This evening, CrunchGear posted the first pictures of the banners in the lobby of Moscone West for WWDC 2008.

The two visible banners hung above the lobby read: “OS X Leopard” “The worlds most advanced operating system”; “OS X iPhone” “The worlds most advanced mobile platform”. On the wall, the third and last visable banner says: “WWDC 2008”, displayed on an iPhone over a MacBook Air with icons related to the iPhone on the right, such as the Phone application icon and the App Store icon and icons from OS X software such as XCode and Time Machine on the left. The MacBook Apple often hangs banners with black covering around them that contain unreleased information; however there has been no such sighting of that this year.

When Apple hangs banners for WWDC, there is often much speculation and analyzation of contents of the banner and meanings behind them. You can read the ongoing debate at the MacRumors forum; or check out previous (2007, 2006) years banner sightings.

More photos after the jump! Read more…

To add to the growing rumors surrounding WWDC, today, iLounge.com released images of two touchscreen components that are similar to the current iPhone and iPod Touch components, but are slightly smaller in size by .3 and .7 inches. Also, one Wall Street analyst feeds the fire about an iTablet and sheds light on new iPhones at WWDC.

The photos, shown above depict touch components that appear to be destined for a future iPhone or iPod Touch. Taiwanese display manufacturer Host Optical claims they are working with Apple on the new displays and are responsible for the release of the information. The components are described as a “projected capacitance touch panel” with the emphasis that they are superior to the current touchscreen used in the iPhone and iPod touch. According to Host Optical, the new touch components do not get less sensitive over time, are more durable and can withstand water and very humid environments.

iLounge.com believes these new screens may not be destined for the new 3G iPhone, specifically the 2.8 inch display. iLounge believes that “there is zero chance that a 2.8” screen is going to be in Apple’s first 3G version of the iPhone”; but most likely for a smaller “iPhone nano” or fourth generation iPod Nano.

It should be noted that Apple never reveals who supplies components and suppliers rarely admit they are working for the Cupertino company. By releasing this information before product release, Host Optical is violating terms with Apple. Theoretically, anyone can claim that they are suppling components for Apple. Additionally, majority of rumors agree that the new 3G iPhone will have very similar dimensions to the first generation iPhone, with only added tapering around the edges.

Also today, American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu published in a report to clients that 4 and 7 inch touchscreen devices are beyond prototype stages inside Apple. Wu believes that these devices are crosses between the Mac and iPod touch and may be a modern recreation of the Newton MessagePad from the 1990’s. Shaw predicts that the devices will most likely not see light at next weeks WWDC keynote.

Shaw Wu is confident that Steve Jobs will introduce two new iPhone models next week; one of them the hotly anticipated 3G iPhone, and another refined version of the current 2.5G model that would be significantly cheaper. He says his information is based from supply chain sources.

Finally Wu says that while WWDC typically highlights Macintosh related products, this year may be an exception. Because new portable Macs “most likely won’t be ready for volume production until the September quarter”, this years event will not highlight new Macs.

Steve Jobs keynote will kick off at 10AM PST (1PM EST) on June 9th. theiLife.com will be in attendance and livebloging from the keynote here. If you can’t be at a computer, you can still recieve urgent updates (expect about 10-20) to your cell phone via SMS by signing up here.

Since its founding, Apple has designed products aimed at changing the way we use technology. From early computer offerings like the Apple ][ to today’s iPhone, Apple has always changed the way we interact with technology. And Apple, since the introduction of the first AirPort base station in 1999, has continually pushed for a world with fewer wires and more elegant connectivity.

It started with the the Macintosh Portable in 1989. While the Macintosh Portable was a small step towards a portable, wireless device we have become accustomed with these days, it suffered from several fatal flaws- it was large, slow, awkwardly shaped and expensive. As a result, the Macintosh Portable didn’t sell as well as Apple would have liked. But Apple didn’t stop there. They followed the Macintosh Portable with the PowerBook, and it stuck. The PowerBook lived on Apple’s product line from October 1991 all the way to January 2006 when it was replaced by the MacBook Pro. Since then, Apple added the iBook and, recently, the MacBook Air.

Let’s step back a few years. On October 23, 2001, Apple Computer, Inc. released what some consider to be the most revolutionary product of the past decade: the iPod. The iPod took digital music and put it on the go. Suddenly, you could have thousands of songs at your fingertips without changing a single CD. Over the course of 5 years, Apple’s iPod reached the pockets of more than 30 million. To date, Apple has sold 150 million iPods.

Flash forward to January 2007, when Steve Jobs announces the iPhone. Apple redefines another mobile device. The iPhone went past cell phones’ old limits in a manner only Apple is capable of. The iPhone is reinventing the cell phone market like the iPod did for portable music.

