Steve Jobs gave my children's grandmother a voice

My first computer was a Mac.

Winding down my college years I was like most twenty-somethings and looking for something to do with my life - a means to pay rent, stock the fridge, and become part of the professional world. In my case, being in film school meant finding something creative to do. Some old friends from high school and university had gotten together and formed an advertising agency. It wasn't the biggest shop in town (three guys) but they were doing innovative things and taking on printed projects in a very efficient way. They were doing color layout and printing using a new type of desktop computer called a Macintosh (Macintosh SE to be exact). Color documents such as menus, brochures, fliers, were being created using Mac Write and Mac Paint. The program had several fonts to chose from and you could assign color to text and shapes! You could copy/paste text and shift elements around in a desktop graphical interface using a mouse! I'd actually used a mouse before for editing digital audio on DOS machines. I din't like it much as I believed myself to be faster using arrow and command keys rather than clicking and dragging (I got over it). But, Oh! The Mac! There I sat at the dawn of desktop publishing age and didn't even realize the revolution had started.

The journey continued and a couple of years later I had migrated to Photoshop and one of the first AVID Media Composer non-linear editing suites in town - installed on a Mac II. Apple and the Mac had become an integral part of my professional and personal life. I was a fan. But it wasn't until my good friend Erik came home with a PowerBook 500 that I knew I had to start saving up for the next PowerBook model. My very first laptop and own home computer was the PowerBook 5300CE. Infrared file transfer was very cool, and I couldn't wait to get my CompuServe account up and running.

Life after that has included 2 x G4 stationary machines, 2 x Cinema Displays, 2 clam-shell iBooks (lime green), a new iMac, a G4 PowerBook, an intel MacBook Pro, 2 iPods, 1 iPod Nano, 1 iPod Touch and an iPad2. And i loved them all as much as I loved watching Steve Jobs come on stage a couple of times a year and reveal to the world what the next cool tech item was that I would be adding to my shopping list, and how much easier entertainment and communication would be. How much more fun we all could have.

The best testament I can give to the greatness of Steve's vision and dedication to simplicity and elegance is this: My mother, who is into her 80's (sorry, Mom but it's important to the story) began her computer literacy on an iMac in 1998. This was so  we could chat on CompuServe and bounce emails (I live in Stockholm, she is in Denver). She picked it up quickly and as online communication evolved we moved to video via iChat, and Skype. She's now on her second iPhone and not too many weeks ago we had a nice morning/afternoon chat over Facetime on our iPads (yes, my 80+ year-old mother has an iPad2). There we sat. I in my kitchen and Mom sitting up in her bed with morning toast and coffee on the nightstand. Two iPads in hand. My daughters behind me waving to Grandma. Sharing a moment inspired and realized by a catalytic force pushing the boundaries of the tech industry. Technology itself cannot change humanity on its own. Passionate visionaries who believe in the dream are the ones that can bridge the gap between technology and life, and successfully bring it to the masses. They are the ones who "Stay hungry. Stay Foolish".

Thank you, Steve, for innovation so elegant and simple that 80 year-old great grandmothers get it as easily as a four year-old child so that I can open my iPad and just ping her on the other side of the world. I can't help but feel the next 30 years will be much less exciting without you and that I must now make peace with the notion of waiting even longer for the next big thing. You will be missed.

iPhone 4S An Early Holiday Gift For Android Partners

Well THAT was underwhelming to say the least. I'm not quite sure whether to blame Apple or the over-hyped tech media who raised the expectations, but yesterday's Apple announcement left me nonplussed in a big way. What happened? I have a few theories down the page but the main question is, "Where's the iPhone 5?" Where's a new form factor that says "we've done something new in the past 18 months"? It all just fell flat. First came a long recap of everything Apple had already revealed around iOS5, then some updates to the iPod line and then... a souped up iPhone4. Yawn.

Boxed chocolates and blind dates

We've all heard that old line, "It's what's on the inside that counts!"  I got news for you, Tim. That line only applies to boxed chocolates and blind dates! We all know it's used as consolation. When someone has a "great personality". Apple's strength has always been design and usability. Anyone caring enough about the inside specs would know that iPhone has always been sub-par with it's competitors, even feature for feature. Where Apple and iPhone have succeeded, however, is in creating an ecosystem that just works - and keeping the feeding frenzy alive. That requires more than just speed bumps and some voice control. I mean - who uses that anyway? I'm a tech freak and have used voice activated dialing on and off since the mid '90s, but it is certainly not mainstream. Google has had voice integration in Android a good while now and for Apple to be touting SIRI ( a feature of iOS5 - not iPhone4S), a dual-core A5 processor, and an 8 megapixel camera as the big news at this stage, means they are just catching up to where Android devices have been for months. With new and slimmer designs due out for the holiday shopping season, as well as a few more speed bumps by HTC, LG, Samsung and the rest, as well as screen improvements and other features, Google and its Android Army have a good chance to rake in big in the next few months.

Conspiracy theory or broader market strategy?

This just seems so unlike Apple. I hesitate to believe it has anything to do with Steve jobs leaving the building but one can't deny that a new CEO will have a new style and inherit a lot of baggage.

