Your very first Macworld 2013 preview

As the schwag from Macworld 2012 settles to the bottom of your corporate-branded complimentary tote bag, let's take a ridiculously premature look forward at what's shaping up for the Macworld 2013 conference.

Yes, Virginia, there will be a Macworld 2013 expo in San Francisco. Certain details have already been announced and made public. Here's what we know so far and what people in-the-know have hinted is in store for next year.

Expo organizers IDG have already announced that Macworld 2013 will be held from Thursday, January 31, 2013, to Saturday, Saturday, February 2, 2013. They have already rented out the Moscone Center West for the 2013 expo, so Macworld 2013 will occur at the exact same location.

From there on, everything is pure speculation. It is speculation, though, from Macworld senior editors who will have some degree of influence and say in next year's expo.

Macworld senior editor Dan Frakes wants to see the expo change its name again, as he doesn't care for this year's name, Macworld | iWorld. "I see something like 'Macworld presents iWorld' or 'iWorld by Macworld,'" Mr. Frakes said in a conference-closing roundtable of Macworld editors. "The pipe's gotta go."

"The pipe" refers to the little-used character on your keyboard used to separate the terms Macworld and iWorld. Non-programmers generally refer to is as a vertical bar. "They could do a slash or a dash, too," said Jason Snell, Macworld senior editor. "Using non-standard punctuation may not be so great an idea."

"We'll all still call it Macworld Expo anyway, right?" Snell concluded.

For more of Allvoices' coverage of Macworld | iWorld 2012, check out allvoices.com/macworld2012.