This isn't strictly a WWDC post. I don't presume to know what's on Steve's (or anyone's) Keynote slides for this morning, but I can make a fair guess what strategies they're working on, and can only speculate on which will be appropriate and mature enough for pre-announcement (see what I did there?) or outright release at this week's WWDC. iPhone 3.0 OS - This one's a gimmie for release on Monday. Three rounds of developer betas have made the rounds in recent months, and last week Apple started pushing iTunes 8.2, which lists support for iPhone OS 3.0 in its release notes. iPhone 3GS - I'm not as enamored of the '3GS' name as some, since it feels like a throwback to the Apple IIgs, a rev of the Apple II with enhanced graphics and sound ('GS') capability. At any rate, people who are reaching the end of their 2 year iPhone contracts with AT&T are probably eyeing the Palm Pre and the Android G2 phones with interest right about now and Apple needs to lock them in to a new contract to maintain their subscription revenue. Expect a compass, video, probably a faster processor, and if rumors are to believed, anything from a rubberized back to a glowing back logo to an OLED display to a second, front-facing camera. iPhone data tethering and MiFi-enabled Macbooks - I don't think we'll see this one at WWDC but will see it within the next month or two, as a part of a Macbook event. Apple's quickly realizing that subscription revenue is where it's at, and has long known that the current state of the art of data roaming via WiFi hotspots or ExpressCard cell network adapters are both sucky and niche. A lot of geeks want the ability to use their iPhone's 3G connection to the network and their Bluetooth connection to their laptop to get laptop network access wherever they get a cell signal, but for the majority of non-geeks, actually making this happen is just too complicated. Apple pioneered wireless laptop connectivity, first with IRDA and later with 802.11a WiFi. I think it's likely that they'll be the first major laptop manufacturer to put a 3G card into every laptop they sell (except the $999 white Macbook) and let people activate it at any time either by signing up for a recurring monthly service with AT&T (no annual contract required) or on a 'pay as you go' plan. Imagine if you pull down the Airport menu and beneath the list of locked networks there's a "Purchase day pass" option that will automatically activate your internal 3G card and charge the $6 ($4? $10? Who knows?) to your Apple iTunes account. That would be the way I'd expect Apple to implement this. Don't make the user sign up for anything. Heck, they wouldn't even have to know the capability was there until the day they needed it and found the option 'just in time'. For all those users who have non-apple laptops, or laptops purchased before the near future, Apple will likely introduce the same functionality for iPhone owners. Data tethering could either be a day-pass add-on or a small add-on to their monthly bill. Heck, Apple might even forgo bluetooth tethering and just turn your iPhone into a portable WiFi node, though that might drain power faster than would be acceptable. I don't expect Apple to announce this at WWDC for two reasons. First: It's too big. At WWDC this feature would get lost in the shuffle of other announcements. this feature's story is a little too complicated to survive in a list of announcement bullet-points. The second reason is that this is a consumer feature more than a developer feature. Implemented correctly, this feature would have very little if any impact to software applications, so there would be little point in pushing it at WWDC. Expect a 'special event' in mid-July, coinciding with a minor refresh of the Macbook and Macbook Pro line (and likely migration of the 'Macbook' name to 'Macbook Pro'). iPhone-based tablet device - I thoroughly believe this is in the works, and I'm pretty sure that while the product won't be announced at WWDC, the groundwork for it will start to be laid out for developers. A sub-sub-notebook device makes sense for Apple. They have a real opportunity to be the premier portable video player platform, but the iPhone's small screen just won't compete with larger PMPs coming out from Archos and a dozen others. Apple's already demonstrated their ability to make a high-capability net interface using only a touchscreen, so expect them to push this into a larger, Kindle2-sized device that can be a true notebook replacement for light-duty work and heavy-duty entertainment. Apple has a long way to go with their developers to make this product work though. When Apple was guiding Newton developers (gak, 16 years ago!) they were very vocal in saying that Newton developers should design their applications to work well on a device of any size, from a post-it note to a whiteboard. Make your interface degrade well if it has a limited screen available to it, and let it max out at a certain resolution to become a window if there's more screen available than it needs. Apple planned for a wide range of Newton devices, and wanted to make sure that the thousands of apps being written for the platform were ready for products that didn't even exist yet. This has not been the case with the iPhone. iPhone and iTouch apps have been written with a very specific screen resolution in mind (okay, portrait and landscape) and a device with 4-9 times the resolution just wouldn't work at the present time unless every app were given an iPhone-sized window to run in. Even in that scenario, iPhone apps expect to live in a modal world that until later today doesn't even have cut-and-paste. These apps are, at present, unsuitable for a tablet-sized iPhone OS device. If Apple is working on an iTouch tablet, expect them to start laying serious groundwork and guidelines for resolution independent app development at this year's WWDC. If they don't the next chance they'll have to really reach out to their developers is this time next year, which would mean tablet-optimized apps would start to emerge in force no earlier than August 2010, and I can't believe that Apple intends to wait that long for a tablet, nor that they would launch one that gave a poor performance running the current library of third-party iPhone apps. So, a focus on designing iPhone apps for environments beyond the iPhone at this week's WWDC, but no formal iTouch tablet product releases until at least September or October. Snow Leopard - MacOS 10.6 - Expect a developer release candidate disk in everyone's welcome bag, but another month or so before the public release, in case the widespread developer release finds any major issues that need repairing prior to golden master. MacOS App Store - With the success of the iPhone App Store in creating a market for $1-$20 apps, it's only a matter of time before Apple opens up the App Store to MacOS applications. Single-account, guaranteed downloads, reviews, easy re-downloads and seamless updates (using an expanded version of System Update) make this an extremely appealing distribution channel for Mac developers, and a 30% slice off the top for a framework that's already in place is a no-brainer for Apple. I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple push this to developers this week, with a goal of actual shipping (and updating) applications within 3-4 months.

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So that's what I expect out of Apple for the next 24 hours and 4-8 months. I'm sure there will be other miscellaneous product refreshes, possibly new iPods with cameras and probably more DisplayPort-capable monitors and other miscellaneous goodies – maybe even an iPhone lite – but those might come or go on a corporate whim. The items I've outlined above feel likely to me because they're somewhat inevitable, and the dominoes laid down thus far imply they'll be played in the next few turns. I haven't read any rumors you haven't read, and I don't have any inside knowledge or tips. This just makes sense to me. I guess we'll see!