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I think Jobs will unveil the equivalent of an online mobile phone, a device with the ability to video conference with anyone around the world, all using the Internet.

I believe that today he will launch the much speculated about 'iPhone', although I doubt it will be called that.

Feature wise, I'd expect it to include iPod functionality and allow bluetooth connection to iTunes on your Mac or PC, as well as direct connection to the iTunes store over a 3G connection.

It will no doubt include a camera, but rumours of PDA funtionality probabaly won't be true, beyond the basic calendar, contacts and notes already available on the iPod.

According to Digg.com, large amounts of something are being sent to APple stores ready for launch, so I think it's got to be bigger than just a new round of MacBooks or iPods, so maybe iTV or an "iPhone". Are we expecting Leopard launch dates?

I have seen both Gates and Jobs speak and you are right it is like comparing substance and style. Jobs is easy on the ear and there is a certain "reality distortion" field that seems to surround him. He seems perfectly able to announce stuff that can be bought cheaper and works better elsewhere but people buy in to the product. He has taken the B&O hifi model and emerged as a dictator of style. Sad really...but the media love Apple.

For me the hole that Jobs will plug will be the return of an ultraportable ibook. 12" screen, intel etc and something that can be carried around more comfortably than their current 'portable' range.

A fullscreen ipod for the itunes movie service is also surely overdue.

I reckon it will be the much-hyped (hoped?) iPhone - with a much catchier name of course. At least that's what i'm hoping for, so every news and blog site I read can stop with the predictions and get on with something else - iWatch, iCardigan, iSpy anyone?

I have to disagree slightly with this blog. Jobs is by far a more compelling presenter than Mr Gates and is it my imagination but doesn't Microsoft keep talking about what "may" happen without actually delivering much substance? Unfair? Perhaps, but Apple seems to be leading thesedays with Redmond following. Of course, I could just be biased as I switched from Windows to Mac 2 years ago (what a good move that was). Roll on the keynote in San Francisco and expect the launch of the Mac Media Hub, 8-core Mac Pros, a touch screen wide video iPod, perhaps a new more portable laptop and some new "vista busting" eye candy for OS X Leopard.

I think Steve Jobs is going to unveil an entirely new kind of vegetable.

Why are you bothering to go to the Macworld Expo if you think its just going to be another well oiled Steve Jobs presentation? Why not catch up on some needed sleep if the prospect of it is that unappealing?

When handing out the plaudits, does Jobs get no credit for his charisma? Sounds like its Gates 1-0 Jobs, so what exactly is the point of your article?

My prediction: you'll be unimpressed and uninspired by anything Jobs has to say.

Jobs could reveal a steaming pile of excrement in a white box, and as long as it was branded "iTurd" the uncritical slavering hordes would buy it in their millions.

Bill Gates' plan for the future is that everyone will use Microsoft for everything – not one I share. Steve Jobs may not pontificate about the impact on society of his products, but he is passionate about them – and this is still pretty rare in the tech world.

Maybe the reason Apple products inspire so much fervour is that they are still created by people who believe in embedding human touches into manufactured goods. For example, if you have set up your Mac so that you enter a password to login, if you enter the wrong password the entry box shivers in rejection. It communicates clearly, and charmingly. In Windows you'd get a stern grey pop-up box telling you in tedious detail that you have entered the wrong password, and to try again – as if you didn't realise that. There may even be a helpful paperclip that pops up and tries to explain to you what a password is.

What will Steve Jobs unveil today? If not the iTomato, then most likely he'll talk more about the previously-named 'iTV' box which will connect to your TV and stream stuff wirelessly from your Mac. Unless there's something radically new about what it does, this will hardly be overwhelming. I don't expect the iPhone announcement yet, since setting it up relies on complex deals with mobile networks, etc.

Even if it is the iTomato, his famous 'RDF' (the Reality Distortion Field' will ensure that it gets the headlines for a few days anyway. Time magazine will have him and it on the front cover (they always do). In the grey world of computing, having an ego like Steve Jobs' stirring things up is much needed.

I'd pop down to Pier 39 afterwards, see the seals and get some souvenirs from the large number of shops down there!

Considering Apple have a reputation for sophisticated and contemporary system architecture and are renowned for high powered and low resource hungry graphics, should we not see an Apple games or entertainment box soon.

With Sony Play Station lagging in advancement, apple could de-pants Microsoft before they decide what it is there are actually building for the future. Is it a TV that plays games and connects to the internet? or is it a games machine that plays TV and connects to the internet?

