We’re not just a tech company. Apple is more than that. It’s tech and humanity. It’s the hardware and the software working together. It’s not just a great new camera system, it’s the editing too, it’s not just a front-facing camera, it’s that plus 18 months of work on the software side. It’s the complete solution, so all of us don’t have to be system integrators.
512 Pixels
On iPhone 4’s Screen
On existing iPhones (and iPods, and iPads), there is not a lot of distance between the glass surface and the LCD, but there is some. There’s also a very narrow amount of air between the touchscreen glass and the underlying LCD. If you’ve ever got a bit dust under your display, that dust is in the air between the glass and LCD.
It’s mentioned briefly in Apple’s promotional video about the design of the iPhone 4, but they’re using a new production process that effectively fuses the LCD and touchscreen — there is no longer any air between the two. One result of this is that the iPhone 4 should be impervious to this dust-under-the-glass issue. More importantly, though, is that it looks better. The effect is that the pixels appear to be painted on the surface of the phone; instead of looking at pixels under glass, it like looking at pixels on glass. Combined with the incredibly high pixel density, the overall effect is like “live print”.
I bet the price to repair shattered iPhone glass is about to go up.
HTML5 on an Apple Newton
D’Arcy Norman, on visiting Apple’s “HTML5 Showcase” on an Apple Newton:
The content displayed just fine, as best as could be handled by a 15 year old handheld computer. Sure, some of the bells and whistles are missing. But the site is usable.
Standards, especially ones that support graceful degradation of presentation by devices at runtime, ensure we have access to our content long after it’s built, on devices we didn’t have in mind when we built it.
If Grant were to try to view any of the content I built years ago using Director/Shockwave, or any of 47 terabytes of content built in Flash, the poor little Newton would have barfed violently.
Opaque, proprietary formats are bad. Open standards and degradable presentation are good.
Apple PR Leaks Safari 5?
Engadget has a post up outlining Safari 5, complete with an Apple-supplied press release.
Oddly, Apple’s Safari page doesn’t mention the new version, and I can’t find anything on Apple’s PR page. It seems that someone got a little excited and pulled the trigger early.
When it does show up, Safari 5 will sport a feature called “Safari Reader,” that is sure to make web advertisers ( ahem, Google) upset:
Safari Reader makes it easy to read single and multipage articles on the web by presenting them in a new, scrollable view without any additional content or clutter. When Safari 5 detects an article, users can click on the Reader icon in the Smart Address Field to display the entire article for clear, uninterrupted reading with options to enlarge, print or send via email.
I’ve got a feeling Safari 5 will be out tomorrow. Until then, just keep hitting refresh on Apple’s Safari page — it totally helps pass the time.
Update: It’s live!
The Most Precise Thing
Steve Jobs, on the new iPhone:
You gotta see this in person. This is beyond a doubt, the most precise thing, and one of the most beautiful we’ve ever made. Glass on the front and back, and steel around the sides. It’s like a beautiful old Leica camera.
For the first time, I prefer the black model over the white.
iPhone 4
Video conferencing, a new design, A4 processor, iOS 4, better display and HD video, all in one new, smaller package.
WWDC 2010 Stevenote Predictions
The Next iPhone
I don’t think anyone will be surprised by the device Steve pulls out of his pocket. Expect to see a demo of the front-facing camera and video calls — which I have a feeling will be Wi-Fi only, at least for now.
As far as the name, I see it being called “iPhone HD” or just plain-jane “iPhone.” No “iPhone 4G” or “iPhone 4.”
This version of the iPhone will be on AT&T only. No mention of Verizon, Sprint or any other carrier will be made.
I’d love if the engineer who left that Gizmodo phone at his favorite bar would be able to help announce the new iPhone. Apple needs to show it isn’t just a stone-cold cooperation.
iPhone OS 4
Scott Forstall will hop up on stage in a black shirt with his goofy haircut and outline the features of the new iPhone OS, in case someone in the audience forgot that he did the same thing just a few months ago. I plan on taking a shot each time I hear “tent pole” mentioned.
Expect to see a demo of several new apps that leverage new APIs available in iPhone OS 4. Expect this demo to be long and quite boring.
No AT&T tethering at launch, with just a passing comment on the new OS coming to the iPad.
Refreshed Mac Pros, MacBook Airs
Both of these models are due for some love — they were last updated June 2009.
If the Pro gets a substantial update, it may get some time on stage with Steve. Look for better processors, more RAM and maybe some SSD options. No Blu-Ray. That said, it will probably be a small bump — if anything.
If the Air gets bumped, don’t expect to see it in the Stevenote.
