One of the more interesting aspects of both iOS 6 and OS X Mountain Lion is the way in which Apple is further enabling intelligent background activity when iPhones, iPads, and Macs are otherwise "asleep".

People hate waiting

The appeal of everything from push email to Newsstand subscriptions is that we don't have to wait seconds, minutes, or longer for it to become available.

Tapping a button or activating a gesture, only to have to wait for data or content to refresh or download, to have to star at seemingly endless spinners and slowly crawling status bars isn't a great user experience.

A great user experience is is tapping or gesturing for content and that content being readily available and waiting for us.

To do that, processes have to poll for it regularly or "wake up" and check for it at specific intervals. iCloud and Exchange do this already. Your email, events, addresses, etc. arrive even when your iPhone and iPad are sleeping. When you go to Mail, Calendar, Contacts, etc. all the data is already there and up to date.

Power napping

With Power Nap, Apple is bringing this same level of service to the Mac, and adding several more. In addition to the other core iCloud apps -- Reminders, Notes, and Photo Stream, with Power Nap, system updates will automatically download in the background while your Mac is asleep. So will App Store updates. Time Machine backups will take place. Find my Mac will update its location. 

It all happens quietly and with a minimum of power drain. Our data simply refreshes while we're off getting other things done.

Data is only the beginning

Apple is in investigating other methods of making devices "work for us" while we're not using them, and other types of content that can be refreshed automatically in the background. 

for example, today you have to manually go to iTunes and start a download and then wait for it to finish, or open an App Store app that can then wake up and start a download.

iMore recently heard there were plans for automatic background audio/video downloads. If battery and connectivity levels allowed, just like Newsstand, new content would automatically download. 

Rumors of a new, separate Podcast app from Apple could showcase just exactly that kind of functionality. Once subscribed to a show, Podcast could wake up and download it for you and have it ready and waiting for you, instead of requiring a button tap to initiate the process, keeping you waiting for it.

"Just working"

Mobile will be constrained by greater power and connectivity concerns than desktop for the foreseeable future, but it's not hard to imagine iOS in the future doing all the same kind of background maintenance OS X Mountain Lion will be doing this year. iOS is already doing automatic iCloud backups, automatic system and app updates, among other things, might not be that far away.

While we haven't heard anything specific, the potential of these kinds of processes are phenomenal. Instead of requiring risky online maps or huge offline downloads, iOS could silently fetch and cash a radius of maps around you, offering more reliable and efficient near-line and just-in-time navigation.

Anything that requires the management of large blobs of data or content could be handled this way. Apple products are famously said to "just work". These types of Apple services could be seen as "just working".

iOS 6, Mountain Lion, and beyond

How much of this is already in iOS 6, how much more could be announced at the presumed October iPhone 5 event, and how much will come in future updates only Apple and NDA-bound developers know for sure. But it's getting increasingly hard to imagine is not coming.

Make all the Skynet or the Matrix jokes you like, but there could soon come a time when all our Apple devices busily get to work handling all the little things, leaving us free to get the big things done.

On the fourth day of WWDC, Rene, Seth, and I went full out at Moscone Center, talking with developers (you'll see the video soon), meeting up with Mark Gurman and some other bloggers, and joining AgileBits, Ecamm, Jake Behrens, and Merlin Mann for dinner.

I don't have very many stories in between photos this time around, so I'm just going to embed them all here for you to scroll through and enjoy!

Day four

Seth at WWDC

Rene at WWDC

Seth and Leanna at WWDC

Rene and Leanna at WWDC

Table of apps made from iPads

There was a really cool table made out of iPads in the Moscone Center that featured a scrolling grid of app icons. Every time an icon blinked, it represented a sale, and when an app caused a ripple, it represented a hundred sales. With all the blinking and ripples that was going on, this table ultimately represented lots and lots of cash!

Leanna and Seth checking out the iPad table of apps

Hanging out with Mark Gurman at the Marriott

Mark, Rene, and Seth at the Marriott

Seth checking out something rather serious on his iPhone

David Barnard being silly

Leanna and Mark

At the end of the day, Rene, Seth, and I headed for dinner with AgileBits, Ecamm, Jake Behrens, and Merlin Mann at Anzu in the hotel Nikko.

Cooking our meat on steaming stones

Leanna and Seth being silly

Cheers!

At the end of dinner. Seth finally had an opportunity to meet Merlin Mann and let him know that... he looked nice today.

The meeting started out appropriate and normal.

Then things started getting a little weird...

...then just got strait up awkward.

Day five

Friday was our last day and Seth was the first of us to head home. Before saying our goodbyes, we went out for breakfast at La Boulange Bakery.

Seth and Leanna at breakfast

While attempting to work on this photo blog, Leanna fell asleep on a couch in the Moscone Center due to exhaustion

Rene at Verizon to return the MiFi that failed us during the keynote

After a day of blogging and running errands like checking out of the hotel, returning MiFi's and eating lunch, it was time to drop off Rene at the airport and say goodbye.

San Francisco International Airport

Rene and Leanna at SFO

See ya next year!