Tag: Apple Inc.

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Mac vs. PC cost analysis: How does it all add up?

Being a long time Mac user (23 years) and Macintosh software developer (10 years), I can vouch for most of Scott’s comments and findings.

One thing that many people forget when they compare the cost and speed of a computer is the whole package of what you get when you purchase a computer. What do I mean by this? Please allow me to elaborate.

For the cost, there are the long term cost of maintenance required for your computer. Whether this is for personal use or at a corporate environment. There is the cost of upgrading the software you use regularly as a result of one or more other software you use, which requires you to upgrade. Please allow me to elaborate further on this point.

It is often the case, from experience, while using a computer operating in the Microsoft Windows operating system (OS), if one vendor; may that be Microsoft or one of the other third party upgrade their software, it is often the case that these changes will affect other installed software. Causing these software to misbehave, to a point that these other software vendors will come out with their own upgrades to remedy the problem(s). Depending on the extent of the changes, you can imagine this can easily become a never ending circle of upgrades that end users will have to endure. Unfortunately, this scenario is most evident with Microsoft itself.

I am not saying that the above is always the case, but it is the result of a hands-off approach by Microsoft on third party Windows developers. In such a manner that third party developers will develop their software in almost whatever way they like, and without enough disclosure by Microsoft, these third party developers will not know how to develop their software in such a way to survive the longevity of version upgrades of the Windows OS, and compatibilities with other third party software the users may have running on their computers.

On the other hand, Apple Inc. has a very close hands-on approach on how third party developers create their software for the Macintosh OS. Apple has volumes of manuals explaining to developers how third party software should behave and how to implement every conceivable user interface elements in their software. Most importantly, Apple will guarantee these third party software to work across OS versions as long as the third party developers follow Apple’s directions on software development.

This molded Macintosh users into very demanding end users on third party software. Over the years I had seen software companies come and go in a very short period (three to six months), just because they do not follow Apple’s directions in creating their software.

Now addressing the other point in comparing computers of different OS; the “speed of the computers”. People often compares computers by their technical specifications. Yes, this are valid criterions for computers running the same OS, but when you comparing computers running different OSs; like ones that run Windows OS and Macintosh OS, these criterions are just one part of the criterions in your comparison process. Before I dive into what I mean, I like to bring up the old physic formula: Power = Work / Time.

The power of a computer can be measured the same way. The amount of work achieved over a given amount of time. That is the true power of a computing.

As there are so many factors that affect the speed or power of a particular computer for a given individual, it is not fair or valid to simply compare the

  • processor brand/type and speed
  • video card brand and speed
  • amount of memory or RAM
  • size of hard drive

Hopefully after reading this you will see computers differently especially ones that run Windows OS, Mac OS or Linux.

read more | digg story

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New iPhone Ads: what Mac ads should be

For the past 23 years the Mac OS had shined against most operating systems, particularly Microsoft Windows OS.

Although Apple, particularly Steve Jobs, had always had the believes that the product will speaks for itself. Where as, Microsoft had a powerful market machine and able to successfully sell an obvious inferior product.

So hopefully these new iPhone ads are signs of Apple’s marketing attitude changing for the better.

read more | digg story

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Business Secrecy

AppleLogo

Many people complains that Apple Inc. is not clear about their directions and secretive about their product announcements and release dates.

An example being the recent events that had transpired with Apple’s iPhone. Apple announced and demonstrated the iPhone off at MacWorld San Francisco 2007 show in January. They then inform the public of a June 2007 release date.

Now as the rumored release date of June 11 approaches, numerous companies are trying to make their own announcements to stifle the anticipated excitement surrounding the actual iPhone release.

HTC, the Taiwanese Microsoft® Windows Mobile® smartphone manufacture, is planning a major announcement in London on June 5. Their chic designed invitation copied Apple’s iPhone theme by saying, “… a new mobile experience that will change the way we use and control our phones.”.

Microsoft® released the Microsoft® Surface a few hours ago. This device is suppose to be a commercial product based on the Multitouch technology that had been in development for the past 25 years. With Fingerworks developing an Opensource software to implement this Multitouch interface initially on Windows 2000 and Mac OS X. Although, Fingerworks is now an entity of Apple and its technology had been incorporated into the iPhone.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysEVYwa-vHM]
Multitouch demonstration by Perceptive Pixel, Jefferson Y. Han’s company.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LByAFrcOwJk]
Jefferson Y. Han’s Multitouch Experiment in 2006.

