Making predictions is fun. I made some predictions a long time ago about the iPhone and it's fun to go back and see which ones came true. #1 was "Apple will design the plans, and they'll twist the arms of the carriers to make them simple to understand and attractive to Apple's users" — that seems to be accurate.

Now that Nokia has demonstrated that they can deliver a device to compete with the iPhone, the question is, can they deliver the rest of the solution to match? Not an easy thing to say. You need a lot more than good hardware to make the kind of great customer experience that Apple shines at.

So here's 9 things that Nokia needs to do to retain and win back their smartphone dominance.

1. Forget the carriers. Nokia has a great brand (outside the USA) in part because many of the carriers they deal with have virtually no control. They need to make the same deal everywhere, including the huge US market. When you get a nokia, it has to be a totally nokia experience. Just like iPhone.

2. In line with that, every unit sold must run the same firmware. Right now there are a zillion firmware versions for the N95 alone. This is insane and frustrating for users and developers. Everyone should be running the same version, just like iPhone.

3. Simplify product line. Again. Like Apple. Nokia has about fifty billion products on the market, all with insane numbers instead of names, and so none of them get any buzz. Names are good, small numbers of models are good. How about 3? Even 10 models would be a dramatic improvement, and probably enough to cover the gamut from $10 developing market to whatever is the highest in the range.

4. App store. Duh. BUT — this requires absolute cross-carrier uniformity and a way to ensure that every subscriber has a data plan...

5. Getting away from copying Apple here. How about they shape up their open source story? What they've started with is a good start, but it needs to be better. Developing for Symbian is just about the worst thing in the world. Apple's SDK is better but you still have to use Objective C. How about Nokia lets us code in a nice modern language like Ruby? They could really leverage open source excitement if they made that a possibility.

They can really jump the queue on Apple with this one, because OSS just goes against the grain at Apple. It's not that they don't like open source, but it doesn't work with the secrecy and the total control thing. But Nokia could leverage open source efforts to really turn their platform into something to care about as a programmer. Android is starting from scratch, but Nokia has a developer community already in place, loads of users, and all of those people would jump at the opportunity to make and use cool apps.

6. Open up the platform. If nokia is seriously about open sourcing Symbian, then they should let people go so far as to actually installing their own versions of Symbian OS on their phones. That would just rock, and the user mojo would be amazing. Of course the carriers will hate it, which is why 1. above is 1. And they'll probably have to keep key sections of the OS (radio functions probably) under control.

7. Continue the content creation story, and back it up with better web integration. Keep pushing the megapixels and the video capture, etc. But, I should also be able to, with no setup, upload my high resolution movies I make with my Nokia directly to a Nokia-branded website (or flickr, if I so choose). Not using some stupid PC tools, but directly, over my WiFi network. There's no reason Nokia can't do this, and they've already made a good start with the kick-ass Sports Tracker app/web site combo.

7. Keep converging. Turn by turn GPS navigation is good, I can throw out my garmin. Keep going! They'll naturally stay ahead of Apple because they are inherently conservative on features, not wanting to add too many, each one has to be perfect and the market mature enough. Nokia can stay ahead here. I only want two electronic devices — my phone and my PC. And hey, if I can get rid of my PC that's great (integrated projector??). Unlikely, maybe. But Nokia should aggressively continue to add core features.

8. Keep innovating form factors. Another nokia advantage to stay with. Although I admit this conflicts with simplifying the product line. Wild and wacky form factors ARE cool...

9. Keep drinking whatever they are drinking. Somehow Nokia is the most Apple-like company that isn't Apple, even though they are a massive decentralized conglomerate with no dictatorial genius at the helm. Whatever they feed their people, keep doing it.