Real Kato Blog: Apple Watch: Last Minute Guesses

Magic Eight Ball says: Signs point to "yes".

In what's normally a reliable indication of new machines coming, all the PowerMacs at the on-line Apple Store are listed with a 3-5 day wait. Rumor site macosrumors.com is reporting that we won't see dual dual-core 970MP processors in the top-end G5, but rather, quad 970FXa (single-core) CPUs. That's an interesting idea; it's within the realm of possibility. Then again, macosrumors.com doesn't exactly have a great track record when it comes to rumor reporting.

Interestingly, the 15" and the 17" PowerBooks also have 3-5 day waits at the Apple Store, but not the 12" model. Conventional wisdom says that the 15" and 17" PowerBooks will get new HD widescreen displays, with a very high pixel density (perhaps as high as 1920x1200 on the 17" model). That would definitely be a welcome sight. I wonder, though, if Apple will have to roll out an OS update to allow for arbitrary scaling of GUI elements on the screen. If not, menus and buttons might get extremely tiny.

No significant speed boost is expected on the PowerBooks. Most folks are saying this is the last of the PowerPC PowerBooks. The next batch should be Intel-based.

As for the presumed photography-related announcement, most folks are guessing that it'll be a pro-level iPhoto application. There'd be photo management tools (which PhotoShop is lacking) as well as retouching tools, perhaps based on Apple's own CoreImage package. That would be slick: you'd be able to apply filters and effects in real-time. There are lots of reasons why it's reasonable to expect an application like this... Apple itself hinted at it when CoreImage and CoreVideo were first being introduced.

Some are speculating about a camera, or a camera-enabled iPod. I doubt it. The digital camera market is pretty saturated. Now, if it were a camera that could also do HD video recording and wireless iChat videoconferencing, that would be something. But it's probably too soon for something like that.

Anyway, I guess we'll see what happens in about twelve hours. I might be $3000 poorer by the end of the day!

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