Mac Predictions

Oops - what happened?!

2009-06-28T10:34:00.003+01:00

As the dust has now settled on WWDC, and the new iPhone 3GS is out in the wild, it's time to reflect upon recent events in the rumorsphere, and consider what we've learned.

Firstly, I have to concede that this blog's predictions for WWDC were more than a little off the mark. This has led me to reflect upon what the purpose of this blog is, and how best to approach future keynotes.

So, to clarify things, moving forwards... There are two types of content that appear on this blog:

Analysis: what I think it would be neat if Apple did
Rumorsphere: what the blogosphere seems to indicate that Apple is going to do, often producing original mockups to illustrate

"Analysis" is very speculative - there's really no way of knowing if and when it will ever be announced, and just because it doesn't see the light of day at a given keynote event, doesn't mean it never will.

"Rumorsphere" is a synthesis of what the Apple fanboy hive-mind anticipates (I don't have any inside sources, and I don't claim to either). Whilst all the information is culled from 3rd party sites, the mockups are original, and are indicative of consensus prediction for an upcoming keynote. I'll do my best to help sort the signal from the noise. Whilst these rumors are often completely off the mark, they're still a lot of fun, and tend to be the most popular content on this blog.

I will take more care in future to flag which type of content each post represents. Any thoughts or ideas - please stick them in the comments thread.

iPhone video - Multi Touch clickable area at bottom of handset

2009-06-06T10:31:00.003+01:00

On June 4th, TUAW reported that the new iPhone would be called iPhone Video. It's worth noting that this blog predicted the name iPhone video way back on April 12th.

On May 28th, iFun.de reported that the new iPhone would have a black bezel. This blog predicted a black bezel on February 21st.

On June 3rd, iSpazio reported that the new iPhone would have a front-mounted camera - something this blog predicted on April 12th.

If all these things come turn out to be true, then MacPredictions will have had a rather good WWDC. Roll on Monday. In the meantime, here's a mockup of what the new iPhone would look like if the Chinese black bezel component turns out to be real. Of note, the home button at the bottom would no longer be round - it would be a giant clickable area that take up the entire bottom area of the phone. Perhaps it could even have Multi Touch, like the clickable glass trackpad on the new Macbooks.

New Nikeplus.com to be announced at WWDC

2009-06-06T10:13:00.005+01:00

On 29th May, a post on the Nike Running blog revealed that "this summer" they would be launching a new Running site that incorporates Nikeplus.com, and features new features for Nike+iPod users. Initially, that post featured several screengrabs of the new site.

Whilst the post is still there, the screen grabs have mysteriously gone. Could someone - let's say, a notoriously secretive company - have asked for them to be taken down? Could they, perhaps, have revealed some functionality from the new iPhone, which is thought to support Nike+?

My guess is that the new iPhone will support two way syncing, so that run-data can be downloaded from Nikeplus.com to the iPhone. Any regular Nike+ users know what a cool feature that would be... That, and fixing it so that it never crashes and loses your run data, just when you've clocked your best ever time.

New iPhone spyshots, in focus

2009-05-31T15:17:00.004+01:00

Our forensic imaging team at the MacPredictions SVU (special visuals unit) has put together this mockup of how the new Compass app may look, based upon the spyshots currently doing the rounds. Enjoy!

Woah, Black Bezel, bam-ba-lam

2009-05-28T18:51:00.003+01:00

Macrumors reports that the next version of the iPhone may feature a black bezel. Funny that - I seem to remember predicting just such a bezel, way back in February.

Secondomics - shameless book-plugging

2009-05-25T13:04:00.003+01:00

I've just published a book that may be of interest to regular MacPredictions readers. It's called "Secondomics: How coming second can be a winning strategy."

The book features a mix of game theory, economics, evolutionary biology, and psychology to explore the phenomena of "second mover advantage". As a self confessed Apple fan-boy, I make a lot of references to Apple in my case studies.

You can download the first few chapters for free, and check out my new blog at www.secondomics.com. If you would like to purchase the book on Lulu.com, it's currently on special offer at $6.91.

I'd appreciate any feedback. Sorry for the blatent self-promotion - I'll get back to speculating about Apple again now :)

Affordable 12-inch Macbook

2009-05-25T11:54:00.003+01:00

John Gruber of Daring Fireball recently speculated that Apple may be planning a minor rebrand of its portables, dubbing the entry level white model "Macbook," whilst renaming the 13-inch aluminum model a "Macbook Pro", making the entire unibody lineup "pros".

