WWDC 2008 predictions
Posted by marshall Sun, 08 Jun 2008 05:41:00 GMT
There is almost always a surprise at Macworld and WWDC keynotes, and no one really knows going in just what's going to happen. There's no real point in trying to figure out ahead of time what sessions to attend at WWDC; the keynote frequently changes everything.
John Siracusa has been making bingo cards for the past couple of years, containing predictions what may or may not appear at the keynote. I never really played along, but I do have my own expections of what will happen. I'm usually wrong -- most spectacularly at Macworld 2007 (my list was similar to Gruber's) -- but even then it's fun to look back later and compare what I predicted with what actually happened.
So here they are, broken down by how confident I'm feeling.
Virtually certain
These are things that are widely expected, and it would be extremely surprising and/or disappointing if they didn't happen.
3G iPhone
This is pretty much a given. Everyone's expecting the next-generation iPhone, complete with version 2.0 of "OS X iPhone", to be announced and demonstrated on Monday. It's probably one of the worst-kept secrets in recent Apple history.
The camera will probably be improved. The appearance will probably get an update. Maybe, if we're lucky, the headphone jack won't be recessed. As for other features...more on those below.
Rebranding of ".Mac" as "Mobile Me" (me.com)
Apple changed the hard-coded ".Mac" references to placeholders in a recent software update, they've registered a trademark for "Mobile Me", the iPhone SDK contains constants prefixed with "MOBILE_ME", and Apple appears to have recently become the owner of the "me.com" domain. It's pretty clear that .Mac is about to undergo some big changes.
Now, exactly what those changes are isn't certain. My guess is that we'll see "Exchange for the rest of us" -- push e-mail, contacts, and calendars for the average consumer. I'm also thinking that Mobile Me will be positioned as the way for third-party apps to sync with desktop apps: add a transaction to your iPhone money-management app, it syncs to Mobile Me, and the transaction shows up in the desktop version of the app. iDisk support on the iPhone would solve the problem of getting documents to and from the iPhone for document-editing applications.
I am hoping that Apple does not keep Mobile Me at the current price of its ".Mac" service. .Mac was overpriced when it was introduced, and the value has just gotten worse over time, with Google offering six times the mail storage for free, and other paid services like Bluehost offering unlimited storage and bandwidth for 15% less than the cost of Apple's service. Ideally, Apple will provide a Mobile Me account for each iPhone at no additional cost, so that no one is left without a solid sync solution. I'm not counting on it, though.
Likely
These aren't necessarily a sure thing, but I'd be rather surprised if we didn't see them.
GPS in iPhone
When Core Location was announced, my first thought was, "well that's a good way to add GPS support without pre-announcing a GPS feature." Combined with the geotagging support found in recent iPhone firmware betas, this one seems like a pretty safe bet.
Preview of 10.6
There really hadn't been any talk of 10.6 until just over a week ago, when it was discovered that the iPhone SDK contained a reference to 10.6. Then, several days later TUAW claimed that it would appear at WWDC, and Ars followed up with a claim that it would be called "Snow Leopard". It does seem likely that Apple would demonstrate the next Mac OS X version at WWDC -- it's been seven months since Leopard, after all, and I'm sure they're not sitting still -- and if the iPhone SDK already has support for it, that would seem to indicate that developers will soon be getting a copy.
Somewhat likely
The evidence is not clear for these. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw them, but I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't, either.
Video chat in iPhone
This particular feature has been rumored for some months, and it sure makes sense. 3G phones in other countries have had lower-resolution front-facing cameras for video for years, and since Apple already has a video chat solution on the desktop, connecting the iPhone to it seems like an obvious next step. Apple event has a patent on file that includes "video conferencing" as part of the feature set for what looks to be a future iPhone. Nevertheless, this is a controversial rumor, largely due to Engadget's insistence that there will be no video conferencing, according to their "trusted source" and a supposed leaked firmware.
While it's true that I wouldn't be surprised if the iPhone didn't end up with video chat, I'd still be disappointed. I have family members scattered across the United States, and iChat's video support is a major component in keeping us connected. I would love to have this capability everywhere.
Rebranding of "Mac OS X"
Ever since Steve Jobs announced that the iPhone was going to use "OS X", I've been expecting Apple to change the name of its operating system. The "Mac" product line is only one of at least three now that are running the same core operating system, tuned for each product type. I was thinking last year that they might even rebrand Leopard as "Apple OS 5" or something like that, dropping the virtually meaningless "10" from the name entirely, especially since the iPhone operating system has almost nothing in common with previous Mac OS incarnations.
Well, Leopard kept the "Mac OS X" name last year, and when the iPhone SDK was released, Apple referred to the operating system as "iPhone OS". Banners for WWDC this year, however suggest that a change may indeed be coming: the iPhone OS is now being advertised as "OS X iPhone", and the Mac OS is now being advertised as "OS X Leopard". It's the first time (that I know of) that Apple has ever officially advertised Mac OS X without the "Mac" in the name.
