Apple’s MacWorld: Is Jobs Up To Something Spectacular?

After a not-so-exciting CES, everyone is eyeing MacWorld & Expo, hoping that once again Apple’s magician, Steve Jobs, will be able to bring new thrill into the tech world.

Last year, Jobs has rocked the tech and mobile world by unveiling Apple’s ultimate gadget, iPhone. It’s hard to believe that Jobs will be able to match last year’s announcement, but..you know..never say never.

However, as you can imagine, the rumors are flying around and, according to various reports, iPhone will be again the major star of this year’s show.

It is expected that Jobs will announce a new version of iPhone, with 3G capabilities and maybe the iPhone's 1.1.3 firmware upgrade.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson confirmed the 3G iPhone last year, but no launch date was given. A 3G iPhone was requested especially by the European mobile carriers. In Europe, business users and consumers in 18 of the EU 25 countries are benefiting from commercial 3G services, and network deployments are underway in another 4 countries. Steve Jobs himself said last year that a 3G version is in work and in September 2007 Apple disclosed patent licensing agreement with Wireless technology firm InterDigital Inc., for 3G technologies, that is "covering the current iPhone and certain future mobile phones, if any."

In another iPhone related rumor, it has been said that maybe Jobs will demonstrate the new iPhone SDK, which is expected in February.

"We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users," Jobs wrote last year in a post.

For customers, the iPhone SDK means they will be able to get hundreds of applications and games from third party developers. The iPhone does not have a chat application, for example.

Besides iPhone, Apple TV could be the other major star of the show. So far, Apple’s shiny gadget is considered to be a flop. But lately it has been reported that Apple has signed distribution deals with the major movie companies and the move could give a sales boost to Apple TV.

Also, various media reports said that Steve Jobs could announce a new sub-notebook that it will be 50 percent thinner than the company's existing MacBook Pro and it will employ NAND flash memory in place of a traditional hard disk drive.

And, speaking of notebooks, there are some analysts and Apple’s observers that are expecting a notebook-iPhone hybrid, a MacBook with touchscreen.

All of the above is pretty much summarizing all the rumors, but there is also a slight chance that Steve Jobs will take up the stage to announce something unexpected.

Maybe he will announce something related to another rumored project. Last year in August German mazine Capital, reported that that Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, and Volkswagen CEO, Martin Winterkorn, have met in California. The source said that the two companies are collaborating on a compact car, that would feature products by Apple, but the project is still in the early stages.

Let’s wait and see if indeed Jobs has “one more thing” to say!