Macworld 2009 Predictions
With Macworld 2009 about a week away, it’s time for me time throw my predictions in the ring. I won’t be attending this Macworld Expo (my last Macworld was 2000, when Mac OS X was introduced and shown for the first time), as I’m more of a WWDC guy. Still, like everybody else, I follow the day’s announcements with great interest.
Obviously, Macworld 2009 looks to be a scaled back affair. First, we have Phil Schiller delivering the keynote instead of Steve Jobs. You can draw whatever conclusions you want about that, but the one conclusion I think you have to reach is that there won’t be any “major” new products announced. By major, I mean something that isn’t an iteration of a previous product. So what does that leave? Well, here’s my predictions.
Mac mini
Seems pretty obvious. The mini is in desperate need of a refresh, internally and externally. There are rumors of the Mac mini
getting an option to lose the optical drive and add a second hard drive. It could happen. I think the most likely improvement we will see is the ability to add ram and access the hard drive, like in the Macbooks/Macbook Pros. This upgrade alone would make the mini much more appealing to those who feel the need to “hotrod” their mini the moment it leaves the box.
iMac
The iMac is also due for a refresh. I think the case and form factor will remain the same. However, with quad core chips now readily available from Intel, it seems quite likely we will see the iMac go quad. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the iMac adopt the same chipset that the Macbook Pro gained back in October either. A quad core 3ghz iMac with an Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT would be one screamer of a machine.
Snow Leopard
I believe we will get a brief mention of Snow Leopard, though I’m not sure we will see a demonstration. After all, most of Snow Leopard’s appeal is in the under-the-hood improvements, and those aren’t the kind of things that tend to wow people during keynotes. I don’t think we’ll get a release date, apart from a “spring” or “summer” release.
iLife
It’s been a good while since iLife ‘08 appeared, so this seems like a given. Macworld and iLife releases we synonymous for years until 2007/2008. The last iLife upgrade was nearly 18 months ago, so there’s been a longer than normal upgrade cycle for the developers to polish the product. Apart from upgrades to the individual apps, I have no clue what might be added to the iLife suite. But I can say with certainty that iMovie needs some serious improvements over the ‘08 version.
iWork
The iWork ‘08 trio of prosumer business apps should probably see a upgrade at or around Macworld. Apart from upgrades to Pages, Keynote and Numbers, I’m hoping we will see a fourth app added to the mix. Something for composition/layout, along the lines of MacDraw, or a simple version of Photoshop. Treading in this app space is dangerous for Apple, as it risks the Adobe/Apple relationship, so I don’t expect it to happen. But I’d love to be wrong.
Mac Pro
Desperately in need of an upgrade. The Mac Pro seems to be the product that Apple is least interested in at the moment. With it’s entry level price at $2799, the Mac Pro is positioned solely for those who need power and have money to burn. In today’s economy, those people might be fewer and further between. My bet is many of them would turn to a quad core iMac if it existed. Some of them might be inclined to jump to Wintel, with Wintel systems comparable to the Mac Pro running nearly 1/3 to 1/2 the price.
Either way, the Mac Pro really needs to be reevaluated by Apple. There was once a time when Apple’s pro offerings started at $1499. Apple would be wise to tune the Mac Pro lineup to allow for a sub $2000 offering in today’s economy. Then again, Apple might be neglecting the Mac Pro because it feels the tower form factor is obsolete and not worthy of further investment. Bottom line, the Mac Pro needs an upgrade, but I doubt it will see one at Macworld, since the product seems less positioned to consumers than in years past.
MobileMe
As a MobileMe subscriber, I’m hoping for some serious upgrades. The last couple of OS upgrades have fixed many of the MobileMe syncing issues, thankfully. Feature wise, MobileMe is still having to compete with a raft of free services that are superior. The best exmaple is DropBox. DropBox is so much more elegant than MobileMe’s iDisk. It’s fast, simple, and just works. iDisk, on the other hand, is slow, a pain to setup, and a pain to use. If I were Apple, I’d just buy Dropbox and make it the new iDisk. The Dropbox people really seem to know what they are doing, where the iDisk people do not.
Large iPod Touch/Mac Tablet
I doubt this will come to fruition. And, if it does, I don’t think it will be Phil Schiller who introduces it. Apple looks like they had some serious iPod Touch sales this holiday season. With a $399 32GB iPod touch, and a Mac mini at $599, there is a very small window for a product that sits between the iPod Touch 32GB and the mini. Once the prices for the iPod Touch drop a bit to the $199/$249/$299 mark, there might be room for a $399 iPod Tablet. But I doubt that will happen before fall 2009. Write this rumor off as premature.
iPhone nano
I just don’t see this happening. By shrinking the iPhone form factor, you ruin the experience. You could argue that the iPhone nano might not use the same iPhone OS we currently know, but I think that’s just silly. The iPhone’s biggest appeal now is the ecosystem that has been erected around it. Changing the form factor and removing that ecosystem just seems dumb.
When you are talking about a touch device, smaller isn’t necessarily better.
