Later this evening (or early Tuesday, depending on which part of the world you’re in), Steve Jobs will go on stage at Apple’s World Wide Developer’s Conference. With his keynote often come a few surprises, as well as a host of sure bets. Below are some predictions, graded from sure bets to possible to outlandish, on what to expect from WWDC 2010.

Sure bet: iPhone 4G

The fourth generation iPhone – what many people are currently calling the iPhone 4G – will almost certainly be on display. Unveiling it at WWDC 2010 will be in line with Apple’s strategy from recent years where the updated handset was revealed around this period. It’s also highly likely Jobs will speak on the iPad’s early success and throw a few mind numbing numbers out there just to show off.

Possible

Outside of the iPhone 4G, many expect Apple to make other product announcement. A Mac OS X update would go down pretty well considering the lukewarm reception Snow Leopard received. Those rumoured Mac Mini and Macbook Air updates may also see the light of day in a short ‘look what else we’ve been doing’ segment.

Outlandish

Photo: Apple

It would be silly for Jobs to even hint at the next iPad, so don’t get your hopes up there. We also doubt Apple’s core laptop range – Macbook and Macbook Pro – will even be mentioned, considering they’ve just been updated. What would be exciting would be if Apple’s rumoured AppleTV was unveiled, but don’t hold your breath in that department. It’s not going to happen – no way Apple will want to steal the iPhone’s spotlight.

The curse of the analysts

As critical as we are of analysts (read: guessers) here, this is our disclaimer that this is just a game and you are to take these predictions with a pinch of salt. Outside of the iPhone, which we’re confident enough to put money on it being unveiled, nothing is sure fire. Apple TV would be massive, but outside of the expected iPhone 4G reveal, WWDC 2010 should be business as usual for Steve Jobs and co.

Over to you: what do you think will be unveiled at Apple’s conference?

Apple CEO Steve Jobs was the guest of honour at this year’s All Things Digital conference – D8 for short since it is the eighth such event – giving a lengthy interview with Walt Mossberg and then briefly taking questions from the audience thereafter. Given Apple’s recent history, it’s no surprise he had a few tasty soundbites on everything from Google Android, to AT&T and even Adobe Flash.

On Google and Android

Mossberg asked Jobs if he felt Eric Schmidt and Google entering the smartphone business was a form of betrayal to that relationship to which Jobs responded, ‘My sex life is pretty good’, drawing huge laughs from the crowd. Clearly Apple’s growing conflict with Google is a sore point for Steve Jobs who, one imagines, formed a very close relationship with Eric Schmidt while Schmidt was on the Apple board. Steve’s answer deflects the Google Android question somewhat, but we get the sentiment.

On AT&T

Photo: AT&T

Many have felt that AT&T and its struggling network were one of the only areas where the iPhone was not stellar in the US, to which Jobs gave two vastly differing opinions. He first acknowledged that ‘AT&T took a big leap’ for Apple in supporting them when it was unclear if Apple could crack into the smartphone market at all. But in answering an audience question regarding the inability to make calls, Jobs joked it gets worse before it gets better and, judging by the current situation, it should get a whole lot better soon. Stinging? You bet.

On Adobe Flash

When asked about Adobe Flash, Jobs responded by saying Apple has always been in favour of technologies on the up, implying Flash as a platform was not that. He said: ‘Flash looks like it had its day but it’s waning, and HTML5 looks like it’s coming up.’ People thought the omission of Flash in favour of HTML5 would hold Apple back, but Jobs pretty much squashed those fears, saying the company was selling an iPad every three seconds since the launch of device. Remarkable.

Circles, circles, circles

Photo: Apple

What came across in this interview with Mossberg was that Jobs and Apple try concern themselves as little as possible with what the competition do, and rather focus on making the best possible product. Apple is winning with the iPhone, but Google Android has clearly become a legitimate competitor. AT&T were a great enabler, but the time for bad service appears to be coming to an end. And the omission of Adobe Flash is clearly not slowing iPad sales. Like the strategy or not, to Jobs credit, this all seems very good for business.

Speaking at All Things Digital, Steve Jobs touched on competitors ranging from Google to Adobe and product performance within his company, too. One area that has not gotten the kind of coverage it deserves, considering the forum, is his opinion on the future of the newspaper business.

Democracy depends on a healthy press

The conference, which ironically, was opened by Newscorp big wig Rupert Murdoch, saw Jobs premising his opinion on his belief that ‘democracy depends on a free, healthy press.’ As a result, Apple is prepared to assist traditional journalism in any way that it can to stabilise the financials of the newspaper business.

