tech ronin

iPhone Story Keeps Getting Better

Last week, Apple re-did their entire website. It is way improved with tons of motion. Things pop-up, slide, roll up and down and play. The iPhone section has 2-minute QuickTours. In the Internet in your Pocket section, there are 5 QuickTours.

As of Monday, the iPhone got an optical glass top layer instead of plastic. It also got a much improved battery life going from 5 to 8 hours of talk time. And, one more thing, you can buy your iPhone on Apple's online store, eliminating long waits in line.

Today, it got YouTube. All the technorati have been wondering what the missing 12th button might be. In at least one demo, there was a 12th button but you couldn't see what it was. You can not only watch YouTube videos, you can instantly send links to your friends by email.

Now we know. Maybe Apple is done with surprises. But, I doubt it. My guess is the story will continue to get better right up to launch day. I wonder what is next?

To iPhone or Not?

The painful memories of looking forward to and being disappointed by the first Newton still affect my thinking on whether or not to get in line and buy an iPhone next week. I am an optimist and a technology enthusiast.

I am strongly tempted to get in that line Friday the 29th. I am watching all the tech sites, gathering information here and there.

Newton 1.0 didn't have the best handwriting recognition but I could live with that. What didn't work is that when I put in 50 contacts, it got slow. Unusably slow.

Steve was not at the helm when the Newton was released. In fact, he killed the Newton project. Maybe he deserves a free pass on the failure of the Newton. Steve is the most competitive, perfectionistic tech exec out there. He is betting the company on the iPhone or close to it and I don't see him letting it fail.

However, I am a techie. I know the advice and have given it often to not buy a 1.0 device or OS. Wait awhile to see how things shake out the first couple of weeks and months. But, of course, being a blogger and tech professional, I often break the rule so that I can better advise my clients.

I want to know what it is like to use an iPhone. I want to see how well it will work for me. Whether it is better than my BlackBerry Pearl by leaps and bounds.

Since I bought the Pearl in February, I am in a bit of jam when it comes to signing another 2 year contract. I will be studying the details in the days before launch to see what my cost would be to get an iPhone right out of the gate.

The TV ads and the iPhone demos on the Apple site look awesome. I am sure next week I will be swept up in the excitement and be sorely tempted. And yet, I am not looking forward to waiting in line for hours on end and then finding out that the cost is too high or the store I choose has run out.

OS X on a mobile phone seems amazingly cool. I am one of those who believe the mobile phone is the next computing platform of interest. The always-on connectivity and the universality of cell phones is getting to a tipping point that I am sure will produce all sorts of cool stuff.

I want to lead the pack ahead of the next guy, rather than sit on my hands next week and wish I were one of the lucky first adopters.

By the way, I sold 1/2 of my Apple stock Monday morning. I was nervous and wanted to take some profits (4x since I bought in 02 or so). But, I didn't want to miss out on what could be a sky high stock price as the impact of all the ads and hoopla hit a crescendo next week. I may sell another 1/4 on launch day. I'll see how I feel. Lick my finger and stick it in the air. You know the drill.

I am worried about the possibility that the keyboard will suck. I have used a Treo 650 and a BlackBerry Pearl. Can I appreciate and tolerate or even enjoy the iPhone touchpad keyboard? What is your advice? Are you there in the line next week?

UPDATE Jun 19 5:08 pm
Ooh. Apple's latest press release says you can buy an iPhone on the Apple Online store. Waiting in line is not required.

Disappointing WWDC Keynote

Everything is going to be OK. Apple is doing fabulously. And, I was disappointed with the WWDC keynote.

I was in a good mood for a while, but by the end of the keynote, the stock was down 5 points (I own about $20k in Apple stock) and I was not excited anymore. Maybe it was pre-buyer's remorse, but here are some of the downsides I reacted to.

Worst thing. The way Steve Jobs told developers that there is no software development kit for iPhone because developers can just write web 2.0 and AJAX applications. Yes Web 2.0 is all the rage and I think this may be a good decision on Apple's part. I just felt these loyal developers needed at least a bit of hand-holding on this subject. I'm sure they felt locked out of the iPhone right about then. Steve got off the stage ASAP.

The fact is, this was a marketing event. The keynote is available on the Apple site and anything negative was not going to be included in the keynote. Not when iPhone is the subject of conversation anyway. So, I guess, the geeks shouldn't take it personally.

Blooper. When the Apple guy demonstrating something on the iPhone had trouble typing a word on the iPhone. All he had to do was type one word and he mumbled -- if I can just type correctly... (or something to that effect).

New Desktop? Compare this to the launch of OS X. I'm with the that's it? group. I like the little tray with 3D icons dock. It is different and probably cooler to look at. Too bad I am a hardcore dock-on-the-left person. Guess I can change...

Coverflow in the Finder. That's a big change if it turns out to be useful. I will let you know on that one. It definitely is a cool feature to brag about. Is that why it is here?

Finder iTunes look. Looks good. But not sure I want the Finder to be like iTunes. I am not in love with the iTunes UI. Steve said a 100 million people already know it. I guess that means maybe this will help lower the learning curve for switchers.

Quick Look. I like it. I hope it works as good as it looked in the demo.

I was all gung ho about Tiger before it was released. Now, I am not particularly enamored of Spotlight and hardly ever use widgets. I used to have a lot of widgets but it took forever for them to load when I switched to dashboard. I have only 7 widgets now and I hit the F12 key a while ago and some of the widgets are still loading.

After my less than stellar Tiger experience, I am a little gunshy about Leopard. But it looks a little like Apple's best-of-the-best talent is working elsewhere. Steve said he pulled some quality control people over to the iPhone team. Who else did he pull?

