WWDC 2009 Predictions....
Sunday, June 7, 2009 at 11:34PM Well, I did say my blogging would be "light & sporadic"
It's 12:26am here in the UK, the day of the WWDC 2009 keynote and I suppose I should really make some predictions on what will be announced later today (actually, I started writing this at 11:26pm the day before!) I've already gone on record over on the Mac OS Ken Day 6 podcast, after being asked by Ken for some predictions last week, but as that is a subscription based podcast, you may not have heard it.
In fact, I could make a completely new set of predictions and you may never be the wiser ;-)
Seems that this year, all the predictions I've heard of, seem to have an unprecedented level of assurance that they will in fact, turn up. This is always a bad sign. It usually leads to severe disappointment and an anti climax immediately following the the keynote (and a hit on the stock price), even if Apple deliver something great but fall short of the, sometimes, incredible rumours.
The thing to bare in mind for the WWDC 2009 conference and keynote is that it's a developer conference.
It's all about the software.
Yes, I know the iPhone 3G was launched there last year and other hardware before that, but it's really aimed at the software developers.
Consequently, I think there are two givens today:
iPhone 3.0 software: With the push of iTunes 8.2 last week and the fact that it supports iPhone OS 3.0, I think iPhone OS 3.0 will be launched today and made available for immediate download.
OS X 10.6 - Snow Leopard: Not a launch but the announcement of the release date and the pricing.
Both these announcements could easily take up half the keynote each.
With the iPhone 3.0 software, they will already have a ton of apps that will support some of the new cool features. They'll probably already have some hardware vendors on board with some new hardware add-ons. Then there is the feature set of 3.0 itself. This could easily take 30 minutes to go through.
Snow Leopard is interesting in that they really haven't pushed this hard for a long, long time. If I remember, it was not featured in:
Macworld 2008 Keynote (MacBook Air, AppleTV Take 2, Time Capsule, updated iPhone features)
WWDC 2008 Keynote (iPhone 3G, App Store, MobileMe and Notification services)
Macworld 2009 (Update iLife and iWork apps, iWork.com, 17" MacBook Pro, DRM Free iTunes)
So for the past two years, Snow Leopard has not even been mentioned in a single major event by Apple.... and Windows 7 is in public beta and starting to get some major props when compared to Vista.
I think the event today will be the ideal venue to showcase the new OS and I fully expect a major demo of the new features in Snow Leopard, the benefits it brings to the developer and consumer and the release strategy. Although Apple have positioned it as not having any specific "new features", and it's really just an exercise in "tightening" up the performance of Leopard, I've no doubt some of the "non-features" will suddenly be re-branded as features, along with some new features, as yet to be revealed. Again, I could envisage this taking up another lengthy part of the keynote.
So what about the new iPhone hardware?
This seems to be the announcement that everyone and his mother thinks is a dead cert for today.
I'm not too sure....
Would they really want to overshadow Snow Leopard with the new iPhone at such a critical time?
Would they want to turn WWDC in virtually an iPhone exclusive event, yet again?
Would Steve Jobs really want one of the other executives to launch the new iPhone?
If you remember back to the original launch of the first iPhone, Steve mentioned he'd waited three years to announce the iPhone. He had his family and friends in the audience at Macworld 2007 (I was in the Starbucks next to Moscone, but that's another story). It seems to me that the iPhone is a big deal for Steve. Who just so happens, is back from sick leave at the end of June.
So this could go two ways, Apple could release the new iPhone today and overshadow everything else in the keynote or...
They could wait for Steve to get back in a few weeks and hold a special event to release the iPhone, and have all the benefit of an extra few weeks build up plus the return of Steve Jobs. The stock may take a hit if the new iPhone doesn't appear today, but if the iPhone 3.0 and Snow Leopard demos are good, it may only be minor and heck, it would only be for a few weeks. It might even give the stock price a double bump.
I'm really torn to say with any certainty which way they'll go, I just have a gut feeling that they'll delay the release of the new iPhone for a few weeks, and then hit us with a double whammy of a new iPhone with Video plus the fabled iPhone Nano. The iPhone Nano must come soon so they can start the strategy they adopted with the iPhone in creating models to meet a range of price points.
So I'll stick my neck out and say no new iPhone today (but would not be completely shocked if it did appear- you know how these things go!).
A couple of long shots for you to mull over....
A new AppleTV? The original AppleTV is looking really old now and could really do with a refresh. Why not a new hardware platform and an AppleTV SDK for the developers to start developing some AppleTV apps or even games? Have Apple decided that the "hobby" might be worth investing in?
The fabled Apple Tablet? No. Not yet!
New Unibody MacBooks? Following the bump in the plastic MacBooks, this could be a possibility but on past form, I doubt they'd use WWDC to announce a speed bump.
No matter what happens, it should be an exciting event and I hope we all get what we want out of it, just be prepared for a little bit of disappointment, if only for a couple of weeks!
Reader Comments (2)
I think you're right Don. Why not wait for Job's return?
I'm a little surprised how close we are in our picks. Just gotta add a guess that Snow Leopard has something juicy which will be demoed tomorrow. Whether it has anything to do with the newly announced server farm and some recent activity at MobileMe I can't even guess. Funniest prediction I've read was that "One More Thing" would be Steve Jobs making an announcement, think it was version 3.0!