Category: apple

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Apple “predicts” 1997

This is an amusing video on where Apple in 1987 thought they would be in 1997.

Interesting even back in 87, Woz said:

“A computer that talks is no big deal. A computer that listens? That’s a breakthrough!”

Remind you of Siri?

I also like the fact that there are little nods to the future that they guessed at, such as BBC 3.

BBC 3

The video also shows of VistaMac. It looks like Google Glass and take a floppy disk, though the disk is reminiscent of an SD card.

VistaMac

In many ways there are some things they got right, back in 1997, we were all using desktop computers, there weren’t many laptops (or tablets) around and most phones only allowed you to make calls or send SMS. The move to mobile, and connectivity means that the way we work, play and learn has changed dramatically in the last ten years.

The reality was in 1997 Apple was a small computer niche specialist company, they hadn’t changed that much since 1987. In 1997 things did start to change. It was the year that Steve Jobs came back to Apple and within a few years we had the iMac and the iPod. Apple have not looked back. Since then, Apple have grown and changed and dominate the hi end smart phone and tablet markets.

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Stay hungry, stay foolish

Is Apple innovative?

David Hopkins on the Google+ made an interesting point

Am I missing the innovation everyone holds Apple in such high regard for? All I am seeing is reaction to what is happening elsewhere but no real drive or innovation. The latest updates are in reaction to Dropbox, user keyboards, messaging, widgets/homescreen, etc.

Apple have always been like that, even under Steve Jobs.

What they do best is take ideas from other people and make them really work well for users.

Steve Jobs famously said in 1996:

Picasso had a saying — ‘good artists copy; great artists steal’ — and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.

Dynabook

The Dynabook was first revealed in 1973, the HP TC1100 was a fantastic tablet (let down by a poor OS implementation), so when Apple released the iPad in 2010, this wasn’t innovation, this was reinvention of an existing form factor, and what they did was make it work and work well.

There were a few music download services prior to iTunes, but it was iTunes that made it mainstream.

There were many different mp3 players, from companies such as Creative, but it was the iPod which turned the mp3 player from a geeky product to a mainstream need.

The iPhone was, though innovative, most of the touchscreen phones before were clunky and didn’t work very well. What Apple did was take the touch interface to the next level, reinvention again, really.

Even Steve Jobs said reinvent when he announced the iPhone.

An iPod, a phone, an internet mobile communicator… these are NOT three separate devices! And we are calling it iPhone! Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone. And here it is.

Even Steve Jobs said reinvent when he announced the iPhone.

The 11″ MacBook Air is a fantastic piece of kit, but before then we had the Asus EeePC mini-notebooks, and Sony for years were making innovative VAIO laptops.

So following the WWDC keynote where we saw Apple release their version of Dropbox, the iCloud Drive (which replaces iCloud, which replaced MobileMe, which replaced the iDisk!). The previous versions were all a bit “rubbish” in comparison to Dropbox, so it will be interesting to see how iCloud Drive works against Dropbox.

Store any type of file in iCloud and access it on any device. With iCloud Drive, you can organize your files in the cloud the way you like, create as many folders as you want, and add tags to find files faster.

This is a great example of how Apple continues to copy what others do, but also demonstrates that don’t always get it right.

Another example from WWDC is the possibility of using third party keyboards.

iOS 8 brings the biggest changes to the keyboard since the very first iPhone. Now you can tap to choose the perfect suggestion for your next word. And for the first time, third-party keyboards will be available. Typing as you know it might soon be a thing of the past.

Third party keyboards have been a feature of Android phones for a fair while now, this is another example that shows Apple rarely creates something totally new, but takes on board ideas from elsewhere.

In my opinion what makes Apple a success is they focus on the customer experience, learning from what others do and then improve it.

Lastly a quote from Steve

Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.

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It’s crashed, it’s crashed…

Well maybe I should have been expecting it to do that, but my four year old iMac last night decided to throw a wobbly and fail to restart after crashing out.

Despite some attempts to start in safe mode, reset the PRAM, in the end I started it off in Firewire Target Disk Mode and connected it to another Mac. The result it looks like the hard drive is on the edge of failure. This is annoying as this was only recently replaced under AppleCare. My iMac is now out of AppleCare, so I am not sure what to do. The SuperDrive has also stopped working properly, well maybe it stopped working ages ago, I rarely use it, so perhaps I didn’t notice.

