technology

apple / iMac / iPad / iPhone / mac / observatory / technology — 7 Comments
6
Jan 12

Apple’s predictable unpredictability

First of all, welcome to 2012. Okay, so I’m a little behind the rest of the world, but I finally made it.

The new year actually makes a perfect topic for Week 1. As you probably noticed, this week we got a mini-flood of articles about what we can expect from Apple in 2012: iPad 3, iPhone 5, Apple TV, slim MacBook Pro. To which most of us would say:

Duh.

Of course that’s what’s coming. It’s hardly news. I’ll tell ya, secrecy just isn’t what it used to be.

Though Apple continues to be thought of as one of the most secretive companies on earth, the truth is, they’ve lost the ability to surprise us like they did in the good old days.

The products are still amazing. The announcement events are fun. We still get surprised by the details as they are unveiled. It’s just that we know in advance what the products will be.

It wasn’t always this way. When Steve returned to Apple in 1997, secrets were secrets. His onstage announcements were real surprises (for the most part). The look of iMac was a shock. You had no idea that Apple was going to enter the consumer electronics market with iPod. You weren’t sure which Apple technology would be the focus of each event.

Breaches of secrecy were a scandal. Several days before the introduction of the first multicolored iMacs, the official family photo of all five models escaped from a printing facility in Germany, where a version of the multipage insert was being printed. It took the steam out of Steve’s big announcement — which was a crime punishable by death. (Or something close to it.)

As Apple has grown, and more people are exposed to the deep, dark secrets at various stages of product development, that kind of secrecy doesn’t exist anymore.

People were talking about iPhone — and calling it by name — months before it appeared. The name iPad was a surprise, but the device wasn’t — it was also widely expected months before, and its features accurately predicted.

This isn’t a terrible thing. It’s just a different thing. The new “iTV” (or whatever it will be called) will get the same attention this year. There will be buzz for months ahead, because Apple shaking up a new category is a great story. Journalists will hang on every word at the announcement event, even if many of the details become known before.

The only difference between now and then is that we know it’s coming. At least in the broad strokes.

I do find myself wondering about one thing this year. What’s next for Mac Pro? While it has grown in power, no product in Apple history has gone this long without a major overhaul. Mac Pro can now be officially classified as a “workhorse.” We’ve come to expect internal improvements only, but no major conceptual rethinking.

Will Apple demonstrate a new commitment to the pro market? Or will Mac Pro get upgraded the way Final Cut Pro did? Does Apple still love the high-end pros, or is it really just focusing on different levels of consumer now?

While it may be easier to predict Apple’s hardware these days, predicting its intentions is a different matter.

Happy 2012.

apple / observatory / technology — 7 Comments
15
Dec 11

Apple’s guaranteed revolution

As Apple has well proven, revolutions have a cumulative effect.

The success of iPod created all that anticipation for iPhone, which caused even more hype for iPad, which will now start generating ultra-hype for… iTV. (Let’s not worry our little heads about what Apple will really name it given the iTV network in the U.K.)

But the point of this post isn’t that iTV is going to break the pre-launch buzz records, it’s that iTV will have a very tough time failing.

First, there’s the Need Factor.

iPod and iTunes were needed. Buying and enjoying music was a mess and no one else was stepping up to the plate.

iPhone was needed. It entered a market filled with villains and devices that were as complicated as they were ugly. We couldn’t wait for Apple to save us.

iPad was a glorious revolution, but we weren’t sure if we needed it. Indeed, some of the lukewarm response to iPad’s launch came from people who just didn’t get why it was a big deal — until they finally got their hands on one.

iTV is needed. Wow, is it needed. Like iPhone, it will enter a market where the choices are confusing, and the current batch of TV makers and retailers are their own worst enemies.

I know, because I just finished a few weeks of living the adventure. I would have waited for iTV, except my now-dead TV didn’t leave me that option. So I dived into the process.

I really don’t know how normal people can shop for a TV intelligently. It’s utterly impossible to compare models. The names are indecipherable, and the models you see at Best Buy might not even be on the manufacturer’s site. (Seems there are a number of retailer-exclusive models, like there are in the smartphone world.) And good luck figuring out what some of the features even mean. Buying a TV requires some serious study if you’ve been out of the market for a few years.

Don’t shoot me, but I ended up with a big Samsung “Smart TV.” Only problem was, it wasn’t nearly as smart as I expected it to be. Either that, or I wasn’t nearly as smart as it required me to be.

