MacWorld 2009: Rumor roundup

30.12.2008
Steve Jobs may not be coming to MacWorld Expo in San Francisco next week, but that hasn't stopped the Apple rumor-mill from charging ahead at full speed. This year is Apple's last at the storied trade show, and many are hoping the little company from Cupertino will go out with a bang.

As we get ready for Apple Senior V.P. of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller's keynote address on January 6, we present you with the top 5 MacWorld rumors.

iPhone Nano: . We first brought you this rumor about , and not much has changed since then. The analysts still say it's inevitable, the critics still say it's unlikely, and the fanboys are still panting over mock ups and screaming, "yes!" However, this time there might be a little more to it. --a company that specializes in protective cases for mobile devices--briefly added an iPhone Nano category to its Web site, where you could pre-order a case for this non-existent Apple toy. Vaja has since erased mention of the iPhone Nano, but the slip up has put the rumor mill on overdrive. Also, iPhone Nano clones have already been spotted in Asia. I guess the knock off kings were getting too impatient and forged ahead without their inspiration.

iMac Upgrades: Another hot rumor is that a will come out with a magnesium-aluminum alloy chassis, a new cooling system, and a 65W, quad-core chip set. This one is an under-the-hood extravaganza. and some say the new chip set is designed with Snow Leopard--the next version of OSX--in mind.  The new OS is supposed to optimize multi-processor cores.

32GB iPhone: one of the downsides of spending all that money on an iPhone is its low storage capabilities. A 32GB iPhone could change all that. There has been a lot of speculation that the availability of the means Apple is clearing out its inventory to prepare for the 32GB. We'll see.

Picasa for Mac: Google is planning a big presence at this year's MacWorld according to . Picasa is a good photo storage program, and a Mac version has been a long time coming. Who knows? Maybe they'll pull out Google Chrome for Mac while they're at it.