So here’s the very first of what I’m sure will be many Apple announcement predictions I shall make on Uncarved.

Rather than get carried away nitpicking on specific features that will or will not be announced, however, I will instead offer a prediction about what I anticipate to wind up being the the common thread to them; their long term purpose.

My prediction:

Apple’s 17 March 2009 iPhone OS 3.0 event will essentially announce a collection of new capabilities that will largely aim to position the OS as a suitable for use in netbooks.
I’m wagering that iPhone OS 3.0 is to iPhone OS what Snow Leopard will be to Mac OS X. In fact, I’ll even bet that the brunt of the development that will ultimately ship in Snow Leopard will ship first in iPhone OS 3.0.

From the Snow Leopard product page:

Taking a break from adding new features, Snow Leopard — scheduled to ship in [2009] — builds on Leopard’s enormous innovations by delivering a new generation of core software technologies that will streamline Mac OS X, enhance its performance, and set new standards for quality. Snow Leopard dramatically reduces the footprint of Mac OS X, making it even more efficient for users, and giving them back valuable hard drive space for their music and photos. [Emphasis added.]
Streamlining the codebase of the OS and reducing its footprint are admirable goals for any desktop OS, no doubt — bloat anywhere sucks — but as of this writing, there are no Macs that ship with a hard drive smaller than a 120 GB hard drive, or with less than 1 GB of RAM. These pursuits, however, really become a critical when you’re looking to use that OS to run on smaller mobile devices that have dramatically lower hardware resources to offer than a desktop or even a laptop.

We already know that Mac OS X and iPhone OS share significant parts of their code base, and offer many of the same developer APIs.

With a release date currently expected for this summer, little stretching of the imagination is necessary to expect this iPhone OS release to indeed include the majority of the optimization efforts that will ship with Snow Leopard.

So what does this mean with respect to the features that will be announced tomorrow?

For one, I’m pegging a system clipboard as a certainty. Not because there seems to be strong consensus on the internets [sic], nor because the writers of countless blogs, forum posts, and comment threads have been moaning about its absence, but rather because it would be a glaring omission from a netbook.

I’m also wagering that rumors of the ability to run multiple applications concurrently will pan out, again because a netbook would need it.

Finally, I’m anticipating — albeit with less conviction — a new application launcher, because Gruber’s right; the UX for organizing apps has totally become a pain in the ass, once you exceed three or four screens of icons.

But even if all these features are useful in a netbook, why should Apple necessarily decide to develop and ship them now?

I can think of two reasons:

1. the release cycle fits, and
2. competitors on the horizon
   The release cycle is an important consideration. First, as features go, these are each ones that — as a software product manager — I would certainly decide to schedule into a major release cycle (eg, a “something-point-oh” version). Since Apple are clearly attempting to consolidate their engineering efforts behind the Mac and iPhone versions of their operating system software, there seems to be enough evidence to imply that they’d aim to synchronize their release cycles, as well.

Apart from production planning and resource coördination concerns, it’s important to remember that some seemingly formidable competitors to the iPhone are about to hit market. One that is likely to have Apple genuinely attentive is Palm’s Pre.

Being that Apple is unlikely to pump two major releases of the OS out before the Pre ships later this year, I’m wagering that they will attempt to ship (or at least announce) these features with 3.0.

I’m also expecting that we’ll see some features that are more focused on iPhone’s “mobile phone” user experience, which is why I’m also going to buy into the scuttlebutt that cites MMS as a likely inclusion. Although it’s less interesting with respect to the platform, I — and countless others — will certainly be glad to be rid of having to deal with AT&T’s awful viewmymessage.com site.

So, that’s it! Let’s see what the heralds of Apple will announce tomorrow morning.