MacWorld 2005 – What’s your prediction/desire?
 

The rumour mill is heating up and will no doubt work overtime in the next seven weeks…

What Apple product announcement do YOU expect at MacWorld 2005?

What news would you really like to be introduced?

What are the most exciting announcements you expect/hope to hear from other developers – hardware and software?

Best regards,
ArcticStones

My greatest wish would be a PowerBook with a high resolution screen and ClearType technology. I feel like Apple's just not interested in high-res LCD displays at all though.

I think they made the right call on PowerBook resolution... it's a very comfortable working resolution. High enough to get what I want on the screen and low enough that text is easily read.

If the rumors are true about a flash memory based iPod, I expect Apple will release them there. I also expect to see a presentation on Tiger... though I'm thinking it won't be released then.

Merrill Lynch
 

Here’s something fascinating from a Merrill Lynch research report (MacMinute.com):

"The next logical step is to put an entertainment server into the family room." "A 200GB Apple server at a reasonable price and possibly with PVR technology could be Apple's next category killer."

...an entertainment server handling songs, photos, and movies. The digital device would also be able to connect to the Internet. The hypothetical Apple entertainment server would also ideally store a couple hundred DVD-quality videos, and would be separate from cable boxes, video game consoles, and other PVRs. "Apple's success with iTunes and iPhoto shows the company knows how to create audio and image management for the masses," the firm said.

I Can Dream-- Can't I?
 

Hey, hey! That was my idea two years ago...
http://www.schneblin.com/misc/ijukebox.html

This is what I posted elsewhere in answers to some given questions.

Optimistic Prognostications

1. What will be the most significant new product of 2005?

http://www.schneblin.com/misc/ijukebox.html
and
http://www.schneblin.com/misc/iMac_LT.html
and most likely iPod TV.

2. What will be the most significant new software of 2005?

The return of Apple Media Tool.
Apple buys SoundEdit Pro from Macromedia.
Quicktime Pro creates and plays MPEG 1 and 2.
iTheme - changes all the OS TIFF files without modifying the OS.
iLife 05 with iPhoto that works more like iView, iMovie that does not kill your projects, and iDVD that does not take 5 hours to boot.
Apple buys and resurrects WriteNow.
TigerCub - OS 10.4 with a simple Finder and basic communication apps.

3. What will be the biggest Mac news of 2005?

eMac G5
PowerBook G5 with a high-tech liquid cooling system and OLED screen.
An Apple NAS Server
AppleBox - Built by Nintendo to run high resolution games off and online.
GPS locator built into chips to send email to Apple when unit is stolen.
A free online library of GarageBand Public Domain MIDI files of every concievable music genre. (accessible only by GarageBand)

I hope you're right about some of your predictions, schneb.

I'm not expecting much, however--not for MW Jan, that is. I think an eMac G5 is coming soon. From what I've read, a G5 Powerbook would be very difficult to pull off, but one hopes. . . :)

Schneb, I’m impressed! Obviously Merrill Lynch should have credited you in their list of references – or better yet send you a hefty check for consulting services. ;) I think something along the lines of iJukebox would be great – and that (sooner or later) it’s inevitable.

Personally I would really like to see Apple launch a PDA/mobile phone/mp3-player (say 1 Gb?). Something that makes the fantastic Sony-Ericsson P910 look like a pale pre-juvenile. :D By selling it at the same price or less, Apple could quickly garner a nice chunk of the biz and tech cellular/pda market.

And I wouldn’t mind a 250 Gb replacement disk for my PowerBook being available for, say, $100. I know that’s dreaming… :rolleyes:

A modest wish? I want Apple to set a release date for Tiger, so that I can buy a new iBook for my daughter and upgrade it once it’s released. :)

I also want someone to launch great dictation software. Something that is what IBM ViaVoice could have become.


Best regards,
ArcticStones

Thanks for the kudos.

Dictation software is tough. The Japanese are trying to perfect that because keyboards are almost useless with their pictographic writing. I doubt Apple will want to venture into this difficult area. Writing recognition is hard enough! Although, for the phone PDA, it would be cool to talk and it dictate, huh?

