Everybody’s prognosticating about the announcements that Steve will make during Apple’s Macworld keynote tomorrow. I can’t resist, but there’s no sense rehashing what everyone else is talking about, so here’s my prediction. (The QuickTime 6.1 one is so obvious that it doesn’t count.)
Apple will introduce its own browser based on Chimera. Chimera’s Gecko-based engine will replace Mac OS X’s weak HTML rendering engine. Microsoft has known that Apple has been working towards this, has not been happy, and will introduce Internet Explorer 6 for Macintosh tomorrow as well.
Evidence: (1) In 1997, Microsoft essentially forced Steve into making IE the default browser for Mac OS. He’s never quite recovered from the indignity, but revenge is a dish best served cold. (2) Apple used Chimera for it’s developers’ conference last May, even though it was pretty green at the time. (3) Shortly after its developers’ conference, Apple hired David Hyatt — the creator/leader of the Chimera project — away from Netscape/AOL.