This week Microsoft said it’s working on Windows 8 and Apple says it will have the iPad 3 ready by May.

They are both doing the wrong thing.  Windows 7 hasn’t been out long enough to be universally hated yet and no one needs an iPad 3 until everyone has an iPad 2.  There are more pressing needs.

I was one of four hundred people who got an e-mail today saying an event had been canceled.  268 of those people sent reply e-mails saying essentially “thanks for letting me know.”  And all 268 of them replied all.  The remaining 131 (I did not participate) wrote back and said “please don’t reply all.”  And when they did, they replied all. To which the first 268 wrote “sorry, but you don’t have to get all huffy about it.”  And of course they replied all.  That brought back “I haven’t even started getting huffy, you keep replying all and you’ll see huffy,” replied to all.

So what the world really needs is an app that puts up a warning every time someone clicks on “reply all.”  Something like “are you sure you want to reply all?” When the sender clicks “yes” another screen will appear. “Not everyone needs to see this; do you really, really want to reply all?”  If the sender clicks “yes” again the screen would say “no, you don’t.  Don’t be an idiot.”  At that point the e-mail program would close.

That’s what the world needs.  Somebody should e-mail everyone at Microsoft and everyone at Apple and tell them about it.

And when they’ve got that done, they can start on an app that blocks every e-mail that starts “I never forward these, but this is just too good to pass up….”  Because, actually, no it’s not.