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China’s deadline for the installation of Web filtering software on new PCs hasn’t changed, it said Tuesday, despite growing protests from the U.S. government and Chinese Internet users.

Foreign and domestic PC makers are still required to ship the filter program with all PCs sold in China beginning July 1, the state-run China Daily said, citing an unnamed source in the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

China first issued the mandate last month and has said the software is meant to protect children from pornographic and other “harmful” content online. But the program, called Green Dam Youth Escort, also blocks political content including Web sites that mention Falun Gong, a spiritual movement banned as a cult in China.

The mandate could escalate into a serious trade dispute if China actually bars foreign PC makers from selling computers without the software, said Simon Ye, a Gartner analyst. State media last week cited an unnamed official saying foreign PC makers like Dell might not be able to meet the deadline.

Some kind of compromise is much more likely before the deadline, said Ye. Barring sales by a company like Dell would disrupt China’s PC market and could trigger protectionist responses by the U.S., he said.

Hewlett-Packard and Dell were the second- and third-largest PC vendors in China in the final quarter last year, claiming over one-fifth of PC shipments in the country, according to IDC statistics.

Dell is still reviewing the government mandate, a company spokeswoman said, declining to comment further.

Resistance to China’s mandate has grown in the few weeks since it became public. Representatives from multiple U.S. government offices met with Chinese officials last Friday to express concerns about the requirement to ship the software, said Susan Stevenson, spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. Embassy officials representing the State Department, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the Commerce Department met with officials at China’s MIIT and commerce ministry, she said.

The U.S. has asked China for a dialogue about the potential impact of the mandate on trade, effects on the free flow of information and “serious technical issues” raised by use of the software, Stevenson said.

Chinese Internet users have also mounted resistance to the mandate. Ai Weiwei, a well-known artist and dissident, was using Twitter messages on Tuesday to call for an Internet boycott the day of the government deadline. Ai urged Internet users not to go online on July 1 for work, email, news or other purposes.

“Do not give any explanation of your actions,” Ai wrote in his Twitter feed. “Make July 1 a day of commemoration for the Internet.”

Calls to China’s MIIT went unanswered Tuesday morning.

Apple’s newest aluminum MacBook Pros are pretty slick in most regards, but some investigative folks had discovered what they believed to be a shortcoming in the models: in some units the SATA drive interface ran at a mere measly 1.5Gbps when even its predecessor, the non-Pro 13-inch MacBook, supported double that speed.

Owners of MacBook Pros that shipped with solid-state drives (SSD), meanwhile, reported that they had the 3Gbps interface, leading many to scratch their heads at the inconsistency. (Never mind that the traditional hard drives in the affected models can’t even take advantage of the 3Gbps speeds.)

Apple on Monday moved to correct that matter by issuing a firmware update for the June 2009 MacBook Pros. MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.7 lets those MacBook Pros use the 3Gbps specification, though Apple also warns that it has not offered drives that support the faster speeds–all previous and current MacBooks use 1.5Gbps drives–so the use of faster drives remains unsupported. The download is 3.35MB and requires Mac OS X 10.5.7.

Apple also issued an iMac EFI Firmware 1.4 Update for 20-inch and 24-inch early 2009 iMacs, which fixes problems where machines using ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics cards would intermittently stop responding, as well as issues with waking from sleep while in Boot Camp. It’s a 1.7MB download that requires Mac OS X 10.5.6 or later.

The re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over challenger Mir Hussein Moussavi sparked demonstrations, and coverage of the protests led to the ouster of Western journalists. Twitter users stepped into the information gap, providing real-time updates. But the popular microblogging site also became a vehicle for protesters to launch denial-of-service attacks. While the conflict in Iran and the role of technology in keeping the world informed about it is our top story, for a whole lot of people the focus of the week was on — what else? — Apple’s new iPhone 3G S, which went on sale Friday. We confess to momentary early morning confusion about the line on Boston’s Boylston Street until we realized it was outside of an AT&T store. D’oh.

1. Twitter becomes a lifeline to an Iran in turmoil, Twitter plays key role in DoS attacks in Iran, In Iran, cyber-activism without the middleman and Iran rocked by cyberattacks during unrest: The Internet has become a prominent aspect of all important news stories, of course, but it has played a particularly vital role in helping to keep the world informed about what’s going on in Iran in the wake of the contentious presidential election.

