The Muzzy's Blog

2009 is coming to a close, so it's time to look at my predictions for the year and determine how well I did.

• Apple will produce neither a netbook nor a tablet device this year, or likely any year. They will, however, produce a smaller and cheaper iPhone. This 4GB model will be called the iPhone Nano, or iPhone Mini and sell for under $150. They will release it to carriers other than AT&T. AT&T signed an exclusivity deal worth millions to be the only carrier with the iPhone. Apple will claim that the deal was only for the iPhone, and that this new model is something different. AT&T will sue, but the lawsuit won't resolve for some time. Apple will offer CDMA prototypes, but neither Sprint nor Verizon will be interested. Sprint and Verizon are still trying to market their own music stores, and they will not want the competition from iTunes.

I was correct that Apple wasn't going to produce a netbook or tablet in 2009. I missed the boat with the smaller iPhone, but I was spot on with the cheaper model. I had incorrectly assumed that it would be a 4GB phone. Instead, Apple introduced a higher-end model, and moved the existing model downmarket to a price well below $150.

Apple didn't release their phone for other carriers in the US, but they did diversify outside of the US. I've got a prediction for 2010 that covers this, but that's a subject for another post.

• Now that Apple has 10% of the total PC market, and 14% of the consumer market, they will be hit by their first genuine virus this year. Since the iPhone also runs a variant of OSX, it might be affected too. The bug will be nasty enough for Apple to start taking security seriously. Remember that hacking challenge last year? The Apple computer was the first to be hacked and exploited. Apple has been able to avoid spyware, trojans and viruses because of they lack the numbers to make such work profitable. That's starting to change.

I'm very surprised that Mac's didn't experience a major virus this year. However, there were a couple of nasty viruses for hacked iPhones, which runs a very similar OS. I still feel this is an inevitable situation. Apple still doesn't take security as seriously as Microsoft. It's just a matter of time before someone takes advantage of that. 10 million devices on the AT&T network would be a pretty nice zombie army. Just saying.

• Cerebus will realize that the only way to turn a profit with Chrysler is to part it out. Unfortunately for them, the only part that's remotely interesting is Jeep. Jeep will be sold to either Mercedes, because they share so many parts, or to a company needing a decent Truck/SUV platform... think Honda, Hyundai or Tata. The rest of the company will be sold off for intellectual property (i.e. the hemi engine) but no one will actually make another Dodge car again. The exception being the Dodge Viper. The rights to which will be purchased by a small specialty company like Shelby or Saleen. They'll start making the Viper again sometime in 2012.

If Obama hadn't stepped in and saved Detroit, I think this could have happened. The auto industry was crazy this year, and it'll probably still be crazy next year. A lot of brands disappeared. Some might return in five or ten years. Most will never be heard of again. The big winner really appears to be Ford. Ford sold Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo at the right time when the prices were high. They sat on a pile of cash large enough to avoid having to be bailed out by the feds. And their stock price has soared. I'm still kicking myself for selling at $7.70 per share. Yes, I nearly doubled my initial investment. But today it's trading at over $10/share.

• Comcast will release a new DVR using technology "stolen" from TiVo. Comcast and TiVo have been partnered for almost two years now, and they've only had limited test releases in small markets. It's not moving forward, and I believe it's because Comcast is buying time. TiVo will sue Comcast for the stolen IP, and they might win... sometime in 2011. That is, if they're still in business.

This was a bold prediction, one which I didn't really have that much faith in. I have no idea what's going on with Comcast and TiVo. Their partnered box has now been in "beta" for over a year with no progress in sight. If the software works, then it should be deployed. If it's failing, then the project should have been cut by now. If this is an example of how Comcast does business, then I feel sorry for everyone who works at NBC. I'd care more... but I've moved on to DirecTV.

• There will be at least a dozen phones running Google's Android software by the end of the year. Unfortunately they'll all suck. A smartphone platform which doesn't support a To-Do list? It's as if Google employees have never worked in an office which uses Exchange. The real area where Android could take off is in budget phones, such as the Motorola RAZR, where the carriers can save money by using a "free" OS. However in those cases the devices will still suffer by having a poor radio stack, since Google wrote code for supporting the phones in as a secondary priority to writing an OS which supports Google web apps.

As I write this, pdadb.net lists 16 android devices available on the market. Most of which are not available in the US, but that's pretty much what I expected. AT&T is the only major carrier in the US without an Android phone, but I'm sure that will change in 2010.

By and large, the Android phones still suck. Yes, the Motorola Droid is a 4th quarter surprise... but do you know anyone who owns one? Now how many people do you know with an iPhone? Generally speaking, people I know are interested in the android platform... but just to play with, not to use. They're buying blackberries and iphones, not android phones. Or at least not as their primary phone.

• The US will be put into a precarious position when either the Iraqi or Afghani government comes out in support of Palastine and offers military aide against Isreal. But this won't be the true test of Obama's leadership in the first year. Instead it'll come later this summer when the gang war along the US/Mexico border escalates. The Mexican army, which is reportedly corrupt, will be caught crossing the US border and attacking US citizens (albeit criminal ones).

