Hi, I'm Sam.

I arrived in San Francisco a couple of hours ago. This week is going to be awesome. I am really looking forward to WWDC 2010!

I've been telling a few people what I think Jobs is going to announce tomorrow at the keynote. I figured it would be good to post it so I can brag about how right I was. (Just joking. I'm not really that arrogant.)

iPhone

There will be a new iPhone. All of the crazy rumors, phones left in bars, and cops raiding apartments aside, historically Apple has always announced a new one every year since it was released at WWDC.

I think it will have a front-facing camera. This has been the rumor since before the 3G was released. The prototype found in the bar makes it more convincing this year. Also a certain beta mobile OS has a ton of new video stuff in it.

I think it will have 4G to keep up with everyone else. I bet they will also increase storage space like they always do.

iPad

They will just brag about their sales and talk about OS4 stuff. I doubt we will see new hardware, as much as some people want one with a camera.

Personally, I don't see myself taking pictures with it. That said, as a developer, I would like for it to have a camera so universal apps can be more universal. I know Jobs wants the iPad (well really the iPhone OS) to replace the Mac eventually, which think is the right move and totally how it will play out. My Mac has a camera and I would be less likely to take pictures on that than an iPad, so maybe one day it will have a camera, but not tomorrow.

iTunes & Lala

Since Apple bought Lala.com a couple of months ago, a lot of people have been looking forward to iTunes having some sort of cloud or subscription model. I think they will announce some sort of iTunes cloud service tomorrow. I bet it will be cheaper than something like Rhapsody and you know it will be more awesome than everything else out there because Apple designed it.

AppleTV

A lot of people have been talking about a new AppleTV that is the size of an iPhone and stores all of it's data in the cloud or on a Time Capsule. I can see them releasing a new one tomorrow, but I haven't done much research on this rumor so don't hold me to it.

Mac

I bet they will just brag about their numbers and refresh specs. This year the focus is on the iPhone and iPad.

Conclusions

I know a lot of Mac developers were really sad about them cutting the Mac Apple Design Awards, but it doesn't bother me too much. The future is mobile and the iPhone OS. iPhone OS 4 is going to be game changing. The Android competition is good. It is really pushing Apple forward.

I think Steve has a lot of stuff up his sleeves that we don't already know. I know he must have been super pissed about that idiot "leaving his phone in a bar," but he has never had just one thing to show off at WWDC. I can't wait to get blown away (and be in the same room with Jobs).

So maybe you've seen #newtwitter, this post on TechCrunch about Facebook with columns, or Twitter for iPad. They all have crazy column layouts. Twitter for iPad is super impressive. I have mad respect for them. The way the columns stack and scroll is really, really impressive.

Anyway, crazy multi-columns layouts are bad. Think of the average user.

The Average User

If you think about it, the average person that uses Facebook is significantly less technical than anyone who reads my blog. They are the kind of people that freak out when Facebook changes their design and have to re-learn how to do their crap. This is who I'm talking about. It helps to picture the average user as my mom.

So say the average user (aka, my mom), wants to view their news feed. They just want to see their news. They don't want all of this meta data that people like us (the technical people) want. The can't handle designs like this:

Why This Is Bad

The average user is lazy. There is too much to look at. They won't take the time to sort through the information and see which part is the part they care about, they will write the page off as "too technical for them" and walk away or they will be really overwhelmed and take a long time to fight through and find what they need. Power users like us are used to this. That's why we are able to pick up new software and start using it right away. Most people don't have that skill.

We've had to train our brains at reading through lots of data and picking out the important parts and then focusing on that. Most users aren't good at this. They want something like this:

They want a single column with big images and icons depicting what everything is. This approach is easy and linear. The side navigation is easily interpreted and written off as stuff they don't care about at the moment. If you think about it, the news feed is already really complex for most people.

Conclusion

All of that said, I really like #newtwitter and Twitter for iPad. I know a lot of "average users" like it too. I'm glad. I'm not knocking Twitter. They have done a really great job with their new interfaces.

I just think that if you are designing an interface, it would be better to error on the side of simple than complex, especially if your target market is the average person and not all power users. I really hope Facebook keeps a simpler design and doesn't move to a crazy column one. That said, it might be the push that average people need to get them to start using more complex UI.