June 2008 – Page 10

Snow Leopard: the next version of Mac OS X – due 2009

Apple has some teasers about Mac OS X 10.6: Snow Leopard and Snow Leopard Server Microsoft Exchange Support – Snow Leopard includes out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 built into Mail, Address Book, and iCal. Mac OS X uses the Exchange Web Services protocol to provide access to Exchange Server 2007. Because Exchange is supported … Continue reading “Snow Leopard: the next version of Mac OS X – due 2009”

Apple has some teasers about Mac OS X 10.6: Snow Leopard and Snow Leopard Server

Microsoft Exchange Support – Snow Leopard includes out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 built into Mail, Address Book, and iCal. Mac OS X uses the Exchange Web Services protocol to provide access to Exchange Server 2007. Because Exchange is supported on your Mac and iPhone, youâ€™ll be able to use them anywhere with full access to your email, contacts, and calendar.
New Media Layer – Snow Leopard introduces QuickTime X, a streamlined, next-generation platform that advances modern media and Internet standards. QuickTime X features optimized support for modern codecs and more efficient media playback, making it ideal for any application that needs to play media content.
OpenCL (Open Compute Library), makes it possible for developers to efficiently tap the vast gigaflops of computing power currently locked up in the graphics processing unit (GPU).
iCal Server 2 – the next major release of iCal Server, which includes group and shared calendars, push notifications, the ability to send email invitations to non-iCal Server users, and a browser-based application that lets users access their calendars on the web when theyâ€™re away from their Mac.
Address Book Server – Based on the emerging CardDAV specification, which uses WebDAV to exchange vCards, Address Book Server lets users share personal and group contacts across multiple computers and remotely access contact information without the schema limitations and security issues associated with LDAP.
ZFS – Snow Leopard Server adds read and write support for the high-performance, 128-bit ZFS file system, which includes advanced features such as storage pooling, data redundancy, automatic error correction, dynamic volume expansion, and snapshots.

Entitlementards…

The BBC News weighs in on the iPhone 3G release but the more interesting opinions are in the comments. Vish of London writes: “After Apple’s arrogant and blase behaviour over their flaws in the Safari browser, I am going to stick with Nokia. At least their platform is secure and they have decades of experience … Continue reading “Entitlementards…”

The BBC News weighs in on the iPhone 3G release but the more interesting opinions are in the comments.

Vish of London writes:

“After Apple’s arrogant and blase behaviour over their flaws in the Safari browser, I am going to stick with Nokia. At least their platform is secure and they have decades of experience of designing excellent phones and operating systems.”

Yeah….except that they don’t design their own operating system but rather license it from Symbian. And they don’t design their own browser, they use Webkit in the S60 series….which is the rendering engine behind Safari and would therefore have the same flaws. And their operating system construction is going so well that they just bought Trolltech. Why? Not to get a better browser because, whatayaknow, Trolltech uses WebKit too.

It’s exactly this sort of muddled factoids that mean people stick with Microsoft. And you know what – as long as hackers see Windows as low hanging fruit, it makes life easier for the rest of us.

Sherif Kadry, Houston, TX demands to be known as an entitlement bitch!

“This is absolutely disgusting, I had to dish out about $399 for the iPhone 1.0. I got a sub-par phone which incidentally I had to replace two times because of quality control issues at Apple. Now they release a 3G version that is substantially cheaper, I am more anti-Apple than ever.”

Oh noes! Sherif had to dish out all that money for the iPhone. Someone forced him. This is unpossible!

Yeah, it sucks that stuff gets cheaper but that’s what happens, especially when you buy a 1.0 product that changes the world.

WWDC Keynote highlights

There were two things shown during the WWDC Keynote today. The first was new software. This software will be available to everyone who has an iPhone, new or old in July and available to iPod ouch users for $9.95 (which will probably be about Â£7.99 in the UK). The second was hardware: the iPhone 3G … Continue reading “WWDC Keynote highlights”

The second was hardware: the iPhone 3G was announced. It’s pretty much the same device – it has two differences however.

