Five Things Steve Jobs Must Do Before He Dies

It's all true, almost. Bloomberg ran an obituary Wednesday for the man who made the computer as easy to use as the telephone, remade animated films, hooked the world on digital music and turned the phone into a truly smart, pocketable computer. There's just one tiny detail Bloomberg's write-up got wrong: Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs lives.

Bloomberg quickly retracted the story, though crocodiles are probably gnawing away on the editors who let that pre-packaged obit slip through.

Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) has been dogged by rumors of Jobs' ill health since his appearance at an Apple developer's conference in June. (The Apple co-founder had surgery for pancreatic cancer in 2004.) The best sign: Jobs ambushed New York Times columnist Joe Nocera with a call that began with an expletive-ridden rant before browbeating Nocera--whom he called a "slime bucket," according to Nocera's column--into an off-the-record conversation on the matter.

But while the rascally Jobs lives, another man is dead: Dave Freeman, 47, author of "100 Things to Do Before You Die." Freeman died this week after hitting his head at his Venice, Calif., home. Reportedly, he'd only gotten to half the destinations he'd urged readers to visit before his own untimely demise. In that spirit, here are a few of the gadgets we'd like to see Jobs, 53, create before he goes.

1. A Tablet Computer

Apple has hinted that the iPod Touch won't be the only device that will get a version of the iPhone's touch-sensitive interface. One product long speculated about: a thin, lightweight Web tablet with a touch interface, perfect for browsing the Internet or viewing an episode of Torchwood from Apple's iTunes store.

2. A Television

While Forrester Research (nasdaq: FORR - news - people ) trashed the idea in a report published earlier this year, others, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, have suggested Apple will design its own television. The effort could revive the fortunes of Apple TV, a set-top box that transfers content from Apple's iTunes digital media store onto television screens.

3. A Remote Control

For a control freak like Jobs, a remote control might just be impossible to resist. Or so speculate the prognosticators at Forrester Research. Apple is already part-way there. An application created by Apple for the iPhone and iPod Touch already allows users to take control of the media on their computer or their Apple TV using the slim devices. A touch-sensitive remote control would be another step toward placing Apple at the center of the digital living room.

4. A Digital Book

Amazon's Kindle is nice. The slim, white device allows Amazon customers to buy and read books for the online retailer at the touch of a button. And while the device isn't the next iPod, it's revived a category of gizmos many had left for dead. But something's missing--and it's not just Apple's unerring design sense. What e-readers lack is a crafty business model, such as Jobs has constructed for putting content on Apple's iPod digital media players.

5. The Personal Computer--Again

Jobs didn't invent the graphical user interface, or the mouse. But he was the first to put them on a machine with the power--and the simplicity--to appeal to a mass audience. Twenty-four years after the introduction of the Macintosh, however, most of us still type when we want to communicate with our computers. Jobs' experiments with touch interfaces and fascination with ever larger, thinner displays hint that he may have some thoughts on how to take the way we interact with personal computers in a new direction.

Of course, the best gadgets Jobs will make will be the things no one--except Jobs--imagines. The upside: Jobs will get to know how Huck Finn felt when he and Tom Sawyer got to listen in all the nice things everyone said about him at his funeral service. Just don't let it go to your head, Steve. You've got work to do.

Source : http://www.forbes.com/2008/08/28/jobs-not-dead-tech-personal-cx_bc_0828jobs.html