MacWorld San Francisco 2003 Rumor Wrapup: Winners and Losers

[MacRumors]

After each expo, we look back and review the rumors leading up to the event... to find out the winners and losers... and also to determine where the best information came from.

12inch and 17inch Powerbooks

Apple did an excellent job keeping these laptops under wraps. While one faint whisper of a 17" Powerbook did arrive to MacRumors.com a number of weeks ago... it was dismissed as incorrect information. No one expected Powerbook upgrades for this MacWorld expo.

Last minute information came out the night before the expo... revealing both 12" and 17" Powerbooks... which spawned extensive disbelief.

While everyone suspected no Powerbook updates, ThinkSecret was bold enough to give it a 0% chance.

iMacs and eMacs

Updates to the iMacs and eMacs were the most consistent rumors surrounding this expo... with MacOSRumors, MacNews.net.tc, MacBidouille, and [url="http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2002/11/20021108214355.shtml"]SpyMac<a/> predicting iMac and/or eMac updates at Macworld Sanfracisco.

We also suggested that iMac updates were possible as a vehicle for Bluetooth integration...

ThinkSecret, alone, correctly reported - with 100% certainty - no iMac/eMac updates at MWSF.

iPod II and iTablet

With tensions building... iPod II and iTablet rumors started spinning wildly out of control in the days before the MacWorld Expo.

Devices ranging from the iPod II to the iTablet littered the predictions of MacOSRumors ("a shoo in"), LoopRumors.com (iGadget), and MacNews.net.tc (iPod II)... with a surprising endorsement from eWeek/Rothenberg -- with what appeared to be details of an upcoming Apple Tablet.

No tablet made an appearance... but with the historically accurate eWeek on-board... we still take pause, despite Steve Jobs saying: "We're not sure the tablet PC will be successful" back in September 2002.

iApps and new Apps

ThinkSecret predicted Apple's new browser to be released at MWSF - with a 75% certainty. MacRumors received hints of Keynote in December but with little evidence to support it. Final Cut Express received no mentions prior to the expo... but the iApps were well predicted.

MacRumors' roundup detailed the release of iMovie 3.0, iPhoto 2.0 and iDVD 3.0 with further inter-app integration.

While iApp upgrade prices were predicted by both CNet and ThinkSecret, the actual release was less restrictive than rumors implied... with only iDVD really being a required purchase.

Bluetooth, Airport

Bluetooth was predicted with most certainty by the Inquirer... indicating that Bluetooth would be coming at MWSF. While MacNews.net.tc actually first reported (on Dec 31st) that 802.11g based Airport hardware was due for this expo.

Summary

Information was sporadic for this expo... with volumes of information floating around -- and even CNet inaccurately predicting a digital device, which never came to pass. Apple appears to be successfully clamping down on leaks... and as a result, accuracy of information is hard to assess.

In addition, the proliferation of rumor sites has saturated us with predictions based on predictions. Perhaps the most striking failures in this round comes from MacOSRumors - whose predictions were almost entirely incorrect, as well as traditionally accurate sites such as CNet and eWeek missing their target.

Rumors to Watch

Apple 'Junkyard' Trademark - is this another application like Keynote?
Apple 'iPhone' Trademark - also an upcoming App?
Apple 'XGrid' Trademark - ? clustering
Apple 'Gigawire' Trademark - well, it aint 1394b

[mmork]

XGrid would also sound o.k. as a name for a MS Excel like application...

Now that Keynote is out I guess similar apps to replace Excel and Word will surface in the next years, with Excel being the next candidate.

Mmork

[michaelyoung]

I must say that this is the only rumor site i trust now.

Nice call on the 17 and 12" PB. Reminicent of the Time Canada reveal last year. MacWorldEve and all....


as for the other rumor sites.

MacOsRumors: is way to inconsitent in posting content. When they finally do post it is linked here anyway.


ThinkSecret: Just not enough content. They seem to get some good info once in a while .

Spymac: One word...iWalk

Powerpage: Decent articles/ Bad Forums

not that anyone asked for my opinion..