2. Apple fans flock to buy iPhone 3G S: We’re not sure what more there is to say about the new iPhone 3G S, other than that a lot of people decided to forgo sleep to be among the first to buy one.

3. Jury orders music swapper to pay $1.92 million: We reckon that Jammie Thomas-Rasset wishes she had stuck with the US$220,000 fine after she was found guilty of online music trading and copyright infringement at her first trial. The Minnesota jury that heard the retrial of her case ordered her to pay a whopping $1.92 million, or $80,000 for each of the 24 songs she was found to have illegally traded over the Kazaa online service. The ruling undoubtedly bolsters the efforts of the Recording Industry Association of America, which has gone after thousands of people in an effort to stop such music trading.

4. Senators challenge AT&T’s exclusive iPhone deal and FCC to probe exclusive mobile handset deals: U.S. senators questioned exclusive deals between mobile handset makers and carriers, notably AT&T’s deal as the sole iPhone provider in the U.S. By week’s end the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s acting chairman said he ordered staff there to look into the deals and whether they stifle innovation or (and?) harm consumers.

5. MySpace cuts ‘bloated’ workforce by 30 percent: The once high-flying MySpace, which has been dethroned by Facebook as the top U.S. social-networking site, axed almost 30 percent of its employees.

6. China orders Google to suspend foreign site searches and Fight against China’s Web-filtering software grows: In case there was any doubt, China showed that it means business when it comes to cracking down on Internet pornography, ordering Google to cease its foreign Web site search service because its filtering is weak. In related news, Solid Oak Software, which makes Web-filtering software, sent cease-and-desist letters to a number of U.S. and Chinese companies, contending that its code was copied by a Chinese Internet filtering program. Solid Oak demanded that the companies stop distributing the Chinese software.

7. Sun reportedly cancels 16-core Rock processors and Why Rock was doomed: Sun has bailed out on its 16-core Rock processor project, which had been a top priority. But an analysis of the project shows it was doomed even before Oracle swooped in to buy Sun, emphasizing its interest in the Solaris OS and Java.

8. Business netbooks: IT revolution or contradiction in terms?: For those who are contemplating using netbooks for business purposes, InfoWorld put together this handy comparison of four popular models, complete with a Test Center scorecard.

9. GhostNet cyber espionage probe still has loose ends: Many of the 103 countries whose computer systems were hacked in what has been labeled the “GhostNet” cybercrime operation, which was publicly revealed three months ago, may not yet have been formally notified that they were victims, according to a 53-page report.

10. Google trying for more Gmail security: Google is testing the use of HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Service) with Gmail to make the webmail service more secure. The move comes in response to privacy advocates urging Google to improve Gmail security.

A U.S. company that says its code was copied by a Chinese Internet filtering program has ordered more PC makers not to distribute the Chinese software.

Solid Oak Software has sent cease-and-desist orders to Lenovo, Acer, Gateway, Sony and Toshiba, following similar orders sent to Hewlett-Packard and Dell earlier this week, Solid Oak spokeswoman Jenna DiPasquale said in an e-mail Thursday.

The move added pressure over intellectual property theft to concerns that the Web filtering software, called Green Dam Youth Escort, could be used to bolster China’s censorship of the Internet.

China last month ordered PC makers to distribute Green Dam with all computers sold in the country after July 1. The program blocks both pornography and some political content, including Web sites that mention Falun Gong, the spiritual movement banned as a cult in China. China has said the program is meant to protect children and can be disabled or uninstalled.

Solid Oak last week found that the Chinese software used code written in the proprietary format used by CyberSitter, the company’s online content filter targeted at parents, DiPasquale said. The Chinese program contained blacklists and files apparently obtained from CyberSitter, according to a report by researchers at the University of Michigan.

An update distributed through the Chinese program has since disabled the copied blacklists, but the version available for download online does not yet reflect the changes, the researchers said in an addition to their report yesterday.

No one at the main company that developed Green Dam, Jinhhui Computer System Engineering, was immediately available for comment.