The setup screens were cluttered. After several false starts, my wireless network finally showed up, but then it offered me four different flavors of WEP security options. I hadn’t a clue which one applied to me, so it was trial and error until I found one that worked. Other issues kept cropping up until I finally got it working right. Overall: tedious and annoying.

It’s hard to imagine an experience more ripe for Apple-ization. I haven’t a clue how iTV will work, but it doesn’t take a whole lot of brain power to figure it will offer:

1. A simplified TV shopping experience. Maybe one or two screen sizes and just a few configuration options.
2. A simplified setup experience. Plug in, see network, connect.
3. A simplified control experience. Thank you Siri, via iPhone or iPad.
4. A simplified content experience. A way to break free from the cable companies’ predefined packaging.

No matter how I imagine iTV, it’s hard to imagine it not being a full-scale revolution, possibly Apple’s biggest yet — simply because the need is so obvious and there are multiple TVs in just about every home.

And I may have a good deal for you next summer on a used Samsung.

android / apple / observatory / technology — 7 Comments
18
Nov 11

The official home of malware

Critics eager to find Apple’s fatal flaw have long pointed to their closed way of thinking.

By being stubborn and insisting on controlling both  hardware and software, Apple is dooming itself in mobile devices to the same second-class status it had in PCs. Or so the story goes.

In truth, history really is repeating — but this time it’s being far kinder to Apple.

Just as Macintosh was dwarfed in market share by a mass-market legion of PCs, iPhone was surpassed in market share by a mass-market legion of Android phones.

But just as the warm, inviting openness of PCs turned Windows into a breeding ground for malware, the “freedom” and “openness” of Android has already done the same.

According to the annual Malicious Mobile Threats Report from Juniper Networks, malware in the Android world rose an amazing 472% this year over last.

Juniper points out that the inherent security of either platform isn’t the issue. It’s the fact that no app enters Apple’s App Store without first being reviewed. The only thing that stands between a developer (or evildoer) posting an app in the Android Marketplace is a $25 fee.

Malware does ultimately get removed from the Marketplace, but only after it’s been reported — which can only happen after it’s been installed on potentially thousands of phones.

Apple has been attacked for being controlling on two different levels. One is that they won’t allow you to have your way with iOS to the point where you can monkey with the basic interface. Only a small part of the population cares much about this.

The other is that Apple is Big Brother-like when it comes to the App Store. They trample our liberties and shackle the developers. Personally, I find it difficult to care about this argument either. The suggestion that Apple somehow limits my choice when I’m browsing over 500,000 apps is pretty silly. I promise to begin caring when someone shows me an Android app that I wish I could have on my iPhone, but whose functionality Apple has banned.

The only limitation I’ve ever felt on an iPhone is my inability to have myself victimized by malware. Damn you, Apple.

creative / observatory / technology — 2 Comments
16
Nov 11

Annie Leibovitz likes iPhones

Brian Williams had legendary photographer Annie Leibovitz on his show the other day. He asked her, in effect, what camera she might suggest to the mere mortal who just wanted a good everyday device.

I can imagine a number of replies she might have given, so I was surprised at the one she gave. She started talking about iPhone. “That is the snapshot camera of today,” she said.

Judging by the fairly crappy photos she took of Brian while she spoke (spliced into the interview after the fact), I suspect she wasn’t even using an iPhone 4S with its improved optics.

But her point actually wasn’t about photo quality, it was more about something every photography enthusiast should take to heart. She talked about the importance of editing. Annie takes tons of photos when she does a job, and one of her talents is the ability to edit well. She painstakingly searches through her work to find those few gems that are technically correct and capture a great moment.

So, for everyday photos, Annie thinks quantity is a factor as well as quality. In other words, keep snapping. You’ll get a good one eventually.

I just found it interesting that Annie would specifically call out iPhone, considering her answer would have been applicable to any phone. (Obviously she’s part of the conspiracy.)

Fun as this endorsement may be, I won’t expect to see an Annie Leibovitz coffee table book of iPhone photography anytime soon. Clearly, the woman needs some practice with that iPhone shutter finger.

observatory / technology — 8 Comments
10
Nov 11

Adobe: woe of the freedom fighter

I was going to say, “Farewell Flash, we hardly knew ye.”

But, of course, we knew ye pretty well. That was the problem.

I won’t waste anyone’s time by dissecting Flash’s many failings. The bottom line was that without a role to play in iOS, Adobe was missing out on too much action. Despite their protests, they had to do what they had to do.