Of course, it could just be a one-off thing for WWDC, highlighting the link between the two platforms for the sake of the conference.
Potential surprises
These are pure speculation. I do not expect them, but when thinking of possible "one more thing" surprises, they've come to mind as possibilities.
Cocoa for Windows
When Apple bought NeXT and began the "Rhapsody" project, the OPENSTEP/Mach operating system was already running on Intel, and the OPENSTEP frameworks (Foundation and Application Kit) were already running on Windows NT. Apple's original plan was to promote the OPENSTEP frameworks -- then called "Yellow Box" -- as the developer frameworks for the next-generation Macintosh operating system. Software developed using these frameworks could then run on the Rhapsody OS (both for PowerPC and Intel processors) and on Windows.
Developers protested. Apple was barely alive, its user base was shrinking, and here Apple was asking Adobe and Microsoft to completely re-write their massive applications in some weird language. Absolutely not.
And so, ten years ago at WWDC 1998, Apple switched strategies. They killed the Intel version of Rhapsody. They killed the Windows NT port of Yellow Box. They renamed Rhapsody to "Mac OS X", ported the old Mac OS APIs to it as Carbon so that developers could keep their old code, and re-introduced Yellow Box as Cocoa for "new applications".
This saved Apple. It got Mac OS X released with the support of key software (e.g. Photoshop and Office) and it turned a previously frightening new platform into merely a larger-than-usual "upgrade". A small group of developers that had been excited about OPENSTEP for Windows were rather dismayed, but for the most part no one noticed the loss of the technologies that got the axe.
Fast-forward to WWDC 2005. Steve Jobs announces on stage that "Mac OS X has been leading a secret double life" -- they've actually kept the Intel port alive all these years. We all assumed it was gone, we all assumed that Mac OS X would never come to Intel, but we were wrong.
So now we're on the verge of WWDC 2008, the ten-year anniversary of the death of OPENSTEP for Windows. At least, we've assumed it was dead. What if Cocoa, too, has led a secret double life? What if, when Apple officially introduces Xcode 3.1 for developing iPhone apps, they also introduce it for Windows?
It would make a lot of sense all around. Supporting Windows with Xcode means a lower barrier of entry for iPhone development, which means more iPhone developers, which means more iPhone software, which means more iPhone sales. It's good for Apple's own projects: they're clearly moving toward deprecating Carbon as a supported API, which means iTunes will need to become a Cocoa app, and it would be a whole lot easier to keep iTunes in sync on both Mac OS X and Windows if Cocoa were available on both. The same goes for Safari, which is currently Cocoa on Mac OS X and a custom UI on Windows. (And speaking of Safari, we know from its libraries that CoreFoundation and CoreGraphics are already ported, which underly Foundation and the graphics engine of AppKit.)
The potential for this is particularly exciting for me, as I've long been dissatisfied with cross-platform user interface libraries. They generally feel right on Windows...and on the Mac they feel like skinned Windows apps. They don't support document-model dialogs (a.k.a. sheets), they don't support drawers, they don't support the "dirty" indicator in the window close widget...the list goes on. Having a framework that was built for Mac OS X -- with an existing history on Windows -- would be fantastic.
Again, I don't expect this to happen...I just would love it if it did.
OS X for non-Apple systems
This one I consider highly unlikely, but the potential dropping of "Mac" from the name of OS X has led to some speculation that Apple may be considering opening up the operating system to other PC makers.
It could happen. The iPod and iPhone have given Apple major new sources of revenue, and they're less linked with computers now than they've ever been (by their own admission). It's possible that they feel comfortable reducing their dependency on Mac hardware sales and moving into the standalone operating system space. With the widespread dissatisfaction with Vista, more people are looking for an alternative, and it could be an open door for getting people to try Mac OS X who might not have otherwise.
If they were to actually do this, I'd expect that they'd work with OEMs to certify the OS for specific systems (which I believe Microsoft did with Windows Advanced Server; I'm not sure if they still do this). Part of the ease of use with Mac OS X is that it is largely free of driver issues, and I don't think Apple would want to give that up, at least not with machines sold from other manufacturers. I could see them potentially opening up the standalone Mac OS X edition to people who wanted to build their own PCs, and Apple simply wouldn't support it if it wasn't installed on a Mac.
With other manufacturers providing the more traditional computer systems, Apple would probably drop the Mini, and perhaps even the Mac Pro, focusing on the models where they tend to innovate more (and that Steve Jobs has tended to favor over the years) -- the iMac and MacBook lines.
I'd be pretty surprised if this happened though.
iPod Touch 8GB for all attendees
This is where we get into the "wishful thinking" category.
Developers need a separate, development-only device for testing their software. Apple is already giving these away to college students buying a Mac. It seems like a good way to make sure every developer at WWDC has a testing device, thus removing another barrier for iPhone development.
But yeah, that one's more about what I would like, rather than what would actually make sense.
