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We all had our thoughts about what Apple would release at this year’s Macworld Expo and all were surprised regarding what actually came out. It’s fun to speculate and even more fun to be surprised and Apple did both when it came out with an FM turner / remote and introduced two Intel powered products available next month. Many more were amazed when iLife became the podcast creation application of choice from iTunes to Garageband to iWeb all of it was there to create and manage podcasts. Apple’s announcements usually set the stage for the year ahead and here is where we think Apple will succeed in 2006.

The iPod will continue to be the number one seller on the Apple store but as I previously said, this will be the year of the Mac. It has gone from year of the notebook, iPod and HD to our beloved Macintosh being the forefront of excitement and buzz. Apple is set to conquer the world and every media person is now behind them. Rewind back to the year 2000 and Apple’s stock was sitting at 12 dollars, media attention was all negative and Apple has just brought Steve jobs back to the helm and as I sit on the first month of 2006, Apple has become the media’s most talked about company as their iPod, retail stores and computers grow in sales.

The Mac OS is far more advanced than the yet to be released Vista OS and Microsoft is constantly playing catch up to ensure their OS is not too outdated when it hits store shelves this fall. Let’s also not forget that MS is just renaming technologies already in Apple’s Tiger like Dashboard and Spotlight..

Intel is now behind Apple’s computers and when Vista ships, Apple will be shipping its last PowerPC based Mac. Vista will require a lot of resources to run while a $499 Mac mini will push every aspect of 10.4 and most technologies in 10.5 Leopard. As Microsoft starts releasing service packs for its new OS next January, Apple will announce its Pentium Extreme powered high end Pro Mac running 10.5 Leopard and it has sold 100 million iPods. That’s also the day that iLife ’07 will ship on Windows and Mac and Steve will be on Bill’s CES keynote to announce this availability. Wishful thinking? Maybe not.