Archive for the ‘Apple’ Category
Apple Will Be Just Fine, Thanks To Aggressive Jobsian Minimalism
Tech should be approachable, artful, and radically simple
The Jobsian philosophy is so fundamentally different from the ethos of the other tech giants--Microsoft especially, but also Sony, Google, Facebook, and (until last week) HP--that it's surprising that Jobs came from the same place and time. The core Silicon Valley companies all sprung from the tinkerers-in-garages set, a state of mind that's remained essential to techies decades later. Jobs was a key member of that group, and his work with Apple in the company's early years is not really so different from Microsoft's early work, though Jobs was always less of a businessman and perhaps a bit more autocratic (especially as regards licensing).
After he was ousted by Apple's board in 1985, he spent a decade creating another company, NeXT Computing, from scratch. It's tempting to chalk up his later success to some of the life changes that happened during this time (which you can read more about in )--meeting his biological family, getting married, having two children, beginning to identify as Buddhist--but the change in attitude and work habits that enabled his success might be more easily explained with simple math. The guy was barely 30 years old when he was forced out of Apple, and 40 when he came back. And it was when he came back that his vision coagulated into something tangible.
The Jobsian vision is a variation on minimalism, something completely unexpected when dealing with computers, inherently complex devices. To Jobs, computers are for real people. Not businessmen (ahem HP) or corporations (ahem Microsoft), but people. Computers should be beautiful objects. (Jobs at one point said, when resigning from Apple in 1985, "If Apple becomes a place where computers are a commodity item, where the romance is gone, and where people forget that computers are the most incredible invention that man has ever invented, I'll feel I have lost Apple.") Computers should be intuitive and simple, but never dull. It is the duty of the computer's maker to discover the best way to do things, and to that makes that path difficult. And when you make something simple, the details become the most important thing.
our guide to Steve Jobs's minimalist ethos.
The easiest comparison, to me, is to a chef. Take the best ingredients, assemble them simply but precisely, and present a finished dish the way it should be consumed. No extra garnishes, nothing superfluous. Too much is worse than too little. No optional sauces, no mix-and-match, no "add this if you want." The chef is the expert here, not the patron.
That mentality has irked or infuriated the tinkerers, as well it should. There's certainly a sense of smugness--the Jobsian philosophy says "I know the way this should be done." And it has led Apple astray, sometimes. But Apple is also backed by undeniably brilliant engineers and designers (chief among them Jon Ives), which is why their products are successes more often than not. A composed dish can be amazing, or awful, but a buffet can only rise to a certain height. That's the Jobsian philosophy, anyway.
That minimalism has had an effect just about everywhere. Apple isn't just a gadget-maker; the products spearheaded under Jobs are in the Museum of Modern Art. They've inspired similar-minded folks in all kinds of disparate industries, consciously or not. Apple was one of the first to fiercely embrace the use of certain typographic ideas (especially the Helvetica font), which is now used in just about every location imaginable, especially all over the web. Every tech company at least tried the start their own content stores, from Microsoft's Zune to Sony's Connect (some were more successful than others). Companies like American Apparel copied Apple's minimalism, while just about every ad strives to hit an "Apple-like" note of innovation and hipness. Apple's success in the future won't rely on whoever's sitting in the boss's seat--it'll come from hiring brilliant folks and adhering to the model already in place.
Apple isn't like Sony, which crumpled in ability and influence after the departure of its two founders. That's because Sony's founders were amazing engineers and designers--but that's it. Without their two stars, Sony had trouble. But Apple has a guiding philosophy to lead it, one that can function with all kinds of different leaders. With any luck, Apple will be just fine.
The Five Best Forward-Thinking Features in Mac OS X Lion
Apple's newest version of OS X arrived today, with a heap of future-looking features in tow. Here are five of our favorites
Your iPhone Keeps a Secret Log of Everywhere You Go, Security Experts Find
No other phone stores this information in this way
This could theoretically be useful for anyone interested in knowing where an iPhone owner spends his or her time — advertisers, employers, spouses, parents.
“Apple have made it possible for anyone from a jealous spouse to a private investigator to get a detailed picture of your movements,” according to researcher Pete Warden.
