Apple has announced a free replacement of the Ultracompact USB Power Adapter, which is sold together with the iPhone 3G in some countries or seperate optional accessory. According to the company, the new ultracompact Apple USB power adapter’s metal prongs can break off and remain in a power outlet under cetain conditions, creating a risk of electric shock.


Affected countries are listed on this list, you can either order a replacement adapter via the website or exchange your adapter at an Apple Retail Store starting on October 10. Check the detail here

Nissan Motor, NTT DOCOMO and Sharp announced today that they have jointly developed a mobile phone capable of functioning as an intelligent key for automobiles. Nissan’s Intelligent Key system employs two-way wireless communications technology to automatically unlock/lock the car door and start/stop the engine. Nissan and Sharp has now integrated these electronic intelligent-key, wireless communications and electromagnetic technologies into the new handset.


Nissan, DOCOMO and Sharp will demonstrate this mobile phone with built-in Intelligent Key in their respective exhibits at CEATEC Japan 2008, which begins September 30. The three firms will continue to develop the product with an aim for commercial distribution in early fiscal year 2009.

Exclusive: Samsung Bresson sales date

Mobile Phone Helpdesk obtained some new information about the Samsung M8800 Bresson today. Anannouncement is not far away anymore because the device will be in the shops shortly.

An anonymous tipster reported to Mobile Phone Helpdesk today that the Samsung M8800 Bresson will be in the shops within seven weeks, namely in week 46. That the Samsung Bresson is coming closer is something we knew since yesterday, as is the date at which the device will be announced. Today we can tell you the day at which the device will reach the shops and this is much earlier than we thought: November 10.

The Samsung M8800 Bresson will become the second device in the Samsung portfolio that offers an expanded eight megapixel camera. However, the Samsung Bresson is a little different from earlier megapixel phones of the Korean brand, this device namely is a touchscreen phone with the complete multimedia experience like the Samsung Omnia. According to the rumours the following possibilities will be present: full HD TV on the 3.2 inch display with 16 million colours, UMTS and HSDPA support and a GPS receiver.

First we have to wait for the official announcement of the Samsung M8800 Bresson at September the 25th, after this everyone will be running to the shops at November the 10th in order take the device home.

Skibag Philips DLO-Jam Jacket - fashionable protection for the player and phone

The company Philips has announced that the new series covers Philips DLO-Jam Jacket will soon be available to users of iPod and iPhone around the world. Philips Consumer Lifestyle acquired Digital Lifestyle Outfitters (DLO) in 2007 and now has a wide range of MP3-covers and accessories from cables to docking stations, headphones and speakers. Skibag Jam Jacket, previously issued in the U.S. under the brand DLO, made of soft silicone comfortable, fully protects the player. Novelty also saves users from the inconvenience, delivered consistently entangled wires. All blankets Jam Jacket equipped with a system with headphones that allows easy to deploy and headphone cables from the back of the cover. Skibag Jam Jacket for players Nano and iPod Classic equipped with a scroll wheel protection and relief to the touch buttons to control iPod.
Jam Jacket for iPod Touch opens up access to the touch screen and comes with special protection screen Surface Shield, oberegayuschey display from scratches and stains. Cover makes it easy to manipulate all the elements of iPod, has a spacious holes for the lock switch, headphone jack and socket connection - free to users will be able to recharge and synchronize your iPod with other devices, not vynimaya it from cover.

Skibag Jam Jacket will allow users to fashion products Apple to protect the device from external damage, as well as the usual devices to adapt to different situations.

Classic leather series Philips HipCase is bracing for the belt and soft fabric cover inside. These models are offered in black and brown, are a convenient inner pocket to accommodate a spare SIM card. The advantage of this line in the possibility of free access to terminals docking stations and headphones.

A series of Jam Jacket - it blankets slip out of silicon with a convex surface around the edges to better protect the corners of the player. Skibag equipped with special rear compartment with the insertion grooves for placing headphone cable. Package includes film Surface Shield, which can be a label on the screen, thereby protecting it.

