News Analysis: Apple CEO Steve Jobs and his team showed off several new things at the Worldwide Developers Conference, but many more questions remain.
At
a long-awaited event in San Francisco on June 6, Apple CEO Steve Jobs took
the stage at the Worldwide Developers Conference to talk about his company's
future. The Apple executive and his staff outlined plans for iOS, Mac OS X and
a new cloud-based file storage service called iCloud. Along the way, they
answered many of the questions Apple followers have been asking for quite some
time.
However,
there were still far too many questions left unanswered following the keynote
address. Those questions relate to the entire list of products and services
Apple talked about, as well as those things that didn't even come up. And
Apple, as has been its way over the years, held closely to its agenda and said
little about future product developments beyond those it actually introduced at
the conference.
So,
as the Worldwide Developers Conference kicks into full gear and Jobs goes back
on medical leave, customers around the world are left with nothing more than
those questions and hopes for answers to come along sooner rather than later.
Read
on to find out
some of the questions that were left unanswered following Apple's keynote
address at the Worldwide Developers Conference.
1. How is Steve Jobs' health?
When
Steve Jobs announced months ago that he was going on another medical leave of
absence, he didn't say what was wrong or when he would come back. Since then,
the Apple CEO has been tight-lipped about his health. At the Worldwide
Developers Conference, many hoped that he would address his health and say for
sure what was going on. He didn't do so, and now speculation about his health
continues unabated.
2. Where is the iPhone 5?
In
previous years, WWDC was home to Apple's unveiling of the latest iPhone. Last
year, for example, the company showed off the iPhone 4. But this year, it
didn't unveil the iPhone 5, causing many to wonder when it will finally do so.
Is Apple's iPhone release schedule changing? At this point, it certainly seems
so.
3. What about the iPhone 4S?
Though
there was plenty of speculation
that Apple wouldn't launch the iPhone 5 at WWDC this year, other rumors
suggested the company was actually planning to unveil the iPhone 4S, an
improved version of the iPhone 4. However, Apple didn't talk about hardware at
this year's WWDC, and now some might wonder if the rumored iPhone 4S will ever
see store shelves or if it will be passed over for the eventual launch of the
iPhone 5.
4. What makes iCloud better than other
services?
As
Jobs noted during his keynote address at WWDC, there are other cloud-based file
storage and collaboration services out there, including those from Amazon and
Google. The question now is, what makes Apple's offering so much better? Sure,
it integrates apps, music, documents and photos, among other things. But as
online users know all too well, there are many other services out there that
provide similar functions. Apple's iCloud looks rather derivative at this point
from a functionality perspective. Apple will need to show consumers there are
some advantages to Apple's cloud offering.
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