The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off in less than 5 hours (that’s 6pm to our UK readers) we’ll be on hand to cover the official announcements from the event – but in the meantime here’s a little of what we’ll expect to see coming straight outta San Fran..
What’s certain in the keynote line-up are appearances by the iCloud streaming music service and operating systems iOS 5 and Mac OS X Lion – as the big cat was let out of the bag last week in an Apple press release and also snaps were leaked of the stage set-up for today’s conference launch.
Apple’s iCloud is set to fly as one of the most anticipated announcements of the event, with the official word coming regarding the music and media service which has recently partnered with the big four music companies in the world – Warner, EMI, Sony and finally signing licensing agreements with Universal last week. It’ll work as an “up-in-the-air” scanning and storage system for your music and media. Clearly exciting news for the music fan among us with our songs relayed back in high quality audio straight from Apple’s own collection onto our Apple devices.
This links us to iOS 5. The mobile operating system is set to see some tight integration of iCloud and that means any data on our Apple iPhone or iPod will be backed-up and storable in the floating vault for pick up at any time also expected are some features and functions that will make the iCloud a legit contender to the big names in streaming media such as Spotify – more light on exactly what this will involve will hopefully surface later in the presentation from the Apple WWDC.
Taking a page from Google’s Android platform, the iOS 5 is suggested to make notifications more integral and easy to quickly view. With tweets and comment alerts appearing on screen in a discrete top bar, very closely resembling Android’s own format. Also – widgets. Lots of widgets to get the best of your apps without actually having them drain on your battery life. Following Apple trademark style – if it fits it’s in there! The all-important multi-tasking, Twitter integration and automatic app updates are something likely to come up in Apple’s address this afternoon.
Mac OS X Lion was first touted back in October, and then demoed in February and is now ready for its public debut. The Mac OS X operating system has taken a little trip over to iPhone, borrowed a bunch of the best developments on the portable platform and is now making its trip “Back to the Mac”. Expect iPhone style apps and functions on iPad and Mac – making the best of the full-screen platform. With apps such as iPhoto and Mail and also bringing “Mission Control” which will replace the regular “All windows” feature and giving an overview of all running applications – offering the ability to group, organise and prioritise tasks. A new Resume feature, AirDrop file sharing and Address Book are hot topics for today’s announcements to be delivered by Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
Any iPhone 5 news would be a nice bonus, but we aren’t raising our hopes too highly..
We’ll be following the event and delivering the news as it happens from Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference today from 6pm UK time.
You can let us know your thoughts and predictions for the WWDC ’11 on our official Gadget Helpline Facebook page!