Pete Mortensen is a design strategist for consulting firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete's particular Apple avocations are both around design--interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!
Fortunately, Apple might be turning the corner, at least on the iPhone OS, which shipped in a highly unstable form. Today, effective immediately, Apple has launched a software update for iPhone that promises to deliver, and here I quote, “bug fixes.” All that in a 249-megabyte download. That’s a lot of bugs, folks. I’d love to know how it affects your iPhone and iPod touch experience — particularly as it pertains to third-party app stability.
Launch iTunes and hit the update button to make it happen.
Image via Hardware Zone
The hottest tip on the rumor wires right now is that Apple does have really interesting Mac hardware on the way, as I’ve been known to suggest on a fewoccasions. Even Apple, at its conference call last week, was willing to acknowledge that it had a “future product transition” coming this quarter.
But the rumor circulating through the Intertubes this week goes further. It claims that Apple intends to use non-Intel silicon on its upcoming Macs. Not for the CPU, which will remain Intel, but for the rest of the chipset. While this rumor has slightly more credibility than it would if Apple had not recently purchased PA Semi or if AMD and VIA weren’t pumping out chipsets like crazy. And as AppleInsider notes, such a move could help Apple to differentiate based on silicon. Everyone else is using Montevina, and Apple could have something unique. It sounds like good judgment.
Except it’s a waste of time and money. Worse, it’s a losing strategy. After all, Apple doesn’t need to differentiate on silicon. Industrial design and software is enough. To read why, click through.
Hey, remember Steven Smith, the obsessive Zune fan who went so far as to decorate his body with not one but three Zune tattoos? Well, the thrill is gone. On Wednesday, he announced that he was trying to get his Zune tattoos removed, claiming that Microsoft pulled back on a deal to bring him up to Redmond as an honored guest (a claim MS denies). Now, he’s moved onto the iPod way. First, he bought an iPod classic, then he swapped it out for a 16GB iPod touch. As he told iPhone Savior:
“It’s super thin and does some really neat stuff like tilting to go into cover flow,” Smith said. “I also like watching movies on it. I can go anywhere to get iPod accessories, that’s not the case with Zune stuff in Iowa.”
I am shocked — SHOCKED — to learn that Zune accessories are tough to find in Iowa. After all, they’re, um, also impossible to find in San Francisco. The writing was on the wall with Zune, long ago, of course. If not after it took nine months to sell the first million, then certainly after it took another year to sell the next million, even with multiple product lines available. But this is just insult to injury. When Zune Guy leaves, it’s time to kill the platform.
UPDATE: Apple’s stock is being punished because of concerns about Steve Jobs’ health, plus the company’s cautious guidance about Q4. Jobs didn’t participate in the earnings call, leading analysts to ask whether he is OK. Apple CFO, Peter Oppenheimer dodged the question.As Wired.com reports: “Andy Hargreaves, consumer electronics analyst at Pacific Crest Securities, said the lack of response from Oppenheimer regarding Jobs’ health only adds to investors’ doubt. “Not addressing Steve Jobs’ health perpetuates the fear that it’s a real problem,” Hargreaves said.”
Well, Apple just had another record quarter, with earnings jumping by 31 percent and revenue by 38 percent. The company sold more Macs in the third quarter than it has at any point in company history. It is performing better as a company than it ever has, and in a down economy.
So how does Wall Street respond? By knocking the stock price down by more than 10 points. Why? Because Apple’s guidance, or “made-up numbers to please whiny Wall Street analysts,” is below where the analysts believe it should be. Now, this might seem like rational behavior. If Apple is below Street consensus, the company must be headed for unanticipated trouble, right?
No. Not at all. Apple always sets expectations low and then jumps way beyond them. Take this quarter. Apple set earnings guidance at $1 per share. Analysts pegged it at $1.10 per share. Instead, they managed $1.19 per share. And the same thing keeps happening as far back as you can look. As Andy Zaky notes, Apple does this all the time, and they always beat their own guidance and the Street consensus, too. It’s just how they roll.
