After a long time without any events about that Mac, Apple will be holding a event Wednesday doing just that! The invitation has an Apple logo turned on it’s side with a Lion peaking out, so I think that Lion will be the name of the next operating system OS 10.7! Here is what I expect to happen at the event on Wednesday.

1. Mac OS 10.7 Lion- This is close to guaranteed although I don’t know if it will just be a preview or  will be release in the near future. After Snow Leopard being released a year and a half ago with only minor upgrades and a marginal price, I expect Lion to be the ‘king’ of the OSX line and add a lot of new features and improvements.
2. New Macs- Along with Lion, there will also be new Mac and I think these will be more than spec bumps. The Macbook Air is rumored to have an even thinner design and 2 models the current size, 13 inches as well as a more of a netbook size 11 inch computer. The other models have not had many rumors leaked about them although I think the rumored touch-screen iMac will not happen tomorrow or in the near future.
3. iLife ’11- This has already been leaked and is rumored to be replacing iDVD with a program that can easily make iOS Apps. There is also rumors of versions of the iLife suite being made for iOS.
4. iWork ’11- Along with iLife Apple usually releases iWork, once again no new feature speculation although native Microsoft Office file compatibility would make it much more compelling.

These are my four big predictions for the event. I don’t think there will be much mention of iOs except in the statistics usually given in the beginning of the keynote and possibly with the new versions of iWork and iLife. However, I think there is a chance that we may get a new iPad with cameras to take advantage of the new iOs 4.2 that is coming out in November. Remember to check back after the event for a summary of what happened and what I think about it all. That will most likely come out Wednesday night.

The iPad is bound to be replaced, I originally thought before the Holidays, but they may be holding off until January which would keep with the annual release schedule of the iPhone. Here are the features I want or think they should add to the new iPad.

1. Front Facing Camera (for Facetime). Possibly rear camera but not likely.
2. Retina Display
3. Multiple or smaller screen size- 7 inches sounds like the rumored size
4. Thinner form-factor
5. Lower Price- Starting at $399
6. Built-in Memory card reader- not likely but, I can hope!
7. Higher resolution video output and playback
8. GPS- For all the location-aware apps

These are  the primary new hardware features, I also expect them to roll out new software features between hardware iterations.

Today as expected Apple announced new iPod, a new Apple TV and a new version of iTunes at  today’s keynote. These are the new product details that were announced today.

iPods:

iPod Shuffle:

The iPod Shuffle went retro to the design of the shuffle generation prior to the most recent one. It also regained buttons but also retained voiceover from the previous version. The new iPod Shuffle has a capacity of 2 GB and is priced at $49

iPod Nano:

The iPod Nano no longer uses a click wheel and instead uses a multitouch screen but doesn’t run iOS or have iOS applications. The new iPod Nano does not have the video camera of the previous version and is now a small square as apposed to the well know rectangle of the previous iPod Nanos.  The iPod Nano is available in 2 capacities: 8 GB for$149 and 16 GB for $179.

iPod Touch:

The new iPod touch is even thinner  and looks a lot more like the iPhone 4. It also mirrors the iPhone in features including: the retina display, dual camera system (HD camera on the rear), Facetime, and the powerful A4 mobile processor.

The iPod Touch comes in 3 models: 8 GB for $199, 16 GB for $299 and 32 GB for $399

***All new iPods will be available next week!***

iOS 4.1:

Apple also announced iOS 4.1 which provides many fixes to Bluetooth, proximity sensors and fixes issues on iPhone 3G. It also adds a few new features: HDR photography, the ability to upload HD video over WiFi, the ability to rent TV shows. It also adds a mobile gaming center where you can play against people nearby or around the world head to head in Game Center-enabled games.

iOS 4.1 will be available for free next week!

iOS4.2:

They also gave us a sneak peak to iOS 4.2 which adds all these great features to the iPad. To me this means that they will release an iPad maybe in October with a camera because there will be HDR photography. It also adds wireless printing and Air Play (formerly AirTunes) which will let you stream your iTunes content over your home network.

iOS 4.2 will be available sometime in November

iTunes 10:

The big new feature is Ping which is a social network for music. It allows listeners to follow artists and other listeners who have similar interests. It also has a new way to look at your music in your library although it still needs work.

Apple TV:

The Apple TV (Yes it kept the Apple TV name) is now 1/4 the size of the old model, has no storage and allows you to rent movies and TV shows via iTunes. You can rent first run movies in HD for $4.99 and as time goes on, the price drops. Television shows (currently only Fox and ABC) will be able to be rented for 99 cents without ads! You also could stream content from Netflix, MobileMe, Flickr, and you computers on your home network. You can also use AirPlay to stream content from your iOS devices onto your Apple TV.

The Apple TV is $99 and is available next week!

The new Apple TV is not running the iOS as rumors suggested and is still similar to the previous models that were very unsuccessful.

I will write an event summary after the event is over tomorrow afternoon!

There has been a lot of speculation about Apple replacing Mac OSX in the not so distant future with iOS either  making a version for computers or just phasing out the computers and only making iOS devices. I really think although these iOS devices, although they have become popular, are not going to be able to replace a personal computer. I think Apple has been focusing on iOS in the past year to get the iPad and iOS4 out but, I think they will come back to the Mac and great new stuff for the Mac OS and great new innovation. The Macintosh hardware has really not had any major change for a long time and I think this is for two reasons, first, because they have been focusing on iOS in recent months and secondly because they are very advanced, refined devices and they really just have to bump the tech specs every now and then.

As I wrote to Steve Jobs, I love using my iPod Touch but there are many times and tasks that I need to use my much more powerful Macbook Pro and use the hardware to get things done more efficiently. Plus for things like video editing and other high-intensity tasks, sure you can do them on the touch-based iOS devices, but it is still much more efficient to do that on a computer. Yes touch controls adds functionality, and I can see people who are used to using a trackpad wanting to buy a device like the Magic Trackpad to be able to use them on desktop computers.

I believe that Apple will continue the Mac OSX franchise for at least one more iteration and will later create there next generation operating system. Sure, they may add more multi-touch features and other features to enhance the Mac environment, but at least for the foreseeable future Mac OS will remain similar to how it has been. The OS is very refined already so the new versions may not have a ton of new features, and hopefully will not be expensive to upgrade. Either way Mac OS X isn’t going any where any time soon, it is a powerful operating system and would be foolish for Apple to phase out.