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OS X 10.5 'secret features' prediction poll...
Authored by: Rhetorical on Jun 08, '07 01:20:51AM

If it is the case that the sessions are aready set, whatever is announced can not require new independent sessions, unless some named sessions are dummies. Some poll replies suggest new applications but that would not be of broad interest to developers unless the application provided a key service to other developers. So an element of OS X worth keeping secret has to be something M$ might respond to if given notice in January. A spreadsheet app would not merit a M$ response, even if well done, because they alreay have a mature, workable product in Excel. So the feature might be ZDF since it has been "leaked" recently and drawn notable thoughtful discussion. It is praised by many and the market has been saturated with positive comments, so if true, Apple has a pre-made case for adoption. The rumor's critics focus on the difficulty ZDF represents; so if it doesn't happen, Apple can be acclaimed for dodging problems. Either way, Apple wins.

Generally the announcement, when it comes, is less revolutionary than the most imaginative rumors, but it from a different direction than anyone expects. This type of surprise invokes the "reality distortion field" references in later comments, but the act itself is always surprising.

To have great impact on developers but not require many intensive sessions at WWDC, any secret feature has do "just work" or be able to be covered within existing sessions. This could be iPhone-like double touch displays but is more likely to be some quality that vastly expands the market appeal of Macs. Double touch would requre the purchase of new hardware and not be immediately of interest to developers because the market would only be new system buyers.

The ability to run Windows Apps native, would be a great market expander but if that really worked, it wouldn't require developers to develop anything. The Windows developers aren't all signed up for WWDC and such a feature would not require them to do any work. Plus it would hurt current Mac developers by drawing lots of competitive applications to the Mac.

So what could Apple add to OS X that will benefit developers and will require their active support?

One OS X app that is missing is a thing like iPhoto or iTunes than manages documents: eBooks if you will. A system wide iRead could replace the crinky Help program and manage text, PDF, and other document formats. By serving text entities into apps like iWeb, it could ease the management of text updates into websites and Pages and Keynote documents. Many folks have forgotten that iTunes as a tool to "RIP MIX BURN" was released about 9 months before the iPod. An iRead app could preceed a real ebook reader, an iPod for books.

Anyone got other suggestions?



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