I am not sure what to do next, I do want to still use the iMac, but should I repair the drive or look to replace it. I would like to probably upgrade it to an SDD and then replace the SuperDrive with a standard HDD, but not sure if there is someone who can do that for me, or how easy it is to do myself.

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Don’t be a Fanboy!

Me by Heloukee

I do get very disappointed with people who get so agitated by fanboyism, so much so that they ignore potential solutions as they are not made by their favourite “manufacturer”.

Often I get accused of being an Apple fanboy, which is not too surprising when I sit there at an event with my iPhone, Macbook and iPad. I must be, I am using all Apple equipment…

Uh no…

I use what I think is the best equipment for me in the context of budget, where I am, what I need to do, etc…

What I don’t do is constantly defend Apple regardless of the context. Likewise I don’t “attack” other companies on their products. It doesn’t achieve anything and isn’t helpful.

So what is the difference between constructive criticism and fanboyism?

If you hate everything that Apple makes then you are a fanboy. If you would never touch Windows or Android, then you are a fanboy. If someone criticises a product and the criticism is a valid criticism, and you defend that product regardless, then you are a fanboy. If you choose one company for everything you use (and importantly recommend too) and then attack everyone else for using different things then you are probably a fanboy.

I remember back in the first few years of the 2000s I was telling people about how I liked using OS X, but was told many a time that we shouldn’t be using OS X in education as Windows XP was the industry standard and used by businesses, therefore education should only use OS X. What I found rather amusing was when it came to choosing tablets, those same people who said we must use the “industry standard” of Windows XP, said we shouldn’t use iPads as they were a closed proprietary product… even though by most measures they were the industry standard! The true colours of those people as Microsoft “fanboys” came out.

There isn’t anything really wrong with choosing products from a single company, the reality is if you then spend time attacking choices by others, or defending the company’s products all the time, then that’s fanboyism.

At the end of the day, I will choose and use products that make my life easier, I will write and talk about those products, and I will also make valid criticisms about products I and others use. I am writing this blog article (in draft) using a MacBook and Pages (from Apple). I will publish it online using WordPress (open source) and using a 3G connection via an Android powered Google Nexus One phone. I know people will be able to read it using a variety of platforms and browsers.

So are you a fanboy?

Photo via Heloukee

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Climbing the mountain to see the lion

OS X Mountain Lion

Today sees the release of the next incarnation of the Mac operating system, OS X, Mountain Lion 10.8. It was announced back in February and back then I wrote my initial thoughts based on the announcement. As when Snow Leopard replaces Leopard, Mountain Lion in many ways is an incremental update to Lion.

OS X Mountain Lion is the latest release of the world’s most advanced desktop operating system. Mountain Lion includes over 200 new features to update your Mac into the best computing experience yet. With the new Messages app, you can send text, photos, videos, contacts, web links and documents to anyone using another Mac, iPhone, iPad or iPod touch — you can even start a conversation on one device and continue it on another. The new Share button makes it easy to share files, web pages, photos and videos, as well as tweet straight from the app you’re using. With the Reminders app, you can create to-do lists and alerts that appear in the new Notification Center. With Notes, you can write down all your ideas and even speak your words with Voice Dictation. Play head-to-head games on your Mac with friends on their Macs or iOS devices with Game Center. And with iCloud built in, it’s simple to keep all your mail, contacts, calendars, reminders, notes, to-do lists, music, photos, iWork files, PDFs and more up to date across all your devices.

There are some interesting new features, there is the continued iOSiffication and deeper intergration with iOS devices. Speech to text is now built into the OS, though as with most speech to text you will need a quiet room and I can’t see myself talking to my computer in the office, unless I can shut the door and have the office to myself.

There is also notifications, which if you have been using Growl will realise has a similar functionality, you can configure it to let you know about Twitter responses, and other messages from various applications.

Notifications Center

Finally Safari does what Chrome does and you can use the address field to either enter an URL or a search term. Countless times as I move between Chrome and Safari I have got annoyed with Safari as I type in a search term, only to have a ‘doh’ moment as I realise I have typed it into the address field and not the search. Combining the two has a few issues (for example if you want to search on an URL and not actually go there), but the advantages outweigh the disadvantages in my opinion.

One aspect of Chrome I like (especially since I got the Nexus 7) is the syncing of tabs and history, when iOS 6 is released this will come to Safari. iCloud Tabs makes the last websites you looked at accessible on your iPhone, iPad and Mac.

