tech ronin

Recession is Apple Talent-grab Opportunity

You know that $18 billion in cash Apple has lying around gathering dust? What say Apple starts staffing up for the coming era of iPhone / iPod touch platform domination? You can buy both companies and talent on the cheap in a recession. Steve is Scotch as I recall.

Combine a crappy economy, an awesome new iPhone SDK, a frictionless wireless App store and a $100 million iFund and what do you get? The best and brightest global entrepreneurial software talent are going to swarm this. Look what jailbreaking wrought and multiply by 10 for a start.

Update Mar 9: Upon further reflection, it strikes me that Apple may well scoop up the a few of the most promising iPhone SDK developer companies themselves. I'm convinced Apple needs to staff up.

I noticed that last year their R&D spending was less than 4% which is pretty low for such an innovative company as Apple. But then maybe some of their recent spending hasn't been expensed yet due to the 2-year window within which they can recognize expenses for the iPhone.

Attentive Mac fans have noticed the fairly high number of missed deadlines. Most recently Leopard was late and a bit buggy when finally released and now the SDK is just in Beta rather than done by February. Apple needs talent - the best available. I almost think they've been too busy building stuff to go out and find some more good people. But that only works so long.

I liked seeing Steve including two of his most able executives in important parts of the Roadmap presentation. They were looking good, actually. Steve casts a long shadow, but he needs plenty of help at the size Apple has grown to be.

iPhone/iPod touch: THE platform of the next decade?

Apple today introduced a glimpse of iPhone 2.0 to be shipping in late June. They showed lots of enterprise features. They are going for the enterprise which is appropriate to compete with the BlackBerry and because the US consumer market is going to be slower than molasses for a while.

Apple showed vertical market software with early non-shipping versions of SalesForce.com and Epocrates. Both looked sensational. I am counting on my md to be sporting an iPhone when I have my checkup in August.

And the fun part, of course, is iPhone games. Glimpses of Super Monkey Ball, Spore and other fun titles look fantastic. Fun but more waiting.

Steve's perfectionism was in evidence. This is an incredibly complete and well-thought-out SDK effort. Steve mentioned we might be living with it for 20 years. But that perfectionism will cost us a few more months of waiting.

It is clear that Apple is making a play for what they feel is the next computing platform of note. The mobile computer.

I was pleased hear reference to wi-fi as being a part of 2.0 because if they introduce 3G around this same time, we get wi-fi AND 3G, not 3G OR wi-fi. I'm ready to pony up for such a combo device.

Also, questions about VOIP were raised and Steve said Apple is OK with VOIP over wi-fi but not over the cellular network. I can live with that for now.

AT&T's free wi-fi at Starbucks is a Game Changer

Wow, this is huge and especially benefits Apple with its lead in the wi-fi-based mobile space. Steve got AT&T to support free wi-fi. How great. AT&T DSL customers get unlimited free wi-fi at Starbucks.

If you have a Starbucks debit card, you get 2 free hours a day. No more having to pay $20 or more a month to get free wi-fi at Starbucks. Keep in mind that Starbucks is the king of coffee. If they give out free wi-fi, doesn't that mean that all the other coffee places will need to provide free wi-fi to compete? The answer is yes.

If everyone was paying Verizon for 3G access (which is slower than wi-fi by the way), no one would need free wi-fi unless they were carrying a laptop which most people don't do.

This totally supports the iPod touch and significantly increases the value of its free wi-fi access. Remember that Apple kept mentioning the iPod touch as a wi-fi mobile device at their quarterly finance conference. Now we know why.

I've been saying all along that we need more free wi-fi. This is the best news ever on that front. The enemy of wi-fi is the cellular carrier. To get the biggest US cell carrier to give away wi-fi is huge.

This move also really helps the current iPhone which has wi-fi but not 3G. I've always wondered why people were so much in a big hurry about 3G on the iPhone because (1) I thought AT&T would charge more than $20/month for a 3G data plan - try $30 or $40 and (2) there is a good chance Apple would drop wi-fi capability once the iPhone is 3G.

Wi-fi is the populous choice. It allows the technology makers like Apple, cell phone makers like Nokia and little-guy-makers to freely create what they want and helps their strength vis-a-vis the carrier. All mobile phone makers get leverage with the carrier to the extent they can use wi-fi in place of cellular.

All along the carriers have been restricting trade in a monopolistic fashion (2-year contracts for example) and have been suppressing the expression of the mobile phone makers. Here's Steve rescuing the industry again if they could only admit it. He deserves some kudos.