Solid Oak has not yet heard back from the PC makers it contacted, DiPasquale said. Its next steps could include seeking a U.S. court injunction to stop the companies from distributing Green Dam in China, she said.

An HP spokeswoman said the company is seeking more information regarding Green Dam in cooperation with the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), a U.S. trade group. She confirmed HP had received Solid Oak’s cease-and-desist order, but declined to comment further on its response.

Lenovo said it is closely monitoring developments involving Green Dam and will continue to obey the law in the countries where it does business.

Industry groups including the ITI have called on China to reconsider requiring distribution of the software, and Chinese state media yesterday said foreign companies might not be able to comply with the mandate on time.

“All domestic PC makers are ready to include the software by July 1, but some foreign PC makers, such as Dell, might not be able to meet the deadline,” the China Daily quoted an unnamed official as saying.

Chinese Internet users have also filled Twitter streams and online forums with opposition to Green Dam.

Programming errors that left Green Dam vulnerable to some attacks have been patched since the University of Michigan researchers revealed them last week, their updated report says.

But a properly designed IP (Internet Protocol) address could still take control of a user’s computer through holes that remain in the patched program, the report says.

The researchers again advised uninstalling the program, calling it unlikely that all of its security problems could be fixed before the deadline for its distribution with PCs.

One patch also updated Green Dam’s help file with a license statement for OpenCV, an open source computer vision package developed by Intel, the report said. Green Dam’s image recognition tool for pornographic images draws on the package, according to the report.

Earlier versions appeared to violate OpenCV’s license by leaving out its text, the report said.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman defended China’s support for the program and declined to answer a question on its use of copied code at a press briefing Thursday.

“China has the responsibility and the obligation to protect its youth from violation by harmful online information,” the spokesman said.

Apple Inc.’s latest MacBook Pro laptops came with a number of upgrades to processor speeds, RAM and hard drives — not to mention reduced price tags.

Apple also reduced something else: the serial-ATA (SATA) drive interface, which dropped from 3Gbit/sec on earlier MacBook Pros to 1.5Gbit/sec. on newer ones.

The downgrade was initially picked up by Mac aficionados on the MacRumors.com Web site. Computerworld then confirmed the SATA change on a new 15-in. MacBook Pro as well as on the smaller, 13-in. model.

The issue has cropped up on Apple’s forums and on notebookreview.com.

It was not clear whether the SATA interface on the latest 17-in MacBook Pro or the ultra-thin MacBook Air were also revamped. Computerworld was unable to get an explanation from Apple about the change.

The move to a slower SATA interface has tech experts baffled, leading them to question whether Apple had encountered technical issues associated with the faster interface.

“I’m puzzled by it, as I know a lot of other people are. The only reason why I could think they would do it is there was some serious technical glitch — maybe the [processing] chip, maybe the optical drive,” said Tom Coughlin, founder of data storage consultancy Coughlin Associates Inc.

Coughlin said some industry rumors indicate there were issues with data transfer rates associated with the MacBook Pro’s optical drive, which has a 1.5Gbit/sec interface, “but usually the newer SATA interfaces are downward compatible with older interface products,” he added. “So I don’t even know why that would be a problem.”

Jim McGregor, chief technology strategist at market research firm In-Stat in Scottsdale, Ariz., believes Apple may have been seeing data error problems at higher I/O rates with the 3Gbit/sec SATA interface. “It may be that those were higher error rates than they preferred,” he said.

McGregor noted that the slower SATA interface will not likely affect most MacBook Pro users, as the data transfers from traditional hard drives don’t saturate a 1.5Gbit/sec SATA interface, let alone a 3Gbit/sec interface. However, users with USB hubs connecting multiple external devices — such as flash drives or a hard disk drive — to a laptop or desktop computer might saturate the 1.5Gbit/sec SATA interface, hampering I/O.

The most obvious limitation of a slower SATA interface would be to SSDs, which are more than capable of fully using a SATA 1.5Gbit interface, with many of the drives boasting 230MB/sec sequential read rates, as well as write rates above 150MB/sec.

“It really depends on how much you hit them,” McGregor said. “In many cases, the average consumer isn’t going to be tapping into that full [1.5Gbit/sec] bandwidth, but memory-hungry applications like those for gaming, digital content creation and database applications will peg it and will limit the performance of an SSD.”

