Comments on: WWSA: What will Steve Announce

By: Keith

Keith — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 19:33:41 +0000

Maybe it’s a combined cell phone and iPod mini type device with a small portable HD drive and based around an Intel ARM processor? Something like the new Palm Life Drive but with built in telephony and of course live access to the iTunes Music Store.

Just a thought…

By: joel

joel — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 03:46:25 +0000

Airport 2.0 with video streaming.

By: jim

jim — Tue, 31 May 2005 16:18:02 +0000

I say a controller for Home Theater to extend mac mini.

By: Olivier

Olivier — Fri, 27 May 2005 08:10:40 +0000

I thought Apple decided to stop announcing new hardware at confs, because of all the rumours sites selling their trade secrets during the preceding weeks.

By: Brupe

Brupe — Fri, 27 May 2005 06:23:47 +0000

filecat13 might be on to something. I’ve been thinking about the new tablet rumors, patents, Intel talks, etc. and wonder if Apple may be preparing a tablet-like LCD media controller for the living room that would act as wireless access – a window – to the computer in the den or home office. Instead of walking to your office to change audio or video, you access your computer through the wireless LCD. Perhaps it could recharge with a cable like any Apple laptop does and be priced at two or three hundred dollars. It seems to me that it would compliment a Mac mini nicely in the living room.

It’s fun to speculate.

By: GW

GW — Thu, 26 May 2005 21:44:45 +0000

Steve Jobs said at The D: All thing Digital conference that Apple had some very great things in their labs. It will not I repeate will not be an upgrade to the Mac Mini. It will be something new that Apple will come out with at WWDC. I think Steve Jobs would introduce one of these
1) Media Center
2)A Movie downloading store
3)a Movie Player base on iPod idea
4) A new hand held computer Base on the Newton and the iPod
5) A game Console to compete with the XBOX from Microsoft
and last the biggest rumor out there
The Quad G5 at 4+ GHZ

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 26 May 2005 21:28:44 +0000

“And WWDC is not the right forum for some new, groundbreaking consumer device like HDVN or tablets.”

Well…not entirely true.

First, people pay attention to WWDC as it has sort of taken the place of summer MacWorlds for Apple to announce stuff. Thus, WWDC product announcements are less about third-party developers.

Consider last year. Yes, there was Tiger which was a huge deal for third-party developers. But also mixed in there was Airport Express and the deal with BMW for iPod support in cars. Airport Express was useless for third-party developers (much to my dismay–only iTunes is allowed to use the audio capabilities of Airport Express) and the deal with BMW was also pretty useless for third-party developers (though it was nice to see the convertible Cooper mini).

So, since we’ll probably not see 10.5 at WWDC this year, I could believe there’ll be some interesting announcements.

Personally, I hope Apple goes for the dual-core PowerBooks. Intel is going to be pushing dual-core this year in their marketing and it would be nice to see Apple get a boost from that. They can already claim “dual CPU” in their pro lines, but no one would be offering dual-core notebooks except for Apple.

By: filecat13

filecat13 — Thu, 26 May 2005 20:58:27 +0000

I predict it’ll be a software revolution: iControl.

This will do for home theater what Microsoft should have done in its Take Control effort with Harman/JBL, and that is to produce an easily programmable software interface to control all of your home entertainment appliances, probably via an Airport Express style receiver/transmitter.

Oh, what’s the actual physical remote? Duh, your Mac! Especially your 12 inch PowerBook or iBook as a full featured LCD remote resting on your coffee table, or your Mac mini as a headless controller with its OSD being on your TV or projector.

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 26 May 2005 20:58:05 +0000

(Sadly?) I think the biggest hardware announcement will be the Mac mini. Faster CPU, 512MB base memory, and Core Image capable video (ATI Radeon 9600; 64MB). The recently upgraded eMac is, or course, the precedent.

Why do I say sadly? Because something like dual core PowerBooks would be great but I don’t think that’s where we are on the upgrade cycle. And WWDC is not the right forum for some new, groundbreaking consumer device like HDVN or tablets.

That said, the above described Mac mini upgrade is what I’m waiting on so I can buy one for my mom…