Waiting in the WWDC line
Monday, June 7, 2010 at 7:06AM It's now 6:35am and I've been waiting in line for an hour or so. I was originally intending to leave it until much later as the keynote is slightly different from the Macworld keynotes of the past. WWDC has a much smaller attendance than Macworld (5000+ attendees) so it should be easier to get in.
Turns out, the line is very similar to the Macworld line with some people queuing overnight!
Thank goodness for the time difference which allows me to wake up at 4am with no effort (and no alarm)
As far as the keynote is concerned, I've deliberately made no predictions to date, finding this one very hard to call.
The introduction of the iPhone 4G (or HD) seems to be pretty much a given. The Gizmodo debacle has given us a glimpse of the likely hardware but there are still questions around the software and importantly, the screen resolution. Still plenty of scope for Apple to surprise us with some new features.
The success of the iPad will get plenty of coverage and will go a long way to validate the focus of this years WWDC on the mobile space. Although the keynote will introduce iPhone 4.0, Apple have already stated that the iPad will not receive the iPhone 4.0 update until late in the year. Will be interesting to see if there are any announcements about specific iPad enhancements in the 4.0 release.
On the understanding that the Mac will take a back seat this year, I doubt we'll see much about OSX 10.7. Any "normal" company might go out of there way to just mention plans for future updates, but that's not how Apple roll, so we may not even get a mention of it.
It will be interesting to see if this is the keynote where the Apple TV gets elevated to more than just a hobby status. A fully blown low cost Apple TV, optimised for content delivery via the cloud, with enhanced games capability and the possibility of running apps would be a great addition to the consumer line up for the Xmas holiday season. Fully controllable via the iPhone or iPad, together with the option to stream content to the iPad for personal viewing within the home. All the platforms, except for the central Apple TV hub is in place. Perhaps WWDC is the place to announce to give the developers time to prepare for Apple TV apps before Xmas.
MobileMe may well be split into free and paid for components. Standard sync between Mac and mobile devices should be free, with extra value add such as email, storage and the location based services a paid option.
So nothing completely off the wall and still plenty of scope for some new and unexpected developments.
Exciting times.
We'll see just how exciting in three hours!
Reader Comments (3)
Hi Don, enjoy the presentation. I'm excited too! Just a quick question - did you write this out on your iPad and, if so, how was it for writing out a good 4-500 word piece?
Yes, works like a charm. I'm no touch typist so I get on just fine with the iPad keyboard.
Don, but surely, if you are using the onscreen keyboard of the iPad, that does actually make you a "touch" typist ;-)
Paul