Apple

Macworld is a little like the Super Bowl: one big day where everything gets laid out on the table.

So, let's break down Macworld 2008, Super Bowl style. Instead of offense, defense, and special teams, however, I'll take each of the big four themes that Apple CEO Steve Jobs presented, and share my thoughts.

MacBook Air -- I'm not crazy about the name, but this is a nice-looking laptop. Ultraportable laptops are prestige products for both the vendor and the customer; Apple gets to show off what it's capable of designing, while the customer gets to show off his or her taste and style.

These $1,799 laptops are not for the masses. Most people will have to make too many compromises with the MacBook Air, from the lack of an optical drive, Firewire, and an Ethernet jack to the battery, which like those in the iPhone and iPod can't be replaced by the user.

What's in the envelope? The super-slim MacBook Air.

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)

But this is a nice addition to Apple's lineup of notebooks. It definitely will appeal to a group of people who aren't worried about making those trade-offs, and it gives Apple another design accomplishment to crow about.

Especially since the rest of the PC industry probably won't be able to duplicate Apple's thin approach without taking advantage of Intel's new packaging technology for its Core 2 Duo chip. Intel will probably offer that packaging technique to the rest of the PC industry, but as Nathan Brookwood of Insight 64 pointed out, Dell and Hewlett-Packard probably didn't know about that breakthrough until this morning. That would put them about six months behind Apple.

iPhone/iPod touch software upgrades: Apple introduced several new helpful features for the iPhone and the iPod Touch, such as the ability to put an icon for a specific Web page on the home screen, and the ability to send a text message to more than one person. I think the enhanced Maps application, however, will prove the most compelling.

Greg Joswiak, vice president of iPod and iPhone marketing at Apple, demonstrated the Maps application for me after the keynote. There's a little button on the lower left corner of the Maps application that brings up an icon resembling the cross-hairs from a gun's sight. Apple teamed up with Skyhook Wireless to allow the iPhone or the iPod Touch to triangulate its position to a certain degree of accuracy simply by hitting that button. The smaller the cross-hairs, the more precise the fix on your location. Then you can just use Maps to get directions to your destination from your current location, even if you don't know exactly where you are.

The first grumble of the day from the Macworld crowd came when Jobs announced that similar software upgrades would cost iPod Touch users $19.99. Granted, iPod Touch users did get five new features already found on the iPhone--Mail, Maps, Stocks, Weather, and Notes--in addition to the location-finding technology and customized Web bookmarks on the home screen, which Apple calls Web Clips.

I think our good friend The Macalope is onto something, however, when iAntlers points out that Apple didn't include the iPod Touch along with the other products using subscription-based accounting, namely the iPhone and Apple TV. After the whole $2 Wi-Fi debacle, Apple made sure to announce up front that the company would record revenue from iPhone and Apple TV over a period of 24 months, which would allow it to deliver free upgrades to the product over that period of time. I e-mailed an Apple representative asking whether the iPod Touch is getting the subscription treatment, but I haven't heard back.

Time capsule: This was the first thing Jobs announced, and I have to say, I was underwhelmed. Time Capsule is a combination wireless access point/external hard drive that gets around a common complaint regarding Time Machine, the otherwise noteworthy automatic backup feature that Apple included with Leopard. Time Machine requires that your Mac be physically connected to an external hard drive in order to back up your files each night, and that's not the most convenient way to use a laptop.

If you don't have an access point, and you don't have an external hard drive, then Time Capsule might make a lot of sense at either $299 for 500GBs of storage or 1TB for $499. But the answer to the wireless Time Machine question--for those of us who already have wireless routers and external hard drives--is to have us shell out at least 300 more bucks for a piece of hardware that replaces the perfectly good hardware we already have? Sorry, I don't quite understand that one.

iTunes movie rentals/Apple TV: The biggest announcement of the day, in my opinion, even if some of the luster was lost as news leaked out over the past two weeks. My colleague Greg Sandoval, who covers the entertainment industry much more closely than I, weighed in with his thoughts on industry impact of the decision, but I'll take a moment to consider the impact on Apple TV.

With more features and a cheaper price, Apple TV is suddenly much more compelling.

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)

This instantly makes Apple TV more credible. Apple can finally stand behind its message that Apple TV can replace your DVD player. As it stood before, you could only get movies on Apple TV if you were willing to buy them. So, you'd still need your DVD player for those movies you thought you might like but weren't totally sure justified a purchase, which is just about all of them these days.