Predicting foreign policy is obviously not my strong point.

• Obama will pick a "nobody" for his CTO. It won't be Larry Lessig, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or The Woz. Probably someone who was a VP for HP or IBM. The CTO will likely be someone who supports the RIAA/MPAA. There will be no patent reform under this CTO, and we'll continue to see lawsuits over ideas that should have never been patented in the first place.

Nailed it. Aneesh Chopra is more than just a nobody, he's a total joke. He's not even qualified to be a VP for HP or IBM. He supports the RIAA/MPAA, and probably doesn't even comprehend the problems with existing patent laws.

• Steve Balmer will announce his retirement in 5 years. He won't announce his successor for another three years. The real story will be that the board forced him to retire. Under his leadership, Microsoft has lost marketshare for the first time in it's existence. The failure to procure a deal with Yahoo highlights the lack of vision and the lack of ability that Balmer possesses.

I'm really surprised this didn't happen.

• A Pushing Daisies movie will be announced, probably in a direct-to-video product. The movie will wrap up any loose ties left in the series that ABC has foolishly decided to cancel.

This was announced, but I haven't heard anything new about it. I suspect it's caught in development hell and may never be produced.

• Despite losing millions on the PS3, Sony will continue to push it's failed console onto the marketplace. They will not lower the price, and they will not have a "killer app". They'll release some sort of Wii like controller, which will be overly expensive and not be supported by anything more than 2 games.... both of which will not be fun to play. Many former Playstation exclusives will start to jump ship to the 360 and Wii. The only place on Earth where the PS3 will sell well is in Japan, and it will still sell fewer consoles than the Wii. It will also lose the title of "best bluray player" this year.

I couldn't remember if Sony had lowered the price of the PS3 or not, it was such a non-event. Supposedly they are now able to make a meager profit on the console itself, which is nice. Especially since they still are lacking a real system seller. At E3 they did announce a motion controller, but hardly anyone noticed. The controllers looked silly compared to Microsoft's Natal, and the demo's were embarassing.

It's hard to tell if the PS3 is still the best blu-ray player on the market anymore, but it's certainly one of the most expensive. Walmart had $70 blu-ray players for Christmas. Even if it doesn't have the upgradability of the PS3, at a savings of $220... who cares!

• I have a bonus prediction... I predict that the average price of gas in the US as tracked by AAA will not exceed $3 per gallon this year.

When I made this prediction, the memory of $5/gallon gas was fresh in our minds. As far as I can tell, the AAA tracked price never went above $2.70/gallon.

Knowledge of Club Foot treatments are poor in pediatric medicine, despite having one out of every thousand births with this defect. Tina and I were taking her 20 week ultrasound when we discovered that Patrick had a club foot. The ultrasound specialist was not really aware of the issue, and told us that it was likely that Patrick had Edwards Disease, a fatal genetic trisomy where children rarely live more than 10 days after birth. He was wrong, and sadly he is not alone in the medical profession.

Most children who are born with a club foot have to endure painful surgeries which fail to adequately correct the defect. They spend the rest of their lives with pain in their feet, ankles and legs. They have difficulty standing, walking or running.

Fortunately the world was given Dr. Ponseti. Dr. Ponseti developed a surgery free method that has a 98% success rate. It's simple enough that it can be used in small villages of third world countries with nearly the same success rate. For reasons which are not clear to me, Dr. Ponseti's method was not widely adopted outside of his home state of Iowa until the 1990's. It's sad to think of all the children born in that time who could have been spared the pain of surgeries and the ongoing difficulties brought on by them.

Dr. Ponseti continued to practice medicine into his 90's and up to the week he died. He passed away last week after suffering a stroke at his office.

I am grateful for Dr. Ponseti's work, and the efforts of Dr. Mosca and Dr. J at Seattle's Childrens Hospital for using the Ponseti Method on my son. His club foot is corrected. He is walking without pain. He will likely never even know he had a defective foot.

Dr. Ponseti Passes Away at Age 95

Cementing it's place in history as the ultimate example of vaporware, Duke Nukem Forever will never be completed because 3D Realms just went belly up.

This game has been in development since 1996. Personally I felt that all 3D Realms was doing for the past 13 years was inventing screen shots to impress venture capitalists with. They probably blew all the money on wild parties, sports cars and drug addictions.

I would not be surprised to see many lawsuits and investigations as a result of this. Hundreds of millions were pumped into this project, with nothing to show. I also think this will have far reaching effects with the whole video game industry. You may see an end to the irresponsible spending sprees that infest these companies like a plague.

They say that Mac's never crash. Yet I get this error every time I connect my iPod Shuffle to my Mac. It started with the latest mandatory iTunes update. My iPod works fine with iTunes on my work computer... a Windows Vista machine. Unfortunately that machine doesn't have my music library on it.

So now I'm stuck with a shuffle full of 90's house music. What can I say, I had a desire to listen to artists like Jesus Jones and The Prodigy for a couple days. Now I'd like to listen to something else, but I can't.