It’s that time of the year again. In a month (5 January 2005), Apple CEO Steve Jobs will deliver the keynote address at MacWorld San Francisco. Why am I mentioning some future MacWorld speech, instead of a more timely discussion of great Mac-related stocking stuffers? Well, because, to some extent, the two are intertwined.

Great new stuff gets announced at every MacWorld. If you’re considering a Mac purchase for the holidays, it’s wise to consider what might show up in January. Don’t ask me why Apple announces great new stuff right after everyone spends every extra penny they have over the holidays. A word of caution: forecasting new products is not an exact science. If I suggest that you might be safe buying a particular product, and you do so before Christmas, and a newer, cheaper, more powerful, cooler, more awesome, must-have version of the same product is announced at MacWorld, it’s not my fault. Reader beware. Technology pundits, as well as weathermen, are among the few who can be wrong and still get paid.

Let’s face it, there’s an unwritten (except right here, right now, by me) rule in consumer electronics that states that the day after you finally break down and purchase a product, they’ll announce a better, cheaper version of it. And, there’s another rule about never getting involved in a land war in Asia, but that’s a whole ‘nother column.

Having said all that, here we go. Here’s what’s “safe” to get before MacWorld. iPods. Get ‘em early, though. They are already in short supply. iBooks, due to recent major revisions. And, the recently introduced iMac G5, which will also be hard to find, especially the 20-inch-monitor version.

What’s “not safe”, in my mind? PowerBooks. Based on Apple’s historical product life-cycles, the PowerBook is due for a major revision. Although there’s a lot of buzz about a PowerBook G5, there are still cooling issues with the G5 processor. Look for a at least a G4 processor/video processor speed bump. If you don’t absolutely need it tomorrow for work, I would hold off on a PowerBook purchase until the second week in January.

Finally, Mac OS X. Version 10.4, called “Tiger”, is coming sometime in “the first half of 2005”. Expect a lot of news on Tiger at MacWorld. So, if you haven’t upgraded to 10.3 “Panther” yet, you may want to wait for Tiger.

© 2004 Peter F. Zimowski