Apple Predictions

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Come See Our Latest Creation

Come See Our Latest Creation

For months the Apple rumor mill has been stirring, as usual, whenever there is a build-up to an official Apple event. Each year, there are a half dozen or so Apple events of significance, but two notable events come to mind, WWDC and Macworld. Alas, Apple announced last year that Macworld 2009 would be their last. It surprised very few people, however, when they announced they would do their own event on January 27, 2010.

Notable Apple forecasters and pundits have written several incredibly interesting articles about this upcoming event and just what Apple may release. I've been reading about this speculation for months and several notable posts come to mind. Before reading the rest of my post, I encourage you to read these:

What Apple Will Announce

Before I get to the topic of the The Tablet, let me first talk about the iPhone.

iPhone on Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint.

On May 23, 2007, Leslie Cauley of USA Today published a piece quoting that AT&T had signed a 5 year exclusivity contract to sell the iPhone until 2012. Wired's Fred Vogelstein wrote the same thing on January 9, 2008, quoting:

After a year and a half of secret meetings, Jobs had finally negotiated terms with the wireless division of the telecom giant (Cingular at the time) to be the iPhone's carrier. In return for five years of exclusivity, roughly 10 percent of iPhone sales in AT&T stores, and a thin slice of Apple's iTunes revenue, AT&T had granted Jobs unprecedented power. He had cajoled AT&T into spending millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours to create a new feature, so-called visual voicemail, and to reinvent the time-consuming in-store sign-up process. He'd also wrangled a unique revenue-sharing arrangement, garnering roughly $10 a month from every iPhone customer's AT&T bill. On top of all that, Apple retained complete control over the design, manufacturing, and marketing of the iPhone. Jobs had done the unthinkable: squeezed a good deal out of one of the largest players in the entrenched wireless industry.

Steve Jobs gave AT&T just enough to make them happy in exchange for allowing him to make the iPhone the way he wanted it to be made. The iPhone was released and it was an enormous success. Once AT&T saw how much the world loved the iPhone. Apple's iPhone, not AT&T's, they were in a weaker negotiating position. Steve Jobs now had the upper hand over AT&T, which had become dependent on the iPhone as a product due to the enormous rate in which it has been able to sign on new customers for them. Steve Jobs was in a much stronger position. He had something he could take away from AT&T that they desperately wanted to keep and he had something all of the other carriers wanted. He used this new power over the wireless industry. Leslie Cauley of USA Today wrote on on July 31, 2008 that:

Under the original iPhone contract, Apple had the right to offer the device to other carriers beginning in 2009. If Apple exercised that clause, AT&T would have lost one of its biggest points of leverage with customers — exclusive access to the iPhone.

So AT&T caved to Apple's new price structure, which allowed Apple to account for most of the profit for an iPhone up front, rather than spreading it out over the 24 months of a customer's contract. Also...didn't she say a year ago that Apple had a 5 year deal? Didn't Wired report the same details in January of 2008? Something had changed. It appears that, either those two articles were wrong, and that it was a 3 year deal from the beginning, or Jobs managed to rewrite the deal before the iPhone 3GS launch. In either case, the Apple & AT&T marriage is due to expire in 2010. Once again, Leslie Cauley of USA Today backs up this line of thinking saying that:

Verizon (VZ) and Apple (AAPL) are discussing the possible development of an iPhone for Verizon, with the goal of introducing it next year, people familiar with the situation say....

...The New York-based telecom entered into "high-level" discussions with Apple management a few months ago, when CEO Steve Jobs was overseeing day-to-day business, these sources say. They declined to be named because they aren't authorized to speak publicly.

 

The original iPhone went on sale in June of 2007. It is reasonable to believe that Apple will therefore sell the iPhone on other carriers as early as June 2010, right after WWDC, when the new iPhone hardware is released. The New York Post backs this up, for what it's worth (I don't think very highly of the NY Post).

iPhone 4.0 Software and Hardware

I haven't seen as many leaks about upcoming features to the iPhone OS. The one credible post that I have seen recently was made by Boy Genius Report. In addition to providing a screenshot that looks like a validly leaked developer seed (2B13), they report there will be OS-wide multi-touch gestures. This would make sense if The Tablet is to run the same OS as the iPhone. They also report that Multitasking - running applications in the background - is coming. They hint at an improved home screen and new UI improvements for navigating through the OS. Other features such as new calendar and contact syncing (official Google support, not just using CalDAV?) seem believable as well. I think Steve will preview these new things on stage, releasing the 4.0 SDK to developers soon thereafter so they can get cranking on their apps to be ready to release updates come June/WWDC when the OS & new iPhone hardware is released.

iPhone hardware you say? I have no earthly idea exactly what they could add to this phone hardware-wise to make it better, other than more RAM, more storage, better camera and a faster processor. I'll be happy with just those improvements. I wouldn't put it past Apple to surprise all of us, however, with some new, yet-unthought-of, hardware feature.

