A Tale Of Two Companies
Steve Jobs, 2010:
MIT Technology Review, 2012:
iPod Nano Watch Change Up?
Could totally see Apple changing the iPod Nano back to long form and rebranding the current Nano as a watch/fitness device with Bluetooth.
WWDC Predictions
Lots of hoopla this weekend and ridiculous expectations for Apple on what they will announce on Monday. Below is what I think will come out of Monday’s keynote.
EASY…
iOS 6, see some predictions below for that. I don’t think it will be drastic. I think all the stock apps will be updated, SIRI API’s, tweaks to notifications, new default wallpaper, and probably a surprise feature. I would love to see better app switching and a LaunchPad (like in Lion) interface for the home screen.
Mountain Lion. I don’t think we have seen everything from Mountain Lion yet. I think there will be a surprise feature unannounced before WWDC.
New Macs. I think only the MacBook Pro will feature a redesign and receive retina displays. I think all the other Macs (Air, Pro, Mini) will only receive spec bumps and less substantial. I just don’t see them throwing Retina in a MacBook Air yet due to power consumption and its thinner form factor. I think they will introduce new hard drives that combine Flash Storage will traditional hard drives. This was rumored last year and didn’t happen. This way they can put the OS on a 80GB Flash drive and the Home Folder on a 500gb traditional drive.
MAYBE…
Lots of rumors of an SDK for an app store for Apple TV out there. This is something I really hope happens. I think it could change the game for the Apple TV in terms of gaming and content compared to all other like products. I think the death of it will be the subscription model that content providers will be unwilling to offer right on the device.
iOS 5.2. I believe there will be an update released for iOS 5 following the keynote. I think it will have some new features as well. I foresee a scenario where they introduce some new feature for iOS 6 and say, like they did with iMessages for ML, this feature is coming right now in iOS 5.2. One potential feature that could come now is iCloud enhancements via web for Notes and Reminders.
The new MacBook… I think there is a chance that the existing MacBook Pro becomes the new education focused MacBook. The price could be lowered to $999 in the same way the iPad 2 was reduced to $399 when the new iPad was announced.
NO WAY…
There will be no iTV hardware introduced. There will be no iPhone announcements. Also as stated earlier, no design changes or retina on any of the other Mac lines like the Air.
ALSO…
Look for instant disappointment from the Tech press until the actual launch and sales numbers of the next iPhone. The Maps update will be scrutinized to death. This is all typical of all Apple events. All iPad announcements so far have been met with lukewarm response, and only the original iPhone and iPhone 4 received consistent praise from the gallery and Twitter. It’s the great under promise and over deliver approach that Apple takes.
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.
Interesting how Google Music hasn’t even been mentioned in the media lately. This along with Google+ pretty much being a ghost town doesn’t say much for their sustainability.
Pretty much everything Wayne Rosso says (extending upon what Greg Sandoval previously said) rings true except for the notion that Google might pull the plug on the service so soon. That would make too much sense.
Also, the idea that Google Music is not taking off due to a lack of marketing is laughable. Does it concern anyone else how much Google — long flat-out opposed to advertising itself — is now seemingly addicted to it, in order to prop-up products?
This is all very surprising to me. As I wrote in May 2011:
This is exactly why you don’t pre-announce products. I hate to say this before I’ve even seen the product, but this thing has all the makings of yet another flop.
And in November 2011:
I still don’t really get why Google is doing this. This feels like another reach. They’re going after something that Apple has dominated for the better part of a decade. And they clearly know how difficult the content space is after the Google TV fiasco and the last 18 months trying to launch this store.
If Google is trying to focus, this seems like another distraction.
Google could have at least tried to do something actually interesting in the music space. Instead, they created yet another shitty-margin business. And they did so a decade too late. They really should have just teamed up with Spotify. Or Rdio. Or someone. Anyone.
We’re coming up on the two year anniversary of when Google Music was first unveiled. Two years! Warner Music is still not on board! Awesome.
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?
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?
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
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.
