All indications are that Apple will preview the next version of Mac OS X on Wednesday. In keeping with the tradition of Apple-centric blogs, I’ve got some predictions about what the company has up its sleeve.

The iPadification of Apps

If the new MobileMe web apps are any indication, Mail, iCal and other OS X applications are going to get a serious visual overhaul to bring them more inline with the iPad’s apps, which isn’t a bad thing. iCal is stale, and Address Book in 10.6 looks like Address Book in 10.2.

However, I really hate when UI developers add things like leather and woodgrain to make apps look “real.” Apple has dabbled with this on the iPad, and I really don’t want it on the Mac. Please Apple, keep the madness at bay.

UI Refinements

Historically, Apple has used iTunes to quietly introduce new UI elements. iTunes 10 shipped with a muted appearance — gentle colors, sunken graphics and the horrifying vertical window controls. I hope there’s more of the first two on the way.

FaceTime

This really is a no-brainer. While the Mac has done video chat for years, adding the ability to video chat with someone on an iPhone or iPod touch will add some sparkle to a feature most people probably rarely use.

Finder

All I want out of Finder is tabs. And better network drive support. And tabs. And WebDAV that doesn’t blow up anytime I try to use it. And tabs.

Performance

It’s 2010, and ridiculous that OS X doesn’t include SSD TRIM support.

I’m sure 10.7 will boot faster than 10.6, wring more power out of modern GPUs and run smoother. For the most part, new Mac OS X versions run faster than the previous version, which is an impressive feat.

While Snow Leopard tightened up a lot of things under the hood, there is still work to be done. Hopefully Lion will be the next step to a leaner, more compliant OS.

I’d imagine the minimum requirements for 10.7 will be an Intel-based Mac and 1.5GB of RAM — up from Snow Leopard’s required 1GB RAM.

iOS Tie-ins

I don’t think Apple is going to start merging Mac OS X and iOS at this point. While I’m sure the two shall meet, I don’t think this is the time.

How Loud Will Lion Roar?

Snow Leopard, while a solid OS, is just a refined Leopard. It’s almost certain Lion will be a bigger revision. My guess is that it will be as big of a jump as 10.5 was from 10.4. While Tiger was a great OS, Leopard make it look dated immediately. I think we’re in for the same experience this time around.

Editor’s Note: Be sure to see my thoughts on the rumored 11.6" MacBook Air, which may also be introduced this week.

Apple Insider’s Kasper Jade:

Apple next Wednesday will unveil its latest bid to cater to consumers in the market for a true sub-notebook with the introduction of a smaller, 11.6-inch MacBook Air redesigned from the ground up, AppleInsider has been able to confirm from several independent sources.

The first models, which are certain take the form of an 11.6-inch notebook, have been in rolling off Apple’s Taiwanese manufacturing lines for at least a week now, placing their availability on or shortly after their introduction next Wednesday at the company’s “Back to the Mac” special event, according to person with a proven track record of pinpoint accuracy.

Back in January when Apple announced the iPad, Steve Jobs said this about netbooks:

Everybody uses a laptop and a smartphone.

And a question has arisen lately: is there room for a third category of device in the middle? Something that’s between a laptop and a smartphone. And of course we’ve pondered this question for years as well. The bar’s pretty high. In order to really create a new category of devices, those devices are going to have to be far better at doing some key tasks.

Better than a laptop. Better than a smartphone.

Now, some people have thought…that’s a netbook. The problem is, netbooks aren’t better at anything. They’re slow, they have low quality displays and they run clunky old PC software. So, they’re not better than a laptop at anything. They’re just cheaper. They’re just cheap laptops. We don’t think they’re a new category of device.

Let’s look at the 11.6-inch MacBook Air rumor through the lens of these comments.[1. Of course, Steve Jobs has a funny history of doing the opposite of what he said he would do. Remember the video iPod thing?]

The Display

An 11.6 inch display would make this rumored notebook one of the smallest notebooks the company has ever shipped.[2. The original PowerBook Duo had a 9.1“ screen, but the later PowerBook Duo 270c had a 8.4” color display. Crazy.] This change to the Air would bring it close in line with the 12-inch PowerBook line.

When talking about a display this size, it’s all about pixel density. Shrinking the current 13.3“ panel into an 11.6” panel would make for a fairly dense display, and could make things too small for most people’s comfort. However, decreasing the density too much could make for a ton of scrolling — something that is common on most netbooks.