Are you starting out in mobile? Here are some useful resources for you.

Don't know where to start when it comes to getting yourself up to speed with what's going on in our industry?

I get asked this *a lot* so I thought I'd write a blog post about recommended useful resources and also get your contributions in as well to help newbies to our industry become fully-fledged mobilists.

Blogs

Well, if you're here, you've made a good start already by checking out some mobile blogs. This, of course, isn't the only one and there's a rather good list over at WIPwiki. If you only read two blogs, then make it http://www.mobhappy.com and http://www.smstextnews.com

Free Reports

If you're specific interest is Mobile Marketing and Advertising, then the free Tanla Guide to Mobile Marketing and Advertising is worth downloading [disclaimer: I wrote a big chunk of it]. It's a comprehensive, hands-on look at the world of mobile marketing and includes essays from leading industry experts on different aspects of the mobile marketing and advertising sector.

If you're after a more generic take on the mobile industry, then The Netsize Guide is well worth a look too and includes market information for many countries around the globe. It's also a free download or paid-for print version.

If you're interested in the mobile consumer, then the Carphone Warehouse takes an annual look at this under the Mobile Life moniker. It contains data from both the UK and the US.

For a UK-centric view of the communications world, then OFCOM's annual review is a must-read. The report from August 2007 is available and so it will only be a couple of months before we have this year's edition.

Networking and events

The Mobile Mondays community is very active in many cities around the world. I help to run the London chapter and we have a membership of several thousand, an active discussion list and run events on the first or second Monday of the month for 10 months of the year. It's free to join the yahoo group (where you can participate in discussions and find out about upcoming events) and the facebook group for Mobile Monday London. Each city chapter runs in slightly different ways so I recommend you look for your nearest one and get involved. If nothing else, you should learn something and meet at least a handful of interesting people!

Swedish Beers is a long-standing, ad-hoc networking event I run with some pals in London, Barcelona and now Sydney for folks who have a passing interest in things mobile so we cover all areas of media, marketing, mobile network operators, content creators and more besides. London events happen 2 or 3 times a year (I'm currently looking for a sponsor for our next event if you or someone you know is interested). The Barcelona event happens every February to coincide with Mobile World Congress (again, I'm looking for sponsors for this to see if we can make it even better than this year's). There are no presentations, no sales pitches, just drinks, good company, a friendly atmosphere and lots of chat. Events are announced via the Swedish Beers blog and the facebook group.

For the women amongst you, there's the Women in Mobile Data Association and we have events coming up in September and December in London and February 2009 in Barcelona. Updates appear on the facebook group and our email list (contact me to join the email list - it's free).

And for the London mobile geeks amongst you, then there's Mobile Geeks of London which is happening next Thursday evening, headed up by the lovely James Whatley from Spinvox.

And if that's not enough, the wonderful Ewan at SMSTextNews also runs events from time to time all over the world. Keep an eye on his blog to find out when they're on.

So that's my initial suggestions for useful mobile resources. Please feel free to add any of your own as I realise this is a rather limited and networking-wise UK-centric list.

A useful guide to SMS launched today

After announcing my upcoming course on mobile marketing earlier today, Laura from ExactTarget's PR team over in the States wrote me a lovely email asking me for my opinion on her client's new guide to SMS. Admittedly, on reading that the company behind the publication was a tech services company I thought the guide might be a bit dry, as tech guides can often be, but I'm very pleased to say, I was totally wrong on that score. It's an fresh take on SMS marketing in an easy-to-read format.

Laura says: "ExactTarget’s Field Guide to SMS is an easy-to-read manual that conveniently breaks down the numerous uses of commercial SMS into three groups including: alerts, updates and marketing messages. Perfect for marketers who wonder what possibilities exist for using SMS within their own organizations, the Field Guide highlights 15 unique business scenarios ranging from account activity and fraud alerts to confirmations and appointment reminders."

