As anyone who follows Apple news knows, Apple has left MacWorld for good.  Although still technically a rumor, many people have been confirming that Apple will be moving to CES in 2010.  This may sound bad to the many who attend MacWorld, but is a great change to bring two separate shows to one venue.  Instead of having to choose or rush from one to another, everyone can now go to Las Vegas for CES instead.  The interesting part is Apple is saying January is not an idea product announcement time for their current plans. They may have said this just to make MacWorld feel better about the loss of Apple.  Either way this should turn out to be an interesting year.

[Apple Insider]

  We thought the Mac Mini was gone for sure when rumors of its imminent death were rampant.  Now there are reports that it is still alive and kicking and indeed getting a refresh. 

The refresh is rumored to be getting the following updates:

1.  A new Mini DisplayPort like the new MacBooks.

2.  The Mac Mini will be able to address up to 4GB of Ram

3.  The optical drive will be changed from IDE to Sata or an option to eliminate the optical drive in favor of 2 Sata hard drives

While this update is still a rumor, it is not so far in left field that you couldn’t consider it to be the truth.  The Mac Mini is still available via Apple and is in need of that refresh we have been waiting for.  MacWorld may be the time or maybe it will be a stealth update.  Either way we hope something is kept for a cheaper option of Mac.

[via Apple Insider]

  Now that we have had a few days to settle in with all the Mac news about the MacBooks, news of updated iMacs are next in line.  Apple refreshed their iMac line last August and the rumor is that there will be a possible refresh prior to Christmas. 

The updates are said to be mostly hardware-based and not Cosmetic as that would change their current lineup of aluminum and glass.  The thought is that Apple may incorporate quad core technology into the iMac lineup.  At this point it is only speculation and there has been no concrete evidence of a refresh, but it certainly is typical of Apple to do silent refreshes as well.

We doubted the possibility of new MacBooks prior to January, after the release of the iPod Nano during Septembers event.  The most interestign part of all the releases is what might Apple have for MacWorld in January.  We are assuming they have something pretty significant if they are releasing everything prior to the January.  We can only wait and see what Apple has next to wow us with.

[via Apple Insider]

  According to Apple Insider, the new version of OS X coming to us sometime next year will have a Finder completely redone in Cocoa.  Traditionally the Finder was done in Carbon and will finally get a revamp to the new code-base platform.  This could bring speed and extra nicety to the finder for all who enjoy the quality of their Mac.

The new version of Leopard will also include Image Boot.  This feature has the ability to let you put a copy of the OS onto another hard drive or partition on your internal hard drive and allows you to boot from it.  

What else could Apple have for us in January as they have almost exhausted all of their products in the past year or so.

[via Tuaw]

  Apple Insider has posted that the pre-release of Snow Leopard OS X 10.6 will be on its way to developers shortly.  This is the first release since the initial seeding during the annual developers conference in June of 2008.  

Snow Leopard is not a major upgrade, but an upgrade to the core of OS X itself.  The update is about optimization and core services rather than a feature set for the user.  There is no known planned release for Snow Leopard, but one could only guess it will be ready in January for MacWorld.

[via AppleInsider]