After all the anticipation that preceded Apple's unveiling of the iPad, it is not really any surprise that the actual device seemed a bit of an anticlimax. After all, anything that didn't actually appear to be magic wouldn't have lived up to the hype. And because that isn't the way that Apple do business. For example:
Version 1 of Apple mobile products are down-specced, as millions of fans will buy them anyway. See iPhone non-3G/non cut&paste/non MMS, etc. It also means there is an easy upgrade option.
Multi-tasking apps are a software upgrade: they don't need to be there when you buy the hardware. And Apple aren't going to let them happen until the next generation of iPhone battery is ready to run them too.
But more importantly, the device seemed a bit of an anticlimax because most of the launch event was all about the device. And the exciting bit of how Apple revolutionise things isn't about devices, it's about experiences. iPods were just pretty MP3 players without iTunes. iPhones were an expensive niche until the App Store. Macbook hardware is no different to a top notch pc, except it runs OSX not Windows.
So if the software that iPads are designed for is all about content, then this should be where the magic appears. This is an example of how Penguin are thinking about books in future
This isn't the Apple approved way of thinking about books - the iBooks approach seems to be a more colourful version of the Kindle, basically a digital version of paper. Penguin are rethinking what 'book' means. And to them is means audio, video, augmented reality, live chat, 3D, communities, and anything else that is limited only by their imaginations, not by the medium. It will live in the app store rather than iTunes, and by the looks of it it will be utterly awesome. Apple's role is in creating the hardware and the ecosystem on which reinvention and imagination can flourish,
So way back when IBM stalked the earth, computers were closed systems. The whole evolution of Microsoft from IBM OS provider to the monopoly that crushed Netscape was based on allowing market forces to drive down hardware prices whilst keeping control of the software. Outside of the design/advertising/music niches that supported Apple through the 90s there was no hardware plus software alternative. It wasn't until storage, processing and distribution became cheap enough to threaten content industries that closed hardware started to reappear: Sony, with music and movie businesses as well as the hardware to play them, drove DRM across all devices (not just in MP3 and DVDs: for years their cameras used proprietary memory sticks that had to be read on Sony readers). Usability and user choice became secondary to the requirements of content owners and device manufacturers.
While peer to peer or open systems have changed the way we think about communications (Skype), advertising (Google), IT (Linux), music (BitTorrent) etc over the last ten years, this has gone hand in hand with the rise and rise of Apple. iTunes may have removed DRM as soon as it was strong enough, but only because DRM is not Apple's control, it is someone else's. Having reinvented music distribution and mobile phones, Apple is now casting its eyes over the publishing industry. To be fair, the publishing industry is glad of the attention, as this offers book publishers an alternative to Amazon/Kindle, newspaper publishers an alternative to losing readers, and both of them an alternative to Google.
The marriage of revolutionary design, innate usability and utter hardware/software compatibility means that the 95% (NB made up stat) of people who don't care about how something works or how to improve it or how to squeeze every drop of performance out of it, will never need to worry about an Apple product doing what it is meant to. It just works. Apple created new categories: there are MP3 players, and there are iPods. There are mobiles, and there are iPhones. And by the time the iPad actually arrives in shops i'd guess there will also be tablet pcs. But they won't just work.
If you think about the future of innovation and technology, then this is a scary thought. One closed platform controlling access to music, books, newspapers and (somewhere along the line) TV. Ok you can develop for the that platform, but only along carefully prescribed lines and at the risk of not being accepted to run on it. (BTW i'm suggesting here that I think that the iPad will be a big success, but not as big a success as it will be in two years' time)
Even more worrying is that that platform is controlled by one person. However successful Apple have been recently, their share price dropped dramatically when the rumours of Steve Jobs' illness circulated in autumn 2008Although that could have been the recession as well. Nevertheless, it is an awful lot of control in the hands of one man with a recent history of health problems.
I think it is hard to square this one. Philosophically I believe in the power of open systems to drive innovation and human value. But I'm going to keep buying the closed ones because they work better. And I think that the number of people who think like that is only going to increase. I guess that this means that I'd better listen to those YouTube sales reps at work, as Google is only going to stay open and innovative for as long as the Google Revenue Equation holds true, and that equation is driven by the returns from paid search and video.
So I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I'm researching some new entertainment hardware. At some point this might lead to actually buying some, but in the meantime it is a bit of light entertainment for geeks. But since I've written a lot here over the last year about how technology can (or at some point over the next few years, will) disrupt how we consume entertaining content, it is also relevant to post. Not least because it cuts to the heart of the open vs closed internet/technology systems battle.As there's a fair chance that no-one will be remotely interested in what my living room looks like, I'm going to post this in two parts. The first one is all about me, so you will probably want to skip on to the second one, which is more about the internet....