So why is it obvious to everyone except Wall Street traders that Apple always understates its guidance? Power is one hell of a drug, I imagine.
Just the other day, Boy Genius Report discovered that it had been visited by a few folks whose web browsers identified them as users of a yet-unreleased iPhone OS 2.0.1. Given the timing, it looks pretty clear that Apple will soon push out the update, which should mainly address bugs. Thank heavens — the OS needs it.
It appears that the iPhone software has some big issues to resolve. In addition to the boneheaded syncing scheme Lonnie highlighted a few minutes ago, every one I know who has installed the new OS onto their existing iPhone or iPod touch has noticed significant downgrades in performance and stability. I don’t have a 3G, and all my associates have the previous version or a touch, so I don’t know if these issues plague the new phone or not.
The worst of these problems is that the iPhone now fairly frequently won’t allow users to answer the phone when the screen is locked. When you get a call, the familiar “slide to answer” graphic pops up. But when you actually slide your finger to the right, the button gets stuck, and the phone locks up completely. At that point, the home button does nothing, the Hold button does nothing, and you basically need to perform a hard reset.
And that’s bad. Any time you have a phone that works well at everything but making phone calls? You need to take care of that problem NOW. Anyone else experiencing stability issues?
Given that Loopt, the location-based social networking service, was among the blessed few companies allowed to show its iPhone apps at the introduction of the iPhone 3G, a whole lot of iPhone users downloaded the program after the launch last week. And many got upset with its default privacy settings.
But that doesn’t really matter — YouTube user Incruentum has put together a dance mix to “Caramelldansen” that allows us to revel in the spectacle of CEO Sam Altman’s shirt, instead.
I was rather effusive in my enthusiasm for the launch of intelligent music radio application Pandora on iPhone. It symbolized, more than anything, that Apple was perfectly willing to let people listen to music on the device without the company’s blessing — some of the time anyway.
Tonight, Last.fm launched its own iPhone app, and it’s a doozy. The video demo speaks for itself, but I’m quite impressed with the events integration and the detailed information. I’ve been a bigger fan of Last.fm than Pandora for some time, not least for the huge amount of information on bands that it has to offer. Additionally, the social networking features are very cool — being able to e-mail any track to a contact? Genius. It’s available through the App Store now.
Sadly, it won’t Scrobble the tracks you listen to in the main iPod application, except after a sync with iTunes, nor will it keep playing while you browse on Safari, but those are technical impediments on Apple’s part. Altogether, it’s an impressive effort. With Pandora and AOL Radio, it has officially made the iPhone superior in every way to a satellite radio — unless you care about Howard Stern. This is the true future of radio, and it’s finally on the right platform.
This time last year, loads of experts were hypothesizing that Apple couldn’t succeed in the cell phone market. Well, it’s been a year, and the first generation did well enough, and the 3G version will almost certainly eclipse its sales by a huge margin.
The Industry Standard had the foresight to go back to some of the iPhone’s biggest critics and see what they have to say for themselves now. My favorite reply is from Rob Enderle, the famously off-the-mark tech analyst who seems to believe that the only difference between Apple products and other technology products is marketing.
I still don’t think it is a great phone, though, and without Apple marketing I doubt it would have done nearly as well. Apple could probably sell refrigerators to Eskimos.
Well if Apple designed those fridges, I would be in line to purchase them! Marketing on its own doesn’t lead to long-term growth. You can apply great marketing to a crummy product, as Microsoft is about to try with Vista, and it rarely makes a difference. Great marketing for a great product? Succeeds, but not just because of the advertising!
Anyway, it’s a fun read overall. A shame they couldn’t get John Dvorak to reply — I’m fairly certain he’s the only person who actually called on Apple to cancel the iPhone because Apple couldn’t stand up to heavy competition from Nokia and Motorola. Um…yeah. I don’t know if anyone is afraid of Motorola right now…
They should also hit up Maddox and his thrilling Nokia E70 that looks like a stun-gun.