Using a hard drive interface like SATA for SSDs is not optimal for for the disks, which have gained popularity for their fast read speeds, lower power use and and ability to withstand physical shocks that can harm traditional drives. SSDs cost more per gigabyte than hard drives, and are offered as pricey options on all of Apple’s MacBook Pro laptops.

Given the speed with which SSDs can move data, most original equipment manufacturers are likely to eventually embed the NAND memory chips used by the drives onto the motherboards of computers in order to take full advantage of the I/O capabilities of non-volatile flash memory.

“Storage will begin to look more like a memory module than a hard drive,” said Dean Klein, vice president of Micron Corp.’s SSD group.

Despite the hype surrounding Google Inc.’s Android operating system, Nvidia Inc. sees more immediate promise in Microsoft Corp.’s Windows CE for ARM-based netbooks.

Mike Rayfield, general manager for Nvidia’s mobile business unit, said Nvidia preferred Microsoft’s Windows CE over Android because of CE’s maturity. He said Android currently has a rough user interface.

Rayfield also plugged Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang’s prediction yesterday that Tegra, Nvidia’s System-on-Chip (SoC) for ARM hardware, could account for half of Nvidia’s revenue within a few years, while also reaping higher profit margins than Nvidia’s current products.

Rayfield was coy, however, regarding reports that say Microsoft’s upcoming Zune HD media player will use Tegra.

“Microsoft hasn’t confirmed that … so until they comment, I can’t,” he said.

For smartbooks, Nvidia is working with Microsoft to optimize Windows CE when it runs on Tegra. The counterpart to Nvidia’s Ion platform for Intel Atom-based netbooks, Tegra bundles an ARM CPU (the 750 MHz ARM 11) with specialized chips designed by Nvidia for graphics, HD video encoding and decoding, stereo sound and more.

That will allow Windows CE devices to offload much of the heavy multimedia work onto Tegra, resulting in better performance, 1080p video, and low power usage. Nvidia claims that Tegra smartbooks should allow users to listen to music for 25 days or watch HD video for 10 hours, versus 5 hours and 3 hours, respectively, for an Intel Atom netbook.

Nvidia chose to work with Windows CE first, said Rayfield, because it “is a rock-solid operating system that has been shipped billions of times.”

Windows CE also has a “low memory footprint and a good collection of apps,” Rayfield said.

He said Nvidia is also improving Tegra for use on Windows Mobile, a close variant of Windows CE, for ARM-based smartphones.

Nvidia is working with Google to accelerate Android, which is based on Linux, when running on Tegra hardware. But it will be about a year before that delivers for smartbooks, due to existing limitations in Android, he said.

For instance, Android screen icons that fit on smartphone screens (usually 4-inches and under) are oversized on a smartbook’s 8- or 9-inch screen, he said.

Also, all video and graphics rendering in Android is done today by the operating system’s Java code, a technique he says is too slow for HD video.

“There’s no hardware acceleration. It’s all software,” Rayfield said. “Everyone’s talking about Android for cell phones, but the reality doesn’t exist for the larger displays [of a smartbook.]”

A Google spokeswoman declined to respond to Rayfield’s comments about Android.

Rayfield’s comments echo those about Android by others in the emerging smartbook space. Kerry McGuire, director of strategic alliances at ARM, told Computerworld recently, “I do think that there is more work that can and will be done to bring the things we love about Android into form factors [such as netbooks.]”

Rayfield evinced even less enthusiasm for more mainstream flavors of Linux available on ARM, such as Canonical’s Ubuntu or Intel’s Moblin.

“The world soundly rejected the first netbooks that came out with Linux,” he said. “Printers didn’t work, and devices didn’t get recognized. The whole thing was a mess.”

Nvidia has garnered 42 design wins from 27 different manufacturers all building devices using Tegra, said Rayfield. More than half of the wins (26) are for smartbook or tablet designs. Those can arrive to market in just six months, versus two years for smartphones designed for telecom carriers, Rayfield said.

Rayfield echoed comments by Nvidia executives during its analyst day on Tuesday that Tegra could make up more than half of Nvidia’s sales ($3.4 billion in fiscal year ending January 2009) very soon.

