My predictions for Wednesday (based on this scorecard). Let’s see how I do…
| Rumor | My Worthless Prediction |
|---|---|
| Tablet Announced | YES |
| Tablet is $800-1200 | Predict YES. Hope NO. I also think $799 is a strong possibility. WRONG in the best possible way |
| Tablet is 10-11″ diagonal | YES (Strictly speaking it’s 9.7″ but close enough.) |
| Cellular Internet Capability | YES |
| SDK Announced | YES |
| App Store only | Predict YES. Hope NO. (Sadly correct.) |
| Runs iPhone Apps | NO but they’ll bring some developers on stage to say how easy it is to adjust an iPhone app for the tablet (Edit: NYTimes says YES.) WRONG — NYTimes was correct (as expected). |
| API based on Cocoa Touch | YES |
| Tablet OS is a New OS | Predict YES. Hope NO (i.e. I hope the Tablet is in essence a Mac. Edit: McGraw Hill leak says it’s iPhone OS based, which at least means we’re not going to have to rewrite everything for the tablet — it is also consistent with the NY Times story.) WRONG in the best possible way — leak and NYTimes were correct. |
| Books & Periodicals | YES |
| Plays Videos | YES. D’uh |
| Plays Music | YES. D’uh |
| Has TV Content | Predict NO. Hope YES. (Sadly correct.) |
| Has Built-in Camera | NO… er well maybe (enhanced reality apps like James Cameron’s “camera” would be neat). But I’ll stick with NO as my prediction. |
| Docking Mechanism | NO. I’m hoping for wireless synching, and what the heck I’m predicting it. WRONG in bad way (no wireless syncing) and good way (keyboard dock) |
| Tactile Keyboard — some kind of physical response | Hmm… sounds interesting. I hope so. I hope they do this via pressure-sensitivity (allowing you to slide without activating keys) |
| Hardware Keyboard Option | YES via third-parties only. WRONG in a good way (first party keyboard) |
| Indie Content | YES (perhaps only announced) |
| Tablet supports Flash | NO (unless it’s a Mac OS X device, obviously) |
| Textbook Content | YES (edit: looks like this is correct based on McGraw Hill leak) |
| Ships in March 2010 | NO — it will either be sooner or later than March. PROBABLY WRONG (at least for some models) |
| Name will be… | I have no freaking idea, but I like Canvas so let’s go with that. WRONG but iPad isn’t too bad, and iBooks was used for the store. |
| AT&T exclusive contract ends | I think this will be in June, so it may be announced but not immediate. |
| Paint App on Tablet | YES (in fact Brushes was demoed — yay!) |
| Bing on the iPhone | As an option, maybe, but Google will still be there. I think Bing is just a negotiating tactic. |
| Verizon support for iPhone or Tablet | Announced perhaps and YES if Cellular |
| T-Mobile Support for iPhone or Tablet | See above |
| Touch Screen Macs | NO — they may be coming but let’s not confuse people |
| New iLife and iWork suites announced | YES… well I hope so. I’ll go further and suggest that MobileMe (and its iWork support) will get a major update and be strongly linked to the tablet KIND OF RIGHT and WRONG (new iWork announced, but it’s for the iPad; MobileMe ignored) |
| iPhone OS 4 announced | YES WRONG it’s 3.2 (which means those packet-sniffing guys were correct) |
After writing my predictions I checked Gruber’s, and I have to say he’s probably more on the money (i.e. hardheaded) than I am.
Edit: I’ve marked down where I think I was wholly or partially incorrect. Amazingly enough, several of my predictions were wrong because I was too pessimistic. It’s great to see Apple providing a physical keyboard option (and it’s a great design), and the pricing is just unbelievable, especially since they gave no earnings guidance to suggest they’re planning to take a hit on margins (which they did before releasing the unibody MacBooks and $99 iPhone 3G if I recall correctly). Selling something like this for $500 on launch is astonishing — they clearly plan and expect to sell a metric f**kton.