I do like the Share button, this is a feature I do use on the iPad so it will be nice to have it on the desktop. However having said that, with all the Facebook issues I have read about, I won’t be integrating OS X with Facebook anytime soon (nor will I do that when iOS 6 is released. Hopefully third party apps may take advantage of sharing, and embed it into their applications. I am really thinking about Firefox and Chrome at this point.

Reminders also comes to the Mac and I am thinking I might take advantage of that as it does integrate nicely with iOS. The same has happened with Notes, though I don’t think I will be replacing that with Evernote anytime soon. I like in Evernote how I can add image and audio notes as well as text notes.

There is better iCloud integration, but it still doesn’t work as I would like it to, so I can see myself staying with Dropbox for the foreseeable future.

I am not a great user of messaging services, but I think, again with the better integration with iOS that I may take advantage of it.

One downside for me is the size of the install file, at 4.05GB this is one big download and having recently switched from FTTC back to ADSL this was a very slow download…

As I said at the beginning this is very much an incremental upgrade, so I would be really disappointed to pay £100 for this, the price though is just £13.99 which is incredibly cheap for an OS upgrade compared to what we have paid in the past. Also, as it is on the App Store means that for £13.99 you can download and install it on all the Macs you own or control.

Get OS X Mountain Lion 10.8  in the Mac App Store.

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It’s quite good really…

Let’s get a few things straight, though I may have a reputation for been something of an Apple fanboy, the reality is somewhat different.

Yes I have the iPad, yes I use an iPhone, true the MacBook Air does spend a lot of time with me when I am out and about, also true that the iMac at home (and the one in the office) are well used. You might think that I am an Apple fanboy and I only buy Apple?

The truth is more complicated. I like products for what they do and how they make my life easier, better, quicker and more efficient. Over the last few years the end result has been that I have been buying more and more stuff from Apple.

When the iPhone first came out in 2007, I didn’t like it, no real apps, no decent camera and importantly for me no 3G. At that time I was using the Nokia N95 which was, though somewhat chunky, was a great phone with a decent camera. With wifi and 3G I could use it as a portable wireless hotspot. Though with the iPhone 4 that became a possibility, the reality today is that I use my Google Nexus One for tethering over the iPhone. It is more reliable, it keeps the connection live and the impact on battery life is minimal – that was the one downside of using Joikuspot on the N95 it killed the battery life.

I do like the Apple laptops, but before getting a G4 PowerBook I was sold on Sony laptops, especially the compact ones. These, with their extended batteries, lasted all day and were small and light. I think it was Windows Vista which really moved over to OS X in the end. The constant updating and permissions issues made using Windows such a drag that using OS X was always like a breath of fresh air.

Even today, having used an Airport Extreme as my main home network router, having gone back to Netgear as I have reverted back to ADSL from FTTC I have found that the routing side is less than perfect and I have had a few network issues. True not all my Apple networking stuff has worked all the time.

So going back to the blog post title, “It’s quite good really…” am I talking about a new Apple device, no it’s the Google Nexus 7. I’ve had it two days so far and I am really impressed.

Google Nexus 7

For a tablet that costs just £159 it has the responsiveness and speed that I would expect from a tablet costing two or three times as much. Google have put a lot of work into it and the new Jelly Bean Android OS to give the end user a great experience. It is that great experience which counts as I am sure that is the reason that the iPad has cornered the tablet market even though it has its limitations. I am in the process of writing a full review of my experiences so that will come later. The Nexus 7 does have some limitations and issues, but overall I am really pleased with it and liking it a lot. It’s quite good really…

