WWDC 2017 – Predicitions

Posted on by easyos2000

June is upon us and so the annual pilgrimage to California is about to start. I am one of 5,000 randomly selected engineers that will descent to San Jose, CA this year to spend a week learning how to build a digital future on Apple’s platform in the year to come. It’s an insane week with 15 hour days. Sessions & Labs that stretch for 10 hours each day, followed by the necessary evening networking events. It is a very long, but exciting week for all who attend. My predictions (and hopes) this year for what we can expect are:

– iOS 11
– macOS 10.13
– watchOS & tvOS upgrades
– Upgrades to Xcode & Swift
– Siri Speaker??????
– More Siri APIs????
– Server-side Swift????
– New MacBook Pro machines???????

After almost 15 years, WWDC has been moved back to its original hosting place, San Jose. Apple has hosted the event in San Francisco since 2003. Hope you all know the way to San Jose!!!

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WWDC 2011 – Day -4 (Minus 4)

Posted on by easyos2000

Well Day -5 was certainly very interesting and full of surprises from Apple. First of all Apple confirmed that Steve Jobs will be the Keynote speaker. Although the PR story goes on to state that Steve won’t be doing all the work this year, and that “a team of Apple executives” will help him along. Well we can only guess who these guys are, usual crowd. The one question that will be on everyone’s mind is, why isn’t Steve doing the Keynote by himself? Is he just filling in the gaps between the VPs of all the different technologies presented? Is he still too ill to actually host a two-hour keynote by himself? Let’s hope not.

So Apple officially let the cat out yesterday. iCloud. So iCloud is actually going to happen. But what is it? What will it do? Did Apple invest billions of dollars in a new North Carolina data centre so that we can all just store our music and videos there? I don’t think so. I can’t possibly see Steve going on stage on Monday in Moscone West and saying “guess what? here’s Apple’s DropBox!”. No that is not Apple. Apple innovates rather than throw something together quickly. Also we are forgetting the most important aspect here. This is after all a Developers conference and not an iTunes/iPod Media Event. iCloud will have to do more than just storage and will have to have some relevance to developers.

On a final thought, yesterday Lodsys did actually file law suits against some high profile developers that use In-App purchasing in their Apps. Personally I think it very lame of Lodsys to go after these guys, when there is a very clear licensing agreement between Apple and Lodsys. This will certainly be a breaker for Lodsys. Apple is more than certainly going to back the devs up, and Lodsys will pay and will pay well!

There are already images of Moscone West getting decorated with the usual Apple logo, but as I am not in San Francisco for another 3 days, here’s one picture from last year’s event.

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WWDC 2011 – Day -5 (Minus 5)

Posted on by easyos2000

Lion, iPhone, iOS 5, iCloud….

What ever happened to Apple TV? Do you really think Apple will just drop a “non-hobby” project in your living room and stop making money out of it? I don’t think so. As a matter of fact I think iOS 5 will be the OS to actually allow devs to start making money out of Apple TV with Apps. Well maybe not Apps, but maybe “enhanced widgets”. Over the next few days I will look more in-depth into widgets and iOS 5. Maybe Apple is combining functionality?

My feeling and opinion on the matter, is that Apple should introduce a Widget platform for developing widgets that would work across all iOS devices. Think about it, we have universal apps for iPhone & iPad. Same code but different UI. Well why not have widgets for all iOS devices (inc Apple TV) same code, different UI.

I have to say it is fascinating that there has been no mention of this anywhere, with all the rumours flying about.

WWDC 2011 – Day -6 (Minus 6)

Posted on by easyos2000

In one week from now, 5,000 developers will be patiently lining up outside Moscone West in anticipation of this year’s Keynote speech. Everyone is wondering whether Steve Jobs will indeed make the usual appearance or not. Judging by the apparent push, by Apple Executives, to get as many journalists as possible to the event this year – I would safely say that Steve is bound to make an appearance. I mean after all, this is a major launch event. Two new operating systems, for a number of different platforms and potentially new hardware and new cloud services. COME ON! Steve will be there with bells on!

So our first rumour predication for this year’s Keynote is Lion. Well this is not really a rumour, when people like myself have installed the preview versions. It is more than guaranteed that Lion will be let free some time during June. Apple has just released another build of the upcoming Snow Leopard 10.6.8 update. One subtle addition to this build, is an improvement of the Mac App Store in preparation for Lion. Apple is certainly making Lion available through the App Store, all the previews have been exclusively available on the App Store only.

If I had to predict on something ground breaking for Lion, it would have to be something to do with Apple’s new North Carolina Data Centre (remember that one!). I have a feeling that the so called “iCloud” stuff, that Apple has been spending billions of dollars on, will be something of a glue between Macs & iOS devices.

Even though it is only very early in the morning still in San Francisco, I know exactly what I will be doing in exactly a week from now. Lining up for one of the top seats at Moscone West. See you there devs!

WWDC 2011 – Day -7 (Minus 7)

Posted on by easyos2000

A whole year has already passed and WWDC is once again upon us. In one week from now Apple will once again open the doors of the Moscone West Conference Centre for all the eager developers. For the next two weeks I will extensively cover this year’s WWDC. I need to remind you all that with the exception of the Keynote, all other sessions are under NDA. Of course remember to follow me on twitter as I will be covering the WWDC 2011 Keynote live from San Francisco.

Day -7 (Minus 7)

Sunday 5 June is Day 0 and when delegates can collect their precious WWDC 2011 badge. Yes precious! This year’s tickets sold out in less than 8 hours, substantially quicker than last year’s 8 days. Tickets are still available on eBay, but will set you back more than twice of what Apple charged for this event.

Rumours Roundup

There are so many rumours circulating the Internet right now, on what will and won’t make it to this year’s Keynote, that is hard to know where to begin. I have hand selected some of the rumours, that I personally believe to be true. Over the next few days I will delve into more details about each one. But for now here is a list of all things Keynote!

  1. OS X Lion
  2. iOS 5
  3. iCloud
  4. iPhone 5
  5. Xcode & SDK Updates

The above list of course is only what I think will be addressed at the Keynote session. Of course more will be revealed once Apple sends out this year’s session list, the more “session to be announced” slots, the more new stuff to cover!

Maybe, just maybe Apple will introduce the iPhone 5 at the WWDC.

Image, courtesy of Ed Johnson.

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