A quick Apple note
Mitch Wagner at Information Week just published a piece called Where Does Apple Go From Here in which I’m quoted. That’s created a few more requests for interviews or emails with questions, which is nice.
But.
Having just gone to work for someone who is going to be in direct competition with a part of Apple, I need to be careful here. The only reason I agreed to talk to Mitch (a few weeks back while I was still at Laszlo…) was that he and I go way back, and I know and trust him to quote accurately and use what I said reasonably, and at that, we talked at some length about what i wouldn’t go near, and how we’d disclaim the conflict before we agreed to move forward. And at that, I was still a bit uncomfortable doing it.
So for the time being, I’m going to be quite — discrete — on what I say about Apple, to avoid the possible conflicts that might arise. I’ll explicitly avoid going into things where there’s going to be direct competition. That’s the only safe and sane approach, not because I”m worried about what my new employer might say (“I’m not!”) but beacuse I know it’s inevitable that sooner or later, some of the fanboy press I love so dearly will take something out of context or blow something out of perspective, and then bad things happen, and I don’t particularly want to make it easy to paint that target on my chest again.
This also goes for talking to the “professional” press. Just too many chances for misinterpretation and yes, I have been badly misquoted in the past, thank you, and that’s no fun, either. So unless I know you and your writing and trust you, the answer is “not right now” and will be for the forseeable future. And even if I know you and trust you, it might still be.
We’ll see how things go as this all moves forward and adjust this policy as it makes sense, but right now, I’m trying to focus on looking forward more than rehashing the past (and at least two of the interview requests I got were little more than asking me the same questions Mitch asked, evidnetly in hope of getting the same answer without having to credit his publication for the quote. Hmm…)
Hope you all understand, but even I’ve finally learned that if you come across a door that says “free floggings inside”, it’s probably smarter to stay outside where they actually have to chase you down to flog you…And the potential conflicts (real or perceived here) are just an endless series of doors waiting to be opened to show the flogging gear or rabid weasels inside.
Fortunately, there are plenty of other things to talk about, no?
Three technologies I’m hoping mature this year.
There are three technologies I hope get to the point where I’m willing to buy into them this year. They’re all things I’ve been watching and wanting to buy, but every time I look, they’re not quite where I want.
First — the eBook reality. the first Kindle intrigued me, but I’ve seen the “future of electronic books” before, and so I decided to wait and see. the Kindle actually surpassed my expectations, and now Amazon has introduced Kindle 2, and it’s much better. My primary interest here is to have a good, easy to use/read electronic library, especially of technical stuff, that I can carry around. Reading for recreation on an eReader is less insteresting to me, but couldn’t hurt.
Unfortunately, even thought the new Kindle comes closer, at its current price point, it doesn’t make the cut. I’ll keep waiting. Maybe the rumored Kindle software on mobile phones? We’ll see. but we’re nearing a tipping point where electronic books will make sense, which three years ago, I wasn’t sure we’d ever see. Kindle at half the price? I’d buy it. Today? I am staying on the sidelines.
Second — the convergence of electronics in the living room. I keep waiting for Apple to upgrade the Apple TV to be a real living room dominator. And I guess I’ll keep waiting a while. They’re doing a survey on possible features to a limited audience right now, which indicates to me that they’re now trying to figure that device out and get serious about a “non hobby” product — and I honestly expected to see that product at the last Macworld. So Apple’s product timelines and my expectatons are still in sync. The big limiter here is availability of content, still; for netflix streaming to my Xbox, only about 10% of the items in my queue are avaialble for online delivery. A quick look at iTunes shows that’s not any better. That makes this convenient — but not an option. Yet. And whatever Apple does needs to have 5.1 built in so I don’t need a separate home theater box to drive the speakers…
Something tells me this year is the year companies dive in and seriously try to own the living room. My short list: Apple, Microsoft and Nintendo. One of them will get it right in the next couple of years. If someone else wants to come in and distrupt the market, the window is closing.
