The Macworld Expo, formerly the most anticipated Apple event of the year (before Apple kicked out its legs by pulling Steve Jobs and announcing it was pulling out entirely next year), starts on Monday. Not surprisingly, rumors of what we can expect from Apple at the event are all over the map. Apple’s senior vice president of product marketing, Phil Schiller, will be giving the keynote address in place of Jobs and he certainly will have some things to announce, but what?
The rumors:
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But once again, CNBC’s Jim Goldman refutes this with his own source saying that Jobs is “(still) fine.” He goes on to slam Gizmodo with the closing line, “Meantime, unsourced garbage nuking its shares is just that.” Sadly, this will not end until we see Jobs in public again. Apple 2.0’s Philip Elmer-DeWitt thinks Jobs may make a surprise appearance during the Macwold keynote to defy his skeptics. I agree. This rumor is iffy at best, and irresponsible at worst.
32GB iPhone — In the early months of last year, Apple unveiled a new 16 gigabyte iPhone (before the iPhone 3G launched). Could it do the same this year? It certainly could. After all, there’s already a 32GB iPod touch. Perhaps Apple will unveil a 32GB iPhone and a 64GB iPod touch at the current high-end price points while dropping the 8GB iPhone 3G model. Maybe that’s why we’re seeing $99 refurbished iPhones from AT&T. This certainly would make a lot of people happy and seems somewhat likely true.
iTunes goes DRM-free — Several reports have Apple in negotiations to bring all of the major labels on board with giving their music DRM-free to its iTunes store. I fully expect this to happen at some point next year, but the question here is about timing. Could Apple announce a fully DRM-free iTunes at Macworld? Maybe. After all, there have been some pretty weird things happening in the iTunes Plus (the name for DRM-free music in iTunes) area of the store recently. Some previously DRM-laced tracks are showing up without DRM, and the section disappeared entirely for a while. This rumor is somewhat likely true.
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Apple home server — This rumor from just yesterday comes from 9 to 5 Mac, which claims Apple has plans to turn its Time Capsule wireless hard drive device into a home media server of sorts to compete with a similar product from HP. This device would allow users to access their media files from anywhere in the world over the Internet using a special web address that’s tied into a MobileMe account. Sounds awesome, and I want this, but is it likely at Macworld? Probably not.
Update: New 17-inch MacBook Pros — These appear to be a lock at this point, but the real surprise is that they apparently won’t have a removable battery. Instead, Apple will use a longer-lasting battery which may or may not be based on Silver-Zinc technology. The new laptops are very likely, while the possible new battery technology seems fairly likely given what we know about startups like ZPower which work in Silver-Zinc technology.
Update: Red iPhones — I’m calling this picture bogus. If Apple launches red iPhones, it’ll be for Product Red. That could happen, but is probably unlikely.
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What about a new Mighty Mouse? You know, like perhaps the one that patents have hinted at and that mock-ups have been made for that includes multi-touch capabilities? That would be a nice little surprise.
Overall — There are still several days until Macworld, and I’m sure we’ll hear more rumors between now and then, but as it stands right now, I’d bet on new Mac minis and revamped iMacs being unveiled at the show. While both product updates would be nice, if those are the only two things we see, it’ll be a pretty lackluster keynote and would basically leave Schiller hanging out to dry (again, leading his first keynote).
So I’d bet there’ll also be at least one more announcement, probably related to the iPhone. The iPhone nano would definitely make waves, but the 32GB iPhone seems a more likely move. Unless the two are tied to each other — as in, the iPhone nano is the new 8GB iPhone, while the “proper” iPhones are available at 16GB and 32GB.
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VentureBeat will be at Macworld next week, including the keynote on Tuesday. Check back here for live coverage.
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