Electric Currents

Apple and the Peril of Success0
JR posted in Operating Systems, Web news, Devices on September 30th, 2008

I’ve (somewhat enviously) been following the success of Apple and their iPhone/iTouch success with the applications store.  Lots of good programs there and many of the small makers are receiving remarkable amounts of money from their creations.  This has been undeniably good for the software makers and the iPhone community.  More importantly, Apple has provided a single, convenient and reliable source for acquiring software for their device.

There have been some drawbacks to this.  First was that Apple was taking 30% of the price on any of the “for pay” applications.  When the initial wave of applications hit and about half were free and almost all of the remainder was priced under $5, this wasn’t much of an issue.  After all, how much was actually going to be involved with this App Store?  It couldn’t really amount to much revenue when compared to the devices themselves.

Then we started hearing about the success of the iPhone 3G and with it the success of the Apps Store.  Five millions iPhones quickly sold and just as quickly came the reports of 100 million applications downloaded.  Whoa.  That’s a lot of apps, even if half were free.  And the party hasn’t stopped.  Sales from the Apps Store appear to be continuing at that same pace as new iPhone buyers discover the universe of software they can download.

Watching this and comparing it to the rest of Apple now has me worried.  Sure the obvious reason for concern is the widely reported instances in which Apple has denied applications for the Apps Store.  There is also the developer concerns about the wide coverage of the very restrictive parts of the NDA.  But that isn’t what worries me.

The real source of concern is the success that the Apps Store has had in providing the very convenient and controlled single place to get applications for Apple’s devices.  This just feeds into the Apple tendency to want to tightly control and optimize the experience for the user.  They want to make everything so smooth and easy for us; while taking a reasonable profit for themselves.

Apple fans are long aware that one of the problems with being an Apple user is that it is more difficult to find software for their preferred platform.  Sure, they are comfortable with downloading and installing applications from the makers, but it isn’t easy to find software when most retail outlets only carry a tiny amount of Mac software, if any.

Now we start seeing the way that the Apps Store might change this.  What if there was an Apps Store that Apple managed for Mac software?  Just like with the iPhone, it could easily tap into your iTunes account for billing information.  Apple could control the offered software and insure that there was not hostile malware that was offered.  Wider exposure to the Mac community would be good for many software publishers and they wouldn’t have to fight with the software distributors for shelf space in retail stores.

But this leads even further to the ghettoization of the Mac just when it is starting to grow in popularity.  Just as more people are buying Macs and there is a growing demand for Mac software that the retail stores will want to serve, Apple could be taking in all the applications to the App Store, leaving no reason for retail distribution.  And Apple would modestly take a slice of the sale price (albeit less than the normal distribution chain would).  (Incidentally, getting a slice of the revenue that independent developers create has to be something that would make Microsoft salivate enviously.)

So a Mac Apps Store is unlikely at this point.  What will happen next?

Just recently, Apple instructed retailers to remove AppleTV displays and get ready for something new starting today (September 30).  AppleTV was a nice front end to the iTunes store and brought the elegant Apple experience to the HDTV, but it never really caught on with the public.  Popular with the hacking community, many people have expanded AppleTV’s capabilities greatly from the original product.

What if Apple brought the App Store to AppleTV?  Because the platform hasn’t been successful to date, it  is a good test area for whether adding the Apps Store will expand its market.  If successful there, the Apps Store concept could be expanded to the Mac itself.

Let’s see what happens.

How the iPhone will challenge the Blackberry0
JR posted in Devices on May 11th, 2008

Great article about how the iPhone can compete with the Blackberry at Daring Fireball. He thinks deeper into the issue than the typical fanboy rantings for either platform.

Further, he is looking at the iPhone as it currently exists, not with the putative promises and unknown success of the upcoming improvements to the device.

Detailed iPhone review0
JR posted in Devices on July 10th, 2007

Ars Technica has released one of it always excellent and detailed reviews; in this case about the iPhone.

Fifteen pages detailing the physical strengths and weaknesses of the iPhone and the software triumphs and failures. It includes a remarkable durability test that includes everything from being stepped on to dropping it from a 3rd story window.

Their balanced verdict is that the iPhone is a mixed bag. In the areas where the iPhone excels, it is at a level far above all the competition. The failures, like e-mail, appear to almost be an afterthought compared to the other functions. Because of the incomplete appearance of the mail application, there is hope that it will be greatly improved in a later software update.

