Tuesday, June 7, 2011

TheAppleBlog — Apple and iOS News, Tips and Reviews (15 сообщений)

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  • Technologies change in the wake of an Apple event, again

    Innovation is best measured by the disruption it causes, and Apple sure has been disruptive this week. Apple first changed how we acquire and think about media like movies and music, and now it’s changing how we acquire and distribute games and applications as well. It makes sense, then, that Apple would cut out traditional distribution outlets when it rolls out the next version of its OS X. But that’s just one example of the disruption Apple caused yesterday. Here are a few more prime examples.

    The mouse. Apple may have brought the mouse to the masses, but with one multi-gesture swipe, it could flick it away forever. So many of the new features being introduced with OS X Lion will require complex gestures that replacing the mouse with a touchpad will be nearly essential.

    The file system. Thanks to drag-and-drop sharing with AirDrop, and Documents in the Cloud available to all developers, Apple has threatened not only the flash drive, but also file systems themselves. Users won’t need to know where files go, because it will all happen automatically behind the scenes.

    Paper and traditional newsstands. While I may not be ready to ditch my RSS readers just yet, I will be opening articles in mobile Safari far more often than I do now. With the ability to tweet, read and save multi-page articles in Safari, I may depend far less on RSS. I’ll also probably stop using Instapaper, and with the addition of Newsstand, I’ll transition from print to digital subscriptions much more quickly.

    Desktop app launchers. Bringing the iOS-style app organization to OS X with Launchpad is a welcome addition. It could eliminate the need to use other launchers like Quicksilver, Alfred and Butler, especially when combined with Mission Control, the more versatile Exposé replacement.

    To-do apps. In the same vein of getting things done more efficiently, the new Reminders app for iOS devices could make third-party to-do apps redundant. It all depends on how advanced your needs are, but Apple’s system has location and time-based notifications, so you can’t ask for much more.

    BlackBerry Messenger and SMS. With Apple’s new iMessage service for any owner of an Apple device, the one remaining killer feature of BlackBerry devices  may be rendered inert. The remaining question is whether or not families will keep their SMS service with their carriers. Creating a way to direct message family and friends with other Apple devices, as well as deeply integrating Twitter into the iOS itself may eliminate that need, depending on what hardware your circle of friends and family is using.

    Weather apps. I’m not a fan of the stock weather app that comes with iOS, but that’s about to change. With the integration of weather updates on the new notifications, and the added bonus of hourly forecasts, a lot of what I was looking for in third-party apps is taken care of.

    Once again, Steve Jobs delivers the goods and has the tech world scrambling to keep up. But this time around, consumers might be the ones doing a little scrambling, too. Apple is aggressively moving to the cloud, which might throw some users unused to the concept for a loop, and the fact that Lion can only be downloaded might leave some of those without fast or dependable Internet connections behind. But Apple seems to have set its sights firmly on where tech is headed, and it’s willing to roll over existing offerings and services in order to get there.

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  • Nintendo's Wii U takes its cues from the iPad

    Nintendo unveiled its next generation console today, with the Wii U. The Wii U has a new controller that features a 6.2-inch touchscreen built-in, which effectively acts as a tablet. We couldn’t help but think that Nintendo, far from innovating in this instance, borrowed liberally from the iPad and the way people use it for gaming and watching TV.

    Two-screen gaming has a history that predates Apple’s iPad, and Nintendo proved that it works for portable gaming with the DS, which launched in 2004 and has been successful ever since, but the iPad is the one that made it make sense for TV gaming. Ever since Big Bucket Software used the iPad and the iPhone to create a working beta of The Incident running on one and controlled by the other, the potential for Apple to become a force in living room gaming seemed limited only by developer creativity. More recently, Real Racing HD 2 expanded on that concept with a true two-screen gaming experience for the iPad.

    Nintendo Wii U extracts the two-screen experience from the model used by Real Racing HD 2 and discards most of the rest. The Wii U controller can’t act independent of the Wii U console, but it can handle gaming visuals entirely on its own screen, and it appears to support stylus input for functions beyond gaming, like drawing.

    Making two-screen gaming the entire focus of Nintendo’s next-gen console is a very smart move at this point, since it’s happening before the concept takes off in a big way with iOS devices. It should work out well for Nintendo, but it could be even better for Apple device owners in the long run, if the Wii U concept inspires iOS developers to take two-screen gaming further.

    Of course, gaming isn’t the only thing iPad users do in front of their TV. Television viewers have been distracting themselves with laptops and mobile phones for years, and the iPad was lends itself to be the ideal second screen device. Nielsen said in May that 70 percent of all tablet owners use their devices while watching TV. And last year, a study found that 86 percent of all mobile users access the Internet while watching TV.

