Hot iPhone Rumors Abound With WWDC Days Away

Unless you've been living in a separate galaxy, you're probably aware that Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) kicks off Monday, and speculation about what Apple plans to unveil has percolated to the point of boiling over, as is usually the case when Apple products are involved. Will Apple wow 'em? Will Steve Jobs be there, even though we've heard that he won't be? Or, will the last of Apple's annual summits—Apple will no longer be at MacWorld—fall flat? Here are five burning questions:

1. Will there be a new iPhone, and if so, what will it have?

Apple's already been forthcoming about some details of its iPhone OS 3.0 update, but what most folks really want to know is whether the WWDC will bring a brand-new iPhone. Earlier this week, the forms section of Apple blog MacRumors posted photos of what the next iPhone allegedly looks like. While nothing's been confirmed for sure, the somewhat blurry photos—which originally appeared on a Chinese Web site and then were picked up across the blogosphere before they could be taken down—show a compass on the iPhone's screen, an image showing built-in support for MMS, a voice recorder and even a video recorder. All of those features have come up strong among Apple iPhone rumors in recent weeks, along with other suggestions that a mini iPhone—an iPhone Nano, perhaps?—might be in the offing, too.

2. What's Apple got in store for video?

The iPhone does not (yet) dominate in video, and given both the coming updates to iPhone 3.0 and recent upgrades to Apple's iTunes store, that may be about to change. Will a new or updated iPhone be enabled for recording and editing video, or, better yet, integrate with YouTube and MobileMe as some rumors have suggested? Will the video content available through the iTunes store be accessible through the iPhone's wireless connection? And when, oh when, does Apple's iChat finally make its iPhone debut, if ever?

3. What's Steve Jobs role?

Well, Jobs won't be there as emcee, and the keynote slot, we already know, went to Apple's marketing boss, Phil Schiller. Apple's issued some cagey statements in recent weeks over how involved Jobs is with day-to-day operations, and while it doesn't seem likely that Jobs would make an extended public appearance at WWDC, we wouldn't put it past Jobs or Apple, either.

4. Will there be a tablet device?

One of the hottest rumors emerging from early WWDC speculation was that Apple was at work on a multipurpose tablet—one that could do everything from Web surf to provide support for e-books and e-reading fit enough to challenge established e-reading behemoths like Amazon's Kindle. But more recent speculation has centered on the device—if it's in the works at all—not seeing the light of day until 2010 at the earliest.

5. What's the latest on Snow Leopard?

Mac aficionados are awaiting features and a launch date for Mac OS X 10.6, also known as Snow Leopard. The WWDC would seem like the ideal time to disclose that information.