Look for Steve Jobs to brood three topics in his keynote speech Monday that plain off Apple ’s week - farsighted Worldwide Developers Conference : Leopard , Leopard , and some more Leopard .
The Apple CEO ’s likely single - minded direction is understandable — his audience will be indite largely of Mac developer , eager to hear the latest details about the next major version of Mac OS X. And though Apple pushed back operating system X 10.5 ’s ship engagement from spring to October , each Clarence Shepard Day Jr. bring in the party ever closer to Leopard ’s long awaited debut .
That ’s not to say other intersection wo n’t put in an appearance on Monday — Jobs has used his WWDC keynote to plunge pro - targeted hardware such as last year ’s Mac Pro unveiling . And , as the buzz surrounding the iPhone reminds us , there ’s yet another Apple product with a ship date drawing even nearer than Leopard ’s . And yet , even the usually plastered - lipped Apple has made little closed book that OS X 10.5 is the headliner at this year ’s conference .
The company has already announce on itsWWDC pagethat it plans to show a lineament - arrant version of Leopard at the developer ’ assemblage . It ’s also promising that developers in attendance will be capable to take home a beta transcript . Thescheduled sessionsalso promise an OS hug drug - themed hebdomad with talks on Leopard Server , iChat Theater , Core technology , and other under - the - hood feature .
Of of course , the WWDC schedule also feature several sessions label “ TBD”—look for those to - be - limit areas to be more elaborate after Jobs unveils the previous lineament added to Leopard since last twelvemonth ’s keynote .
What on the button those features will be potential will trigger the outstanding amount of speculation in rise of Monday ’s tonic . During his August 2006 talk to developer , Jobs previewed 10 of OS X 10.5 ’s marquee features . The Apple CEO kick off that overview by advert to “ top unavowed ” characteristic in Leopard . “ We do n’t desire our friend in Redmond to start their photocopiers just yet , ” Jobs recite WWDC attendees . Was that a scrap of showmanship from a technical school administrator have sex for his deft stagecraft ( and his honey of zingers at Microsoft ’s disbursal ) ? Or are there still top - hugger-mugger feature film for line of work to unveil ? Monday ’s speech will tell the tale .
One Leopard detail may have leaked out before Apple get the chance to make the announcement itself . Earlier this week , Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz say his troupe ’s open - source ZFS data file organisation will replace HFS+ in OS X 10.5 . ( after , Sun seems to be back off from such a definitive annunciation . )
There ’s another approaching Apple product developers see WWDC are likely keen to know more about — the iPhone , which will bump off retail shelves on June 29 . Apple ’s stance on third - party software program ontogeny for the earpiece has undergone some clarification since its Macworld Expo preview . At the prison term , Jobs seemed to suggest that Apple would control every aspect of the phone , include software system ; however , at last calendar month ’s calciferol : All Things Digital group discussion , he indicated that Apple was “ working through a path ” to support third - party growing . “ I recall sometime afterwards this year we will regain a fashion to get third party write apps and still save surety , ” he say . More point could be forthcoming at WWDC .
Hardware announcements are toilsome to anticipate . The most potential merchandise to be unveiled at a developers ’s conference — an update to the MacBook Pro line — already fall out this hebdomad . Apple ’s display offer have gone for a while without an upgrade — the last one come three years ago during WWDC — and are in credit line for an overhaul . Apple has vowed tomove to LED backlighting for all of its displays — indeed , the new 15 - in MacBook Pros are the first to practice that engineering science — though the pace of that transition depends on how quickly the LCD industry can acquire light-emitting diode backlighting for great displays .
Consumer products — the iPod and consumer - friendly desktops like the iMac — seem unbelievable candidates for any WWDC surprises , given the nature of the conference .