Currently, the white Macbook is all but forgotten - it's no longer mentioned on the main Apple site, and hardly featured in the Apple Store. But with recent changes in market conditions, combined with Microsoft's "Laptop Hunters" campaign putting pressure on Apple's pricing strategy, now may be a good time to review the entry-level end of Apple's portable lineup.

The current white Macbook model is really a hold-over from the previous polycarbonate Macbook line. It doesn't possess recent Apple revisions such as the glossy black bezel, black keyboard and glass trackpad. In happier times, Apple may have been planning to phase this model out altogether, but the credit crunch, combined with the popularity of netbooks may well be causing the company to review this strategy.

An alternative option would be to introduce a more competitively priced entry level model, that differentiates itself from the Macbook Pro range (including the re-named 13-inch model). To do this, the new Macbook could sport a 12-inch screen, and white polycarbonate case. But it could still inherit some nice perks, like the glass trackpad, black keyboard and glossy bezel. At a price of, say $599, this could fly off the shelves, without excessive cannibalization of the 13-inch Macbook Pro's sales.

Such a machine could still be a decent computer, without the kinds of awkward compromises inherent in a netbook. It seems a more plausible entry-level play from Apple than the rumored 10-inch tablet.

Laptop hunters - the facts

2009-05-04T15:13:00.008+01:00

Macbooks may be more expensive that PC notebooks, but consider this:

they use faster memory
they use faster processors
they have higher resolution screens
they come with awesome bundled software
everything comes as standard (e.g. webcam, backlit keyboard & Bluetooth)
they're not slowed down by virus software

The answer to Microsoft's laptop hunter ads is simple. Macbooks are more expensive because they're better, and if you were to make a genuine like-for-like comparison, you'd find that they represent incredible value for money.

I know I'm preaching to the converted here, but I couldn't resist the rant. If only someone from Microsoft would come up to one of us and say "you find it, you keep it."

(NB: the above is based on Sheila's choice of an HP HDX 18t series in preference to a gorgeous 15" Macbook Pro. Strange girl).

iPod Tablet vs iPhone size comparison

2009-05-02T14:45:00.003+01:00

Thanks to Scott, who suggested this visual in a comment on my previous post. Sorry it's a bit of a rough visual, but it gives you the idea. Also, doing this made me realize I'd got the home button too small on the previous visuals - oops. This is corrected in the above visual.

Many eyeballs, better mockups

2009-04-26T19:19:00.003+01:00

Following Linus's Law, (with enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow), here's a revised mockup of theiPod Tablet. Our mockup has been doing the rounds over the past week, cropping up on sites in Romania, Germany and Russia. Thanks to all the sites that have featured a link - and thanks to all the readers from those sites who posted comments. On the basis of this feedback, I've made the following corrections:

Removed the Phone app icon
Substituted the iPod app icon for Music and Videos icons
Added volume buttons to the side, and power button to the top
Added a camera to the back

For those who picked up on the Bluetooth icon, this is deliberately there, since Apple will be supporting Bluetooth for wireless stereo headphones on the iPod Touch with iPhone 3.0.

Sorry for all the mistakes in the previous version. Doh! the humanity :)

Tim Cook says no to "Mac" netbook... perhaps an iPod instead?

2009-04-23T09:42:00.002+01:00

I'll be posting a more detailed discussion on Apple's earnings conference call soon, but this is just a quick one to observe that Tim Cook was quite careful with his words when he said that there would be no "Mac" netbook from Apple. He goes on to say that people wanting netbook-type functionality ("a small computer for e-mail or web browsing") may want to buy an iPod touch or iPhone instead.

So whilst Apple is sticking to their previous doubts about entering the netbook sector, they're open to positioning their iPod/iPhone line as a challenger in this area - which seems to add some credence to our previous post on an iPod Tablet.

(Updated for clarification based upon comment from ChuckGee)

iPod Tablet [Mockup]

2009-04-18T22:38:00.009+01:00

WIth the imminent release of iPhone 3.0, Apple is introducing landscape mode to all of its key apps. MacPredictions believes that this gives us a clue to the format of Apple's much-rumored low cost tablet.

Imagine an iPhone in landscape mode with the keyboard active. Now imagine that the screen is twice as deep - so it becomes 480x640 (VGA format, protrait) rather than the normal iPhone 320x480. It's not such a stretch to imagine this, as the illustration above demonstrates. You end up with a tablet capable of presenting 42 iPhone apps on a single springboard screen.

What's the significance of this? Screen density. As technology moves forward, screens become increasingly dense - that is, more pixels are packed into the same amount of space. As a consequence, the user interface elements become smaller. This doesn't matter so much on a Mac, where for example, the high density screen of a 17" MacBook Pro shows everything much smaller than the lower density screen of the MacBook Air. But on an iPhone, the size of the user interface matters a great deal, since the widgets must be the appropriate size to be operated by fingers.

