Macworld Expo 2004 SF Starts Tomorrow--What Will Apple Announce?
After an incredible 2003, what will Apple announce at Macworld for 2004? Well, we really don't know and neither does anyone else outside of a small group in Apple despite what you may read. Accordingly, we have long given up trying to predict what Apple will do and what Steve Jobs will announce. However, there are a few areas in Apple's product lines that are lagging and deserve attention that we will mention. Hopefully, they will be addressed.
First on our list are Apple's terrific value-leading servers, Xserve. They currently have dual 1.33-GHz G4 CPUs. Xserves need to be outfitted with G5 CPUs. The newer lower-temperature G5s made by IBM will allow this. Apple needs to dance lightly here since the G5's parent drives IBM's servers. Since the newer G5s will also be faster, we'd be surprised if the Power Mac G5s don't also get a nice speed bump.
Second on our list is the iMac. The relatively new 20" iMac is terrific but the iMac in general probably suffers from the megahertz myth among consumers even with a more-than-adequate 1.25-GHz G4. Giving them low end G5's would do much to squash this problem after all the G5 supercomputing publicity and their higher megahertz. Moving to a G5 might require a different enclosure to deal with the higher heat output of the G5, a design change opportunity that usually improves sales.
Because of power and heat considerations, we think it will be more time before the PowerBooks get a G5. There may be a small speed bump on the higher end PowerBook G4s to keep interest alive. We'd like to see the 12" PowerBook get a PCMCIA slot or at least a USB or FireWire adapter with MaC OS X drivers so that us Roadwarriors can keep up with wireless internet developments with Apple's tiny PowerBook. The iBooks just went G4 so we don't forsee any major changes for them in the near future.
Third on our list is AppleWorks, Apple's very nice and inexpensive office suite. It's been an age since AppleWorks 6 came out with Mac OS X compatibility. Even at v6.2.7, AppleWorks still has a few bugs and is in need of updating, both keep it from being an excellent but somewhat lesser alternative to Microsoft Office v.X for the rest of us. AppleWorks should become part of the iLife family, offer total interoperability with Microsoft's Word and Excel without becoming bloated with unnecessary features and work well with FileMaker Pro. The drawing and paint components should be upgraded and the presentation component might be dropped in favor of Keynote. Apple also has to dance a bit lightly here because it still needs Microsoft Office for the Mac as long as Office is the defacto office productivity suite standard but there is still no reason to not have an outstanding alternative for the rest of us.
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