… get your cardboard iPhone here!
Category Archives: Apple
The Jobs/Gates contrast
Nice observation by Nick Carr…
It was interesting to contrast Jobs’s presentation with the one Bill Gates gave at CES a day earlier. Thematically, Gates’s was a replay of his keynote at last year’s CES. He’s still pitching a “digital lifestyle” that nobody wants. Last year, it involved having computer screens all over your kitchen so you’d be able to track the movements of your family members and watch a bunch of different video feeds simultaneously while sipping your morning joe. It was a vision of the homeowner as Captain Kirk manning the bridge. This year’s was stranger yet. Not only did he suggest that people want nothing more than to be network administrators – the homeowner as Scotty – but he led the audience into a mockup of the bedroom of the future, the walls of which were covered entirely in computer screens. For some perverse reason, I couldn’t help but think of that episode from the old Garry Shandling Show when Garry has the big mirror installed on the ceiling over his bed. He’s had a sentence etched into the corner of it: “Objects in mirror are larger than they appear.”
Gates wants to sell platforms. Jobs just wants to make tools.
Jobs, in fact, couldn’t possibly be more out of touch with today’s Web 2.0 ethos, which is all about grand platforms, open systems, egalitarianism, and the erasing of the boundary between producer and consumer. Like the iPod, the iPhone is a little fortress ruled over by King Steve. It’s as self-contained as a hammer. It’s a happening staged for an elite of one. The rest of us are free to gain admission by purchasing a ticket for $500, but we’re required to remain in our seats at all times while the show is in progress. We’re not even allowed to change the damn battery. In Jobs’s world, users are users, creators are creators, and never the twain shall meet.
Which is, of course, why the iPhone, like the iPod, is such an exquisite device. Steve Jobs is not interested in amateur productions.
Apple’s reality distortion field
I know the iPhone looks like a cute gadget, but this is ridiculous. Good Morning Silicon Valley has been reading the vapourings of stock-market ‘analysts’ who are ostensibly employed to give detached advice to investors. It’s an embarrassing spectacle. “This goes beyond smart phones and should be given its own category called ‘brilliant’ phones,” said Tim Bajarin, principal analyst with Creative Strategies. “The iPhone is the most beautiful and functional phone I have ever seen,” writes Jupiter analyst Michael Gartenberg. ” First time I held it, I was speechless for more than a few seconds.” At Bank of America Equity Research, Apple analyst Keith Bachman was slightly more judicious. “We believe [the iPhone] is a major evolutionary step, given that it has effectively eliminated keyboard keys and plastic input keys and is using a touch interface with software as its strength,” he wrote in a research note to clients. “Apple indicated that they expect to sell 10 million units in calendar year 2008. … Given the nature of the device as well as the ‘wow factor,’ we believe that the number sounds low.”
Oh come on, guys. Your supposed to put your brains into gear before advising clients. The iPhone looks good, but there are some awkward questions. GMSV picks up a few — for example:
How resilient is the iPhone’s screen? Is it more scratch resistant than those of its iPod predecessors; can it stand up to real-life use? When the iPhone arrives in June, it will support only EDGE, the “poor man’s” data transmission technology. When will it support 3G? Given past issues with the iPod’s “unreplaceable battery”, why does the iPhone feature a built-in battery? Who the hell wants to send their phone back to Apple Service every time it needs a new battery? How robust is the mobile version of OS X? And finally, there are the omissions — some of them glaring: No expandable memory. No support for WiFi syncing to your PC?
Can I toss in a few more?
And then, hanging over Apple despite the reality distortion field centred on Steve Jobs, there’s the looming cloud of the stock options scandal. GMSV was admirably clear-headed about it this morning, reporting that
last week San Francisco legal newspaper the Recorder reported that Apple recently sacked Wendy Howell, an in-house lawyer responsible for options paperwork. Howell is reportedly the author of fabricated board meeting minutes that were used to support CEO Steve Jobs’ tainted 2001 grant of 7.5 million options. And she’ll have a great deal to say to investigators, I’m sure, as will former chief financial officer and director Fred Anderson and former general counsel Nancy Heinen, who are also believed to be implicated in the company’s financial chicanery. But will they offer enough information to prove wrongdoing by Jobs? And if they do, will it be damning enough to unseat him? It’s hard to be sure.
“Fabricated board meeting minutes”? If true, I can’t see the SEC letting up. This could go the distance.
