What to expect at Macworld Expo 2008
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When Steve Jobs hits the keynote stage at the 2008 Macworld Conference and Expo on January 15, he will face a ballroom full of bloodshot eyes, a sea of journalists, analysts, and bloggers knocked loopy by the culture shock of going to sleep in Vegas (where the Consumer Electronics Show was just held) and waking up in San Francisco. Talk about your tough crowd.Fortunately, Jobs doesn?t need to kick into charisma overdrive to capture minds, hearts, and wallets. This year?s conference is already a banner event, a coming-out party of sorts for a Mac platform that has seen its biggest evolutionary kick since the demise of the original Mac OS. The combination of OS X Leopard and new Macs based on Intel?s Penryn CPU will help Mac outsiders remember that Apple sells more computers than phones.iPhone, take 2 What will happen this week? Only Steve Jobs knows for sure, but here?s my best guess.Although Leopard and Penryn have pushed the Mac to dizzying heights and should thus gain some stage time, the Macworld Expo keynote will still go heavy on iPhone and iTunes. And this time, the hype will be justified. eBay will be awash in mint-condition, used iPhones the day that Apple ships the new model that links to AT&amp;T?s fast 3G network (in the U.S.). With the speed of the 3G cellular data network, lots of RAM space for cached maps, and a close partnership with Google, iPhone could blast a tunnel through the in-car navigation market. CES was packed with navigation newcomers, but none has the hook of iPhone?s multi-touch interface, much less the capability to make phone calls and purchase music from iTunes.Another indirect but even farther-reaching benefit derived from the faster cellular network is iTunes Tagging. When listeners with compatible receivers are tuned into terrestrial and satellite radio stations that have licensed iTunes Tagging, they can purchase music that catches their ear with a button press. This will see its greatest uptake among users of Mac and PC iTunes, but iPhone owners could have the song downloaded before the radio is done playing it. No more trying to figure out the title of a song from the words in the chorus.iPhone?s support for native applications will see its official debut in February, but third parties are undoubtedly already on board. If Apple doesn?t take up navigation, the likes of Telenav and TomTom surely will. Voice-over-IP would make a great keynote demo, and with native application support, Apple might not have to write it in-house.Do pre-show announcements clear the stage for new notebooks? Apple always gets what it considers to be its lesser product announcements out of the way just before Macworld Expo so that Steve Jobs can focus on the high-percentage pitches in his keynote.The pre-keynote rollouts for 2008 are Apple?s specialty machines: the Mac Pro desktop/workstation and Xserve rack-mounted server. Both have been reworked for Intel?s quad-core Penryn family Xeon CPUs, nicknamed Harpertown. Mac Pro buyers can now get 8-core systems for about $1,200 less than before, and the Harpertown Xserve is the first 8-core server Apple has ever sold. Both systems also support significantly faster front-side bus and memory speed. This sort of performance kick might go unnoticed by most home and mainstream commercial users, but Mac Pro and Xserve buyers are going to love it.With the power user, workstation and server Mac announcements out of the way, Apple has room on the Macworld Conference and Expo keynote stage for new notebooks. The story there isn?t necessarily limited to Penryn. AMD recently announced its ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3000 series GPU (graphics processing unit) for notebooks. Among the new GPU?s attributes are improved power efficiency, PCI Express 2.0, and direct HDMI output. The new ATI GPU has one other feature: on-chip decoding of HD and Blu-Ray DVD content. It may be a long shot for this Macworld Expo, but there is a high-def DVD-equipped MacBook Pro on the near horizon.What to do after the keynote Those Macworld Conference and Expo Attendees who don?t fly home after the keynote will be treated to a packed schedule of sessions targeting audiences from home users to scientists and IT professionals.Macworld Expo?s organizers -- IDG World Expo, which has the same parent company as InfoWorld -- have also managed to pack the exhibit hall. Attendees will find familiar faces such as FileMaker Pro, REALbasic, and the venerable BBEdit programmer?s editor, but they?ll also see Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, Xerox, VMware, Parallels, Iomega and, of course, Microsoft.Next to Leopard, Office 2008 for Mac will be the best-selling software for the Mac this year. It?s not only the first native version of Office for Intel Macs, but Microsoft?s first Office designed from scratch for OS X. The Mac faithful may outwardly jeer Microsoft for taking four years to catch a clue, but they?ll be buying Office along with all other commercial Mac users. Office 2008 will be just one of many new products showing at Macworld Expo that don?t need Steve Jobs to sell them. They?ll sell themselves.
