2007 Macworld Keynote Prediction

2007.01.08   prev     next

I will make just one prediction of what will be announced at the Macworld Keynote tomorrow. It’s intentionally different than anything else I’ve heard, so my odds probably aren’t that great. But here goes!

My prediction is for the so-called “iPhone!” It will have:

• No music-playing capabilities whatsoever. No web-surfing or e-mail.
• No crazy pricing scheme — you pay the price of the phone, or you don’t buy it.
• Just one plan.
• No set amount of minutes that you get burned for exceeding. Just a flat per-minute rate, with free nights and weekends. Plus a nominal monthly fee ($20) just for having the plan at all.
• Nice user interface that looks like it comes from the Dashboard / Front Row family.
• When you’re about to make a call, a clear (big text) display of how much the call will cost per-minute. If the rate is going to change soon (e.g. from the flat rate to free), it will clearly tell you that too.
• Clear post-call display of how much money that call added to your bill.
• Syncs as nicely with your Mac or Windows PC as the iPod does. Fully exploits current, commonly used apps that store phone numbers.
• No charges for extras, like skins, desktop pictures, or ring sounds. The sync-app will fully support using tons of free skins, etc., and will let you use any picture or sound with minimal effort.
• Sweet industrial design, of course!

Check back here for an update to see how I did!

UPDATE: OK, not too bad, I think. Here’s what I got right:

• iPhone was the big announcement.
• Very nice interface, similar in many ways to Dashboard and Front Row.
• Excellent syncing with your computer and many existing programs/services.
• Great design. (That was a gimme.)

Here’s what I got wrong:

• It does play music, surf the web, etc.

In other words, it’s a much more general-purpose device than I guessed; not the narrowly focused reinvention of the mobile phone business that I was imagining.

The rest of my predictions I don’t really know about, but I get the feeling they’re probably a mixed bag of right and wrong.

Can’t wait to get my hands on one! But that won’t likely happen until much later this year.