Apple Keynote Coming Monday -- What Will We See?

Tension is building for the Apple Keynote, an annual event to kick off the 2010 WWDC. Let's take a quick look at the things will will most certainly see, and some that we hope to see.

The worst kept secret in Apple history is the next generation iPhone. Most likely called the iPhone HD, this new design has people very divided. It's a more boxy design with an aluminum band around the middle and a ceramic/glass back. Some love the design while others hate it.

What we do know is that it has a higher resolution screen at 640x960 (4x the pixels of previous iPhones). This should provide for crisper text and in general a smoother look. The next iPhone will also apparently have a higher resolution camera on the back with a flash (finally!). The camera is reported to be an 8 MP camera that also does 720p HD video recording.

The big addition will be a front facing camera to enable video chat. This will, I'm sure, be a big impressive demo on Monday.

There are also, likely, things we don't know yet about the new iPhone. The device we've seen all over the place is likely holding some secrets back for Monday. There has been talk of the back responding to touch as well as the front. That could be interesting yet I struggle to figure out how it would be used.

Let's hope there are some secrets. Otherwise it will be really hard to Steve to present the new iPhone with his usual 'proud father' new device presentation style.

OS 4

We already know about OS 4, but there reportedly quite a few tidbits that we don't know about yet. Besides the release date of the final, there are likely features of the OS that we don't know yet.

In addition, we don't know how or when it will arrive on the iPad. If there are any iPad specific features, we'll hopefully hear about those on Monday.

Heading for the clouds

It's no secret that Apple has been working on cloud services for the iPhone and more broadly iTunes. The have been building a huge new data center on the east coast to support it. But the undertaking is huge. And I expect the keynote will be mainly focused on the iPhone.

Apple is rumored to be holding another event in June that might introduce cloud services and other such interesting services.

Mac Mini / Macbook Air / Desktop Macs

MacRumors is reporting supply shortages for the MacMini. This is generally an indication that a new version is coming. The timing seems logical that we might see updates to the MacMini and the rather aging Macbook Air and Desktop Macs.

Personally I think it's just about as likely that Apple will turf the Macbook Air as update it. Differences aside, the iPad has taken the glory of the small form factor away.

Apple TV

This hobby project is getting really old now. Theories are that Apple will be releasing an update, this time based on the iPhone OS, not OSX. This would be a fantastic feature as it would open the platform to all of the iPhone OS apps. Apps for TV! This would compete directly with Google TV. The question is, is this a good business to be in?

While I'd like to think that we'll see this Monday, I think it might be too early. But you never know.

We know one thing, this should be a very huge keynote. While we know a lot, we don't know everything. The questions that remain and possibilities are huge.

Check back Monday, we'll give you a few live blogs you can reference to follow the latest info from the keynote. In addition, we'll tweet a few of the highlights at @148Apps and post a full recap and commentary sometime after the event.

[ image credit: Engadget ]