WWDC: Preparing your electronic shopping list for the holidays.

The Apple WorldWide Developers Conference kicks off at 6:00PM GMT tonight and boy aren't the Maclovers just drooling and bleary-eyed waiting for some major news with regards to Apple's hardware and software.

From what I've gathered across various forums and blogs, Apple seem to be doing a major shakeup across its range of Macs and a big new software update is in the mix as well.

The Macbook Pro:

The new Macbook with Retina display (Courtesy - Apple.com)

The Macbook Pro is set to make way for a newer model of its predecessor, some say most likely a hybrid mix of the Air and Pro. The new Macbook is set to have Intels latest Ivy Bridge processors and supporting up to 16GB of RAM. With other portable devices like the Samsung Chromebox supporting SSD type Harddrives, maybe that feature would be incorporated into the Macbook, although I highly doubt they'd do that. A much more powerful AMD graphics card in the range of upto 2GB Dedicated RAM is set to be included under the hood. The Retina screen could make a subtle introduction into the Macbooks world, coupled with upgrades to the webcam and other peripherals and hubs (USB 3.0, Bluetooth 4.0 etc)....all of this inside a particularly thinner and lighter version of the older Macbook. The people at techcrunch.com say that the outer body will not be made of liquidmetal, as it was rumoured earlier that it actually would be made of the same.

The New iOS6:

Confirmed! (Courtesy - tech2.in.com)

At the time of writing, this has indeed been confirmed as a picture was posted up on tech2.in.com showing the banner detailing iOS6's presentation at the keynote. Facebook is going to be integrated into iOS just as twitter was in the current version. The new OS will be set to showcase its brand new iMaps, seeing off the trekker/adventurers/lost people's best friend, Google Maps. Apparently set to have 3D mapping enabled (Google also showcased a similar feature a few days ago) they are set to clash heads with Google. Our good old (retarded) man-servant (set as default on the English iPhones) Siri may have a major update as well, hopefully allowing him to be of slightly more use to me instead of back answering all my requests to be a loyal servant. OSx Mountain Lion is set to be showcased as well for the range of Macbooks. The major part of Mountain Lions game is to enable streamlined use between it's laptops and tablets/phones. iMessage, Notifications Centre, Game Centre....a lot of stuff we see on the iPhone and iPad currently will be ported onto OSx for the Macbooks.
That's something to be excited about.

The New iPhone.....not.:

The iPhone isn't set to make any appearance at tonight's showcase. At the most, Siri's upgrade may be ported onto the current generation of iPhones. Oh yay.

Steve Jobs' presence will surely be missed by the horde who attend the WWDC annually but I'm pretty sure Tim Cook will put on a snazzy show for the apple masses. Hopefully we get to see whatever I've splashed up on over here later today!