    Nintendo also added some media sharing features that were clearly inspired by efforts to use the iPad as a second-screen device. Wii U users will be able to flick photos and videos that they find online towards the TV to watch them on the big screen, something Yahoo demonstrated at this year's CES, and a key feature of Apple’s AirPlay technology. And the handheld controller will feature a front-facing camera to give users a chance to video chat while watching TV — a feature that will sound familiar to any iPad user as well.

    Nintendo obviously concentrated on gaming during the introduction of the Wii U, but we shouldn’t be too surprised if the new controller was being utilized for other kinds of second-screen activity like Twitter and Facebook that has so far been the domain of the iPad as well.

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  • Mac OS X through the ages

    Today, Apple is a huge player in the consumer electronics business, having just recently passed the market values of Intel and Microsoft combined. But in the late ’90s, Apple wasn’t nearly the juggernaut that it is today. Users began to lose confidence in the company as it struggled to come up with a next-generation OS to replace the ailing Mac OS 9. Finally, at WWDC 1998, Mac OS X was announced. It would turn out to be instrumental in putting Apple back into the hearts and minds of users. Since the release of Lion is just a month away, we thought we’d take a look back at the last 10 years of OS X.

    The beginning: 10.0 Cheetah

    Cheetah was the first release of OS X. It featured the new Aqua user interface, which at the time was quite the visual upgrade for OS 9 users. Despite being named for the fastest land animal, Cheetah was fairly slow, eliciting complaints from many Mac users. Theoretically, it was supposed to be more stable than OS 9 since it was based on Unix, but in reality ,it had many fatal bugs that would cause system crashes. Even with its flaws, Cheetah was a good base upon which to build the future of the Mac platform.

    Gradual improvement: 10.1 Puma

    Puma was released a little less than a year after Cheetah. It was a free upgrade, as it was meant to fix bugs and performance issues in its predecessor. However, there were still bugs and missing features, and the Aqua user interface remained largely unchanged. Many Mac users said it still wasn’t fully developed enough to use full-time. But it was getting there.

    More gradual improvement: 10.2 Jaguar

    Jaguar featured more stability and speed improvements, bringing it up to the point where users started changing their minds about running OS X full-time. It also featured a revamped Finder, Quartz Extreme, network support for Windows computers, and more.

    I like my metal brushed: 10.3 Panther

    Panther was the first OS X release that couldn’t run on some older PowerPC-based Macs, such as the earlier G3s. Like its predecessors, it included numerous revisions and fixes, and also introduced us to Exposé, iChat AV, the Safari web browser, and, everyone’s favorite, the brushed-metal Finder.

    Leaving the past behind: 10.4 Tiger

    Tiger was the first OS X version that was released much more than a year after its predecessor — 18 months, to be exact. As such, it included an advertised 150+ improvements, including Spotlight, Dashboard, Automator, Mail 2, Safari RSS, QuickTime 7, and more. Tiger also represented a sea-change for OS X, as version 10.4.4 was capable of running on both PowerPC and Intel processors, bringing about Apple’s transition to Intel’s architecture.

    X in space!: 10.5 Leopard

    If Tiger was late, Leopard was worse, coming out two and a half years after Tiger. The delays were worth it though, as Leopard was advertised as having twice as many new features as Tiger, including a revamped Aqua interface, Time Machine, Spaces, Stacks, Quick Look, 64-bit support, and more. Leopard also did away with the Classic emulation layer, taking away the ability to run OS 9 apps on PowerPC-based Macs.

    A new foundation: 10.6 Snow Leopard

    Snow Leopard, the current version of OS X, was released almost two years after Leopard, and was all about architectural improvements to the platform, rather than new user-oriented features. It included a complete rewrite of the Finder in Cocoa, a new version of QuickTime, and minor changes to several other core Mac apps. Under the hood, Snow Leopard introduced Grand Central and OpenCL, and was the first release of OS X to run core apps as 64-bit by default.

    The future: 10.7 Lion

    And that brings us to the newest edition to the Mac OS X family: Lion. Lion includes many changes that bring it up to date with concepts introduced in its mobile cousin, iOS, including Mission Control, Launchpad, Resume, Versions, AirDrop, full-screen apps, and a new user interface that makes a clean break from the glossy days of Aqua. Plus, for the first time ever, OS X goes digital-only delivery with Lion, which might be its single most influential change.

    Do you miss brushed metal and translucent title bars? Share your memories of past versions of Mac OS X in the comments.

