Archive for the 'Analysis & Commentary' Category
Last year Apple stunned, excuse the pun, the Mac world and announced it would no longer attend Macworld Expo or any other trade show event effective after Macworld 2009. Many reasons circulated why Apple would make such an incredible decision with most boiling down to expense. Apple didn’t need trade shows, trade shows needed Apple was the governing thought. While that may be true — Macworld 2010 attendance and vendor participation will reveal that answer — there really is more to the reason for Apple’s ignoring the industry standards of dog and pony shows. Three words: Steve Jobs ego.
It’s no new news to make reference to the iCEOs audacity as folklore is strong when concerning Jobs character. Apple does like to put spin on things no matter what the announcement and when it told the world that it was removing itself from the trade show circuit due to cost and the desire not to be forced for product release dates, it sounded “about right” on the surface. However, one has to scratch their head and wonder why not even a year after that announcement, Apple declared to the world, in a building on the same block Macworld is held, the iPad. Okay, so it must have been the cost thingy, right? Well, maybe, but for a company with tens of billions — ya, billions — of dollars in cash, this argument doesn’t seem that valid, either.
Digging deeper into the iPad launch, one finds many interesting facts. First, the gathering was by invite only. A typical Apple strategy. Second, only well known organizations received these invites. Third, the hands-on demonstration was limited, for example CNET was only allowed to have three of its members take a look at the device to prevent “inner cross-over”. Lastly, the public was visibly forced out and prevented from entry. In the end, Steve Jobs ran the show from start to finish down to who was allowed to sit in the halls of his majesty. Plain and simple, Steve is a control freak and he couldn’t command what IDG did with Macworld Expo. So, he pulled Apple out of it.
There are many examples of Steve’s ego getting in the way of catching a bit closer to Apple-related “stuff” such as when he pulled the less than flattering biography iCon from Apple Stores world wide. The stories are extensive how Apple would fail during Jobs’ day-to-day absence during his liver ordeal of 2008/2009. Since Jobs micro-managed everything, down to what color ties his lieutenants could wear (just kidding on the last one…I think) no one thought Apple had a chance without Jobs running the ship. Really, it does not take much to run the case for Apple leaving Macworld because Jobs doesn’t like how he can’t run the show.
I’m on record for loving Apple and its products and I admit many of the reasons I came back to Apple in 2001 was because of the many great things Jobs brought to Apple. Yet, I am also very vocal about what a pompous jerk Steve Jobs is, as well. From suing blogs due to printing leaked information and talking about how they are “breaking the law”, and yet he forgets about all those free long distance calls he made in the 70s using Woz’s Blue Box as well as “ripping off” Xerox PARCs mouse and GUI for the original Mac, to naming his company similar to the then worlds most popular record label and then telling companies with iPod-like names today to “change your name, it’s simple enough;” it’s tough to accept Jobs as the genius the world wants to paint him.
As long as Jobs has a strong product on stage with him, he’ll continue to ride his high horse with little worry of being jousted off of it. Yes, Jobs can give the pseudo finger to IDG and then show the world the iPad weeks before the revised Apple-less Macworld Expo but remember this, Steve, not all empires last for ever. Rome fell and so well you. How you want to be remembered in history depends how you treat those in the present.
I was personally effected by the lack of responsiveness to print jobs on my HP LaserJet 3600n. There I was, printing just dandy in Leopard the Thursday night before I purchased Snow Leopard. Friday afternoon comes and the fairly fast completed upgraded puts me in front of a printer queue that states “Connected…” and not much more. After canceling my print job, deleting the printer, rebooting, and re-installing, the same issue occurred. This time I had patience and low and behold, three minutes later, the printer started printing! I printed another test. Again, it took 3 minutes. Every job took 3 minutes from the time it left my Mac (or did it really leave it?) After much investigation, I discovered I wasn’t alone as IT World well documented. Apple’s web site had nothing to offer other than others with the same issue posting pleas of help.
