The “center of the app universe” will be at Moscone West in San Francisco this year, as WWDC10 kicks off on June 7 and runs through the 11th.
In a press release, Senior Apple VP Scott Forstall doesn’t even pretend it’s about the Mac anymore. WWDC will provide “in-depth sessions and hands-on working labs to learn more about iPhone OS 4,” helping developers “make their iPhone and iPad apps even better.”
And it doesn’t end there, unless we’re talking about information on the next iteration of Mac OS X.
For developers, the $1,599 package gets you in on five technology tracks: Application Frameworks; Internet & Web; Graphics & Media; Developer Tools; and Core OS, but no IT/SysAdmin track. The sessions offer blanket coverage of iPhone OS development, but unless OS X 10.7 sessions will be super secret, there doesn’t appear to be a lot there. It sure seems telling that five design awards will be handed out for the iPhone and the iPad, but not the Mac.
For those who are not developers, expect to see the next generation iPhone, rumored to be named the iPhone HD. If the infamous prototype revealed by Gizmodo is the final version, its hardware features will include: a front-facing video camera, camera flash, micro-SIM card, and two volume buttons. Also, John Gruber has suggested the resolution of the display will jump to 960×640. The launch date for the phone will certainly be announced, probably June or early July.
That phone will be running iPhone OS 4, of course, which has already been previewed. There may be a few new features, along with information about a “unity release” of iPhone OS 4.1 for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad sometime in late summer or early fall.
As for what to expect that is not related to the iPhone, if one can expect anything, probably a quiet update of the MacBook is in order. There’s also the question of the MacBook Air, which was last updated at WWDC09. The iMac will almost certainly not see an update until the fall, same for the Mac mini, if then. The Mac Pro, which shockingly has not seen an update for over a year, is a candidate for the Intel’s Xeon 5600 CPU. That could mean a 12-core Mac Pro with two six-core CPUs running up to 3.33 GHz. That would be pretty amazing, run pretty hot, too.
Or Apple could completely ignore the Mac and OS X for the desktop, but, hey, how about that magical iPad? No matter what is or isn’t at WWDC10, TAB will be covering the Keynote, product introductions, and new developments in development, of course.
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