Apple has been in the news recently for releasing its iWork apps to the iPhone and iPod touch, its a great advancement to be sure. Apple, usually secretive, is giving people a heads up; in a statement earlier this week they said that they will be talking about their new operating system Lion, the new iOS 5, and iCloud (a new service that has long been rumored). Not many Apple software products are currently available across its product line, but to be sure those that are (Garage Band, iMovie, iCal and now Pages, Keynote, and Numbers) will be part of the product line-up for quite some time. Apple’s move this week to release an iPhone / iPod version of iWork gives us some major clues about what will happen at the World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) next week. iWork is the first complete software package that is available across all platforms. I expect that iWork will be key in all three of the major announcements next week. Here are just a few things I would expect to be announced in connection with iWork.
1. New version of iWork for Lion – I believe that Apple will announce a release date for Lion and along with that they will announce a new version of iLife and iWork. Its been two years since the last refresh which is equal to the previous longest gap (2006 to 2008).
2. iOS 5 will allow iPhones and iPods to connect to external displays much like the iPad 2 can do now, this will allow you to show Keynote presentations from you iPhone or iPod touch.
3. iCloud will have an iWork component to it. I fully believe that the iCloud is going to be more than just a place to store your iTunes music. I think Apple is going to announce some sort of connection to iWork, whether that be just a simple refresh of what they offer on iWork.com or something more. Hopefully Apple is preparing a release of something to compete with Google Docs, and Microsofts docs.com.
Any way that you look at it, iWork should be a central theme for Apple next week. To be sure I will be looking forward to it! What do you think? what rumors have you heard? What are you hoping Apple will announce next week?