Of the more than 500 applications unleashed during the AppStore launch today, none shows more promise for the iPhone’s future as a vital development platform than the amazing client for Internet radio station Pandora. It can play your personalized radio station over the air — even on EDGE. New music that isn’t in your iTunes library, playing anywhere that you have a signal.
There are a few of reasons why this is significant. First, it’s available for free but is supported by audio advertising, and if you get a subscription to the service, you can get rid of the ads altogether. That’s important, because Apple hadn’t made it at all clear that it was offering developers any business models other than outright purchases or complete giveaway. (Greg at Pinchmedia had a great article about iPhone business models a few weeks ago that I recommend for further reading if you’re curious.)
Second, though, Pandora’s application is a clear sign that Apple is going to be far less defensive of its role as media provider for the iPhone than it has been on the iPod. Think about it: Apple is allowing another company to play music in a dedicated application on the iPhone. Let me repeat that in bold: Apple is allowing another company to play music in a dedicated application on the iPhone! And the app even mimics the look of the iPhone’s music player! Seriously, I’ve never been more surprised by Apple in my life. On Tuesday night, I literally said Apple would never allow something like that to happen — too threatening to iTunes. And yet, here we are.
The presence of mobile Pandora for iPhone could, at its best, start to change how people think about both the iPhone and, especially, the iPod touch. When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, he called it a cell phone, a widescreen iPod and an Internet device. Though it was clear that the release of new third-party apps today would make it so much more, the fact that Apple has made room for someone else to deliver media to the iPhone really announces to the world that it is a platform for other companies to make money. And I have to confess that until today, I didn’t think it could be; I wasn’t sure Apple would make the iPhone more like a Mac and less like an iPod. Apple isn’t keeping out potential threats — it’s hoping that their work will help them sell more hardware. And that’s a level of openness the company has never had before.
Of course, this isn’t all new-found maturity for Apple — it helps that Pandora for iPhone directs you to iTunes over-the-air when you want to buy one of the songs that you like. Still, this is an incredibly positive sign for the iPhone going forward.
Update: For a well-reasoned rebuttal to at least my views on design, check out Leigh’s counter-post once you’re done reading here.
I’ve been alluding to this for a few months now, but let me repeat: The Mac is poised for innovation over the next few years on a scale that we haven’t experienced since the initial move to OS X in the previous decade. After five years of focusing on new categories like the iPod and the iPhone while gradually improving its Mac product line, the company has now freed up the resources to strengthen its core and highest-revenue business: Macs. And at the same time, new technologies are emerging to take the Mac to the next level. To read why, click through.
Winning awards for the product design is old hat for Jonathan Ive and his team in the Apple Design Group. The company’s Senior Vice President, Industrial Design has won every honor that a product designer can claim, and then some. But today, he won an award unlike any other. He was recognized for a design that drove the adoption of an obscure technology.
Ive was honored with the Personal Achievement Award by the Mobile Data Association, a UK group that recognizes “those UK companies and individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to the uptake and success of mobile data over the last 12 months.”
The iPhone can be credited for many things — upsetting the existing mobile phone market, increasing demand for cool touchscreen interfaces, creating a new icon to be used as short-hand for innovation — but, as the MDA notes, its biggest accomplishment probably is in driving demand and adoption of mobile data plans. Data plans have been available for a very long time, but the appeal of the mobile web wasn’t obvious to most of us until we first got to try the stupendous Mobile Safari. By itself, the iPhone has made HTML browsers a near-standard feature for a modern smart phone.
And the industrial design is a big part of the success of Mobile Safari. Wiithout the finger-flicking scrolls and double-tapping zooms, the iPhone wouldn’t be what it is and mobile data wouldn’t be so hot. It’s nice that an organization that has been promoting mobile data for years recognizes that design’s contribution to the iPhone goes far beyond aesthetics and software. It was designed to make the mobile web accessible and appealing. And it succeeded wildly.
