Apple Outsider

Industry News, Exploits and Hacks from a former Apple Insider

Archives for June 2010

Nokia Goes After the Death Grip

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Nokia took a witty jab at the iPhone 4 “Death Grip” issue this morning with a post asking “How do you hold your Nokia?” (Witty answer: “Not at all.”)

Speculation remains high on whether the issue is due to a software bug or a hardware design flaw. If it’s software, it should be fixable. If it’s an inherent problem with the phone itself, and the complaints increase, expect more competitors to joke around.

My personal experience with the issue has been unremarkable: I’ve seen the bars go down when held a certain way, but no real degradation in voice or data service. Connectivity, which has always been a bit spotty where I live, seems no different from my 3GS. If I hadn’t seen the headlines, I probably would not have noticed anything unusual. It’ll be at least a week of use before I can really tell.

Great Moments in Marketing, Vol. 1: Nokia X5

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If you were wondering why Nokia was missing from the Wild West list, wonder no more. By now everyone has seen the X5, announced this week at Nokia Connection 2010. It appears to not be a joke. Daring Fireball, Boing Boing, even the WSJ have already weighed in.

The problem here goes beyond the product itself. The X5 is clearly a low-to-midrange model that complements the much more interesting N8, and Nokia has always been a volume player. What’s truly remarkable is the communication: why make such a confused, tainted announcement at your own event? Here are a few things everybody should be talking about in the wake of Connection 2010, taken from Nokia’s own N8 site:

  • HD video recording
  • Symbian^3
  • Facebook integration
  • Live, customizable home screen features
  • HDMI output

Instead, we’re talking about a pink parts bin offering. Keep in mind the N8 is still not in the hands of consumers. It has enjoyed zero real hours of flagship status, and is already losing airtime to a lesser product.

Given the competition of late, it’s hard to believe the X5 is receiving any kind of spotlight. Nokia should be pushing the N8 nonstop — until it ships, and for at least a few months beyond that. Go ahead and release the X5 quietly at any point afterwards. Nokia needs to highlight compelling products, not cheap ones. They’re already on the ropes in terms of mindshare; market share and revenue may not be far behind.

Related: The Ovi Maps service is billed as “For free. Forever,” where “forever” actually means “as long as Ovi and/or Nokia survive.”

WWDC10

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WWDC has always been unique for having dual identities: developer conference and consumer event. Attendees seek technical knowledge that’s not applicable to most people, while the keynote announcements draw interest from millions around the world. Other developer events such as GDC do have consumer impact, but don’t enjoy nearly as much coverage in the mainstream media.

This year, however, Google I/O rose to that level, with announcements of both new and upgraded consumer products drawing strong publicity. Its keynote rhetoric also highlighted the intensity of the now full-blown rivalry between Apple and Google. As expected, Apple fired back in the WWDC keynote last Monday, with varying degrees of subtlety.

It’s important to note that Apple does not frequently acknowledge competing products when discussing its own; the keynotes and special events typically promote the strengths of the product alone. A significant amount of last Monday’s keynote content was, by contrast, clearly influenced by competitive pressure.

The breakdown of mobile market share was predictable and direct. The financials were there, as always, to show developers that iPhone is a platform worth investing in. But the third party demos were telling. Apple often chooses these demos carefully to showcase specific new Apple hardware or software features. Not so this year: the chosen demos did nothing new and were not using iPhone 4 or iOS 4. They were simply leading brands, all in the entertainment space, that consumers recognize and respond to. (Yes, including Farmville.) Rather than “look what iPhone can do,” these demos said “look what iPhone’s got.” It’s a notable difference in message, presumably driven at least in part by the new competitive landscape.

Steve Jobs also spent a lot of time Monday deflecting heavy criticism of Apple for not being “open” enough. The first point made to this end was a clear differentiation between the open web — which Apple not only supports but continues to drive — and the “curated” native App Store. The use of “curated” was very deliberate, and a direct response to the much more negative “closed” thrown around lately. Look for it in future statements and interviews until criticism subsides. Meanwhile, developments in Safari and WebKit continue to raise the bar for standards-based web apps.

The introduction of Bing as a search provider for Safari on iPhone had been rumored for some time. Naturally, everyone saw this development as an attack on Google. But the presentation itself sent just as much of a message. Jobs used the word “choice” six times in less than twenty seconds during the Bing announcement. While Apple’s addition of Bing was a shot at Google’s core business, the announcement was a shot at its melodramatic PR.

One can’t help but appreciate the irony here. The initial friendship between Apple and Google was surely inspired in part by a common rival in Microsoft. Now the tables have turned, with Apple and Microsoft sharing the stage against Google. The reversal is so severe that a busted Bing demo in a later session drew heavy applause upon finally working. A WWDC audience would not have been so kind to Microsoft in earlier years.

