Building on my Dockable Widgets prediction that assumes a 5.8" iPhone Pro, I think Apple will finally include picture-in-picture video support for iPhone.
I'll be surprised if Apple markets the next iPhone as "The 10th Anniversary iPhone." Surely they will highlight how the iPhone changed the world in the past 10 years, but I think they've learned from their costly mistakes of past "anniversary" products.
I think it will simply be called: iPhone Pro.
The smartphone camera is one of those underappreciated technologies where each incremental innovation seems boring…until one day all the bases are finally loaded and someone hits a grand slam.
iPhone 8 with Iris Scanner? →
Seeing sketchy rumors that iPhone 8 may have an iris scanner like the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. I'm still having a hard time seeing how that it better than a fingerprint scanner under the touch screen.
But to Samsung's credit, the most interesting part of having both a fingerprint scanner and an iris scanner is the software aspect — two tiers of security and authentication. Works great for parents who need to protect access to certain data while giving their kids freedom to play games.
A more Apple solution would be to simply let different fingerprints unlock different things instead.
Killing net neutrality to "eliminate unnecessary and burdensome rules" is like Android staying completely open — it enables big greedy corporations to abuse the openness to lock it down, control consumers, and maximize profits.
Haven't heard anything on Apple iBeacons or indoor mapping in a while, but those would be powerful building blocks for AR in the real world.
The Bad Product Fallacy →
When I talk to people about upcoming ideas that have serious potential, I'm often met with the same skepticism.
Andrew Chen explains why your personal use cases and opinion are a shitty predictor of a product’s future success:
- If it looks like a toy, what happens if it’s successful with its initial audience and then starts to add a lot more features?
- If it looks like a luxury, what happens if it becomes much cheaper? Or much better, at the same price?
- If it’s a marketplace that doesn’t sell anything you’d buy, what happens when it starts stocking products and services you find valuable?
- If none of your friends use a social product, what happens when they win a niche and ultimately all your friends are using it too?
I've always believed three things:
- Technology always gets better and cheaper over time.
- Consumers vote with their wallets.
- Don't ever underestimate the power of convenience.
Once a technology that provides convenience matures enough and gets cheap enough, that's what the world adopts it.
Proposal: Channels for Micro.Blog
Twitter makes the assumption that when you follow a person, you want to follow all of their posts. But I don't think that's a good assumption — I follow a person because I want to follow a particular interest they post about.
How many of you guys are techies who just love to see your favorite tech personalities blow up your feeds with TV shows or football or politics that you don't care about?
I've always loved the way Pinterest was set up — the main focus is you follow a person's interests in the form of Pinterest Boards, not the person.
If micro.blog is truly meant for microblogging as opposed to being a traditional social network, then we should make it easy to follow an person's interests (i.e. an account's categories).
One possible solution is presenting interests/categories like this: @username/channel
So some examples would be:
- @theverge/apple
- @gruber/baseball
- @parislemon/football
- @amc/TheWalkingDead_EST
- @amc/TheWalkingDead_PST
- @espn/nba_highlights
- @espn/warriors_news
- @samsung/usa
- @samsung/korea
Granted, most of those examples are with real-time live-tweeting in mind, but you get the idea.
Of course, the simplest alternative solution is to say, "just create another account", but keeping all categories under the same roof strengthens the main account. Plus, nobody likes to rebuild a following for a new account from scratch.
The idea is not to just "be better than Twitter"; I'm trying to solve the problem that following specific interests should be much more efficient than what is currently out there.
I'm embracing the idea that microblogging does not equal tweeting. And I'd argue that if microblogging is really about sharing content instead of having conversations, we should have more efficient ways of organizing what we share and how we follow it.
2007: "The iPod Killer" →
Jason Kottke, just after the original iPhone was announced in January 2007:
I guess we know why iPod development has seemed a little sluggish lately. When the Zune came out two months ago, it was thought that maybe Apple was falling behind, coasting on the fumes of an aging product line, and not innovating in the portable music player space anymore. I think the iPhone puts this discussion on the back burner for now. And the Zune? The supposed iPod-killer’s bullet ricocheted off of the iPhone’s smooth buttonless interface and is heading back in the wrong direction.
Sounds just like today, critics preaching a similar narrative: "The iPhone is boring, Apple can't innovate anymore."
Apple Mini Computers →
Sam Gerstenzang talks about Apple's underrated release of mini computers, like the Pencil, AirPods, Apple Watch, and Touch Bar:
Apple is quietly getting very good at shipping very small computers that charge very rapidly, and thus can be unanchored ––unlike Google Home or Amazon Echo. Over time, as power and size requirements decrease, a direct internet connection might add value. But for now, Bluetooth allows a connection to your phone (which is still quite obviously and self-consciously a computer) and that’s enough. […]
Apple is unleashing its fourth revolution in typical Apple fashion but it is atypically quiet about it. Like with the Apple I, the Mac, and the iPhone, Apple has started with shipping a great product by creating technological innovation in service of a better product, and an entire industry learns.
Apple’s very small computers will unlock a supply chain revolution that will enable a whole wave of others to create their own very small computers, too. It won’t be called the Internet of Things. Just very small computers making very great Things.
Because Apple owns all of the important technologies in its products, Apple has a huge advantage over its competitors when it comes to the miniaturization of computers.