“It’s an aggressive statement, no doubt. But we’ve got a pretty good pipeline,” Rayfield said. Also, it won’t be long before consumers, rather than re-ripping Blu-ray movies to watch on different devices, will expect to be able to carry a single, HD-quality version of their videos around with them for easy sharing and viewing on large-screen TVs.

By using its own graphical expertise in Tegra rather than licensing it, Nvidia hopes to reap gross profit margins of 45% on Tegra by charging commensurately for its better performance over competing platforms from Qualcomm (Snapdragon) and Freescale Semiconductor, Rayfield said.

The next generation of Tegra due early next year will boast 4 times the performance of today’s version, while the 2011 update will improve performance 10 times over today’s, he said.

Forget iPhones, Snow Leopard, and iPhone OS 3.0 — the biggest question out there for this year’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference is whether Steve Jobs will make an appearance today. Ever since the Apple CEO stepped down for health-related reasons, rumblings have pointed to WWDC as the most probable date to kick off his comeback. Here’s a breakdown of major events that point to a Jobs appearance at WWDC.

Steve Jobs steps aside

In January, Steve Jobs stepped down from his post as Apple CEO for “issues related to a hormone imbalance.” At the time, Jobs said his health problems were more complicated than he anticipated and needed to take some time off to recuperate. In a letter to Apple employees, Jobs indicated that he would remain involved in Apple’s major strategic decisions and would return to the helm at 1 Infinite Loop by June 2009.

Questions over Jobs’ health had been going on for several months, and some wondered if Jobs’ announcement meant the end for both Jobs and Apple.

Calling it in

Artwork: Chip TaylorA little over two weeks after Apple announced the dates for this year’s WWDC, The Wall Street Journal in April ran a report that Jobs was working on major Apple products from home as promised. The WSJ said those products included a new iPhone, the user interface for iPhone OS 3.0 and the mysterious Apple tablet. At the time, Apple had not announced its keynote speaker for WWDC, a spot traditionally reserved for Jobs. So many Apple pundits — including myself — wondered if Jobs would swoop in at WWDC to lead the keynote address once more.

However, since then it has become clear that a team of Apple executives lead by Phil Schiller would take over the WWDC keynote duties.

The Woz Report

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak last month told The Wall Street Journal that Jobs sounded “healthy” and “energetic.” Wozniak said he hadn’t asked Jobs directly about his health, but said the Apple CEO didn’t “sound like he was sick” or in the middle of a health crisis.

The WSJ didn’t specify what kind of contact Wozniak had with the Jobs, but Wozniak’s statements imply he has only spoken to Jobs over the phone.

Jobs Sightings

Only two days after the Woz report, several blogs heard rumblings that a healthy-looking Steve Jobs had been spotted at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California. There is no direct confirmation of this, but considering that Jobs is due to return this month infrequent appearances by Steve Jobs at Apple HQ would not be surprising.

Jobs’ health on-track

Another report last week from The Wall Street Journal indicated that Jobs’s recovery is on track, and the Apple CEO will be returning to his post this month.

WWDC

Based on several reports, Jobs is healthy and ready for action. If that’s the case, what better time to make an appearance than WWDC? Apple is not a company that lets a press opportunity pass it by, and today the tech world will be focused on the keynote address at WWDC. For months Apple watchers and fans have been predicting a new iPhone would be unveiled today, and many are reporting that Apple will soon introduce a new touch tablet to compete in the netbook market.

With so much attention and anticipation focused on Apple, it makes perfect sense for Jobs to make an appearance and do what he does best: get the world excited about a new Apple product.

It’s entirely possible that Jobs will be sitting at home following the WWDC live blogs WWDC like the rest of us, but I doubt it. If I had to guess, my money is on Phil Schiller delivering the famous “one more thing” line, and then turning the spotlight on Apple’s CEO. Who knows? A dramatic appearance by Jobs, could even outshine the introduction of a new iPhone. Only a few hours left until we find out.

Follow PC World’s coverage of Apple’s WWDC keynote address beginning today at 10 a.m. Pacific Time.

Connect with Ian Paul on Twitter (@ianpaul).