Increasingly cartoonish rap star Kanye West has been savagely bashed for showing up two hours late to his own 3 a.m. set at the giant Bonnaroo music festival the other weekend. He finally responded to his critics via his blog last night, and in so doing, coined the wimpiest tough guy catch phrase ever:
But this Bonnaroo thing is the worst insult I’ve ever had in my life. This is the most offended I’ve ever been… this is the maddest I ever will be. I’m typing so f***ing hard I might break my f***ing Mac book Air!!!!!!!!
Oh! Run for your lives! He has a MacBook Air and he’s typing REALLY HARD on it! But not hard enough to break it, thanks to Apple’s superior design and engineering!!!!
I’m seriously trying to come up with a wimpier way to express rage as expressed through communication style: “I’m tapping my index finger so hard against my iPhone that I am probably going to misspell some words!!!1!” “I’m so furious that I may just wait a few days to confirm the details of our acquaintance on Facebook!!!!!” “I’m writing you this Christmas Card in such a rage that I might forget to include my BEST WISHES TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY!!!!!!1!”
Congratulations, Apple. You just set the benchmark.
I had the great fortune to attend an early screening of WALL*E, Pixar’s latest feature film, on Tuesday night. And, like just about every Pixar movie ever, it’s absolutely phenomenal. As much as I love Apple, I have to admit that the output of Steve’s other company is a lot more consistently excellent. Even more wonderfully, WALL*E is filled with references to Apple. It’s a fun bonus in an already great film.
Lots of people have remarked that Apple Design Chief Jonathan Ive was involved in designing EVE, the sleek, white, glossy robot that WALL*E falls in love with. As much as she resembles an older iPod, however, the cleverest thing about EVE is that she appears to have no seams in her surface, though they appear when she lifts her arms. There’s even one scene (pictured) where WALL*E tries to find her hand while it’s in locked position, and he struggles to find the gaps — an obvious reference to the notoriously difficult-to-open iPod or iPhone.
But the Apple references run deeper. Every morning, WALL*E opens up a solar array in order to charge himself up for the workday to come. Hilariously, as soon as he reaches 100 percent power, the classic Mac booting chime goes off. And it’s definitely the older sound — it’s quite tinny. I’d bet they taped it off of a Quadra rather than a current Mac.
One last Apple reference: WALL*E’s favorite way to unwind is to watch an old VHS tape of the Barbra Streisand movie Hello Dolly (it’s OK; it is actually totally weird, if in a sweet way). But that tape then plays through a circa 2006 video iPod, which WALL*E then magnifies with an enormous lens into a projection screen.
WALL*E: Come for the love, stay for the Apple in-jokes. What could be better than that?
Since I first got an iPod, way back when Discmen roamed the earth, my fondest wish has been that I could use it as a quasi-remote control for my stereo. I could point it at a set of speakers, scroll through my music library, press the center button, and — BOOM! — music would pour forth.
Besides a few experiments with an iTrip, however, this has been wishful thinking. Until, perhaps, the next few weeks. MacRumors claims that the Read Me file for a developer release of the imminent iTunes 7.7 will finally make this dream real (well, provided you have a computer hooked to your stereo):
Use iTunes 7.7 to sync music, video, and more with iPhone 3G, and download applications from the iTunes Store exclusively designed for iPhone and iPod touch with software version 2.0 or later. Also use the new Remote application for iPhone or iPod touch to control iTunes playback from anywhere in your home — a free download from the App Store.
It’s pretty typical Apple to offer a few unannounced features on major operating system upgrades, but this one is incredibly welcome. Using the WiFi built into the iPhone and iPod Touch is a natural for this, and it’s much more convenient than using the (let’s face it) fairly inadequate Apple Remote. I just hope it will work with Front Row and AppleTV…
By the time this message posts, I might have already put in an order for a brand-new MacBook Pro. And, like any good Machead, the prospect of new hardware makes me miserable. After all, my old PowerBook G4 is incredibly obsolete, and I’m used to its idiosyncrasies. But I can’t deal with the idea of something spendy, flashy and new that’s behind the curve. I’d rather be way behind the times than just a few minutes off the mark.
