If you were hoping to see a new iMac this fall with Blu-ray, then you might just be out of luck. According to a report put out by China’s HKEPC this past weekend, Intel won’t be officially supporting Blu-ray until the second quarter of 2008. That’s when Intel will introduce Eaglelake, replacing their current Bearlake chipset. Intel’s Eaglelake slide which HKEPC presented, displays Eaglelake’s noted upcoming features.

Although Apple’s iMac is based on Intel’s Merom, it’s safe to state that if Intel’s higher end desktops won’t support Blu-ray until Q2 2008 that this fall’s iMac’s are definitely out of the question. Late last Thursday, Apple released a statement concerning the delay of OS X Leopard until October. Unlike most, I found that to be welcomed news in that Leopard would now debut on iMac’s based on Intel’s forthcoming 45nm Penryn right out of the gate. But without a Blu-ray optical drive; I think iMac sales could suffer this fall if consumers are made aware of the fact that Blu-ray will only launch at best, in Q2 2008. Every Independent Apple retail store that I’ve contacted state that they won’t offer upgrades for iMac’s optical drives, period. And although iMac’s will likely support HDMI to enable a user to connect a Blu-ray drive later on, that’s an expense that most would like to avoid when making a major purchase.

The question becomes, will Apple will find a way to work around Intel’s roadmap and still deliver on Blu-ray to complete the new iMac’s with OS X Leopard this fall. Do you think we’ll see a Q4 iMac with Blu-ray? And more importantly, would you buy a new iMac without Blu-ray? Weigh in now.

Neo.

The show floor has been jam packed with people cruising the hundreds of product booths. As I’ve only had about 3 hours to wander the actual Expo, I’ve been impressed with the variety of product. While some I spoke with said it felt like an iPod product show, that wasn’t my first impression. The half of the hall I spent time in was all Macintosh computer-related product or digital photography product. Users were lined up 5-deep in most places waiting to hear presentations or touch and see products. JBL has a new mushroom-shaped speaker system, Miglia now offers a tv product that saves in HD format, Nikon showed off their new D-40 digital camera, while XtremeMac displayed all their cases, plus some new cords (Toslink Audio Cable) to work with the Apple TV. Its hard to list everything as I’m trying to get back to the show today, but MacNN will bring you reviews of as many of the newly released products as we can over the next few months. It’s time for me to get back to the Expo floor to see the other thousands of products I haven’t discovered yet!

Another feature of Macworld that is often left off the radar in show reports are the evening events. Each night there are a variety of private cocktail parties, user gatherings, and usually one large party. Tuesday night used to belong to Apple’s Developer party which was a massive event featuring mind numbing talent over the years. I’ve seen the Wildflowers, James Brown, Herbie Hancock, Smashmouth, and numerous other bands over the years.

A few years ago Apple abandoned this party and in its place now is a Macworld sponsored event. Initially, I was appalled that tickets to the event are $40, as compared to Boston’s party which was only $20.00. I didn’t understand why the party was so expensive, until I arrived to find the band Cheap Trick rocking the house. Each ticket came with two free drinks, and needless to say a very attentive audience danced, rocked, and swayed to the 80s sounds. The event was a great success and capped off with a raffle of products, mostly in the iPod arena.

The big event Wed. night was Mac Observer’s Cirque du Mac party. The All Star Macintosh Band rocked the packed house. I must say that the band was infinitely better than in previous years. The crowd was a great mix of speakers, attendees, and vendors. The sounds covered decades of music and everyone had a great time. The 6th Annual MWSF FCPUG SuperMeet was held at the same time, and judging by the number of people who were supposed to attend both events, but never made it to Cirqe, I’m guessing the Final Cut meeting was also a great success. Once I crawl over to the show floor today, I’ll make sure to ask a few folks how it went.

Macworld is much more than a mass of booths of vendors hawking products. There are always an interesting mix of expert presentations that do not require the high-priced entry fee. Free expert dog and pony shows abound at this show. I took advantage of a presentation by Photographer Al Satterwhite at the Apple Store on Monday night and was enlightened as to how he manages his photographic work flow, the lenses he uses, and how he handles scanning his 30+ years of photos. The theater overflowed with photographers of all levels.

On Tuesday, I caught much of Kevin Smith’s feature presentation. When I arrived, about 15 minutes into it, I saw a huge hall completely packed with laughing, smiling, and enraptured attendees listening to Kevin. Users were lined up behind four microphones asking Kevin questions and he answered them in a comfortable, offbeat and definitely x-rated style.

He was incredibly comfortable with his thousand-person audience (I’m guessing at the numbers) and leaned back on his podium and delivered quite a baudy set of hysterical responses to most of the questions. He loves his Mac computers, but apologized for not remembering the model of his first Mac. It is impossible for me to recount much of what he said, because, afterall, this is a g-rated site. Trust me, it was over the top entertainment and we all learned a bit of what makes him tick.

The Apple, Inc. Keynote at Macworld Expo left a number of users less than thrilled. While many users salivated at the thought of an Apple phone, it seems that the two-product focused Keynote speech left many users wanting. Snippets of discussions overheard included comments that devout Mac users wanted to see some new Macintosh product announcements. The name change from Apple Computer to Apple, combined with the lack of Mac product announcements, to some, is seen as writing on the wall for the company formerly known as a computer company. Time will tell.

