Tuesday, May 26, 2009

My Thoughts: WWDC 2009

I was looking through Gizmodo (as you do) when i came across this article by Gizmodo's very own Jesus Diaz and so i thought i would also give my thoughts on Apple's WWDC 2009. (WWDC = World Wide Developers Conference)

For those not "in the know", there have been rumors around for ages about these things.

Firstly, there is a new iPhone coming out. Well, we don't know that. Well, we sort of do. Because everything points at it. From the first rumor of a new matte plastic back to the latest addition to the iPhone SDK of a iPhone 2,1 picture, the internet has worked out that there will be a new iPhone. I believe it will be unvieiled at WWDC and released to the public in late July, similar to the iPhone 3G last year.

(I'm also very excited about this one, cause I should get upgrades on 02 in the UK as they did from the first iPhone to the iPhone 3G. I really hope anyway.)

Secondly, Snow Leopard. The next OS in the Mac OSX line, 10.6 promises performance enhancements and new GUI's for applications, as has been found in recent developer betas around the internet. I think it will be shown off a little at WWDC as the main showcase item, with a new developer beta no doubt available just after. I think this will be great as it has already confirmed

Third, A Mac Tablet. Many rumors have been about for this one and i really hope it becomes a reality, as a mac netbook or tablet would be great, as in my opinion OSX is by far the cleanest and best OS out there (but i am stuck on windows cause i can't hackint0sh my laptop cause of the graphics :( ). However, a netbook is likely in the current climate and i think Apple would be silly not to release one. But whether it will take a tablet form or a netbook form is unknown. There have been rumors of screen orders that are 9.7 or 10 inches and i think this is the perfect size for a tablet. Whether this would come with a keyboard or not is a good question. Drawing new netbook users in would require a hardware-keyboard but most people would still go for a virtual, on screen keyboard. But snow-leopard, as a slimmed down OS could be installed on a 8GB chip similar to the iPhone's and, with multi-touch capability confirmed in the OS and rumors coming out all the time, it looks more and more likely.

Lastly, other product refreshes. iPhone is the big one, as detailed above. iPod Touch refreshes i think shall also happen soon, with a similar time frame to the iPhone. There have also been rumors of MacBook Pro rebrandings, but I don't think this will happen anytime soon, and definetely not at the WWDC 2009 conference.