Me? I’ve been using a Nokia N800 for about 6 months and recently changed my Bluetooth-connected cell phone to one which can use an HSDPA network connection in addition to WiFi. It gives me a lot of what the iPhone can do and is getting more and more software released for it by the week. I’ve got time to see what the iPhone can become.

iPhone Madness0
JR posted in Devices on June 29th, 2007

Tom Krazit at CNet’s News.com has a remarkably well considered article about why all the iPhone coverage and why this isn’t just another product debut.

He makes the point that, while PCs will continue to be functional and widely used, that mobile computing will be the place where most of the innovation will be taking place over the next 10 years.

iPhone: Hype vs Substance0
JR posted in Devices on June 25th, 2007

Excellent article at Roughly Drafted titled Secret iPhone Details Lost in a Sea of Hype and Hate.  He points out that there are some prominent criticisms of the iPhone coming from those who arguably show some signs of having an interest in it failing.

I don’t think that I would go as far as he does in assigning the criticisms to an actual campaign of fear, uncertainty and doubt, but there may well be an interest on some writers part on the iPhone not being a huge success.

That being said, I have to agree that there are some aspects of the iPhone that are troubling.  The high price and lockin with AT&T are one of them, but smart phones are usually expensive and this, while near the top of the price range, isn’t extraordinary.  The limitation of using an EDGE connection for Internet access is more troubling.  I’ve used an EDGE connection with my N800 via  a Bluetooth connection to my phone (an excellent solution, by the way) and the connection speed on some sites can be miserable.

All the same, we will know the results of the iPhone shortly.  I’m looking forward to the “One month in” reviews which will show up soon.

Watermarking the Salvation of media?0
JR posted in Devices on June 12th, 2007

Brian Elliot has a excellent and balanced suggestion for a way to handle reduction of media piracy while retaining a ease of use by consumers.

Essentially, it is a means of watermarking a copyrighted work so that if the purchaser openly shares it, the copyright owner could easily identify who released it. Note that this does not include any digital rights management so the consumer could move his copyrighted media from device to device easily and without interference.

Read the article for his well thought-out means of implementing the watermarking and with an equally well-considered respect for the faults in his scheme.

Microsoft and the iPod killer0
JR posted in Devices on July 6th, 2006

Many sites are now discussing a Microsoft developed and marketed portable music player that is intended to compete with the Apple iPod.  Most of the discussion appears to have been sparked by an article by the Bloomberg news service.

The best and most insightful article I’ve found is from the often irreverant The Register out of the UK.  They correctly point out that after years of Microsoft feeding their hardware partners with successive versions of Windows Media players, that none have succeeded in making any significant inroads in the iPod market.  Indeed, over the last year, Apple’s market share actually increased.

More interesting is the point they make that instead of an iPod competitor, Microsoft may be preparing a handheld game machine to exploit their growing success with the X-Box.  They feel it would be trivial to include multimedia playback on such a device as a throwaway add-on.

A nice idea, but it fails to recognize that Sony as tried exactly that same formula with their PlayStation Portable device.  While a modest success as a game system (and falling far short of Nintendo’s DS), its multimedia capabilities have been considerably less well received.  The UMD disk format, promoted with much fanfare and commercial investment has utterly tanked with retailers virtually throwing away the poor selling disks.  My neighborhood retailers have just removed the last of these.

The Register article also points out that anything new that Microsoft might include in a multimedia-only device could easily be replicated by Apple to defend the brand.

HD-DVD Conspiracy Theories0
JR posted in Devices on June 30th, 2006

One of the tech columnists for the NY Times, David Pogue, puts forth and interesting conspiracy theory with a familiar target regarding the pricing of the first HD-DVD players from Toshiba.  Per the article, he and others don’t believe that Toshiba would be willing to lose about $200 per player to create a market or HD-DVD disks.  They point to Microsoft as the most influencial backer of HD-DVDs with the resources to do this.

This strikes me as a bit too much for an actual conspiracy.  I think that, given the very small volume of shipping players, Toshiba would be perfectly willing to take that small loss to build the format and brand.

LA Times predictions - part 10
JR posted in Web news, Devices on January 3rd, 2006

Excellent article by Sallie Hofmeister of the LA Times highlighting her predictions for the coming year.  Whether you agree with any of her predictions or not, there are several in the article which are well-worthy of attention from my readers.

The section which appears to have caught the attention of the tech community was her rather nebulous statements about Google getting into the consumer hardware business.  Slashdot offered and early exposure. Later, C-Net’s News.com started placing it on their “News From The Web” section. The original article is pretty mild in its statement, “Google will unveil its own low-price personal computer or other device that connects to the Internet.”

