Anticipating WWDC
It's March. It's the month where beer turns green, where the road repair crews start taking over the midwest of the United States, and when Apple usually announces its Worldwide Developers' Conference dates. With the hotly anticipated iPad introduction this year, more devs than ever are looking forward to seeing what WWDC will have on offer.
Will WWDC bring the iPhone OS 4.0 announcement and the hardware refresh that we've speculated about? Or will the iPhone OS family remain in the 3.x generation for the foreseeable future? (The current release for the iPhone and iPod touch are at 3.1.3. The iPad will ship with firmware 3.2.) That's the question that has a lot of devs scratching their head.
In the past two years, March has been the time when new iPhone SDKs were provided to developers, with the actual firmware released a few months later, somewhat in sync with WWDC. This year, with the iPad release due for the first week of April, the iPhone refresh seems to have been pushed out, or even to the side.
Will Apple's WWDC announcement help clarify where we stand in the iPhone lifecycle? That's hard to say. I know a lot of devs are hoping that a new beta SDK will debut sometime in April, once the iPad has been released; with the new version focusing on the iPhone, WWDC sessions would follow up on that build. It would make sense to bring the iPhone up to at least 3.2, so that firmware releases remain in sync across all iPhone OS devices; however, by Jim Dalrymple's estimation we won't see a unified firmware version for both families until the autumn.
What about iPhone OS 4.0? With the WWDC keynote being the only remaining scheduled event keynote in the Apple yearly cycle, it would make sense for Apple to use that platform to announce major a iPhone OS update, or a major Mac OS update for that matter. However, the bottom line is this: Apple keeps its secrets. We'll know when they tell us. That can make third-party planning challenging -- whether you want to schedule flights to California for WWDC, or prepare your applications for major firmware updates. We've emailed Apple for clarification on WWDC timing, and have yet to hear back.
Here's a quick run-down of past TUAW WWDC announcement posts for your reference.
 | WWDC '09 Details Posted |  | Apple announces WWDC 08 dates |
 | AppleInsider: WWDC to take place June 11th - 15th | Also of interest: | |