With the imminent release of a new iPhone and iPhone firmware 2.0, Apple is moving us in a direction that will change the way we interact with technology once again. With the help of our favorite Cupertino company, we are being set free, and moving to a world without wires.

Today Apple has launched this years “Buy a Mac, Get a Free iPod” back to school promotion.

As rumored by both MacRumors and AppleInsider yesterday; Apple launched the promotion early this morning.

To qualify for the deal, students must purchase a MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iMac, or Mac Pro and either an iPod Touch or a 8GB iPod nano before September 15th 2008 to receive a rebate for the iPod. All products much be purchased from Apple either online, in an Apple Retail Store or at an Apple Authorized Campus Store. Any student accepted into or currently attending college and any employee of a public or private K-12 institution or higher education facility are eligible for the promotion.

Last year, the deal only offered a 200 dollar credit towards any new iPod (at the time, a free 4GB iPod nano), however this years deal offers a $300 discount which equates to an 8GB iPod Touch. Students can also opt for a 8GB iPod nano if they desire.

As reported by Morgan Stanley earlier this year, almost 40 percent of all college students are planning to purchase a Mac as their next computer. Apple currently holds a 15 percent market share in the student demographic.

The iLife staff notes that writers Matt Dodd, Matthew Rosenhein and Dan Spiers plan to purchase MacBook Pros under this new deal for college next year. Sidney San Martin and Matt Hamilton, both college students, already own Apple laptops and took advantage of last years deal.

A recent iPhone commercial, touting the power of having the internet in your pocket. It has just been published to The Daily iLife podcast, which you can subscribe to in iTunes or watch here.

An iPhone advertisement about winning a bet by having the internet in your pocket.

The closing of the Fifth Avenue Apple Store on Thursday may mark the beginning of a new advertising campaign for an as of yet unknown product. Equipment being brought into the store as well as other reports indicates that film production company Anonymous Content will be producing the advertisement.

AppleInsider reports that director David Fincher, listed as a featured director on Anonymous’s website is tied to the project. Fincher is best known as the director of Fight Club, but is also a popular producer of commercials, including the Gears of War trailer, “Mad World”, and has done work for HP and AT&T. The only other times that the Fifth Avenue Apple Store has been closed were for major product launches, and the only advertisements filmed at Apple store were filmed at this location, for, fittingly enough, the iPhone.

The majority of Apple’s marketing campaigns, including the well received Get a Mac campaign, have been produced by TBWA\Media Arts Labs. However, Apple has in the past used other firms, or allowed third parties to advertise joint product launches using their own ad firms. Anonymous Content fits the bill for this kind of campaign, having produced commercials for a wide variety of corporations, the most relevant being AT&T and Intel. It is rumored that Apple is filming a commercial for the upcoming 3G iPhone. The reasoning behind filming at the Fifth Avenue retail store is still unknown, as an Apple Store could easily be replicated in a studio. The lighting equipment outside indicates that emphasis may be on the 32 foot cube outside the store. More details to come soon!

This is the third part in a series of WWDC rumor articles, exploring the various case leaks for the new iPhone model- speculated to launch at WWDC 2008. Click here to check out the first and second articles about the rumored iPhone.

Click on the images to see a larger version.

Yesterday, the Apple rumor mill was abuzz with a story from iDealsChina Insider, an otherwise unknown website who posted leaked pictures of Griffins new case mold for the upcoming iPhone. The pictures, shown above, shows a larger opening for the supposed addition of a front facing camera, which supports the rumored claims of videoconferencing on the upcoming iPhone. The leaked photos are said to be of Griffins upcoming silicon Flex GRIP case.

More after the jump! Read more…

This is a guest post from theDigitalLifestyle.tv.

Whether you know the name from the adorably small yet “Mighty Mouse” who took over kid’s television screens every weekend morning in the forties or you recognize the name from the powerful mouse that graces so many Apple user’s desks, the name “Mighty Mouse” has been fighting a battle all it’s own this past week. Man & Machine Inc., which is a Maryland based company who manufactures water-resistant and hygienic keyboards and mice for medical and industrial environments, sued both Apple and CBS CORP. for trademark infringement. M&M claims that while both their company and CBS hold trademark applications for the name, CBS’s use of the name does not cover such goods as computer products and therefore, if they licensed the name to Apple, it would be in violation of the trademark.

It seems to me that even if Man & Machine Inc. used the name for computer products before Apple (which they claim is true), the use of the name is for completely different niches in the computing world. M&M’s water-resistant, hygienic, and may I also say “wired” mouse design of “Mighty Mouse” is advertised and promoted specifically for medical and industrial use, differing with Apple’s design for a sleek and powerful mouse used mostly for home and office use. Most consumers who would be in the market for Apple’s Mighty Mouse would not, upon seeing M&M’s “Mighty Mouse,” change their mind about their purchase considering the different applications and niches for the product.

Man & Machine, Inc. is seeking money damages and a Court issued order, which will block Apple’s use of the name. A hearing date has not yet been set.

