Say, has anyone noticed that AppleWorks hasn't been updated in any serious way since there were two popes running around? Maybe that's because Apple's working on something else. You may have heard rumors that Apple has been slapping together an "AppleWorks Pro" suite that'll be beefier and better-suited for business use, and certainly there are no end of clues that such a thing is in the cards; AppleWorks has its own anemic presentation mode, for example, and yet Apple now sells a serious PowerPoint competitor in Keynote which could well be destined for a suite. And what's Safari if not Apple proving that when Microsoft cancels an important Mac product, Apple can fill the void with something even better? So yeah, with all the buzz about Microsoft possibly wanting out of the whole Mac Office thing, we'd be pretty surprised if Apple didn't have a replacement waiting in the wings and ready to make Mac users say "good riddance." (Seriously, does anyone miss Internet Explorer? Exactly.)

Well, now there's yet another clue that something Officey might be in the works at One Infinite Loop. MacRumors cites a brief blurb at Think Secret and notes that Apple recently applied for a new trademark which has distinctly word-processorial overtones: "iWrite" is now a pending Apple trademark here in the states, as well as in Europe and Australia. (You never took those rumors of Apple calling its new word processor "Document" seriously, did you? Can you imagine how awkward it would be to have to refer to a "Document document"?) Granted, there isn't a whole lot you can tell about a potential product from a trademark application; we know that its category is "computer hardware; computer software," but that doesn't exactly narrow the field much. But while at first glance "iWrite" sure sounds like a word processor, it could be any number of things. Like a... well, like a word processor. Or a word processor. Or even, dare we say it, a processor of words. Still, only time will tell.

And then again, maybe it won't. Apple has a long history of registering trademarks and then never using them, so this might well turn out to be (literally) nothing, but if your Inner Conspiracy Theorist is screaming for more, more, more, bite down on this tasty bite-size morsel of speculatory chewiness: in the U.S., at least, the trademark application is filed under "Appple Computer, Inc."-- the extra "p" is for "pachyderm"-- and yet the Attorney of Record is one that has filed these applications for Apple in the past, so this is the real deal. The upshot, however, is that Mac-obsessed freaks like ourselves who routinely comb through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's servers for new applications by "Apple" wouldn't have found this particular one.

Innocent typo, or a clever attempt to keep "iWrite" under the public radar? That depends on whether or not you've been taking your meds.