According to my web server stats, my previous post was pretty popular. It turns out that Iljitsch van Beijnum, an Ars Technica blogger read it and used it as an inspiration to speculate that Leopard will include a revolutionary new 3D user interface.

I totally disagree with his reasoning. I think that Iljitsch completely misunderstood my original post. What I said (among other things) was that the delay in releasing iWork/iLife was probably due to the fact that these application suites would use the new APIs available in Leopard (in order to bootstrap their use by other OS X software developers) and that the new “secret” features would probably not be new unannounced APIs but instead new end-user oriented “applications” like time machine, iChat or iSync that have no impact whatsoever on third party applications.

That does not mean that Apple could not use the release of Leopard to solve the many visual inconsistencies that have plagued Mac OS X for the last few years or add some nifty animations and special effects, but do not expect a total revolution. Rolling out a radically new user interface without impacting third party applications is not a reasonable expectation, even if we incorrectly assumed that all developers use the Cocoa framework properly.

During the analyst call following Apple’s Q1 earning announcement hosted by Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer, someone asked the question that is in every Mac user’s mind. What happened to iLife and iWork 07. The response was “Stay tuned…”.

It is obvious that Apple is only weeks or months away from announcing the updates. Of course, that means that, as many expect, these updated products will use new Leopard features, since we are less than three months away from the introduction of Apple’s latest OS, which is still scheduled for this Spring, despite rumors to the contrary.

The question, of course, is what new Leopard features are so important that they require Apple to sync the releases of the OS and their applications. Many will probably point out that the new Core Animation API is a good fit for iMovie and that most applications can benefit from Image Kit as well as the new Core Text API. That is true. However, my gut feeling is that there is something more.

I believe that Apple will include in Leopard some new functionality that will require major changes to existing applications. By releasing updated applications that make use of this new functionality and demonstrate its potential, Apple will force independent developers to adopt this technology.

So, what could that technology be? My first thought was resolution independence. That new feature will require almost all developers to revisit their applications and it is clear to me that quick adoption of this technology is important to Apple in order to maintain the current public perception that Apple is ahead in the OS wars. Is that enough to justify delaying iWork and iLife? Probably not. The new applications will probably use some additional, unannounced features to generate excitement.

This should not come as a surprise. My perception at last WWDC was that while the new announced Leopard features were cool, they were mostly self-serving. If Apple really listened to developers they would have set different priorities like enhancing support for web services in Cocoa instead of developing the Core Animation API. This means that from my point of view, Apple mainly defines the future of Mac OS X based on their own requirements with little regard for developer requests. There are many examples that illustrate this situation like lack of support for Quicktime-Java or abandoning the Objective-C/Java bridge despite the opposition of many third-party developers. Even Java/SWT support, despite being very important for developers, is still deficient despite countless promises to bridge the existing gap with other platforms.

That does not mean that developing for the Mac OS X isn’t fun. Hey, I love the platform and I will do my best to attend WWDC again this year. In fact, I am quite sure that I will enjoy playing with many of the new APIs as well as with XCode 3.0. However, I would like Apple to listen more closely to third party developers. Most of the developer community requests come from the fact that while OS X offers some amazing APIs, it lags in other areas. Developers expect Apple to introduce great innovations but also to work on the missing pieces in order to deliver a complete, balanced development platform. We do know that Apple does not have infinite resources and that difficult choices need to be made, but not listening carefully to developers does not seem to be the best long term strategy.

Short term however, Apple is brewing the perfect storm. With new applications exploiting the new features of Leopard, they should be able to wow the Macintosh community in a way that Microsoft has been unable to do with Vista. Releasing new versions of their applications allows Apple to demonstrate the value of the new APIs to end-users as well as to developers. That is very clever.

On April 15, Apple will host a special event at NAB. This is a show for professionals. I would not expect any iWork or iLife announcements at the show. However, many expect Apple to announce and demonstrate an updated version of Final Cut Pro. Will that product suite also depend on the release of Leopard? That seems unlikely. Professionals do not upgrade their OS as quickly as consumers. Will Apple unveil new information about the new OS? Once again, probably not, after all, Steve Jobs usually does not demonstrate professional Apple software and I doubt that someone else will be responsible for hyping the upgrade. We will therefore probably have to keep waiting, probably until June, much in the same way that we have been waiting for official updates on the iPhone since its announcement three months ago at MacWorld. That will keep us excited for the next couple of months.

For the last six working days I have been unable to use my IBM Lotus Notes client. It turns out that a duplicated record on an LDAP server was responsible for the mess. Finally, after spending hours over the phone pleading for help, IBM’s internal help desk was finally able to diagnose and solve the problem. However, as expected, after such a long period of time without accessing my e-mail, my account was jammed with unread mail.

It took me ten hours of non-stop work to go through my unread e-mail and delete enough worthless mails in order to just be able to re-activate my account (at IBM we cannot send messages unless our inbox size drops under a 200GB limit). That made me think. If after so much work all I could claim was to have cleaned my inbox (which offers absolutely no business value) I am not sure that better communications are helping my productivity. In fact, it seems that I spend almost two hours a day working on useless mail.

Ever since I was a small child my parents taught me to analyze at the end of the day if it had been productive. Always ask yourself, what did you do today? That was a message my mother kept telling me. I guess that after much repetition, it finally stuck with me and I now feel either guilty or disappointed if I was unable to do something productive or meaningful during a particular day.

However, mail is not the only problem. Browsing the Internet is also an activity that quickly reduces personal productivity. Despite all the virtues of this technology, I know that I am far more productive when I am disconnected, with no distractions. However, since this happens less and less, in the end, it is just a matter of personal discipline. Everyone must learn how to set daily or weekly personal objectives for themselves in order to evaluate their productivity and correct automatically any deviations before receiving complaints from their boss, teacher, spouse or kids.

I am somewhat worried that schools do not spend time teaching children a skill that is so important. Learning it is critical to a successful life. However, while it is nice to know that you should not waste your time, it is also clear that the information overload that we are facing forces us to work longer hours just to obtain the same results.

There have been many proposals to fight spam. One such proposal included charging a low, nominal fee for e-mail (say US$0.01 for example). This was an interesting idea, since it would made the business of spam much less profitable. While the idea was interesting, it was impossible to implement, on a global scale. However, such an idea could easily be implemented inside the enterprise. If every employee knew that adding someone to the cc list did have an associated cost, we could finally start reducing the ridiculous amount of mail that is currently killing the knowledge worker.