Shaw Wu’s Macworld: Blu-ray, movie rentals, MacBook mini or slim
With less than two weeks to go before Steve Jobs’ Jan. 15 keynote, analyst Shaw Wu of American Technology Research offers his best guess for what Apple’s (AAPL) CEO might have up his sleeve at Macworld Expo 2008. In a note to clients issued this morning, Wu predicts:
- Blu-ray. Citing unnamed sources, Wu says that Apple will outline an HD strategy that backs Sony’s Blu-ray format over the HD-DVD standard favored by Microsoft. (Although Wu hedges his bets and suggests that Apple might also use a combo Blu-ray/HD-DVD drive.)
- Subnotebook. Wu says Apple will re-enter the subnotebook space (nothing new there) but adds that Jobs may call the new machine the MacBook mini or MacBook slim. Any preferences?
- Movie rentals. Wu points out that the digital movie rental deals expected to be announced at Macworld are a departure driven by necessity, and represent a new business model for Apple. “Whether these movies expire based on time and/or usage is unclear to us,” he writes, “But we do believe that rentals are a significant change in its philosophy.”
- Speed bumps and external HDD: In the category of smaller announcements, Wu is picking up potential news related to speed bumps and or capacity bumps in current Macs and iPhones, and an external HDD storage/dock/streaming device for the Airport Extreme and the new MacBook mini/slim.
- Apple TV. Wu sees two big shortcomings in the current product: 1. no way to connect directly to the Internet for TV and movie content and 2. lack of a TV tuner. “Our sources indicate that AAPL is working on fixing these weaknesses to make Apple TV a much stronger product,” he writes, later in 2008 or perhaps 2009, but not at Macworld 2008.
- 3G iPhone. Coming mid to second-half 2008 at a higher price point, Wu says, allowing Apple to reposition the current iPhone as a “more mainstream” product.
Let us know as soon as Appel comes out with the Blue-ray/HD-DVD Drives for their PC’s
I don’t believe that we’ll see Blue-Ray in the MacWorld. The Mac Pro are updated an still no Blue-Ray…
Oh, my, I see that Steve W. beat me to the punch on the “MacBook nano” name, but I’m still a necessary piece to this simultaneously conceived breakthrough idea, as he capitalized “Nano” whereas it will be as I project, “nano.”
It takes two to tango!
My favorite possible name for the ultralight notebook is “MacBook nano.” It is my favorite possible name because I thought of it.
The so-called “subnotebook” will be a tablet (think oversized iPhone sans cell) and probably called “iTablet”.
Of course I was expecting a PowerTablet when the 17″ PowerBook debuted, and while I did get one of those immediately (and it’s been dandy obviously exactly the right product at the time) I probably won’t this time around if it is not a tablet and will probably go with an Axiotron Modbook conversion.
Seriously,
if Apple TV gest all the new thigs Wu hopes for, what will it do that Windows Media Extenders dont?
right you are – he mentions the slim notebook but not the flash drive
ex ped: It was my report that left it out, not Shaw Wu. Quoting from his report to clients:
Re-enters Subnotebooks: We believe AAPL will re-enter the subnotebook space, but this time use NAND flash as primary storage to improve battery life, reliability, and reduce weight. The last time AAPL had a subnotebook was in 1997-98 with the PowerBook 2400. Mac OS X has proven that it can run in as small a footprint as 4 GB with the iPhone. Our sources indicate that possible names include “MacBook mini” or “MacBook slim”.
also missing from Wu’s predictions:
a flash drive slim laptop
the full Beatles anthology on iTunes
Paul and Ringo as featured music guests at the end of the keynote
an iPhone software announcement plus
GPS for the iPhone
ex ped: Wu has the flash-drive slim laptop.
To be more precise about AppleTV. It does connect directly to the internet to show previews of videos, TV shows, and movies from iTunes, and to show YouTube content.
What’s missing is a direct way to purchase content the iTunes store; you have to go to your computer for that. Also missing: any way to view browse and view internet-based media that’s outside of Apple’s walled-garden.
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Silicon Valley veterans like to joke that Steve Jobs must be surrounded by a reality distortion field; if you get too close to him, you start to believe what he's saying. Thanks to the success of the iPod, the launch of the iPhone and the renewed interest in the Mac, Apple has made believers out of millions of customers - and made a lot of investors rich. But Philip Elmer-DeWitt believes that an ounce of skepticism never hurts when writing about the company. He should know. He's been covering Apple - and watching Steve Jobs operate - since 1982, first for Time Magazine, then for Business 2.0, and now for Fortune.
Macbook Nano take the cake