512 Pixels

On Expectations and Apple Product Launches

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Gary Marshall:

Make no mistake, the iPad 2 we see tomorrow will be a disappointment. But it won’t be a disappointment because it’s a bad device, or because it doesn’t take the iPad forward.

It will be a disappointment because it isn’t the entirely imaginary device the internet has been happily inventing for the last few months.

The iPad 2 may prove to be the best example of this in recent history. The first model was a smash hit. The rest of the computer industry was caught with its pants down, and has been playing catch-up ever since. Even the Xoom, built by the almighty Motorola can’t compete with the sheer force that is the iPad.

I’m sure the new one will be great — and I’m sure AAPL will lose some ground as people’s expectations aren’t met.

In the days, weeks and even months leading up to an Apple keynote, something is different about the Internet.

Rumors get posted and reposted at breakneck speed, often with no logical thought behind them. Cases get leaked, as do blurry photos of computer screens at Best Buys. People sell off their old devices, in hopes the new ones will be worth the hassle. As fast as bloggers can post clues and hints of what is to come, people accept them as fact.

In this feverish, near manic state, the Internet goes bonkers. People have a hard time remembering Apple is just a company, and that no one actually needs what it sells. But no one cares.

When the day rolls around, people open up half a dozen tabs and wait anxiously for things to start rolling.

Then it happens.

The stage goes dark. Steve1 steps out.

As slides flip around on the giant screen, hundreds of bloggers post each detail, minute-by-minute. Features, product demos, graphs and prices are all soaked up by the masses. The genius of Apple’s presentations is almost lost in the hubbub.

Then it happens.

The Internet realizes Feature X — rumored for weeks now all over the Internet — is missing.

The complaints roll in on Twitter. Apple Stores start getting angry phone calls. Bloggers shake their fists at the sky. AAPL slides.

Then, just days later, the cycle starts again.

“Surely the iPad 3 will be the one we’ve been waiting for all this time,” the Internet cries.

That must be right. Right?

[Marshall quote via The Brooks Review]

  1. Or Tim Cook, Phil Schiller or some other Apple executive. ↩︎

The Console OS

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Gruber, at the end of a great piece on the App Store subscriptions thing:

iOS isn’t and never was an open computer system. It’s a closed, controlled console system — more akin to Playstation or Wii or Xbox than to Mac OS X or Windows. It is, in Apple’s view, a privilege to have a native iOS app.

More on the NDA

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Peter Cohen at The Loop:

So there’s motivation for these blogs and second-rate news sources to violate NDAs. It’s a short-term gain that adds readership and applies eyes to page views, with a remote chance of suffering any negative consequences.

But it’s also really dirty pool, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s a lousy way of doing business.

We hear a lot from bloggers whining that they’re not taken seriously as journalists. My recommendation: If you want to be taken seriously as a journalist, then take your head out of your ass and start acting the part.

Peter gets it.

On Curating

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Kyle Baxter, on what curating means:

The web means there is always more supply than we can handle, so what we need is groups that can sift through the muck and find the people worth reading. Instead of publishers being merely the people who provide printing and distribution, completely irrelevant to the end-user, they should become someone whose taste we trust.

The Spoken Word

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Podcasting has taken off. While its been around for years, in the last 8 months or so, it seems to have really grown in popularity, at least in our corner of the Internet.

Here’s a list of the podcasts I currently subscribe to:

  • The B&B Podcast
  • The Bro Show
  • Engadget
  • The Engadget Show
  • Enough - The Minimal Mac Podcast
  • The Macgasm Podcast
  • NPR: Car Talk
  • NPR: Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me
  • The Operation Broken Silence Podcast
  • Put This On
  • Shawn Today
  • The Talk Show

Only two of those are video podcasts — the rest are just audio.

I’m sure many people listen to more than this. I know people who listen to everything Dan Benjamin or Leo Leoporte do. Even with this short list of mostly weekly shows, I find myself unable to keep up.

Currently, my work MacBook Pro is my podcast machine. I only subscribe to the Engadget Show and Car Talk at home, so I can’t spend an hour at work watching Engadget, and listening to Car Talk on Sunday afternoons has become a ritual at our house. That said, I often find myself selecting “Mark all as Played” on these great shows, just because I don’t have enough time.

When I’m at my desk, I usually have my headphones on. Several of us work in a big open room, and its distracting to hear everyone’s conversations. But my days aren’t always spent at my desk, with me hiding behind my Cinema Display.

I spend about 30 minutes a day in commute, and often more time driving between our sites at work. I’ve thought about syncing podcasts to my iPhone, but I sync my phone with our iMac at home, not my MacBook Pro. Syncing an iPhone with two iTunes libraries is possible, but can blow your face off at a moment’s notice.

Enter Podcaster, a 99¢ app that makes your iPhone a standalone podcast catcher.

I’ve moved most of my podcasts to my iPhone, giving me greater flexibility for listening. I can listen in my truck, at work or anywhere with headphones.

Bring on the content.

Update: Cody Fink just reviewed Instacast, and boy is it great. I made the switch and haven’t looked back.