Third — For the last few years, we’ve had internet in the house via DSL. This is our third generation of network in the house, going back to 1998 or so when that means leased lines and expensive routers, so it’s amazing how far it’s come. But now, I’m starting to look at what comes next. And what I want is a home network based on EVDO or 3G, a dongle I can carry iwth me when I travel and plug into a device at home to drive the wireless network, with real broadband speeds and reliability. This would allow me to finally dump the landline/DSL (and their monthly payments), and carry my network with me, since when we’re not home, do we really need the netowrk there? Not really. Unfortunately, I’m just not convinced this is ready for prime time — the dongles are there, but the home network interfaces aren’t yet. Unless you know something I don’t know, of course.. I mean, seriously. We use (and are really happy with) DirecTV. The idea of installing cable just to get a modem and fast cable modem speeds instead of DSL irritates me — but that my mom’s home network is faster than mine annoys me. Even though, in reality, I rarely notice my network’s speed, which implies it really isn’t “slow” as much as I’m realizing it’s been a few years since I upgraded….But isn’t that part of being a geek? Oh, and I’d love to do the portable dongle, but I just don’t want to add one more monthly charge to my budget. Unless I can remove one I don’t need, and the logical one seems to be the DSL line, no?
Honestly, I’ve been waiting for Wimax for a while, but the rollout is — problematic, painful and slow. So maybe I’ll stop waiting.
Fighting sockpuppet reviews on the App Store
App Store reviews have been controversial from the beginning — while they can be helpful for buyers, you often have no idea just who’s leaving comments or what their real agenda is. Njection, the makers of Nmobile (which we played with a while ago) are having a huge problem with what they’re calling “sockpuppet” reviews on the App Store.
Someone (they believe this person is in cahoots with their competitor) is posting bad reviews on their app and trying to trash them and their product elsewhere (including in a comment here on TUAW). And unfortunately, as they say, they don’t really have much recourse against this behavior — they’ve appealed to Apple, who’ve replied that they’ll leave comments up, unless they’re offensive or extremely false. Apple’s own guidelines for reviewing apps asks that the reviewers deal with apps on their own merit rather than attacking competitors, but that seems to be more of a recommendation than a firm rule.
Njection says the comments have kept consumers from trying out their apps, though it seems difficult to actually track how many people haven’t tried your app (and why). It’ll be interesting to see if Apple makes other changes to the review system if this sort of thing rears its ugly head more often. At this point, it seems devs just have to deal with it by doing damage control when necessary and making their app good enough that “sockpuppeting” doesn’t strongly affect public opinion.
via Fighting sockpuppet reviews on the App Store – The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).
I guess I’m not convinced. Looking at the app in question, there are a total of twelve reviews, seven of them 4 or 5 stars, only 3 gave it one star. Since others have the ability to rate the usefulness of each review, there’s some feedback going on with the reviews themselves, and so it’s not until the ninth review that you get a rating of less than 3 stars when sorted by “most helpful”. that seems like some fairly positive reviews overall.
Given that Apple only allows one review per store account and that account has to have bought the product, it’s rather hard for me to see a significantly organized turfing attack here. I don’t know which is reality, but my gut feel is that the turfing worries are overblown.
You could also think maybe it’s a developer looking for a way to explain away bad reviews. And it presumes that the developer didn’t have their friends all log in and report the five star reviews, too. Turfing can go both ways, of course. Not that we’d ever do that — and not that I’m implying the developer did. Definitely saying they shouldn’t, FWIW.
Having said that — there are some ways to limit the impact of turfing if it exists.
First: free limited versions. If users are hesitant to pay for the App because of some bad reviews, then give them a way to trial the app before paying. That’s been very successful with me trying out various free versions of apps on the store and then buying the full version. there’s really little reason to NOT do this, and yes, Apple really needs to formalize support for this in the store in some way, but until then, Lite versions rock, and remove the worry of buyer remorse.
Second: Yelp has this same problem. One way its gets solved is via high numbers of reviews. The larger the set of comments on something, the less impact any individual or turfing campaign can have. So a simple way for developers to limit the impact of turfing attacks is to encourage the users to submit their own reviews. Something as simple, perhaps, as when they fire up the app after having used the app for some period of time, putting up an alert encouraging them to review the app and explain how. add in a couple of buttons (“take me there”, “not yet”, “stop annoying me”), and make it as easy as possible for them to put the review in.
If you think about it, if your users are happy with you, a percentage of them will go and say so. And that stream of reviews will blow out any impact of a turfing attack.Of course, if the users aren’t thrilled, you might get buried, but you wrote a great app, right? aren’t afraid of some criticism, right?
