Some Good Things Predicted for 2008

1. Apple's multi-touch interface will spread from the iPhone and enrich the way we use personal computers (Microsoft will introduce something similar).
2. The Google phones (Android) will show, once and for all, that we do not need dedicated eBook readers, and Exact Editions' magazines will be as easily read on Android devices as on iPhones.
3. Safari and some other browsers will offer resolution independent imaging, so that photos or digital editions can be easily resized to fit the viewing environment.
   
4. Google will not tell us how many books are searchable through Google Book Search. But best estimates will conclude that there are over 4 million titles in GBS by the end of 2008.
   
5. A much improved Kindle II will appear in the summer from Amazon. But it will still lack colour, and it will not be easy to get hold of one (insufficient E ink). Do not count on them reaching the UK.
6. One of the UK's big magazine publishers will finally enter the digital magazine age and offer digital subscriptions to (nearly) all their magazines. The big 6, in our view, comprise: IPC, EMAP (we may by then have learned to call it Bauer), BBC Magazines, NatMags, Future and Conde Nast. The big American magazine companies will not be leading the way -- Hachette in France have already done that in 2007.