MacShrine

With only 23 hours to go until the Keynote everyone is getting hyped up for this years new Apple releases. Cult of Mac is reporting that:

…a very trusted (and extremely anonymous) source of mine in Silicon Valley told me recently that he has it on good faith that Apple CEO Steve Jobs has invited all of his best friends to his MacWorld SF Keynote on Tuesday. In Silicon Valley buzz code, that means he’s got something really special to show.

The best thing to do is start the Keynote with extremely low expectations such as just iWork, iLife and a further preview of Leopard…

We were pretty good last year with the predictions, this time we’ve got hold of exactly what Steve will be showing off at the Keynote next week. Sadly it seems that Apple has hyped this event up way too much, unless there have been last minute changes (like last year)…

The iTV will be shown off and announced for sale within the week with some early stock available in Apple Stores. It will feature Apple’s new Airport Extreme 802.11n. Mac OS X 10.4.9 will quietly be released so that Macs can interact with the new iTV. The iTunes Store will get new movie studios but it is still looking like the videos will be the same resolution as currently. Mac mini will be updated to new Core 2 Duo processors and will include the new 802.11n. Mac OS X Leopard will be shown off again with new features such as the ZFS filesystem. It will be announced that it is compatible and will run smoothly on Macs from the iMac G3 to the Powerbook G4 to the MacPro Quad. Updated MacPro and Xserves will be announced with the new Intel 8-core processors and there will be BTO options for Bluray and HD-DVD and will ship in early March with the release of Leopard (which supports these two new formats natively).

Update: Seems already there have been changes. AppleInsider is now reporting that the iTV will be delayed until late Jan/early Feb. Let’s hope Apple has some backup products to get this event going.

Haha, first off, let’s get this new name sorted out - MacBook Pro - isn’t that the worst name ever? Anyway, the MacBook Pro is the fastest notebook Apple has ever released and it features an Intel Core Duo processor. Features of the new portable include a built-in iSight camera, IR Sensor, Apple Remote, ATI Radeon x1600 video processor, and a new, innovative magnetic power plug. The new MacBook Pro is available in two configurations: 1.67GHz ($1999) and 1.83GHz ($2499). They both feature a rather dazzling 15.4″ LCD with “cinema brightness”. So yeh, go Apple! They will be available in February (yeh right…) but you can order them now at Apple Online. Oh and we’re also guessing the iBook won’t be saved from the ghastly re-naming, so lets start the countdown for the MacBook!

Features Pages 2 and Keynote 3. Features groovy new features such as: 3D charts, advanced image editing, image reflections, free form and masking, tables with calculations, new themes and templates. Again it is available today for $79.99 at your local Apple Store or Apple online. No sign of Numbers which is a tad disappointing

We won’t bother listing all the improvements, just add +1 to the version number of all the iLife ‘05 apps, add the new iWeb and you’ve got iLife ‘06. Available now for $79.99 at your local Apple Store or online. We must warn our dialup users, if you guys exist, the new iLife ‘06 and new iWork ‘06 pages are QuickTime heavy, so be careful!

The new age is here, the first of the Mactels has arrived on Earth! Apple has released new iMacs powered by Intel Duo Core, but everything else is the same - even the price. So we have the 17″ 1.83GHz model at $1,299 and the 20″ 2.0GHz model at $1,699.00. Both come with iLife ‘06, Airport Extreme, Bluetooth and a rather snazzy ATI Radeon X1600 graphics card. They are available now at your local Apple Store or online.

Erm, you better just read this from PowerPage. The “sandwich man” told them that Apple would launch a range of HDTV plasma displays at 42″ and 50″. They will apparently feature Mactels with the Intel VIIV platform and Mac OS 10.4.4. Bluetooth and Airport Extreme is also built-in. Now this would be awesome if true, especially with Front Row on it! But it’s also hard to believe because plasmas get burned easily by static images, so the menu bar on top of your screen and icons on your desktop could cause harm. Oh well, 3 days till the Stevenote!

DigiTimes reports the new notebook from Apple may exploit Intel’s recently-revealed Robson cache technology. This uses fast-performing solid-state flash cache memory. Intel demonstrated the technology at the Intel Developer Forum in October 2005. In effect, this promises systems that are faster than before, due to the way flash memory is always available to systems. It’s why Apple’s flash-based iPods start-up so fast and navigate quickly between tracks. It also offers significant savings in terms of battery life. “Sources now claim that Apple will launch a notebook in the middle of this month that utilises (Intel’s) flash-based cache memory technology,” the report states.

Almost forgot to post this! I wanted to do it today because erm, tomorrow is 2006 and this is a prediction for 2006, so.. yeh. What do you guys think Steve will be showing off at Macworld? Here are our predictions…

Mactel introduction
Bring on the Mactel iBooks! I want everything ThinkSecret said would come, it would be an awesome start to the new year, which is also Apple’s 30th anniversary, oooh. Also other Intel Macs…

Mac OS X 10.5 preview
I think if Apple are launching a new platform they’ll want to show off a new Mac OS platform. Expect more amazing tools which we’ll barely use. Who has actually touched Automater since they installed Tiger?

iLife ‘06
The obligatory yearly update… Hopefully some new tools such as podcast creation and .Mac tool. Hopefully it’ll stay at it’s current price, you never know with Apple. Also, it’ll probably be Mactel compatible.

iWork ‘06
Let’s admit it, the first iWork release was a flop. Hopefully Apple have learnt their lesson and will present us with a strong competitor to Office. Updated Pages and Keynote, along with Numbers (spreadsheet) and FileMaker Express (datebase)?

iPod shuffle
New colors, bigger capacities, smaller size and cheaper pricing.

With Macworld less than a month away, everyone is gearing up for the launch of the new Mac Intel hardware line, especially the rumored iBooks and new Mac mini. But it seems someone is trying to spoil the party by spreading rumors that there will be no launch. Derek “I know someone at Apple” Picone is reporting that he was told by a friend at a “senior” position at Apple, that there would be no new hardware. Apparently when new hardware is released, employees are asked to attend Macworld, this time though, they haven’t. So make what you will of that, we’ll still be here saving up for our new iBook!