Filed under: Analysis / Opinion

It's the end of another calendar year, which can mean only two things. First, every blog is going to be posting lists of 2009 retrospectives, and second, there are going to be a lot of posts filled with completely off-target predictions for 2010.

So that we're not leaving our readership sitting in the dark wondering what the TUAW bloggers are prognosticating for the next year, here are our wild guesses well-researched and intelligent predictions for Apple in 2010. Enjoy 'em, and from all of us at TUAW, have a safe and happy New Year's Eve and Day.

Steve Sande

1. Big DUH! The Apple Tablet arrives. There are way too many hints flying around the blogosphere for this to be a non-product for another year. It's gotta happen!
2. The Apple TV disappears from the Apple lineup. I hates it, I does. It just doesn't seem like an Apple product.
3. iPhone moves to multiple US carriers, but not Verizon. Why? Wrong network for a world (read GSM) phone, and I think Apple is probably irritated with Verizon's Droid and their advertising.
4. Apple closes some low-producing Apple Stores. The economy is still bad, and there have to be some locations with stores that aren't pulling their weight.
5. Apple buys Dropbox, BackBlaze, and Evernote, makes MobileMe useful. Dropbox for better and faster folder syncing between devices, BackBlaze for external backups to the cloud, Evernote just because it's cool. Add 'em all together and what do you have? Something that's really worth paying $99 a year for. Apple definitely has the cash to buy these services.
6. The Apple TV reappears in the Apple lineup as a high-quality autostereoscopic 3DTV with TiVo, Slingbox, and Boxee functionality built in. I can dream, can't I?

Erica Sadun

I'm hoping this will be the year of the tablet. Of course, I've been anticipating the year of the tablet since, oh say, around 1993 or so. Apple's future isn't about the hardware though, and it's not about their OS line: it's about their ability to deliver media. I'm thinking "iTunes gone large". Apple's Lala acquisiition, rumored TV deals, and possible textbook distribution agreements point to a renewed focus on content delivery devices.

Admittedly, Apple TV has never really evolved into its promise, perhaps due to areas into which Apple was not able to expand due to licensing deals with companies with Cable/Broadband interests but the iPhone has gone above and beyond in the media realm. So do I see a tablet (or a line of tablet devices) as a natural extension of the Apple content store? Absolutely. Will we see it this year? Possibly. Will it be early this year? Hard to say. Ask me again in a month.

It's being reported by PC World that Apple has begun censoring iPhone applications that contain any reference to the Dalai Lama in the Chinese App Store. At least five applications that contain references to the Dalai Lama have been banned: three of the apps – Dalai Quotes [$.99, iTunes], Dalai Lama Quotes [$.99, iTunes], and Dalai Lama Prayerwheel [$.99, iTunes] – contain quotes by His Holiness, while a fourth, Paging Dalai Lama [free, iTunes] tells users where he is currently teaching. A fifth app called Nobel Laureates [$.99, iTunes], details information about all the Nobel Peace Prize winners since the prize began in 1895. The Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.

If you don't know much about the Dalai Lama, there's a great documentary you should check out called 10 Questions for the Dalai Lama [iTunes]. The filmmaker poses some tough questions to the Dalai Lama about today's world and the individual's place in it, as well as presenting the viewer with an excellent biography of this remarkable man. In May of 2008 I had the honor of seeing the Dalai Lama speak in London. He's a wonderful person with an infectious laugh (and he even sounds like Yoda – no joke, check out my videos here). If his laughter doesn't win you over, perhaps the fact that he's a spiritual leader who loves and embraces technology will.

As I sit by the light of the Christmas tree in my mother's house with the vestiges of presents all around, it occurs to me that no matter how good Santa might have been to you, both Apple and AT&T left us lumps of coal for the end of 2009.

You might remember this promise from Apple a few months ago:

"Apple will support Microsoft Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate) with Boot Camp in Mac OS X Snow Leopard before the end of the year. This support will require a software update to Boot Camp."

It is possible to run Windows 7 under Boot Camp, but given the number of months Windows 7 was available as a beta, and now the length of time it has been released officially, it's disappointing not to have it officially supported, especially given Apple's simple and unequivocal promise.

