aaron evans

Before MacWorld 2007 I made some predictions:

1. New Finder in Leopard: Apple’s Finder will be significantly improved. This rumor has been repeated ad nauseam since 10.0 but I think this is the year. Apple has already stated that there are unannounced features in Leopard and Apple will need to put those features into developer’s hands to really test the code. Thus, Leopard won’t be in consumers hands until June.
2. iPhone: Everyone is expecting this and I think it will happen at Macworld. This is Apple’s biggest new product since the iPod. There is always the possibility that it gets pushed to a special event in February if it’s not quite ready yet. I feel like it’s been a while since there’s been an impressive “One More Thing”. This could be it.
3. Apple Google Partnership: If the iPhone happens, I already blogged about why I think this will happen.
4. iTV: If #3 happens, maybe we’ll see some Google content (YouTube) show up on iTV. People expect new features to be announced for iTV.
5. iWork and iLife Updates: It isn’t really a prediction if it’s certainly going to happen.

It’s been six months and WWDC is right around the corner so let’s look back on those predictions:

1. We didn’t see a new Finder at MacWorld but I think we’ll see one at WWDC. Before MacWorld, Leopard was still supposed to ship in the first half of 2007. My conclusion about a new Finder at MacWorld was based on the need to put features in developers hands before releasing Leopard. Now that Leopard has been delayed, the conclusion still stands.
2. iPhone exists and was released at MacWorld.
3. I think this is going to happen and replace or radically transform .Mac as I suspected many months ago.
4. iTV with YouTube content has already been announced.
5. iWork and iLife updates will probably come out when Leopard is released.

The only other possibility I see is that the new Finder will be part of some larger technology that enables really cool interfaces and that this technology is the big news.

What we won’t see but people (cough rumor sites) have been talking about:

1. new iMacs
2. iPhone SDK

This WWDC should be an exciting one for developers. I think Apple will add on a few new features to Leopard that really enable interesting apps.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 9th, 2007 at 7:20 am and is filed under Apple. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.