Image Courtesy of TheiLife.com

Here are the 2008 ADA winners:

Best Leopard Student Product Runner Up:
Flow 1.0.1 by Brian Amerige
Best Leopard Student Product Winner:
Squirrel by Axel Peju
Best Mac OS X Leopard Graphics and Media Application Runner Up:
FotoMagico by Boinx Software Ltd.
Best Mac OS X Leopard Graphics and Media Application Winner:
ScreenFlow by Vara Software Limited
Best Mac OS X Leopard User Experience Runner Up:
Checkout by Werk BV
Best Mac OS X Leopard User Experience Winner:
Macnification by Orbicule
Best Mac OS X Leopard Game Runner Up:
Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars by Electronic Arts Inc.
Best Mac OS X Leopard Game Winner:
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock by Aspyr Media, Inc.
Best Mac OS X Leopard Application Runner Up:
Bee Docs’ Timeline 3D Edition by Bee Documents
Best Mac OS X Leopard Application Winner:
ScreenFlow by Vara Software Limited
Best iPhone Web App Runner Up:
AP Mobile News Network by The Associated Press
Best iPhone Web App Winner:
Remember the Milk by Remember the Milk
Best iPhone Game Winner:
Enigmo by Pangea Software, Inc.
Best iPhone Entertainment Application Winner:
AOL Radio by AOL LLC
Best iPhone Social Networking Application Winner:
Twitterrific by The Iconfactory
Best iPhone Productivity Application Winner:
OmniFocus by The Omni Group
Best iPhone Healthcare & Fitness Application Winner:
MIM by MIMVista, Corp.

The requirements are as follows:

• An Intel Processor
• An internal, external, or shared DVD drive
• At least 512 MB of RAM
• Display connected to an Apple-supplied video card
• 9GB of disk space, or 12GB for developer tools

Snow Leopard is being touted as a performance, stability and security release and is expected to ship “within a year.”

When talking about Mac OS X Snow Leopard Jobs stated that “Apple would focus principally on technology for the next generation of the industry’s increasingly parallel computer processors.”

“We’ve added over a thousand features to Mac OS X in the last five years,” he said Monday in an interview after his presentation. “We’re going to hit the pause button on new features.”

Apple, he claimed, has made a parallel-programming breakthrough.

Snow Leopard will also tap into the power of powerful GPUs that sit idle most of the time in many modern computers, “Jobs described a new processing standard that Apple is proposing called OpenCL (Open Compute Library) which is intended to refocus graphics processors on standard computing functions.”

“Basically it lets you use graphics processors to do computation,” he said. “It’s way beyond what Nvidia or anyone else has, and it’s really simple.”

Apple and Steve Jobs are currently touting Snow Leopard has featureless but a quick look at the preview pages for both the client and server reveals that this isn’t the whole truth.

The client version of Snow Leopard lists full Microsoft Exchange Support while the server version boasts read and write support for ZFS. Both considerably sought after features that are being added to Snow Leopard.

During the interview Steve Jobs also briefly mentioned PA Semi which Apple acquired back in April, at the time much speculation was thrown around.

“PA Semi is going to do system-on-chips for iPhones and iPods,” he said.

Registered iPhone Developers can download the latest beta from the iPhone Dev centre.

Apple has posted an article aimed at .Mac users to help them understand the transition.

This article helps current .Mac members better understand what to expect from the upcoming MobileMe upgrade. When MobileMe becomes available, this article will be updated with more details to help upgraded members get started with the new service. You may want to bookmark this article and refer back to it when MobileMe goes live.

In short the article outlines that your .Mac account will work as it did before, but you’ll have a choice of using either username@mac.com or username@me.com. If you have aliases setup at .Mac they will continue to work as well. All your .Mac websites will continue to work at both mac.com and me.com.

During the Keynote Steve Jobs, Phil Schiller and Scott Forstall discussed iPhone software development, MobileMe and introduced iPhone 3G.

