Apple will kick off its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) with a keynote address on Monday, June 8 at 10:00 a.m. A team of Apple executives, led by Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, will deliver the keynote. WWDC will offer in-depth sessions on both iPhone OS 3.0, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system, and Mac OS® X Snow Leopard, an even more powerful and refined version of the world’s best desktop operating system and the foundation for future Mac innovation.
All of my readers are spread throughout the world, but being based in the UK, 6pm GMT will be the focus of my coverage. Normally Steve Jobs would take to the stage at Moscone West, San Francisco. This year will be Phil Schiller again, as Steve is not due to return to his active role at Apple until the end of the month. As things unfold at the Keynote, I will be putting together a video of the announcements, which should be online by around 7:30pm. This will also be followed by a series of videos looking in-depth at what Apple has delivered.
Expectations
We will see a massive concentration on giving us the full details of iPhone OS 3.0. This will deliver a raft of new features that we already know about, including MMS and that all important copy and paste. We should also see the introduction of background processes, so running more than one application at a time will be possible.
Snow Leopard will also be detailed, with a shipping date. This new streamlined version of the OS for Mac desktops and laptops will not offer many new features, but will certainly take up less system storage and resources to get the same job done.
I personally also expect to see a revamp of the iPhone range. The much rumored iPhone Video should make an appearance. With four models in the line-up, ranging from 4GB to 32GB in capacity. This should also include a front facing camera, so iChat video conferencing is bought to the handset. The rear facing camera will be boosted to somewhere in the region of 3.2 to 5 megapixels, with that all important video recording functionality. From the various rumors and photos floating around, the fingerprint magnet should be gone and a nice rubberised matte black finish will be applied to the back of the device. The silver trim around the front bezel will also disappear, in favour of a black powder coated bezel. Sizing and the overall form factor will remain exactly the same.
One more thing...
Will we get that 'one more thing'. Well, we all know that Apple is working on some sort of touch enabled netbook or tablet device. I doubt that this will be announced today. Steve Jobs is going to return at the end of the month of June. I think it is more likely we will see a hardware announcement to coincide with his return. Again, this may be too early for the netbook/tablet launch, so we may have to wait until January 2010 for this new eagerly anticipated device.