[NicoMan]

Originally posted by michaelyoung
not that anyone asked for my opinion..

You are right nobody asked for it.

BUT I agree with everything you said; now in the Safari Bookmarks Bar I have macrumors.com as opposed to having (in Chimera, still used 'cause i can't rely solely on Safari yet) a folder with all the aforementioned websites...

Not that anyone asked for my opinion either...

NicoMan

[ibjoshua]

Originally posted by Macrumors
Perhaps the most striking failures in this round comes from MacOSRumors - whose predictions were almost entirely incorrect, as well as traditionally accurate sites such as CNet and eWeek missing their target.

ouch!

junkyard == uninstall & system tidy app??

i_b_joshua

[mymemory]

Let me tell you that Jobs must be very happy no information went out this time. I mean, I bet you he has a missed-information team just to spread crazzy things around.

[ipiloot]

Trying to speculate.

Apple 'Junkyard' Trademark - Possibly an cleaner app which monitors file usage and registers the files and software that is not used for a long time. Opting then to either archive them or delete.

Apple 'iPhone' Trademark - Possibly an app rather thatn hardware. I have dreamed a long time of a system where I have no phone on the desk and the phone cable is connected to the computer. In the phonecall event music is muted, video paused and phone app takes place.

Apple 'XGrid' Trademark - Grid computing is not clustering. It's something much more advanced. It's mostly used in modern supercomputers. Look at www.globus.org - there's an open-source grid computing framework. Also a good information can be found from www.sgi.com. Which makes me thinking a lot. This is the most intriguing trademark, which actually means a new market. I don't believe in XGrid being spreadsheet app.

Apple 'Gigawire' Trademark - Possibly it still is, but it will appear if we go optic and beyond 1 Gb/s

[Rocketman]

Gigawire is 1394c (1600mb/s Firewire) or about 2/3 fiberchannel bandwidth.

Rocketman

[CountZero]

Apple 'iPhone' Trademark - Possibly an app rather thatn hardware. I have dreamed a long time of a system where I have no phone on the desk and the phone cable is connected to the computer. In the phonecall event music is muted, video paused and phone app takes place.[/b]

Let's think about this a moment. I think iPhone will an iApp too. But if you factor Bluetooth into the equation, then you will have an app that is probably IP Phone, may be video chat with FW webcam, using a Bluetooth headset instead of mic/speaker combo.

I can imagine myself setting up office in any suitable location (i.e. hotdesking) using a PowerBook, Bluetooth headset, a broadband connection (wired or otherwise), and no one can tell where I am. I can be in the office, home, or in the local Starbucks!

[lmalave]

Originally posted by ipiloot


Apple 'iPhone' Trademark - Possibly an app rather thatn hardware. I have dreamed a long time of a system where I have no phone on the desk and the phone cable is connected to the computer. In the phonecall event music is muted, video paused and phone app takes place.

Haha! I had this in 1996 when I bought my futuristic Toshiba Infinia computer (had an LCD panel in front of monitor for controlling TV Tuner, FM Tuner, CD Player, and Voice Mail system - LCD panel was connected to the computer via USB(!) which was unheard of at the time). With headphones and the microphone built into the monitor (the monitor also had built in speakers and subwoofer), there's your phone. Other than the automatic muting/pausing that you mention - the app was pretty slick - automatic launch of phone app with caller ID and everything. Sadly, when I upgraded to Windows 98 I lost the LCD panel (the $3000 product was a flop and Toshiba was no longer supporting it and thus didn't update the drivers).

I'm SURE you could find some 3rd party phone apps. Poke around MacUpdate or VersionTracker.

[lmalave]

Originally posted by CountZero


Let's think about this a moment. I think iPhone will an iApp too. But if you factor Bluetooth into the equation, then you will have an app that is probably IP Phone, may be video chat with FW webcam, using a Bluetooth headset instead of mic/speaker combo.

I can imagine myself setting up office in any suitable location (i.e. hotdesking) using a PowerBook, Bluetooth headset, a broadband connection (wired or otherwise), and no one can tell where I am. I can be in the office, home, or in the local Starbucks!

