By all indications, Phil Schiller is set to deliver an earth-shattering Macworld Keynote Tuesday morning, the likes of which have never been seen. We’re predicting complete annihilation.

We’re going to miss Phil’s typical supporting appearances, but we figure after his Keynote is done it will be pretty clear why Apple is canceling future Macworld appearances: there will be no topping this Schill-note.

Least we forget, this is not Phil’s first time hosting a Macworld Keynote. He also presented the Keynote at Macworld Paris in the summer of 2004, where he introduced the new iMac G5 with it’s new vertical all-in-one design that continues to evolve today.

Update: We aren’t the only ones predicting a massive Schiller “tour-de-force”.

A closer look at Phil’s iPhone Calendar shown during the presentation also reveals that he routinely schedules time to think up new Apple rumors. Clearly there are no limits to the wizardry of his marketing strategies and even Apple fanboy bloggers are merely pawns in his game of puppetry. How’s that for a mixed-metaphor?

In reference to yesterday’s discussion of future Apple leadership, Phil once again demonstrated his competency and comfort announcing new products. No need to worry about the other guest host; Scott Forstall is only ever brought out in front of the geeky developer crowd and just doesn’t have the laugh to be the top dog. We’re all better off with him working with the smart people anyhow.

Phil’s sense of humor was sprinkled liberally throughout his piece: he cracked jokes about older generation phones in reference to BlackBerries, amongst other quips. His best joke was when he dead-panned to that everyone should just “take our word for it, it works” before actually demoing Exchange syncing. What a ham.

Firstly, the top row is almost a guaranteed Bingo!, which really takes the sails out of even reading the rest. I mean,
B) Steve has just promised .Mac improvements at the D conference.
I) Bertrand only comes out at WWDC and he’s in charge of freaking software, which might be interesting to developers!
N) The Leopard secrets can’t stay hidden forever, and since their existence was revealed this time last year, it makes sense that they will be enumerated this year. Oh yeah, and a feature complete Beta was also announced as coming at WWDC. Come on!
G) This one’s the least guaranteed by my way of seeing things, but the only reason I can explain why iLife ’08 missed it’s recently routine introduction in January is because it has Leopard specific features and/or is bundled with Leopard. I say iLife will be the vehicle that shows off all the new Leopard features the best and provides an example to developers of how best to take advantage.
O) Of course Leopard will be the star, WWDC is about showing off things to developers. They already have 8 core Mac Pros, so what else is left but all the latest APIs and other development magic coming real soon with 10.5?

I won’t go into the rest of the chart, but here’s a graphic indicating my opinion of the relative likely hood of the predictions. Four more notes:
1) It’s sure a lot easier to comment on other’s predictions than make your own.
2) I’m pretty pissed that there is no mention of Schiller. Is it just too obvious that he will be on hand to demonstrate the new iChat features? If “Boom” is there, “Schiller iChat” should be too.
3) I don’t know what illuminous refers to.
4) I guess we’ll see soon enough what the truth will be.

UPDATE: Argh! So wrong again! I can’t believe I fell for it again, I’ve never been good at predicting Apple’s moves, only at loving and understanding them after the fact.

Also, breaking up to the minute coverage at CARS of course: Crazy Apple Rumors covers Fake Phil Blog

Migration Assistant, a rarely heralded feature of the “Mac Buddy” Setup Assistant that appears on the first boot of a new OS X system, was introduced as part of the 10.3.4 update. This tool helps users relatively effortlessly migrate all User and Application data from a previous Mac system to a new machine; all done via FireWire Target Disk mode.

The new version of Migration Assistant and Mac Buddy, slated to appear as part of Leopard, promises to capitalize on the “iPod Halo Effect” and hopeful “TV Halo Effect” by helping Switchers move their personal documents from their old Windows machine to a newly purchased Mac.

Details are scarce at this point, and it remains to be seen how this will be achieved. Some speculation is that a Boot Camp-like burned CD of Windows software will be used to configure the host PC to the required settings for data to be transfered over Ethernet, WiFi, or FireWire.

We are officially starting the rumor that Phil is on the verge of announcing a major change in Apple’s two flagship software packages. Along with the long anticipated official release date announcement, the rest of Leopard’s features will be announced including the bundling of the latest update to the iLife suite with Leopard.

