I was on the edge of the desert just outside Cupertino when the drugs began to wear off. The last thing I remember was being in Las Vegas at the CES boondoggle, doing my best to purge the horror from short-term memory with my good friend Don Patron.
Suddenly it's three days later and I'm on my way to Macworld, clutching a bunch of semi-informed rumors (my favorite kind) about what Jobs & Co. would reveal, scribbled onto cocktail napkins. What happened in between is kind of a blur, but I wouldn't rule out an alien abduction.
Here's what the napkins have to say.
* iPhone 2.0. Like every other blockbuster, this one begs for a sequel. Unlike nearly every 2.0 production from Hollywood, however, this one will likely exceed the original. My more sober colleague Tom Yeager predicts that in addition to 3G support and more storage, the iPhone will sport GPS navigation, blowing away competitors like Garmin and TomTom. It will also cure world hunger and force Rudy Giuliani out of the Republican race. (Hey, the napkins never lie.)
* A sub sub-notebook -- one so small it will come with a magnifying glass so that you can read the screen. A touch screen may also be part of the deal.
* A new and improved version of Apple TV that will still suck, only not quite so much. The ability to play and rip DVDs to iTunes may be a feature, and maybe support for Blu-ray drives. (Though my notes are a little fuzzy -- key words are covered by dried pieces of lime.)
* A scheme for renting movies via iTunes using the not-quite-so-sucky Apple TV. This one is pretty much already out of the bag; the only question is which studios St. Steve can strong-arm into supporting him.
* The name "Macworld" is so 1997 that Apple will rename the show. The two possibilities: Jobs World, or simply One More Thing (OMT).
Now that I think about it, there was something not quite right about that waitress at the Golden Retriever Casino -- the shifty look in her third eye, the tentacles reaching out from underneath her carbon nanotube miniskirt. So if none of these things come to pass, blame the aliens. Or possibly the tequila.
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Posted by Robert X. Cringely on January 14, 2008 08:58 AM
