First Look at Reeder for Mac

I first learned about RSS (Really Simple Syndication) when Apple added a built-in reader to the Safari web browser. I used that for a while, but Safari as an RSS reader was quite cumbersome. I wanted my feeds to be more centralized and, most importantly, easy to read. This was a couple years back, and one of the more popular Mac RSS readers was NewsFire.

NewsFire is an attractive reader, but is updated rarely, and lately, many of my favorite sites I subscribe to haven’t been updating properly in NewsFire. Also, with the advent of the iPad, I have found I do enjoy to casually read easily digestible bits of information, such as blog posts and news articles on it. (For long-form reading, such as a novel, I still enjoy my Kindle). There are a wealth of iPad RSS readers on the App Store, but I wanted to have one on my Mac, too, as I do enjoy casually flipping through my feeds and exploring links on my Mac, too.

I had long heard about Google Reader, but I honestly find many of Google’s web app user interfaces to be hideous and not the easiest to use. I had also thought of using a Google Reader client such as NetNewsWire, but I just didn’t care for the app. So I stuck with NewsFire.

A couple days ago, a popular iPhone and iPad Google Reader client, aptly named Reeder debuted a beta for the Mac (the developer refers to it as a Draft. Kinda classy). I have instantly fallen in love with the Mac version, even though it isn’t feature complete yet.

First off, let’s start with the icon. There are two different ways Reeder for Mac can visually notify you of new items: the first is a Mail-style badge, and the second (my preferred style) is to have the number of new items displayed as part of the icon itself. That’s just classy, right there.

Next, Reeder has an almost papyrus texture to the user interface, even in the UI chrome at the top and bottom of the window. The left sidebar is defaulted to show icons, but can be dragged wider to switch to text. I prefer the text, honestly.

If you click on a link in Reeder’s viewing pane, the left sidebar shifts out of view, and the viewer expands and becomes an in-app browser. It’s a nice touch.

Reeder also has a good deal of services available such as Instapaper (my favorite), ReadItLater, Pinboard, Delicious, Zootool, Twitter, and the ability to email a link or open the article in your favorite browser.

The first draft of Reeder is off to a great start. I’d love to see three-finger swipe gestures added to move forward and backward through your new articles, just like you can use to move among your messages in Mail. You can bet that I’ll be requesting that feature.

I can’t wait to see how Reeder develops, and I have to wonder if the developer is aiming to debut it in the Mac App Store. I think it would be worthy of an Apple Design Award.

Twitterrific 4 for Mac is On Approach

The Iconfactory just dropped some knowledge on us mere mortals by teasing a screenshot of the upcoming Twitterrific 4 for Mac. Feast your eyes upon it:

Twitterrific 4 for Mac

Hardly any details have emerged other than Ollie’s triumphant return to the Mac will require Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. No word on price or release date.

Part of me is wondering if The Iconfactory might be holding off for the Mac App Store at this point. That would be understandable, but I want this app now.

Apple Goes Back to the Mac

Apple held its “Back to the Mac” shindig in Cupertino today. Here’s the new shiny.

iLife ‘11

Apple demoed major new features in iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand. iWeb and iDVD are still included, but it appears nothing has really changed for those two apps. This is the third iLife release in which iDVD has seen little-to-no love.

iPhoto gets a full-screen navigation mode, which looks very slick. Also, improved built-in email support, with templates; new slideshows; even better books (I’ve ordered books in the past as gifts. They’re fantastic); and letterpress cards. Letterpress is pretty fancy. Hard to believe you can get this from a computer company.

iMovie gets a neat movie trailer editor; impressive audio editing; one-step effects; people finder; and sports & news themes. With the much improved audio editor, it appears Apple’s revamp of iMovie in the 2008 edition has finally matured back to iMovie HD’s former glory.