The hottest guys and gals are over working on iPhone. They sure were not working on AppleTV from what I can tell (Steve calls the AppleTV a hobby).

Steve's devil-in-the-details attention drives Apple to achieve great things. Having at least 5 major balls in the air is not easy (Macs, OS X Leopard, iPod/iTunes, iPhone, AppleTV).

Steve has so far proven to be a great juggler and I still think all this will be pulled off remarkably well. There is a reason the stock price is way high and analysts, post-WWDC, are projecting even higher target stock prices. But, the WWDC keynote didn't make my day.

How about boycotting the other 3 major labels for a while?

I suppose I should bias my purchases in May, June and July or something to just EMI music. This sounds like a nice option for a huge number of people who have a strong opinion about DRM and buy from the iTunes store. This is the perfect opportunity to send a message to the music labels. I don't think we should pass it up. [Thanks: Screen grab from one of Apple's current iPod ads.]

Technorati Tags: DRM, EMI, iTunes, Music

Higher quality non-DRM music from iTunes Rocks

Yes! I don't know how many purchased tracks I have from EMI, but I plan to upgrade all that I still like when iTunes starts offering that option next month. I applaud EMI and Apple for taking this important step. I have to say that I am equally excited about the quality improvement as I am about the elimination of DRM.

Thirty cents is about the top of my range for that extra value, but I might pay even more just to encourage Apple to offer music at a higher quality. Doubling the bit rate from 128 AAC to 256 AAC moves it to about the level I use when I encode music for my iPod (320 kbps AAC).

I was a little disappointed that the quality was not Apple Lossless, but satisfied with the compromise of 256 AAC.

I personally expect to buy more music in this format than I have previously.

The introduction of Apple TV might have put more pressure on music quality. If you are playing your iTunes in the living room, you may be playing it on a fancy stereo or home theater audio system. You can hear quality differences there that wouldn't be apparent on the average iPod.

Hopefully, people will buy lots of this new EMI music and other record labels will follow! [Photo: New York Times]

Technorati Tags: DRM, EMI, iTunes, Music

Cancelled my Apple TV order

I decided to cancel after listening to the MacCast podcast for Feb 3. This special edition of the maccast was devoted to Apple TV. Adam interviewed Ara Derderian of the HDTV podcast.

I have a standard def TV with high rez. It can benefit by digital cable but isn't techically HDTV or even EDTV as far as I know. So, it won't work with Apple TV. Sometime this year I expect to buy a new HDTV, but it will probably be in the second half of this year.

End of story. Until I have an HDTV, Apple TV makes no sense.

The main benefit of Apple TV is to let you play your iTunes content on your HDTV. That's a benefit but I'm not planning to purchase all my content via iTunes. I'm also going to be buying DVDs. I'll be getting content from Youtube perhaps.

I may still buy an Apple TV once I have an HDTV, but I'm not sure. I'll wait and see what all my options are at that time.

Ara says he is really happy using a dedicated Intel-based Mac mini with a 750 gig Newer Technology miniStack hard drive and elgato eyetv plus Remote Buddy which set him back $1200 but he feels he has exactly what he wants that way. Right now that combo is priced above my tolerance level, but I'm sure the prices will be dropping steadily for this kind of functionality.

iPhone Name Part 2

Time passes and more has been revealed. Apple is saying they think Cisco's lawsuit is silly. Apparently, it is debateable whether Cisco has a case they can win. It now looks more like Cisco was exploiting the situation. The iPhone suit does not look like a problem.

Why Apple Went Ahead with the iPhone Name

I've been wondering why Apple used the iPhone name even though it might incite a lawsuit from Cisco.

Here's what I think are the six reasons:

1) Steve thought this is a really important product and felt strongly that iPhone was the right name for the product.

2) Cisco tried to bully Apple into making concessions that Steve thought were unreasonable.

3) Steve got pissed off.

4) Steve thought that if he can change the industry with the iPhone. Apple becomes the most powerful player and Cisco will have to come begging to Apple for forgiveness and let the lawsuit go.

5) All Steve has to do is kind of stall for six months to a year while the iPhone and Apple's position in the cell phone market rises to a formidable level.

6) Arrogance perhaps too. But then Steve Jobs deserves to be arrogant if anyone does when it comes to digital technology for the consumer space. He's king in that domain.

Technorati Tags: iPhone

Placed My Order for Apple TV

The Apple TV is set to ship in February for $299. Looks really good. Thought I would beat the crowd. Ordering was a little slow but I accomplished it within 5 minutes. Also ordered the new Airport Extreme Basestation for $179. It runs the new much faster 802.11n protocol. It was suggested as an option and seemed to be worth getting on the list for that too since it is also a February item.

Apple Computer is now just Apple. That's kind of a big announcement for a Mac (computer) Expo.

iPhone Therefore I Am

Apple has gone and done it. Steve Jobs just announced the iPhone. Has a 3.5 inch touch screen. Runs OS X. Is 11.6 mm thin. Has a 2 mpx camera. Totally cool and amazing UI. They are reinventing the phone.

You can see your voice mails and listen to the ones you want with random access.

Uses Safari.

Double tap the New York Times webpage to zoom in. I'm an NYT fan, so this is going to be awesome!

[photo cropped from Engadget's live MacWorld coverage of Steve's Keynote].

Too bad we'll have to wait some more. It ships in June. They are shooting for 10 million units sold in year one. Priced at $499 with a 2 year contract for the 4 gig model and $599 with 2 yrs for the 8 gig model. This is a case where I would for sure get the 8 gig version.