What to Expect from Apple’s WWDC 2012 Without Steve Jobs

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), the annual gathering where the secretive company hosts folks who make a living writing software for its products, kicks off later this month. And while the event is designed around presentations to help developers, its keynote address has also become an opportunity for Apple to roll out new products… not just to developers, but to the world. What should we expect from WWDC 2012?

WWDC 2012: It’s A Big Deal

Historically, the WWDC is a big deal for Apple. After all, in addition to a slew of new software announcements, 2 iPhones and several Macs have been announced at WWDC.

Tim Cook’s First WWDC Without Steve Jobs

So what will new CEO Tim Cook choose to announce during his first 2012 WWDC keynote without Steve Jobs? The tech and gadget blogs have been going crazy speculating. Here’s our attempt to round up the WWDC 2012 rumors…

• Steve Jobs Tribute: This isn’t exactly an announcement, but we’d bet there’s probably a video tribute or special speech from Tim Cook about Steve Jobs.
• New Software: Definitely, expect this. The audience at WWDC is, as you might expect, mostly developers. There’s big speculation that Apple is rolling out a new mapping software platform called Apple Maps to compete with Google Maps.
• What else?