In her predictions of Eight Trends for a Mobile World at Forbes on Wednesday, Elizabeth Woyke predicted that 2008 would be the year when beautiful graphics in cell phones emerge, the GPS would become the new camera, and casual computers would emerge. She also predicted 2008 would be the year of bad touch screens.

Trend #1. Beauty is back. "There’s a new design discipline emerging called ’motion design.’ It’s about creating seamless and beautiful journeys, not just functional, individual screens. The skill set comes from guys who have been doing special effects for TV and video," Ms. Woyke wrote.

Trends #2,3. A multi-platform, single sign experience will emerge and the mobile Web browser will have arrived.

Trend #4. "Now GPS is poised to be the next killer mobile app," the author noted. "Chip prices are rapidly dropping, and providers are dreaming big of monetizing location-based services. Maps are being fused with navigation. We expect more than half of phones will have GPS chips five years from now."

Trend #5. 2008 will be the year of the bad touch screen, according to Ms. Woyke, as the industry works furiously to catch up with the iPhone: "Touch screens are ridiculously hard to do well, because they pose both hardware and software problems, and these typically aren’t detected until late in development. Companies are launching touch screens hastily and hoping for the best. We’re seeing phones that just started shipping that don’t quickly respond to touch. As a user, you somehow think they’re broken."

There was more, including the observation that the dawn of the casual computer has arrived. No more six pound notebooks on the restaurant table that blot out the sky. That’s rude. Microsoft was seen as the loser in this entertainment and show-off game of casual, shirt pocket mobile access.

The author made good cases for emerging trends with sharp observations. The question now is whether Apple can exploit these trends faster than the competition which has been accustomed to the status quo, slow product cycles, and half-speed "Telecom time."