I'd still like to see an Apple TV with a browser (yeah, yeah, I know you can hack it--for now) so I can access all the other kinds of video available on the Internet, not to mention things like weather, maps, and stock reports that would be nice to have on a television. Of course, Apple wants you to buy movies from iTunes rather than getting your entertainment for free. But the company also didn't want to just dump a bunch of features into Apple TV just for the sake of doing so, Joswiak said.

"We hate to make these things into computers; we want to make them into things that people use in their lives," Joswiak said after the keynote. Apple TV is infinitely more useful with movie rentals, although I agree with Daring Fireball's John Gruber, The New York Times' David Pogue, and countless others: 24 hours is way too short a window to finish a movie that I already started. If you start a movie at night after work, and don't finish it because something came up, you better not have plans for tomorrow night if you want to finish that movie. That's not exactly on-demand content.

While Macworld 2008 wasn't exactly a sensation (the "one more thing" was Randy Newman, for crying out loud), Apple certainly didn't made any major missteps Tuesday that would put a dent in its momentum heading into the new year. The Mac and iPod businesses appear to have had solid holiday seasons, and Jobs announced that Apple sold 2.6 million iPhones from the end of September until the end of December, for a total of 4 million since iPhone Day in June.

There's still plenty of things to keep watching for, including a MacBook and/or MacBook Pro redesign and third-party applications for the iPhone, to name two at the top of my list. I think the iTunes Rental Store bears the most watching of Tuesday's announcements because of its potential impact both on Apple's iTunes Store business and the industry at large, and we'll be sure to keep track.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage Tuesday for his keynote speech at Macworld 2008. For CNET's complete Macworld coverage, go here. What follows is a record of continuous updates as his speech unfolded.

9:03 a.m. PST: Welcome once again to Macworld, Steve Jobs' annual dog-and-pony show from the Moscone Center in San Francisco. We're in place and waiting for the keynote to start. I think we'll be a little later than 9 a.m.; it took the doors some time to open. So far, standard Apple keynote music: Coldplay into Green Day.

The scene in anticipation of Steve Jobs' Macworld keynote address.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

9:14: Lights dim, as Feist kicks off Macworld with that cute-yet-sort-of-annoying iPod commercial song. Apple shows a new Mac vs. PC commercial, a "Happy New Year" edition that basically recaps Apple's accomplishments over the year. Lights up, and Steve Jobs enters to a cascade of cheers. Standard outfit.

9:15: Jobs recaps the year: "2007 was an extraordinary year for Apple." He's got four things he'd like to talk about today. The first one is Leopard.

9:18: "We have delivered 5 million copies of Leopard in the first three months: the most successful release of Mac OS X ever, Jobs said. Twenty percent of the installed base upgraded in the first 90 days. He formally announces Mac Office for 2008, which has actually been delayed quite a bit.

9:19: Jobs momentarily forgets which OS version he's talking about, as he starts referring to "Tiger's" Time Machine application, which is of course a Leopard feature. He announces Time Capsule, which is a "backup appliance" that looks like the Mac Mini or Apple TV; it's basically a wireless access point with a hard drive. This lets you backup your notebook wirelessly over Time Capsule, which was an early complaint about Time Machine--that it only worked over wired networks.

Jobs talks about Time Capsule.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

9:20: There will be two versions, 500GB and 1TB. The 500GB model will cost $299, the 1TB model is $499. It will ship in February.

9:21: The second item on the agenda for the day is the iPhone. "Today happens to be exactly the 200th day since the iPhone went on sale, and I'm extraordinarily pleased to report that we have sold 4 million iPhones to date."

9:23: Jobs checks out smartphone market share in the U.S. RIM's Blackberry is in the lead, but the iPhone is in second place, with 19.5 percent market share. He's comparing to the other hardware manufacturers, as Apple ranks above Palm and Motorola. Not sure how he's defining smartphone, but, hey, it's his keynote.

9:27: There are new iPhone features. The first is Maps with location; you can also customize the home screen, send text messages to multiple people, and the iPhone will actually support lyrics from songs you're listening to. We move into a demo of all the new features.

9:31: The iPhone's home screen can now be totally customized to put Web pages, applications, and basically anything you want on it. Jobs goes over the Maps location feature, which is a partnership between Apple, Google, and Skyhook Wireless.

