Hello, this is your Mac Prophet here with my annual prognostications for the coming year. As I stare into my crystal Cube — er, ball — I foresee that …
1. The Power PC chip will FINALLY get to 1GHz (and slightly beyond) before the end of the year — thanks more to IBM than Motorola.
2. Mac OS X won’t ship on Feb. 24, but will arrive in mid-March — with some unanticipated features. By summer, just about every major (and most minor) apps will be Carbonized.
3. Apple will ship a subnotebook — but not until the third or fourth quarter
4. Apple will have four profitable quarters — but the profits won’t be as large as those of 2000.
5. Apple will release a wireless keyboard and wireless, optical, multi-button mouse.
6. Apple WON’T release an Apple-branded handheld. Instead, it will work with Palm on special bundling deals.
7. We’ll see quad-processor Macs at the tail end of the year.
8. Nvidia graphics cards will be offered as build-to-order options on all Macs.
9. Apple will open retail stores.
10. Apple will begin to regain ground in the education realm due to a more intense push into the market than most anyone expected.
11. CRT monitors (those with the “big butts”) will be phased out before the end of the year. Apple will go with all flat panel, LCD displays.
12. Speaking of which, the prices on those displays will drop. The much-coveted Cinema Display will see a priced reduction of 25 percent to 33 percent by year’s end.
And how does the Mac Prophet know these things? Do I have moles burrowed in at Apple and other firms? Do I have a Hot Line directly to DA MAN, Steve Jobs, himself?
Naw. I’m just going with some gut instincts. These are guesses, nothing more. Enjoy for that. Cut this list and paste it, if you wish. Then you can see whether this “prophet” was gazing into a crystal ball. Or a bowling ball. (Heck, you may not even have to wait that long with Macworld San Francisco looming.)