Tag: iPad

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My Apple Predictions. 2012 edition

Last year I published a list Apple predictions and I will post a complete score card. However, some of my predictions can not be judged until Apple announces its first quarter results on January 24th. I will however provide my 2012 predictions now.

iPad
The iPad 3 will be announced February 28th and released March 16th. The iPad 3 will include a Retina Display with a resolution of 2048×1536. The case will largely look like the current iPad but Apple will introduce colors (again) like the iPod Nano and possibly patterns like the old Flower Power and Blue Dalmatian iMacs.

The cellular equipped iPad 3 will come with LTE radios in addition to the 3g and 2g radios they currently have. The large battery capacity of the iPad will make this luxury a possibility even though the iPhone 5 will lag behind with 3g.

The iPad 3 will also have the new quad-core A6 processor and get the same battery life as the current iPad except when using the LTE radio.

The memory options will remain16, 32, and 64 gb. This will be the last iOS device to include the 30 pin dock connector. The iPad 3 will get Siri. Prices will remain the same.

The current iPad 2 will continue as a discount model to fight the Kindle Fire and what-ever 7 inch piece of crap Eric Schmidt is talking about. The iPad 2 will only be available in 16 gb, but will still be available with WiFi or WiFi +cellular. The iPad 2 will be priced at $349 for the WiFi version and $479 for the WiFi +cellular

In addition to Verizon and AT&T, Sprint will get both iPads. Sprint will introduce a discounted price that bundles the wireless internet for your phone and iPad in order to solidify its position as the bargain wireless plan.

Last year I estimated cumulative sales of 65 million iPads (total of 2010 and 2011 iPad sales). Barring a total sales frenzy over this past Christmas I’m was a wee bit optimistic, with cumulative sales coming in closer to 54 million (that assumes iPad sales of 14 million in the Christmas quarter, 90% more than last Christmas, and 30% more than previous quarter). I am going to predict sales of 60 million iPads in 2012.

iPhone
The iPhone 5 will be introduced in September and go on sale two weeks later. The message of the design is durability. Apple will use the same nano-coating that Motorola used on the RAZR to make it more water repellant. Apple will brand this with a unique name and claim it to be a major breakthrough.

Continuing with the theme of durability, Apple will abandon the 30-pin dock connector and seal the entire body of the phone. All data connections will need to be done wirelessly. A new MagSafe-like connector will be introduced for charging. Additionally the iPhone will lose the glass back, and it will be replaced with an aluminum one like on the iPad.

NFC will be added to go along with an  electronic wallet system called iCash. This will be linked to your iTunes account.

The phone will be slightly thinner than the iPhone 4, but will largely have the same form factor. There will not be a tear-drop shaped design. The screen size remains 3.5 inches. Like the iPad 3, it will be released in multiple colors. The rear camera gets better, the device gets thinner, the phone receives the quad core A6. 

With the introduction of the iPhone 5, the iPhone 4S is only offered with 16 gb and moves down to $99. The 8 gb iPhone 4 becomes the free offering in developed countries and the 3GS soldiers on as the price leader in emerging economies.

Last year I predicted Apple would sell 65 million iPhones. As of September 1, Apple has sold 56 million and analysts are expecting 30 million in the Christmas quarter, for a total of 86 million iPhones. So I blew that. 86 million represents an increase of 181% over 2010, which was an 189% increase over 2009 which was an increase of 183% over 2008. I’m going to guess that iPhone sales continue this incredible streak and grow by 180% in 2012 so that is 154 million. My official guess is 160 million iPhones in 2012 (that seems totally insane given that Apple has cumulative sales of 146 million iPhones as of September 2011).
Data from Asymco. 
iPods
After a stale year with no changes besides a white iPod touch the iPod line gets a significant revision.
In October, a month after the iPhone announcement, Apple will unveil the new iPod lineup. It’s tag line will be something like “Something big. Something small.” The iPod Nano is the something small. It adopts iOS and becomes the smallest general purpose computer. Like the iPhone it will lose the 30-pin doc connector while gaining WiFi and bluetooth. Apple will open the Nano to a specialized corner of the App with simple single function apps that incorporate voice control and feedback. The Nano will also gain a front and rear facing camera. Yes I know this is exactly what I predicted a year ago, but in the grand-tradition of Apple prognostication, I wasn’t wrong, just a year too early.
The iPod touch goes big. It gains a 4 or 4.5 inch screen and is marketed as a game machine and Kindle competitor. It bumps up to the A5 processor and remains just as thin as the current device. The front face gains multiple colors but the back remains polished stainless steel. It also loses the 30-pin dock connector. All of those sightings of a teardrop shaped, 4-inch screened iPhone 5 from last summer were actually early proto-types of the 2012 iPod Touch. 
Apple offers an iPod Touch with a cellular radio for the first time, just like in the iPad. The data rates are also identical to the iPad. No LTE option. Prices: 
  • 8 gb   WiFi $229 
  • 32 gb WiFi $329        WiFi + Cellular $399 
  • 64 gb WiFi $429        WiFi + Cellular $499 