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  • iTunes 10.3 beta now available, with a touch of iCloud

    The iTunes 10.3 beta is now available for download by any and all from Apple’s official site, bringing with it support for some basic iCloud functionality. Specifically, consumers will be able to view and download any past purchases they have made through the iTunes store.

    You can access your purchase history through a link on the iTunes store main page, which brings you to a list of all your previously purchased apps, books and music (no sign of movies or TV shows yet, and music is U.S. only at the moment). As with the iOS purchase history sections, you can alternate between a total list of all the content you’ve ever bought with your iTunes account, and only those items that aren’t in the library on the computer you’re browsing from. Downloading an item is as easy as hitting the cloud icon, and you can download all items at once with a button at the bottom.

    iTunes 10.3 also brings support for the iBookstore, which has previously only been available on iOS devices. You can now buy e-books from iTunes, and then sync those purchases back to your devices or transfer them over-the-air.

    Finally, you can also now enable Automatic Downloads on your Mac or PC with iTunes 10.3. So if you buy content on your iPhone, it will automatically be detected and download on your computer, too. That should take some of the sting out of syncing devices, where app transfers back and forth can take a huge amount of time.

    iTunes 10.3 is available free for all Mac and PC users, so long as you’re running OS X 10.5 or later, or Windows XP SP 2 or later. Check it out and let us know what you think of the changes.

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  • Top designer Dieter Rams on what makes Apple special
    Braun's Rams influenced Apple's Ive. Photo courtesy of Gizmodo

    Braun's Rams influenced Apple's Ive. Photo courtesy of Gizmodo

    I am eagerly awaiting Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible. Rams, who was featured in critically acclaimed documentary Objectified is one of the most influential design gurus in the world. He has created countless products for Braun, the German white goods company. And he is a man who has influenced Apple’s head of design, Jonny Ive. Here is what Rams had to say about Apple in a chat with The Daily Telegraph, just before the WWDC.

    Without doubt there are few companies in the world that genuinely understand and practise the power of good design in their products and their businesses. Probably the first example was Peter Behrens and his work for the German company AEG, in the early part of the 20th century. He might be considered to be the founder of corporate identity. Adriano Olivetti was close behind as he transformed his father's Italian company, Olivetti. Having become aware of this scarcity at the start of my career in the 1950s, I am sorry to report that the situation does not seem to have improved to this day.

    I have always observed that good design can normally only emerge if there is a strong relationship between an entrepreneur and the head of design. At Apple this situation exists – between Steve Jobs and Jony Ive.

    I am always fascinated when I see the latest Apple products. Apple has managed to achieve what I never achieved: using the power of their products to persuade people to queue to buy them. For me, I had to queue to receive food at the end of World War II. That's quite a change.

    They understand that design is not simply an adjective to place in front of a product's name to somehow artificially enhance its value. Ever fewer people appear to understand that design is a serious profession; and for our future welfare we need more companies to take that profession seriously. (The Daily Telegraph of the U.K.)

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  • Think iCloud is reactionary? Think again.

    Updated. There’s some talk that iCloud and iOS 5 are examples of Apple playing catch-up with the competition from Google . Apple may have introduced some tricks that seem borrowed from Android, but iCloud, and Apple’s vision of how it will use broadband, has been a long time coming, according to this video of a much-less-guarded Steve Jobs delivering the closing keynote at Apple’s 1997 WWDC.

    It’s a long video (over an hour) that merits a full watch if you haven’t seen it, but turn your attention specifically to around 16:30 to hear Jobs’ remarks about the future of computing, Gigabit Ethernet, and how “carrying around these non-connected computers [will seem] Byzantine.” Google may have gotten to the cloud first, but Apple’s had that bun in the oven for quite a while now.

    Also be sure to check out Jobs’ comments around 12:00, when he discusses Apple’s image of being “different:”

    If we can be much better without being different, that’d be fine with me.

    Doubt Jobs is batting an eye at accusations of lifting from Android.

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  • What developers think of the WWDC 2011 keynote

    On Monday, WWDC 2011 revealed a number of enhancements to OS X, iOS and iCloud. I polled several independent developers, ranging from longtime Mac mainstays, one-man shops and large companies, that cover both Mac and iOS development to get their reactions to the many changes.

    What was your favorite announcement?

    Rich Siegel, founder and CEO of Bare Bones Software Inc., which makes Yojimbo: The amount of user-facing work that’s going into Lion and iOS 5 is truly impressive, especially as it reflects an enormous amount of infrastructure work.

    Gedeon Maheux, Principal / Designer at The Iconfactory, which makes Twitterific: We’re most excited about all of the potential in iOS 5, such as Apple’s new iCloud API. Hopefully synching Twitter timeline positions across multiple copies of Twitterrific will work with relatively little effort.