Among others, Matt Hamblen at Computerworld has the full story.

iPhone Update Jan 17 '08

Firmware 1.1.3 has made the iPhone and iPod touch more useful and fun than ever and...

Wishlist:
Here are a few things I really want to see on the iPhone and iPod touch now that I'm back to the straight and narrow:

1. Notes syncing both ways. I need to be able to store information for reference on my iPhone or iPod touch without a hassle or hack. I wanted to put As We May Think by Vannevar Bush on their, for example.

2. A wireless keyboard. I want to be able to do what Palm users and I as one of those Palm users have done. Bring one of those little foldup keyboards with you with an iPhone and be able to type long communications not just little stuff - a paragraph or two on the onscreen keyboard.

3. Cut, Copy and Paste. Please.

Firmware 1.1.3:
1. Lyrics. Ooh. Had fun tonight grabbing tons of lyrics quickly with the aid or donationware: GimmeSomeTune. You can get fancy and use Automator to go through your music collection but for now I just installed this little program and it went and got album cover art and lyrics for most songs in my collection one at a time. It will keep searching if it can't find something right away and fill it in when it finds it. Very cool.

2. Webclips. Yeah that's fun. Especially since you can fill up to 9 home pages with buttons now and rearrange according to your own preferences.

3. Upgraded Google Maps. The locate me function isn't working very accurately, I can drop pins for now which is easier than typing in address info as your starting place.

Conclusion:
Apple really must be pushed to not have gotten more upgrades out for the iPhone by now. They do have a ton of plates in the air. In an interview in June, Steve said you can't just hire more people to get more done in response to questions about the delay of Leopard. I wonder if their past performance and stock price drives them. Actually I think it is the opportunity to change the world that can't be refused.

Leopard on iMac 24 2.8 - Bliss

Got an iMac 24 2.8 on Sunday. My G5 tower 2 ghz dual was 3 years old. I loved that it still does Classic. But it was starting to show its age and I believe in replacing my Macs before they become completely obsolete. And I like to get new Macs at the end of the year for tax reasons.

I didn't want to pay for a new Mac Pro plus a 23" or 30" screen. Wasn't a good deal from my perspective and a high end iMac seems good enough. I considered the lower-end 24" iMac but I want something that will still seem fast for a while. Not something that is just fast enough now and will start seeming a little slow a year from now.

You pay an extra $250 for the 2.8 ghz processor compared to the 2.4 ghz version. That's a reasonable anti-obsolescence investment. Since the processor is going to give out before the screen does, I want the faster processor so that this gorgeous hunk of metal and glass will have a long life span before hitting the dump or recycling bin.

The other $250 I paid ($2299 total) included a 500 gb instead of 320 gb hard drive and 2 gb RAM instead of just 1 gb. Again, I liked the higher end configuration because it won't be easy to upgrade the hard drive later. At some point I do expect to upgrade to 4 gigs of RAM but 2 will do for a while.

I also sprung for a wireless keyboard and mouse. Because I was buying at the Apple store, I had to pay full price for the wireless gear. I forgot about that when deciding to buy locally rather than online. Oops. That cost me an extra $120. But, I do regard the extra gear as backups should the batteries go bad one day I'm in a crunch.

The 24" screen has been something I've wanted for years ever since I saw my first 23" cinema display years ago. It is huge!

I have been using a 20" cinema display (about 4 years old) and a 17" cinema display (about 6 years old). I thought maybe I could use the 24" iMac and deploy or sell the older displays elsewhere. Not quite!

I missed having a second secondary screen to put things on that I want open but want out of the way. Spaces didn't feel like it would do quite what I need. I have a habit of having that screen there. For example, today my email wasn't working. I wanted to keep the email inbox in sight but needed it out of the way so I could use the screen for other things.

I already had an adapter that let me use one of my old Apple displays with the G5's newer DVI port. All I had to add was a mini-DVI to DVI adapter and plug that into my Apple Adapter and plug the Cinema display into the adapter. Apple sells the mini-DVI adapters for $20 and the Apple-DVI adapter for $100. Luckily, I just needed the $20 item. Went over to the Corte Madera Apple store (which was rocking hard at about 5:30 pm) and picked up the mini-DVI adapter. Plugged things in and I'm set.

Now I have my 20" monitor as the secondary screen. It is about 3" lower because it doesn't have the iMac's chin, but it works. I doubt if I'll bother trying to elevate it.

Now, about this new iMac! It is a thing of beauty! It is a great, great machine. The screen is brighter than bright, so I keep it set to the minimum brightness for normal use. I can turn it up for use with photos and video. You are going to need extra ambient light if you want to work at night with this screen without blowing your eyes out.

