Category Archives: Apple

The future of personal computing

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According to Nicholas Carr, it’s captured in a single simple equation: Google plus Apple.

The future of personal computing was divulged by Mr. Eric Schmidt, the chief executive officer of Google, on March 23 of this year during an interview with Wired’s Fred Vogelstein. Vogelstein asked Schmidt why he had recently joined Apple’s board of directors, and Schmidt responded:

“Google’s architectural model around broadband and services and so forth plays very well to the powerful devices and services Apple is doing. We’re a perfect back end to the problems that they’re trying to solve. And they have very good judgment on user interface and people. They don’t have this supercomputer I’m talking about, which is the data centers.”

At this very moment, in a building somewhere in Silicon Valley, I guarantee you that a team of engineers from Google and Apple are designing a set of devices that, hooked up as terminals to Google’s “supercomputer,” will define how we use computers in the future. You can see various threads of this system today – in Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch, its dot-mac service, its iLife and iWork applications as well as in Google’s Apps suite and advertising system, not to mention its vast data-center network. What this team is doing right now is weaving all those threads together into what will be, for most of us, the fabric of cloud computing. (This is so big, you need at least two metaphors to describe it.)

Damn. I’m going to have to get an iPhone…

That “iPod moment” meme

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Jeff Jarvis has a forceful disquisition on “the iPod moment for newspapers”. He makes the point that the newspaper industry has for a long time assumed that its salvation lay in ‘e-paper’ — a flexible, foldable, high-res electronic display technology which would allow newspapers to continue as they were but with added e-power. Jeff’s view is that it ain’t gonna be like that, and I’m sure that he’s right. The new iPhone and iPod Touch devices are already pretty impressive as networked readers, and they will doubtless get better in the next couple of years.

I had an interesting discussion yesterday with Brian about the use of the term ‘iPod moment’. It’s slightly misleading because it implies that the appearance of a gizmo is the crucial event. Not so. The genius of the iPod was that it was paired from the outset with iTunes software — and that that software had a beautiful, intuitive interface. It was the combination of the two that made it simple for the average non-techie to manage compressed music files. There were lots of portable MP3 players before the iPod, but syncing them to a PC involved geekery to some degree and so was not for ordinary mortals.

So what really constitutes an ‘iPod moment’ is the instant when it becomes possible for the average consumer to engage in a practice that is terminally disruptive for an established industry.

iPhone Hackers 1: Apple 1

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New York Times report today says that:

the Web was filled Friday with complaints from people who had installed the latest iPhone software update, only to see all the fun little programs they had been adding to their iPhones disappear — or, still worse, see their phones freeze up entirely.

It was bound to happen. The moral is that if you hack your iPhone you should forget about syncing it to your computer from then on.

Control freaks like Apple don’t give up easily.

But wait! — GMSV has more:

From the warranty right on through Steve Jobs explicit reminder (see “Jobs to iPhone hackers: Bring it on”), Apple has consistently warned iPhone buyers that if they choose to go off the reservation and modify their units to use third-party software or run on networks other than AT&T, they run the risk of their beautiful toy turning into a handsome skipping stone. Still, thousands took their chances, and sure enough, when Apple pushed through an iPhone update Thursday, there was soon wailing and lamentation throughout the land.

Unfortunately for Apple, at least some of that wailing was coming from owners who had not hacked or modified their iPhone, yet found it hobbled or bricked after the update. And the overall picture of which phones were hit, the damage and the chances of recovery is veiled in the fog of war. Depending on which unlocking hack was used, or not, the iPhone update may or may not brick your unit or cause data loss, and that damage may or may not be repairable by new hacks or perhaps by a sympathetic Apple Genius. What is clear is that even while acting within its rights, Apple has a messy little problem that is not going to go away any time soon.

