Idolator

Tomorrow, Steve Jobs will give his keynote speech at Macworld Expo, the annual confab in which he previews the next Apple product that will crap out on you after two years. And there's already plenty of speculation about what Mac's great white hope will be this year:

...most Apple watchers are waiting for an announcement on an Apple smartphone, which could play music, make calls and perform other functions.

Wall Street analysts, including Charlie Wolf of Needham & Co., Chris Whitmore of Deutsche Bank and American Technology Research's Shaw Wu, have mentioned the widely anticipated iPhone in notes to clients. "The veil of secrecy and anticipation around the iPhone's release is already generating tremendous buzz without a single iPhone advertising dollar being spent," Whitmore wrote in an January 2 note.

Personally, we were hoping that Apple was finally going ahead with the iZod, a new device in which Jobs doppelganger Terence Stamp implores the "Planet Houston!" to "kneel!" between tracks. But we'll probably have to settle for iPhone, which will convert the entire population into insular (yet chatty) noise machines, therefore making movegoing an even bigger annoyance than before.

Many Expect iPod Phone At Macworld [Reuters]