No iPhone at WWDC 2011

If you’d been hoping to see some new hardware at Apple’s 2011 Worldwide Developers Conference, you might want to recalibrate your expectations. The company announced dates for the event this morning–Monday, June 6 through Friday, June 10–and the design and wording of the announcement all suggest this year’s WWDC is largely focused on software, not hardware.

Consider this quote from Apple’s SVP of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller. “At this year’s conference we are going to unveil the future of iOS and Mac OS. If you are an iOS or Mac OS X software developer, this is the event that you do not want to miss.”

But if you’re a consumer hoping to get a peek at the next iteration of the iPhone, well…you may not want to get your hopes up too much–even if Apple has used WWDC to unveil updates to the device in years past. I’m hearing explicitly that this year it’s a software event (Over at The Loop, Jim Dalrymple’s hearing the same thing) Said one source, “If you go looking for iPhone 5, you’re probably going to be disappointed.”

Which makes you wonder what Apple’s planning for iPhone 5. I’m just guessing here, but I think postponing the unveiling and release of the device could be an indication that its next iteration will run on 4G LTE networks. Remember, AT&T is expected to launch its LTE network by the middle of the year and Verizon’s is already up and running. And what was it China Mobile Chairman Wang Jianzhou said earlier this month? “[Steve] Jobs has expressed his interest in an LTE iPhone and is willing to start the development at an early date” …