Living Critic

With the transition to Intel based chips, Apple has put itself closer to it’s non-OSX-based competition.  Now, as competitors integrate new technologies into their systems the pressure on Apple to make updates is greater.

MacWorld (along with the Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference) has historically been a place for Apple to make major announcements.  It was Macworld 2007 wherein the iPhone was announced.

In my experience it’s done a lot for the company, and I don’t have enough information, but I’m not sure I’m in favor of the company leaving the expo. 

There may be many reasons for dropping out of Macworld.  I think one of the benefits would be to allow the company to move faster and make announcements on a more fluid product release cycle.

My predictions for Apple’s coming attractions this January:

• Preview of OSX 10.6 Snow-Leopard with March/April release date announced.
• Updated Mac mini with NVIDIA’s 9400M Chipset.  I would consider this a major upgrade for the mini, making it a much more competitive product (there will be no version with an intel chipset as others have speculated).
• iMac updated with Core i7 and faster graphics and compatibility.
• 17″ Macbook Pro introduced with unibody construction.
• Displayport transition complete for the entire Mac line.
• iLife ‘09 introduced.
• I suspect changes are coming for the iTunes store and Apple TV, but probably not in time for January.