GarageBand gets a new feature called Flex Time which helps keep various individual instrument tracks in rhythm. Also, Groove Matching takes a “genius” approach to match the rhythm of the whole band to a single rhythm. There are also guitar amps and effects; new basic lessons, and a “How Did I Play?” feature which tests your skills at playing a certain song.

iLife ‘11 is available today for $49, or comes free with a new Mac.

FaceTime for Mac

We all knew this day would come. FaceTime was first introduced with the iPhone 4. I found it useful when my wife was out of town for a week, but it hasn’t been used much since. Apple then brought FaceTime to the latest iPod touch last month, but I still haven’t been used the feature in a while. Now, with FaceTime for Mac, I have a feeling I’ll be video chatting from my iPhone a lot. Why? Grandparents. Both my parents and my wife’s parents have MacBooks, and we currently use iChat so they can see my son. The problem is that two year olds don’t sit still for long, and it’s hard to chase him with a MacBook Pro.

There’s no buddy list to maintain. FaceTime just pulls in your Address Book, just like the iPhone. FaceTime for Mac also installs a Push Notification bundle, so you can receive calls on your Mac even if FaceTime is closed.

Now the grandparents can do FaceTime with our iPhones. Now FaceTime is useful. Now FaceTime is mainstream.

FaceTime for Mac is available today as a public beta.

Lion

Apple introduced the next step of Mac OS X – Lion. To create iOS, Apple refashioned parts of Mac OS X. They learned a lot, made the iPad, and are now bringing what they learned from iOS back to the Mac. The main features they want to bring back from iOS are Multi-touch gestures, the App Store, App Home screens, full screen apps, auto save, & auto resume when launching.

Multi-Touch

On the Mac, multi-touch will take its focus on MacBook trackpads, the Magic Mouse, and the Magic Trackpad instead of the screen. They demoed using a Magic Mouse and an iMac, but honestly, I can’t see that being very comfortable. I use a Magic Trackpad with my MacBook Pro when at my desk (the Macbook is elevated on a stand), and I hope Apple just starts shipping those with iMacs in the near future.

The Mac App Store

Yesterday, I talked about a hope of mine for an easier installation and update process. Well, my wish has been granted, but in a way I didn’t really see happening. Apple is opening a Mac App Store within 90 days. It will be available on Snow Leopard, but I am sure it will be even more tightly integrated with Lion.

It makes sense for Apple to have a Mac App Store. I just figured they wouldn’t upset the status quo of obtaining software straight from developer’s websites. The truth is, after reading many developers’ tweets, is that markets change. The Mac App Store won’t be the only way to get Apps on your Mac (for now), but Apple says it will be the best.

That’s not hard to imagine. Their preview of the Mac App Store looks slick, and installation and updating Apps is as simple as iOS. This will be a big hit with users, who want simple.

I am a bit concerned about copy-protected apps. It even bothers me a bit on iOS. Copy-protection schemes always make me uncomfortable, especially when they come back to bite users.

Launchpad

Launchpad is a full screen grid of all your apps. They can be organized into separate home screens or grouped into iOS-like folders. It is very much the iOS 4 home screen brought to the Mac desktop.

Mission Control

Apple is unifying the abilities of Dashboard, Exposé, Spaces, and full-screen apps into a new feature called Mission Control. You navigate between different areas through swipe gestures. Looks like a great convergence and unification of already great features.

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion is slated to ship by the end of Summer 2011.

A MacBook and an iPad Hook Up…

Apple introduced a redesigned MacBook Air today, at 13.3- and 11.6-inch screen sizes. Apple bills it as the future of notebooks. The goal was to bring many great features of the iPad to MacBooks. These include “instant on,” great battery life, amazing standby time, and solid state storage (SSD).

Apple’s new MacBook Air boots in about 15 seconds, and has a 5-hour (11.6-inch) and 7-hour (13.3-inch) battery under normal use. Both models have a standby time of 30-days.

There isn’t an optical drive (though you can connect one via USB) nor a hard drive. Instead, Apple uses SSD for storage, just like its iPods, iPads, & iPhones.

