Everyone who loves Apple’s products is fully aware that the company is innovative, always pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, democratizing breakthrough technologies in the process. How Apple does that, of course, is basically a secret these days. At best, we know that Steve Jobs decrees a product get made, and then it materializes.

The NY Times tries to capture this mystical sense in an article about process innovation published in the Sunday Business section. And I have to say, working in and around this dialogue, the article provides one of the more abstract explanations for the value of innovation I’ve ever seen. It talks about how sweet Intel, Apple and Google are but doesn’t say why they are able to innovate, and what that means to the rest of us. Unless innovation is tied to business growth, it’s an academic exercise. I practically expected a reference to Wikinomics here, the argument is so not grounded in concrete terms:

 Yet successful companies realize that maintaining competitive advantage depends heavily on sustaining process innovations. Great process innovators often support basic research in relevant fields, maintain complete control over the creation of every aspect of a product and refuse to rely on outside suppliers for important components. Certainly, there are exceptions to these patterns, but even companies like Apple that buy essential processes on the open market nevertheless invest in gaining a working knowledge of the technologies and an understanding of their future arc.

And that has what to do with process innovation? This is the golden goose so far as companies today are concerned. Apple and Procter & Gamble, for example do have very successful innovation strategies. But abstractly talking about an innovation process and actually realizing one are two different things. And this article provides no actions that can be taken to instill such processes back at our own companies. It’s just more fauning over Google, Apple and Intel. What a squandered opportunity.

Via Bruce. 

Check it out, folks. Though it tastes like Steve’s iLeftovers, the rap in the middle of this clip of “Viking Webcam” is oddly addictive.

Britney’s Gut. Britney’s Gut.

Via Fake Steve.

Silicon Valley Socialite Om Malik reports that the good people of Yahoo! were recently inspired by none other than Steve Jobs himself:

He told the gathering of 300-odd Yahoo (YHOO) vice presidents that they can do anything. The company with one of the largest Internet user bases can do and achieve anything, he apparently told them. (I am channeling a handful of VPs.) He talked about how Apple (AAPL) was down on its luck and made a comeback. Yahooligans were pretty inspired! Now if they made more of their products Mac friendly!

Malik promises more detail on Steve’s speech soon, but in the meantime, ponder this: Yahoo has 300 VICE-PRESIDENTS! No wonder they need motivation from Steve. Stay tuned — this is a very interesting development. Yahoo and Apple are much friendlier than they were a year ago… Steve doesn’t do motivational speaking for just anyone. It’s always as a personal favor.

Apple has hit so many home runs in the iPod/iPhone/iTunes universe, that it can be easy to fall under the impression that all its ventures there are destined to succeed. This week brought a wake-up call in that regard, as Amazon launched its totally DRM-free MP3 Store, and the various TV networks made stronger moves into non-iTunes distribution channels. And NBC told Apple to go to hell as many ways as it knew how (though Chuck and Journeyman, produced by Warner and aired on NBC, do appear on the iTunes Store regardless of the current enmity) And, of course, movie studios are still largely avoiding iTunes like the plague.

Wired has a great run-down of what’s been happening with the TV companies lately as they try to figure out the whole digital distribution thing. Largely, they speak to a world without Apple. Which is interesting, if only because it’s pretty clear that video on an iPod or even an iPod is not as compelling as video on your TV or even your laptop. That means the content is much more platform-agnostic, and the iPod installed base is way less relevant. Hugh Hart has the story:

CBS execs nicknamed their team-and-stream syndication model Swing Town. Multiple partners? Absolutely. Downplaying the brand-centric hub site approach, CBS has partnered with sites including AOL, Joost, Sling Media, YouTube, MSNBC and Bebo. Viewership for CBS material subsequently skyrocketed from 24 million in May to 134 million in July, according to Multichannel News.

Patrick Keane, a vice president with CBS Interactive, says, “We syndicate our content to these sites because users are telling us that is where they’re going. We want our content in front of people wherever they are, whether that means Yahoo or AOL or YouTube or Bebo.”

It’s a fascinating landscape out there for InternetTV. Apple doesn’t have this thing nailed down just yet. The next few years are going to be wild.