I know when I ran OS X on a HP Mini 1000 and later a Dell Mini 9, this was a huge annoyance. Some programs like System Preferences were too tall, leaving me guessing as to what I was doing blindly with the keyboard.

A smaller screen, while tricky, doesn’t have to be a curse. One of my main complaints about the current MacBook Air is that it is built around 13.3" screen. I wrote this back in October 2008:

It’s really thin, but has the same footprint as the MacBook.

An Air built with a smaller display means the entire machine would take less space up on a desk. Which would be a good thing. The iPad smokes the Air in terms of portability — this could be the Mac’s chance to catch up.

The Software

Software has been an issue in the netbook world since the very first Eee PC. Back in the day, they mostly shipped with XP, which didn’t adapt well to low-powered machines with small screens. Ubuntu is a great netbook OS, but very few people like to use Linux. Windows 7 runs better on netbooks than XP, but still feels weirdly cramped on small displays.

Mac OS X, on the other hand, scales pretty well. It feels good on 13-inch MacBooks, 27-inch iMacs and everything in between. Dropping down another inch and half isn’t a big deal.

A smaller MacBook Air could most (if not all) the software full-sized Macs run. Even if the screen size was an issue for some apps, I’d imagine it’d be the pro apps, which would be pretty painful to run on Air, anyways.

This is pretty much a non-issue when it comes to the rumored 11.6" Air.

The Keyboard

When Apple announced the MacBook Air, Jobs said it was better than other ultra-portable machines because its 13" frame housed a full-sized keyboard, just like larger notebooks. This of course was a jab at netbooks, which usually ship with shruken keyboard.

While it is true that most netbook keyboards are terrible,[3. The HP Mini 1000 has an excellent keyboard, however.] the keyboard thing is also a non-issue here.

The keyboard Apple uses on all of it’s MacBook Pros is the same width — 10.75“ wide. That means it could fit into a smaller frame without too much trouble. 11.6” seems just about right.

In Conclusion

It sure seems like this rumor has picked up steam over the last few days. I think there is probably some merit behind it. While I don’t think this machine will run iOS as some people do, I do think that will be a far better option to those who want the portability of an iPad with the flexibility and power of OS X. If Apple does indeed have such a machine ready to go.

Ben Brooks, on carrying a Verizon MiFi with an iPad:

The MiFi is super easy to use, but it is not as easy as just using your iPad. By that I mean that if you have a 3G iPad and you want to look up something on the net you flip it on, wait a second and surf the web – it connects to 3G for you if you don’t have WiFi available. With the MiFi you would have to pull out the iPad, check to see if you can get WiFi (because you are too lazy to pull out the MiFi first, trust me I am speaking from experience). Then when you see you have no WiFi pull out the MiFi, turn it on, wait, wait, then connect the iPad to the MiFi (it will do this automatically if you have used the two together before).

I agree with Ben — the MiFi + iPad combination is awkward at best.

While this MiFi thing may end up a fumble, Apple usually follows fumbles with great passes.

Honestly, the MiFi + iPad things feels a little bit like the Motorola ROKR E1 — an awkward product that in retrospect was simply terrible. However, the ROKR led to something great — the iPhone. Hopefully the MiFi’s great pass will end up being Verizon-backed iOS devices.

Chairmen Gurber is right — the symbolism is what’s most important about this week’s announcement.

Via Cult of Mac:

What makes Steve’s methodology different from everyone else’s is that he always believed the most important decisions you make are not the things you do – but the things that you decide not to do. He’s a minimalist.

If there’s anything this week worth sending to Instapaper, it’s this interview.

Federico Viticci at Mac Stories has posted his predictions for OS X 10.7, which may be introduced next week at Apple’s event:

iOS is not coming to the desktop, but Apple is looking for a way to integrate the desktop with the iOS environment. That’s quite a difference. Expect FaceTime being integrated into iChat, a desktop version of iBooks (which would be just great on a new MacBook Air…) and the possibility to check on Game Center leaderboards and updates directly form your computer. Again, I’m just speculating here: what if Apple comes up with a system to “link” desktop apps to iOS counterparts? 1Password, for example, uses its own method to transfer and sync databases across the Mac and iOS. Wouldn’t it be awesome for developers to be able to easily let iOS and OS X communicate with an official framework?

While I think this will be the biggest feature added to Mac OS X for 10.7 (along with FaceTime), there are plenty of other areas that could use some polish as well.