Palm once solved this problem by leaping to a double density format. With the Tungsten T, Palm effectively doubled the resolution of their display from 160x160 pixels to 320x320, whilst the physical dimensions of the device remained the same. They were even able to provide backwards compatibility to Palm OS 4.0 applications, by offering a lower resolution mode (effectively two-for-one pixels).

Apple could perform a similar trick with the new iPhone 3.0 software for its tablet offering. By doubling the screen resolution, they can enable their key apps to take advantage of the higher resolution screen, whilst providing support for lower resolution iPhone apps. Moving forwards, they could encourage their app developers to support both native resolutions (320x480 and 480x640).

The really nice thing about such a device is that it could be manufactured relatively cheaply, since it would run the lightweight iPhone OS, rather than a full version of Mac OS X. It could also be touch screen without the bother of trying to work out how to retrofit Multi-touch onto Mac OS X (a seemingly intractable problem).

Estimated dimensions 85 x 120 x 10mm

Don't forget to check out this visual in full resolution to get a feel for all its VGA goodness.

iChat Video for iPhone [Mockup]

2009-04-13T14:39:00.002+01:00

See previous post for details.
Click on image to enlarge.

iPhone Video with VoiceOver and iChat Video

2009-04-12T19:09:00.010+01:00

Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference is two months away. The big news that we're all hoping for is that Steve Jobs will be resuming his regular duties as Apple's CEO. And what better way to hit the ground running than with a Stevenote at WWDC to launch iPhone 3.0 and the all new iPhone Video.

As the rumors are steadily leaking out, a clear picture is beginning to emerge. The two biggest themes for iPhone in 2009 will be video and voice.

Video
iPhone 3.0 will finally introduce MMS messaging (although Apple will avoid using the term MMS), whilst the new iPhone Video will finally offer a video recording feature (owners of earlier iPhones will likely be disappointed if they're expecting support for this via a software update). We may finally see the introduction of a video camera to the front of the phone, for use with iChat Video. This would, after all, be the most obvious way to differentiate the iPhone Video from the present iPhone 3G.

Voice
The new Shuffle has introduced VoiceOver to the iPod platform. This will inevitably find its way onto the new iPhone as well. We can expect it to come with the new headphones that already ship with the Shuffle, with integrated controls on the cord. However, VoiceOver will be extended further in the iPhone 3.0 software to support voice dialing and other voice commands.

Feature summary:

iPhone 3.0 software update

VoiceOver
Video messaging
Picture messages
Cut, copy & paste
Landscape mode
Stereo Bluetooth

All new iPhone Video

3.2 megapixel camera
Video recording
iChat Video
32GB
Headphone controls
Turn-by-turn directions (magnetometer - digital compass)
Matte-black back
Faster processor
802.11n faster WiFi

Updates: Thanks to iPhones.ru for pointing out that the camera should be 3.2 megapixel (now corrected). Thanks to everyone who pointed out that the screen should show iPhone 3.0 - also corrected. Some people have suggested that the front-camera would be concealed in some way. I think the best clue to how this would appear is the camera on the new MacBook Pro, that is on the black bezel, under the glass - this is how I've attempted to make it look. Finally, for those commenting on roundedness of the corners, this is deliberate to reflect the shape of the leaked iPhone casing (don't know if it's genuine).

A look at Snow Leopard's top-secret Marble UI [Mockup]

2009-04-10T12:36:00.006+01:00

As more is steadily leaking out a Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, it's starting to sound like it will offer significantly more than simply the under-the-hood improvements promised at last summer's WWDC. Not that these improvements aren't important and welcome, but they're not what deliver sales of a consumer-oriented desktop operating system.

MacPredictions was always curious about how Apple was going to market an OS revision that offered no new end-user features. In fact, this blog had previously concluded that it would be offered as a free update to existing Leopard users.

But recent talk of a brand new user interface skin called Marble, which would reflect developments over the last couple of years in iTunes, iWork, Safari and iPhone, starts to promise us a little more.

So here, for your consideration, we present a mockup of how 10.6 might appear. In the background is iTunes, the rosetta stone of all Apple UI speculation. In front of it, there's a QuickTime X window. Contrary to popular opinion, which suggests it has a translucent window bar, we've mocked it up as reflective menu bar - similar to the way that the controls in the iPhone iPod application reflect the album art above them.

