iOS 5 is definitely going to be a major part of the keynote. The question is what iOS 5 will actually entail.
I'm confident that notifications are going to be a part of it, but when they plan on dedicating the whole keynote to software releases, one wonders how they can sell it.
iCloud, iOS 5 - maybe some great stuff for developers such as Apple-hosted databases. Personally, I am crossing my fingers for an iBooks overhaul, but that's probably too optimistic.
Cloud-synced bookmarks and notes - preferably with a social profile like that of Kindle[1][2]. The way I read books is to make a lot of notes and highlights; I know some people don't do this, but this helps me summarize books more easily and "reread" them, if I need to. Picking out your favourite passages of Aesop, The Art of War and The Prince is extremely convenient. That not how everyone reads and digests books, but it's definitely how I do - and I assume that many students will want to do the same with their textbooks.
The book selection is also very meagre[3] (at least in this country), but more important, some of the available free books are typeset from hell. It's just a copy-paste of Project Gutenberg and similar endeavours, which are not formatted for iBooks at all. This does not inspire me to buy any iBooks, and it leaves me to wonder how the (free) book user experience can be so bad, when Apple make such an effort of vetting apps from trivial ailments.
Another, perhaps minor, thing is that I can't highlight across pages, which drives me absolutely bonkers.
If I were an author (or worked for one) and wanted to release a book on iOS, would I distribute it via iBooks or create a native app for it like Al Gore did? I honestly don't know, and I have a feeling that my hesitation has more to do with the shortcomings of iBooks than the allure of making a standalone app.
[2]: I'm sure it would be in Steve Jobs's best interest to make us forget Ping as soon as possible. Better to replace something vapid with something slightly high-brow.
iBooks doesn't have a social profile, but it does have syncing of bookmarks, notes, and progress to other iOS devices. Not accessible from the Web or your Mac (since there's no iBooks for Mac), though... anyway, I definitely agree with you about iBooks' shortcomings.
Yeah, I know it cross-syncs, but the back-ups process is a real pain, and if people lose the back-up, they risk losing everything. It also bothers me ever so slightly that I can't read the iBooks in iTunes.
How about not making it so closed and limited? The Kindle app lets me read my books on my PC, my Mac, my BlackBerry, iPad, iPod Touch, Kindle, and the list goes on.
Buy a book on the App Store and you're confined to ONLY iOS devices.
I'm confident that notifications are going to be a part of it, but when they plan on dedicating the whole keynote to software releases, one wonders how they can sell it.
iCloud, iOS 5 - maybe some great stuff for developers such as Apple-hosted databases. Personally, I am crossing my fingers for an iBooks overhaul, but that's probably too optimistic.