In a surprising move, Apple announced yesterday that Steve Jobs would be on stage to deliver the WWDC keynote next week. Along with the announcement is official word that Steve will show off Lion, Apple’s latest version of Max OS X, iOS 5, and iCloud.
What’s surprising about the announcement from Apple is that there’s an announcement from Apple. The second part that’s surprising is that Steve Jobs is doing the keynote.
There are no specific details around what iOS 5 or iCloud will have baked in, but if Steve is returning to the stage, Apple obviously wants to draw a lot of attention to these three announcements.
I’m definitely curious to see what features make it into iOS 5. I’m hoping for unified messaging and alerts, even faster performance on the OS, wider support for AirPlay, and more.
As for Lion, it’s been beta testing for a while now, and I know a few people who run it as their primary, so expect Apple to officially release it next week.
On the iCloud side, I previously reported that Apple was rumored to be announcing its cloud music service at WWDC. This definitely confirms iCloud, but it’s still not clear which pieces of “the cloud” Apple will be showing off. My guess is definitely music, since Steve is coming back on stage, but will we see Apple release a fully integrated social media experience in iOS 5, too? After all, the company has Ping, so why not make it so you can “Ping” from anywhere in the iOS or Lion?
All questions will be answered on Monday.
