Macworld predictions: I’m with Gruber

With a past prediction record second only to the Wall Street Journal’s, I’ve naturally been under some pressure this week to lay my cards on the table for this year’s Macworld. Here’s what I think:

Umm… that’s about it. I could go on (like… er… Mark, who’s suddenly gone all fanboy on us), but… um… these days, I’m outsourcing my punditry to Gruber. It’s just more efficient that way.

Oh, go on then:

  • New user interface: check. CoreAnimation has to be there for a reason, and most of it isn’t about 3D nonsense. I think the glossy black concept that’s been muttered about is likely the one – while Vista goes all glossily translucent and cuddly and ‘lickable’ (eu), OS X aims clear above it and goes all professional. Which would be a neat bit of maneuvering. That said, I think we’ll see dark grey (à la the Pro apps) rather than black, since the Aperture/Final Cut interface already works well and there are contrast issues and blah blah blah.
  • New MacBooks, iMacs, whatever: answer hazy, ask again later. We pretty much have to get new displays, in which case their bezels will tell us whether new machines are coming, whether they arrive today or not.
  • Handheld thing. iPod Phone? Palm Treo-esque thing? My money would be on something more like Dell’s new SideShow gizmo, but my money would be about 10p in this case. Apple’s really backed into a corner with the !(‘iPhone’) thing, in that whatever they reveal will disappoint a significant number of people. My guess is that Jobs will simply not release anything, rather than release something that’s not a complete wow.
  • HDTVs, iLife & iWork ’07, Airport Excessive X3, not a glimpse of Office:Mac 2008, Photoshop CS3 running like a banshee on an 8-way Mac Pro Ludicrous Speed – yeah, whatever. I’m done here.

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