Macworld Rumor Round-Up

seamuskrat writes to mention that LoopRumors has a round-up of many of the different Mac rumors making the rounds for the next Macworld. Among the front runners are the ITV, iPhone, and Mobile OSX. From the article: "In an uncharacteristic move, Steve Jobs previewed this new digital lifestyle device and gave us a release timeframe of 'early 2007.' iTV will stream movies, pictures and more from your Mac or PC to your television wirelessly. We expect to see the 'hidden features' of iTV spelled out, and a release date announced, if not immediate availability at the keynote. Apple has said it will not use the name iTV for the product, so we can expect a new moniker for the media device."

Some rumors not listed

[PapayaSF]

I've read 'em in the last year, for whatever they're worth:

1. Leopard may have some built-in P2P functionality, allowing Apple to do BitTorrent-like distribution of movies from the iTunes Store. You could earn credit by being a seed.
2. Leopard might be very multi-core aware, taking advantage of multiple cores regardless of whether a specific application is written to do so. More here [slashdot.org].

12" Macbook Pro?

[carbona]

That's what I'm hoping for anyway. Dedicated graphics, matte screen option, and under 4 lbs. would seal the deal so I can finally upgrade my aging 12" Powerbook.

Re:iTV

[anagama]

Take Airport Express. Apple has encrypted all the music that goes from your Mac to the Airport Express ... thus making it impossible for anyone other than Apple to take advantage of the audio capabilities of Airport Express in their applications.

I understand how it would be nice to stream other content to an airport express, but I wonder if it isn't simply companies being unmotivated to support the APE. There is for example airfoil [rogueamoeba.com] which will stream non-itunes to the APE. Perhaps it's a trick though, like redirecting a stream through iTunes somehow and thus avoiding the issue of directly communicating the APE?

Re:iTV

[TodMinuit]

Not everyone has HDTV, nor does first-out Internet TV need to be high-quality. Just look at YouTube as an example. Even so, you are completely correct the bandwidth on the user-side simply isn't there -- yet. Most people have DSL, probably provided by the the phone company. Do you not think that the phone would love to put the cable companies out of business? Fiber-to-the-door is coming, slowly but surely.

Second, although there are devices and protocol that can do what is needed, none of the providers of them have the kind of backing and connections that Apple has. With an established, positive relationship with media companies, Apple could (and has) help push true Internet-delivered TV.

In other words, Internet isn't going to kill the television star anytime soon.

Probably true, but I can dream of having literally every episode of every TV show just a remote click away, and still complaining that nothing is on TV. (You heard it here first!)

Re:iTV

[TodMinuit]

I'm saying what we need -- nay, what consumers need to demand -- are the HTTP and HTML, the Apache and Firefox for Internet TV.

Re:12" Macbook Pro?

[flewp]

Sorta OT, but I've been wanting a marriage of a Cintiq and a laptop for awhile. I've thought it would be a good product for Apple, what with the marketing writing itself: "The SketchBook". That, and Apple likes to target the artist/graphic design crowd. I have no idea how tablet laptops compare in terms of their resolution (input resolution, not display resolution) and pressure sensitivity (if any), but I'm guessing they're not quite to the level of a Cintiq (or a Graphire or Intuos). I'm sure such a device would be rather expensive, probably in the 4-5k dollar range, but I'd pick one up in a heartbeat to have a digital sketchbook to carry around.

new software not new hardware

[cvos]

I predict there will be an as yet unknown piece of software announced by the man in the black turtleneck. It seems Apple generally announces new hardware in the early summer and fall. Don't expect the ipod picoshizzle. By 'unknown' this excludes the iphone, itv, upgraded 'book, monitors/TV's.

Re:12" Macbook Pro?

[Pink Tinkletini]

They could be waiting for Leopard's fully resolution-independent UI to announce a high-DPI laptop. This would be the Macworld to do it, I guess.

As a side benefit, this would finally put to rest the silly notion that a Mac's hardware is separable from its software, any more than the mind is separable from the body. It's holistic, I tell ya.

Re: Mobile OS X

[soft_guy]

Apple had a mobile MacOS for a pen based computer along time ago. They dumped working on it because it'd compete with the Newton. Then Steve Jobs returned and dumped Newton. Now there are rumors of a mobile MacOS, again.

Was it that it would compete with the Newton, or just that the Newton was designed from the ground up to use pen input while MacOS isn't?

The one I was specifically referring to was the Allegro-Lite rumors which Apple came straight out and denied on the Newton developer conference call in 1997.