To be clear, such a snoop would need access to your phone or computer and a way to extract and refine the data. It is not sent to Apple nor any third parties, as far as the researchers can tell — it’s just stored on an individual user’s devices. But it is apparently not very difficult to extract the location data from a user's computer.
Warden and Alasdair Allan say they tried to find similar location tracking code on Android phones, but could not find anything. “We haven't come across any instances of other phone manufacturers doing this,” Warden tells the Guardian.
Given Google’s penchant for location tracking and , the alarm is perhaps surprising — Google’s lets users see their friends on a map, for instance. But Latitude requires that users actively choose to track their location information; in this case, the user is unaware of the data collection. The Guardian reports that Apple did not comment on why the file was created or whether it could be disabled. If you upgrade to a new phone, the file is transferred to that next-generation device, which the researchers say means the data collection is not accidental.
Warden — who has previously worked for Apple — and Allan created their own app that finds the hidden file among the stored backup files on a Mac and turns it into a map. If you don’t care to visualize your travels, Warden explains on his website.
The researchers believe the location data is obtained by triangulating the phone’s position against the closest cell phone towers, which uses less battery power than GPS. It also explains why some of the data is incorrect, as triangulation is much less precise than GPS. But the data is still alarmingly accurate, tracking your history as an iPhone owner through the months and years. Forgot that you took that trip to Boston last summer? Your iPhone didn't.
It’s not clear how this information would be used, but there are several possible explanations, including targeted mobile advertising, synchronization for location-based networks like FourSquare, understanding commuter habits, and so on.
Allan found the file while the pair were working on how to visualize mobile data, having already collaborated on other data-visualization projects including a radiation map for Japan. At first the researchers weren’t sure what it was, Warden explains on his website.
“After we dug further and visualized the extracted data, it became clear that there was a scary amount of detail on our movements,” he writes.
There is no real way to disable this logging at the moment, though you can encrypt your data to make it harder to read once it's synced to your computer. This is a big enough problem that we expect Apple will respond at some point, so we'll keep you updated if and when that happens.
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Trimensional iPhone App Takes 3-D Scan of Your Face, Sends to 3-D Printer to Produce Face Tchotchkes
Grant Schindler, a research scientist at Georgia Tech, released the Trimensional iPhone app back in January to make use of the iPhone 4's front-facing camera beyond video chat. It takes advantage of the iPhone's bright screen to make its 3-D scans: The app bounces light off the user's face from four different angles, combining the resulting images into a 3-D map. It's limited to essentially the front half of your face (the part with the eyes and nose and mouth on it, you know the one)--to map your entire head would require either some very precise movement or, as in the , several different cameras.
Recently released is an update that allows you to send a movie or animated .GIF file by email, and a new in-app purchase (only $5; ) that adds the ability to send the scan to a 3-D printer. Given our current obsession with 3-D printers (we've recently published both and a look at ), this is the part that's really exciting to us. Trimensional's algorithms can only scan faces, but the possibility is there to scan just about anything, and reproduce it incredibly easily and cheaply.
For the time being, those lucky enough to have an (or current-generation iPod Touch, or , or, soon, an Android device, as Schindler is working on an Android version) as well as a 3-D printer can fill up their houses with 3-D representations of their faces. And why wouldn't they?
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What top app developers really think of the app stores
App developers want approvals by the big mobile players who manage app stores to happen much faster and more transparently, a new study set to be released this week found.
, a research advisory firm based in the U.S. and Europe, learned that in a survey of top application developers on the Apple, Android and Ovi app stores in which they evaluate their experience with the stores. Some surprising patterns emerged in the results, which VentureBeat reviewed in advance of publication.
Open First contacted developers whose application was listed as “Top” in some app category on the store. While the number of developers who participated wasn’t huge (110 developers from the Apple store, for example), it’s enough to give an indication of the mood of the best performing developers. Most respondents had published multiple applications.
Across all the app stores, developers agreed on the importance of a quick, transparent and flexible application evaluation process. Nokia and iPhone developers complained that approval sometimes takes too long and it’s often unclear why an app is rejected. While 55 percent of Android developers are satisfied with the publication process (there is no quality review on the Android store which speeds up the publication process) they also criticized the lack of a centralized, quality review process as leading to poor visibility of higher quality applications and ultimately to low sales.
