Tomorrow's Apple announcements:

0. This is 100 percent speculation, not in any way based on actual information.

1. Of course like everyone else I assume Apple is unveiling their tablet.

2. AT&T will either lose exclusivity or will be dropped altogether by Apple.

3. The biggest innovation will be the touch interface. They will have a virtual keyboard that works amazingly well, and it will have other amazingly intuitive gestures that it understands. The touch interface will work on both sides of the device so you can wrap your hands around it and make stuff happen that way.

4. Apple will unveil a new cloud that connects all its devices together. The tablet will only cache your information locally, all data and content is stored permanently on Apple's servers. (Apple must learn to be Google and Google must learn to be Apple, though neither ever will.)

5. There will be a radically new iPhone and iPod using the same software as the tablet.

6. The new iTouch software will not only run on all the newer devices, but will also run on the Mac. They will demonstrate their app store running on Mac hardware inside the same environment that runs on all the other devices. There will be subtle hints that the old Mac programming model is "legacy" -- where they began -- will always be loved by Steve, but eventually will be deprecated.

7. Google will be on stage for the announcement proclaiming their support for the new device. Steve will say Google is a valued partner of Apple's. The body language will indicate otherwise.

8. Ditto for leading publishers.

9. Some ports will be missing on the new Macs. Maybe USB? Steve loves to delete ports.

That's about it for now in the tea leaves department. I might think of some other things. It's always good to get your stake in the ground to see how you do. ">

 1/26/2010; 1:49:51 PM.   .

I made a stop at the main NY Public Library on 5th Ave and 42nd St.

Three notable things.

1. Free wireless Internet. 3.13Mb/s down, 9.24Mb/s up. (Not a typo, it's asymetric, not the usual way. Probably because there are hundreds of people using the free Internet and most of them are downloading, not uploading.)

2. Everyone in the main reading room has a laptop. There's power at every desk.

3. They have free blogging classes every Tuesday night.

 1/26/2010; 1:15:46 PM.   .

I'm in NYC looking for an apartment again.

Did a Rebooting The News with Jay last night. It was done in a studio at NYU, which has advantages (you can hear us well) but also disadvantatges. I hear the podcast ends at exactly 45 minutes, cutting me off in the middle of a sentence. That really sucks because the last few sentences were the best. (Just kidding, but we seriously have to get this under control, we run a loose ship and intend to keep it that way.) It's been worse, once I lost an entire podcast due to a technical mistake. So shit happens. It'll be interesting to do it next week when I'm back in Calif.

There's a certain amount of giddy in the media about the expected tablet announcement from Apple tomorrow. There's this idea that Steve will save the free and professional press, because he values a free and professional press. Uncle Rex Hammock spills cold water on the idea. Remember what Doc Searls said about software developers when Steve returned to Apple in 1997. Can you imagine how the free and professional press feels when Uncle Steve and his minions fail to approve their writing because it isn't sufficiently flattering to Apple? Somehow this is a loop back to the lesson of this week's RBTN. Perhaps it's better to accept low fidelity in return for the ability to finish a sentence -- the way you want to finish it. Or at least let the mistakes you make be your own.

Meantime, Uncle Barack Obama is making those of us who supported him really sorry for having done so. Freeze budgets? Robert Reich says that could be bad for the economy. Paul Krugman isn't so reserved. Brad DeLong says his middle name should be "Herbert Hoover." My guess is that it's a lie, he doesn't plan to freeze the budget, any more than Uncle George W Bush meant to get us out of Iraq. He just wants to take the high ground from the Repooobs next election cycle, to deprive them of what he feels might be a very potent soundbite. Either way, pity us. I can't imagine we'd ever elect a president that we'd have higher hopes for than Obama. If he betrays us, well, who won't?

People ask what I think of Google's new synthetic feeds. Great idea, I'll subscribe in my own aggregator. Oh you say I have to use Google Reader? Not my cup of tea.

 1/26/2010; 8:20:25 AM.   .