Infonaut's Journal: Crack-addicted, wild-ass prediction for MacWorld

Since this is my journal, I can write whatever dain-bramaged pontifications I like. Plus, unlike some of our friends in the tech journalism trade, I don't make any money prognosticating, and nobody relies on my opinions for anything other than a laugh. So here is my prediction for the upcoming MacWorld event in San Francisco:

I think the biggest Apple announcement at MacWorld won't be the new Intel-powered laptops, which will likely appear. It won't be the newest iPod. It'll be a radically expanded content distribution platform in the form of the iTMS, which will carry a boatload of content from all the big networks plus a lot of the long tail, smaller networks like Discovery, et al. I could see big money in Apple providing syndicated shows from the past (original Star Trek, the Steelers v. Raiders "Miraculous Reception" game, David Frost's interview with Kissenger, etc.).

FrontRow will be updated and available for all Bluetooth-capable Macs. Industry analysts will finally wake up and realize that while Apple has been letting everyone think it is pursuing a razor blade model (using the iTMS solely to drive sales of iPods), they're actually doing something far more sophisticated. First they build the iTMS to assist iPod sales, then they turn the iTMS into a profit center of its own, by offering a compelling new distribution mechanism for media that were traditionally only offered via broadcast.

Oh, and one more thing. A new Mac mini will be released. Bluetooth. WiFi. Bigger hard drive. You can plug it in to an external monitor or your TV and use FrontRow to control it. You go to iTMS, download an old episode of The Six Million Dollar Man, hit the play button on your FrontRow remote, and watch it. Finally, after all these years, we'll have the convergence of TV and computers that everyone has been talking about since the mid-1990s. Ironically, back then nobody predicted it would take this long, or that Apple would be the company to make it happen.

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Feel free to lampoon me when none of the above actually come to pass. :-)