Remember America Online? Yellow guy, blue triangle? “You’ve Got Mail!” No? Trust me, it was huge once — the dominant way a lot of Internet newbies first reached out across cyberspace. And after five years (yes, five years), AOL has finally rolled out a new beta for its main line AOL Desktop for Mac software.

After all this time, the actual upgrade’s features aren’t terribly thrilling (particularly for anyone who, you know, just uses a web browser for all of this stuff). There’s definitely still a market for an integrated Internet app that gets the basics — mail, chat and browsing — down well, and I’m always fascinated to see if AOL can ever start to gain back the kind of position it once held.

Here’s what’s in store, other than being “Leopard-ready”:

Fast Load Time:  AOL® Desktop for Mac launches within seconds and enables users to begin browsing immediately, without signing in to the software.

 

Tabbed Navigation:  Tabbed browser and AIM® windows offer easy access to content, and an uncluttered, organized view of all open windows.

 

Additional Email Options:  A streamlined AOL Mail experience allows users to send and receive messages using multiple email accounts, including Apple Mac addresses, Gmail, Verizon and more from one Inbox.

 

AIM Integration: AIM is built in to the software, so users can view Buddies online, chat, and more while checking their email or browsing the Web.

Customizable Toolbar:  An easy-to-use customizable toolbar gives users quick access to their favorite sites.

Yep, it’s only several years behind the cutting edge in browsing. Oh, and you can finally use other e-mail protocols. What a time to be alive. Anyone using the beta? What’s that all about?

The Cooper-Hewitt National People’s Design Award will soon be d0led out to what the Internet-using public determines to be the best-designed new product or service. Interestingly, two of the top competitors at the moment are Apple’s incredibly high-tech iPhone and on the other side of it…TOMS Shoes, a company that created a philanthropic business model. They took a traditional South American shoe design, marketed it in the U.S. for a low price and gives a free pair of shoes to a needy child in South America for each pair sold.

Two radically different models of innovation through design. What’s your vote? Head here to be heard!

Target is exclusively offering this pink iPod shuffle, benefiting the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, in its physical stores now. As you can see, it includes a $15 iTunes card. And it only costs $79, like a normal iPod shuffle but with more. What’s not to love? Unless you hate pink, I mean.

Via AppleInsider

As has been reported widely, Apple’s iPhone Update 1.1.1 makes it again impossible to use an iPhone on any network other than AT&T and eliminates third-party applications installed through the so-called Jailbreak hack. The update, which introduces the WiFi iTunes Store to the iPhone, enables TV-out and some basic usability features, like double-tapping the home button to get to phone-call favorites.

On one level, I’m not that bugged by this behavior. After all, Apple issued a huge warning that installing the update could render unlocked phones inoperable and “might” stop third-party applications from functioning. I’m sure AT&T has been screaming at Apple to close down the unlock loophole since it hit a month ago, and Apple earns part of the revenue from iPhone service plans.

On the other hand, this is incredibly anti-consumer behavior. Most formerly unlocked iPhones now won’t even work on AT&T. They’re useless bricks (only unlocks from iPhoneSimFree can work again with AT&T). Why shouldn’t an iPhone be able to operate like an iPod Touch if, for some reason, the SIM card isn’t functioning? Why should it be a brick. People have paid good money for it. This is Apple bending over backward to please a partner notorious for ignoring consumer interests.

Worse still is the removal (they were scrubbed off of phones) of all third-party software. What possible reason does Apple have for this other than an insistence on total control? That’s as bad or worse than the mobile service carriers themselves.

Obviously, wait to upgrade if you’re unlocked to see if the hackers can stay ahead of Apple in the “cat and mouse” game that Steve Jobs described the other week. Does this bug everyone else as much as me?

Via Compiler 

Last December, we shared with the world the notMac Challenge, a contest to create a complete, free replacement for Apple’s frustratingly over-priced .Mac Internet service. Now, competing for a prize of $8,500, Ben Spink (of CrushFTP fame) has submitted a contender to the challenge, almost 9 months later. CrushFTP actually features prominently in the suite, but with a few UI tweaks to more closely take the place of .Mac. The current beta is available here. The judging of the contest will continue through Sunday, so download now if you want your voice to be heard.

It’s looking good right now. I mainly want this effort to succeed so Apple will just make .Mac free again, as happened once the XPonMac project successfully enabled dual boot on Intel Macs about five seconds before Boot Camp rolled out the door.