It’s the way they protested that got under my skin.

Back when Apple banned Flash from iOS, I took issue with Adobe over the “theme” they chose to rally the people to their side. For obvious reasons of self-preservation, they wrapped themselves in the flag of freedom. They tried to win support as the company who fights for the rights of developers. They were there to defend us all.

I’m sorry, but it just makes me ill when a company hijacks a basic human right to preserve their own cash cow.

As Adobe has now confirmed, this was a disposable use of a sacred concept. If you read their latest words, there is no lament that we will soon live in a totalitarian state controlled by the evil Apple. Adobe is no longer protecting our cherished values. Now it’s just about HTML5 being “the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms.”

I know Adobe would rather put their “freedom fighter” campaign in the past, but they don’t get off the hook that easy. That effort showed something about the character of the company—especially now that they’ve done a 180. Apparently, in Adobe’s world, the concept of freedom is merely a disposable tool of convenience.

We owe Steve Jobs a huge thank-you for Adobe’s decision to abandon ship on Mobile Flash. Steve was the only person on earth with the clout to force the issue. Now Adobe can join the industry in creating the tools for a standard that is truly open, and performs better across all devices.

One could speculate about the timing of Adobe’s announcement in relation to Steve’s death, but a move of this magnitude would have to have been in the works for quite some time. It’s possible that the announcement was scheduled for an earlier date, but was delayed so it wouldn’t come too soon after Steve’s passing.

Bottom line: all is well. The whole industry can now concentrate on perfecting a more stable, less power-hungry way of enabling creativity on the web, without depending on a single company to control our access to it.

Now that’s freedom.

advertising / apple / creative / iPhone / observatory / technology — 3 Comments
1
Nov 11

Invasion of the iPhone 4S ads

I love the smell of fresh ads in the morning.

Apple has now added not one, not two, but three new ads to the iPhone 4S campaign. For we who like our entertainment in 30-second spurts, this is good news indeed.

As we have come to expect, each of these new ads is a clear, straightforward demo. But that’s okay, because what’s being demoed is mostly eye-opening stuff. Here are all three new spots with a mini-review of each.

Snow Today:

Of the three, this is the one that’s most similar to the 4S ad that debuted last week, right down to a cute kid interacting with Siri. But the range of Siri’s abilities is so wide, we see a whole new batch of interesting uses. One big difference between this ad and the first is that we actually hear a lot from Siri. So much for my theory that they’re downplaying the robotic voice. But it’s interesting how the synthetic voicing of Siri becomes almost charming thanks to the human responses programmed into her.

iCloud:

With this ad, Apple makes a very sneaky (in a good way) move to simplify its story. Technically, iCloud isn’t an iPhone thing. It’s an everything thing. It’s equally cool on iPhone, iPad and Mac. Change or add something to any one of these devices or computers, and it shows up on the others. But to make it even easier to appreciate, everything we see here ties back to iPhone. It all adds up to “iCloud — on the most amazing iPhone yet.” (Never mind that you can enjoy all this iCloud goodness on your old iPhone 4 as well.)

Camera:

This one strays a little from Apple’s standard, in that it actually starts by touting technical specs — “with 8 megapixels and advanced optics.” No doubt that’s because iPhone’s camera has been lagging behind its competitors. Since the camera is the least remarkable aspect of the 4S, a spot devoted to this feature can’t possibly be as compelling as a spot devoted to Siri. Still, people take tons of photos on their phones, and it needs to be part of the mix.

I’m sure that someone, somewhere, is still arguing that iPhone 4S offers only minor improvements over iPhone 4. Likewise, some analysts are no doubt sticking to their story that Apple’s most recent earnings report was a let-down. (Even though record sales of the 4S prove that many were simply waiting for the new model.)

These new spots should do a good job of erasing the doubts — while they stir up some good, old-fashioned iPhone lust.

apple / observatory / software / technology — 17 Comments
27
Sep 11

Apple’s occasionally annoying need to change

Apple has always been terrifically good at changing things. Their list of firsts in hardware and software is as impressive as it gets.

Sometimes, change feels awkward. Then the more you live with it, you realize it’s a better idea and you need to just get with the system.

Other times, the more you live with it, the more you want to find the guy who dreamed it up and slap him around a bit.

