B. Mann Consulting

So...who else thinks there is going to be an iPhone Nano?

The main complaint against the iPhone seems to be the price point. Looking at things like the widely popular Motorola RAZR, which ended up in the mass market price bracket, I just have to believe that Apple is thinking along the same lines.

A similar form factor as the Nano, except screen taking the place of the click wheel. What else removed? Not sure, maybe no wifi? Limited storage?

Anyway, just thought I would record this crazy idea. I have no inside information, only time will tell if I'm right. And without a photoshop mock up, I'm not going to get tons of traffic :P

Update: Alexa commented and made a Photoshop of an iPod Touch Nano / iPhone Nano:

Ethan Kaplan has set up iPhoneHints.com, to start capturing some of the tips and tricks that are going to come spiralling out of the iPhone ecosystem.

Two things:

1. Let's make it less bloggy
2. How about aggregating some iPhone-tagged feeds (not on main page, but let people vote/rate them/editorialize them to get them on the front)

...ok, I have way more than 2 ideas. Like OpenID enabling. And Feedburner. And getting rid of "submit content". And tweaking the slogan to include "hints" and "iPhone". How about an admin account? :P 

OK, WWDC is on its way and we need to guess what might be announced. Here are some data points:

• a Macbook rev has been announced
• a Macbook Pro rev has been announced
• the iPhone is out and is supercoolawesome already 
• we don't know everything about Leopard
• usually something "cool" gets announced at WWDC

So, by that logic, we might see something not so exciting like "brushed steel iMacs" (rumor passing on credit to Dave Shea).

But, I'm going to take a stab at predicting what we might see: I think we're in for a 12" Macbook Pro (or a different name?). But with a difference. No keyboard. The entire surface will be a touchpad / tablet / screen thingie, kind of like the iPhone. You can use a virtual keyboard, or you can do crazy touch sensitive actions.

There are reports of patents going back a while (and yes, that might just be iPhone related), and then there is that crazy virtual keyboard company that I can't find a link to now, that Apple bought some time ago. 

There. That's it. That's my guess. I hope I'm right :P

Update: I found a link to a "leaked" outline for the WWDC keynote tomorrow -- talking about a 10" iPhone at Home...which is pretty close to the "tablet / non computer" that I've been thinking Apple would launch for quite some time.

Our morning staff meeting got a little disrupted by the MacRumorsLive stream of Apple iPhone updates. 

I've been predicting a Mac tablet for years. Here's the last time I predicted tablet specs. But, of course, Steve Jobs wouldn't call it a phone or a tablet....he wants a new category.

And yes, in my video interview with Roland yesterday, I said "no iPhone". I should have more clearly said "not a phone" -- because it really is a new category.

Both OS X and Safari Webkit are "platforms". What can we build on top?

The Google AND Yahoo partnership is amazing. Click to call. EDGE + Wifi.

Yeah, I'm excited...it's like a new age of computing + mobile has dawned.

Prediction on biggest complaints: availability, screen scratches/broken-ness, battery life 

I didn't watch the video today, but did scroll through the MacRumors live update. Looking through the transcript and poking around the various updated pages at Apple.com, there are some interesting tidbits that I think I can extract.

Here as well are some other posts that I found interesting:

• Om talks about increasing broadband and CPU speed requirements both in home and across the network in the context of Apple's new apps and OS X improvements: Putting Leopard In The Broadband
• Kevin Marks talks about Apple's HD Future -- from Blue Ray to HD everywhere now that CPUs have more oomph. And of course "The iTunes store has been selling low-res TV shows for $2 each, so they have the makings of an entire distribution chain for content."

I thought that Apple was going to do a big product release of *some* kind on April 1st, their 30th anniversary as a company. But, obviously, releasing Boot Camp, software that lets you easily install Windows XP on your Intel-based Mac, would really have been regarded as a practical joke, so they waited until today.

