What to expect at today’s Apple event
On Thursday, before an audience of industry analysts, tech reporters and invited guests, Apple (AAPL) will unfold its long-awaited “iPhone software roadmap.” The event starts at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET) in Building 4, Town Hall on the company’s Cupertino campus.
So what’s going to happen? Let’s review what we know and what’s been rumored.
What we know:
- The “roadmap” will cover the iPhone software developers kit (SDK) that Steve Jobs had hoped to have in developers’ hands last month. If what is revealed is a beta SDK, as rumored, there will widespread disappointment.
- Apple also promises “exciting new enterprise features,” which has got the attention of IT managers and the employees who have to work with IT to get corporate support for the iPhone.
- The SDK will almost certainly not include support for Adobe Flash — one of the current limitations of Safari on the iPhone — given that Steve Jobs declared, at Tuesday’s shareholders meeting, that it”performs too slow to be useful” on the iPhone.
- That Jobs has promised “a lot of apps out there this summer,” including games.
- That native iPhone apps will be written in Cocoa, Apple’s proprietary development environment. When asked about a blogging application for the iPhone at the shareholders meeting, Jobs told the shareholder that if Apple doesn’t address his needs, he should learn Cocoa and write his own app.
What has been rumored:
- That the SDK runs only on Macs running OS X Leopard and is facilitated through an enhanced version of XCode made available to members of Apple Developer Connection. (see here)
- That iPhone applications will be allowed to use both EDGE and WiFi for data. (see here)
- That Apple will have the final say on which commercial iPhone applications are sold, will distribute them through iTunes, and will take a small cut of the proceeds. (see here)
- That iPhone freeware is unlikely to be subject to much if any scrutiny by Apple. (see here)
- That this SDK will not support applications that access peripherals through the iPhone dock connector. (see here)
- That the final version will be released at the World Wide Developers Conference in June. (see here)
- That there’ll be lots of demonstrations of business applications from the likes of IBM (IBM), Salesforce (CRM) and Microsoft (MSFT). (We’ve already been contacted for pre-SDK coverage from several firms that make apps for business, including SAP.)
How much of this will come true? We’ll find out soon enough. Jon Fortt will be covering it for Fortune.com. Several Apple sites will be liveblogging from Town Hall, including Engadget, Gizmodo and Ars Technica’s Infinite Loop.
A decent round up with one unfortunate phrase early on:
If what is revealed is a beta SDK, as rumored, there will widespread disappointment.
A beta today of a stunning tool will not disappoint the real developers who will use it. Getting comfortable with a tool is at least 50% of the job and a beta will fill that need. What the SDK enables will be more telling. But I would warn against listening to much to the feature counters who will decry anything less than total control of everything. Apple’s appeal to users is their ability to take off the table a whole bunch of stuff we (users) don’t want to think about, thereby eliminating layers of interface, stuff you’ve got to remember, and things you have to read the manual several times to understand.
As I’ve said before: The iPhone you see is not the iPhone - it is a product defined by the road ahead and its momentum, not its location. Today’s SDK will not be the only version.
PED, I’m watching these oil, gold, etc. prices going through the roof. Don’t know when these commodity bubbles are going to burst, but they will. Just like tech in 2000. Surprising more analysts are predicting such. That’s going to drive a huge surge back into tech, don’t you think?
You know they are going to sell it off making up some more BS about how SDK didn’t live up to someone else’s expectations. Its what they do. You think any analyst outside of Gene Munster has any clue about Apple or the gold mine it is? F-no. They are all jokers making money with their hedge fund pals. Apple should be over 200 right now but as long as we have these dipshits called analysts, we have to deal with these detours to make them look half smart.
Great. Let’s build up a bunch of unrealistic expectations for this event so that no matter what good news comes out, the negative spin will keep people from seeing the great future of the iPhone and the stock price will drop. Well, thanks for the continued great buying opportunity!! Hopefully, the naysayers being quoted for this article aren’t being translated into Chinese, where apparently consumers are happy with their own great experiences and don’t need Americans to tell them how good/bad they really have it!! iPhone officially in China by the Olympics!! PED, enjoy the show!
Morgan Stanley is out with a very positive call on Apple saying the enterprise is the next leg up for Apple, said buy Apple, and price target 185!
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Silicon Valley veterans like to joke that Steve Jobs must be surrounded by a reality distortion field; if you get too close to him, you start to believe what he's saying. Thanks to the success of the iPod, the launch of the iPhone and the renewed interest in the Mac, Apple has made believers out of millions of customers - and made a lot of investors rich. But Philip Elmer-DeWitt believes that an ounce of skepticism never hurts when writing about the company. He should know. He's been covering Apple - and watching Steve Jobs operate - since 1982, first for Time Magazine, then for Business 2.0, and now for Fortune.
Apple announces that God says his believers can use the iPhone to contact him.
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Analysts disappointed that Apple didn’t get an exclusive - prayer still works.