I too think Bento is very promising. The idea of “gluing” various apps together is intriguing. The linking Apple’s Mail.app (and other apps) would be a natural evolution. Release 1.0 leaves a lot to be desired but in a few more releases Bento may well evolve into a killer app.

Your dismissal of Gene’s comments on iTunes misses his point. Yes, iTunes is a killer app. It is far more than the simple music player from which it began. iTunes’ integration of online content delivery created the [NEW] Podcasting industry, killed traditional brick and mortar music stores (and now threatens even WalMart’s music revenues), is doing the same for video and will very soon take on the duty of delivering software—thus generating even more revenue for Apple. Can’t you see that the social-economic impact of this ingenious product as far more than a simple music player? Apple’s implementation of millions of micro transactions ($0.99 sales paid by credit cards!) alone was a game changer.

For my 2 cents, I’d bet on iChat becoming the next killer app. We’ve been using videoconferencing between multiple sites for over three years now. This is revolutionizing communications. We link remote experts that rely on group consults frequently. Integration of remote sites real time (including sharing of desktops and near real time data) through Leopard’s “built in” iChat is ground breaking. There is plenty of room for improvement, but iChat has evolved tremendously since its basic face to face video link. iChat is the basis for collaborative work flow which has long been promised by the web.

Well to me it seems obvious that so far this century the Killer App is iTunes!
In just the last 6 years it has gone from just a thought to being a real game changer for the entire music industry just as Photo Shop and Post script was to the print industry. Maybe even more!

Thats my thoughts anyway

I’m not thinking in terms of popularity so much as whether the design and features revolutionize the industry. iTunes has certainly been a commercial success, but it builds upon existing media player apps, such as SoundJam, its predecessor.

Peace,
Gene

Well to me it seems obvious that so far this century the Killer App is iTunes!
In just the last 6 years it has gone from just a thought to being a real game changer for the entire music industry just as Photo Shop and Post script was to the print industry. Maybe even more!

Thats my thoughts anyway

Another new program that may be worth entering in the “21st Century Killer App” sweepstakes is Bento. Personally, I haven’t a whole lot of need for a “personal data base” (or at least if I do need it I don’t know that yet). But here’s an attempt to rethink Address Book and iCal by integrating them into a larger system in a new way which the developers at least imagine people will find usefl. And the interface is absolutely jaw-dropping, a huge amount of effort has been put into it and there has been a lot of thinking about how to make full use of Leopard’s graphics capacity (including the new Quartz Animation). No matter whether you like Bento or not, or whether you find it useful or not, if you check it out I think you’ll agree that it dramatically raises the bar for interface engineering and, I hope, points the way towards what a lot of the apps we use may look like and behave in the future.