Apple Apps I want to see on iOS

I am a big Apple fan and I am fast falling into the hardcore category, I work on a mac, I own a mac, I have an iPhone, an iPod. I spend most of my time working on apple products or software and I'm trying to save for an iPad as I want one to ease my working day.

This got me thinking of the Apps available on the iOS and what I'd like to see in future.

So I looked at what's currently available:

Mobile Me Related apps - iDisk, Find My iPhone, Gallery
iWorks Related - Pages, Keynote, Numbers, Keynote remote
iLife Related - iMovie
Remote (iTunes controller), iBooks

That's not to mention Mail, iTunes, App Store, Notes, Photos, Calculatore, Contacts that are built in iOS but also appear on my Mac.

So what could we see appear in the future, that i personally would like Apple to make.

I think that we will start with iLife applications, obviously iMovie has made the transfer and iPhoto is represented as Photos but what else.

First I think that the new release of iLife that's rumored to have a mystery application, will see an iOS flavor, whether that's something on the iOS already on Mac or a app release iwe will have to wait and see. I'm expecting an encoding/sharing software like compressor for creating iTunes content such as videos or audio maybe even iTunes LP's.

Next I'd expect iWeb to make an appearance in the apps store. This web building tool is for blogging, podcasting, updating my website so I'd expect to be able to blog on the road with the iPad or podcast on the iPhone and it sync with my Mac version especially if I'm publishing to Mobile me.

Garage Band is the program I think would be the most interesting to turn into a series of apps. It's so big but has three distinct sections I'd love to see as separate apps.

First is the most recent addition of 'Learn to Play" I can see this being a very advanced app, where it's a store for downloading lessons like the artist lessons already available, but extends the range of instruments and artists available, i'd also think it appropriate to provide sheet music via this store. Really breaking away the learning at the computer and opening up even more creativity.

Second, is the podcasting capabilities of Garageband and how that integrates with Podcast Producer another Mac program.  This could become an amazingly useful app that could integrate with the iWeb app and social networks to bring something quite unique.

Thirdly the heart of Garage band is to create music so an app to allow music notation or basic music creation would be beatifically to any musician who finds the creative juice take hold.

These apps would complement what I currently use on my computer and bring my creativity with me always. For me though there are still things missing and these are found by more advanced users of Apple products.

ARD or Apple Remote Desktop is an application for administering computers among other tasks. Many of the features available in ARD are available in apps already but I'd like to have access to my ARD on an iPad when I'm away from my computer because that's always when I need access to ARD's functions.

Pro Apps - These applications are for the advanced photographers, filmmakers and musicians now I'm sure every application has some features that would be ideal for the iOS, for me though it falls into Final Cut Server. Though the program needs lots of work as a whole, what it does well I'd like to have access to as an app. Such as using the client app on my mac to look through files, play video and add meta-data to be able to do this on the move would be great. My ultimate wish would be to use my iOS device to send the data via a Final Cut Server App to my server, whether that's just the meta data notes or the actual files, all of it would befit the filmmaker. This I think will have to wait for the technology to catch up.

So by looks of it there are still potential for a lot of programs to become apps in the future its only our imaginations that can stop us.

Rotting Apples - an the multimedia hardware giant turn around it's rotting apples?

Apple - computer genius, music maestro, communication artist and now publication facilitator. Apple is all these things, and more. The once struggling company has taken its time and effort to build not only a successful brand but also a variety of products made for the IT generation.

What makes apple so popular is its ability to innovate but still have a reliability and stability to it's products. That's not all, they create a buzz around their products and an education on how to use them, as they innovate the basic functions that were outrageous to begin with become normal.

With the launch of the iPad and the fact it's sold two million of them, I turned myself to the less innovative products. The ones that have been starting to rot with time.

The World Wide Developers conference may be the place for these rotting apples to get a new lease of life. Apple's chance to update the lines and innovate products to mass appeal or to let them rot away.

So what are these products and what are my predictions:


iPhone - It's a year since the iPhone had any hardware upgrade and recent leaks show that an all new 4th generation iPhone should be on it's way. There may be a few surprises but my betting is we wont see 4G technology or secure meemory card technology to enable apps to take advantage of existing products such as Visa's Pay Wave or London tube's Oyster card for at least another year.


iTunes - With the recent release of iBooks on the iPad and promises it will join the iPhone in the summer, that can only means iTunes will get access to this little bookstore and the ability to read books on your computer. Also there are talks of iTunes getting streaming capability, but this is apple they will have some other surprises and upgrades, my money is on Genius and Home Sharing.