I say: "The ExactTarget team have put a lot of thought into the different cases for using SMS in a business context ranging from account activity alerts to VIP access and everything in between. Keeping with the 'Field Guide' and Nature theme, they've defined characteristics of the different 'species' of SMS messages and broken them down in each case by describing the Wildlife Commentary (real life usage scenarios), Defining Characteristics (an explanation of how that particular type of SMS works, Species Contribution (the benefits of using it), Diet (what data you need to make it work) and Habitat (where you're likely to discover this type of SMS). It's intended as an idea-starter rather than a comprehensive guide, but if it's a starting point you want, then this is as good a start as any."

Google And The Wireless World

Emerging Mobile News As the top executive of AT&T Inc.'s mobile division talked about new gadgets and strategies at the wireless industry show this week, he slipped in a surprise: The Google Inc.-backed Android mobile software likely has a future on some AT&T phones. "I was concerned that maybe they were just going to focus on Google applications, but they're going to open it up and allow us to be able to customize" an Android device, said Ralph de la Vega, president of AT&T Mobility. "I am more impressed than ever that I think that's going to be a good option." Even though Google isn't exactly in the wireless business, that hasn't stopped it from spurring industry-wide change as it seeks to expand its reach to mobile devices. "We'll continue pushing to help make the wireless world look much more like the open platform of the Internet," Google attorneys Richard Whitt and Joseph Faber said Thursday in a statement about a recent radio spectrum auction.

In that auction, Google put billions of dollars on the line to get the government to impose new wireless open-access rules. More recently, the company has pushed to turn vacant television channels into a new medium for Internet access. It's also reportedly a potential investor in a next-generation wireless network. "They've had a tremendous impact," said Avi Greengart, mobile device research director for Current Analysis Inc. "They view the wireless industry strategically as a platform that they have to play in. They look at the future of the Internet as moving mobile." When it comes to advertising, Google's core business, a mobile user is more valuable than a person sitting at a desk because he or she is more likely to immediately need and use information, Greengart said. "Google's strategy basically is: 'Bet on every horse and add horses to the race as necessary,' " he said. Google made a bet worth more than $4.6 billion during the auction of radio airwaves that will become available next year as TV stations switch to digital broadcasts. Although Google didn't win any airwaves, it helped persuade the Federal Communications Commission to require that the winner of a huge part of the airwaves let subscribers use any wireless devices and software. Verizon Wireless won those and other airwaves with bids worth $9.4 billion.

The carrier said Friday it would use the airwaves for a next-generation high-speed data network using Long Term Evolution, a technology that will be ideal for connecting electronics including phones, medical devices and gaming consoles. "Verizon changed its whole philosophy" about open access in advance of the auction, said Tole Hart, an analyst with the Gartner Inc. research firm. U.S. carriers traditionally have tightly controlled the devices and applications allowed on their networks. "Partly as a result of our bidding, consumers soon should have new freedom to get the most out of their mobile phones and other wireless devices," Google's attorneys said. Until last week, federal rules prohibited auction participants from talking about it in detail. The Internet search leader also is pushing the government to open up unused parts of the TV spectrum so they can be used for mobile broadband. Other supporters of the effort include Microsoft Corp. and Dell Inc. The unused spectrum offers "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to provide ubiquitous wireless broadband access to all Americans," Whitt, Google's telecom and media lawyer, said in a letter to the FCC last month.

TV broadcasters, who are worried about radio interference, have opposed the proposals. Recent news reports also have named Google as a potential investor in a project led by Sprint Nextel Corp. that would deploy a nationwide network using WiMax, a high-speed and long-range wireless technology often called "Wi-Fi on steroids." "What we've seen in the wireless industry over the last 20 years has been companies that have all followed the same path," said Jeff Kagan, an independent telecommunications analyst. "Everybody has taken the same path except Google. Google comes in with an entirely new way of thinking."

