The WWDC Keynote Rumors, Final Predictions

DailyTechTalk has translated (from German) what claims to be a complete rundown of Steve Jobs keynote address at WWDC tomorrow [via TUAW]. While I would love nothing more than to see everything on this list come to fruition, I have to believe it is 100% fake – it’s simply too ideal.

The list is just like a rundown of all the major and not-so-major rumors from the past few weeks and ads a big bomb at the end: iPhone@home – an iPhone that replaces the phone functionality with iChat for those who want a table-like Mac device at home. I mean that would be awesome, but is there anyway Apple does that? I highly doubt it.

As we’re a mere 8 hours away from the keynote I figure I’ll give a few predictions based solely on a combination of things I’ve heard and gut feeling:

  • OS X Leopard talk will be the majority of the event. New ‘alive’ UI shown off, some new apps, and the ZFS file system. Windows apps running without reboot.
  • .Mac gets an upgrade. Integration with Google services, much more storage (hopefully unlimited, but that may be wishful thinking, instead it’ll be big, and possibly free).
  • iLife ‘07 and iWork ‘07 (finally).
  • New iMacs. Faster and sleeker, maybe not the major overhaul that some reports suggest, but the brushed-aluminum look is definitely a possibility. They will kill the 17″ version.
  • iPhone 3rd party development.
  • Talk of iTunes HD video content beyond video podcasts (finally). Another new iTunes to accommodate this. An initial Disney/iTune movie rental service announcement?
  • OS X 10.4.10.

So there are the things I’m expecting. Most are pretty standard, but a few curve-balls in there. I think Steve might have some HD content for Apple TV as people like me are screaming bloody murder about the lack of it – and he is Disney’s largest shareholder by the way. He might even mention the just officially reported video rental service coming in the fall.

I also think Windows will play a very large role in the WWDC in that I think Apple has expanded beyond Boot Camp and into simply ‘Camp’ – no more reboots for Windows apps to run. Might be a stretch, but perhaps Apple is working behind the scenes with Parallels.

We’ll start learning the truth and dispelling the build-up in less than 8 hours now. I’m excited. For coverage definitely check out the live-blogging from the various sites (I usually follow Engadget’s) – and feel free to check back here as I’ll be giving commentary on the new things throughout the day.

[UPDATE]: iPhone Alley is setting up to do a live audio feed, but even they aren’t too optimistic about their chances of not crashing.

[UPDATE 2]: Okay the keynote is over, so how’d we do? Not so well. There simply were not any shocking announcements beyond Safari for Windows – which has been rumored in the past but died down until this morning right before the event.

-A new OS X UI was shown off, though it wasn’t quite as different as I expected.
-A new .Mac was kind of shown off, but it really wasn’t all that different and Google was nowhere to be found.
-iLife and iWord ‘07 still complete no shows. Seriously, are they going to just skip 2007?
-No new iMacs.
-iPhone 3rd party development was introduced.
-No talk of iTunes beyond that Finder now looks more like it and Cover Flow for all files.
-No OS X 10.4.10, but it’ll no doubt be out soon.

I’m just pretty shocked that Apple offered absolutely nothing new on the hardware end. Yeah, they probably don’t want to take away from the iPhone launch in a couple weeks, but those iMacs and Mac Minis are sure getting old…

[photo by flickr user miyagawa]

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