OK, we all now know it won’t actually be called the Apple iPhone, and we all know it’s going to be announced in January, but we still don’t know what this mythical device will actually look like, nor what features it will have.
The latest rumours suggest an extremely small form factor, using two batteries (with single charger) – one for playing music, the other for phone functions – with two models, each featuring 4GB and 8GB of flash memory respectively ($249 for the 4GB model, $449 for the 8GB version). We can also expect a slide-out keyboard and possibly a touchscreen.
Those are the latest rumours, but there’s still no confirmation of the phone from Apple. But if it’s not released in 2007, it’ll never be released, and with mobile phones muscling in on the iPod’s market, the chances of Apple not producing a mobile phone of some form are minimal at best.
Well, I think that’ll do for now! What started off as a short list of my ten predictions for 2007 seems to have grown into the longest post I’ve ever written for this site! Some of these are rumour, some conjecture, but a lot of these predictions will come true in some form or another.
2007 would seem to be the year that the mobile phone is completely transformed, both in terms of its features, the services it can use, its connectivity, the cost of that connectivity, and the way it interoperates with the gadgets around it.
The way we use the mobile phone, and its impact on society and our lifestyles, will change enormously, as it takes centre-stage in an increasingly technologically-dependent society. If you thought 2006’s phones were good, you ain’t seen nothing yet!
[Sources: ZDnet, Cnet, PhoneScoop, HowardForums, EngadgetMobile, Esato, DLNA]