Windows 7 editions.. iPhone rumors

Mediabistro reported yesterday that Microsoft will release Windows 7 in 6 versions. Mediabistro split the batch up in "what people mostly won't use" and "what they will use".

In any case, it struck me that Windows 7 "Starter Edition" (meant to be used on Netbooks) only allows for 3 concurrent apps to run. Somehow I get a deja-vu DOS feeling about this. Maybe we'll all move back to single tasking operating systems!

iPhone rumors abound. The lack of any news regarding the (vaporware!) 3rd party PUSH functionality in the iPhone OS is stirring up rumors that Apple may go and allow a limited multi-tasking on the next major iPhone OS version. Limited for the current model.. again, 2 or 3 concurrent apps are mentioned. But maybe more for a new iPhone on a modern (multi-core?) platform. Who knows, but all I can say is: hurry the fuck up with either PUSH or multi-tasking Apple!

Oh and cut&paste would be nice too....

iWork '09 and iWork.com after three days

iWork '09 (and then mainly Pages) for the last couple of days. Sharing documents with others through iWork.com. I'm pretty pleased with the possibilities of this service, since it also seems to perform very well on the receiver side (web).

It's nice to discuss a document online with others, however I can see that the service isn't finished yet. Actually, I dare to say that the whole iWorks'09+iWork.com package is not ready for full collaborative working.

It starts with the uploading of the Pages document. Does it need to go through a cloud? Why not just implement a Peer-to-Peer collaboration like Coding Monkey's SubEthaEdit?
But I can see that there's revenue in a cloud service for Apple, and of course the documents are available when the author isn't (which is not the case for peer-to-peer sharing). So, I can overcome the extra cloud option.

The downloading options are of course very nice, I do not need to keep a word or pdf document next to my Pages document anymore. It's converted along the way (although I fail to understand why a Pages document is so much bigger than a doc or pdf even).

The commenting and "chatting" in the iWork shared document area is great, however there is no way for the author to directly edit the document. Also here, I can see that this is not needed (or even desired!) for the shared online document. But additionally there is currently NO way to "sync" comments back into the original Pages document.

Say for instance I send a document to my manager for review. He has some comments and we discuss these online. All fine, but in the end, there are a few items that need changing, and those comments should be available in the "offline" version as well! At least iWork '09 should retrieve the comments when I load the Pages document and highlight the areas, showing the active comment in a sidebar or HUD of some sort.

Now, I need to keep Safari open, and flip back and forth between original and shared document to check for comments and change accordingly.

Annoying, especially when you have a large document with lots of comments.

So, please Apple add the above functionality in iWork '09 and I'm a very happy puppy :-)

Additionally, some way of user management would be nice. Maybe I want my manager to be able to edit the document, but someone else only viewing/commenting. Those changes can then be synced back and marked into the original document by iWork '09. 

By the way, did you know iWork.com also has an iPhone optimized site? Unfortunately it is then only possible to view the shared document, you cannot add any comments to it. Still, it's okay for quickly reviewing smaller documents while on the road, I guess.

Macworld Expo 2009 predictions

On a lighter note than previous posts.. Everyone seems to be doing it, and I'm going to have a go at it too.

 - lots of crap talk about iTunes, Appstore successes and other sales
- 17" "unibody" MBP is a 99% cert
- New Mac Mini w/new intel CPU and no more Firefire (which would suck)
- no iMac update, these will "silently" be updated after MWSF09 I think,
unless they're going to pitch this as a "first quad core consumer
all-in-one desktop"
- updated iLife and iWork suites and
- improvements on MobileMe (again) for functionality in above suits
- no iPhone Nano (but possibly an iPod Touch Nano!)
- demo of Snow Leopard with a few bigshots in the industry and it'll be
available right after the WWDC09 possibly

 I don't think there'll be much iPod/iPhone related stuff, it'll probably
be mostly Mac related. I expect a "special event" by the end of
February, March with more iPhone/iPod announcements.

 There, now I am among those geeks that consider themselves important
enough that their predictions actually matter... (no, really)