Five Predictions for Macworld 2007

Filed under Uncategorized on Sunday, 7 January, 2007 11:20 pm

MacWorld 2007

Apple sure are hyping up Macworld more than ever. I think we will see some really exciting stuff on January 8th and I hope one of them is an iPhone!
With Macworld being only a couple of days away I thought I'd share my predicitons with you.

iLife '07 and iWork '07 (Numbers)
I think we can expect this to be a certainty from Apple as we generally see iWork and iLife refreshed at the beginning of the year. Apple filed for a trademark on the name 'Numbers' a few months ago which will probably be the name for their spreadsheet app which will be added iWork. All the apps will see incremental updates and we maybe possibly see a new addition to iLife aswell.

Apple iTV
On September 12, 2006 Apple announced they were building a media set top box that would stream your iTunes bought content to your TV from your computer (Mac or PC) as well as any other content you had. Steve demoed it at the Developer's Conference and it looks like Front Row for your TV. This will be announced without a doubt.

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
As in my experience I have noticed that Apple tend to under promise and over deliver when it comes to the public, I am 99.8% confident that Leopard will be available at Macworld. At the last Apple Developer's Conference, Steve was up on stage making jabs at Microsoft and criticizing them for how long it was taking to release Vista. Steve said that Apple will be releasing Leopard in the first quarter of 2007. Now that Windows Vista is available for business users and will be publicly available on January 30, I think Steve would have had the Leopard development done and ready to release, just so he can brag that Leopard is out before Vista.
As far as features go, we already know about Time Machine, Spaces, Spotlight update, etc however Steve said this was only the tip of the iceberg. I predict we will see major updates to the Mac OS interface and we may also see some big improvements to the Finder. Rumors have been floating around about a new graphical interface called Illuminous which will replace the current Aqua in order to compete with Windows Vista's Aero glass. Other rumors say that Leopard is going to push the hardware pretty hard so you probably won't want to install it on anything other than an Intel Mac. The likelyhood of a new graphical interface I think will be the biggest improvement to Leopard. One that I will welcome with open arms.

iPhone
Ok. We know that it won't be called an iPhone, but the idea of an Apple made phone really interested me. I don't think anybody knows why, we just know that Apple make great products and I think we all want a phone that won't crash and be locked down with bluetooth send restrictions, etc. I imagine a phone with a stripped down version of OS X on it that will sync my iCal and Address Book information aswell as iTunes songs and hopefully some other surprising innovations that have never been implemented in a phone before.
I don't think we will see an iPhone an Macworld but who knows. Maybe Apple have been working really hard over the holiday break.

iPod Cinema
I think Apple will have by this time finally made an iPod that actually does video well. I work in an Apple store and the one thing I hear a lot from customers is that the iPod doesn't do video well, which I agree, it doesn't. Archos, Creative and others off much better video players and i think it is about time the large iPod got an update and who knows, maybe it will be called 'iPod Cinema'.

Those are my 5 big predictions for Macworld '07. I think that we won't see much else because Apple would have been working really hard to get all these things, especially Leopard ready in time. We only have a couple of days to go.

Leave your predictions in the comments below.

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