Last year I decided that, as many others do, I would make a list of predictions for the year. My predictions included such products as Windows 8, Windows Phone 7, and even Chrome OS. So why don’t we take a look at how I did.

Windows 8

I said that we wouldn’t know much about Windows 8 until the summer time of last year, but I was wrong on that count. It wasn’t until BUILD in September that Sinofsky got on stage and gave a very detailed presentation of Windows 8. Even now, there are a lot of questions to be answered about Windows 8 — such as its launch date, or even a time frame for the launch.

I also said that there would be a beta release, that would only be available for desktops. Microsoft released a Developer Preview, with the Windows 8 Beta release coming sometime early this year — so I was wrong there. I guess I was somewhat right, as the ARM version of Windows 8 was not available and that version is primarily targeted at tablets, but then again the x86/x64 version is just as capable of running on tablets as well (so long as Intel gets their act together).

No surprise: Windows 8 did not RTM this year, as some predicted.

My final prediction was the further compartmentalization of the Windows operating system, and that the tablet version would remove the GUI and legacy support. This is indeed the case for the ARM version (it is still unclear as to whether the desktop would be disabled on x86/x64 versions if they were put on tablets), but that’s because the applications would have to be modified in order to run on the ARM architecture. Microsoft has said they have absolutely no plans to allow older applications to run on ARM, so in a way, they are removing legacy support.

 Windows Phone 7

“Microsoft will continue to not get it,” that’s what I said last year in regards to Windows Phone 7. By that I meant Microsoft would not update the phone as quickly as they should in order to catch up with the competition.

In a way, they certainly didn’t get it… It wasn’t until late September that Windows Phone “Mango” was finally released, which was an entire year after the original product launch. Also, it took a couple of months before any phones designed for “Mango” came out, which is awfully slow — but some did appear to be Windows Phone-specific phones, not Android phones running Windows Phone 7.

Sales also remained dismal, and they will until Microsoft gets their act together (and rumors about Microsoft and Nokia’s plans seem to address the current sales issues), so I was definitely right that “Microsoft will continue to not get it.” But that’s not surprising, as it takes Microsoft awhile to get it.

Bing

Bing did pretty well this year (not financially), growing from 11.8% market share to 15%, and with Yahoo! included the duo went from 28.2% market share up to 30.1%. The growth of the two doesn’t seem so great, which is due to Yahoo losing a couple percentage points in their market share. I predicted that by now Bing alone would be at an 18% market share, but that didn’t turn out to be the case.

I also said that HTML5 Bing would have been out 6 months ago, with that cool video background and instant search along with other updates. That never happened (the video background has happened, though), but a few people (including me) did start to see the new Bing, which then disappeared not long after.

Steve Ballmer

Steve Ballmer remained at Microsoft, also not a surprise. A few months ago approval ratings of Microsoft executives were taken, and Steve Ballmer received a 92% approval rating. That doesn’t seem too bad, except for the fact that the previous year that number was at 95% (Bill Gates has a 99.1% approval rating).

PC Sales

We kept hearing news article after news article last year of the forecast of PC sales being “slashed,” it was the hot topic of the year, after all. But in reality, PC sales did not stop, and they did not stagnate — as some seemed to think was happening or was going to happen. Sure, the growth was only around 3% year-over-year, but when you sell some 350 million+ computers every single year, 3% of that number is 10.5 million.

iPhone

I was completely wrong in every regard here. The iPhone 5 didn’t come out, it was the iPhone 4S (but it didn’t have LTE, as I predicted), and it came out on multiple carriers in the U.S. as well.

Chromebooks

Google hasn’t given any details on Chromebook sales, but according to ZDNet they sold horribly (in the range of only tens of thousands, if that). But who would want to buy a $500 machine that can only surf the web and be valuable if connected to the Internet? Apparently very few.

So there you have it, a review of my predictions from last year. I didn’t miss all my predictions, but then again none of them were very extreme… Maybe I will make some more extreme predictions next time .

Electronista is reporting that a new Windows 8 leak (build 7989) reveals possible geolocation and SMS integration with the next generation version of Windows. But that’s not all, as some have speculated that Windows 8 will have a per-feature licensing feature, so instead of buying a specific edition of Windows, users would pay per feature. Finally, there is a new and improved virtual keyboard, which appears to be a near identical copy of Windows Phone 7′s built-in keyboard.

None of this is really surprising, or at least it shouldn’t. We’ve already seen what Windows 8 will look like, at least touch-interface wise as shown off by Steven Sinofsky at D9. It looks very similar to Windows Phone 7, period. So a keyboard that is identical to the one in Windows Phone 7 wouldn’t be of any surprise at all.

The geolocation and SMS API’s are certainly interesting, but it as we can see Windows is beginning to merge into a single platform, which will run on almost anything imaginable. Why make a phone platform use a different version of the Windows operating system (CE, that is)? It makes sense for them to have a single code base, which would make it very easy for a developer to create an application for Windows 8 on the desktop, and it would work on the phone as well, because the interfaces are very similar. By having a single underlying platform, it would also cut down on costs for Microsoft, because they wouldn’t need completely separate development teams, for the underlying system, that is.

