May 2007 Archives

How is Apple able keep products like the iPod and iPhone a (pretty good) secret until a planned press conference or keynote?

Apple is a relatively small company with 17,787 employees (compared to Microsoft's 71,000), but that is still a lot of people to keep under control. So what's with all the secrets? Two words -- competitive advantage.

The problem is that having secrets in-house spurs rumors just like those that exist outside a company.

Often when using my computer I need to know the current date. Normally it is for something simple like browsing a log and needing to figure out how many days have passed since an event occurred.

When I first started using a Mac (after many joyous years running Windows) I found myself looking down at the doc for the date. Oh there it is... July 17th. Wait a minute! That isn't today's date -- am I having computer problems? As it turns out this is the date in 2002 when iCal was released.

I have got to admit that given the opportunity to create a calendar program I would likely choose to force the icon date to something like July 17th. However, as a user of this system I desire something that is a little more significant in my life -- the current date.

After browsing the Apple Xserve site for a little while they have me sold! It really looks like a well designed product! So why is it we don't hear of more companies running this hardware? I have worked for two fortune 500 companies, and one with less than 50 employees. These businesses are extremely dedicated to maintaining large server environments, but the Apple product line is not even a faint blip on their radar. No workstations, no servers (I have seen a few iPods though).

It appears that anyone who speaks favorably about Apple or Apple products is labeled a "fanboy" or "drinking the Kool-Aid". Why is that? People who say "Oh, Microsoft Windows Vista this and that blah blah blah" are not assigned any derogatory labels. Lets face it, they aren't calling you names to build you up!

You are doing something that is viewed as different, and people are not encouraged to be different in our society. So, the labels are a method to get you back in line with the group. We won't make fun of you anymore if you re-join the group before it is too late.

Some may say that the "Hello, I'm a Mac" ads are to blame because supposedly the Mac guy portrays himself as being snobby and superior. So, the labels are used to dramatically put us in our place and show us that we really aren't all that.

Can you tell that we are excited about the iPhone release?

Here are a few feature requests we would like to see added to the iPhone at some point:

• The iPod application includes a handy volume control slider, but does not appear to include a method for changing the playing location of the current audio track (rewind/fast-forward/jump to point). This feature does appear in the video player.
• GPS with integration into Google Maps
• 3G. Not that it is available in my area, but some day it will be!
• Games. I often play solitaire on my Windows Mobile phone whenever sitting around waiting for things like oil changes and flights.
• Third-party software: The list of applications available for Windows Mobile and Palm is huge! I am sure many of the Mac developers out there would love the opportunity to develop/sell applications that run on the iPhone.

It is very likely that these issues have already been resolved, but here are my findings anyway! Oh, and most of these things are very picky and appeared in the Quicktime animations on the Apple web page. Probably not the preferred method of QA used by Apple staff! :-)

Whenever I pick through software in this way I always think to myself -- I hope no one ever makes a list like this for the applications I have created!

1. 1 hour, 23 minutes, and 30 seconds in to the Macworld 2007 Keynote Address (iTunes Podcast version): Steve Jobs summed up the iPhone features in a section titled "All together now". While listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers Steve receives a phone call from Phil Schiller. As expected the music fades out, the screen changes, and the phone rings. Steve continues showing off a real world situation of sending an email and looking at a web page. Perfect! The unexpected portion of the presentation occurs after Steve hangs up on Phil. The music fades in and the phone switches to the Voicemail view. Huh? Steve quickly (and smoothly) presses the "Home" button followed by the "iPod" icon. My guess is that after hanging up the device should have switched back to the iPod on its own.

When I started working with Linux about 5 years ago some technical experts I spoke with suggested that Linux/Unix OS's were superior to Windows in many ways, one reason being that software updates could be performed without rebooting. The end result is a system with uptime that can't be matched.

When I purchased my Mac I thought -- the next time I reboot this system will be after installing Leopard! Since then nearly every software update has required a reboot of the system to complete. Do the updates that Apple pushes out to our systems really require a reboot or are the patch engineers at Apple just playing it safe? Is it possible that the software update application doesn't have the ability to restart the necessary modules to fully update the system?

The Apple TV was delayed earlier this year (as I recall it was because a necessary update to iTunes was not ready to go). On April 12th Apple released a statement announcing the Leopard version of the Mac OS had been pushed back to October because they needed to pull some key software engineers to help with their iPhone product.

Does Apple have adequate staff to handle the demands of their current and future products? 3/4 of Apple's core product mix including iPhone and Apple TV are dependent on the Mac OS and some "key" software engineers. What happens when there is active development on all of these systems? Those key engineers aren't going to know which way to turn -- the Apple TV team will say "we need your help", and the iPhone team will say, "no, we need you". Apple's success will entice other manufactures to get in on the action, for example Microsoft with the Zune, LG Electronics with the "iPhone Killer" KE850 PRADA, and Netgear with the EVA8000, Most of us want to see Apple succeed, so lets hope they figure this out before it bites them in the butt again! :-)

Why is it that so many people pick on Microsoft for there Vista product when it supposedly borrowed all of its best features from the far superior Mac OS X? Did their implementation of the features leave something to be desired?

At a glance it appears that you can upgrade to Vista by purchasing a skinning program like WindowBlinds for $19.95. I know there are enhancements sprinkled throughout that add new features and stability, but I just don't see 5 years work for 2,000 developers.

Personally I wish Vista was more like the Mac... that way when I am at work I would feel more at home!