MacCentral yesterday reports that insiders have told the Wall Street Journal Apple is working on “killer apps” to strengthen the platform: Not exactly an earthshaking rumor given that Jobs himself has said this publicly.
Apparently the rumor mill thinks that there will be two apps released in the next few months, and that iMusic will be an MP3 player/CD recorder application. With excellent choices like Audion (which just added encoding) and SoundJam, that seems a little strange to me, and hardly on par with a creative application like iMovie. Rumors point to Apple purchasing CD recording and hard drive formatting software, but I personally hope that would be something Apple’s planning to build directly into the OS.
My own hope is still for a creative music-making application, but I’ll hold off on any bets. Jobs has been known to suggest ideas without being aware of the technical requirements, so while I’ll be happy to see more “i” applications, who knows what will surface.
On the other hand, I don’t think anyone would have predicted iMovie, either, and with version 2.0 this application has matured as a really useful program. iMovie has also vitalized the Mac as a video platform, while not scaring away other developers. (Look at the new version of Adobe Premiere.) Despite failures like AppleWorks 6, maybe Apple really does have a shot as a developer. [Peter Kirn, Associate Editor]
