I’ve been away for a while, though not from my Mac of course. Now the calendar is again creeping up on the holidays, and gifts and new years and, well…what the calendar is always creeping up on—tomorrow. What would the current season be, however, without a wish list for old Saint Nick. So here it goes…are you listening Uncle Steve? We know the Christmas at Cupertino comes in January at the Moscone Center, so we promise to be patient.

1. An iPhone that can go head-to-head with a Treo or a Blackberry in functionality. I know it’s the most beautiful piece of technology in the world. I know it’s really a mobile computer that also happens to be a phone. I know that third-party apps are coming with the SDK in February, but can’t we have a phone that does the minimum tasks that come standard in every Palm device sold in the sophisticated way that professionals need? Can’t we have a to-do list? Following an aborted four miserable weeks trying to work with a BlackBerry, I know that the user interface that we get from Apple is a sometimes-underappreciated blessing, but it’s not the only thing that we need. Isn’t there a way to bring some of the slick new Mail functionality and iCal interface to the iPhone party? Please?
2. Some clarity around Apple TV. The past six months of my techno year have been focused on AV in the house. Now that I have finally pulled the trigger on HD and swapped out most of my equipment, I am stymied trying to decide if Apple is really serious about TV. Rumors and indications seem to suggest movie rentals (surely you don’t think you are going to go toe-to-toe with Netflix!?!), and there is ongoing speculation about an HD offering from the iTunes store. So what is Apple going to do? Continue to sell SD quality, DRM’ed movies in the iTunes store? The Ethernet ports on the back side of my TiVo and HD DVD player tell me that things are moving forward and that if Apple is going to be involved, we ought to be seeing something soon. Alternatively, there might be a great after-Christmas sale on Apple TVs.
3. Uncle Steve, while you’re playing Santa, can you do something for a friend of mine? He’s convinced that you have all the technology in hand that you need to produce a first-rate compact notebook and wonders why you haven’t added something to the product line that so many people are asking for.
4. And what’s Christmas, Uncle Steve, without some stocking stuffers? A little flash memory to speed things up in the laptop department? Some more work on Safari which, as lovely as it is, continues to be an issue on a number of Web sites? Some tweaks of Leopard? (I’d settle for a way to absolutely disable Spaces so that it doesn’t activate in the middle of a dungeon fight in the Outlands!) More DRM-free music at the iTunes store?

But seriously, Uncle Steve, I know that no matter what I put on my list, you’ll come up with something I didn’t realize I needed but suddenly can’t live without. In fact, that’s the reason that it will be easy to get to sleep on Macworld Eve. Sweet dreams—I’ll leave the cookies and milk on the mantle.

Copyright © 2007 Mike Chamberlain, mchamberlain@atpm.com.