What I'm looking for in Steve's Keynote

Sunday, June 08, 2008

Tomorrow at 10am is Steve Jobs' WWDC keynote. I thought I'd take a moment to tell you what I'll be on the lookout for...

1. Convergence
   A longer term trend I have been watching is convergence of the mobile and desktop operating systems. Of course, this has been talked about in the Java and Microsoft worlds for some time but I think that we are getting to that point in history where the lines really start to get blurry between different categories of devices. Though everyone has been trying, I think Apple will be the one who will finally ignite our imaginations at the boundaries of previous categories. My gut says the iPhone is only "step one" in the same way that iTunes was only step one of the music revolution.

2. Blinking Lights
   The thing I want most from the next iPhone is not 3G, Video Conferencing, GPS, blah blah blah. What I want is some little LED lights that let you know at a glance whether you have any new e-mails of phone calls. My Sidekick had a great light that would do different flashing color patterns based on the number of type of messages you had. Doesn't the Blackberry do the same thing? Why do I need to wake up the iPhone to see if I have any new messages? It doesn't have to be big light... a tiny little LED like the iPod Shuffle has would be fine... Please?!?

3. 3rd Party iPhone Apps
   I'm sure we'll be seeing some 3rd party iPhone apps in the Keynote. I can't wait to see what the development community is working on. As a developer, I'll be looking out for holes of opportunity as well.

4. Announcements that will lead to more Mac OS X market share
   My success will always be a subset of the platform's success, so I hope to see announcements in the Keynote that show how Apple is going to take it's current momentum to rock the Mac market share numbers in the coming year or two. If the iPhone is the only thing talked about, I will be disappointed but I am cautiously optimistic Jobs will spend 45 min talking about the iPhone and then change the subject to Mac OS X (if they aren't so converged as to be the same subject).

5. Mac Market Share Gains
   I'm very interested to hear the latest numbers on Mac market share and Leopard usage in particular. Everything points to huge gains, but each year I like to see one of those charts that goes off the page.

6. High Density Displays
   Apple has been pushing developers to build resolution independent applications. Isn't it about time we saw some hardware to go along with that technology? Don't you think? Maybe at least one one pro-level display with a high density display... I would be first in line for one.

Well that is my list for Santa (Steve Jobs). What are you hoping to see in the WWDC Keynote this year?