Since the rest of the web is still stuck in the mire of debating the success of the iPad launch, I thought I’d get ahead and issue some bold, baseless, predictions on its future.
The rollout will be successful. In 55 days, the debates about Flash and built-in cameras will have been exhausted, and everyone will be focused on the restricted availability and long lines at the Apple store. All engineered of course. There will be a new media blitz, with celebrity endorsements, ads, and buzz. Apple will have sold 4-5 million iPads by the end of 2010.
Business apps will be a sleeper hit. By rollout time, all essential iPhone apps would have been ported over to the iPad. The new crop of iPad-optimized apps that developers are cramming on over the next 2 months will take center stage. There will be a surprising number of new business applications, centered around communication and collaboration. You will be able to work with your existing PC documents with iWork or some OpenOffice port. The iPad will be better than a notebook for attending meetings (especially boring ones). By the end of the year, every collar-propping CEO will be sporting an iPad.
In 2011, Apple will launch the MacTouch line. Think of an iMac as an angled multi-touch surface. No more keyboard or mouse; A truly one-piece device. What could possibly be more elegant than that? The MacTouch OS will be based on OSX (OSXI?) and can run OSX apps, but it has a built-in iPad emulator, so it runs all native iPad software. It will also have new APIs that make it easy to port existing OSX apps (i.e. Photoshop) to the new multi-touch platform.
Thus will complete Apple’s dominance in multi-touch technology, with which they would have made some inroads into the business space.
* Disclaimer: I probably already own some Apple stock in some mutual fund, so you would be foolish to base any investment decisions just on this blog, or any other.