box of Jack

So in about 10 days or so, Macworld Conference & Expo 2008 will start. All the Apple rumors sites are gearing up to try and figure out exactly what it is Steve Jobs will be announcing to the world.

In 2006, Jobs announced the transition from PowerPC to Intel processors. While that means nothing to the average human being, it resulted in more-or-less equal performance in Macs vs. PCs and certainly made the Apple laptops much better performers.

In 2007, Jobs announced the iPhone and everyone went batshit crazy over a phone. There’s that amazing photo of Robert Scoble wearing a fan-made iPhone shirt, holding his iPhone purchase high and shouting in pure joy. It’s a great product but all you did was wait outside and buy something with your credit card. Calm down.

So what of 2008? Well, I’ve been reading all the rumor websites and all I kept thinking was, “Pfft, you’re wrong. I can predict better.” But, uh, once you sit down and start writing, it is pretty hard to commit to a solid prediction. There are so many things which are just a coin toss.

We’ll probably see some new free updates for the iPhone. Fancy things like how Google Maps can now use cell phone towers to tell you where you are (accurate to probably a few blocks). There’ll also be talk about the exciting applications you can make for the iPhone soon but that’s kinda technical and probably not suited for this audience.

If there is something surprising, it will be some sort of fancy notebook or sub-notebook that comes closer to bridging the gap between MacBook Pro and iPhone. You know what? Scratch that. That idea sounds ridiculous. There are Tablet PCs out today with fancy touchscreens and they look great but they’re solving a problem nobody has. Let’s dumb it down to: 12-13″ MacBook Pro with fancy mousepad or maybe some light-up buttons. Maybe the regular MacBooks get a bump as well and some fancy LED backlit screens.

Or maybe the big surprise will be that .Mac is finally useful. Maybe there’s some secret code lurking in Leopard that is just waiting for .Mac to turn into the monster it always wanted to be. Maybe there’ll be some amazing partnership with Google to deliver the most awesomest online solutions for the desktop and mobile.

Umm… the Mac Pros need an update too. I’m guessing they’ll finally get Blu-Ray players (or maybe available as an option since they might not be able to do a “combo-drive” or Blu-Ray is still in short supply). Also, Apple really really need to update their cinema displays. Build a webcam into them, and bump up the quality (dpi? physical housing? expansion ports?) a touch.

iPods? Umm, they’ll bump them up if they can. If supplies are good they’ll just add some more memory into it. Nothing too exciting unless you’re waiting to buy a new iPod.

Ok ok, these are pretty weak predictions. Very hand-wavy. But I’ll revisit this post after the keynote and then we can do this all over again for the next conference!