The wired and wireless keyboards are exquisite. The touch is to die for. The look is awesome. So far, I'm using the baby-sized wireless keyboard with complete satisfaction. I'm not a numeric keypad fan, so I delight in losing the extra weight and size of the wired keyboard. Every other keyboard seems clunky compared to this.

I was not too surprised to find that Tiger was installed on the iMac. A Leopard DVD was in the box but that's it. I had to install Leopard at home. A whole extra chunk of time when I couldn't use the new machine. Bummer!

One advantage, though, is that I got to see how much better I liked the new iMac with Leopard on it. Leopard on my MacBook was one thing, but Leopard on this screamer with giant screen is fantastic! The 3D dock looks like it was made for this screen. It looks great and their's plenty of vertical space so I don't need to begrudge losing vertical room to a dock at the bottom of my screen. On the MacBook, I had to put the dock on the left to get some room.

Leopard is gorgeous. It runs blazing fast on this machine. Everything pops. Safari is wonderful. I'm hooked on Leopard now. I'll try hard to hold out till Christmas with my MacBook Pro on Tiger just in case I run into trouble. Steve was telling the truth in June when he said Leopard would be worth waiting for.

This is my first iMac. Who knew I would love the integration and simplicity? I am beginning to see things Steve's way on this. It's so easy. So elegant. Sometimes options are more trouble than they are worth. That's the religion you get with the iPhone.... I'm being corrupted but perhaps for my own good.

Up and Running in OSX Leopard

I dropped by my local Apple store in Corte Madera last night around 9:25 pm. It was busy but there were lots of Apple staff around so I could get help fairly quickly. I used my iPhone $100 credit and bought the Family size of OS X Leopard. Got my free T-shirt which is still in the bag.

I'm moving this weekend with movers coming early Monday morning. No time for much fun. But, I did think I could stop working around 9:15 pm long enough to get Leopard on Leopard night.

I left pretty quickly and headed over to the new place in Tiburon. There were no special treats other than the T-shirts at check out. Not exactly a party. My new apartment has my new Sony XBR4 40“ HDTV, so I coordinated my trip with a brief visit to the new TV to watch Numbers in HD. Looking good!

While the show was on, I tried to install Leopard on my MacBook (my #2 machine). I just tried the upgrade. First time through it failed. Second time through it was failing and said the only way it would work is if I erased my drive. I forgot about archive and install and erased the drive. Too bad. The install failed which left me with an unusable computer on day 1.

Today, in between packing boxes, I used SuperDuper to copy a backup of my MacBook Pro to the MacBook. That took about an hour. Then I was able to boot the MacBook again. I read the installation instructions a bit more this time and decided to do an archive and install.

Worked like a charm and I am writing this post in Leopard using ecto as we speak. Leopard is definitely snazzy. The consistent look and differences are really nice. I'm already plotting to upgrade my MacBook Pro as soon as possible.

But, after my first bumpy install experience, I think I'll give it at least until Tuesday after the move. Meanwhile, I can use this machine to check my IMAP email in Mail and surf the net. I did upgrade my copy of NetNewsWire when it notified me there was an update and it is running just fine without a problem.

I can't wait to play with Go to My Mac and screen sharing in the near future! I'll make several more posts no doubt as I discover the niceties of this new OS for myself over the next few days.

First take on Amazon DRM-free music downloads

I just downloaded my first Amazon download for 89 cents! I had to download a small downloader application first (a beta).

I had to quit Safari to complete the install. Luckily I didn't have my usual massive number of tabs open, but heads up on that. The downloader put the song right into iTunes for me. This is quick and easy!

I am glad to see Amazon making a credible entry into the music downloading business to provide competition to Apple's iTunes. I'm even happier to see they are doing a DRM-free, relatively high-quality offering. They have two labels, Universal and EMI, so far.

Like anyone, I prefer to skip DRM. Now I can get a lot of music without DRM at a reasonable price. I intend to buy single songs at 89 and 99 cents per song. This deal beats Apple's 1.29 cent price for their DRM-free songs.

Apple has the edge in two areas. First, the iTunes store is way better overall. But, Amazon has better search and I hope that means Apple will give us some decent search to augment their current strengths. Second, Apple uses AAC encoding and Amazon is using MP3. AAC gives you a notch better quality at the same size.

So, Apple's DRM-free music is a little bit better and that difference would probably be noticeable on high quality headphones or high-end speakers. There is one caveat, though, which is that MP3 is supported everywhere and AAC is only supported on some players. If you are an iPod user, you'll be able to take advantage of AAC.

