If it's Tuesday it must be MacWorld

Tuesday the 5th. MacWorld 2009. The last show with Apple in attendance and the first without his Steveness at the keynote helm. The internet runneth over with gushings on why SJ is not doing the keynote, ranging from: "he hates you and he doesn't want to speak to you" to "he died seven years ago man. There was a picture of him in Newsweek without any shoes on so it must be true".

Despite all that the fact is that it's all down to the Schillmmeister on the day, but what will he be introducing. After the high of the iPhone last year and before that er, the iPhone, what can we expect to see?

Ranking in order of how shocked I'll be if it happpens and in reverse order:

Mac Mini. New shiny and revised. It may come in a new form factor (think TimeCapsule in aluminium) or it may stay the same lovely mini. Whatever, like Christmas 2009, it's coming. Faster, bigger drives, DVi and new DisplayPort.

Snow Leopard. More sneak previews, not the real thing.

New iMacs. Faster processors, more better, but essentially just the same.

MacBook Pro 17 in. Joins in the unibody fun. Plenty of rumours on this but no shouts of surprise from me if this one fails to appear. The 17in shows al the hallmarks of joining the ranks of the unloved products in Apples lineup, though Steve uses one apparently.

And in the no way corner:

iPhone nano. Yeah right, just what apple need to cannibalise iPhone sales with a cheap feature poor copy. Nope.

NetBook. Rumours of web site stats showing browsing by an unidentified Apple product with a screen size betwen that of an iBook and an iPhone. Maybe somewhere in Dr Applesteins lab it exists but  not at MacWorld.

iHoover. Cleans as it sucks as it cleans. Available in silver or beige.

Beatles on iTunes. No seriously.

We'll see on the day. Oh and one more thing... nah, just kidding.