iPad (2012 edition)

Wow!  I’ve been more busy than I realized; and it has been a long time between posts. So much has happened, but maybe so little of any real consequence for the purposes of this blog. However, that is maybe selling tech a little short.

iPhoto on the new iPad. Image courtesy of Apple.

I’m syncing my new iPad as I write this. I skipped the iPad 2, and that alone makes this a noticeable upgrade from the original iPad. The new display really is a big deal. Prior to syncing I did some side-by-side comparisons, and it is not hard to see the difference between the two screens when viewing pictures and video where their resolution exceeds that of the original iPad.

In any event, I will probably post this before my first sync completes … and I am only syncing apps!  All 182 of them …  And, no. I don’t need that many apps. I’ll be stuffing many of those apps into folders where they won’t get in the way: and some will be consigned to a digital purgatory on Apple’s servers.

I’m guessing that I still only use about two dozens apps on a regular basis, with about half of those apps getting heavy use. Once I get my apps setup, I’ll worry about syncing music, video and pictures. I’ll need all weekend to get things just the way I like them - including setting up apps that require a login to work.

It has been something like a month since I began this post, and it took another two or three evenings after that weekend to really get things sorted with the new iPad. Which sort of brings me to my list of things Apple needs to work on when it comes to OS X, iOS and iCloud.

Image courtesy of AppleThe devices, the applilcations that run on them, and iCloud still have a long way to go before the end user experience is as seemless as it needs to be. I should be able to work on a document in Pages and have no gotchas if I need to switch to another Apple device. Dropbox (and similar services) are still the better bet instead of iCloud in terms of applicaiton support across Apple’s entire product line - especially if one needs to mix in non-Apple platforms.

Identity management is a chore. If I setup an app on my iPhone, I should be able to transfer the settings to my iPad; and this should certainly work when I upgrade from one iPad to another one. It does not, and that is a shame.

Siri needs to be sent back to the lab where it came from. If it isn’t ready for the new iPad (six months after the launch of the iPhone 4S!!), it was clearly launched too soon. It has been a standing joke amongst my co-workers to see if a user of the 4S can get Siri to work. It certainly seems like more than half the time the service is either down or it is unable to respond to the most simple of requests.

Even if one overlooks the shortcomings of Siri, Apple needs to get going with support for alternative input and output devices; support that will allow more apps to move up from the Mac to the iPad. I am thinking of input devices like pressure sensitive tablets, mice and the stylus. Output support needs to include desktop-size displays as well as displays for the blind. And, yes. When I say “support” I mean more than just allowing one to use the device as a substitute for gesture input. No one wants to be enslaved to just one form of expression … Apple of all companies should understand this.

However, even given all of the above, I love my iPad. It is more useful today than it was two years ago, and that more than anything else validates Apple’s concept and execution. The iPad still defines what a tablet computer should be for the rest of the industry.

My gloom over Android tablets was well founded. The only Android tablet with traction is the Amazon Kindle, and many consumers don’t even know it is an Android device! Google must be so bummed, but they have no one to blame but themselves. It is looking like building a successful tablet requires a deisign that tightly integrates hardware and software, and Google has failed to do this. Perhaps the upcoming Google-branded tablet will address this deficiency.

Google’s experience should serve as a warning to Microsoft about the prospects for first generation Windows 8 tablets. Given what we know and have seen to this point, it certainly doesn’t look like Microsoft has enough control over their hardware partners to deliver a truly great tablet in 2012. Expect an experience that is only marginally better than these same hardware vendors have delivered with Android. Maybe when Nokia gets around to a second generation tablet … in 2013.

iTunes Mismatch

iTunes Match is a great convenience. For only $25 per year it promises to consolidate your music library, and allow you to download content from your now consolidated music library in the clould with up to 5 Macs or PCs and up to 5 iOS devices … assuming they all share the same Apple ID. It may even upgrade your old content with higher quality content (256 kbps AAC), and this even applies to any older tracks that you purchased from the iTunes store (again … with the same Apple ID). iTunes Match should replace those old lower quality DRMed 128 kbps AAC files with 256 kpbs AAC versions that are free of DRM. Sound too good to be true? Don’t be so cynical! But, yeah. There are some gotchas.

