The Mandatory MacWorld 2006 Article

"I am proud to present....this thing."

Well, people it's that time of year again. When rumors run rampant and speculation reaches a boiling point. What will Apple announce at MacWorld this year? Will we all be stricken by amazement, or shake our heads in sorrow? What does His Steveness have in-store for us in 2006?

The rumor mill has actually been rather quiet this year, in comparison to the super hype last year around this time when Mac Mini prospects were everywhere. And as far as I know there have been no magically produced (Photoshop and a laser printer) mock-ups of an iHome or what the new Intel based Mac will look like. Not even a badly faked picture taken with a cell phone camera in a warehouse somewhere. Have we all grown up? Or did Apple suing Think Secret scare us into keeping things to ourselves?

There are a couple of hardware tidbits floating around which point in the direction of Intel based Mini's and iBooks as well as an updated iPod Shuffle. Will we see a change of design with a change of processor? Will the new Mac laptop line be equipped with a built in camera? Will they also be preloaded with FrontRow 2.0 and come with a remote? Will the Mac Mini finally reach it's potential and give us the media server of our dreams? What on earth are they going to do to the Shuffle? Will they make it smaller? Will they add a screen and more memory to it? Will they replace it with something else?

Then there is the speculation/confirmation/re-speculation about "the digital living room creating, TiVo killing, eternal life giving" new Media Content Distribution System. Which would certainly turn heads if it happens.

What about the iTunes Music Store? How many new partnerships will Apple have in the TV and movie industries? What new content will be available? Will we get any of it in Europe? Will the prices stay the same?

What about the Nano? More colors? More memory? What about the mythical BlueTooth iPod that will act as a remote and make you breakfast on weekends? Will we ever get our promised .Mac widgets? What about the Mac tablet? The iPhone? Previews of Leopard? Wireless Mighty Mouse? The one last thing?

Who knows what will happen. It could be quite the show, or it could be quite the dissapointment. It depends on how much you want what. I'll just be happy if they give me something I can download for free right after the keynote. Nonetheless it will be entertaining, as it always is. (Well, it gets entertaining after Steve gets done with giving us the figures around iTunes and the Apple Stores.)

K. Panda