The Muzzy's Blog

Since Macworld is this Tuesday, and some of my predictions involve Apple, I might as well get this list out ASAP.

• Apple will produce neither a netbook nor a tablet device this year, or likely any year. They will, however, produce a smaller and cheaper iPhone. This 4GB model will be called the iPhone Nano, or iPhone Mini and sell for under $150. They will release it to carriers other than AT&T. AT&T signed an exclusivity deal worth millions to be the only carrier with the iPhone. Apple will claim that the deal was only for the iPhone, and that this new model is something different. AT&T will sue, but the lawsuit won't resolve for some time. Apple will offer CDMA prototypes, but neither Sprint nor Verizon will be interested. Sprint and Verizon are still trying to market their own music stores, and they will not want the competition from iTunes.
  
  
• Now that Apple has 10% of the total PC market, and 14% of the consumer market, they will be hit by their first genuine virus this year. Since the iPhone also runs a variant of OSX, it might be affected too. The bug will be nasty enough for Apple to start taking security seriously. Remember that hacking challenge last year? The Apple computer was the first to be hacked and exploited. Apple has been able to avoid spyware, trojans and viruses because of they lack the numbers to make such work profitable. That's starting to change.
  
  
• Cerebus will realize that the only way to turn a profit with Chrysler is to part it out. Unfortunately for them, the only part that's remotely interesting is Jeep. Jeep will be sold to either Mercedes, because they share so many parts, or to a company needing a decent Truck/SUV platform... think Honda, Hyundai or Tata. The rest of the company will be sold off for intellectual property (i.e. the hemi engine) but no one will actually make another Dodge car again. The exception being the Dodge Viper. The rights to which will be purchased by a small specialty company like Shelby or Saleen. They'll start making the Viper again sometime in 2012.
  
  
• Comcast will release a new DVR using technology "stolen" from TiVo. Comcast and TiVo have been partnered for almost two years now, and they've only had limited test releases in small markets. It's not moving forward, and I believe it's because Comcast is buying time. TiVo will sue Comcast for the stolen IP, and they might win... sometime in 2011. That is, if they're still in business.
  
  
• There will be at least a dozen phones running Google's Android software by the end of the year. Unfortunately they'll all suck. A smartphone platform which doesn't support a To-Do list? It's as if Google employees have never worked in an office which uses Exchange. The real area where Android could take off is in budget phones, such as the Motorola RAZR, where the carriers can save money by using a "free" OS. However in those cases the devices will still suffer by having a poor radio stack, since Google wrote code for supporting the phones in as a secondary priority to writing an OS which supports Google web apps.
  
  
• The US will be put into a precarious position when either the Iraqi or Afghani government comes out in support of Palastine and offers military aide against Isreal. But this won't be the true test of Obama's leadership in the first year. Instead it'll come later this summer when the gang war along the US/Mexico border escalates. The Mexican army, which is reportedly corrupt, will be caught crossing the US border and attacking US citizens (albeit criminal ones).
  
  
• Obama will pick a "nobody" for his CTO. It won't be Larry Lessig, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or The Woz. Probably someone who was a VP for HP or IBM. The CTO will likely be someone who supports the RIAA/MPAA. There will be no patent reform under this CTO, and we'll continue to see lawsuits over ideas that should have never been patented in the first place.
  
  
• Steve Balmer will announce his retirement in 5 years. He won't announce his successor for another three years. The real story will be that the board forced him to retire. Under his leadership, Microsoft has lost marketshare for the first time in it's existence. The failure to procure a deal with Yahoo highlights the lack of vision and the lack of ability that Balmer possesses.
  
  
• A Pushing Daisies movie will be announced, probably in a direct-to-video product. The movie will wrap up any loose ties left in the series that ABC has foolishly decided to cancel.
  
  
• Despite losing millions on the PS3, Sony will continue to push it's failed console onto the marketplace. They will not lower the price, and they will not have a "killer app". They'll release some sort of Wii like controller, which will be overly expensive and not be supported by anything more than 2 games.... both of which will not be fun to play. Many former Playstation exclusives will start to jump ship to the 360 and Wii. The only place on Earth where the PS3 will sell well is in Japan, and it will still sell fewer consoles than the Wii. It will also lose the title of "best bluray player" this year.
  

There you have it. Ten fresh predictions for the new year. I'll report back on this in 2010 to see how well I scored.

Update: I have a bonus prediction... I predict that the average price of gas in the US as tracked by AAA will not exceed $3 per gallon this year.

Back in January of 2008 I made a few predictions of what to expect in 2008. I was inspired by Robert X. Cringley's annual predictions. Typically he does pretty well, usually around 80% accurate. This year he was only right on 50% of his predictions... did I do any better?