The Tablet aka the Canvas

I don't think anyone, at this point, doesn't believe Apple is going to release a touch screen/tablet like device on Wednesday. Earlier today, during their Q4 earning conference call, Steve Jobs was quoted to say, "The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we’re really excited about." Later in the call, Tim Cook says, "I wouldn’t want to take away your joy of surprise on Wednesday when you see our latest creation." Additionally, MacRumors wrote on January 24, 2010 that:

We haven't heard this first hand, but we've heard it multiple times second and third hand from completely independent sources. Senior Apple execs and friends of Jobs are telling people that he's about as excited about the upcoming Apple Tablet as he's ever been.

I think this will be Apple's 4th biggest release within the last 10 years. Release 1 = iPod. Release 2 = Intel-based Macs. Release 3 = iPhone. Release 4 = Canvas. This release has the potential to be just as big, if not bigger, than the previous three.

 

I think Apple will finally drop the 'i' as a prefix to the name. Apple Canvas, or simply, Canvas. Take your pick. I've seen people throw about iTablet, iPad, iSlate, iCanvas, Apple Tablet, Apple Pad, Apple Slate, Apple Canvas. It could be any of these, or a yet unnamed one. I'm going with Canvas, simply because Apple has hinted at product names in event invitations before. At the event where Apple unveiled the MacBook Air, the invitation tagline was "Something is in the Air." The name was IN the tagline. This invitation? Scroll up and look at it. Doesn't that look like an something an artist might paint on a piece of canvas? Yes, thin reasoning, but I think it fits.

It will be running iPhone/iPod Touch OS 3.2 when he shows it off on stage, set to be running a newer version when it goes on sale in March and eventually 4.0 in June. Some of this is speculation on my part, but at least one mobile app analytics company claims to have seen evidence of this already in their user agent strings within their data.

Will Canvas be Wi-Fi only? Built-in 3G always on internet, sans contract (like the Kindle)? Purchased data-plan from a wireless carrier? Sources have been all over the place on this. Part of me wants to say it will be like the Kindle's Whispernet™, but realistically I think there will be 2 versions, one with Wi-Fi only and the other that you'll able to also purchase a data plan from a wireless carrier.

Will this be a Kindle killer? Well, yes, but not in the way you think. This product isn't aimed at just the Kindle. That's thinking too small. This product is aimed at being a do-everything-you-could-want-device-for-its-size, like the iPhone, that just happens to be able to do everything the Kindle does, but better. Also Apple has been working with book publishers to negotiate content distribution deals within iTunes. Rumors purport that Apple has been talking to publishers such as HarperCollins and McGraw-Hill, and say that Apple may even be working directly with Barnes & Noble. I also think Amazon's Kindle app will still be available to allow Kindle books on the device. Apple wants to kill the competing hardware off, but will allow other company's content to continue to work as well (through their respective apps). Remember Apple is a hardware business. iTunes exists only to support their hardware business. If Kindle and the Nook's books also work on the Canvas, so much the better. Perhaps the owners of those $249 devices will upgrade to a Canvas in 2011 when they tire of their e-ink readers. Having their 20-30 books they purchased through the Kindle or B&N store work on the Canvas go a long way to make the switch easier for them.

And finally, let us all hope Andy Ihnatko makes it to San Francisco before Wednesday.

Use Your iPhone or iPod touch to Lock Your Mac - Airlock.app

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Use Your iPhone or iPod touch to Lock Your Mac - Airlock - Gizmodo:

While I prefer to use a long password to protect my computer, I like the idea of being able to use a physical key to lock it. This is precisely what Airlock does, using your iPhone. It works great.

