GF’s Macworld Predictions, 11th Hour Edition

Since everyone and his brother are doing these today, I figure I should throw my two cents in so I have a chance to something being at least somewhat right. I miss 100% of the shots I don’t take, so I may as well go public with my shots and still miss. Yay.

MacBook Ultraportable: “MacBook Air”

Yes. This will happen. Wired has its pretty Photoshop mockup here, and while I think it’s a little over-thin, I would be willing to bet it’s not far off.

Probability: 100%

New Cinema Displays

Yes. It’s about time for a display refresh, and I look for higher resolutions and an exterior design scheme similar to the current iMac. I predict these to be mainly an aluminum and glass construction, with matte options available on some models for pro users who want more accurate color fidelity.

Probability: 80%

OSX Leopard 10.5.2

Yes. Rumors have been floating around the web for a few weeks now that this point release will contain a great many bugfixes and — here’s the meat — some new functionality. What sort of new functionality can we expect in a simple point release?

(Probability 100%, by the way.)

How about…

Wireless Time Machine Backups

Best explanation of this comes from Daring Fireball’s John Gruber:

Time Machine is very cool; the first backup that qualifies as “you don’t have to do anything, it just works”. But currently it only works using a storage device connected via USB or FireWire. Tethered backups are irritating with notebooks — and MacBooks are the fastest-growing segment of Apple’s Mac hardware sales. The problem is that when you want to use your portable away from your desk, it’s a pain to disconnect mounted USB and FireWire drives. You can’t just pulled the plugs — you’ve got to unmount them in the Finder first. And, once you do so, to get Time Machine backups running again, you’ve got to re-tether your storage drive.

Leopard developer seeds all supported network backups to USB drives connected to an AirPort base station. The feature was also demoed at WWDC. It was removed (or, better said, disabled) very late in Leopard’s development, supposedly because of a security problem that was discovered, but I expect the feature to return, perhaps in 10.5.2. It’s a terrific idea, perfect for multi-Mac homes and small offices.

Probability: 60%

iTunes Movie Rentals

Christ, this has been everywhere for some time now. I already it assume to be a given for this Macworld, but not everyone sees it that way (because they enjoy being wrong). Regardless, this will happen. I don’t even feel too proud about calling it a prediction, but I’ll take anything to increase my batting average.

Probability: 100%

Apple TV v2.0 with Slingbox-like Capabilities

Maybe. Since Apple TV is languishing and the hobby seems to have been abandoned for a nice game of kickball down the street, it’s time to get this product across the chasm or sunset it entirely. I’m betting on the former, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a revamped Apple TV that allows wireless streaming of shows to any Mac or PC, a la Slingbox, and the ability to rent shows from iTunes, just like the iPhone can.

Probability: 60%

16 GB iPhone

Yes, but that’s all it is: not 3G, not the iPhone v2. It’s merely the new high-end iPhone model with new RAM. Welcome addition? Sure, but it’s just an incremental upgrade. Nothing more. MOVE ALONG, FOLKS.

But wait: Jobs might demo or otherwise show an actual 3G iPhone, just to let us all know it’s coming and that we can just chill out, for the love of Christ.

Probability: 80% for the 16 GB model; 40% for Jobs showing us the 3G version

iPhone SDK

We will not see the SDK released at Macworld (that’s a better thing to announce at WWDC), but we will see demonstrations of apps designed with the SDK to ensure our iPhone lust remains strong for the next six months. I don’t know what these apps will be, but there are quite a few signs that point to an official Twitter client based on certain tweets today.

Probability: SDK release 10%; native iPhone app demos 80%

AAPL Finishes the Day Strong on Heavy Volume

Hopefully. I think the street likes what it sees after some intra-keynote jitters and emotionalism. I think Jobs’ updates on Mac and iPhone sales fuel the street at a fundamental level, while the rest of the Jobs keynote does its magic. (Assuming, of course, that all of these massively high expectations aren’t just a nice hot fail pie and the street rebels at otherwise pedestrian news.)

Tomorrow’s like Christmas for me; it’s stupid how excited I get for these things. Childlike wonder, indeed.