The World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) that opens Monday morning in San Francisco would be a relatively obscure technical gathering of programmers and IT administrators - with sessions on “Advances in OpenGL” and “What’s New in Objective-C” - were it not for one thing.

Steve Jobs.

The keynote address that Apple’s CEO is scheduled to give starting at 10 am Pacific Time (1 pm ET) is perhaps the second most closely watched event in high tech - after the opening speech Jobs gives every January at Macworld.

In the audience at Moscone West’s main hall will be - in addition to thousands of developers (WWDC sold out for the first time this year) - hundreds of reporters, photographers, TV crews, venture capitalists, CEOs and maybe even a few celebrities from Hollywood and the music world.

What’s Jobs going to talk about? To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, there are known knowns and known unknowns. That is to say, there are things we think we know he’s going to say, and things we know we don’t know. Here’s a rundown:

3G iPhone. Except for a few short sellers on Wall Street, everybody who follows Apple assumes that Jobs will introduce a new iPhone that can send and receive data at so-called third-generation speeds. (In fact, so widespread is this belief that if Jobs doesn’t show up with the thing on Monday, Apple’s (AAPL) shares will get hammered before he leaves the stage.) Almost everything else about iPhone 2.0 are matters of little hard information and intense speculation. Is it thicker or thinner than version 1.0? Will it have a built-in GPS chip so it always knows where it’s at? Will its price be subsidized by AT&T and the overseas carriers? Will it go on sale next week or sometime later? If these questions weren’t still in play, there would be almost nothing to talk about next week.

The SDK. We know Jobs is going to spend some time discussing the so-called software development kit for the iPhone. We know because that’s one of the two main themes of the conference (symbolized by the bizarre image of two Golden Gate Bridges that decorated the e-mail invitation). The other theme is the Macintosh operating system; presumably the two are merging somewhere in Marin County, judging by the doctored photograph. The SDK will finally give third party developers access to the platform Apple has managed to build, as Jupiter Research’s Michael Gartenberg notes, without them. There’s a flood of new software for the iPhone and iPod touch ready for release soon as Apple gives the word - including programs that will allow IT departments, should they be so inclined, to integrate the iPhone into their enterprises the way Research in Motion’s (RIMM) BlackBerry is today.

.Mac. Even Jobs agrees that Apple’s $99-a-year suite of Internet services (Mail, Backup, iSync, iDisk, etc.) needs an overhaul, if only to match the online applications that Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft (MSFT) now offer for free. By tracking crumbs of information scattered in recent Apple software releases, some observers believe Jobs is set to replace .Mac with something called Mobile Me, or just plain .Me. Probably the single most effective thing Apple could do improve .Mac would be to emulate Google and give it away.

Another iPhone. Speculation that Jobs would introduce a so-called iPhone nano - a smaller iPhone at a more affordable price - has faded; the smart money has pushed this back to next January. However, as American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu points out, there are good reasons to suspect that Apple will keep the first generation iPhone around, if only to have something to sell in those parts of Latin America - and parts of North America, for that matter - where where 3G coverage is spotty or nonexistent.

New MacBooks. Two weeks ago, Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster put the odds of Apple introducing redesigned Mac portables next week at 60%. The other odds he gave - 80% by the end of summer - now seem more like it.

New Touchscreen device. Wu in report to clients this week said he’s learned that work on larger, 4-inch and 7-inch multitouch devices has “gone beyond the prototype stage” at Apple. He goes out on a limb and gives 50-50 odds that one will be introduced at WWDC next week.

Those are the key themes, but there’s plenty more to speculate about. If you want to dig deeper - in a suitably interactive way - come to WWDC with a copy of the 2008 edition of John Siracusa’s Keynote Bingo card, pasted below the fold. The rules are laid out in detail at Ars Technica here, but they’re pretty straightforward: put a token over a square if Jobs mentions the topic or says the word or introduces the speaker during the keynote. Cover five squares in an a row, and you get to stand up and shout Bingo!

Nobody’s won the game yet. This could be the year.

[Moscone West photo courtesy of MacNN.]

MacRumors has issued an update of its immensely useful Buyer’s Guide — a consumer-oriented cheat sheet that tracks the update cycle of Apple’s product line and offers informed opinions about whether you should go ahead buy that MacBook Pro you’ve been lusting after or wait for the next model. As MacRumors put it:

Apple updates their products in a very consistent manner. A Mac comes out at a certain price with certain features. The price and features of that particular Mac stay exactly the same throughout the lifespan of the product. So, if a customer buys on Day #1, they are getting the fastest/newest technology for the dollar. The problem, however, is that 8 months later, on the day prior to its refresh, that Mac costs the exact same money, but contains 8 month old technology. (link)

Although based on rumors and second-hand reports, the Guide is pretty dependable, especially since Apple (AAPL) switched to Intel chips. Intel (INTC) is quite open about its product plans, and Apple tends to switch to their newest processors in a fairly predictable timeframe. (Although as MacRumors notes, Intel’s switch to the Nehalem microarchitecture, due late this year, could stretch out some Apple product cycles.)

