Apple Predictions for 2010: iPhone on Multiple Carriers, iSlate, Beatles
Apple Predictions for 2010: iPhone on Multiple Carriers, iSlate, Beatles
In contrast to many tech companies dampened down by the recession, Apple
experienced rising revenue and profits throughout 2009, buoyed by strong sales
of its various product lines. But those sorts of shareholder-heartening numbers
rely on a constant base of innovation, and Apple will likely need to keep
evolving in order to effectively counter competitors such as Google and
Microsoft.
Apple has already announced some of its strategies for 2010, including an
increased number of retail stores. Other possible plans, such as the release of
a tablet PC and an expansion of its iPhone onto multiple carriers, have thus far
remained products of the ever-grinding rumor mill. In any case, the following
items detail what Apple could attempt in 2010.
The iPhone on Multiple
Carriers
Being the exclusive provider of the iPhone in the
United States
has proven both beneficial and a detriment to AT&T. The smartphone has
proven a rousing sales success, but with it has come pressure on AT&T's
network. According to the company, its smartphone traffic has increased by 5,000
percent in the past three years.
AT&T has experienced intense criticism for the iPhone's lack of
coverage in major urban areas such as New York
City, to the point where the company released a free
mobile application, AT&T Mark the Spot, which allows customers to communicate areas of
service interruption. Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless has been gleefully smashing its
rival's national 3G coverage in a wide-ranging ad campaign, eventually goading AT&T to file (but later
retract) a lawsuit.
Still, Apple's biggest impetus for expanding the iPhone's providers
beyond AT&T could come from Google. Smartphones with Google Android, notably
Motorola's Droid and HTC's Droid Eris, have
been gaining mindshare and marketplace momentum in recent weeks. The Android
Marketplace features an increasing number of mobile applications. Moreover,
rumors suggest that Google will begin directly selling its much-ballyhooed Nexus One smartphone starting on
Jan. 5.
To help blunt the threat poised by this increased competition, Apple
could very well choose to open the iPhone to other providers. The AT&T
contract is due to expire in 2010, leading to speculation that Verizon could
offer a CDMA version of the iPhone at some point after that.
Previously, some analysts have suggested that Apple could very well
choose to renew the AT&T contract. "The main reason Apple is likely to stick
with AT&T beyond 2010 is the relatively wide usage and growth expected for
the HSPA air standard used by [AT&T] for 3G data," iSuppli analyst Francis Sideco said in a September
statement.
But that was before the rise of the Droid, and AT&T's recent burst of
negative publicity. As the situation stands now, chances could well be higher
that Apple will widen its iPhone provider base in 2010.
The Release of the iTablet, or iSlate, or iPad, or iPod
Slate, or...
Given the sheer amount written about Apple's
tablet PC in 2009, you'd
mistakenly think that the device had already been released. In reality, Apple
has still not confirmed that such a tablet is even under development, despite
the massive numbers of Apple-centric blogs and analysts devoted to writing about
it.
In the past few days, the term "iSlate" has emerged as a prime candidate
for the name of this particular piece of vaporware, thanks in part to a
discovery by the MacRumors blog that Apple could own the domain name iSlate.com.
On top of that, TechCrunch uncovered that the trademark, "iSlate," was
registered by a company that could possibly be an Apple dummy
corporation. But the name of an eventual device is still open to conjecture.
Other rumors suggest that Apple has rented the stage at the Yerba Buena
Center for the Arts in San Francisco
for several days near the end of January, with unnamed sources saying that a
"major product announcement" is coming Jan. 26. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene
Munster has pegged the chances of a January event at 75 percent, with a further
50 percent chance that the event will see the Apple tablet unveiled for the
first time.
Analysts, meanwhile, have posited that such a tablet will
have either a 7-inch or 10-inch screen, run on either a modified version of the
iPhone OS or Mac OS X, be released at some point between January and April,
include 3G wireless and offer content from book publishers, and cost anywhere
from $500 to $2,000. An August report in The Wall Street Journal suggested that
Apple CEO Steve Jobs was spending nearly all
his time working on the tablet, which led him to respond to the newspaper with a
curt "most of your information is incorrect."
Given the deafening level of buzz, the most shocking tablet-related announcement will be if Jobs takes the stage sometime in the next few months to announce that such a device was never under development in the first place. But given the variety of sources and the rumors' staying power, it's not unsafe to suggest that Apple will announce something tablet-related in 2010, likely in the first quarter.
Increased Regulation of the App Store
Increased Regulation of the App Store
Apple's App Store expanded to more than 100,000 apps in 2009, with research firm IDC predicting that number to grow to 300,000 by the end of 2010. That sheer rate of growth, combined with minor controversies such as this summer's "Baby Shaker" app, may lead Apple to follow calls by outsiders and impose a tighter and more structured regulatory system for the App Store in 2010.
Again, Google may provide additional impetus for Apple to make changes to
the App Store. IDC also predicted that the number of Google Android apps could
expand by a "factor of five or more" over the coming year, raising the prospect
of increased competition in the mobile-application space in the short- to
medium-term.
Apple has already taken steps in this direction, notably with the Dec. 8
announcement of an RSS feed for iPhone developers to receive the latest news
about App Store submissions and reviews.
"You can now subscribe to a new RSS feed that will allow you to instantly
receive updates to the iPhone Developer News and announcements," read the
posting on Apple's Developer Connection site. "Get the latest information on a
wide range of topics including tips on submitting apps to the App Store, current
turnaround time for app review, program updates, development and testing
techniques, and much more."
The company has also begun weeding out developers of useless or
fraudulent apps, including some 1,100 mobile applications from
developer Molinker, which users
accused of posting fake positive reviews for its wares.
More
Apple Stores
Apple previously announced that it intends to open
40 to 50 stores worldwide in 2010, including new retail locations in
London,
Paris and
Shanghai. These would add to the 280
Apple stores already in existence. Apple reportedly earned some $3 billion from
its retail operations for the first six months of 2009.
An iPod
Touch with a Camera
Earlier in the summer, rumors abounded that Apple was developing an iPod
Touch with a camera-rumors that seemed on the verge of coming true when
MacRumors published photos of what was claimed to be an iPod Touch case with a
camera hole. However, the iPod with a camera introduced at Apple's Sept. 9 event
in San Francisco turned out to be
the new iPod Nano.
A few days before that event, the blogosphere lit up with reports that problems
had developed with camera modules for unspecified iPods, which if true may have delayed the introduction
of other camera-equipped models in the popular media-player line. In any case,
given Apple's increased emphasis on the iPod Touch as both a gaming platform and
enticer for the iPhone, it's not inconceivable that the next refresh of the
device in 2010 will include an iPhone-style camera.
The
Beatles on iTunes
"The Beatles and EMI have some differences to work out," Jobs told USA
Today on Sept. 10, when asked about the Fab Four's catalog finally becoming
available for digital download. "We'd welcome them with open arms."
The past few months saw the release of "The Beatles: Rock Band" and digitally remastered versions of the Beatles studio albums. Count on the momentum of both those events to help push Beatles availability on iTunes come 2010.