iTunes Match is not for everyone. It does not work with lossless audio files  (e.g. ALAC, WAV or AIFF) nor does it work with very low quality audio files (AAC or MP3 files recorded at 96 kbps or less). Actually, iTunes Match will process high quality lossless audio files, but it will not store any of these lossless files in the cloud. Instead of using lossless audio, iTunes Match creates a temporary 256 kbps AAC version of your lossless files locally; and it is this AAC file that gets stored in the cloud. Even the lossless-to-AAC conversion won’t happen if the source (?) file is more than 200MB in size. Which is weird as the size of the source file shouldn’t matter at all - it is the size of the resulting AAC file that should matter! Given these limitations, iTunes Match is not a great way to share music between full-size computers (where file size is probably not much of a concern); but, admittedly, it is very convenient for automatically shoehorning slightly degraded AAC versions of your high quality music onto your iOS devices.

Another disappointment has to do with Smart Playlists and iTunes Match. If a Smart Playlist is based on another Smart Playlist, then the whole playlist is ineligible. I guess this is the safest route that Apple could take, but it means that almost all my Smart Playlists are ineligible for use with iTunes Match. If I had known this ahead of time, I would never have bothered with iTunes Match.

There are also some tracks that don’t match even when they should. I have an album that I purchased from iTunes. All but one of the tracks match. That one track won’t match no matter what I do. Weird, and frustrating.

My conclusion is that iTunes Match is not for those that value audio quality over convenience - especially if you listen to music primarily from a PC or Mac with even fairly modest audio gear. It should go without saying that the limitations of iTunes Match will be in the face of audiophiles at every turn, and such users had best stand clear of this service. At least that has been my experience; I won’t be renewing iTunes Match!

Apple has some useful information online, including these tidbits from the bottom of the Troubleshooting iTunes Match article:

• Songs encoded as MP3 or AAC that have been matched to the iTunes Store will be made available for download as 256 kbps as AAC from iCloud. 
• Songs encoded as MP3 or AAC that cannot be matched to the iTunes Store will be uploaded as is. These songs will be made available for download in the same format it was uploaded in.
• Songs encoded as MP3 or AAC that do not meet certain quality criteria will not be matched or uploaded to iCloud.
• Songs encoded as ALAC, WAV, or AIFF, will be transcoded in iTunes to 256 kbps AAC when uploaded to iCloud.
• Song files over 200 MB will not be uploaded to iCloud.
• Matched songs in your local library will not automatically be transcoded to 256 kbps AAC. To obtain a higher quality transcoding, download the matched songs from iCloud.

I found the article on Understanding iCloud Status Icons depressingly necessary. Yep. There are just too many high def ALAC files in my music library; files that iTunes Match refuses to work with.  :(

Windows 8

At Microsoft’ Build 2011 we got our first really good look at Windows 8. It doesn’t take a genius to get just how cool the Metro UI is, but it must be said that much of the magic has been there for a year on Windows Phone 7. For iPad users, imagine your app icons being a lot bigger. The increase in size allows for animated graphics and text that combines Flipboard-like RSS feeds with iOS Notifications. That is the promise of the Windows 8 live tile (Metro) interface. Are Windows 8 live tiles something that only tech geeks get, or is it that this sort of feature only appeals to tech geeks? That is one of the big questions Microsoft is going to have to address if Windows 8 is going to succeed.

Designing the Start screen

Speaking of tech geeks, our expectations for Windows 8 tablets seem to be getting a little too far ahead of reality. Like someone inexperienced at dating, we are projecting our wants and desires again. Every facet of this new love that just might fit our model of perfection is presumed to do so; and only disappointment or worse can come of this. Rather than seeing someone as they are, we see them as we want them to be. We fall in love with a construct of our own imagination rather than with a person. At least this sort of thing is what seems to be going on with the tech geek infatuation with Windows 8 - that or maybe it is just the tech “flavor of the month”.

