MacWorld has come and going and the dust has settled. The big announce­ment of MacWorld was the intro­duc­tion of the MacBook Air. This device has had some mixed reviews and the major players have had the time to look it over and review it. Check some of these reviews out here: Walt Mossberg, David Pogue, and cnet.

My predic­tions for MacWorld were not to good but they were close.
iTunes was upgraded to version 7.6. This has movie rentals with all of the major movie studios on board. Right now there are not many major titles avail­able, but that will grow with time just like their music library has grown.
The tv was revised and had a price drop. The revi­sion was only a soft­ware revi­sion and no new hard­ware. This makes me rethink my whole stand­point on the MacMini and the tv becoming one. The tv Take2 works without a computer and is a stand alone box. With this box you can rent movies and buy TV shows from your couch with out having to purchase an apple computer, this is a smart move by Apple inc. We will just have to wait and see what the fate of the MacMini is.
There were no note­book upgrades; this will prob­ably happen silently in the next few months.
No new desktop computer were intro­duce as I have suggested. I believe that apple is working on this and it will take some time. Same with the Apple Cinema Displays.
The item that I was excited about, is the soft­ware upgrade to the iPod Touch. I have wanted mail on the iPod Touch since it was released, and finely it has arrived! I went out that night and purchased an iPod Touch to replace my 2^nd gener­a­tion iPod Nano. I had to play the $20 premium to get the soft­ware upgrade that night, but to me that was worth the extra price.
The last major announce­ment was the MacBook Air. This is Apples thin note­book that only weighs 3 pounds and is only .5 inches thick. This note­book has a lot of great features, a touch pad with gesture recog­ni­tion, an SSD hard drive (for a price upgrade), and its small size. I am unsure of the market for this item, we will just have to wait and see what will happen.
The iPhone SDK was not talked about, it looks like Apple inc. will be having another event in February to make this announce. The thing that they did announce about the iPhone was the firmware upgrade to v1.1.3. This is just like the video that was leaked just a few weeks ago.

The world of Apple is a compli­cated, and we will not know exactly what they have up there sleeves until they make the announce­ment. We will just have to wait and see what new things Apple is working on.

Andrew

The Mac Pro upgrades and price bump that happened yesterday leaves a big gap in Apples desktop product line. Earlier this year I talked about the Mac Mini and tv being inte­grated into one product, and recent rumors of a MacTouch have been going crazy all over the internet. So what will happen at MacWorld? We won’t know for sure till next Tuesday, but we all have our predic­tions and wishes for what will happen.

Here is my Prediction list: (not in any specific order)
iTunes upgraded to 7.6 or even 8.0.
 — With the rumors of movie rentals and DVDs containing digital files (tuaw), an iTunes upgrade should be expected. I would like for v8.0 to be released, there have been too many small updates to v7.0 and it would be nice to have v8.0

Introduction of a new smaller format desktop computer
 — With the upgrade to the Mac Pro yesterday, the stan­dard config­u­ra­tion price leaves a big gap between the iMac and the Mac Pro. A smaller form format desktop will fill this gab with a redesigned smaller Mac Pro like case.

Mac Mini & tv become one
 — With many rumors of the Mac Mini demise floating around and the tv getting more compe­ti­tion from LG and Netflix (tuaw), a combi­na­tion of these prod­ucts will make a great plat­form. You will have a fully func­tioning Mac OS that will be acces­sible from your living-room and will be able to use iTunes to down­load your movie rentals that will be avail­able Tuesday.

Notebooks to be upgraded.
 — Recent rumors are that either line of Apple’s note­books will be updated. There should be an upgrade to either the MacBook or the MacBook Pro lines of note­books.

iPhone news & SDK
 — The iPhone SDK will be mentioned and a release date will be given. Also the iPhone firmware might also be upgraded to 1.1.3.

Cinema Display’s to be upgraded.
 — It has be a while since Apple upgraded the Cinema Display’s and the last few upgrades have only been minor spec changes or price drops. It would be nice to have an iSight built into an Apple Cinema Display since they discon­tinued the external iSight over a year ago.

MacTouch to be intro­duced.
 — While the idea of having a large format iPod Touch running the full version of OS X 10.5 would be nice, this is more of a wish list item.

Tune in next Tuesday to your favorite Apple news site to find out what Apple has in store, and check back here to see a score card for how my predic­tions turn out.

Andrew