iPhone/iPod touch Predictions; Bell Feeling the Heat?
It’s just over 12 hours until Steve takes the stage at WWDC, which makes this as good a time as any.
I think we’ll see the following announced tomorrow:
- Another price drop, but more modest than last time; I’m thinking ~$75
- Storage increase: 16, 32 and 64 GB models
- Video camera capability for conferencing and uploading to YouTube and/or the rumoured-to-be-rechristened .Mac
- International launch of iPhone in 2-line-press-release countries (like Canada) this summer; I’m thinking late July
- Screen size will be unchanged
- Battery life extended
- GPS on iPhone: sure, why not? Not for iPod touch, though…
- 3G? I can’t bring myself to give a shit about cellular networks, since the companies are all radically overcharging in Canada, so I have no opinion on this, except everyone else expects it…
- Apps like Email, Notes, etc., will work in landscape and portrait mode, making typing easier
- App Store to launch tomorrow
On a sidenote, I got a phone call from Bell this week, asking me if I was happy with my cell phone, pointing out that my package was okay since I wasn’t going over my alloted minutes, and letting me know that I could switch to any cellphone I wanted and get $150 off my renewed contract. I resisted the urge to ask for an iPhone.
I’ve had a cell phone for years now, and this is the first such call I remember. The timing is interesting, coming less than a week ahead of a possible new iPhone release and new competition from Rogers.
June 9 update — here’s my report card:
- Another price drop, but more modest than last time; I’m thinking ~$75 — I was $25 short; not bad, though
- Storage increase: 16, 32 and 64 GB models — unbelievably, wrong; I thought this was a safe prediction
- Video camera capability for conferencing and uploading to YouTube and/or the rumoured-to-be-rechristened .Mac — wrong; no partial marks for .Mac becoming MobileMe.
- International launch of iPhone in 2-line-press-release countries (like Canada) this summer; I’m thinking late July — not bad; off by less than 2 weeks. Staff at a Rogers dealership told me they’d have them for Christmas.
- Screen size will be unchanged — score.
- Battery life extended — score.
- GPS on iPhone: sure, why not? Not for iPod touch, though… — score.
- 3G? I can’t bring myself to give a shit about cellular networks, since the companies are all radically overcharging in Canada, so I have no opinion on this, except everyone else expects it… — I’ll take that.
- Apps like Email, Notes, etc., will work in landscape and portrait mode, making typing easier — partial marks; apparently Calculator now has extended functionality in landscape mode (becoming a scientific calculator in that mode). No word either way on other apps that I’m aware of…
- App Store to launch tomorrow — a miss, unfortunately. I suppose I should’ve seen this coming; despite the possibility of being banned from the store, I find it hard to believe that word hadn’t leaked if the store were going to launch today.
So, 6.5 out of 9: 72%. They were pretty conservative predictions, though, to be fair.
