Ok since it isn’t out yet, here are my three main predictions for what Apple will do, since everyone seems to be making predictions one of these will be announced at WWDC, and the others over the coming year:

iPod Nano phone

Cheap version maybe on Verizon / for Walmart. Also a Nano sized phone would look awesome and girls would love it. Especially if it is pink. Yep, that does sound sexist, but look what happened with the Pink Motorola V3. Unfortunately for the geeks, the fact is that design sells way more than features. There is a whole section of the market who don’t care about features at all as long as the phone looks cute, and feels nice in their pocket / handbag.

New iPhone 3G

Even though I firmly believe that features don’t sell phones, there will be a new iPhone 3G in response to the Palm Pre / others, with head to head competing features. The one area where a feature does sell is megapixels with cameras. Which is utterly ridiculous because all it means is that my mum sends me images that are way too big. With the age of sharing images on Facebook you don’t need or want high megapixels, and actually end turning on the ‘for web’ setting. Where Apple wins is usability. Usability trumps features.

Medium sized tablet

My Sony Vaio is excellent. You can’t travel with a PC that is bigger. But it is still too big. Often I use my iPhone (which I use alot, and haven’t made one call on it yet) instead, but it is still too small. So these two need to converge. And this is the Apple tablet, which will be less than half the size of my Vaio, and more than twice the size of my iPhone. Maybe an iPhone that you flip open with touch screens on both bits.

While I am at it, this is what sells handsets (in order)

• Design (external design – does it look and feel pretty, and not seem to plasticky. Also important here is what is cool. What does Paris Hilton have?)
• Usability (is it easy to use and not frustrating. In particular texting. For business users, this is important too, how to read, organise, search email easily. Better to have 3 features that are simple and usable, than 20 that are not usable)
• Price (what can you afford on what plan – what is being offered free. All manufacturers will need a low priced entry level handset to grab market and then move them through the range later)
• Features (the least important factor in my opinion. They have to have value and most importantly be easy to use. If I were in charge I would have as few features as you can get away with, but make them uber usable)