Category Archives: Apple

Apple, Featured Articles, Technology

ezCalc Now Available

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ezCalcOn December 30th in Manhattan on an early-morning walk I was passing through Greenwich Village when I decided that I was going to set a goal for myself. I said I would design, develop and debug an iPhone application and then submit it to the App Store by January 31st.

I watched two courses on lynda.com by Simon Allardice by time I went to bed on January 4th, then I woke up Saturday and started coding. Sometimes I would need to refer back to the courses to refresh my memory, but I finished the app on January 10th. Then I took another course by Bill Weinman on how to release an app to the App Store. After work on Friday the 11th I started to create all of my app’s art work, using Photoshop as my main tool. I was able to use many techniques I learned from Deke McClelland.

I submitted my app to the App Store on the night of January 11th and it was approved last night. It was very rewarding to set a goal that forced me to reach outside my comfort zone and to achieve it.

I don’t actually consider monetary reward as the basis for success and achievement in this case. I set a goal, created an app that I am really proud of, learned a lot, and achieved that goal. I’ve tried to do this before, actually. I’ve wanted to ship an app for the iPhone ever since the iPhone SDK was announced years ago.

The difference here was lynda.com and, in particular, to the awesome Simon Allardice.

I hope you enjoy the app!

http://ezcalc.it

Apple, Featured Articles, Microsoft, Technology

My Thoughts on the Windows 8 Preview

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By now many people have seen the Windows 8 preview video and I’ve read several comments about it on Facebook, Twitter, and many other sites. I watched the video too. And I was impressed to see the different type of thinking that was happening up in Redmond – right up until the 3:06 mark where they finally show that all of this new stuff is just a layer on top of the old Windows.

When the video started I had such high hopes that Microsoft was really going to do it this time. They were finally going to step up and do a Windows 95-esque type change to the PC computing world.

Let me just mention one feature from the video and explain how I still see an issue with how they’re still thinking. The tiles have no consistency. Microsoft simply does not understand consistency. Sometimes the tiles are big. Sometimes they’re small. Sometimes they have a photo. Sometimes they have an icon (but that icon might be small, large, left, right, top, bottom, full-color, or white). Some tiles have text – but that text can be small, large, left, right, under an image, etc. Sometimes you can have 9 tiles to a screen sometimes you can have more. Some tiles are animated. Some of them are orange.

I look at the screen as a whole and the first thing that I see is confusion. There is no consistency. I have to start reading each tile to see what it is for, what it does, and what it is telling me. This reminds me of so many changes that Microsoft labelled as “innovations” that forced me to re-learn my way around the computer. I know I personally didn’t find them innovative. I found the changes annoying. And I could name a lot of other people who did, too, but I won’t.

I totally get that each person has their preference, which is why I said “I look at the screen…” instead of “Anybody who looks at that screen…”. But I feel that Microsoft is trying to catch up to Apple in all the wrong ways. In other words, I don’t think they’re realizing what truly matters. I think they’re overlooking it completely because they’re driven by what they *think* matters.

It is so interesting to me that I just wrote “Microsoft is trying to catch up to Apple” just now. If this were 5 years ago, I would have said the exact opposite thing. Isn’t it remarkable what is possible in such a short time?

A friend of mine posted the Windows 8 video on Facebook with the comment “Wondering why Apple pre-announced iOS 5? Wonder no more.” I actually disagree with that, for a couple of reasons.

First, Windows already has so much more market share in the desktop and laptop PC world than Apple does that it’s not even a real comparison. Second, Apple has a mere fraction of the number of products that Microsoft does.

Even taking that in to account, however, Apple has more revenue and profit (as of the last quarter reported) than Microsoft does. All I’m trying to say is that I really don’t think Windows 8 worries Apple in the slightest. Because based on what I saw in that video, Microsoft will primarily accomplish two things:

1. Introduce a new version of Windows that will sell a gazillion copies and keep the cash cow going – but won’t affect Apple at all.

2. Release something that barely, if even, stays current with competitors.

I predict no significant change in market share over the next 5 years except to say that I bet Windows will have less then than it does now, by whatever the percentage.

I say the following with the senior leadership at Microsoft in mind, not many of my friends who are brilliant, passionate, and wonderful people who work there. That said, the way I see it, it has become useless for Microsoft to simply do better than itself, because “itself” is stale.

I reiterate what I’ve said several times over the past couple of years. It is time for new leadership at Microsoft. And I’m not only talking about Steve Ballmer.

Apple, Featured Articles, Microsoft, Technology

Microsoft Tries to Change History

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In a YouTube video posted by “WindowsPhone”, Microsoft claims that the mobile phone industry has hit a wall, and that each new smartphone that is released is only slightly better than the one before it. While this is being said, they show tons of smartphones including the iPhone.