Boot Camp runs a distant second, however, to the much larger missed deadline and broken promise from AT&T that tethering would be available for the iPhone in 2009. Despite being available all around the world, and on other smartphones on AT&T's network, tethering remains unavailable for iPhone users in the USA unless you have stayed behind on firmware or have taken the jailbreak route.

Rogers / Fido customers in Canada have been enjoying free tethering until 2010, and their deal has been extended until May 3rd. Given the way that I expect most people will use tethering, for occasional connections when traveling or out and about, free is exactly the price that tethering ought to cost. Given AT&T's existing costs for Blackberry tethering, though, I would not be surprised if AT&T expects another $30/month on top of the current $30/month data charges.

When will we see Windows 7 Boot Camp support and tethering? I have no idea, but I fully expect Apple to come through before AT&T does.

Coal picture courtesy of Wikimedia.

The folks who first showed us video streaming live from an iPhone, Qik, now have an official (non-jailbreak) app available in the App Store.

Like Ustream Live Broadcaster, Qik Live [iTunes Link] is a free iPhone app that streams live video to a web page where friends, relatives, and the world at large can watch and hear what you're currently doing. Qik Live has a very streamlined interface that's simple to use. You'll need to sign up for a free Qik account before you start blasting your video to the world, but you can do that from within the app. The app runs on iPhone 2G, 3G, and 3GS devices on 3G or Wi-Fi networks.

Once you've launched the app and logged in, a pre-broadcast screen appears showing a live image. Settings are changed by tapping on a 320 x 240 landscape image to bring up a small menu. The menu options include muting/unmuting sound, turning chat on/off, setting a video to private, editing the title and description of a broadcast, choosing where to share the video, or sending the last stream to someone via email.

A study put together by analytics firms comScore and Compete says that while Android and iPhone users probably aren't the same people, they certainly act like it. Usage patterns line up almost exactly across the board, differing by only a few percentage points in categories from social networking to mobile media to instant messaging. The only place they really differ is in email usage -- 63% of Android users reported that they used their smartphones for email, while 87% of iPhone users said the same.

The firms also asked smartphone users how they used apps overall, and it's probably not surprising to find that iPhone users are in apps over half the time they're on their phones, compared to using just the web browser. Android users report figures almost as high, with 44% saying that they use apps more than half the time. With so many developers out there working hard to streamline and improve the user interface in specific apps, it's no wonder native applications are the main reason most people pull out their iPhones. And if you want, this can just add fuel to the fire on the speculation that Apple will release a bigger version of the iPhone designed to just run apps rather than worry about that pesky "calling" feature.

[via Mashable]

Harry McCracken over at The Technologizer published a fascinating piece this morning. In the face of the daily deluge of breathless speculation about what features the iTablet / iSlate / iWhatever will have, Harry went through a bunch of posts from the early to mid-2000's, and then pulled an assortment of good and "not even close" predictions about what the iPhone would be like. All of the predictions McCracken discusses in "The Speculative Prehistory of the iPhone," of course, were made before Macworld Expo 2007 when the phone was actually introduced.

Perhaps the closest guess came from John Markoff of the New York Times -- about 4 years and 5 months before the iPhone came to light. In an August 2002 article, Markoff described a discussion with Steve Jobs about "a device that would combine elements of a cellphone and a Palm -like personal digital assistant." The name iPhone was used in the article, and Markoff notes that at that time Jobs felt the days of the PDA were numbered.

Markoff was close, but a stock analyst quoted by Chicago Tribune reporter Mike Hughlett was way off track. The analyst, Mark Stahlman of Caris, said that "a phone venture would be a 'distraction' for Apple."

Many of the conceptual drawings of the iPhone in the post are humorously off-base, with everything from an iPod-like scroll wheel (see above) to a very Nokia-like slide-apart device. If, or when, the Apple tablet finally appears, a retrospective look at the wacky ideas of the Apple pundits will be worth a good laugh.