So these actions by the various manufactures to position their announcements just prior to Apple’s iPhone launch, further proves Apple’s point and justifications to not make their plans 100% clear to the public. While still gives their stockholders and consumers something to look forward to.

read more | digg story

Posted on

Business Secrecy

AppleLogo

Many people complains that Apple Inc. is not clear about their directions and secretive about their product announcements and release dates.
An example being the recent events that had transpired with Apple’s iPhone. Apple announced and demonstrated the iPhone off at MacWorld San Francisco 2007 show in January. They then inform the public of a June 2007 release date.

Now as the rumored release date of June 11 approaches, numerous companies are trying to make their own announcements to stifle the anticipated excitement surrounding the actual iPhone release.

HTC, the Taiwanese Microsoft® Windows Mobile® smartphone manufacture, is planning a major announcement in London on June 5. Their chic designed invitation copied Apple’s iPhone theme by saying, “… a new mobile experience that will change the way we use and control our phones.”.

Microsoft® released the Microsoft® Surface a few hours ago. This device is suppose to be a commercial product based on the Multitouch technology that had been in development for the past 25 years. With Fingerworks developing an Opensource software to implement this Multitouch interface initially on Windows 2000 and Mac OS X. Although, Fingerworks is now an entity of Apple and its technology had been incorporated into the iPhone.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysEVYwa-vHM]
Multitouch demonstration by Perceptive Pixel, Jefferson Y. Han’s company.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LByAFrcOwJk]
Jefferson Y. Han’s Multitouch Experiment in 2006.

So these actions by the various manufactures to position their announcements just prior to Apple’s iPhone launch, further proves Apple’s point and justifications to not make their plans 100% clear to the public. While still gives their stockholders and consumers something to look forward to.

read more | digg story

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Choosing a Technology

I still hear people say, “It’s about time I learn how to use xxxx”. You can replace the “xxxx” with almost any technologies now a days. From SMS (text messaging) to Instant Messaging (IM), doing word processing on a computer to downloading HD (High Definition) movies from the Internet, video chatting to voice over IP (V0IP).

In many cases these people would clarify their statements with something like, “I really don’t know how xxxx works”. That is usually their reasons for not using the technology in question.

I believe a technology is ready for “prime time”; general consumption, when it is easy enough to use, such that people do not need to know how it works, but understand what it can do for them.

The latter is what I believe technologist or versatilist like myself is specialized in. Especially in terms of aspiring technologies that has yet to reach the pervasiveness I described above.

Technology should always be thought of as serving a business objective or solution. In very rare cases does technology dictates the business model or objectives.

Apple Inc. for one has captured this essence of technology perfectly through its products; may it be hardware or software. Their computer operating system (Mac OS) and personal computer (“Apple” and then “Macintosh”) are my computing tools of choice for the past 25+ years.

Technology companies out there should stop pushing technologies, which are not ready for prime time, down consumers’ throats.

In recent years, many such technologies existed:

  • 3G (third generation) mobile telephone. This technology and mobile phones were at least 3 years ahead of its time when mobile phone carriers were pushing the 3G phones onto consumers. Of course, now 3 years later much of European Union (EU) countries and Asia are 3G capable.
  • HD (High Definition) TV was another technology waiting for content when it was shown at CES 10 years ago, and then made widely available 3 – 4 years ago. In this case the United States, source of majority of the English TV content, took the lead in generating HD content for the massive adoption in the past 2 years. Now there are almost just as many HD channels as SD (Standard Definition) channels in the United States. Unfortunately, the rest of the world are still playing catch up with China only recently finalized their national HD standards.
  • Windows OS (operating system), until Windows Vista, was really a technical tool designed more for geeks and technophiles. Especially when we speak of the software Microsoft produced for these operating systems and the Mac OS. Microsoft Office is a very power suite of software, but for the untrained user, they are only able to use the tip of the iceberg of these tools’ capabilities.
  • Another Microsoft OS, the Microsoft “Windows Mobile”, is a bloated operating system that majority of the devices and software manufacture would not be able to take advantage of, hence, the consumers who purchase these devices are under utilizing. Majority of the consumers who purchase a Windows Mobile device; PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), has three simple requirements:
    1. Make telephone calls.
    2. Keep their business and personal contact details organized.
    3. Keep track of their business and personal appointments.