The excitement over Windows 8 is understandable and much of it is deserved. However, it may be time to set some reasonable expectations - especially as Windows 8 pertains to tablet computing. For starters, no one really knows if there is a broader tablet market or if there is just an iPad market. This is an important distinction as the first Windows 8 tablets are not going to be like the iPad at all! It may not be enough to be a great tablet if what the consumer wants is a great iPad-like Windows tablet.

At least initially, in comparison to the iPad, Windows 8 tablets are almost certainly going to be bigger, heavier, presumably faster, offering less battery life, and lacking in Metro applications. These early Windows 8 tablets will have more in common with the Windows tablets of the past they they will with the iPad. And we all know what a failure those sorts of devices have been …

We are still a year or two away from seeing an Intel architecture that is truly tablet friendly - or tablet friendly in an iPad-like way. Until then, Intel-based Windows 8 tablets may be viable as big and heavy devices with a low price; or as expensive, but more capable devices, on the higher end. We just don’t know if the masses are going to be interested in either type of device. But what of the ARM-based Windows 8 tablets?

Assuming Microsoft doesn’t rush a non-optimized ARM version Windows 8 to market, it is starting to look like it is going to take at least another year to get Windows 8 to run well on ARM. By “run well” I mean getting Windows 8 to run as smoothly on ARM as the original iPad did. Thus, Windows 8 tablets that are truly iPad-like may not even make it for the 2012 holiday shopping season. While not the best of news, it may be just as well as it is going to take Windows developers time to adapt to WinRT software development.

Only WinRT apps will run on ARM, and only WinRT apps get the benefits of all that Metro interface goodness. From the outside (I wasn’t at Build 2011), it looks like one is developing for an entirely new platform - and not like developing for just another iteration of the existing Windows APIs. Only time will tell I guess.

What about apps written for the old APIs? They are still supported; but, at least as of Build 2011, you have to surrender the Metro UI to run them. At which point, one has to ask, “what is the point?” Windows 8 without Metro looks to be no better than Windows 7 as almost all the innovation is in the WinRT space. So. There is going to be backwards compatibility, but at a fairly steep price … steep as in “what is the point of upgrading if I don’t replace all my apps?” And that is a question that Microsoft needs to do a better job of addressing sometime soon. Given that Build 2011 was all about developers, it is not fair to harp on Microsoft’s failure to answer this question at this time … it is a question that is more relevent to consumers than it is to developers. Hopefully Microsoft will have something useful to say to consumers … maybe in time for the Windows 8 beta?

For the latest on Windows 8 from the head of the project, see the Building Windows 8 blog.

Amazon & Cowardice

This is a post about my cowardice and the marketing power of Amazon. I want the relatively open and more book-like ePub electronic book format to win. But, after Amazon’s press conference last week, there is no denying that Amazon has Barnes & Noble on the ropes. I like my Nook; but, absent a white knight rescue, I don’t see the Nook product line surviving. I’m afraid it is all downhill from here for the Nook.

To make my cowardice complete, I just placed my order for the new bottom-of-the-line Kindle. This is the $79 wi-fi only Kindle; but, you know me - I’m actually paying a little more to eliminate the ads. I’m told that the ads are non-intrusive, but am unwilling to risk the ads. So. I’m out $109. What ebooks will I be buying from Amazon? Just the books that I expect to read more than once. This means that I’ll still be buying most of my books from Barnes & Noble and from eReader.com; that is my attempt to “do the right thing” and support the ebook standard that I want to win. I’ll risk occasionally having to buy an ebook again from Amazon … should the worst happen to Barnes & Noble.