iOS
iOS 6 is announced at WWDC in June and roles out to all iOS devices in September a week before the introduction of the iPhone 5. The marque feature of iOS6 is Siri which becomes available on the iPhone 4, iPod 4th Generation and all three iPads. Siri leaves beta and opens up to allow limited third party software access to new voice and speech APIs. TV shows and movies get the iCloud experience and can be downloaded repeatedly. FaceTime over 3g.
Macintosh
The big story of 2011 is the repositioning of the MacBook Pro line. After the MacBook Air displaced the MacBook in 2011, it will set its sights on the iconic MacBook Pro. The MacBook Pro 13 inch will disappear entirely. The 15 and 17 inch will remain.
The Macbook Air line will add a 15 inch model. The MacBook Airs will begin to offer a cellular modem option.

MacPro will get updated without fanfare in March. Despite much handwringing, this will not be the final update of the tower mac which continues to serve a small, but influential, sliver of the Macintosh family. 
Apple will introduce a cloud back up service which will move Time Machine from a spare drive on your desk to one of Apple’s data centers. This will be a pay-to-play service: one year of back-up will be provided with new machines and it will be $100 per year after that.

Throughout 2012 there is not a peep about the next version of OS X.

Apple TV

Apple introduces a revamped Apple TV at WWDC and it goes on sale in September. It remains the little iOS box that is currently sold with a bigger processor and a new version of the OS and Siri. An iOS device running iOS 6 will be required to act as the microphone for Siri. It will also gain the ability to add apps from the iTunes App Store. The Apple TV Set will also be introduced in June for a September or October role out. The Apple TV set (iPanel?) will not offer any significant feature beyond the Apple TV. However, it will come bundled with a 7 inch iPad to act as a remote control, game controller and auxiliary screen. Additionally, any iPhone, iPad and iPod running iOS will be able to duplicate the functions of this uber-remote.

Apple

Apple will spill some of their massive war chest to lock-up exclusive content deals. This will include sports, movies and original content. They will continue to purchase small engineering-focussed companies but no other major merger.

Tim Cook will remain the CEO and there will be a steady trickle of VPs leaving the company for other CEO positions. Names that will stay include Cook, Cue, Ive and Schiller. Forstall, Mansfield are among the Veeps who may move on.

A lot of companies might try to entice the architect of the iPhone to be their top guy and with a young Tim Cook (born 1960) secure as CEO, an ambitious Forstall might make the jump. Can you imagine Scott Forstall being tapped to replace Ballmer at Microsoft?

With the release of the new Apple TV the stock will be seriously goosed. I expect a 52-week high of $667 and the stock to close 2012 at $605.
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Steve, you put a dent in the universe

The link is to  Apple.com
Google, keeping it classy
jonathon mak

Brian Lam on Steve Jobs during the lost iPhone 4 story
Flags at 1 Infinite Loop
Steve and wife, Laurene, after his last product introduction, WWDC 2011 iCloud 

John Siracusa’s touching remembrance


In the official version Richard Dreyfus is the narrator. I had never heard this version with Steve at the mike.

Egg Freckles is a Apple website, the term is from a Doonesbury comic poking fun at the Newton’s terrible handwriting recognition.

Gruber, always subtle, changes the background of Daring Fireball to a darker, almost black, grey.

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And the baby with the baboon heart. Or It’s an iPad world

I was giving my cardiorenal syndrome lecture on Friday and during the question and answer session one of the residents asked why furosemide drips were more effective than boluses. I explained about the results from this Cochrane review and this recent RCT. Unfortunately I had not read the table of contents from this weeks NEJM:
So of course one of the interns mentions the article and asked if I had read it. I copped to the truth but what happened next was incredible. Across the lecture room I could see dozens of iPads flick to life as nearly everyone started pulling up NEJM.org to check out the latest.

Medicine is magical and magical is art
The Boy in the Bubble
And the baby with the baboon heart

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The iPad needs a content creation system

The iPad is screaming out for a system to make interactive content designed for that intimate touch based user interface.

Powerpoint is a computerization of the old-fashioned photographic slide. This metaphor is continued down to the presentations being called decks. The iPad needs a presentation software as slick and versatile as Powerpoint and Keynote are but is constantly aware that the audience is a single person rather than a room. With that knowledge of an audience of one the program should explode interactivity.

