All right, my predictions won’t be that absurd; I think I’ve filled my quota for absurdity for a while, thank you very much. But in the spirit of unending Apple speculation, and to kick off our WWDC coverage, here is yet another WWDC 08 predictions article. The likelihood of each rumor coming to fruition is measured in meatballs (in keeping with fixation on food¹); the fewer the meatballs, the less likely it is that Lord Steve, Controller of Apple, Our Destinies, and Lesser Kingdoms will unveil it.

And now it’s time for my most favorite disclaimer: the contents of this post are a figment of my own imagination. I have no insider sources, so these predictions, like Miss Cleo, are for entertainment purposes only.²

OS X for Windows boxes

As fun as it was for me to speculate, I don’t see this actually happening, and I never did for that matter. And I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised that some people took what I said (read the article) as anything more than “cloning probably won’t happen, but if it did, this is how it could work.” At any rate, while the dropping of the word “Mac” from Mac OS X is interesting, and we can never entirely rule things out with Jobs, I don’t see a clone revival happening. I give this one half a meatball (out of five).

.mac rebranded to MobileMe/Me.com

The MobileMe name came up in rumors once before. Since a good portion of .mac features revolve around syncing data and connecting to other hardware remotely (Back to my Mac), extending it to the iPhone seems to be the next logical step. And since the iPhone goes beyond the Mac, a rebranding may be in order. This is how I see it working: “Me” or “Me.com” will be the umbrella name for the services known as .mac today. “MobileMe” will be a subset of the services targeted towards iPhone users. This may include Push IMAP email accounts, data syncing, and so on. Given the fact that this rumor makes total sense, and would be classic Apple in integrating everything, I give this one four out of five meatballs.

OS X iPhone 2.0

WWDC is a developer conference. Apple is pushing the iPhone as a new mobile development platform. Considering the fact that the OS X iPhone 2.0 update is due in June anyway, it would make perfect sense to launch it at WWDC. We should also see the App Store either at WWDC, or in the near future. We’ll definitely see some iPhone app demos. Five meatballs. OS X iPhone sucks as a name, though.

3G iPhone

Again, I think we’re looking at a near-certainty of seeing a 3G iPhone at WWDC. It would be a perfect tie-in with the iPhone OS update, especially since signs point at OS X iPhone 2.0 supporting 3G. So again, I give this one five meatballs. The question is, how will it look? I doubt we’ll see much in the way of major changes in appearance. Maybe it’ll be a little more streamlined, and maybe the headphone jack will no longer be recessed. And I definitely don’t think we’ll be seeing a larger version iPhone or a thin iPhone. Just...why?

Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6)

Uh, I’m not really sure to make of this one. It’d be really close to 10.5, though Apple has shipped new OS X releases within months of each other before. It wouldn’t be a very sexy update if the rumors of it being a bug fix/security release (though WWDC is a developer conference, not a consumer trade show). But it’s not totally out of the realm of possibility. The thing that gets me is that none of the banners we’ve seen give any hint to a new Mac OS X release being unveiled, unless Jobs has One More Thing up his sleeve. I’m going to err on the side of caution with this one and say two meatballs.

Mac OS X 10.5.4

This may get a brief mention, but it’s more likely that it would just be pushed out through Software Update. Two meatballs.

Mac tablet

Would someone please take this rumor out back and shoot it? Please? Put the friggin’ thing out of its misery already! Okay, so maybe one day we’ll see a Mac tablet, but not before OS X (the desktop OS, not the iPhone OS--stupid branding is going to cause confusion, I can see it now!) is better optimized for multitouch. Some areas suit multitouch well, while others don’t. And don’t mention a stylus. There’s no way I see Apple using a stylus. Also, a tablet release would be better suited for a consumer event, not a pro/developer event. So no tablet today. One meatball. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: these aren’t the tablet Macs you’re looking for. Move along.

Only a couple more days to go before we’ll get our dose of reality distortion! Anyway, I’d love to hear what you guys think. Am I totally off the mark? Or do I have some psychic ability to read Lord Jobs’ mind? Sound off in the comments.