iPhone: 3G, video chat, GPS, new colors, different design…Forget about them! The next best thing for the iPhone is the SDK and the AppStore. Today when Jobs will take up the stage to deliver his keynote, he will surely speak about AppStore.

Let’s not forget that he will be talking in front of more than 5,000 developers who don’t care so much about the hardware itself, but more about the opportunity to develop new applications for iPhone (and of course for Mac OS X)

In fact, Apple has already offered some hints about what we can expect at WWDC:  over 150 sessions and labs, with Apple engineers going into details on the technologies that power the iPhone OS, Leopard and Leopard Server. The conference will include the first-ever iPhone track sessions for developers and the iPhone Lab, with insight into development techniques, including interface, web capabilities and iPhone SDK.

And of course, one of the “stars” of the event will be the AppStore.

Steve Jobs has announced the AppStore back in March and it is basically new application that lets users browse, search, purchase and wirelessly download third party applications directly onto their iPhone or iPod Touch.

Practically, every developer can submit their applications to the AppStore; Apple would retain 30 percent of all sales revenues.

Users can download free applications at no charge to either the user or developer, or purchase priced applications with just one click. Enterprise customers will be able to create a secure, private page on the AppStore accessible only by their employees. Apple will cover all credit card, web hosting, infrastructure and DRM costs associated with offering applications on the App Store.

Third party iPhone and iPod touch applications must be approved by Apple and will be available exclusively through the App Store.

Today Steve Jobs will probably unveil the final version of AppStore and the virtual place will probably open for business. As the iPhone SDK is already available it means that, in a very short period of time, there will be hundreds, maybe thousands of applications available for iPhone in AppStore.  

The number and quality of developed applications will certainly influence the way the iPhone is perceived from now on. Some of them will only try to exploit certain features, others will attempt to give the Apple gadget new uses while others still will extend the range of existing features.

It will be interesting to see if there will be one killer application that redefines the iPhone. This month iPhone also celebrates its first anniversary which is old age considering the average life expectancy for a premium product. Try to see which of the premium mobile phones launched a year ago still have the same price or are still fashionable.

Unlike the iPod, the iPhone is on a market where competition is unforgiving and barely a week goes by that new models are not released.

As it is, numerous mobile phones have already successfully adopted the touchscreen, that one feature that singled the iPhone out among all other models.

Once its product turns 1-year-old, Apple will have to do something to resuscitate consumers’ interest and fascination. Aside from improvements and a 3G model, there’s little Apple can do in this direction.

So it seems like the Cupertino company decided to reinvent the use of a mobile phone. As the effort of hiring a department that keeps making software for iPhone would have been too great, Steve Jobs came up with the SDK.

It will be interesting to see how the other mobile phone producers will try to counter what Apple is doing at the moment, i.e. emphasizing hardware, not software.

Also, Apple has gained an incredible marketing force. Each of the companies promoting their iPhone applications will implicitly promote Apple’s phone. Steve Jobs proves his genius once more: he has found a huge library of applications, a new revenue stream generated by iPhone and marketing that he would have otherwise had to pay at least several tens of millions for.

On the other hand there were rumors that Google is aiming to release its own AppStore for Android. During the Google I/O developer conference, Andy Rubin, Android project leader, hinted about an application similar to AppStore, from where the users will be able to securely download content provided by the community of Android developers.

It will be interesting to see the two giants compete against each other.

Also, with the AppStore out  it is not so hard to guess that soon lot of new games will be created for iPod Touch (and for iPhone of course), not only by the gaming companies, but also by independent developers. It seems like soon enough we will see a head to head competition between iPod touch and PSP or Nintendo DS.

But you can be sure that the AppStore will not be the only attraction of Job’s keynote. Last year, Jobs unveiled the Windows version of its famous web browser, Safari. Safari supports CSS animations, CSS web fonts, and HTML 5 media support, improved SVG support, and HTML 5's offline storage support, among other features. Maybe we will see another Apple’s application making its way to the Windows platform? However, with or without the iPhone, Apple’s conference is an event worth seeing.