WWDC Predictions

In order of certainty: 1. iOS 6 (iCloud and Siri updates) preview and launch date 2. Macbook Pro update (new Air like case design and internal specs) 3. Mac Pro update (internal spec refresh) 4. Mountain Lion (new feature mention and launch date set) 5. iMac Update (internal spec refresh) 6. Macbook Air update (internal […]

Just K.I.S.S. or Reinvent the Wheel?

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With all the books published in the wake of Steve Jobs’ death promising to give you that extra piece of insider info that nobody knows, and the non-stop almost mythical desire to figure out what makes Apple tick. May this writing serve as push back to what appears to have become an industry of onlookers […]

Do normal people actually ‘get’ Dropbox? – Updated x2 –

So i’ve been wrestling with the concept of the cloud for some time now. I initially hated the fact that it had its own term, after all, isn’t everything on the internet the cloud? Much has been written about the dawn of cloud computing and hyperbolic rhetoric about its impending disruption is annoying and just down-right confusing to normal people. Its like coke, fanta or sprite, in the end its all sugar. Same applies to the Cloud.

Alas, the marketing genius machines around the world seem to think the Cloud is actually something to sell, like a product of sorts. Even Apple practices this and here’s where I think people just aren’t getting it. Or rather, don’t need to get it. If we dial back a bit to the when email was the trendy tech on the block, we might remember some of the terms used to convey what we now hold to be quite a simple concept. It was “Electronic Mail” that you either got for free from your Internet Service Provider (Read: CompuServe/AOL) or you had a snazzy new Hotmail account. You logged in and regardless of the computer you used, your messages were the same. So yeah, back then you were actually using a product from the future called “Cloud Computing”. Except, no, thats just email, right? Here’s the problem, nothing has actually changed yet everyone is inclined to self induce some amnesia and act like having the same information across a variety of devices is actually something amazing.

Granted, it is awesome and a technical feat worthy of much respect when you consider the numbers Tim Cook mentioned at the last iPad event. But set aside the technical grandeur for a moment and imagine what this boils down to for normal people.

Actually.. wait. Look at this intro video from Dropbox and then think about how normal people see this. (This video is the intro video on their homepage)

(Disclaimer: I love Dropbox)

The video above is just a perfect example of what’s wrong here. You have this elaborate scenario with real life examples that are overly explicit to the point of confusion. Why I ask. I come back to the email example; nobody seems to question why emails are the same regardless of the computer they are using. They delete it on their iPhone, it is then deleted from their computer and also from their iPad. People get it! So why the big drama and the need for a 2.11 minute video? Let’s dig a little deeper. Perhaps there is an inherent tangibility and a spacial aspect to files, that makes it difficult for people to imagine them being in more than one location simultaneously. In fact, perhaps the fault occurs earlier, prior to the interaction with Dropbox, between the normal person and the file system. The file system, along with file names, forces normal people to think of files as instantiations of content. draft1.0, draft1.2 etc, so because of this, the normal person tends to develop methods of organizing these instantiations, hence the term ‘file structure’. Everyone’s is different, some are better at it than others but I am willing to make a sweeping statement here and declare that everyone’s sucks.

Yes indeed, why? Because your file structure is only as good as your last save. Misplace a document and the error rate for a normal person goes sky high. Do you think normal people use “Spotlight” ? This isn’t anything new, and the life of the file system has been better examined and more thoroughly dissected by people smarter than I am. My specific contention comes about when a company like Dropbox with a great product tries to explain what it does and hurts itself in the process. The premise  of Dropbox’s video comes in around the 0.40 second mark where they talk about folders. This is great for the people who understand and tend to their folders with care and regularity, but its a fickle position to be in as a company when your entire product relies on the normal person to master a magical folder.

Here’s what I think Dropbox should put on their homepage (Albeit with the help of a visual designer)

A venn diagram and alternating lines like: The same picture across all your devices / The same song across all your devices / the same Word document across all your devices

Writing this actually reminds me of the widely discussed story from a while back where Steve Jobs held that Dropbox was a feature not a product. I would contend that for that not to be true, Dropbox has to stop doing what it does insanely well and initiate a divorce from the file system. If they don’t, then the onslaught from iCloud, Google..whatever its called and the other me-too’s will effectively turn Dropbox into the best filesystem synchronization tool that geeks everywhere will love. Said simply, They need to become content specific, not file/folder specific.

This topic is not even close to dead and i’m not even close to exploring everything in it. This is just the intro.

Next post i’ll be discussing why Dropbox ≠ iCloud and why it matters.

-UPDATE-

Fellow blogger and friend Sebastian Ortner has a good post on the topic on his blog here

–UPDATE x2-

Looks like someone shares my thinking: BoxOneCloud looks like they have something here

-DF

iOSX Mountain Lion – Updated –

On the Operating System 

What is an operating system to normal people?

This question has followed me during my brief time testing of Apple’s first public beta of their new desktop OS “OSX Mountain Lion”. I remember a time where the words Operating System loomed large in a computers life span. It might have meant a RAM upgrade and it definitely meant a weekend project of cautious waiting and slow movements around the computer as the install progress bar inched forward…pixel by pixel. It came with big packaging that needed to be cut.. yes cut open with scissors. You needed to call for backup and have someone read the serial number out for you. It was an Event.

I take note of all this because Mountain Lion, along with Lion before it, have seriously changed the way the concept of the Operation System is framed and presented to the consumer. Yes, the blogs go nuts with every leak and every feature but in the country of Nobody-Cares on the continent of  It-Just-Needs-To-Work-ia, the population is: Pretty much everyone

Consider the following:

1. Announced and previewed in a private press briefing, no major typical Apple event

2. Distributed exclusively through the Mac App Store, no packaging and at an upgrade price of effectively free $30

3. The placement of Mountain Lion on Apple.com. Bottom left, no flashy graphics and iPhone still front and center

The Operating System as we have known it, is gone. It is now little more than a software update with a cool name.