    Ken Case, CEO of The Omni Group: I’m really looking forward to updating our document-based apps (OmniOutliner, OmniGraffle . . . ) to leverage iCloud’s document syncing.

    David Frampton, founder of Majic Jungle Software, which makes Chopper and Chopper 2: AirPlay Mirroring. I wasn’t expecting that, as it seems a pretty amazing technical achievement. Not sure on the details yet, but it could be a big deal for gaming.

    Layton Duncan, founder of Polar Bear Farm, which makes Air Forms: By far iCloud, specifically Photo Stream. Photos across multiple devices, iPhone, laptop and desktop have been a real pain point for a while. It’s nice to have something to now sync consistently and transparently across all my devices.

    What were you not expecting to see?

    Maheux: Personally I’m excited about iMessage as a potential replacement for the aging application iChat and the newly redesigned notification system in iOS.

    Case: Reminders in iOS 5 looks good! Glad to see Apple providing it as important baseline functionality (and challenging us to take things further).

    Siegel: When they announced iTunes music storage, my immediate question was, “But what about music that I *didn’t* buy from iTunes?” The answer to that comes as iTunes Match, which was a pleasant surprise for me.

    What was the most overdue announcement?

    Frampton: Fixing the notification system. It’s been pretty bad, so it’s great to see that they’ve made some major improvements.

    Duncan: Absolutely the notifications overhaul. They have been terrible in iOS for a long time. Now it looks like they finally have a scalable solution.

    What new feature is going to have the biggest long-term impact?

    Duncan: To me it’s the iCloud document syncing. It’s a feature that in the future you’ll not necessarily notice day-to-day because it just happens, but won’t be able to live without.

    Siegel: It’s really impossible to fully gauge the developer impact just yet, but these user-facing features are exciting developments, and they’re backed by a huge number of new APIs. As the week goes on I expect to have a better sense of how we can employ the internal developents to make better software.

    Frampton: iCloud is a big deal. It takes a bunch of totally separate devices and unifies them, which I think will permanently change the way we view and use them.

    Anything that worries you?

    Frampton: Apple announced a number of new apps and features that totally obsolete many third-party apps. This has caught a number of developers off guard, and there is no guarantee they won’t obsolete other apps and business models in the future. In fact, they certainly will.

    Duncan: There were some concerns with new features, specifically the Reminders app, which seems to directly compete with developers, with no real reason, given it’s a feature that doesn’t need to be deeply integrated into the OS. Secondly, the use of the volume button as a camera button, given the history of that feature in Tap Tap Tap’s Camera+ app [it was introduced to Camera+ as a hidden feature, which prompted Apple to pull the app from the App Store for many months].

    Siegel: Nah. :-)

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  • The 5 best iOS 5 features not highlighted at WWDC

    Apple highlighted 10 features of iOS 5 at its WWDC keynote Monday morning, but there are over 200 new features coming to iOS devices when the update arrives in July. Here are another five awesome things iOS 5 will do to shake up your iPhone or iPad.

    AirPlay mirroring

    The iPad 2 can mirror its display, apps, home screen and all, to a TV or other connected display via the Apple Digital AV Adapter and an HDMI cable. But having a long cord tethering your iPad to your TV is no fun. That’s why it’s great that iOS 5 will bring AirPlay Mirroring, which will let you do the same thing without wires, so long as you have an Apple TV (the new little black model) attached to your television. It should be great for watching movies and slideshows, but latency issues could hinder its usefulness when it comes to gaming. We’ll have to wait and see how it performs.

    Wi-Fi sync

    Apple showed off how its iOS devices will be able to go PC-free when iOS 5 arrives, but if you still want to grab your music and movies from iTunes, you can do so over a local Wi-Fi network from your Mac or PC instead of having to plug your device in. Apple does say “it automatically syncs and backs up any new content to iTunes” every time “you connect your iOS device to a power source,” but it isn’t clear if that’s a requirement.

    Multitouch gestures

    The iPad gets expanded multitouch gestures, which have actually been available to developers before now. They include the ability to close apps with four finger pinches, swiping up to reveal the multitasking bar, or swiping left and right to switch between open apps. I’ve had hands-on experience with these, and they actually make a bigger (positive) difference than you might expect.

    Custom vibration and LED flash settings

    It’s technically an Accessibility option, but Apple is bringing user-customizable vibration and LED flash settings to the iPhone in iOS 5. You probably can’t make it specific for each contact in your address book, but it should let you know at a glance (or at a feel) whether you’re getting an email, a text message, or an iMessage.

