Commentary--So What Should Steve Announce?

As we mentioned on Monday, we are not going to engage in rumor mongering nor make up stuff that has a chance of being close to right claiming we got it from inside sources nor post information from "insiders" who break their pledges or oaths of confidentiality. We are just going to briefly describe the top three items that we think Apple should produce and announce in software and hardware.

Software:

-Mac OS X--Apple has already announced what will be new in "Jaguar," the next version of Mac OS X. Jaguar's new and adopted technology surpasses everything we can think of so this one's a gimme. Apple should, and by anyone's guess will, demo all the new features of Mac OS X, especially the stuff brand new to a major OS like the handwriting recognition technology, Ink. And we'd really like to see the speed of Quartz Extreme. Apple should really sell Jaguar as hard as possible, especially with all the concerns about Windows security flying about.

-iTV--What other digital device is left to integrate into Apple's hub of your digital life style? There are already PDA's, music, photos and both digital video and DVD movies. Sending movies or slides to your large screen TV wirelessly using bluetooth or AirPort or digitally encoding programs from a TV that can be edited and shown on your TV or Mac would complete the integration of the main digital devices. I know this can be done already with a variety of gear and wires but Apple should produce that simple killer application and simple technology to allow a simple consumer to do it easily. Oops! It's been done by a third party--partly anyway. EyeTV, a personal video recorder, by El Gato Software will be introduced at Macworld. We'll check it out but it is not wireless.

-AppleOffice--AppleWorks (AW) is probably the most under appreciated productivity software there is. For most people it can already do almost anything that Microsoft Office v.X can do. We use it for virtually everything except email, contacts and PowerPoint presentations. So why doesn't AW have a better reputation and see more use? We believe it is because AW is a "tweener," i.e. a little more than many people need but a little short of Microsoft Office. Apple should take the last few steps to make AW into AppleOffice, a serious contender to Office v.X. For example, Apple will shortly have a great email program in OS X's Mail and contact manager in OS X's Address Book but Apple needs to enable them to work seamlessly with wintel servers and virtual private networks (VPN). Fluency with Microsoft Access and perfect translations with the latest PC versions of Word and Excel are essential. AW has a long way to go to approach PowerPoint but that is true of all presentation software that we are aware of. But Apple should do it, especially by 2003 when M$ Office v.X goes into limbo according to Kevin Browne, M$'s Mac Business Manager.