Airlock is a system preferences pane. Double-click to install it, associate it with your iPhone or iPod touch, set the security range, and that's it. I tried with my iMac 24 and my iPhone and it worked perfectly. You can even see a radar screen showing the distance between the two devices. The moment I stepped out of the limit, the screen locked. And then, as soon as I came into the perimeter, it unlocked automagically.

There is only one problem: If you use a wireless mouse or keyboard, it won't work due to a Bluetooth bug in Mac OS X. Otherwise, this thing will make you feel like James Bond.

Without the Aston Martin. And the Martini. And the laser watch. And the Scottish accent. And the hot girls. OK, so it won't really make you feel like James Bond, but come on, get on with the program here.

(Via John Gruber.)

I've been using Airlock at work for 2 days now and am loving it. Before, I was being lazy and not locking my computer when I step away from it, which is bad because I'm the webmaster and have access to...well everything. Now, It does it for me, automatically, when I leave my workstation. This utility is a really seamless and elegant solution. Also, if I ever leave my iPhone at home, I can still log in via the login/password prompt when needed. Another note - I HATE the ugly blue and black striped bar that is displayed on your screen when your computer is locked. I wrote the company that makes this App and they responded promptly saying that they've received a lot of feedback and that users should look for more lock options in the next version (screensaver, etc). More screenshots:

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The Lost Decade

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Daniel Lyons, of Fake Steve Jobs fame, has written an excellent article for Newsweek regarding his thoughts on the differences between Microsoft when Bill Gates ran the company to how Steve Ballmer now runs the company. I am a firm believer that you should not have non-programmers managing programmers. If you do not understand how to do the job, you should not be managing the people that do. This is especially true for non-technical CEO's running technology companies.

 

The Lost Decade

Why Steve Ballmer is no Bill Gates

Last month Microsoft rolled out Windows 7 and opened the first of a chain of new retail stores. As usual with such announcements, there's been loads of hoopla and ginned-up excitement. But mostly people are just relieved. Windows 7 replaces Vista, one of the most disastrous tech products ever. It also caps the end of a decade in which Microsoft's founder, Bill Gates, stepped aside, and the company lost its edge. (Click here to follow Daniel Lyons).

Ten years ago, when Gates appointed his longtime second in command, Steve Ballmer, as his replacement as CEO, Microsoft was still the meanest, mightiest tech company in the world, a juggernaut that bullied friends and foes alike and which possessed an operating-system franchise that was practically a license to print money. Techies likened Microsoft to the Borg on Star Trek, the evil collective that insatiably assimilates everything around it, with the slogan, "Resistance is futile."

That was then. Now, instead of being scary, Microsoft has become a bit of a joke. Yes, its Windows operating system still runs on more than 90 percent of PCs, and the Office application suite rules the desktop. But those are old markets. In new areas, Microsoft has stumbled. Apple created the iPod, and the iTunes store, and the iPhone. Google dominates Internet search, operates arguably the best e-mail system (Gmail) and represents a growing threat in mobile devices with Android. Amazon has grown to dominate online retail, then launched a thriving cloud-computing business (it rents out computer power and data storage), and capped it off with the Kindle e-reader. Microsoft's answers to these market leaders include the Zune music player, a dud; the Bing search engine, which is cool but won't kill Google; Windows Mobile, a smart-phone software platform that has been surpassed by others; and Azure, Microsoft's cloud-computing service, which arrives next year—four years behind Amazon.

How did this happen? How did Microsoft let tens of billions in revenue (and hundreds of billions in market capitalization) slip through its fingers? Hassles with antitrust regulators distracted Microsoft's management and made the company more timid. But the bigger reason seems to be that in January 2000, Gates stepped down as CEO. It's been downhill ever since.

Ballmer is by all accounts an incredibly bright and intensely competitive guy. But he's no Bill Gates. Gates was a software geek. He understood technology. Ballmer is a business guy. To Ballmer's credit, in his decade at the helm Microsoft's revenues have nearly tripled, from $23 billion to $58 billion. The company has built a huge new business selling "enterprise" software—programs that run corporate data centers. Microsoft has also done well in videogames with its Xbox player.

But the problem with putting nontechies in charge of tech companies is that they have blind spots. Gates was quick to recognize that the Internet represented a threat to Microsoft, and he led the campaign to destroy Netscape. In those days Microsoft was still nimble enough that it could pivot quickly and catch up on a rival. Since then the company has become bureaucratic and lumbering.