Apple TV- Known as Apple's hobby this year is the make or break for the device that could be so much but delivers so little. So betting is Apple will be showcasing some updated hardware and hopefully a fully fledged software upgrade that takes the things they do so well in their other products. So I expect to see video streaming, video/audio app integration and a new improved Home Sharing.


iLife - The media application suite that ships with Mac's hasn't been updated since iLife'09 so maybe there will be an announcement of a 2011 version with some new feature. Faces and Places improvements no doubt top of the list but maybe some app versions for the iPad and iPhone. I would love to see garage bands Artists lessons as an app or an ability to edit podcasts on the move.


iWorks - Again not updated since the iWork'09 but since then iWorks.com has been updating slowly, the iPad version has been released. So surely the Mac version will get some updates to improve stability between these and some new features itself. I think iWorks.com may come out of beta or some major changes will appear.

Mobile me - This hasn't had a major upgrade since it's launch but it has had a number of major tweaks and recently a new version of mail in Beta. My bet is a few more announcements on mobile me, especially if there is a new iPhone and iTunes finally brings its streaming capabilities. Maybe we shall see more integration of iTunes and iWorks.com.


ARD 4 - Apple Remote Desktop hasn't had a good update in years, some may ask what the big deal. Well the answer is simple, Business. Business needs to keep updating their computers and help IT control from a distance, ARD allows this to happen and more on Apple computers. What I'm predicting are some major changes and some surprising ones. First up is Boot Camp support, apple have no control over rebooting a boot camped machine or even installing Boot Camped images over a network and with more and more companies going for this set up, there is a cry for this control. iPhone & iPad support, with the OS4 bringing a raft of business enterprise features, why cant we see these being distributed and controlled from ARD. I myself would like to see the Find my iPhone feature from Mobile Me brought to ARD.


Publication software - This is more a prediction than any hard evidence but all the same there is a gap in the market and Apple could fill it.  When the iPad launched the publishing world, particularly print said it could save its industry. Now it's still early day but it does have that potential and you can see those trying to make it work, but that's where it stops. Apple needs to bring a Pro App software for print publications. I think apple will be looking at something revolutionary that will receive news stories or assignments, integrate with Final Cut Serve to bring video, audio and pictures to attach to stories. Give them the ability to write stories and create ePub magazines/papers and publish to the web with just a few clicks. It wouldn't surprise me if we saw iAd integration in the output and that there was an iPad app for the journalists to send stories in. I also think Apple would create this so that lots of social media could be taken advantage of and that news hubs could be created so local newspapers could supply national newspapers or UK and US editions of magazines could share stories and articles.

I think I'll wait and see what Steve Jobs says in his speech at the World Wide Developers Conference on June 9th. 

The Print Revolution

I've been actively researching about forth coming iPad and what it could mean to the print industry for work. It occurs to me we are approaching the start of the print revolution.

We've been in the digital revolution for a while and it can be broken down into several small revolutionary movements, such as the digital music revolution.  this however could be the most pertinent as the the oldest medium of print starts its move to digital form.

You could say that it started a while ago with the launch of kindle and if you want you can say even further back with the launch of the internet. These are both good points but i think its the start of the end of print as a physical format that is the point.

I'm an Apple fan and make no excuses for that but what I think Apple are good at, are finding a digital market and pushing it to a common international standard. In terms of the forthcoming iPad they are taking the book and providing a form to read it on. The iPad isn't perfect as it doesn't yet help bring magazines, newspapers and comics to the device natively as it does with books. Thanks to the App Store this won't be much of a problem but i can't help feel an app called Newspaper stand that allows subscriptions to newspapers and Magazines in a way iBooks does is missing.

So the great thing is the future will see digital editions of our favorite print publications coming to us for a reasonable price. The down side is the past. What about old books, editions not currently in print or even ones that never will be again. Of course we could scour e-bay and old book shops but we are used to things at our fingertips. This is the problem being addressed by the Gutenberg Project and to an extent Google Books. Now both projects have their faults and their advantages. Google Books is probably the most publicized due to the copy-write back lash by authors and publishers.

Here is my proposal, all publishers agree to bring all editions of their back catalog to digital format. In response to that these digitizing projects will only digitize out of print books that, a) don't have a publisher who still exists, b) who's copy-write is out of date and c) won't be available in a digital format without these projects such as university and public libraries.

These companies can work together to bring archived material into the public domain at a lower cost to themselves and bring the print to an larger audience. Local newspaper archives would most benefit from these. I personally would like to research local newspapers without having to spend days at the library, looking through thousands of papers, when the internet takes seconds.

As I said we are on the cusp of the Print revolution but its only by bringing as much of the old print to the new format that we will truly benefit. True it will eventually kill off the print medium but its better to preserve the knowledge than loose it due to arguments over money.  Also true it will eventually kill off the library (which I'm a fan of), but this will only happen if the library doesn't evolve but the benefit is a library run at cheaper costs with more books than any one building can currently hold.

So I say embrace the change, push for digitization even if it is only to preserve the past for the future.