The price ranges from $99 to $1,599, depending on model. I bet it goes higher if you customize the order.

The thing I love about the MacBook Air? The media on which its reinstallation software is stored. It’s a little Apple-branded USB drive.

MacBook Air USB Reinstallation Drive

I hope Lion comes on one of these instead of a DVD.

Thoughts

The new iPhoto looks compelling. I’ve been experimenting with Aperture, but I’m just not falling in love with it.

The Mac App Store dropped my jaw a little, more so because I didn’t think Apple would actually do it. But it makes a lot of sense. I imagine it will be great.

Lion looks amazing. I can’t wait until next summer.

The MacBook Air doesn’t thrill me much, but I am excited to see how it will influence the MacBook Pro line.

All in all, great event. The only disappointment was we didn’t see more of Lion.

Lions, MacBooks, Predictions! Oh My!

As I noted earlier, Apple’s Mac event is just a week away, and the invite is highly suggestive of two things:

  1. New Aluminum MacBook Pro’s and/or MacBook Air, and
  2. Mac OS X 10.7 Lion

The majority of the invite itself looks like the lid of a an aluminum Mac notebook, with the Apple logo freshly cut out (I’d love to get my hands on one of those scrap Apple logos). And then there is the lion peeking out. And let’s face it, I don’t think Apple will stick with the cat theme for Mac OS 11, so my bet is definitely on Mac OS X 10.7.

Needless to say, I have my hopes and dreams…

New Mac Portables

MacBook Pro

I suspect there will be slight refreshes to the MacBook Pro. Faster processors, bigger batteries, USB 3, and maybe even higher resolution screens (maybe even 16:9). Honestly, I wouldn’t mind if the Pro line took a page from the MacBook Air and moved the optical drive to an external accessory. I rarely use my optical drive, and would love to use that space for something else.

MacBook Air

The MacBook Air has always been an enigma to me — super light & portable but severely underpowered and overpriced. Also, with the 13-inch screen, a 13-inch MacBook Pro seems like a better investment.

For weeks there have been rumors that the Air may go to an 11.6-inch screen. I think this seems right. Shrink the screen, shed even more weight, give it the all-glass trackpad like the MacBook and MacBook Pros, and for crying out loud, figure out how to squeeze more than one USB port in the thing.

And hey, if the price can be chopped further, I think you may have something neat on your hands.

Lion

Whenever there is news of an upcoming major update to Mac OS X, I always find myself at a loss for what Apple could possibly add to make it better. And, of course, I am always blown away. Last time, for Snow Leopard, I was blown away by the cost — $29. Once installed, Snow Leopard blew my mind with the overall “super polished” responsiveness. Even though there wasn’t a great deal of new features, it was obvious there was a lot of refactoring under the hood.

For Lion, I can only fathom a couple things that seem like shoe-ins.

FaceTime

Apple’s giant drum to parade around this year is FaceTime. It’s in the iPhone 4 and the latest iPod touch. I also think it is going to be in the next iPad.

For years, we’ve had video calls in iChat on Mac OS X. However, right now, FaceTime isn’t getting a lot of my attention since I can’t do a video call with my relatives who don’t have an iPhone 4 or new iPod touch. Lion will likely change this. I bet iChat will gain FaceTime support for video calls to Apple’s mobile devices.

Hey, maybe Apple will give iChat a much needed facelift while they are at it.

Multi-Touch

Apple has been slowly adding Multi-Touch to the Mac over the years. Mostly, this has remained exclusive to Mac portables, but recently came to the desktop with the advent of the Magic Trackpad (which I love, by the way).

I think Apple will eventually bundle the Magic Trackpad with the iMac as the default pointing device, likely around Lion’s release, as I am sure it will utilize a fair amount of Multi-Touch interaction.

I am unsure how extensive Multi-Touch will permeate within Lion, but I’d wager it will be a foundational release to eventually move away from the traditional mouse for good.

iOS Integration

One thing I appreciate about my Mac apps that have iOS counterparts is the ability to sync their data via WiFi. The problem is that this is cumbersome. You have to launch the Mac app and the iOS app and have both devices on the same network in order for them to sync.

