Rabbits I'd like to see in Steve's hat

Steve Jobs is doing is annual “rabbit from a hat” act at Macworld Expo on Tuesday. I don’t know what he’s going to say, but here’s what I’d like to hear:

• long-rumored diskless (flash RAM) compact laptop that I have been waiting to buy for 18 months.
• an announcement of 3rd party applications for the iPhone, addresing the two most glaring omissions: Flash, and some sort of IM client (such as the deliberately omitted adaptation of iChat)
  
• more details on the iPhone SDK due in February
• a decision finally by Universal and Warner to provide DRM-free music not only to Amazon, but also (like EMI) for the iTunes Store,
  
• more transparency on the iPhone revenue numbers for Q1 of FY2008 (Oct-Dec), as well as for iTunes music and video downloads.

Some things that are possible but I don’t really care about:

• iTunes movie rentals
• a 3G iPhone (I won’t switch to AT&T), although a better iPod Touch would be nice
• the laptop docking station — not because I wouldn’t use one (I once owned all three types of Duo docks) but because I’m too cheap to throw out my existing monitor.

Jobs always saves the most anticipated or most surprising announcements for last: if he doesn’t mention the iTunes Store in the first half, this suggests that he has yet to win over some of his critics in Hollywood.

Dissin’ Apple may be good for egos (and improving negotiating positions) but in the long run ignoring the world’s most popular legal music download site is bad for business. Even Edgar Bronfman (Jr.), the former Universal Music owner and now CEO of Warner Music, admitted two months ago that Jobs had been right all along on music download pricing.

Tomorrow I have to work (everybody has to sometime), but Wednesday I’ll go up to the Expo to see what’s going on.