I would really like for Apple to buy SoundEdit Pro from Macromedia. It shames Macromedia to sit on that excellent product! Apple should carbonize it and add it to the iLife package as iWave.

I would also like to see a simple WYSIWYG editor added to Safari such as you can use in Netscape. It would be nice for the average person wanting to update their home Web page.

I'm gonna be selfish and wish for a G5 tower upgrade or price drop only because I already bought a PowerBook and the G5 is what I need next. :p

However, it would be nice for Apple to up the resolution on the PowerBooks. It's almost always nice to have more room for palettes and windows. PowerBook resolution is way behind Wintel at this point. Mac apologists say they don't "need" it and "everything would be too tiny." And yet, I see Windows users working happily at 1600x1200 without any complaint, while I pay the same or more for my PowerBook and envy the extra space they have.

The notebook I had before my PowerBook was a Dell 8600 with a 1920x1200 resolution. That's on a 15.4" screen. It worked great for me. Imagine how much better it would be on a 17" PB. Of course, Apple would have to bring their LCD smoothing technology up to the level that MS has achieved. After two months with my PB, I've determined that's really the only thing I definitely would change--at any price.

Anyone think there’s a good chance of Apple introducing a new iBook, dropping the price of the current model? Am I a hopeful thinker?

I think you're a hopeful thinker... the iBooks are already very close to the PowerBooks in specs... so unless they introduce new PowerBooks as well, I don't expect them to come out with new iBooks.

I suppose there is a chance that they will drop the price on the current iBooks (Mac World promo perhaps).

...or

The Powerbooks go G5 and the iBooks stay G4s.

Wishful Thinking: iPod Light Sensor
 

I thought of an idea today as i was fumbling under my dim car light trying to turn on my ipods backlite, and then i thought. You know how the powerbooks keyboards have an ambient light sensor, what if ipods had one. It could be under settings where you could select under backlight timer an option "automatic" or "manual" then another selection for the timer under either automatic or manual. Then whenever its dark out on automatic mode, you would touch the ipod buttons and the light would turn on without you having to set it and under manual mode... well....it wouldn't happen.

P.S. I hope some high ranked apple executive reads this. :D

Good idea for the next generation of iPods and makes sense. For this generation, I would like to see a firmware upgrade to adjust the brightness of the LED so I won't wake up my wife every time I adjust the volume or pick a song when going to sleep. That high powered LED illuminates the entire room!!

...and...

Looking forward to iLife myself. :) And curious about "Sugar"

I predict a Motorola branded mobile phone with iTunes/ITMS support.

Maybe an "Airport Express Deluxe" media player/server type device.

Cheap, headless iMac? Those reports are confused. The device in question is actually a very large iPod that will play LPs. :-)

Updated Appleworks to go along with the new headless Mac! :)

In regard to non-Apple products being announced for sure, the ATI Radeon X800 XT and the Matias OS X Keyboard look like things to check out on the exhibition floor.

I'd like to hear what people think of the keyboard in person; it looks like it might finally be a worthy successor to the ADB Extended Keyboard I've been unwilling to part with all these years. :cool:

I can dream too right?
 

I'd love to see the same thing, and really think we will - just not at MW. My guess is that Apple will keep improving the iPod until it becomes a phone. I see this as inevitable (so long as Apple can maintain the iPod's dominance) because all handheld devices are really becoming 'communicators' as convergence takes over. Phones are becoming mp3 players, mp3 players are becoming PDA's, and PDA's are becoming phones.

I figure that Apple realizes that if they just release another brand new gadget that the competition, having learned their lesson from the iPod's success, would kill it as fast as they could. (No-one except Apple likes Apples proprietary format policy)

We already have the color screen on the iPod. Next we might see bluetooth conectivity, then touch display (and with it a slew of applications, games etc), then a larger screen (maybe even dual displays in order to keep that great scroll wheel), then BAM - 3G connetivity. Competition is unprepared, the market is already cornered, and a slew of great applications already exist. Apple then fails to renew the iTunes Store compatibility contracts that they've signed with the likes of Motorola and the iMovie Store* compatibilty contracts that they've signed with whoever else.

Is world domination far away?

That's why they're already being sued over the proprietary format. You know, like MS and the anti-trust stuff...