iOS 6 Predictions

WWDC is right around the corner and the rumor mill is starting to churn. What will be the killer feature this year? And what will be the feature not discussed and withheld for the next iPhone. In iOS 4 it was FaceTime, and in iOS 5 it was Siri. Based on current rumors and needs of iOS have a few predictions. Here they are.

1.  PHOTOSTREAM ENHANCEMENTS:  There is pretty good evidence that Apple is working on social elements and photo sharing within iOS. I believe the stock Photos app will include Instagram like photo sharing through iCloud. 

2. SIRI API:  Developers will finally be able to tap into Siri and include their app information in the  ”what can I do”  of Siri. 

3. NOTIFICATION CENTER API: I believe that Developers will be able to include Notification widgets with their apps. I don’t think you will find a “widget store” within the app store, but apps instead will be able to include them as part of their app. They’ll be able to be enabled and ordered in the Notification Center control panel.

4. LIVE ICONS:  Apps will be able to push updates in the form of icon changes. Instead of a badge number the icon itself will be able to be replaced. Weather apps will benefit from this most.

5. MAPS & STOCK APP UPDATES:  Pretty obvious that Apple is redoing the maps app with an in-house map system. I believe it will include turn by turn directions with the help of Siri’s voice. I would also expect updates to other stock apps like Weather, Stocks, Calendar, and Mail.

6. APP STORE OVERHAUL:  The app store is due for a make over and with the Chomp acquisition earlier this year it seems ripe for change. 

Why the iPad Event Announcement Stopped Traffic.

During Mobile World Congress right during Eric Schmidt’s Google Keynote Apple sent out the invitation to the iPad announcement event on March 7th. While listening to Vlad Savov from the Verge Mobile Podcast rant about why an announcement of an announcement would literally send shockwaves throughout Mobile World Congress. He couldn’t understand the big deal that it was. He scoffed at Apple’s intentions of disrupting these events to draw attention to themselves. Well Vlad that is just smart marketing on their part. Take the attention of your competitors and put it on yourself with a single email to the tech industry. Now why is this a big deal? Because it’s Apple that provides the blueprint for the industry to follow for the next 12 months. All of these companies showing their gadgets at MWC are doing so as a response to Apple. Just wait later this year there will be retina screen Android devices and Android phones that talk back to you. The problem with Apple competitors is that when they try to innovate it ends up looking really stupid and a major reach. Folding laptops, tablets that house your phone and then dock into a keyboard are the norm for the likes of Asus, Lenovo, and Acer. These company need Apple to show them what people really want. They themselves are only capable of coming out with novelties at this point. This is why I always laugh when tech media claims that “Apple must do X” in order to compete with “Y”, when in fact its the other way around. 

Mountain Lion Will Be Free

I made a post on Twitter recently that I think that Apple will give away Mountain Lion to current Lion users. I believe this is the future of OSX updates. I believe for as long as its 10.X it will be free to existing users of the previous iteration. Updating OSX will be a vital component to the future of iCloud. For as long as Apple provides iCloud as a free service they will have to implement future updates of OSX as a free upgrade. This is the strategy they have always taken with iOS. They are integrating iOS and OSX more and more with each release. Within about three years they will be the same operating system. 

Some have taken notice that Apple has dropped the “Mac” from OSX. They dropped it because in the future OSX will be on devices that aren’t called a Mac. They’ll always be a Mac, but OSX won’t be just limited it. 

Let’s Stop Pretending Apple Is the Problem, Shall We?

nissacam:

Have you visited the New York Times to read Charles Duhigg and David Barboza’s analysis of the working conditions in the Chinese factories that work with Apple? It’s not really news, given how many other journalists and bloggers have been compiling similar articles these days, but it’s very, very thorough.

As usual, I’m struck by a few things. For instance, this focus on Apple. Apple is a big customer of Foxconn’s, but so is Microsoft. So is Nintendo. Logitech, Amazon, Panasonic - in fact, it starts to look as though Foxconn may have had a hand in most of the consumer electronics we’re currently surrounded by, doesn’t it?

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I think this guy nails it. Because it’s Apple and they make more devices than anyone lets pick on them and get more page views. 

Why We Gloat

parislemon:

5 years ago, I made a bet. Two bets, actually.

The first was with myself. I bet myself that if I devoted serious time to it, I could become a great technology blogger. It wasn’t an easy bet to make. I knew it would require upending my life at the time. And it did. 

The second bet was related to the first. I knew that to become a key tech blogger, I would need a focus. As a relatively new Mac user myself, I decided that focus would be Apple. Yes, I was coming later to the party than some, but Apple was still a company at the time that was scoffed at by many. But drawing from my own experience, I truly felt that the company was on the cusp of changing the world. Again.

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The Apple TV…Here is how it will be done.

They say where there is smoke there is fire. The unicorn known as the Apple TV, an actual television made by Apple has been a hot topic the past few months since Steve Jobs passed away. In the Isaacson penned biography, Jobs is quoted as saying he “cracked it,” referring to the Apple Television. However since that time there have been many naysayers claiming that Apple would never enter this market for a host of reasons.

