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Apple Watch: WWDC Predictions
Wednesday, 2004 June 23 - 6:03 pm
The rumor sites are buzzing with predictions about what Steve Jobs will roll out during the keynote speech of the Apple World-Wide Developer's Conference next week. Here are my thoughts.

Apple has been busy lately. They've rolled out updated PowerBooks, updated eMacs, Airport Express, speed-bumped PowerMac G5s, the iTunes Music Store in Europe, and a new version of Apple Remote Desktop. So what's missing?

Clearly, there are a couple of product lines that are getting long in the tooth: the LCD iMac and the lineup of LCD flat-panel screens. Apple guessed wrong when they predicted that LCD screens would continue to plummet in price, so I'm thinking that their products are a bit of a hard sell, particularly for consumers.

Some are predicting G5 iMacs. I think it makes sense, but that really moves the iMac up into the "prosumer" arena. It would probably mean a radically form factor, for heat dissipation purposes. A single 1.6 GHz 90nm G5 might work into a small case, but it'd be pushing it.

If Apple does go this route, then I wouldn't be surprised to see also a new kind of low-end box that would eventually replace the eMac line. I don't know if it would be the long-awaited "headless" (no built-in monitor) device, though; Jobs does love those all-in-one units, with the high profit margins they bring.

The display line is in desperate need of updating, particularly since the current models clash terribly with the Powermac G5s. I've seen predictions of 20", 23", and 30" displays. That's possible, but a 30" display is a beast for a desktop. It'd be more suited to the home entertainment arena, and I don't know if Apple is ready to go there yet. It wouldn't surprise me if we just saw some price drops, and something on the order of 18", 21", and 24".

On the iPod front, I'm guessing that a Wi-Fi module for the iPod is a near-certainty, if not at WWDC, then soon. People would be able to stream their iPod music wirelessly to an Airport Express; or, use the iPod as a remote control for their Mac.

Now, of course we know that Apple's main focus is to introduce us to Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4). I expect a raft of neat eye-candy stuff, as usual, but some things I'd like to see are:
  • True multi-user, remote-login capabilities. I should be able to bring up my Mac OS X desktop from anywhere. Xwindows on Unix has been able to do this for years.
  • Virtual desktops. Apple has fought this, since it would probably bring some confusion to novice users, but I think they could make this work like fast user switching: the screen would rotate like a cube to the next panel, but I'd still be logged in as the same user.
  • More Dock customization. Unlike some, I actually like the Dock; I just wish I could have multiple instances and be able to move them around. I loved tabbed windows in OS 9; I'm looking to get something similar.
  • Finder metadata. I couldn't imagine organizing all my music files in a bunch of folders and such, but I continue to do so with all my files. If I could tag all my files with metadata and instantly sort and search (a la iTunes and iPhoto), I'd be a happy guy. I think this has got to be on Apple's radar.
  • Better speech capabilities. Speech synthesis has barely evolved in twenty years; computers all still sound vaguely Swedish. Speech recognition is still in the stone age, too.
  • Location management. Another area where OS 9 is still ahead of OS X.
  • A consumer-grade database application. Think of something that would allow users to make a web site with a database back-end, without knowing mySQL, PHP, and Perl. Maybe they'll tie this into .mac (which would be great for my blogging needs!)

There are other things I can think of, but they'd be more revolutionary than evolutionary, and I'm not sure we'll see that kind of stuff until Mac OS 11.

Finally: I'm expecting some sort of announcement with respect to the DVR arena. It might be some sort of TiVo partnership, with expanded capabilities to play back Mac-hosted content via TiVo. Or, it might be an El Gato EyeHome-like device. I don't think Apple will roll out its own DVR; the market is pretty tough in that arena right now.

Less than a week of waiting to go!

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Posted by Ken in: techwatch

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