As for the per-feature licensing, I sure hope that speculation is completely wrong, because that will be even more ridiculous than the current setup of how Windows is being sold, as I have said many times.

Here is my speculation: enabling features is itself a feature. Microsoft has slowly allowed users to disable features of the operating system, it started with Windows Vista, and progressed even further in Windows 7 to where users can turn off Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, and more. It simply means Microsoft is making Windows even more modular to where components aren’t required for the normal operation of the system. If Windows 8 is going to be the “platform to rule them all,” then there will be certain features that won’t need to be used by certain devices, allowing Windows to be lighter and run faster. For example, the SMS integration, will a desktop need it? Don’t think so, so it will be disabled on the desktop, but enabled on phones and maybe certain tablets.

This is, of course, pure speculation on my part — as is everyone else’s ideas.

Nielson has discovered that Android’s market share in the U.S. stagnated last month, according to Slareng. Google’s Android operating system lost one percentage point last month, going from 37% to 36%. While this is not a significant drop by a long shot, it does show that the interest in Android has waned ever so slightly.

iPhone saw a one percentage drop (down to 26%), while BlackBerry saw a one percentage point increase (to 23%). It is no surprise that Windows Phone 7 only saw a market share of a mere 1%, along with the no longer used Palm OS. HP’s webOS captures 2% of the U.S. market.

Nielson also tracked data usage by smartphone operating system on average, and they found Android used the most at 582MB. This was followed by iOS at 492MB on average, then webOS at 448MB, and Windows Phone 7 at 317MB. Windows Mobile phones only use 174MB on average, with BlackBerry last with only 127MB per phone.

Nielson also found that Android and iOS users were more likely to download apps, at 74 and 79%, respectively. 63% of Windows Phone 7 users download apps when they are out and about, followed by webOS at 52%.

Not long ago Steve Ballmer claimed that Windows Phone 7.5 (codename “Mango”) would introduce over 500 new features to the mobile platform.

However it appears that while Microsoft did unveil quite a bit of information about Windows Phone 7.5 this last Tuesday, the count remains at 82 according to Anythingbutiphone.

One feature that is still up in the air is tethering, which would allow users to create a Wi-Fi hotspot with their Windows Phone. Nothing relating to tethering capabilities in the major update were released, but recently someone on the Windows Phone Dev Blog asked about tethering support.

Not long after the comment in regards to tethering, Matt Bencke, an employee at Microsoft, replied, “Tethering, in the past was something that we managed independently of the Mobile Operators (e.g. AT&T, Orange, Verizon). In recent years, the Mobile Operators have now taken ownership of this functionality x-all platforms (e.g. our competitors as well as us). We are continually working with them and our OEM partners to enable this functionality for our devices, but at this time there isn’t an announcement that we’ve made in regards to rolling out this feature. Stay Tuned!”

I contacted Microsoft, asking them if Windows Phone “Mango” actually had tethering capabilities, in other words, could Windows Phone “Mango” create Wi-Fi hotspots if enabled by the mobile carrier.

“Microsoft is committed to delivering regular enhancements to the Windows Phone experience, but we don’t have additional details to share at this time,” I was told by a Microsoft spokesperson. I was also told to stay tuned for additional information from Microsoft.

So it appears as though the May 24th event this last Tuesday was not a tell-all event.

These suspicions have been confirmed by a recent interview SFGate had with Brandon Watson, a director of developer experience at Microsoft, where Watson told them that further features would be announced in the coming weeks, beyond those already detailed.

“There are more delighters coming,” said Watson.

When Microsoft unveiled Windows Phone “Mango” a couple days ago, a web version of the Windows Phone Marketplace was also announced.

With the Windows Phone Marketplace on the web, users will be able to do everything they can through the Zune client. The entire app catalog will be available to browse, view screenshots, read all the applications information and also reviews.

The Web Marketplace will have more space to “provide featured apps with extra visibility and merchandising possibilities.”

“In addition to easy shopping, Web Marketplace will also enable customers (and you) to promote your apps among friends, family, partners and social networks,” says Todd Brix. “Customers will be able to share their favorite apps by embedding a link in emails or articles or make a recommendation through Facebook or Twitter.”

Purchasing apps through the Web Marketplace is also easy, because when you buy an app it will be charged against the credit card linked to the Windows Live ID currently logged into. A user is not limited to using that as a form of payment, they can also add additional credit cards as well.

When an app is purchased it will be downloaded to the phone over-the-air, or at a later time if desired. The Web Marketplace will also keep a history of the apps purchased, just in case the user gets a new phone the applications can all be downloaded again.

There are also parental controls that can be enabled, which can be setup to only allow a user to download certain apps, and to choose whether or not apps can be purchased.

The Web Marketplace will launch later this year, most likely in tandem with the release of Windows Phone 7.5 (codename “Mango”).

This is a great step forward, and one step closer to no longer needing to touch the Zune client (not that it is bad, or slow, but still nice not to need to run another application), though I doubt there will be any way to update Windows Phone without it.