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!

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.