Ok since we're now past Christmas and the New Year is fast approaching its time to round-up all of the speculation relating to the expected product announcements for Steve Jobs MacWorld 2008 keynote on January 14th. I'd expect that given all the recent iPod launches ahead of the holiday season that MacWorld will have a focus on updating and refreshing the Mac product line.
Here is our list:
- Ultra portable Macbook - At this point it looks like its a pretty good bet that you'll see the introduction of a slim version of the Macbook presumably running Intel's latest mobile processor. See this Mac Rumors post for a good summary of various opinions. The proposed laptop is expected to feature a solid state hard drive. My call on this one is that we'll see the ultra portable with an on board NAND flash drive (likely in the 60GB) range given the cost I'd expect we'll see a price point around $1,500.
- An update for the Mac Mini Ok this one is more in the hope category on my part since I think the Mac Mini fills a great all purpose role in the Mac product line. My thought would be given the number of people that have moded the Mac Mini to act as a media centre it would be great to see an update for the Mini and eliminate the AppleTV. Basically very similar form factors and far more flexibility with the Mini.
- 3G iPhone Update? Given that a number of Apple's carrier partners most notably AT&T have let the cat out of the bag on this one I think you can expect an announcement either at MacWorld or the 3GSM (telecommunications conference) regarding a 3G capable iPhone. My money is actually on a launch coincident with 3GSM - likely just before at an Apple event since Apple has traditionally not played well with the rest of the industry at events run by others preferring not to share the spotlight with competitors.
- Tweaks for the Macbook Pro & Macbook & iMac. I'd expect that you'll see a series of spec changes as Apple refreshes the product line with new Intel processors.
Send me an email with your thoughts.
