The Death of the Finder
Over at Posterous, Sachin Agarwal is predicting that Apple wants to kill the Finder and the file system metaphor that goes with it. He's right (and I agree) - up until the point where he says it's coming in the next version of MacOS X.
It's not coming for MacOS X at all.
Consider that the last time Apple enacted such a radical shift - from the command line to the GUI - the users mostly ignored it. Apple's customers continued buying the Apple II (making it the computer with the longest production run ever) and by the time the rest of the world caught up with the GUI, Apple had been left behind with some crumbs of market share.
Forcing a new paradigm on to users in the next MacOS X update would be even worse. It would cause revolt from uses who are jarred by the change and by developers who have to overhaul their applications like nothing they've ever done before. People would jump to Windows in droves. I would, as well. I believe in dumping the Finder but no one is ready yet.
And, really, why bother? They only have 10% of the market anyway. Even if their customers embraced it wholeheartedly, ten percent is a niche, not a revolution.
This time, Apple's being smarter than they were with the Macintosh. The revolution is sneaking up slowly from behind with new categories of devices. Apple isn't going to yank the Mac GUI out from under us but rather insinuate it into our lives via the steadily advancing iPhone OS. They've gradually moved from a cool phone, to a software platform, to a portable touch based computer and did so by giving the customers and developers new opportunities rather than taking away the old. If all goes to plan, Apple's customers will gradually transition to the iPad and related devices by choice rather than by force, and the Mac OS will have withered away to a niche.