Big Apple Announcements Coming Next Monday
This coming Monday, June 9, should be a big day for Apple. It is the first day of Apple's 2008 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC08) in San Francisco--which not coincidentally--has been at sold out at capacity for some time now. When Steve Jobs takes the stage at the Moscone Center at 10 a.m. PT, he is expected to unveil the much-anticipated, 3G-capable, iPhone 2.0. News.com's Tom Krazit reports that Steve Jobs should also be announcing that the iPhone App Store will be open for business:
"The App Store is going to be the only way to get official third-party iPhone applications onto your device. Developers have been submitting their applications to Apple for testing and verification since the iPhone SDK became available, and in exchange for hosting and distributing the applications Apple is taking 30 percent of the revenue generated by sales of that application."
The WWDC08 will host over 150 technology sessions and labs that fall into one of the three tracks: iPhone, Mac, and IT. With the recent growth in the number of Mac and iPhone users, as well as Microsoft's fumble with the disappointing Windows Vista operating system, Apple has been making some inroads into the IT infrastructure of some businesses. For instance, between 20 and 30 percent of Cisco Systems' employees are supposedly using Macs. Apple also made quite a few business folks happy when it announced that the iPhone would support "Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and industry-standard corporate security standards." Apple's iPhone Enterprise Beta Program has been available to select corporate IT departments since March. It is possible that this Monday might see the official launch of Exchange support for the iPhone.
Other rumors are swirling that Apple’s .Mac service will also be receiving a major makeover as well--rolling out the new-and-improved service on Monday, rebranded as "MobileMe":
"The revamped service is expected to offer over-the-air syncing of calendars and contacts for both Mac and Windows users, much like Microsoft's Exchange does with Windows smartphones. Natch, it will also supposedly work with the new iPhone."
Various Web rumor sites are speculating as to whether the new version of the .Mac service will continue to cost $99 per year or will become an ad-supported, free service.
Yet another rumor of what Jobs is expected to announce on Monday is the release of an early build of Mac OS X 10.6 to developers. If the rumors are true, the new OS is expected to start shipping in January 2009--a mere 15 months only after the initial release of OS X 10.5.
Will one of these announcements be Job's expected "One more thing?" Or does he still have another Ace up his sleeve we don't know about? Either way, we'll find out next Monday.