Steve hinted at it a little at the last WWDC when he mentioned that Leopard will include the whole package of some currently disparate pieces of software such as FrontRow, PhotoBooth, and BootCamp, but few have speculated that Apple would go so far as to bundle iLife. While an update for the iLife suite was expected in January as has occurred for several years running, that software currently sells separately from the OS for $79.

Microsoft’s recently released new OS Vista also comes bundled with their versions of movie editing and photo management software, but they suck.

We’re not sure yet on iWork or if this means a higher price tag for OS X.

Apparently a verb (I had been thinking of it as a proper noun, or sometimes just as proper), their definitions follow.

1 : to act as a decoy (as for a pitchman or gambler)
*2 : to act as a spokesperson or promoter

I will focus on definition 2 for now, and leave the first to those more clever than I. Clearly from this information we can see that Phil is the perfect man for the job (of Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing) and the job is perfect for him. It’s what he was literally born to do.

Which brings up the question, is he descended from a long line of spokespersons? Like a long dynasty of protectors of the sacred art of promotion, when you are born into that name it becomes your destiny.

“But wait,” some of you object. “Schiller has a c in it and shill does not!” Well that is easy to explain my friends: the extra c is for Canadia.

If Apple did introduce a phone, who would announce it? Surely something this big needs Steve to tell the world about it, but how would it be presented? You can’t just hold a phone in your hand and talk about it. You have to show it’s cool design, nice buttons, and awesome interface. You have to call someone with it.

Who do you call? You call Phil Schiller!

We’ve seen in his many iChat AV appearances that he is the ideal candidate for this. Maybe you even use iChat AV to show the call to Phil via iPhone. That would be sweet.

Hopefully Phil isn’t too wrapped up in the Keynote planning to think of a better name than iPhone.

After last fall’s stellar Paris MacWorld and iMac G5 introduction, it seems like Schiller could do anything, so I expect he will make his presence felt in many separate appearances.

What Schiller-maniacs are really holding out for though, is some of media interviews Phil will surely be dishing out after the keynote. These may yield hours of Schiller footage, so keep on the lookout online and have your Tivos set to stun. Don’t forget to share your photos from the floor either, only if you can get one of Phil of course.

What’s more, Phil’s awesome descriptions of the great new products at MacWorld are usually only the beginning of a tidal wave of Schiller appearances as he makes his rounds of the tech media. Let’s hope 2003 is Schiller’s best year yet!

The next major event marked on all mac fan’s calendars is right around the corner. MacWorld San Francisco always brings the dope new shit, and Phil Schiller is always knee deep in it.

This year’s west coast event looks to be another great one, too. Along with the traditional inspiring Keynote™ by Steve Jobs, this year’s MacWorld also features a rare appearance by Woz and a sequel to last year’s excellent Avie and hil Show: The Power of X.

Be sure to visit an Apple Store (preferably one with a theater) near you to watch the Keynote™ at 9:00am Pacific on Tuesday, January 7th. Or just grab a stream from Apple to tune in online. Satellite coordinates are also posted here, for those with the equipment.

Unfortunately, only the Keynote™ is going to be broadcast, so you will have to be at the Expo to check out any of the other presentations live. But not to worry, if Apple follows its form of last year, they will post the Power of X presentation online a few days later. If you didn’t see last year’s Power of X, you should definitely go check it out if you can find it. It was a tour de force of Mac OS X’s cool features, from a more technical angle too.

This year’s Power of X presentation looks to exceed last year’s engaging heights with a bevy of new features of OS X, some of which have yet to be announced probably. You can be sure that Phil will be spot on as usual in describing exactly what makes Apple’s technologies so cool. Maybe they’ll have found the answer to last year’s big question: “How many icons can you put in the dock?”

It’s great to see Phil getting more and more opportunities to do his thing in the limelight, but we can still count on him to fill his traditional roles in supporting Steve’s Keynote™. Look for a nice video interview with Phil about some or all of the new announcements. We may also see him onstage helping Steve with some demos. Last year’s MacWorld New York sure went smoothly with Phil demonstrating BlueTooth with his phone and Rendezvous with a laser printer.

The excitement of seeing Phil on stage is enough for us, so we’ll leave the announcement speculation to the rumor sites. Any one who’s attending this year, make sure to give Phil a very enthusiastic welcome. Schill-er Schill-er!!