Then, HP and Apple admitted there was an issue and released an updated drive raising many “dead” and once unsupported printers back to print heaven. My 3600n, however, was not one of them. Several minutes still passed between my mouse click on the Print button and the actual print happening. More searching on the web for an answer was fruitless, forgive the pun, for my Apple. In desperation, I contacted Apple Care and even the Level 2 tech had no clue what was wrong.
Well, I went back to an old friend. Back in my OS X 10.3 days, I was forced to use open source drivers for my older HP DeskJet and once again, on a hunch, I went back to the world of better code. Guess what? Because of macosx/hpijs, I can once again print in a heartbeat.
So what’s it all mean? HP has crappy drivers and Apple did a poor job of beta testing. Dude, I’m not the only one with an HP 3600n out there. Maybe Apple needs to be less concerned about secrets and surprise and make a more general beta like Microsoft did for Windows 7. If you’re wondering, ya, my HP 3600n works fine with Microsoft’s just released OS update.
Kuddos to Other World Computing, OWC, as it has become 100% reliant on the wind to churn out its great accessories for Mac and PCs out there in Woodstock, IL.. That means that OWC now uses complete renewable, non-polluting power to get it through its day. SvenOnTech spoke to Larry O’Connor, CEO, Other World Computing earlier this year about OWCs upcoming conversion to becoming fully green. O’Connor’s excitement was difficult for him to harness as he outlined the building of the current facility and the many avenues and difficulties his company experienced to become green. “I made the decision to 100% self fund this project because of the conservational benefits as well as the future cost of energy,” O’Connor recently told SvenOnTech. “With the kilowatt hour rate in the Chicago market up 24.3% since 1999, it only makes sense to use technology to lower our usage and costs related to traditional power sources.”
Here are some highlights of OWCs gusty power:
* Geo-thermal ground-coupled heat pump system
* Fiber optic rooftop light-harvesting technology
* High insulation value glass windows and exterior sunshade technology for reduced cooling costs
* High insulation value materials throughout the building for reduced energy use
* “Smart” sensors to detect and adjust energy in unused rooms
* Permeable Paver system for environmentally friendly run-off water handling
* Bio Swales landscaping for water conservation
* Use of native plants and prairie grasses for water conservation
* Sloan Waterless Urinals and dual-mode toilets for water conservation
* Sloan high-efficiency hand driers in washrooms for energy/paper savings
* High-efficiency drinking water filtration system to eliminate need for delivered water
* Company-wide recycling with near zero waste generation
* Facilities for employees to commute to work by bicycle
* Low-impact cleaning products
To read more about OWCs green goals as well as view pictures, stop by www.macsales.com/windpower.
In the recent return of Steve Jobs running the dog and pony show for the Designed in Cupertino company, Apple’s iCEO positioned the iPod touch, running the iPhone OS, as a gaming device more than just an iPhone minus the phone at last months iPod update gala. That said, there was no mention of taking games to the next level with a gamepad accessory that would just attach to that connector port on the iPod touch or iPhone. One will find a developer showing off their, excuse the pun, fruits in the tune of a video featuring the iControlPad playing a first-person shooter…via a jailbroken iPhone…with no availability date. Proof of concept but Scott Forstall of Apple did the same thing with the blood pressure slide at the iPhone OS 3.0 announcement, too.
But wait! There is hope. TomTom has a nice video on its site featuring a cradle for the iPhone that assists its iPhone GPS application that I told you about way back in March. My source at TomTom tells me that this cradle, which possess a GPS antenna and speaker, that uses the iPhone Connector will be out sometime this month. If this become reality, then TomTom will be the first application to speak to hardware via the iPhone Connector on the market. I would caution you not look for it at Best Buy anytime soon but it might just show up in your pillow case while trick-or-treating at the end of the month….at Best Buy, of course.
Hopefully we’ll see a flurry of hardware devices that will take advantage of Apple’s gateway to all-things accessories such as keyboards, gamepads, speakers, and maybe even monitors for video viewing (Virgin America are you reading this?!) I have to think that Apple didn’t just put an API into the iPhone to only let a good thing die. No, I think something wonderful is upon the horizon but gosh darn it, I want it now!
