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Reading the Macworld San Francisco Tea Leaves

by , 2:40 PM EST, December 21st, 2005

Each December, the Internet heats up with rumors of what the technology world should expect when Apple CEO Steve Jobs delivers his keynote at the beginning of Macworld Conference & Expo San Francisco the following month. CNN Money's Amanda Cantrell on Wednesday rounded up the rumors and talked to analysts about their expectations.

Several analysts told her that they expect Apple to show off its first computers with Intel processors, with laptops the likely product line. Intel will introduce its dual core Yonah processor at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas the previous week, which led Citigroup analyst Richard Gardner to suggest that PowerBooks will be the first Macs to start using the new chip.

By launching Intel-based Macs early, Ms. Cantrell pointed out, Apple avoids a possible sales slowdown as consumers wait for the introduction of the new machines that were originally slated to start appearing in June 2006. Pacific Crest Securities' Steve Lidberg told her that he thinks the iBook will be the first to offer Intel inside.

Mr. Lidberg also predicted refreshed Mac minis at Macworld, a notion seconded by UBS Warburg analyst Benjamin Reitzes, who thinks the new version of the diminutive computer could be pitched "perhaps as a digital media device."

Other pre-Macworld speculation addressed by Ms. Cantrell includes the likelihood of new versions of the iPod shuffle, possible Apple-branded iPod accessories and deals for even more video content sold through the iTunes Music Store.

Observer Comments

Show: Subjects Only | Full Comments
Close Name:rezonate Posts: 675 Joined: 04 Feb 2005
Subject: Bluetooth Mighty Mouse

Hopefully they'll get one out the door. With a bigger trackball.

View Name:Guest
Subject: How long is the Keynote?
Close Name:gslusher Posts: 2043 Joined: 13 Nov 2002
Subject: EOL? NEVER!

Quote
Guest wrote:
Then he needs to kick off iLife 06 and iWork 06. iLife 06 will probably have some enhancements, plus Front Row. iWork 06 should have the suite filled out so AppleWorks can get the EOL it deserves.


<GASP!>
AppleWorks EOL? Never! AppleWorks is immortal. It's been around, in one form or another, for 22+ years as "Three Easy Pieces" on the Lisa; AppleWorks I, II, and III on the Apple II; AppleWorks GS on the Apple IIGS; ClarisWorks, ClarisWorks Office, and, finally, AppleWorks on the Mac. Venerable it may be, but for a good reason: it works. There is no other software for the Mac that is as versatile and as integrated, much less as cheap as AppleWorks.

iWork has a lot of potential, but it needs a good spreadsheet with flexible charting, a simple-but-flexible relational database, and a vector drawing program to make it Son of AppleWorks. These shouldn't be clones of Excel <GAG!> or Illustrator, but tailored to work well with Pages and Keynote. For example, in Pages, one should be able to "subscribe" to a chart in a spreadsheet, so that Pages would go to the spreadsheet and get the current chart. Mail merge and other database-to-word processor functions are critical. It would be really nice to have a "FileMaker Lite" that would work with Pages.

There are some software programs that do these tasks, like Intaglio (drawing), iList (database), and MarinerCalc (spreadsheet), but the total cost of those is well over $200. There's also Papyrus Office, which has word processor, spreadsheet, and relational database for $99. I haven't used it and don't know how well it does for page layout.

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