Aluminum remote finally released

I'll have more to say on today's announcements soon, but for the time being, I'm pleased to see that MacPredictions' aluminum mouse prediction has finally come true (sort of).

Is Microsoft playing possum?

This week’s critical drubbing of Windows Mobile 6.5 may give Redmond something to smile about.

Back in the day, Microsoft used to get it in the neck from the Feds, from the developer community and from the industry at large. It seemed that whatever they did provoked ire. From their heavy handed negotiations with PC manufacturers, to their wilful bundling of useful new features into their market dominating operating system.

How times have changed. These days, it just doesn't seem sporting to bait Microsoft. They appear to have lost the search engine wars (with Bing proving to be more of a Blip); they've lost the digital music wars (with Apple enjoying Windows-like market domination for their ubiquitous iPod & iTunes ecosystem); and then there's the sorry tale of Windows Mobile - a product that is hard even for Steve Ballmer to love.

So what's eating Microsoft? They have some of the best and brightest minds in the world cooped up in their Redmond campus, and yet, time after time, they appear to fail to deliver, ceding one sector after another to an arch rival… Or do they?

Superficially, Microsoft may not seem much like a possum. After all, possums are cuddly-looking and cute, whilst Microsoft is testosterone-charged and sweaty. But perhaps they have more in common than meets the eye. North American possums (or technically "opossums") have developed the remarkable ability of feigning sickness and injury to evade a predator: they "play possum", exhibiting the unsavoury behaviour of looking and even smelling like a sick or dead animal, thus repelling their enemies.

Could Microsoft be employing a similar strategy? Certainly, their predators’ attentions are elsewhere. President Obama's new antitrust czar at the Department of Justice, Christine Varney, is famously quoted as saying "For me, Microsoft is so last century. They are not the problem." Instead, the U.S. economy will see problems "potentially with Google."

The truth is that Microsoft's high profile failures mask their rude health and notable success. It's a significant but oft-overlooked fact that Microsoft earns money on the sale of every iPhone, through its Exchange ActiveSync Licensing Program. As Apple, Palm and Blackberry battle it out for domination of the emerging mainstream smartphone sector, you can rest assured that Microsoft will win regardless the outcome, since interoperability with Exchange is a prerequisite for the success of any handset. And that means a healthy Microsoft tax on every handset and server sold. That poor old possum, Microsoft, must be weeping all the way to the bank with Apple's recent success.

Far from losing sleep over the poor reviews garnered for Windows Mobile 6.5 this week, perhaps the folks at Redmond were uncorking the champagne, as another brilliant, yet dastardly strategy reaches fruition.

iTunes Loaded and Genius Fill

Posted by Martin Algesten, 6th October 2009

Surely Apple is not going to sit and watch idly as a small European upstart with a bad logo eats its market share? Week by week, update by update Spotify adds literally thousands of new songs, which means Apple's current lead in content is gradually eroding and eventually may result in a significant amount of customers opting for the flat fee as-much-as-you-can-eat style service. With Spotify's recent iPhone killer app, (Apple approved) and sold off the iTunes store, which introduced elected playlists offline, a first step is taken to conquer the portable music market, which means one of the last arguments to buy your music is also going away. Incidentally, the iPod Touch and iPhone may be the reason Spotify has a chance to succeed where other similar services have failed - portable players are key.

Interestingly, shouting about DRM shackles is nowhere to be heard amongst the Spotify crowd - is it, perhaps, that Spotify is a black box - we never get to see the individual files, so there's no feeling of right to own them? Or are we mentally relating to the service as a rental, akin to Blockbusters, so we accept the non-ownership?

Seems to me Apple would be foolish to just sit back and watch as this little company grow stronger. Spotify may not be returning a big profit yet, but the mere resonance amongst the hip young crowd, may indicate a market space, and surely Apple would want this one too, and they are in a prime position to grab it: The iTunes store has already got the songs; people have accepted that you must use iTunes to access it; Apple has complete control over the iPods (Spotify will never run on a Shuffle); the payment systems are in place; the regional markets are there; they have the existing commercial relationships with the media owners. Enter: iTunes Loaded.

iTunes Loaded comes in two versions. One free version that is powered by iTunes Genius, and a paid for version where you are in control. In the free version, Genius Fill will help you load up your iTunes with fresh tracks you probably like based on your current library. The tracks are not burdened with ads, but you can't chose which tracks you want or when they expire.

The paid for service puts you in control. You can still let iTunes Genius find new tracks, but you are free to keep, reorganise or remove. You mix your favourite tracks into playlists, chose to access these playlists offline and synchronise them with all your iPods. You can also share your iTunes Loaded playlists over Bonjour or any way you want with your iTunes Loaded friends (Email, Facebook, etc). Your iTunes Loaded playlists will of course also sync with your Mobile Me account and be available on all your Macs.

One potential stumbling block is if the media companies don't want to license the music to Apple in this way. The owners are already concerned that Apple has become a too strong player, dictating the terms in the agreements, and they may see Spotify as a way to counter Apple's dominance. I wouldn't be surprised if Steve is battling this point in endless meetings already.

The battle for the iPhone

Why Apple, Google and the Government are fighting for control of your phone

If you owned a shop, would you expect the government to tell you what products you should sell in it? Recently, America's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) asked Apple to explain its decision not to sell Google Voice in its iPhone App Store. Their interest was presumably piqued by online protests from those challenging Apple's policy of vetting 3rd party apps.

Protests have focused on Google Voice, despite the fact that few people know what the service does, and fewer still actually use it. The two most common allegations against Apple are that this decision is anti-competitive and that it infringes iPhone owners' rights. But is there any merit to these allegations?

