WWDC 2008 Predictions

Apple's WWDC have taken the place of Macworld NY as Apple's mid-year show/announcement forum. Thus -- step right up with your predictions.

Mine are:

1) All iPhone all the time -- including iPhone 3G announcement, SDK 1.0 release, iPhone app store opening.
HT consequence: iPhone based universal remotes, iTunes streaming to iPhone, etc.

2) Rebranded and greatly enhanced .Mac -- now called MobileMe (or just Me)? Will include iPhone over the air synching, push e-mail, etc. Cross platform (Mac/Win) HT: ?

3) Leopard discussion, and 10.6 feature mention.

Will happen, just not at WWDC: iTablet -- HT: Better portable video (vs. iPod/iPhone).

Not happening at WWDC:
Blu-ray, Apple Cinema Display refresh, new MacMini.

There may well be a Mini refresh, but I seriously doubt they are going to announce at WWDC. They didn't bother to announce a major MacPro bump at MacWorld, no way would they bother with the Mini. Now if they were to introduce the infamous Maxi/XMac -- sure, but that remains far fetched.

If you mean Montevina (I don't know that you do), that has been delayed by Intel until August -- so maybe we will see it in MacBookPro's in Sept. 2008, and the Mini in... late 2009 if not 2010. Breath holding -- not advised.

However if Apple changes it's Apple Cinema Display line to Display Port -- all bets are off, and you may see a much ahead of schedule Mini update, so they can stay compatible. Or maybe they will just ship with a DVI to Display Port dongle...

Yes, that is Montevina. So I stand by my previous post. The only wildcard is Display Port -- if Apple decides to move ACDs to it, it could speed Montevina adoption on the Mini.

On what? The Mini? Not any time soon. On anything else -- not before Montevina and Display Port. After that maybe. And definitely not at WWDC.

TUAW is confirming my Mac OS X 10.6 speculation. Then again maybe my AVS post is the "source"

Unless you are thinking of an iTablet, which is certainly possible, I doubt there will be any other rabbits.

I on the other hand am hugely excited by the possibilities of the iPhone app store/SDK/3G iPhone, etc. (Sorry Wildrock, I know AT&T is dissing your state). I really expect that iPhone apps to have a paradigm shifting potential. Apple is insuring a large installed base of users by giving away the iPod Touch to student Mac buyers until Sept. 15th. I think the iPhone/iPod Touch ecosystem will dwarf their competition and have developers frantically scrambling to join the gold rush. This will move quite a bit of new developers to Mac OS X (all iPhone SDK development is done on Macs), including game developers. When their apps start selling through iTunes, many will discover that Mac people are much more likely to pay than their Windows brethren.

End result -- a lot of new software will start appearing for Mac OS X desktop including games. The current furious Mac market share growth will accelerate, the iPhone (especially if Apple figures out how to make a cheaper "nano") may end up almost as successful as the iPod. Stunts like PC only Amazon Unbox or Netflix streaming will cease.

Yes, I'm certainly very anxious for new Apple Cinema Displays, but my current hunch is that they won't happen before Display Port, for which you need Montevina, which was delayed into August.

Snow Leopard, if the reports on what it's about are true, seems like a reaction to the Vistaster. Apple decided to kick Microsoft while its down, not with more features but with performance (and hopefully rock solid reliability -- those digital audio related core dumps anyone?). If they deliver, and I believe they will -- look at what they've been doing with JavaScript performance in WebKit. I ran the benchmarks yesterday in Safari on Windows, vs. Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox. It was 8+ TIMES faster than EI, and more than double the speed of Firefox. Imagine that level Mac OS X performance across the board -- 8 times faster than Vista on identical hardware? The current stream of switchers will start turning into a flood.

I am not married to the Mini. It was originally bought to be a headless CD player substitute -- full stop. I've already gotten 10 times more from it than I bargained for. I am trying to replace my ancient 20" ACD (bought days after they were introduced) with a 30" ACD. I test drove a 40" 1080P Samsung LCD last year (sent back due to HDMI bugs) and it was just too big to double as a computer monitor.

Of course if new 30" ACDs to materialize, unless something changes, I will need a MacPro or MacBookPro to drive it. So the Mini will go back to headless status. Or maybe Apple will release a 30" iMac (which I'd grab) or a Maxi or something none of us are dreaming of. If nothing materializes by Macworld 2009 I guess I'll have to start looking at 3rd party monitors. Another possibility -- Sony is releasing smaller, cheaper, 1080P sets in their XBR 6 line, LIST prices $1199 & $1499 for the 31.5" & 37" models. Of course then the original question of Mini compatibility rears its ugly head.

Back on topic (sort of) -- yes, the clones were one of the top reasons that Apple was losing money, which is why killing them was job #1 for Jobs. A full fledged cloning program will NEVER be a good idea, I will eat my hat if El Jobso does it. The only way clones are coming back is if Apple tries to conquer the office market and needs a second supplier to be considered by some companies. They would then license someone like Dell, HP or Lenovo to make one or two strictly spec-ed out by Apple models for corporate sales only. Now I don't believe for a moment that even that will materialize on Jobs' watch but it is the only thing that makes even the slightest sense.