It’s not quite been eight months since iPhone entered my life, but it’s close enough and I’ve been thinking about this blog post for a couple of weeks. After only having the phone for a day, I made a few predictions that I felt would be fun to revisit to see if I should quit my job and become a palm reader. So let’s dive into it…
Prediction #1 – 1.0.1 Within 2 Weeks of Launch
This goes without saying, but I will say it anyway. We’re going to get a service update within the next week or two—before the next batch ships—to address the launch bugs.
iPhone update 1.0.1 hit everyone’s iTunes on July 31, 2007 nearly one month after the iPhone launch. The update was met with a lot of excitement. Everyone was curious to see how an update would work and what goodness Apple would give us in it. Would we get Flash? Copy & paste? No and No. We got some bug fixes and slightly improved stability. Since this was a time-sensitive prediction and I was off by two weeks, I got this one wrong.
Prediction #2 – Flash w/ Leopard
We will get a Flash-enabled version of Safari sooner than later. I’m guessing within a month or at the very latest in tandem with OS X Leopard.
Ouch. This one stings. Here we are eight months later with no Flash. But I may be speaking just a few days too soon. Apple has a special event set for next tuesday and the rumor is Apple will be revealing the much anticipated iPhone SDK. I also think they’ll launch a few new applications built with the SDK. Another firmware update might be imminent which could bring Flash to the iPhone. Needless to say, I got this one wrong as well.
Prediction #3 – Copy & Paste before Leopard
It’s crazy to even say this, but text selection and Copy & Paste gestures will come before Leopard.
Hahaha. We still suffer without Copy & Paste functionality. Please, Apple throw us a bone here. Wrong.
Prediction #4 – iTunes Store on iPhone
We will be able to buy media from the iTunes store directly on the phone via the wifi connection by end of year.
Ding ding! We got a winner here. We officially received the iTunes Wifi store on September 27, 2007.
Prediction #5 – GPS in Google Maps
I thought most cell phones came with GPS capabilities for emergency scenarios. I find it hard to believe this puppy doesn’t have a GPS chip in it. It will be opened and will be used with the Google Maps.
So the iPhone has no GPS hardware. Therefore we can’t possibly get GPS with Google Maps. So I couldn’t be more wrong. But we did get pseudo GPS behaviors in the latest 1.1.3 firmware in the form of cell tower and wifi spot triangulation. It works pretty well. I’ve been able to locate many a Starbucks while driving in unfamiliar territories.
Prediction #6 – iChat with Leopard
iChat application will appear with Leopard as well as an update to the camera application, which obviously will be used by iChat.
Wrong again! We’ve yet to see wifi chat from Apple and there have been no updates that add functionality to the most under-powered feature of the phone… the camera.
Prediction #7 – Notes Syncing, To-dos & More Photo Integrations
We already know that Mail.app in Leopard will get some new functionality like notes and to-dos. We’ll see those on the iPhone too. I think they’ll also listen to the complaints and allow attachments from the Photo Library.
Booooo. So we’ve got the nifty Notes application that doesn’t sync to anything on the Mac?!? With Leopard we got notes and to-dos in Mail.app, but there have been no abilities to sync the notes or add to-dos from the iPhone. In fact, I don’t think they’ve touched the Mail application on the iPhone since launch.
It appears I’m no Nostradamus and I should hold onto my day job. Oh well, I was so looking forward to moving into that lonely small house still fronting the busy highway surrounded by shopping centers. But I’m not going to stop making predictions. I’ll save them for another post.