Still more: Erick Schonfeld has advice for Apple — “Stop behaving like a phone company”…

As we all know by now, the latest software update to the iPhone may in some cases turn it into a useless brick—if you happen to have put hacked software on it or unlocked it (ahem, John) in order to make it work on a non-AT&T carrier (such as T-Mobile, in the U.S.). Apple, of course, is free to try to lock in customers to its partner AT&T and to control what software will work on the phone. That’s just the way the cell phone business works. Right? It’s all about customer lock-in and reducing churn.

But Steve Jobs might be better served here to take his own advice and think different. Because, as he has so elegantly demonstrated with the iPhone, these devices are finally becoming little computers. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that consumers will expect them to act like computers. They will want to modify them to their exact, quirky predilections. They will want to use them any way they want, as a general-purpose device.

That is why PCs took over the world. They could be tuned a million different ways to the needs of a million different customers. You don’t ask Apple permission to download software off the Web for your Mac. And you would never agree to buy a laptop that only worked with only one broadband provider. Why should the iPhone be any different?

The uproar today may be limited to hackers and the digerati. But soon everyone will want the same thing. And if they don’t get it from Apple. They may look somewhere else. Google Phone anyone?

All your iPhone are belong to us

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From The Register

Apple has issued a notice that unlocked iPhones could suffer permanent damage when they update the firmware, and reminded customers that such damage is not covered by the warranty.

The process of unlocking an iPhone is complicated, and involves code running at a pretty low level in the OS. Users may feel confident that they can always re-flash their iPhones using iTunes, but even that requires a working kernel (minimal OS) on the phone – damage that and you’ve got a Jesus doorstop.

Such damage is unlikely. Far more probable is that every time an update is installed users of unlocked iPhones will have to unlock them again, but Apple felt the need to remind people of the risk they take when unlocking the handset or installing third-party applications.

Engineers inside O2, the UK operator deploying the iPhone in November, are under the impression that Apple will be able to re-lock phones to their network when they’re updated, but that will depend on the unlock process used and if Apple can be bothered to apply the resources needed to reverse it.

The assumption among many iPhone buyers seems to be that no matter what Apple does, the hackers will make everything work. The faith in techno-anarchism is touching, but may be misplaced if Apple just reverses everything with each update…

Footnote: readers puzzled by the grammatical infelicities in the headline are respectfully directed to here.

Keyboard skill

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Like many people who write for a living, I’m obsessed with keyboards. I loved the early IBM PC keyboards, which had proper microswitches and made an agreeable clacking sound. But then mass production took hold and the tactile attractiveness of keyboards declined, to the point where most of them had a repulsive mushy feel. Unusually for a company that is supposed to care about design and ergonomics of laptop drive, Apple ignored the keyboard for many years. The ones supplied with successive iMacs were as unsatisfactory as anything produced by the PC industry. And the keyboards on some (though not all) PowerBook models also left much to be desired. (The best, in my experience, was the keyboard on the original G4 Titanium PowerBook). But now, suddenly, someone at Apple decided that things should change. The new wireless keyboard is simply delicious to use. And it’s a marvel of economical compression which fits neatly into my laptop case. The battery holder serves as a wedge that tilts the keyboard at a good angle for typing. And the on-off switch is neatly built into the end. As the man said, sometimes the right thing is the right thing to do.

Stephen Fry ‘s blog

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I heard that Jeeves, er Stephen Fry, had a blog and tried to reach it the other day, only to find that its hosting server had been blown over by the demand. I forgot to go back until I read Martin Weller’s comments on it.

So I tried again and was transfixed by the first post, which is a startlingly erudite essay on a syndrome familiar to all geeks — the tendency to believe that sometime, somewhere someone will invent the Gadget that will help us sort out our lives. Stephen Fry is rich enough to buy anything the moment it appears on the market, and by God he has.

“I have”, he writes,

“over the past twenty years been passionately addicted to all manner of digital devices, Mac-friendly or not; I have gorged myself on electronic gismos, computer accessories, toys, gadgets and what-have-yous of all descriptions, but most especially what are now known as SmartPhones. PDAs, Wireless PIMs, call them what you will. My motto is:

I have never seen a SmartPhone I haven’t bought.”