[Update] Keynote is now available to download via the Apple Keynote Podcast.

[Update 2] Also available in HD.

Here are some notes of interest garnered from today’s announcements:

• iPhone no longer includes Dock.
• iPhone includes USB Power Adapter
• iPhone supports HSPA (High speed packet access), technically 3.5G technology
• iPhone not available through US Online Apple Store
• iPhone not sold by Apple in UK, O2 and Carphone Warehouse only
• iPhone 3G requires iTunes 7.7 (not yet released)
• iPhone continues to feature 2.0MP camera

Mac OS X Snow Leopard, which builds on the incredible success of OS X Leopard and is the next major version of the world’s most advanced operating system. Rather than focusing primarily on new features, Snow Leopard will enhance the performance of OS X, set a new standard for quality and lay the foundation for future OS X innovation. Snow Leopard is optimized for multi-core processors, taps into the vast computing power of graphic processing units (GPUs), enables breakthrough amounts of RAM and features a new, modern media platform with QuickTime X. Snow Leopard includes out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 and is scheduled to ship in about a year.

“We have delivered more than a thousand new features to OS X in just seven years and Snow Leopard lays the foundation for thousands more,” said Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “In our continued effort to deliver the best user experience, we hit the pause button on new features to focus on perfecting the world’s most advanced operating system.”

Snow Leopard delivers unrivaled support for multi-core processors with a new technology code-named “Grand Central,” making it easy for developers to create programs that take full advantage of the power of multi-core Macs. Snow Leopard further extends support for modern hardware with Open Computing Language (OpenCL), which lets any application tap into the vast gigaflops of GPU computing power previously available only to graphics applications. OpenCL is based on the C programming language and has been proposed as an open standard. Furthering OS X’s lead in 64-bit technology, Snow Leopard raises the software limit on system memory up to a theoretical 16TB of RAM.

Using media technology pioneered in OS X iPhone, Snow Leopard introduces QuickTime X, which optimizes support for modern audio and video formats resulting in extremely efficient media playback. Snow Leopard also includes Safari with the fastest implementation of JavaScript ever, increasing performance by 53 percent, making Web 2.0 applications feel more responsive.

For the first time, OS X includes native support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 in OS X applications Mail, iCal and Address Book, making it even easier to integrate Macs into organizations of any size.

[Update] Apple has also posted a dedicated Snow Leopard page.

“Developer reaction to the features, power and simplicity of the iPhone SDK has been incredible,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “We are seeing some truly amazing native apps from our developers and think users are going to love the breadth and depth of the applications available from the App Store.”

Leading developers such as AOL, Cisco, eBay, Electronic Arts, Epocrates, TypePad, Salesforce.com and Sega have demonstrated impressive native applications developed using the iPhone SDK.

“The SDK allowed us to build a groundbreaking new AIM client in record time,” said Kevin Conroy, executive vice president, AOL. “The platform’s elegance and ease of use has inspired our developers to create innovative new web and SDK based experiences for iPhone and iPod touch.”

“The iPhone SDK has given us an excellent set of tools and APIs to create mobile extensions for FIM’s entire portfolio of web brands including MySpace, IGN and Photobucket in the near term, and other properties such as FOXSports.com down the road,” said John Smelzer, senior vice president of Mobile for Fox Interactive Media. “The popularity of the iPhone, along with the high demand for applications, gives us an amazing opportunity to create groundbreaking mobile experiences.”

“Cocoa-touch is a compact and robust application framework that handles all the heavy lifting for developers so they can concentrate on building their applications in record time with the legendary Apple finesse we’ve come to expect,” said David Krantz, president of YELLOWPAGES.COM.“ iPhone has been a game changer since it launched, and the availability of our YELLOWPAGES.COM application on the App Store is going to make a great device even better.”

“As mobile developers with primarily J2ME and BREW experience, we were up and running with the iPhone within two weeks,” said Jonathan Backer, manager of Mobile Engineering, The Walt Disney Company. “The hardware is stable and full-featured, while the software development tools are intuitive and represent a level of polish rarely seen in the mobile arena.”

