainless steel and plastic. My guess was Zirconim, a radio transparent material, lightweight and perfect for cell phones. As for the network, I guessed Sprint and Verizon because their data infrastructure (EvDO) is stronger and faster than the Cingular/T-Mobile network. I also guessed this because I just signed a new two-year contract with Verizon and I really would have liked them to get a good phone for once.
So I guess I missed a few things on this, which is fine – Apple will have a special event in the next few months, they won’t let the new OS rollout without creating some sort of fanfare. My guess is at that time they’ll announce:
- LCD displays with built-in iSight cameras
- Large Screen TV/Displays with HDMI inputs
- The 8-Core MacPro
- Widescreen Video iPods with multi-touch controls
- iLife & iWork 07 – iWork will have a spreadsheet application.
Let’s run down through the new products announced at MacWorld 2007. Oh and note that you can actually only buy one of these now – the router.
AppleTV is Apple’s set-top box for the digital living room. Back when Apple rolled out the iPod with Video I wondered about a Tivo interface and pondered the idea of the “mac media center”. Since that time I’ve seen first hand a product that is essentially works like a Tivo, my parents use it and it’s called EyeTV by a company named Elegato. It does a great job of passing TV/Cable/Satellite to your Mac for viewing and recording. The Apple TV essentially does the opposite, passing video from your mac to your TV but no recording capabilities. That leaves a pretty big hole. The majority of people don’t exclusively watch downloaded TV shows from the iTunes store. So what about that Tivo-like recording ability? Well, there are rumors floating around that there might be an addition to the iLife suite that functions like a DVR. I have my doubts about that though, especially because it would be a direct conflict with the fact that you can purchase shows from the iTunes store. Then again, Apple has always had more of a customer-focus, they’d probably make more money selling software or hardware to record than they would make selling TV shows for the networks. Who knows. I’d love to see recording capabilities built in or third-party products that make use of the mysterious USB port.
An updated AirPort Extreme. A new wireless router with the 802.11N (N is still a draft specification estimates are that the N specification will be finalized in October 2007), this base station was released to support the AppleTV and provide faster in-network transfers. The coolest thing about this is its USB port that allows for wireless printing, network attached storage via an external USB drive or both by attaching a USB hub. Of all the thing released at this MacWorld – I’m most likely to buy this.
The iPhone just might be the coolest cellular phone ever created. Since I’m posting all this a bit later than I thought I would, just about everything that can be said about the iPhone has been said. If you wanna read more on it see these sites – they’re a few that I feel like they actually know what they’re talking about rather than just rumors. See: Daring Fireball, Infinite Loop or MacBreak. Personally, I’d like it if they didn’t name it iPhone, it seems almost “too apple” – add in the pending legal battle over the trademark and I’d say before its finally released to market it’ll be called something else. Oh and the fact that it still needs to be approved by the FCC and a lot of the stuff on the screen was non-functioning. The thing that bugs me most is that the platform (at this point at least) is locked down, that means no 3rd-party applications – except maybe web based apps, but they can’t use Java and maybe won’t support flash either. All-in-all, this is the most buzz I’ve ever seen about a product that has yet to actually hit the public.
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