Some apps, such as 1Password have taken to using services like Dropbox to sync data cross device and cross platform, without requiring the user to do anything beyond the initial setup.

That is a much more fluid and transparent way of doing things. I hope Apple provides a method for developers to easily hook into a drop dead easy way to sync information from a Mac to an iOS device. Label this as hopeful.

MobileMe Included

Apple has been building a gigantic data center on the east coast for some time. I have long wondered if that was either for a streaming iTunes service, or for a free MobileMe. Overall, MobileMe is much better than .Mac, which it replaced, with one glaring exception – iDisk. It is slow and just plain doesn’t work all that well.

I’d really like to see iDisk get overhauled to be a lot like the aforementioned Dropbox. That would actually facilitate that iOS syncing integration pretty well.

My hope would be that MobileMe would move to being free with Lion, but I do actually feel like I get my $100 per year out of it. The advantage of making it free is that more users would adopt the technology, making for a leaner, cleaner experience. Also, iOS device owners on Windows may feel more inclined to have that seamless integration between Mac OS X and iOS.

UI Refresh

Undoubtedly, a major Mac OS X revision brings some fresh UI paint. Maybe I’m crazy, but iTunes always seems to be the forerunner for design choices that later find their way to Mac OS X. Particularly, I am think of the “traffic lights” going vertical, and the title bar possibly going by the wayside. It seems to work well in iTunes, though I am unsure how well the removal of the title bar would fare in other places, such as Safari (that is, unless, Tabs on Top finally made their reappearance).

I can definitely see the traffic lights going vertical. I’d bet a nickel on it.

iLife and iWork

Who knows, maybe we’ll see fully 64-bit updates and overhauls to Apple’s two famous software suites. I know I wouldn’t mind seeing both of these appear.

That’s my wish list and educated guesses.

Back to the Mac!

Back to the Mac

Apple just sent out invites to the press for an event on 20 October, pictured above. It simply says Back to the Mac, and shows a lion behind a slightly rotated Apple logo.

I’ll bet my money on a preview of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. Also, I’d wager speed bumps to the MacBook Pro line (it’s due) and that 11.6” MacBook Air redesign that has been in the rumor mills the past couple months.

I hope this event is live-streamed like the September iPod event was.

Tracking the Magic

Among updates to its line of Cinema Displays, iMacs, and Mac Pros earlier this week, Apple also introduced a new aluminum & glass clad input device — the Magic Trackpad

I just so happen to have picked one up, just to give you my impressions. If you’ve used any of Apple’s unibody MacBooks or MacBook Pros, you’d be familiar with the gorgeous glass multi-touch trackpad. The Magic Trackpad is essentially a larger version of that, powered by batteries and connected by bluetooth. The idea is that this brings all the current gestures currently available in OS X to desktop users.

Now, I’m a MacBook Pro user, so you may wonder why I’d even want this? Well, I use my MacBook Pro as a desktop replacement, and 90% of the time, it is on a Griffin Elevator on my desk, in order to bring the screen in line of my eyes. Hence, I also have been using Apple’s aluminum wireless keyboard and the Magic Mouse.

The Magic Mouse brought the ability to use two fingers to go back/forward a page in Safari, iPhoto, or other app with gesture support, whereas the built in trackpad on my MacBook Pro was capable of so much more, especially initiating Exposé, something I use often.

Needless to say, I loved, and do still love, the Magic Mouse, but its multi-touch support was limited at best.

Enter the Magic Trackpad into my life. Now there is no need to adjust my muscle memory for gestures on supported peripherals. They are the same whether I am using my MacBook Pro at my desk or in a coffee shop. To be honest, I have been craving this same functionality ever since I ran across this mockup on Flickr.

