Predictions for WWDC

Written by Darryn Lowe | 19 May 2008
Posted in MyBlog

Well it's that time of year again when the Mac world contemplates what Apple has in store for developers. As always there's those that don't get the concept of a Developer's Conference and naturally assume that Apple is going to release updated Macs and iPhones.

The gimme is that Apple is going to fully release the SDK for iPhone as well as v2.0 of OS X which is not to be confused with Mac OS X which is the version of OS X for the Mac not the iPhone/iPod Touch. Confused yet? It's a gimme because that's what Apple said was going to happen so you don't need a degree in rocket science to figure that one... just a pair of working ears.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the SDK is going to bring in terms of native apps for the iPhone but contrary to popular belief viruses and malware are not it. If we haven't seen a rash of viruses and malware since the release of XCode what seriously is leading people to think that this is going to be the case with the iPhone SDK?

One thing I do think is going to be released or at least announced will be the new versions of iLife and iWorks. If you remember last year Apple spun us around by announcing these apps around WWDC as opposed to earlier in the year. I think they'll do it again and here's my predicitions for the next versions:

iWeb will gain proper code editing or at least add the ability to add HEAD tags so as to allow the use of Technorati and Google code etc.
iWeb will have an iPhone compatible publish mode, maybe even tying in with a new version of .Mac Homepage that allows to add iPhone pages.
iWeb will also integrate with .Mac galleries better thus allowing you to use iWeb themes with .Mac galleries.
iMovie will add themes and plugins that will quieten some people up (eh Phil ;) ) but will retain its current interface which won't quieten them up (eh Phil :D ).
iPhoto, Garageband, and iDVD will get minor changes but will all integrate with .Mac better.
Numbers will be bug fixes and better calculation tools including the ability to add times.
iWorks will include an iPhone version that will allow you to edit documents including Word, Excel, and Powerpoint files and will allow you to email these, print, or save and send as PDF files.

These are all conjecture of course and no sources have been involved other than my mind.

I also think .Mac will get updated with a number of new features, not just for iPhone but a number of features that will make it integrate better with the Mac. Hopefully they fix up the directory structure which is a mess at the moment. For example there are two places that webpages are stored so you've got one for iWeb and one for Homepage. Hopefully Homepage disappears and a web based version of iWeb is used instead which allows you to edit your blogs anywhere even on non-Macs.

As is tradition we will also see what the next version of Mac OS X will have in store for us but I think it's going to be extremely tough to beat Leopard.

I'm sure you lot can think of other stuff that you'd like to see announced so what are your thoughts?

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