dave's macworld expo watch...

There is the usual speculation flying about regarding the upcoming Macworld Expo, and what sorts of goodies The Steve will be rolling out for our buying pleasure in 2007. For those of you who don't read the MacRumor sites with the rabid fanaticism of many, here is what I'm personally looking forward to and/or dreading...

1) iWork '07 - We know it's coming because there is already an Amazon page for it. The question is - what's new? If it is only the addition of a new spreadsheet program, then I say - "yawn" - because I don't use spreadsheets, ever. But it would take only a few gee-whiz Keynote features or fancy new Pages templates to convince me to drop $49 (academic pricing!) on the upgrade.

2) iLife '07 - I use these programs so little, that I can't imagine there will be anything here that convinces me I need to upgrade.

3) iPhone - God I hope they announce this just so people will SHUT UP ABOUT IT. (Although we know now that it can't be called that because some other company yanked the name out from under them.) I will never own an Apple cellphone, though, because I just take whatever is free with my service change every 2 or 3 years. I do not want my cellphone and my iPod to be trapped in the same device. It makes no sense to me. But lots of people seem to disagree.

4) OS X 10.5 (Leopard) - Look for a firm release date on Leopard. This one worries me. It looks like it is going to be a way cool upgrade, but I worry that my poor G4 PowerBook will not be up to the task of running it once it comes out. I probably won't jump on Leopard when it's released... I'll wait a few months for some reports first. I'm conservative about my OS upgrades. It's my personal belief that all computers work perfectly well until you upgrade the OS beyond what it came installed with. That's when the trouble starts. It WOULD be a good excuse to buy another gig of RAM, though...

5) iTV - I really want me one of these when they come out, even though it's not 100% clear what they DO. But it may be the cheapest way for me to get HDTV content into my 3 year old television, which has yet to have it's HDMI-port-cherry popped. I expect to hear something about it, but not a firm release date.

(I apologize for that crude analogy just then.)

6) Surprises - Who the hell knows with Steve and his "One more thing...". I think we'll see some minor revisions in the hardware lines, maybe a new laptop form-factor. (12"or 13" PowerBook Mini, please!) but I don't expect anything groundbreaking. They are overdue for a new iPod, but I don't think they have a widescreen or a touch-screen model ready to go yet.

So. Those are my thoughts. Look for a recap post-Expo next week.