One week til WWDC
I'm mentally preparing myself to take off in a week for the west coast to go to Apple's annual developer conference. I don't anticipate spending a lot of time at the event itself, as I'm not a developer and Apple won't allow reporters to attend (officially) after the keynote, but it should be an interesting time nonetheless. I'm lining up interviews with developers attending the show to catch up with them and find out how they're doing.
It comes at both a good time and a bad time, as usual. It's just as well that it happens now rather than in a few weeks, because the kids are still in school. While it'll still be disruptive to Bonnie's schedule, I'm optimistic that she'll be able to work around at least some of the issues.
What the event will actually hold for us remains to be seen. All of us accept as a foregone conclusion that the iPhone will get front-and-center attention. After all, Apple is expected to release iPhone 2.0 software by the end of this month, with a new App Store to let third-party developers sell software for the device. But what else will be featured is really a crapshoot at this point. There are rumors, for example, that Apple will rebadge its .Mac online service with new features and a new name. But no one except a precious few in Cupertino who aren't talking at this point know for certain.