Hard not to predict anything right now. Here what I think that will happen tomorrow. Is it actually tomorrow that Uncle Jobs comes down from the Mountain? Anyhow.
New Laptops: Third Generation for what is called the “ProLine” now. First was Titanium, second Aluminum (that stuff that bends when you look at it, keeps AppleCare so profitable). Now there will be a third one. It’s about time. The 12″ not making into into the brave new Intel feature left a gap in the revenue potential field for a suspicously long time. Not sure if the 17″ has such a bright future. Depends what how easy it is to squeeze out a new flavor of laptop.
There will be Blu-Ray. One could speculate that the MacPro bumps last week were announced after Warners killed HD-DVD. In other words: takes Blu-Ray now more Steve time, and the Pro upgrades fell of the key-note schedule because of that?
Those new laptops might have built in high speed internet connection. I would appreciate EVDO. It’s nice. And the Amazon showed that you can built it in, and that Sprint is willing to make deals. Imagine you buy a new laptop and get free non bullshit (t-online / starbucks I am looking at you) internet whereever you are. I use EVDO since roughly a year and it’s just great. Nothing short of that. Technically you get GPS with EVDO for free, I wish that Apples puts GPS where it should be: in every freaking machine. Yes, I like to Google for something and get results that are optimised for my current whereabouts. But GPS would
put the iPhone on the spot for not having it. Something to spin. (Apple likes has a pathological history of lying around battery life).
One could dream that Apple becomes an ISP. The iPhone worked great for them. But AT&T? They get their money, but nobody started to like AT&T. They are still considered the necessary evil. Who loves his ISP? Which ISP is known for being awesome? Nobody. Interesting. There is a market. People are not paying their landline or even cable bills anymore, but they keep their cellphones going, and probably also their Internet connections. That’s money that still is out there. And Apple is known to show a strong desire for that kind of thing. Sucessfully.
Speaking of Money, AAPL trades at 176. I think it will touch 190 after the keynote.
One of the reasons will be that there will be something that let’s people imagine that profits that used be over at Blockbuster Netflix will now also flow to Cupertino. iTunes is a money making machine.
The Laptop prices will look like the current ones. But by the time you have added the things you would like to have those new machines will be pretty expensive. I think a company that managed to get 1,000 US$ for each phone (!) they sell, is looking at money differently after that.
Finally there will be some iPhone news that will keep the sales going. Probably some (3rd party) Application(s) that can be downloaded. I doubt a hardware version 2 of the device. If so, then it would need to be in stores in a very few weeks, so that there would be no gap in the sales.
While the rest of the country sobbers up from the stupid real estate bubble fueled growth delusions, Apple will go on very strongly. So will Google btw. And not many more.