Samsung has just announced their new L870 mobile handset, and several sites are reporting that it will be the first Samsung phone to include a Safari branded mobile browser. Out of left field, this information contradicts previous assumptions that mobile Safari would be an iPhone exclusive application. The L860 runs S60, a Samsung developed Symbian platform. The S60’s default browser already utilized a WebKit based browser, so it is unclear what advancements Safari will bring to the handset’s capabilities. It is worth noting that the S60 browser supports flash mobile.

Safari for Symbian will put Apple in direct competition with development teams including Microsoft’s Window’s mobile team, Nokia’s internet tablet division (which utilizes WebKit) and Opera Software’s Opera Mobile. Many mobile phone companies have utilized WebKit in their offerings due to its relative ease to implement compared with propriety rendering engines such as Microsoft’s Trident, and its easier implementation and less demanding license compared to Mozilla’s Gecko. However, Apple’s mobile Safari browser was universally lauded for its ability to render web pages accurately and quickly using limited resources and screen real-estate. So far, it remains unknown as to whether Samsung has negotiated a contract with Apple for exclusive use of the Safari trademark, or whether Safari is headed to other mobile platforms.

–>Read

Update: Samsung now reports that the Safari reference was a misprint, referring to the S60 browser’s WebKit components.

This is the second part in a series of WWDC rumor articles to come, exploring the possibilities of the new second generation iPhone speculated to launch at WWDC 2008. Click here to look at the first article reviewing the possibilities for the new iPhone.

The next iPhone to have GPS built in?

Over the past week, the new iPhone has seen a fair share of new rumors, findings and speculation.

Today, AppleInsider is reporting that TeliaSonera just announced a deal with Apple to sell the iPhone to Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia later this year. TeliaSonera is the dominant carrier in those regions, with over 106 million subscribers. This adds to the ongoing list of new international deals for the iPhone:

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Italy, India, Jamaica, Jordan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Portugal, Slovakia, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland, Sweden, Romania, Turkey, United States and Uruguay.

ImportGenius last week believes the 3G iPhone may be enroute to the United States, if not already here.

“Since mid-March, Apple Inc. and its logistics partners have imported 188 ocean containers of a product type never before declared on its shipping manifests.”
“On March 19 Quanta delivered 20 ocean containers of merchandise, described on the Bills of Lading as “electric computers,” to Apple, Inc. Neither Apple, Quanta, nor any other company has ever used this product description for any shipments to the U.S.”

ImportGenius noted that the declaration of “electronic computers” is in addition to the regular shipments Apple receives of desktop computers (which haven’t decreased over these past few months), which means this is not just a renaming of a current Cupertino product for customs.

The GPS has been rumored to be put into the iPhone for some time now. Recently, findings by AppleInsider might hint at the existence of GPS in the upcoming iPhone model.

The latest iPhone 2.0 build new location findings, images from AppleInsider

The images, shown above, are of beta iPhone 2.0 firmware, build 5A292g, that was distributed to a select group of enterprise testers last week. The new shots show new preferences for location based services for the Camera and Google Maps applications, and user prompts for the permission to find their current geographical location. “”Maps” would like to use your current location” “Don’t Allow” or “Ok”.

The addition to the Camera application implies the addition of geo-tagging, which adds meta data to the photograph that includes the coordinates that the picture was taken. AppleInsider notes that the tipsters say that there seems to be no addition of geographical meta data to photos taken from the Camera application at this time.

The addition to the Maps application is even more interesting, however. In the current iPhone and iPod Touch firmware, Apple has added a “Locate Me” button which allows the user to be located by cell triangulation or through Wi-Fi hotspots. This could simply mean that Apple is re-integrating your location into the Maps application or that the addition of GPS hardware could enhance the application even more.

Finally, last Wednesday AT&T announced that it is wrapping up the deployment it’s 3G infrastructure.

“By the end of June, connecting to AT&T’s 3G mobile broadband service will be as speedy as logging onto the high speed Internet service that many consumers enjoy at home.”

By rolling out HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access) and HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access); AT&T customers will be able to achieve 1.4Mbps download speed and uploads speeds up to 800Kbps. AT&T also notes that 75 percent of the phones sold by the company are 3G compatible; with “more 3G-enabled smartphones in the summer and fall of 2008”. The cell phone carrier has spent over $20 billion in network upgrades over the past few years.

It should be noted that the iPhone 2.0 firmware is intended to be released across both the current generation iPhone and the upcoming generation iPhone. Apple revealed in March the release date of June for the firmware, which could coincide with the WWDC 2008 conference starting on June 9th. The most hotly anticipated features of the iPhone 2.0 firmware are the App Store, which will allow for 3rd party applications; and the new enterprise features such as Exchange support and VPN.

Stay tuned for more rumors and predictions to come.