I was eating a late post-Christmas breakfast this morning and perusing my email when I came upon a note from my friend and fellow Apple Consultants Network member Michael Kimble. Mike's been involved with Apple products since before the Mac arrived, so he has seen product trends come and go for decades. In his email, he mused that:

"I've been wondering if Apple, on their Jan. 26th product announcement, won't start to differentiate OS X to include OS X Mobile, OS X Touch, OS X Desktop & OS X Server. But rather than discreet versions of the OS, it is a spectrum where features of one version can slide up and down the scale depending on the functionality of the hardware platform it's running on. It seems to be moving in that direction whether a formal acknowledgment is made or not."

It's not that far a stretch to see Apple adding another variety of OS X to the family tree. As a result of yesterday's post about the as-yet-unannounced Apple tablet, TUAW reader Dillon made a similar observation to Mike's:

"Just a thought, but if the new Apple tablet ran straight iPhone OS, then it would probably be released in June with annual iPhone update... meaning that the Mac tablet will probably run a cross between Mac OSX 10.6 and iPhone OS or just Mac OSX 10.6.

Apple really won't release something unless it is speedy enough. They don't even let you run a background app or multitask on the iPhone due to speed issues. If they wanted to make a speedier tablet it would make sense that they would [deliver] a hybrid of the two operating systems, allowing better speed, battery, and more functionality than the iPhone, yet something not as relatively bulky as Snow Leopard."

Three of the four operating systems already exist (and there's always the family member they keep locked in the closet -- the Apple TV -- with its odd edition of Mac OS 10.4 Tiger). All it would take is for Apple to add a new version of the OS that would, as Dillon points out, allow background processing and true multi-tasking, yet pull out a lot of the more weighty components of OS X.

What do you think? Is a new, formal acknowledgment of a new Apple OS on the way, or will the tablet run a beefier version of the iPhone OS? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

Illustration from Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tigerpixel/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

On December 14th, I posted an opinion piece sharing my thoughts that AAPL stock would hit $300 a share in a year (for which I received quite a lot of critical feedback). Two days later, on December 16th, Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty issued a report stating she believes there is a 25% chance that AAPL will be between $325 and $435 in the next twelve months (she also believes it could fall to $150 if Google's Android takes off and Apple drops the ball).

Huberty based her bullish outlook on the scenario that iPhone sales are on pace to capture 10-15% of the handset market by 2012 – and this doesn't even include soaring Mac sales or the impending iSlate.

Well, the stock isn't at $325 yet, but on December 24th, AAPL did close at an all-time high of $209.04. Not bad considering on December 8th, the stock was down almost 8% on its previous high of $208 on November 16th. Christmas Eve's 3.4% one-day gain was driven primarily by the news that Apple has booked the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts for an event on January 26th.

So, where does the stock go from here? Traditionally, there is an early-January slide for AAPL that coincides with the "buy on rumor, sell on news" MacWorld Expo event, but since MacWorld is going to be Apple-free from now on, who knows if that will happen this year. And even if the early January slide hits AAPL, the company has so much going for it besides the rumored iSlate, I'm beginning to think my $300 target is rather conservative. But that's the future. For now the $209 share price is a nice Christmas gift.

Disclaimer: This author owns shares in AAPL. Opinions in this post are those of the author only and should not be considered as investment advice.

Need a refresher on the Google Voice and Apple saga? Let's recap the story to date:

Apple pulled all Google Voice related apps from the App Store back in July, which led to an FCC inquiry, which led Apple to claim they had not rejected but were "studying" Google Voice, which Google contradicted. The biggest surprise in the whole scenario is that AT&T said that they had no problem with Google Voice on the iPhone.

Yet here we are, 4 months later, and still no decision (that we know of) has been made. I've previously referred to this as Apple's pocket veto of Google Voice where they are able to say they haven't rejected it when they have, in effect, rejected it. Put it all together, and this has led me to put up a website for your "Google Voice on iPhone" questions, which I narrowed down to IsGoogleVoiceAvailableForTheiPhone.com?

As it stands today, the answer is a qualified "No" in that there are no Google Voice apps available from the App Store, but I was curious to see what options are available. I found three tools that you can use today, and one more which is on the horizon.