Now, a bigger question. Why would Apple even make this? Well, if you know anything at all about Apple, it is obvious that everything in their product line is there for a reason. Everything has a specific reason for being there. Regarding the Magic Mouse and now the Magic Trackpad, I look at it this way: The Magic Mouse was used to introduce many desktop mac users to multi-touch in OS X. It is essentially the “missing link” — a hybrid between the past and the future. The Magic Trackpad then unifies the portable and desktop lines in order to make all of the same gestures available to all Mac users. 

But to what end? Well, my guess is the next major version of the Mac OS — presumably Mac OS X 10.7 — will have a predominant focus on bringing multi-touch across most of the system. iMacs already ship with the wireless keyboard and Magic Mouse as the standard. Would it really be surprising to see that change to the wireless keyboard and the Magic Trackpad as the standard by the time 10.7 rolls around? 

Also, Apple is notorious for throwing out things that they feel are obsolete. Floppy disks, anyone? I believe Apple thinks that multi-touch is the input method for the future. That is really evident in the iPhone and iPad. However, traditional keyboard & mouse computers aren’t going to disappear overnight, but Apple could make a significant push towards moving millions of people to multi-touch by putting the mouse on the back burner, and including trackpads as the default for desktop computers.

Overall, I am very impressed with the Magic Trackpad. For me, it seamlessly unifies the mobile and desktop experience of a Mac. And I think it is a preparation of things to come in Mac OS X.

Quicken Essentials for Mac

Quicken has long been the standard of personal finance for the better part of the last 15 years. If you wanted to digitally keep track of your finances, Quicken was the first name you heard of. Quicken for Windows remains, from what I’ve heard, the gold standard. However, the Mac version had long been put out to pasture with the last version, Quicken 2007, having been released in the Summer of 2006.

 I’ve been using Quicken 2004 for Mac since, well, 2004, because the “upgrades” (read $70 bug fixes) just weren’t justifiable in the 2005, 2006, and 2007 versions. Then, in January 2008, there was the promise of Quicken Financial Life for Mac, with a ship date of Fall 2008. This was to be a rewrite of Quicken for Mac that sport a fresh user interface and finally bring Intel native code.

Sadly, that ship date kept being pushed back again and again. I even started to contemplate alternatives to Quicken, but ended up deciding to just stick with my decrepit 2004 version. Then in October 2009, Quicken bought Mint.com, and put Mint’s head honcho, Aaron Patzer, in charge of the Quicken team. He promptly ousted the much-delayed Quicken Financial Life and put his Mac-savvy Mint team on the job to compile the essentials of finance tracking in a built-from-the-ground up Cocoa version of Quicken for the Mac. And they did it in four months.

Today we realize the culmination of that fresh outlook on financing in Quicken Essentials for Mac. Now, it truly is just the essentials, but it’s the essentials done right. It lacks stock-lot accounting, bill pay, and TurboTax export, among a few other things, I’m sure. However, if all you need is to get a hold of your spending and create a budget then QEM should fit right in for you. 

I’ll admit, I was extremely skeptical about QEM for the past couple months when looking at the multitude of failures and delays of Quicken Financial Life. What really sold me was Aaron Patzer, formerly of Mint, now VP and general manager of Intuit’s personal finance group, getting out and talking to just about any major Mac site that would listen. Keep in mind that he came in to the fray in October 2009. Here’s an excerpt from Macworld:

“When I came in, I looked at the Mac product and said, ‘Holy crap, we haven’t put one of these out in three years,’” Patzer said. “It’s called ‘Mac Essentials’ because it’s got the essential features used by 80 percent of the users we’ve surveyed and talked to. So we had to decide, do we want to put a product out that serves 80 percent of the market and is a vast improvement in so many ways, or do we delay it again? And what I thought was, given the growing popularity of the Mac platform… it was better to get a product out that’s good for 80 percent of the market.”