1. People don’t upgrade their TV often enough for it to be a sustainable business.

2. If its anything like the tablet and phone industry the hardware evolution would move too fast for a device people kept 5-7 years as a TV would. 

3. An Apple Television would need to get content deals not had by other television manufacturers.

4. There are already Smart TV’s out there with Operating Systems, apps, and widgets built in, how could Apple differentiate from those already on the market?

Ever since the iPad 2 and iOS 5 came out I’ve marveled at AirPlay Mirroring with my iPhone and iPad. It’s magic. Instead of the TV being a giant touchscreen, a slick touchscreen remote device (in this case an iPad/iPhone) controls the interface and content. Over WIFI AirPlay Mirroring works amazingly well. 

So here is the deal, ever since the Amazon Kindle Fire came out people think Apple must release a smaller iPad at the risk of fragmentation to its app store. Here is where Apple turns the market upside down. I think that an Apple Television is coming and its coming sooner than people think. I believe they will release a television with a basic interface that is controlled by a new iOS Device called the iTV. The iTV is the remote that will ship with the Apple Television. It will have a 5” or 7” form factor with the 16:9 screen ratio that many Android tablets are shipping with. The iTV connects directly to the Apple Television as a mirroring device via BlueTooth or WIFI. It’s as if the TV is a touchscreen device, but instead of touching the TV you interact with the remote instead. There will not be any ridiculous keyboards for inputting with the TV. There will be an iTV app store on this device. There will be games and TV content apps in the store. It will use Apple Home Sharing to access music and video content from your Mac Computers. Apple will update the hardware each year where you only have to buy a new remote, not a new television. It will allow games to get more sophisticated over time and for the software and apps to be easily upgraded. 

There is nothing quite like this on the market today. All current TV manufacturers are putting the OS on the TV itself with a ridiculous hardware button remote. Most of the time its clunky, slow, and difficult to upgrade. The iTV will be none of those things. You won’t find apps like iBooks on this device. It will be completely geared towards viewable media like TV, Music, and perhaps Photos via your Photostream. Apps like HBO Go, Watch ESPN, TNT, TBS, NBC, etc. will be the norm in native 16:9 formate on the device. 

This solution answers most if not all of the “why Apple won’t do it” bullet points listed above. So when does it come out? They could pivot here and instead of releasing the TV they could release a new box or small dongle plug-in that communicates with the iTV touchscreen remote. Or the Apple TV could be a Newsstand like folder on all iOS devices where media apps would live. Then anyone with iOS device could get Apple TV. They would still just need to get the box. But it is my belief that a 16:9 tablet would be a great remote and a new device by Apple that could once again redefine the industry. Insanely great. 

CES Over-hyped Again.

CES has now come to end. And here is thing, I honestly barely remember a thing that was announced. I remember a pretty cool TV thats still two years away from being an affordable option for consumers. I also remember a ridiculous laptop computer from Lenovo called the “Yoga”. Apple’s competitors are basically trying anything to get attention at trade shows. Basically the Yoga flips inverted so the keyboard faces down on the table and serves as a stand for a large touchscreen. This device will make more sense when Windows 8 launches. Speaking of Windows 8, it sounds like Microsoft has become silent on its progress. Most think it will launch in October with a public beta in February. I think Microsoft may be pivoting a bit on its user interface and GUI. 

Here is the other thing. I don’t get some pundits who poo poo the Apple press who seems to also be downplaying CES significance. They use the argument that “we like technology” not just Apple technology. I think that argument is also bunk. The Apple press and bloggers are not down on CES because Apple isn’t there. They are down on it because most things announced or shown there seem to either be a shameless copy or a spaghetti on the wall desperate attempt to get attention. We’ve even seen smaller companies announce cloud services similar to iCloud. This never would have happened if it weren’t for the attention that iCloud received in 2011. 

A lot people were pretty impressed with Nokia’s new Windows Phone. I even read many Apple enthusiast comment on it and claim to want one. But here is the thing. Why would they want one? What does it offer that their iPhone’s doesn’t have? I couldn’t find a single advantage other than being able to post pictures to Facebook faster. They liked the way it looked, but does look better than an iPhone? I have no doubt the Lumia 900 phone will be a nice device, but don’t act like its an upgrade in anyway to the iPhone. Thats not being a fanboy, that’s just keeping it real.

Cloud Copy

Acer had one of the first keynotes at CES on Sunday, Jan 8th. One of the things they announced, aside from the MacBook Air rip off “ultra book” computer, was their new AcerCloud service. Essentially its iCloud for Windows and Android. It’s another prime example of where the industry is headed. 

Each week on Twitter and on the tech blogs there is some pundit describing what Apple needs to do to compete. When in fact what they really mean is what Apple’s “competitors” need to do to compete. When you are responsible for setting every trend in the market in which you participate in, I’m pretty sure Apple doesn’t need to do anything to compete with anyone. They are the bar everyone else is trying for reach. AcerCloud and the countless MacBook Air wannabes at CES is living proof of that. The humorous part of the presentation by Acer was their slide showing what AcerCloud does, an almost complete rip form Apple’s slide at WWDC back in June. Further proof that the only thing Apple needs to do is just keep being Apple.