The Steve Jobs Show
We’ve just been watching Steve Jobs’s launch of the Apple iPhone and thinking “what is it with this guy?” when up pops Good Morning Silicon Valley with this joke:
So, Bill Gates dies, and ascends to heaven. He meets up with Saint Peter at the gates and says “Hey, it’s Bill, I’m just going to go on in.” And Saint Peter says, “Sorry Bill, everyone is equal in God’s eyes. You need to stand in line like everyone else.”
Grudgingly, Gates walks to the end of the enormous line of folks awaiting entrance. As he’s waiting, an iPod-white limo passes him and rolls up to heaven’s gate’s. The door opens and out steps Steve Jobs. Saint Peter greets him and, after a few brief words, welcomes him into heaven.
Gates is furious. He storms up to the front of the line and confronts Saint Peter: “Hey! I thought you said everyone was equal here! But, I just saw Steve Jobs cut to the front of the line and you let him in without a second thought.
And Saint Peter laughs and replies, “Oh no, that wasn’t Steve Jobs. That was God; he only thinks he’s Steve Jobs.”
The Green Electronics Guide
Greenpeace has just released the second edition of its Green Electronics Guide
This Green Electronics Guide ranks leading mobile and PC manufacturers on their global policies and practice on eliminating harmful chemicals and on taking responsibility for their products once they are discarded by consumers. Companies are ranked on information that is publicly available and communications/clarifications with the companies.
Nokia comes top; Apple bottom.
Where to stick those Zunes
This is lovely — an imagined transcript of a forthcoming meeting between the management of Universal and Steve Jobs. Written with great panache by John Gruber. It opens thus:
Early 2007. The Executive Boardroom, Universal Music Group Headquarters; Santa Monica, California
A large table dominates the room. Seated on one side is Universal Music CEO Doug Morris and six Universal attorneys, three on each side of Morris. On the other side sits Steve Jobs and one Apple attorney. On the table in front of Morris and each of the Universal attorneys are various neatly stacked folders, contracts, and legal pads. In front of Jobs the table is completely clear; he holds nothing in his hands.
Morris: Steve, it’s great to see you again. I hope your flight was good.
Jobs: It was terrific, thanks.
Morris: Well, let’s get right down to it. I’m sure you heard, together with our friends at Microsoft, we created a really interesting arrangement for their “Zune”. What it is, is that for each hardware unit Microsoft sells, Universal gets a small fee. A nominal fee.
Morris uses his fingers to indicate the quotes.
Jobs: Yes. Very interesting.
Morris: A pittance, really. But what it is, is a small step toward compensating us for the stolen music that belongs to us which we all know is being stored on these sorts of devices. Like the Zune. And, you know, like the… iPod. Your iPod. The iPod. You know I got my kids a bunch of those “Nano” ones for Christmas. Big hits. They love ’em. They really do.
Jobs: Thanks.
Morris: So, uh, we feel that this Zune arrangement is really the future of the, you know, the synergy between our industries. Between music and electronics. And we really feel that this deal is the future. And given the way you’ve led Apple into this future, Steve — and you know, you really have been a leader in this regard — we feel you’re going to want to stay in a leadership position.
Morris, pauses, as though to offer Jobs a turn to speak. Jobs, smiling, says nothing.
Morris: We feel it’d be in both our interests — Apple’s and Universal’s — for you to retake the lead in this regard. I’ll just lay it all on the line here, Steve. Now this doesn’t leave this room, OK?
Jobs: Sure.
Morris: Our deal with Microsoft is for one dollar per Zune. There it is. That’s it. (Pause.) And we’re really happy with that, that’s quite a deal. But we really want to see you guys at Apple remain in a leadership position in this market. You guys are number one and we want you to stay there. So we think Apple should do, you know, two dollars per iPod. That’d send a message that you guys are still number one, and you intend to stay there.
Morris sits rigidly, as though braced for an argument.
Jobs: Two bucks?
Morris: That’s right. Two bucks. And we’ll work something out with those little Shuffle thingies. You know, maybe we do one percent instead. One buck out of each hundred, retail. You do this, and then, you know, we’ll relicense our wonderful music library for the iTunes.
Jobs: That sounds great. That’s a great idea.
Jobs goes on to remind the Universal guys that all the music on iPods goes through Macs (and PCs) and wonders if they’d like a royalty cut on Macs as well. The Universal crowd begin to salivate. This is going much better than they expect. Then…
Jobs: But I have a better idea.