    From this set of consumers a small percentage also have the following requirements:

    1. Take photos for sending to friends via email (307,200 pixels or less). Because of the size of the average photo size requirements, a camera with less than 1M pixel resolution is sufficient.
    2. Read emails from their personal account (normally POP type), and if the device is subsidized by their employer also read corporate emails (either Microsoft Exchange, POP, IMAP or Blackberry type).

    From this smaller set of consumers a small percentage may find the following requirements necessary:

    1. They want to listen to music in MP3 format (with an average quality of 128kbps sampling rate). This quality means that the average 3 minutes song is about 2.8MB (Mega Bytes) in size.
    2. They may want to keep track of where they are via GPS and GPS software.

    Finally a very very few people wants to edit MS Office documents and/or presentations on these devices.

    As most of my readers can agree, they fall into the first set of consumers, and may be less than half of that falls into the 2nd set.

    Therefore, I believe using the Microsoft Windows Mobile OS for a PDA is like using an aircraft carrier to cross a river when a simple row boat is sufficient.

Doing the above in many cases will cause the technology in question to have a very slow up take and in some cases risk of being discontinued before their time.

Over the past decades many great and arguably superior technologies had seen such demise:

Now in the past 6 months and the next 12 months to come we may see Blu-ray and HD DVD having the same fate.

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State of Apple

Poster

Last week, on April 12, Apple Inc. announced in a statement that the next version of Mac OS X (version 10.5, code name “Leopard”) will be delayed until October this year.

This was a disappointing news to many, especially the stock market who forced Apple’s stock to go down about USD1.50. I am too disappointed by this news, as this is the first time Apple (formerly “Apple Computer Inc.”) delayed its pre-announced release date, and the first time Mac OS X was not updated for more than a year.

Apple’s statement informed us that the reason for the delay is their need to allocate resources for the iPhone development and to ensure the iPhone is released as scheduled, in June. It is hard to believe that Apple did not anticipate such resource requirements for the two major projects (iPhone and “Leopard”). Even though the public was not told about the iPhone until January.

Earlier this month Apple released the AppleTV device, which was also delayed from its original release date of March.

Are these series of delays any indications of the Apple Inc. to come? Apple had always met their projected released dates or beat it. This was one of the thing that Steve Jobs used to make fun of Microsoft and their massive delays with their Windows OS releases.

I understand the needs for a company to balance between making pre-announcements and not say anything at all about upcoming products. I am sure most people like myself will rather have a product that is fully tested and at the quality that we come to expect from Apple. I personally would rather a company like Apple to stick to their normal stance of not commenting on future products, than to offer teaser or pre-announcements.

As I had mentioned at the beginning of this blog entry, Apple is now officially known as “Apple Inc.” rather than its original “Apple Computer Inc.” when it was originally incorporated on April 1, 1977. This is an indication that Apple is transforming itself into a consumer appliance company rather than a computer and OS manufacture. First with its introduction of the iPod® in October 2001, then the AppleTV in this year and later in June the iPhone.

In one of Steve Jobs speech he predicted that Apple will be in your office, at your home, in your pocket, in your living room and in your hands. With the iPhone Apple will have completed this prediction.

So the fact that the Mac OS is delayed to give way to the iPhone is understandable, especially when the iPhone itself is using a version of Mac OS X as with the AppleTV.

I say, although many are disappointed, including myself, with Apple, we should give them a break and just enjoy the amazing innovations that keep rolling out of the “little” Cupertino company.

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Steve’s Thoughts on Music

I will begin by quoting Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple Inc.) on his post on Apple.Com today.

“With the stunning global success of Apple’s iPod music player and iTunes online music store, some have called for Apple to “open” the digital rights management (DRM) system that Apple uses to protect its music against theft, so that music purchased from iTunes can be played on digital devices purchased from other companies, and protected music purchased from other online music stores can play on iPods.

…Music on CDs can be easily imported into the freely-downloadable iTunes jukebox software which runs on both Macs and Windows PCs, and is automatically encoded into the open AAC or MP3 formats without any DRM.

…Since Apple does not own or control any music itself, it must license the rights to distribute music from others, primarily the “big four” music companies: Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI…. The solution was to create a DRM system, which envelopes each song purchased from the iTunes store in special and secret software so that it cannot be played on unauthorized devices.

…However, a key provision of our agreements with the music companies is that if our DRM system is compromised and their music becomes playable on unauthorized devices, we have only a small number of weeks to fix the problem or they can withdraw their entire music catalog from our iTunes store.

