WWDC 2012 Preview: What Will Apple Announce?

What Will Apple Announce at WWDC 2012?

WWDC 2012 kicks off on June 11, 2012 in San Francisco. This means big new Apple announcements, be they major OS upgrades or new hardware. Here are some of the rumored announcements, along with our predictions... because everybody's got an Apple prediction.

• iOS6. This is a persistent and credible rumor. Apparently Siri will be coming to the iPad, for the good it will do you. Siri remains not-ready-for-primetime, though it/she will also get some sort of an upgrade. Every little helps.
  
• OSX Mountain Lion: This can't come soon enough. Lion is just not as good as Snow Leopard. The good news: Mountain Lion has been available to developers for ages, so it could be ready for prime time.
• New iPhone: Possible, since Virgin Mobile USA is rolling out the iPhone as a prepaid option. We aren't predicting a radical upgrade, though. Prepaid plans virtually never get the best handsets. Gizmodo disagrees with us, and that's okay.
  
• New MacBook Air: Almost definitely. The sexy MacBook Air, which has been redeployed as the entry-level Mac Notebook, is past its average life cycle.
• New MacBook Pro: For sure. The closer the MacBook Air gets to the MacBook Pro, the more likely the MBP will get an upgrade.
• New iMac: It's been over a year since the last iMac upgrade.
• iPod Shuffle: Again, over a year. Will Apple change the form factor? We think so: the current version still evokes the "classic" iPod look.
  

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WWDC 2012 at Moscone Center West | Photo 02

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Not as likely to get upgraded:

• New iPod Touch: We're on the fence about this one, but, if there is a new iPod Touch, the main upgrade will be a larger storage capacity.
  
• New iPad. The most recent iPad hardware was only released in March 2012.
• New Mac Pro: The target market for this product is fairly small, and let's be honest: Apple hasn't been taking professional users very seriously lately. Examples of this include the death of dedicated video cards in its notebooks, the fiasco that was Final Cut Pro X, and the rapidly-deteriorating Aperture. 9to5Mac disagrees, saying that a new Mac pro is forthcoming.
  
• Apple HDTV: The iTV is real, but isn't coming just yet.
• iPod Classic: We think that, at some point, this will simply be discontinued. We'll be bold and say that WWDC 2012 will be the beginning of the end of the iPod Classic, which will fade away from shelves; kept alive in your pocket (and heart) by after-market parts.

Apple better not introduce yet another proprietary external video interface. Geekdom's landfills can only take so much.

MacRumors Buyer's Guide is an excellent resource to use throughout the year, if you're considering buying any new Apple product.

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