I like it! I would also make it work with a regular phone line, though, and add voice recognition and an integrated voice mail app. I would also have a Bluetooth handset, which is quicker for picking up calls. That would be sweeeeeeet!

Oh, and as hard drives get bigger and bigger and audio compression better and better, I could easily see people archiving their phone calls the way people archive their email now. Invasion of privacy? Well, not anymore so than someone leaving your email in their inbox. I think people will just get used to the idea that their calls are recorded...

[moby1]

http://homepage.mac.com/moby1/.Pictures/sj17.gif

The Supreme Mac Rumors Site.

[Rocketman]

XGrid seems to be a distributed computing paradigm utilizing x-serves and practically any shared computing resource, especially any OSX device at all or NAS or such.

It is probably closely associated with Rondevouz which is a process to recognize new resources on the network. One of the rondevouz fields or atrributes might be grid and another media server and another phone network. Whatever.

The proposed use of 10000 base T ethernet, and Firewire 2 and 3 and fiberchannel and 802.11g (and parallel sessions of same) makes the use of grid computing be even lowly consumers fairly practical.

The forays into grid computing with silly programs like the SETI screensaver has shown that a trivial cost distribution of a program can leverage into truly huge dataset manipulation and results management.

People downloaded it for fun or on a lark and that silly fad resulted in perhaps the most distributed computing power ever applied to a single problem.

As Internet2 becomes deployed (high bandwidth everywhere) it will be normal and customary for CONSUMERS to have 1 mbit bandwidth at home and millions of those can amount to some serious computing in idle time.

It remains yet to be seen what applicatoions even need that much power.

But gnutella like media sharing are likely first wastes of the resource

Rocketman

[Rocketman]

XGrid seems to be a distributed computing paradigm utilizing x-serves and practically any shared computing resource, especially any OSX device at all or NAS or such.

It is probably closely associated with Rondevouz which is a process to recognize new resources on the network. One of the rondevouz fields or atrributes might be grid and another media server and another phone network. Whatever.

The proposed use of 10000 base T ethernet, and Firewire 2 and 3 and fiberchannel and 802.11g (and parallel sessions of same) makes the use of grid computing be even lowly consumers fairly practical.

The forays into grid computing with silly programs like the SETI screensaver has shown that a trivial cost distribution of a program can leverage into truly huge dataset manipulation and results management.

People downloaded it for fun or on a lark and that silly fad resulted in perhaps the most distributed computing power ever applied to a single problem.

As Internet2 becomes deployed (high bandwidth everywhere) it will be normal and customary for CONSUMERS to have 1 mbit bandwidth at home and millions of those can amount to some serious computing in idle time.

It remains yet to be seen what applicatoions even need that much power.

But gnutella like media sharing are likely first wastes of the resource

Rocketman

[Rocketman]

This morning on GMA one of the toys shown was a $400 device with a medium sized PDA like display screen you can download videos and music to. Ala what I have been chrping about for several months.

If Apple were to simply take an iPod and make a 6x9 inch screen and a 40gb drive it could store considerable content and act as a portable movie viewer device.

Add a CMOS pickup (camera) and it increases its value from $400 to $1700.

Rocketman

Raid-0 everywhere via FW1 and FW2 devices with dual ATA drives installed.

[Dave K]

Apple 'XGrid' Trademark

Give you odds this doesn't come out of the woodwork until IBM/Sony/Toshiba's "Cell" chips start shipping...

[ankh]

I've been hoping the consortium developing hotswappable small drives

<http://www.ivdr.org/iVDR/ivdr_e.html>

would be up to speed. I imagine they're waiting on the smaller format drives now.

Give me a Newton-sized device with a couple of iVDR hotswappable drives, a good rectangular color screen, two little video cameras on the back side (at stereo separation), a little popup stereo viewer
<http://stereoscopy.com/reel3d/print-viewers.html#2018>

software like EvoCam v3 that makes stereo movies easily

and of course let it talk wirelessly to my mainframe Mac in my backpack (grin).

