MacRumors

TUAW reports that they have heard that Apple will be seeding developers with an early build of Mac OS X 10.6 at this year's WWDC. This news comes in the midst of reports that Apple is preparing for 10.5.4 -- an ongoing maintenance release of Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard).

TUAW also believes that Mac OS X 10.6 will ship in January 2009, about 15 months after Leopard's initial release in October 2007. This actually corresponds to Steve Jobs' comments to the New York Times regarding major Mac OS X releases:

Im quite pleased with the pace of new operating systems every 12 to 18 months for the foreseeable future, he said. Weve put out major releases on the average of one a year, and its given us the ability to polish and polish and improve and improve.

The blog also revives rumors that Mac OS X 10.6 will drop PowerPC support and become Intel-only.

While we can't vouch for the January timeframe, MacRumors had also heard that Mac OS X 10.6 would be making a debut at WWDC. We were uncertain, however, how public a release it would be: whether it would be seeded to a limited number of developers or if it would be a more central focus in Jobs' keynote address. According to this report, however, Apple will not be introducing any new significant features in 10.6, instead focusing on "stability and security."

References to Mac OS X 10.6 were recently found within the iPhone SDK installer. Mac OS X 10.5.3 (Leopard) is the current public version of Mac OS X.

CNet reports (via iPhoneAlley) that Apple is poised to launch the first of the 3rd party iPhone applications at WWDC on Monday.

A source at a software company that has been working on a native iPhone application tells us the company is getting ready to launch that application on Monday, which could also imply that Apple's App Store will be up and running that day.

A Monday launch of the iTunes App Store would also imply an immediate release of the iPhone 2.0 Firmware which would be much earlier than expected. When Apple announced the iPhone SDK beta and 2.0 firmware, they said the final release would be available "by the end of June."

If you are a developer and would like news coverage of your iPhone Game or Application, please contact us for consideration of coverage on TouchArcade and MacRumors.

If youre a student, faculty, or staff member and you buy a Mac before September 15, you can get a free iPod touch or iPod nano. After all, isnt college about seizing every opportunity?

Official list of Terms and Conditions (PDF) have been posted, and is primarily targeted at college students, faculty and staff. The promotion runs from June 3rd to September 15th and provides a rebate of up to $299 for qualifying individuals who buy a Mac and an iPod Touch or iPod Nano.

Although they only list the MacBook, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and iMac on the promo page, the terms and conditions specify that "All new Macintosh computers and the Configure-to-order versions of these products are eligible, except for Mac mini and 17 iMac".

Customers may purchase an 8GB iPod Nano ($199) to receive a $199 rebate, or may purchase an 8GB ($299), 16GB ($399), or 32GB ($499) iPod Touch to receive a $299 rebate. The rebate can not be applied to the iPhone or any other iPod.

In addition to the US promo, a similar promotion has been announced in Canada.

This is the most aggressive Back to School promotion that Apple has offered and should dramatically increase the installed base of iPod Touch users over the next few months. The iPod Touch uses the same operating system as the Apple iPhone and will be able to run upcoming "iPhone applications" that will be released on the iTunes App Store.

Today, a rumor about a 22% thinner 3G iPhone with GPS priced at $200 hit the Mac web. In looking back, however, this is not the first time we've heard this exact set of specifications. On April 29th, Scott Mortiz first reported on the possibility of a $200 subsidy from AT&T for the 3G iPhone. He said it would be priced at $399 (8GB) and $499 (16GB), but after a $200 subsidy, these prices would fall to $199 and $299, respectively.

Moritz also specifically said that the new iPhone will be 2.5mm thinner than the current iPhone, which happens to work out to 22% thinner (2.5mm/11.6mm), corresponding nicely to Kahney's 22% thinner figure. Kahney and Moritz diverge on the capacity of the iPhone, however, as Kahney claims 16GB and 32GB sizes for the new iPhone. Regardless, this paints a picture of the following possible "thin iPhone":

Thin iPhone
• $199 (8GB or 16GB), $299 (16GB or 32GB), possibly subsidized by AT&T
• 3G, GPS, 22% thinner
• Possible longer battery

However, it's also clear that there's another set of rumors circulating which are also consistent with each other. The so-called "thick iPhone" rumor started at Engadget and depicted in the XSKN case designs.