There are other things you can do — a lot of it boils down to giving users information about the person writing the review so they can evaluate the reviewer and decide how much to trust them — and I went into some details on my ideas on that a couple of months ago. Most of that would be relevant to upgrading the App Store reviewing system. Honestly, though, I don’t think it’s all that bad these days. Could be better, but the big missing piece is the ability to do free demos. I expect Apple to solve that at some point, but developers can do something about it on their own.
I can’t think of an app I’ve used that suggested I go to the store and review it, though. Why the heck not? Free advertising, folks. Do it in a tactful manner, and I’ll bet a good chunk of the users will cooperate. Seems to me the BEST advertisement for an app isn’t a five star rating, but that 500 or 1000 users reviewed and recommended it. That’s what you want to aim for.
MobileMe renewal: Yes or no?
It’s a bit pricey. The standard fee is $99US/year. I’ve got one additional email address for my wife, so tack on another ten bucks. Before you fly into an iRage, know that I realize that one hundred bucks for push email, contacts and calendar, 10GB online storage, web hosting and so on is not a bad deal. It’s just that there are less expensive alternatives.
via MobileMe renewal: Yes or no? – The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).
One thing people forget is they don’t have to renew at list price through Apple.
But the MobileMe subscription through Amazon, then use the code in the retail package to renew the account. It’s available for about $70, a significant discount off list.
If $99 is a price you think you’d be willing to pay, $70 should make the decision easier.
MobileMe Notes — Matt Mullenweg
First, the notes application on the iPhone is handy, but please sync this to a quickie app on Me.com so I can put stuff in and out of notes easily. Second, and this is a stretch, I know you don’t like to-do applications, but I also have an inkling you could do something that would make me stop using paper and pen for to-dos. And synchronize it.
Yes, please.
My MobileMe is going to need renewing soon. I’ve been taking some serious looks at whether to move everything to google/gmail or MobileMe. Optimally, I want ONE personal email and ONE work email, but right now, I have three personal accounts that mix and merge, and I hven’t decided the best way to fix that. There are things about both that I like, and both that I don’t like — and to be honest, there are things about what Yahoo is doing with their mail I like, too, but I need to be comfortable that Yahoo’s bottomed out, so I’m holding off.
For now, I’m doing to go with MobileMe and the tight integration with the iPhone. A year from now, I don’t know. Lots can change between now and then… But Matt’s noted a couple of significant weaknesses with that approach. Another is a good bookmarking tool that ALSO works with firefox on the desktop, not just safari. Not there yet.
40 of the Best Twitter Brands and the People Behind Them
Smart brands use Twitter in meaningful ways, and most of them use their brand name as a way to make sure customers can find and recognize them. This piece, and the knowledge I learned from the incessant hours invested, demonstrate why brands do belong on Twitter. No other medium gets you inside a business or brand quiet like Twitter.
via 40 of the Best Twitter Brands and the People Behind Them.
I’ve been having this discussion on and off with some folks over the last week or so as we try to figure out things like how Twitter fits into a larger strategy with blogs, facebook, friendfeed, etc (the list can go on forever…).
To me, Twitter is conversation; it’s effectively the latest reinvention of instant messaging. It’s also transient; it’s the literal lifesteram that you dip into when you can, and which flows past when you don’t — and it shouldn’t be something you need to or want to save for later or archive for the future. That’s just not what it’s about, or should be.
The key word, though, is conversation. If all a company or a person plans to do is dump pointers to blog entries in it, then don’t bother; it’s not just an alternative to RSS. When I find someone doing that in the list of people I follow, I drop them. Ditto, if someone comments at you, you should be chatting back. Companies that see twitter as just another one-way communications feed are going to lose out and be disappointed.
And as we were talking about this, I had this really strange thought: beating on Apple for not blogging, for not twittering, for overtly refusing to get into conversation with its customers in any real way isn’t a new concept, by any means, and people know my view of that from way back.
But — I realized yesterday that so many “mainstream” companies have — Ford and GM, the NHL, Burger King, Pepsi — these companies have all stepped into this new conversations marketing world and are exploring how to use it to connect to customers and grow their business.
