Predictions and Wishes

I have had many an idea on what Apple Inc. will do in the coming year or years that are the culmination of what is going on in the evolution of there products today. One of the reasons I believe that Apple has been having so many problems in the last couple of months has been not only just getting these systems to work now, but for them to be ready to roll out the new infrastructure for what they could roll out in the next year. I believe that Mobile Me has been the most prone to this because they have much grander plans for it than we could have conceived from the onset. 

With the introduction of Mobile Me came a back-end to the online programs called Sprout Core. They have built their online tools and have had problems with making all of it work right. I think that come next summer we might be talking about a Mobile me SDK in the same vane as a mobile platform that is the same on any computer that can successfully access the tools. So I go to my girlfriends house and use her computer to update my Pages document using the Mobile Me iWorks tools, or I could be making some task in Omnifocus in Mobile me. We have at least 20GB of storage for documents, applications and other stuff that could easily be stored on a cross platform medium as Mobile Me. Why couldn't then all of these programers that are making new apps for the iPhone learn this sprout Core and make the same apps or similar apps for this platform. This could be so much more than what Google is doing because Apple would be making the API's  available for making more that Google would be able to do in that 20% time for their personal projects. Now the whole uptime problem is a huge issue with the Mobile Me service and previously with .Mac that customers have to be cautious with trusting the service, but if for the next 10 months they stay downtime free, then they will have a little more cred and have even more value for the $100 a years service.

iPods are a much more now product prediction being that it is about that time for Apple to do a refresh on that line. I know what the rumors are, and some of them sound credible. What I am predicting has more to do with last years announcements for not only the iPod touch, but with the partnership with Starbucks, and I presume others will be coming down the pipe for something similar, say McDonalds and other AT&T hotspots. With last years announcements came iPod touch , iPhone and iTunes customers getting free wifi connectivity to the iTunes store, but what if I only had my nano or Classic with me? Why couldn't Apple just add a simple click wheel iTunes Store app on those products and have a wifi chip included. Obviously you would not have the full use of a Safari web browser in there too, but a browser page to see where to click on open hotspots that just need one click to be "online" to the outside internet would be an advantage. So you go to a store and hear a song playing that you have not heard in years, you pull out you ipod to see if you have it and don't. You see in the indicator that there is wifi available and all you have to do is click yes and agree to the terms of service button and you can find that song on the fly. No, it's not the iPhone and not even the touch in ability, but it is still a game changer. If one of the other rumors of a subscription service opens up, then you could pre-authorize your device to just download from your subscription. Buy a nano at the airport, hook it up to a kiosk, authorize it and then download albums before your flight. Go from no music to enough to get you through a long trip in minutes. Goal.

Synergy, So what if then Sprout core type apps on the web then could be used from any iPod sold. Get the text of a speech on almost any device, save the shuffle of course, almost anywhere. puts it all into a much grander perspective to me.