SAN FRANCISCO – In the world of Apple, 2010 has been the year of mobile. The iPad has become such a household name it’s amazing that it was only first announced 10 months ago. It’s hard to imagine using an iOS device now without multitasking. And let’s not forget about a little something called iPhone 4. There was in fact so much activity on the Apple mobile front, you might have forgotten they were once a computer company. That’s why Apple’s special media event being held tomorrow is aptly titled “Back to the Mac“- to remind us that “Hey, we still make computers too!”

There has already been plenty of speculation about what Apple WILL announce tomorrow, so here are a few of the rumors that we won’t see materialize.

iPhone 4 revision b/iPhone 5/iPhone CDMA (Verizon)/iOS 5

It’s pretty well established the Verizon iPhone is on the way. I just don’t think tomorrow’s event is the venue to announce it. The point here is to refocus Apple’s energy back on its flagship product, the Mac. While we will probably see some iOS-related integration into OS X 10.7 Lion as well as some iOS-like UI additions, don’t expect any new mobile hardware to emerge just yet.

New iPad/iPad 7″

The iPad already has a major update on the way next month via iOS 4.2 and once again, to really drive it home, tomorrow’s event is a Mac event. Don’t hold your breath for that Retina display, front-facing camera iPad. January might be a different story, however. Also, Steve Jobs recently completely debunked rumors of a smaller, 7″ screen iPad in the works. Judging by his tone in debunking the 7″ iPad, it won’t be announced tomorrow, it won’t be announced ever.

iLife ’10/iWork ’10

With only two months left in ’10, it looks like Apple skipped this year for major releases of its media and productivity software suites. The good news is, the last time they skipped a year was 2007 which then made way for iLife ’08 and iWork ’08: arguably the biggest updates to the suites since their initial releases. iDVD and iWeb on the iLife side are in particular need for updates, so hopefully tomorrow we will see a whole lot of new desktop software (as well as a new versioning convention- something about iLife ’11 looks and sounds funny to me).

Desktop Macs

Both the iMac and Mac Pro were bumped-up this past July, the Mac Mini this past June- so I wouldn’t expect any updates there. That leaves MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air- all potentially due for updates, especially the latter two. Apple’s server hardware XServe is also due, though tomorrow might not the place for that, either.

Mac OS 11

Judging by tomorrow’s event poster, the OS X product cycle, and common sense, it’s pretty clear Apple is planning to announce the next incarnation of OS X, 10.7 Lion. I don’t know who started the rumblings of OS 11 or why, but let’s just go ahead and stop that now, mmkay?

SAN FRANCISCO – Microsoft on Monday introduced a portfolio of smartphones based on the new Windows Phone 7 operating system to take on the iPhone 4 and the Android army. Of the ten new Windows Phone 7 devices, six will be headed to the U.S. market: AT&T will have the HTC 7 Surround, the LG Quantum, and the Samsung Focus; Sprint will have the HTC 7 Pro; and T-Mobile will get the HTC HD7 and the Dell Venue Pro (aka Lighting).

The phones will arrive in the United States on November 8 (except for the HTC 7 Pro, which will arrive in 2011) for around $200 a pop (with a two-year contract, of course). Now that we know the specifications for these smartphones, we can pit them against category titans Apple iPhone 4 and Motorola Droid X in our traditional smackdown. (Click the chart at right to view a full breakdown of the specs.)

The six new Windows Phone 7 devices due out next month all run on a 1GHz processor, as do most smartphones on the market today. The LG Quantum and the Samsung Focus have 256MB of RAM, the Dell Venue Pro has 512MB, and each of the three HTC devices offers 576MB.

The HTC 7 Pro, the HTC HD7, and the LG Quantum carry 16GB of on-board storage for your music and videos. The HTC 7 Surround, the Samsung Focus, and the lower-end version of the HTC HD7 come with 8GB of storage.

If you’re looking for a large-screen Windows Phone 7 device, you have a wide range of choices. Screen sizes start at the 3.5 inches diagonally (the same size as the iPhone) for the LG Quantum, and move up to a whopping 4.3 inches diagonally (the same size as the Droid X) for the HTC HD7. Display resolution is 480 by 800 pixels on all of the Windows Phone 7 devices, putting them on a par with the Droid X and the T-Mobile G2. The iPhone 4, with its 3.5-inch display still boasts the highest pixel density and the largest resolution in this comparison.

If you want a hardware keyboard, you have three choices: the Samsung Focus and the HTC 7 Pro have lateral slide-out keyboards, while the Dell Venue Pro has a vertical QWERTY slide-out keyboard. If you don’t need a keyboard, you can always go for the HTC 7 Surround, the Samsung Focus, of the HTC HD7.

