Jobs May Demo iPhone 4G At Apple Developer Conference

Apple CEO Steve Jobs will give the 7 June keynote address at the company’s 2010 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), where he could potentially announce the upcoming next-generation iPhone.

The WWDC, which runs from June 7 to June 11 at San Francisco’s Moscone West, provides technical sessions and labs for developers interested in creating programs for the iPhone, iPad and Mac platforms.
Apple has chosen to focus on five tracks for the conference’s attendees: Application Frameworks, Internet & Web, Graphics & Media, Developer Tools, and Core OS. The technical sessions, many of which will focus on Apple’s emerging technologies such as its “iAd” platform, are covered in more detail on this site.

iPhone 4G

For those not involved in the development community, however, the conference’s biggest news may be the much-rumored debut of the next-generation iPhone, dubbed “iPhone 4G” by the media. A 17 May report by Taiwan-based Digitimes suggested that Apple would unveil the iPhone 4G during the conference; an analyst for the publication, citing unnamed sources, suggested that Apple could ship as many as 24 million of the devices in 2010.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has traditionally hosted unveilings of the company’s products, most recently its bestselling iPad. While Apple has not confirmed the existence of a next-generation smartphone in the works, the past few summers have seen regular iPhone refreshes; that, in combination with a pair of leaked devices purported to be iPhone 4G prototypes, lends credence to the idea of the WWDC hosting the next iPhone generation’s unveiling.

Apple already unveiled the iPhone OS 4 during an 8 April presentation at its Cupertino, Calif. headquarters. The new smartphone operating system includes “iAd,” which allows developers to deliver mobile advertisements within apps themselves, and the ability to multitask, which previous iPhone OS versions had lacked. “We weren’t the first to this party, but we’re going to be the best,” Jobs told the audience during that presentation, referring to multitasking, which will involve hitting the “Home” button twice to bring up an onscreen interface for switching between apps.

iAd Platform

Other iPhone OS 4 features include tap-to-focus for video, 5x digital zoom for the camera module, sync IMAP notes, Bluetooth keyboard support, the ability to gift apps, and changeable homescreen wallpaper. The most controversial aspect of the new operating system, however, may prove to be the iAd platform, which Jobs suggested would provide up to 1 billion ad impressions per day, based on the sum total of time spent by users on iPhone apps per day.

If the purported prototype devices that leaked into the wild ultimately prove an accurate predictor of the iPhone 4G’s final form, the smartphone will include a front-facing video-chat camera, higher-resolution display, and larger battery. Formal confirmation of those details will need to wait, though, until Steve Jobs reveals the device—either at the WWDC, or in some other context.