Five things to expect at Apple's next event

One week from today Apple is hosting what has easily become its most anticipated event since the original iPhone.

Here's a summary of everything we know Apple will unveil for sure: nothing. With the exception of one thing: Apple is definitely hosting an event at one of its favorite locations, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco at 10 a.m. on January 27.

But it's plenty of fun to do some educated guessing about what they're cooking up down in Cupertino. And thanks to some well-placed leaks and a slow trickle of clues over the past year, it's easy enough to predict what will be the main event: the much rumored, blogged, and wished for Apple tablet device.
But that leaves plenty of other questions. What will it be called? We don't know. iSlate, iTablet, Tablet, iBook, iPad have all been tossed around. When will it ship? The Wall Street Journal said March, but an industry analyst is now saying maybe June. Like most Apple events nothing is for sure until Steve Jobs announces it from on stage. And though Apple runs a pretty tight-lipped organization, things have a way of trickling out right before their major announcements. So even though Apple hasn't confirmed anything yet, here are some pretty safe bets as for what to expect next week.

Multimedia
The tablet, in theory, will fall somewhere between a MacBook and an iPod Touch. So what do you do with it to make it stand out as a device you'd need in addition to one or both of those? A large-screen device with no physical keyboard certainly isn't going to be for making phone calls or word processing. The easiest assumption is that video and music will be two of the most important applications at the center of the tablet's purpose. In regards to music, there's been some speculation that the tablet is the reason Apple developed iTunes LP in the first place. It's a more in-depth multimedia experience for full albums, and while it works on a laptop or PC, it would appear to be a better fit for a touch-screen device with a large screen, which is what a tablet will be.