 Also:

Patzer says that you’ll see more similarities to Mint.com in the desktop Quicken products. Patzer says he “personally specced out” Quicken for Windows 2011. “Over time, you’ll start to see features and functionality for all the platforms come together. It shouldn’t matter if you’re using Mac, PC, iPhone, Android, or online” when it comes to features and data availability. Apps should have a native appearance, he said, but the underlying data structures will be the same and it should be easy to go from using a desktop app to the online service and back again.

It’s obvious to me that Intuit, the maker of Quicken, saw that they were stagnant. When they bought Mint.com, I thought for sure they did so just to kill it off, as it competed with Quicken Online. Instead, the company tossed Quicken Online in the bin, and embraced Mint.com as its replacement. It sounds like they gave the Mint people carte blanche over all of Quicken. It also sounds like the fresh blood has a vision for the future, and it is that vision that persuaded me to embrace Quicken Essentials for Mac.

Whether or not you decide to adopt Quicken Essentials is primarily based on whether you are an 80 or a 20. Thankfully, I fall in the 80 percent of the user base. I leave my investments to my brokerage site, and I like the web interface that provides. So I didn’t feel the need to continue on with Quicken 2004 and wait for another year or two.

Thankfully, my grandpa has Quicken 2006 and I was able to use iChat’s Screen Sharing and my iDisk to convert my 2004 file. From there, QEM worked like a charm.

A Few Predictions on the "Tablet" Event

I’ve wrestled with the idea of posting any predictions on the forthcoming Apple Event that takes place in less than 48 hours, but I am caving to tradition. This is just something most any writer who writes about Apple has to do. I don’t have anything to back anything up besides my gut feelings. I’m really just spitballing with a best guess.

The order of events to an Apple keynote, especially a Jobsnote (love having you back, Steve), is a pretty timeless and standard affair. Everything will start by recapping a lot of market data for the Mac, iPod, and iPhone. Apple will tout the financial numbers which are being released later today.

Mac announcements will come first, if there are any. I’m expecting a cursory announcement of iLife and iWork 2010 (or whatever they decide to call it) with some brief demonstrations of the latest enhancements. I’m thinking only iPhoto and iMovie will see demos. I have absolutely no idea what could be added. Expect both suites to go fully 64-bit.

iTunes will be after that. There will be a new feature or two added. I’m hoping that the rumors of all-you-can-eat streaming TV shows come to fruition. If that happens, and the Apple TV gets a hardware refresh to support 1080p, I’m there. I’ve been looking for an excuse to drop cable TV and TiVo (combined, they are just too expensive). $30 or $40 a month would be perfect. I must say, though, I don’t really see this happening. I do see iTunes getting one or two new features, and they’ll likely tie into the iPod and iPhone.

iPod announcements will follow iTunes, and the iPod touch is going to get most of the spotlight (all 3-5 minutes of it). The gist of it will be the announcement of iPhone OS 3.2, which will support whatever new features iTunes brings.

Following that, the iPhone will get a nod, with iPhone OS 3.2 coming for it as well, natch. Here’s where I play my wild card. AT&T will lose it’s US exclusivity on iPhone. Now, I expect this to be more announcement oriented, rather than immediate availability. I expect the iPhone will simply be available this summer on T-Mobile, the other GSM carrier in the States. But I know most are hoping Apple releases a CDMA iPhone for use on Verizon (and maybe Sprint). And this could be the stage to announce that for summer availability. Either way, or even both ways, AT&T will lose exclusivity. I’m calling that one, and I’ll eat crow if it doesn’t happen.

Lastly, and this will be the most lengthy part (I’m counting 30-minutes for everything else, an hour for this), the mythical “tablet” will finally be unveiled. There’s so many delusions surrounding this thing’s hype that it’s laughable. I’m keeping my predictions light. The hardware will look similar to an overgrown iPhone or iPod touch. I mean, realistically, imagining much beyond a giant piece of glass with a metal and/or plastic back, with as few buttons as possible isn’t much of a stretch. But the secret will lie in the software. That’s what is beautiful about multi-touch input — there isn’t a lot of limit on the user interface. I think the software will be more closely related to iPhone OS than Mac OS X, but it will be its own branch off the OS X root, much like iPhone OS was.