Dual-booting is really not that interesting. You don't really share files, and you can't switch back and forth without restarting the system and rebooting completely. I've been speculating if Apple will actually support Xen, an open source virtualization technology that lets you run multiple environments simultaneously. Perhaps Boot Camp is just a start -- Apple has already said that it will be included as part of Mac OS X 10.5, aka Leopard, so perhaps that is when Xen support will be rolled into the base of the operating system.

I'll be looking for mentions of Xen as people dig into the details of Boot Camp over the next couple of days. 

So, I was completely wrong about Airport Express Video (but wouldn't be surprised to see it at some time in the future).

Thanks to the UK magazine Stuff, I was getting real time updates about the big Apple event today. The three announcements were:

• new iMacs, with built in iSight and Front Row app including remote: a 10ft UI for Macs; yes, I do want to get this for my home machine
• The video iPod: 30GB for $299, $60GB $399, comes with a video out port to connect directly to your TV; score one for my long-ago predictions
• iTunes 6, which includes for-pay video downloads: today this is only music videos and some short Pixar ones for $1.99; I expect licensing to be a real PITA for Apple, but I also expect them to announce other licensed video content over time. Would I pay $1.99 per TV show? Well, since I don't have cable, yes I would -- that would be 2 hours per week of only the shows *I* want to watch. And this makes easy, legal

Am I going to get a video iPod? Well, I'll be consuming video on my computer at home, with its big LCD TV screen. And, as Graham said, I actually don't find mobile video on the iPod compelling. Now, if they did a deal with Sony to have it on the PSP...

Troy posts some predictions for Apple's October 12 event. He figures Intel-based Powerbooks and iPod Minis that have no hard drives. He also says "I really doubt all this nonsense about video iPods. I just can't see it. Video is not that useful to people".

Well, I've already speculated that an Airport Express Video might be more likely than a video iPod (I would buy a Sony PSP over a video iPod...but that would mean Apple would need to allow Fairplay DRM to be built into the PSP, which seems unlikely).

I've been writing about iTunes Movies since October 2004...when the iPod Photo came out. I really do think video is "useful" to people. At least, in the small world of anecdotal stories.

Apple has stopped posting new music video content for the past couple of weeks. This seems to be one indication that *something* with video is coming. What if they did offer video content? Movies? TV Shows? I mean, Google Video is already going to be offering UPN's "Everybody Hates Chris".

Ever since the Airport Express came out, I've been speculating about what else could be done with it. Surely that USB port wasn't just for something as mundance as printer sharing.

Well, there's another Apple Special Event coming up. They might be announcing the bundling of the Google Toolbar with Safari....or it might be a video version of the Airport Express to coincide with the opening of the iTunes Movie Store.

Yep, put me down for not believing in the fabled video iPod. Well, actually, I do believe in it, but Travis figures the Airport Express Video edition is a safer bet. Travis said I *had* to blog about this, so I am.

So, the special event will announce the opening of for-pay video downloads via the iTunes store, at the same time as they announce how to connect it to your TV via Airport. Apparently, there has been no new music video content in iTunes for the past couple of weeks, perhaps indicating a build up of new content. With Google announcing streaming of UPN shows, Apple's timing is probably about right.

The iTunes support for mobile phones begins today, with Apple's partenership with Motorola's ROKR E1 and the US cell company Cingular.

The big question is of course...can we use it in Canada? Well, the Motorola ROKR is a GSM phone that also supports international networks. Being a GSM phone, it means it also uses SIM cards to activate the phone -- meaning you could use the card from any network provider. Cingular may be distributing the phones as locked, but it probably won't be more than a couple of weeks before a firmware upgrade will unlock it, making it capable of being used on any GSM network. Here in Canada, that's only the Rogers/Fido network.

Update: Mark Evans says the ROKR will be available through Rogers by mid-September, although he doesn't name a source.

Elsewhere, Michael Gartenburg covers the iPod Nano -- for us Mac folks, the Windows announcement might get lost in the shuffle: "With the integration with Outlook with iTunes 5.0 and the small size, I can even see folks using this as a personal information manager."