Thick iPhone
• 3G, GPS, slightly thicker
• Glossy black, rounded back
• Non-recessed headphone jack, additional sensor?

If you add in recent whispers of high end pricing of the 16GB ($499) and 32GB ($699) models, this introduces the possibility that these rumors together could represent a range of iPhone models.

Both Thick and Thin?
• $399 (8GB), $499 (16GB), $699 (32GB) retail prices
• Possible $200 subsidy bringing prices to $199 (8GB), $299 (16GB), $499 (32GB)
• 3GB, GPS, ? Video Conferencing
• Low capacity models thinner, high capacity models thicker

Of course, alternatively, one or none of these rumors could be true. As we've said before, Apple has been known to purposefully spread misinformation in order to confuse the rumor mill. Official announcements are expected next week during the Worldwide Developer Conference keynote which takes place on Monday, June 9th, 2008.

Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) will kick off on Monday, June 9th at 10 a.m. Pacific with a keynote speech given by Steve Jobs and his team of executives. There will be no live video or audio broadcast of the event. Once the event is complete, Apple will post a Quicktime stream of the keynote to be watched on demand. MacRumors will provide live coverage of the keynote speech with the following methods:

Web

MacRumors will provide near real-time text updates and photos at MacRumorsLive.com. All visitors to MacRumors.com will be redirected to MacRumorsLive during the event.

A special iPhone-optimized version of MacRumorsLive with support for text updates and photos will also be available if you visit the site through your iPhone or iPod Touch. (Screenshot of iPhone/Touch version.)

Twitter Updates

We will also try to provide live updates through Twitter. Individuals who already have a twitter account may 'Follow' us at the following addresses:

http://twitter.com/macrumors - Live keynote updates (10-20 updates per Keynote)
http://twitter.com/macrumorsRSS - Updates with every new MacRumors.com story
http://twitter.com/arnoldkim - arn's Twitter account

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Sign up from your mobile phone
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Spoiler Free

For individuals who wish to watch the events unfold first-hand on video, we are providing a Spoiler Free page that will update once the link to the keynote video is posted. This can be delayed hours after the actual event.

In the final week before Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference, the rumor mill appears to be ramping up. Over the weekend, we posted a few interesting possibilities on Page 2, including rumored specs and prices as well as new claims from Kevin Rose of a low end $200 iPhone to be introduced.

Today, Cult of Mac's Leander Kahney posts some "unconfirmed" information from "a major software publisher". The specs claim the usual 3G and GPS support, along with either 16GB or 32GB of storage. Unique to his report, however, are claims that the 3G iPhone will be 22 percent thinner and have better battery life.

A thinner design is contrary to long circulating rumors and possible leaked case designs that depict a thicker iPhone. It's also quite hopeful that despite adding 3G, GPS and reducing the size of the unit, that battery life will actually improve. Kahney's report also claims the iPhone would come in at $200 after subsidies, possibly corroborating Kevin Rose's claim of a low end $200 iPhone.

Kahney is a respected author and recently wrote a well received book on Steve Jobs called Inside Steve's Brain. That being said, he has labeled his report as "unconfirmed". Apple has been known to seed fake information about upcoming products to confuse the rumor mill. At this point, the most consistent information about the next iPhone has been on the inclusion of 3G and GPS.

Apple is expected to launch its Back to School promotion tomorrow, and on the eve of its launch, we've learned that Apple is indeed going to be making it their biggest ever.