He’s VERY knowledgeable about this stuff. In fact he reminds me of Douglas Adams, who was as excited about the Macintosh as I was when it appeared. I remember once visiting him in his house in — I think — Islington and being overcome with envy after being taken round a lovely airy attic room stuffed full of Apple gear. Stephen Fry’s place in Norfolk must be much the same.

NBC unveils self-destructing, ad-addled anti-iTunes service

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From The Register

Less than a month after its very public breakup with Apple iTunes, NBC Universal has announced its own rights-restricting video download service.

With the new NBC Direct, due for beta testing sometime in October, you’ll have the power to download shows like “The Office” and “Heroes” immediately after they’re broadcast on national television – without paying a penny. But don’t get too excited. You can’t view these videos on more than one Windows PC. They’re riddled with commercials you can’t skip. And they self-destruct after seven days.

In announcing the service, Vivi Zigler, executive vice president of NBC digital entertainment, decided to make no sense whatsoever. “With the creation of this new service, we are acknowledging that now, more than ever, viewers want to be in control of how, when and where they consumer their favorite entertainment,” he said. “Not only does this feature give them more control, but it also gives them a higher quality video experience.”

At the end of August, NBC informed Apple that it was not renewing its contract to sell “The Office,” “Heroes,” and other inane shows over iTunes. The contract wasn due to expire in December, but Apple threw a fit, saying it would pre-emptively axe NBC’s shows sometime this month.

Jobs: why no 3G

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Ah, I see. It’s the battery life.

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs slammed 3G phones for having limited battery life as he launched the iPhone in the UK through an exclusive deal with network operator O2.

O2 is thought to have signed an unprecedented agreement passing around 10pc of all revenues from the iPhone to Apple, whose tough commercial terms some other mobile networks baulked at.

One of those was Vodafone, whose chief executive Arun Sarin has pointed out that the first version of the iPhone will not run on 3G mobile networks, thus offering only the slower web browsing speeds of 2.5G unless customers are in a wi-fi hotspot. Mr Jobs, however, said Apple had decided against incorporating 3G for now because it drained battery life. “The 3G chipsets work well apart from power. They’re real power hogs. Most phones now have battery lives of two to three hours,” he added.

“Our phone has eight hours of talktime life. That’s really important when you start to use the internet and want to use the phone to listen to music. We’ve got to see the battery lives for 3G get back up into the five-plus hour range. Hopefully we’ll see that late next year.”

Translation: It will give us an opportunity to force all those early adopters to upgrade after the Christmas rush.

Regulatory teeth

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This may seem a strange image with which to illustrate a post on the Microsoft judgment, but bear with me. As my mother used to say when confiscating pocket-money for some misdemeanour, “it isn’t the money, it’s the principle”. I can’t imagine that even a $613 million fine will make much of a dent in a company that has a market cap of $300 billion and is sitting on nearly $50 billion in cash and marketable securities.

I can’t even get worked up about seeing Microsoft finally coming unstuck (though it couldn’t have happened to a nicer company), because in a way the caravan has moved on. The company’s monopoly hold on the PC desktop is still a reality, of course, but it’s a wasting asset in a networked world. The most interesting implication of the European court’s decision is what it might mean for other companies — Apple and Google, to name but two. Just as sharks are encouraged by the sight of blood, the sweeping legal success regulators have enjoyed in the Microsoft case may have whetted their appetite for more. Apple’s grip on the music-download market provides one obvious target (especially in view of the widespread European concern for ‘interoperability’). And Google’s stranglehold on “all the world’s information” will eventually put it squarely in the crosshairs of the European regulatory system. Stay tuned.

The text of the Court of First Instance judgment is here, btw.

More: I forgot to mention Intel as another possible target for Euro-regulators. And this week the European Commission is opening hearings on a complaint that the iTunes store violates competition rules by charging Britons more than other Europeans for downloads.