“Since the launch of the iPhone we have seen a steady rise in traffic to the MLB.com mobile site so it made perfect sense to develop a rich client application for the App Store,” said Adam Ritter, vice president, Wireless Major League Baseball, Advanced Media. “Our development staff was excited to work on an iPhone application and reported that the SDK was robust and straight forward and contained helpful development tools. All combined we were able to expedite our development and deliver an application we know baseball fans will enjoy.”

Web-based Contacts application

With a MobileMe email account, all folders, messages and status indicators look identical whether checking email on iPhone, iPod touch, a Mac or a PC. New email messages are pushed instantly to iPhone over the cellular network or Wi-Fi, removing the need to manually check email and wait for downloads. Push also keeps contacts and calendars continuously up-to-date so changes made on one device are automatically pushed up to the cloud and down to other devices. Push works with the native applications on iPhone and iPod touch, Microsoft Outlook for the PC, and Mac OS X applications, Mail, Address Book and iCal, as well as the MobileMe web application suite.

MobileMe web applications are 100 percent ad-free and provide an incredible, desktop-like experience that allows users to drag and drop, click and drag and even use keyboard shortcuts. MobileMe provides anywhere access to Mail, Contacts and Calendar, with a unified interface that allows users to switch between applications with a single click, and Gallery makes it easy to share photos on the web in stunning quality. Gallery users can upload, rearrange, rotate and title photos from any browser; post photos directly from an iPhone; allow visitors to download print quality images; and contribute photos to an album. MobileMe iDisk lets users store and manage files online with drag and drop filing and makes it easy to share documents too large to email by automatically sending an email with a link for downloading the file. MobileMe includes 20GB of online storage that can be used for email, contacts, calendar, photos, movies and documents.

MobileMe, available on July 11, is a subscription-based service with 20GB of storage for $99 (US) per year for individuals and $149 (US) for a Family Pack, which includes one master account with 20GB of storage and four Family Member accounts with 5GB of storage each. Users can sign up for a free, 60-day MobileMe trial at www.apple.com/mobileme and current .Mac members will be automatically upgraded to MobileMe accounts. MobileMe subscribers can purchase an additional 20GB of storage for $49 (US) or 40GB of storage for $99 (US) annually.

Using an iPhone or iPod touch with MobileMe requires iPhone 2.0 software and iTunes® 7.7 or later. For use with a Mac, MobileMe requires Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11 or the latest version of Mac OS X Leopard.

Combining all the revolutionary features of iPhone with 3G networking that is twice as fast as the first generation iPhone, built-in GPS for expanded location based mobile services, and iPhone 2.0 software which includes support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and runs the hundreds of third party applications already built with the recently released iPhone SDK. In the US the new iPhone 3G is priced at a stunning $199 for the 8GB model, and just $299 for the 16GB model. iPhone 3G will be available in more than 70 countries later this year, beginning with customer availability in 22 countries—Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and the US—on July 11.

Black iPhone 3G

iPhone 3G gives users ever faster access to the Internet and email over their cellular network with quad-band GSM and tri-band HSDPA for voice and data connectivity around the world. iPhone 3G supports Wi-Fi, 3G and EDGE networks and automatically switches between them to ensure the fastest possible download speeds. The new iPhone 3G also makes it easier to multi-task with simultaneous voice and data communications, so with iPhone 3G you can browse the web, get map directions, or check your email while you are on a call.

iPhone 3G includes the new iPhone 2.0 software with both the iPhone SDK and key enterprise features such as support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync to provide over-the-air push email, contact and calendar syncing as well as remote wipe and Cisco IPsec VPN for encrypted access to corporate networks. The iPhone SDK allows developers to create amazing applications that leverage the iPhone’s groundbreaking Multi-Touch user interface, animation technology, accelerometer and GPS technology on the world’s most advanced mobile platform.

iPhone 3G includes the new App Store, providing iPhone users with native applications in a variety of categories including games, business, news, sports, health, reference and travel. The App Store on iPhone works over cellular networks and Wi-Fi, which means it is accessible from just about anywhere, so you can purchase and download applications wirelessly and start using them instantly. Some applications are even free and the App Store notifies you when application updates are available. The App Store will be available in 62 countries at launch.