Social Networking Content On Mobile

Emerging Mobile News With the proliferation of 3G networks globally, it’s possible now to take a video on your phone and send it to a social networking site like YouTube, Facebook or MySpace. As video-capable phones increase in number and wireless broadband networks expand, analysts believe user-generated content also will expand. In fact, within the next five years, nearly 1 billion people could be using their mobile phones to send and receive user-generated content to each other and social networking sites on the Internet, according to estimates by Pyramid Research. The analyst firm estimates mobile social networking will start to take off in 2009, and by 2010 will reach 300 million users. By 2012, 18% of all mobile subscribers will be using phones to access a social network, or about 950 million people. Social networking sites and user-generated content (UGC) are intrinsically tied together, with members of YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and their brethren posting blogs, photos, videos and music clips. “Video is where it’s at,” says Nick Desai, CEO of Juice Wireless, which is launching JuiceCaster 6.0 at the CTIA Wireless 2008 show.

JuiceCaster is a mobile social-networking application and service that allows phone users to share videos, images and messages between devices and to online social networking sites. The upgrade allows users to create content like videos on their phones and send it as a status update to their friends. Desai says people who belong to social networks expect to be able to use their phones to access them. Since the mobile phone is becoming the primary communications device, he says, it only makes sense to use it and take advantage of its real-time, and location, capabilities.

Publishing Videos One of the main reasons people sign up for JuiceCaster is because they want to be able to use their phones to capture video or photos and publish them instantly to their social networking site (SNS). “We make that an easy, 1-click process,” he says, because JuiceCaster works within the camera application on the phone. JuiceCaster is offered through Cricket, Midwest Cellular, U.S. Cellular, T-Mobile USA and two Puerto Rican operators. Other deals with Tier 1 operators are expected to be announced soon. Desai says the service has 70,000 users, some of whom have a free WAP version and others who subscribe to be able to use the integrated camera feature. Juice also has a mobile video search service which allows members to search the JuiceCaster network for videos by subject. A California company named eMotive Communications also is eyeing the mobile UGC space. It already offers push services including songs, images and video through a deal with Skype, but CEO Anthony Stonefield says it will get into mobile uses soon. eMotive is developing the ability to provide user-generated content as a kind of ringtone, which could include text that vibrates the phone, animation, video, a song clip or a voice recording.

The service is most appropriate for 3G or 4G networks because of the bandwidth needed and because it works in an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) architecture. “We have more carrier trials requested than we can keep up with,” says Stonefield, because ringtone sales revenue has flattened. Personalized, user-generated content can change that, he says. User-generated tones User-generated and commercial ringback tones are part of the portfolio of LiveWire Mobile, a division of NMS Communications. LiveWire’s service provides 10,000 songs as part of Virgin Mobile USA’s ringback service, which has 100,000 subscribers. How to create and upload ringback tones using LiveWire’s service. (Click on image to view larger) John Orlando, marketing vice president for LiveWire, says the next step for ringback tones will be to make it possible for users to create their own tones. “We have operators asking for it, and we believe that we can deliver it by the end of the year or the first quarter of 2009,” he says. Yospace, a British company, developed a user-generated content site called SeeMeTv which is available through the carrier 3 U.K. SeeMeTv lets users upload their own video clips and gain revenue when someone downloads it. Orlando says LiveWire is looking at doing much the same thing for user-created ringback tones.

All of the social networking sites have some ability to link to mobile phones. As an example, YouTube launched a mobile interface last June, although only a small portion of the YouTube videos were available on phones. YouTube also has made select videos available through Verizon Wireless’ V CAST service. It recently opened its access even wider and now estimates more than 100 million mobile subscribers can access YouTube. Users also can upload videos from their phones but only through a 3G network. “People want to participate in the YouTube community in a way that fits their individual lifestyles, so to that end, we’ve built a mobile service that will allow partners to seamlessly integrate YouTube videos into their offerings,” a spokesperson says. “Our goal is to support users being able to access their media from wherever they are. We want to extend the social aspects of YouTube to mobile devices - sharing, rating and interacting with content.” The YouTube spokesperson says most mobile phones, even those with video capabilities, still don’t provide an optimal experience because of latency issue. Consumers also often don’t realize their phone’s capabilities.

