OK. If I were a real journalist I couldn’t write this. I’d have to make all the phone calls, all of which I expect would turn up no real information and a few “no comments”. But I’m just blahgging here, so what the hey.

I spent the day at Macworld today so you didn’t have to. No, no. No thanks are needed. It’s just who I am.

I made the trek into The City with several goals in mind: I wanted to talk to the Quickbooks guys about the issues in moving from Windows to Mac; to talk to the QB and FileMaker Pro guys about ways to move data back and forth between those apps; to check out some project management packages, see the Leopard and Microsoft Office 2008 demos, and to see how close I could get to the iPhone.

Are you sick of reading about the iPhone yet? I’m planning on trekking into The City tomorrow and hope to get a first hand look, but spent plenty of time last night reading the specs, watching the keynote video and going through the flash presentation that Apple posted. After the first blush of excitement several questions popped up that will require some answers between now and June when this puppy actually goes on sale.

Here’s my short list:

Steve walks out onto the auditorium stage, set just as the Moscone Hall will be on Tuesday, though the crowd today is only 2 people instead of thousands. He walks over to the stool in midstage and cracks open the water bottle sitting there. He takes a drink while he imagines the cheers from the crowd on Tuesday.

“Welcome!” The crowd cheers in his mind are still so deafeningly loud that he is sure nobody heard him. He raises his hands to quiet the crowd, waits a moment, and then again says, “Welcome!”

My kids are living an asynchronous life. This dawned on me on the way to school the other morning. A song was playing on Radio Disney that both my 5 and 8 year old were singing along with. As it ended, my son yelled, “Play it again, daddy.”

“Ummm, I can’t,” I said, “that was on the radio.”

In a struggle to maintain some patience with my clearly nonsensical response, he said, “Daddy, just hit the backwards button.”

Steve walked into the glass-walled conference room and hit a button that immediately darkened the windows. He lifted his foot to the table top and reached to retie his new Nike’s. “Frickin’ shoelaces won’t stay tied,” he grumbled.

He looked up and found only two of the 16 seats occupied. “Where is everybody?” he asked. “Is it Sunday?”

We rolled together the rumors that were making the rounds a month ago for new product announcements by Apple for April. We expected an anniversary surprise of sorts that never materialized. The iPhone has reportedly gone back for a complete redo and won’t make it until fall or the holiday season. No new video iPod has appeared with the bigger screen and a new iTunes movie store. Not even a new iBook replacement. All we got was a 17″ MacBookPro and the continued migration to universal apps.

Apple has languished in the 3-5% market share area for many years now. That would be in the PC market, not the portable entertainment device market that remains dominated by Apple. Apple’s fans don’t seem to mind, and in fact see it as something of a status symbol. But I think that Steve Jobs and Apple have their eyes set on something more. How does Apple get to 10% market share.

You know its coming…Apple’s 30th Anniversary is April 1st and we all expect (Steve as much as said so) some cool anouncements in early April. Of course I have no idea, no inside information, no tipsters. But I do have a brain and some of the next steps seem obvious. So here’s what’s coming…

New iBook replacement–this will be the low end of the MacBook line as the iBook and PowerBook lines merge into the new name. It’ll be single core and sounds like it will carry a 13″ screen. Likelihood is 90%.

I found this on The Unofficial Google Video Blog and thought it was cool enough to share. I’d love to know more about this video and what kind of tech is underneath this cool face. TUGVB tagged it as “Apple” and “Multitouch”. How close are we to this kind of touch interface? It would even make Origami look good

I’ll post one last item on Origami since I did a couple of prerelease posts on the little computer that can’t. Intel, Microsoft, and a slew of partners showed off the new platform in front of the big CeBIT show this week. The version shown here is from Samsung and is “highlighting” the box’s digital TV prowess, which evidently involves attaching the little wireless device with several cables and a USB something-or-other.

Well, it seems that Intel and Microsoft are going to roll out the real Origami project devices in front of Cebit tomorrow. Not that there is much mystery left. Scoble has been falling all over himself telling us what it isn’t and CNBC (through What Is New) is evidently showing more photos of some versions of the platform today and Intel continues to officially leak details.