There’s a 3G radio in there allowing access to the UMTS/HSDPA networks. This will step down to GSM/EDGE if 3G is not available which provides a decent fallback. One big advantage of the 3G radio is that it can be used at the same time as taking a call – something that has proved to be an iPhone annoyance – you can’t browse the web while on the telephone! HSDPA supports download speeds from 0.9 Mbps to 14.4 Mbps so until we get more information, it’s going to be anyone’s guess.

The second hardware difference is GPS. Gone is the ‘yeah, you’re somewhere in this town’ and now it’ll pinpoint you right down to your street position and follow you around. That’s what a GPS is for. It’s not going to read instructions to you so it’s not like your Tom-Tom but on the plus side I’m not going to have to buy maps for every inch of the planet if I go travelling.

Let’s face it – unless you’re a real geek, you’re likely going to be happy with current iPhone hardware and won’t need the iPhone 3G at all. You’ll just be able to take advantage of the hundreds of new apps that will be available for free (and for pay), you’ll get the new calculator, better attachment support (now it does iWork documents, Word, Excel and Powerpoint!), the new integration with ‘mobileme’ and other stuff they thought wasn’t interesting enough to cover in a keynote.

Apple said they had already sold 6 million iPhones in the first year while only being released in half a dozen countries. They’re going to be launching in 60 countries….and the price is down to $199 (Â£120 or so) for the 8 Gb version (the version I paid Â£269 (over $500!) for.

Price is likely the biggest sticking point with the iPhone. Not so any more.

Steve Jobs wanted to sell 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008. He sold 6 million at the old price in 1 year. Do you think he’ll sell 4 million more at the new price? Yeah, obvious huh?

Muni-WiFi revisited

Evert Bopp writes about municipal wifi: The majority of networks that failed, failed because of either an in-ability to understand the technology used (in regards to performance, signal propagation, interference etc.), a lousy business model (unrealistic revenue forecasts, over reliance on third party content etc.) or a combination of both. The lack of understanding of … Continue reading “Muni-WiFi revisited”

Evert Bopp writes about municipal wifi:

The majority of networks that failed, failed because of either an in-ability to understand the technology used (in regards to performance, signal propagation, interference etc.), a lousy business model (unrealistic revenue forecasts, over reliance on third party content etc.) or a combination of both.
The lack of understanding of the technology quite often lead to the network either using not enough wireless nodes resulting in bad coverage, low throughput, high latency and other performance problems or to too many wireless nodes causing signal interference, “node hopping” etc. also resulting on performance problems. All this results in a dissatisfied user which in turn leads to bad publicity, falling revenue and investors losing confidence.
Lousy business models more often than not contained unrealistic user numbers and inflated revenue forecasts. Combine the two and you have a recipe for disaster.

Absolutely.

I’m enchanted by the idea of muni-wifi even to the point that I almost bought fifty (50, countem) mesh nodes from Meraki for deployment around Belfast.

This hardware was to be funded out of my own pocket.
There were going to be 3-4 network uplinks funded too, out of my own pocket – yes, using cheap-ass broadband links.
This was to cover the city centre as best I could, providing free (sign-up based) access to t’internet.
This was to invite others to assist by providing backup links, sharing bandwidth.
I hoped to entice additional mesh links via Belfast City Council.

I approached Belfast City Council and was told there was no need for something like this because BT was already providing BT OpenZone for Â£6 an hour. Seriously.

My desire for this was based on the number of times I wanted faster access to the Internet when I was in town. At the time I only had my Newt (with WiFi), my laptop (with WiFi), my Nokia N800 (with WiFi) or my iPod touch. I see less of a need for it these days because of my iPhone and the unlimited data plan but speedier access is still welcome. Because of unlimited data plans along with telephone calls and texts, the cost of data has reduced to effectively zero. This is going to make it hard in the future to justify any charge-based networks in the future. I certainly never join BTOpenZone networks these days.