Carriers Inforce Mobile Marketing

Emerging Mobile News


It’s inevitable with any new form of marketing that after awhile U.S. laws and regulations will be established both to protect consumers and limit what exactly constitutes an acceptable message.

It had happened first with print, then voice, then fax, then email and now the cycle continues with mobile messaging.

In the past few months, the most of the major carriers have either implemented or tightened their restrictions on mobile marketing and this trend shows no signs of abating any time soon.

In one sense, these new requirements actually point to a rapidly maturing mobile marketing industry. The last couple of years were essentially the testing and proving grounds for text messaging, mobile content and most recently mobile search.

Companies were largely in an experimental mode, trying out various combinations of mobile campaigns to see what worked and what didn’t. Now, in 2008, these companies have largely settled on the types of mobile initiatives they want to implement and are starting to launch such programs in earnest.

Not surprisingly, this increased usage has brought with it an increased scrutiny. One of the biggest reasons for this is due to the fact that, unlike most other marketing channels, there is a hard cost to the consumer to receive these messages.

While it’s true many consumers have unlimited or extremely high data/SMS plans with their mobile devices, there are still many more that do not. And that is just for campaigns that do not have a fee associated with them. When it comes to mobile messages or subscriptions that include a charge, called a premium campaign or message, the regulations get even stricter.

Still, the largest source of contention and proposed laws center around what are called Location Based Services (LBS), which take advantage of the fact that mobile consumers are just that and send campaigns based upon their current location.

The biggest focus of concern centers on consumer protection/privacy. While such services have flourished in Europe for years, in the much more litigious United States LBS is a target for consumer advocacy groups.

In fact, this week the Center of Digital Democracy held a town meeting with the FTC, urging them to prevent mobile marketers from enabling LBS-based alerts and advertisements with their subscribers by citing the possible consumer privacy violations.

While organizations like the Mobile Marketing Association have established guidelines for mobile campaigns, the fact remains that any of these programs must be approved by the major cell phone carriers, notably AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon. Each one has their own requirements, many of which have changed as noted above so here’s a quick summary of how the carriers operate currently:

AT&T

Just last month, AT&T changed its certification process to be much more stringent in terms of approving new shortcodes and price points for premium services. The sender must now be identified in every message received, known as Mobile Terminated or MT, to the subscriber.

AT&T also requires that every subscriber must agree to opt-in before starting to receive the messages. For text campaigns, this means that there are even fewer characters to work with when composing the message.

Verizon

Verzion has also made some changes to their provisioning process over the past few months. Any new premium shortcode or even just a new pricepoint for an existing shortcode must now be approved by the carrier’s new certification board.

Senders must be prepared to build in some extra leadtime for this in their schedules. Fortunately, at least for now, text message campaigns still do not require opt-in to be received by Verizon subscribers. However, given the current trends, mobile marketers should be prepared to have a double-in requirement soon.

T-Mobile

T-Mobile hasn’t made any recent changes to their certification process because it was already fairly stringent to begin with but mobile marketers must be aware of the carrier’s policies. The most notable of these is the fact that all T-Mobile subscribers must opt-in to receive campaigns and a specific message flow (how the campaign will work) must be approved prior to the shortcode being approved.

Sprint

As it stands right now, there are no changes with Sprint. Nevertheless, it’s again expected that the carrier will eventually follow suit with the others in terms of at the very least requiring double-opt in for mobile marketing campaigns.

So, as you can see, mobile marketing is increasingly becoming a more regulated (and yes, restrictive) form of communication. Eventually these issues will dissipate as the technology continues to mature and address such concerns. Yet for now, it’s in a mobile marketer’s best interest to ensure that they understand and more importantly comply to the requirements set forth by the carriers. Otherwise, they will find themselves unable to reach out to their consumers with this exciting and dynamic form of communication.

