The giant Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas later this week will be all about tablets, eBook readers and 3D TVs. But of primary interest to Apple followers will be the big gathering of iPhone App developers.
More than 100 iPhone developers and accessory makers will exhibit at the iLounge Developer’s Pavilion, up 150% from numbers announced in July.
The Pavilion will feature leading earphone makers Etymotic Research and Westone, car accessory specialists such as Alpine Electronics, Dension, and Scosche, case makers Incipio, iSkin, OtterBox and Tunewear, and other well-known brands including Griffin Technology, Simplism, Vestalife, and XtremeMac.
Noting that CES is famous for “house-sized TV sets,” Horwitz said he is looking forward to a raft of more modest announcements. “I’d be glad to see companies at the Pavilion announce a number of smart, useful innovations that real people can look forward to actually owning,” he said.
L5 Technology will be releasing an iPhone TV remote add-on; PosiMotion will showcase a $20 iPhone/iPt game controller (see below); and Morphie will be announcing an iPhone add-on credit card-reader.
Starting Thursday, CES is expecting a turnout of 2,500 exhibitors and 110,000 attendees, which is flat with last year. 2009 was one of CES’ worst years thanks to the crappy economy.
The show started in 1967 as a home electronics show but has grown into the USA’s premier computer show also. Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer is giving the pre-show keynote on Wednesday evening.
Apple is not expected to attend. Instead, it looks highly likely that Steve Jobs will be hosting a special product presentation on January 27 in San Francisco.
Meanwhile, in Las Vegas this week the show will be dominated by:
* Tablets — 2010 is going to be the year of the tablet. Several new tablets will be on show from Dell, Notion Ink, Fusion Garage (formerly Techcrunch’s CrunchPad) and Innovative Converged Devices. The chipmaker Nvidia is expected to show off tablets based on its Tegra processors. Will they all be roadkill in a couple of weeks?
* eBook readers — Apple’s tablet has already been dubbed the “Kindle-killer,” which must make the 23 exhibitors at CES with eBook readers pretty nervous. Forrester Research predicts six million eBook readers will be sold in 2010, but will Apple’s tablet kill ’em all?
* Intel’s new chips — Intel is expected to launch no less than 17 processors at CES, some of which will likely find themselves in future Macs. Intel CEO Paul Otellini will deliver a keynote speech outlining some of Intel’s ne technologies and manufacturing processes.
* USB 3.0 — Version 3.0 of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) promises 10x data transfer than USB 2.0 and is bi-directional. There’ll be a ton of new devices, connectors and applications at CES.
* Palm — After releasing the Palm Pre and its WebOS at last year’s CES, Palm this year is hosting a press conference with more big news: likely version 2.0 of the WebOS, and possibly new devices and carriers — maybe Verizon.
* Cameras — CES has always been big on digital cameras and there’s likely to be a bunch of new point-and-shoots, DSLRs and pro-sumer fouth-fifths cameras. New technology includes fuel cells and touchscreens. Samsung annpounced a TK camera.
* Android — CES will be a big coming-out party for Google’s Android, with a bunch of new phones and smartbooks (super-thin notebooks) being announced. Two days before the show, Google is tipped to introduce its Google Nexus One smartphone for T-Mobile.
* 3D TVs and Smart TVs — CES will see a lot of 3D-enabled HDTVs, 3D Blu-Ray players and TVs with advanced net connectivity. DirecTV is rumored to be launching a high-def 3-D channel at the show.
* Auto tech — Ford, GM, Kia and others will be showing of in-car tech and navigation systems, many based on Microsoft’s Sync system.
