MacBook Air: iMac or Cube?

The introduction of the new Mac laptop is a bold move by Apple, as the subnotebook radically eliminates some components that may be considered essential.

Every single Mac that Apple has released since 1998 has had Ethernet connectivity, as well as an optical drive. Since 2001, every Macintosh has also shipped with a FireWire port.

The MacBook Air does away with all three.

Sure, there are workarounds, but all are cumbersome. Ethernet is available as a $29 dongle that Apple sells separately, though it would occupy the single USB port of the Air. External optical drives also exist (Apple sells one exclusively for the MacBook Air), but carrying such additional devices around somewhat defeats the purpose of having a super thin, super light notebook. The external drive would also need to fight over the single USB port with competing devices, unless you buy yet another companion product, a USB hub.

You can also hack into the optical drives of neighboring Macs or even PCs with a piece of software that is reputed to "just work," as one expects from Apple. However, it's kind of creepy to be constantly asking favors from fellow computer users, even installing software on their machines, whenever you want to use an optical drive. And those computers had better be equipped with WiFi, too.

And as for FireWire, you're pretty much out of luck there.

So, what the hell were they thinking? How could such a device ever sell?

Well, Apple did make a similarly radical move back in 1998, when it introduced the original iMac. Steve Jobs was back with a vengeance, and he chose a pretty dramatic way to show everyone he means business: he released a sexy-looking, simple entry-level Mac that lacked a floppy drive, and eschewed traditional ports such as SCSI or ADB in favor of USB. So what happened? The iMac sold as hot cakes, and peripheral makers started to build USB keyboards, mice, scanners, etc. The floppy disk was already on its way out, but the iMac's snub might have been the last nail in its coffin. So, the iMac pretty much changed the world around it.

Will the MacBook Air do the same? Will USB flash drives kill optical disks? Will WiFi drive Ethernet into extinction? Is Apple knifing its own FireWire baby?

It certainly looks like Apple would very much like all of this to happen. Just as modems started to disappear from Macs, Ethernet may be next, surviving only in professional machines. Optical drives may still stick around for a while, though, but Apple doesn't think they will be missed from the MacBook Air. While you'll still need to leech the drive of a neighboring computer for software installs, the Mac maker would prefer if you turned to its products and services instead of using an optical drive: get music and video off iTunes, use iPods instead of burning CDs, and buy Time Capsule for backups. Clever.

There certainly is method in this madness. Anyone in the market for a $1,800 notebook must have some cash to burn on these products and services, so each Air sold (especially in countries where the iTunes Store is available in its full glory) should generate some guaranteed extra revenue for Apple. Besides, these relatively wealthy people probably already have a Mac at home anyway, helping them overcome most of their objections to the Air.

If sales of the Air reach a critical mass, the new Mac could help reform the computing landscape, just like the iMac did a decade ago. If sales end up failing to go off the charts, but remain respectable, then, well, Apple can still boast a successful niche product, and I'm sure that a hundred bucks or two may go off the price eventually, if needed.

But what if Apple has made a major miscalculation, like the one in the case of the Power Mac Cube? Wasn't it also a relatively underpowered pro-level Mac that the market deemed too expensive? Pundits crucified the Cube for putting style over substance, and weak sales of the radical-looking new Mac spelled serious trouble for the still-vulnerable Apple.

I don't think there's any reason to anticipate a similar fate for the MacBook Air. There may be some superficial similarities to the Cube, but the differences are more significant:

• As far as tech specs go, the Cube was clearly a weaker product than the Power Mac, yet it cost more. The MacBook Air is also a weaker product than the MacBook Pro, but it costs less as well. (However, it may also be compared to the MacBook, and it wouldn't fare so well in that comparison: the Air is the less capable and more expensive of the two notebooks.)
  
• Miniaturization is not such a strong selling point for a desktop Mac as it is for a notebook. The beauty of the Cube was mostly skin deep, whereas the thinness of the Air is also very practical.
  
• Apple's revenues in fiscal 2001 were $5.65 billion, whereas in 2007, they were $24 billion. Apple can better afford to risk less-than-optimal initial sales of a new experimental niche product now than it could at the time of the Cube.

I definitely don't think one should worry too much about the fate of the Air. It may not necessarily become a second iMac, but it really shouldn't be a second Cube either.

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E-book readers: they look good on paper

There's been some talk about Amazon's new Kindle e-book reader being the "iPod of books." This analogy might be cute and catchy, but it's deeply flawed, and wishful thinking at best.

First, being the iPod of books is a very ambitious undertaking. Much more so than being the iPod of music. Here's why:

1. With the iPod, the content that the device was built for is music. The display is only an organizer for it. The actual presentation of the content is audio playback. With an e-book reader, however, the display has to serve not only as an organizer, but also as the actual presentation canvas for the content itself. And that's hard, because
   
2. electric devices have been able to play back music for decades. Most users were already satisfied with the sound quality of existing MP3 players even before the iPod debuted, so Apple's device didn't need to achieve a technological breakthrough in its core competence of music playback. However, no electric device exists today that could "play back" a book or a newspaper at an acceptable quality. Therefore, a successful e-book reader will need to break new ground.
3. Listening is passive, while reading is active. Listening to a song only requires you to push the play button, and the rest will just happen to you. However, reading a book requires constant and conscious interaction: not just scanning the text with your eyeballs, but also physically navigating the book by turning pages.* A device for reading has to facilitate that as well in a very humane and user-friendly way, not to mention providing additional functionality such as annotation features**.
   