 
Asustek kicked off an entirely new category in the mobile computing space when it presented a prototype of its Eee PC at Taiwan’s Computex trade show two years ago. Since then, many users have embraced netbook PCs for their small size, light weight and low cost. Their popularity pushed Microsoft to extend the life of Windows XP and they’ve turned out to be one of the bright spots in the PC industry over the last few months.

But the sector hasn’t been a hotbed of innovation. Except for a few exceptions, most netbooks share pretty similar specs and are based on the same Intel Atom processor and Microsoft Windows XP operating system. But now, as the netbook sector enters its third year, new chips and operating systems hold the potential for massive change in the sector.

Leading the charge on the hardware side are Qualcomm and Nvidia.

Qualcomm has produced a new chip called the Snapdragon that uses less power than Intel’s Atom, so it runs cooler and doesn’t require a heatsink. That means laptops built with it can be thinner and have a longer battery life — Qualcomm expects between 8 and 10 hours. The chip comes with a feature that will be appreciated by any traveller: compatibility with both major cell phone standards in use worldwide.

But there are potential drawbacks. Qualcomm’s processors don’t understand the x86 instruction set used by chips from Intel and AMD, so they won’t run mainstream Windows. Instead, netbook makers are turning to Linux, which has been ported to many non-x86 processor architectures.

Prototypes of Snapdragon machines, and some based on similar ARM-based chips from companies like Freescale and Texas Instruments, were on show at last week’s Computex, but no one was talking launch dates.

NVidia’s proposition doesn’t attempt to cut Intel out of the equation. It has developed a graphics chip called Ion to supplement the Atom processor and provide some nice performance gains.

“We believe that when a consumer shells out 300 dollars to buy a PC they don’t say to themselves ‘I didn’t pay very much for a PC and I deserve a lousy experience,’” said Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of Nvidia. “Between these two processors we would be able to enable a really delightful experience whether you’re playing games, streaming video or wanting to create some home movies yourself.”

In several demonstrations at Computex Nvidia showed Atom-based computers with the Ion chip could transcode video for a portable media player about 5 times faster than a computer based on Atom alone. The Ion can also add multimedia functions like Blu-ray Disc playback to the small, cheap Atom-based computers.

Intel isn’t sitting still during this assault on the netbook market. The company continues to refine the Atom platform and the latest version of the platform, known by the code-name Pine Trail, has just been released. It consolidates the number of chips required from four to three and should lead to thinner netbooks with longer battery life and, possibly, lower prices.

On the operating system side the dominance of Windows XP remains strong although, due largely to the ARM-based chips, there’s renewed talk about Linux.

Back in 2007 the first prototype of the Asus Eee PC ran Linux and despite a lot of early talk among PC makers about the OS consumers have shown a strong preference for Windows XP. Whether Linux can make it this time remains to be seen but a couple of flavors of the open-source operating system are attracting attention.

Most talked about is Google’s Android operating system that is in use on some smart phones. Several prototype devices running Android are on show at Computex although the current iteration of the OS hasn’t been adapted for the technically richer environment that netbooks. For that reason many are saying it’s quite ready for netbook use.

A second operating system, Moblin, is also attracting interest. Moblin was originally developed by Intel but the company recently turned over stewardship of the OS to the Linux Foundation in the hopes of building wider industry support for it.

How much these technologies will affect the netbooks of tomorrow won’t become clearer until closer to Computex 2010 but there’s no doubt that several of the biggest names in the netbook market feel there’s a lot more room for innovation.

“Acer strongly believes today’s netbook is not close to perfection at all,” said Jim Wong, president of global product operations at Acer. “Today the netbook is not anytime, anywhere, all the time. The battery life is not long enough, the connections are on-and-off and it’s influenced by a lot of things. So we have a lot of room to improve.”

Forget iPhones, Snow Leopard, and iPhone OS 3.0 — the biggest question out there for this year’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference is whether Steve Jobs will make an appearance today. Ever since the Apple CEO stepped down for health-related reasons, rumblings have pointed to WWDC as the most probable date to kick off his comeback. Here’s a breakdown of major events that point to a Jobs appearance at WWDC.

