Apple didn't bother waiting a week to roll out new Macs at the Macworld Expo – the company went ahead and announced ahead of the show which starts January 15 in San Francisco. Nothing wrong with that, just a surprise given Apple's propensity to keep its product plans close to the vest until Master Steve takes the stage.

The pre-announcement surely guarantees the biggest news at Macworld won't be a new Mac, at least not a conventional one. Rumors have flied fast and furious that CEO Steve Jobs will unveil a subnotebook or ultralight portable at the show. The old news of new Macs will surely be just a warm up for the packed crowd of media and Apple acolytes on hand for Job's keynote. I would also expect more news on the iPod front, particularly on the content side with some new deals announced and gushing sales figures for the iPhone.

Apple's favorite enemy/collaborator, Microsoft, will surely trot out an exec to talk about the new version of Office for the Mac, the first major update since 2004. Just don't expect it to be CEO Steve Ballmer. As far as I know, Ballmer has never shared the stage, much less broken bread, with Jobs. When the MS/Apple relationship was at its rockiest a few years back, Ballmer wondered aloud whether Microsoft should still develop for the Mac. No love lost there, so I'd be shocked to see the two Steve's on stage. Then again, no expected Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz to cozy up to Michael Dell on stage at Oracle OpenWorld  last year, also at Moscone. Perhaps the tech version of San Francisco's famed Summer of Love is approaching.