Apple made it official. They will be holding an event to show off ‘our latest creation’ to the world in the Yurbo Buena center for the Arts on January 27th, 2010 at 10AM PT. Here’s what I would like and expect to see. Let us start with the most plausible.
iPhone OS 4.0. Rumors have been suggesting iPhone OS 4.0. iPhone OS 4.0 would make sense, since Apple has not done that many revisions in each of the iPhone OS major versions. The last version of 1.X was 1.3. The last version of 2.X was 2.2.1 and the last version of 3.X currently is 3.1.2. This is almost a certainty given that there have been NO beta versions nor releases for iPhone OS since October 8th, 2009. There have been additional leaks with the ‘iPhone Developer Program Renewal agreement that has yet to be updated.
iLife ’10. iLife ’09 was introduced just over a year ago at MacWorld 2009. Now the odd thing is that iLife ’08 was introduced in August of 2007. So this would come back to their ‘yearly’ release schedule. Boy Genius Report published an article back on December 1st stating the iLife 2010 will have an update to iDVD to include iTunes LP publishing. This rumored update would allow many independent publishers to submit their iTunes LP content to iTunes.
iTunes X (10). I have heard nothing about iTunes X. But one would think that a new device would mean a new version of iTunes. It could incorporate Apple’s acquisition of Lala to allow streaming music via the cloud. I highly doubt this, since it will take Apple a bit to negotiate the rights for streaming. Although, this could be possible come September during the next iPod announcement.
And now that the plausible is out of the way, let us take a look into the ‘What was he thinking’ category.
The most radical idea comes from a 2006 Apple patent, which Apple Insider posted in 2008. Imagine the Apple Tablet device being able to be slid into an iMac frame. Which would only be a slight variation on the Lenova U1. Do I expect this? No, but it would be rather cool if I could have essentially two devices in one. A tablet that was a tablet when outside its shell, but a full blown Mac OS X device when plugged in. This, in my own life would be complete nirvana I wouldn’t have to spend extra money on a second laptop. The tablet could run entirely on OpenCL and run everything off of a Snapdragon processor while running in ‘tablet’ mode. When docked it could utilize the full processing power of the iMac’s powerhouse. I’d be willing to pay a good chunk of change, say $750 or $800 for the tablet, plus another $500 to $600 for the iMac chassis. There have been no rumors — excluding my own wishing — that this will be a reality.
Another completely unsubstantiated rumor is that Apple will introduce the iPod Touch with a camera. Giving users six months from the last release date seems like something Apple would do. There are no rumors currently floating out there, except my own.
Here are some other completely unfounded ideas. The ‘One More Thing’ will be that Apple has purchased the rights to ‘Duke Nukem Forever’ and will be distributing it solely on the new Tablet device. It will require an initial brain scan to determine if you’re worthy to accept the perfection of the game.
Another completely false, perhaps, rumor is that there will be a Beatle’s Yellow tablet completely with all of the Videos and songs of everything the Beatles have done. It’ll be called the ‘Yellow Submarine’ tablet because it will sink your credit score and make you Yellow with how much it costs. Retail price: $3500.
Those are all of the rumors / ideas that might, or in most cases, won’t happen. If there’s something you would like to see, let us know in the comments.
