Recently there was some amount of ill feeling directed toward Apple after they started installing their Safari Internet browser with their iTunes software update. (I also just noticed that “up to date” is no longer hyphenated in OS X 10.5 Leopard Software Update but that’s a discussion for another day.)
While this in itself is bad enough behaviour for any software company, it is not the main annoyance I have with their practices. I like to keep things organised how I like them. Like my “Start Menu” for instance.
Every single frickin’ time that I update iTunes (and Quicktime) Apple deems it acceptable for them to place a couple of shortcuts in my Start Menu, Quick Launch area and on my Desktop which I then have to delete.
When the University of California at Irvine built their campus, they just planted grass. Then they waited a year and paved over where people had made paths in the grass. I first heard this in an interview with Larry Wall about 10 years ago but it may well be apocryphal.
I’m seeing parallels with what could be going on with Apple’s iPhone development plans. Release a basic device and wait for the crowds to clamour for what they feel is missing from the device. Pay attention to those that shout the loudest (case in point: the recent enterprise features) but make sure that you set some of the most popular requests to one side for introduction in the release of your second generation model.
Compare and contrast to the usual practice of bundling a metric ass-load of rarely-used crapware that serves mainly to clog up the menus on other phones. Video editing and ringtone composition on a mobile phone have been nothing more than gimmicks.
That is, if you believe what you read on conference banners.
It’s only a few hours to go until Steve Jobs kicks off the Macworld San Francisco (MWSF) conference with his keynote presentation and time feels like it is actually slowing down. CES has finished and, as usual, there was a really big television and not much else that grabbed my eye. True enough, wireless power appeared on the horizon once more but Splashpower have been promising us this for several years now. So what have Apple got up their sleeves for the not-so-distant future?
From www.gocomics.com
As usual, excitement, anticipation and wild speculation have been rife. As per normal, Gruber hits the nail on the head. Inductive reasoning based on technological developments, job vacancies and patent applications is the norm but some people go to extraordinary lengths to dig up information about what could about to be announced. Coming across a reference to a “MacBookAir” in the Google cache records of Adium usage logs? Honestly, where do these people find the time?
This is what Christmas was like when I was a child before it became an excuse to simply over-indulge in everything and fall asleep in front of the television. Swap a man bringing presents in a red Santa suit for a man wearing a black turtle-neck and jeans and you’re pretty much there.
I may actually forego sitting and watching the usual website and photo updates this year, hide in the gym for a couple of hours and watch the apple.com recorded version of the keynote instead.
“Bad artists copy. Great artists steal.”
- Pablo Picasso
Imitation is rife. Apple may just have been inspired by Braun design from the ’60s and ’70s for the iPhone calculator, iPod and G5 tower. The Apple vs. Microsoft vs. Xerox GUI copyright lawsuits are well known.
Over the past couple of years I’ve noticed more and more pieces of PC software that try to achieve one thing: make the PC behave more like OS X. The application notifiers Growl and Snarl. The application enhancers Quicksilver and Colibri. The window managers Expose and Exposer. Unsurprisingly not one of them quite match-up to the Apple versions.
Now after years of mediocrity it seems that the PC manufacturers have finally realised that good design will set them apart. The days of the big beige box are thankfully long gone but until very recently the aesthetics of the offerings from Dell, Gateway and the like have been distinctly poor. Dell have upped their product design staff to 90 (from just six a few years ago) and are already receiving plaudits from the industry for their efforts.
In this years Microsoft CES keynote Bill Gates boldly predicted that we’ll be relying less on the keyboard and mouse in the next five years. Gosh Bill, do you really think so? What a revelation! Take a look at some bleeding-edge design concepts for some examples that might just make it to market over the next few years.
In a word: Wow!
The Steve unleashed Apples long-awaited iPhone this afternoon in his keynote at MWSF and it blew me away. So much so in fact that I’ve only just realised that there was no mention of OS X 10.5 “Leopard” or even iLife ‘07.
This story is currently both the most read and the most emailed on the BBC News website. It’s only going to get more exposure (hopefully good) as people start to actually get their hands on them in the Summer.
The knocking of Apple for just releasing another MP3 player in 2001 and the now infamous Macrumors thread #500 looks silly today – but I guess hindsight is always 20/20. I hope this has the same effect on everyone who questioned the wisdom of Apples foray into the mobile phone market.
They say that they’re aiming for a 1% market share, or about 10 million unit sales. Shouldn’t be too tricky. It could also prove to be the catalyst for Nokia et al to start to bring some fresh new ideas to the table.
Man, do I wish I bought a metric ass-load of Apple stock seven years ago!
It looks like waiting for the Core 2 Duo (Merom) update from Apple may have paid off in more than one way. The wireless card appears to be based on the Atheros AR5008 802.11n chipset, dual-layer DVD writing and the hard drive uses PMR!
Of course, if I waited another meager eight months or so I could have been running OS X Leopard on a Santa Rosa based system . . .