This is the tremendous irony of loving Apple. The company’s computers are more elegant and functional than any other devices on the market, even without OS X. Unfortunately, Apple does such an amazing job adding features over time, that even a three month-old Mac can look a little long in the tooth. Now, I know this is meaningless quibbling. There will always be a great reason not to upgrade. New software, new I/O, new GPU, new processing architectures. But that’s particularly unlikely these days. The current MacBook Pros have multi-touch, very strong graphic processors, high-end Core 2 Duo chips, 802.11n, ExpressCard, MagSafe, and Mac OS X Leopard. That’s a set-up that will rock for years to come.
On the other hand, the following technologies should become relatively ubiquitous and economical in the next two years: SSD, mobile quad cores, WiMax, USB 3.0, ExpressCard 2.0, eSATA, DDR3 RAM, LTE, Blu-Ray, DisplayPort, ray-tracing graphic acceleration. I’m sure I could come up with others if I tried hard enough.Intel is supposed to release a few new Core 2 Duos for mobile with the launch of its Centrino 2 platform on July 14, and the most promising aspect is lower power consumption with a faster front side bus. Which doesn’t mean Apple will have new hardware on the 14th — Steve usually waits a few weeks.
The point being, I’m terrified of Apple taking the wraps off a new set of MacBooks and MacBook Pros the second that I invest, and I’ve lost the ability to accurately predict when the company will jump. Everyone knows the anxiety of the Apple early adopter – what on earth can be done for the agony of the late adopter? Anyone else dealing with the same pain?
BusinessWeek has an interesting but slightly over-the-top story about the misery the iPhone 3G will inflict on the rest of the wireless industry. It’s quite maudlin in its focus on the needs of the establishment wireless service providers. It even seems to mourn threats to the dominance of the existing wireless carriers. Perhaps the only news to glean in between the forecasts of doom is that Palm, once the dominant player in Smart Phones is now too niche to merit a mention in a round-up story like this. Apparently, the hole Palm needs to climb out of is so deep that the iPhone 3G’s coming ubiquity doesn’t even make things worse.
For a Steve Jobs Keynote, the kick-off to last week’s Worldwide Developer Conference was surprisingly, well, surprise-free. Apple rumor-mongers nailed the specs on the iPhone 3G, the pricing, the slipping ship date, and even the launch of Mobile Me, a major redesign of Apple’s .Mac service that focuses on Push technology for the rest of us. For subscribers of Mobile Me, all you have to do is make a change to your calendar on one platform, whether Mac, PC or iPhone, and the change instantly occurs on your other machines. Apple was going to become the Push company.
Phil Schiller demoed the applications involved, from photos to e-mail to address book for almost a half-hour, repeating the phrase “desktop-quality applications” roughly 900 times. As promised, the apps instantly updated across platforms. The Push technology really works, as well as, or, Apple hopes, even better than Microsoft Exchange for corporations. In every respect, it looked like a winning platform. For $99, anyone can have world-leading syncing of their entire digital lives. There’s just one problem: you have to use Apple’s Web applications to do that. No GMail, no Flickr, no GCal, no Facebook. Rather than delivering on the promise of automating the process of keeping every aspect of your life up to date, Apple requires you to leave behind your existing digital life to build a new one. Unless you’re an existing .Mac user, you need a new e-mail address, a new online photo gallery, a new calendar, a new form of online storage. And I, like a lot of people, am not going to make that change. I love Google Apps, Flickr, and Facebook. They’re where I keep my stuff. And that isn’t going to change any time soon. Rather than Mobile Me, Apple seems to have created Mobile Steve. To see the implications of this decision, click through.