Problems And Solutions on Taking Screenshots

Taking screenshots can be headache sometimes. Mostly this occurs when there are too much of flash videos on the website and you want to take the exact screenshot of the specific picture. Taking screenshot is just so easy and can be done by pressing Print Scrn (print screen) Button on you keyboard and then opening up Paint brush and pasting it in a new file there.I still remember having hard time taking perfect screenshots of the websites that I needed to review of. Thanks to firefox plugins that I can now take screenshots of the entire webpage by using their Screengrab! plugins. You can just install this extension and after installation, you have to restart the firefox. Notice an icon on the right bottom corner of your screen. You can click on the icon and then simply copy or save the whole, visible, or selected area of the screen of the websites.

Another problem with screenshots is while taking screenshots of the videos you are watching in Media Player. If you have tried talking screenshots of the videos on your Media Player using Print Scrn button, you mostly have ended up saving a blank screen. I know how frustrating it is. Well don’t worry about it any more I have found out the option from which you can take the screenshots of your videos played in Media Player.

For now, I am using Windows Media Player 11 so I can confirm that this will perfectly work in Media Player 11.

• Open Windows Media Player 11
• Go to Tools => Options => Performance => Advanced.
• Deselect the overlays option.
• Try to take the screenshots of video now.

Yeah. It perfect works and now you are able to take screenshots of the paused video. Not only that, you can now watch TV and use full screen games or applications and media players at the same time. I hope you have fun taking those screenshots.

Mobile Device Wars Begin

Emerging Mobile News
Last year Apple changed the smart phone industry forever with the release of its wildly popular iPhone device. While other similar devices had been on the market for years, the iPhone used Apple’s unparalleled marketing prowess to quickly establish itself as a major player in the space. Plus, it just looked damn cool.

Still, while the iPhone was unquestionably a hit with consumers, it wasn’t as fully embraced in by businesses, which are the bread and butter of the smart phone industry. Granted that wasn’t necessarily Apple’s intended target with the first iPhone but it was still considered a drawback, especially since the device couldn’t synch to an enterprise mail server like Exchange. As a result Research in Motion’s Blackberry device continued to be the de facto standard when it came to business smart phone users.

At the same time, those with Blackberry and other similar smart phones, after seeing the rich capabilities of the iPhone began to wish they had some of those features too. Sensing the proverbial blood in the water, Apple announced earlier this year that the new version of the iPhone, which will be released next month, will have the ability to connect to an Exchange server.

In response, Blackberry appears to have adopted many of the popular iPhone features, from a much more lush UI to more media options. The company also launched a national television campaign, designed clearly to target those still on the fence about getting a smart phone.

Both of the new versions of these stalwart smart phones are a boon to digital marketers. Probably the most important change is the ability of the Blackberry 9000 to (finally!) have the ability to properly read an HTML email as intended. The iPhone will also tap into the much more robust 3G network, which will mostly notably impact its video capabilities. Both devices will also put a renewed focus on Location Based Services, albeit, not surprisingly, in different ways.

The specific details for their respective LBS plans have yet to be revealed but Google has already announced numerous plans for its Android mobile platform to play a significant role in the new iPhone. One particularly interesting potential iPhone 2.0 feature that has been fiercely debated is the apparent ability to both order items from walking past a store, like Starbucks, and receiving an alert when the order was ready.

While not exactly a revolutionary concept, if this indeed becomes a feature of the new phone, then perhaps the long-stalled LBS revolution will finally commence. Then we’ll only be maybe one year behind the rest of the world in this regard.

Regardless of which device ultimately wins the hearts and minds of the business road warriors out there, the battle will usher in a whole new generation of smart phones, with LG, Nokia and others already planning to have their own killer devices out there in the months to come. With advances in IP telephony, the rise of Skype and Google’s intriguing Android platform, it’s also quite possible that within a couple of years, consumer will no longer even have to be dependent upon a cell carrier for their device. And that is something mobile marketers will whole heartedly embrace.

