I've been blogging since early 2002 and am amazed that people continue to log in and check it out!
What you'll find here is my personal thoughts on family, technology, art and other things that happen to grab me.
Apple 27th Jan Predictions
So it's all going to kick off later today in San Francisco when once again Steve Jobs takes to the stage to launch a new product.
Like previous occasions the chaps at Apple have kept the product under wraps and there's been no official word on it in fact, Apple haven't event announced that there is a new product. Just a press conference.
Unlike previous occasion, however, everyone has a pretty clear view that it will be a tablet of some sort. The big problem for Apple is that their phenomenal hype machine the 100,000 blogs that have been banging on about a tablet for the last 12 months also has a down side: There's no way any real-world product can live up to the hype.
Sure, in the long-term it probably will be a major deal, but in the short term there will be a lot of people complaining about the fact that Apple didn't meet their wildest [and somewhat impossible] expectations.
I use iPhone as an example. Neat when launched, lovely multi-touch interface and beautiful to hold, but... not really a major player until [a] price drop [b] 3G version launched and [c] AppStore.
Looking at the Tablet, it strikes me that we've [a] already seen multi-touch, so anything interface-wise will probably be evolution not revolution [b] it has some major network issues given that most early adopters already have an iPhone with a data contract and so to give the Tablet what it deserves [eg. both WiFi and 3G access] requires another mobile contract and [c] while the AppStore is lovely I think Tablet users are going to demand more.
In fact I reckon that the most interesting aspect here are the Applications. It's a given that whatever Apple launches will fit well into their existing eco-system and very likely offer expanded functionality over equivalent iPhone apps. The real issue is what we get beyond maps, stocks and a web browser.
Two key points here:
1. Having developed iPhone apps [actually our Ben10 Comic comes in 23 editions and was featured as top children's app in the AppStore over Xmas/New Year] it's safe to say that the type of apps to date [and by this I generalise about 97% of them] are 'quick-win' developments. A comic, a casual game, a utility or something with leverages other people's work such as geo-mapping or augmented reality gimmick. That's a long way from a fully-featured app - it's weeks of development rather than months or years, So I expect the number of 'rich' tablet apps to be a small percentage of what's out there.
2. For sure we'll see lovingly crafted animated, video-embedded, personalised magazine type things. Great, this will give all those tossers who user Flash another way to obfuscate great content. But to be honest I couldn't give a f*ck about The New York Times. I want Country Life. Okay perhaps not but the point is that there'll be a huge gap between major publications [for example, The Guardian] and niche ones [for example, British Dressage Monthly] available on the same device which is going to cause consumer confusion.
What I mean is this: The value of content within Vogue and the Hackney Gazette is similar to me. But put the two publications side-by-side and they're very different. Now put them of the same device. See what I'm getting at?
Anyway, enough of the rant and onto the predictions bit [last time I think I did okay, let's see how this goes]:
Obvious:
It will look like a larger version of the first generation iPhone, 10" screen, one button. It will run iPhone OS [with extensions to allow for larger screen resolutions, input methods, &c] It will run normal Apps - several at once - and Tablet Apps, in fullscreen mode
Likely:
A very clever eReader with lots of content partners signed up Demos of how it brings books into the 21st century - annotations, referrals, searches, &c
Unlikely:
Stylus Front Camera for Video Chat
Personally I hope it has a wicked-fast screen-sharing app.
We're counting down the week until the release of Apple's Mac OS X 10.5, otherwise known as Leopard. Judging by the feature list, this is going to be an excellent update which should go a long way to improving many aspects of the Mac workflow. I know a lot of human interface commentators have a number of complaints about the direction the UI is going but it appears that Leopard has a lot of improvements "under the hood" that should allow developers to ship applications with a more uniform appearance than 10.4 Tiger.
With an operating system as mature as Mac OS X, there's a limit as to the number of "new" things that the majority of users would actually benefit from. For me, the key highlights are:
[a] Spaces [b] Stacks [c] Live Previews
I know lots of folks who are raving about Time Machine. I'll most likely learn to like this once I have solved the issue of having my hard disk drives physically broken rather than accidentally deleting files :-)
As a test, I ordered my copy of Leopard from the online AppleStore and we'll see if it arrives on the 26th or ships on the 26th and arrives several days later.
Either way, the combination of Leopard and the rumoured new portable will probably trigger a hardware upgrade this side of Xmas 2007.
Apple's new 'MultiTouch' interface is a work of genius. It's so simple and intuitive that my 16 month old daughter Tuesday was scrolling through pictures on the iPod Touch after a few seconds. If anyone had any questions about Apple's leadership in human interface design, they've been answered.
Of course the process of actually getting one of these units was less than smooth, with multiple visits to AppleStores and no useful feedback at all on levels of stock [eg. none] nor when stock would be available [eg. er... dunno].
I went with the 8Gb model since I find if I carry around too many songs/videos I get stuck trying to decide what to play, so prefer smaller amounts of content. Odd, that.
It's also Friday today, lovely and sunny and crisp in London town, so all in all things are good with the world. x
With the iPhone about 2 months away from hitting UK shores - and after a disasterous 1.1.1 firmware update in terms of PR - here's a plea to Apple.
Please, please update the iPhone's Bluetooth Profiles so that we can get stereo audio, OBEX file transfer and sync-to-Mac using Bluetooth rather than that cradle thing.
I've got a small petition running here which some nice people have signed. Please add your name to the list, although of course this won't in any way shift Apple's position on the Bluetooth implementation.
Happy October 1st, 2007. For most of us, this isn't a particularly significant date but it does mark the fact that the next major revision of Mac OS X [10.5 aka Leopard] will ship at some point prior to month-end.
Apple has already posted information on what you'll need in order to get up and running with the new big cat:
A PowerPC G4 (800Mhz or faster), G5 or Intel Processor 512MB RAM (additional recommended) DVD drive Built-in FireWire 9GB Hard drive space Built-in display or an Apple-supplied Graphics Card
This will effectively end-of-life any older CPU's which don't have a processor speed of 800Mhz, so my old Rev 1.0 iBook will be completely relegated to a museum piece. Not that it was ever used for anything other than the "Wow, it's blue and has a handle" industrial design comments.
Of course we've all seen the major new features in Leopard and I'm sure that there won't be any last-minute surprises chucked in at the 11th hour... but still I'm looking forward to taking the new OS for a spin.
Reading the numerous 10.5 blogs it appears that some 10.4 features will be deprecated and there'll be some minor workflow improvements when 10.5 is used on conjunction with "other" Apple devices - I'm guessing iPhone, here.
I think the biggest impact for me will be the closer integration of the new interface tools [SpotLight, Spaces, Stacks, etc] which will make navigating around the ever-increasing number of files a much easier proposition than with 10.4.
Of the 300 or so new features, Apple seems to be pressing Time Machine very heavily but for me this is one of the major downsides... the functionality is great, but they've kind of thrown away the Human Interface Guidelines on this. I - along with lots of other Apple users - really hope that 10.5.x transitions us to a more homogeneous user interface.