Side of white iPhone 3G

iPhone 3G takes advantage of MobileMe, a new Internet service that pushes email, contacts, and calendars from an online “cloud” to native applications on iPhone, iPod touch, Macs and PCs. With MobileMe email, messages are pushed instantly to iPhone, removing the need to manually check email and wait for downloads, and push keeps contacts and calendars continuously up-to-date so changes made on one device are automatically updated on other devices. With iPhone, you can even snap a photo and post it directly to a MobileMe Gallery to share with friends and family.

iPhone 3G will be available in the US on July 11 for a suggested retail price of $199 (US) for the 8GB model and $299 (US) for the 16GB model in both Apple and AT&T’s retail stores and requires a new two year contract with AT&T for qualifying customers. iPhone 2.0 software will be available on July 11 as a free software update via iTunes 7.7 or later for all iPhone customers.

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The T-Shirt displays the time, date and location of the WWDC keynote which will take place on June 9 at 10.00 am PT in the Moscone West conference hall.

According to Barrons Foxconn has only shipped “several thousand” iPhones but is expected to ramp up production towards the middle of this month.

The news is consistent with reports that the iPhone will hit the shelves at the end of June or beginning of July.

The 3G iPhone is expected to be announced later today at the WWDC 2008 keynote presentation, join World of Apple for live coverage of the keynote and up-to-date news and rumours.

According to the newspaper the new iPhone will start at $199, that is with a $200 subsidy from AT&T.

The price also will rock: $199, according to people with knowledge of the matter, down from the current $399 and $499. Sources declined to be cited by name or affiliation because Apple and AT&T haven’t authorized anybody to speak publicly about pricing until after Monday’s announcement. The $199 price is being subsidized, though USA TODAY could not confirm details.

World of Apple will be offering live coverage of tomorrows keynote presentation by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Tune in at 10 am PT/1 pm ET/6 pm BST.

.Mac/Mobile Me | WoA Rumour Rating - 8/10

One of the strongest rumours leading up to WWDC was the mounting evidence and speculation that Apple will rename and revamp its online services.

Rumours were originally started by TUAW who stated that .Mac would see improvements such as full over-the-air syncing of calendars, contacts and email for the iPhone. As well as the ability to sync .Mac on Windows.

It then emerged with the release of Mac OS X 10.5.3 that Apple may also wish to rename .Mac to Mobile Me.

Evidence of renaming has been found in both Mac OS X 10.5.3 as well as the latest betas of the iPhone 2.0 OS.

Apple has also been purchasing multiple .me domains as well as the highly sought after me.com domain.

Mac OS X 10.6 | WoA Rumour Rating - 9/10

Late last week it emerged that Apple could be planning to introduce Mac OS X 10.6 at WWDC.

TUAW first reported the rumour noting that the OS release would focus on security and stability.

Ars Technica later added to the rumour by stating that Mac OS X 10.6 has an internal codename “Snow Leopard” and concurred with TUAW that the release will focus on security, stability and overall performance.

Mac OS X 10.6 is now expected to be a large focal point of the WWDC keynote and expected to be released to the public in January 2009, presumably at Macworld 2009.

iPhone/iPod touch Firmware 2.0 | WoA Rumour Rating - 6/10

Apple initially spoke about the iPhone and iPod touch 2.0 firmware during its Software Roadmap special event in March. At the time Apple promised a release of the new firmware, and the availability of App Store by the end of June.

It is now expected that the new firmware and App Store will be major points during the keynote with immediate release and availability of third-party applications.