    Split keyboard

    I have big hands, so I can wrangle thumb typing on the iPad without too much discomfort, but it’s not exactly fun. For those with daintier digits, it’s downright frustrating. The new split keyboard should make it much easier to type out emails without having to deploy an iPad stand and assume a more traditional typing position.

    Did you watch or follow the keynote and have other suggestions of your own of great iOS 5 features not exactly given center stage today? Let us know in the comments

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  • Get a taste of iCloud, right now

    iCloud doesn’t fully launch until iOS 5 arrives this fall, but you can check out some features right now. Apple has pushed out updates to the iOS 4.3 App Store, iBooks and iTunes apps that let you check out your purchase history, and setup Automatic Downloads.

    App Store

    In the App Store, go to the Updates tab, and you should see a new item at the very top of the list called “Purchased.” Tapping that link will show you your entire app library, and you can easily see only a list of apps that aren’t yet installed on the device you’re currently using. One tap (followed by your iTunes store password) installs any app in the list on your device, free of charge.

    iBooks

    Hit the Store button in iBooks, and then tap the new “Purchased” icon in the bottom menu to find your library. Just like with the App Store, you can see all your owned titles, including those not on your current device.

    iTunes

    iTunes has a new “Purchased” menu item in the bottom menu as well, which replaces the Ping icon which no one ever used anyway. It works just like the other two mentioned above, but there’s a catch: iTunes in the Cloud is for U.S. customers only right now, so you won’t even see the icon if you’re in another country.

    Automatic Downloads

    You can also now turn on Automatic Downloads for any of the above in the Store section of your iOS device’s Settings app. That will mean that, if enabled, when you make a purchase on any device, it will be pushed out automatically to your others, too. You can also toggle whether or not your device will download over a cellular connection — very useful for those with metered data plans.

    Apple is also going to release a beta version of iTunes 10.3 that will let you do this stuff on your Mac, too, but the download link hasn’t yet gone live. Let us know if and when you manage to grab it.

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  • App developers learn to cope when Apple encroaches

    UPDATED: Jonathan George, CEO of Boxcar was on pins and needles as he tuned into the coverage of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, waiting to find out if Apple was about to squeeze his business or allow it to flourish. George, who founded the push-notification service, breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the announcement that Apple was introducing Notification Center for iOS, which organized all text messages, missed calls, calendar alerts and app alerts in one place. While the new offering may affect his messaging in-box feature, it will leave intact his core business of delivering messages, especially from companies that don’t have mobile apps.

    “I was pretty concerned before the announcement because you don't know what Apple is going to do, but it turned out great,” said George. “We can all send a lot more notifications now so this helps everyone.”

    Not everyone was so lucky. Marco Arment, founder of Instapaper responded with a short but concise tweet of “s***” when Apple announced the new Read Later feature for iOS. He later recovered and said, “Glad I’ve invested in social and editorial features. Not dead yet!” Later in a blog post, Arment said Apple’s foray into time-shifted reading will likely be good for Instapaper because it will shine a light on this sort of application, which is unknown to most users. And that could help encourage people to eventually pay up for Instapaper’s premium services, he said.

    “So I'm tentatively optimistic. Our world changes quickly, especially on the cutting edge, and I really don't know what's going to happen. (Nobody does.) But the more potential scenarios I consider, the more likely it seems that Safari's Reading List is either going to have no noticeable effect on Instapaper, or it will improve sales dramatically. Time will tell,” Arment wrote.

    The reaction shows how developers are often at the mercy of platform makers, who create vibrant ecosystems but can also wade into the market with their own native features and apps that compete with, and can sometimes, displace existing third-party apps. It’s a lesson some Twitter developers are learning the hard way lately. Apple’s latest mobile operating system and iCloud roll out touched on a lot of existing third-party services from cloud storage and note-taking apps to reading programs, camera apps and group messaging services.

    But in talking to developers, many came away upbeat about the latest announcement. John Casasanta, principal at tap tap tap, maker of the photo shooting and editing Camera+  app, said he was not worried about Apple’s improvements to its native camera and photos apps, which will soon offer the ability to get access to the camera from the lock screen and the ability to shoot pictures with a press of the volume button, something Camera+ popularized before the feature was banned. The new iOS tools also include simple rotating, cropping and red-eye removal. Casasanta said the new features shouldn’t eat into Camera+’s 3 million users and may serve to feed the appetite for more robust apps like Camera+. He said he’s excited to hear what kind of lower level API access Apple grants third-party developers, which could mean better apps for everyone.

    “The bottom line is it will make things much better for camera apps in general,” Casasanta said of Apple’s release of 1,500 APIs for iOS. “The third-party camera apps market is huge. People love them and we’ll probably see more camera apps now.”