On OSX Mountain Lion

What is fit & finish?

There are plenty of posts out there on the internets with a point-by-point list of all the juicy bits of Mountain Lion. This is not such a post. My interest lies in the direction Mountain Lion is going in the context of overall experience. Thus far, my time with Mountain Lion has been very pleasant. I am running it as close to my regular setup as possible. The heavy hitters are all set up (iTunes,Aperture et al) and I even dared to install Skype.

Apple seems to have rethought the “Reader” design and placement and displays it more prominently now in Safari. From my experience, few people know of this features existence and admittedly, I find it’s implementation quite awkward. Now with the Google Search being integrated a-la Chrome into the address bar, the “Reader” button gets a better seat at the table.

But this is weird. The sequence of input behind this “Reader” functionality just seems half baked to me. To me, it plays like this:  I’m surfing the interwebs, find an article, start reading to see if its interesting, if its interesting then I interrupt my reading and click the “Reader” button. Everything becomes pretty and clean but I need to find my place again.

I love the intent, but it never plays out in reality. I’m always too late into the article for it to be worth it. To me, this could be a basic feature yet it is disguised as a pro feature, which makes it the worst kind of perpetrator against a good experience.

Launchpad was and remains a piece of clothing inherited from the iOS that still doesn’t quite fit right. It’s the pair of jeans from your brother that look awesome but you still haven’t grown enough to fit in them. I’m not sure what needs to be done here but right now it still isn’t working. Maybe it’s something as simple as using another gesture but I still can’t wrap my head around it. When I trigger it, for some reason the dock comes up. Is this meant to replace the dock or accompany it? If accompany, then why display the same icons to the same apps on the launchpad AND on the dock?

Notification Center needs a gesture. No joke. It needs something.. anything instead of its current implementation for it is a plague on both your houses: 

– Update – I have been informed by fellow blogger Dimitri Kontaris that Notification Center does indeed have a gesture. Two finger swipe, right to left from off the trackpad. Very cool

Reminder, Contacts and Notes are iOS all the way and everything you would expect them to be. One thing to note however (and this has bothered me for quite some time), Notes ≠ Stickies. They need to either consolidate or bring stickies to iOS in a separate app.

On Gatekeeper, I believe John Gruber got it spot on so I have nothing to add:

My favorite Mountain Lion feature, though, is one that hardly even has a visible interface. Apple is calling it “Gatekeeper”. It’s a system whereby developers can sign up for free-of-charge Apple developer IDs which they can then use to cryptographically sign their applications. If an app is found to be malware, Apple can revoke that developer’s certificate, rendering the app (along with any others from the same developer) inert on any Mac where it’s been installed. In effect, it offers all the security benefits of the App Store, except for the process of approving apps by Apple. Users have three choices which type of apps can run on Mountain Lion:

• Only those from the App Store
• Only those from the App Store or which are signed by a developer ID
• Any app, whether signed or unsigned

The default for this setting is, I say, exactly right: the one in the middle, disallowing only unsigned apps. This default setting benefits users by increasing practical security, and also benefits developers, preserving the freedom to ship whatever software they want for the Mac, with no approval process.

Finally, here is a comment carried over from Lion with regards to full screen apps. I understand the reasoning behind it and for the most part, I support it. But there are instances where it breaks. Messages is one of those instances. I believe that as often as there is a legitimate basis for an app to run in full screen mode, there is just as often a basis for some apps to not run full screen. Contacts and Reminders follows this reasoning yet Notes, logically so, does not. Messages needs to join Contacts and Reminders. In some cases, apps (Aperture/iPhoto) are in need of establishing how exactly running in full screen makes things better, if it all, and functionality needs to be clearly separated. Otherwise there is no gain and simply dragging the app out to the screen edges brings about the same effect.

Furthermore, full screen mode cannot = no time & date display. Yes it comes down when you mouse up to the edge but I need to know what time it is after surfing YouTube aimlessly for 2 hrs.

As I have more time with Mountain Lion I will update and extend my thoughts. But for now, Mountain Lion is so far so good.

-DF

An 8″ iPad

The WSJ is running a story that Apple is currently testing out an 8″ iPad.

What people think this means:

Apple now acknowledges the possibility of sub 9.7″  tablets as being worthy of exploration. Consequently, this might be a subtle backpedal to Jobs’ contention that smaller screen sizes are DOA which up until now has been true. (We don’t really know because Amazon hasn’t released Kindle Fire Sales)

What I think this means:

Classic Apple disinformation. 9.7″ is perfect, anything smaller starts to tread on iPod touch territory. If anything, there is plenty of room in the screen game for Apple to go upwards. Given the right weight-to-shape ratio, a 15″-ish tablet is certainly desirable to accommodate content that the current 9.7″ iPad strives to squeeze in.

Really, I think there is a reason that newspapers are the size that they are.

However, fundamentally this is an argument about the intersection between ease of use and portability. Perhaps the better argument is centered around screen resolution rather than screen size as it is done with the iPhone. Despite attempts by competitors who all seem to be engaged in some crazy whack-a-mole screen size game, the iPhone has held its own for 5 years now.

Or, as Cook put it in the most recent earnings call when asked about whether the “success” of larger screen phones has impacted Apple’s view:

“We just sold 37 million iPhones and could have sold more with the supply. There are a lot of people out there who like what we’re doing.”

 

 

 

The first post

This is a blog that came about because I thought the tech world could need yet another person who rants and proclaims to have superior knowledge.

As far as these things go, I think i’ll just leave it at: nuff said

That is all, but there is more to come

-DF