The Apple TV is a great example of the typical first generation Apple product. At first it seems to lack features that make it worth the high price Apple is asking for. Just like the iPod and many other Apple products, the Apple TV will probably follow in iPod’s footsteps and eventually become that “must-have” device that every home will have. It will just take about three to four generations to catch on. In my opinion the Apple TV is going to have to meet these requirements to start flying off the shelves:

1. HD content.
2. Much cheaper price. Nothing above $199.
3. Rental movie downloads.
4. An iTunes store for the Apple TV possible.

5. Apple, give up .Mac or make it free

I know many proud .Mac subscribers may disagree, but I just do not understand how the services Apple offers in its .Mac subscription is close to being worth $99. It offers sub-par bandwidth and memory restrictions and packaged with a lot of bloatware that can be substituted for free alternatives. Apple’s already shown its lack in .Mac when it announced its compatibility with Yahoo mail’s mail-push functions and saying they will offer free email addresses and these special push functions to all iPhone customers. Give it up Apple, .Mac is a failure. The only way you are going to start getting subscribers it to either make the price worth the features or better yet, make it free!

4. Updates for iWork and iLife

We’ve all been waiting since January for an update to our iLife and iWork suites of applications, and for the first time since iWork ‘04 Apple didn’t release the new suites at Macworld. We’ve speculated the past four months and made rumors of when the new suites will be announced, but still no details on the suites have been released by Apple. Many are anticipating the new iWeb 2.0 release that hopefully will have FTP/SFTP features and new, richer, cleaner templates. Others are waiting for an update to Garageband and the other old iApps.

Many iWork users are waiting for a spreadsheet application to compete with Microsoft’s Excel program. Looking at some of the screenshots of Office 2008 for Mac and playing with Office 2007 for Windows, I feel Apple really needs to improve the interface and friendliness of iWork to really make it work. I’m a big fan of the iWork suite but the current “Inspector” interface simply doesn’t compare to the ribbon interface in the new Office suites from Microsoft. We’ll see how Apple can implement the Inspector interface in the next iteration of the iWork applications and hopefully make it a little easier to use without involving dialogue boxes and extra windows, etc.

3. iPod Update to at least iPhone specs

The current iPod is really an embarrassing video player compared to both the Zune and Apple’s new iPhone. It wouldn’t take much to turn the current iPhone product and sub in a hard drive (or a lot of flash memory) for all of the phone innards and make a killer music, video, media, internet-browsing device. Hopefully this new iPod will at least match its competitors and include a built-in Airport wireless adapter to browse websites (just like the iPhone), download media from the iTunes store, sync with your Mac or PC, connect to an Apple TV, etc. Maybe these features sound a little idealistic, but it surely is possible and would be very well received. Knowing Apple, a November release date sounds likely; however knowing Apple, you can never bee too sure.

2. Interface Updates to Mac OS X – Illuminous

It was a hot topic discussed on Appleology a while back, but its still a very important topic since we haven’t had any updates since. In my opinion, user interface and user experience is pretty much 75% of what is great about using a Mac. but I’m ready for Apple to impress me again like they did with Aqua. I want a really rich user-interface that has more feeling and depth. And it all comes back to the idea of Illuminous and a new generation of user interfaces for the Mac. Apple’s going darker, sleeker, shinier with every product they release. The iPhone, Apple TV, iTunes 7; they all have that same interface that we nicknamed “Illuminous”. Now it’s Mac OS X’s turn for a change. Leopard’s resolution independence features along with the progress Apple’s made developing Multi-Touch interfaces with the iPhone and integrate that technology with OS X and run with it. The result could change the way users operate with their computers forever. And if Apple can’t get this far by June, hopefully they will at least match Vista’s impressive GUI.

1. Lower Prices on All Consumer-Level Macs

Price has to be the biggest complaint from potential switchers whenever I try to persuade someone to consider buying a Mac. They don’t care if Macs last longer or consider the bundled software, when they are thinking about buying a computer all they only care about the price of the computer. If Apple really wanted to maximize their market share, they would have lowered their prices on all of their Macs by now. When it comes to most of the consumers today, all they want to hear is price and Apples simply can’t compete with notebooks starting at $1099.