Microsoft
While Ballmer won’t be there, I do think Microsoft will be discussed. Mainly the fact that Apple’s market cap has surpassed their rival’s.
Sadly, John Hodgman as “PC” won’t be there. Moments like this won’t be relived.
Bing will be added as a search option in the iPhone OS, but Google will remain the default.
iTunes.com
With Apple’s recent acquisition of the cloud-based music service LaLa, it just makes sense that some part of the iTunes monster will end up on the cloud. I don’t think this is the time, however. Apple’s massive data center in North Carolina isn’t finished, and while the company hasn’t said what it will be used for, it’s an awful lot of horsepower for something.
The biggest question is this: what part of iTunes in the cloud even makes sense? How and why would you want media in the cloud? Apple doesn’t even have media streaming to an iPhone or iPad over local Wi-Fi, let alone the cellular network or the web.
Safari 5 and 10.6.4
Seems like a no-brainer to me. HTML5 demos will abound.
Mac OS X 10.7
We aren’t going to be seeing anything about the Mac OS this year at WWDC. Everything — right down to the artwork for this year’s event — screams iPhone. Next WWDC, perhaps.
Random Things
Apple may also release a new display (think a 27-inch, glass-covered beast) at WWDC (or quietly on apple.com).
The “Magic Trackpad” seems to be a sure thing.
The iPad’s international launch will be lauded as a huge success, with updated sales numbers given.
MobileMe may get some new features for paid members. MobileMe will be free for everyone. Log in with your AppleID email address and go to town will free syncing. No email, no iDisk. Just syncing.
No AppleTV. That’ll be this fall, along side new iPods.
Let’s Just Remove Arizona From the Union
More backward madness from the The Grand Canyon State.
The Genesis and History of the Macintosh Project
“The Genesis and History of the Macintosh Project” is a paper written by Jef Raskin, Apple Employee #31 in 1981.
It’s a fascinating look into Apple in the days before the Macintosh.
AMD-Powered Mac Clones? Give Me a Break
Austin Leeds published a piece titled “Apple, AMD, and the Potential for New Mac Clones” over at Low End Mac today, and as soon as I read the title, I sent it to Instapaper. I just finished reading his article, and boy, I want some of whatever he took before coming up with it.
Let’s break this down, mind-blowing bit by mind-blowing bit.
With Apple rumored to be in the midst of talks with AMD, the possibility of AMD-powered Macs is very real, if far off. Let’s face it - Intel’s chips are becoming more the staple of cheap, hot PCs than AMD’s pricier and cooler offerings.
Intel has beaten AMD soundly for years in both number of units shipped and in the minds of consumers. Market researcher shows that AMD’s CPU market share has fallen from roughly 22% to roughly 18% from Q1 2009 to Q1 2010.
At the end of last year, PCMag took a look at the two companies’ 2010 offerings. The gist of it is that at best, AMD is matching what Intel is doing. As far as the claim of “AMD is in high-powered machines,” I just can’t find much to support it.
Among the PCs in our house (we have three), only one has been almost trouble-free throughout its entire existence - a Compaq Presario 5340 that we bought back in July 1999. Up until this summer, our old battle-axe ran almost perfectly with its old 400 MHz AMD K6-2.
Compared to our other two (a white box with a Pentium III and the dreaded 2.2 GHz Intel Core Duo-based HP Pavilion a6400f with it’s integrated Intel GMA 3100 graphics - read the Amazon reviews), the Compaq was cool, quiet, and generally agreeable to work with. Right now, it’s been gutted in preparation for a total overhaul - motherboard, power supply, and all - but once again it will be powered by an AMD processor, this time a 2.9 GHz quad-core Athlon II.
I drove a Saturn in college, and traded it in after the dashboard climate controls caught fire while I was driving down the road. Does that mean all Saturns on the road are pieces of crap? Hardly.
Also, the dude bought a HP Pavilion without reading customer reviews?
The possible switch to AMD could have more wide-reaching effects than a simple change of hardware configurations. While Apple’s hardware (iDevices excluded) was once the thing that set Macs apart from PCs, with the OS playing a secondary role (remember the old DOS-compatibility cards?), the Mac OS has come to be a major selling point in its own right since Apple’s 2006 move to Intel CPUs.
I don’t think most consumers know — let alone care — what kind of processor their computer has in it, except at the moment of purchase. OS X has been the main selling point for the Mac since it debuted. Which was years before the move to Intel.