Steve Jobs steps aside

In January, Steve Jobs stepped down from his post as Apple CEO for “issues related to a hormone imbalance.” At the time, Jobs said his health problems were more complicated than he anticipated and needed to take some time off to recuperate. In a letter to Apple employees, Jobs indicated that he would remain involved in Apple’s major strategic decisions and would return to the helm at 1 Infinite Loop by June 2009.

Questions over Jobs’ health had been going on for several months, and some wondered if Jobs’ announcement meant the end for both Jobs and Apple.

Calling it in

Artwork: Chip TaylorA little over two weeks after Apple announced the dates for this year’s WWDC, The Wall Street Journal in April ran a report that Jobs was working on major Apple products from home as promised. The WSJ said those products included a new iPhone, the user interface for iPhone OS 3.0 and the mysterious Apple tablet. At the time, Apple had not announced its keynote speaker for WWDC, a spot traditionally reserved for Jobs. So many Apple pundits — including myself — wondered if Jobs would swoop in at WWDC to lead the keynote address once more.

However, since then it has become clear that a team of Apple executives lead by Phil Schiller would take over the WWDC keynote duties.

The Woz Report

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak last month told The Wall Street Journal that Jobs sounded “healthy” and “energetic.” Wozniak said he hadn’t asked Jobs directly about his health, but said the Apple CEO didn’t “sound like he was sick” or in the middle of a health crisis.

The WSJ didn’t specify what kind of contact Wozniak had with the Jobs, but Wozniak’s statements imply he has only spoken to Jobs over the phone.

Jobs Sightings

Only two days after the Woz report, several blogs heard rumblings that a healthy-looking Steve Jobs had been spotted at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California. There is no direct confirmation of this, but considering that Jobs is due to return this month infrequent appearances by Steve Jobs at Apple HQ would not be surprising.

Jobs’ health on-track

Another report last week from The Wall Street Journal indicated that Jobs’s recovery is on track, and the Apple CEO will be returning to his post this month.

WWDC

Based on several reports, Jobs is healthy and ready for action. If that’s the case, what better time to make an appearance than WWDC? Apple is not a company that lets a press opportunity pass it by, and today the tech world will be focused on the keynote address at WWDC. For months Apple watchers and fans have been predicting a new iPhone would be unveiled today, and many are reporting that Apple will soon introduce a new touch tablet to compete in the netbook market.

With so much attention and anticipation focused on Apple, it makes perfect sense for Jobs to make an appearance and do what he does best: get the world excited about a new Apple product.

It’s entirely possible that Jobs will be sitting at home following the WWDC live blogs WWDC like the rest of us, but I doubt it. If I had to guess, my money is on Phil Schiller delivering the famous “one more thing” line, and then turning the spotlight on Apple’s CEO. Who knows? A dramatic appearance by Jobs, could even outshine the introduction of a new iPhone. Only a few hours left until we find out.

Follow PC World’s coverage of Apple’s WWDC keynote address beginning today at 10 a.m. Pacific Time.

Connect with Ian Paul on Twitter (@ianpaul).

Apple delivered a variety of hardware and software news today at the opening keynote for its Worldwide Developers Conference, but the company took its time building up to the big news: The new iPhone 3GS will be available in stores on June 19, and the current iPhone 3G will drop in price to $99 as of today. Unfortunately, I found the keynote offered empty calories: The lack of a significant hardware upgrade for the iPhone was especially underwhelming. (See the transcript of PC World’s live blog report of the keynote)

The keynote — the company’s first marquee event since CEO Steve Jobs took a medical leave in early 2009 — actually played out more like a MacWorld keynote than a WWDC keynote, from when the company announced products at the show. And since the start of the year, its product announcements have been minimal.

Smartphones for All
Apple’s announcements today underscore the company’s plans to expand its scope as a smartphone maker. NPD Group data puts Apple as the number two smartphone maker today, second to Research in Motion; surely, the company has its eyes set on that top spot.

“We want to reach even more customers,” noted Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller, who led the presentation in Jobs’s absence, during the keynote.

To achieve that end, Apple reduced the current 8GB iPhone 3G to $99, half the price it sold for when it was first introduced last year. “There really has never been a smartphone at this price,” says Schiller. That price was long-rumored; now, it’s confirmed.