Tablet Mac | WoA Rumour Rating - 2/10

Rumours of a new Mac tablet were revived by AppleInsider in September 2007, these were once again recently revived by Jason O’Grady. The Mac tablet is now expected sometime in the Fall.

Conclusion

Despite being a primarily developer based event Apple is highly likely to dedicate a large chunk of the WWDC keynote to the announcement of the 3G iPhone.

Expect Apple to then demonstrate the abilities of the two main development platforms, the new iPhone OS and Mac OS X 10.6; giving OS X 10.6 a release timeframe and making the new iPhone and iPod touch firmware available to public, together with the App Store and third-party applications.

According to the report London’s Regent Street Apple Store has received a single box which is padlocked and under orders to be kept in a safe until Monday.

The news comes after controversial reports that Australian Apple resellers were receiving mystery packages with orders not to open them until after the WWDC keynote.

The images are widely being considered fake due to many glaring omissions but many of the sites have published them for interests sake.

See all the photos here.

World of Apple has offered rumour roundups leading up to Apple events for many years but this year we’ve mixed things up a bit. Due to the mass of speculation surrounding the iPhone we believe it is deserving of its own roundup, everything else will follow shortly after.

So, without further ado lets hit it!

Since the launch of the iPhone last year many have been clambering to get their hands of a 3G version, we all knew it was coming as Jobs mentioned it multiple times during 2007 but it appears that the second-generation iPhone may finally be upon us.

UMTS (3G)

3G is the umbrella name for many different technologies. The current iPhone runs on GSM networks and uses GPRS and EDGE to move data over the network.

UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) is effectively the equivalent 3G technology to GSM, the majority of 3G networks around the world use UMTS frequency bands and the iPhone will almost certainly be capable of connecting to them. It should also be noted that UMTS runs alongside GSM most of the time, GSM is far nicer to a devices battery life than UMTS when making phone calls.

But UMTS offers significant advantages over its 2G counterpart, when coupled with W-CDMA technologies speeds of up to 14Mbit/s can be achieved, this of course is very much a best case scenario but very fast speeds can be achieved.

Over the last few months the term HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) has been banded around; HSDPA is an underlying technology of HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) which is a protocol running on top of UMTS. Without getting everybody’s hopes up, HSDPA is capable of offering speeds of 1.8, 3.6, 7.2 and 14.4 Mbit/s. HSPA+ is capable of speeds of 42Mbit/s.

The majority of 3G networks in the world that operate HSDPA have 7.2Mbit/s networks but to receive such high speeds many factors have to be right.

So to conclude, the next-generation iPhone is almost certainly going to feature 3G connectivity and will most likely be able to connect to HSDPA networks opening the door to mobile video-conferencing, IP TV and downloading music on the go.

GPS

Even though the original iPhone featured a very detailed and easy to use Google Maps application it lacked the ability to know where it was. Apple tried to develop location awareness using WiFi and cellular points but it didn’t work too well for many. The best solution to location awareness is a GPS chip.

It has been rumoured heavily that the next-generation iPhone will a GPS chip.

It appears that Apple has been working hard to ensure that the GPS chip is only on when necessary to save battery life, in some of the recent beta versions of the iPhone 2.0 firmware it was shown that the iPhone asks to receive its location, presumably using the GPS chip.

Plastic Casing, Multiple Colours

Over the last two months we’ve seen dodgy photo after dodgy photo after dodgy photo, all purportedly showing the new iPhone.

Across the rumours and photos is one consistency, it’s all about plastic.

A plastic case instead of a metal case is not hard to believe, I am sure that I’m not the only one to notice that my iPhone has no signal when everyone else around me has full signal.

3G is an even more temperamental beast and would certainly benefit from a plastic case.

Although it is likely that the majority of the “leaked” photos are fake it isn’t hard to believe that Apple will adopt both black and white case designs and maybe other colours.

Thin iPhone, Thick iPhone

Of particular interest to those following the iPhone rumours is the inconsistency about how thick the device will be.

