Inside Scoop: It's all about software for WWDC 2014
Tech Industry
[MUSIC]
Hey, everyone.
Welcome to the Inside Scoop.
I'm CNET's Kara Tsuboi, joined by senior writer Shara Tibken, and we are here outside of the Moscone Center in San Francisco to talk about Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference starting next week.
It's June 2nd through 6th.
Yes.
Annual conference.
Yes.
What are we expecting this year?
A lot of software.
Mm-hm.
You know, we're not really expecting a lot of hardware out of this event, if any, but software is going to be the story for the whole show.
And we're talking IOS and OS updates, right?
Yeah, for sure, and actually this time around people are thinking there's gonna be more done with OS Ten than with IOS.
Okay.
Right, cuz last year we saw IOS seven announced.
Yeah.
And that was pretty new and.
Yeah, a complete ,complete redesign.
Right.
Johnny I versus the old team so this time around he's getting his hands on the mac operating system.
So, you know, it's supposed to get a different kind of look.
But also still be distinct from IOS is what people are thinking.
Okay, so that's pretty much a definite sure thing announcement.
Yes, yes.
Okay what are some of the maybe's that you're expecting.
Yeah, one of the things we've heard about is home automation.
Which could be really interesting.
This is an area you know that Google its nest, Samsung has started to focus on.
Everybody is looking at this as kind of the next frontier, like the home so Apple is doing something that could be pretty interesting.
It's not exactly clear how this could work but it probably be something that you can control with your iPhone or iPad and, you know, possibly using Apple TV in there as well.
Interesting, and what about health and fitness?
Obviously everyone wants to get into that stage?
Yeah.
Is it Apple's turn this time around?
I don't think we're going to see an iWatch here.
You know, that's something that, that's something everybody's kind of waiting for, but I think that's probably more likely in time for the holidays.
but, you know, I think we're going to see, at like a sort of health book type of program that collects all of your fitness data in one location.
Kind of like the Apple PassBook.
Sure.
Okay.
And what about automated payments?
I know Apple hasn't really jumped into that on their own yet.
Is this the time?
Yeah.
Mobile payments.
You know there's rumors that the next iPhone will include NFC which could be a really big deal.
Yeah.
You know Samsung is the one who's really pushed this sort of thing you know, but they also haven't really done much with mobile payments.
Mobile payments is something that's kind of been promised for a really long time but hasn't really happened.
You know Apple is someone who could, you know, help move this forward, but you know whether this happens right now or later this year is kind of the question.
And speaking of later this year, this is typically not the conference to release any big, you know, iPhone, iPad updates.
Yeah.
You expect that to be the same.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean I, I would say with almost certainty that there will not be an iPhone.
you, you know, like there's, there's some talk about possible smaller capacity iPhones being announced but I also don't think that that's probably gonna happen either.
You know, Apple's going to save that kind of stuff for later this year.
Okay.
And what about tablets?
Air, the Macbooks?
No new news on that front, either?
No, I don't think so.
You know, they just updated the Air with some new processors, you know, I think in April.
So, seeing something there isn't very likely at this point.
You know, people are waiting for an Air with retina display.
Right.
So, when that happens, that's kind of the next big push for the Air.
You know, as far as Macs, the, the next big Intel processor is late this year, you know, at, at best for holiday.
So, you know, if, if they're updating the machines right now it's not going to be as much of a change, you know?
Intel could possibly do some like special, special tweaks to its current chip line for Apple.
But, you know, I think that, a really big update for any of the PCs would be later this year, or, or early next year.
So it really sounds like 2014 WWDC sort of follows in the foot steps of previous years.
Yeah, for sure.
Lots of software.
Yeah, yeah, I think it's going to look a lot like last year.
Minus the Mac Pro announcement.
You know, they release their brand new, really high end, PC there, and I don't think that we're going to see anything quite like that.
But basically the rest of WWDC 2013 is a lot of what were going to see this year.
But you never know, Apple always has a surprise.
Yeah you never know.
Everyone can follow along with Char's live blog, Monday morning about 9:30 on CNET.COM.
Thank you so much Shara for your time, I'm Kara Tsuboi and you've been watching the Inside Scoop.
No problem.
[NOISE]
