Macworld 2009: Pre-Keynote Rumour Analysis
It's that time again: the rumour mills are working overtime, with the smell of smoke wafting from their bearings as they strain to keep up with the storm of rumours that descends every time an Apple Keynote is about to commence.
Who can blame them? It's exciting, to be sure. Apple has carved a place in the market that grants it almost supernatural powers in the mindshare of the tech world. Any move that it makes is carefully watched for hints of that little bit of something extra that makes their products stand out (well, for the most part *cough* MobileMe Time Capsule *cough*).
This time, the original progenitor of the infamous Reality Distortion Field, Steve Jobs, will not be delivering the Macworld 2009 keynote. In his stead, Phil Schiller, the Senior VP of Product Marketing at Apple, will do the honours of revealing whatever new gadgets Apple has in store for its customers.
So without further ado, let's get down to my analysis of the current rumours, ranked from most likely to happen to "are you on crack? Hell NO!":
iMacs
This is pretty much a sure thing. The iMacs are definitely due for an update, and since they tend to share a technology base with the MacBook line, we can safely expect the update to include the new NVIDIA chipsets that will drastically improve graphics performance for Apple's consumer line of desktops.
A DisplayPort for external displays is pretty much for certain as well. The technology is royalty free and it allows for output in many different formats, including support for HDCP, so expect DisplayPort to make it across Apple's entire product line. Sure, it's freakin' annoying to buy yet *another* adapter to hook up your external display (unless somehow you own a DisplayPort compatible monitor), but by now you should expect Apple to try and push some new port standard every couple of years. Annoying, but predictable.
As for rumours of a Quad Core iMac - I rather doubt these will come true. The Quad Core chips seem to be a differentiating factor between iMacs and Mac Pros, and as such are unlikely to show up in the consumer level iMacs. If for some reason they *do* show up, expect it to only be a build-to-order option in the top-end iMac.
Don't expect the design to change. Apple seems to be converging on this new aluminum/glass/black accents design aesthetic, and the iMac was the first product line to assert it. The updates to the iMac this time around are almost certainly all internal.
Hit the jump for the rest of my rumour analysis and predictions:
Snow Leopard
Snow Leopard will make an appearance, though I highly doubt a release of the new version of Mac OS X is imminent. They'll certainly show it off and tout the improvements made, but with Apple admitting that this is mostly an "under the hood" update, don't expect a lot of "wow" unless you're the type who gets hot and bothered about being able to more easily code multi-core capable programs and offload data processing onto the GPU.
Of course, because of this, there are rumours floating around that despite the streamlining focus of this Mac OS X update, Apple is indeed working on at least a couple of "pizzaz" features in order to lure the normal consumer to upgrade. I'll throw my hat in with this lot and agree that Snow Leopard does need some visible features that are not just under the hood in order to attract the non-geek. Sure, the OpenCL and GrandCentral additions will improve the performance of their Macs, but in the mind of the public shiny > nebulous (to their eyes) improvements in performance.
As far as the release date is concerned, I highly doubt Snow Leopard will be released this month. I expect Apple will at least name when it will be released, with a Spring release getting my bet.
17" MacBook Pro
It seems the 17" MacBook Pro will certainly make an appearance at the keynote in the form of an updated unibody construction, letting the 17" MacBook Pro finally match the rest of the MacBook line (if we ignore the low end white MacBook, that is.)
The update is pretty certain, as it makes little sense for the new unibody construction to not be applied to the MacBook Pro big boy. Why didn't they just release a unibody 17" MacBook Pro back when they first introduced the unibody MacBooks? Who knows? Maybe it's that "divided attention and limited resources" monster rearing its ugly head once more.
There's an important side storm of rumours regarding the 17" MBP update: it seems all the major rumour sites agree that it will have a fixed, non-removable, high capacity silver-zinc battery. I'm going to have to go against the tide here, even though I don't have any particular insider information regarding this detail, but I'm pulling a Colbert: my gut tells me this is wrong.
