My iPad 3 Eve Wishlist

So as iPad 3 Eve comes to a close, I'm left thinking about what may come in tomorrow's big announcement.  Following are my thoughts, and wishes.  :D

The announcement in general, while not outright labeled as an iPad announcement, will be an iPad 3 announcement.  In addition, I believe we'll also get an announcement about Apple TV, the box, not the set.  I still hold to it that Apple will never release a set.

So for iPad 3, the biggies: Retinal display, a boosted battery and LTE.  The boosted battery is needed for LTE and just because it would be awesome to have a twenty four hour iPad.  Subsequently, a bigger battery will cause this iPad to not be lighter and thinner than its predecessor.  I'm thinking weight will come in about where it is now, if not grams heavier.  For thickness, I'm thinking millimeters thicker, than iPad 2.  I really hope it's lighter, even iPad 2, has Apple's "dense" feel for products.

Other hardware improvements should include processors, memory and better cameras, could we be lucky enough to get close to iPhone 4S quality?

On the fringe, unlikely in my opinion are a new connector, removing the home button or any new ports in the device.

For software, I'm looking for a couple of surprises in a new iOS version.  Siri should be on board now and hopefully we'll see a big update for Siri, maybe coming soon to my iPhone 4?  Could she be coming out of beta?  I doubt we'll see iOS 6, but a good increment to iOS 5 is likely to launch with the tablet.

For release, my money is on March 16th.  That would be about the same schedule for iPad 2.  Also, on the name, I think we'll fully get an iPad 3.  Retinal display, battery and LTE will be too much to make it an iPad 2S.  I think iPad will eventually fall into the every-other-year major versioning, like iPhone, but not this year.

This iPad release will also likely herald some upcoming features for iPhone 5.  While I'm on the subject, look for iPhone 5 back in June.  I think Apple wants to get back on that schedule.  iOS 5 was a mammoth effort on their part and I believe is mostly what pushed them back to October.  So if we see LTE on iPad 3, you can bet your iPhone 5 will have it.

For pricing, I think we'll have the standard 16, 32 and 64 gig models running at $499, $599 and $699 respectively for Wi-Fi versions and a bit more for LTE versions.  This year though, taking a note from iPhone, I think iPad 2 will stick around for a while with a 16 gig model going for $399 and maybe, just maybe an 8 gig model for $299.  I'm skeptical about the 8 gig model, because trying to manage a 16 gig model is already a bit of work.  But if you're mostly just checking email and surfing the web, an 8 gig model would be just fine.

Amazon's Kindle Fire has cause Apple to take note.  Amazon has such a huge ecosystem behind the Fire and at its current price, it's hard to pass up, if you can't spend iPad money.  So I think Apple is looking hard at the lower price points.

Well, in about twelve hours we’ll know all the gory details and restart the countdown for release day!  Enjoy the mania!

This Week in Mobile – January 25th, 2012

Well, luckily I don’t officially make resolutions, more like formulate new plans for my life and my time.  So here we go again with another TWiM and this time of year, I could write 500 words every day about the mobile industry, but don’t worry, even after missing two weeks, I’ll keep this one brief.

CES came and went in a blur of several days.  I talked to reporters, followed blogs and listened to podcasts all week.  The big item this year was smart TVs, i.e., put your TV on your wifi and watch Netflix and Youtube without any other boxes (you know you want to reactivate your Netflix subscription again)!  But since TVs aren’t mobile, I only have one more thing to say about them, I still don’t think Apple will release a full TV, just doesn’t make sense.

CES did show off plenty of tablets this year, although, not as many as last year.  My favorite so far is the Pantech Element, sold through AT&T.  The scoop on this guy is waterproof!  The manufacturer claims you can dunk it in water, up to 1 meter, for 30 minutes and when you retrieve it from every other tablets watery grave, and it’s still humming right along with its bad Android self.  The other best part is its $300 price tag.  2012 will see many more sub-$300 Android tablets.  Tablet makers are finally realizing that the only way to beat iPad is on price point, maybe they read my blog last year.