As for the $99 price point of the rumored iPhone nano. Apple seems to be in pretty good shape with iPhone component costs that if it wanted to release a $99 iPhone, it could probably figure out how to do it. Right now, they don’t see the need to do this. But come fall 2009, when the effects of a troubled economy might be weighing down iPhone sales, it might make sense. Therefore, I don’t see the iPhone dropping to $99 before the next version is released, which would probably been July-September 2009.
Category: Apple, Rumor
The WWDC 2008 keynote has come and gone, and much like the Macworld Keynote of 2007, it was all about the iPhone. “Snow Leopard” was referenced, but not discussed in the keynote, instead being covered in the NDA bound Mac OS X State of the Union later in the day.
By now you’ve read the coverage of the iPhone 3G, Mobile Me, and iPhone 2.0 Firmware. Here’s my thoughts on the news.
First, the iPhone 3G is going to become the new gold standard for mobile devices. About the only thing missing from the new iPhone that I was hoping for is a better camera. I guess they needed to save something for the next iteration. With a speedy network to ride on, the best mobile browsing experience just got better. The new additions to the iPhone 2.0 firmware look great. Of course, as always, there’s things to nitpick over. So here’s the nitpick list.
Although you get Exchange support in iPhone 2.0 if you subscribe to a business plan, which (you guessed it) will cost you $45/month for unlimited data (versus $30 for the new unlimited 3G data plan, a $10 increase over the 2G price). While I’d like to fault AT&T for this one, I suspect the extra $15 also helps Apple defer the cost of the Exchange license they pay Microsoft.
Next (and more distressing) is the requirement that all iPhones must be activated in store. This one is a bit more murky, as AT&T says in their press release that iTunes activation for the iPhone 3G is not possible. However, in another release, it is stated that you will be able to activate your phone when you get home if you like through iTunes if you buy from the Apple Store. This was one of the most pleasant aspects of purchasing an iPhone. I bought my iPhone on the day it debuted, and I literally walked in to an Apple Store at 11:30PM, and walked out with my iPhone at 11:34. The transaction took less than 4 minutes, and I was extremely pleased. I’m hoping I’ll still have the option of at home activation, because the last thing I want to do is hang out longer in the Apple Store twiddling my thumbs while my phone is activated. While I can fully appreciate the fact that there are some people who are just too stupid technologically challenged to handle at-home activation, I believe the ability was pulled due to iPhone hacking and not in an attempt to “simplify” the experience. Oh well. A subsidized iPhone purchase means that AT&T gets more of a say in how the device is setup.
One of the biggest things I was happy about was that the iPhone 3G has GPS. I was in the market for an in-car GPS device. I can now bypass that purchase and put that money towards the iPhone 3G. The bad news is that while the GPS technology is in the phone, you don’t gain turn-by-turn directions in iPhone 2.0 firmware. Google Maps becomes more accurate, and you can use their turn by turn directions, but you don’t get voice prompts or the 3D street view. Enter Tom Tom. They have already stated they will have a GPS app avaialble for the iPhone after the AppStore launches. What remains to be seen is how much it will cost. Anything above $20 will probably not seem worth it, since Google Maps handles about 60% of what I’d need from a GPS device.
MobileMe
A little background: I had been a .Mac subscriber since it’s inception as iTools. I dropped .Mac back in October of last year. I could no longer justify $99/year (well, actually about $75/year, the average price for renewal through Amazon) for email, iDisk and synching. With free alternatives like Gmail, DropBox, Box.net and a little Automator magic, I’ve been content since I left .Mac behind. The one feature I missed above all others though, was syncing. When I dropped .Mac, I lameneted that the one feature that could have brought me back was push email/calenders/contacts. Well, essentially that is what MobileMe is: Push email/calendars/contacts married with .Mac, and a new web based interface for all of the services features. I’m not sure if the general public will see this as enough to erase the bad memory of .Mac, but in my eyes it was. I purchased a .Mac family pack yesterday ($129 at Amazon) and look forward to it’s conversion to MobileMe in early July.
Third Party Apps
The third party apps demo ran for nearly half the entire keynote yesterday. Personally, I would have rather Apple debuted some new hardware, but it’s a testament to Apple’s belief in their developers (and this is a developers conference, right?) that they gave them nearly 60 minutes of keynote time to showcase their wares. It’s amazing to see what the developers have cooked up with just 3 months of time. The young Brit who demoed his app “Band” is about to become a millionaire. If he doesn’t walk away from WWDC with iFund money, I’d be shocked.
I believe in 6 months time the developer community will have cemented the iPhone as the third largest computing platform, right behind Windows and the Mac. I believe in 18 months time you will see the iPhone pass the Mac for a larger installed base, and essentially become the first new successful computing platform of the 21st century.
Back in 1996, before he rejoined Apple, Steve Jobs was asked if he were running Apple, what would he do to fix it. His answer: milk the Mac for all it’s worth, and get busy on the next big thing. Clearly, the iPhone as a computing platform is the next big thing. I don’t think the Mac is going away any time soon, but it’s pretty clear to see that the iPhone is Apple’s current darling.
