Lunch breaks have never been stretched this long. More details are coming in about where you can catch the live stream of Apple’s Keynote at WWDC. A particularly thorough user on MacRumors has posted a complete list of Apple Stores confirmed to have broadcasts, though you can bet any store with a theater and a dish will have it — provided Northridge fixes problems they’re having with their dish. MacMinute reports the University of Michigan, University of Manitoba, and Winona State University will have broadcasts. Know of other locations? Post a story to the Newswire or email me and I’ll compile a list before Monday.

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Apparently under construction since the waning days of the Carter Administration, Apple is now opening its North Michigan Avenue store in Chicago on Friday June 27th from 6:00 to 11:00 pm. A lot of celebrity guests, including Cheap Trick and Paul Wertico on a regular series of Music Nights, are lined up for the month of July, and the grand opening will feature Eddie and Jobo of the WBBM morning show (demonstrating iTunes, no less, and holding a trivia contest), plus a live DJ and sweepstakes. And of course, Apple will be giving out its trademark grand opening t-shirts. Way to go, Chicago, some great events lined up and you’ve scored the first-ever “Apple Store Internet Cafe” — no more crowding around display eMacs just to check email.

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The Wall Street Journal Online has launched a new feature on AOL Instant Messenger that allows you to get the latest news using this real-time tool.

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Daniel Eran Dilger writes, “I’ve written an article entitled “What to expect at WWDC 2003″ that describes some of the new technologies Apple will be announcing later this month.” Dan’s article spotlights likely technology in Panther including overhauled QuickTime architecture with more multithreading and conferencing and collaboration tools, better Directory Services with improvements to Mail, Address Book, and iSync (finally!), a new open file system, graphical remote login, and much more. It’s all music to our ears. Unless you’re doing 3D rendering work, Apple’s bread and butter runs really fast on its latest hardware, but everyone can benefit from under-the-hood improvements. If Apple really is doing this much to OS X’s guts, we’ll celebrate, and hopefully wild hardware rumors won’t steal the thunder from X.

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Well, it’s official: some of us were hoping that Apple was just dragging its feet, letting IDG sweat, and waiting to announce that Steve Jobs would indeed keynote Macworld CreativePro in New York. Yesterday, Apple announced that instead VP of Hardware Product Marketing Greg Joswiak would perform the honors — meaning I guess we won’t have to wake up too early Tuesday morning to stand in line. Meanwhile, WWDC will get a Stevenote, and it may even be webcast. What’s it all mean? (Read more)

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If you have been wanting a zero-force keyboard with support for mousing and even gestures built into your Powerbook G4 (15″) then it’s coming next month: the Fingerworks TouchStream MacNTouch is available for pre-order. (Read more)

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Nokia has announced the coming release of several new handsets Monday. The most exciting to me is the Nokia 6600. Another camera-equipped Symbian Series60 mobile phone with a better display, more versatile camera, and less child-like apperances. My observations and summary are available on my website.

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New Airport Base Station upgrade offers outstanding reception and range

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Palm got a great deal with the Handspring merger: the Treo 600, for which Handspring has just posted a preview. It’s a combination PDA-smartphone with QWERTY keyboard, but it actually resembles a phone. (As long as you don’t mind microscopic keyboards.) Features include Palm OS 5, ARM processor, built-in camera and a full-featured web browser with JavaScript support and software download capability for surfing “any web site.” Oh, and it may feature porn. BBC’s Mark Ward says saucy material, porn or not, is likely to show up as companies try to push 3G. In other PDA news, Sony is prepping new handhelds of its own as successors to the classic clamshell design. We’re guessing Playboy Bunny ears will be optional.

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Remember the good ol days? When Apple cared about their customers and valued quality and their reputation? I do; though the memory is fading into the distant past. I have been trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, but they keep letting me down; and I can’t seem to lower my expectations as fast as they can lower their realizations of them. The latest example is a long and sordid tale of “how not to manage customer relations” in regards to my PowerBook G4. iGeek

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