Empire is a venerable British movie magazine that has amassed quite a library of film reviews since it was first published more than 20 years ago. Their reviews tend to be aimed at the enthusiastic film buff, rather than academics. I have always found the reviews entertaining and a worthwhile read.

Now, the entire Empire archive has come to the iPhone and iPod touch with the Empire Movie Guide [iTunes link]. The US$4.99, 8.9 MB app puts all of the reviews on your phone without need for a data connection. As a nice bonus, Empire grabs the most recently published reviews over the air when you are connected and launch the app.

The Empire app contains about 9,000 reviews, searchable by actor, director, genre, writers, or release dates. Want to share the reviews with friends? Empire allows sharing via email, Facebook, and Twitter.

If a movie or soundtrack is available in the iTunes store, the review provides a purchase link. The Empire Movie Guide won't help you find movie times or locations, but it does put a library of well-written reviews in your hand.

We're about to hit the big holiday travel peak, and it's a great time to survey what we've seen this year for iPhone GPS apps. GPS navigation by satellite has been around a long time, but it's never been this inexpensive or desirable. There's an explosion of choices, with competitive features and falling prices. For many of our readers, facing long trips to see family and friends, getting the right GPS app is a priority.

A few words about this guide: I haven't seen or tested everything on the market, and the choices are constantly changing and updating. I've done my best to keep up and get some time on the road with each of the apps listed here. If I haven't talked about your favorite app, it's not because I don't like it, but because I can't vouch for it.

Like all of you, I have some criteria by which I judge a GPS app. My list contains the things I think are really, really, important. Your list could be different. Such is life.

Read on for my (long) list of must-haves, and for the rundown of the GPS apps themselves.

See updated response from AT&T below.

With some pretty damning evidence, both FSJ and Gizmodo are shouting at AT&T, which claims that they've upgraded their network although they've spent less each quarter on upgrades since the iPhone was introduced in 2007. AT&T CEO Ralph De La Vega recently said that "AT&T is upgrading its network to cope," and that AT&T is continuing to look into ways to entice users to limit the way they use data.

That statement made sense at one point: give the customers a tiered data structure that's cheaper for those who don't use much bandwidth. This would probably never happen: it's not too often that you see a wireless provider actually help its customers. In reality, we'd probably see data rates stay where they are, but get an increase in price for "unlimited" data as we've come to understand it.

With another look at the information found in AT&T's Financial and Operating Statistics Summary [PDF Link], you begin to see tremendous flaws in AT&T's logic. They've consistently made more money (80% more revenue compared to Q4 2007) from wireless data, yet on average, AT&T has spent less each quarter for network improvements.

So where has all of that extra money gone? No one can argue that it's the recession sucking up the dollars, because AT&T's profits have remained pretty stable during the whole thing. The money obviously hasn't been spent on network improvements. Perhaps AT&T is fighting Verizon ads with the extra cash?

One thing is certain, the company is not serving AT&T customers in the best manner possible. With rumors that the iPhone may soon be available on Verizon's network as well, AT&T needs to put the pedal to the floor and come through with something... anything.

Update: Early on the morning of 12/21, I received an email from Seth -- he's handling some of AT&T's public relations. It looks like the figures we reported here, while accurate, don't actually cover the whole story. He states that AT&T is actually working very hard on wireless network upgrades. The numbers we used to draw our conclusions covered a lot of aspects of AT&T's spending and not just upgrades. While AT&T won't give out a specific outline of their upgrade budget, they've spent $17 or $18 billion on network upgrades this year.

Let me just say that I've been pleasantly surprised with the reliability of Denver's service since they finished the upgrades in October. I had been dropping calls several times a week prior to the upgrades. Since the end of October, I have yet to drop a call. Obviously, the user experience varies from city to city and we understand that some cities are really struggling. If this upgrade trend continues, hopefully we'll be seeing more cities follow Denver's lead sooner rather than later. I'll let you read through his bullet points instead of re-hashing it for you.