    For Jared Hecht, founder of messaging app GroupMe, the announcement reminded him that it was good to invest in cross platform apps and multiple technologies. While Apple on Monday introduced iMessage, which allows users to send text messages, photos, videos or contact information to a person or a group, it is confined to iOS products and works over a data connections, not SMS. GroupMe, on the other hand, works on Android and BlackBerry as well, and uses SMS when a data connection is weak.

    “What Apple did is good for the iOS ecosystem but what we’re doing is fundamentally different. What we’re doing is being accessible for all people whatever phone they have,” said Hecht.

    George said the reality is that Apple always has the right to encroach on the turf of developers. But it often leaves an opening for good developers who are willing to go deeper or more broad with their services. It doesn’t mean developers are always safe but it’s not all doom and gloom with new iOS releases that have competing features.

    “None of these affected apps will go away because they offer deeper functionality. But (the new iOS 5) introduces the masses to those kinds of applications,” George said. “There is always a segment that wants deeper functionality and that's something Apple just doesn't do. Apple has done a good job of creating more opportunities than they destroy with their new releases. But you have to remember you’re playing in Apple’s ball game.”

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  • Google's browser-based cloud to be challenged by Apple's apps

    The difference between Apple and Google is even clearer after today’s announcements. Apple is all about the apps. Google may have a stronger footing in the cloud today, but its browser-centric approach to client applications leaves room for Apple to improve things, especially in the mobile realm. Apple is playing to its existing strengths regarding hardware/software integration, but now it’s bringing that game to the cloud, too.

    Google’s app-less cloud for tablets

    To Google, the iPad is just a larger display surface for ads. Just looking at what Google has done on the iPhone compared to iPad, there’s a definite commitment gap. Unlike Google’s continued commitment to apps on the iPhone, the company seems content to let the web stand in for iPad-specific options. This strategy is not new; it’s very reminiscent of Oracle’s Acorn and Sun Microsystems’ JavaStation. One of the reasons these solutions failed was because they assumed the browser was a good enough application delivery system, and not just a dynamic content delivery system.  It’s a failure Google is destined to repeat if it isn’t careful.

    Apple’s iOS/OS X updates and the iCloud

    Apple’s decision to distribute OS X online via the Mac App Store, make the rebranded MobileMe free, and open the cloud even more with enhanced online music services in iTunes, are clear and decisive steps for a company with its sights set on a networked wireless future.  For a company not previously known for a strong cloud presence, Apple has really stepped up its game, especially if you include some of the new enhancements to iOS, including better notification support, single sign-on with Twitter, and the new iMessage service. Like Google, Apple is now heavily invested in the cloud. But Apple isn’t creating web-based access to these services. Instead, it’s enabling the core SDK for developers, and when appropriate, making rich native apps of their own. Making the cloud an invisible backend component of local apps is a great way to get consumer buy-in for a concept that may not be widely understood. It’s definitely easier to understand than the idea of a web app, which is easily confused with a plain old website, and for good reason.

    Apple’s blended iOS/OS X app-based approach to the cloud has the benefit of being cross-platform, while avoiding feeling like a “best fit” solution like a web app often can. And while the user interface is distinct for each platform, the code base that developers write to interact with the cloud can be shared across all three. This creates a much deeper experience for the user as they move from platform to platform. It will be interesting to see if Google’s ‘We’ve got a URL for that’ can compete with Apple’s consumer-focused app strategy.

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  • MobileMe will transition to iCloud; Apple offers refunds

    Now that Apple has announced its new iCloud  service, which will be available at no charge, MobileMe users who have been spending $99 a year for similar services will be entitled to a refund.

    Anyone having an active MobileMe account as of today will have their service extended at no charge through June 30, 2012. If you let your account expire recently (as I did), you’re out of luck, since if you try to log into the old MobileMe website at me.com, you are told that your account has expired and that it cannot be renewed.

    Apple says that the new iCloud service:

    will be available this fall and free for iOS 5 and OS X Lion users. When you sign up for iCloud, you’ll be able to keep your me.com or mac.com email address and move your MobileMe mail, contacts, calendars, and bookmarks to the new service.

    It is no longer possible to create new MobileMe 60-day trial accounts, use codes from unused MobileMe boxes, upgrade from an individual account to a Family Pack, or purchase additional storage. You can, however, create accounts if you have an existing Family Pack membership.

    If you have a MobileMe activation code that is unused or was used for 45 days or less, you can get a full refund. If your activation code has been used for 46 days or more, you will get a pro-rated refund based on the date of your request.