Engadget originally reported in April that the iPhone will be slightly thicker than the current iPhone.

But more recently Leander Kahney noted that the iPhone would be 22-percent thinner than the current, or around 2.5mm thinner.

In Apple’s entire history it has never released a revision of a product and made it thicker but with rumours of additional capacity, longer battery life and the use of a plastic case it is hard to say which way the iPhone will go.

Capacity and Price

The original iPhone debuted for $499 for 4GB and $599 for 8GB, this was later slashed by $100 and the 4GB model discontinued. In February 2008 Apple released a 16GB version of the iPhone.

The iPod touch currently comes in capacities of 8GB, 16GB and 32GB while the iPhone only comes in 8GB and 16GB. In February of this year when the 32GB iPod touch was released the unit contained two 16GB chips to make up 32GB, due to space limitations this was thought not to be possible in the iPhone. With the fast pace of technology the chip size for 16GB has probably reduced significantly so the future iPhone line-up is likely to feature 16GB and 32GB models.

The price of the next-generation iPhone has also been debated heavily with many rumours pointing towards heavy subsidising from carriers.

Apple has stated in the past that carriers are free to price the iPhone at there own discretion and this looks set to happen with the 3G iPhone, but many rumours still point to the iPhone having a price tag.

Across many rumours the most consistent price points appear to be $199 for 16GB and $299 for 32GB.

Notable Tidbits

With the rumours of .Mac being transformed into “MobileMe” it appears that the iPhone is about to gain a lot more integration with the cloud.

Although software based the latest iPhone is likely to be able to wirelessly sync contacts, calendars and photos.

There have been claims that the iPhone will make use of an OLED display. OLED displays offer fantastic benefits to battery consumption due to the lack of backlighting but OLED is still a young technology which is said to have a limited lifespan.

It has also been noted that the iPhone will feature a front-facing camera to facilitate video chats.

What to Expect

So piecing together all this information what can we expect Apple to announce on Monday?

• 3G capable iPhone (HSDPA)
• GPS capability
• 22% thinner than previous incarnation
• 20% improved battery
• Front-facing camera for video conferencing
• 4MP rear camera
• Available in glossy black and also glossy white
• 16GB for $199 and 32GB for $299
• Carrier subsidies may include free upgrades from previous iPhone model and free iPhones to those signing up to higher contracts.
• Shipping June 30th

Image courtesy of MacTalk.com.au

SUBJECT TO TERMS OF NDA
DO NOT OPEN UNTIL TUESDAY JUNE 10TH, 2008

June 10th (in Australia) is the day of Steve Jobs’ keynote presentation which kicks off the start of WWDC 2008. Apple is widely expected to show off the 3G iPhone which will be brought to Australia “later this year” by carriers Vodafone and SingTel Optus.

In the photos two banners can clearly be seen, the first reading “OS X Leopard, The world’s most advanced operating system” and the second reading “OS X iPhone, The world’s most advanced mobile platform.” On the iPhone banner there is a picture of the iPhone which is displaying “The Future is calling.”

TUAW also reports that Mac OS X 10.6 will ship in January 2009 and that Apple will drop PowerPC support from OS X making it Intel-only. Mac OS X 10.6 is also said to add very few new features and focus purely on “stability and security.”

MacRumors vouches for the report stating that they heard that Mac OS X 10.6 would make a debut at WWDC this year.

Today Ars Technica added to the hype surrounding Mac OS X 10.6 by concurring that the next version of OS X will be Intel-only and is currently code-named “Snow Leopard”.

Ars also clarifies that the release will be “heavily focused on performance and nailing down speed and stability” and should debut in January 2009.

Finally the site adds that Mac OS X 10.6 will be “Cocoa-only” but adds:

There may be some disagreement here as to what exactly “Cocoa-only” means, so take that into account when thinking about this. For example, Apple may only axe Carbon UI stuff.