Worse yet, as Microsoft slowed down, the rest of the world sped up. The new generation of Internet companies needed little capital to get started and could scale up quickly. Google got so big so fast that by the time Microsoft recognized the threat, it could not catch up. With Apple, the threat was not the iPod player itself but the Internet-based iTunes store; by the time Microsoft could create a credible clone of the Apple store, Apple had the market locked down.

Meanwhile, Microsoft's core business hit a snag with Vista. Its engineers have spent three years undoing their mess; Windows 7 doesn't leap past what Apple offers, but it's still really terrific. But while Microsoft has been distracted fixing its broken Windows, yet another new crop of Internet saplings has gained root: Facebook and Twitter in social media, Hulu and YouTube (owned by Google) in online video.

And so it goes. This is perhaps why, in the 10 years of Ballmer's reign, Microsoft's stock has dropped by nearly 50 percent, from $55 to $29. (Apple shares have climbed 700 percent; Google has gone up 400 percent since its IPO in 2004.) A spokesman for Microsoft points out that the company pays a quarterly dividend and in 2004 paid out a special dividend worth $32 billion. Still, it's been a pretty dismal 10 years. Unless the company can do more than focus on the past, the next decade might not be any better.


What Are Twitter Lists & Why I Think They're a Big Deal

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Twitter has begun rolling out Twitter Lists to a limited number of users, starting yesterday (Oct. 16, 2009). When I noticed several of my followers discussing this, I went to check my own twitter profile and was presented with the image above. I did not notice the "don't tweet about it yet" message until after I'd already done so, and a follower pointed this out to me who also had lists enabled. Soon thereafter, tons of Tech blog's were posting about it as well, so I am going to take the liberty to follow suit.

First of all, I am very excited by this feature and look forward to the near future when all users have this enabled. In short, I've wanted a native Twiter feature such as this for a while now, since I feel in love with Tweet Deck & Nambu's "Groups" feature within their Twitter clients. I've sort of limited myself to following around 400 people because I've found that after much more than that, my Twitter stream becomes very hard to keep up with without checking it constantly throughout the day. When I used to use very-unstable-and-crashy Nambu and then very-bloated-and-inelegant-non-mac-like Tweet Deck, I loved the ability to group people I follow for easier filtering of their content. Brizzly, the web-based Twitter client that I recently got an invite to, has a 3rd party feature built into their app which enables similar functionality. After using all three of these clients, I've found myself using Tweetie for Mac once more (and eagerly awaiting Tweetie 2 for Mac). According to Tweetie's developer, Loren Brichter, Tweetie 2 for iPhone and the upcoming Tweetie 2 for Mac will both support the Twitter Lists feature nativley. So what are Twitter lists?

This is an example of a list I made last night. This list simply contains all people that I follow on Twitter whom I know to live in the Washington D.C. area.

As you can see on the right, the amount of people on this list is the amount of people this list is following. The amount of followers this list has, is basically the amount of people who've subscribed to this twitter list.

At first, I was hesitant to press that Follow button as I was not sure what would happen. Would I suddenly start following this lists of 200 tech bloggers that Scoble created? Alas, no. It simply subscribes you to that follower list. Those followers' tweets do not automatically appear in your twitter feed unless you follow the members individually. Subscribing to a list simply saves it in the right-side-column of your twitter profile page. When you click one of these bookmarked lists, you can then see the tweets of the people who are on the list.

Twitter Lists can be public or private. While I keep a private list of 'essential' Twitterers that, when on a busy day, these are the only people I really care about not missing any of their tweets. This list has around 20 people on it. So as to not hurt anyone's feelings, it's a private list. No one can know that they didn't make the cut. Public lists, however, are why I think this will really take off. Follow Friday? Twitter's Suggested Users List? Both concepts are now obsolete. Now anyone can play the role as social curator and group interesting people together in any way want all while sharing these lists with anyone who may want them. This is going to be big, if for no other reason, providing an easy mechanism to share followers.

 

 

Google Wave First Look

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Gina Trapani former editor-in-chief at Lifehacker has posted an excellent article over at lifehacker (where she still posts from time-to-time) called "Google Wave First Look." I highly recommend reading her post to geek a feel of what Wave can do, that is, if you haven't already watched the demo video from the I/O Conference from earlier this year.  Gina also makes this excellent point which everyone who is lucky enough to receive an invite should keep in mind:

Wave is only as useful as the people who are in it, so if you get an invitation and the privilege of giving out invitations, do use them very wisely.