Apple's patently obvious moves

Yet another Apple filing has surfaced. This one seemingly describing a means for providing global phone, or as Engadget put it, "one phone to rule them all". At the very least it allows for a "customized user experience" allowing users to seamlessly switch carriers without the need for a new phone or a new SIM card. The latter would require a global SIM card.

The patent in question, entitled: Method and apparatus for using a wireless communication device with multiple service providers, describes using "a set of one or more identifier values stored in the mobile wireless communication device" in order to allow for the automatic configuration of that device to any carrier service profile. Simply put, you could put your SIM card into any iPhone (or sim bearing product) and configure for the correct carrier. This part in itself is nothing new and may well be patented already.  Unique identifiers that most handset manufacturers grab over the network from your SIM and phone during first-run would be:

MNC (Mobile Network Code)  your primary carrier)

MCC (Mobile Country Code) Country issue of the SIM

SNC (Secondary Network Code) the one you're roaming on

SCC (Secondary Country Code) If you're traveling internationally

IMEI Number (Unique identifier for each handset lie a VIN on your car)

MSISDN (your unique carrier subscription number, typically phone number)

With this info most handset manufacturers have automated first-run wizards which send this info to their own databases of carrier settings to then configure all of your SMS, MMS, Internet, etc. and get you hooked up. Most handsets will have a limited number of these configurations onboard to match the software versions by territory. What Apple is proposing, apparently, is to have everything onboard the product so that each product is a global release. And then to take it one step further by ranking carriers based on pricing and subscription models and matching that to your user profile (how much you call, text, surf, and so on).

This last bit is what is new, challenges the market as we know it today, and points to Apple truly looking for the Global SIM and removing the carrier as gatekeeper to the customer. They have previously met with stiff resistance and I would be surprised if that attitude softens. I am also of the opinion that Apple is once again trying to patent the obvious by taking existing patents and years-old standard telco practices and submitting them with very small changes as revolutionary new ideas worthy of a patent. Just like their submission for streaming music optimization. A technology that Spotify has been doing since its inception - only better. 

Frankly, with all of the patent suits flying around the mobile industry right now it's becoming comical and Apple is more than beginning to look like Microsoft in the 90's, scooping up every good idea that's already out there and pitching it as their own.

Source: Apple Insider 

GLMPS is cool but it's been done before

All Things D had a story on a new startup, Glmps (pronounced "glimpse"), which has created a new iPhone app that captures the moments just before taking a still image on your iPhone. It achieves this by recording video from the moment the camera is engaged. Once everything is captured you can save it to their website and share via Twitter or Facebook. They even have Foursquare check-in.

Now, the social aspects of this are sort of hygiene at this point and the concept, while appearing innovative, has been done already and patented. Ina Fried actually mentions this in the article referencing Sony who had a simliar feature integrated into their Cybershot cameras. Here's where Glmps may be on the verge of some IP difficulties.

The patent for the technology that Sony used is actually held by Sony Ericsson who debuted it in the K800i cameraphone in 2006 under the name "Best Pic"(video below the break). The technology was to record/buffer a series of frames before and after shutter activation by - you guessed it - beginning to buffer still frames once the camera was activated (video below). The user could then select the best picture from any one of the recorded frames. Sony Ericsson then licensed this over to the Cybershot team at Sony.

Five ways I learned to love my iPad2

I was NOT an iPad fanboy when the 1st generation came out. I saw the coolness. I saw the sexiness. But I just couldn't get onboard. Everything I wanted to do on the iPad I could do on my iPod Touch or any one of my Android phones. You couldn't even make a phone call from an iPad and still can't (Skype out excluded). So the iPad seemed to be a blown up iPod. And it was.

Along came the iPad2, or iPad 1.5 as it probably is. Faster, thinner, front & back-facing cameras, but still not pulling me into the fold. I just didn't see the point of investing that amount of coin into something that bulky. Wouldn't a netbook be more versatile? Then one thing made the difference for me and four others have made it a permanent luxury. Here they are.

Spotify and Napster. Kissing cousins?

Wow! Big Green Spotify has launched in the USA. Hallelujah! (Jeff Buckley Spotify link attached) All in all the reviews have been very good for the gang in Sweden. Tweets from Brit-Brit, Ashton, and Mark Zuckerberg changing his FB status to mention Spotify. Even Sean Parker calls it "The realisation of my Napster dream". And that brings me to the point of my post today - the one key piece that all of the tech bloggers out there seem to miss when doing their comparisons of Spotify, Pandora, Rhapsody and others - it's shared DNA with Napster. That's right. Call it a distant cousin or a half-sister but Spotify and Napster Classic (not the New Roxio/Best Buy Napster) have more in common than Spotify and any other similar music service.

Nearly every review I have seen listing the pluses and minuses of various services gives Spotify a minus because it is a dedicated app and not a web app accessible from a browser anywhere. At the same time I did see one review which actually mentioned the speed of Spotify's streaming response (200 milliseconds). That post also failed to explain the fundementals behind Spotify's technology and therein its coupling to Sean Parker's Napster dream. Here it is.

