WWWish List
With the WWDC 09 Apple event tomorrow, I am getting increasingly excited about what we will be seeing. I don’t follow the rumour sites intensively thesedays as I would rather like a surprise, although to be fair it does seem like the iPhone will be getting all of the attention. More about that in a moment.
My laptop needs have always been fairly low. My main machine is a 20in iMac which I use 95% of the time. I also have a 15in PowerBook G4 that is perfect for using in the garden, on the sofa or in bed. However, the 1hr 30min to 2hrs that the battery charge used to last me for is declining rapidly, meaning I’m lucky to squeeze half an hour out of it. Unless I want to trail the power supply around the house with me then it’s not really practical anymore and I feel will soon be redundant.
So, my thoughts turn to netbooks. A perfect alternative to my aging PowerBook. I know there are small machines out there which are capable of running OS X – the Hackintosh, but I want something legit. An Apple computer running OS X. I’m a stickler for the genuine article.
My needs, like with most people in the netbook market, are really quite basic and leisurely. The ability to check my e-mail in Apple Mail, surf the web in Safari, chat with iChat and mess around in Photo Booth with an integrated iSight (this for the younger family members, obviously!!). A small 10-incher which is light and portable would be perfect. I am not particularly bothered about touchscreen as that would just send the price up.
As for the price range, I think for a netbook I’d be more than happy to pay anything up to £500. When we’re talking basic and leisurely needs I think it needs to be aggressively priced otherwise you’ll have people thinking they may aswell just plump up a bit more cash and go for the MacBook. £449 would be a great price, I think.
Since there have been no rumours, to my knowledge, of an Apple Netbook imminent then I doubt we’ll see anything of the sort tomorrow. All the news seem to point towards the new iPhone and some of the rumours I have heard are pretty exciting, although how much of those will materialize remains to be seen. I think a front facing camera for video iChat would be very well received. I don’t so much do video chats, but I would love to see an iPhone Photo Booth app if we do get the front facing camera…again for the young family members to play with that I alluded to before 
Ahem.
So, let’s see what tomorrow brings. Aside from what I mentioned above, I would also love to see the unveiling of Steve Jobs back on stage as the ‘one more thing’, but that’s just a personal request that will unlikely be fulfulled!
What are you hoping for tomorrow?
You know, I think Apple will do a netbook someday, or at least something that will be “like” a netbook. I don’t know about tomorrow, but soon.
Also, I don’t think that netbook/oversized iPod touch/whatever will be a Mac. It will run OS X, but not Leopard/Snow Leopard. It would most likely run a version of OS X like the iPhone OS.
My wife, Karen, would probably like something like this too. She uses an iMac Core 2 Duo for most things, but has a seriously ailing iBook G4 for couch web surfing and looking up recipes whilst in the kitchen.
Otherwise, I think we’ll see a new iPhone with a release in late June/early July. We’ll see Snow Leopard with a ship date announced.
My big hope is that iPhone OS 3.0 will be released this week. I have been finding a need for copy and paste a lot in the past couple of weeks!
And I am hoping for Steve Jobs, too, but I think he won’t be officially back until the end of June, as promised. Although, as with most of Apple’s promises, they’ll slip and it won’t happen until October!