The iPhone and iPod Touch will get an application called Maps, which uses the same triangulation method that Google Maps uses on other cell phones.

(Credit: Corinne Schulz/CNET Networks)

9:33: It's the triangulation method that Google Maps uses on other cell phones that are out there. It's not perfect; it's not GPS, but in a crowded area you'll get pretty close to your actual location. All the iPhone updates are available today through a software update over iTunes. "The iPhone is not standing still," Jobs says.

9:35: "What about the iPod Touch?" Apple's adding five applications to the iPod Touch, including Mail, Maps, Stocks, Notes, and Weather, which make the iPod Touch much more like the iPhone. The iPod Touch will use Wi-Fi as the Maps triangulation, and you'll be able to customize the iPod Touch just like the iPhone. It's now built in to every iPod Touch, but older iPod Touch users will have to pay $20 for the features. For the first time, the crowd grumbles at that news.

9:35: News item No. 3 is a good one, too, Jobs promises. It's about iTunes.

9:37: iTunes has sold 4 billion songs and 7 million movies, which sounds like a lot, but Jobs admits that hasn't met Apple's expectations. So, as expected, today Apple is introducing iTunes Movie Rentals.

9:38: Touchstone, Miramax, MGM, Lionsgate, and New Line Cinema are involved, plus Fox, Warner, Disney, Paramount, Universal, and Sony. That's actually a few more studios involved than was reported, Apple did some work over the holiday break. "We have every major studio."

9:40: In February, Apple will launch with 1,000 films. But the company had to make a concession: Apple won't get them until 30 days after the DVD release. The movies can be watched anywhere, on any device. You can watch them instantly; they download as you start watching. You have 30 days to watch the movie after you download it, but only 24 hours to watch it after you start the movie.

9:42: Library titles will cost $2.99. New releases will cost $3.99. You can also transfer movies to an iPod from your Mac or PC right in the middle of watching them, although I assume the 24-hour thing still applies. iTunes Movie Rentals launches today, apparently: the 1,000 movies is (I guess) what they're going to have by the end of February. It'll be in the U.S. only to start, with international support coming later this year.

9:44: So, what about the big-screen TV? "We've all tried, and we've all missed." Apple TV was designed to be an accessory, Jobs says, but that's not what people wanted: what people wanted was movies, movies, movies. "So we're back, with Apple TV Take 2." No computer is required.

9:46: You can rent movies, including movies in HD, which gets a lusty cheer from the crowd. HD quality will cost you an extra buck, though, which settles them down. The Apple TV does have a new user interface and will allow you to pull photos from Flickr and Picasa.

9:48: You can sort through all kinds of movies on the new interface, using the Cover Flow user interface. You can get previews right from the Apple TV. Again, you don't need a Mac or a PC; you can hook this right up to your TV.

9:50: We get a clip of Blades of Glory, which I still haven't seen. Jobs cuts it short right as Will Ferrell grabs his crotch, which seems about right. We also get a sneak peek at Live Free or Die Hard, which I can't believe they brought back for another go-round. No Rambo sighting yet, fortunately.

9:53: Jobs shows us how to search through the iTunes Music Store: you can do it by title and genre, as well as a few other categories that flew by. TV shows and music can also be purchased through the new Apple TV.

9:59: "For the recipient, there is no computer involved." You can pull music, podcasts, and Flickr photos. It's the same black interface from the old Apple TV. The demo gods finally rear their heads, as Jobs attempts to access photos from Flickr, to no avail.

The Apple TV screen features movie rental options.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

10:01: Now Jobs trots out the "revolution" tag for Apple TV, after calling it a hobby last year. A software upgrade, for free this time, delivers all the features. With all the new features, Apple's cutting the price to $229. The free software upgrade and the new model will ship in two weeks.

10:02: The first studio to sign up was Fox, according to Jobs. He brings out Jim Gianopulos, the chairman and CEO of Twentieth Century Fox Film.

10:04: Gianopulos gives us the "back story" on the Fox-Apple deal. The studios have spent lots of time talking about business models, but really, all you're supposed to do is make great movies, and let people get to them, he says. Gianopulos sort of wanders through a description of how studio guys learn about technology, but cuts to a silhouette photo of Homer Simpson from the old iPod ads. Jobs came to Fox with the proposal, he says.