The iPad, which is partly envisioned as a platform for distributing digital content and news is one such example of Apple’s ‘assistance’ (at a profit, of course) of this industry. And Steve Jobs believes the rich platform can provide an opportunity to monetise better than a mere web page can saying, ‘I think people are willing to pay for content’ – a sentiment Rupert Murdoch shares with Steve, considering the pay wall going up for the Times Online.

The bloggers’ perspective

Photo: Matthew Yohe / Wikimedia Commons

Blogging – whether done professionally or casually – is partly responsible for the decline of the newspaper business. The ability to get information online for free – in the sense that users do not pay for it directly – has put pressure on the newspaper industries, raising fears about the future of the press business. This pressure has led to a radical rethink in how the press industry monetises content.

The nexus sits snuggly between demand and supply, as well as rethinking the business model – something Apple is keenly aware of. Insofar as the quality of reporting is of a level so high and exclusive, people will pay for it. This is the very reason publications like the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal can charge premium subscription prices. However, where we start getting to industries, like technology reporting, where blogs do a comparable (if not superior) job to traditional outlets, the ‘professional’ press will struggle to compete by charging for content.

Beyond ideas

It’s not so much that Steve Jobs is wrong in sentiment, it’s that the business, one steeped in heavy tradition, needs to rethink how it makes money. And perhaps old stalwarts of the newspaper business like Rupert Murdoch aren’t capable of pulling new tricks. Perhaps.

So it seems that Apple is stirring up the rumour mill with their latest acquisition of a trademark for the name, ‘iTunes Live’. What Steve Jobs and co intend to do with the trademark is still uncertain, but putting together the puzzle from Apple’s acquisition of La-La iTunes could be in for a major revamp.

Real-time live concerts

So far all the speculation is pointing at Apple either incorporating streaming live concerts into iTunes or increasing the amount of pre-recorded live content which is already available on the music app. iTunes’ taking the live route seems to be more the plausible road for Apple to take and would be better for the public, who could then choose between watching real-time live concerts on either YouTube or what will then be known as ‘iTunes Live’.

More speculation

Photo: Apple

As everything currently stands, all that we know is that the trademark falls under two categories. The first being, ‘Online retail store services in the field of entertainment featuring prerecorded musical, audio and audiovisual content’. And the second category being, ‘Entertainment services, namely, arranging and conducting of concerts and live musical performances’. This still doesn’t give an idea of what’s cooking at Apple, but definitely points in the live concert direction which we mentioned earlier.

Shhh…

Apple has done an incredible job of keeping the filing of this trademark under wraps, with PatentlyApple.com which keeps track of any patents filed for by Apple even missing a step until recently on this one. This may be due to Steve Jobs and the rest of the Apple family wanting to get one up on Spotify before it even launches in the States, but whatever the reason we can’t wait.

When the details of iTunes Live are finally released to the public, it’s definitely going to stir up a lot noise, but for now all we can do is wait and hope for the best.

The corporate soap opera that is Apple and Adobe, having started with the omission of iPhone Flash years back, has come to the point where Steve Jobs himself thought he should address the rumblings.

It isn’t business, it’s technology

In a measured, calm post on Apple’s website, Steve Jobs said that the severing of ties between Apple and Adobe is a technological move and not a business move, as Adobe have suggested.

Photo: Adobe

He goes on to reject the notion that Flash is an ‘open’ platform. ‘Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary’ since they are only available from Adobe, and Adobe ‘has sole authority’ when it comes to how it updates their technology in future.

We’re closed, too, but open where it counts

Jobs admits his iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad are proprietary products, too. But he’s insistent that the web remain open, and this is why they’ve adopted open platforms ‘HTML5, CSS, and Javascript’, with Apple having developed the WebKit that powers nigh-on every mobile phone browser bar Microsoft’s.

The reasons

Photo: Apple

Steve Jobs lists six reasons for not adopting Flash on his company’s mobile devices. These are the aforementioned ‘open platform’, full web, reliability, battery life shortcomings, touch interfaces, and what he calls the most important reason, having a third-party development platform come between developers and Apple and the side effects of that.

What, what?

In case you have not been keeping tabs, this open conflict comes as a result of the lack of iPhone Flash being repeated with iPad Flash omission, too. In the ongoing back and forth since then, people have told people to ‘go screw themselves’, licensing amendments have been made, developers have chimed in with their opinion, Adobe released the amazing Creative Suite 5 and Apple’s profit, earnings and share price skyrocketed. The world has all but gone on, but it is sad to see conflict between two companies that were once so close that Apple actually held a 20 per cent stake in Adobe.

Iconic Apple founder Steve Jobs is set to have an biography about his life written. It emerges that this biography, unlike others in the past, is endorsed by Jobs, so much so that he’s overseeing the whole process and is rumoured to be authoring some sections himself.