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Voice Dictation

Hello welcome to another blog post. I’m using voice dictation of this blog post which means I’m talking to my computer now I’m in a quiet environment so as a result this should be quite easy computer to pick up my voice and also to understand what I’m saying. I’m wondering whether I should go back and get it this text is quite pickup want to say that’s one of the problems with voice dictation is that while he doesn’t always pick up well. Planning to say was that the problem of voice dictation ethernet typing text that you want people to wind is not quite the same and somebody listening to a voice and speak you send me realise that you don’t speak properly be using is like a B and then you guys know what I’m talking about. So if you speak clearly and reasonably slowly then voice dictation will accurately turn your voice into text if you talk about your computer as though it was somebody in a coffee shop drinking coffee and new words and change things here are that I have the honesty using going to be very useful. So as a colour that last paragraph and did not turn out as expected if you speak clearly and reasonably slowly invoice dictation will Aquitaine voice into text if you decide to talk to your computer in a way in the same manner for example that you talk to somebody in a coffee shop and then your computer will convert your speech into text Blatchley somebody really your blog post. With somebody reading your blog posts and they will think were you drinking something else other than coffee when you wrote that you would not want to bring you were speaking and maybe they may be a little bit understandable voice dictation has some way to go before it becomes taintedness. That lasts sentence should’ve ended become totally useful rather then becomes taintedness I’m unsure what taintedness he’s having that were prices underlined in rates is from the real world anyway so there is going to be a lot speaking very slowly for the computer was slowly and clearly I think voice dictation has some way to go before it becomes useful and usable. I think you might need a good microphone too.

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My thoughts – Apple announce OS X Mountain Lion 10.8

It was only in July last year that OS X Lion was released, today Apple announced a sneak peek at OS X Mountain Lion, 10.8 the next release of OS X.

The first thing that strikes you is the iOSification of OS X. In Mountain Lion you will find Messages, Reminders, Notes, Notifications, Share Sheets, Twitter integration, Game Centre and AirPlay Mirroring. Looking at the new features you may have mistaken that you were looking at iOS rather than OS X. The Sneak Peek page does say “Inspired by iPad. Re-imagined for Mac.

I do think some of the features in OS X Mountain Lion are much needed if you have and reply on an iOS infrastructure. If your friends and colleagues have iPads and iPhones and you have a Mac, you will have wanted some iOS features on your Mac. With Mountain Lion it looks like we’ll be getting them.

Mountain Lion is all about communication and sharing, it’s about connecting with friends and colleagues and sharing images and content. It’s about making the Mac more like the iPad and the iPhone and merging the experience. The back end means you can still run regular apps you do now, but the essence of the operating system will be familar to those people currently using the iPad.

If you think about it, that does make sense for Apple. Most people using the iPhone are Windows users, the same can be said for most iPad users. In order for them to move to the Mac, they are going to want to have a similar experience and feel moving from iOS to OS X. I know many people who are very happy with the iPhone and the iPad, but either don’t feel comfortable with OS X or are wary of moving to what they view as an alien and very different operating system. You can imagine how these iPhone and iPad users would feel if the Mac they saw in the Apple Store looked and worked like the iOS device in their hand.

This is emphasised in the sneak peek video which emphasises how similar OS X Mountain Lion experiences are to the experiences on the iPhone and the iPad.

From a marketing perspective if you want to convert iPad and iPhone users to Mac then making OS X to be similar to iOS is the way to do it.

So what about these new features for Mountain Lion?

Even though there are other messaging tools out there, such as Skype, the fact that Messages will allow communication with iOS devices has to be a plus, as it is built into the mobile operating system. The problem with Skype is that it requires you to open the Skype app and as that can “drain battery” I guess most people don’t have Skype on as a default and I suspect that the same can be said for other messaging apps. Messages on iOS integrates well with SMS so if you are use to SMS you will feel right at home with Messages. I also like the idea of sending images and video straight from my Mac, I can see it replacing e-mail for a lot of communication.

One of the reasons I’ve not used Reminders on the iPad or the iPhone was the lack of integration with OS X, so I am pleased to see that there may be a simple, yet useful, to do list app that works across all my devices.
For similar reasons I don’t use Notes on the iPad or iPhone either. Somehow I don’t think I will swap, as Evernote has much more flexibility than the Notes app, I like how I can add audio and image notes. For many people though the Notes app will be just what they needed.

I do like the idea of Share Sheets, it is one feature of using iOS that I repeatedly miss in OS X and falling back on copy and paste isn’t that bad I know, but once you get use to that “share” button in iOS you do miss it in OS X. In case you don’t know what Share Sheets means, it’s a simple button that allows you to quickly share links, content, images and stuff to places like Twitter, e-mail or Messages.

What the sneak peek does show is how Apple are betting on Twitter over Facebook. You see Twitter integration mentioned all over the place, but not a mention of Facebook. That issue with Ping and Facebook must still be a real issue!

I use AirPlay a fair bit from my iPad, earlier I wrote about how useful I found it with my Apple TV.

Adding this feature to OS X Mountain Lion will certainly be useful to me, especially with web based video that isn’t available on the iPad. Of course there is an assumption that Flash will be available for OS X Mountain Lion and that isn’t a given. I can quite easily imagine Adobe deciding not to make a version of Flash for Mountain Lion.