While I love the idea of it, I have no confidence in the ability of councils to deliver. It’ll have to be private companies and then how are they to make money.

Fancy a tablet?

If there’s one thing that Apple seems to manage, it’s the user experience of a device or application. You only have to look at the success of the iPod to show that they know how to make a device usable and how to make it desirable. You could also point at the Mac whose market … Continue reading “Fancy a tablet?”

If there’s one thing that Apple seems to manage, it’s the user experience of a device or application.

You only have to look at the success of the iPod to show that they know how to make a device usable and how to make it desirable. You could also point at the Mac whose market share was lost due to marketing as opposed to capability. Apple is currently taking the mobile phone market by storm with their new iPhone.

Which brings me to the title: Apple and tablets.

As most will remember, Apple had a dalliance for half a decade with the Newton and evolved it to a very competent PDA (a term they coined) and then seemed to throw it away. Comments from developers show that while everyone seemed to love the Newton, it was an empire built upon sand and was probably better retired rather than trying to make it next generation.

So why should Apple make a tablet.

The simplest reason is this:

This brick cannot be permitted to be the latest next generation tablet computer. Don’t see what’s wrong with it?

Look at the decals in the middle of the keyboard. Or the split space bar. Or the mouse control pad on the right hand side (god forbid you should be a southpaw). Or if that doesn’t illustrate it enough:

It’s a thickbrick.

[All Photos from Mobile01]

Apple to trump Nintendo in Gaming?

The short answer is:No. Touch Arcade writes: Apple Poised to Snatch the Crown from Nintendo™ DS Combine this seamless distribution model with beefy gaming hardware, a CPU that’s over six times the combined clockspeed of the DS’s processors (and nearly twice the clockspeed of the PSPs) and a screen with 50% more area than that … Continue reading “Apple to trump Nintendo in Gaming?”

The short answer is:No.

Touch Arcade writes:
Apple Poised to Snatch the Crown from Nintendo™ DS

Combine this seamless distribution model with beefy gaming hardware, a CPU that’s over six times the combined clockspeed of the DS’s processors (and nearly twice the clockspeed of the PSPs) and a screen with 50% more area than that of the DSs dual screens combined and you’ve got a winner, right?

I’d have thought by now that people, especially people who follow Apple, would have realised that specifications do not a success make. How many times has the iPod bucked the trend and beaten other players soundly even though it sports relatively meagre specifications?

Apple has kitted out the iPhone to compete with other smartphones and, perhaps to a lesser degree, subnotebooks. I certainly find it a lot more pleasurable to type on my iPhone than on my eeePC laptop keyboard. And yes, there will be a heap of games released for this new platform, but you have to ask yourself – is it truly a gaming platform – the answer is simply No.

OSX for generic PCs?

MacRumors writes: A few rumored changes could be positioning Apple for a transition to sell OS X for generic PCs: Changing .Mac to Me.com (platform neutral) OS X Leopard (not Mac OS X Leopard) 10.6 to be Intel only (dropping PowerPC would be necessary) “No new features” in 10.6 could be due to resources devoted … Continue reading “OSX for generic PCs?”

MacRumors writes:

A few rumored changes could be positioning Apple for a transition to sell OS X for generic PCs:

Changing .Mac to Me.com (platform neutral)

OS X Leopard (not Mac OS X Leopard)

10.6 to be Intel only (dropping PowerPC would be necessary)

“No new features” in 10.6 could be due to resources devoted to just making 10.6 “PC compatible”

and they add this photo:

Back in 2001, Jobs was very vocal about the name of the operating system being ‘Mac OS X (pronounced ‘ten’) and there were corrections made when individuals dropped the ‘Mac’ part of the name.