Well “late summer” has come and gone and nearly half a day into the promised launch date of MMS for all AT&T iPhone customers, it finally arrived a little before noon Pacific time. With Twitter a flame with tweets to slam the network at 5 pm Eastern with MMS use, one thing is certain about todays MMS release: Apple is watching.
Apple formally introduced Multimedia Messaging Service to the world in early June at its iPhone OS 3.0 dog and pony show. It displayed it before the developers in a nice large screen with all the carriers that would support MMS upon the June 28th release. Of course, it paused for everyone to take in the fact that the Death Star AT&T logo was missing from the slide at Moscone Centers stage. Front and center, not.
After a furry of angry tweets, Facebook status updates, and blog posts around the Interwebs, AT&T months later sent Seth, its PR guy, to explain the absence via video. See, the thing was, iPhone users were just so unlike other smartphone customers with their data use that AT&T couldn’t possibly support MMS so soon. Soon? Really, MMS support was a surprise to AT&T the day of announcement? Hard to believe but even so, it begs the question why hadn’t it built out the network PRIOR to the announcement when it had to know it was eventually coming? Well, Mr. ATT went on to tell viewers that Ma Bell was fixing a hole for the benefit of iPhone users and would be taking care of signal issues, as well, during the summer. Bonus! Seth really worked it in the video showing lots of towers, data, and hope. Yes, hope you can believe in.
Well, here we are, finally MMS is working and running for iPhone users nationwide and all eyes are on AT&T. How will it handle this? Rumors on Twitter early Tuesday, just days before roll-out, was that a preliminary stress test crashed the system. Today will be a test like none other for AT&T and if it fails, well, it’s almost a sure bet that Verizon will reap success from AT&Ts failure. With Seth’s assurance that iPhone users would enjoy the experience and the billions of dollars it poured into upgrades, failure will only mean that AT&T will never ever be able to fix its holes. Apple will use that as reasoning why it just is no longer “happy” with its relationship and will tell AT&T that it wants to see other people. Of course, it’ll still be friends with AT&T, just not exclusive friends.
So, AT&T, today you must shine or it is over. No marketing blitz will save you from the woes of Apple taking a trip to Jersey and welcoming that guy with his glasses and large group of friends to the iPhone family. As they say in Jersey, put up or shut up.
UPDATE: Upon my first MMS test, it took nearly a minute to complete the send of the MMS message to my wife’s iPhone. Here’s the great part. At five bars in a 3G area, it took nearly 10 minutes for her to receive the MMS message. 10 minutes! While I know everyone with an iPhone is probably using the system right now, man, 10 minutes is S-A-D. I could have described the picture to her via SMS in that amount of time. Shesh…
Excitement is brewing with anticipation for the iPhone 3.0 OS update preview tomorrow. Rumors are already spilling details that include Copy and Paste (FINALLY!), MMS, and built-in tethering (at a cost, I’m sure.) Unfortunately, folks, I really don’t see this as a major update, just like 2.0. Apple, with Steve Jobs on stage, does a great job of making nothing seem special. Tomorrow it will have a difficult job pulling that task off without iCon front and center. If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll agree with me, there’s nothing special in what we’ve heard thus far. Copy and Paste should have been released in a minor update with 1.x. MMS should have been there on Day One and tethering introduced no later than 2.0. So if these rumors are true, and most likely they are as Kevin Rose is backing some of them and was dead-on with his last predictions concerning Apple, why are we all getting excited? Give me a break, the Plane Jane Motorola RAZRs have 2 out 3 of these features. Yawn.