The article then goes on to talk about unnamed sources reports that Google has been in negotiations with Wal-Mart to sell a “Google PC”. Speculatively running a Google-provided non-Microsoft operating system, it would supposedly be priced at a couple hundred dollars.

Alternatively, the article also points to a Bear Stearns analyst report that speculated about soemthing called “Google Cubes”. These are supposed to be a small hardware device that can connect a variey of devices and distribute media.

Last, in further support of something important happening with Google is the fact that Google’s co-founder, Larry Page, will be giving a keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show on January 6.

I’ll shoot my mouth off now and apologize later.  While a Google PC is definitely doable (and would likely be Linux-based given their expertise), I think that this is a non-starter. Other than the novelty and a presumed tight link to Google’s existing services, it can’t help but run up against the wall that has defeated other Windows challengers; software selection and compatibility versus Microsoft’s Windows.

I first became aware of the speculative Google Cube from a November article by Robert X. Cringley. As he usually does, there is lots of excellent speculation and ideas, but little in the way of hard facts.  That would appear to be much of the foundation of the Bear Stearns analyst report. More than the LA Times article speculated, Cringley speculated at a wide ecosystem that the Google Cubes would enable from multimedia distribution to a home alarm system.  While a cheap device individually, it needs a massive and therefore expensive implementation of the devices.

Given the need for massive distribution of the Cubes, it suggests a reason for negotiations with Wal-Mart.  Given that the PC would be destined for a troubled life, I hope that the keynote is about the Google Cube and that Larry pulls a Steve Jobs-like surprise and is able to have the Cubes appear in Wal-Mart shortly after the announcement (one would hope the day of the speech).

More from Sallie Hofmeister’s article in part 2.

Welcome to E-Books0
JR posted in Writing, Devices on December 31st, 2005

I’ll admit that, as a life-long reader, I’ve always been looking for some way that I can conveniently take a book or two with me during my commute.  Paperbacks have filled that role for almost all of us since their introduction almost a century ago.  However, as a heavy and rapid reader, I was regularly faced with the dilema of determining what book to take with me as a backup when I approached the end of the current novel.  And, if I had a particularly productive day of reading, I would sometimes find myself without reading material for the commute home.  While not an onerous choice, sometimes I wished that it was one I didn’t have to make.

BusinessWeek has an article about Sony’s upcoming e-book reader slated to debut at the Consumer Electronics Show.  They report that it is to be priced at $300-$500.  Learning from Apple’s success with the iPod/iTunes close integration, they will be offering books via their Sony Connect web store.

I have some severe doubts about the appeal and success of this device.  First, Sony’s previous attempt at such a device, the Japanese-only Librie, while promising, turned out to be a failure in the market.  Overpriced, required a proprietary formats for e-books, and, as a result, little in the way of content.  Nor was there any easy way for readers to get their own material onto the device.

Sony attacks these issues in multiple ways.  It has content deals with major US publishers (Random House, Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins).  They have included the nearly universal PDF as a readable format and, as previously noted, have embraced the common USB standard for connecting the device.  Further, it will reportedly use the standard SD memory cards rather than Sony’s less popular and proprietary Memory Sticks.

Missing from this advance notice is any indication of what the price of an e-book will be or if there will be any way to get publications to the reader outside of Sony’s web store (though with PDF as an allowed format, one would hope so).  Though Sony may have learned lessons from Apple, my guess is they aren’t likely to have noted that a lot of what is driving the success of the iPod is people placing their own existing music library on the device without paying another dime to the content owners (something that Sony-BMG despises and tried to do away with via their recent rootkit fiasco).  This won’t be possible for the e-book reader unless people are willing to scan their own books to PDF.

Sony has a penchant for creating some great hardware and then missing the opportunity to make it a standard.  I expect that to happen here.  Also in early 2006, the BusinessWeek article reports that iRex Technologies (a Philips Electronics spin-off) and Jinke Co. (a Chinese device maker) will also debut similar devices.  I doubt that either will be compatible with the Sony store, and Sony will lose any chance of setting a standard that will benefit themselves.

Lastly, and an objection that may readers will note, why does this need to be restricted to being an e-book reader only (and especially at that price).  The e-ink screen is the real value of the product.  That screen can display any black/white text with remarkable crispness and with a miserly use of power.  Couldn’t this be mated with something like Nokia’s E770 web tablet which is already available for $350 and able to read web pages, PDFs and more?