Alex Hardy

First things first: happy new year!

It’s that time of year again, when a young mac user’s thoughts turn to wondering what will be unveiled at Macworld Expo. It becomes a bit of a game, as the rumour mill goes into overdrive.

I take a perverse sense of pride in my total failure to correctly predict anything last year. My dismissal of iPhone as “baseless rumour” is particularly funny in hindsight, as was my expectation of Blu Ray drives, the Beatles on iTunes and a March release date for Mac OS X Leopard. Oh, how we laughed…

In that spirit, I present my 100% certain* predictions for MacWorld 2008! Yesterday’s announcement of new Mac Pros clears the decks for a more consumer-oriented keynote, so here goes nothing:

• I’ll start with an easy one: Steve Jobs usually likes to kick off with sales figures. Expect boasting about how well iPhone and Mac OS X Leopard have sold
• There may be a small joke at Bill Gates’ expense, now that he is unemployed
• Preview of Microsoft Office 2008 (thankfully without Roz Ho)
• Full release of Safari for Windows
• Jobs will probably say “boom” at least once while demoing
• Preview of the forthcoming iPhone SDK, and some apps based on it
• A new section of the iTunes store will sell applications for iPhone and iPod Touch, as well as manage updates
• Movie rentals through iTunes will finally make the Apple TV useful
• The Apple TV will be upgraded with more storage and PVR functionality
• The audience will whoop like hyenas on cue
• Reveal of the rumoured ultra-portable MacBook. It will be much thinner than current MacBooks, owing mainly to its lack of an internal optical drive (sold separately). Opinion is split on whether/how it will use flash memory – I expect a small amount will be used for a performance boost rather than storage
• We will get new displays with built in iSights someday… – why not next week?
• And one more thing… iPhone socks. The crowd goes wild…

No, I am not taking bets.

* None of these predictions are in any way certain.