Natural Scrolling had the potential to be annoying in this way, but Apple had the good sense to make it optional. Personally, I turned it off. “Natural” is whatever feels natural to you. The old way felt natural to me, so I unchecked the option and never looked back. (Or is it that I never looked forward?)

But there’s one change in Lion that I can’t turn off, and it frustrates me every time I use it. Which is often. I’m talking about the death of Save As… and the emergence of Duplicate and Save a Version.

The problem is, now it takes me twice as many steps to accomplish the same thing.

My needs are simple. I write. I assume there are a lot of people out there like me. Oftentimes, before I perform radical surgery on a document, I’ll want to make sure I keep the current version intact. In Snow Leopard, I’d use the Save As… command. I’d give the document a new name and continue writing. Two steps. Fast.

With Lion’s “improvement,” now I have to choose the Duplicate command. This opens a new document with the word “Copy” appended to the title. I hit Save. Give it a new name. Then I close the original document, which hangs around hoping I’ll pay attention to it. Four steps. Not fast. Annoying.

This perplexes me on two levels. First, I don’t understand why a company that lives to make things simpler would choose to make something more complicated. Second, I don’t understand Apple’s thinking about where this fits into computing in general.

Do they intend to create a new standard that will become ubiquitous? Will Adobe and Microsoft follow Apple’s lead? I wouldn’t hold my breath. So now we’ll just have to remember that when you’re in iWork, you’ll have to think different.

I do understand that there are some reasons why this might be a good idea for certain types of users. You can find a long, intelligent discussion of the facts here.

I also get the argument that the new Versions feature negates the need to ever use Save As… again. Versions works fine if you’re looking for one image or one paragraph you used previously. But most writers make tons of small changes throughout their documents. To find these types of changes, you’d be searching Versions forever. It’s vastly easier to just save a new version of a document with a name that will help you find it later. Which you can still do under the new system — it just takes twice as many steps as it did before.

Versions, by the way, may not even solve your problem, should one ever arise. It saves a Version only once per hour. So unless you’ve manually saved a Version of something you’re looking for, it’s possible that it won’t be there. (You won’t find this little fact in Pages Help or in the iWork section of apple.com — it’s buried a few levels down in the Lion section.)

To me, these types of things are more evidence that Steve Jobs has been pulling back on his involvement in certain areas, probably even before his medical leave. One of his greatest talents was his ability to take one look at something people have been working on for months and say, “Kill it.”

The elimination of Save As… strikes me as change for change’s sake. It’s not better than what we had before.

Can I have it back please? Let’s call it “Natural Saving.”

 

apple / icloud / observatory / steve jobs / technology — 4 Comments
22
Sep 11

Steve Jobs: two visionaries in one

There are two kinds of visionaries in this world.

One imagines a new today and goes about creating it. The other imagines a new tomorrow — one that’s beyond the range of our current capabilities.

Steve Jobs has done a pretty good job in the here-and-now by revolutionizing computers, music, phones and tablets. But how good is he when it comes to looking, say, 15 years into the future?

This video from the 1997 WWDC provides a great insight into that. Answering a question from the audience, Steve talks about how information should be accessible from any device, anytime and anywhere, and we shouldn’t know or care where the information actually lives. It should be that simple for us. In other words, he’s describing cloud computing 15 years before it became reality.

Keep in mind, he’s saying these things before OS X, before iTunes, before apps, when phones were for phone calls and most of our data was spread out over the 4-gigabyte hard drive in our new iMacs.

The whole clip is pretty fascinating, but this highlight comes at the 4:24 mark:

One of my hopes is that Apple can do for this new type of network … with gigabit Ethernet technologies and some of the new server stuff that’s coming down the pike, and some thinner hardware clients … that Apple can make that as plug-and-play for mere mortals as it made the user experience over a decade ago. That’s one of things where I think there’s a giant hole and I can’t communicate to you how awesome this is unless you use it. And what you would decide within a day or two is that carrying around these non-connected computers or computers with tons of state in them, tons of data and state in them, is byzantine by comparison.

I suppose there’s nothing in The Official Visionary’s Handbook that requires a visionary to actually deliver on his vision. Maybe others had a similar vision about the cloud.

So let’s consider it a bonus that Steve didn’t just sit in his chair, Nostradamus-like, and imagine a future he had no intention of creating.

[Thanks to Jorge for the tip.]

apple news / observatory / OS X / steve jobs / technology — 21 Comments
2
Aug 11

The hidden message in Lion

Look a little closer at Lion and you’ll see a secret message from the highest levels of Apple:

During previous medical leaves, Steve was still running the show. This time, he’s stepped back to allow others a larger role. Get used to it.

