In a rather strange fashion for Apple, they already announced what they will be focussing on at the World Wide Developer Conference, which starts in a few hours. So Apple will be talking about iOS5 (its mobile operating system), Mac OSX 10.6 Lion (its latest version of its desktop operating system) and iCloud, a service no one really seems to know anything about. Of course the rumours are everywhere, so we here at Bandwidth Blog had to use our common sense about what we are likely to see later today.
Prediction No 1: Improved Notifications in iOS5.
This one is obvious, and it should happen. In the current form iOS4 has a pretty ridiculous method of notifying the user – and it completely takes over whatever the user is doing on his phone. Worst of all, once the notification is displayed, there is no way to go check for previous notfications. I already explained my irritation with this system in a previous article in which I point out 5 things Apple needs to fix about iOS (lets hope they address all the issues) Recent news posts also point out that the developer of MobileNotifier, Peter Hajas, was hired by Apple. MobileNotifier is a pretty brilliant jailbroken replacement of the iPhone notification system. If you have not seen the demo, you can see it in the video below:
There is also a lot of talk of the iDevices getting widgets – personally I see active icons rather than full on widgets like you find on Android. If they do want to go widgets, I think it will suit the iPad better – using a custom gesture to bring up a widget dashboard while suspending the currently running app. But I dont expect the widgets to always run on the home screen.
Prediction No 2: iDevices will finally lose some of the PC/Mac cord dependency.
Yeah, I pointed this out before as well. Taking a piece of Apple hardware out of the box is meant to be a great experience. But then after removing all the wrapping paper you power the device up only to be faced with the “œplug into iTunes“ screen. Not only that, but I need to plug in my iPhone or iPad everytime I want to put on new music or videos, and every time a software update is released. Most new smartphones have some or other wifi syncing ability with the phone (even the Blackberry Torch!), yet Apple in all their innovative wisdom, still requires a cord. Here is what I predict – Apple will finally allow us to sync our devices as long as it is on the same Wifi network as our iTunes installs – this can either be through a music locker service, or a simple local network mirror. Come on Apple – this is not rocket science. And if power draining is an issue, only allow it while the device is connected to a charger? Right?
Software updates are more tricky – personally I dont expect Apple to start pushing over the air iOS updates, at least not for major releases. Using the current cord-based method means that everyone worldwide gets the update on the same time, and does not create massive stresses on a mobile network. But make small point releases available over the air, and make only them available over the air, and make them small…
Prediction No 3: iCloud will revolutionize the Music industry
OK – this is real crystal ball stuff here, but it might just be possible with Apple’s reach. Currently the music industry is “under threat” because of massive piracy across the web. The record companies are currently all to happy to point out how many billions they lose out on because of these stinkin’ pirates. Recent articles scattered over the web have pointed out how Apple made massive deals with the big record companies – and I think those deals dont just constitute a “in the cloud” music locker service. Yes, I fully expect Apple to mirror your iTunes collection in the cloud, but not only the stuff you bought through them. They will need to mirror everything.
I reckon that the typical iTunes user has less than 10% fully legal music, regardless where they got it from. Now what if Apple can mirror all your music (based on artist and song title) in the cloud, and allow you to access all of it, legal and (gasp) illegal from any of your iTunes machines or iDevices. In exchange for this small technicality, Apple will pay the record companies a percentage of every iCloud subscriber’s fees. No one seems to know the costs right now – but it does mean that the record companies will still get some income from it. Regardless how small that percentage might be, it means that the record companies can finally offset some of that “lost” income due to piracy.
This might sound crazy – but can you imagine if it works? I can already see the headlines: “Jobs saves Music Industry“.
Prediction No 4: My iCloud, on any Mac
Cult of Mac made a pretty great prediction of how iCloud will work – but the part that intrigues me the most is the “My Desktop on any Mac” idea. This will be built into Mac OSX Lion, and will allow a user to login into any internet connected Mac using their Apple ID, and the user’s documents, apps and preferences will be downloaded instantly on that machine. The idea is not that revolutionary – it is fancy copy of solutions like VMWare view, but will bring these cloud desktop services to the consumer masses. Obviously this will require massive bandwidth, but this is becoming less of an issue every day. Hopefully it will have smart ways to downscale on bandwidth usage, like only downloading an app the first time you use it (almost like how Office only installs a component the first time you use it).
Currently many of us are savvy enough to start shifting our content to the cloud using services like Dropbox. While Dropbox is still the number one example of this, I can fully imagine Apple releasing agents for different devices and operating systems, even if it only allows document access, similiar to MobileMe right now. I think the most important part here will be low cost – I am sure as hell not going to pay $99 for iCloud storage if I can just use Dropbox. So Apple will need to price it right. Current rumours suggest it being free for the first year with Mac OSX Lion. I think after that it needs to be cheap – think $30 a year. I can live with that.
Prediction no 5: New Networking Hardware
All this iCloud-iness talk would probably mean Apple needs to update its Airport devices, which has not been updated in some time (except some small antenna upgrades here and there). Right now Apple makes the Airport Extreme, Time Capsule (which is basically an Extreme with some storage) and the Airport Express. I reckon the Extreme and Time Capsule will be replaced with one product, which will contain all the bits to manage multiple Macs and iDevices connected to the iCloud network. Features I would like would include pre-caching of firmware and application updates, and cloud based document sharing, similiar to Pogo. Pre caching might also include media being shared through iTunes to AppleTV and iDevices. Using this system means homes and small business environments can be catered for, and not require a server machine to handle these administrative issues. This will obviously require refreshed hardware which can actually handle all this extra processes.
Most of these predictions can be gathered from just reading a few blogs around the interwebz, but I would also not discount the idea of Apple announcing a “one more thing”. After all, it is not like Apple to show its entire deck of cards before a conference like WWDC….