    Unopened boxes can be returned to Apple Stores or to authorized dealers if they were purchased within the last 14 days; otherwise, you’ll need to go through the refund procedure, which can take 4-6 weeks. If you wish to cancel your current MobileMe service and get a refund, you may do so by going to the Cancellation Request Form.

    There is no mention of getting credit for the new iTunes Match service, so if you aren’t using MobileMe, you should probably cancel as soon as possible to get the maximum refund, and wait a few months to sign up for Apple’s new services.

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  • iMessage: Biting RIM's style & sticking it to carriers

    The iOS 5 upgrade introduces a lot of changes for Apple’s mobile operating system, but iMessages is one of the most significant. It lets iPad, iPhone and iPod touch owners send messages back and forth, including photos, videos, locations and contacts, all free of charge and without limits. If you’re thinking it’s the BlackBerry Messenger of the iOS world, you’d be right, and that’s bad news for RIM, but also for carriers.

    BBM is one of the few remaining advantages RIM’s aging platform has over its younger competition in the smartphone market. (Check out this tweet representative of reaction toiMessage’s announcement if you don’t believe me.) People appreciated the way it integrates tightly to your device, and its delivery and read receipts let you know your messages aren’t getting lost in the ether. It’s been a life raft for RIM in the violent sea of the ongoing mobile battle BlackBerry faces with iOS and Android.

    However, iMessage brings a lot of what’s good about BBM not only to the iPhone, which just passed RIM in terms of U.S. smartphone ownership trentds, but also to all iOS devices. With iPad and iPod touch users factored in, the potential audience for iMessage is huge, and it should cause at least some BBM-faithful to flee RIM’s platform for greener pastures.

    But while Apple’s aggressive move against a competitor is easy to understand, iMessage also represents a more subtle attack on some of its closest partners: the mobile operators.

    The service iMessage works over both Wi-Fi and the cellular network, and is unlimited and free. Text messaging, while often bundled with other cell phone services, is seldom free and only sometimes unlimited. Using MMS services almost always costs more money on top of that, and text messaging doesn’t have delivery receipts or work across multiple devices simultaneously.

    Like BBM, iMessage is limited only to devices from one hardware maker, but it didn’t hurt BBM’s popularity, and it’ll hinder the uptake of Apple’s service even less. iOS is a growing platform, and since iMessage can work even without a cellular connection on non-phone devices, it appeals to a much broader swath of mobile users. It’s like that iMessage use will cut into text messaging, and it will lead to a decreased ability to generate revenue from that vector for carriers.

    Apple wrestled control over the user’s relationship with device software away from carriers with iPhone OS and the App Store, and then it won even more autonomy by requiring iPad data plans be available without contracts. Reports say that it also wanted to go after the SIM card, arguably one of the carrier’s best tools for maintaining control over the customer relationship.

    But if Apple didn’t make this power play, Google would have. Google has already made inroads with Google Talk, Google Chat and Google Voice on Android devices. A unified messaging platform was the next logical step for Google, as Om suggested in a post earlier this year. Facebook acquired group messaging startup Beluga, and has already begun building out its own cross-platform rich messaging product, so it too is interested in this space.

    Apple may just be taking a first step with iMessage, which basically mimics BBM but expands availability to different device categories, but it’s just a first shot in a battle that will include all major mobile players, and in which carriers may end up suffering the greatest losses.

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  • Apple tries to tighten its grip on media with Newsstand

    Slowly but surely, Apple is trying to convince more media companies to play in its sandbox, and the latest move is an iBooks-style digital news stand for iPhone and iPad. As part of the raft of new features and services it announced at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday, Apple launched the Newsstand — a single interface for all of a user’s subscriptions to newspapers and magazines. Whether the new offering will convince more publishers to sign up and hand over 30 percent of their subscription revenues to the company remains to be seen.

    Apple has been working on a single digital newsstand for newspapers and magazines since last year, but ran into some significant roadblocks with several publishers. One issue was the control over subscriber information: some media companies didn’t want to have to ask their readers to give up personal details, but wanted direct access to that info the same way they have it with print subscriptions — since it is a crucial part of their sales pitch to advertisers. Apple stood firm, however, and eventually a number of mainstream publishers started to cave in to the company’s demands.

    As my colleague Darrell Etherington has noted in his coverage, Conde Nast has recently signed up to offer digital magazine subscriptions for a number of its properties including Wired magazine, Glamour and Vanity Fair, and Hearst (publisher of Esquire) has also signed up to offer subscriptions (Time Inc. is one of the few remaining holdouts). And contrary to what some publishers feared, a surprisingly large proportion of users seem to be fine with providing their personal info through an app.