Honestly, it’s hard to draw any other conclusion when (A) Steve has always been intimately involved in approving the design and function of OS X, and (B) a few of the more visible decisions in Lion look nothing like the Steve we know.

After using Lion for a couple of weeks, three apps in particular make me miss Steve’s touch:

1. iCal. Not to beat this dead horse (see earlier post), but the design sense of the new iCal is just totally out of character for an OS that otherwise defines elegance and simplicity. Steve is a purist. He doesn’t compromise. He sends designers back to the drawing board over and over until they get it just right. This is purely a design decision — and it looks like someone else’s decision.

2. Address Book. This app suffers a double whammy. It shares iCal’s design tackiness, then ups the ante by taking a leap backwards in functionality. We used to see everything Address Book had to offer — individuals, groups and contact info — within a single view. Now we have to jump back and forth between views to see it all. Totally unnecessary over-design. Totally not Steve.

3. Launchpad. This is a beautiful idea, only half-baked. Maybe even quarter-baked. Launchpad automatically configures itself with icons for every app and utility in your computer — including apps you’ll never use and apps you didn’t know you had. I don’t consider myself an app junkie, and my icons numbered over 200. A total mess. But it gets even worse: if you delete an icon, you delete the app itself. (Fine for apps you’ve purchased from the App Store, which can be re-downloaded — unacceptable for apps you’ve purchased elsewhere.) If you want to tidy up, good luck. You can delete icons of apps purchased from the App Store (which deletes the app as well), but Lion won’t let you delete the icons of apps you bought elsewhere. Fortunately, there’s a perfect little free utility called LaunchpadCleaner that allows you to get rid of icons without trashing your apps. I used it and deleted 179 icons that were making Launchpad unusable. How could Apple possibly offer Launchpad without this kind of functionality built in? Likely because someone else was playing the role of Steve for this performance.

Between his current medical leave and the fact that one day (hopefully far, far in the future) it is inevitable that he steps down as CEO, Steve would be irresponsible not to be transitioning certain responsibilities to others.

So this isn’t a criticism as much as it is an observation. Steve-level perfection can only be expected when Steve himself is making the decisions. Talent runs deep at Apple, but different people will see things a bit differently — and their decisions will sometimes raise our eyebrows. Lion is our sneak preview.

Put a little more Steve in your Lion: To strip iCal of its leather, go here. To do the same for Address Book, go here. To easily configure Launchpad, go here.

 

apple / observatory / technology — 7 Comments
25
Jul 11

Lion’s little lapse

I’ve settled into Lion very well now, thank you. Happy as a clam.

I picked up a Magic Trackpad, which made a huge difference. I was so smitten by the log-in background, I made that my desktop image. (Download that here, if you’re interested.) Now everything looks gorgeous.

Except for iCal — which remains hideous.

Honestly, I feel bad complaining about such a detail when I’m so happy with Lion overall. It’s like telling the hostess who invited me to an elaborate dinner party that her shoes are ugly.

But I’m sorry: iCal is ugly. And Address Book is only slightly less ugly.

It’s not that these apps are literally unsightly or poorly crafted — they just don’t fit in with the rest of the dinner party. With most of  Lion being so elegant, the metaphor of the old leather desk blotter feels embarrassingly out of place.

If, for some reason — and it’s a very big “if” — one felt compelled to dress up iCal like a physical calendar, one could easily find a more modern design. The idea of Mac OS X going “retro” is just unsettling on many levels.

I get that in the full-screen world of iPad, these types of rich graphics make sense. They add to the fun of it. A 27-inch iMac is a bit different. You don’t want to use every app full-screen. I like to keep iCal open on the side, and now it’s become an iSore.

It would have been different if Apple shipped a choice of iCal themes with Lion and opened a market for new themes. But they didn’t. They forced me into a design that has a specific and limited appeal.

(By the way, it is possible to go in and change the iCal theme if you’re the tinkering type. Instructions here.)

So what gives?

We know for a fact that Steve Jobs approves every last interface element. Yet it’s really hard to imagine Steve, champion of elegant design, approving this. It’s enough to make one think this might be a responsibility Steve has now passed off to others.

All in all, I do think the Lion team did an amazing job. I just have one request for the next version of OS X: please run it by Jony before you do anything rash.

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