We pretty much know that there is going to be an Apple Special Event will take place sometime in spring to showcase the new features of Leopard, and possibly even iLife and iWork 2007. Steve has has already made it clear that Leopard will include all of the new miscellaneous applications introduced in recent Mac products; such as Front Row, Photo Booth, and Boot Camp. In the WWDC 2006 keynote, Steve didn’t make it clear what other applications will be bundled with Leopard, “These are just three examples of how we’re going to ship the complete package of applications with Leopard.” iLife and iWork 2007 would be a significant addition to the new bundled applications in Leopard.

In Apple’s quarter one financial results conference call, an Apple financial advisor told an analyst to “stay tuned” for iLife-related announcements. iLife has never before been bundled with a retail box of Mac OS X, but the suite comes with every Mac. Bundling with Mac OS X would make the software product line much simple and definitely would be a major reason to upgrade to the new OS. One of Apple’s key strategies to switching consumers from Windows to Mac was the “Everything is in the Box” strategy, where everything you could possibly want is bundled with the Mac.

It wasn’t long ago when Macs were bundled with Apple’s own complete office suite, Appleworks, a port from its Mac OS 9 version and was far out-of-date and unstable to compete with Microsoft’s dominant Office suite. For a long time, people have thought the Mac could only be used for creative work. While that might be true, times are changing and many businesses and professionals are switching to Macs. Bundling iWork with Leopard and every Mac could alter the office landscape permanently. Logically, it would then make sense for Apple to include a spreadsheet application to complete the suite and therefore really compete with Microsoft Office.

While this may give Apple a license to raise the price of their operating system upgrade, I think many would be willing to pay the difference. From a marketing perspective, it makes too much sense for Apple to just bundle these great suites into Leopard. Apple didn’t break the yearly iLife and iWork upgrade tradition for no reason.

This pretty illuminating graphic screams that they are ready to kick some ass in 2007 and onward. Apple has not looked this good since 1984 with a solid beautiful operating system, a great product line of desktop and laptop computers, a great foothold in the consumer electronic and music industry, and an-ever brighter future.

From an analytical point of view, Apple’s obviously got some fantastic products yet to be released to call the iPod and all of its Macintoshes “just the beginning”. Personally, I am on the edge of my seat to see how Apple is going to make 2007 the beginning of a new era for Apple. 2006 was a great year for Apple to lay a solid foundation for Apple to build on with Leopard, the iTV, HD content on iTunes, and new iPods (widescreen). But as always this time of the year, we just got to wait and see because nothing is for sure until Steve announces Macworld’s infamous “One more thing…”

Its no question that Leopard will feature a new GUI, but no one really knows what it will look like. Its no doubt that Leopard will feature resolution-independent graphics support that will allow for greater resolution displays with the same and windows sizes. However, the details of the interface have not yet been revealed, but many are hoping that we will see the final announcement of Leopard features at Macworld 2007, where chances of a GUI announcement are high.

Apple Gazette has featured a new rumor from a supposed insider that has claimed that the new GUI that will replace Aqua will be nicknamed ‘Illuminous’. The report has no solid information on what the Illuminous theme will look like, but I believe I know exactly where Apple might be headed.

As I said, Apple’s latest trend in its software GUI is a darker, flatter, translucent, reflective, “illuminating” glass appearance. The GUI is also making headway beyond the sheer appearance, to window sizes, visual effects, icons, etc. Fullscreen applications will definitely be a hit in Leopard, to clear your desktop from clutter and manage your workspace more efficiently. Just like Aperture and iPhoto, imagine fullscreen browsing, video-editing, Garageband, iWork, etc. Sleek graphic effects when opening windows, files, applications, are also likely to be improved making the OS seem more alive, similar to the widget ripple effect. And with the new GUI change, I am also expecting Apple to replace their outdated icons. Ultimately, Apple is heading towards a sleeker, darker, simpler, livelier GUI.

Apple has been the leader in computer and GUI design for years, and Vista’s new Aero interface has probably provoked Apple’s design team to topping them off with a mind-blowing interface (that requires half of Aero’s hardware requirements). It would be a true disappointment if there was no sort of GUI announcement when Steve finished giving the major features in Leopard.

