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- Microsoft's Bad Image Should Be a Warning to Apple
“I’m just wondering why your marketing group can’t do something to try to rein in this next generation, because you’ve got a real bad image out there."
So said a Microsoft shareholder to CEO Steve Ballmer at the company's shareholder meeting yesterday. TechFlash reporter Todd Bishop notes that the same shareholder added that Apple's TV commercials make Microsoft look "like a buffoon."
I'm relieved to hear this. I often look at Microsoft and wonder if its shareholders are as out-of-touch as the company itself seems to be. In just the last few weeks here's what's getting the most enthusiastic coverage in the tech press at a time when it ought to be 100 percent about the newly launched Windows 7.
- A Microsoft manager claiming Windows 7 — Microsoft's flagship product — is inspired by Mac OS X
- Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie's bewildering assertion that "apps don't matter" — despite everyone else on Earth knowing otherwise
- Further redundancies that include long-time evangelist Don Dodge, and his subsequent post that, now that he's free from Microsoft, he can admit, yeah, he has iPhone envy
- And let's not forget the bizarre PR misfire that saw the staff of Microsoft's flagship retail store ignoring their customers for a full five minutes in favor of stomping their way, awkwardly and embarrassingly, through a dance routine
The take-home message? It ain't just the Apple commercials making Microsoft look like buffoons.
How did CEO Steve Ballmer respond? Fear not, anxious shareholders, Ballmer has this to say to assuage your fears and calm your nerves:
You take any country, including this one, and you say, how are we doing? The truth of the matter is, we do quite well. Even among college students, we do quite well. Do we have an opportunity for improvement? We do. Some of that is marketing some of that is phase of life. It is important to remember that 96 times out of 100 worldwide, people choose a PC with Windows, that’s a good thing. Even in the toughest market, which would be the high end of the consumer market here in the U.S., 83 times out of 100 people choose a Windows PC over a Mac.
Hang on, back-up. "Some of that is phase of life." Phase of life? Well, Ballmer sure knows his execu-speak. What galls me about this is how it illustrates perfectly that while Microsoft may be doomed to continue making embarrassing mistakes, it probably won't suffer any actual harm as a result; it survives simply because of its mammoth install base. Nothing more than that. And that simple fact directly influences the attitude and reasoning of its CEO. Ballmer is tacitly admitting that, all things considered, yeah, Microsoft looks like a bunch of idiots but that doesn't matter because they've got more customers than anyone else.
Turn this around, and imagine that Apple does monumentally silly things that make it the target of much derision and ridicule among the tech community and consumers. Imagine you're a shareholder, and you see a drop in quarterly earnings. You see the company laying off staff (including highly visible and respected staff they should keep). You see its executives sending conflicting messages to the public. And when you take them to task for it, Steve Jobs replies "Yeah, we've been a bit crap. But most people own an iPod, right, so, no worries." Would you be satisfied with that?
Ballmer added:
Frankly, the economy is good for us, because people do understand that Macintoshes are quite a bit more expensive for essentially the same computer … we have opportunities to improve among exactly the constituency that you identify.
Yep. Be happy there's a recession, people, or else customers would be buying Macs!
This isn't actually a Microsoft bashing exercise (clearly, it does that to itself and needs no help from me). Instead, I look at this and wonder (fear) that Apple might be headed in much the same direction. Recent unpredictable behavior around the application approval process has seen Apple severely criticised by some of its most staunch supporters. Developers aren't just frustrated, they're now quitting the platform altogether. And not because the platform is flawed, but because Apple is horribly (and very visibly) mismanaging it.
Apple needs to take a good long look at the Microsoft of today and ask if it isn't starting to make the same mistake; stubbornly pushing ahead with flawed policies/strategies that are justified on the strength of product market share alone, despite the obvious (and loud!) protestations of the public, the press, and sooner or later, even its own shareholders.
Sure, Apple isn’t as bad as Microsoft yet. But this is how it starts, people. Google Voicegate. Joe Hewitt. Rogue Amoeba. It's not exactly dancing in an Apple Store, but it's still embarrassing and potentially damaging, and it's definitely a trend that won’t go away unless Apple does something to fix it.
Переслать - Apple Patent Describes Smart Remote Technology
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office yesterday published a patent application Apple made way back in 2008 for "Pushing a User Interface to a Remote Device." So, then…Smart Remotes. Cool!
MacRumor's Eric Slivka reports that the patent's lead inventor is William Bull, now Yahoo's Senior Director of Mobile User Experience, but once upon a time Apple's iPod User Interface Manager. The so-called "father of the iPod," Tony Fadell, is also credited.
The idea is simple; portable media devices — such as iPods and iPhones, for example — have their own on-board Graphical User Interface (GUI) and, usually, a built-in screen. Thing is, we don't always want to take our iPhone out of our pocket when we're listening to music (or, if you're me, catching up on podcasts while washing the dishes).
Enter remote controls (referred to in this patent as "accessories"). Often they're dumb little inline sticks with a few fiddly (not to mention tiny) buttons. They’re useful, but basic, offering perhaps only a half dozen simple controls. Some of the more elaborate remotes have their own little displays, which is all very well and good, except that they also employ their own little GUIs which not only fail to resemble the one on the device you're trying to control, but often don't provide full access to all the device's functions. From the patent application:
…existing remote GUIs are defined and controlled by the remote control device, and consequently, they may bear little resemblance to a GUI supplied by the portable media device itself Certain functions available on the portable media device (such as browsing or searching a database, adjusting playback settings, etc.) may be unavailable or difficult to find.