John Gruber adds:

The “pure Cocoa” stuff is about additional Cocoa wrappers for APIs that currently are only available in Carbon (and/or at the BSD level) — more stuff that developers can do using Objective-C APIs. It is not about dropping Carbon from the OS, which would make no sense. It’s a message for developers, not a description of Snow Leopard.

TUAW notes that .Mac “will no longer be sold by Apple after WWDC” and that existing users will have their @mac.com email addresses forwarded to @me.com addresses.

The popular blog also reports that the entire web interface will be given a new look with contacts looking like they do in Address Book and calendars looking like iCal.

MobileMe is expected to be available in late June/early July, and is reported to be integrated heavily with the latest build of the iPhone OS 2.0 beta. One of the features said to be coming to the iPhone is over-the-air syncing of contacts, calendars and photos.

At around 5.30pm Eastern time on Monday .Mac mail went offline for around 6 hours.

During last years All Things Digital: D5 conference Steve Jobs was questioned on why Apple had let .Mac dwindle, Jobs answered “I couldn’t agree more, and we’ll make up for lost time in the near future.”

Digg founder and co-host of Diggnation Kevin Rose has posted a video where he explains that he expects a $200 lower-end iPhone to be introduced alongside the new 3G iPhone.

Although most likely a coincidence the rumoured price point tallys with a rumour today that the iPhone will be £100 in the UK.

3G iPhone Specs Revealed?

Mac Rumors is reporting for “interest alone” 3G iPhone some specs they revealed from an unconfirmed source.

• Lighter weight
• Black + other colors
• Focus on Multimedia with Video recording
• Video Conferencing
• GPS
• 16GB $499
• 32GB $699

Apple is widely expected to allow mobile carriers to subsidise the new iPhone which is rumoured to see an introduction at WWDC which kicks off on June 9th.

A source close to the deal stated to Times Online that the new iPhone will be on store shelves by July.

Codingrobots.com is reporting that changes to multiple strings in Mac OS X 10.5.3 point towards a new name for Apple’s online Mail, web hosting, iDisk, backup and sync services.

iCal’s Localizable.strings file contains the following string:

/* Label of .Mac button in iCal’s General preferences. %@ is the new name of Apple’s online service (was .Mac) (remove -XX02)

Safari has the following lines in its Localizable.strings:

/* Title of .Mac alert sheet, with .Mac brand name subsituted */
“You need a %@ account that has syncing enabled” = “You need a %@ account that has syncing enabled”;

Mail’s Prefs.strings:

/* Title of button used to open the .Mac system preference pane. */
“AOS_SYNC_BUTTON_FORMAT” = “%@…”;

/* Descriptive text for .Mac Sync. */
“AOS_SYNC_FORMAT” = “Use %@ to synchronize Accounts, Rules, Notes, Signatures, and Smart Mailboxes.”;

It appears that almost every reference of .Mac has been replaced with “%@” which means that the name will be inserted automatically by applications.

It was reported by TUAW in early-May that .Mac would see a complete revamp and see the introduction of over-the-air syncing with Exchange and .Mac syncing with Windows, the blog site noted that this would likely happen at WWDC 2008.

The report comes as no surprise following a mass of reports all pointing towards a June release, the report does however point towards worldwide availability post WWDC and June 18th as a specific launch date for Spain.

Gizmodo also states that another source familiar with the launch has confirmed that the iPhone will no longer be available at a fixed price point in some countries. It is expected that the iPhone will be subject to carrier subsidies and incentives in many European countries.

One executive familiar with the negotiations claims that Apple’s hoping for “a big launch in June,”. According to the article Apple wishes to offer iTunes store downloads via the mobile network; currently iTunes Store downloads are only available on the iPhone when connected to WiFi.

With expectations high for Apple to release a 3G iPhone in the coming weeks it is expected that Apple wishes to take advantage of the new over-the-air speeds and offer music store purchases. However the report notes that music labels which to charge more for music sold over the cellular network.