I think it’s important to be truthful here and say that if not for the iPhone being released 3 years ago, Microsoft never would have even started Windows Phone 7 Series. They would have just made insignificant improvements on their Windows Mobile platform just as they had done for the previous six years. So I have two main issues with this video.

To claim that the iPhone is just a slightly better smartphone than the one that came before it is simply one of the most preposterous things I’ve ever heard. Even if you don’t like Apple or their products you still can’t deny the effect the iPhone had on the entire industry. It was at a virtual standstill until the iPhone came along.

Second, to claim that Windows Phone 7 Series is the mobile OS that breaks through the wall that Microsoft claims exists in the mobile industry is really only true when you compare it to Windows Mobile. What the video should have said is “At Microsoft, we hit a wall with our mobile phone strategy.”

iPhone OS and Android are clearly setting the pace in today’s world. But 9 months from now when the first Windows Phone 7 Series hits the market (provided there are no delays) we’ll see just how much of an impact it makes.

Watch the video here.

Apple, Featured Articles, Microsoft, Technology

My Mom is On Board

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What would life be like without a cellular phone? Just consider that for a moment. You can’t make a call whenever you want. You can’t send a text message to anyone, or receive one. You can’t send or receive any email, either.

Now consider that this extends in to your home and office. You have no computer.

Think about that. You do not have a computer of any kind at home or at work. That means you have never sent or received a single email. You’ve only browsed the web once or twice from a friend’s house when you’ve been visiting. But browsing the Internet is pretty simple. All you have to do is click on things and read or watch. But you’ve never received a photo of your son, daughter or granddaughter who live on the opposite coast that was taken five minutes ago. You missed your granddaughter’s first steps because you didn’t get the email that went out to everyone else that had the link to the YouTube video. And because you live 35 miles from the nearest bookstore, you couldn’t browse the latest releases without conquering the snow and sleet.

But let’s get back to having a computer. You don’t. So you have no idea how to use one.

There are lots of examples of people who might fit this description. My mother is a mail carrier in a rural area. She’s never needed a computer. She’s never even really wanted one. She lives in a rural area and said that because of her location, $80 per month would be her monthly internet access bill (after paying $299 for equipment).

I asked her “would $30 per month for unlimited traffic be an amount you’re comfortable with?” She said yes. She didn’t believe me and assured me that she had called all around to phone companies and satellite companies and cable companies and that $80 per month was the cheapest that she could get.

So I put myself in her position and ignored everything I know about computers and imagined that someone put an iPad in front of me. They tell me that “Safari” means the Internet, but that’s all. I can see everything else (Mail, Contacts, Clock, Maps, Calendar, etc.) makes perfect sense. I’m told that all I have to do is reach out and touch the thing I want to do. That doesn’t seem likely, but I do it anyway. Suddenly the web appears. I see something I’m interested in so I reach out and touch it. All of this without any wires or keyboards.

Something is strange – I’m online and there was no hassle. I’m instantly productive on the Internet. How can this be? I don’t even know how to use a computer. But somehow it’s just working.

There’s no other machine and operating system in the world that offers anything even close to this kind of promise. And I will finally be able to email photos and video to my mother.

Apple, Microsoft, Technology

iPhone 3GS: I Should Pay More

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I got an iPhone 3G almost a year ago and I got a two-year cell service contract with AT&T so I could get a deep discount. I’ve loved the phone, and will love it even more after I install the iPhone OS 3.0 software on it.

Apple announced the iPhone 3GS at WWDC this week and some customers are throwing petitions around and complaining on their blogs and other web sites that AT&T should cut them a break and give them the discount normally reserved for those who have satisfied their contracts. I do not agree with these people.

I think the iPhone 3GS just puts Apple even further ahead of every other smart phone on the market in the world today than they already were. Blackberry folks have (to a large extent) remained loyal, but Windows Mobile and other smart phone operating systems have, to put it bluntly, failed miserably in the face of real-life innovation and their plummeting market share proves this.

I want the video camera. I want the digital compass. I want the faster 3G and the faster processor. But I should pay more because I haven’t satisfied my contract with AT&T. Once I have, over 12 months from now, there’ll likely be yet another new model on the horizon. So I’ll save my next discount for that one instead of whining and being greedy.

This DOES NOT MEAN that I’m fond of AT&T. I feel their data pricing is criminally-high and their laziness to market with the new features is completely ridiculous.

I should point out, though, that there are plenty of people out there who are still under contract who WILL pay the full, unsubsidized prices for the new 3GS. To these people I say bravo – enjoy your new phone!

