Apple, of course, won’t comment on its unreleased products. But everyone else will. A small industry has grown up around speculating on what Apple will do next.

The blogosphere is alive with the sound of music – the discordant tones of rumour, analysis, and downright guessing. But much of it is well-informed, and it’s possible to navigate through it all to get something approaching a harmonised view.

Apple’s iPhone release schedules are normally about a year apart, though sometimes there is an intercalary six-monthly release. Announcements are made in the northern autumn or spring – around April or September.

Given the evolutionary nature of the recently released 5C and 5S, and the competitive necessity to respond to the Android - and increasingly important Windows Phone – challenge, it is unlikely Apple will wait another year. Expect the iPhone 6 in April 2014, or even March if Apple can get it all together by then.

It’s a given that any new device will have a faster processor, more memory (why not 128GB?), and (often) longer battery life. The iPhone 6 will have all that. Apple’s main chip provider, Taiwan’s TSMC, is ramping up a new 20nm production process that will enable it to make faster and smaller A8 quad core processor, which will also use less power.

Probably the biggest question about any new iPhone, and its key defining feature, is screen size. Apple did a very clever thing with the iPhone 5, stretching the screen vertically but not horizontally, allowing an extra row of icons and improved viewing in landscape mode.

But the trend is towards larger screens. There is speculation that Apple will go to 5”, up from 4” now, which is becoming the industry standard. But too big is inconsistent with the elegance of design for which Apple is renowned.

There is also speculation that Apple will release two different screen sizes, but that also goes against its design principles. I’m guessing one size screen, a little larger than now – maybe 4.5”. Maybe even 4.7” – but smaller than the Android phablets.

There will also by then by a new version of iOS, no doubt to be called iOS8. iOS7 has been well received (like many users I missed iOS6 and skipped a generation), and it is likely that iOS8 will build on iOS7 rather than offer anything too revolutionary. But the operating system is a key differentiator – expect Apple to make some major improvements, and to make a bigger deal out of them.

My favourite tech journalist, Robert X Cringely, writes a hugely entertaining and informative blog modestly called “I, Cringely”. Cringely is author of ‘Accidental Empires’, a 1990s piece about Silicon Valley which remains the seminal work on the subject.

Check his stuff at www.cringely.com

He wrote a very interesting piece recently on Apple’s iPhone strategy. Forget all the speeds and feeds stuff, he says – it’s minutiae. The release story is Apple’s long term aim to make the iPhone the mainstay of the Apple ecosystem, even replacing the Mac.

Jump forward in time to a year from today. Here’s what I expect we’ll see. Go to your desk at work and, using Bluetooth and AirPlay, the iPhone 6 in your pocket will automatically link to your keyboard, mouse, and display. Processing and storage will be in your pocket and, to some extent, in the cloud. Your desktop will require only a generic display, keyboard, mouse, and some sort of AirPlay device, possibly an Apple TV that looks a lot like a Google ChromeCast.

A year from now I expect the apps will detect and fill the larger screen. And that Mac-in-your-pocket will have not only iWork installed, but also Microsoft Office, which Microsoft will be forced to finally release for iOS. Apple making iWork free on new devices — devices powerful enough for this desktop gambit — guarantees that Microsoft will comply.

Go home and take your work with you. Go on the road and it is there, too. IT costs will drop for businesses as desktop PCs are replaced. Having a desktop at home will cost in the $200 range, bringing costs for home IT down, too.

Why would Apple do this? Well for one thing if they don’t Google will. For that matter Google will, anyway, so Apple has some incentive to get this in the market pronto.

So, according to Cringely, the PC is dead. The preferred processing device of the future will be the phone, which will connect wirelessly to a PC sized key board and screen, with storage in the cloud. It’s not a thin client or a ‘Net PC’ – it’s a full fat client but because of the wonders of Moore’s Law all contained within your smartphone.

Makes perfect sense, and Apple is in a better position to turn it into reality than anyone else. Consider for a moment they key difference between the four screens that dominate our lives – the phone, the tablet, the PC and the TV. They differ in functionality and power, but the key differentiator is the screen size.

The phone offers the ultimate in mobility and – Real Soon Now – sufficient processing grunt to run any application. All it needs to do is to connect seamlessly with the appropriately sized screen and it will be the only device we will need.

Think about it. You can be sure Apple is.