 Remember, you only get 8 "nominations" initially. If you blast these out to 8 of your closest friends, 6 of whom are really geeks and might not really use it, you've just run the risk of detrimentally affecting your initial wave experience because you now have no one use Wave with (unless you want to go out on Twitter and find random strangers to try it out with). Be selective with your newfound Wave granting powers :) 

 

Tweetie 2 for iPhone and Mac Has Been Announced

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Within the last 24 hours, two notable reviews have been posted of the upcoming Tweetie 2 for the iPhone which is a complete re-write of the source code of the app. 

I highly recommend both to learn more about the upcoming features and improvements to the app:

 

Loren Brichter, the developer of Tweetie, posted a tweet today stating that he submitted the final build of 2.0 to Apple on the night of Sept. 29th for Apple to review & post to the App Store. I hope sooner, rather than later, considering recent App Store approval controversies.

Yesterday, after Loren's initial blog post announcing the upcoming App improvements, I @'ed him to ask if he would please restore the wonderful blue color the initial version 1.0 used (on the mac)  to highlight tweets as you scrolled through them with your keyboard arrow keys. Shortly after 1.0 was removed, a certain percentage of it's users complained about this color choice. Loren chose to remove the blue and set it to white. I was a part of the OTHER group of users that hated the new white color, but preferred the original blue.   He responded to me via his @atebits_support account, and while I wish he would have been a little more specific, I now look forward to a color selection drop down box. Hopefully.

I wont even begin to go into all of the upcoming new features and changes to the app. That's why I linked the two reviews above. Read those. I will say that, after reading those, I'm looking forward to Tweetie 2 with earnest on both my Mac and iPhone.

iTunes 9.0: Home Sharing Explained

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Like most other Apple Geeks™ I watched today's Apple Event via twitter, live blogs, and Leo Laporte's TWiT Live broadcast, eagerly awaiting news about Apple's new products. When Steve reached the point in his presentation where he introduced the new iTunes 9.0 release, I was very happy to see both Home Sharing and the iPhone application organizer. The new iPhone application organizer is a no-brainer, as shown in the presentation video. Home Sharing at first seemed equally as easy to understand, but seeing as I was at work and I sync my iPhone at home, I was unable to immediately try it out. I finished my workday and quickly rushed home to try out iTunes 9.0. After a short download, installation and iPhone update to 3.1 I began playing around with the features. New iPhone content syncing options: check. iPhone app organizer: check. Home Sharing: Che....err wait. Where did it go? My fiance and I asked each other this question within minutes of one another. We had encountered a problem.

The Home Sharing side-menu item, which initially displayed, instructed us to enter our Apple ID info, had then promptly disappeared. Sharing was not working for us the way we saw other people reporting that it was working for them on twitter, forums and other Apple blogs across the net. At first, I hypothesized that perhaps I had misunderstood the point of Home Sharing and that it was only intended to use as a way to share content across multiple computers who all use the same iTunes account. I was disappointed that my fiance and I could not both use this feature after all, and I abandoned the idea in favor of making dinner and then watching Congressman Joe Wilson (R) of South Carolina declare this evening, in front of Congress, the American Public and the World, that he was a douchebag. My fiance went off to bed while I began watching the presentation video of the Apple event from earlier today. When Apple turned over the demo to one of the other Apple employees who demoed Home Sharing, he made it very apparent that the library he was sharing with was his wife's. Something didn't seem right to me. They never mentioned using the same Apple ID, and while he wasn't clear, his language implied it was between two different Apple ID accounts.

I started searching. I turned to several blogs, gdgt.com, engadget.com, gizmodo.com, tuaw.com, macrumors.com and finally of all places, cNET where I came across this gem of an article. Deep down in the comments of this article, I ran into two back-to-back comments that cleared the entire problem up. 

This is how to get Home Sharing to work between two different Macs who both primarily are used by two different people with two different Apple ID accounts. Turn on Home Sharing on Mac #1. Input the Apple ID login/pass within the Home Sharing screen for Mac #2 (on Mac#1). Then go to Mac #2 and on the Home Sharing screen input the Apple ID login/pass for Mac #1. It seems so simple, right? If only Apple had been a little more clear on their website how to get this to work (or better yet, on the Home Sharing screen instructions).