Here it is, the eve of Macworld 2007; tomorrow is the biggest day of the year for Apple fans and the most highly anticipated Expo in years.

Like most lists of Macworld predictions, mine will no doubt prove at least 50% dead wrong in little more than 12 hours from now, but that’s all part of the fun.

Here’s my list, in order of likelihood, from sure thing all the way down to wishful thinking:

1. iLife & iWork Suite Updates
   This is hardly even a prediction; both suites have seen regular updates demonstrated at Macworlds of the past. The spreadsheet question may be answered, for those mac users that love Excel, I know there has to be at least two or three of them in the world, just dying for *shudders* spreadsheets.

2. Leopard Ship Date, Fancy New Features
   On the latest MacBreak Weekly, Leo Laporte postulated that Leopard would be ready to ship at the Expo, so Apple could beat Vista’s January 30th launch date. I think that makes a lot of sense, but other than bragging rights I’m not sure if the rush to ship 10.5 would bring Apple a considerable amount of extra sales. I’ve always thought Macs sell OSX, not OSX the seller of Macs. Since I don’t see a ton of significant Mac hardware upgrades at this Expo, why rush to ship Leopard without a spiffy new piece of aluminum around it?

3. “iTV” Media Extender Introduced
   I have to admit whether or not the “iTV” has a hard drive, whether or not it allows 3rd party DVR integration, I’ll buy one of these instantaneously. I’ve been waiting years for a great media extender for my TV that doesn’t require a huge box in my living room.

4. New Cinema Displays. + Really Big Ones.
   Cinema displays and iSights have been disappearing from retail stores, so at least we’ll see new displays with built-in iSight cameras, just like iMacs and MacBooks already sport. Further, I think Apple will rebrand even larger LCDs, perhaps up to 50 inches and larger equipped with HDMI and more versatile I/O than their current displays.

5. 6G, Full Screen iPod
   Long overdue. Give me a 16×9 touchscreen or give me tears.

6. Refreshed Airport Express
   A draft-N unit, for streaming video. When this is released firmware upgrades will be passed out to Mac owners with newer units to bump up their Airport cards to draft-N as well.

7. MobileMe / iChat Mobile
   Ah yes! The notorious “iPhone.” I highly doubt Apple will go the path of MVNO as many people have claimed, but instead selling GSM or CDMA phones directly to the customers on behalf specific carriers. (Locked units.) Apple’s hardware, Apple’s lightweight OS, Apple’s walled-garden & features—the device will be more iPod than Treo, 4 and 8 Gigabytes of storage and priced in the neighborhood of $299 / $399. I was formerly quite convinced we’d be able to purchase these immediately, now I’m a bit more reserved.

8. Pro App Updates: Logic, Final Cut, Aperture
   All these are begging for an upgrade—true Aperture just hit 1.5 just a few months ago, but development seems to be progressing very rapidly, and it’s not an impossible dream for v.2 in the near future.

9. Mac Pro Goes 8 Core
   Back in September AnandTech confirmed that two quad-core chips work just fine in a Mac Pro. I wouldn’t be shocked to see this new configuration available.

10. MacBook Pro Updates
    Admittedly, this is just a selfish desire. I’d love to see spec. bumps and a 12 or 13 inch MBP, but I think it’s unlikely.

11. GPS and Proximity Importance
    One last bit of complete conjecture. Apple will announce at least one device with integrated GPS capability. This could be a phone, iPod, or other portable, but the potential for creative and functional uses for geo-specific data creation and aggregation are far too huge to be passed up. Look at geo-tagged photos and location-specific blogs. Location-based searches are exploding, and news will soon be able to be filtered by proximity. We need more devices that are smart enough to gather, and create, the data layer that’s beginning to cover the globe. Google’s going to be putting these services on handsets, so Apple had better team up with them or build their own.