Early arrivals at Macworld Expo on Monday had their wish lists at the ready, hoping that Steve Jobs could somehow top last year's blockbuster announcement of the iPhone.

	(click image for larger view) An early look at the Macworld show floor. View the entire Macworld gallery.

With only a few hours to go until Jobs' keynote address, the Moscone Center here was lightly populated, primarily by vendors setting up their booths on the show floor, as well as some IT managers, consultants, and end users taking tutorials on the conference track.

"How can Apple follow up on 2007? That was such a banner year for them," said Jacobe Foster, a Charlotte, N.C., IT consultant specializing in small and medium-sized businesses. "I'd like to see them come out with an ultramobile PC -- tablet or Flash-based."

InformationWeek buttonholed about a dozen attendees at the conference on Monday, and most of them hoping it would be true that that Apple will introduce an ultralight notebook or tablet computer at Tuesday's keynote. No details are available about the device -- if it even exists.

Other than the ultralight MacBook, conference-goers had their own wish lists for what Apple might introduce this week. And most of the people we talked to were vendors, who had their own products and announcements to promote.

Ryan Richards, product marketing coordinator for Creative Technology, said Creative plans to introduce the XDock HD, designed to make the iPod into the hub of a home entertainment systems, with connections for high-fidelity audio and video output.

As for what he hopes to see from Apple, Richards said, "I'm hoping for something I'm not expecting." While not staffing his own company's booth, Richards said he hopes to check out Microsoft Office 2008 and offerings from Belkin and Griffin Technology.

Carl Slawinski of Agile Web Solutions said his company is about to launch beta-testing of a Web version of its 1Password, Mac software for managing passwords and automatically filling in Web forms on any browser on the Mac. The Web version will allow users to store logins and passwords on the Internet, and access the information from any browser on any operating system -- the Mac, Windows, Linux, and smartphones. And a new bookmark applet will allow users to automatically fill in passwords and fill out forms -- again -- from any browser on any operating system.

As for Apple: "I have no idea what Apple will announce," Slawinski said. "I don't want to speculate."

And then he proceeded to speculate.

"I hope they release something Mac," Slawinski said. "Last year, it was all about the iPhone and Apple TV."

He noted reports that Apple will introduce a midrange headless Mac, for users who want a midrange system but don't want to buy an iMac. He said he hopes Apple will introduce an iPod Touch with 30-Gbyte to 60-Gbyte capacity. Right now, the iPod Touch maxes out at 16 Gbytes, making it more of an iPod nano replacement than a replacement for bigger iPods.