Apple, Technology

Oh My!

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I preface this by saying that I did what most of my friends did. I followed the direct link to Apple’s web site to download what was supposedly the final version of the iPhone 2.0 firmware and I did the manual install. I did NOT do it the sanctioned way of going through iTunes. I therefore may have either a corrupted or out-dated version.

What’s up with the downloaded apps not starting up? I downloaded about 6 free apps and installed them, and for the first couple of days they worked. But for the last two days, they don’t launch. None of them. They try to, but after no more than five seconds, it gracefully returns to my home screen with no error message. Strangely, all of the standard iPhone applications work as they should.

So I write this with two things in mind.

1. If I’m on 5A347, am I on the wrong version?

2. If 5A237 is the final version of iPhone 2.0, Apple – what’s up with these apps not starting anymore?

Apple, Technology

The Art of Choice

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I saw a story on Digg that was a spoof on an iPhone commercial. The guy talked about spending $600 for the first model, then having the price get lowered by $200 in  almost no time (no mention of the $100 store credit that Apple gave all those customers, by the way). Then shelling out another $199 for the new iPhone 3G with a more expensive data plan. I didn’t personally get a new phone, but I know of a couple of people that did.

A comment on that Digg post by a guy named Jim read as follows:

“I’ll re-state what many other clear-minded people here have stated before: You don’t HAVE to buy the phone. Don’t like the prices? Go find another phone/carrier.

I can’t afford a Mercedes, but you don’t see me bitching to them about it in some shitty blog. Get over it.”

I couldn’t agree with this person more. Nobody is forcing anyone to stand in lines for hours. Nobody is forcing anyone to spend another $199 plus service charges. People are CHOOSING to do so. By the hundreds of thousands.

Apple, Microsoft, Technology

NBC's Shows on Zune

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I just read the article below, stating that Zune owners will be able to purchase NBC television shows for … wait for it … $1.99 per episode. Hmm. If I recall correctly, wasn’t that the same price they were on iTunes before Jeff Zucker decided to walk away?

If Microsoft is merely breaking even or taking a loss on these shows (to give NBC more money), I have to say that going from a business model that offers you tens of millions of customers to a business model that offers you (in comparison) closer to zero than tens of millions seems like a terrible decision to me. But I’ve blogged about Jeff Zucker’s terrible instincts and business sense before.

Zune is a device that hasn’t really made much of a (if any) dent in the iPod market. So to me this “partnership” between NBC and Microsoft is like the blind leading the blind.

Apple, Microsoft, Technology

Thoughts on Mix, Ballmer, and the iPhone SDK

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I am a software developer and architect (currently using Microsoft technologies) so of course I was interested to watch the sessions from the MIX conference that just happened last week in Las Vegas.

Incidentally, I visited the on-demand web site for MIX using my default browser (Safari on Mac) and of course the page wouldn’t load. Go figure – a web page written by Microsoft that doesn’t work in Safari, a standards-compliant browser. But I digress.

Ray Ozzie is just not a good public speaker. He didn’t seem excited at all (and he sure didn’t get ME excited with his subject matter). His talk sounded like he was reading a newspaper article, not engaging the audience. In addition, his slides had whole movies playing with demos while he was speaking. This is confusing because your mind wants to see what’s going on in the movie. So you can hear Ray speaking but your mind isn’t listening to him because it’s trying to figure out what it is seeing in the movie.

FINALLY Scott Guthrie came on. I have always really liked Scott, ever since the first session I saw him give. In my opinion, Scott is simply the best bet Microsoft has and has had for a couple of years now, regardless of product group or division. Unfortunately he wasn’t on too long before he introduced the IE8 guy, but I know he’ll be back, and I hope he’s the one giving the demos later!

I like the Developer Tools that the guy demo’d for IE8. Those will be useful.

Web Slices is an interesting concept, and obviously born from the Web Clip functionality introduced in Safari about a year ago now. But unfortunately the implementation of Web Slices is very sub-par. At this point (and I could very well be premature and/or incorrect on this point), there appears to be no operating system integration at all, like Apple gave us in Leopard. In other words, if you want to see updated Web Slices, you have to open IE8 and then click on each and every one that you have to view it. I also have to admit that I’m not sure, as a developer, I would want to add extra code to my pages or my site if I want to support Web Slices. The code would be IE8 only, and I think we all know what writing IE-only code has gotten us in the past when we wanted to support more than just IE.

One of the first things Scott did with regard to Silverlight was to show a movie montage of some of the live usage of Silverlight on the Internet. I have to say that I only found 2 or 3 of those particular examples compelling. Most of the other ones you’d never know were Silverlight at all. Could have just been embedded videos or animated images. I would be curious to see a REAL demo real of Silverlight in use today. And, note to Microsoft: We get that it can play videos.