Some may point out the addition of the Premium App Store as another rumor for 3.0 but I discount that since it’s not tied to the OS and more to the back-end of the store. Who cares. This is nothing more than Apple trying to make more money, encourage better games, and crack deeper into the PSP and DS market. This is not an operating system advancement.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that these reported features will finally make it to the phone I love to use, but I’m just trying to add perspective here. There’s no reason to get all giddy for nothing short of what we should have already had. I truly hope there is MUCH more coming and that the Palm Pre tit-for-tat reports are correct. It would be nice to see a turn-by-turn GPS application announced (which again, nothing new for many other smartphones), video support (more same-old-same), and push-notification finally supported promised by Apple at its last software upgrade preview nearly a year ago. I want to be dazzled like I was at Macworld when Steve announced the iPhone. Please Apple, don’t just repackage your competitions features as something new and amazing. Do us right.
So Apple has left its heart in San Francisco with Tony Bennett singing farewell to the Keynote crowd on Apple’s behalf this year at Macworld Expo 2009. So what’s on tap for next year? Who will do the keynote? Will there even be a keynote? What is IDG, Macworld Expo presenter, going to do? Think anchor. As in one for a mall and not one that sinks a ship… Next to Apple, what company in the South Hall has the money, brand recognition, and guts to take center stage in Apple’s place? Microsoft.
Imagine it. Steve Ballmer up on stage smacking out some of its own sales figures. You know, how it sales more office productivity applications than any other company in the world? How it is number one in sales for things like mice and stuff of that nature. Want big announcements? Maybe X-Box integration with the Mac? ‘Watch X-Box Live content on your Cinema display through your Mac,’ Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, could tell the crowd. Or how ’bout, ‘Today we’re announcing Office Live for the Mac. Do all you can on Windows on your Mac. Today. For free.’ Microsoft could pull it off.
Now granted, Microsoft isn’t well known for innovation as of late, look at the Zune for an example of copy-cat failure, but it is well known, period. Putting up Ballmer, of even Gates, to speak before a crowd of emotionally injured Mac faithful could turn the tide for the Redmond-based computer company. Just the fact of Microsoft stepping in for arch rival Apple would be enough to cause the media to stomp over each other in the West Hall to get good seats for the keynote. Mac fanboi’s may hold to their code of loyalty, but there would be a lot more curious showing up to see how it all plays out in their place. Think about it, Microsoft at the All Things Mac expo. The center of the Macintosh universe…and Microsoft is right there in the middle of it all! Without a doubt, a Microsoft anchor at the 2010 Macworld would cause a flurry in the industry and best of all, for Microsoft, piss off Steve Jobs to no end. Just watch Triumph of the Nerds for a Jobs reaction to when he’s burned by Microsoft. You know, Macworld 2010 has potential…
One of my more interesting meetings at Macworld was the one at the Google booth. I had a good chat about the Google App and it’s difficulty with translated voice properly to text. The hint given was to wait a second or two after the beep on your iPhone so the application can get a signature of the white noise and clean that out of your command. Seems to help get more accurate results. Nice.
Now that tip was a great one and I searched for another like revelation and asked, “Why do I need Google Earth on my desktop when I can do everything it does in my web browser that requires less resources?” The first Google employee didn’t have a good answer and led me to another co-worker who was “better at Google Earth”. He, too, really couldn’t give a good answer and searched out yet another “better” suited Google employee. Would third time be the charm?
My Google Earth pro proceeded to show me the 3-D modeling of San Francisco and then of the GooglePlex, Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California, and talked about the cool factor of all the 3-D. I stopped her and said, “Ya, I get the eye candy stuff, but what about practical needs?” I gave her an example. “Let’s say I have a crew of people I need to send to various locations in the Bay Area. I want to nest this into a folder called ‘Project 1′. I would like to create maps from point to point of these locations or even from a new location.” The Google Earth “pro” responded, “I don’t know how to do that in Google Earth but can show you how on Google Maps.” I assured her that I knew the procedure and re-iterated my original question. Why do I need Google Earth, then? Her answer? “I don’t know.”
So folks, from the mouths of Google, you really don’t need Google Earth and its heavy appetite for your system resources other than just to “goof off”. Google Earth really doesn’t perform any other useful function than its sister, Google Maps, can do at a whole lot less resource wise on your Mac or PC. But, it is up to you. If you like waste, then go for it. Me? I’m a practical guy and have already deleted Google Earth from my Mac.