Jim Gianopulos, the chairman and CEO of Twentieth Century Fox Film, describes how studio guys learn about technology, and then cuts to a silhouette photo of Homer Simpson from the old iPod ads.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

10:07: We want people to have access to the same movie on DVDs or files, Gianopulos says. The Family Guy "Blue Harvest" DVD (which you should all watch; it's a hilarious Star Wars spoof) will be the first one to have the digital copy on the DVD, so you can (legally) rip DVDs to your Mac or PC.

10:08: Now we're on No. 4: There's something in the air.

10:08: The rumors were true: "Today we're introducing a third kind of notebook, and it's called the MacBook Air. In a sentence, it's the world's thinnest notebook."

10:11: Most ultraportable notebooks are around 3 pounds, with miniature keyboards and about a 11-inch to 12-inch screen. Jobs says Apple likes the weight goal, but says you have to make too many compromises. The MacBook Air is about half as thin as a Sony ultraportable model that he uses for comparison--0.76 inch at the thickest part, and just 0.16 inch at the thinnest. That's thin; it's so thin, it fits inside one of those office-to-office envelopes.

10:12: Jobs holds up the MacBook Air as flashbulbs pop. Well, I guess they don't really pop anymore. It's got a full-size keyboard. Small keyboards are my perennial complaint with ultraportables.

10:14: It's got a 13.3-inch display, and it's LED backlit. It has the same built-in iSight camera as the other notebooks, and it's got what Jobs claims is a full-size keyboard, which is also backlit. The trackpad is "generous," and it has multitouch gesture support that expands upon the gesture support already present in MacBooks.

10:15: Double-tapping moves a whole window, rather than just the cursor. Moving around a photo is like on the iPhone, a two-finger approach on the touchpad when viewing a photo. Pinching, as well, zooms in and out of photos, just like on the iPhone.

10:16: There are three things in the guts of the MacBook Air. It's got a 1.8-inch hard drive, just like the iPod Classic. This one ships with 80GBs, and you've got the option of a "pricey" 64GB solid-state drive, according to Jobs.

10:18: It's also got a very slim motherboard. This system uses Intel's Core 2 Duo, running at 1.6GHz standard, and you can go to 1.8GHz. It's not clear if that's an ultra-low voltage version or a standard version. Jobs says Apple asked Intel to design a smaller package for the Core 2 Duo, a 60 percent smaller version than the one Intel typically ships. Paul Otellini, Intel's CEO, comes up to take a bow.

10:19: Jobs asked Intel a year ago to design the package, Otellini said, and Intel wasn't totally sure it could be done at the time. Otellini thanks Jobs for allowing Apple and Intel's engineering teams to work so closely together, and Jobs returns the love.

10:20: Moving on, the MacBook Air has MagSafe, a smaller power adapter, and the usual ports. 802.11n ships standard with the new MacBook, plus Bluetooth 2.1 and EDR. No optical drive is built in, but Apple designed a $99 add-on optical drive if you really need it.

A slide of the MacBook Air, from the back.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

10:23: Jobs outlines a wireless feature that allows Macs or even PCs to share optical drives. The MacBook Air's Remote Disk feature would allow you to install software from a neighboring (assuming it's friendly) Mac or PC's optical drive.

10:25: It weighs 3 pounds, comes with 2GBs of memory standard, an 80GB standard hard drive, and 802.11n. It's going to cost $1,799 in that configuration; that's a pretty aggressive price. Shipments start in two weeks. No word on the price with solid-state drives, but that likely won't be cheap.

10:27: Jobs highlights the environmentally friendly features of the MacBook Air. The environment seems to be a perennial issue with Apple and the green crowd. Apple has eliminated mercury and arsenic from display components, and PVCs from the circuit boards. Packaging sizes were reduced as well, he says.

10:29: The Mac Pro unveiled last week gets a mention, as we recap the major announcements from today. Something gives me the sense we're building, heightening the anticipation, soaking up the audience's attention before he hits us with the...

Nothing? Really, that's it?

Hold that. Well, it's not "One more thing." It's Randy Newman. Randy Newman?

10:32: Randy Newman's telling us about his trip to Europe, where he noticed that "they don't like us so much." So, he wrote a new song. And we're getting to hear it. It could be worse, at least John Mayer didn't show up.