What about the other Kindles from Amazon? Most of the eink models have 6” screens, and there is a case to be made for each most of them:

• Kindle Touch (Wi-fi only - $99/$139 w/o ads AND 3G - $149/$189 w/o ads): I’m not sure why one would want these models. The model with “free for life [of the product]” 3G data service is more costly than the Kindle Keyboard 3G, and the latter has no ads! Finger prints on a reflective eink screen do not seem like a good idea to me. It will be interesting to see the reviews of this unit.
• Kindle Keyboard (Wi-fi only w/ ads $99 AND 3G w/o ads $139): This is the model to get if you want 3G data service.
• Kindle DX ($379, ad free and includes 3G): This model is popular with those that need really large text. There are mixed reviews regarding its superiority for textbooks. I’m skeptical that textbooks demand the larger 9.7” screen; and, yes. It is about the size of an iPad. 
• Kindle Fire ($199 Wi-fi only w/ ads): This is the darling of the technorati. Most see it as the Nook Color killer; some even see it as an Android tablet killer. It has a 7” color, touch sensitive screen, and it will have apps. It comes with email and access to 100,000 movies and tv shows (a mix of rentals and purchases). It will not ship until November 15, 2011; and it is likely to be backordered for months. If you are thinking of getting a Nook Color, get the Fire instead or at least wait to see what annoucements come from Amazon and Barnes & Noble in the new year. At $199, this is THE entry level tablet computer if you are not already invested in iOS or Android apps.

The Kindle Fire deserves the attention it is getting. Amazon has done very well with a product that no one seemed to want. You see, the Fire is virtually identical to the craptastic RIM PlayBook. How can the same hardware be deserving of both praise and scorn? It is all about software, use cases, and the app and content ecosystem supporting the hardware.

The RIM PlayBook has been a huge failure. RIM, the maker of BlackBerry phones, neglected to include an email client with the PlayBook. That’s right. RIM, a company synonymous with email, left the killer corporate app of the last decade out of the PlayBook! You see, the knuckleheads at RIM assumed that BlackBerry users would want to marry their PlayBooks to their phones; and a BlackBerry phone is all anyone needs for email, right? Worse still, the apps and content deals have never materialized. This is one of the biggest tech failures I have ever seen!

In contrast to RIM, Amazon is using the Kindle Fire as a gateway to many Amazon goods and services; and, of course you will be able to browse and access the Amazon store. While the selection of downloadable or streamed music, movies and tv shows is not yet the equal of Apple, it should be more than good enough for many consumers. Amazon is leveraging its experience with online book publishing tools to offer Fire users an email-to-Kindle Fire document service that works with web pages and basic Word and PDF documents. Of course Amazon will offer all the ebooks that the other Kindle devices can display. The color display will make magazines more compelling - even though I think an iPad is the better device for magazines!

There are other niceties in store for Kindle Fire users:

• Some prominent apps were mentioned or shown at Amazon’s press conference including Comixology. Unlike magazines, I think comics will work just as well as on the Fire as they do on the iPad - at least for those with younger eyes than I!
• Free cloud storage for all content purchased from Amazon
• Whispersync will work for Amazon Instant Videos just as it does with books. It will keep track of where you are in a book, movie or tv show; and make that “bookmark” available across the Amazon apps on other devices (e.g. some TVs) and platforms (iOS, Android, Windows, OS X, etc.).

Amazon also annouced a new web browser service for the Kindle Fire, Silk. Silk works like the Opera web browser; Amazon’s servers will cache content and even predict what you are likely to click on next … all intended to make your tablet-based web browsing experience more responsive. It even works with Flash! However, this is a double-edged sword as Amazon is going to “see” more of your online activity than even Google can see. While I am not disputing that Amazon intends no evil, I might be cautious with online banking and the like.