Ok, so the 'converged hardware' stuff first. There's a joke about a suburban couple who are going to see their friends in the countryside, and somewhere down the winding country roads get horribly lost (geek caveat - obviously a pre satnav joke). Eventually they see a farmer walking up to the side of the road, and pull up to ask him how to get to their friend's house. He looks at them, looks across the field, and has a think. Eventually he says "Well I'm not too sure. But I know I wouldn't start from here"
I've been thinking about that a lot when looking at hardware, as like anyone else who has a computer, a mobile and a TV, I am starting from here. And here is different for everyone. I have a Sky+ box with lots of movies and sports on it, and I have a MacBook that syncs to my mobile, camera and video camera. I also have a remote hard drive that stores all the music, photos etc so they don't take up extra storage on my wife's computer. All the Sky subscriptions work on any computer or our mobiles. I pull YouTube, iPlayer, 4OD, etc into a Boxee interface on my computer, more because I can than because it is particularly easier. I could use my phone as a remote control, but that also seems a little bit pointless if it is only controlling a laptop.
What I'd like to be able to do is:
1. put all this stuff onto a TV screen (ok the Sky stuff is already there, but....) 2. I can only record Sky movies onto the Sky+ box
I could rip movies in real time on my laptop from SkyPlayer, but what's the point when I could buy it on DVD, cos it's easier.
So some of this is possible. XBox is leading the way in putting TV content back on the TV screen (some 9% of iPlayer streams were delivered through XBox OS in December 09). Boxee (based on Xbox Media Center software) would just need a couple of connecters to plug my laptop into the TV, or alternatively I could wait until the Boxee set top box that D-Link are producing is released in the UK, at come point in the next few months. Or until the end of the year when Project Canvas set top boxes apparently deliver on their promise of being Freeview for internet TV. Or I could track down a second hand Mac Mini, which does a computer's job while looking like a set top box. However, as I'm starting from where I am at the moment, I wouldn't dream of using Apple TV, which is based on the iTunes premise of micropayment for content. I've bought into the 'all you can eat' Sky+ version.
And none of this will help me to link up with, and record movies to view later though, Sky. Sky+ was revolutionary because it just works - anyone can use it (rather than any other hardware or software DVRs that I have seen, which take a spare few hours and a degree in hardware geekery - so ok for me, but no fun for the rest of the family). In order to just work, it is a closed proprietary system that doesn't play nice with pretty much anything else. That doesn't mean that the content that goes into it is closed: you can fit satellite cards into computers. So that leads me onto the question of whether it is worth buying a new computer to run a software DVR alongside the Sky+. Now I've already mentioned a Mac Mini, and if it was that simple then I'd go and get one, but unfortunately Apple is also a pretty closed system for which Sky satellite cards are not available. So I'd be looking at a Windows 7 machine.
This could well be a blessing, as Windows 7 Media Center is rumoured to be extremely good at syncing with multiple TV cards (which I'd need, so that I could stream Sky content and record to disc whilst watching other stuff). That starts to look quite expensive though, when you add in all the add-ons that a Windows machine would need to sync, store, network and deliver content. Because if i was going all out and buying a new pc, then it would need to be able to do music over the network as well......
So there doesn't seem to be an easy way forward. There are just a lot of different ways, all of which will work to a degree, with a lot of effort, and probably less than seamlessly. And you can probably tell by my current reliance on Apple and Sky products, lack of effort and seamless are all important. That's the beauty of closed systems - someone else does the difficult bit for you so that everything just works. The flip side is that customising, improving, making things work together becomes more difficult if they aren't designed as part of the same ecosystem.
Want to run a virtual iPhone on your iPhone? There's an app for that. No, really. Aside from complete meta-awesomeness, I'm not sure what purpose it serves. But then meta-awesomeness should be reason enough for something to exist. It exists because it can. (and because then iPhone fans like me will link to it.....)
This has been coming for a while, but the first view of a Spotify mobile app was unveiled today at Google's I/O developer conference. And the venue should give us a strong clue that this ain't no iPhone kit. Oh no. Given the huge potential conflict with iTunes, that has yet to happen, and this is an Android development.
To be honest, I believe that Spotify has too much potential for Apple to ignore, and it may well be that the iPhone app is in development (actually it is strongly rumoured to be: the question is more about whether Apple will approve it). Given Apple's previous preference for exclusive deals of the O2/AT&T variety, I had a suspicion that Spotify would only be allowed onto the iPhone as an exclusive (and no doubt premium subscription/buy-through-iTunes revenue share deal) handset partner.
The Android version has clearly blown this out of the water, and if this app can stream and cache to a handheld with the stability and zero latency that the Spotify desktop app offers, then Apple will soon be playing catch-up. I know I am a confirmed lover of Spotify as much as I am an iTunes-sceptic, but I reckon this could be the relaunch that Android needs.