Category: Apple, iPhone
For the first time in the history of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, the event has sold out.
I attended the event last year, and the 4000 plus attendance was one of the largest showings to date. It’s pretty safe to say that this year’s record attendance is fuled by the dual punch of new iPhone developers and increasing Mac sales.
Great news for Mac users, as WWDC attendance is a great barometer for interest in the platform.
Category: Apple, Developers, News
Apple issued an update to the AppleTV software this weekend, bringing it to version 2.01. The new version features a “Genres” option for searching through movies in your library. The update is free to AppleTV users through the AppleTV software update. At the time of this writing, there were no release notes associated with this update.
Category: Apple, News
Apple has unleashed a new generation of Macbook and Macbook Pro notebook computers. While looking nearly identical to the previous generation, the newer models feature faster processors, larger hard drives, and (on the Macbook Pro) multi-touch track pads.
The biggest improvements seem to be in the Macbook Pro line, with new Pernyn processors, double the previous generations video ram, and the addition of multi-touch track pads.
One thing that surprised me was that Apple kept the “black tax” on the Macbook model. I had figured Apple would have reduced the black tax, or dropped it altogether in an effort to spur sales. I guess sales aren’t hurting that much, since Apple seems content with holding the status quo on the black tax.
Additionally, the new models retain the previous form factor. It’s been five years since Apple updated the Macbook Pro form factor. Of course, many view the current form factor as a thing of beauty, and why mess with beauty when it is clearly still selling well, right?
(more…)
Category: Apple, Hardware, News
One week before Macworld San Francisco 2008, Apple has decided to release updated versions of the Mac Pro and Xserve.
The new Mac Pro, features the following stock configuration at a price of $2,799:
- two 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors with dual-independent 1600 MHz front side buses;
- 2GB of 800 MHz DDR2 ECC fully-buffered DIMM memory, expandable up to 32GB;
- ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT with 256MB of GDDR3 memory;
- 320GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
- 16x SuperDrive™ with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
- two PCI Express 2.0 slots and two PCI Express slots;
- Bluetooth 2.0+EDR; and
- ships with Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse.
The new Xserve, at $2,999, features:
- a single 64-bit 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Xeon processor with 12MB of L2 cache and a 1600 Mhz front side bus;
- 2GB of 800 MHz DDR2 ECC FB-DIMM RAM, expandable up to 32GB;
- a single 80GB SATA Apple Drive Module;
- dual Gigabit Ethernet on-board;
- internal graphics;
- two FireWire® 800 and three USB 2.0 ports; and
- an unlimited client license for Mac OS X Server version 10.5 Leopard.
Both machines can be customized, of course.
One has to wonder – with Macworld a week away, why release new Macs now? The only logical conclusion is that Apple has enough new products (outside today’s launches) to occupy an entire keynote. Let the speculation begin!
Category: Apple
Safari 2 passed the Acid2 test when it was released. It was one of the first browsers to do so (Opera might have beat Safari by a couple of months). Word hit yesterday that the IE team had their in house IE8 build pass the Acid2 test for the first time. Things are looking up for developers who support standards!
However, look at this screenshot of the Acid2 test in Safari 3.04 (both Windows and Mac). It seems that Safari is suffering a regression.
Here’s hoping the Safari team can fix this glitch quickly. I’d hate to live in a world where IE passes the Acid test, and Safari fails.
Category: Apple, Web Development
Apple has posted the information and form necessary for iPhone owners to get the $100 credit as detailed by Steve Jobs last week.
Of note:
- You must have bought your phone before August 22, 2007
- You must submit your request for the credit before November 30, 2007
- Your phone must be activated before you submit your claim (no rebate for you, hackers!)
Once you submit the form, you will receive a SMS message on your phone with a code that you enter in to the form, which will then complete the rebate process.
I’ve already spent mine. A copy of Aperture is heading my way!
Category: Apple, iPhone
Apple has updated the Apple Store with new versions of Logic Studio and Express. Dubbed “Logic Studio 8″ and “Logic Express 8″, the new versions include a revamped interface, a price reduction and many new features.
Logic Studio brings a new single window interface, a simpler setup, quick swipe comping, new audio editing tools, surround sound mixing/processing, and the retirement of the Dongle. Additionally, Apple has added a new component, MainStage, which lets keyboardists, guitarists, and other musicians perform with software instruments and effects through a full-screen interface designed specifically for the stage.
Apple dropped the price of Logic Studio from $999 to $499.
Logic Express features many of the same interface improvements as Studio, and new features such as Guitar Amp Pro, Ringshifter, and full-featured Pitch Correction. The price of Logic Express drops from $299 to $199. Both are available now from the Apple Store.
Category: Apple, Software
Why is it that free Yahoo! email accounts can “push” their email to an iPhone, yet the $99/year .Mac email accounts can’t?
I don’t really know the answer, but it’s a pretty frustrating question.
Category: Apple