I will continue to use the iTunes store and also check out the Amazon store in some detail. I will report back on my experiences. Right now I want to support the Amazon DRM-free offering, so when I find something I want on the Amazon store, I will purchase there.

When I find a single song on iTunes that I want, I will just buy the DRM-free version there and pay the extra 30 cents. It isn't worth the trouble to go back and buy it on Amazon and I get the small AAC quality advantage to boot.

If there is no DRM-free version on iTunes, I'll buy there only if I don't think the DRM-free version is available on Amazon. DRM-free takes precedence because the convenience later in moving the song to different machines will make up for the inconvenience now of having to find the song again on Amazon.

Keep in mind that Apple wins either way. More good DRM-free music will drive iPod and iPhone sales. Besides, the competition will inspire Apple to do better work.

Finally, we want legal DRM-free music. Amazon, by joining the DRM-free side of the argument, will pressure the other labels that are holding out to open up their music too. This is good!

Whoa iPod touch, $399 iPhone, phatty nanos

Rocking with the rhythm! I didn't dare hope for a trim and gorgeous iPhone-like iPod so soon. I see there's no email button or notes on the iPod touch. There's no stock quotes or weather either.

Lots of space for something but I don't know what. Now that OS X drives these little music machines, there's plenty of room for exciting possibilities. Who knows? Maybe Apple will open up the touch while guarding access to the iPhone for a while longer.

Keep in mind that you don't get a speaker or a camera in the iPod touch. But then, not having to pay for a 2 year service contract with AT&T has got to count for something. You get more iPod for your money here. The 8 gig touch is $100 cheaper than the iPhone's new $399 price.

Loving that Stevie Jay put wi-fi in the iPod touch (16 gig version is $399). Safari on an iPod. You can download direct to your iPod touch and iPhone from the iTunes store. Instant gratification. Direct downloads will play well in Asia where not everyone sees the need for a computer when they have a cell phone to take its place.

Trying to figure out what I do next when I buy my next iPod. Do I blow my money and get a 16 gb iPod touch as a compliment to my iPhone? Probably not the smartest move. Seems too redundant and bulky to have two iPhone-sized devices. The touch is slightly smaller but not by much.

How about a cute little 8 gig phatty nano ($199) as a sleek adjunct? All I have to do is divvy up the media storage in a logical way between the two. I'm liking that new green. I can't wait to see that 2" screen boasting an amazing 204 pixels per inch and delivering the same QVGA pixel count, 320x240, as its bigger brother.

My theory on the iPhone price cut: (1) Steve needed to make that cut to drive more sales to meet the Sept 30 deadline for selling a million iPhones. They are on sale right now at the online store for $399 and (2) now there is room to charge $499 for the impending 16 gig iPhone and $599 for the 16 gig with 3G?

The 4 gig iPhone is being phased out. Engadget says you can get them for $299 while they last. Also, if you just bought an iPhone in the last couple of weeks, you can ask for a refund of the difference less a 10% restocking fee. You go!

Stock market dropped AAPL with perhaps a panic that (1) sales must not be brisk if a 33% price cut was needed and (2) hey, the margins just got shot to hell!

And, one more thing. Free wi-fi at Starbucks for your touches and iPhones! A little wheeling and dealing there to get the free wi-fi with this button that will sell Starbucks tunes. Update: on further research, it is not clear that you can use the wi-fi for anything besides the iTunes store. That's weak if true.

Overall, these are awesome new iPods. OK, the shuffle is a disappointment. But, the nano and iPod touch are both extremely cool and you can't beat the iPod classics for storage space. They share the new OS X UI.

Critics were saying the iPod has peaked. Remember when Apple said 30 years and we are just getting started at the beginning of the year? They weren't kidding. With the drop of the iPhone price to a realistic level, who is going to stop Apple now?

See Gizmodo's iPod touch photo gallery.

Picked up a few more shares of APPL

Woo hoo! Got 65 more shares of AAPL at $130.09. Remember that I'm nobody and totally inexperienced with stocks. All my other holdings are mutual funds. But, I wanted to have a round number of shares. Now I have 200. Much easier math. I have an iPhone and I think Steve Jobs is at least as competent as any other corporate exec out there and APPL is worth more than $130. So there!

And that doesn't mean it won't drop below 130. I just think overall it is headed towards 200. And I'm looking forward to iMacs next week, Leopard, upgrades to iPhone, widespread adoption by the non-early-adopters, international sales, and the ultraportable.

State of The Mac - July 2007

Just a note to let you know I wrote a new entry on the front page of my tokerud.com website on the above subject. Enjoy.