Apple CEO Steve Jobs will give the June 7 keynote address at the company's developer conference, scheduled to run June 7-11 at San Francisco's Moscone West. While details will likely be kept under wraps before the actual speech, rumors suggest that Jobs could use the platform to announce the next-generation iPhone, dubbed "iPhone 4G" by the media, and outline a release strategy. Apple has not confirmed such a device to be in the works, but a pair of leaked prototype smartphones suggests that the company is indeed gearing up for a refresh of the iPhone line.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs will give the June 7 keynote address at
the company's 2010 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), where he could
potentially announce the upcoming next-generation iPhone. The WWDC, which runs
from June 7 to June 11 at San Francisco's Moscone West, provides technical
sessions and labs for developers interested in creating programs for the
iPhone, iPad and Mac platforms.
Apple has chosen to focus on five tracks for the
conference's attendees: Application Frameworks, Internet & Web, Graphics
& Media, Developer Tools, and Core OS. The technical sessions, many of
which will focus on Apple's emerging technologies such as its "iAd" platform, are covered in more
detail on this site.
For those not involved in the development community,
however, the conference's biggest news may be the much-rumored debut of the
next-generation iPhone, dubbed "iPhone 4G" by the media. A May 17 report by
Taiwan-based Digitimes suggested that Apple would unveil the iPhone 4G during
the conference; an analyst for the publication, citing unnamed sources, suggested
that Apple could ship as many as 24 million of the devices in 2010.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has traditionally hosted unveilings of
the company's products, most recently its bestselling iPad. While Apple has not
confirmed the existence of a next-generation smartphone in the works, the past
few summers have seen regular iPhone refreshes; that, in combination with a
pair of leaked devices purported to be iPhone 4G prototypes, lends credence to the
idea of the WWDC hosting the next iPhone generation's unveiling.
Apple already unveiled the iPhone OS 4 during an April 8
presentation at its Cupertino, Calif. headquarters. The new smartphone
operating system includes "iAd," which allows developers to deliver mobile
advertisements within apps themselves, and the ability to multitask, which
previous iPhone OS versions had lacked.
"We weren't the first to this party, but we're going to be
the best," Jobs told the audience during that presentation, referring to
multitasking, which will involve hitting the "Home" button twice to bring up an
onscreen interface for switching between apps.
Other iPhone OS 4 features include tap-to-focus for video,
5x digital zoom for the camera module, sync IMAP notes, Bluetooth keyboard
support, the ability to gift apps, and changeable homescreen wallpaper. The
most controversial aspect of the new operating system, however, may prove to be
the iAd platform, which Jobs suggested would provide up to 1 billion ad
impressions per day, based on the sum total of time spent by users on iPhone
apps per day.
If the purported prototype devices that leaked into the wild
ultimately prove an accurate predictor of the iPhone 4G's final form, the
smartphone will include a front-facing video-chat camera, higher-resolution
display, and larger battery. Formal confirmation of those details will need to
wait, though, until Steve Jobs reveals the device-either at the WWDC, or in
some other context.
Nicholas Kolakowski is a staff editor at eWEEK, covering Microsoft and other companies in the enterprise space, as well as evolving technology such as tablet PCs. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, Playboy, WebMD, AARP the Magazine, AutoWeek, Washington City Paper, Trader Monthly, and Private Air. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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