Monday, January 14, 2008

iPhone/Apple Goodies at MacWorld Expo

Well, since everyone else appears compelled to weigh in on what will be announced at the 2008 MacWorld Expo, I thought I might as well provide my prognostications to the pile appearing in the blogosphere. Herewith are my predictions:
  1. An iPhone 16 Gb. This is logical allowing the top end of the iPhone line to be filled-in and perhaps allowing the 8 Gb to see a price drop, perhaps to $299. The phone will come standard with the 1.1.3 update. The 16 Gb iPhone will not have a replaceable battery.
  2. No iPhone 3G. If one is introduced, it will be introduced as debuting with 3G service to Japan or a similar announcement. This will place the machine coming to market in the Spring at the earliest, Summer more likely, or Fall (before the Christmas rush) as the most likely. It also gives Apple time to determine whether to put it at a higher price point, or to retire the 8 Gb model. Either way, there will be both a 3G and a 2.5G model on the market at the same time. If the 3G model is introduced, it will not have a replaceable battery.
  3. Early introduction of the SDK along with the announcements of a number of new applications immediately available through iTunes (new release 7.7). I would expect that many of these applications are available from installer.app developers (let's face it, some of this stuff is great, especially the games, and they pose no threat to Apple).
  4. Flash availability on the iPhone. There doesn't seem to be much discussion of this topic anymore, but it would be an easy addition that would significantly extend the functionality of Safari considering how many sites use Flash. It would also be a logical early SDK-developed tool.
  5. iPhone email Exchange compatibility. This one will come from either Microsoft or one of the many companies providing these capabilities to Palm and others today. Again, this is a logical SDK-developed tool.
  6. Update 1.1.3 (or perhaps a 1.2.0) that will incorporate the teasers seen in the leaked video of the release as well as much-needed enhancements. Among this are: a) icon management as seen in the video; b) Google map location as seen in the video; c) custom pin placement as seen in the video; d) bookmark as icon application on the springboard as seen in the video; e) copy-and-paste; and f) flash-disk storage.
  7. Enhancements to the Wi-Fi iTunes store that will enable podcasts and videos to be downloaded wirelessly.
  8. Among the videos that will be available, Apple will announce its agreement to carry movie rentals--they will be available through the Wi-Fi store or iTunes directly to a home machine or a souped-up AppleTV.
  9. Joint announcements by Yahoo!, Google, and perhaps others of significant extensions of their Web sites to accommodate the iPhone format. These would go far beyond what has been announced by Yahoo! and Google recently. Indeed, they may take the form of additional custom applications available as a result of the SDK.
These latter predictions are the result of this being Apple's show, but they will not want to leave out the content providers that make the iPhone so functional. Therefore, they will be involved in some type of joint presentation. Then there are the reach predictions. Not sure whether they are realistic at this time, but I would predict they are coming:
  1. Announcement of an agreement enabling extended Wi-Fi iTunes store usage at airports, certain hotel chains, and perhaps additional business establishments. The latter would be tied to Apple's existing contracts with AT&T, O2, Deutche Telekom, and Orange.
  2. Joint announcement of the availability of the 3G iPhone along with AT&T's announcement of rapid expansion of its 3G network.
Those are my thoughts. What do you think I have wrong. What have I left out?

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