While thousands of people roamed the product aisles, I spent most of my first day in press conferences. My pre-floor assessment of the best of show product goes to OWC’s ModBook. I saw this amazing tablet in action, and it is everything I could have hoped to see.

The short story is that they take a MacBook and remove the screen and replace it with a robust glass 13.3″ wide screen tablet top, and you interact with it using a Wacom pen that hs 256 levels of pressure, including a hover feature. It has an optional GPS system and it just looks amazing. It weighs 5.2 pounds and is only 1.16″ thick. They expect to start shipping in April and prices range from $2279 to $2849.

While Monday is usually the day for conference pass attendees, and the show officially starts on Tuesday, Macworld Conference & Expo really begins right after you register in your hotel room. Many people wander down to the Moscone to see what’s going on, and all of the press and conference speakers are there picking up their badges.

General attendees often want to meet the speakers and writers they admire, and Monday is the best day to grab a few minutes to do that. It is also the best day to reconnect with old Expo friends, and that’s what many of us did today. It is all about gearing up and prepping for the biggest Macintosh-related product show in the US. As of a few weeks ago attendance was up about 28% from last year, which adds to the promise of a great show.

A glimpse of the show floor showed lots of people working very hard to set up their booths. Equipment, boxes, and pieces of booths covered both halls. It’s that behind the scenes mass hysteria you never want to see, as the empty floor is efficiently filled with everything you’ve ever wanted to see for your Macintosh, iPod. All just waiting for you to investigate or buy.

While there isn’t much news on Monday, I did get a sneak peak at some of the features to be announced tomorrow (Tues.) bundled into the forthcoming MS Office product. I think you’ll like them! In the meantime an update for Office 2004 is available online. (http://store.mactech.com/description.html?PCODE=Stb2006)

Also announced on Monday is the new, first ever TidBITS Archive CD. Containing every article TidBITs ever published, it contains over 6,500 articles from 860 issues, written by more than 300 Macintosh experts. (Search back to the first two years and you’ll even see my name in there, reporting on Macworld Expo, of course.) Through Jan 31st, the CD is available through MacTech’s online store for $29.95 and this price will also be in effect as a show special at the MacTech booth (#N3320). Normally, the cost is $49.95.

Stay tuned for more Macworld news as the week flies by!
Ilene Hoffman, Review Editor

The European Trademark Office has published Microsoft’s latest trademark titled Sportslounge which is noted as being originally filed on December 22, 2006 under application 005580568. Microsoft has filed Sportslounge under International Class 9 which is noted in the filing as pertaining to computer software that combines live TV with online data. The new trademark and related service is likely to debut on Microsoft’s Xbox Live website menu sometime in 2007. In fact, the first official mention of Sportslounge debuted yesterday during Bill Gates keynote at CES 2007 where he revealed new content partners for its Media Center PC. It was announced that the SportsLounge from Fox will allow people to watch a game while simultaneously getting scores and video from other games.

LifeChat

In June 23, 2003, Apple introduced a major breakthrough in video conferencing called iChat AV. Apparently Microsoft wants to shadow Apple with their own branding for internet chatting and have filed for a new trademark titled LifeChat The filing was made in late October of 2006 under application number 005407325.

Other Microsoft 2006 Trademark Filings

In and about the last Quarter of 2006, Microsoft was apparently quite busy filing a great number of trademark applications, including Business Relevant Design, Business Process Shaper, Flexgo, Turn 10, Expression Blend, OneCare, Windows Powershell, ForeFront, Windows Rally, ReadyDrive, ReadyBoost, and my favorite, Les Galagoogoo.

NOTICE: MacNN presents only a brief summary of patents with associated graphic(s) for journalistic news purposes as each such patent application and/or grant is revealed by the U.S. Patent & Trade Office. Readers are cautioned that the full text of any patent applications and/or grants should be read in its entirety for further details.

Written and researched by Neo.

Wicked Widgets released iPodage today, a widget that tells you how many songs will fit onto your iPod. You can set the average song length and the bitrate, the widget then displays what you can fit onto your iPod. The widget is free and available for download today.

Apple Store UK today published details of a 0% finance deal in the run up to Christmas. The Perfect Gift page on their website details that if you buy a qualifying Mac product between November 15th 2006 and January 8th 2007 and you can benefit from 6 months interest free credit. Qualifying items are quoted as “Any Apple computer with a retail value of no lower than £500 and no greater than £10,000 including VAT, purchased with or without related Apple accessories and software. “

SmileOnMyMac released DiscLabel 4.0 today. This is a major upgrade to its CD and DVD label design software for Mac OS X. DiscLabel lets you create and print CD/DVD labels, DVD covers and jewelcase inserts. It also supports LightScribe discs and label sheets and direct-to-print media. Version 4.0 adds multiple layer support, multicolour gradients for text and objects. There are also freehand and polygon tools, plus overall speed improvements.
A demo version is available for download, and the full version of DiscLabel costs $32.95, with upgrades from previous versions costing $15.