Apple devs: Pencil in June 10-14 as likely WWDC dates

Computerworld - Apple developers should pencil in June 10-14 as the dates for the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), according to the current schedule at the San Francisco venue where Apple has held the confab for the last 10 years.

The Moscone Center's schedule already lists four events for June -- the traditional month of WWDC -- leaving the week of June 10-14 as the only five-day stretch starting with a Monday not already booked.

Previously, Apple has always kicked off WWDC on a Monday with a public keynote address, then run the rest of the conference for registered developers only.

Apple has officially announced the dates for WWDC, and started selling tickets to the event, at a variety of dates, ranging from late March to late April. In 2012, for example, Apple revealed WWDC's timing on April 25, and sold out the conference in under two hours.

The year before, Apple announced the 2011 WWDC on March 28, but needed about 12 hours to sell out tickets.

Unless Apple drastically changes how it conducts WWDC, the conference will focus on the next versions of iOS and Mac OS X.

While some analysts believe that Apple will also introduce one or more new iPhones at WWDC, the lack of an iOS 7 SDK (software development kit) so far hints that new hardware may not launch that early. In 2010 -- the last year that Apple debuted a new iPhone at WWDC -- it seeded developers with the iOS 4 SDK in early April. In 2009, Apple gave developers their first look at iOS 3 in mid-March.

The last two years, however, Apple has waited until WWDC to hand developers an iOS SDK, then unveiled new hardware in September or October.

OS X's next upgrade may also launch later than did the last two iterations, Lion and Mountain Lion, as Apple has not yet dealt developers a preview of a new edition.

Apple has priced WWDC tickets at $1,599 since 2010.

If Apple hews to tradition, CEO Tim Cook will host the WWDC keynote, which will probably take place on the morning of Monday, June 10.

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at @gkeizer, or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed . His e-mail address is gkeizer@ix.netcom.com.

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