Rumor after rumor of Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs, impoverished health seems to be bring down the Cupertino-based computer company’s stock price faster than the fall of crude oil and yet still, Jobs hides behind his ego and doesn’t put an end to it. While many critics of the Jobs Health Report cry foul and point out no other company is effected by the well being of its CEO, most of them are all forgetting that those companies don’t have Steve Jobs at the helm. Since day one, Jobs ego has carried, and hurt at times, Apple to great heights. Folklore of his direct hands on for everything from the iPod development to every iPhone application being OK’d by him first has proven that Jobs has his hands in everything. No other Big Honcho can make this claim. To many Chiefs, this would seem a ludicrous task but for Jobs, it’s a necessity. Truth is, this style of running the company has been a great asset to Apple and its stock holders, for the most part, but it is now becoming a liability.
Because Jobs has made it his priority to put all things through the Gates of Jobs (no pun intended), it has created this vacuum in the world of all things Apple. Once Jobs is removed, that vacuum will collapse upon itself. From uneasy stock holders to dismayed Apple fanboys, the companies finances could take a terrible hit by a Steve Jobs void. While it is silly to even care about someone’s health that runs a company — Jobs has surrounded himself with a fine group of lieutenants — again, Jobs has made this all happen because of the precedent HE created. HE has given all the keynotes at Macworld since his return as interim CEO in 1997. HE has been the one presenting the world with new products and services for all of 2008. HE has been the man on the cover of Macworld, Time, Newsweek, and other national magazines. HE was the one that made the monumental deal with AT&T for the iPhone without even showing then-Cingular a stinking sketch let alone a mock-up phone. HE has been the one to make hard-nosed and egotistical comments in the name of Apple since its inception. It’s always STEVE JOBS and no one else in the lime light and making the decisions. So, logic would say, if HE goes, so will HIS company.
If Apple, er, Steve Jobs wants to put an end to this madness, he needs to respond to the rumors. Again, it is asinine for such a thing to be done, but it is also foolhardy for the general to ride a chariot at the front of the line during war. Jobs has brought this upon himself with his swelling ego and now he must answer the very bloggers he hates. He must acknowledge their power as well as his miscalculation of monarchy company rule if he desires to see Apple continue its skyward journey. Otherwise, it’ll be difficult for the phoenix to rise out from the ashes for a second time.
Mr. Jobs,
I am an enthusiastic switcher that has brought many friends, colleges, and clients to Macintosh platform. I love Apple products and the experience associated with it. While I understand one company can not be all things to all its customers, I would think healthy competition would be something Apple to welcome. However, based on recent reports of the App Store refusing applications such as Podcaster and now the Opera Mini browser, I would seem to think Apple is actually scared of it. This surprises me coming from a company that defied all odds in the late 90s to which Michael Dell suggested that Apple close down and pay off its stock holders. Yet here we are a decade later with Apple worth more than the company named after Michael to hear it saying, ‘No!’ to apps that are “similar to other iPhone applications’.
I guess your true intent for the iPhone is drive its overwhelming success into the ground much like you did with the original Macintosh in 1986. Make it a close system and you become the gatekeeper. Prevent competition and hold the keys tightly. Steve, what if AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and all the other carriers had told you years ago when you brought the iPhone to them, “No, your phone is too similar to other devices we carry”? You would have fought tooth and nail to have one of them open their network to Apple. But here you are, closing your network. Why? What possible reason could you have that would be justifiable? Your company just recently threw its support to a controversial proposition with a statement saying marriage shouldn’t be held back from any one. Then Apple turns around and tells its customers that they do not have the right to choose what browser or podcatcher they want. Have you knocked at the door of Hypocrisy this Halloween, Steve?
Don’t kill a great platform with your anti-competitive practices, Steve. Stop tricking us into thinking Apple rocks when it just keeps ruining our treats with such foul offerings in our bag. Do the right thing, Steve. Do the right thing.