Love to hear your thoughts on the beta, folks.

As I noted back in June, NBC’s new series “Chuck,” which premiered last night, features Macs galore, including the above Mac Plus, the thinly disguised most powerful computer in the world.

“Chuck” is a cute little show, but the Macs are mostly more interesting than the action. You can see the show in full online here.

Macs are quite famous for holding their value and lasting longer than Windows PCs. The resale value of an Apple machine is higher both for its style and its durability. This is especially true for Mac product lines that have no true replacements. For a few years after they were discontinued, Power Mac Cubes consistently fetched higher-than-expected prices on Ebay.

What does that mean in light of this week’s renewed rumors of an amazing thin, light, aluminum and tiny Macbook? Take your 12″ Powerbooks and unload them now. I’m an owner of such a machine (and will be selling it as soon as I replace the hard drive), and the market is great right now — $400-plus for four-year-old Powerbooks. The machines have special cachet, because they were significantly lighter than any current Mac portables. I know a lot of people who have been refusing to upgrade because there just isn’t a machine that meets their needs.

But if the rumors popping up all over 9to5Mac are even close to right — especially if there are new MacBooks announced the day of Leopards release — the market for those glorious Baby Powerbooks is going to deflate as soon as the new machines get announced. There’s still plenty of doubt for the time-being — some think the new machines won’t even have DVD drives. What do fear, uncertainty and doubt lead to? Higher resale prices for the existing and reliable. Gentlemen, start your auctions!

Image via LowEndMac.

The biggest concern everyone had when Apple announced it would shift Macs to Intel chips from the PowerPC platform was whether third-party software companies (actually, just Adobe and Microsoft) would make the switch along with the computers. After all, it was Adobe and Microsoft’s unwillingness to develop versions of Photoshop and MS Office for Rhapsody that scuttled Apple’s first attempt to transform NeXT’s OPENStep into a next-generation Mac OS.

Adobe Creative Suite 3 brought the essential creative applications to Intel Macs at native speed, and now Microsoft is nearly ready to bring the essential productivity bundle along for the party. Though it won’t ship until January, Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit is currently previewing the software at a Mac Office website — and hey, it looks a lot like the iPhone site!

All in all, it looks most like Microsoft trying to do Pages and Keynote while leaving in all the complexity. The interface still feels off (especially with Leopard coming before this), but you can tell they’re trying. And it’s about time the last excuse to not switch to an Intel Mac got polished off.

From everything I can tell, there’s nothing Mac-specific about the suite other than the interface and a few Automator workflows. It’s basically Office 2007 a year late and Windows-free. The YouTube video above shows the newly integrated SmartArt features that rapidly transform data into graphs.

Office 2008, featuring Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage, is $400 in full or a $280 upgrade.

Office 2008 for the Mac Home and Student Edition, which drops Exchange support in Entourage and Automator workflows, is $150. Seriously. Corporate e-mail support costs $250 a head. Who knew?

Office 2008 Special Media Edition costs $500 or $300 for an upgrade and throws in MS’s Expression Media, a digital asset management tool on top of the standard bundle.

In case we had all lost track of the Macintosh with such fascinating news popping in the world of iTunes, the iPhone and the iPod, ThinkSecret emerges to remind us that Leopard, the next major update to Mac OS X is dropping in less than a month, on Oct. 7. The gallery has some more of the gorgeous icons Apple is unleashing for the OS, as well as screenshots of some details that haven’t previously been available.

Hands up, who’s upgrading on day one?

A couple of things that didn’t quite fit into my analysis of Amazon’s new MP3 service that I find interesting and/or ironic.

• Amazon’s No. 1 download in its first day? Feist’s “1234,” which Apple has made a hit as the theme song for the video iPod nano commercials. The tune ranks third on the iTunes Store.
• Radiohead’s entire catalog is available on AmazonMP3 for $8.99 per album. The band (which is my favorite) pulled out of iTunes because Apple refused to sell the group’s music as entire albums, insisting on track-by-track downloads.
• Number of songs in iTunes Top 10 available on Amazon MP3 on Day One: 7
• Number of those songs available without DRM on iTunes Plus: Zero (0)
• Number of those songs on Amazon available for 89 cents each: 7
• Number of top 10 albums on iTunes available on Amazon: 5
• Number of those albums available DRM-free on iTunes Plus: One.
• Number of songs written and performed by the Beatles available on either service: Zero

If you follow Apple for long enough, you’ll see a million toothless iTunes and iPod killers, overhyped services and products destined for obscurity or the remainder table. But though Amazon’s new mp3 downloading service seems like another in this chain, I firmly believe this time is different. Amazon can actually deliver a superior digital music experience. Apple has its first legitimate challenger since the iTunes Store first launched. To hear why, click through.