Back in the G3 and G4 days, Apple pushed the fact that the IBM-built PowerPC chips inside the Macs could blow away Intel chips. Since then, the company hasn’t made a big deal about the silicon inside their boxes. (Except for when the first Intel-based iMacs and MacBook Pros were announced.)
In other words, the computer hardware is no longer as important as the OS it runs.
When you buy a PC, you are buying hardware from one company and software from another. Not so with Apple. With Apple, it is about hardware and software. They sell the complete package.
AMD processors are featured in precious few PCs, but those precious few are a privileged few. AMD’s 2009 market share was 2.3% compared to Intel’s 14.1%, and many AMD CPUs end up in higher-end PCs (like our old Compaq - a multimedia PC in its day). AMD also has ATI under its belt, ensuring compatibility between their CPUs and GPUs.
So, the AMD market is small but impressive - similar to Apple’s.
Without a doubt, Apple’s market share is small and impressive. But that doesn’t make them stupid. Apple has gotten first-access to several Intel chipsets (mainly for the Mac Pro), and bounced back and forth between Intel and NVidia GPUs as they see fit. Apple’s a player.
Bear with me here - this is merely speculation: By using AMD’s small market to its advantage, Apple could license out Mac OS X for use on a select few AMD-based OEM desktops and laptops. AMD could then enforce this by providing those select desktops and laptops with special BIOSes or, more likely, a specialized EFI that would allow Mac OS X to run on them. I wouldn’t put it past them to include the Mac startup chime somehow.
It’s not even good speculation. Any hardware manufacturer can use AMD chips if they want. HP, Dell and Lenovo all offer models powered by AMD silicon.
If the price is low enough, these Mac clones could sell like hot cakes, increasing the number of Mac OS devices on the market. Developers would have more incentive to create Mac software, consumers would have fewer reasons not to buy Macs, and, in turn, Apple’s mobile line would increasingly prosper (if it’s possible to top the sales they’re achieving already).
Low prices is one of the reasons Steve Jobs canned the Mac clone project in 1997. Here’s Dan Knight:
Apple sold 4.5 million Macs in 1995, a level it wouldn’t reach again for a decade. With the clone program in place and competition from Windows 95, that dropped to 4.0 million in 1996 and 2.8 million in 1997. That was the year the word “beleaguered” became widely attached to the Apple name.
Hard numbers are not available, but it’s generally estimated that the clones accounted for about 15% of all Mac OS computers sold in 1997, the last year with multiple clone makers. If this is correct, Apple could have sold 3.2 million Macs in 1997 if they’d kept the market its alone. Still beleaguered, but a 20% drop in unit sales is better than a 30% one.
[…]
One of Jobs’ first projects after returning to Apple was renegotiating the clone licenses to increase Apple’s royalty on each unit sold. The increased royalty would have made it impossible for Power Computing, Motorola, Umax, and the others to continue undercutting Apple on price.
The clone manufactures built better machines for less money. What would prevent that from happening today? If Apple placed artificial restrictions on clone hardware, they wouldn’t sell very well. And without it, companies like Dell (a company who has said they would run OS X on their hardware if they could) would build budget boxes and sink Apple’s hardware division.
My favorite part is that Leeds linked to the Dan Knight piece. Whoops.
If the iPad sells well (mission accomplished!), Apple has a device that it can depend on for revenue. Currently, iPads are outselling Macs almost 2:1. That’s not counting iPods, iPhones, or Apple TVs (the latter two of which are due for an update soon). Apple has a huge mobile market that could potentially sustain the company without the Mac hardware line, at least for a while.
That means Apple is free to experiment.
It’s true that the iPad is a smash hit with customers. But the margins on such devices are thin compared to the beefy ones the company enjoys with its Mac line. This chart is from the quarter before the iPad was released, but it’s easy to see that Macs make up a sizable chunk of Apple’s income. While the iPhone makes up a considerable amount of Apple’s revenue, it’s important to remember they sold many, many more iPhones.
Apple isn’t going to jeopardize what pays the bills.
If there is one thing Apple doesn’t do, its to experiment. Everything the company does is calculated. Yes, Apple makes mistakes. But they don’t wing it.
Think about this for a moment. Neither the iMac or Power Mac/Mac Pro lines have had a major chassis change since 2004. Yes, the iMac went from plastic to aluminum and changed screen sizes, but there was nothing as revolutionary as the change from the iMac G3 to the iMac G4 to the iMac G5. The ball stopped at the G5, and Apple hasn’t yet picked it up.
Apple’s laptop offerings have been pretty constant since 2001: Low-end plastic (iBook, MacBook), high-end metal (PowerBook, MacBook Pro). The sizes haven’t changed much either: 13.3", 15.4", and 17". The last 12- and 14-inchers were discontinued in 2006, and Apple’s never looked back.
