So Jony Ive is now responsible for everything that a user see… and touch. So rumors are saying that he now sit on iOS design meetings in order to offer and give advices.

Design is one example of the increased “collaboration across hardware, software and services” that Apple said it was aiming for when Cook pushed senior vice president and mobile software chief Scott Forstall out of the company last year.

So we could expect Apple to take a very global approach with how they design not only their hardware but the software that runs on it. I find it so much surprising for a company where integration is such a big mantra that they didn’t up to now really care to blend the hardware with software in order to perfect this notion of complete integration.

And this is why CES is becoming less and less relevant. It is the software, stupid, not the hardware!

This is why we rush to buy faster iPhones with bigger screen. This is why the iPad is so obvious. They better express the software running in them.

This is why running an app on the iPad takes the whole screen. The device disappears and becomes the app itself.

This article from AllThingsD tells me something about 2013 and Apple: major announcements from Apple will be for the software side.

Apple doesn’t have to lead on all applications categories and services. But, when we start to think about replacing all of the builtin apps that comes with an iOS device with alternatives that are more than good enough, something is wrong. It tells us that the basic user experience that comes with each device is not up to the latest trends and expectations.

So I expect that besides a few hardware announcements, 2013 won’t be like 2012. iOS will see its eagerly awaited 7th release and usually this mean all stock apps that comes with it should see upgrades too that maybe will put them back in the lead feature wise and user experience wise.