Commentary--Today's Macworld Expo 2005 Keynote by Steve Jobs, Our Pre-talk Take

First, we confess that we have no knowledge of what Steve Jobs will say during his keynote address later this morning beginning at 9am PST. We have only read about the rumors and Apple's reaction and non-reaction to them. The principal rumors with some credence, in our opinion, are: (1) a less expensive, smaller-than-mini iPod with flash memory, (2) a breakout box and (3) a $500 "headless iMac."

We think a super-mini iPod with flash memory instead of a micro hard drive has a good chance of being true because of the success of the iPod Mini, the lower price of 1GB flash RAM chips and the chance for Apple to grab a huge share of the high end of the flash player market segment simply by extending of its design and iTunes Music Store into that segment. If so, we think it would not be a cheap iPod but probably have a relatively premium price.

As background, we are not a typical iPod user because we are a Mac user. We are also atypical, we think, because we have no more than 300 digital songs either ripped from our CDs or from a paid or free download from the iTunes Music Store. We were not a digital music fan until the original 5GB iPod came out. We could also use it as a bootable external hard drive and, besides, it was made by Apple. We were hooked. We later replaced it with a 10GB model and then with an overkill 30GB model. The latter was a smoother/lighter design but we didn't like its touch-sensitive control buttons as much as the original's controls and bootability became an issue with Mac OS X 10.2.x. Then the Mini arrived. We instantly knew it was perfect and bought a silver one on Apple's release day. It holds all of our songs and all of our critical data plus it is small and light and the design of the controls is perfect. As we use it, there is even room to spare on its drive.

If Apple were to release an even smaller-than-mini iPod with removeable 1GB flash memory cards, a similar design and the same controls we would jump at it in a New York minute. It would hold all of our principal songs and we would store our data on a second card. So we are definitely biased toward wanting to see Apple produce one. If Apple does, we would expect the iPod Mini to go slightly upscale at the same $249 price point and Apple to release the flash iPod in a range of $179-199. Too high you say? That's what the pundits said about the iPod Mini's price of $249--they were dead wrong.

We are not in the audio business so we have no idea why Apple needs to provide a so-called breakout box for hooking up musical instruments to a computer. We haven't even really used GarageBand yet but we know that breakout boxes exist. Would Apple's be aimed at existing professionals or budding professionals? We do know that people in the audio business are a major segment of professionals that use Macs and maybe they really need one that is easy to use with Apple's software and PowerBooks. We were impressed with audio via PowerBooks during our tour of the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus (see below). There is also the lawsuit against certain Mac web sites for revealing information about a possible Apple breakout box so maybe this one is true as well. If it is, we look forward to seeing what Apple has produced.

Finally, there is the so-called $500 "headless iMac." We already commented when the rumor broke (once again) that it seemed more reasonable to us than in the past and that we would definitely like to see one. It seemed reasonable because if Apple tied it to the iPod as an extension of the iPod, that Windows users who have bought iPods (the large majority of iPod owners) might just switch or at least become bi-OS users. We also commented that Apple should "think different" about the server paradigm for the home market and come up with a consumer Mac server that was engineered for digital home things. Then, Apple sued another web site over the "headless iMac" rumor, putting a greater air of possibility out there. Finally, HP released a new digital media device at the International Consumer Electronics Show last week. The latter got us thinking again about the "headless iMac" because of the Apple-HP partnership on iPods. So we think (and we are positively biased, of course) there is a good chance that if the"headless iMac" rumor is true, then rather than a computer it may well be an intelligent digital media device that runs on Mac OS X and handles internet, digital audio, digital video and digital TV, even HDTV. For $500...?!?...well...uh...we'll see in a few hours.

Steve Jobs' keynote address from 9-11am PST will not be webcast in real time this year according to this MacCentral article. We will try to post brief notes as it happens and we will definitely post a summary from the Macworld press room right afterwards so tune in again later today for the real poop.

If Apple produces any or none of these rumored items, it will be a great Macworld Expo. Surely Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4) has more completed features by now that will be shown and there are zillions of press releases about many new and exciting products. [Bill Fox]