In more recent times, Apple started listing 3rd party apps, sorted in categories and nicely presented, thus making it really easy to find software you needed. A really simple thing, really. It was easy to add the software (for developers) and it was easy to get it (for users). Later, Apple did the same thing with widgets for Dashboard. Top 50 list, featured app, etc. Really easy to find and install what you needed. When you downloaded a widget, you were automatically asked if you wanted to install it (or update, in case you already had a previous version), and then if you wanted to keep it.

This is crowdsourcing at its best. Apple only needs to provide the framework. 3rd party developers did most of the work writing the apps and supporting them.

When Wordpress, the most popular self-hosted blogging platform in the world – also driving this very blog, did the same for their plugins some time in 2006, they saw dowloads increase 15-fold. All they needed to do was make it easy for developers to list and present their plugins and presto, users started finding them and using them, which led to more plugins being developed, and contributed to the massive growth Wordpress has seen since version 1.5.

Both Apple and Wordpress have also added ratings to allow users to promote stuff they like. They both make top lists available so casual users don’t have such a hard time finding the most popular items. That’s what you have to do if you want to go mainstream.

And now, Apple does it again with the App store for iPhone. And they take it even further. They combine it with iTunes, another great tool they’ve developed in recent years, and one that will probably see some interesting change in the years to come. If for no other reason, because it’s odd to have apps, videos and syncing services for contacts in a product that’s called “tunes”, and Apple likes to keep things tidy.

Nokia, Sony, Microsoft, Blackberry, Samsung et al never understood this, it seams. They are all about engineering. Sure, you could download apps for your Symbian phone, somewhere, but it was clunky, no “sex appeal”, and there was no syncing (it’s very useful to have a connection to the desktop/laptop world). While the other manufacturers were busy with who knows what for years, Apple built so many trojan horses into their businesses that the others now look like clowns falling over each other while trying to recover from the nightmare they’ve awoken to.

And it is not like you couldn’t do similar things on other platforms. To enable is to do more than just make it possible.

Check out some interesting articles about the App store:

• CNET
• Venture Beat
• TUAW

I can only marvel at how good execution is at Apple nowadays. They understand how people work, they get the economics, they plan ahead and they execute patiently. It’s beautiful to watch.

People don’t want to do everything on their tiny smartphone’s screen, some things you want to take care of on your desktop/laptop and then sync over. Nokia has a lot of software to write to make this happen. In addition to the hardware and software lead, Apple leads by leaps on the GUI side. And, they have iTunes with it’s enormous amount of content. Nokia is trying to take on that too, with Ovi, but it won’t be easy.

How come Apple managed to sneak up on Nokia like this?

You might also want to read these commentaries on what’s happening by Mashable and Signal to Noise.

While the transition to Intel has afforded Apple tremendous new opportunities, the downside to using commodity chips is that Apple’s roadmap is now closely tied to Intel’s. That means there are fewer surprises Apple can pull off and less differentiation between Macs and generic PCs.

Apple has invested heavily in building software tools that spin processor intensive tasks out to specialized hardware.

By developing more its own integrated components, Apple could potentially save money, support new proprietary features, and throw copycats off its trail and force them to develop their own devices from scratch. As Apple blazes into uncharted territories by accelerating its iPod line into a new series of WiFi mobile devices, cost savings, differentiated features, and difficult to copy designs will all become increasingly important. PA Semi’s hardware expertise can help in that regard.

So, in short, Apple is betting on built-in or add-on acceleration chips to stand out from the increasingly similar competition. Snow Leopard’s Grand Central and OpenCL technologies are additional proof of this direction.

Ok, it’s as certain as it can be that a new iPhone will see the light of day. It will have everything the previous one was critizised for not having: video calls, video recording, 3G with fast HSDPA (maybe even the superfast HSPA+), GPS, better battery life, slimmer form factor (not that the first iPhone wasn’t slim, but everything in electronics just keeps getting smaller), Exchange support (promised by Apple as part of the new firmware 2.0), and support for third party apps & widgets sold at the new App Store. All this, and worldwide availability.

But what else? Rumors about a peek at OS X version 10.6 have been floating around. Maybe. The previous version was released less than 9 months ago, so I doubt this one, even if it’s a developer conference. But we’ll see. Apple is great with surprises, although they usually float parts of what’s coming beforehand, either as rumors or features in other products.

There is always the trickle effect. Apple will probably bring touch screen technology and gestures (and according to recent patent applications also other new means to interact with your computer, like 3D displays and infrared controllers) to the rest of their product line.

As I suggested before, they should make a networked kiddy computer with touch display. It would be awesome. Parents could control it remotely, and kids love to touch. They could watch movies that they are allowed to see, and that their parents distributed to their Kiddy Mac after downloading them from iTunes, and why not games. I think Apple would do a great job with building a fun and innovative UI that kids could easily use.