NBC has struck the most recent blow in the on-going, extremely catty break-up between the media giant and Apple, announcing it in November it would enable consumers to download “many of its most popular programs” for free. Provided they watch embedded ads that can’t be removed. On their computers. Within seven days of the air-date. When they self-destruct. No, I’m not kidding. As BuzzSugar puts it:

• The video will only work for a week after the episodes are broadcast.
• Only a limited number of shows will be available at the start, but at least they’re generally good ones: “Heroes,” “The Office,” “Life,” “Bionic Woman,” “30 Rock,” “Friday Night Lights,” “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” and “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”
• The content won’t be available to Mac users (um, take that, Apple?)

Now that’s got to have Apple quaking in its boots — the return of the original DiVX technology plan! Best of all, it’s Windows-only! So great! NBC does claim that its downloads will soon be compatible with iPods and Macs, and that it will eventually offer ad-free downloads that will be transferrable to other devices, but not until mid-2008.

Still, this is a fascinating twist. I can’t wait to see what comes next. The video download market is nowhere near as locked up as music is.

(Thanks, Kimra and Andrew!)

Wil Shipley, current Chief Monster of Delicious Monster and founder of Omni Group, is not pleased with Apple’s ringtone strategy on the iPhone.

Scratch that. He’s furious:

Not that, uh, we have to pay attention to what the record companies think is Not Allowed, because we have already licensed the song for playback on any device if we bought a CD — we are allowed to play it on our iPhone already. Just not in response to someone calling us. The record companies have MADE UP some new, retroactive copyright and Apple is enforcing it for them. The result is, a million customers don’t get to do something cool with their iPhones.

Because of greed.

Honestly, I can see Apple saying, “Well, you see, the record companies would have been upset with us if we hadn’t charged anything for ringtones.” Yah, well, that’s the price you get for engaging. The price for owning the distribution of the content and the hardware and the software is that you end up making compromises in the hardware and software in order to protect the content.

Yow. There’s a lot more through the link, so read on. This is some harsh language from a NeXT true believer, and it’s essential reading. I’ve been pretty upset about the iPhone ringtone system, but Shipley nails what’s wrong with it. Fantastic stuff.

Woz’s apparent girlfriend, Kathy Griffin, recently went on Larry King Live to talk about controversial remarks she made at the smaller awards ceremony that precede the main Primetime Emmy Awards. In the clip pasted above, she talks about her relationship with Woz, and the couple’s appearance on the red carpet is shown. Check it out.

By Appointment to Her Majesty The Queen, the Carphone Warehouse has a page up about the Royal iPhone.

.

Following reports of Apple’s cutthroat tactics with potential UK wireless carriers, Steve Jobs said a great quote about corporate partnerships.

“Partnerships take a lot of work – you want to go out on a few dates before you get married. Yes, we dated a few people but didn’t get married… and so there were a few unhappy girlfriends out there.”

Link.

Photo from John Griffiths

As expected, Steve Jobs at a press conference in London this morning announced the UK iPhone will launch November 9th, use the O2 network, cost £269 and £35 a month for an unlimited data plan. The phone will be available at the Carphone Warehouse, at about 1,300 outlets.

The iPhone will be more expensive, £269= $537, and there’s no 3G — which is common in Europe. Jobs said it’s to save battery power. 3G chips would reduce battery life to just a couple of hours:

According to the Guardian’s liveblog:

“It’s pretty simple, says Jobs. “The chipsets work well apart from power. They’re real power hogs. Most phones now have battery lives of 2-3 hours and that’s due to these very power-hungry 3G chipsets. Our phone has 8 hours of talktime life. That’s really important when you start to use the internet and want to use the phone to listen to music. We’ve got to see the battery lives for 3G get back up into the 5+ hour range. Hopefully we’ll see that late next year. Rather than cut the battery life, we’ve included Wi-Fi and sandwiched 3G between Edge and a more efficient Wi-Fi.”

