Palm and Sony out-Apple Apple

Before Macworld, the Applesphere buzzed with chatter about an impending "iPhone Pro" or "iPhone Elite" upgrade. The wonderful improvement would, according to this vision, include a physical keyboard that wouldn't reduce the size of iPhone's huge touch screen. It would fold or slide out. Some also hoped for a better camera, new user interface innovations and other iGoodies.

The other major fanboy expectation was that, finally, Apple would enter (and, natch, dominate) the thriving netbook market. Nobody expected a boring mini-MacBook, but instead a revolutionary new form factor that would demonstrate, once again, that Apple is smarter than everyone else.

Surprisingly, an "iPhone Elite" and a "MacBook Nano" were both announced. But not at Macworld and not by Apple. They were unveiled at CES by Palm and Sony -- two industry laggards written off as pathetic has-beens.