After looking at the latest Apple media event and reading most of the comments from different pundits around the web I had a small revelation. Everybody is talking about Steve Jobs leaving Apple due to his health, but I think no one has come up with the real reason.
Oct 182008
Jun 112008
I’ve watched the Steve Jobs keynote from a few days ago that culminated with the Iphone 3G presentation. My take is that this is going to be my next phone 
. This being said, below you have my critique of the device and the associated software
The device seems complete and the reason for the missing things it seems to me that it has to do a lot more with the marketing part than to the real technical dificulties. I am sure that if they really wanted they could have implemented a front camera with ichat video capabilities but that would have been a direct attack at ATT.
Also the way Apple is solving the multitasking issues is pure genius. Not from technical point of view but from business point of view. Apple will be able to control what and when goes to your phone from all the apps that will run on the Iphone.
I am not at all happy with the way Apple implemented their Mesh version (btw now it makes perfect sense why Microsoft had choose to preview the Mesh in advance, even they didn’t had the mobile support implemented). It seems that Apple is not able to make up it’s mind. If the syncronisation works so well why are you duplicating Google’s work and create a suite of web based apps? At least the way Microsoft is doing it you aren’t presented with duplicated way of doing things. Also it seems to me that Microsoft has the edge on this one from technical point of view. I am sure I am not going to pay 99$ per year for something that I can have for free one way or another.
Not sure if something can be done related to the video and audio codec support. I hope that the VLC for iphone project is completely succesful. Also it seems to me that the storage capacity is too small. Because now I am sure that a good part of that storage capacity is going to be taken by the application data.
Last point that I want to make is the lack of device level encryption. I may be wrong but so far I am pretty sure that you can not have something similar with truecrypt in the Iphone firmware. I know thath you can nuke an iphone remotely but I would be happier if I know that my personal data is encrypted and unavailable if I loose my phone
May 132008
Lately I tried to go through all the buzz that LiveMesh generated. After watching all the videos on channel 9 and channel 10 (microsoft videos) I am disapointed. I don’t denied the posibilities that livemesh could generate. But if you go to .Mac and to LiveMesh you will see that at this moment LiveMesh is not able to do what .Mac is doing it. The only advantage is that you get LiveMesh for free.
Mar 072008
After watching the Iphone SDK related presentation these are some random thoughts that come to my mind:
- If you want to see how Iphone SDK compares with the rest of the mobile platforms SDK you should check this chart from Engadget
- Adobe is on the loosing side because flash and Air won’t be on the iphone. Adobe can try to add them using the SDK, but nobody is going to use that additional layer. There is no killer app for Flash or Air for the Iphone. Also on a side note is worth to mention that Silverlight 2.0 from Microsoft is providing support for offline apps.
- Google really has to improve Android and some how talk the developers into using their SDK instead of Apple’s.
- Nintendo and other mobile console makers will be on the loosing side also because is so much better having only one device in your pocket.
- I wonder if other video codecs will be available on the Iphone. Most probably Apple will find a reason not to allow Xvid or WMV to run on the Iphone.
- Probably Iphone was rushed to the market, and they didn’t had time to actually make their software really stable and create an SDK. This was probably the main reason you get access to native apps only 1 year later.
- Probably if Apple is going to add HDSPA and GPS to Iphone in june, is going to be the best device ever. Also it needs bluetooth and some accesories like video googles.
- Scott Forstall, the guy who did the SDK presentation has a very similar style of talking and acting on stage with Steve Jobs. Not sure if the similarities goes further than this, but if Iphone is going to be huge, this guy could be the next in line for the CEO position. It seems to me that Scott has the same attention to details in relation to the interface like Steve does.
- Not sure how Apple will address the fact that they sell Ipod Touch in almost all the countries in the world, but you do have acces to Itunes store only in around 20 countries. How I will get apps for an Ipod Touch sold in Romania for that matter?
- Apple will have a problem with the Ipod Touch. By switching the focus from Iphone being the best ipod ever to Iphone being the killer PDA phone, Apple created for them a problem. Nobody will buy Ipod touch for getting apps that are really useful only when you have acces to the network. Probably Ipod Touch will get a bigger screen and evolve into an ebook reader, but again this is just educated guessing. Will see what’s happening in june at the developers conference.
- Didn’t see in the demo if you can actually edit your calendar apointments when you get them from the Exchange server. I hope you have full functionality and not read only.
- By getting so many apps running on the Iphone, the battery will become a much more important issue. Most probably with the update in June, if any, Apple will provide a user replaceable battery.
Dec 132007
Everybody would say because the customers want it. After I have seen a demo of the Google services page optimized for Iphone I am sure that Google is the real reason. Is clear that by using the same web browser like Iphone (webkit) any Android based device would have access to any Iphone optimized site the same way the Iphone does. Apple had to release an SDK to try to match Google efforts in this area.
Read today at MacRumors that Apple sold 2 million copies of Leopard in the first weekend. At 129$ per license they got 260 millions. At 85$ per hour programmer cost they can afford let’s say 3.000.000 programmer hours for the money they got in the first weekend. This will translate in 375.000 programmer days. Assuming that the development took 3 years this means that the money they got in the first weekend allowed Apple to pay for around 500 developers during that time. I know that the numbers are not very precise and I know there are other costs beside development but I still think the magnitude order is ok.
As I was watching the quicktime streaming of the latest Steve Jobs keynote (the one with the beat goes on) this morning, some thoughts came to my mind. For the record I am not affected by the reality distortion field, but I won’t focus now on the less than stellar business practices of Apple. This will come in a later post. I will focus only on the technology part of the keynote. So if you wish to follow my reasoning….
- The new Ipods are all OSX based as it seems, but I will focus only on the Ipod Touch and the Iphone. These 2 devices have one of the biggest and best screens in the realm of mobile devices.
- I remember, I think 5 years ago when Apple introduced OSX 10, they were bragging about PDF native support in the operating system.
- There isn’t a good pdf renderer for mobile devices (ebook readers) yet.
- Most of the ebooks are in pdf format.
- Apple announced a partnership with Starbucks.
- There is a Starbucks shop in every Barnes & Noble book store.
- Steve managed to negotiate with movie studios and music companies to put their products in the Itunes store. Somehow I think is going to be easier to negotiate with the book companies.
- The Itunes store can be easily extended to support PDFs with DRM (so Steve and the industry would be happy). But I would really like to see support for PDFs without DRM on the Ipods also
- Apple can go after Amazon’s books business
- Both devices supports software updates very nicely.
- You do not need a computer anymore to buy from Itunes.
I think everything is in place for a new line of business for Apple. I wonder if the numbers are good enough for them to create a new ecosystem and to do for the books what they did for the music.
And if you guys really do this, please make sure that multitasking is working. I would really like to listen to music while I am reading my favorite book.
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