It’s the eve of WWDC and what would it be without a few predictions? Here are the things that I expect to see for iOS at WWDC this year:
Syncing and OS updates with iTunes. This one really seems like a no brainer to me. I figure I’ll at least have one thing right on this list with this one.
OpenCL support. Apple didn’t increase the GPU power as much as they did with the iPad 2 simply for gaming. I would be surprised if iOS 5 doesn’t have OpenCL support for at least the A5, possibly the A4 as well.
Even better multimedia APIs. This is one area where iOS has a huge lead over Android, IMO. And I don’t think that Apple will sit still to allow them to catch up. Looking particularly for more encoding APIs, even better access to the iPod library (ability to add content, more content types, etc) and hopefully better integration with the audio controls — I would like it if 3rd party apps could show metadata as well, like title, artist and album artwork.
iCloud APIs With the introduction of iCloud, I would expect Apple to provide APIs for apps to use for synchronizing across devices and to access the user’s iDisk (or whatever it gets renamed to) storage.
Participation in Back To My Mac. If the rumors are correct about the new TIme Capsules playing a major role in wireless sync, they are almost certainly using Wide Area Bonjour to allow the devices to find those Time Capsules. Which means that the iOS clients should also be able to see the Macs as well. In fact, I’ll go for a bit of a stretch here and say that iTunes Home Sharing will also be extended to use Wide Area Bonjour and that the iOS clients will also be able to see those machines from anywhere on the Internet as well. But I doubt that Apple will talk much about that since for the average user, uploading the music to a server that is always up is a better solution than having a Mac running 24/7 in their home or office.
More privacy settings. If Apple has learned anything from the recent location-gate, it’s that giving users more control over their privacy is a good thing. Right now iOS notifies you when your location data is being requested. I would like to see this extended to Address Book data as well. I don’t want to find out that an app accessed my contacts and used them to build a database of email addresses for spam. Give me the option to deny an app access to my contacts, just as we already can for location.
Just over 24 hours away and we’ll find out if I got anything right on this list. I’m certainly hoping for a few off this list.
[EDIT: I realized that I forgot my “one-more-thing” prediction — App development for the Apple TV. This is clearly a device intended for much more than Apple currently allows it to do. An Apple TV app store is almost a given at some point. Perhaps this year’s WWDC is that point.]