The iPod, MacBook+Pro, and server lines should see updates. And why not finally a display that can better double as a TV?

And as iTunes Movies and TV shows are rolled out outside the US, the need to come up with a good solution for subtitles in Quicktime is growing. And maybe a practical way to package several videos, like the extras you get on a DVD.

Still a lot needs to be done.

Big areas that need something new

Maybe we should look at things from the “need” perspective.

A home server would be great, or another way to access your data anytime, anywhere. Time Capsule (the automatic backup solution that works completely in the background, whenever it has access to your computer over the air with WLAN) is a good start, as is .Mac and “Back to my mac”. Ok, .Mac is not so great. It’s been waiting for (real) change for years now, and even Jobs has hinted at the need to do something about it. Data portability is the next big frontier, and I believe Apple is going to be quick with this one. Everybody is scrambling for good data portability solutions, and new “web 2.0″:ish sites are springing up like mushrooms after the rain. There are some really good ones out there, usually focusing on a part of the solution. No one, as far as I know, offers a complete data portability solution for all your data. I think Apple has incentive to try its hands at this. Lot’s of people will be out there soon with iPhones, and they would love to have easy access to all their data.

The problem with proprietary solutions in the data portability arena is that they will not live long. We need something more than portable data. We need data inter-portability, controlled access to our own as well as other people’s data, and for that we need standards, APIs to services, and all of them truly working together. Mashups should abound, and they are starting to do so. No one can do this on their own. I think. Part of the beauty of the interwebs is that we can share so much with each other. Because of the bad guys we need security, but there are ways to do that, or someone will come up with them.

There has been rumors that Apple is rebranding .Mac into me.com (partly to better reach the PC crowd that have been wowed by the iPods and iPhone).

I’m also curious to see what’s going to happen to Apples pro software. There was even someone who suggested they were cutting those departments, something Apple quickly denied, but I find it hard to believe. Software is what really sets Apple apart.

I would rather believe Apple would be adding to the pro software lines. They should do a good vector and 3D app. Illustrator sucks big time. It seems to me that Adobe either doesn’t get that, or that they don’t care. It’s a very clumsy app if you compare it to the greatness of Photoshop and InDesign. Apple has been dabbling with 3D in Motion already, and if you remember the trickle effect, they should pass the finds on to other apps soon enough. Keynote already got some nice animation and very nice photo gallery features with advanced Core Animation effects within and between slides.

Apple has done nice work making photo editing easy and effective in Aperture, and I think they will keep pushing the envelope. Aperture isn’t Photoshop, but it sure is getting nearer (and past in some aspects, like organizing photos and interface design) with every release. Who knows, they might even take a hit at InDesign. Adobe wouldn’t have many unique apps left after that.

Another area that needs good apps is Content Management Systems for the web. Apple’s iWeb is just playing around, but it seems to me that Apple is aiming for more in this area. They already made Safari available for Windows, and it seems to me that the iTunes store essentially is a website. It’s like iTunes has a specialized version of Safari built in. Apple also has WebObjects, an aging but sort of hard core CMS. If Apple would make an easier version of WebObjects, as well as keep making iWeb better (the code it produces kind of works, but it’s very bulky), they could do an “iMovie/Final Cut Pro” move for the CMS arena.

Ok. These are my thoughts right now. Let’s see what happens on Monday…

Well, chalk one up for Apple’s creative moves. It really seems like they are going to have a full month of no iPhone sales, incredible as it may sound.

So I was definitely wrong on this one. Sorry about that.

Some believe that Apple is just clearing the channel, but that they won’t release the new phones before the keynote on June 9. That’s a month from now! I don’t believe Apple would be so careless with their logistics that they miss a whole month of sales. That’s just not going to happen.

I can’t remember Apple ever clearing channels that much in advance. And they have had excellent timing for years now. Here’s what I think.

I think we’ll have 3G iPhones tomorrow, with a special firmware release and the iPhone 2.0 firmware at the WWDC. Or, they’ll just surprise everybody and release the 2.0 firmware early. Nothing like beating your own deadlines when competitors scramble to figure you out.

Also, I believe Apple has to change their proprietary distribution model in order to reach other parts of the world quickly enough. Nokia, RIM and others are chasing them, and people are buying their phones when Apple isn’t selling them iPhones. There has already been rumors about the new iPhones being release really soon in about 10 countries, but I think the number will be higher. Time to move on.

Related news? If iPhones are released earlier than at the World Wide Developer Conference in June, why is Jobs keynoting @ WWDC? Is he retiring? Must be something big.

Last year at WWDC he showed Leopard and the new iPhone. And WWDC this year will be very much about developers now being able to write apps for the iPhone. But I don’t see that as enough reason to bring Steve to the stage, since the news about the dev kit has already been announced. There must be something else. Maybe new laptops to match the MacBook Air? Or iTunes deals? Or something completely different? (Apple has been hinting about all new products later this year)