There are some negatives with the Kindle Fire:

• As is common in tablets of this size, battery life is only a little more than half that of an iPad. 7 or 8 hours is likely to be common; probably a little more if you turn the wi-fi off.
• 8 GB of storage, while common for Android devices, is paltry compared to the iPad (which starts at 16GB and goes up to 64GB). Think planes, trains and automobiles for why this might matter to you; remember, this device is wi-fi only.
• The first version will force some ads on you. Again, I’m told by those that I trust that the ads won’t annoy you; but there is also a reason why Amazon will eventually offer a more costly version of the Fire that is ad free.
• Speaking of other versions, there are fairly credible rumors of bigger and better Amazon tablets coming next year. So. If you were thinking of getting a Nook Color, then a Kindle Fire is what you want; but, if you were thinking of getting an iPad, I would hold off for a device that is more competitive with the iPad.
• While the Fire is built on the open source Android operating system, it will never be an Android logo device. You will get your apps from Amazon (and only from Amazon) - not Google’s app marketplace. This means a very limited number of apps to start with, and it may result in a limited app selection in the long-term. Thus, if you want a tablet computer to run apps, you may want to stick with an iPad or “regular” Android tablet. This bit about Amazon’s Android operating system differing from Google’s Android operating system deserves an explanation.

With open source software projects, one is generally allowed to modify the software without the permission of the project team. Depending on the software license used by the project, there may be restrictions - like returning to the project any changes that one makes to the base software; but you are generally free to do whatever you want to do with the software. The project team may choose to ignore your contributions; and, if that happens, you are free to start a new project with your version of the software. This is called forking, and this is what has happened with the version of Android that Amazon is using. Unless things change, there are now at least three versions of Android:

• the older fully open source project that is managed by Google,
• the newer resticted versions that Google’s Android hardware partners use,
• and the forked version that Amazon is going to build off of going forward.

While overly simplistic, this should give you an idea of what has happened and why mainstream Android apps may require modification to run on the Kindle Fire and future Amazon color tablets. The bad news is that the degree of modification is likely to get worse as the two branches of Android grow apart from each other. If you want to know more about the split in the Android OS world and what it may mean to Google and the other Android tablet manufacturers, read that linked story by Chris Ziegler.

The good news, at least for Amazon, is that they control their own destiny. No one can tell them what they can or can not do unless they run afoul of someone’s patents. This is not as bad for consumers as it may appear. Amazon is taking pains to emphasize that their app store is selling Kindle apps, and that shouldn’t cause much confusion. As long as Amazon sells enough tablets to customers willing to pay for apps, their app store should do alright.

The Kindle Fire is clearly designed to crush Barnes & Noble and the Nook Color, and it is almost certain to do so - hence my craven surrender to the inevitable - and the purchase of a Kindle. During their press conference, Amazon took some opportunistic shots at Apple, the iPad and Apple’s ecosystem. There is no question that Amazon is going to steal some of the iPad’s thunder as Apple is unlikely to engage in a price war with Amazon for econo-tablets. What may be of greater significance is the collateral damage Amazon may be doing to other Android tablets.

It is no secret that Android tablets are not clicking with consumers yet; a situation that Google hopes to address with a new version of Android due any day now. The one area where Android tablets have gained a little traction is with smaller econo-tablets - tablets that cost significantly less than an iPad. The problem is that Amazon has just laid claim to this space, and I doubt any other Android tablet can compete against Amazon on price at the low-end. We already know that Android can’t compete against the iPad on price at the high-end ($500 and up); one hopes that there may be some magic for Android tablets in the $350 price range.

I think the best analysis of last week’s events was by Nilay Patel of The Verge:

The Kindle Fire isn’t the first serious iPad competitor because it can outdo the iPad — it’ll compete with the iPad because it does far less. A few months ago, Steve Jobs famously called traditional computers “trucks” in comparison to his small, sleek iPad. It was an amusing and prescient metaphor, and it’s one that works just as well to describe the Kindle Fire: the iPad might be a car, but Amazon went ahead and built a motorcycle.

It is going to be interesting to see how everything plays out over the next few years. I am glad that someone is finally applying some heat to Apple in the tablet space. Here’s to better products at lower prices in the months to come!