Well I want it all and I want it separate thank you, then I the consumer can decide how to connect or apply my gadgets.

I think that Apple and MS do have a healthy competition. both systems are good. At work i use MS at home Tiger and Linux i like the security on Mac it is much better if I wont to mix systems linux is the best. It all depends on what you like to do.
MS is known that is gives advantage. IE may be full of holes but it is not compulsory. Competition is leading to improvments that is what matters.

Hi author,

I expect something more than a noisy xbox 360 for internet television in your tv-room.

I expect something on the level of operating system/compiler talking with promising hardware. Just like the seemless integration of an ipod with a pc.

If Steve Jobs promises less than connecting linux that can connect the long awaited psp3 player (such unique chips that even IBM uses them in number crackers)than also Steve jobs disappoints me.

In my point of view the new era in technique is all about integration of hardware somehow using the internet and I find the job done by Lenovo a succes. That's operating system management understanding from my point of view.

Kind regards,
Antonie van Eggelen

The comments here are just the same old regurgitated crap that has all been said before. Reality distortion fields, Mac users will buy anything and Gates has substance. Sure.. Whatever...

I always find it strange how some people think that you have to have style or substance.

What I like about Apple products is that you have great design with great substance. The same tends to be true about the Macworld Keynotes. Steve may whip the fans up in to a frenzy at time but he delievers the goods too, whereas Bill looks and sounds like a geek talking about uninspiring products.

I expect something quite big from Steve's keynote, but also a few small gems along the way in the build up to the 'one more thing'.

Another poster wrote that "He seems perfectly able to announce stuff that can be bought cheaper and works better elsewhere but people buy in to the product." but that's just plain rubbish. Whilst you can sometimes find them cheaper they certainly won't work better and they won't work as well out of the box.

It has to be a New iPod, The US iTunes Store has grown far beyond music, unlike the UK Store, and Apple have to pay off all those customers, tv and film companies by creating a proper interface to watch the media on.

The new iPod will be larger screened and more a portable video player than the existing one, I would imagine Apple will roll out further video capabilities to the US iTunes store and maybe (fingers crossed) add a bit of video to the UK store other than the stupid Pixar shorts!

Bill Gates isn't a digital visionary. He was just a lucky freelancer who was employed by IBM to write a basic operating system for their PCs. IBM were stupid enough to allow Bill to keep the rights to the operating system (MS-DOS) and the rest is history. If IBM had kept the rights, then Microsoft would still be a one-man band company with Bill charging a daily rate for developing code. Chances are he'd be too expensive these days as that type of work is now outsourced.

Let Google fight decide:

Unlike some previous snippets of foresight that Steve Jobs will release nothing more than the iPotato, I think the launch of MacOS 10.5 'Leopard' is fairly imminent. Even with Vista I think Mac OS will continue to be a few steps ahead of Windows as it always has. Unix-based, stable, better looking, everything works and no .dll's!

I think there'll also be an eight-core Mac Pro, an update for the Mac-mini and the releases of the much talked about iTV and iPhone.

A worthy adversary to William "bluescreenofdeath" Gates.

I think it may be a form of PDA that possibly combines the standard PDA functionality with Music, Phone and Video download capabilities, with a possibility to double-up as a GPS receiver.

It will be impossible for hime to come up with anything that could live up to this level of hype. So I predict

1. Disappointment

2. A new scaleable MacOS for devices. Allows easy wireless synching with PCs and Macs

3. The above system in (a) a phone/ipod (b) the iTV device and (c) a video iPod.

We'll see shortly

I also use PC and Mac together, have done for nearly two decades, off and on. Over that time a general theme seemed that Mac led the way in innovation and design and PC did a more basic and business like model which was liked by the bottom line buyers in big corporations which then influenced the price concious home buyer. A small example is that in many films and tv shows that the computer on the desk is more likely to be a mac. The creatives in these industries identified with the Apple ethos more than the Microsoft one.

This seems to have become the old debate about who's the best, but I think it is significant that both companies seem to have taken on the personality of their figure heads. This could be simply explained by the type of executive hired by Jobs/Gates and the way this then influences corporate thinking and marketing.

If it is then my own personal taste would be Mac. I can't help seeing Vista's Aero interface as a hashed attempt at OSx. Again a small example, but look at the ability of the Mac OS software to be updated time and again and yet still run well on hardware more than a few years old, Aero will only run satifactorily on some very powerful systems. I didn't want to end this as a "hug a Mac" piece but I use both daily in a very demanding network scenario, both Mac and Windows servers and very rarely now am I asking why the Macs don't do the odd thing the PC does better.

