My predictions for Apple's 2010-09-01 media event • fscked.co.uk

8 Notes

My predictions for Apple’s 2010-09-01 media event

iPhone — iOS4.1 ship for immediately after the event with a fix for proximity sensor problem. They’d bloody well better.

iPod Touch — I reckon front and back cameras, but the rear mounted one might not be the full-spec autofocussing 5MP one the iPhone 4 has. I think Apple will prefer to keep the design slimmer instead. Some hoopla around Game Center. Retina Displays are pricey to make; I could just about see the range being split with a higher and a lower model, with RD only on the more expensive, but I think that’s less likely.

iPod Classic — lots of people predicting its demise but I’m not so sure. There’s a small, but vocal, group of people prepared to pay premiums to have that sort of volume of music on their person. I don’t think Apple would give those customers up for no reason, and I find it hard to believe they are selling the current model for a loss. I don’t expect it to be mentioned at all, but I don’t expect it to vanish either.

Other iPods — I’m uncertain. That 3cm square touch screen does look like a likely candidate for some sort of hardware revision to… something. Can’t make up my mind. If the Nano does get a weeny little touch screen, it might move up the range a little, which might drive the Touch up a little too and make more room in the budget for Retina Displays as standard on the Touch.

iPad — no announcements. I don’t even think we’re going to get iOS4.1 for iPad, I think it’ll be iOS4.2 that unifies the platforms. Certainly no new hardware.

iTunes — TV show rentals with muted support from the networks. Some limited social networking stuff that ties into the Game Center friends lists, but probably nothing like “your friends like this, you should watch it too”. I think any cloud-related streaming stuff is unlikely at this point.

Apple TV / iTV — far too many rumours of an iOS-running flash-based low-cost new hardware revision for it not to at least partially true, and I think they’d want to get that out before the Christmas sales, so I think this is more likely that not. I don’t expect to see any compatibility with existing iOS apps to speak of.

Apple TV remote — I think they’ll be conservative with the remote control and we’ll see something a bit like the existing Apple remote but with a few extra buttons or (at the most) some limited motion sensing. Maybe (but not likely I think) optional support for using an iOS device as a remote, but it’d have to be optional or people with less iOS devices than they have family members are constantly going to be battling over the remote. Who wants to hang up their phone call so their kids can watch cartoons? And if it is optional — how compelling could it really be?

If we do get an advanced remote, I’d suggest Apple would model it more on the Magic Mouse (think a normal remote with an added gesture surface) than a Magic Trackpad (using gestures for everything). Gestures mostly demand you hold the device in two hands and look at what you’re doing, both of which feel like a hassle when you’re channel surfing in the dark.

I-wish-they’d-fix-this-but-they-won’t-wildcard — cloud syncing for savegames. At the moment, if I want to keep my savegames for Grand Theft Auto, I need to keep the 600Mb game hanging around. Even if I sync to iTunes before deleting it, the game is still gone; there is no Apple-sanctioned way to backup the savegames. This isn’t a huge problem for most apps but for gamers it’s shit. OpenFeint are introducing cloud syncing for savegames but this sort of thing is much better off centralised on the device itself. Apple are typically conservative with this sort of thing though, so I doubt it’ll happen.