[rugby]

what if iPhone is an iApp that allows you to use the bluetooth connection of you phone to answer the phone when it rings or to place calls over your phone. People traveling whip out their PB's and speak to the computer, "Call home" and it dials your phone. You then use the laptop as your phone.

I'm sure a headset would be needed as I don't think anyone wants their private conversations broadcast through an airport or office building.

[bbc]

One thing that I have not read an explanation for is the mysterious 6" wide display stands (acrylic?) that were allegedly seen in Apple stores, and were touted as evidence of impending video iPods, iTablets, iPhones, etc.

Are these stands now filled with some merchandise, and if so, what?

[greenstork]

The real losers this Macworld are the owners of the latest and greatest Powermac G4 MDD's. They join an ever expanding group of disgruntled Mac owners forced to live with the unruly noise produced by these "top of the line" Macs. Steve Jobs failed to provide an update to the loudest, whiniest power supplies of ANY consumer level computer (Apple will readily admit that they used the most powerful, loudest fans on the market, can you say overclocking). In fact, Apple went out of their way to hide the powermacs from site this expo. After all who would want to see a poorly engineered desktop in the "Year of the Laptop" Did anyone else notice that the powermac he used to run his keynote was stashed conspicuously under the desk? Why would he want to hide his "top of the line" computer from sight instead of proudly displaying it in all of its glory right up there next ot his monitor? The reason: it's too darn loud, the audience would have heard it over his microphone. Not to mention he probably wanted to avoid heckling from any ticked off Powermac owners.

Notice that this thread talked about all sorts of other Mac hardware and software with scarcely a mention of the Powermacs. Apple has sucessfully removed this topic from the collective radar and all current Powermac owners will be swept under the rug after the introduction of IBM's 970.

The only evidence of this problem at Macworld was the noise dampening enclosures that started showing up on the expo floor at a cost of $700-900. So after I spent $3000 on my "top of the line" computer, I need to spend another $700 to actually think and work at the same time.

Just today, Apple deleted all of the petitions and complaints from their discussion board about the Powermacs. Discussion threads with over 300 posts from upset users gone without a trace. Let the stonewalling begin. The real losers this Macworld are the thousands of new Powermac users, promised by AppleCare that a fix is in the works, only to be hung out to dry.

Sorry abou the rant, but I have to keep this topic alive, you would not believe the professional stonewalling job that Apple is pulling off right now. Check out www.g4noise.com for more info on this subject.

[cevin]

Apple 'Junkyard' Trademark - Is like Power On Softwares Rewind 1.2.1 that recovers lost or damaged files or from system problems. Ships with 10.3 Panther in july.

Apple 'iPhone' Trademark - The IP-Phoneservice implemnted in iChat and .Mac. Hook up a microphon and a webcam and connect with iChat and .Mac to phone your .Mac and iChar buddies and chat with audio and video.

Apple 'XGrid' Trademark - Yes! XGrid is clustering. Apple has one upp in beta att the HQ. It's not ready for prime time just yet. XGrid is, as Junkyard, bulit in to the system and should probobly ship with 10.3 Panther in July.

Apple 'Gigawire' Trademark - Well it's part of the 1394b standard and will be used for the fiberoptic version of it. Handles 3.2 GB/s and will be included in the XSerev with Hypertransportsupport and IBM PPC970 some time this autum or in the begining of 2004.

That's my two cents!

[ipiloot]

Originally posted by cevin
Apple 'XGrid' Trademark - Yes! XGrid is clustering. Apple has one upp in beta att the HQ. It's not ready for prime time just yet. XGrid is, as Junkyard, bulit in to the system and should probobly ship with 10.3 Panther in July.

Well. In that case Apple's branding will be wrong. Grid computing as understood in everywhere else is not simple clustering. Look at SGI site to get the broader view.

[cevin]

Originally posted by ipiloot

Well. In that case Apple's branding will be wrong. Grid computing as understood in everywhere else is not simple clustering. Look at SGI site to get the broader view.

I'm aware of what the term Grid is and when it's normaly used. That does'nt nesesarly mean that Apples marketing dep. does. does it?