The iPhone is not the only gadget with built-in constraints upon its functionality. Devices such as games consoles and DVD players are similarly limited, (try skipping one of those tedious copyright warnings at the start of a movie). Whilst we may be free to use the electronics that we purchase as we see fit, manufacturers are free to determine the scope of functionality for the gadgets that they sell us. And if you choose to make your own modifications (such as installing Linux on your Xbox, or jail-breaking your iPhone) you only have yourself to blame if the manufacturer informs you that your warranty is now void. There may also be legal limitations in your right to customise. For example, in America, you are not free to modify your equipment if this results in a circumvention of copyright protection technology, in which case you will have committed a criminal offense under the DMCA. (Apple is currently arguing that this is the case in relation to iPhone jail-breaking).

Which brings us to the second allegation - that Apple is being anti-competitive in not selling the Google Voice application in its store. In the tech world, the term "anti-competitive" inevitably brings to mind the US Department of Justice and the European Commission's cases against Microsoft. However, there is a key different here between the iPhone and Windows. The iPhone may be popular, but it is far from a monopoly. At best, it represent 20% of the smartphone market, and competition is very healthy, with new entrants, such as Android and Palm's new Web OS emerging all the time. Whilst many consumers have no option but to use Microsoft Windows on the desktop, there is a great deal more choice when it comes to the mobile sector.

In other words, if you don't like Apple's policy of rejecting some 3rd party applications, you're free to buy a competitor product instead. And since the iPhone was never marketed as a device suitable for using Google Voice, then iPhone owners can hardly complain if it is not fit for that purpose. They could always purchase a competitor product that does support Google Voice, like Google's own Android OS. Apple's customers are not locked-in to iPhone OS in the way in which Microsoft's customers are locked in to Windows.

Apple has, this week, responded to the FCC, offering an explanation for their policies. It remains to be seen whether their response will satisfy the FCC, and what remedial action the agency may take if it does not. Either way, what sense can we make of Apple's position here? By limiting their users' freedom, aren't they committing a PR own-goal, without any obvious benefit? After all, few people are likely to use Google Voice anyway, and even if they do, wouldn't Apple prefer that they did this on an iPhone, rather than on a competitor's device?

The answer goes to the heart of Apple's uniqueness and its recent success. Whilst companies like Microsoft and Google sell software, and companies like Sony and Dell sell hardware, Apple's position as a true hybrid is practically unique. The remarkable success of the iPod and iPhone is due in no small part to their trademark ease of use, and this is achieved by a tight integration between hardware and software. Apps such as Google Voice allow the user to swap out core features of the device to be handled by third party software, and Apple's concern is that the seamless user experience will suffer as a consequence.

It will be interesting to see how the next few weeks play out. Apple is hedging its bets, claiming that it hasn't rejected the Google Voice app, but rather, it simply hasn't accepted it yet. They would doubtless prefer to reject it, but are, at this stage, testing the water with the Feds, to see how far they want to take this. If the FCC acquiesces, then Apple will presumably never get around to approving Google's pesky app. Then it will be down to the consumer, rather than the government, to decide whether they favor the stunning simplicity of a functionally constrained iPhone, to the flexible utility of an clunky, unintuitive Android handset.

New blue iDisk icon replaces pink... was predicted by this blog in April

Last year, I questioned Apple's aesthetic judgment, regarding their choice of pink as a color for the new iDisk icon, with the switch from .Mac to MobileMe. Well it seems like someone at Apple is listening (to good sense, if perhaps not to me personally).

With the release of 10.5.8 earlier this month, the iDisk icon has switched to a far more attractive shade of blue. Now if we can just get rid of the hideous pink-stars default desktop, we really will be getting somewhere.

It's a minor point, but I have to add that the new blue iDisk icon was predicted by this blog in a mockup we produced way back in April.

CultOfMac.com features my book

More blatant self-publicizing for my new book, Secondomics...

Leander Kahney over at CultOfMac.com has run an interview with me about Secondomics, and how it relates to Apple's business. For a brief moment, I felt like Chris Anderson there ;)

Check it out: Cult Of Mac Interview

(Coughs humbly) ...the book is available from Amazon.com, priced $16.00, and you can read more about it at www.secondomics.com

Could the new iTablet actually be an iPod touch HD?

With the rumosphere buzzing once again about Apple's much rumored tablet, and some analysts chatting like excited school girls, it's time for MacPredictions to gear up the SVU (special visuals unit) and crank out another mockup.

The tablet is a bit of a riddle. Why would Apple release one? They sat out on the whole pen-based computing thing, with Jobs pouring scorn on Gate's pet project (the Tablet PC). On that occasion, Apple's instincts proved correct. So what has changed now?

Earlier this year, most speculation focused on the idea of a touch-screen device as Apple's answer to the growing netbook category. The problem with this picture is that netbooks are cheap to manufacture, whereas Tablet PCs are quite the opposite. Something didn't add up.

Add to this the strange idea that Apple may be prepping Snow Leopard as a touch-based OS (based upon rather far-fected speculation about supposed touch-friendly features such as Dock Exposé). This blog has never subscribed to the idea of a touched based version of Mac OS X. It would just be too confusing for developers (both within Apple, and 3rd parties). Apple has just one touch-based platform - the iPhone OS, and that's plenty enough.

Fast forward a few months, and reflect upon the awesome success of iPod touch combined with games on the app store, and things become a little clearer. All that Apple needs to do is introduced resolution-independence to the iPhone OS (which will surely have to come at some point anyway), and they can then launch a true PSP/DS killer in the form of an iPod touch HD - a big brother to the regular iPod touch.

It would be compatible with all existing iPhone games, plus a whole slew of new HD games. It could also play HD movies - and completely undermine Microsoft's upcoming Zune HD in the process.

Suddenly the idea of a tablet from Apple starts to make more sense.