The following is a prediction and has little or not basis just wishful thinking for what could happen at Macworld when Steve Jobs takes the stage at this annual Mac event. Each year over a dozen rumors of what could happen always come from “reliable� sources but most of them are squashed and those that follow rumors always get heart broken when that “big thing� was not announced. I like to help feed the fire and throw some things out there. I have divided this into Home, Pro and Music (following Apple’s retail categorization) to help you find the part of the article for you.

Home:
The most important rumored announcement is the Intel Mac and thousands of consumers and analysts are awaiting Steve’s announcement of the new switch. Everyone is expecting an Intel powered iBook with “Yonha� inside and also a Yonah powered Mac mini. Both models have seen little speed bumps in the last year and no changes to the body. With Apple’s Front Row, the Mac mini could easily become the new media center Mac with a larger hard drive, better video card and Front Row version 2.0 powering the device that could sit at your desk or under your TV.

iLife ’06 and iWork ’06 are given announcements. If Apple does not touch on these products it would mean they are slowly phasing out the products. iLife has done extremely well and iWork was rumored to lacking in sales so much that apple included a copy of the productivity software with copies of Tiger as a demo version. iLife ’06 is rumored to contain Front Row 2.0 and a Bluetooth remote control as well as iWeb (a web page creation application that works with iLife and .Mac with support for MySQL and PHP. Finally, a rumor that Apple will be adding a spreadsheet application called “numbers� to compete with Microsoft’s Office software. If this occurs, it will mean that Apple will no longer need MS on the Mac. Safari, Mail, iWork and other components will push MS out of the picture completely.

Pro:
Apple plasma display rumors popped up last week on a few websites. Apple may be releasing Final Cut Extreme to work with a new 200,000 dollar cinema camera being released in a few months but FCEx is slated for an NAB announcement but the new camera shoots at a higher pixel level than any of Apple’s monitors so a Plasma 42� and 58� TVs with DVI inputs would satisfy the prosumers and those with a new Mac mini DVR.

Music:
The iPod shuffle has remained untouched since last January and has been in short supply lately at retail stores. I hope they don’t remove the model but anything could happen. I touched on possibilities of features in the new iPod shuffle a few weeks back but no one knows what will happen to the mini player.

More video content will be added to the iTMS and that is inevitable. Apple has slowly been adding more television shows and music videos to their service and the more content available; the more money is made for Apple and the content creators. HBO and ESPN are rumored to join the iTMS next week. A small tidbit of the possibility of subscription based TV seasons with an automatic download each time a new episode is released for 4-10 dollars a month would be great for Apple consumers.

One more rumor is subscription podcasts. This is very likely but will suck for consumers. Podcasts are free let’s leave it like that. Any content producer in the podcast field that wants to charge will automatically be taken off my list.

We don’t know what will happen when Steve takes the stage at Macworld but it’s going to be big. So many products and so little time. There will be live coverage all over the net check my site for links to those providing