Thunderbolt - Intel News

In mid-September, at the 2011 Intel Developer Forum (IDF), many questions were answered about the future of Intel’s next generation Thunderbolt hardware interface. Here are the highlights:

• There will be Windows support for Thunderbolt, and there will be some Windows notebooks/ultrabooks from Acer and Asus with Thunderbolt ports coming in 2012.
• Other than the some offerings from Acer and Asus, Intel Ultrabooks (designed for Windows hardware vendors to take on the Macbook Air) will continue to feature neither USB 3.0 nor Thunderbolt for most of 2012, but will probably include USB 3.0 by the end of 2013. Which sort of begs the question: will they even have a prayer of a chance of being competitive with a Macbook Air …
  
• Related to Ultrabooks, Intel’s next generation chip set, Ivy Bridge, will include integrated support for USB 3.0; but, significantly, not Thunderbolt. This probably means that USB 3.0 is going to be the mass market solution to the “I just need to slap another drive on my PC” problem; or at least that is going to be the case for the next 18 months.
• While actual delivery of Thunderbolt peripherals has been slow to this point, there are interesting and useful products for the higher-end user.
  

The bad news for Intel and Apple is that Intel has under-delivered on the promises of Thunderbolt (then called LightPeak) made at IDF 2010. The good news for Mac users is that Thunderbolt peripherals are starting to show up; and it is looking like Thunderbolt is going to provide the convenient and flexible docking solution that notebook users have been looking for. With Thunderbolt-to-USB/Firewire/Ethernet breakout options from Belkin and Apple (the latter in the 27” Apple Thunderbolt Display), storage solutions from single drive to 4- and 6- bay RAID enclosures, and even external PCIe enclosures (so one could theoretically enjoy improved graphics performance from a notebook when “docked”), there really can be no objection to making a notebook computer your only computer for the non-gamer.

There are still unanswered questions for Intel:

• Exactly when are we going to see an optical interface and not “just” optical cables?
• When are we going to see 100Gb speeds with Thunderbolt?

and there are still unanswered questions for Apple:

• What PCIe graphics cards will Apple support via Thunderbolt?
• Is Apple still committed to professional desktop computing?

I don’t think that the unanswered Intel questions need elaboration, but the unanswered Apple questions do. Windows has, with varying degrees of success, allowed notebooks to use an external graphics card when docked; to the best of my knowledge, Apple has never offered such functionality. This is why support for ANY external PCIe cards is only theoretically possible; and this is particularly true for graphics cards. I suspect that the feature would be easier to support with NVidia’s monolithiic drivers (one driver works with all currently supported NVidia graphics cards), but that is an assumption and may be of little practical importance as NVidia is currently out of favor at Apple.

Apple appears to have reduced high-end audio functionality in OS X Lion (10.7), and there are other signs that Apple may be losing interest in the professional uses of desktop and even notebook systems. I need only point to the well documented neutering of Final Cut Pro X and the repositioning of Aperture as iPhoto “plus”. One has to wonder if Logic Pro will get the same sort of treatment. But, absent more tangible proof, this is mostly handwringing on my part.

Sadly, to this point, there is a little confusion regarding one of the more interesting Thunderbolt products. mLogic’s mLink appears to have been the Thunderbolt hard drive/port breakout box (with port offerings similar to those on the back of the Apple Thunderbolt Display) shown at IDF 2011. However, the mLink appears to have been confused by some with the mDock - a similar product that does not use Thunderbolt. mLogic’s own web site only shows the mDock - which clearly does not include Thunderbolt (as it is compatible with MacbookPros going to back to 2009). While the mLink may be the most immediately useful product for Macs with Thunderbolt ports, be sure of what you are getting before you buy!

If nothing else, I’m now optimistic that Thunderbolt is going to be more successful than Firewire; and that should be more than good enough for Mac users. However, Thunderbolt is probably not going to be attractive to those with limited budgets for at least another year. I’ll close with a video that shows the performance potential of Thunderbolt.