10:36: Randy's new song is sort of a spoken-word defense of the U.S. against Europe, tongue firmly in cheek. It's actually kind of funny, very much a political satire. But his voice kills me, I'm sorry. He's leaving us with the uplifting image of a U.S. empire in decline, as the song closes. Now, go buy technology stuff, people!

10:38: Well, not yet, Randy's rambling on about CNBC, and gambling, and News.com Editor Charlie Cooper's favorite TV personality, Jim Cramer. Randy's got some score upcoming for Pixar Animation Studios, apparently. "I usually root against corporations because that's just who I am, but not this one."

10:41: He eventually moves into the Toy Story song, "You've Got a Friend in Me." Jobs comes back on stage and ushers Randy off. Jobs closes, and the Macworld 2008 keynote address is done.

Jobs' keynote speech closed with a performance from Randy Newman.

(Credit: Corinne Schulz/CNET Networks)

LIVE NOW: coverage of Steve Jobs Macworld Keynote

I've already started doing the dexterity exercises, with less than 24 hours to go before Macworld.

Once again, I'll be providing live blow-by-blow coverage of Apple CEO Steve Jobs' keynote at Macworld on Tuesday, starting at 9 a.m. PST. We expect to see some combination of new laptops, an iTunes movie rental service, iPhone details, and whatever else is trickling out of Cupertino this week.

Live blogs are fun, if a bit demanding on the old fingers. It's always interesting to bring news to people as it happens, I sort of think of it as trying to provide both the play-by-play and the color roles on a football game. I swear I won't morph into Dan Dierdorf ("That was a great Macworld keynote there, Steve is really a great Macworld player, Macworld players know how to make great Macworld plays, and that was a great Macworld play right there).

Apple and IDG World Expo have scheduled the keynote speech for 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., but I'd expect it to run a little longer. Set your browsers here for the news as it happens, and check back with us all day Tuesday as we cover everything there is to cover from San Francisco's Moscone Center.

Apple has the third week of January all to itself this year, and although it probably won't top last year's Macworld, the company will likely make everyone forget about the Consumer Electronics Show.

Trade shows are a necessary evil in the tech industry. Everyone claims to hate them, but the opportunity to have all the major players in the same town at the same time is too much of a draw. And usually, the parties are decent, leading more than 140,000 business types to CES in Las Vegas this week for a chance to make deals and network inside crowded booths and over the craps tables.

Contrast that with Macworld, scheduled for next week at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. About 40,000 people are expected to attend the 23rd such gathering, according to conference presenter IDG World Expo. And, like last year, Tuesday's Macworld announcements will probably overshadow anything announced in the Nevada desert.

Hundreds of ordinary people will start lining up for Macworld on Monday night for a chance to sit 300 feet away from their hero. They'll be swapping stories and talking tech all throughout the chilly night with their fellow line-standers. They're anticipating the Stevenote, the two hours of the year when the tech world stands still, waiting for Apple CEO Steve Jobs to introduce the company's latest products.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveils the iPhone at last year's Macworld.

(Credit: Declan McCullagh/CNET News.com)

The buzz this year doesn't seem to be approaching the heights reached last year, when Jobs unveiled the iPhone. The best bets this time around appear to be new slim notebooks and a movie rental service with several of the world's largest studios joining forces with Apple.

Apple's stock, which usually follows a "buy on the rumor, sell on the news" pattern prior to Macworld, is actually down quite a bit from last week. Granted, it was a bad week for just about everyone, but it's still a little surprising that Apple's performance was below the market's in the week leading up to Macworld. With a recession looming in the minds of many economists, perhaps some investors are wondering whether people forced to choose between a growing mortgage payment, filling up the tank, or buying a new Mac might opt to keep the roof over their head and the car moving.

However, it's also pretty hard to introduce products every year that will generate buzz on the order of the iPhone. New notebooks seem like a given, coming off the introduction of new mobile processors from Intel and the two-year gap between next week and the last significant overhaul of the MacBook design template.

Much of the speculation has centered on an ultraportable notebook, a 3-pound or so laptop currently missing from Apple's slate of Macs. But it's also likely that the company will take the occasion to update the regular notebooks in its arsenal.

The more significant news, should it come to pass, would be the announcement of a movie rental service through iTunes. Reports have been flying out of Hollywood that Fox, Warner Bros., Paramount, Lions Gate, and, of course, Disney will have rental agreements to announce with Apple.