The 17" MBP is the grand daddy MacBook Pro. It's mostly the purview of professional users, and these users demand removable batteries so that they can always keep a second battery pack charged and ready in case they run out of juice. No matter how high capacity the battery pack is, this is a 17" high powered behemoth we're talking about; it's certainly not a power sipper. It doesn't make sense to me that the lower end MacBooks would preserve the ability to swap batteries while the top end 17" would not, pissing off professional users along the way.
Mac Pro
The Mac Pros are certainly due for an update. It's been nearly a year since we've seen any bumps in the product line, and there's certainly been technology updates since that should be incorporated to boost the pro-line performance.
As with the rest of the new Macs, expect a DisplayPort to be added to the Mac Pros along with the predictable bumps in chipset and graphics cards. Other than that, I don't expect any radical change.
A big sticking point with the Mac Pros is the design - the current case design has been around since the PowerPC G5 days! It's certainly high time for a new eye-catching design, but I fear that this may be unlikely as of yet. Apple's just too busy with retooling other product lines to institute a major new case design in their pro line of computers.
Mac mini
This keynote is do or die for the Mac mini line of low budget compact Macs. Either its updated at this keynote, or I'll officially pronounce the product line dead. The Mac mini line hasn't seen an update in looks or specs since August of 2007! That's like... 512 in tech years!
I'm divided 50/50 on whether Apple will keep this product line alive. My personal opinion is that Apple should just merge the Apple TV and the Mac Mini lines and position the Mac mini as an entertainment hub. There seems to be significant overlap in the sectors of consumers that would consider either product and a merger might help the combined product to be better than both.
Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), I don't call the shots at Apple's R&D department, so the product lines are likely to remain separate (*if* the Mac mini survives.)
If there is an update, a DisplayPort and new case design are a certainty, along with perhaps a low end NVIDIA chipset.
iWorks
The big rumour surrounding the '09 update to iWorks is that the suite is moving to a web-app basis, a lá the MobileMe versions of iLife apps, powered by SproutCore technology. This move could allow Apple to move to the "software as a service" model with iWorks.
The thing is, I seriously doubt that iWorks will move exclusively to online web apps. Far more likely is that iWorks '09 will still have updated local versions of apps, but will add support for MobileMe so that documents and files created within the suite can be automatically synced online, and the online MobileMe portal will be expanded with a web interface for the iWorks apps, allowing you to access your documents while away from your home or office. This would be consistent with they way Apple has handled MobileMe and its integration into the iLife suite of apps.
Apple Netbook
Nope. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Sure, I'd love an Apple netbook, but as it stands, Steve Jobs has publicly denounced the netbook sector (though this could certainly be a ruse), and Apple is already cutting profit margins on some other product lines (the new unibody construction in the MacBooks has reportedly reduced Apple's profit margins, as they cost more to make than previous MacBooks.) This means it's highly unlikely that Apple will enter a market where profit margins are razor thin. It just doesn't make sense from a business perspective.
iPhone nano
No. Just... hell no.
Out of all the rumours surrounding this keynote, this is the one that my mind most clearly says "NO!" to. There are two main reasons for this:
- It would be stupid for Apple to divide a nascent platform like the iPhone, even with its high popularity. In case you haven't noticed, the App Store has turned into big business, and introducing a new interface size into the iPhone/iPod Touch platform would be confusing to the end consumer and split the efforts of third party app developers.
- Why would Apple want to canibalise the higher profit margin iPhone sales? They have a sweet deal with the iPhone 3G: the consumer pays less while Apple gets a subsidy from AT&T for the rest of the product cost, keeping their profit margins high. Releasing some kind of low budget iPhone would cut into that arrangement; unless, of course, they're able to arrange a tidy subsidy from AT&T. I doubt that would happen.
These two reasons along combine to form one large "NO!" in my mind.
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That's it, folks!
Join us on Tuesday as I'll be bringing you live updates from the keynote, where I'll be furiously typing away from the Moscone Center in San Francisco.
We'll see then just how accurate my predictions are!
Den Den Boy
Posted to Hot Stuff, In Your House, In Your Pocket, In the News, On Your Desk on 4 January 2009
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Other stuff like this: Apple, iMac, iPhone, iWork, keynote, Mac Mini, Mac OS X, Mac Pro, MacBook Pro, Macworld, Macworld 2009, NVIDIA, Phil Schiller, Snow Leopard
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