The announcement that FaceTime would be an open standard was another surprise. Would Apple have done this without the pressure Google and Adobe have been applying? Maybe. But we certainly wouldn’t have seen a slide with a giant “OPEN” on it.

Finally, the free iOS 4 upgrade should give Apple some high ground on Android among developers. This is the first time iPod touch users have not had to pay for a major OS upgrade, thanks in part to looser accounting rules. But too much is at stake, and Android’s fragmented installed base will become a louder talking point. Apple wants every customer on 4.0 as soon as possible, and wants every developer to know that it’s safe to move forward without looking back. Don’t be surprised if Apple becomes unusually vocal about the number of users running 4.0.

Probably the biggest takeaway from the keynote, though, was the lack of a supporting cast for the first time in many years. No Phil. No Scott. No Bertrand. Steve Jobs is back, and back in charge, and nobody else was going to deliver the news or the message under this kind of pressure.

The battle continues to heat up. With both words and actions, Apple is taking the competition very seriously.

Hello, Lua

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Under the radar of this week’s WWDC news is a small but very significant change to the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement. The change is in the oft-controversial section 3.3.2. Here is the last sentence of the old copy:

No interpreted code may be downloaded or used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Documented APIs and built-in interpreter(s).

Here is the new copy:

Unless otherwise approved by Apple in writing, no interpreted code may be downloaded or used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Documented APIs and built-in interpreter(s). Notwithstanding the foregoing, with Apple’s prior written consent, an Application may use embedded interpreted code in a limited way if such use is solely for providing minor features or functionality that are consistent with the intended and advertised purpose of the Application.

I’ve said before that Apple’s aversion to interpreted code and external runtimes is the potential for someone else to take the platform over. That’s not the whole story, though. Games in particular tend to use engines and libraries that leverage interpreted languages such as Lua. Many of these applications pose no threat, neither implicitly nor explicitly.

While explicit approval from Apple is still required, these new terms seem to acknowledge that there’s a difference between an app that happens to have non-compiled code, and a meta-platform. It’s a step that should allow for many new possibilities.

What if iPad Came First?

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The most interesting revelation from Tuesday’s D8 talk with Steve Jobs was that Apple started with the iPad, and shelved it to build the iPhone first. Many people suspected this was the case, but it was surprising to hear Jobs personally confirm it.

It’s tempting to wonder how differently things would have gone if the iPad did in fact come first. Whether by chance or by design, it seems quite clear that the order in which things ended up happening was the right one.

Many already believe that iPad will end up having a greater impact than iPhone has had, as it aims to redefine personal computing for the first time in more than two decades. But without the introduction and success of iPhone to pave the way, iPad may well have been too disruptive on its own to be anything close to a hit.

Apple’s success is largely rooted in the way it embraces familiarity, even with “revolutionary” products like iPad and iPhone. Remember how iPhone was positioned when announced in 2007:

  • An iPod
  • A phone
  • An “internet communicator”

Everyone knew and understood the first two. iPod was already a hit. Many people hated their phones and were waiting for someone like Apple to reinvent the experience. These traits were not only familiar, but anticipated.

The third—internet communicator—was much more foreign, and drew a lukewarm response compared to the other two as they were announced. But we know now that that third, unfamiliar trait is the one that has defined iPhone as a product and a platform. “iPod” and “Phone” are now but two icons among hundreds of thousands.

This is what Apple does so well: it brings you aboard with something familiar or intuitive, and then takes you someplace you wouldn’t have gone otherwise. It is also what Apple’s competitors and detractors never seem to understand. With every product launch, naysayers inevitably turn to a PowerPoint slide and note that company X’s product overview has more bullets. It’s not about the bullets. It’s about people wanting to use the product. Tapping into that is very, very hard—especially when refusing to acknowledge its importance. How they can continue to ignore it as Apple’s sales and market cap soar is a mystery.

iPad is neither an iPod nor a phone. It’s positioned as something entirely new between a laptop and a smartphone. iPhone gave users a much softer transition to this new interaction model, and built a tremendously successful platform off of it. People immediately understood iPad as a result. Without that transition, it risked being completely misunderstood: a new platform, form factor and interface that intentionally does less than a PC and has no third party apps. Not only would this have been a harder sell, but any lackluster reception would have completely tarnished an iPhone introduction later. We could be living in a much different world today.

Decisions like these also explain why Apple doesn’t talk. It not only has the stones to shelve a project like iPad, it has the patience to keep quiet until the goods are real—so that whenever it does come out, it’s special rather than just late. Imagine a company blabbing about a new computing platform and floating contrived After Effects demos to the press, only to cancel it and instead release something entirely different much later. Actually… there’s no need to imagine.

Whatever thinking went into the decision, iPad is unquestionably a stronger product thanks to those few years on the shelf.