Apple's attempts to replicate the success of the music portion of the iTunes store in the video market haven't exactly taken off, especially when it comes to movies. While people may indeed want to own their music, they seem less interested in having to buy movies just to check them out. Details of exactly how Apple's rental service would work are still sketchy, but for a few dollars, you'd likely download a file that would last a predetermined amount of time (24 hours is the popular bet) and then disappear from your hard drive.

Given how many people are using iTunes, this could be one of the first Internet-download services to break through to average consumers. The concept has been around for a while through companies like Wal-Mart and Movielink, but no one has managed to turn the idea into a hit. Apple has a fighting chance to pull that off, and if it does, it'll also dramatically expand the usefulness of Apple TV.

There's also likely to be the fabled "one more thing." A lack of preshow buzz might mean Apple has been ratcheting down expectations for this year, but it might also mean it's done a better job keeping its secrets secret. After all, there's no way Jobs can talk about notebooks and movies for the scheduled 90 minutes, and some feel that this week's introduction of the Mac Pro and Xserve was done to free up some time in his keynote for something else.

Contrast that with the "news" coming out of Las Vegas. Despite hours of keynote speeches from some of the titans of the American technology industry, there didn't seem to be anything radically new or different this year that changed the way the industry looks at a certain segment or captured the attention of the average person. The iPhone managed to do both of those things last year at Macworld.

For the most part, people leave Las Vegas drained from the experience of the daily trek across the equivalent of a small town, listening to the same stump speeches from the same industry visionaries who want you to imagine that all of the things they said would happen last year (and the year before that, and the year before that) actually did happen.

Jobs has managed to avoid falling into that malaise so far. Last year, he introduced the iPhone. That seems to have worked out fairly well. The year before that, he introduced the first Intel-based Macs. People have clearly responded to those as well.

Every time he does this, however, the expectations grow. Apple has done a masterful job with Macworld the last several years, but it will become more and more difficult to outdo itself every year.

But until the Intels, Microsofts, Yahoos, and Comcasts of the tech industry start doing the same thing at CES--introducing products that captivate ordinary people--that show will always be more about schmoozing and gambling. And Apple will continue to own January.

After a holiday spent freezing in the wilds of Connecticut and pondering the mysteries of the chip industry, I felt it was time to take stock of the latest Macworld Expo rumors.

The craziness is just 12 days away and undisturbed this year by that big gathering in the desert taking place the prior week. The predictions are starting to come in, and the early bets have mobility in mind.

For months, the betting odds have favored the introduction of new MacBooks at Macworld. It's been awhile since Apple tweaked the basic hardware design of the MacBook, and with new mobile processors expected from Intel this quarter, it seems like a natural fit. But what kind of notebook are we talking about?

The most persistent rumor is that Apple will release an ultraportable notebook, or a sub-notebook, or whatever you want to call it. Think small and thin, a 12-inch or smaller screen and a weight of less than 3 pounds. This is a small segment of the overall notebook market, but it's one of prestige, and it's not hard at all to imagine Apple wanting to put its stamp on the thinnest and lightest category of notebook computing.

The latest item to point in that direction? A patent filing for a docking station that would incorporate such a device surfaced this week, lending some credibility, if not confirmation, to the ultraportable rumor.

If you want to watch high-definition movies on your notebook, American Technology Research's Shaw Wu thinks you'll have a better idea of Apple's HD video plans following Macworld. Wu put out a research note Thursday predicting that Apple will confirm its support for Blu-ray drives, and could use the occasion to announce plans to ship notebooks with new optical drives. Apple is already a member of the Blu-Ray Disc Association, so this isn't much of a stretch, although it has held off releasing Blu-ray-equipped products to this point.

There's also some sentiment that Apple could use the Macworld stage to announce its take on the Tablet PC, revealing some sort of slate-like MacBook based entirely on flash memory, and perhaps incorporating many of the touch-screen features found on the iPhone. We've also heard this discussion center on a Apple-ish UMPC, which would ostensibly use Intel's upcoming Silverthorne chip.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs is unlikely to miss a chance to talk about the iPhone as well, as we approach the first anniversary of its first public unveiling. The software development kit for the iPhone is due in February, and some analysts think that Jobs will use the occasion to unveil a 3G iPhone.

The biggest news to emerge from Jobs' January 15 keynote might just be an iTunes movie rental service, as was reported over the holiday break. But I'd advise holding off for a few weeks if you were thinking about buying a notebook from Apple.