First, a disclaimer: unlike some of my tech-pundit peers, I don’t claim to be uncannily prescient. Actually, I revel in the industry’s glorious unpredictability. One of 2010’s biggest stories involved a tech blog buying the top-secret, next-generation iPhone after an Apple engineer left it behind at a bar. In another, Microsoft canceled a much publicized line of phones two months after it introduced it. If you’d predicted either of these fascinating sagas a year ago, I would have chortled in contemptuous disbelief.
That said, the short-term future isn’t an utter mystery. Certain product lines follow predictable release schedules, some rumors come from reliable sources, and quite a few companies are already hyping hardware and software that won’t show up for months. It’s therefore possible to sketch out a fuzzy, incomplete — but still interesting — picture of next year’s tech developments right now.
iPad Rivals Galore
Industry types keep referring to an alleged “tablet market,” but for most of 2010, there has been only one real contender: Apple’s iPad. Competitor No. 2 — Samsung’s Galaxy Tab — arrived in November. Early 2011 is when the deluge starts. The vast majority of upcoming tablets will run the upcoming Honeycomb version of Google’s Android operating system. HP plans one based on webOS, which it bought along with the rest of Palm in 2010, and RIM is cooking up a new software platform for its BlackBerry PlayBook. I’m looking forward to the flurry of competition even though I’m skeptical that any tablet-come-lately will shove the iPad out of the spotlight anytime soon.
iPad, Take 2; iPhone, Take 5
Right now, it seems entirely possible that 2011’s most impressive advance on the iPad will be another iPad. Everyone is already assuming that Apple will release a second-generation model with a camera on the front for FaceTime video calls by the spring. And guessing that the company will ship a new iPhone in June or July almost doesn’t count as a prediction: it has done so every year since the first iPhone came out in 2007.
