Apple fans wait with bated breath this morning, as their favorite gadget maker readies to kick off its annual Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) with a previously announced keynote that promises updates to both its mobile and desktop platforms, iOS and Mac OS X, respectively.
In a press release, Apple said that “CEO Steve Jobs and a team of Apple executives” will unveil the company’s next-generation desktop software (Lion), the next iteration of iOS (iOS 5), as well as iCloud, Apple’s upcoming cloud services offering.
At last year’s WWDC keynote, Apple announced the iPhone 4, but the company has made no mention of any new device unveilings at this year’s conference.
Still, this year’s announcements could be no less awe-inspiring, as the changes expected to iOS and OS X, as well as a cloud-based iTunes offering could represent a major overhaul of Apple’s entire ecosystem.
Rumors abound as to the particulars of how iCloud will work; many expect seamless syncing of a user’s content across all their iDevices. The offering is widely believed to feature deep integration with Apple’s iTunes platform and store, allowing users to stream their music and videos from Apple’s cloud, as opposed to storing it on their device.
Such a service has been expected ever since Apple acquired streaming music service Lala in late 2009. In the past month, both Google and Amazon have unveiled cloud-based content storage and syncing for Android devices.
Apple’s keynote will begin at 10 a.m. PST. Check wirelessweek.com for updates from the conference.