In that vein, I'd like to see a proper PDA/Phone from Apple. Push email from any server and easy set up for remote connection. Maybe a small clam shell design but with dual screen like a Nintendo DS, (obviously not that big though), one touch sensitive. Low cost data rates as well thanks to a new relationship with some forward thinking providers.

I can dream can't I.

Bill Gates a "Digital Visionary"???

He has a very long, well established track record of missing every new development and then frantically trying to catch up.

His book "The way ahead" from the mid 90s doesn't even mention the internet.
Meanwhile everyone else was building it.
RJG.

MacMobile. Done.

Rory....

Why dont you just admit it your a M$-fanboy?

I dont think our opions matter as much as your opinion-- given your position to influence on a public ±«Óătv website.

In which case, why don't you get yourself a Mac and see for yourself what all the fuss is about Mac (OS X) vs. Windows (Vista).

Unfortunately, if your just a geek, then you will lap up CES/MS... because that is who they preach to.

Apple is interested in Innovation, Value Creation which inevitably means creating new markets... not Capturing markets (which is what MS does).

Unfortunatley, MacWorld will be a disapppointment, because its impossible to deliver to this much hype. That said, Jobs has 2007 will be Apple's biggest year for product announcements.

But as fundamentals go, Motorola, Nokia, Sony and Microsoft should be very worried about their long-term positions, because this company is growling like it never has over the last 30-years.

I expect it will be something most of us don't need. What Mac users would really like is a return to the quality build Mac computers of old, so that, for example, people buying a portable Mac for more than 2200 quid like me could depend on it not to pack up after 13 months, and for the batteries not to catch fire!

As both the UK and US versions of the Apple Store are now off-line for updating I think something new must be on its way!

Paul was correct. IBM actually went to see Dr.Gary Kildall, and asked him to write a PC version of his well known CP/M oerating system. Kildall was flying airplanes then and did not get back to IBM for a few days. IBM asked Bill Gates. He quickly bought one overnight from a small firm and bundled it with his Basic Compiler. PC-DOS was born. It was actually Steve Wozniak who designed the first PC and built it. Apple II. Steve Jobs assembled it with his sister and marketed it, with a beige plastic cover. His sister gave the beige color. The rest is history.

Jobs v Gates, there never is any contest, No matter how much PC users put the Mac down. They can never compete with style, ease of use and reliability. Oh and im still waiting to find something I cant do on a Mac that I can with a PC. Mac make it easy enjoyable, and leave you with a sence of pride. My Mac my Life.

The iPhone has been released.....check out the Apple store...!!

whaddya think to an apple games console? built in ipod/i-everything dock turns the iphone into a psp-lookielikey

While I like Bill Gates, the human being, better than Steve Jobs (for the Gates Foundation and his donations to charities), it is Steve Jobs' company that creates the great, innovative products that Bill Gates' company cannot seem to copy very well.

Apple is a creative genius, and Microsoft is a mediocre utility. Apple invents and Microsoft tries to copy (but sells by the millions).

I curse less at my Windows computers, now that Bill Gates gives some of the profits to charity, but still envy the Mac users. It does not seem fair.

While Gates is tainted by dubious business practices and poor code,
Jobs shines.
Business is about making stuff, including money, but the way it's done is important. Nothing's perfect of course, Apple just looks & feels so much cleaner.
You can't buy that with charitable gifts, when your pockets are almost bottomless.

M$ has too much in its hands, all of which are incomplete products. Windows needs a complete make over, without looking too much into its predecessors because what ever comes next has the weaknesses of the grandfather.

Apple has the advantage of running on custom hardware, as well as a smaller set of outsourced applications, unlike windows. If apple is that good, it should be marketed for the PCs too and see where it is 6 months later.

I must admit I got all excited at the iPhone (sorry cisco) not down to all the hype but due to the fact no-one has realised which makes it properly unique. The multi-touch.

Currently the only other device that has this is the Lemur pad that is distributed by cycling 74. Plus a few very expensive university and research based products. Overall though Job's hype was not unfounded.

Think about what has been there already and think in many ways how it has failed due to single entry. I would love a tablet pc, but in actual fact the tablet pc is clunky and very tempremental due to only a single touch.

Sorry to dissapoint both sides but the point is the smaller ones that Apple has won on. Releasing a truely unique item and once again making sure it is in the media for days. For the right reasons.

Vista. Well with programmers on the team slating it internally. Plus my own betas that MS sent me I hate to say it but the ball has moved to apple for the next round, just how jobs stole it the last time apple has OS problems.