Steve Jobs and Apple part I

Photo: Apple

Jobs, who founded Apple along with Steve Wozniack, has a fascinating history, which includes founding the computer giant, being forced out of the company by his board of directors, selling all but one share and then being asked to come back many years later.

Photo: Apple

In-between his departure and return, Jobs also founded two other companies – NeXt Computers, which was the core of what became OS X, and Pixar, the animation company that Disney would later buy for over $7 billion in stock, making Jobs the single largest shareholder of that media conglomerate.

Steve Jobs and Apple part II

And though this would be sufficient achievement for one career, Steve Jobs was only beginning to make his mark in history. Praised as a noteworthy speaker of immense ability to cultivate enthusiasm for the products he punts, Steve Jobs returned to Apple and oversaw the creation of the iPod, and iPhone, and now the imminent arrival of the iPad, and iTunes is revolutionising the music industry. The iPhone upended everything people thought they knew about smartphones, and the iPad looks to create a brand new category of devices.

Steve Jobs the character

A man widely regarded as egotistical created all of this, the greatest production lineup in tech history, within 12 years. Apple fans and entrepreneurs the world over should be looking out for this biography.

It acts as an in-between between the phone and the outside world and using its ’star’ and ‘zap’ features learns to differentiate between welcome and unwelcome callers. Easy to set up, it works on all home phone lines, even those with broadband and screens out unwanted calls like silent calls, recorded message calls, market research calls, offensive or threatening calls effectively. A huge success, it is truly a time-saver as it lets you use your time in a more constructive way that might have gone waste listening to unwanted calls. Only callers on the ’star’ list are connected and phone is allowed to ring while telemarketing, market research and recorded messages are screened out and the phone is stopped from ringing. In case, the trueCall Nuisance Call Blocker cannot recognise the caller’s number or the number has been withheld, it will “ask” the caller who they are and where they are calling from before putting them on hold and passing this information onto the user. The user then either accept the call, get trueCall to take a message or place the caller on a ‘Zap’ black-list, so that trueCall will inform them the call is not of interest.

A practical and versatile device, the iPhone recognises names in your Contacts and knows the music on your iPod. Its new Compass application automatically reorients maps to match the direction you’re facing. It also allows you to cut, copy and paste words, photos and web content, even between applications. The Apple iPhone 3GS is equipped with an intelligent keyboard that can be rotated to landscape to use a larger keyboard in Mail, Messages, Notes and Safari. Accessibility and searching for contacts, email, calendars, and notes has become very simple on your iPod. Sending messages with text, video, photos, audio, locations, and contact information can happen at the clock of a button. What’s more the iPhone offers accessibility features for users who are visually or hearing impaired. Such features include the VoiceOver screen reader, a Zoom feature, White on Black display options, Mono Audio and much more.

Jobs also announced that the re-evaluated laptops will cost less than the old ones which is really a feast for the Apple MacBook lovers. The rebuilt laptops go through a new production method. Not only the hardware configuration is enhanced but the company is also taking care of environment related issues by using recyclable material and avoiding those which cause damage to the ecology. Apple is also very much concerned about the weight of the new laptops and as a part of the new production process the company has cut down a lot in terms of laptop body in order to keep the final casing up to a maximum of 100 grams. The new casings will be extremely slim and flat which adds to the fashion and style.

Coming to the hardware installations, the new MacBooks will render enhanced graphics and high speed processing. The built in Intel graphics chip of the old Apple MacBook has been replaced with the Nvidia graphics. New MacBooks will now contain GeForce 9400M chip set with DDR3 RAM which works 2 times faster than the Intel’s current Centrino 2 graphics chips. That means the new Apple laptops are ideal for enjoying 3D games apart from sophisticated processing.

Among the other technical changes, the use of nVidia graphics is the most outstanding one. The nVidia graphics and chipset are included in the entire collection of the new series. All the three ranges, including even the slim Apple MacBook Air, incorporate the nVidia GeForce 9400M chipset. The chipset is revolutionary in its own sense and is likely to be a part of the laptop industry in the near future. The nVidia chipset offers the benefits of multi-chip solutions through a single chip.

While the traditional chipset was made up of a graphic processing unit (GPU), a northbridge as well as a southbridge, the new 9400M is a compact solution with all the advantages in a single chip. This is particularly very suitable for the latest slim laptops like MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air.

The nVidia graphics are very promising for users looking for high performance. Photographers especially will find the GPU very useful. The nVidia’s General Manager, Mr. Drew Henry also pointed out that the 9400M offers a great performance, which will definitely benefit photographers.

Moreover, the new devices also provide an option of video encoding as well as a better platform for gamming.