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Monday, 5 January 2009

Macworld 2009 Predictions

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Well it’s that time of year again and while this years Macworld has been overshadowed by the news of Steve Jobs health, get well soon Steve, and the revelation that Apple are pulling out of Macworld after this years show it’s still time to make a few predictions. I’ve noticed that no one is highlighting the fact that this years Keynote could see the introduction of a new product. Steve being ill means that his avoidance of Macworld had nothing to do with lack of products.

So in the light of this news lets see what we’re in store for tomorrow.
1. New Mac Mini. Going from the rumors this one appears to be a sure bet. Going to be interesting to see if this evolutionary product will show that Apple are taking an interest in the mini or is this going to be a hobby like Apple TV.

2. New iMacs. Almost certainly will be larger in size with higher specs. I’ll be interested to see if there’s cinema display size iMac. Considering the fact that the Macbooks were redesigned to fit in with the iMac design the new ones will look exactly the same.

3. First Look At Snow Leopard. This is going to be interesting, if the footprint is going to be decreased you have to wonder exactly why. Apple control the computers and don’t really need to support low end machines so Snow Leopard could pack power and not really annoy anyone. Hence number 4.

4. I think we’re going to see either a tablet or Netbook to fit in with a new line of Apple online services. Expect to see the expansion of the MobileMe service. New Netbooks would be due at about the same time as Snow Leopard. Phil can show us Snow Leopard running on low end and beautiful machine and completely ruin Steve Ballmer’s speech on Wednesday at CES.

5. I don’t expect to see any new iPhones but a surprise visit from Steve shouldn’t be out of the question now that we expect him to look thin. In fact the announcement from Steve today would be a great way to ensure that the market doesn’t overreact when he takes to the stage at some point tomorrow. If he does then it will be for the “One more thing...” announcement so he can close out Apple’s final Macworld.

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Saturday, 20 December 2008

No More Stevenote.

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20080115-macworld-jobs Apple announced this week that the keynote at this years Macworld Expo will not be delivered by Steve Jobs. There’s no doubting that this is a disappointment and has killed a lot of interest in the conference but to be honest it is probably one of the most intelligent moves Apple have made in a while.

The media is full of talk of Steve being too ill to deliver the address this year but I don’t believe this for a second. I think there are probably four reasons why Apple are toning down their participation Macworld 2009, their final Macworld. The first reason is pride. You have to remember that large companies such as Adobe have already pulled out of the event. Steve Jobs does not take part in second rate shows and I’m afraid after watching others withdraw that’s probably how it was beginning to look. This years show will probably be pure sales figures and some marketing but not much else.

The second reason is Bill Gates, or more accurately no more Bill Gates. The Jobs keynote always competed with the Bill G keynote at CES for media time and Jobs had to have a certain amount of satisfaction watching Macworld get so much hype. With Gates now gone however Jobs is free to pull out knowing that the competition on that front is over.

The third reason is a possible lack of any major announcements. Since Steve’s last two event’s of 2008 have produced little to no surprises he probably has no intention of walking out on stage and basically delivering a state of the company address to people who have paid a lot of money to hear an, “and finally…”. Steve doesn’t do disappointment.

The forth reason is the most important reason of them all, the element of surprise. With Apple being forced to show new products in the first week of January each year people would begin to start searching for product information in December. Removing these sort of shows from the calendar allow the Cupertino company to deliver products at any time of the year with very little notice. Bringing back the element of surprise will bring back one of the strengths that Apple lost recently.

image from atsuki.net

Anyway you look at it there are plenty of good business reasons for Apple to pull out of Macworld before you look anywhere near Steve’s health.

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