To see the full 2008-2009 Buyer’s Guide, click here. This is a summary of their recommendations:

• iPod classic: Buy only if you need it - Approaching the end of a cycle
• iPod touch: Neutral - Mid product cycle
• iPod nano: Buy only if you need it - Approaching the end of a cycle
• iPod shuffle: Buy - Product recently updated
• Mac mini: Don’t Buy - Updates soon
• Mac Pro: Neutral - Mid product cycle
• MacBook: Buy - Product recently updated
• MacBook Pro: Buy - Product recently updated
• iPhone: Buy only if you need it - Approaching the end of a cycle
• LCDs: Don’t Buy - Updates soon
• Xserve: Buy - Product recently updated

There’s lots more information in the full Buyer’s Guide, including historical release dates, days since update and links to recent news.

One caveat: you take a risk when you buy a computer on Day #1, as MacRumors suggests. You might want to monitor Apple’s discussion boards for few weeks to see what problems emerge. Let the company and the users who like to live on the bleeding edge work out the kinks before you buy.

For once the rumor mills had it (mostly) right: the new lineup of MacBook Pros that many had expected Steve Jobs to introduce at Macworld last month did indeed arrive today, Feb. 26, as anticipated.

What was not anticipated, until this weekend, was that the MacBook line, which had been given a speed bump late last year, would also get refreshed.

The main headlines are that Apple (AAPL) has installed the latest family of Intel Core Duo 2 Penryn processors across its entire notebook line and given the MacBook Pros the new Multi-Touch trackpad introduced in the MacBook Air, with gesture support for pinch, rotate and swipe and all that good stuff.

All the machines also got larger hard drives and all but the low-end MacBook come installed with 2 GB RAM standard.

Otherwise, the machines look and feel the same. The giant trackpads that Apple devotees had spent hours photoshopping onto the MacBook form factor did not materialize.

The new price points:

• 2.1 GHz, 13-inch white MacBook, 1 GB RAM, 120 GB hard drive: $1,099
• 2.4 GHz, 13-inch white MacBook, 2 GB RAM, 160 GB hard drive: $1,299
• 2.4 GHz, 13-inch black MacBook, 2 GB RAM, 250 GB hard drive: $1,499
• 2.4 GHz, 15-inch MacBook Pro, 2 GB RAM, 200 GB hard drive: $1,999
• 2.5 GHz, 15-inch MacBook Pro: 2 GB RAM, 250 GB hard drive: $2,499
• 2.5 GHz, 17-inch MacBook Pro: 2 GB RAM, 250 GB hard drive: $2,799

All five systems are available to order immediately from the online Apple Store. For more detail, see Apple’s press release here.

Although Wall Street seemed unimpressed (the stock was down more than 3 points in early trading, but recovered and ended the day down about half a point), the reaction from users has been mostly positive. “Looks like a solid update to me,” reads a typical response on Ars Technica’s Infinite Loop. “For the base model at the same price of the previous one, you get double video memory, 80 GBs of HDD extra and a faster processor just 0.1GHz less than the top of the line model. And of course the new touchpad. Not bad at all in my book.”

One slightly sour note: the little white Apple remote that used to come bundled with the MacBooks and MacBook Pros, now has to be purchased separately for $19.99.

Apple’s (AAPL) price charts are a thing of marketing beauty: logical, symmetrical, easy to take in at a glance.

Take, for example, the latest Apple Store chart for the iPod touch:

Pretty, huh?

On second glance, however, there seems to be something wrong here. Why does a $100 bump in price buy you 8 GB of memory in the the first instance, but an extra 16 GB in the second? Look at the new iPhone prices:

Again, $100 for 8 GB of extra memory.

Why does Apple charge $12.50 per gigabyte in all models except the 32 GB iPod touch, where it’s $6.25 per gig?

Simple retail economics, you say. The more units you buy, the less each unit costs.

OK, then answer me this: Why does Apple charge $999 for the 64 GB solid-state drive in the MacBook Air? If you do the math, that’s $15.60 per gig of NAND Flash memory, more than double what Apple charges for the same stuff in the new iPod touch. No doubt Samsung charges Apple more for the new and relatively rare 64 GB form factor, but not that much more.

The RAM pricing anomaly becomes even more surprising when you start asking what that extra $999 buys you.

