This week, Apple announced that its conference for software developers, WWDC, will be held on June 10-14, 2013. Originally this was a conference for developers of Mac software, but starting in 2008 (the year that Apple allowed third party apps on the iPhone), the scope expanded to iOS developers. Not coincidentally, 2008 was the first year that WWDC sold out. It sold out again in 2009, 30 days after tickets went on sale. In 2010, it sold out in 8 days. In 2011, in 10 hours. In 2012, in 2 hours. This week, WWDC was completely sold out only 2 minutes after tickets went on sale. I love this statistic because it shows the increasing eagerness to develop apps for the iPhone and iPad, which should mean even more, better apps for those of us who use an iPhone and an iPad every day. And now, the news of note from the past week ... and there isn't much, because it was a pretty slow news week in the world of iOS:
- Would you like to have coffee with Apple CEO Tim Cook at Apple headquarters? The website CharityBuzz is taking bids to do so, with the proceeds to benefit the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights. The bidding started at $50,000 and as of Thursday night was up to $230,000 ... and there are still 19 days left to bid. [UPDATE: As of Friday morning the highest bid is up to $560,000.]
- Fahmida Rashid of PC Magazine reviews the Transporter, a current sponsor of iPhone J.D.
- Apple celebrated the 10th anniversary of the iTunes Store this week. I purchased quite a bit of music for my iPod when the iTunes Store went live, and I see that some of my first purchases were Soak Up The Sun by Sheryl Crow, Clocks by Coldplay and an accoustic version of Unwell by Matchbox Twenty (which doesn't seem to be in the iTunes Store anymore) — three songs that I like but haven't listened to in a while, so now I'm listening to them as I type this post.
- If you want to dial back the nostalgia even more, John Biggs of TechCrunch reviews Classic Note, a $3.99 iPhone app that makes your iPhone take notes like a 1980s Macintosh computer. The app reminds me of the Mac Plus that I bought my sophomore year in college with the money I had earned working over the summer. I added an external 20 MB hard drive, which made it almost as cool as my roommate's fancy Macintosh SE. I've been buying and using Apple products ever since.
- Joe White of AppAdvice reports on recent iPhone sales by U.S. carriers as announced in their latest quarterly earnings reports. In the last quarter, AT&T sold 4.8 million iPhones (out of a total of 6 million smartphones), Verizon sold 4 million iPhones (out of a total 7.2 million smartphones) and Sprint sold 1.5 million iPhones (out of a total 5 million smartphones).
- And finally, one of the most expensive iPhone accessories was unveiled this week by Volkswagen: the new iBeetle car, due out in 2014. This specially-designed Beetle has an iPhone dock and integrates with a special app in lots of different ways. The app can compare driving times, distances and fuel economy value for different routes; a Postcard function sends a digital postcard to your friends with a map of your current location; and the iPhone can work as an extended on-board instrument with an oil and coolant temperature gauge, a chronometer, and a compass. Click here for the press release.
