The calm before the storm

Tomorrow marks the coming of the "special" day all Apple fans look forward to in a yearly basis, the World Wide Developer Conference. Truth be told, for the mayority of us we are not looking foward to the programming keynotes, optimizing code, or a new build of XCode. What we are truly looking foward to the Steve Jobs Keynote.

I believe it's almost a given than whenever Steve does the keynote, we are bound to get new Apple products goodness. Aside from new product releases, I'm looking foward to His-Steveness showcasing of 10.5 Leopard. Rumors floating around the internet are putting their money on several new features witin 10.5. Mac Rumors says:

Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)



Apple has already announced that Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) will be discussed and demonstrated at WWDC 2006. In fact, a recent slip-up on Apple's developers pages indicates that Apple will be distributing a Developer's Preview of Leopard at WWDC.



Detailed information about Leopard, however, has been very limited.Very few reliable sources of information have come forward. Theearliest rumors pointed to Virtualization software to be built into Leopard, but this was flatly denied by Phil Schiller.



Job postings, Patent applications and Page 2 rumorspoint to a focus on updating Finder with extensive and improvedintegration with Spotlight. This has even been the topic of some presumed fake screenshots.



Perhaps the most collaborated claims are ones of Apple's iChat 4.0.Appleinsider claimed that iChat 4.0 will incorporate the ability tocall traditional phone lines much like existing Voice over IP services,with similar reports elsewhere on the web. As well, Appleinsider has claimed that Leopard will features OS-level integration of a geographical mapping technology, similar to Microsoft's Virtual Earth.



While MacOSXRumors have offered a list of other possible features: virtual desktops, collaborative features, tabbed iChat, the reliability of this source is not entirely certain.



ThinkSecret does not believe Leopard will be shipping in 2006.

When it comes to new products, we are surely bound to get the Intel replacement for the PowerMac, or the Mac Pro as it will now be called. There's speculation of new Intel-powered XServers and displays.

I guess we will have to wait to see 'til tomorrow. As it is right now everything is very calm awaiting the keynote. Live text coverage, last minute rumors, Pictures from the keynote uploaded to flickr, Apple Store down, forums overloaded, IRC chat rooms filled with Mac fans. Yup WWDC is here. Can't wait til tomorrow to report back on what's new over at the Apple front.