The answer is not very much, according to an in-depth review that Ars Technica posted yesterday. In side-by-side benchmarks comparing hard-disk-drive (HDD) and solid-state-drive (SSD) models of the MacBook Air, Jacqui Cheng reports that while the SSD booted up 12 seconds faster was a bit quicker in random disk tests, it actually performed worse in sequential disk tests and general writing to the disk. And it got beaten across the board by the MacBook and MacBookPro. See, for example, the application test reproduced below:

For the full Ars Technica “No Spin” review, see here.

Steve Jobs, of course, is a marketing genius. If he charges more for less, it’s probably because he knows his customers and knows that he can get it. And if it turns out he’s wrong, you can bet he’ll change those price charts in a heartbeat.

Two items Apple (AAPL) watchers had expected Steve Jobs to unveil at Macworld — a 16 GB iPhone and a new MacBook Pro — could be coming out any day now, if inventory lists at the company’s partners are to be believed.

Engadget reports that tipsters with access to the retail inventory computers at AT&T Wireless stores have spotted listings for a 16 GB iPhone — something iPhone aficionados have been waiting for since the 16 GB iPod touch was released last fall. An update posted by Engadget at 4:25 a.m. suggests the release could come as early as this morning:

We just received word from multiple sources that the O2 staff has been notified of the 16GB iPhone launch at 1:30pm UK time. Price: £329. That will likely translate to $599 in the US like the original 8GB iPhone. (link)

Meanwhile MacRumors, which last week passed along an unconfirmed report that three new MacBook Pro models had appeared in Best Buy’s inventory tracking system, has provided screen shots to back up that claim. They show an in-stock date of Feb. 10 and three price points ($1999, $2499, $2799) that are the same as the current MacBook Pros. The new models are expected to have multi-touch trackpads and Intel Penryn chips.

The reports have led some to speculate that Apple may have timed the new releases to pump up sales in Apple’s second quarter, traditionally the slowest for PCs. Apple’s stock price could use a boost, having dropped nearly 30 points since the company issued its conservative Q2 earnings projections.

Others speculate that the late release of the 16 GB iPhone means that they will have to wait a bit longer for a 3G iPhone.

Reflecting strong holiday sales of both MacBooks and iPhones, Apple’s (AAPL) market share grew sharply in December, as measured by a Net Applications survey released today.

The Mac hit a record 7.3% share, up from 6.8% last month. The iPhone also hit a new record, .12%, up from .09% in November. That suggests that better than 1 out of every 1,000 people on the Internet are browsing the Web using an iPhone.

Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows still dominates, with a 91.8% share as measured by the Web metrics company. But it lost ground in December, as it has for seven of the past 11 months.

The Mac OS share, by contrast, grew 7.4% in the past month, nearly double November’s rate. The iPhone grew even more sharply, jumping 33% over November’s numbers. Only the Playstation (.02% share) grew faster, albeit from a much smaller base.

Net Applications’ monthly surveys do not measure market share in terms of computer systems sold. Rather, they sample data from visitors to some 40,000 websites operated by the firm’s clients. As such, the findings are probably better described as a snapshot of installed base taken from a less-than-random sample. But the results tend to correspond well to domestic market share as measured by more traditional market survey firms like IDC and Gartner. To see Net Application’s full report, click here.

The Linux operating system also showed strong growth (up better than 10% to hit a .63% share), as did “other,” a category that includes the iPod touch, Web TV and the Nintendo Wii.

The results are summarized in the table below:

With 2008 only a day away, most of the 2007 year’s-best lists have come in, and Apple (AAPL) placed at or near the top of more than its share. Among the prizes its products took home this year:

• Amazon Most Loved Computer: Apple MacBookPro
• Amazon Most-Gifted Computer: Apple MacBook
• Amazon Most-Wished-For Electronics: Apple 4 GB iPod nano
• Amazon Most-Gifted Electronics: Apple 4 GB iPod nano
• Amazon Most-Loved Software: OS X 10.5 Leopard
• NY Times “Pogies”: iPhone’s visual voicemail (No. 1)
• PC World’s Most Innovative: iPhone (No. 2 after Google Gears) and Time Machine (No. 4)
• Macworld Hardware “Eddys”: AirPort Extreme, iPhone, iPod nano
• Macworld Software “Eddys”: iWork ‘08, OS X 10.5 Leopard
• TIME Magazine’s Invention of the Year: iPhone
• TIME Magazine’s Top 10 Gadgets: iPhone (No. 1)

Despite fierce competition from machines with more than twice the memory and price points hundreds of dollars lower, Apple’s (AAPL) white 120 GB MacBook has captured the top spot on Amazon’s (AMZN) list of bestselling computers this Christmas eve.

Helped along by rebates ranging from $75 to $150, three Apple-brand notebooks are on the top 10 list this morning. The other bestsellers are the 80 GB MacBook (No. 7) and the 120 GB MacBook Pro (No. 10).

