JeffCroft.com

iTV

It won’t be called iTV, but I think we’ll see a final version of the product Apple demoed under that code name back in 2006. It will, as demoed, wirelessly stream music, videos, and photos from your Mac (and probably Windows PCs, too) to your home theatre setup. I suspect it will have a few other un-demoed tricks up its sleeve, as well — but I’m not sure what they’ll be. I stand behind my previous assertion that Apple will never make a DVR, and suggestions that such a device would allow for DVD ripping are simply absurd. I think this product will be available right away, and I think I will have one ordered by tomorrow afternoon.

The more interesting question about iTV is not “what will it do,” but “how will it do it?” If the product is, effectively, an iPod on steroids (using the PortalPlayer/iPod OS as its core software), it will likely being quite limited and not particularly hackable. Remember, the iPod can only play a few file formats (.mov,.mp4, and .m4v) and even fewer video codecs (H.264 Baseline Profile and MPEG-4). If the iTV has these same limitations, it will likely not be a massive success (although I would still buy one). If the iTV is, instead, based on a liter version of Mac OS X, then it's safe to assume it will be able to play anything QuickTime can play -- and probably save to assume it would be possible to install additional codecs that don't ship with QT (like DivX), even if it's not supported officially. I believe this greater codec support would go a long way towards making it more successful.

Finally, I wonder about the networking built-in. I stream videos from my iMac upstairs to my laptop downstairs quite often now, over 802.11g. While it works, there are definitely times when the movie pauses to buffer. This would not be acceptable in the iTV. As such, it has been speculated that Apple will include 802.11n in the iTV. This makes a lot of sense, but it also means virtually everyone will have to upgrade their wireless routers (and possibly the network cards in their Macs, as well) to take advantage of it. Another possibly that has been raised is that Apple will include a hard drive for caching and/or buffering.

I predict that the iTV will include 802.11n, but will work over 802.11g just fine thanks to built in flash memory (not a hard drive) used for buffering. I also predict the iTV will be based on PortalPlayer technology and that it will be difficult to impossible to install new codecs for it. The unit will be $299, and may also be available either bundled or built-into a new Apple LCD HDTV.

Apple phone

After the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple has made a deal with Cingular, it seems like a near-certainty we’ll hear about this tomorrow. I don’t think, however, the phone will actually be available tomorrow. I believe we’ll get a pre-annoucement and the phone will ship in 30 to 90 days.

Only a few days ago, I said loudly and publicly on popular blogs (like those of Khoi Vinh and Jason Santa Maria) that if Apple released a phone, it would be a music phone (i.e. an iPod that can make calls) and not a smartphone that aims to do more. However, some of the last-minute rumors have me hopefully that maybe Apple does have a smartphone or similar in the works after all.

As with the iTV, the most interesting question is how Apple plans to do all of this. Will they do an MVNO on Cingular’s network, or sell their phones subsidized in Cingular stores? Will the phone utilize a pre-existing operating system (like the PortalPlayer OS or even a licensed mobile os from Nokia or similar), or will it be something new entirely (like the afore-mentioned lite version of OS X)? Given that Cingular has just launched a Windows Media powered music initiative, how will Apple’s phone and its iTunes service work in relation to that? And so forth.

I’m going to be bold on my prediction here and suggest that Apple will launch an MVNO under the name Apple Wireless, and will launch some kind of a smartphone — or at least a more smart phone. It probably won’t have a QWERTY keyboard, but probably will have great integration with Mail.app, Address Book, iCal, and the like, in addition to the obvious iTunes. It should also have a camera of some sort, because, frankly, a phone wouldn’t sell today without one. If this prediction is accurate, then I’d better hope Apple doesn’t release these for another 90 days, because I’ll need time to save up for a couple of them.

Leopard

A good chunk of the Stevenote will be dedicated to Leopard. There will be lots to show off, now that Vista is out the door and Leopard is safe from the copycats. The two most significant features, at least in terms of how much play they get in Jobs’ speech, will be resolution independence and a whole new look for the user interface. I would guess that new look would be tending towards the look of Apple’s “Pro” apps like Aperture and Final Cut — a bit darker, and slightly more sophisticated, in an attempt to differentiate Leopard from Vista, which has copied a lot, stylistically, from Aqua. The name of the new look will be “Eclipse.”

Leopard won’t be ready to go, but shouldn’t be that far off, either. Maybe an April 1 release?

Dual Quad-Core Mac Pro

Duh.

New MacBook Pro in the 12” or 13.3” range

Short and sweet: Apple needs to fill this hole in their product line. They’ll do so, but not with a dramatic new product. It will pretty much be a MacBook Pro that is smaller. It will sell like crazy.

802.11g WiFi

This is pretty much a done deal, according to the latest word from the convention center, so it’s hardly a prediction, but expect to see every product Apple releases include 802.11g — yes, even the phone.

iWork ‘07/iLife ‘07

Seems logical that both of these would get an update. iWork will probably include a spreadsheet, and iLife will probably get a major update for iWeb and take advantage of several new or updated features in .Mac.