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Special Event Sep 2010 Predictions

By David Weiss on August 31, 2010 4:23 PM | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBacks
When Apple announced the September 1st Special Event last week, I was finishing up a project, (yes another iPhone app!) and I couldn't take time to fill in the rumors for Prediction. Once the app was solidly on it's way in the review process I took some time to back fill the rumors for Prediction and to my surprise, found 29 rumors, going through my neglected RSS feeds! The last time I had that many rumors for an event was when the iPad was announced at the beginning of this year, and then there were 38 rumors. My point in saying all this is simply that tomorrow's special event is going to be big. It also marks the first Apple keynote to be streamed live for a very, VERY long time. I hope the Internet can handle the load!

Here's the info for the live video stream: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/08/31alert.html

Here are the rumors I've come up with along with my predictions. If I've missed any, please let me know!

My predictions for Special Event Sep 2010

  1. iPod Classic Retired: Wrong
  2. New Apple TV Remote: Correct
  3. iOS 4 for iPad: Wrong
  4. Liquidmetal: Wrong
  5. Redesigned iPod Nano Announced: Correct
  6. Touchscreen iPod Nano: Correct
  7. iPad mini: Wrong
  8. iMac touch: Wrong
  9. Apple TV 1080p Video: Wrong
  10. Electronic Wallet and Payment System: Wrong
  11. Longer iTunes Song Samples: Correct
  12. iPhone 4 Antenna Revision: Partially Correct
  13. 99 cent iTunes TV rentals: Correct
  14. Game Center for iOS Released: Correct
  15. iOS 4.1 Released: Correct
  16. Next Gen iPod touch Released: Correct
  17. Next Gen iPod touch Announced: Correct
  18. New Apple TV: Correct
  19. Apple TV renamed iTV: Correct
  20. Apple TV App Development: Correct
  21. Wi-Fi Sync: Wrong
  22. iPod touch Front-Facing Camera: Correct
  23. iPod touch with Retina Display: Correct
  24. Web-Based iTunes: Wrong
  25. iTunes Music Subscription: Wrong
  26. A4-Family CPU in iPod touch: Correct
  27. 5-Megapixel Camera with Flash: Correct
  28. Verizon iPhone Announcement: Wrong
  29. Apple Announces an iTunes Web App: Wrong
What are your predictions?

Antennagate

By David Weiss on July 16, 2010 4:34 PM

Earlier today Apple held their iPhone 4 press conference to address the issue of iPhone 4's supposed reception problems. You can watch the full video, but it doesn't include the Q&A. You'd have to find the transcripts for the Q&A elsewhere. After watching it one part really sticks out to me and you can find it about 25 minutes 30 seconds into the video. Here's the quote:

"A lot of people have told us, 'The Bumper solves the signal-strength problem.' Consumer Reports is the latest one this week. We've heard it from a lot of people. Why don't you just give everybody a case? Okay. Great, let's give everybody a case." - Steve Jobs

You really have to watch this quote to appreciate how the last line, "Okay. Great, let's give everybody a case." is dripping with disdain. Jobs seemed pretty forceful, even angry, during this whole presentation, but this part was exceptionally so. It's like Jobs sees this "free case" response as a concession and certainly isn't happy to announce it.

Why did Apple choose to give all iPhone 4 users a free case? I don't think the force of their presentation would have been lost had they omitted the free case. Since Apple can't handle even the current demand for their cases, using other vendors and reimbursing previously purchased cases will be complicated. It will cost them millions of dollars in lost revenue, arguably close to 100 million dollars. So why would they do it? I can think of two reasons:

  1. Apple wants to avoid jumping the shark.
  2. Apple wants to minimize their legal liability.

The first reason stems from Jobs repeated claim that this issue has been blown out of proportion by the news media and bloggers. Apple, like any company, wants to remain in favor with both media and their core customers, and responding to the market this way shows they care in a tangible way. I think this is reason enough, but Jobs utter contempt in announcing this "solution" makes me think this wasn't the driving force in the decision. If it was, he'd have presented it in a more upbeat manner.

I think the real reason for the free bumper concession was Apple's legal department. With class-action lawsuits being filed against Apple over the antenna problem, Apple's press conference today was more of a preemptive defense and a legal facts driven presentation than it was an attempt to quell the controversy. At such a high price tag, this preemptive and public defense, while painful, underscores just how successful they expect the iPhone 4 to be. There will be more iPhone 4 phones out there than any previous model and with that kind of large user base coupled with Apple's phenomenal success make them a larger target than ever. The sub-text behind today's presentation was a legal defense and that is why I think Jobs showed so much contempt for the free case give away.

Prediction for WWDC 2010

By David Weiss on June 4, 2010 9:40 AM
PredictionBanner.png
It's that season again: WWDC 2010 begins June 7th. Just like with the iPad announcement, I have created a Prediction Score Card for WWDC. Download it, print it out and take it to lunch. Amaze your friends with your prognostication prowess!