New iPhone On The Horizon

Emerging Mobile News You can pretty much count on a new 3G iPhone come Monday. But redesigned MacBooks? Don't bet on it. Here's my take on what Steve Jobs will announce during his much-anticipated keynote at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. New iPhone I'm almost certain that we'll feast our eyes on a new iPhone on Monday-one with access to speedy 3G networks along with build-in GPS, both features that are sorely missing in the original iPhone. Heck, after all the fevered speculation, Jobs could find himself dodging tomatoes if he doesn't unveil a new iPhone. Beyond that, however, the picture gets fuzzier. Will the new iPhone be thicker than the original, or thinner? Will the brushed-metal backing be replaced with a glossy black (or white) finish? There seems to be consensus on the new, glossy backing (which might scratch more easily than the old brushed-metal finish), but that's about it. And there's more: rumors that AT&T might subsidize new iPhones to the tune of $200, along with a just-unveiled patent application that reveals plans for video recording and conferencing, instant messaging, and a blogging application.

The AT&T subsidy rumor (first reported by Fortune) has been persistent enough to be plausible, while the newly published patent application gives credence to (if not confirmation of) hotly anticipated features like two-way video calling. Finally: Will we get just one new iPhone, or a series of new models (and not just different memory capacities, mind you)? And when will the new iPhone be available in stores? My feeling is that we'll get just one new model, and that it'll go on sale later this month-but that's just my gut talking. Odds: 3G iPhone with GPS (bank on it), thinner than original (50-50), glossy backing (almost certain, although I hope not), video conferencing (3-1), AT&T subsidies (50-50), more than one model (7-1), on sale Monday (5-1). iPhone App store, new iPhone firmware More of a fact than a rumor-and potentially more exciting that the 3G iPhone itself. Steve Jobs teed up the App store-which will feature dozens, if not hundreds, of native iPhone
applications written by third-party developers-back in March, and the possibilities are limitless.

Besides the standard communications (IM, anyone?), productivity (an office suite?), and business applications, we're also talking games-many observers think the iPhone could rival the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP as a mobile gaming device. I can't wait. Jobs is also expected to unveil new iPhone firmware, which will include such goodies as full-on Microsoft Exchange support, enhanced IT and security features, and more, no doubt. Odds: Already announced, so let's call this one fact. Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" This one came out of nowhere just a few days ago-that Apple is set to release beta code for its next major OS release, just eight months after OS X "Leopard" hit shelves. Word is that "Snow Leopard" (that's the rumored code name, anyway) will be a "stability and performance" release for Intel-based Macs, and that it's geared toward optimizing mobile devices like the MacBook Air and the iPhone-and maybe even a new, tantalizing mystery device. It might seem a little early for 10.6 (which is supposedly slated to go on sale next January), but multiple blogs are claiming that it's a done deal. Odds: 50-50 or better. .Mac reborn as MobileMe Apple's much-maligned, $99-a-year online service is about to get a makeover-or so says the rumor mill. New features will include over-the-air syncing of Address Book and iCal info between Macs and iPhones, as well as a new and improved Web interface that lets you browse your contacts and events from any Web browser (sounds pretty basic, but it'll be a big step forward for .Mac users, believe me). Odds: Almost certain.

Redesigned MacBooks and MacBook Pros Both the consumer and pro-level versions of Apple's iconic laptop lines are due for major design overhauls. Indeed, save a few tweaks here and there, today's MacBooks and MacBook Pros look pretty much like yesterday's iBooks and PowerBooks. But what little chatter there's been about redesigned MacBooks at WWDC has more or less died out in the past several days. I'm not feeling it. Odds: 10-1 "One more thing ... " It's the phrase Macheads live for-a final, hold-your-breath moment when Steve Jobs unveils some cool new device no one quite expected. Back in January 2007, "one more thing" turned out to be the original iPhone. Assuming the 3G iPhone isn't the "one more thing," what could it be? Well, there was talk last month of a potential iPhone-like tablet device powered by Intel's new Atom processor, but Intel quickly downplayed the comments that sparked the rumor. And another factor to consider: There was no "one more thing" at Macworld back in January, much to the disappointment of the Mac faithful.