Following the “long-standing” tradition of pundits predicting what will be announced by Apple at WWDC (or other events), here are my predictions:
iPhone 3GS
I agree with John Gruber’s prediction that a faster iPhone “3GS” will be announced, and of course it will have at least 16GB and 32GB models, though I sincerely hope, but do not expect, a 64GB model that would aid in replacing my 160GB iPod Classic. Well, maybe next year.
I also think that we are going to see something for the lower end of the market, and I suspect it is not going to be the current iPhone 3G.
Snow Leopard
Of course WWDC on the Mac side will be all about Snow Leopard, and I fully expect an announced ship date, as well as one or two currently unknown features for Snow Leopard, though probably nothing earth shattering, technically speaking.
I doubt a new UI will be announced for Snow Leopard, with such a short lead time for developers, and announcing a new UI that is going to ship with 10.7 before 10.6 ships is out of the question.
I fully expect Snow Leopard to be a full price paid update, i.e. $129.
No Tablet
I’d love to be proven wrong, but I don’t think an “iTablet” is ready for release. If it should be released, it would be a high-end iPhone.
The reason I’d love to be proven wrong is not that I’d personally want a tablet (I’d rather have either an iPhone or MacBook Air, thanks very much), but it would finally put to rest all the euphoric Apple tablet-excitement. I’ve been around since before (probably) the first time in the late 80s when tablets were all the rage (remember the GRiDPad?), and with each new tablet mania each 5-8 years, (IMHO unrealistic and unclear) expectations were never ever met by the products, and they subsequently vanished in small niche markets, never to be heard of again. An Apple tablet is either going to meet the same fate, not unlikely, or it is going to revolutionize the tablet form factor into something which people can really use in practice, not merely crave in the abstract. In either case we’ll know something more about tablets and their place in the world.
Cinema Displays
I continue to expect that they’ll update the Cinema Display range sometime this year, and it is getting kind of urgent with all current products going to DisplayPort connectors, and only one matching display. However Apple has continually failed to update them, so why now? We’ll see…