Also, if you'd like to play the same game, but on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, you can download the free Prediction app at: http://itunes.com/apps/prediction. With the app you will receive push notifications when new rumors and information are added as well as your final score. Have fun!

Prediction Score Card.pdf 

Prediction for the iPhone 4.0 Event

By David Weiss on April 7, 2010 3:34 PM
Tomorrow at 10 AM Apple will begin it's invitation-only press event at their Town Hall. The invitation reads, "Get a sneak peak into the future of iPhone OS" with a large shadow of the number four alluding to iPhone OS 4.0. Rumors are running rampant as usual, so I took some time to gather the major rumors for Prediction. I don't have time to build the PDF scorecard like I did for the iPad announcement, but hopefully you won't need it because I've decided to make the iPhone app free! So go get the app and have fun!

Prediction Score Card

By David Weiss on January 25, 2010 6:45 AM | 1 TrackBack
PredictionDocument.png

When I worked at a larger company, as an Apple Event approached work conversation would take second place to speculation about what Apple would announce. Lunch time conversation was consumed with a battle of predictions and the white board in front of my office became the location for people to publicly make their claims. After the event we would gather around the white board and collectively determine who did the best.

I'm sure I'm not unique in this tradition among Apple fans, so in an effort to support this fun, I have created the Prediction Score Card. Download it, print it out and take it to lunch. Amaze friends with your understanding and sophisticated analysis of current reports! Show your strength of judgment in the face of swirling uncertainty!

Have some fun.

P.S. If I have missed a rumor, please let me know and I'll add it, but be quick, Wednesday is not that far away.

Prediction Score Card.pdf

Update 1: Since I posted this Apple has approved my app Prediction which can be found here.

Update 2: Our servers have been slammed by John Gruber's linking to us. We're working on it.

Update 3: We're back online!

Google Chrome and Gears

By David Weiss on September 2, 2008 3:26 PM | 16 Comments
Google is now building their own web browser named Chrome, based on the WebKit rendering engine and a beta version for Windows is currently available. They've put up some great comics that do a great job of introducing the new browser and some videos explaining some of the changes they've made.

I've always found Google applications on my Mac to be a bit out of place. Maybe it's part of the design they are going for, but even today, when I use their online apps, like Gmail, or desktop applications like Google Earth, they work well, but beautiful they are not. They are blocky, text heavy, lowest common denominator type of UIs. It's always felt to me like they didn't quite "get it" when it comes to blending into the platform and learning to be a "good citizen" on the user's platform of choice.

Today, it's clear to me why I've felt this way: Google isn't interested at all in "being a citizen" or part of a platform, they are interested in being the platform. If you look at the way Chrome is designed, it's not so much designed to be a good browser, as much as it is a good operating system for web applications. Google's desire is very much the same as Microsoft's, except abstracted a little higher up the stack. They want to own the platform upon which web applications are built, just like Microsoft wants to own the platform upon which desktop applications are built. This game of disintermediation seems to never end, but this time, what can Microsoft do? Or anyone else for that matter?

This is not to say that Google's success criteria for Chrome is market share. I think what they are trying to do is have a more direct hand in guiding and shaping the web app platform and raising it to a level that best fits their desires and needs. Google will be successful if in the future developers see no downside to developing a web app versus a traditional desktop application, but in-fact see a sizable upside to taking the web app route. For end users success will be when the "Omnibar" becomes the default interaction mechanism, the place they go to first and installers become a thing of the past.

Maybe that's why I think Google's stuff looks kind of basic. They are to the current web platform what command line terminals were to the earlier personal computer platform. The basics, from which great things are built.

Unweary

By David Weiss on August 21, 2008 2:20 PM | 7 Comments
Starting today I'll be writing at a new blog location: http://unweary.com/blog/ I've redirected the old RSS feed http://feeds.feedburner.com/davidweiss to the new blog. If you want to subscribe to the shiny new RSS feed http://feeds.feedburner.com/unweary please go right ahead. At some point I'll take down the old RSS feed.

This change includes an upgrade from Blogger to Movable Type as my blogging platform, but if you sensed that there was more to the blog location change than just that, you were right. I'm "going indie", as they say. :-) This is something I've wanted to do for a long time and now is the time to make it official.

I quit working for the MacBU at Microsoft in December 2007 to go back to school. I'm very much enjoying school, and I'm trying hard to keep that my main focus, but I keep wanting to build stuff and publish it and Unweary is just a natural result of that innate desire to create. I expect to build pretty focused, humble, non-life changing software that just makes regular things easier and better in some way. Right now I'm mostly trying to decide which idea to tackle first. I feel like a kid in a candy shop!

So that's the news. I'm sure I'll write more about the adventure as it develops, but in the meantime, wish me luck!
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