WWDC 2009: Bold Predictions
I may be out of the country, but today marks the beginning of WWDC and so I have to give my two cents. Yes, I’m going to miss it. No, I’m not going to have any idea what happened until I return next week. Yes, there will be a lot of catching up to do. No, I don’t care all that much because I’ll be doing way cooler, awesome stuff that God will be happier with than what is going on in California. Unless, of course, God is as much a Apple nerd or technophile as I am, then maybe. Actually, now that I think about it, I bet God would be a Mac guy — it fits my view of Him.
Enough rambling. Since I won’t be here I’m going to make my predicitons and you can read them and then leave a comment telling me how far off I am. That way, I don’t have to go anywhere but here to figure out what happened. If no one comments, I’ll be a sad panda. Though, to prevent this, I instituted a backup plan. Mwhahaha.
So, bold predictions. I’m going to start boldless and get bolder as I go until the end when they’ll be really, really bold. The boldest if you will.
- iPhone OS 3.0 will be available immediately following the keynote and will be free for 3G users, $9.99 for iPod touch and original iPhone owners. It will also be may more awesome than previously thought and include some unannounced features:
- Way better way to manage apps on the phone. Maybe a better home screen.
- Some sort of background process allowance. Maybe not for all apps, but for a certain number. These apps will have special permission from Apple. So you will not be able to run iFart in the background.
- The ability to not have all the default Apple apps on the phone all the time. Contacts, I’m looking at you.
- To coincide with iPhone OS 3.0, the iPhone Nano will be averrable directly following the ‘note. Smaller capacity, cheep, less a lot of features (like GPS). Basically an iPhone for the cheapskates and an economy-friendly model. Also as a means to stifle the price of the:
- 3rd Gen iPhone (perhaps called iPhone Video) to be available sometime in July. This will be the all black super-phone that has been showing up on rumor sites lately and will have the 600 mhz processor and 256 MB RAM and up to 32 GB of hard drive space. It’ll have a way better camera and all that it entails. This will be more expensive than the 3G model, more in line with the original iPhone pricing. May not have a special contract price.
- OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard will be heavily demoed and it will be revealed that while most of the stuff is under the hood, a new, unified look across all applications will be implemented — think iLife ‘09. The release date will also be announced as sometime in late August or early September. Price: in the $50 to $75 dollar range. It will also come with a free year of MobileMe or, even bolder prediction, bundled with iLife ‘10 (which would obviously be announced).
- MacBooks will see speed bumps across the board, with the high-end 13″ MacBook turning into a MacBook Pro. The 15″ MacBook Pro will be redesigned ala the 17″ model, and will feature the same built-in 8-hour battery. People will obliviously complain about this.
- One more thing: Steve Jobs will come out and introduce the iTablet/NetBook/small computer that people think they want. It won’t be what people think it will be, but it will be awesome and instantly dominate the market. It won’t be available until late in the summer, presumably with the Snow Leopard release. It will be more expensive than a netbook but less than a MacBook. People will cheer and some will faint. The Apple stock will soar through the roof and fanboys will cry.
- Jobs’ appearance will cause the crush of all fanboy and critic dreams for a few minutes and then they will realize that the
wasn’t announced and begin to cry and curse Jobs’ name. Apple stock will then fall citing that the product announcements weren’t good enough. True Apple fans will tell these people to get a life, and Twitter will lag 25 minutes behind all day.
Bold enough for you? These come from a mixture of things I’ve read across the internet over the last few weeks and some from my own crazy head. Namely the later stuff. I won’t really care if I’m completely wrong, though I will be surprised if the new super-iPhone isn’t somewhat accurate. After all, it is time for me to upgrade.
So, how’d I do? Was I right? Wrong? What’d I miss? Let me know below.