The only two completely new Mac designs since 2004 are the Mac mini and the MacBook Air, and the future of the Air is not looking too hot at this point.
Agreed, but why would Apple look to outside companies to design new, flashy hardware? Apple’s design is years ahead of what anyone else is doing. I don’t think Dell could whip out some sexy new hardware just because they could run OS X on it.
You can wax eloquent about the Mac’s superior engineering, aesthetics, or the environmentally friendly aluminum and glass design, but when it comes down to your average consumer, here’s what catches them:
- • No viruses.
- • Can also run Windows.
- • Works with [insert glorified peripheral here].
- • Looks cool.
- • No viruses.
- • Good price per use.
- • Works perfect with iPod/iPhone/iPad.
- • Did I mention no viruses?
Most of those things apply to the OS, not the hardware. And yes, the no viruses thing really hits people.
Yes, OS X is superior than Windows. Why share it?
That aside, I do think consumers care about the Mac’s “engineering, aesthetics, or the environmentally friendly aluminum and glass design.”
Apple pushes the green angle because their customers respond to it.
I think Mac clones are a distinct possibility. Then again, Apple’s a tough company to second-guess. After all, everybody thought the MacBook Air refresh was coming last month.
The Mac benefits from having its hardware and software built by the same folks. Apple has proven that the model works for them. As a result, the Mac is a great, virus-free computer. Yes, they can be more expensive than a budget PC box. That’s fine — and it hasn’t hurt the company’s sales. The Mac is still popular, even in a recession.
The clone program is as dead today as it was the morning after Steve Jobs killed it. Apple makes software to sell hardware. That’s been the company’s stance since the early days, and it has worked for the company ever since.
I’m sure Austin Leeds is a nice kid. He’s just wrong about Mac clones.
iPad TV
Adam Lisagor suggests that the iPad could be the AppleTV he’s always wanted. He lists the iPad’s “Video” app in his argument:
For one, what of the massive $1 billion data center Apple’s building in North Carolina? I’ll just echo what others have speculated: this will be where our video originates when we pluck it out of the sky and siphon it through all our devices (including the cheap, tiny new box that sits by the TV).
For two, if you know the Apple TV interface at all, you can see it easily translating to the iPad’s screen and made to be touched. Gruber remarked after the Apple TV rumor broke that the iPad is far too expensive a remote control for a $99 home theater component. I say he’s right, but as he also says, it won’t be a requirement. The Apple TV will still be controllable by the minimal Apple remote, just as it always has been. But think of the enticement the iPad will present to Apple TV owners once they see it work from an iPad. I’m guessing a 1:1 correlation between the Apple TV iPad app and the Apple TV box, where an interaction on one is reflected on the other, to the point that selecting a movie or TV show from the iPad will make it stream to the TV. From the cloud. Like we’ve always dreamed. This is an inelegant way of saying all the pieces are in place and it will be beautiful. It will be the most beautiful symbiotic halo ever to halo things. The trend shows that in time, iPad-like devices will become commonplace. A $99 extension of a commonplace device will be a no-brainer for a large set of media consumers. When there is clearly a halo effect in place, and it’s not even clear which direction it’s coming from, I think you’ve got a winner on your hands. It could even be that the Apple TV is the lynchpin of the whole operation, the way that iTunes started as a “hobby” that organized our music collection, and revealed itself to be a hub upon which more than one industry was redefined.
So, one more sidetrack: If video is moved off of iTunes, the App Store is a marketplace for apps, and our books are bought in iBooks, could this mean that iTunes could return, gracefully, to serve its original purpose? Could iTunes just be for music? I just blew my mind.
You blew my mind too, Adam.
MobileMe Users See Pre-WWDC Changes
Chris Foresman at Ars Technica:
David Chartier alerted us this morning that his MobileMe account type had changed from “Family Pack” to “Full Member.” Turns out that several MobileMe subscribers have reported having their account type change, fueling speculation that Apple will announce tiers to MobileMe subscriptions next week during WWDC.
Previously, MobileMe account types were either “Trial,” “Individual,” or “Family Pack.” Without notice, numerous MobileMe users had their accounts changed overnight to “Full Member.” While rumors have suggested that Apple may drop the $99 price to better compete with Google’s services, Mac Observer speculates that Apple may instead offer multiple tiers of service at different prices, with current $99 subscribers getting all MobileMe features. New subscribers would presumably be able to choose a cheaper option with fewer features.
Interesting.