Jobs leans forward, and arches his eyebrows.
Morris: OK, sure.
Jobs: How about you take one of those white Zunes and you turn it into a brown one, Doug.
Jobs beams the full Steve Jobs smile.
Morris: Pardon?
Apple Attorney: Mr. Jobs is suggesting that you take a white Microsoft Zune 30 gigabyte digital music player and insert it into your rectum.
Jobs: In fact, how about one for each of you? (Gestures to Universal attorneys.) Seven Zunes — that should double their sales for the week.
Morris: —
Jobs: And Universal Music will get seven dollars.
Jobs sits back in his chair, beaming proudly.
Morris has broken out in a bit of a sweat. He wipes his forehead.
Morris: Steve, I don’t think this…
Jobs: Doug, it’s not a problem at all. The Zunes are on me.
Morris: I’m really sorry Steve. I’m sorry. I’ll tell you what: How about we just continue the current deal. The deal we already have. 99 cents a song on the iTunes and that’s it. That sounds like a better idea now that I think about it.
Jobs: That sounds great.
Apple: keep taking the tablet
Hmmm… It’s that time of year again — open season for speculation on what Apple will get up to next. Australian tech guide Smarthouse is claiming that,
Apple researchers have built a full working prototype of a Mac tablet PC and three Companies in Taiwan are now costing a product for a potential launch in mid 2007.
Sources in Taiwan have said that the focus has been more on the home and the education environment than the enterprise marketplace. Several months ago I was told that Apple was exploring a neat new device that is basically a touch screen that links to various source devices including a brand new media centre that Apple is planning to launch next year.The Mac tablet has been designed to handle third party applications such as home automation software that will allow users to control lighting, audio, entertainment devices and security feeds. It also acts as a full blown PC has wireless linking for a new generation of Wireless Hi Fi speakers that are currently being tested by Apple….
Many happy returns
This morning’s Observer column…
Tomorrow is the fifth birthday of the Apple iPod, the iconic device which defines our era as distinctively as the Sony Walkman defined the 1980s. One sign of an iconic product is that an entire ecosystem of goods and services evolves around it.
This happened with the Walkman, and it is happening now with the tiny Apple music player.You can buy all kinds of holders and ‘skins’ to protect it from damage; mini- speakers that plug into it; microphones that turn it into a digital audio recorder; small radio transmitters that beam songs to the nearest FM radio; attachments that turn it into a breathalyser; underpants with special iPod-sized pockets and – I kid you not – a customised toilet-roll holder with a charging dock for your precious device while you are, um, otherwise engaged. (Only $99.95 from www.old-fashioned-values.com.)
Jobs on iPod
Steven Levy has an interesting interview with Steve Jobs about the iPod (which is going to be five years old soon). Sample:
Levy: Other companies had already tried to make a hard disk drive music player. Why did Apple get it right?
Jobs: We had the hardware expertise, the industrial design expertise and the software expertise, including iTunes. One of the biggest insights we have was that we decided not to try to manage your music library on the iPod, but to manage it in iTunes. Other companies tried to do everything on the device itself and made it so complicated that it was useless.
Random thoughts
Lovely piece by Steven Levy about the randomness of the iPod shuffle algorithm.
My first iPod loved Steely Dan. So do I. But not as much as my iPod did. By 2003, among the 3,000 or so songs in my iTunes library, I had about 50 Steely Dan tracks. Yet every time I shuffled my music collection “randomly” to mix the tunes, it seemed that the Dan was weirdly over-represented. Only two or three songs after Rikki Don’t Lose That Number, I’d hear Kid Charlemagne. Then, 20 minutes later, there would be Pretzel Logic. Where was the logic in this? I didn’t keep track of every song that played every time I shuffled my tunes, but after a while I would keep a sharp ear out for what I came to call the LTBSD (Length of Time Before Steely Dan) Factor. The LTBSD Factor was always perplexingly short…
This is one of those maddening articles in which someone writes about a topic that one had thought of covering, but didn’t. I use the shuffle facility on my iPod a lot, and often wondered if it was giving truly random results. But I didn’t take the logical next step and do some digging. Levy did, which is what makes him such a good journalist.
It turns out that this is an excerpt from his forthcoming book about the iPod phenomenon (Ebury Press, November 2, according to the Guardian). If it’s anything like as good as his book on the history of the Apple Mac, it’ll be worth queueing for.