Pros Didn't Make the Final Cut

Sorry Apple. I love you, and have loved you since my first Macintosh in 1985, but this one is a complete FAIL. I had concerns after the announcement of FCPX at NAB (that is the National Association of Broadcasters - a professional organization) that this new, "ground up" rebuilt version of FCP would be not much more than iMovie on steroids. The price-tag alone was a cause for concern. I wrote then that my first impression was that FCPX would have a lot of fantastic new poser under the hood, and a sexy new instrument panel, but basically it would be impossible to drive, used an alternate fuel source that would not allow me to fill it up at any other gas station, and wouldn't fit in my garage.

The 64bit architecture and background rendering are fantastic ('bout time), and even the new concept of metadata management and workflow were obvious (and not bad really) evolutions toward tapeless workflow. But at the cost of not taking the time to implement the majority of elemental post-production workflow requirements is just a miss of epic proportions that is inexcusable even for a version re-evolution of a previous software suite. It's 2011 for crying out loud and this is not your first venture into editing software (as FCP 1.0 was many years ago).

I won't bother everyone with the laundry list of what's missing - as those who care can all read that in many blogs around the web. I am concerned and wonder why some of the new "innovations" so obviously fail in practice

iCloud freeing your iDevices - but no streaming.

Apple announced iCloud today. Finally! Free the masses from that bloody iTunes tethering. That's great for those iProduct users that can't master syncing everything via other services such as Google. All of your documents, calendars, contacts, mail, and media, will be synced immediately over the cloud. Fantastic! You can even "match" your music library into iCloud and get everything synced across your devices from iTunes. No need to upload your entire library like Google Music. A clever way to legalize all of your music you gathered up from various sources both legal and questionable. Another great innovation by Apple - sort of. 

Here's the breakdown. Omnifone did the library matching 4 years ago for various mobile service providers and OEMs. This was done in partnership with Gracenote and their services included this type of playlist matching (PlayNow Plus for Sony Ericsson among them). One could also synchronization between PC and Handset. Anything done on one side mirrored directly on the other. You could also select which tracks, playlists, etc. to sync to your handheld in order to manage memory. The thing with these earlier services was that they pushed eAAC+ files to the handsets. Significantly smaller file sizes and very good audio quality for handheld listening. An entire album would download in about 1 minute over a normal 3G network.  Today that time would be closer to 30 seconds.

Now that I have ranted on Apple not being original let me raise a couple of points from their presentation. Some things just don't add up.

1) Steve said that, for $25 annually they will match your library and provide you 256kbps mp3 files without DRM. He also said that this service may be deployed across up to 10 devices. Now… how can a file be DRM free and be limited to 10 devices? If they are DRM free and I don't renew for next year, how will they block or delete them? You get my point.

2) Why no streaming? I chalk this up to the publishers more than the labels. The labels are more than happy to get their cut of $25/user you for music that they have likely already purchased. Basically doubling up on the rights. So I'm certain that the labels will allow Apple to turn on the streaming once they get to a certain number of subs. The publishers and collecting societies, on the other hand, have yet to find a good solution for how they choose to understand these business models. Basically there is no margin in track sales. Kids aren't interested in ownership. Subscription services will be the future. It is a complex matrix of service definitions that determine the license type. Apple is surely paying publishing for a new digital copy of every track they "match". What they will argue in the future is that you can stream to yourself, everything that you have matched and/or purchased via Apple, and thus avoid performance or web radio rights. If Apple were to make available the entire catalogue to you for streaming (like Spotify or Rdio, etc) then they would be paying yet another license. That's how it works.

iCloud launches sometime in the autumn. So for now, we will just have to wait for Apple's next big thing, without streaming.

Apple Patenting Music Caching? C'mon!

So apparently our friends at my favorite fruit company are out after "revolutionary" patents and marketing headlines. Over on Geeky Gadgets and other sites they have reported that, in advance of an iCloud announcement, Apple has filed for a patent optimizing track buffering performance over streaming services by caching portions of the songs to your internal memory (schematic below). The idea being that if the first few seconds of everything in your cloud library is cached locally (maybe cleverly managed by play count statistics) then when you jump to the next track there will be no streaming lag. Apple, when they finally launch a cloud streaming service, will tout this as the coolest, newest, most revolutionary thing to hit streaming music since, well, streaming music. Problem is they are about 4 years behind on this point if not more.

Spotify does this today and has been using this methodology, albeit better, since their inception. I remember being in a meeting with Spotify reps early on when they were pitching this new concept to our team in order to ingrate it into our handsets. Groundbreaking then. Proven success now. Spotify's version, however, uses a structure similar to torrents where not only do they cache a large portion of your cloud playlists locally - but what  is not available locally on your device is cloud-sourced among other Spotify users that are online, thus accelerating the startup time for every track.

So I have a hard time seeing how Apple can legitimately get a patent for this but stranger things have occurred in patent land. All in all, for me, it seems yet another indicator that Apple, despite its immense success, is struggling with the disruption of other services to their long, tired, ecosystem. I love Apple, and Steve is God in the tech world, but I wonder how much his illness is beginning to ripple into operations and visions. Let's keep an open eye on that one.