Audience response systems can be grafted on to slide decks but questions and interactivity should really be central to the iPad presentation experience. Change the presentation from a slide show to an exploration.

I don’t think it was a coincidence that Steve Job reminded everyone of HyperCard during his interview with Walt Mossberg at the D conference. I don’t think it was deliberate name dropping but rather he had been spending a lot of time thinking about the strengths and weaknesses of that technology because he is guiding and overseeing the development of a similar technology to be authored on Macintosh’s and consumed on iPads.

This program should be akin to Garageband, iDVD and Keynote. Consumer grade software that allows an amateur to produce pro-level documents. Imagine using an interactive iPad program is the followng situations:

  • Teachers could produce class room materials, such as course packs, lab manuals or study guides
  • Restaurants could develop menus with wireless ordering
  • Conferences could create on-the-fly lecture notes with interactive commenting

All of this could be done with Objective-C but the idea would be to expand the market of content creators from sophisticated programmers to the entire universe of knowledge workers. Done right this would create an explosion of iPad specific content. and hopefully relieve med students of the endless dreary morning reports and noon conferences.

Reading David Pogues review of Google App Inventor, it sounds like Google stumbled out of the gate. Let’s see if this rumor is Apple’s counter punch.

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Apple CEO Steve Jobs Live at D8

6:59 pm: Walt asks if Apple knew it would build a tablet before it built the iPhone.

Jobs: “I’ll tell you a secret. It began with the tablet. Jobs first charged his staff with developing a tablet, but after seeing their first efforts decided the way to go was a phone. “My God, I said, this would make a great phone … so we shelved the tablet and built the iPhone.”

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iGot an iPad

I got a 3g model on Friday and I’m still trying to figure out what I’m going to use it for. How/if am I going to incorporate it into teaching.

Today we had a patient with rhabdomyolysis. The UpToDate card, Clinical features and prevention of heme pigment-induced acute tubular necrosis, has this to say about bicarbonate and mannitol:

In a large series of 382 patients with serum CK concentration >5000 U/L, 154 (40 percent) were treated with bicarbonate and mannitol [33]. There was no statistically significant difference in the incidence of renal failure (creatinine >2.0 mg/dL [177 micromol/L]; 22 versus 18 percent), dialysis (7 versus 6 percent), or death (15 versus 18 percent) in patients who were or were not treated with bicarbonate and mannitol. However, there was a trend toward improved outcomes in patients with extremely high CK levels (>30,000 U/L) treated with bicarbonate and mannitol. 

Reference 33 is the primary reference for one of my first blog posts. We started talking about this study on rounds, but the crap machines in the ICU didn’t have Flash or PDF support. I ended up downloading the PDF on my iPhone and four of us passed it around to look at some of the figures. The iPad doesn’t have flash but it does a beautiful job rendering PDFs. I have the article in Papers which does an awesome job at holding and organizing my entire medical library.

Basic review of Papers

Papers is iTunes for scientific Papers. It is the modern equivalent to the file cabinet you always wanted for all the important scientific articles that fall into your grubby little hands. My computer is littered with literally hundreds of scientific articles. What you want to do is throw them all into Papers.

To understand the power of Papers, let’s look at the workflow for getting a PDF into Papers and onto the iPad. After downloading reference 33, drag it into Papers. It initially looks like this:

Then you click on Match and quickly find the article’s reference in PubMed or Google Scholar or another database. To do this I copied the author’s name and entered the year of publication.

After you double click the correct reference all of the meta-data quickly populates the appropriate fields so the you have all the data you need.
Papers even renames the original file, so your reference article folder is organized with logically named files.
To sync your library between your Mac and iPad, just run Papers on both devices simultaneously and it will synchronize your entire Library or specified subset (actually, it is limited to 1,000 articles). Syncing occurs over wifi.

On the iPad, when you launch Papers, you are in the Library.

Search on bicarbonate and you find a couple of articles on the use of bicarbonate to prevent contrast nephropathy, one on its use to treat severe metabolic acidosis, and one on its use to prevent the renal complications rhabdomyolysis…bingo!

Once you have the article you can read it in landscape with some of the meta data revealed or portrait for a more paper-like experience
Papers allows you to annotate, bookmark and share the article
 

Papers also works on the iPhone but after using it I thought it was a bit of a gimmick, I didn’t really want my PDF library on a 3.5 inch screen. The iPad makes a perfect partner for the desktop app. I’m very excited about this.

Papers for MacOS is $42.00, the iPhone/iPad application is $14.99.

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Turning PDFs into ePubs

Here is a site which tells you how to convert HTML files into ePubs so they can be used in Stanza or (presumably) iBooks so they can be used on an iPad.

Here is a site that purports to convert PDFs into ePubs but it didn’t work with the one I tried.

Anyone with any experience doing this?