3DGalaxy

Obviously there have been many different blog posts and articles on more well known sites speculating about what Steve will unveil on Jan 9th at Macworld. The one I want to talk about really does sound so likely that I had to post it. In fact, it’s got me excited but also speculating myself. It’s more than likely that it’s been engineered to produce traffic for the site. It is also easy to be sceptical about the fact that many things in the list are either expected or rumoured, and therefore easy to predict things that are believable.

Here’s their list:

• Introduction to audience members
• Sales/Stores Numbers and Results
• iTunes Store: Movies are introduced in UK (Disney movies), while 20th Century
• Fox movies are added to US store.
• iTV discussion. Stress that iTV is still the internal code-name and it will change by launch date.
• The iTV is revised and is now taller, and includes an iPod dock at the back. At the back of the iTV unit there is a small gap of about an inch that has the dock connector inside. This is to ensure the iPod is connected securely. Browse files using iTV.
• iTV will allow ANY files in iTunes to play on your TV.
• Leopard: Explanation of features that were released in the seeds (Such as Resolution Independence and iChat Answering Machine).
• Introduces new Black Cherry theme to replace Aqua. Discussion and Video.
• Announces Both iTV and Leopard will be launched on Tuesday March 27th.
• New Displays announced: HDMI and iSight built in. 17? is introduced. Jobs then announces that price is not compromised, even with the added iSight and HDMI. All displays are $75 more than previous generation.

Steve’s One More Thing…

New iPod is released. 3.5 Inch screen, Bluetooth. NOT a touch-screen. Controlled through invisible “touchstrip” on the top side of the iPod that corresponds to symbols that appear on the upper portion of the iPod screen. 30GB $300, 80GB $400

THERE IS NO “IPHONE” at this event.

Ok so that’s supposedly what will happen. As we all know Apple doesn’t like to spoil a good surprise so I have to say this is probably just fairly clever guesswork. I’m not going to dismiss it totally because it does seem very faesable to me that this will be along similar lines to what will happen at macworld.

Obviously these guys don’t think the Apple phone (almost said iPhone) will make an appearance at Macworld. They essentially say that they don’t think there is a phone or phones in the works if they don’t appear at Macworld. I wouldn’t say that. I believe that Apple are working on a phone but they either need more time to finish up the project or they want
What is for certain is that we will see leopard and iTV make their debuts. It’s also well noted that Apple will never pass up the opportunity to excite everyone with that “one more thing” this year just as any other before it.

Via digg - direct link to story.

TAIPEI (XFN-ASIA) - Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd (2317.TW) has secured contracts from Apple Computer for 12 mln mobile handsets that also function as music players, the Commercial Times quoted industry sources as saying.

Apple will launch the mobile handsets in the first half of next year, the newspaper said, without providing financial details of the contract.

The daily also reported that Hon Hai won orders from Apple for its new 15-inch ‘MacBook’ personal computers which it will deliver starting next month or in January.

The Commercial Times, which also cited industry sources, did not provide the quantity or value of the MacBook contract.

Apple’s existing contracts with Asustek Computer Inc (2357.TW) for other MacBook models will not be affected by the new orders made to Hon Hai, according to the report.

Officials of both Hon Hai and Asustek declined comment, the daily said.

Hon Hai is the world’s leading manufacturing services provider for information technology devices.

Taiwan’s Hon Hai wins Apple orders for mobile handsets, notebook PCs - report - Forbes.com

We know how Apple like to keep secrets. But if they do they either havn’t been trying as hard recently, or it’s getting to the point where it’s almost impossible for them to keep anything secret no matter how hard they try now that there always seems to be some way of information leaking onto the net.

I have to take this as true because forbes are a pretty big site so I doubt they would publish unfounded rumours. I’m not really sure what my view on the iPhone is but I’m slightly sceptical of a 15 inch macbook. For me it would blur the difference between the consumer and pro laptop models too much. I mean the only difference I can spot between a 15 inch macbook and a 15 inch macbook pro is the difference in thickness which isn’t much at all, possibly a slightly faster processor and a bigger hdd. A difference in RAM is also likely but it can be upgraded pretty cheaply.

Anyway, I can see an advantage of a 15 inch macbook. Because of the similarity to the macbook pro there’s a pretty good chance we will see a significant price cut on the consumer models, especially the 13 inch macbook.

I’m a little slow out of the blocks on this but Disco released their second public beta yesterday. I really like the additions they have made to the app in the short space of time since the first beta a week ago. They have added highly requested features such as the ability to drag items to the dock to burn them even before the app is open. This is something I was personally hoping for and it works great.

Other things they have added include the ability to eject the disc on every menu screen in the app and ability to check the status of a burn or erase by checking the dock icon without having to open the window itself and interupt what your doing. They have also updated the accuracy of file size calculations, the dock icon bouncing when interaction is needed and updates to the graphics in the app among other things.

Get a full release notes here.

If you’re into Mac software (especially free mac software) then you should definitely check out these sites:

Macheist - software giveaway and apparently great low cost bundle at the end of the 5 weeks.

Mac App A Day - They are going to be giving away a piece of software every day in December right through to new years day.

I’ve been meaning to blog more but there are so many things to write about it’s just flown by and I’ve forgotten about it.

The number of iPod / Mac rumours means that I want to be more selective about which ones I blog about. However, to cut it short, recently it has been rumoured that Apple have signed a deal with Cingular almost certainly regarding an iPhone.

Apple have also perhaps given away the release of the touchscreen iPod in a PDF in their docs section of their site on the iPod. I’ll stay sceptical on this right now. It could easily have been photoshopped or if it is real, a strange, unlikely typo.

In other Apple news, they have released an update to Aperture and a demo version of the software which I’m contemplating taking for a spin. Finally, an 8GB version of the iPod product (RED) has been released. It looks good but I’m not sure if it’s $10 dollars from the price or more for the more expensive version. I’m starting to think though that maybe a better way to combat aids would be to just make more people aware that they can donate any amount they wish to.