..and lots of people will be disappointed if they keep the chassis design on the iPhone 3D :)
I think it's funny how everyone expects a new design every year, just because that's how the cell phone world has always been. Looking at the iPod, Apple only had a few designs that they gradually improved and made smaller.
I'm not sure how Apple is trying to shoehorn touchscreens in Lion. They have made a very clear distinction between OSX and iOS, and instead added more gestures to the touchpads instead of trying to make a Mac with a touch screen.
I agree though, that trying to mix both is a mistake (one that's been tried for 10 years without much success).
Another example, letting the office PBX send a notification for missed calls through notifo. I always figured it was a niche product, but it should have been big enough to succeed.
I don't buy the idea that tablets are getting more optimised for consumption. Just take a look at the app store to see the huge amount of music production software available, some of it replacing music $500+ hardware for $30. And even with its approval process, I find the app store a bad example of the cathedral model considering how all app makers are treated equally. Sure, you have to buy an external keyboard to write longer content on the new tablets, but if the post-PC era happens, I find it hard to believe that content creators will be stopped by that. Time will tell, of course.
My guess is that we'll see this more and more, at least storage in the various components such as glass displays, air data computers etc. Lots of data is already stored for performance/maintenance purposes, which is why they were able to get some helpful data over satellite link before the plane went down.
However, everything installed on a plane needs to be certified for good reason, and unfortunately that makes even the simplest modifications expensive.
I don't think you'll see any traditional filesystem exposed on iOS. Apple seems pretty determined about this. But I'm pretty sure we will see more support for sharing documents between applications, perhaps with MobileMe integration.
Here's a sampling of interference events: http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/docs/rpsts/ped.pdf (edit: only some of them are about EMI interference)
Instruments acting up won't automatically cause a crash. But they may contribute to the accident (ref AF447)
http://www.cvel.clemson.edu/pdf/nasa-rp1374.pdf - some examples of what lack of EMI shielding can do.