*What if an e-book reader could automatically scroll, tracking your eyeballs?

**This blog post of mine is serving me as a great lesson about procrastination. I've been working on it for over a week, and in the meantime, several other web authors have posted their opinions, which are in some cases very similar to mine. Ars Technica's John Stokes, for example, mentions annotation features, as well as several other points I also visit.


The Muzak of Books

But there's more on the iPod analogy front. The music you hear on an iPod is comparable to what you hear on your stereo. Sure, the quality is certainly not the same as on a high-end device, but it's is acceptable for the vast majority of users, most of whom would be hard-pressed to tell much of the difference anyway.

However, just imagine, for a moment, an iPod that could only play a MIDI version of any song. You would hear your favorite songs arranged for generic software instruments, and some machine voice would do all the vocals.

Would this device be a hit? Would you buy it?

I'm asking because this is more or less what Kindle, or any other e-book solution on the market today, does. What it presents is nothing but the MIDI version of a book. Layout is generated on the fly, using a generic font. Sure, the original words are kept, just like the original notes in a MIDI version of a song. But yet it's not the same song, and it's not the same book. It's the Muzak version of a book. It looks more like a webpage. Compared to the real thing, it's an abomination.

Readers want the real thing; the book as it has been designed and laid out by design professionals.

Sure, Muzak has its place in elevators and public toilets, but it's not the music you love, it's not what inspires your kids to write fan mail. And the same way, Kindle is perfectly suitable for reading an end-user license agreement or a shopping list – but not something you care about, not something you grow attached to.


A book reader? That's me!

And finally, there's a third thing. Your iPod does not equal to the music on it. The two are very separate things. An iPod is just the device that plays your music. The music is something you cannot touch, wherever it's coming from. A band, a stereo, a clock radio, an iPod: these are sources of music, you never think of them as the music itself. You don't even think of a CD as the music itself: it's just a recording that you have to get music out of by playing it in some device.

It's not that I have a penchant for stating the obvious, but this is a very important difference between music and books. Books have a physical representation that music or films lack: they are objects. The volume that you hold in you hand isn't a "source of book," or a "book recording" that you have to "play back." Nope. It's the book itself. It's a thing.* You need eyes and hands to read it, no other devices are necessary.

*Again, someone else has said it better as I was plugging away with this post. Damn.

Envisioning a device that will one day complement, substitute and perhaps even replace paper-based books, and calling it an "e-book reader" is a mistake. If such a device is to emerge, it won't be "playing back" a book: it will have to be the book.

I picture a featureless, lightweight, white or semitransparent, sublime-looking object, about the weight, size and shape of a book. Its surface would appear to be paper-like, with text and images apparently printed on it: it would show a page from a book. (Or maybe a spread. I know that there would be some serious and hard design decisions to be made, like how to accommodate oversized layouts such as a newspaper's.)

Looking at this thing from a distance, you could even mistake it for some high-tech version of a book. Not a reader: you're the reader. It's the book.

You would turn pages by imitating page-turning gestures on its touch-sensitive surface. You could flick it by manipulating its side. It would need to accommodate loads of other familiar gestures, in order to make you feel like you're reading a book (like, half-turning a page to see what's behind it, then turning it back). And the whole thing would need to bring you as much as possible of the whole book experience, such as layout, design, typography, look and feel, and even as many as humanly possible of these partly tongue-in-cheek, yet entirely perfectly valid points.

Maybe the world isn't ready for such a device. Not in the "world's not ready for Vista" sense, but simply because the hardware needed for such a device isn't feasible yet.

Of course, this thing will happen one day. Maybe it will work through directly stimulating parts of your brain to give you a complex multisensory illusion of reading a book, and you shouldn't expect it before 2100. Maybe it will happen next year. But it will be there.

We need to save trees. We need to simplify logistics. We need more interactivity: spoilt by the web experience, how many times did you wish you had hyperlinks or search boxes in a book or newspaper you were reading?


A real-world need

Two years ago, I left my home country. Among various other changes, I'm no longer able to read my favorite newspaper as it's not available where I live now.

Even though it's the year 2007, there's still no technology out there that could help me out. And no, Kindle won't be the answer either.

Back in the days, I would drive to work for an afternoon shift, and I'd make a stop at a drive-in restaurant for an early afternoon breakfast. I would buy my favorite paper, fold it out in front of me, and read it while eating.

I would look at the front page, and see what's above and below the fold. I would look at the teasers, the headlines, the subheads, the captions; the different fonts and typefaces, the weighing of contents by the size and position attributed to them by the editors and designers.

I would subconsciously use the placement of photos, the clever typographic solutions, and all the other subtle ways of presenting all the information and meta-information, to choose which stories I would read, and in what order. To this day, I can recall some of the stories the paper broke years ago, and my recollections are always complete with the entire layout, not just the words and the pictures.

After looking at the front page, I would go in. As I'd turn the pages, some familiarly distinct features would appear, making sure both that I feel at home and that I can find my way.

For instance, there was be the opinion page, one of my favorites. One big editorial, serious in tone, set in boldface (a bit of an assault on readability, but still, I'd grown to like it). A short, rather caustic opinion piece, in a larger font, set in italics. A small box with a short scathing op-ed always by the same guy, day in, day out. And in the center of the page, a large essay on some controversial issue, with an attention-grabbing pull quote: something I was almost certain to read every day.

When I moved halfway across Europe, I was looking for ways to keep reading that paper (which was not available on newsstands in my new adopted home). A subscription was out of the question: both the expense and the delay would have been forbidding.

So I subscribed online. I was looking for the same experience, or at least something similar. But it wasn't meant to be.

It's not just that I was unable to take my subscription to a restaurant. It's not just that I was confined to a computer for reading. All I could access was a page with a list of headlines. I could click on each, and the text would appear in my browser. As would the photos. I could also search, and get yet more clickable lists.

That was it. No layout, no design, no presentation. Just the words and the pictures. It was a website, except that the stories were not written for the web. They were cut and pasted from the paper. It was less than a website, and much less than a newspaper. It united the disadvangates of both.

I despised it and canceled after a few weeks.

Apparently, whoever was in charge of the online version thought that content was the only thing that mattered, where content would equal all the words and the pictures. According to this belief, when you buy a paper, you pay for words and pictures, and that's it. Today's newspapers place these things tediously on pages, requiring a lot of human effort, but that's only because a printed page has a limited capacity, and working with this limitation is hard. In a better, more advanced world, there will be no more paper, therefore there will be no need for laboriously placing the contents on these things called "pages." You would just present a table of contents, and the contents themselves, which are free to flow without any spatial limitation.

Therefore, a newspaper or a book would be just like a webpage, and all you'd do is search, click, and then scroll, scroll, scroll and scroll as you read.

Welcome to the brave new world. Luckily, this will never happen. Anyone who thinks that a newspaper, a magazine, a book, or basically anything that gets printed, is nothing but a sum of its words and pictures is seriously, sadly mistaken, and will not be the driving force behind a successfull e-book concept.

Anyone who doesn't know the vast, incredible importance of layout and presentation simply doesn't get publishing, period.

Anyone who gets publishing knows that an online HTML version of any print publication is not an equivalent of the original.

Apparently, Jeff Bezos doesn't get publishing. He's good at selling books and other things. He's a salesman. He may even be a sales visionary. But that's it.

An acceptable presentation of a book or a newspaper in an electric solution means that it has to look very close to the real thing. It has to make you forget that you're looking at a gadget.


Apple's chance

Currently, the only company that seems to even come close to "getting" things like these is Apple. In addition to its obvious lead in user interface design, its famous dedication to any design, and very specifically, typography, is a clear indication. Remember, the Mac was the device that kick-started desktop publishing in the eighties.

I think, or rather, I hope, that Apple will introduce a device to top Kindle, turning Amazon's attempt into the kind of roadkill that litters the technology highways. Kind of like the iPod did to the likes of the Archos Jukebox.

Three years ago, based on the success of the iPod, I thought Apple could probably be the one company to pull it off.

Now, in 2007, Apple has unveiled Multi-Touch, as well as an embedded version of OS X. If e-books are going to be more than a blip on the radar any time soon, they will be courtesy of Apple, not Amazon.

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Kindle: damn, they stole my idea. Here's my mail to Steve Jobs from 2004

Naive as I was, I sent the following e-mail to Steve Jobs back in 2004.
Needless to say, he never wrote back.

Dear Steve,

Here's a product/service idea I think Apple could pull off pretty decently.

We all hope that one day lots of trees will be spared by switching from paper to a digital alternative. Yet it's not happening. E-book readers crash and burn. People insist on real books and newspapers, and it seems to be an emotional thing.

Or is it? I think it's just that current devices suck. Apple could, once again, show the world how it's done, and make it a hit.

Here's what I think it needs.

(1) A reader (let's call it an iPad for now) needs to resemble a book. It should look non-technical, white, matte, and just beg to be read like a book. (Most of this is a display thing.)

(2) Once iPad resembles a book (breaking users' resistence), people will see incredible benefits. How about "A thousand volumes in your hands?" Readers easily navigate through book collections, take notes, use bookmarks, etc. (Touch-screen technology and on-screen keyboards should be considered. Miniaturization isn't such a big issue here.)

(3) PDF should be to the iPad what MP3 is to the iPod. Transferring these files for immediate access needs to be a breeze. One hidden benefit: users will stop printing long documents that they'd only read once (like software tutorials). People hate reading on computer screens – this should be a hardcopy replacement, not a computer replacement.

(4) Apple has good enough reputation in the contents business to launch an e-bookstore and get large publishers on board. If this catches on, it can be an even bigger cost saver than AAC vs CD. Not to mention periodicals like dailies that face stiff competition from the Web: they could fight back this way. DRM is needed, natch.

(5) You may want to take the computer partly out of the equation. Introduce a small, cheap flash-RAM dongle that retails free of charge as a supplement to books -- or is sold separately. It contains a DRM-protected copy of the book, and it plugs right into the iPad. You can read it while it's plugged (no piracy). Think about buying newspapers at the newsstands like this, on 1" by 1" cards! Quite revolutionary, saving huge printing costs and time.

That's it. If I got you started, I'll gratefully accept donations.

All the best,

András Puiz

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Behind the rumors: is it an iPhone Pro, or a Mac touch?

According to recent rumors, "Asus is helping Apple build a Tablet PC." This comes only a few weeks after a rumor suggesting the return of the Newton handheld computer.

I strongly believe that (a) a new device is coming indeed, and (b) it will sport a MultiTouch interface.

But is it going to be an extended iPod touch/iPhone, or will it be a modified Mac? I think both are possible. Here's what I think about these two (not mutually exclusive) scenarios.

Mac touch

Tablet PCs have failed only because they were horrendously badly executed, and were saddled with ridiculous ideas. No usable keyboard? Why the hell would anyone want to interact with a computer via handwriting? Isn't typing demonstrably faster? Hello?

That doesn't mean, however, that a tablet PC is inherently a bad idea. On the contrary: at worst, eliminating a physical keyboard could easily save space and cost, ushering in a new class of unexpensive, miniaturized PCs. At best, a new set of thoughful metaphors could emerge, with several advantages over traditional input mechanisms.

The iPhone has shown us all that Apple gets it. The iPhone interface features direct manipulation metaphors that arguably beat everything else out there, including the mouse and the trackball. It can also simulate a keyboard, though the lack of physical feedback is a disadvantage. (Apple may be working on a solution there: I sure hope they are.)

How difficult would it be for Apple to modify Mac OS X in order to accommodate a MultiTouch user interface, complete with a usable onscreen keyboard? A stylus would probably be included for precision work, but most tasks could be achieved using your fingers. Just imagine your daily work on a Mac, and imagine using your fingers instead of the mouse: I'm hard-pressed to find anything that would no longer be doable. (Things like right-clicking would need clever substitutes, though.)

It can be argued whether or not "direct manipulation" of objects on the screen would be better than using a pointing device on a different surface. However, some new metaphors, borrowed from the iPhone and from trackpads of Apple's laptops, could definitely provide a superior experience. Think about two-finger scrolling, page-turning gestures, or the zooming "pinch": these certainly beat scroll arrows or "next page" buttons. And yet further multi-finger gestures could be born, something that no mouse could ever accommodate. (And besides, even single-finger gestures are much easier and more natural than their mouse equivalents: operating a mouse is not that easy; we've just all gotten used to it.)

Specs: If Apple believes the "Mac touch" to be a potentially superior device, one that would one day supplant both the desktop and the notebook form factors, shipping large and powerful configurations would make a lot of sense. If Apple only views the "touch" as a companion device, whose main selling point is its miniaturization, then obviously, we're only talking about smaller configurations. Maybe there would be a "Pro" class, even, featuring different storage and size options.

There's a minimum screen size below which the device would be hard to use; thus I don't think we would see a Mac touch with a screen smaller than 8" or maybe even 10". Larger configurations could be just about any size, even 20", though I would be surprised if Apple actually shipped such a huge Mac touch at the device's debut.

The small version(s) would definitely represent a breakthrough in miniaturization, so it's questionable whether they would even feature optical drives. I imagine a very thin form factor, dominated by a huge screen, one or two buttons, speakers, a microphone, and Bluetooth, WiFi, Ethernet, USB and FireWire interfaces. It would definitely use batteries. As for internal storage, smaller models could avoid hard disks and use flash memory; a larger (Pro?) family could perhaps use both (as well as an optical drive).

Pros*: Compatible with existing Mac; full-featured; no need for Apple to port OS or apps
Cons*: Form factor too large for some uses; no real breakthrough in miniaturization; probably costly


iPhone Pro/Newton

I've always yearned for a time when miniaturization would endow a handheld device with the full functionality of a computer. Then I realized that it's not as simple as that. In order to be successful and usable, a tiny computer needs a different, well thought out user interface – it can't just run the OS of its full-sized siblings.

This is why I was so ecstatic about the birth of a new platform this January. Apple's handheld OS X and other related technologies have proven themselves to work beautifully, and they are bound to make their way into other products. Since then, they have already given birth to the iPod touch: a somewhat premature development in my opinion, but a necessary one to keep the freshness of the iPod brand (I'd wager heavily that most iPod sales come from the nano and maybe the classic.)

What if Apple were to release a similar, though somewhat larger device, one that could function as a supercharged PDA and/or a stripped-down Mac?

After all, most of the work is already done. The technology is there, all Apple needs to do is build a larger device, write some additional apps (or port some existing apps over to it), and voilà: there's your new Newton, powered by iPhone technologies (perhaps without the phone part, though)!

As an aside: I'm relieved that my iPhone predictions are turning out to be overly pessimistic in light of the SDK that Apple announced. We still don't know from Steve Jobs' musings how open the platform is going to get, or how smart Apple itself is going to make the phone – will it sprout a clipboard any time soon, for example –, but at least, the phone will further tap into the huge potential of having OS X running on a handheld device. However, I'm still not sure if the iPhone will ever be intended to become a true PDA or handheld computer. I think Apple will strive to keep simplicity as one of its main virtues. So, there may be room for a more powerful iPhone-like device in Apple's product matrix.

Specs: This would be a handheld device, though a somewhat larger one than the iPhone. It would expand on the capabilities and features of the iPhone – or of the iPod touch. (It's a good question whether it would double as a cellphone: such a functionality would certainly be welcome, especially for internet access, but having to commit to a monthly plan would also turn away some potential users. Maybe two versions would emerge, one with, and one without a phone.)

It would probably ship with enhanced versions of iPhone apps, as well as additional ones written by Apple. All in all, it would be a new-ish platform; an evolutionary development over the iPhone, but perhaps consummating the revoution it started.

Bluetooth, WiFi, flash memory would be a given, anything else (Ethernet, USB, etc.) could be anyone's guess.

Pros*: Smaller form factor; possible cellphone functionality; potentially lower price
Cons*: Incompatible with Mac software; still not a full-blown computer; yet another platform for Apple to support, and for third parties to develop for


* Pros and cons: a comparison between the two speculative scenarios.

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Are the boring years over for the Mac?

You might think I'm nuts for saying so, and I'd really like you to put my words into the right perspective, but here is what I have to say: the history of the Mac has been a pretty boring ride lately, and I hope it will change soon. In fact, I think it will change in a matter of weeks, as Apple releases the revamped iMac.

Let's see. Over the turn of the millennium, Apple changed the Mac drastically. It simplified the Mac product matrix. It threw out a lot of technologies, and adopted some new ones. USB, FireWire, WiFi, UATA (then SATA) took over from the likes of SCSI and ADB. The floppy was killed. And perhaps most significantly, Mac OS X was born. In addition, industrial design started to matter.

And that was it. Nothing has happened ever since.

What could a true Mac watcher rejoice about in the last six years or so? New enclosures.

They have been great, they have been sexy, and yes, I have raved about many of them, just check out the Applelust archives. Apple has shown us all that computers can be beautiful. But as far as technological innovation goes, Apple's huge advances in industrial design are only skin deep.

The iMac now ships in six colors! Now in three! It now looks psychedelic! It has DVD! Now it has CD-RW! Now it looks like a sunflower! Now it's like a monitor! I'm going to swoon!

No wonder the Dark Side ridicules us, Mac fanboys.

I desperately yearn for something really new. The iSight, while unoriginal, was quite a relief, as was the Apple Remote: simple, yet greatly useful touches… And finally, hardware additions! The scrolling trackpad was also a step in the right direction.

But while Apple serves as an R&D lab for the entire software industry, its hardware is decidedly conservative. Couldn't we really use some new keys on the keyboard? All Command-something keystrokes are reserved now for some Mac OS X function. All Function keys already do something, and really, however futuristic and useful Exposé is, launching it by pressing a key that's labeled something as geeky as "F9" instantly throws you back to the days of DOS.

I desperately yearn for new gestures, new metaphors, new input devices. New hardware directions. Are we stuck forever in 1984, or what? If Apple can't deliver the future, who will?

But I think that future is just around the corner. The iPhone shows that Apple can still think outside the box. We have proof that Apple has still got it.

And while people can argue whether or not the iPhone is a Mac, its modest cousin, the Apple TV, is undeniably one, and is taking the Mac platform to places it hasn't gone before. We have a Mac that feeds content to a TV, and is operated by a remote control. To me, this is a much more significant development than yet another iMac facelift, or any transition from titanium to aluminum.

Rumors abound about the new iMac. It is said to have a redesigned keyboard, with lots of new features. Hoorray! I can't wait to see what else the revision will bring. And I have a gut feeling that Apple and the Mac will re-ignite a hardware revolution that goes beyond prettier and prettier boxes that essentially do the same thing they have been doing for decades.

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Apple to rethink scrolling and mice?

Two of Apple's hardware patent filings have made the news this Friday.

The first, discovered by AppleInsider, describes a new Mighty Mouse design that ditches the problematic scroll ball, and lets the user switch between a "traditional" (cursor control) mode and a "pan/scroll" mode by adjusting the position of the fingers holding the mouse. In the latter mode, mouse movement would translate into scrolling, and the pointer would not move.

It may sound like a nice idea at first, but it has some serious problems. First of all, while the current two hand positions that let users choose between "right" and "left" clicking are fine by me, apparently some users find it confusing. I'm not sure if introducing yet other hand positions for switching between yet other modes is a good idea.

The "scrolling mode" itself also leaves me scratching my head. It's nothing new: many traditional scroll-wheel mice have such a mode which you can enter and exit by pressing the scroll wheel. I use such a mouse at work, and I hardly ever use that feature.

Modes are bad. I've been conditioned all my life to using the mouse to point; now I'd be supposed to use the same motion for scrolling. To me, the concept of moving the mouse for anything other than moving the pointer is totally alien. It's like using the steering wheel to shift gears.

When I scroll, I expect to have my mouse remain stationary. And I don't want to readjust my hand position every time I want to scroll. So thanks, but no thanks.

I think all Apple needs to do is, really, just fix the damn scroll ball, so that it works and keeps working. Perhaps a new design should avoid the use of moving parts. But how would that be possible?

One idea that Apple was toying with (and filed a patent for) was the rotary wheel mouse, which would have featured an iPod-like wheel on top of a mouse. The patent application itself starts by dissing traditional scroll wheels in order to establish the superiority of the proposed solution. Ironically, its arguments also stand valid against the scroll ball solution Apple eventually adopted:

the user must scroll, pick up a finger, scroll, pick up a finger, etc. This takes time and can be an annoyance to a user. In addition, because a portion of the wheel protrudes above the top surface of the mouse, inadvertent or accidental scrolling may occur when one of the two buttons is activated.

The rotary wheel would have allowed lengthy, continuous scrolling, without lifting a finger. Note how neither the Mighty Mouse nor the new "dual-mode" mouse can do that.

So what was wrong with the rotary mouse? Simple: it would let you scroll either only vertically or only horizontally, just like traditional scroll wheel mice. This is probably why the idea was ditched, and the omnidirectional scroll ball emerged as a solution. At least for the time being.

Incidentally, this is why I don't think today's other hardware patent filing, the one about yet another iPod-esque rotary wheel put on a keyboard, is going to go anywhere.

I think rotary wheels are on their way out anyway. Looks like the iPhone won't have one, not even a touch-screen implementation featured in yet another patent filing. And I think it's a safe bet that the iPhone's interface will eventually, over the next three or four years, trickle down all the way to the iPod nano.

So, I think Apple should go back to the drawing board if it wants to dump the scroll ball. I have some suggestions, and I'll post them soon. Stay tuned!

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Confusing, contradictory rumors abound on Apple's new device

Sometimes rumormongers, leakers and analysts get it all mixed up. For example, before the release of the Cube, many took whatever details they had and arrived at the conclusion that the Power Mac would get a new cube form factor. Few suspected a new Mac besides the Power Mac.

Maybe something similar is happening with the new mystery product Apple is now expected to release today. Maybe it isn't an iPod phone after all. Maybe it isn't a touch-screen iPod either.

Maybe it's both. And maybe it's neither.

To me, the hyping of the entire year 2007 suggests the emergence of a new platform from Apple. Maybe Apple didn't go out of its way and designed a new, scaled-down OS for handheld devices. Maybe Apple simply decided that now it's time for an ultra-portable Mac, in a subnotebook or handheld form factor, that is capable of running a (more or less) full version of Mac OS X.

We don't know. But… Touch-screen iPod, iPod phone, Apple smartphone, and the thing that makes Jobs more excited than the Macintosh did… How many things are these? Do they all exist? Or is it just one thing, grossly misunderstood?

Okay, we will see.

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OK, Apple really needs to fix the Mighty Mouse scroll ball

The Mighty Mouse is just perfect. The way it implements right-clicking is probably the best possible way: it will still let you left-click with your entire palm, not just your first two fingers, reducing the chance for repetitive-stress injury. Right-clicking may be a bit tricky, what with remembering to lift your fingers off the left side, but in the last few months, I haven't had a single missed right-click.

And don't even get me started on scrolling. It's absolutely indispensable. In the past, I've bitched about what I call "dumb scrolling" (and what Apple called "smart scrolling back then), i.e. having both scroll arrows on one end of a scroll bar. I still insist that the only way that makes sense from a usability point of view is having both arrows on both ends. However, today, I simply no longer care. Who needs scroll arrows when you have the Mighty Mouse?

Well, unfortunately, you do when your mouse stops scrolling. My pet peeves are silent failures: any minute, your mouse can just lose its scrolling functionality. At least, this failure is "silent" in a good way: the artificial clicking sound the mouse emits while scrolling will also go away, letting you know that it's your mouse that's failing (again), not some software problem.

Apple is aware of the problem, and details how it recommends you clean the ball when that happens. (Turn the mouse upside down, and roll the ball vigorously with a clean, moist, lint-free cloth.) A Google search will also yield useful tips, like blowing pressurized air inside the assembly.

Unfortunately, these tips solve the problem only temporarily. In my case, it has come to the point where I'm rubbing my mouse's scroll ball after every three to fifteen minutes of use. I'm going to have my mouse replaced under warranty, and I hope Apple will fix this flawed design as soon as possible. Public acknowledgment of the problem would also be nice, though that might easily cost Apple actual money in class-action lawsuits, so I'm not holding my breath.

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So iPhone equals iPod plus what?

So Digg's Kevin Rose "confirms" two iPhone models, according to Ars Technica's Mac blog. The big details are a small form factor, a separate battery for music, and two price tags of $249 and $449 for two models (4GB and 8Gb).

Ars Technica thinks the alleged separate battery will "firmly make this a music-playing device," though I'm not sure why anyone has had any doubts over this for a second since July 21, the day Peter Oppenheimer gave the secret away.

The large gap between the two models suggests more than just a difference in capacity, though it's anyone's guess what else is in the cards. The larger model may have a camera or, as rumored, some smartphone functionality as well.

The most interesting question is, though, how much of an iPod and how much of a telephone the iPhone is going to be. Did Apple focus on simply converging the iPod with a cellphone (any cellphone) so that you don't need to carry two devices? Or does the iPhone go way beyond that? And how does it affect Apple's product line-up?

Apple currently sells Macs and iPods. That's about it. With the iPhone, will a third category emerge, or will it the iPhone still be an iPod? And even if so, will it transform the iPod?


I can imagine the following scenarios.

1. The name's "iPod phone": Apple adds a so-so phone to the mighty iPod. When the iPhone emerges, it turns out to be just an iPod nano that can make phone calls. The new baby is integrated neatly in the iPod product matrix, probably called iPod phone. Phone functionality is less than groundbreaking (possibly even licensed from a third party), as Apple fears the unknown and simply wants to unify two existing kingdoms: its own, the iPod, and a foreign one, cellphones. The marriage would supposedly cement the leadership of the iPod in its own sector.

Odds: 3 to 1. Easiest to pull off, though rumors suggest otherwise.
Wow factor: 40%. "Still, Apple's making a phone! Wow."

2. Apple starts a cellular revolution with music as a Trojan: Apple adds a so-so iPod to the mighty iPhone. What if Apple wants to take on cellphones? Having tackled music, now it wants to show the world how phones are done. However, as mobile telephony is a large and mature market, Apple's only chance for entry is by grafting iPods on its phones. In this scenario, expect true cellular innovation from Apple, with the iPod as an add-on.

Odds: 5 to 1. Harder than it sounds, and Oppenheimer's words suggest otherwise.
Wow factor: 99%. "Wow, Apple makes the best cellphones! Who'd've thunk that?!"

3. It's iPod 2.0, and it can do phones as well: Apple expands the iPod platform into a handheld computer, iPhone is just one application. OK, imagine this. Apple doesn't stop at putting video, games, calendars and some basic contact management on an iPod. Nope: Apple takes it all the way to the next level. With a touch-screen interface, the iPod could do anything. Apple could kick new life into the PDA market it created (though it wasn't Steve). It could consummate the mission of this MP3 player of truly evolving into the Next Big Thing. Oh, and it could also function as a phone. Let's dedicate one model to that. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the iPhone.

Odds: 9 to 1. I'd put in a larger number, but this is Steve Jobs we're talking about.
Wow factor: 300%. As in, "Holy @#$^%!!!"

These three scenarios may not play out this purely, but I think one of them will definitely prevail. It'll be interesting to see which one. Do they all sound insane? You bet. But one of them will be reality soon. It's exciting to be an Apple head these days. (Just look at the Mac Thought Crime logo for proof.)

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Alleged iPhone photo reveals 'rotary dial'

A blogger has posted what is very likely a leaked photo of Apple's upcoming iPhone product. While no hints of smartphone functionality are present, the device apparently pays homage to old rotary-dial phones, using a modified version of the famous iPod click wheel. See the picture right after the jump...

Okay, the blogger, who goes by the name BlueBunny, isn't fully convinced of the image's authenticity...

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CEO: Palm 'struggled' figuring stuff out. In other news: Pope Catholic

Palm CEO Ed Colligan chimes in on the iPhone "threat" (as quoted by Mercury News):

"We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,'' he said. ``PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in.''

Let's see.

For years, Palm (bought by US Robotics, then by 3Com) was migrating itself, its hardware, software, developers and users away from keyboards. Handwriting recognition (sort of) was the next biggest thing. It worked while the bubble lasted.

Then two founders left over management disputes, and formed Handspring. Handspring added a keypad to a handheld (called Treo) in a moment of clarity, and the smartphone became an instant hit.

So for years, the same inventors were migrating themselves, their hardware, software, developers and users back to keyboards.

Handspring was popular, yet it was dying. Palm was unpopular and dying. So Palm bought Handspring, and finally, all was together in a neat package: the Treo smartphone, the Palm mothership, and the much-tweaked, essential Palm OS software.

It all made too much sense, so something was bound to happen. Palm renamed itself PalmOne, spun off the Palm OS company PalmSource, then renamed itself Palm again.

And licensed Windows Mobile.

I'm starting to wonder if Palm / US Robotics / 3Com / Handspring / PalmOne / PalmSource / Palm is really the best role model Apple can have for straightforward business development.

Additional sources: Palm, CNN, Wikipedia

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How the iPod could save the PDA without trying (too hard)

Nobody wants a PDA anymore. Worldwide sales of traditional handheld devices (ones without phone capabilities) have been declining for eleven straight quarters, reaching a measly 1.1 million units sold in Q3, 2006 on their way down, according to IDC. Steve Jobs is even proud of not having released a PDA. That's right, nobody wants one.

But then nobody wanted video on an iPod, either. It was an experiment that few, if any, companies could have pulled off the way Apple has. It really struck me as a stroke of genius when Steve Jobs had this to say about the video iPod over a year ago (emphasis added):

"Millions of people are going to buy this to listen to music – and video is going to come along as a bonus. So if anything is going to happen in portable video, it will happen on the iPod. We'll find out what happens."

The exact same thing could happen on the PDA front. Today, the iPod has support for games, browsing calendars, notes, photos and videos. In what would be a small step for Apple, but a great step for the ailing PDA market, a new-generation iPod could sprout advanced PDA features any day, and take over the PDA market overnight. That's right: if the long-awaited touch-screen iPod becomes a reality and starts selling in the millions, it will immediately outsell the entire existing PDA market.

It's only a question of choice whether Apple wants to use this opportunity to extend its near-monopoly to handheld devices. Millions of users could buy an iPod – and get a PDA as a bonus. If that won't breathe new life into the personal digital assistant, nothing will.

After all, while traditional PDAs are a dying breed, so-called converged devices (smartphones and phone-PDA combinations) are on the increase. And we all know that Apple is interested in the phone market, don't we? Apple could test the waters with a traditional PDA iPod before plunging into the converged waters.

I think Apple should try its luck here. If the rumors are correct and the next-gen iPod is really going to be all covered by a large touchscreen, its input methods can be vastly extended by virtual (and/or clip-on) keypads, if needed, without compromising the simplicity or the core functionality of the device. You'd touch the screen, and the famous click wheel would appear right at your fingertips – that's what the oldest rumors claim. Okay, now touch the screen in a different way, and a keypad emerges... But only if you want it. If Apple's software people do their job right, the added functions would never get in the way of those who want the iPod to focus on being, first and foremost, an MP3 player. (And so we don't start getting into useless bloatware arguments, either.)

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Apple files yet another weird hardware patent

According to a patent filing that Appleinsider dug up, Apple is working on (or at least aiming to patent) a multi-purpose touch-sensitive input solution. While patent filings may be deceiving, this pretty much looks like a swappable keyboard/touchpad solution. You could place a QWERTY keyboard on top of it, a piano keyboard, a trackpad, or just about any similar input device that can take advantage of a touch-sensitive surface behind it.

Apple has filed a lot of exciting or crazy hardware patents that went nowhere. There were detachable, wireless screens. Mice with iPod-like scrolling devices. Tablet computers. And really, when was the last time any Mac shipped with a revolutionary ingenious hardware element comparable to such a multi-purpose input device?

Perhaps this has more to do with a handheld device than with a Mac? If and when the touchscreen iPod becomes real, it could allow for an input area large enough to contain a QWERTY keypad, either virtual (i.e. displayed on the screen), or as a strap-on like in this patent filing. And if the iPod gets a QWERTY, it may take on a completely new life with vastly expanded capabilities. Its software is quite advanced even today, and just imagine what could happen to the platform if its greatest limitation, its lack of input options, could be overcome...

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So where's the media center Mac Mini?

It has been rumored with great intensity. Apple would release a new version of its entry-level desktop, the Mac mini, with added media center functionality. One major rumor-writeup even called it a TiVo-killer, purported to know its internal codename (Kaleidoscope) at Apple. Estimated time of arrival: the January Macworld San Francisco expo.

Of 2006.

Well, it never materialized. The rumor mill has become rather quiet about it, especially since the announcement of iTV, a device which looks conspicuously similar to a Mac Mini.

Could it be that the "sources deeply entrenched in the grapevine" were fooled by its appearance, and mistook the iTV for a Mac mini?

It has always seemed very odd to me why, apart from the form factor, rumors would want to turn the Mac mini into a media center:

1. The Mac mini is the entry-level Mac. It's designed to be as cheap as possible. It was made for people with basic computing needs. Why increase its costs by adding functionality that most of its users don't want?
2. It's uncharacteristic of Apple to introduce functionality exclusive to one Mac model, especially the entry-level Mac.
   
3. Hooking up a Mac to a TV is inconvenient, and Apple knows that. "Would you like an iTV with it, sir?"

I believe the Apple media center will be the iTV, and that's it. What exactly it will do in addition to what's already been revealed is anyone's guess. From the specs that we've been told so far, though, recording is not included (RoughlyDrafted Magazine explains why not, and why it shouldn't be there anyway).

So were all the "TiVo killer" rumors just simply totally wrong? Maybe, but perhaps recording capabilities will arrive in a second high-end iTV model later. Just in case they do, let me take this opportunity and warn Apple how crucial it would be to be able to start recording a show immediately. As in, pressing the "record" button. Alas, with the Apple Remote, that would look more like emerging from the depth of a five-level menu, and then delving into another three levels elsewhere before recording can commence. And that would probably mean missing the fun part.

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Dear Apple, please don't screw up my iPhone!

So the iPhone is coming, it's a fact. These are exciting times indeed.

According to some analysts (the past few years' answer to rumor sites), there will be two iPhones, and one will be a smartphone.

Maybe. If so, here's my humble list of requests for a smartphone. This is something that hardly anyone gets right. Let's see if Apple does:

1. Give me a QWERTY
It's time to put the silly "look Ma, no keys" proof-of-concept-gone-horribly-wrong era behind us, and face it: Handwriting recognition just doesn't work. Or maybe it does, but even then, handwriting is much slower than typing, as mankind learned some 125 years ago.

2. Let me work with files
I don't want smartphone apps such as text editors to work with their own esoteric "databases" that need to be "synced" with my Mac. Nope, I want to work with standard files (such as RTF or TXT) that I can open, save, as grown-ups do. I want to move them back and forth between my Mac and my iPhone. I want to be able to locate, open and edit them on either. Sure, if iSync wants to help me copy my files back and forth, why not. But I want to be able to manage them myself as well.

3. No artificial quotas, please
I hope iPhone will ship with plenty of flash RAM. But whether it's 128MBytes or 2GBytes, I want to be put in charge of how I use it. If I want to store a million SMS messages and no sound files, I don't want some silly quota that caps the number of text messages at, say, two hundred.

4. Let me save my text messages
Speaking of SMS messages, here's a hint: they are text files. Computers can read and write text files. Why not connect the dots? I want to archive a lot of my text messages for posterity. They can convey important personal messages. They can contain important business information. They should be easily exported to my Mac. And I mean easily. Point, click, select all, copy, switch app, paste, repeat ain't easy.

5. Don't make me use the touch screen
This may be considered an extension to the first point. I just loathe it when I can't move around in a text field (including selecting text), respond to a dialog box, or bring up a menu without breaking out my darn stylus. I want to be fully functional single-handed as well, and it's actually possible. All it takes is a small joystick (or a set of direction keys), and a Menu key (or Alt, or Control, or Command... you get the idea). A touch screen is okay, but only as an addition.

6. I want a browser with multiple windows
Opera can do this on the Sony-Ericsson P910i. And it's a must. Period.

7. Multitask, and honestly, too
Some smartphones don't multitask at all. Others do, but lie about it, claiming that opening an app will close the previous one. Garbage. The app remains open, but you're not supposed to know about it. You're left wondering what's with the apparent memory leak and degrading performance. I want to know what tasks are running.

8. Nothing should take more than three keypresses
Menus are all the rage, and Apple adores the iPod's limited number of buttons. But still, going into a freakin' menu so that I can change playback volume is a bit of an annoyance. On a cellphone, I need to be able to start typing an SMS after two keystrokes. I need to be able to locate a contact and place a call in two seconds (e.g. by entering a search mode, and selecting the contact by typing an initial letter or two of some of its contact info). I know Steve Jobs has probably fired people over the number of any extra keys, but there should be just enough of them to let me access any function in a few seconds.

Here's my list for now... I'm sure I'll revisit it later when I'm back from holiday.

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