Partners Eager For Apple's iOS 8, HD Audio And iWatch At Upcoming WWDC; Apple Confirms Beats Acquisition

Solution providers are anticipating "surprise announcements’ as well as the unveiling of "game-changing’ products at Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference on June 2 in San Francisco. Also Apple has made its $3 billion acquisition of Beats Electronics official today, according to news reports, and partners believe that Apple's acquisition of Beats Electronics alone is a sign that an Apple wearable is coming.

Partners said they fully expect Apple to announce iOS 8 at the show before it's released during the third quarter, giving software developers time to prepare for it.

One of the highly anticipated features partners expect of Apple's forthcoming operating system is HD audio across all iOS devices. VARs said consumers will be surprised as to how improved the sound quality will be when listening to their playlists, but the feature will be a blockbuster for the enterprise when it comes to videoconferencing.

[Related: 10 Biggest Blockbusters Partners Expect To See At Apple's WWDC ]

"High-def audio on an iPad would be a game-changer," said Ira Grossman, CTO of end user and mobile computing for MCPc, a Cleveland-based national Apple partner specializing in mobile solutions with its Anyplace Workspace. "We have a number of folks here at MCPc with the Cisco Jabber client as their primary office telephone. High-def audio would increase its usefulness, as it could be more easily used as a more powerful speakerphone device.’

The application development surrounding HD audio that would follow after it is announced next week has partners excited to see what developers come up with.

"It's always been a bit of a challenge to find a usable and affordable device to do videoconferencing," said Douglas Grosfield, president and CEO of Cambridge, Ontario-based solution provider Xylotek Solutions. "If Apple could come up with a usable application that could take advantage of HD audio and video capabilities with the right kind of encryption algorithm, having an application that could compress that data and make it secure, that would be a cool thing to see."

Could consumers be listening to their iTunes music playlists in HD quality on their Apple-branded Beats Electronics headphones later this year?

Apple has acquired Beats Electronics for $3 billion, the Wall Street Journal and other major newspapers reported late Wednesday afternoon. For the past three weeks, there were rumblings of Apple being in talks with Beats Electronics.

At WWDC, expect there to be an announcement of what Apple plans to do with the headphone maker.

As CRN previously reported, partners believe the purpose of the acquisition would lead to the Beats Music streaming service being incorporated with iTunes, rejuvenating the popular music application, but above all, Apple aims to use the ready-made distribution channel that Beats offers to sell Apple's unreleased wearable devices.

"It's not about the headphones," said Raul De Arriz, national government sales manager for Small Dog Electronics, Waitsfield, Vt., one of the top Apple specialists in the country. "Apple is improving their teams constantly for what they do. They are improving distribution for wearables, they are adding music streaming, and they are adding a series of hardware products that they don't currently make that are very high-end and popular, so I think it has good sides."

NEXT: Partners Say The iWatch I s Coming

Partners believe that Apple’s acquisition of Beats Electronics alone is a sign that an Apple wearable is coming. The Cupertino, Calif.-based corporation traditionally only announces software at WWDC, but De Arriz said he "would not be surprised if Apple announced the iWatch at this event."

De Arriz said the Apple smartwatch could be done and ready to go and would be announced at WWDC before it is released this fall, not only to build an interest in the product, but also to give app developers time to prepare for it.

This would not be the first time Apple announced a mobile device so far in advance of its release. The first iPhone was announced Jan. 9, 2007, almost six full months before its release on June 29 of the same year.

"One of the interesting things about the watch is that [it] doesn't have an established market currently, and there is no competition because the other smartwatches are not selling anyway,’ De Arriz said. ’It doesn’t really matter when they start shipping the iWatch; it matters when they announce it because people will start planning for it. I think, in the very least, we'll get an announcement on back-end technology for wearables.’

A smartwatch announcement would be the first new line of hardware Apple has unveiled since the passing of former Apple CEO Steve Jobs in 2011.

Grosfield believes that with wearables possibly coming down the pike, Apple will announce software for it at WWDC.

"It would be surprising if we don't see enhancements in apps for the segment in the market for wearable technology,’ said Grosfield. "We've all heard rumors about the Apple smartwatch, so Apple Maps being user-friendly and more accurate would go a long way."

The release of Apple's Maps app with iOS 6 in 2012 left a black eye to the company due to bugs and inaccuracies with the product. Apple CEO Tim Cook was forced to embarrassingly urge consumers to use a product of its competitor, Google Maps.

Partners expect Apple to right their wrongs this Monday, and release a new version of Apple Maps that is accurate, user-friendly and able to compete with Google Maps.

Along with Apple Maps, partners believe health and fitness apps could be announced as well, and would be featured primarily in wearables. The health-care app would chart heart rate, calories burned, activity, and more. The rumors of a health app lend more credence to the belief that Apple is prepared to announce a wearable device whether it is a band or smartwatch.

Outside of applications, partners are excited about iOS 8 features and user interface improvements. Partners see one of the top features in iPad being multitasking and app screen sharing.

"I expect to see implementation that is more elegant, more user-friendly and preserve things like battery life and that user experience,’ said Grossman. ’Some of the multitasking in Android and Windows is dependent on the apps to be rewritten to support multitasking. I expect Apple to allow all applications to support multitasking.’

NEXT: Apple's Multitasking Screen-Sharing Features

Partners said there is some pressure on Apple to come out with a multitasking screen-sharing feature simply because their competitors already have this capability. That is why partners suspect Cook will at least display this feature on iPads on June 2, however, they do expect Apple to have their own differences to make up for being late to the party.

"That will be a very attractive feature for Apple to include,’ said De Arriz. ’It will have the ability to show you two things on the screen, and allow things to share meta data to drag one thing to another -- the same way it works with a desktop. It’s not just seeing two things and saying, ’Here’s my movie and here’s my email.' It’s the ability to drag the movie over and drop it into the email."

Partners said it is likely that Apple will drive to expand the digital wallet in iOS 8 through advancements in thumbprint-recognition software and iBeacon. Both would need multiple major vendors to sign on with them in order to take off.

"We fully expect fingerprint-recognition software to be implemented to the whole line of iPhones and high-end iPads,’ said De Arriz. ’I think in iOS 8 we'll see the expansion of it from just being able to use your thumbprint to log into your phone and authorize iTunes purchases, to being a verificator of purchases with outside vendors through your digital wallet."

Partners said they envision an API being available for vendors to use thumbprint recognition. They see Apple taking the next step toward replacing the leather wallet with the digital wallet by verifying purchases with an online vendor with just a touch of your thumb.

"Apple has had that technology for a year but just hasn't made it available to other people," said De Arriz. ’I think we’ll see that happening in iOS 8 -- that there is an API for other people to use thumbprint verification. That will be very nice for purchases, even for just security verification.’

Partners believe Apple will likely use iBeacon to expand the digital wallet by allowing users to pay for things with their phone at a store over Bluetooth. The iBeacon feature currently exists in iOS 7, where devices send push notifications to each other when they are in range. The enhancements to this feature would make it more secure and compatible with more vendors.

Partners do not expect to see other hardware announcements at WWDC, but do anticipate some surprises. Apple will be live-streaming the event at 10 a.m. PDT on June 2, through its website.

PUBLISHED MAY 28, 2014