Waiting for 11:00AM

Well, it's after midnight here in the good old Central Time Zone, and the MacWorld 2006 expo is set to start later this morning, with Steve Jobs giving a keynote speech at 11:00 CT. Like the rest of my Apple enthusiast friends, we're anxiously awaiting said keynote, dying to see what's next for the new darling of the computer industry.

You may be wondering why many a geek seem to be falling into the clutches of this "cult," why such a historically embattled and estranged platform appears to suddenly be the hot thing among the technorati. I can't speak for everyone, but I'll tell you what I think's so great about Apple:

They provide "desktop" UNIX that doesn't suck. This is, in fact, my biggest reason for my relatively recent Apple fervor. Out of the desktop-targeted Unices that cost money, nothing comes close to touching the feature set, polish and dependability that Apple provides. Ubuntu's nice but, sadly, you get what you pay for.

Their designers kick ass. Jonathan Ive and his team have been producing some incredible looking products over in Cupertino. You know how people say lots of iPods are purchased just because of the "look?" They're right.

They aren't Microsoft. It's frequently stated that Americans have the power to "vote with their pocketbooks," but simply not buying (Microsoft's) products doesn't register a vote. Buying non-Microsoft products drives home the point that Americans are anti-monopoly, and interested in computing freedom as well as platform agnosticism. Even if you don't know what those words mean, trust me; you believe in them or, at least, you certainly don't believe in their antithesis.

So, I've made my case, but Apple's still got to make theirs: why should we buy their product over their competitors? Everyone's saying that MacWorld 2006 is going to be where Apple launches their next volley of products. Hence the bated breath; geeks love to see what's next from the would-be dethroner of the desktop computer monopoly...even if they themselves once held the crown.

Here's my bet: Intel PowerBooks and iBooks. Maybe an "iBook nano." A preview of OS X 10.5 Leopard with a redesigned Finder. New versions of iLife and iWork.

Relatively safe bets, I know, but that's because it's more than likely what's going to happen.

...Is it 11:00 yet? Damn.