May 15th, 2000

[10:50 AM] Steve Jobs WWDC Keynote Today by Bryan Chaffin Updated [10:50 AM CDT]: As of 10:50 AM CDT (8:50 AM PDT), there are no announced plans for a Webcast of the keynote speech. There is a satellite broadcast scheduled, but that is a limited event according to the Holy Mac! Web site. The long awaited and much hyped World Wide Developer's Conference for Apple begins today with a Steve Jobs' keynote. Mr. Jobs, Apple's CEO, will be delivering the first keynote of the conference at 10:00 AM PDT with Avie Tevanian, Jr., Ph.D, Apple's Senior Vice President Software Engineering . Phil Schiller, Mitch Manditch, and Jon Rubenstein will be delivering the second keynote on Tuesday morning. Mr. Jobs is expected to show off new developments in Mac OS X as well as new hardware. At this point, we do not expect to be able to deliver live coverage of the keynote. We will be the first to bring coverage of any new product announcements however, so stay tuned to The Mac Observer for more news throughout the day. The Mac Observer Spin: Rumors have circulated rampantly that Apple will be showing off multiprocessor PowerMac G4s, and we think that this is indeed likely. It is also likely that such units will not ship until the final version of Mac OS X ships sometime this summer (Think MACWORLD). We also feel that Apple will unveil new PowerMac G4s with faster G4 processors, though we have no direct evidence for this. Woe be to Apple if their AIM partners still have not gotten beyond the 500 MHz mark. Lastly, we do not expect new PowerBooks or iMacs, though a speedbumped iBook is overdue. Most improbable would be an introduction of a new handheld device from the company in that the venue is not appropriate. Any handheld device from the company is much more likely to be introduced at a consumer oriented event such as MACWORLD. We think that if Apple is going to enter this market that they will wait until then to officially show such a device. In any event, this should be the most exciting WWDC, especially for the developers themselves, in years if not ever. WWDC