Re:12" Macbook Pro?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any laptop purchase should wait for flash-assisted drives and Blu-Ray DVDs.
If my 12" iBook can only hold out a little longer.

Re:Lower prices, PLEASE

[Beefslaya]

On a personal note:

I purchased a MacBook (black) and maxed out the RAM at 2GB (Crucial), all for a mere $1750 dollars.
Also a Mac Mini Core Duo and maxed out that RAM, for about $850

Both of them kick the crap out of my desktop (P4 HT 3.0E Ghz) which I haven't booted in a month.

I'm not a fan of the 400 dollar rebated notebook from Compaq.

I guess it depends on your preferences. I was able to effectively eliminate the Windows based PC's in my life for Under the 3 grand you speak of.

Maybe you should change your supplier?

Re:Some rumors not listed

[JavaLord]

Leopard may have some built-in P2P functionality, allowing Apple to do BitTorrent-like distribution of movies from the iTunes Store. You could earn credit by being a seed.

I wonder what the ISP's would think of that. I know comcast has something in their ToS about not reselling bandwidth...I wonder if this would qualify?

Re:Some rumors not listed

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Leopard might be very multi-core aware, taking advantage of multiple cores regardless of whether a specific application is written to do so. More here.

Wow, no way... The kernel won't just magically make your already-installed copy of Photoshop go four times as fast - Adobe would need to recompile, at the very least.

Actually, one of the announced features of Leopard is a way to take some existing OpenGL applications and spawn a second "feeder" thread for the graphics card which encompasses some of the functionality of the OpenGL libraries. Theoretically, this means and OpenGL application designed to run in a single thread could obtain up to double the speed on Leopard with a multi-core processor, provided it was CPU bound and exactly half the bottleneck was feeding the GPU. Realistically, this will probably result in some more modest benefits, if any at all for a given application. Still, it is incorrect to assume that the only way an application can benefit from multiple cores is through a recompile, rather than through OS improvements.

New iPod

[unvjarhead]

What about those new 100GB iPod. http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/05/toshiba-announc es-100gb-1-8-inch-hdd-apple-swoons/ [engadget.com]

Re:Silly rumor?

[Moofie]

I'll take my argument from authority (which, frankly, I don't see, as I simply stated my opinion) trumps your proof by assertion.

I have had good experience with Apple hardware is a factual statement. You have had bad experiences with Apple hardware is an equally factual statement.

"Apple computers have had comparable performance to PCs costing 50-70% of their price"

I'm not chasing you down this rathole. Apple machines are priced more competitively than ever, and when you compare them against other manufacturers, they look pretty darn good.

Is your white-box PC cheaper? Maybe. Depends on which corners you're gonna cut.

"expansion slots that are standard on even the shonkiest PCs"

And are empty on most of those PCs. What are you going to put in the expansion slot? A better video card? OK, if that's what you're into. Most computer users don't care.

Is it suitable for your needs? Maybe not. But that doesn't make it bad.

So you like big clunky keyboards. Cool. They still work just fine, don't they? What's your argument here?

"The single button mouse and the passive-aggressive tricks"

Oh, come on. Get over it. I shouldn't have to explain to you how ridiculously easy it is to get a multi-button mouse on a Mac. It's been true for as long as I've had one.

But it's not a troll, or incorrect

[default luser]

The iPod was actually an impressive product for the time, just taking into account the specs. It was almost as small as flash players of the day, with a hundred times the capacity. It had about 10x the transfer rate of any other portable thanks to the Firewire connector and disk storage.

The iPod was great for the time, and as a hardcore PC backer it was EMBARASSING for me to see how slowly the rest of the industry responded.

Today, however, a good chunk of the industry has caught up. The iPod has serious large-market competitors from Creative and Sandisk. The iTV already has to compete with an installed base of almost 10 million Xbox 360s, not to mention the industry push from Intel (VIIV) and AMD (Live) to create "living room" PCs.

Also, now that Apple is Intel's bitch, I think it is bad that Apple is so set on the "Macworld major release schedule." Apple pulled some strings with the Core launch so it coincided with the x86 OS X launch, but I doubt Intel will ever cooridinate like that again for such a small vendor. Intel did not wait for January to release their quad-core, so the quad-core Mac Pro will end up looking more like a "me too" product instead of a market leader.

Apple can still shake things up, but in their current situation they will need to pull off some serious magic. All the "obvious" stuff just isn't that impressive.