For a caller whose every move is shrouded in whodunit and whose every public say-so triggers another one shot of “ Guess the product unveiling , ” Apple is n’t that difficult to count on out . When it come to Cartesian product debuts , the company hews to a fairly predictable schedule of roll - out before deliberately select audiences at times you could set your vigil to , give or take a calendar month .
fourth dimension to vagabond out new iPods ? appear for Apple to hold a closet event in September , timed to get a jump on the holiday shopping time of year . iPad updates are ordinarily held in the first three month of the year at closet result where Apple can show off all the latest change . New iMacs and MacBooks ? Unless there ’s a substantive redesign , that ’s usually something Apple will announce by military press release .
Which is why last month’srumor that Apple was planning some massive hardware introduction for the Apple Store ’s one-tenth anniversarywas so laughable . Apple times such things to get maximal photo from a technical school press eager to report its every move . It sure as shooting does n’t save ironware reveals for the weekend bunch standing in line at the Cinnabon at the local genus Galleria .
And that brings me to next hebdomad ’s Worldwide Developers Conference , whereApple has already been quite expressed about what it plans to discussin Monday ’s tonic . The company will show off the already - preview Mac OS X Lion , separate us all about the soon - to - be - revealediCloud , and provide the first public glimpse at what expect us in iOS 5 .
It ’s that last announcement that ’s in particular intriguing , and not just because iOS 5 , unlike Lion , has remained under wraps up until now . I ’ll be paying surplus close attention to Apple ’s iOS 5 presentation on Monday , because when Apple talks mobile operating system update , a new interpretation of the iPhone is n’t that far behind .
The last three Worldwide Developers Conferences have certainly exhibited a conversant pattern :
That ’s three iPhone announcements in as many WWDCs . It does n’t ask too much of a leap in logical system to see how Apple could make it four unbowed .
Then again , attentive readers and those with a keen interest in Apple history will forthwith spy the difference between the last three WWDC keynotes and this year ’s installment . The 2008 , 2009 , and 2010 edition featuredrecapsof the plan iOS update — in all three instance , Apple had already previewed the novel version of the operating system at a separate mechanical press event concord months before . This time around , it ’s the first we ’re hearing about iOS 5 , and if we ’re sticking to our past tense - is - prologue topic , that would mean a fresh iPhone later this summertime at the early . By this way of thinking , Apple could even unify the iPhone and iPod touch hardware raise — after all , they apply the same operating system — and introduce both at the company ’s traditional fall music event .
There ’s another wrinkle with this twelvemonth ’s WWDC . In the past , Apple has only had to introduce one type of phone to run on AT&T ’s GSM internet . commence in February , though , the company add Verizon as a avail provider in the U.S. meaning it had to produce an entirely different iPhone model to run on that immune carrier ’s CDMA web . have different flavors of iPhone was a via media Apple was uncoerced to make to expand its client base , but it ’s credibly not something the caller need to maintain long terminal figure . Already , GSM - based iPhones are running iOS 4.3.3 , while the CDMA - friendly models are still at rendering 4.2.8 — that sort of fragmentation is all well and good for Android users , but it ’s anathema to the way Apple runs thing . A major computer hardware update may have to hold back until Apple builds one that ’s compatible with both AT&T and Verizon networks .
The fact that Apple broke a three - year common law and did n’t hold a spring iOS event suggest that the yard of development might be slowing down by designing . That would hardly be out of step with how Apple deal new operating system . You may recall that after yearly updates to OS X for its first few years of creation , Apple announced in 2004 it was dial back the yard of Mac OS development to a less frenetic clip . That was three years after OS X ’s 2001 debut ; mayhap we ’ve hit the same point with the iOS program where annual renovation are n’t as necessary as before .
Still , a few external factors make me think that it would be better for the company to roll out a new interpretation of the iPhone preferably rather than later . Not that Cupertino takes it prompt from other companies ( or from me , for that matter ) , but surely Apple executives notice the steady stream of smartphones that have hit the market place since the last sentence they premise a model . I ca n’t reckon the ship’s company volitionally sitting on the spare-time activity while Android phone continue to dot the landscape . More to the power point , any iPhone 3 gm owners who picked up their models in the early months of 2009 are now blessedly free of their AT&T contract . With a farm number of iOS features unavailable to older phones , those user will be wait to upgrade to a raw theoretical account — and Apple would do well not to distinguish them to cool their heels for the next few months as the next iPhone movement from the drawing board to retail shelves . Finally , it does n’t really equip into Apple ’s m.o . to unveil a new operating scheme without also roll up out hardware specifically plan to exploit its new features to the fullest .
Apple is likely to stick to its pre - announced script for WWDC , talking only about iCloud , Lion , and iOS 5 , and it will still be a feature - packed forenoon . But there ’s always that One More Thing . A new iPhone may be marvelous for all the reasons list above , but if Steve Jobs happen to have one up his sleeve on Monday , it would n’t of necessity surprise me .
[ Macworld.com executive editor program Philip Michaels has an unsettling use of being wrong in public about these sort of predictions . ]
