With theiPhonelaunch behind us and the Leopard expiration still ahead of us and the Summer of Updated Laptops continuing apace , it ’s time to think the next product Apple has tucked up its ever mystical arm . Barring the unveiling of some - as - of - yet covert offering — Buttonless iPods ! iCar ! A set - top boxful that not only plays your Mac - based metier on a TV but cancel movies , TV shows and medicine that it finds banal and beneath you!—I think the next item on Apple ’s agenda should be a distich of software program suites that have n’t see an update since the genus Halcyon day of former 2006.iLifeandiWorkboth could apply a little freshening up .
Nothing against the suites , which still do what they do rather well . But it has been 19 calendar month since Apple trotted out novel versions of its lifestyle and productivity apps at the 2006 Macworld Expo . Apple slap an “ ’ 06 ” on the label , which is so … well … 2006 . Better to get a fresh version out there , now that we ’re closer in the calendar to 2008 than we are to 2006 .
Besides , both iLife and iWork figure conspicuously into Apple ’s plans for sell its ironware . iLife is often bluster as an advantage over a more garden - variety PC in thoseGet a Mac ads , so it ’s not as if this is a suite Apple is going to lease fall off the radar for too long . iWork does n’t garner as much care as its iPhoto - iMovie - iDVD - iWeb - GarageBand - take vis-a-vis , but now is as good a time as any for an update , especially with Microsoft taking its own sweet time to overhaul itsnearly four - yr - old productiveness cortege .
If we can slue off into the Realm of Speculation for just a 2nd ( just a little ways by from deadened damage in Public Boulevard ) , I ’d be willing to wager that we have n’t seen new versions of iLife and iWork yet this year because we have n’t seen a young version of OS X. When Apple stay OS X 10.5 ’s planned springiness arrival , on the face of it to roll the iPhone out the door , it probably also pushed back the liberation of iLife 2007 or iWork Leopard or iLife : This Should Tide You Over for Another 18 Months , or whatever the heck they were go to call it . And ifthatis genuinely the case , then it ’s not exactly a leap in logical system to conclude that iLife and iWork are missing - in - activeness because they depend somewhat on feature article slate to go far in Leopard .
The question is , which one ? Scanning the array of pre - announced Leopard features , I ’d have to pretend that Quick Look is a leading contender . That feature article lets you view the table of contents of a single file without having to open it , and it seems like a natural for quickly pasture movies , images , Keynote presentations , and Pages written document from within an iLife or iWork app . I can also see the entourage being reworked to take advantage of the Stacks feature in Leopard ’s revised Desktop , maybe with a few default stack folders already waiting your mixed projects for each of the iLife and iWork apps .
So does that intend in the crazy phantasy world I ’ve created for myself , that iLife ’ twelvemonth - to - Be - Determined and iWork ’ Whenever will only melt on OS X 10.5 , leaving Tiger users gamy and wry . That seems unlikely . I ’m trusted the updated retinue will run on both Leopard and Tiger ( though credibly not Panther ) , though i could see Apple promoting a few O X 10.5 - only characteristic as part of an effort to spur OS upgrade .
Since we ’re throwing caution to the steer here , give up me to inch out a niggling further on the limb and omen that if iLife were to sum up a sixth app , it would be some sort of multimedia system manager , along the crease of Front Row ( which is going to be part of OS X 10.5 anyhow , so why not give it a home here ? ) . tally apps to iWork seems like it would be much more of a precedency , though ; after all , this suite has only contained Keynote and Pages since its 2005 debut . If Apple really sees iWork as a big - meter productiveness suite — and if it wants to have the supply incentive of making Redmond perspire a picayune — a spreadsheet app seems like a natural addition . All the other Office components have some sorting of Apple - made equivalent weight ( Word = Pages , PowerPoint = Keynote , Entourage = Mail ) ; why should n’t Excel have to confront some Cupertino - make competition .
That ’s my iLife and iWork speculation on an unused summertime ’s Clarence Day , at any rate . I ’d love to listen about what apps you think might get add together , what features you think need improving , and whether you agree that the ship date of these cortege is tied into Leopard ’s forthcoming debut .