At the front, the window with focus is the new, completely re-written Cocoa Finder. MacPredictions has published a similar mockup of this before - featuring skimmable folders. Here, it's been updated to reflect the subtly tweaked button bar on the Safari 4.0 beta, which has a lighter highlight, and sharper keylines. Plus, of course, the controversial new tabs. Tabbed browsing in Finder will surely be worth the $129 upgrade fee alone.

Landscape mode makes netbook tablet based upon iPhone OS X more likely

2009-03-17T23:22:00.000Z

In today's preview of iPhone 3.0, Apple showed off their new landscape mode. What's particularly interesting here is that it's indicative of a more towards resolution independence, since all the key apps must now be capable of re-laying out to a wider format.

Maybe it's just the cool-aid talking, but I'm starting to believe this netbook tablet rumor.

iPhone 3.0 to introduce notification screen?

2009-03-14T12:48:00.007Z

On Tuesday 17th, Apple have promised us a preview of the upcoming iPhone 3.0 software release, which is presumably what the next generation iPhone, expected in June, will ship with. (And we'd better hope it will be a free update for existing iPhone users or there will be blood).

But what can we expect from the next version of a product that's already almost perfect? Most likely, Apple will finally introduce cut and paste, a feature that's been sorely missed, and has become the number one pet-peeve for most iPhone users. But this alone would hardly justify a media event - so what else can we expect to see?

The most obvious candidate is support for Apple's new iPod headphones with volume control. The new shuffle also suggests that we can expect the introduction of VoiceOver to iPhone - perhaps with genuine text-to-speech, rather than the more limited functionality offered on the shuffle, which is actually handled by iTunes 8.1.

But here's what MacPredictions thinks the big news will be:

Notification Screen (pictured above)
Many pundits are suggesting that Apple may be re-thinking their plans for push notification services. Apple may be thinking more broadly about how to present messages from background processes in the UI. The answer is surely some kind of notification dashboard, or status display, that acts as a home screen when you turn on the phone (with a button allowing you to toggle (spin) between this and the app launcher). This should be configurable, to allow the user to decide what apps appear, and what messages an app can present. At a glance, this screen would display missed calls, SMS messages, upcoming appointments and optionally messages from 3rd party apps as well.

Spotlight Search
Even the original Palm Pilot allowed you to search contacts, appointments and notes from a single search query. And yet, search was missed off altogether on the original iPhone, and even now, it's only available in selected apps. The Mac OS X Spotlight model is the obvious solution - a dedicated search app, with a modular API that enables both Apple and 3rd party apps to expose their data for indexing. So that when Steve Jobs does a search for Bono on his iPhone, he'll get all his latest e-mail correspondence bitching about the RIM deal, together with a quick link to U2's new album.

File Browser
Providing user-access to a shared file system for iPhone 3.0 files, with iDisk integration and Back to My Mac.

Safari Top Site's Screen
The new Safari 4 Beta for Mac OS X introduced the oddly concave "Top Sites" screen, which provides a handy launcher for your favorite sites. It's an obvious feature to introduce to the mobile version of Safari.

iChat
'nuff said.

Update: Just found this MacRumors post from last year, concerning a patent application from Apple for a feature not dissimilar to that pictured above.

New shuffle doesn't have text-to-speech

2009-03-12T00:13:00.003Z

It turns out that the new iPod Shuffle doesn't have text-to-speech functionality. It appears that the text-to-speech is handled by iTunes, which transfers the spoken song titles and play list titles to the iPod shuffle as audio files. (Evidence for this is to be found in the demo video, which reveals that the voice sounds different is you sync with a PC rather than a Mac).

This is perhaps not surprising, since it would be hard to jam sufficient computational power into the tiny Shuffle enclosure to support this. It does indicate that it will be a more complex task to add this functionality to the Touch and the iPhone, where tracks may be bought over the air, and text-to-speech will presumably be required.

Does the new shuffle mean that the iPhone will finally find it's voice?

2009-03-11T22:59:00.005Z

It seems that Apple have really pulled one of of the bag with this new iPod Shuffle. Eliminating the controls, halving the size, and adding VoiceOver is inspired. In retrospect, all the clues where there. I'm just kicking myself for not having predicted it. Whilst I'm still fond of MacPrediction's previous shuffle idea (pictured above), this looks unlikely to see the light of day now.

The interesting question now is, of course, when will VoiceOver be added to the iPhone and iPod Touch? It's surely a little odd to have this feature only on the shuffle. It seems likely we will see it as part of the next iPhone OS update. And that's something that this blog has been predicting for years.

QuickTime X Player UI Problems

2009-03-08T09:07:00.006Z

Screengrabs of the new QuickTime X player in Snow Leopard are doing the rounds. Check them out before Apple's legal team does a clean-up.