All six Windows Phone 7 devices come with a 5-megapixel camera, with a flash. All of the cameras can record video, too, and on the HTC devices you get HD (720p) video capture, as on the iPhone and Android phones. The only U.S.-bound Windows Phone 7 device with a front-facing camera for handling video calls is the Samsung Focus.

Other features shared by all six Windows Phone 7 smartphones are Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth; none of them has an HDMI slot, however, as the Droid X does. On the other hand, perks such as a slide-out surround-sound speaker on the HTC 7 Surround, and Dolby Digital sound on all three HTC phones, should compensate for this omission.

Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7 OS has some difficulties to overcome. The OS lacks such functionality as copy/paste and multitasking–features that rivals like Apple took their time to implement but now do have on the market. Like iOS, the Windows Phone 7 devices lack Adobe Flash support; and in contrast to most Android smartphones on Verizon, they can’t act as a Wi-Fi hotspot.

Applications will be another challenge for Microsoft, as developers have yet to rush to create apps for the platform (despite cash incentives). In comparison, Apple has over 270,000 apps, and Android over 100,000, so Microsoft has some catching up to do in this department.

The as-yet untested Windows Phone 7 devices could have a bright future. My colleague Ginny Mies spent some hands-on time with the new OS, and despite her doubts, she was impressed with it. The OS on an HTC HD7 was fast, Mies reported, and she liked what she saw in the first encounter.

SEATTLE – IPhone 4 users who can only video chat with each other will soon get more options once T-Mobile’s Slide comes out.

Bridging the gap will be Yahoo Messenger, which will run on both phones, Yahoo said.

On Monday, T-Mobile announced the Slide, an Android phone made by HTC that comes with two cameras so that users can easily video chat with others. At the time, T-Mobile mentioned without elaboration that users would be able to video chat with other Slide owners, PC users and people with “compatible phones.”

“You can chat with any phone that has a two-way camera, and that includes the iPhone 4,” said Michael Shim, vice president of mobile business development and partnerships for Yahoo, on Wednesday.

People with phones with just one camera can also do the video chat, but they’ll have to flip the phone to take video of themselves, then flip it back to see video of the person they are talking to on the screen.

Other than the iPhone 4, there are few phones that sport two cameras.

The iPhone 4 launched with FaceTime, an application for video chat. It only works with other iPhone 4 users, and so initially some people had trouble finding other people to video chat with.

T-Mobile hasn’t said exactly when the Slide will go on sale, but said the phone will come out in time for the holidays.

SAN FRANCISCO – Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android OS dominate the new non-BlackBerry installations in enterprises across the globe between July and September 2010, according to Good Technology’s tally of what the mobility management vendor’s customers are deploying. Good’s mobile management tool is typically deployed in large businesses and government agencies, and so is a good proxy for overall enterprise adoption patterns. But it does not support RIM’s BlackBerry or Hewlett-Packard’s WebOS, so Good’s results do not include data on those platforms’ activations.

Within two months of its launch, the Apple iPhone 4, became the most frequently activated device among Good’s enterprise customers. The Apple iPad also leaped into Good’s Top 5 devices list that quarter, showing that enterprises and their users are already adopting tablets for business. But it’s not all about Apple: Android device activations continue to grow rapidly as more new devices come to market, with the Droid X by Motorola as the most frequently activated Android device in September, Good reported today.

Over a broader period, from May 1 through September 30, Good saw the following trends in new-user activations at its customer sites:

• • Of iPad users, 70 percent did not previously have smartphones activated, indicating that most iPad users were not traditional smartphone users, at least not at work.
  • iOS devices represented more than 50 percent of net new activations.
  • Android devices represented nearly 30 percent.
  • Windows Mobile devices represented 15 percent.
  • Symbian devices represented less than 5 percent.

For specific devices, Good has found that the top 10 devices ranked as follows: The iOS-based iPhone 4 accounted for about 35 percent of new activations in the third quarter, the iOS-based iPhone 3G S for about 17 percent, the iOS-based iPad for about 10 percent, the Android-based Motorola Droid X for about 7 percent, the iOS-based iPhone 3G for about 6 percent, the Windows Mobile-based HTC Cedar for about 5 percent, the Windows Mobile-based Samsung i637 for about 5 pecent, the Android-based HTC Droid Incredible for about 5 percent, and the Android-based Motorola Droid 2 for about 2 percent.

But looking at just the month of September, the data shows the fast rise of several new devices: The Droid X rose from 6 percent in July to 11 percent in September and the Droid 2 had 5 percent of new activations in its first month (September) of availability. iPhone 3G S activations fell from 20 to 15 percent between July and September, while the iPhone 4 rose from 27 to 32 percent. The other devices’ percentages were farly level during that period.