I thought it was really funny when the Cirque de Soleil employee came on the stage and was holding that big tablet PC with the web cam strapped on to it. So 2001.

There were a few demos of Silerlight on mobile devices, and I have to say that after watching this video the other day (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/iphoneroadmap), I was not excited at all. The Silverlight mobile applications looked jumpy during animations; slow to respond, and honestly, a little outdated already. I don’t think this is a limitation of Silverlight. I believe it’s a limitation of the hardware capabilities of the devices they showed – some of which are quite new.

All in all I’d say that Silverlight is good for the web, but (contrary to what Rocky Lhotka said in his recent blog post) Silverlight is not the future of the web. It will be a part of it, but that will be about it. Only time will tell if I’m right.

Next, I watched the keynote where Steve Ballmer was interviewed by Guy Kawasaki. I thought it was great, for the most part. Steve Ballmer used to be my favorite speaker to watch. After I watched Steve talk about something I’d want to go right out and buy it or try it or develop on it or install it. This all changed for me over the past two years when I realized that Steve Ballmer is perhaps one of the world’s best salesmen. That’s what he does, and that’s what he’s supposed to do: sell Microsoft to people every hour of every day of every year.

After I tried Macintosh computers, iPods, and iPhones, however, I realized that talk is cheap. There was a reason why I had been frustrated a lot. I just thought that was a cost of using a computer. I didn’t realize it was merely a cost of using Microsoft products until I actually tried other ones.

That being said, one of the things Steve said in the interview with Guy Kawasaki at Mix was really just ignorant, incorrect, and a feeble attempt to deflect the potential impact of what the iPhone SDK and selling your iPhone applications on the iTunes store really means to developers.

Of Apple’s announcements of the iPhone SDK, Ballmer said, “They just announced a new runtime today, yesterday, and it sure seems they’re trying to charge a whole lot more money for it than anybody else on the face of the planet. I think they want to take 30% of every bit of revenue that you’d collect on their runtime. I’m not sure a lot of the software developers that I know are going to be very interested in that, but it may mean that Apple is not welcoming open, royalty-free runtimes on their platform, we’ll have to wait and see.” I’d like to set the record straight, and then you can judge Ballmer’s statement for yourself.

First, I can download the Apple SDK for free and develop all I want. If I choose to, I can pay $99 to join Apple’s Developer program, which gives me things like support and resources that I wouldn’t have if I didn’t join. I’d like to reiterate – it includes support. If I want developer support from Microsoft, I have to pay something like $200 per incident (at least that’s what it was a couple of years ago the last time I used it). So Ballmer’s statement that Apple is charging money for the new runtime, and charging more than anybody else on the face of the planet, is just a lie. There WILL be a nominal charge if iPod Touch users want to upgrade, but the new runtime (called 2.0) will be available to all iPhone users as a free download.

Second, as an iPhone and iPod Touch developer, I can sell my application on the iTunes store, thereby reaching every single owner of an iPod Touch and and iPhone in a single place. That is millions and millions of people. And I don’t pay a cent for this, either. The only time I pay Apple is if someone buys my application, and I’m even responsible for setting the price. If somebody buys it, iTunes takes 30% of that sale. I get 70%. I pay no credit card fees, no hosting fees and no bandwidth fees. Ever. In fact, I can even choose to make my application available for FREE, in which case I pay nothing.

Paying nothing to get my app in front of every owner of my target platform, and then keeping 70% of the revenue sure seems like a pretty incredible deal to me. There’s no business for me to run. There’s no hosting issues for me to deal with. All I have to do is focus on what I do best – developing software and depositing checks into my bank account on a monthly basis. So I put the question to you all, especially anyone who has ever written an application they wanted to sell. Do you think 30% is unfair and demonstrative of Apple being unwelcoming to mobile software developers, as Ballmer does?

I have one final thought on watching these two keynotes. Because they chose to make these videos available in Silverlight only, I was forced to watch the stuff from my web browser, sitting at my desk. I couldn’t watch it on my big living room TV like I can with the Apple conference sessions using iTunes and Apple TV. Unfortunately Microsoft’s disconnect within itself proves frustrating yet again. I couldn’t even watch this on my living room TV on my Xbox 360 if I had that whole Media Center PC / Extender thing going on in my house. This is over 3 hours of video that I had to watch, sitting at my desk. And I haven’t even gotten to the sessions yet. Not exactly a good delivery mechanism for lots of content. I shutter to think what it’s going to be like to sit at your computer and watch the Olympic events that aren’t televised.