For phones, Nokia, Microsoft and AT&T surprised everyone, not with three new phones, but the same phone, the Nokia Lumia 900.  Nokia is back, Microsoft Windows Phone 7 isn’t dead yet and well AT&T is still evil.  The Lumia 900 was so good, Internet media juggernaut CNET, gave it their Best of CES Smartphone award.  Hit up big Google for specs on this phone, but from what I’ve read, it’s going to be a nice phone.  Based on rumors, AT&T should be releasing the phone in mid-March for $99, definitely a great way to hit the market, better than Moto’s Razor for $299 (available today and expensive for 16 gigs of storage).  So, if you don’t like iPhone and don’t get Android, I think this might be a good alternative.  I’m not saying I'll trade in my Mac for a Windows machine yet, but we’ll keep both eyes on Windows Phone 7.

The one company that wasn’t at CES, but whose presence was felt more than most was Apple.  The rumors of Apple’s TV project has every company scrambling to provide some form of Internet connected TV.  And speaking of rumors, the rumor mills are cranking out rumors for iPad and iPhone.  We’re expecting the next iPad to be announced in March and available in April.  Current expectations put it with a longer lasting battery, high resolution, maybe retinal display and LTE 4G.  Based on Apple’s pattern with iPhone, I’m guessing the next iPad will be labeled iPad 2S (or some other letter) and not iPad 3.

iPhone rumors are just starting to spin up.  This iPhone will likely be iPhone 5 and I’m guessing on a case change.  Also in the rumor lineup is a 4-inch screen and LTE 4G.  With this iPhone, we’re thinking Apple will get back on the summer release schedule with an announcement at WWDC, likely in June.

So there’s a scratch on the surface of the mobile world for this week.  If you have about fifteen free seconds, do me a favor and take a quick straw poll at: http://strawpoll.me/184

Enjoy!

This Week in Mobile – The Re-Launch

I don’t usually make resolutions at New Years, but I do take the opportunity to try to start or re-start some good habits.  For my digital life, I’m going to start writing again.  My goal is one post per week here and at least one post per day on Twitter.  So, since we’re still in the first week of January, here’s a bit of what’s going on now, upcoming and a couple of high points from last year.

Upcoming

The only event any manufacturer and really anyone in tech is focused on at the moment is CES.  The annual Consumer Electronics Show is a bit like the Detroit Auto Show for consumer electronics vendors.  Tons of tech vendors parade their upcoming products, everything from microwaves to 3D TVs.  Clearly though, we’ll be mostly watching the parade of new mobile devices and tablets.  I’ll cover some of the best looking products in coming weeks.  After CES, expect many more announcements, including a few from Apple and Google.

Current

There isn’t much going on at the moment, or at least in the last couple of weeks, but there a couple items to mention.  Thankfully, it looks like the stars are aligning against AT&T and their proposed purchase of T-Mobile will likely die.  We’re not sure what’s in store for T-Mobile, but at least it will keep the Death Star from dominating the mobile market.

Another company in the news lately, sorry Nate, is RIM.  After a disappointing year, the co-CEOs, who are also co-Chairman of the board, will probably lose their co-Chairman jobs.  Early on, they should have just flipped a coin to see who would be Chairman and who would be CEO, what a silly setup.  RIM also announced that their fabled BlackBerry 10 operating system and new BB10 devices won’t be out until late 2012.  Apple will have another iPhone and iPad out and twenty other companies will have at least another hundred Android devices out.

Past

One of the biggest tech/mobile stories of 2011 is Steve Jobs.  I won’t say much, because so much has already been said, but I would recommend reading the Walter Isaacson biography, it was very interesting.

