Apple Talk Heightens as Conference Opens

For the Mac faithful, this time of year is a special one: The always lively Macworld conference that Apple Computer Inc. and co-founder Steve Jobs host starts today in San Francisco.

Websites devoted to all things Apple abound with rumors and speculation that swirl weeks before the event and Jobs’ keynote, to be delivered Tuesday.

This time around, analysts say their money is on a revamped line of notebook PCs that is sorely needed, more deals with media companies for a larger mix of content on the recently announced video iPod and possibly, but less likely, a flash-memory-based iPod.

“Apple’s laptop line desperately needs to be refreshed,” said Tim Bajarin, an analyst at Creative Strategies. “In that context, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a strong updated line of laptops.”

Apple, whose market-leading iPod digital music player has revived the company, is in the midst of shifting to microprocessors from Intel Corp. and away from the PowerPC chip it has used for years. Apple has said it will start selling Intel-based computers by midyear.

But many analysts have said for months that they expect an earlier introduction of some Macintosh models, particularly ones using the older G4 processor.

“We think the iBook, PowerBook, Mac Mini and potentially Xserve are areas that are going to move to Intel first,” said Shaw Wu, an analyst at American Technology Research.

A new hard-disk-drive-based iPod (the more recently introduced Nano and the Shuffle use flash-memory chips instead) is less likely, analysts said.

But, of course, expect a surprise from Jobs. For years now, Jobs will appear to conclude his keynote, only then to say, “Oh, and one more thing....”

Said analyst Bajarin: “He also has something else up his sleeve that none of us have a clue about.”