[ music ]
^M00:00:05
>> Molly: Hi everyone, I'm Molly Wood from CNET TV. Here with CNET's Senior Editor Kent German and CNET news reporter Erica Ogg. And we are looking ahead to Apples World Wide Developer Conference, which starts on Monday, June 7th. There Steve Jobs will be delivering one of his famous keynote addresses and the big headlines. We're expecting to see the next version of the iPhone among maybe some other things. So Kent and Erica let's talk a little bit about what we're gonna expect, and obviously we have to start with that iPhone. Is it gonna look like the prototype?
>> Kent: Well we've seen it; you know, when I saw the first stories about that I thought, I take them with a grain of salt, because you just never know. We've seen a lot of photos though, and a lot of photos that looked the same from different sources. So, it seems like that's what it's gonna be. It looks like it's little boxier, still has the rounded corners, but seems a little flatter from what I can tell on side. So maybe not as, like the curved back you see right now. So.
>> Molly: It seems like Apple is really clearing out inventory. AT&T announced big changes to its data plan. And you have until June 7th to sign up if you want to be grand fathered in. Do you think this iPhone is gonna be on sale immediately?
>> Kent: I've heard a couple of things. I've heard one was June 21st, that's the day that's been thrown around a lot. And then the most recent rumor was actually it would be on sale on Monday. Apple's never done that before with a phone. They've certainly done it with laptops and things like that. But first time they do it with a phone, so it could happen. The two things, interesting thing about both the 7th and the 21st, of course, is they are Monday's. And we've always seen iPhones on Friday's before. So if they decided to switch it could be that they just want to get, you know, people there during the week to buy. Or some people say a Saturday's better for going to the store. I don't really know, there's a lot of reasons it could be.
>> Molly: Yeah. I would be surprised if they waited very long, especially considering all of the competition. I mean, I guess there's the question now, you've got the HTC Evo, you've got the incredible, some, you know, phones are incredibly full featured. What does the iPhone gonna have to do to keep up?
>> Kent: Well, you know, a lot of people are talking about Verizon, of course. We hear that again. We don't think that's gonna happen. We do thing this will be with AT&T. And one thing that will be interesting is that, a lot of people calling this the 4GI Phone. And it's important to note, that it's not gonna support 4G networks, because AT&T doesn't want to have it ready. It is the 4th generation, so just don't think that it's gonna be on the high speed network. Which raised the question about the front facing cameras, because really video calling is really optimized for 4G. I mean, it can be done on 3G it's just not the best. So exactly what that front facing camera's gonna be for is, we'll have to see.
>> Molly: Do you think Erica that since AT&T announced those big data plan changes; is there something about this iPhone that could be extra data intensive? Because it is odd that they started metering it right now.
>> Erica: Well unless that has something to do with the iPad, which is, I think is more of what that was aimed at. I think that that's kind of itching to putting a toll on its road knowing that there's gonna be even more customers signing up for this device. We don't; I mean, there could be Verizon, like Kent said, eventually, but, and that would certainly open the flood gates of, you know, people maybe leaving AT&T if they could, if their contracts were up. So that could be one of the possibilities.
>> Kent: And another thing were getting with the new data plan is tethering. So we finally, that's sort of the big splash in these data plans is tethering, we've been waiting for it for a long time. We heard it iPhone OS3, which was, you know, a year ago in 2009 that we would, would come at the end of the year, it never did. And then we didn't hear anything about it at OS 4 announcement. So now we're finally getting a confirmation, so that's really exciting. We've been waiting for that for a long time.
>> Molly: Yeah, big step for sure. So what else might we see? There have been rumors of a new Apple TV, for example. Are you expecting that to be part of this announcement Erica?
>> Erica: Well I was thinking that until Steve Jobs was speaking at the DA Conference last night. And he specifically said that they don't know exactly what they're gonna do with that. He's said, you know, we're gonna leave that up to smarter people than us to come up with that. And that's fine, he's often said in the past they're not working on something when they really are. But it would seem really odd if he said that a week before he announced a whole new Apple TV.
>> Molly: And he seemed kind of skeptical about that concept too.
>> Erica: He was skeptical about the concept of a box, which is what the Apple TV is. And what, for example, Google TV is gonna be. It's what, he was talking about Rokoo, [phonetic] was talking about, you know, replacing E, even TVO. So if they were gonna do something, it would sound like it would be something that would not be a box, maybe integrated into a TV. But I'm not really expecting that.
>> Molly: How about the subscription music service. They shut down Lala May 31st. Everybody was a little bit up in arms. People really loved Lala. And then they announced nothing to replace it. That might seem to suggest that some sort of iTunes live subscription service is coming. What do you think Kent?
>> Kent: Possibly. It is, it would be just a few days before, you know, the day, the June 7th day. So it would make some, they would have something there to come back. And one thing I've heard is, you know, iTune.com, I don't know much, I haven't read the rumors so much about that. I don't know if Erica has more to add, but I'm sure we'll see some changes there. We've, I think we've been waiting for something, new for iTunes for a long time, beyond just an update and maybe a little more features here, a little more features there.
>> Molly: iTunes light.
>> Kent: Yeah they would, it would be great to see them make a real huge sort of change and refresh that franchise.
>> Erica: Well we know that they really bought Lala.com for that streaming technology. And we also know that Apple has been talking to music executives, film executives, TV executives about storing their content in the cloud [phonetic] so people can access it. So if that's through iTunes.com, if that's through some sort of service, they might announce it this week. Because like you said, it's kind of, there's this sort of gaping hole there when it comes to Lala service. But there's also the September music event, which they tend to talk about iTunes. So, we may have to wait a couple of more months for that.
>> Molly: And then it's easy to forget, now that we're talking about the iPhone nonstop, that this is still a developer conference, but we haven't heard a word about OS10. Do you think that the developer focus here is gonna be all apps all the time?
>> Erica: I think that he pretty much; Steve Jobs pretty much said that. There was a lot of uproar from the developers. They have a lot of awards and contests for them at this conference. And they, Apple completely took out the design awards for OS10 applications. And so a lot of them are saying, oh what does that mean? And I, you know, Steve Jobs said, I guess emailed somebody and said, don't worry, we're just gonna be focusing on iPad and iPhone stuff, but it's not going away. So I think what you're saying is, yes, it's gonna be focused on [inaudible].
>> Kent: [inaudible] WWDC for the last couple of years. And even the, you know, posters they put up in the convention hall, it's just really about apps. Their messaging when you arrive, all the fliers you get, all the invitations, everything, just seems to focus on the apps.
>> Molly: Yeah. Maybe this is the end of OS10 just a little tiny bit.
>> Kent: Could be.
>> Molly: Anyway, we will see, we are 95% certain there will be a new iPhone. But you never know. Steve often has surprises up his sleeve. Thank you very much Erica and Kent. And of course you can find all of our WWDC coverage at CNET.com NEWS.com and CNET TV.
^E00:06:37
