#FF00AA

@apple@

It’s time to get my hands dirty and enter the big prediction game. I listened yesterday to the immensely boring two-part Dan Benjamin vs. John Gruber podcast (seriously, you know, it’s even worse, you know, than the Engadget, you know, podcast), and John Siracusa just published his Macworld bingo, and everyone’s doing it, so I guess I have to join the fray if I intend to ever be a serious Apple blogger.

 

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Apple phone: could be there, could not. Apple’s teaser — “The first 30 years were just the beginning” — most certainly implies that the most dramatic announcements tomorrow will be computer-related, and you know that, whatever Steve announces, launching a phone would trump everything else.

For which reason I wager that the phone should be announced on its own in a specific event. At least that’d be the sensible thing to do.

Oh, and I don’t think it will be “an iPod with phone functionality.” Makes no sense.

 

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iTV: Well, it has to be there, and I don’t care what it does or how it works (or what its definitive name is). Unless it doubles as a fileserver for your home network, which I doubt. (John Gruber’s speculation that the included hard disk will only be used to cache network data makes a lot of sense.)

 

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Apple HDTVs: I have the logs to prove that I mentioned them in IM conversations before the Hivelogic podcasts. Apple made computers, and sold monitors; Apple makes iPods, and sells a boombox (at the risk of annoying the iPod accessory makers); Apple’s going to sell an iTV, Steve Jobs has to want you to connect it to an Apple-branded set.

Besides, an update to the Cinema Displays has been rumored for quite a while, now; how about all new displays sported an iSight, HDTV tuner, HDMI and component inputs? (In which case I really, really wish they also included a Firewire output — if you’re going to include analog-to-digital conversion, it might as well double as a video capture card.)

 

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Ultrathin MacBook Pro, with dream specs and amazing battery life: it’s not impossible… if it’s using a flash drive. That would justify it being a ‘Pro’: it’d be terribly expensive, but really ultra-portable. And it would also account for the absence of a 12-incher in the original Pro lineup, as they would have been waiting for the flash drives to be a sensible option.

 

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MacTablet: if they’re making an superlight MacBook Pro, why not make a tablet model, too? Sure, Steve Jobs has been saying over and over that he didn’t like tablet PCs, so what? There’s nothing he likes more than changing his mind once his engineers have finally found the optimal solution (and there’s obviously got to be a whole lab working on that on the Apple campus). And he says there’s no market, and everybody agrees that Apple isn’t in the business of creating a market for niche products — wait, what? Are you kidding me? Who seriously thought there was such a bright future for MP3 players before the iPod took wind?

The one real hurdle, in my opinion, is that Steve Jobs is clearly not a Transformers fan.* Just like he’s very unlikely to commission a clamshell Apple phone (which I think is unfortunate), I don’t expect we’ll ever see an Apple tablet somehow integrating a keyboard — so it all hinges mostly on the feasibility of a 100%-software-emulated keyboard (or the absolute lack of a need for one), which I don’t think is quite there yet.

* Or maybe… [via]

 

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New MacBook Pro and Mac Pro: most certainly possible, but I’m not sure what they could look like. Seeing how the disappearance of brushed metal from OS X is pretty much a given by now, it would obviously make a lot of sense for aluminum to get replaced as well, but with what? Shiny plastic, both white and black, is more of a staple of the consumer line, and they need the Pro models to have something distinctive.

All Pro computers could get the black shiny look, sure, but then the black MacBook would be considered a MacBook Pro (which would certainly make sense when you look at its price) and that would null any chance of getting that 12-inch MacBook Pro for the foreseeable future.

 

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New iPods: don’t know, don’t care at this point. That touch-screen iPod has been rumored for way too long already.

How about the disappearance of hard-disk-based models, though? Or the introduction of a “nano deluxe” model with 32 to 64 gigs of flash memory, and a higher price tag than the equivalent iPod? (Uh, no, that one’s very unlike Apple, it’d be confusing the lineup. A bit like a 12-inch MacBook Pro that wouldn’t be a MacTablet.)

 

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New OS X look: Yeah. What we’ve seen in Leopard previews certainly validates John Gruber’s theory that Apple’s designers will go so far out with 10.5 that the next few revisions will have to tone down the most obnoxious elements of it, just like stripes have been fading out and buttons getting flatter from 10.0 to 10.4 — I’m particularly thinking of that Spotlight field in the Help menu that spawns a big, bulging green arrow to indicate what options you were looking for.

And I also agree that this will be the equivalent of a ShapeShifter theme: every application button will still be in the same place and the same size, but it might look very different. Or maybe it won’t at all, there’s no telling — but, after last year’s WWDC keynote, Leopard sure needs some defining elements.

Also, see how the apple in the teaser image is all black and backlit. Could be indicative. Or not. (Damn. It even lends some credence to that “Illuminous” crap.) Plus, 10.5 is a good version number for a redesign.

 

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Parallels licensed or bought-out: What would be the point? First: As far as Apple is concerned, Boot Camp is quite sufficient. Second: it’s not that much in Apple’s best interest to make it that easy to run Windows apps within OS X, because that would make cross-platform developers all the more lazy. Third: why would they pick one software solution now, when there are three contenders and they’re all only getting started?

 

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Leopard’s release date: Let’s say… April.

 

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iWork, iLife: Couldn’t care less. But I don’t expect them to be launched before Leopard, for the sake of homogenous look-and-feel.

 

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Oh, and one more thing (hee, see what I did there? hee): why is everyone “speculating” that the iTV will do HD? I’m pretty certain they said so when they introduced it, and Wikipedia lists an HDMI output in its specs.