SAN FRANCISCO — Developers, fans and journalists filed into the World Wide Developers Conference on Monday morning for Apple’s (AAPL) first major announcement of new offerings in more than six months.
WWDC, Apple’s annual meeting with developers, will kick off with a keynote address at 10 a.m. Pacific time Monday that is expected to focus on a new operating system for the company’s popular mobile devices. Along with the seventh full iteration of iOS, reports have speculated that Apple will introduce an ad-supported streaming-radio service similar to Pandora’s offering and possibly a new edition of its standard operating system for non-mobile devices.
Monday morning, thousands of congregants gathered at the Moscone West conference center at 4th and Howard streets in San Francisco for the keynote address, including Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, who rolled up on a Segway. Inside the hall, attendees streamed into the third-floor conference room where Apple CEO Tim Cook is expected to kick off the address; many ran to get seats near the front, and were rewarded by meeting Cook, and other executives, including design guru Jonny Ive. The high-profile tech execs pressed the flesh with attendees and lined up to take pictures with them.
A giant Apple icon graced the huge screen on the main stage, while a dozen other screens surrounding the hall were primed and ready to show images from the keynote, alongside banner advertisements cloaked in advance of the announcement. Apple pulled down its online store around 7 a.m. Monday, which it typically does just before a new product announcement.
Apple will grab the spotlight Monday for the first time since it announced the iPad Mini in October of 2012, just more than a month after the launch of the iPhone 5. Apple does not typically use the WWDC platform to show off new hardware, however: Because most of the developers focus on constructing apps and other software for Apple devices, the company typically focuses on changes to its platforms and other programs that will more directly affect them.
Last year at WWDC, the company announced an iOS update that included the introduction of Apple Maps, which pushed Google (GOOG) Maps off the iPhone as the standard mapping program. Apple Maps was not ready for prime time when it launched, however, leading to a backlash from confused and lost users that prompted CEO Tim Cook to apologize directly to customers.
Later, Apple shook up its leadership, reportedly as a result of the Maps fiasco. Longtime software chief Scott Forstall left the company, along with the head of the company’s retail arm, and Apple design guru Jony Ive was placed at the top of Apple’s software division. iOS 7, which Apple is expected to show off Monday, is expected to show Ive’s influence and many Apple observers expect a radically different look and feel.
Bloomberg News reported Monday morning that Apple would introduce a vastly different mobile operating system, based on anonymous sources.
“Software design hasn’t been on the same level as industrial design,” Mark Hall, CEO of Remixation, which makes video-sharing app Showyou, told Bloomberg. “People see this as a chance for the software user interface to get on par with the device design.”
Apple’s iOS-based devices were a spark for a revolution in computing, with the iPhone and iPad taking mobile computing to the masses and putting smartphones and tablets on a path to being more popular than personal computers. Google’s Android operating system has taken advantage of that trend, however, and now is used on more smartphones than Apple, according to companies that track the technology; IDC predicted earlier this year that tablets running Android would overtake the iPad in 2013, as well.
Android’s ascendance has been part of a diminished profile for Apple since the launch of the iPhone 5, especially in the eyes of investors. Apple stock hit an all-time high of more than $700 a share on the day the iPhone 5 launched last September, but has since fallen as much as 45 percent, at times costing the company its title as most valuable in the United States in terms of market capitalization. Apple stock closed Friday at $441.81, and was trading at $448 at the end of Monday’s morning session on Wall Street, at 9 a.m. Pacific time.
Like 2012, the only new hardware Apple is expected to introduce Monday would be non-mobile offerings, such as new Macs; last year, the company introduced its MacBook Pro line with Retina displays during the WWDC keynote address.
Staff writer Troy Wolverton contributed to this report. Contact Jeremy C. Owens at 408-920-5876; follow him at Twitter.com/mercbizbreak.