And as of this week, so has the White House and the President of the United States.
And where’s Apple? Still basically marketing the way they did a decade ago, hiding behind the firewall and pushing a one-way conversation. When do we say that companies aren’t just not playing “bleeding edge” about this stuff, but starting to fall behind the power curve completely?
This is going to sound funny, but while I’ve been on the Internet since, well, we used banging rocks together to make modem sounds — and yet I remember the day when I realized that the internet had “made it” and was now part of larger society. I was working in my garden turning soil and adding steer manure in large quanties to what was going to be a vegetable garden. and I realized, all of a sudden, that the bag a FREAKING URL TO A WEB PAGE on a bag of cow crap.
Ford blogs. GM blogs. The president of the united states has reached out and started that conversation with the people.
So where’s Apple? And when does it’s refusal to join this conversation stop being amusing and start impacting business?
(actually, that’s a big part of the answer: as long as Apple can look at its business and say “what’s broken?” the motivation to make significant changes is limited. It doesn’t have to. Nor can you really blame it, because it’s working. But when that changes? If you don’t invest in these things now, they won’t be there when you need them. That was a lesson Apple should have learned from the MobileMe rollout disaster. Businesses fighting to improve or fix themselves are more wiling to take risks and do new things — but all companies need to make these strategic investments).
I can’t see how any company can look at what’s happened this week with whitehouse.gov and Obama’s embrace of the online communications environment and NOT have to have a long discussion with itself about whether it can afford to NOT be involved in these conversations any more. It is going to be increasingly a competitive disadavantage to companies that don’t.
Apple Drops Hints About Netbooks
On the other hand, Cook hinted that there might be a netbook in the future — but don’t stay up nights waiting for it. He echoed and expanded on some of Jobs’s previous objections to the category: The hardare is underpowered, software isn’t that good, keyboards are cramped, displays are small. And, says Cook, there isn’t really that much demand.
But he added: “It’s a category we watch, we’ve got some ideas here…. ”
via Apple Drops Hints About Netbooks, iPhone Nano – Apple Unvarnished – InformationWeek.
I’ve been thinking about this a bit recently, because I’m leaning towards upgrading the laptop this year. The current one is headed towards 3 years old, and doing fine, but life marches on.
A netbook, as the geeks seem to define netbooks today, interests me not at all. But the concept behind the netbook interests me a huge amount: a portable device that carries my life with me that I can use on the run (well, on the shuffle). What I want, though, is more than that.
Which got me thinking about one of the memes running around: with the Mac hitting it’s 25th birthday (you look marvelous! Not a day over 22!), people are talking about their first and favorite Macs. I’ve owned — god only knows how many — lots of macs over the years, in fact my life with Apple goes back to an Apple II. And when I think about what my favorite mac was, it goes back to one model:
The Apple Duo, the one with the tiny screen and the dock that turnd it into a desktop. Especially that first PowerPC model, since that design was one of the designs that made the 68K -> PowerPC transition.
Why did I like that model? Itw as one of Apples true “subnotebooks”, very portable. It what the first CPU that you could carry with you, and yet plug it into the dock and use it as your laptop. I’ve always preferred using a single machine over having a “real” machine and a “carry” machine, because of the hassles of making sure the right data is on the right machine at the right time at the right revision. gah. And “cloud” living isn’t the answer, because you dno’t always have network.
The Duo allowed me to do that. And in thinking my way to my next computer, I realize the power of the current Macbooks (especially with the nice nvidia video cards) more than fits my needs. A 13″ screen for my moving around times is fine, and I can plug into a monitor at home (where I have a 25″ screen) serves pretty well. With wifi, ethernet, USB2, Firewire, it’s easy to wire it up to secondary “things”, and the promise of USB3 makes it even easier when that comes to reality (note: wifi is nice for most things, but if you’re using a net disk or NAS setup, wired ethernet is still faster).
So 2/3 of my computing wishlist is solved through a unibody Macbook 13″ and a large monitor on my desk.
But that last 1/3? It’s something nobody seems to be doing yet, but what I really want. What I want is a 15-17″ LCD screen that I can pop into my laptop bag and carry with me. Call it a hotel-room monitor if you want. 13″ is okay for on the run, but when I sit down (to work on photos, on video, to code, etc), I want a larger screen. It can be a mirror configuration, doesn’t have to act as a second screen (but that’d be nice!), and it has to be designed to be carried, so if I’m at a conference or on a photo trip, I can haul it out and use it, and it’l transport in a bag on a plane, not in a trunk.
