John Gruber of Daring Fireball is officially A Smart Guy, especially when it comes to Apple stuff — but he’s not (at least from my reading of his blog) the stereotypical “Steve Jobs is God” fan-boy, which means he actually thinks about things before he says how great they are. After reading his predictions for the keynote today, I think most of what he says is probably pretty close to the mark, although I should point out that I have no reason for saying that other than it sounds reasonable. Apart from being bashed once by Fake Steve Jobs, I have no relationship with The Great Man.
John figures Apple is going to launch an ultra-portable with no DVD drive and only Wi-Fi — the “Macbook Air,” as some have been calling it. This one makes sense to me as well. I think plenty of people are looking for something small and light, and wireless is ubiquitous enough at home, at work, in hotels and so on that you could use something like that without too much trouble just about anywhere. I also think he’s right that a tablet may be in the works, but isn’t likely to arrive soon.
That said, I think John is reaching on a couple of things — one being his wish for some kind of built-in wireless for the Macbooks that isn’t Wi-Fi. I share his desire for that, but I just don’t see Apple building Wimax or anything like that into a Macbook at this point. And he also mentions Apple TV, one of the few less-than-stellar products Apple has come out with, and says he’s hoping for Apple TV 2.0. But why? Lots of people seem happy just using a Mac Mini to do what Apple TV is supposed to do. Why not leave it at that? I don’t see Apple TV as a must have.
If you want to track the keynote live — and who doesn’t? — MacRumors is sending out Twitter updates, and CrunchGear is going to be using CoverItLive, the app I wrote about recently.