Isn't it great when you find that what you want to write has already been written by someone far more knowledgeable about a subject. I've written about how I think TV might develop using Boxee, Facebook Connect, Apple TV, XBox 360, etc, in a networked technological future, and wanted to find out a bit more (for a 'What to look out for in 2009' sort of post that may or may not happen this month). But fortunately Roo Reynolds, Portfolio Executive for Social Media at BBC Vision, has already written this - well worth checking out here
I was reading Douglas Copeland on the 25th anniversary of the Mac in Intelligent Life today (I do still sometimes read things on paper, even though i can't link to them), and as well as being as obsessive and superior as all Apple fan writing, it also suggested that Apple was a geek brand. I've always been fairly neutral about Apple products... actually no, I've always tried to be, but then get wound up by the fanboys who look down their noses at better products made by other companies. What I mean is that I don't personally use their machines as I don't like the software, but can see how you could get seduced by the hardware into overlooking the stuff i don't like.
It was the Geek label that confused me though, as to me Apple should be everything that a geek hates. It's the last big walled garden, that has never opened up hardware or software for computing or phone products. Personalisation, hacking and enhancing are core to geekery, whereas Macs are meant to be used exactly as they are - it is industrial era design; "we are the manufacturers, we know best". It also represents the opposite of open source, at a time when even major labels are moving away from DRM.
So I had a look back at what exactly we think of as a geek. Wikipedia has the following definition
"a peculiar or otherwise odd person, especially one who is perceived to be overly obsessed with one or more things including those of intellectuality, electronics, gaming, etc.
So you can be a subject specific geek like a maths geek or even an Apple geek. And I suppose it is a tech geek that would find the most problems with Apple - after all, being a geek is all about not conforming to mainstream opinions. But that is getting into splitting hairs - geek is also a generic term. So i completed the Geek Test on innergeek, which pretty much confirmed that all the things that I considered geeky are accurate. It also confirmed that I was a major geek, and I have the badge to prove it. (The fact that I am writing this post would probably put me up to the next level in itself. As would the fact I care). So I thought about who I would class as geeks.... and the obvious place to start is England's Head Geek, the man who can make a social network famous and break a Blackberry with a few tweets, Stephen Fry. OK, probably the world's biggest Apple fan. 2nd person in the UK to own a Mac. Can communicate with the Twitterverse using iPhone video in parts of Madagascar where there isn't even a phone signal.
So i asked around the office, and sure enough, most people whose geek opinions i respect actually bring their Macbooks in to work rather than have to suffer using PCs.
So am I missing something? What part of the walled garden of Apple DRM is convincing everyone else that it is the one true tech path? Anyone?
Following on from Nick's post about CBS social viewing rooms, there's a few more bits of kit out there that are putting conversation at the heart of the viewing experience, to help drag the good ol' tellie back into the forefront of media innovation.
I'd argue that it is user experience rather than distribution speed that is the main thing preventing on demand TV reaching mass appeal. 99% of the population are happy with the big screen in the corner of the room, even if the little one on their lap gives them access to far more content. Once the content can easily move between the two, then we start to see a fully on demand viewing experience available back on the TV screen. I had expected that the hardware that will deliver this will become available (probably iTunes/Apple TV based) and have appeal outside of early adopters once Kangaroo made huge great piles of back catalogue and nostalgia available, and marketed it heavily (using iPlayer as a benchmark for my future guessing).
The obvious problem with mass take-up of on demand is that it takes away the role of TV as a conversation starter - the water cooler moment. This won't happen overnight, but it will slowly eat away at the central role that TV plays in the national psyche. Which is ironic, when brands that have historically relied on TV for advertising are starting to realise that communication might actually be a two-way process.
Gamers on the other hand have been able to converse via the TV set for years, since the launch of XBox Live in 2002. Over 60% of US owners pay the annual subscription for the service. So it is no surprise that the next release is rumoured to include a much wider range of social recommendation tools, for a range of gaming and entertainment content. And this type of social feature is starting to make its way into the next generation of entertainment hubs - Boxee is a downloadable app that organises all the content on a PC or streamed live from the likes of Hulu. It is designed on the basis that it will be viewed on a big screen and operated via remote, and it has social recommendation at its heart - it can't actually share content with friends, but can recommend. You would expect that the next move from here is along the lines of CBS's ideas about individual groups of friends all being able to start off viewing simultaneously and comment over the TV screen. This begs the question of whether the big social networks are missing a trick - surely Facebook TV would be a viable option? Again, it depends on having the infrastructure to deliver content to the TV screen (both the broadband distribution and the hardware in the home), but television is inherently social so the readymade friend network and app environment would give this type of application a distinct advantage.
The real trick being really missed though is gaming devices. The social element is already built in, and they already bridge the gap between laptop and TV, and there will be a huge gap in the market in the UK around Kangaroo launch time. 6 months on from Hulu launching in the US the hardware manufacturers are still chasing their tails.
Could XBox or Playstation running Kangaroo on a Facebook app be coming to a living room near you?
