WWDC 2011 is tomorrow, and we already know that iOS 5 will be the subject of the Stevenote. Here are my predictions, along with probabilities. And, if anyone wants to make a bet in the few remaining hours, I auto-accept your wager.

Revamped Notifications (99%)

The current iOS notifications system is horribly broken. Everyone has their favorite fail story, and here’s mine….

Occasionally, our iPad will completely drain its battery. When power is restored, the date resets to January 1, 1970. Not a big problem, so far. But, as soon as I change the date to the present, I get a upcoming calendar alert for every appointment between 1970 and today. Hundreds of them, with no “ignore all” option. I have to sit there like an idiot and press “OK” about 1200 times before I can even use the iPad. In case you’re wondering, this takes about 40 minutes (if you’re committed) or about 3 hours (if you’re easily distracted).

Clearly this needs to change, with the minimum required features being:

1. Grouped notifications (i.e. all 1200 appointment reminders could be cleared in a single action)
2. Non-modal notifications (i.e the notification doesn’t interrupt everyone on the device until it is cleared)

There’s so much real estate at the top bar of iOS (in particular on an iPad), that it makes the most sense to place notifications up there, a la Android. But I can’t imagine Cupertino so obviously copping to Android superiority, so I expect the notifications to appear on the lock screen instead.

Active Icons (92%) or Widgets (2%)

A lot of people are predicting a widget framework like Android, but I think that’s a longshot. Apple’s entire iOS aesthetic is built around the 4 rows of icons. (Consider how folders were introduced in iOS 4 without breaking that aesthetic.)

However, I think Apple will introduce an API for apps to update their icons. (There is already an API to provide a notification count; this “ActiveIcon” API would be architecturally similar.) The built-in Calendar app already does this, helpfully displaying the current date. Contrast this to the built-in Weather app, which still reports a balmy 75 degrees even for the 11 iPhone-wielding scientists on Antarctica. Clearly, the Weather app should display the actual weather. Expect Apple to use this API for a light refresh to the built-in weather and stocks apps.

I also think there’s a small but not insignificant chance (call it 15%) that Apple will release an API for “UI-less” apps – an app that has no user interface except the icon. When you tap the icon, something happens that doesn’t require any additional user input, such as:

• Tap to call a specific contact
• Tap to play a sound (“sad trombone” FTW)
• Tap to toggle a system setting (Bluetooth, GPS, WiFi would be the big wins here)

These “appitos” would be available on the iTunes App Store and could be deleted and rearranged with a long-press, just like regular Apps. (Apple would never call them “appitos”, but wouldn’t that be cute?)

Lock Screen API (95%)

Lock screen replacements are a dime-a-dozen on the Android and Cydia markets, and for good reason: the standard lock screen squanders all 960×640 pixels with no useful information except the time. (In fairness, the stock Android lock screen doesn’t do any better.)

Apple will NOT enable third-party lock screens like Android and Cydia. Instead, there will be an API that allows Apps to register content for display on the iOS lock screen.

Since the lock screen is such prime real estate, every app will want to shove content there, whether it belongs or not. I suspect Apple will have given a lot of thought to quality control of the lock screen. At a minimum, Apple will:

1. Have a stringent set of criteria for what can and cannot be displayed, which will be enforced through the iTunes application process.
2. Require user opt-in, like they currently do for notifications. (“iFart 3000 would like to use the lock screen, would you like to allow it?”)

I expect to be completely blown away by how elegant, beautiful, and intuitive the new lock screen is. This is the kind of thing that Apple excels at.

Expose for apps (50%)

People have lots of apps. A few years ago, only the top, top power users had hundreds of apps, maybe 0.1% of users, and Apple could safely ignore their needs. But in 2011, the percentage of users with 100+ apps has grown to 8%. (Source: my completely unscientific survey at a family reunion over Memorial Day.)

Folders are nice, but they take a long time to setup, and people are lazy. Plus, adding two levels makes it harder for people to remember where their apps are, because it the extra dimension violates the phenomenal spatial memory that homo sapiens have evolved over the last 100,000 years.

My 4-year-old and 2-year-old kids each have an iPod Touch with 8 screens of apps, and they know EXACTLY what page each app is on. But they still need to swipe up to 7 times to get to that page.

An expose interface would “zoom up” to show 9 pages on the screen, and then you could directly jump to any desired page. So you could go to page 9 by clicking on the bottom-right tile. (For those with more than 9 pages, it would probably make most sense to scroll through multiple “pages of pages”, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the wizards of Cupertino came up with an even more elegant solution.)

Expose would be summoned either through a multitouch gesture on the home screen (80%), or by triple clicking the home button (10%) or by swiping UP on the home screen (25%) or by doing-some-other-thing-that-seems-really-obvious-in-hindsight-but-was-really-hard-to-come-up-with-initially.

Place your bets.

Seriously. Anyone who wants to make a bet on one of these, tweet me (@portman_wills) with your wager. I hereby automatically accept any tweeted wager under $20. (Tweets are binding contracts in Delaware.)