What’s Coming in 2006

There is a mythical ancient Chinese curse that supposedly went as follows: “May you live in interesting times.” Seems like a mouthful to say after you’ve hit your thumb with a hammer, but hey, fabricated Chinese wisdom and all. Actually, the curse is not an interjection like most of the four letter words folks utter after stubbing their toe at three in the morning. Rather, it is a wish for your life to be full of uncertainty and, therefore, unpleasantness. 2005 was certainly an interesting time for the Mac aware (personally it didn’t seem too unpleasant, so we can assume the fraudulent curse is also sometimes inaccurate).

Will 2006 match up to 2005 for interest generating Mac news? The notion seems unlikely unless Apple switches to vacuum tubes instead of Intel chips and releases a $99 dollar iMac. On the other hand, people love to get worked up by any snippet of Apple news (if Steve Jobs were to wear a dark gray shirt at a MacWorld the ‘net would light up like a Christmas tree soaked in pure grain alcohol) so there will still be plenty of things going on to keep people’s attention focused on Cupertino. In other words: Apple is interesting even when nothing is actually happening. So, what will and won’t happen in 2006?

Five Things That Will Happen:

1. iBooks show up sans FireWire.

This is a current rumor so it really isn’t much of a stretch. Apple has been deemphasizing FireWire for since the introduction of the shuffle so an iBook with plastic where the FireWire port should be won’t be the most shocking thing to ever occur. Still, it will happen. Before you start with all the reasons they won’t dump FireWire off of some models rest assured Steve Jobs will make it sound like it was a complete no-brainer and most Mac users will be calling the decision a canny move within minutes.

2. Apple Movie Store

NetFlix knows they’re going to be killed when a decent and legitimate online movie store comes along and Apple is just the company to bring a store like that to market. Steve Jobs has ties with several large movie studios via his hobby known as Pixar and the iTunes store provides a lot of experience selling media content online. It is doubtful we’ll see it at MacWorld but somewhere during the coming year Apple will open the digital doors to a brand new online movie service.

3. Everything but Xserve powered by Intel.

Intel across the board in 2006 is way ahead of the goals initially outlined by Steve Jobs for the transition but it is always a nice idea to under promise and over deliver. Additionally, the switch creates a lot of confusion in the eyes of Apple’s hard-core customers, hence the faster the transition happens the better. Odds that Apple will be all Intel before Vista ships? 3 to 1.

4. Apple Branded PVR

Calling Front Row a rip-off of Media Center PCs is a lot like calling a bicycle a a blatant apeing of cars. There are similarities but the differences are greater than the commonalities. That particular argument will be put to bed when an Apple PVR rolls out, it will be a Media Center rip off but likely be much, much better.

5. A true video iPod

The current iPod that plays video is called an iPod. People seem to love them and Amazon is moving the things at a record pace but you have to wonder just how compelling the things really are when even Hadley Stern doesn’t have one. Not to worry, 2006 will bring the arrival of an iPod primarily geared for video playback just in time for Christmas. And it won’t have FireWire.

Five Things That Won’t Happen:

1. The Apple phone.

Ed Zander, Motorola CEO, said it was question of “when” not “if” Apple would produce a phone. He’s probably correct, in the years ahead when Wi Fi blankets any city of a sufficient population Apple will likely introduce a phone that works over the ‘net but they won’t be rolling out an Apple phone until they can have much more control of the user experience. For now you’re stuck with the ROKR. Yech.

2. Mass pirating of OS X

Many people are deeply concerned that with the change to Intel people are going to running pirated copies of OS X on their $200 Windows white box. The fact is that most people are far too lazy to bother with such shenanigans. Will there be a smattering of folks with too much time on their hands hacking OS X onto any box they can? Absolutely, and they’ll make a lot of noise about it. The reality will be that the majority of folks are happy enough with Windows so they won’t bother with jumping through the hoops necessary to pirate OS X.

3. Apple getting over ten percent of the computing market

Just how would they do that anyway? Advertise the Mac on TV? A laughable notion indeed.

4. A trouble free initial release of new Intel Macs

First revision products seem to be particularly challenging for Apple (and others) of late. Whether the problem is faulty iMac capacitors, cracking Nano screens, or, in the case of Microsoft, overheating power supplies. Trouble free rollouts seem to be the exception rather than the rule. Blame the short lead times, the rapidly changing pace of technology, or poor quality assurance programs. Whatever the reason expecting a trouble free release of the first Intel machines seems naive. All that said, my credit card is ready.

5. Much Lower Mac Prices

You hear about the sales, maybe it’s a Black Friday laptop for $350 or a weekly special Desktop that just comes in shy of three Benjamins. Those are price points that make Mac users drool and many have taken the logical step of thinking that Macs with Intel inside will be priced similarly. Don’t expect that to happen. Apple has a long running love affair with high profits perhaps best exemplified by the 400% markup on components Apple customarily used during the Apple II days. As long as people are buying Macs at their current price points, don’t expect a dramatic decrease.

There you have it, stone cold locks for 2006. Or as likely as any other guesses. This is an opportune moment to discuss the nature of expert prediction. In a recent book Philip Tetlock references a study wherein he discovered, to no one’s surprise, that experts are no better than predicting the future than the average member of the populace who stays reasonably aware of current events. The experts, in fact, were worse than random chance when it came to predicting major events. Specialists fared just as poorly, apparently knowing a little something about a particular subject is more helpful in making accurate predictions that knowing a whole lot about said topic. Fortunately, your prognosticator (not an expert) for the previous glimpse into the future is both more stupid than a monkey and less informed about the topics discussed than just about anyone else on the planet. Thus, I can’t possibly be wrong.