Handicapping MacWorld: Your Complete Guide

If you’re a died in the wool Mac fanatic, or even an interested bystander, the days spanning January 10th-14th are ones of special interest. That is the time of year when a bunch of like minded Mac folks head out to San Francisco to see what has been cooking in the kitchens of Cupertino. Of course Apple isn’t the only draw found in the Moscone Center, there are plenty of developers and hardware manufacturers to compliment Apple’s presentation of the main course. Basically, if you’re an Apple fan this is the one must attend/follow closely event, to miss it would be like loving the Red Sox since 1918 and ignoring the last World Series. It’s not, strictly speaking, heresy but it’s getting close.

With that in mind it is easy to see that MacWorld speculation can never come too early. Personally once Wal-Mart starts leveling the Halloween candy to make way for ever increasingly tacky and shoddy seasonal Christmas items I know it is time to start wondering what I’m going to see at MacWorld (this date came on October 29th in Knoxville for interested parties). When I saw the first plastic animatronic Rudolph playing an electronic version of Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer I knew it was time to precipitate my personal Mac thoughts and come up some Macworld Expo predictions.

Before the predictions begin it is necessary to make one important point: what follows is pure conjecture, guesswork if you will. I have no inside Mac info, these are not rumors nor is this analysis. The differences between my random guesses and analysis is simple: Analysts work for companies with four last names (Johnson, Delacroix, Calstignole, and Simpkins) wear expensive suits and get paid long green to, well, guess. In contrast, I rarely wear suits (and by rarely I mean never). The difference between the following potluck of prognostication and rumor reporting is simple: rumors are reported as having a factual basis. I affirm that there is absolutely no factual basis for the speculation that follows. In fact, any similarity between my guesses and what actually happens at MacWorld is purely coincidental.

Before the unfettered conjecture rolls there is one deeply disturbing fact to get out of the way. Wil Wheaton is going to speak at MacWorld this year (let us hope he wears a red shirt and is dispatched with in the first three minutes). With that ill omen noted we forge ahead on to the realms of purest fanciful speculation.

The biggest question swirling around 2005 MWSF is: Was the Wil Wheaton deal set up while Steve Jobs was sedated? That answer will probably never be known. The second biggest question concerns PowerBooks. There is no denying that PowerBook line is far overdue for a major revision. It has been roughly 2 years since titanium transmuted to aluminum and the 17” body board model was introduced. A revision this badly needed would be plenty of grist for the mill but there are other factors to consider, specifically the G5 chip. With the G5 chip floating around it won’t be enough to simply update the case and add a super super sized or microscopic model. That might have been okay a few years ago (in fact it was) but the iBook is fairly close to the PowerBook in performance for substantially less money. That line of thought leads one to wondering if a G5 PowerBook might be in the offing. Which seems like a logical conclusion, after all there are consumer model G5 based machines currently available.

Of course just because a conclusion seems natural doesn’t mean it is a stone cold lock. Oh, no far from it. So is a G5 PowerBook likely to show up at MWSF 2005 edition? Well, every day since the PowerMac G5 was introduced someone has thought a G5 laptop was “just around the corner.” The pundits that made those predictions make Miss Cleo look positively competent. Still, if anyone could get around the heat issues and other problems and actually cram a G5 in a PowerBook sized enclosure it would be the engineers at Apple. But with the supply of G5 chips fairly constrained one wonders if it would be worth their time to announce yet another model they can’t deliver in serious quantities. The wildcard in this may be the dual core G4 chips from Freescale. Conceivably these could significantly enhance the PowerBooks performance while sidestepping the heat and supply issues. My prediction with no basis in fact: G5 PowerBooks at MacWorld though only in the 17” model. Oh, if you want one before August better order the day of the announcement. Probability rating: 25%

If MacWorld is all about PowerBooks and nothing else people will probably consider it a success. Not me, for MacWorld to be a success for me I’ll need either a Wil Wheaton cancellation or some nifty new software. There will be plenty of Tiger talk, a foregone conclusion, but that is expected and for full MWSF satisfaction observers demand surprises. The most obvious and unannounced software option would be a complete overhaul of AppleWorks with seemless iLife integration. Which probably would be exciting and useful once presented but is boring and mundane to if one is attempting a bit of speculation. It is infinitely more amusing to imagine Steve Jobs rolling out some top of the line program stripped down and made easy for everyone to use. An iLife addition of a 3-D modeling program (well not exactly that, how many people really want to make a complete CGI movie?) or something equally difficult and high end made usable and affordable to the rest of us. Though I can’t begin to fathom what that might be. Honestly unless Apple has a program that reads your thoughts and surfs the ‘net without any input but thought waves (good for the dark side of the web I guess) I can’t imagine what it could be. Of course I’m not running Apple (be thankful) so I’ll put the probability of a major new iApp at 50%.

Computer hardware, check. Computer software, check. Well that leaves us with the famous “one more thing” doesn’t it? Perhaps in the Stevenote it will be revealed that Wil Wheaton isn’t actually coming. It might happens as follows:

“So we’ve got 17” PowerBooks with dual G5s that run for fourteen years on a single charge and iLife’s newest addition: iESP. so I think that proves that we�ve been busy. Oh, there is one more thing. Wil Wheaton can’t make it.”

Crowd erupts and everyone in Macland is pleased. Other than that unlikely scenario it would not be foolish to wonder about a non-computer hardware introduction. Something like the iPod but cooler. Analysts are saying a flash based iPod to leverage the success of the iPod is a solid wager. They are probably right but it might be something different, something first reviled as too expensive when compared to competitors and undesirable in any event and then embraced by the masses. Not video precisely and definitely Mac and PC independent, you know something like a�Well the best thing I can come up with is a flash based iPod. Probability: 75%

So there you have it, my complete handicapping of the MacWorld to be. If I’m not 100% accurate I will gladly refund triple your money (Offer excludes Hadley Stern and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan).