Does Tim Cook's "netbooks not computers" angle foreshadow jumbo iPod touch?

Tim Cook spoke about netbooks at Apple's latest earnings call.

Quoted all over the web, his comments are as follows:

For us, it's about doing great products. When look at netbook, cramped keyboard, terrible software, junky hardware, very small screens, just not a consumer experience. Not something that we would put the Mac brand on, quite frankly. It's not a space, as it exists today, that we're interested in or that customers will be interested in long term. But do look at the space and see how customers respond to it. People who want a small computer that does browsing and email might want to buy an iPod touch or an iPhone.

If we find a way that we can deliver an innovative product that really makes a contribution, then we will do that. We have some interesting ideas in this space. Product pipeline is fantastic for Mac. 17 out of last 18 quarters, have exceeded market rate of growth. Quite an accomplishment in this quarter, especially when compared to very low-priced netbooks "that I think it's a stretch to call them a personal computer" which are propping up industry.

OK, what's the take home message here? Allow me to translate it from Applespeak for you.

1. Netbooks have small screens and cramped keyboards, which we don't like.
2. We won't make netbooks, we're filling that space with the iPhone and the iPod touch.
3. We will attack that segment with something else too (unless Steve cancels it).
4. Netbooks aren't personal computers.

Okay, numbers two and three are easy. (Why am I so sure about three? Well, I think Tim Cook goes the closest possible here to announcing future products without actually doing so. Compare this to how Peter Oppenheimer confirmed the iPhone one year before its launch by saying as little as "we're not sitting around doing nothing.")

But how about one and four? I think the real hidden messages are buried in those two.

So netbooks have small screens and cramped keyboards. Of course: that's how big they are! Obviously, a 14" netbook wouldn't be much of a netbook now, would it?

So how to make a netbook-like device that doesn't have a small screen or a cramped keyboard, while keeping it small?

Easy. By making it an oversized iPhone. An Apple tablet. The whole thing will be a screen, and a touchscreen at that, with the possibility of showing on-screen keyboards.

And finally, what about the "not a personal computer" comment?

It's obviously bullshit, for one. Why wouldn't a device with PC hardware (matching the capabilities of a top laptop from a few years back), running a full-blown PC operating system, be a personal computer?

Commenting the earnings call, Jason Snell sees it this way:

Boom! Tim Cook destroys the Netbook world again. "I think it's a stretch to call it a personal computer." Ouch. They've said much of this before, but it's very clear that Apple wants us to know that they're looking at this category and have some ideas... just nothing to announce today.

Well, I beg to differ. Not about the fact that Apple has some ideas, no. But I don't think Tim's comments were meant to belittle the netbook sector. No, I think what he's trying to say is something like this:

What we're going to release in that sector won't be a Mac, it won't be a real personal computer. And I know people will whine about that, comparing our product to netbooks, which are PCs. However, if we keep repeating that netbooks aren't PCs, it might actually start looking true, so people will stop whining.

So there you have it. A tablet device is coming, and it won't be a Mac. It couldn't be: if it were, people would start running all sorts of Mac software on it, and most of it would run very poorly on such an underpowered little thing.

So it will be something based on the iPhone OS. Hopefully, with enhanced functionality, though. Multiple apps, a true file system, saving documents, menus, windows, and so on... The possibilities (and the questions) are legion.

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MacBook Air: harbinger of the tablet Mac?

As I was re-reading, for some reason, my old post on the November tablet Mac rumors, and got to the part where I speculate on the features of the purported device (such as ports and disk drives), something suddenly occured to me.

As I speculated back then, a tablet Mac would very likely need to do away with some traditional Mac features, such as an optical drive. However, I didn't think it would lack Ethernet or FireWire: I thought those would be too extreme omissions.

Guess what: Apple has just shipped a Mac without any of these things. It remains to be seen how exactly people are going to respond to such a radical elimination of items whose presence in a Mac have been taken for granted for almost a decade, but looks like Apple is on to something there.

The Air is more of a breakthrough in what it lacks than it is in what new features it adds (basically, a MultiTouch trackpad), and I'm sure Apple is eagerly anticipating feedback.

If it turns out that there exists a significant enough class of users who don't mind the radical departure this Mac represents, Apple can be more confident in launching yet another product category: a tablet Mac, taking the Air's ultraportability concept yet one step further.

MultiTouch cannot be forever confined to cellphones and trackpads.

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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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Apple, Jobs developing new, human side?

Ever since the return of Steve Jobs, Apple hasn't been about faces. Withe the exception of Apple's media events where Jobs, Phil Schiller, the occasional product manager or VP would take the stage, Apple's people have been mostly hiding in shadows.

When you interact with Apple's web page, you don't interact with people. You read news items or carefully crafted PR, search databases, buy with 1-Click™, or, at best, interact with other users in the support forums. It's all cool and impersonal.

Even video introductions for products show screencasts, and feature professional voice actors.

Under Jobs' tenure, "About" boxes of Apple's software products stopped listing the names of individuals (perhaps for fear of making the jobs of headhunters too easy). Even O'Reilly's Learning Cocoa book was, somewhat ridiculously, written by "Apple Computer, Inc." Not by people.

But that trend has been changing lately. First, there was the iPhone guy. Then Steve Jobs started to blog. And now we have the Leopard guy.

Why?

Jobs has "blogged" on the following occasions so far: when he delivered his open letter to record industry executives; when he addressed criticism by environmentalists and envisioned a greener Apple; when he announced a rebate for early iPhone customers; and finally, when promising an iPhone SDK (no link available, the announcement is simply a text-only item in Apple's Hot News section).

The first "blog post" is unique in that Jobs expresses a personal opinion and attempts to influence decisions by executives of an industry by summoning the power of media. It isn't something a company or a CEO does routinely, it certainly isn't business as usual, thus its unusual format is understandable and warranted.

However, the other items could easily be replaced by traditional Apple press releases. They do not really contain anything special that would necessitate their unorthodox format. There doesn't seem to be anything inherently suggesting a need for personal communication from Steve Jobs in those messages. Yet Jobs has chosen to present them as personally signed pieces of communication.

Again, why?

Similarly, the two new faces Apple has attributed to its iPhone and Leopard products (without names, though) mark a strange departure. None of the demos we see from these two guys would suffer one small bit, none would be any less informative or useful if we saw no faces, only narrated screencasts and close-up shots.

Yet Apple has decided to add those faces.

Why?

Is it just some PR stunt that Apple's advisers have come up with?

Or is Apple maybe concerned that it's growing too big and scary? Is it adding a human touch in order to counterbalance a (perceived or real) mean streak in its operations? The buy-me-twice ringtones, the options scandal, the monopoly accusations?

Or is Steve Jobs simply growing more vain, mellow or sentimental with age? Does he maybe think more and more about his image, his perception – maybe his legacy?

By the way. Did you notice how that Leopard guy really looks and sounds like Steve Jobs doing a keynote? By the time he talks about Quick Look, his voice could be mistaken for Steve's. He could be nicknamed Steve Lite. It's almost spooky.

Maybe this is what Jobs means when he keeps talking about Apple's DNA.

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Quo vadis, iPhone?

People all over the web are giving Apple hell for breaking unauthorized and unsupported third-party iPhone hacks with its 1.1 software update. There are two types of these hacks: ones enabling the iPhone to be used with any SIM card; and others which just let users install third-party apps on the device. The former directly hurt Apple and AT&T, therefore Apple is actively trying to prevent these hacks. The latter, however, don't do much harm, thus Apple doesn't go out of its way to break them. Break them it does, nevertheless, prompting liberation movements to spring up and demand the franchisement of the iPhone from the evil tyranny of Apple. What could be more ridiculous than that?

Some of these critics jump to the conclusion that Apple doesn't get the importance of third-party applications. Well, chance may have it that Apple doesn't plan to ever allow third-party apps on the iPhone, but we don't know that.

I'm more inclined to believe that Apple wants to do it right.

There's a common sentiment out there that accuses Apple of some sort of haughty elitism. Wil Shipley put it this way:

I know Steve Jobs; he's actually amazingly like my old business partner Mike Matas. They both love closed systems, for a simple reason -- they both know they're smarter than anyone else on the planet, and they don't need anyone else mucking up their systems. Steve would rather have no third parties for Mac OS X if he could get away with it -- Apple, of course, would do a much better job on anything, but since customers insist on Photoshop and Office and other apps, he puts up with them. (Well, except, now Apple has their own office suite.) Steve knows that on a computer, having a broad spectrum of apps is more important that having them all be Apple-perfect.

But on iPods, Airports, Apple TVs, and now iPhones, Apple wants every app perfect. Which is nice, in theory. In practice, it means innovation only happens at Apple's pace. The marketplace of ideas is much smaller, and the devices are much poorer because of it. (Example: Why can't I stream music from my iPhone or iPod touch to my Airport Express?)

Emphasis mine.

Now, we don't know if Apple plans to open up the iPhone for third-party developers. But Wil is right: Apple doesn't need anyone else mucking up its systems. Some of those unsupported, unofficial third-party hacks would do just that. Muck up the system.

If Apple opens up the iPhone for developers, making third-party apps official and a supported feature of the phone, it won't be able to afford to have those apps crash the phone.

Apps on a computer can crash, sure. We're used to that. There are about five ways to force a misbehaving Mac app to quit, and a crashed Mac up will leave the rest of your system intact.

But remember the days before Mac OS X? Remember the bomb?

Remeber when a crash could render your entire computer unusable?

Do you also remember what happened when your frontmost app got unresponsive? Basically, so did your Mac.

With the limited user interface of the iPhone, a misbehaving app can easily create the illusion of a misbehaving iPhone. How do you know that it's only Johnnie's Shareware Recipe Editor that froze, not your iPhone? Will you blame Johnnie's Shareware Garage, LLC, or Apple, Inc?

Besides, people are far less forgiving about a frozen phone than about a frozen computer. A phone is just a phone, even if it can double as a computer.

What next? Your car keys freezing? Your beer opener?

If Apple does plan to allow third-party apps, it needs to perform some magic that prevents the user from just about ever having an iPhone locked up by third-party software.

Perhaps a daemon should be running, monitoring every application's responsiveness, and returning to the home screen when the frontmost app is having problems? Add a status message that informs the user of this incident? Or should there be a well-advertised, sure-fire, and foolproof user action that never fails to quit a misbehaving app? These things would need to be sorted out.

And besides, Apple would need to isolate parts of the system from direct access by third parties. We know that the iPhone was completed on a tight deadline, remember why Leopard hasn't shipped yet? So, it's not unreasonable to think that its software still has some rough edges, and nobody other than Apple's engineers should really be playing with it for a while.

So even if third-party application development is in the iPhone's future, it's only reasonable to expect that it takes time to implement properly.

I think that, for the near future, iPhone development will consist of the following:

1. Apple delivering significant and free software updates: Notice how Apple's subscription-based iPhone accounting suggests that the iPhone will have more features in the future courtesy of Apple.
2. Hand-picked third parties delivering applications, either for free or for a small fee: think about Google Maps already on the iPhone, and iPod games that are sold via iTunes. The iPod is also a closed platform, but there's still some third-party development going on, closely controlled by Apple. There's nothing stopping Apple from doing just that. As they would get to "bless" any third-party app before it becomes available, Apple could maintain its strict quality standards for the phone. A rumor to this effect is already out.
   
3. Web applications may transition into Widgets. Rumors already suggest that improvements to the WebKit framework are on their way, enabling "web applications" to be stored offline. What exactly separates an "offline web app" from a Widget? Not much, mostly the capability to run arbitrary code (including Cocoa Objective-C). I'm inclined to think that a Dashboard-like SDK may be a compromise between the needs of Apple and developers: a sandbox with limited access to iPhone features, but at least not something that runs on a server.

Unlimited, no-holds-barred third-party development could turn the iPhone into a PDA and more. It could turn the iPhone into a VoIP device, causing a loss of revenue for AT&T (and thus for Apple as well).

Apple's new software updates for the iPhone will certainly serve as an indication as to where Apple wants the device to be heading. The first software update has come and gone, and we still don't have a clipboard, making the iPhone basically useless for any text editing apart from typing out a quick e-mail. There's no user-accessible file system, no SSH client, no instant messaging, no editing capabilities for Microsoft Office documents. In other words, the iPhone is not a PDA, and it's definitely not targeted at enterprise users or geeks.

The iPhone may be the smartest phone ever made, but it's not a smartphone.

Does Apple even want to change that? I'm getting the impression that Apple wants the iPhone to be pretty much what it is today, and those of us who expect software updates to turn it into a device with a greatly expanded set of capabilities will be ultimately disappointed.

I hope to be wrong, but I think Apple wants the vast, almost unlimited potential of the embedded OS X operating system to remain largely unfulfilled on the iPhone.

If the rumors of the Newton's revival are true, then perhaps those of us waiting for an ultrasmart PDA from Apple should set our sights on this new mythical beast, and resign to the fact that the iPhone is, and will always be, a cellphone.

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Fake Steve: has he still got it?

This stuff is just brilliant:

You let me know what time and what to wear. I'll be there in jeans and a black turtleneck, two hours late.

It's quotes like these that make me forget that Fake Steve has been exposed as some Forbes editor. Daniel Lyons is just brilliant, brilliant.

Something has been bothering me, though, ever since he revealed his true identity, and I haven't realized until recently what it was.

I thought Fake Steve was a thoroughbred, inveterate, dyed-in-the-wool Apple and Mac zealot, someone with a Steve Jobs fetish, and exceptional writing skills. Okay, it was incredibly naive of me to think that he wasn't an accomplished writer, that he was a natural. He is way too good for that.

But after the revelation, I felt that somehow part of the magic was lost. I haven't been able to pinpoint it for a long time, but now I know why.

Even though Lyons says that he's an Apple fan, it's this quote (same source) that's been bothering me:

Mr. Lyons said he invented the Fake Steve character last year, when a small group of chief executives turned bloggers attracted some media attention. He noticed that they rarely spoke candidly. “I thought, wouldn’t it be funny if a C.E.O. kept a blog that really told you what he thought? That was the gist of it.”

Mr. Lyons says he recalled trying out the voices of several chief executives before settling on the colorful Apple co-founder.

See? He's not obsessed with Steve Jobs or Apple. He could (and would) have chosen any other CEO.

When he extols the virtues of the iPhone, the Mac, or Apple's strategy with over-the-top exaggeration, his parody isn't self-ironic: it's merely surgically accurate.

My impression is that Fake Steve is less soul and more brains than I've believed.

Fake Steve was unavailable for comment.

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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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OK, it's time for some WWDC predictions

Let me grab my crystal ball. Damn, where have I put it… Uh, what the hell is it doing in the…? Never mind. I'll just wipe it off. OK, here's what I see.

I see Leopard, Leopard everywhere. It has been neglected. Everyone's talking about the iPhone, almost to the point where Leopard's only new feature seems to be its delayed launch. The WWDC will reverse that.

Speaking of the iPhone: it will definitely get a mention. If some iPhone integration thing is one of Leopard's secret features (outlook hazy), then there will be more talk and demos. Otherwise, just a recap of the January demo, answer to some FAQs, and an update on the then-missing features. As far as the rumored development options (lightweight apps or widgets): nope, I don't think so. It's way too early for that. Unless it's something really limited, like widgets with little or no custom code.

I see the iMac getting an update, not necessarily at the keynote, though. It could happen on Tuesday as well. Depends on how significant an update it is. Rumormongers are talking about a brushed aluminum enclosure, re-positioning the iMac as a pro machine, while discontinuing the 17" model. Well, maybe, but that would be a bit strange: will the Mac mini become the single consumer desktop Mac available? This might be one of the cases when the rumoristas are on to something, but they are getting confused by the reports they are receiving. (I just dropped my crystal ball, but before hitting the floor, it displayed the words "iMac Pro." Hmmmm… The "i" prefix used to be the antonym of the "Power" prefix, but now "Power" is out, and "Pro" is in… So iMac Pro is a possibility. Whatever. Stupid crystal ball. I think it's still under warranty.)

OK, back to Leopard. What will be its top secret features? Here's what I see.

Dot-Mac. I see that poor miserable excuse for a service finally undergoing a long-overdue relaunch, with increased disk space and functionality, tied in neatly to Leopard. I also happen to think that Google CEO Eric Schmidt sits on Apple's board for a reason: to teach Apple how to become a web services company. Remember what happened shortly after Gap CEO Millard Drexler joined Apple's board? (Hint: Apple became the best retailer in America.)

iLife. I think iLife will simply become a part of Leopard. It will be free, updates and all. It might be also integrated even more tightly into the OS, as in Finder contextual menus, etc.

Appearance. Will it change drastically, as everyone seems to hope, believe, or simply know? Nope. Brushed metal will be gone, Core Animation will be all over the place (I think Apple is the biggest customer of its own dog food when it comes to system frameworks.) But I don't think Aqua is going anywhere.

And… this is the point when the hard disk of my crystal ball died. I have checked it in for repair, but they say it won't be ready till Monday the earliest, and it will be far too late by then. Damn, it was just getting to the most exciting parts.

So I can't tell, for example, it Apple plans to announce some new device or new technology, like multi-touch input-output devices. I don't think so, though. Leopard needs to grab as much of the focus as it can.

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Is Apple Planning iPhoto for Windows?

No.

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Europe: a fragmented market for the iPhone, despite EU-wide carriers

According to AppleInsider, Vodafone is seen as the most likely European carrier for the iPhone. So, Europe will have a single iPhone carrier, just like the U.S., right?

Wrong. In Europe, Vodafone is not a company, it's a brand. In some countries, Vodafone Group Plc. has subsidiaries, in others, it has affiliates, and in yet others, only partners without any ownership affiliation. According to Wikipedia, Vodafone is present through partners only in as many as 12 of the 27 EU countries!

How fast will Vodafone get all these companies to launch the iPhone in their respective markets? Unless Apple bitches and moans and threatens the world's largest telecom company into getting its act together, there can be several-month differences between introductions in different member states, as has been the case with many cellphone launches. (One I have been experiencing, waiting for months in frustration, was the Sony Ericsson P910i a few years ago. The Hungarian launch came months after the UK and German introductions.)

The EU isn't a single telecom market yet: it's actually 27 separate markets, with their own separate national telecom authorities. This is supposed to change after this summer, but the iPhone will most likely still need 27 approvals.

Worse, the 27 Vodafones and Vodafone partners are very separate entities who don't really talk to each other. Yet another personal anecdote: when I moved abroad, I asked Vodafone if I could transfer my two-year subscription to the Vodafone in my new home country. Of course not.

Apart from the brand, there's very little in common between the different Vodafones in the EU. Terms, prices and services vary greatly. I wonder how Apple will manage.

So should Apple choose another carrier? Nope, my post wouldn't be much different if, say, T-Mobile were the most likely candidate. It's not a Vodafone problem, it's an EU problem.

Just think about the iTunes store. I'm not sure if everyone knows, but 12 of the EU's 27 member states still have no access to the store. (It's a different 12 from the countries without a Vodafone affiliate, so no, it's not a pattern.) Establishing a single European market is a great endeavor, and the EU has come a long way, but there's still a lot of distance to cover.

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Do Apple's Final Cut intro videos contain synthesized speech?

Apple has just released Final Cut Studio 2. The package is jaw-dropping. My favorite is the all-new Motion, with 3D capabilities and a vast array of other additional features.

While watching the introductory videos of all the various components of the Studio, I noticed something strange about the voice-over. At first, I thought, "Damn, who is this new guy? Something is bothering me about him." There was something strange about his intonation. And then I realized what: it very closely followed some pre-defined patterns. Upon further thought, I've made a wild guess: that guy probably isn't human.

Decide for yourselves, but if that's synthesized speech, it's pretty damn impressive. It sounds 99% human. It could be passed off as human. It's a huge improvement even over Alex, the great new voice coming soon to Leopard.

If it's just some guy who does voice-overs for a living, I apologize. But if not, I'm speechless.

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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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Is the desktop dead? You wish!

Paul Graham says Microsoft's dead. I think his statement is a bit premature, but in essence, right: while still hugely profitable, Microsoft has become yet another big dumb company that matters less and less. The once fearful software dinosaur keeps (admittedly) playing catch-up to Apple's software innovations, and just about every new endeavor it attempts ends up as a humiliating failure.

But according to Graham, the main reason behind Microsoft's demise is... the death of the desktop. Ouch.

Everyone can see the desktop is over. It now seems inevitable that applications will live on the web—not just email, but everything, right up to Photoshop. Even Microsoft sees that now.

He links to Snipshot, a web application with basic image editing capabilities to prove the Photoshop point.

While impressive and useful in some circumstances, I'd be hard-pressed to find that app anything more than a novelty today.

So is Graham a Photoshop power user? Here's his background:

Paul Graham is an essayist, programmer, and programming language designer. In 1995 he developed with Robert Morris the first web-based application, Viaweb, which was acquired by Yahoo in 1998. In 2002 he described a simple Bayesian spam filter that inspired most current filters. He's currently working on a new programming language called Arc, a new book on startups, and is one of the partners in Y Combinator.

OK. I'm a bit tired of visionaries and web programmers pronouncing the desktop dead.

I'm a bit sick of platform-independent enthusiasts, including subcontractors I've worked with throughout my career, dismissing very legitimate usability and performance concerns. If the work you do involves several files, complex and quick actions, and a thousand clicks per hour, nothing comes close to a dedicated desktop application.

So let's talk again when someone develops a web-based version of, say, iLife. And yes, it does need to include optimized scrolling and full-screen slideshows in iPhoto, recording in iMovie, DVD encoding and burning in iDVD, and all the rich user interface features such as Exposé, multiple windows, drag and drop, immediate feedback, and acceptable performance. It might be possible in five years, but honestly, would it be worth the hassle?

Remember how television was supposed to kill the cinema? The desktop isn't going anywhere either.

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Why the iPhone is a safe bet for Apple

Does Apple run a huge risk with the iPhone? It has been pointed out several times just how competitive the cellphone market is, how unfamiliar Apple is with the sector, and how hard it may be for the company to succeed.

It might appear that Apple has sunk tremendous R&D costs into developing the iPhone: it's truly a revolutionary product, with hundreds of patents and breakthrough features. In creating the iPhone, Apple even ported OS X to a different processor, and shoehorned it into a tiny handheld device! And unlike the clumsy mobile version of Windows (whose name is seemingly changed more frequently than Steve Ballmer's underwear), the iPhone OS actually seems like a product that has actually been adapted to the needs of its users.

What if the iPhone fails? Will Apple just write off all the time and money it invested into it? Will all that great technology be thrown out, and will the company sulk back to manufacturing Macs and iPods?

No. First of all, I think the iPhone is very unlikely to fail. I think people want it badly. They can hardly wait to get one. The momentum that has been building up behind the iPhone should be strong enough to guarantee exceptional sales.

But even if initial reaction proves to be less than stellar, Apple can pretty much still fix the product in software: it can add killer features, it can open it up as a development platform, and so on. The possibilities are endless, especially in light of the Cocoa frameworks that enable rapid software development.

But let's imagine the worst-case scenario, a Cube-style disaster. Let's imagine that the iPhone sells so badly that Apple needs to discontinue it. Then what?

Here's what would happen then. Apple's stock would tank. Paul Thurott, Rob Enderle, and that other idiot whose name I forget would celebrate by tap dancing and farting.

And about three seconds later, Apple would release a new generation of the iPod that would make everyone's jaw drop.

It would be the iPhone without the phone. It would play widescreen movies. It would use multi-touch. It would have your photo library on it. You could take notes with it. It would still be a PDA. It would have WiFi, it would have Safari, it would have Google Earth, it would have Skype.

It would do things that AT&T/Cingular would never let the iPhone do. It would have dozens of gigabytes of flash memory. And it would sell below $400.

And this thing would sell like nothing has sold ever before.

How do I know?

Easy. That's because such an iPod is coming anyway. Can you imagine this not happening? Will the iPod forever have a screen the size of a keyhole? Starting June, if you want the best iPod Apple has made, you will have to buy the iPhone. That's yet another way Apple wants to help the sales of the phone. But obviously, that will change eventually: shouldn't the iPod be the best iPod ever made? How long can it afford to be out-iPodded by another product?!

Obviously, Apple's releasing a higher-end product first. If it created a widescreen iPod before the iPhone, the latter would sell worse. So the new iPod will have to wait. How long it will have to wait depends largely on the success of the iPhone, I think.

But I'm convinced that the new, "iPhone without a phone" iPod is already ready, and mass production could start any moment a certain red phone rings.

And of course, now that OS X has been ported to a tiny device, Apple will never be the same company again.

And it's not an isolated phenomenon, either. Apple TV has turned out to be a stripped-down Mac, running Mac OS X, performing a dedicated function. For $300. Am I the only one who thinks that the implications of this are huge?

Apple is taking computing into completely new places. It's porting OS X left, right and center. Who knows what products Apple has in the pipeline?

The iPhone is just a beginning. Sure, it's important for Apple that it succeed. Yet even in the unlikely event that it fails, the technologies behind it are ready to power several other products, including iPods with pretty much guaranteed sales.

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Steve Jobs and his case of incredible backdating stock options

Looks like some stock options were being backdated at Pixar as well. Ouch.

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Widescreen Beatles Super Bowl iPod? I don't think so

According to AppleGazette, people predict that a widescreen iPod would debut, loaded with Beatles songs (similarly to the U2 iPod), either at the Super Bowl in less than two weeks, or at Apple's rumored February 20 event.

I don't think so.

Beatles? Maybe. Steve Jobs did play a lot of Beatles during his last keynote, so many suspect an announcement regarding the addition of Beatles tracks to the iTunes Store is imminent. Either that, or Jobs was just being, well, Jobs again, asking for forgiveness rather than permission, just like with that Eminem commercial earlier (or with the iPhone name later). It's hard to tell, but one would think the former version to be more likely, what with the decades-long Apple vs. Apple saga.

My problem is with the widescreen part. Apple has just announced a widescreen iPod: it's called the iPhone. One of the main selling points of Apple's upcoming cellphone will be being "the best iPod" ever made. Apple wants to firmly establish it as its new platform. Apple wants to sell a lot of it. And Apple sure as hell doesn't want to cannibalize its sales with a competing product.

The iPhone won't ship for another five months. What would happen if a product went on sale next month, offering an attractive subset of the iPhone's functionality, including its mulititouch user interface, presumably a hard disk, and no shackles tying it to an evil cellphone company?

How silly would Apple appear for announcing a product months ahead, only to upstage it with a competing product that ships immediately?

That's right. The iPhone could be close to DOA. It could pull a Zune.

Unless Apple has been working on a completely different widescreen iPod, with a seriously dumbed-down multitouch user interface, I don't expect a widescreen version until the iPhone has shipped, and its first-quarter sales numbers have come out strong. I'd rather expect either price drops with but cosmetic changes to the current form factor, or not even that much.

I'm not expecting a widescreen, phoneless iPod running OS X and featuring a lot of the iPhone technologies until the next Christmas buying season.

Oh, and there's another reason why it's difficult to imagine a widescreen iPod going on sale in Q1, 2007: apparently, parts of the iPhone software, notably the Notes app, aren't ready yet. And iPods also have notes. No demo of the Calendar application (another iPod staple) has been seen anywhere yet, either.

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Will iLife or iWork be part of Leopard?

One of the already announced (and least impressive) features of Leopard will be being a "complete package," i.e. apps like Photo Booth, Front Row, Boot camp, etc. will be part of the core OS, not just something randomly available on some Macs, or something you can download as a beta.

However, that isn't much. How about integrating iLife and/or iWork deeper into Leopard, and discontinuing it as a separate product? How about free updates throughout the lifespan of Leopard?

Several rumors suggest that iWork will depend on Leopard technologies, and people speculate the same thing about iLife as well.

Apple has just had a billon-dollar quarter (in profits, not revenues), so it might as well write off the relatively small amounts of money these two packages make (both are sold at ridiculously low prices). In return, the Mac could become an even more attractive platform for switchers, and it could convince yet more of its installed base to switch over to Leopard.

As with rumors and speculation: we will see.

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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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Will 2007 turn Apple into Sony?

Damn. One of the real reasons why I always wanted to write a Mac blog was so that I can publish Macworld Expo predictions and speculation. However, this year is difficult. There are already way too many shoo-ins, too much speculation, and a general cornucopia of rumors, predictions and wishes.

But anyway, these are my pre-expo thoughts. As this post will have a very short shelf life, I'm not bothering with links or references. Use Google at your own discretion.

What's given

iLife '07 can't just be merely inferred from a pattern, it's been leaked brutally (by Amazon.com). iWork will almost certainly receive an update, too. Leopard and iTV are the rare things that Apple pre-announced, so some details will certainly follow. Of these two, the iTV doesn't create that much buzz, though it's yet another non-Mac product from Apple with a GUI and an OS of its own, and should thus warrant great interest as a significant player in the diversification of Apple.

Leopard

I think Leopard's Top Secret features are perhaps the most eagerly anticipated items in the keynote. Leopard will certainly be a developer's delight with Objective-C 2.0, Core Animation, greatly enhanced developer tools and other killer features, but the consumer appeal of the new OS itself may be lacking a bit in comparison to earlier Mac OS X upgrades, especially in light of the slower update cycle that debuts with Leopard (which will ship after an almost two-year wait over Tiger). By the way, I don't think Leopard will ship any earlier than the spring deadline Apple announced. It just doesn't seem ready yet.

Rumors suggest an updated GUI, though nobody knows whether this change (if true) would only be skin deep, or it would add new behaviors or change existing ones. I guess the iTunes look (i.e. gray window borders without textures, flat, matte scroll widgets, and a shiny 3D selection highlight among others) will become more widespread, at least this would be the least surprising development (and certainly a welcome one over the brushed metal look, though not necessarily suitable to replace current non-textured windows).

If the look and feel change, I certainly hope for the following:

• Hopefully, it won't be such a radical change that all icons, buttons and other custom graphics of third-party apps would need to be redone in order to avoid looking out of place. This was the case with the switch from Platinum to Aqua, and the transitional period wasn't pretty. Platinum icons on Aqua backgrounds looked decidedly horrible.

• I hope pinstripes will be gone for good.

• The ability to select a neutral gray color scheme (unlike the blue-biased Graphite theme) would be good for graphic designers.

If changes go beyond looks, I'd like to see a revamped Dock with some hierarchy or grouping of the countless random objects that thrive there. And, of course, many hope for the return of a spatial Finder, or at least the debut of a simply better one.

I've been thinking a lot about the "top secret" features, and have considered various theories on why these have been kept secret. The official explanation has been to prevent premature copying by Microsoft, but many wondered what Microsoft could have copied in the few months between the WWDC and Vista's debut other than looks – and this has certainly helped the "new GUI look" rumor gain momentum.

However, I don't think Apple's fear of the Redmond copycats necessarily involved Microsoft looking at Leopard features in August and squeezing them into Vista in two months' time.

Instead, this is what I think this "fear from copying" might have involved:

• Announcing even difficult-to-copy features seven months before shipping, rather than only two months ahead, would give Microsoft five more months to catch up with these in a Service Pack release of Vista. Apple has bought itself five more months of market lead on these (still mysterious) features.

• Microsoft isn't the only company that copies Apple. With the advent of the so-called Web 2.0, rich web interfaces abound, and many Apple design trends already surface on new websites. Today, web applications sometimes approach the functionality of desktop apps, and their development and distribution can be very fast.

• Most likely, though, I suspect that at least some of the "Top Secret" features have something to do with as yet unannounced products, both hardware and software. Just one example: I think .Mac will be seriously revamped (the updated webmail client may be a hint of some progress going on behind the scenes), and just about everyone agrees that Dot-Mac sucks. The complaints have been going on for so long (and have yet to be addressed by Apple) that I'm sure something is happening by now. Oh, and of course, the iPod phone and the touchscreen iPod wil both use some extra tie-ins with Leopard.

Macs updated? Yawn…

Some Mac models will likely be updated. Eight-core Mac Pros do sound cool (c'mon, eight freakin' cores), even though the OS won't support them really, but come on, when did that particular problem stop Apple from releasing new pro hardware?

But frankly, who cares? If 2007 is going to be a great product year for Apple, I'd really like to see new things. Apple calls just about all of its years "great product years," with "exciting products down the pipeline," but these usually merely signify updated laptops, desktops and iPods with elegant, minimalist designs.

I actually hope that Mac updates will be a minor part of the keynote, or they may not even make it into the keynote.

Sonification ahead?

I mean, sure, it's great if the Mac Pro receives yet another update and gets even faster (prompting Phil Schiller to announce with genuine enthusiasm that "this is the fastest Mac ever," as if we were somehow expecting Macs to get slower every year), but still: there's only so much enthusiasm incremental updates, or even new form factors such as the Mac mini can create. I hope Apple is in a position today to become more like Sony, and diversify. Create new things. As in, mobile phones and PDAs. Apple-branded versions of these devices have been but a pipe dream for a long time, but not any more. The iPod phone is a given (though not necessarily at the Expo), and the iPod PDA is a possibility.

As it turns out, at least one of Apple's MWSF posters will tout the year 2007 (as does Apple's homepage). Will we see a(n unlikely) roadmap for the rest of the year, or will 2007 start with a bang? We'll see very soon.

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