What Will Apple Reveal Next Week?

When Apple makes an announcement about a coming press event it can sometimes feel like the National Hurricane Center has identified a new hurricane.lol

There is usually rampant speculation surrounding the importance and impact of the event: Will it be a Category 5 announcement with a revolutionary device, or....
a less-important Category 1, with basic updates to operating systems or gadgets?

Keeping with this tradition, the blogosphere was in full swing on Friday as technology experts and Apple fans tried to guess what Apple’s chief executive will announce next Wednesday when the company hosts “a sneak peek of the next major version of Mac OS X,” and other new products.

The popular Apple blog AppleInsider believes that the event next week will usher in a new, smaller version of the MacBook Air computer.

Kasper Jade, citing a “person with a proven track record of pinpoint accuracy,” writes on the AppleInsider Web site that the new MacBook Air will be completely redesigned and will come with a new type of hard-drive called an “SSD Card” that looks more like a “stick of RAM, yet is not easily user-replaceable.”

CNet’s Erica Ogg says that everything about the new MacBook Air “will be smaller, including the price.”

Citing a person familiar with the agenda surrounding the Mac event, Ms. Ogg says the final price of the new Air will be “significantly lower” than the current $1,499 starting price.

Fast Company’s Kit Eaton points to a new set of patents Apple has filed over the last several months that explore multi-touch interfaces on a desktop or laptop computer.

Mr. Eaton says that although the current version of OS X, Apple’s operating system, features touch-friendly applications, a major update could “incorporate advanced multi-touch gestures, possibly even motion-control input via the webcam, and may possibly involve a switch between ‘touchy’ mode and ‘normal’ mode.”