Since [[AAPL]] is now ‘officially’ our stock of the week, here’s a chance for everybody to catch up on the (upcoming) hype.

• First off, here’s a pretty interesting read on possible design inspirations for Apple’s engineers.  As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
• iPhone, its users, and its full featured browser changing cell phone usage patterns.  From the New York Times.
• Latest Mac Pro (from last week) is the best ever.  Of course, with eight cores, one would expect it to be.

But of course the big thing this week is MacWorld 2008.  Everybody and their mother knows what that’s about.  But…if you think about it, is it really that important?

The big question, just like every year, is what will be the one product that will excite everyone?  Previous years have seen announcements such as the iPhone (2007), Intel iMacs (2006), iTunes (2001), Max OS X (2000), Halo (1999).  So what will it be this year?  Here are some reasonable and some not so reasonable guesses:

• Most likely:  the MacBook Air, an ultra portable laptop.  Here are some ‘leaks’ of how it may look like.
• Or maybe just a laptop with built-in AT&T wireless?
• 3G iPhone?  Open SDK for it has been announced some time ago, so probably a demo of that, too.
• Here is a more extreme idea…the return of the Newton!?  However, since this seems to be side project, chances are it won’t be production ready this year, if ever.

Follow Steve Jobs’ keynote (9am PST) live in text or via live video webcast. 

And 1 more thing…here are some good news for the upcoming earnings report (Jan 22).  Both Piper Jaffray and RBC Capital seems to think that holiday sales were ‘ginormous’ for Apple.