Incremental Blogger

This blog post (Five reasons why Vista beats Mac OS X) by Preston Gralla on ComputerWorld is troll material and normally I wouldn’t fall for it, but it’s too far over the top to ignore.

Several of the reasons he gives for using Vista are rather silly. I won’t even get into them.

What I want to say, instead, is that I think he’s looking at the whole problem the wrong way. In fact, he’s looking at it as a battle of one computer system over another. Forget it. That’s yesterday’s battle. The stakes are different today.

It’s now just not about one desktop or one notebook for that matter; it’s about what devices (yes, plural) you use and how much you can do with all of them as a whole. It’s about how collectively they make your life better.

I like Vista. I even use the 64-bit version as my main OS on my Mac Pro, but I also love OS X lite, if you will, on my iPhone. It beats everything else I’ve ever owned in terms of browser connectivity–even though it’s missing Flash, which I sorely miss. I also love my Toshiba M700 Tablet PC. It’s a terrific notebook; a great brainstorming tool, and an all around workhorse while on the go.

I use all of these devices as a collective pool. They are all winners in my mind. Singling out one device or one OS or one application or one power plug or one button or…you get the idea…is focusing on too small of an item. Today, it’s about connectivity across multiple devices. The OS tug-of-wars still get down and dirty, but they’re nothing to get overly concerned about.

This article points to something I’ve been trying my best to communicate to others about the iPhone–you’ll find yourself using it like no other device.

For instance, I find myself checking stock prices–simply because it’s so easy to do with the iPhone–even when I don’t really care what they do one way or another.

I also use the iPhone as my personal weather checker—I’ve given up on TV and online weather services, except when I need a live radar map. Hint, hint, hint, hint, hint.

I also use the iPhone every day as my personal alarm to remind me to take my medication. Works well so far.

And more often than not I go to my iPhone to keep up to date on news listed on Techmeme and Thredr. This goes the same for following Twitter.

I also use the iPhone as my primary camera, but that’s quite typical I think for most cell phone users today.

One thing I don’t do is email a lot with my cell phone. I don’t know why. I just don’t.

Now there are some things I think are missing:

1) Flash. I can’t live without it. There are too many sites I want to visit that have Flash videos nowadays. I can’t see them on the iPhone. The lack of Silverlight support is increasingly going to become a problem too. It’s a bummer.
2) Weather radar maps as I hinted at above.
3) Better navigation through the map program. It crashes less today than it used to, but it’s not quite right.
4) Listening to music is OK, but why isn’t there a free radio station I can listen to wirelessly?
5) When I’m actually using the iPhone as a phone, why can’t I leverage WiFi when the wide area network is too weak? Dropped calls or no signal strength happens to me all the time. It’s quite disappointing.
6) I want to broadcast live video. The Nokia N95 is looking better and better every day because of this.
7) Where’s speech recognition-slash-TTS–slash–audio recording?
8 ) And, and, and…You get the point, the iPhone is not perfect, but then again, what is? Lots of room for experimentation and future features.

At Intel’s IDF event in China, Intel is talking up its forthcoming MID-enabling technology–namely the low-power, Atom processors.

I’m quite excited to see how this market pans out, but as I’ve blogged about in the past, I see a tough road ahead for Intel and its partners in this category. The two biggest challenges? The running start of the iPhone and iPod Touch as well as the fact that Intel’s MID component is missing a strong software partner. The iPhone/iPod Touch illustrate the importance of this. For instance, not only is the iPhone well designed at the user level, one should also check out the SDK. There’s nothing on par with it.

Now some could argue that Apple isn’t an enterprise expert and so there’s room for others. Yep, but I think it’s clear that Apple’s going to keep growing into this area too. But Apple has the distinct advantage of also having the respect of many early adopters. This is going to be a big challenge for Intel.

There are a few things Intel can do. They are:

1) Get a strong software partner. I think there are only two winning choices: Microsoft or Google. Either one will work. One is needed.
2) Think even cheaper. Lowering prices will eat into revenues, but Intel is behind. It’s going to take more than low power to win here. My concern is that if Intel lowers its prices the OEMs will take the opportunity to increase their profit since numbers probably won’t be as good as they want. The workaround is for Intel to give rebates to consumers. I’m thinking of something substantial for the early buyers. Maybe $100 dollars. The amount drops would drop off after 30 days.
3) Leverage the X86 community. Give away dozens if not hundreds of devices to leading bloggers. Invite them to your conferences. Get them talking.
4) Leverage leading, online trends. For example: Encourage at least one partner (or do it yourself) to build a MID device that’s very, very good at live video streaming. Think Nokia N95 without the phone–which can get in the way and cause streams to drop anyway. Think great lens. Think great image sensor. Think good chat readability. Think good battery life better than 20-30 minutes.