In direct contrast to your headline, we are working very hard on network upgrades. Here's a look at how we're spending what's expected to be between $17 and $18 billion in improvements in 2009 to our wireline and wireless networks, with billions on wireless:

• We are nearly doubling the wireless spectrum serving 3G customers in hundreds of markets across the country, using high-quality 850 MHz spectrum. This additional spectrum expands overall network capacity and improves in-building reception.
• We are adding about 2,000 new cell sites to our network in 2009, expanding service to new cities and improving coverage in other areas.
• We're adding about 100,000 new backhaul connections, which add critical capacity between cell sites and the global IP backbone network.
• We're enabling widespread access to our Wi-Fi network – the largest in the country with more than 20,000 hotspots in all 50 states – allowing customers to take advantage of the best available AT&T mobile broadband connection.
• We're rolling out even faster 3G speeds with deployment of HSPA 7.2 technology and are preparing for field trials of next generation, LTE wireless networks next year, with deployment planning to begin in 2011. This schedule aligns with industry expectations for when a wide variety of compatible 4G wireless devices should be available.

Let us know what you think about this, and what your coverage is like, the comments.

With just three months left before the expected launch of the as-yet unannounced Apple Tablet, what can application developers do to prepare their products for this likely new platform?

Today, TUAW chats with Craig Hockenberry of Furbo.org and Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software. Hockenberry is the senior software engineer for Iconfactory, a software and design house that ships both Macintosh and iPhone products. Jalkut, formerly of Apple, is the founder of Red Sweater Software (aka the "MarsEdit" people). Both Hockenberry and Jalkut bring multi-platform Apple development expertise to table as we discuss possible hardware directions and how developers can proactively prepare their place in a new market.

Quicken Essentials for Mac is finally available for pre-order. Too little, too late if you ask me. Its taken three years to get this next version of Quicken for Mac out the door. In that time, worthy alternatives have risen, like iBank and Mint.com.

While I won't give it a review until I've tried it, it seems that Intuit should just give up until they want to make a financial software package that the Mac deserves. Here are just a few of my peeves from the Quicken Essentials for Mac FAQ (bold added):

1. Can I track my investments?
Yes, Quicken Essentials for Mac allows you to track the overall value of your investment accounts and the value of your specific holdings. It will not, however, track investment buys and sells, nor will it provide some advanced investment performance reports. If you need more more advanced investment features, try Quicken Mac 2007.

2. Can I export my data to TurboTax?
Quicken Essentials for Mac does not support that capability. If you'd like that functionality, we recommend trying Quicken Mac 2007.

3. Can I pay my bills within Quicken?
While you cannot pay bills within the product itself ("direct bill pay"), you can track your bills and make sure you have enough cash to pay them when they're due. A few alternatives available include using Quicken Mac 2007 or using the bill pay functionality on Quicken Bill Pay.

Did you see that? If you want to do anything useful, you have to buy their three year-old product.

I ditched Quicken for Mac years ago, moved to iBank, then eventually quit that and moved entirely to Mint which has a great iPhone app [iTunes link]. How good is Mint? Good enough that Intuit has since purchased it. I can only hope they plan to leave it good enough alone.

Thanks Gilbert

In what sounds like the title of the worst Bruce Willis movie ever, a group of pro-AT&T Facebook users are up in arms about Operation Chokehold.

Let's start from the beginning. Earlier this week, AT&T's chief executive of Mobility, Ralph de la Vega stated that he wants iPhone users to limit their data usage. Customers became literally furious with rage and, encouraged by Fake Steve Jobs, vowed to do the polar opposite: simultaneously run the most data-hungry apps on Friday, December 18th. Thus, Operation Chokehold was born. There's even a Facebook event for it.

Now, some other Facebook users with Stockholm Syndrome have formed a counter-group called Operation Cuckoo. From their manifesto:

"... you don't urge AT&T to improve its network and terms by attempting to bring it down or violating your contract with the entity. Much the same as you don't put out a fire with a gasoline shower."

Yes, Fake Steve's little stunt is childish and in all likelihood not to be taken seriously (though AT&T is not amused). But if my own iPhone is rendered AT&T-free on Friday because of this bit of nonsense, I'll be pissed.

[Via iPhone Savior]