Sad to say, Apple is once again moving away from the consistent UI principles that they introduced in Leopard. The new QuickTime Player sports a translucence black menu bar that appears superimposed over the video. I can't think of anything more daft than a menu bar that appears on top of the content that it frames. The menu bar then disappears when you move your mouse off the window, leaving the video playing, apparently outside of a window.

Problems? Where to start:

it is inconsistent with every other app in Mac OS X (even though it's an core app)
you can't see the close/maximise/minimise buttons, unless you roll over
it breaks the spatial window metaphor
it looks confusing if you have multiple movies open
it obscures the content
it echoes the style of QuickLook windows, which were supposed to look different to regular application windows

...and that's before we get onto the problem that all the QuickTime Pro functionality appears to be removed.

Coming so soon Safari 4 UI transgressions, it seems something's up with Apple's HCI team.

Apple copies Google and fails, Amazon copies Apple and succeeds

2009-02-28T15:02:00.003Z

What I love about Apple is the way in which the consistently innovate. They're always coming up with new ideas, and they always do things their own way. Apple doesn't copy others - others copy Apple... Until this week, that is.

Perusing the Safari 4 Beta gave me an uneasy feeling that this kind of product might be what we have to look forward to without Jobs at the helm. People have said that it shows signs that Google's Chrome browser has got Apple rattled, and, reluctantly, I'd have to agree.

The best things about Chrome are its smart choice in adopting Apple's WebKit, its super-fast JavaScript engine, and its robust multi-threaded architecture. The worst thing about it is, once again, it illustrates Google's complete lack of visual sophistication. Like every Google product, the UI of Chrome is very ugly.

What a travesty then, that Apple should see fit to copy so many aspects of Chrome's UI in the new version of Safari - an app previously noted for its influential, clean looks. Gone are clever innovations like the progress bar integrated with the URL field, and the inverted tabs. Instead, we have the cluttered, confused messiness of tabs integrated with the title bar, which commits three key UI gaffs:

Confuses two functions: dragging the entire window, vs moving the tabs
Draggable handle looks more like a window re-sizing tools
Inconsistent with every other window in Mac OS X!

This seems unequivocally a retrograde step, and irony of ironies, from this point on, Apple, the company that has been the inspiration and driving force behind WebKit, will be perceived as following Google's lead in browsers.

The other piece of surprising news this week is what a great job Amazon appears to have done with the Kindle 2. Certainly, it picks up on many design cues from Apple - the uncluttered white front, the metallic rear panel, the integrated wireless store, and the stylish packaging. But unlike Apple's hapless competitors in other sectors, some of Apple's magic does seem to have rubbed off on this product. I think that Amazon may have a huge hit on their hands, and Jobs may rue the day that he (rather ignorantly) claimed that no one reads any more.

All-black iPhone?

2009-02-21T12:47:00.002Z

This mockup is just a riff on the previous post. The new matt-black back would be nicely complimented by a black metallic bezel on the front. Is it just me, or does this make it look a little like the new Palm Pre?

The all new textured iPhone - front view mockup

2009-02-14T22:23:00.006Z

Just for fun, here's a mockup of how the new, rounder iPhone would appear front-on.

Aluminum iPhone 3G

2009-02-12T22:31:00.006Z

iPod Observer has posted a very convincing spy-shot of what may be the next generation iPhone 3G, that has been carelessly leaving a trail of user agents wherever it goes.

The above visual from MacPredictions SVU (special visuals unit) extrapolates on iPod Observer's fragment to suggest how the entire phone might appear.

Notable aspects of the new design are its matt aluminum-style finish, and more generously rounded corners.

New 10.6 Cocoa Finder to feature iTunes-like list view with skimming? [Mockup]

2009-02-07T13:51:00.005Z

Click on the image above to view actual size

Rumor has it that the Finder is (finally) being entirely re-written in Cocoa for 10.6 Snow Leopard. Whilst Apple's stated intention is to focus on improvements under the hood, rather than new features, do we really believe that they'll be able to resist adding new things, especially considering that they're doing a Finder re-write anyway, and Windows 7's release is imminent?

This blog has had some success with Finder predictions before - correctly anticipating the introduction of Coverflow. Here's what MacPredictions thinks is coming next:

Tabbed browsing (finally)
Search by people and locations (similar to iPhoto '09)
New list view with Quick Look skimming (list layout similar to iTunes 8, but with skim groups similar to iTunes 8 Grid view, or iPhoto Events)

As usual, this is all just speculation - I have no sources to support these predictions.