I think the main change in thought came with the release of the iPhone. Calling it iPhone OS 2.0 is technical, iPhone OSX sounds poo. I don’t think that Apple is ‘removing the Mac’, I think we’re just seeing some consistency in the branding especially as Apple have indicated that the operating system in the iPhone and iPod touch is going to power all of their handheld iPod devices.

So, we now have ‘OS X iPhone’ and ‘OS X Leopard’ on banners at a developer conference. These are not meant to indicate marketing messages. I think it’s unlikely that Apple will offer OEM deals with third party PC makers but they may open the licensing of Leopard so that individuals and companies may put Leopard on their own hardware.

However – with Apple’s focus on design (and the fact they have grabbed 66% of the high end $1000+ PC market) it seems very unlikely to me that they would endanger that by allowing individuals to reproduce a Mac on a cheap piece of hardware. Apple was bitten on this before with the Mac clones back in the 90s – it almost killed them.

I can’t honestly speculate on anything regarding 10.6 because, frankly, it’s a little early. I find it ridiculous that Apple would have gone to all this effort to make the OS universal and then one version later dropped PPC support. I think we will see PPC support continue to 10.6 but I’m doubtful it will go further. Apple has a history of supporting ‘the old way’ for 5 years. It’s what they did with Classic and it’ll be what they do with PowerPC. That said – we’re 2.5 years into those 5 years now – and Leopard is less than a year old. If we had Leopard for two full years, we’d not be far off the 5 year limit so 10.6 might end up being an Intel-only release after all.

As for the dropping of Mac.com and the replacement with Me.com – that’s pretty clever really and indicates to me more that Apple will be offering their online service to iPhone and PC users as well as just Mac users. That makes sense as PC users could very easily avail of some of the current .Mac services considering they already have iTunes, Quicktime, Safari and iPhone.

The changes we’re seeing are purely marketing. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Related posts:

Universal means everything

Develop for PPC AND Intel.

Snow Leopard: the next version of Mac OS X – due 2009

PCs for kids in developing countries

Microsoft re-invents the past. Again.

Back a hundred years ago when I was studying Human-Computer-Interaction, there was much discussion about touchscreens. They mostly discussed the difference between a mouse, a touchscreen and a light pen. The latter two devices got short shrift from my lecturer as they had two issues. your arm obscured the screen your arm would get tired … Continue reading “Microsoft re-invents the past. Again.”

your arm obscured the screen
your arm would get tired

The recent upswing in multi-touch touchscreen technology, pioneered by Jeff Han’s amazing multi-touch demo and brought to consumers a year ago in Apple’s iPhone, has produced a lot of speculation as to the nature of computing devices. For the same reasons as above, I think touchscreens, even with haptic responses, will become an additional way to interact. It has advantages and disadvantages – it absolutely sucks for data entry in the same way that voice recognition sucks for data entry. In addition, touchscreens might be fine for 17 screens but do you really want to spend a day directly manipulating data on a 30″ LCD? Or two of them?

Let’s experiment.
Put your keyboard just ABOVE your monitor. Put your hands on your keyboard. Now imagine that being your new work position? Of course – it’s going to be bollocks.

None of this stops Microsoft re-announcing multi-touch like it’s new all over again.

This is what happens when someone innovates and Microsoft photocopies. There will be poor implementations of multi-touch for the next few years from Microsoft (remember that Windows 7 is still slated for 2010) just as they have ‘bullet pointed’ every innovation from other companies.

“Multi-touch? Sure, our OS has multi-touch. It’s shit and doesn’t work right but our end users will blame themselves for not being better at using it so we’ll get away with our shoddy implementation. Anyone for Foosball?

This is the pattern I’ve seen repeated now for over a decade with Microsoft. I remember mentioning cool new technologies and my friend countering them with “Yeah, Windows has that”. One of the conversations had this gist…

Me: Cool new feature in Mac OS – Location Manager. You select this option and with one click can choose which network ports to activate, whether sharing should be on or off and so forth. It’s a simple selection – it’s great – takes all the work out of changing locations.