Developers across all three stores also agreed on the major problems: support and the inability to respond to customer comments and reviews. When asked about the support provided to app purchasers, only 13 percent for Android Market market developers were satisfied, while the figures were 24 percent for Ovi and 40 percent for the Apple Store. On the technical and business support offered to developers, respondents who were unsatisfied (27 percent of Apple developers, for example) said that new policies are poorly communicated and support requests from developers often have long turnaround times.
Developers would also welcome a more effective way to interact with their users on the stores, e.g. to reply to user comments and reviews (including bad reviews) or notify them about updates. Bad reviews, in particular, have a negative effect on the ranking and therefore visibility of applications.
One of the most surprising results was on revenue. The survey showed 81 percent of developers for Ovi Store said they were earning less than they expected, with the corresponding figures being 49 percent for the Android Market and 28 percent for the Apple Store. Unsurprisingly, developers who reported low revenues ascribed this to a combination of inadequate promotion tools, application ranking systems and bad categorization of apps. On the other hand, 48 percent of iPhone developers reported earning more than they expected. So the Apple Store still appears to be the most lucrative for developers.
Overall 78 percent of iPhone developers said they are somewhat satisfied, satisfied or very satisfied. The same percentage was 63 percent for Android developers and 42 percent for Nokia developers. Some Android and Ovi developers said that they prefer the Apple Store because of its superior promotional support, rating system, reliability and ease of payment for end users. Even on the Apple store though, developers suggested that the store could be improved by making the approval process quicker, more transparent and consistent, making it easier to find apps and reply to comments.
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Has Apple Gained Access to the World’s Most Advanced Manufacturing Tech?
, a California-based manufacturing firm, is an under-the-radar fabrication company that has had its fair share of ups and downs in past years as it has tried to land contracts to manufacture a variety of objects from golf clubs to gadget cases. In doing so they've rooted out some issues with their own proprietary product, a hard and lightweight metal alloy that can be processed as easily as plastic.
But what's got Apple interested is their acquisition of the world's only prototype of an injection-molding machine that reportedly can create seamless metal parts just as injection molders make solid, single-piece plastic objects. Such a machine would allow Liquidmetal to manufacture anything from better iPhone antennas to seamless gadget cases, though some seem to think they might use the technology to manufacture the .
Why? Because Apple just signed an exclusive licensing deal with Liquidmetal to use its technology for commercial products reportedly worth some $11 million in ongoing dealings. Right now there is but one prototype injection molder in a factory in Korea, but with Apple's financial might behind the technology there could be many more relatively quickly.
That means Apple could conceivably manufacture their wares at far reduced cost (though who knows if Lord Jobs might pass those savings down to the little people) while making the components durable, uniform, and -- true to Apple form -- very, very pretty. Supposedly Johnny Ive, Apple's chief designer, is pushing hard for the Liquidmetal technology.
It's worth noting in closing here that such rumors are coming from people involved in Liquidmetal, and that -- also true to Apple form -- Cupertino has nothing to say about whether or not they may or may not be possibly thinking about future long-term manufacturing with Liquidmetal. But if they do, it will be significant for a few reasons.
First of all, many fabrication houses have been trying to replicate injection-molding properties in strong metallic media for a long time, so if someone as big and reputable as Apple is getting on board it bodes well for the notion that the technology is finally catching up with the idea.
But further, though Apple has an exclusive deal with Liquidmetal, no licensing deal lasts forever. If the tech really is as good as Apple may or may not think it is, a variety of consumer goods -- not just Apple products -- could be manufactured more durably and at a lower cost. That's good news across the board.
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Israeli Customs confiscates Apple iPad
As reported in Israeli newspapers, the Israeli government banned the import into the country of Apple iPad. Customs officials confiscated the tablet at the airport travelers arriving in the country. Officials justify their actions by saying that iPad may harm the local wireless networks. Standard wireless networking in the U.S. is more signal powered than the networks in Europe and Israel, that is iPad can interrupt the signal for other devices operating in the Israeli network.
Tourists who have confiscated the tablet at the entrance to the country can regain it at departure by paying a fee for storage devices at the airport. The Apple does not yet commented on this fact, however, they are unlikely to be glad of such developments. The ban coincided with the news that the date of the appearance of Apple iPad on sale in Europe was postponed due to the incredible demand for the device in the U.S., which already sold more than half a million iPad.