Analyst: Blu-ray Macs will premiere at Macworld

AppleInsider has posted predictions from American Technology Research analyst Shawn Wu that point to new Macs with Blu-ray drives premiering at Macworld on January 15.

Since Apple has held a seat on the Blu-ray consortium for years already, and CEO Steve Jobs is on the board of directors at Blu-ray supporter Disney, it seems that if Apple was to align with a next-gen format, Blu-ray would be favored.

Wu said, however, that there's also an off chance of Apple releasing a combo HD-DVD and Blu-ray drive instead.

An overhauled Mac Pro workstation, which is expected in the first quarter of 2008, has been rumored to be one of the first systems by the company with a Blu-ray compatible drive.

But such predictions are still only rumors, as excitement and speculation about new Apple products intensifies with Macworld drawing closer.

Reports of a lighter, NAND flash memory-based Mac sub-notebook continue on many sites. Rumors --which sound much like educated guesses based on Apple's naming trends-- are that the new notebook will be named either "MacBook mini" or "MacBook Slim."