Apple is also negotiating for answer tones to be sold on the iTunes Store.

“The company is also hoping to add answer tones, also known as ringback tones—songs that a caller hears instead of the ‘ring ring’ sound while waiting for someone to answer,” the report says. “In some cases, these command an even higher wholesale price than ringtones.”

“Response to this year’s WWDC has been off the charts and we are delighted with the show of enthusiasm and support from the developer community for the new iPhone SDK,” Apple spokesman Bill Evans told Macworld. “The conference is now sold out. For those unable to attend WWDC, session videos will be available to purchase on iTunes shortly after the conference.”

Last year over 5,000 developers attended WWDC, it is currently unknown how many are attending this year.

The five-day WWDC event, which runs from June 9 to June 13, will feature the first ever iPhone track for mobile developers with in-depth sessions and hands-on labs to fully explore the capabilities of the OS X iPhone 2.0 software, including the iPhone SDK and the App Store, a breakthrough way for developers to wirelessly deliver their applications to iPhone and iPod touch users.

The iPhone track will also enable mobile developers to work side by side with Apple engineers to create amazing applications that leverage iPhone’s revolutionary Multi-Touch user interface, animation technology, rich set of APIs, including programming interfaces for Core OS, Core Services, Media and Cocoa Touch technologies, built-in three axis accelerometer and geographical location technology to deliver truly innovative mobile applications.

This year’s Mac track will give newcomers and seasoned veterans alike the technical foundation and techniques needed to develop world-class OS X Leopard applications with sessions that discuss every level of the system, including interface design and implementation, application frameworks, security, localization and networking.

WWDC 2008 will offer over 150 information-rich sessions and labs where Apple engineers will go in-depth on the innovative technologies that power OS X iPhone and OS X Leopard. Developers can bring code to the labs and work one-to-one with Apple engineers, applying development methods and best-practices gained from sessions to enhance their applications.

Other activities at Apple’s WWDC 2008 include:

• presentation sessions led by engineers that provide an in-depth look at OS X iPhone, OS X Leopard and innovative tools and technologies such as the iPhone SDK, Cocoa Touch, Interface Builder, Xcode and more;
• practical hands-on sessions where attendees can learn Apple’s own coding strategies and techniques;
• technology labs where attendees can work one-to-one with Apple engineers; and
• special events, including the Welcome Reception, Apple Design Awards, Lunchtime Speakers and Stump the Experts.

Although no official announcement has been made, Apple public relations confirmed to Fortune that Steve Jobs will deliver a keynote address on June 9, the first day of the 2008 World Wide Developers conference.

WWDC 2008 will run from June 9-12, 2008 and Apple is widely expected to announce the next-generation iPhone.

Apple has changed the Apple.com homepage to remind those wishing to attend WWDC 2008 that early registration ends on April 25th.

iPhone SDK Beta 4 Released

Apple has also released a new beta of the iPhone SDK. Beta 4 contains numerous bug fixes and additions.

The fourth beta version of the iPhone SDK includes Xcode IDE, iPhone simulator with Open GL ES support, Interface Builder, Instruments, frameworks and samples, compilers, and Shark analysis tool.

You can download the SDK update by logging into the iPhone Dev center and clicking the download link.

TUAW has excellent coverage of the new beta and writes the following piece of interest:

“There are definitely some very interesting methods added to UIApplication’s delegate, including methods for badging the Springboard icon, and methods related to gaining and resigning “active” status - seems like background apps may be permitted somehow.”

A landmark event. In more ways than one.
The groundbreaking innovations of Mac OS X Leopard and iPhone OS offer two revolutionary development platforms for developers and IT professionals. Immerse yourself with information-rich sessions where Apple engineers go in-depth on the innovative technologies that power the features of these sophisticated platforms. Bring your code to the Labs and work one-to-one with Apple engineers, applying development methods and best-practices you gain from sessions to enhance your application

During this years WWDC there will be “three tracks to innovation”. These are iPhone, the Mac, and IT.