Price cutting among the competition is even steeper. HP’s (HPQ) 250 GB Pavilion (No. 5) is selling for $999.99, 27% off the $1,375 list price.

The least expensive computer on the list, at No. 8, is the $381 Linux-based Asus Galaxy with a 7-inch screen and 4 GB of flash memory rather than a hard drive. Many expect Steve Jobs to announce at Macworld that Apple is entering the market for flash-based notebook computes. Apple’s thin MacBook, however, is likely to be larger, carry more memory, and cost a whole lot more than $381.

In Amazon’s list of top-selling electronics, a late surge by a heavily discounted portable hard drive has pushed an iPod off the stack. Apple had five of the top 10 spots for much of the pre-Christmas shopping period; it’s now down to four. See here.

UPDATE: As of 2 p.m. ET, the MacBook has been edged aside at No. 1 by an HP Pavillion with 160 GB hard drive marked down 37% (including rebate) to $679.99.

BOXING DAY UPDATE: This morning, the day after Christmas, the MacBook is back on top.

Online shopping is up nearly 20% this Christmas, according to comScore Inc. (see here), and electronics is one of the hottest categories, up 24% from last year. So what gadgets are Americans buying this holiday season?

Judging from Amazon’s (AMZN) list of top sellers, a lot of iPods and iPod touches.

With only a couple shopping days left before Christmas, five out of the top 10 items on Amazon’s “bestsellers in electronics” list are Apple (AAPL) products, including the 4 GB iPod Nano (No. 1), the 8 GB nano (No. 4), the iPod touch, (Nos. 6 and 7) and the 80 GB iPod Classic (No. 8).

Apple does even better in the “most gifted in electronics” list, with six out of the top 10.

Also selling well on Amazon are GPS navigators (No. 2, 9 and 10), the Kindle reader (No. 3, on backorder) and a Canon digital camera (No. 5).

In Amazon’s computer department, the MacBook Pro and MacBook come in at No. 4 and 7, respectively, among a lot of HP (HPQ) and Asus machines.

The iPhone is not available on Amazon, but is reported to be selling briskly both here and in Europe. The rumor site 9to5Mac, citing unnamed sources, claims Apple is preparing to announce the sale of the 5 millionth iPhone next month at Macworld. That may be overly optimistic. Even as bullish an analyst as Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster doesn’t expect Apple to have sold more than 3.7 million iPhones by mid January. (See Silicon Alley Insider here.)

SUNDAY UPDATE: Nearly 24 hours after this was first posted — and two days before Christmas — the list of Amazon top sellers in electronics is remarkably stable. The same five Apple products are still in the top 10. The Kindle and the Garmin nuvi 350 navigator have switched places at Nos. 2 and 3. And a Toshiba HD DVD player has moved, like a British Prime Minister, into No. 10.

CHRISTMAS EVE UPDATE: A late surge by a USB 160 GB portable hard drive from Western Digital (sale price: $99, down from $149) has pushed an iPod off Amazon’s top 10 list in electronics. Apple is down to four of the 10 spots. In the computer department, however, the 120 GB MacBook has moved into the No. 1 position, a smaller MacBook has taken No. 7 and a MacBook Pro is No. 10, giving Apple Inc. three out of the top 10 bestselling computers on Amazon this Christmas eve. (See here.)

How times have changed.

In 1998, while I was still working for TIME magazine, Andy Grove stopped by to chat with the editors about the wrenching changes the Internet was going to force on the computer industry. Future PCs, he said, wouldn’t be general purpose computers to which networking has been added as an afterthought, but networking machines that also do computing. “The iMac embodies a lot of the things I’m talking about,” Grove said. “Sometimes what Apple does has an electrifying effect on the rest of us.”

I went back to my desk and banged out a one-graph story for Time.com. “Intel chairman Andy Grove,” I wrote, “has seen the future of computing and it is … a Macintosh.”

The next day I got a call from Intel PR. Grove wasn’t particularly happy about the piece, but he was positively livid about the headline that ran above it — ANDY GROVE LOVES HIS MAC — because it implied that the chairman of Intel (INTC) actually owned an Apple (AAPL) computer. We printed a version of the story in the magazine the next week with a different headline, and Intel was mollified — although the next time I saw Grove he smiled and said if I ever did that again he would sue.

I’m reminded of all this by a Q&A I read yesterday with the current CEO of Intel, Paul Otellini. He’s not ashamed to admit that he uses Apple products. In fact, he says,

“My wife and I both have iPhones. My wife came in with a jacket for her phone. She was all excited. It’s a flimsy little thing. It cost $39. It probably cost 6¢ to make.” He adds that he uses a ThinkPad for work and a MacBook Pro for his personal life, including his personal photos and music. (link)

Only nine years have passed, but how times have changed.