…Music purchased from Microsoft’s Zune store will only play on Zune players; music purchased from Sony’s Connect store will only play on Sony’s players; and music purchased from Apple’s iTunes store will only play on iPods.

…And since 97% of the music on the average iPod was not purchased from the iTunes store, iPod users are clearly not locked into the iTunes store to acquire their music.

…Perhaps this same conclusion contributed to Microsoft’s recent decision to switch their emphasis from an “open” model of licensing their DRM to others to a “closed” model of offering a proprietary music store, proprietary jukebox software and proprietary players.

…If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store.

…In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores, while over 20 billion songs were sold completely DRM-free and unprotected on CDs by the music companies themselves.”

As a consumer of music and someone who had purchased many content (music, movies and TV shows) from iTunes Store, my main and only concern is to ensure that all my media content are inter operable on any device. That’s because, I always believe in the statement:

Today’s winner may become tomorrow’s looser

Remember when majority of media content, used to be stored on vinyl records, audio tapes, video tapes (Beta and/or VHS), and more recently CDs and DVDs.

Therefore, even though I believe in Apple’s products and prefer their tools over others, based on usability and reliability. I do take certain steps to ensure that these purchased media content are inter operable. This latter step is to ensure my rights to use these content are intact, similar to what Americans have in the United States in the form of Fair use rights. So history tells us, we as consumers cannot rely on any one technology to protect our rights.

I echo Steve Jobs’ call to the Media “giants” to relinquish the need for DRM on content. Imposing DRM on all media content distributed on the Internet is assuming that all consumers are thieves. I understand the contrary is an idealistic way of looking at the situation. What have our society come to when we have to assume everyone to be bad? To protect artist rights; the actual content owners, there have to be other ways.

BTW: CDs and DVDs (to a certain extent) do not have DRM at the moment. We all heard what happened to Sony Music when they tried to put DRM onto their music CDs.

Putting the blame on either Apple Inc. or the Media “giants” may also be unfair. May be the solution is to have the “actual” content owners speak up. The artist should decide on an individual basis if they prefer to have DRM applied to their work. If so, then the media content distributors, may it be one of the Media “giants” or Apple will have to decide whether to distribute their content via the Internet.

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Apple orders 12 million iPhones!

Yet another report on the highly anticipated Apple iPhone. Should we be that excited? Yes, I do agree that when Apple does something, they always do it all the way and the right way. Especially when this the product will be Apple’s first convergence product.

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My Comments on Steve Jobs’ Keynote at WWDC’06

Apple

Just finished reading the Live coverage of Steve Jobs’ keynote at the Apple 2006 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC’06) in San Francisco.

There are so many new features in the new Mac OS X (code name “Leopard”), it will be even more exciting to be using a Mac starting in 2007.

Two of the features I definitely will use are “Time Machine” and “Spaces”. For the former, I had been trying to find a backup software that does incremental backups on my Macintel. I had been using Carbon Copy Cloner, but its incremental backup (synchronization) feature is broken on Macintels. Now with “Time Machine” built into the up coming Mac OS X, there will not be any more excuse for people to not have a back up of their Macs.

As for the latter, “Spaces”, I also currently use an application, VirtueDesktops, that does similar thing. But Apple’s Spaces is much more featured and some of which I will definitely be able to take advantage of, that is not currently available in VirtueDesktops.

So check out the various sites with coverage of the keynote and start salivating for the next Mac OS X this coming Spring.

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Pixar & Disney, Friends Again?

It looks like the sale of Pixar Animation Studios to Disney made Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios friends again.

In the original partnership agreement started in 1995 with the release of “Toy Story“, and was to end with the upcoming release of “Cars“. There were talks that Pixar was seeking a new partner for its future full length animations, after Disney openly announce their desire to discontinue the partnership, while still under the lead of former CEO, Michael Eisner. All this was before Steve Jobs sold Pixar Animation Studios to Disney (January 25, 2006), became the largest share holder, the former President of Pixar became the President of the combined Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, and the former Executive Vice President of Pixar became the Chief Creative Officer of the combined Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, which also give him the responsibility of “Principal Creative Adviser” at Walt Disney Imagineering.

Now Pixar had released a new trailer for its upcoming full length animation, “Ratatouille” (Rat-a-too-ee), to be released by Disney Pictures.

I hope that this is a sign that this successful partnership will continue for years to come. Since I believe the quality of humor from Pixar is far better than those from Dreamworks or Sony Pictures.