Netflix will license with many partners including TiVo and Microsoft to sell their rental service through set-top boxes once Microsoft finalizes Silverlight 2.0 which it will use for DRM. Their selection will be poor, but it will be superior to a similar setup from Apple and will support Win32, OSX and Linux based platforms.

Spot on. Netflix did indeed setup rental services for XBOX, and TiVo services are coming one day. You can now stream netflix video to Mac's, but not Linux yet. Apple did try to push rentals on the AppleTV platform, but it's such a poor seller that it wasn't a significant part of the marketplace.

New DRM "solutions" will be introduced in 2008. None of them will do a thing to hinder online piracy.

This was a bit of a no-brainer. Studios did try new DRM solutions, and yet piracy continues to grow. Eventually media owners will realize that the public wants a non-limited product. When their choices are a crippled product at a large price versus a free unlimited product, it's no wonder.

HD-DVD and Bluray will continue to fight it out in the marketplace, but neither will be a winner. Dual-format players will continue to be more expensive than purchasing two standalone players. The PS3 will continue to be the best Bluray player on the market.

I totally blew this one. About a week after I made this prediction, HD-DVD was dead. However I was correct that dual-format players were more expensive, and that the PS3 is still the best bluray player on the market.

Based on the success of the iphone, nearly everyone will have a touch-interface smartphone in 2008. Although none of them, including Apple, will manage to get around the fact that a touchscreen is a lousy way to type e-mails.

Another accurate prediction. The marketplace is flooded with poorly implemented touchscreen phones. RIM rushed their touch-based BlackBerry to the market, and the market has responded. It's an awful phone. No one has managed to create a decent text input method on a touchscreen phone. The best solution is still something like the HTC devices with slide-out keyboards.

Apple will upset the music industry by creating it's own music label. However this will backfire on Apple as the big labels leave iTunes for the alternatives from Amazon, Walmart, etc.

I still think this will happen, and there were signs of baby steps this year. Apple has started offering music from independent artists, who sell their music exclusively through the iTunes store. Apple handles the marketing and distribution of these songs. That means that Apple is acting as a music label for these artists, they're just not calling it that.

Increasing disdain of Vista, and millions spent on marketing Macs will finally get Apple's percentage of the marketshare into double-digits.

I almost thought this wasn't going to happen, but earlier today reports were released showing that Apple indeed has 10% of the market, and probably closer to 14% of the consumer marketplace.

The digital switchover scheduled for February 2009 will be pushed back yet again because no one really understands what it means.

This could still happen, but not in 2008. I'm now confident that the transition will happen on time. I can imagine a situation where the transition happens, people complain, congress demands that the FCC reverse the transition, and by the time they do it everyone who originally complained has already purchased a converter box making the reversal unnecessary.

No one will have a commercially produced electric car until at least 2010. Sorry to all those folks who pre-ordered a Tesla Roadster.

Partly right, partly wrong. Tesla did release a handful of roadsters in 2008, but far fewer than they had originally predicted.

The following people will die in 2008: Britney Spears, Ted Kennedy, Fidel Castro, Jerry Lewis, Courtney Love, Nancy Regan, Gary Coleman, Bob Dylan, Pervez Musharraf and Thailands King Bhumibol.

This was the first time I have ever made a "dead pool" prediction, and I will never make one again. When reports of Ted Kennedy's brain cancer showed up in the papers, I was initially excited that my prediction might come true. It was quickly followed by massive guilt and shame. Fortunately everyone on my list survived 2008.

Rudy Guliani will be elected President of the United States of America.

No comment.

So three predictions were totally wrong, two were partially wrong, and five were dead-on. That's a bit better than 50% overall, and better than Cringley. Not bad. Next week I'll have ten new predictions.

Flipping channels tonight Tina and I came across the remake of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Perhaps I'm biased by my own childhood memories, but in my opinion the original was fantastic and this remake is crap.

Coincidentally I came across this story while browsing the web instead of butchering my fond memories of this movie.

It appears that Hollywood really is out of ideas. The article in question mentions that Hollywood is considering a remake of John Carpenters cult classic, "They Live". I cringed in fear, and then I read the last line of the article... "Strike is also working on a remake of Carpenter's The Thing."

Dear God. Someone needs to stop this guy, like yesterday.

Why isn't "Keep Away" a professional sport? We've all played it, or had it played on us at some point in our lives. Everyone understands the rules. Kids might not feel so bad or bullied in the middle if they had a professional player to look up to. And lets face it, the player in the middle would be paid the most, they'd have the toughest job.