Off-topic: MacWorld 2007 - Steve Jobs Keynote

In less than an hour, at 3pm (Brasília time), 9am (Pacific time), Steve Jobs will deliver his talk at the MacWorld Conference & Expo 2007, in San Francisco. The keynote can be watched live from several sites (see updated list).

This keynote has been the subject of dozens of rumors, articles, and assessments from across the industry. No keynote is more anticipated than Steve Jobs’s. Forbes published yesterday All Eyes On Apple and Jobs. Nobody in the industry generates more buzz than Steve Jobs’s Apple.

The enigmatic image above was posted on their website a few days ago and is one of the reasons for so much anticipation. What are they trying to say? Is it just a corporate “happy new year” message? From Apple? Probably not.

At WWDC 2006, last year, Steve announced some of the key features of the next operating system, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, expected to ship this quarter. During that keynote he showed the famous “Top Secret” slide, saying there were amazing new features but they weren’t going to reveal them yet to prevent Microsoft from copying before time. Has the moment come for us to finally learn those secrets?

Meanwhile the rumors continue. Will Steve announce his retirement? A new Mac to celebrate Apple’s 30th anniversary? A new MacBook in sub-notebook form factor with solid-state storage? The long-rumored iPhone, the iPod+phone combination? An immediate Leopard launch announcement?

Or will it just be smaller things — the already-known iTV announcement, new versions of iTunes, iLife, minor Leopard features? Or the standard fare: a Mac Mini with a Core 2 Duo and a Mac Pro with the new Dual Quad Xeons?

Keep your eyes open — expectations are high, and Steve Jobs’s MacWorld keynotes are always explosive. Just remember 1997.