THAT would make “netbooks” useful, because one of the acknowledged tradeoffs of netbooks is a limited screen. For me, lightness and size aren’t as important as utility — but I’d be more willing to make that tradeoff if I could get away from it when I’m not in a coffee shop. At home and in the office, I can, but not travelling.
And that, I think, is one of the keys to making the Netbook a practical system; Go back to what made the Duo great, but with the changes that have happened in computing over the years, you don’t really need the dock now; it’s just a couple of plugs and away you go. But it’s what’s at the other end of the plug, and to me, that big missing piece is the monitor I really want in the hotel room at the end of the day, when I just don’t want to squeeze my life onto a 9″ screen any more…
Sony Expects $3 Billion Loss for the Year
Sony, the Japanese electronics company, said Thursday that it expected to post a record annual operating loss of nearly $3 billion because of the rapid deterioration of the global economy.
via Sony Expects $3 Billion Loss for the Year – NYTimes.com.
That’s an awful lot of zeros
– Gil Amelio, when Apple had it’s first billion dollar loss quarter
It should be noted that way back when, Apple was expected to be (and close to being) sold to both Sun and Sony. And today, the Mac is celebrating it’s 25th birthday and Apple is doing quite well, while Sony is, well, not. Neither is Microsoft, who back in the day was the evil nemesis Mike Spindler tried to take on head to head and almost killed the company doing so — and if you look at the numbers, Apple could buy Sun outright from the profit from this last quarter.
If nothing else, this is a good reminder that EVERYTHING is cyclical. Apple, too, will some day slip or someone else will sneak around them and take the lead in the race for a while. Companies we now think of as dead or fading will — some of them — revitalize themselves and move forward again.
None of this is forever. And that’s a good thing. Apple is one of those rare companies that has really put it all together and continued to push an innovate, but other companies innovate, too, so it’ll be fascinating to see what we’re saying about all of this in another five years, no?
(via daringfireball)
Reading Apple’s netbook tea leaves
Now I’m not a real believer in Apple Kremlinology, but we’ve seen Apple play this game before… with the cellular phone business. So just for fun, let me parse some parts of Cook’s statement with what I think they might mean.
* We’re watching that space: “We’ve been building prototypes for more than a year.”
via Reading Apple’s netbook tea leaves | MacUser | Macworld.
jason missed one thing in his translation: “when we come into the market, you’ll tell us it’s too expensive, we’ll sell a zillion, and our margins will be double everyone else because we’ll own the top 5% of the market”
Because you KNOW that whatever they do here, it won’t be whatever everyone else is, it won’t compete on price, the geeks mostly interested in “free supercomputers” won’t like it, and it’ll sell gadzillinos of the damn things, and the pundits will tell you how it’ll never succeed.
Technovia: Steve Jobs’ health: How much should Apple reveal?
If a senior executive has a serious health issue, one that may affect his ability to maximise shareholder value, his duty is to report it to the board, in as full and frank a way as possible.
At that point, the board – and not the executive – has to decide what, if any, information it needs to relay to shareholders. While all boards will naturally be sensitive to the situation the executive finds himself in, they must solely consider the interests of shareholders.
This can lead to conflict with the executive. The exec, understandably, might want nothing to come out at all. The board might want to issue a more detailed statement. But whatever happens, the board must decide, and if the executive disagrees with the board he either has to go along with it, or resign.
Public statements
The key thing is that any statement on the health of senior executives must be approved by the board, and not under any circumstances, solely be left to the discretion of the exec or any member of his team. If the board allows statements to be made on an issue like this without its approval, it is failing in its duty to represent the interests of the shareholders, and allowing the executives interests to come first.
The most important thing in any board statement is that it must be true, and give shareholders an honest appraisal of how the illness will affect their company. It does NOT have to include full details of the condition.
via Technovia: Steve Jobs’ health: How much should Apple reveal?.
Ian just nails this one cold. Go read it; I agree with every word.
and any purchases you made will be treated as referrals by us.