Certainly, never a smartphone that’s held wide appeal has carried that price tag. In our database, the iPhone’s new price ties the Nokia E71x for the least expensive smartphone we’ve seen (street price, not including rebates). Though that phone has a reasonable degree of usability, it can’t compare to the simplicity and sexy “It Phone” factor of the iPhone.

The new phone, the iPhone 3G S, will be go on sale nationwide and in select countries (including the France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom) on June 19. In keeping with previous trends, the phone’s pricing tiers stay the same, only you get more memory for your money: 16GB for $199, and 32GB for $299.

You may need that extra space: Two of the big features for iPhone 3G S are the camera (upgraded to 3.0 megapixels), and the inclusion of video recording (finally) at 640 by 480 pixel resolution, 30 frames per second.

Modest Hardware Boost
The camera and the inclusion of hardware encryption — a welcome feature for business environments — are the only new features that clearly mark a hardware change, though. Even though Schiller said during the keynote that “everything inside” the phone had changed, when asked, Apple representatives declined to specify what hardware had actually changed, and instead pointed to the spec sheet on its Web site (an Apple spokesperson indicated that we could “infer” what had or hadn’t changed based on those published specs). Winks and nods offline away from the glare of the WWDC spotlight indicate that the iPhone 3G S has a faster processor, and more memory, too, as compared with the original iPhone 3G.

As such, it’s easy to point to most of the iPhone 3G S’s improvements being in software and not hardware. Some, like the addition of white balance controls on the camera, are obvious. Others, like the inclusion of voice control, for example, are less so: Apple didn’t indicate this feature would be available on earlier generation iPhones, but it also didn’t say what specifically in the new hardware enables this feature.

Likewise, some of the performance enhancements could be attributed to the new iPhone OS 3.0, available for free download to any generation iPhone (and $10 download for any generation iPod Touch) on June 17. This is especially true if one were to assume that the new OS has the same kernel core as the forthcoming Snow Leopard operating system for Mac computers; Snow Leopard also features performance enhancements.

Apple does claim a speed boost from the iPhone 3G to iPhone 3G S. According to Apple’s benchmarks, messaging will be more than twice as fast, loading Sim City 2.4x as fast, and loading the The New York Times’ home page 2.9 times as fast. Battery life improvements point to factors other than the hardware, as well. (3G S talk time, sadly, remains the same as the 3G, but data over Wi-Fi, for example, can muster an additional three hours on the iPhone 3G S as compared with the iPhone 3G-and Wi-Fi battery improvements could be due to a new chipset, or to a new software stack for the existing chipset).

Apple: Standing Still, But Reaching Deep
It was surprising to see the iPhone 3G S’s hardware be outwardly identical to its predecessor. At a time when competitors are making headlines with fresh designs, Apple instead appears to be marching in place. Recent rumors indicate this could be part of Apple’s long-term strategy, a strategy that could prove a mistake over time.

The announced features in iPhone 3G S are a modest upgrade, not a must-have upgrade — which in turn keeps users from considering a new handset purchase. Thus far, Apple has conditioned users to look forward to dramatic hardware improvements once a year. While the iPhone 3G remains a pleasing device, nearly as much as a year ago, that doesn’t mean the hardware didn’t have room to evolve. That Apple hasn’t innovated and improved upon its existing hardware and design leaves room for others to ratchet up the competition. And, it also opens room for speculation that innovation may stall without Jobs at the helm.

Apple’s new MacBook Pro notebooks don’t help promote the company’s position as an innovator. The company announced a refresh today of its 13.3-inch and 15-inch models, with lower prices, and more powerful components. Although it brought back FireWire 800 and introduced an SD Card slot, these models lacked the wow factor we’ve come to expect from Apple hardware.

Where Apple continues to hit it out of the park, though, is its App Store. As of April, more than 1 billion apps have been downloaded, and more than 50,000 are available for download. The competing App Store numbers remain modest and negligible by comparison.

The App Store juggernaut may well be the reason Apple feels it can rest easy for the moment, but Apple will have to tread carefully to keep the iPhone from becoming less an innovation and more a presumption and commodity among mainstream consumers