Apple's solution is to "push" the device's GUI to a remote an accessory with a built-in display. Here’s the description from the patent application (I’ve shortened it to just the main points);
The portable media device can provide the accessory with an image to be displayed on the video screen… [and] include various user interface elements that can resemble or replicate a “native” GUI provided directly on the portable media device. The accessory can send information to the portable media device indicative of a user action […] for example, that a particular button was pressed or that a particular portion of a touch-sensitive display screen was touched by the user. The portable media device can process this input to identify the action requested by the user and take the appropriate action. The action may include providing to the accessory an updated GUI image to be displayed, where the updated GUI image reflects the user action.
Essentially this describes a touch-enabled screen, small enough (and dumb enough) to still be called an accessory, which effectively acts as a small auxiliary display/input panel for the device.
I can't see this making its way into an inline remote (it's just not Apple's style to make a wearable remote that's big) but I can see a future revision of Apple's current Remote that entirely does away with the buttons, replacing them with a capacitive touch screen.
Future software updates would enable one to connect the remote to a nearby Mac mini, Apple TV, even an iPod touch, and switch between those devices the same way the iPhone Remote app does today. The GUI would change, depending on the selected device.
The only drawback I can see to such a device (and remember, I'm just extrapolating here and imagining a potential future gadget — Apple's patent application only describes a possible method and not an actual product) is that a remote with a capacitive touch screen will chew through its battery in next to no time. Is it conceivable we'll be buying a charging dock for a future Apple MultiRemote?
More compelling is the notion that Apple could build this technology into an entire ecosystem, licensing third-party developers to create compatible hardware; imagine a house where a smart display on the door of your refrigerator not only tells you when the milk needs replacing but also allows you to skip tracks on the album you're playing over AirTunes…
But am I thinking too small? Is this yet another patent application that will, ultimately, come to nothing, or could this be an early clue to a new Apple-tastic revolution?
Переслать - Jobs' Personal, Terse Reply to Developer
Gotta love that Steve Jobs. He never was one to hold back, and even now, when he's the CEO of the Universe (or something like that), he won't be found spouting corporate speak.
CrunchGear tells the story of a small software development company called The Little App Factory. It made an app for the Mac called iPodRip, one of those tools for transferring music from an iPod to a computer. A law firm representing Apple sent The Little App Factory a letter, informing the company it had violated some of Apple's trademarks, and instructed it to stop using the "iPod" bit in the app's name.
iPodRip has been around for nearly seven years and CrunchGear's Daniel Brusilovsky says it has been downloaded more than five million times. You'd think Apple's legal sniffer hounds, Baker & McKenzie, might have acted a tad sooner…
Anyway, iPodRip developer and The Little App Factory CEO John Devor felt this was all rather unfair, so he wrote directly to El Jobso himself. Here's a little excerpt from his impassioned plea for special treatment sanity (edited by me for brevity, but you can read the whole thing here);
Dear Mr. Jobs,
I doubt you're aware but we recently received a letter from a law firm working on Apple's behalf instructing us that we had violated several of Apple's trademarks in our application iPodRip and asking us to cease using the name and Apple trademarks in our icons.
It is quite obvious that we mean Apple no harm with the use of the name iPodRip, or of the inclusion of trademarked items in our icons… …we are quite aware that Apple support and store staff have recommended our software on numerous occasions as far back as 2004 so we have felt that we were doing something right!
With this in mind, we are in desperate need of some assistance and we beseech you to help us to protect our product and our shareware company, I myself dropped out of school recently to pursue a path in the Mac software industry, and you yourself have been a consistent inspiration for me.
If there is anything at all you can do with regards to this matter, we would be most grateful.
Best,
John DevorPoor fellow. Obviously he has poured his heart and soul into his company, and he has worked hard this last half-decade building a strong brand and large customer base. He wants to protect his investment, and why not? Apple has, it seems, been aware of the product, to some degree, for an awfully long time, so why slap him with a C&D letter now?
So Steve Jobs gets the email and thinks about this, right? He considers the years of service this guy and his company have provided for iTunes users around the world. He considers carefully the late-in-the-game complaint from Baker & McKenzie. He feels a swell of pride at the obvious passion of those in the Mac development community who so loyally support his products and strive to make the Mac ecosystem a bigger, brighter and more worthwhile place to be. Right?
Of course not. He's Steve Jobs, people! This is his reply:
Change your apps name. Not that big of a deal.
Steve
Sent from my iPhone
I nearly fell off my chair in laughter when I saw that. I'm not sure I agree with him that's it's "not that big of a deal" (after all, this company has invested many years in their brand and built a considerable customer base) but I admire Steve's no-nonsense attitude. He says exactly what's on his mind, no PR-spin, and sends it straight from his iPhone, typos-and-all.
The Little App Factory acquiesced (what else could it do?) and renamed the app iRip. It also changed the app’s icon. Perhaps this whole affair was a thorn in the side, but I don't feel too sorry for them, the tech press is giving them a lot of attention right now, and that's gotta be good for business, right?
Переслать
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