Without going into too much detail, here a several other big events of 2011: Google buys Motorola Mobility, Apple releases iPad 2, iPhone 4s and Siri, Nokia and Microsoft team up for Windows Phone, which is starting to gain some ground, HP kills webOS, but webOS may still have life in the open-source world, and Amazon releases the Kindle Fire, the first Android tablet that may have a chance to compete with iPad.

So that’s it for this week, thanks for reading!

Happy New Year!

Time Change

I woke up this morning to the sun streaming in my window, normally nice during the day, but not conducive to sleeping in.  I checked my bedside clock, and was surprised to see it was 6:30.  Seemed very bright for this time of year and I realized my clock, aka, phone must have rolled back an hour last night.  As they tend to do, with items in our lives, my phone has dethroned my alarm clock for prime night stand position; actually the clock broke and I decided the phone could take it's place just fine.

So yes, unfortunately, it seems like the iPhone is having Daylight Savings Time issues again.  The issue is that I can't turn on automatic Date & Time without it picking the wrong Time Zone and if it picks a different timezone, it seems to change my clock.  I just turned automatic back on and although it picked Denver, it's not trying to change my time, at the moment, I'll be watching it though.

So double check your phones this weekend, especially iPhones, they've had time change issues every time change for the last couple of years.  At least this time of year you'll be arriving everywhere early instead of late.

What's Up In Tech - July 6, 2011

Is Facebook playing catch-up?  In today’s “Awesome” (FB’s words not mine) announcement, Facebook announced Skype integrated video chatting, group chatting and oh yeah, they now have 750 million members, that’s more than twice the population of the US.

Google+ opened up about a week ago and I finally got access tonight.  Over the last week, I’ve heard great things about it and read wild predictions about how it would steal 50% of Facebook’s traffic.  First Friendster, then MySpace, could this actually happen to Facebook?  It may look like catch-up, adding services similar to Google+, but it’s the only way Facebook will stay competitive.

Competition drives the tech market hard and if you want to stay on top, then you have to constantly iterate, stay agile and hopefully stay ahead of your competitors.  Facebook still has this ability and isn’t likely to start loosing to competitors any time soon.  I will be checking out Google+ though and report back on what I think.  So far it’s looking more like my Twitter friends and less like Facebook.

Have you tried Google+ yet?  Is Facebook in trouble?

What else is up?  Spotify is set to launch here in the US!  Yes that music service that people in Europe always rave about is finally coming to the US.  Go here to sign up for an invite, and to maybe find out more about the service.  I’m a regular Pandora user and don’t know much about Spotify except that everyone in Europe says it’s amazing.  So, we’ll see.

Do you use any streaming music services?  Can you fill in more information about why Europeans love Spotify so much?

What else is up?  iPhone 5 rumors are flying like crazy these days.  Most people are saying this will be an iPhone 4s (s for speed I think, the s in 3Gs was for speed, I think).  They’re also saying it will be very similar to the iPhone 4, but faster, better screen or bigger screen maybe and have an 8 megapixel camera and of course be thinner and lighter, as usual.

I don’t believe much of this.  With iPhone 4, Apple finally got the name synced up to the actual release version (iPhone, 3G, 3Gs, 4).  Why would they now put out another iPhone 4 and always be a number behind.  Also, iOS 5 will be shipping on the new iPhone, why not make it iPhone 5 with iOS 5, it just seems to make more sense.  So sometime in the next couple of months we’ll find out.

Unfortunately others are also talking about iPad 3 releasing later this year.  Ugh, not yet, I haven’t got enough quarters saved!  This too is complete bogus, why release two in one year.  Apple already owns 95% of the tablet market and we heard recently that iPads account for 1% of all Internet traffic (that’s actually a lot!).  I don’t know why analysts keep talking about iPad 3, but I really don’t think we’ll see it until next year.

What do you think the next iPhone will look like?  Will you get one?  Do you also agree that iPad 3 rumors are crap?  If they’re not crap, do you think I’ll be sitting in line at the Apple store again?  :D