Microsoft’s new Surface tablet *looks* awesome. The keynote *looked* great. The fold out keyboard *looked* innovative. No one was allowed to play with it afterward.

There is little reason for me to doubt Microsoft can pull this off. They’ve done hardware before, albeit nothing of this magnitude. But there is nothing to say they can pull it off, either. For reference, see its tablet history.

I’m 60 words in and that’s all there is to say. I could expound further on Microsoft moving into devices against their licensees, trying to sell it exclusively through their 20 stores, whether new-style Metro and old-style Windows can work on one device. But it isn’t worth my time.

Surface is vaporware. It will be available sometime in the future for some undisclosed price. And if I can say anything, Microsoft is exceptionally good at vaporware. After all, it was a Microsoft engineer that coined the phrase.

Many people have described Apple’s worldwide developer conference (WWDC) as uninteresting. I think that Apple is turning up the heat. I felt a great tension in the air there.

Right now, Apple is filling in some gaps. We get these great API calls for more effectively making UI elements resize and retain relationships to other elements, we get new mapping apps, we get new ways of controlling devices and the ability to very very easily customize UI elements so everyone’s apps can feel the same while looking different.

But it feels like biding their time. There are so many hints and rumors, from Apple television sets to 7″ tablets to 4″ smartphones. Back to the Mac feels in flux, half way to completing its goals. Laptops and desktop computers are adding components that make them more powerful and more visually appealing, but only some of them get upgrades and only one gets a retina display. Half of the Mac systems have moved to SSD drives and half of them haven’t. Siri is a very interesting start that could change the way we interact with small devices, but I wouldn’t want to rely on it right now. Apple bakes in Facebook and Twitter, but only Facebook and Twitter. Apple demonstrates a new sharing API but it only offers sharing from a handful of services.

There was nothing earth-shattering announced, but at the same time there is an amazing groundwork being set for what feels like a burst of creative energy out of Cupertino, a blow your socks off moment, maybe more than one.

WWDC itself, conversations with people at Apple, conversations with other developers, it feels like that Giants-Astros game Wednesday night. It’s the ninth inning and the crowd, very passive earlier, suddenly senses history. Matt Cain has three outs to go, three outs to a perfect game, three outs to only the 22nd perfecto in baseball history.

We don’t know what is going to happen. It just feels like we are on the verge of something spectacular.

With Apple set to delve into the next version of its mobile operating system next week at its world-wide developer conference (WWDC), here are the features tossed around the web that I would like to see the most. I’m not focusing on this list as a developer; instead this is the stuff I’d most like to see as an avid user of iOS:

• App Sharing: Android and Windows Phone have this app ability to generically register for an action that it can take care of for another application. Let’s say, for instance, that I wrote an application that knows how to print to any printer. I could register my app in iOS and say, “Hey! Anyone out there that needs to print can look for my app.” Another developer needs his app to print. All he needs to do is make sure the print app is there and show an option to my customer to print. When the customer selects “print” it would send the material to the print app, which would know what to do with it. This makes it very easy for applications to share.
• Apple TV Apps: As I mentioned previously we cut all ties to cable recently. This means my Apple TV, which was already a critical component in the search for evening entertainment, just became even more important. Let’s go the extra mile, though, and give me the choice of what apps I want to run on it. Yes, Netflix and MLB.com are two excellent apps. But I’d like to consider Amazon Prime subscription, Hulu and a host of other “channels”. Seems like the new screen layout set us up for this, so here’s hoping.
• Better Background: In particular, I’d like to see the ability of VOiP and IM apps to always run in the background. Skype is fairly useless on the device. We have to have a phone call first to say let’s have a Skype call, then we can switch to Skype? Really? I want Skype to ring if I get a call there. Same is true with my IM app, Verbs. I want this stuff to just work.
• Better Address Book Integration: I’d like to see all communication capabilities flow out of one app. Today you need to think about how you want to contact someone before you think who you want to contact. That’s backward. I don’t want to say “I’m going to Skype Fred.” What I do want to say is “Going to contact Fred… via Skype.” By integrating the address book with third-party services (via App Sharing, no less!) this can be accomplished.
• Improved Auto Correct: The auto correct on iOS is pathetic. Half the time it changes my words to something non-sensical, it doesn’t format things like URLs correctly, and it can’t tell the difference between “Well” and “We’ll”. Please, Apple, fix this already. It’s embarrassing. (I wished for this last year in a much funnier post.)

All the other stuff is interesting but isn’t critical to me as a user. Improvements to Siri are nice and an API would be cool, I guess, but as a user I don’t use Siri all that much since it doesn’t seem to be on the same wave length as me. I’m lucky if it records what I ask. A new maps interface would be nice but it isn’t in the “gonna be disappointed if it doesn’t happen” category. New screen resolutions, too, could be amazing or could be disastrous. (Man, are those Android screens ridiculously huge.) And I already talked about what I really want as a developer: improved tools to help me develop, market and sell my products.

So, with that in mind, I’m off to WWDC. I’m sure, one way or the other, it will be a mind-blowing week!