No announcement about other European countries, though it’s widely rumored it’ll be Orange in France and T-Mobile in Germany. Said Jobs: “We’ll be in a few countries in Europe in the next quarter.”

The European version of the iPhone looks like it’ll be available only in the UK and Germany at first, leaving iPhonophiles in other EU countries looking at unlocked iPhones as their best bet of getting their hands on a multitouch phone.

My friend Roger Aberg, who runs the MacFeber site, already has an unlocked iPhone he uses in Sweden. He has no problems with the device, he says, but he’s hoping the European iPhone will be upgraded to HSPDA — a super fast 3G standard that’s common in Europe.

Writes Roger in email: “People are a bit skeptic about the non-3G-part. I hope for a HSDPA-version (or turbo 3G) that is plenty faster and is pretty common here. Its 3.6 mbit (regular 3G is 0.3 mbit) and would be sweet on the iPhone! That would make me upgrade.”

However, some analysts don’t expect a 3G version of the iPhone until 2008 at the earliest, when Apple will introduce the iPhone to Asia.

If Apple delays the 3G iPhone, Europeans outside the UK or Germany looking for an unlocked iPhone might be best off shopping for one in the U.S. Thanks to the weakness of the dollar, and local European sales tax (or VAT, which can run to 25 percent in some European countries), Yankee iPhones will likely be cheaper — about $35 according to Roger.

O iPhoneless brethren, I feel your pain. None of us can afford the glorious device, despite our love for Apple. Fortunately, Paul Waite has created an amazing DIY music-playing PDA for the rest of us. All you need is a stack of index cards and an iPod shuffle. He calls it the Hipster PDA Shuffle, and the video introducing it is amazing. AMAZING.

(If you never saw the original, hysterical Hipster PDA article, get thee to 43 Folders!)

Interesting Apple analysis in the Sunday Times this week from the always-provocative Randall Stross. His thesis: That Apple has an unprecedented opportunity to gain on Windows while Vista is stinking up the joint — and they’re blowing it.

If you’re the owner of a Windows PC who is looking for a replacement computer, the choices are grim. You can step into the world of hurt that is Vista, the latest version of Microsoft Windows that was released in January. Or you can seek out a new machine that still comes loaded with the comparatively ancient Windows XP.

Maybe, you might say, the moment has arrived to take a look at the Mac. You can easily order one online, of course. But if you’d like to take a test-drive before you commit, odds are that you’ll have to look far and wide for a store that sells it. The Mac’s presence in the retail world remains limited, a shame given the rare opportunity for Apple to gain market share that opened up when Vista arrived.

In a lot of ways, this is a golden era to be a Mac owner and for Apple. With 185 fantastic retail stores worldwide, we can just walk in the door and see every product and service for Mac, iPod and iPhone in one place. But on the other hand, if you walk into any computer store in America, you’re way more likely to see HP, Sony, Toshiba, Lenovo and Acer machines on displays than anything from Apple other than the iPod. Mac sales are up right now — considerably so — but Macs are still niche and seem poised to remain there. It’s a terribly tricky problem, though. Part of Apple’s problems in the mid-’90s happened because of the company’s prominent place in mainstream stores — and thoroughly mediocre product and sales methods to match.

Is there an answer here that makes the Mac mainstream? I can’t see it. What say you?

Now that YouTube has set the tone for how short video clips should operate on the Internet, the race is on to define what the future of broadcasting might look like. The makers of Miro, a free, open-source Mac video player that’s near release-candidate readiness, suggest that it looks a lot like podcasting in iTunes.

The application, which is in universal binary, essentially aggregates channels of free TV that are open to the Internet, including public TV from all over the world. It can play virtually any video format, and it can also be fed BitTorrents and RSS feeds of TV shows from tvRSS. Basically, you can see anything ever when you want to, and download multiple streams from thousands of channels in the background. And it’s free. Some of it’s illegal, but a lot of it’s legit. In other words, it hints at what Internet-enabled TV should be like in the future. Any other Miro fans out there?

There’s a video that shows how it all works — it’s pretty incredible.

Thanks, Andrew!