The dark translucent appearance Apple has developed over the last three years has seemed to have expanded to many of the operating system’s core applications. Here are a few of the many traces of the new dark glass appearance rumored to be featured in Leopard:

Aperture 1.5’s navigation window

iPhoto’s Adjust Window

Leopard’s new QuickLook feature

Front Row’s sliding dark glass

iTunes 7’s new darker appearance

Digg.com creator Kevin Rose apparently spilled some inside information on the latest Diggnation podcast about the upcoming iPhone. He wouldn’t give out too many details, but he did reveal a few specific specs, including: an official announcement at Macworld, a very small design, 4 GB and 8 GB flash memory models, a slide-out keyboard, a wide touch-screen, compatibility with all major carriers, and a revolutionary user interface. He wouldn’t discuss any more information about the iPhone on the show to protect his source, but he claims he has seen the phone (however not operating) and is positive the source is 100 percent reliable.

Other rumors include iChat video-conferencing on the phone, and tight integration with OS X 10.5 Leopard. The phone is also rumored to use an intuitive, mobile-version of Front Row for the phone’s interface interface. And according to Apple Insider, Apple has made deals with all major cellphone carriers in the United States, with the exception of T-Mobile.

Last week, Motorola released the linux-based ROKR E6 in China and is speculated to release the same phone in the United States soon and start ending their short relationship with Apple computer next month.

It was only a month ago when Motorola introduced the RAZR V3r, which dropped support for iTunes syncing and FairPlay-encoded music playing. The new ROKR E6 has replaced iTunes-only synchronizing with compatibility with basic MP3, WMA, RealPlayer audio, and etc. The release of the RAZR V3r was ultimately the beginning of the end for iTunes-integrated Motorola phones.

It wasn’t a secret that the Motorola/iTunes phones were horrible in their UI, price, and compatibility. The relationship between Apple and Motorola seems to be ending as more and more Motorola phones are dropping their support for iTunes integration and rumors of a 100 percent Apple phone are heating up. Even Apple’s investors are listening to the phone and iTV rumors as Apple’s stock has hit an all-time high.

Where would Apple be now if they had stuck with the PowerPC architecture? Would we have seen a PowerBook G5 or an sexier iBook? Would there still be a growing demand for Macs as the iPod halo starts to glow and Apple markets their products? Apple’s bold move to move over to the Intel camp was risky, but it would have been one of Apple’s biggest mistakes to have continued to produce more PowerPC machines.

I’m starting to realize the same growing trend in Macs as I’ve noticed in iPods. Macs are being used at homes, businesses, at school, on the road, and in public. Macs, especially the Macbook, are starting to get a ‘cool’ factor just like the iPod. I know many PC users expecting to buy a Mac and many parents planning to buy a Mac for their child. Even my cable guy pointed out this phenomenon when he asked me about my MacBook Pro, ‘It seems like I’ve seen more Apples the past six months than ever.’

It won’t be long until more PC users switch when they start to see more and more Macs around. It will just take some time before the majority of consumers realize you can run Microsoft Office on Macs, you can play video games on your Mac, and you can run any Windows program on your Mac.

Don’t forget MacWorld 2007 is around the corner and new products are bound to be released, including the infamous iTV (code-name, official name not released). The release of a new ultra-portable Macintosh is one of many rumors for the great event, and such a product could be the missing link between an iPod and Macs. A revolutionary product like an ultra-portable Mac could start a new progressive growth in Apple’s market share.

The biggest issue I have with Office is that it is not yet Universal, so therefore there are some delays when I’m doing my work on my MacBook Pro. I have no issues or complaints with iWork ‘06, except for its lack of word processing and spreadsheet functions.

The new version of iWork is expected to be much different than iWork ‘06 in many different ways, unlike the difference between iWork ‘05 and iWork ‘06. Last year there was a rumor that Apple was to include a spreadsheet application in iWork ‘06 named “Numbers”, but no announcement was made at MacWorld 2006 of any application. Now there are new rumors of a spreadsheet application named “Charts” in iWork ‘07. Charts is not targeted towards those complex spreadsheet users, but more to the average consumer market who don’t have the need for the more advanced features found in Excel.

Pages 2, the word-layout software in iWork ‘06 is expected to be heavily improved to compete with Microsoft Word. Pages 3 is to include a new interface to make it more friendly to use in day-to-day word processing tasks. Other features include a more user-friendly ways to change the fonts, integration with Spotlight, Google, and Wikipedia, a new improved grammar check, as well as more user-friendly ways to access common tools and settings.