Steve Jobs made an interesting disclosure to the NY Times yesterday while talking about the remarkable Grand Central technology in Mac OS X Snow Leopard that will allow programmers to get more power out of multicore computers and also to use GPUs for additional performance. In the midst of such talk, he announced for the very first time the reason that Apple purchased processor-maker PA Semiconductor in April.
“PA Semi is going to do system-on-chips for iPhones and iPods,” he said.
Many had speculated that future iPhones could run on Intel silicon, or that PA Semi had been purchased just to recruit some of its talented engineers. Steve says otherwise. Apple’s getting into the mobile processor game. Two years from now, all our iPods and iPhones might be running on their hardware. And if PA’s stuff is as good as everyone says, such exclusive hardware could maintain the competitive advantage that software already offers the iPhone.
For those who couldn’t be there in person, Apple has already uploaded this morning’s WWDC Keynote for your viewing pleasure in Quicktime. Check it here.
I’m not allowed to repost it fully, but please check out the coverage of the iPhone 3G launch that I worked up for Popularmechanics.com.
First, there’s the actual live-blog, which covers the complete blow-by-blow. Dig it.
Then, I have a short news analysis piece studying the implications of Apple dropping the price so much and opening the doors to third-party development.
I’ll have more original Cult content tonight, but this is a pretty thorough day’s work in the mean time.
Good heavens, but a lot can change when you get on one plane. I just arrived in Atlanta (friend’s wedding), hopped online, and the Intertubes have gone mad with credible leaks for the iPhone 2 that is universally expected to be introduced at Monday’s WWDC keynote. None of it is 100 percent confirmed, obviously (lots of commeters are skeptical about the missing lock button on the RED model), but these are much better than typical pre-keynote speculation. Here’s what you need to know:
True iChat mobile looks to be a go.CrunchGear obtained what appears to be an AT&T or Apple promotional flier showing off the industrial design and features of the iPhone 2 that spotlights its front-facing camera for video phone calls over 3G networks, and video conferencing with iChat users over WiFi where available.
Subtle Changes to Industrial Design. The front of the new iPhone looks virtually identical, but the back has changed, using a matte black back with shiny silver Apple, as well as a (Product) RED model that swaps in a red back to fight AIDS. The tapering evokes the industrial design of the MacBook Air and might offer clues to the look of the rumored new MacBooks, as well. Still no flash on the camera, either.
iChat for Windows. To really push video chat on iPhone, it looks like Apple will roll out iChat for Windows. I repeat: iChat for Windows will soon be available.
3G Networking, 5 MP camera, GPS.Engadget reports that a source got a copy of the firmware for the device, which discloses the actual silicon that the iPhone 2 runs on. We’re talking about quad-band GSM with tri-band UMTS, which basically means that the new iPhone can run at blazing speeds in virtually every market in the world (except lots of the United States, of course). The chip powering it is confirmed to be Infineon’s S-GOLD3H, which has support for up to 7.2 Mbps networking, 5 megapixel camera support and mobile TV access. I would still be shocked to see mobile TV, of course. The firmware also includes hooks for GPS connectivity, so that looks likely, too.
Quite a flurry of activity. Only Steve will prove or disprove the accuracy of these reports.
With a new iPhone all but guaranteed to be announced Monday, there’s never been a better time to perform a quick post-mortem on the existing multi-touch devices from Apple. Though the iPhone has been talked nearly to death, one topic that has gone relatively unexplored over the 18 months since the unveiling of the iPhone is the strategy behind its design. People have talked plenty about its design, of course, from the loved-or-hated chrome bezel to the iconic but somewhat-too slippery back edge to the software and the revolutionary touchscreen interface. That’s all fine, but those are all aesthetic and functional choices. At a more fundamental level, the iPhone constituted a strategic move by Apple into the mobile phone market. And it’s here where the look, feel, and positioning of the iPhone are most fascinating. The iPhone was explicitly designed to rapidly drive the adoption of technologies that most people had never even contemplated before, and it’s been an overwhelming success. To learn why and to hear what this might mean for the second iPhone, click through!