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Office for Mac 2008 has been released to manufacturing, meaning the suite of apps is on track for an official debut at next month's Macworld Expo in San Francisco.
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As the annual Consumer  Electronics Show in Las Vegas winds down to lackluster reviews,  Apple Inc  is expected to grab the spotlight with an  ultra-slim laptop computer and online movie rentals at its  biggest annual show next week.
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Apple had just completed announcing updates to its iMac and Mac mini offerings Wednesday, when talk turned to the next Apple product announcement&#8212;a press event slated for next week in San Francisco.
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Will it be a new thinner, lighter laptop? An updated iPhone? Movie rentals through iTunes? Computerworld's Ryan Faas is at Macworld today and plans to send back live reports as Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs delivers his keynote address. We'll update our story accordingly, technology permitting.
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Apple Computer today sent out an invitation to press outlets to attend a special event next week. Steve Jobs, Bono and The Edge invite you to a special event.
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Apple's big show starts next week and "there's something in the air" at Moscone Center in San Francisco.
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At Macworld, Apple fans dish on the company's latest offerings and uncork some cool concepts Steve Jobs might want to consider for 2009.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft has named the date on which Mac OS X users can get their hands on the latest version of its Office suite. "Office 2008 for Mac" will be launched on Jan. 15 in the U.S. -- that's the first day of the Macworld Expo event planned for San Francisco -- and it will be launched in other major markets during the first quarter, the company said. Three versions of the suite will be available: the basic package includes all the Office applications. The "home and student edition" is targeted at consumers and includes a three-user license. The "special media edition" comes with all Office software and the "Expression Media for Mac" image management application. The basic edition will cost $400, the home and student edition will cost $150 and the special media edition will cost $500. Upgrade packages from Office 2004 to the basic edition will cost $240 and to the special media edition will cost $300. Upgrade details to the home and student edition were not disclosed and an upgrade may not be available. Pricing is in line with the current prices for Office 2004. From Tuesday, Microsoft is also offering customers in some countries who buy Office 2004 an upgrade to Office 2008 for only the price of shipping, handling and taxes. The launch of theÂ Mac versionÂ will come a year after theÂ latest version of OfficeÂ was offered for the Windows operating system. Office 2008 for Mac will support the Open XML file format and the package will be a Universal Binary that runs on both Power PC and Intel-based Mac computers. Versions will be available in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish.
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The day before Macworld is set to begin, rumors are flying that Apple will make a big wireless announcement.
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Steve Jobs will deliver his annual State of the Mac address tomorrow at the Moscone Center, starting at 9am PT, and we'll be there to bring you the news.
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MacCentral - When Steve Jobs took the stage at Macworld Conference and Expo in San Francisco last month to make his keynote speech, suspense was thick in the cavernous hall. But it wasn't the standard "What will he announce?" brand of suspense that has marked Apple Computer's recent events of this kind.
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If youâre attending Macworld 2008 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco less than two weeks from today, you may also want to participate in the seventh annual Macworld Final Cut Pro User Group Supermeet. Scheduled for Wednesday, January 16, it features presentations by Apple, Adobe, SONY, Blackmagic Design, and a variety of Bay Area filmmakers.
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A Wall Street analyst is predicting an assortment of new MacBook Pros and a good look at Leopard at next month's Worldwide Developers Conference.
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Rumor has it that Apple will announce a super-slim laptop and online movie rentals at its Macworld conference next week.
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Editor's note: This story was reprinted from Computerworld. For more of Computerworld's coverage of the Mac, visit its Mac Knowledge Center.
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Apple Macintosh users might feel a bit dizzy next spring. After more than a year of negotiating brought the Macworld Conference &amp; Expo back from New York to Boston in April, the show's organizer, IDG World Expo of Framingham, said yesterday that it is moving the show again -- to the Hynes Convention Center on Boylston Street.