    With the launch of the new Newsstand, all of a user’s newspaper and magazine subscriptions will be available in a single interface, the same way that books are available through the iBooks interface — the design of the newsstand even looks the same, with the wood-style virtual shelving similar to a bookstore or magazine store.

    The newsstand completes the transition of magazine and newspapers away from just being apps in the traditional iTunes app store and towards actual subscriptions with their own home. When publications were first offered on iPhone and iPad, users had to pay for each individual issue of a magazine and then download it separately. Now, with Apple’s support for in-app purchasing, subscriptions for Wired or The Daily or the New York Times will automatically be updated every month without requiring users to do anything.

    The biggest issue for publishers, however, is that dealing through the Apple ecosystem still means they have to give Apple 30 percent of their subscription revenue. Some publishers were getting around this by sending users to a website outside their app in order to sign them up for a subscription, but Apple closed that door last year, by requiring any publisher who charges for content to do so from within the app as well as outside it.

    Conde Nast and Hearst seem to feel that giving Apple that kind of control over their access to a subscriber base — not to mention 30 percent of their revenues — is a fair trade. But is that a sign of how compelling Apple’s offering is or how desperate publishers are?

    Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user Zarko Drincic

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  • Apple launches iCloud; here's what powers it


    Apple officially launched its much-hyped iCloud suite of services at its Worldwide Developer Conference Monday, and although the capabilities are sure to be the talk of the town among consumers, it’s Apple’s cloud infrastructure that makes it all work. Apple CEO Steve Jobs said as much during his WWDC keynote by closing with an image of — and shout-out to — the company’s new iDataCenter in Maiden, N.C. Details about the technology that will power iCloud have been sparse, but those who’ve been watching it have uncovered some interesting information that sheds some light on what Apple is doing under the covers.

    Probably the most-interesting data is about the iDataCenter itself. It has garnered so much attention because of its sheer scale, which suggests Apple has very big plans for the future of iCloud. As Rich Miller at Data Center Knowledge has reported over the past couple of years, the iDataCenter:

    • Will cover about 500,000 square feet — about five times the size of the company’s existing Silicon Valley data center.
    • Cost about $1 billion to build, which is about twice what Google and Microsoft generally invest in their cloud data centers.
    • Puts a focus on high availability, including clustering technology from IBM, Veritas and Oracle.
    • Was set to open in spring after delays postponed an October launch.
    • Is only one of two similarly sized data centers planned for the site.

    The other big Apple infrastructure news came in April, with reports that the company had ordered 12 petabytes of worth of Isilon file storage from EMC. It hasn’t been confirmed where all that storage will be housed — in the iDataCenter, in Apple’s Newark, Calif. data center or in the new space it has leased in Silicon Valley, or spread among the three facilities — but its mere presence suggests Apple is serious about storing and delivering files of all types. As Steve Jobs noted during the keynote, iCloud is the post-PC-world replacement for syncing everything — photos, audio, documents and more — across all your Apple devices. The company even rewrote the core MobileMe functions as iCloud apps and, much like Google with Google Apps, is giving them away for free.

    Despite all that storage capacity, though, Apple won’t be housing individual copies of everybody’s media files. Even 12 petabytes would fill up fairly fast with the combined audio of Apple users worldwide, which is why Apple’s focus is still on local storage for iTunes. This way, instead of storing millions of individual copies of Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” for individual customers, Apple can house minimal copies of each individual song and sync purchased files to devices based on purchased licenses. Even iTunes Match merely applies iTunes licenses to files within users’ personal libraries that weren’t originally purchased via iTunes, rather than uploading each track into the cloud before syncing.

    This differs from both Amazon’s and Google’s cloud-based music services, which literally store your music in cloud. That could help explain why Apple will charge only $24.99 a year for the iTunes Match service instead of charging customers per gigabyte. This model and the huge storage infrastructure will come in handy, too, should Apple step up its cloud-based video services, which bring even greater capacity issues to the table, as well as those around encoding for delivery to specific device types. (A skeptic might say that Apple’s reliance on local storage is antithetical to the cloud’s overall them of access anywhere (not just on your Apple devices), but that’s a story for another day.)

    But Apple’s cloud story doesn’t start and stop with iCloud and its related services; in fact, the cloud touches almost every aspect of pretty much every new service and feature discussed during the WWDC keynote. Every time Apple is syncing anything — from application data to system settings to media — it’s touching Apple’s new cloud computing infrastructure. That’s why Jobs highlighted the iDataCenter in his keynote and why Apple recently hired noted cloud data center expert Kevin Timmons from Microsoft. When you’re selling as many different types of devices as Apple does, the real value of the cloud is in syncing data among devices and users, and that requires a robust cloud infrastructure.

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