My over riding impression of Mountain Lion, combined with my experiences of using Lion on a MacBook is that we are seeing the end of the mouse more than anything. The use of the laptop trackpad and the Magic Trackpad in the Mountain Lion video demonstrates that Apple see the future of the human interaction with a Mac through gestures and a trackpad and not a mouse.

We of course haven’t seen any sign in the sneak peek of Siri for Mountain Lion, and I guess that either may arrive later or this is something that isn’t going to happen and I can’t see that happening; much more likely it will appear in the final release in the summer.

So will you be upgrading? My iMac is still running Snow Leopard due to legacy apps, somehow I don’t see me changing my OS just yet… on the laptop, more than likely as it already has Lion.

Overall what we are going to get with Mountain Lion is an iOSification of the Mac operating system, the upgrade is much more about new apps and a few subtle changes, rather than fundamental changes to the operating system.

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Apple TV Thoughts


Apple calls the Apple TV a hobby, the reason behind that is, that it will never have the sales figures that the iPad, the MacBook and the iPhone gets. The moniker “hobby” tells analysts that they shouldn’t expect the Apple TV to be a mainstream product that sells in the tens of millions! Apple do say that those who bought the Apple TV really like it.

I am one of those who did buy it, and yes I do like it. I use it a fair bit but there are a few things I would like it do better.

First what do I like about it?

I like the fact that I can stream content from my iMac (in the office) to the TV in the front room. As I have an Apple and iTunes infrastructure for content then this works really well. As well as showing photographs, I like that I can show movies and videos from iTunes on the TV. I like the ease by which I can stream rented videos too without needing to “move” them from one device to the other.

I like how I can use AirPlay to stream content from the iPad to the Apple TV and onto the TV. For example I can use ITVPlayer on the iPad and watch it on the TV without cables. This works much better than ITVPlayer does on the PS3, likewise with BBC iPlayer and 4OD from Channel 4.

I like how Netflix works on the Apple TV, films in my opinion work better on the big screen than on the computer or the iPad.

I like how I can watch movie trailers quickly and easily.

So what do I think needs improving?

It would be nice to add UK-centric services to the Apple TV. Why can’t I add BBC iPlayer, ITVPlayer, etc to the Apple TV? Netflix got added “automatically” why can’t the other services? I suspect it might be a licensing issue, so I have to do it by AirPlay. Now though I like AirPlay it isn’t perfect and I have had a couple of issues with it, notably no audio and sometimes buffering of the video.

Renting movies does seem “expensive” to me, and I would be happy to rent the cheaper SD movies. At the moment I rent the movies on the iMac and then stream to the Apple TV, but would be nice to be able to do that from the Apple TV direct.

I like the idea of renting TV shows, but I suspect that there are so few TV shows that I want to rent that I haven’t done this very much. I either use iPlayer for more recent shows like Hustle, Elgato’s EyeTV to record a series such as Pan Am that I am going to watch later, or Netflix to watch older series, currently enjoying The 4400 as it happens.

There is a selection of internet video services on the Apple TV, but I don’t really use them. I think this is more me than the fault of Apple TV, I am not one to go through multiple amusing YouTube videos… but I am aware of people who do, so I suspect that this is more there cup of tea.

It would be nice to add music services to the Apple TV, but as Apple’s focus is iTunes I don’t see that happening anytime soon. If I was switched into the iCloud then I guess that would enable me to access some of my music, but I would also need iTunes Match so that I could listen to the mp3s I have downloaded from Amazon and my CDs. Though it has to be said there are a fair few radio stations I could listen to!

Now I know that I can “jailbreak” the Apple TV and install Plex on it, but that’s not really a mainstream option. Firecore’s aTV Flash is another option, but costs $29.95.

I guess my final thought on the Apple TV is that for many of the features you need a decent broadband connection, and not everyone has that. I am lucky in that my exchange now has fibre (FTTC) but before it was upgraded my ADSL connection was very slow and I had a fair few problems with it. FTTC does make the Apple TV much more useful and of course downloading from iTunes is much better too with FTTC.

Overall the benefits of the Apple TV certainly outweigh for me the small number of issues I have with it. I think for £99 as a set top box it really is value for money, but I say that with the caveat that you really do need to have an iTunes ecology for content.