I think it will be revolutionary. I don’t think any of us have come close to what it will do or how it will fit in with our computing lifestyles. I do think that we’ll all say, “That makes sense” after Steve explains it to us.

I just hope it has a cool name like Canvas. I’ll slap my forehead if its name is iSlate or iPad.

WWDC 2009: A Parade of Awesome!

Three days ago, Apple held the keynote address of its Worldwide Developer’s Conference, and all I have to say is that it was a Parade of Awesome! That’s all I have to say. You can go about your regularly scheduled browsing now. I’m kidding! Of course I have the interesting highlights for you.

I waited to write this until I had time to watch the keynote video, as I prefer to get my source material first-hand, instead regurgitating all the other blogs. Call me old-fashioned.

The first thing that caught my attention was when Phil Schiller, Senior VP of Worldwide Product Marketing, said that the number of active OS X users in 2007 was 25 million people and that number in 2009 is 75 million users. That is a lot of growth. Apple’s doing pretty well.

This post got pretty long, so I’m inserting a jump here for visitors to the main page.

Predictions: WWDC 2009

wwdc09_badgeApple is hosting its annual World-Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) next week at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California. The company’s Senior VP of Worldwide Product Marketing, Phil Schiller, will lead the executive team through the keynote presentation on Monday, June 8th.

Seeing as how that is just under a week away, I figured now would be a good time for me to weigh in on my predictions for what will happen at the keynote.

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard & iPhone OS 3.0


Snow Leopard

It is a very safe bet that we will see both Mac OS X Snow Leopard and iPhone OS 3.0 at WWDC. Apple said as much in its WWDC press release.

So far, the general public hasn’t received a great deal of concrete information about Snow Leopard from Apple itself. The things we can expect for sure at this point are a full 64-bit OS; Microsoft Exchange support in Mail, iCal, and Address Book; QuickTime X; “Grand Central” – a technology that will make Mac OS X completely multicore aware; and OpenCL (Open Computing Language), which will allows applications to tap into the GPU for added computing power.

Overall, that’s a lot of geeky under-the-hood stuff that end users won’t explicitly see (but they’ll probably notice their computers become a lot more powerful). Apple said at last year’s WWDC that Snow Leopard wouldn’t introduce any new end-user features (like Exposé in 10.3, Dashboard in 10.4, or QuickLook, Spaces, and Time Machine in 10.5). Instead, Apple is using Snow Leopard to further refine the newest foundations within 10.5 Leopard.

Traditionally, Apple has charged $129 for major OS X versions. I surely know this because I have shelled out for 10.3, 10.4, and 10.5. Without some features that the marketing department can use to flash in end-user’s faces, I don’t know if Apple will be able to sell many people on 10.6. At least, not at $129, especially in this economic climate.

So either Apple will offer it for less, or they will have to add in something that is marketable to the masses. The rumor mill has been purporting that Snow Leopard will introduce an overhauled User Interface code-named “Marble.” This is quite possible, however, I am really liking the current Leopard UI. The only change I would really like to see to the UI is to get rid of the dated Aqua scrollbars and progress bars found in many apps (like Safari). Instead, replace them with the blue-ish grey scrollbars from iTunes, iPhoto, and iMovie.

I predict there will be some new UI paint, a surprise feature that Apple just couldn’t resist adding, and that Snow Leopard will sell for $99. We’ll also get a shipping date, my guess is around September.

iPhone OS 3.0

The new and improved iPhone OS will be the key feature of the keynote. Expect to see lots of third-party developer demos to ad nauseam. We’ll also see all the features we saw at the March SDK event, again.

I also think we’ll see some new features of OS 3.0 that will be exclusive to new iPhone hardware, which I will discuss in the next section.