According to our sources, Apple will be offering a free 8GB iPod Touch ($299) to college students who buy a qualifying Mac (MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iMac, Mac Pro). Alternatively, students may choose to get an 8GB iPod Nano ($199). The promotion will run from June 3 to September 15th, 2008.

With this aggressive promotion as well as the rumored 3G-capable iPhone launch, Apple is rapidly expanding their Touch OS X platform over the next few months, giving developers a large audience for their iTunes Store apps and games.

There remains one uncertainty, however. When Apple releases the 2.0 firmware for the iPhone and iPod Touch, iPod Touch owners will be required to pay a small fee for the upgrade. Customers who purchase an iPod Touch now may be required to pay this fee when the upgrade arrives in late June. More details may be available tomorrow or at WWDC next week.

Details of the Back to School promotion, including eligibility should be officially announced tomorrow.

Update: Appleinsider confirms the promo. The $299 value can be applied to a higher capacity iPod player, but not the iPhone.

Update 2: The iTunes store now has a banner promoting the Back to School promotion and shows an iPod Touch as the free iPod. The ad's link is not yet live:

Earlier today, John Gruber of DaringFireball.net suggested that Me.com might be the name for Apple's .Mac rebranding. There was no real evidence, however, except that Me.com was registered under MarkMonitor's domain service. MarkMonitor is a domain management service that Apple (and many others) use. Gruber admited that this was mostly speculative at that time:

This is proof of nothing, of course, since MarkMonitor provides domain name parking for any company that pays for their services.

Me.com currently redirects users to Snappville.com - a social networking community. Snappville used to be called Me.com but changed names in December 2007 with little fanfare.

MacRumors reader Matthew Yohe, however, pointed us to Netcraft page which curiously lists Kenneth Eddings (eddingsk@apple.com) as the DNS administrator for Me.com. This email address, however, was nowhere in the ownership (Whois lookup) information for Me.com. As it turns out, Mr. Eddings' email address is only listed in the SOA Record of the DNS record.

In this case, Markmonitor controls the SOA Record for Me.com. Eddings is also the official technical contact for many of Apple's domain names. So, Apple does appear to own Me.com. It was likely purchased sometime in December 2007, and it (along with MobileMe for iPhone) could very well be the rebranding for Apple's .Mac service. With Apple's ongoing product expansion outside the Mac platform, it makes sense that they may need to rebrand their services to something more platform neutral.

In today's domain market, the purchase of Me.com could run well into the tens of millions of dollars, so it is unlikely Apple would buy it without a specific plan.

Apple's .Mac ("dotmac") service is a $99/year set of online tools that provides customers with email (@mac), web hosting, iDisk, backup and sync services. .Mac services are tightly integrated with Apple's existing iLife suite, allowing you to publish content easily from iPhoto, iWeb and iMovie. Apple appears to be poised to rename and revamp this 6 year old service.

Codingrobots reveals that all references to Apple's .Mac service in Mac OS X 10.5.3 have been replaced with a variable... essentially a blank space that can be easily replaced in the future by a software update. The reason for this appears to be that Apple will be rebranding their .Mac service. This renaming plan is actually spelled out in iCal's localizable.strings file:

%@ is the new name of Apples online service (was .Mac)

This finding may validate recent whispers that Apple is planning a dramatic .Mac update alongside the iPhone 2.0 release.

In early May, TUAW claimed that .Mac would undergo a complete revamp near WWDC, and include the over-the-air syncing like Exchange and .Mac syncing with Windows. There has already been evidence that .Mac will be begin offering "push" functionality for Mail, Contacts and Calendar items in the iPhone 2.0 firmware, so a WWDC revamp certainly seems possible. Other whispers have suggested that Apple will start offering a discounted .Mac (<$50) alongside new iPhone purchases. Apple currently offers a $30 discount on .Mac when purchasing a Mac. Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) kicks off on June 9th in San Francisco. Update: References to Mobile Me in the iPhone 2.0 SDK suggests Apple will use their Mobile Me trademark for the new .Mac service, confirming speculation: