I don’t think the Apple event tonight will be a juicy one, at least for me personally.
New iPod hardware? Whatever. People will be interested, but not excited. The “classic” iPods — classic, nano, and shuffle — have passed their prime, and the touch will basically be nothing more than a baby iPhone.
Here’s some wishful thinking though:
- A push–enabled VoIP app, headset, and a MiFi card can turn a touch into a pseudo–iPhone.
- Verizon sells the MiFi.
- There have been rumours of Apple working with Verizon.
What if Apple and Verizon bundle the two together? It might be a hard sell though, because I can’t think of an easy way to explain to customers why it’s better to have two things instead of one, what with the hassle of remembering to pocket and charge two pieces of electronics before leaving the house.
I did say it was wishful thinking.
As for the music: meh. Be it Rolling Stones or The Beatles, they’re like Michael Jackson to me: neither of them have made much of an impact on my life. Pre–cut ringtones may generate a lot of revenue, but they’re not exciting and I don’t want them. And I’ll have to wait and see why “Cocktail” is worth looking out for.
Tablet… Like they say, this ain’t the time, though I do want one if it’s a great note–taker. It should do handwriting recognition and be able to search through them, a la Evernote. And it should be finger–friendly as well as stylus–friendly for writing and scribbling.
So what will get me excited about this event? Apple TV. I have four feature requests:
- TV Shuffle, where it mimics channel surfing by playing a random episode from a random or specific TV programme you’ve bought.
- News, because the Apple TV is missing live content. This will require collaboration with news outlets, but the idea is that there’s a RSS feed of headlines with updates pushed to the box, and clicking into a specific headline brings up a short video report of the event.
- Sports, the only other type of content that needs to be consumed live, as–it’s–happening on TV. This will be sorta like MLB–on–Roku. I only want this because of Formula One.
- “Cocktail” for movies, where I think it makes more sense. Let us have the extras when we rent or buy a movie from the iTunes Store!
No, I don’t see Apple adding DVR functionality into Apple TV either. They would prefer you buy recordings instead.
I would also love to see scrobbling built into iTunes.