Of course, we’ll get a final ship date on this as well. If I would have written this yesterday I would have guessed the ship date would coincide with the new iPhone hardware release (currently rumored for July 17). But, my mind changed today, and I think we’ll see iPhone OS 3.0 on all current iPhones within a couple of weeks.

Why? iTunes 8.2 was released today. For the past few betas of iPhone OS 3.0, a pre-release version of iTunes 8.2 was required to activate iPhones and iPods touch running the beta firmware. With iTunes 8.2 being in the wild now, and one of the key features listed was compatability with iPhone OS 3.0, I just think Apple is planning to release 3.0 very, very soon.

Also, Apple has been requiring that all apps submitted to the App Store be compatible with 3.0 for weeks now. I imagine this means ,most developers have already submitted, or are planning to very soon, apps that meet that requirement.

Finally, there is the snafu from last year’s iPhone OS 2.0 launch. Talk about a disaster. Last year, in case you don’t remember, Apple released the iPhone 3G, iPhone OS 2.0, the App Store, and MobileMe all on one day. And it was a complete meltdown. Apple rarely makes the same mistake twice.

I think this time around we’ll see iPhone OS 3.0 launch ahead of the new iPhone hardware. And I think we’ll see it within two weeks. Three at the latest.

A New iPhone

I’m not sure anyone doubts that there will be new iPhone hardware soon. The rumor mill has been flipping rampant with spy shots and the like. My thoughts on the matter are that the new iPhone will have come in 16- and 32-GB capacities, at the $199 and $299 price points, respectively. The 8GB model may stick around at a more budget-friendly $149, but I’m pretty skeptical about that.

Also, I think the new iPhone will have the rumored 3.2 megapixel auto-focus camera, be video-capable, and have a magnometer (digital compass). Also, I think the flavor of iPhone OS 3.0 that comes on these devices will have added functionality in the Camera and Maps apps to leverage these technologies.

It’s likely a safe bet to assume that the device will sport a faster processor and more memory. Furthermore, many of the spy shots have focused on the back casing of the device, showing a plastic matte finish. I’m hoping so, for better grip and resistance to scratches.

Lastly, I have more of a hope than a prediction. On MacBreak Weekly 142, Scott Bourne said he had a couple sources within Verizon, one being high-level within the company, who said that Verizon would be getting an iPhone and that it would be announced in June. Now, AT&T is pretty decent in Lincoln, NE, where I live. But it is currently non-existent in South Dakota, where I’m from. So my iPhone becomes pretty useless as a phone when I visit family. If Verizon were to get the iPhone, I’d be finding a way out of my AT&T contract pretty quickly.

Granted, AT&T has announced they are coming to South Dakota in 2010-2011, but that’s quite some time away. And who knows what kind of coverage they’ll have. Judging from their overall coverage of Nebraska, it doesn’t look great. Outside of Omaha, Lincoln, and their surrounding communities, AT&T is pretty absent from the Cornhusker State.

Verizon’s coverage is nearly ubiquitous in the Midwest, and pretty much everywhere in the contiguous United States. Yes, this would mean Apple would have to make a CDMA iPhone in addition to a GSM iPhone, but I would think the amount of customers they would pick up in the US would make it worth it.So yes, I am really wishing for a Verizon iPhone.

Tablet Device

I think Apple is working on something like an oversized iPod touch to answer the netbook market, but I don’t think we’ll see it on Monday. I honestly think it would get a special media event all to itself.

MacBook Pro/MacBook Speed Bumps

I think we’ll see some speed bumps on the unibody notebooks. However, they’ll either get one slide in the keynote or be relegated to a post-keynote press release.

The Triumphant Return of Steve Jobs

I think Phil Schiller will do a One More Thing™ and that will be to welcome Steve Jobs back from his medical leave. I think Jobs’ stage time will be brief and at the end, but I think he’ll be up there nonetheless.

That’s all I have for predictions and hopes/dreams. We’ll see on June 8th!

If you have any thoughts, please leave them in the comments.