Friend: Yeah, Windows has had that for ages.

Me: It requires a reboot? How do you set your options? You have to edit the configs directly? Uh, that sucks…

Friend: Heh. MACINTOSH stands for “Macintosh Always Crashes If Not Then Operating System Hangs!

Me: I have to go over there now…

It never mattered on the QUALITY of the implementation, just that the bullet point was fulfilled. This was repeated again and again over the last two decades and it just staggered me that people who were, to all intents and purposes intelligent, still endured the awfulness of Windows.

Back in 1996 when I was living in Belfast, Apple wasn’t doing so well and I refrained from convincing a friend to buy a Mac. He had no intention anyway – but I remember him laughing at our Macs afterwards (he’d gotten excellent PC-buying advice consisting of hearsay about how Macs were crash-happy). Five minutes at his flat showed how he worked with his PC. He screamed at it. He bashed the monitor. He repeated data entry again and again because Word simply couldn’t handle the large files he was throwing at it. In the end he finished his dissertation on a Mac he borrowed from me and yet still, even in the face of superior capability (on an older, slower machine) still remained a PC user.

It was around then I came to the conclusion that as well as perceptive, cognitive and emotional intelligence, there must be some sort of ‘common sense’ intelligence that was missing. It’s one thing to never use a Mac and be ignorant of the advantages. It’s another thing entirely to have them spelled out, demonstrated, used and then still defend your shoddy technology choices.

This neatly segways into two conversations I had recently about the rumours surrounding the new iPhone. Cheaper prices? Wider distribution? There’s a sizeable number of people who have iPhones now who do not want the general public to have iPhones – they enjoy the exclusivity.

We only have to wait a few days to see what is happening with the iPhone. And two years to see them poorly copied on Windows.

Focus

The focus I’m talking about now is in terms of your current window manager. I remember light-hearted but heated discussions about window managers – did people prefer ‘focus-follows-mouse’ or ‘focus-follows-click’. Focus follows mouse (FFM) means that the keyboard input and live widgets on screen are a result of the placement of the mouse pointer as … Continue reading “Focus”

Focus follows mouse (FFM) means that the keyboard input and live widgets on screen are a result of the placement of the mouse pointer as opposed to having to click on anything.
Focus follows click (FFC) means that your focus is based on the last window you clicked on.

On the various Unixen and Linuxen I’ve worked on, this was very configurabele. My preference was FFM and I also didn’t demand that focus ‘raised’ a window to the foreground – you had to click for that. This meant you could manipulate windows in the background. Very useful if you had limited screen space and needed to view data in a backgrounded window. For the most part, focus remains where you send it, it’s responsive that way – focus does not leave when alerts come up because the system itself seems to own the windows.

On Mac OS X, without the use of third party hacks, focus follows click though, with strategic use of the ALT (option) key, you can manipulate backgrounded windows (scrolling, buttons) without bringing it to the front. This is a reasonable compromise. In addition, alerts are restricted to applications and while an alert may cause an application to become unhidden, it never steals focus. Foregrounded windows also have very deep drop shadows so it’s very easy to pick up when a window is no longer backgrounded.

On Windows, Focus always follows click. This wouldn’t be so bad if the default window colour wasn’t so similar between active and inactive windows. In addition, there are no other cues to tell you whether a window is foregrounded or backgrounded. Worse, any alert that comes up has a potential to steal focus. An alert window from Outlook steals focus from whatever application you are using (as has happened half a dozen times while writing this blog post). This means that instead of the comforting click of the keyboard and the adding of content, you get the Windows default error ‘bloop’ for every key you hit.

The user-hostile behaviour of Windows is yet another reason I loathe this operating system. There seems to be no default way to change this behaviour and I can’t install third party hacks on this system.