From Matthew Rothenberg
Apple At Expo: Carpe Desktopat ZDNet:
Power Mac G4
On the professional front, I'm putting my money on a sleek new Power Mac G4 system that closely resembles the alleged spy photos that appeared this week on MacOSX.org before being unceremoniously yanked under orders of Apple's tireless legal department. What I saw on the site matches up nicely with what I've heard is in the pipeline: a system - code-named Titan - that features a slimmed-down chassis, new drive bays and an improved speaker. While I'd love to see Apple break the 1-gigahertz mark, I'm going to wager that processor speeds of these new machines will be 733, 800 and 867 MHz. And while we're on the subject of G4 Macs, I've been closely following my friend Nick dePlume's speculation on Think Secret that Apple is on the verge of unveiling a full-blown server strategy that features rack-mounted, hot-swappable hardware with a plethora of PCI slots. I've heard some of these server rumblings myself, and I think that the recent upgrade to Mac OS X Server adds fuel to reports that Apple is thinking seriously of its new OS as a server platform. Personally, I'll bet that Apple holds any such rollout for an event tailored more closely to a pro audience - possibly September's Seybold San Francisco 2001 convention and expo.
iMac Redux
Turning to the consumer side of the equation, I'm going to stick my neck out about a quarter-inch and join the throng predicting that this show will finally see major changes to Apple's three-year-old iMac line.
From what I hear, Apple isn't even purchasing the CRT displays that shaped the current all-in-one systems. I'm voting with the hoi polloi that this summer's model will bring the iMac up to speed with the flat-panel display technology deployed across the rest of Apple's hardware lines. I believe that the new system's form will follow function with a radically altered profile.
While I bet that processor speeds will rise a bit - to a top speed of 700 MHz, at any rate - I assume that the new system won't make the leap from the PowerPC G3 to the G4. This distinction remains the primary differentiator between Apple's professional and consumer systems.
Unless I miss my guess, all these new systems will come garnished with a complement of new peripherals, including a redesigned optical mouse and keyboard, new external speakers courtesy of Harman Kardon, and perhaps even a Webcam.
File under "Miscellaneous": I'd be astounded if Jobs doesn't use his keynote presentation to initiate the next wave of grand openings of brick-and-mortar Apple stores and put his imprimatur on the company's third-quarter results, which Apple is slated to announce the day before Jobs' Wednesday-morning appearance.
And what about Apple's next software moves? Amid all the hardware hosannas, I'm betting that while Apple will by no means keep silent about Mac OS X, it will remain relatively soft-spoken; I predict the first major revamp to the new OS - code-named Puma - won't be ready until sometime in August.
Meanwhile, I'm confident that the latest upgrade to the classic Mac OS - Mac OS 9.2, a k a Moonlight - will slip under the Expo radar with the same stealth that Mac OS 9.1 evinced during its launch at January's Macworld Expo/San Francisco. Survey says that while Moonlight will ship pre-loaded on the new generation of desktop Macs, this penultimate version of the traditional OS won't see a general release.
Top