Mary Jo Foley speculates that with the arrival of Distinguished Engineer Len Kawell that Microsoft will be gearing Windows Mobile to the MID form factor. She gets this from Kawell’s bio on the Microsoft site. I’m not sure how much you can really get from this. I’m sure Microsoft investigates lots of things.

I’ve blogged a couple times about how Microsoft appears not to have a strong solution for the MID offerings–particularly on the low end. Vista may work, but I’m not sure how well considering the limited hardware. Still, I like the Windows approach because it will enable people to run “real” apps.

Using Windows Mobile, might be a nice option for some MIDs, because it’ll give people a reasonable and familiar feature feel for heavy phone users. For notebook/desktop users, they may feel a little restricted.

Here are a couple reasons why I think Windows Mobile will have a challenge on the MID form factor:

* First, graphics. Whatever OS is used on the MID form factor, it needs to provide graphics capabilities that ISVs can leverage which are at least on par with those on the iPhone. If you can’t create swipes, fades, and the like, forget it. Vista and XP have an edge here.

* Second, Windows Mobile may make sense when you think of a feature to feature comparison with what’s currently out of the box in the iPhone (essentially the leading MID device on the market along with the iPod Touch)–but does it reach the level of apps that can be created with the competing Linux-based MIDs? See, it’s not just the iPhone’s OS X that’s competing in this space. If CES is any indication, there will be many Linux-based MIDs. It makes sense, because the OEMs can create a nice MID-friendly shell.

* Third, the browser. A MID needs a real browser experience. This is going to be a challenge whatever OS Microsoft picks, but it’s worth mentioning. The iPhone shows that this is a must.

* Fourth, the developer ecosystem. Apple is going full speed with its developer program, even though it’s plenty restrictive for my taste. Microsoft has the edge here. Whatever OS it builds, it should leverage its developer contacts. My guess is this is easier to do with a WPF-friendly OS, but maybe Mobile can pull this off. It seems like it’ll have to be doing lots of duplication, which means it’s going to ramp up slower, still leaving the iPhone as the premier platform for the near term–let’s say a year or two.

* Fifth, a compelling SDK. I’d give the iPhone the SDK edge here whether compared to Windows Mobile, Vista, or XP–unless Microsoft also bundles in speech and similar technologies. But still, Microsoft has a weak touch and accelerometer story at this point. It’s not all about the screen. Microsoft has lots of experience with alternative UIs, so I imagine they can catch up, but it’s worth mentioning. The iPhone has an interesting developer story though which is going to inspire a lot of creativity.

So here’s the $64,000 question for developer: Which platform do you develop for now? A Linux MID? A Vista-based MID? A Windows Mobile device with the hope of making it upgradeable to a MID? Or the iPhone?

Seems like the iPhone has the edge to me for now.

Patrick Scoble compares the Apple Newton and the iPhone (Video). Patrick’s winner? The iPhone, because he needs a phone. The Newton’s is good for drawing he says though.

I’m going through an innovation meltdown. Maybe it’s a developer mid-life crisis I’m having. Maybe it’s all in my early-adopting mind. But it feels real and I can’t take much more of this without throwing caution to the wind and….and….coding.

What’s the “this” I’m talking about? This time it’s about a little music and a little thing called the iPhone. Seems some creative types have been creating little virtual instruments for their iPhones. Stuff.co.nz has the details and YouTube has some videos you can check out of their music. Here’s one that’s been viewed over 2 million times since its posting in February.

Why is this a big deal? It’s not. But the thing is, that this is yet another one of those little things that the UMPC should have enabled. Unfortunately the hardware wasn’t quite there. But this was only part of the issue. If you ask me, the UMPC builder “community” wasn’t up for it either and without their support….you know what happens. And by “community” here I don’t mean the end users–I mean those creating the devices and their experiences. You fill in the blanks with your favorite names.

Here’s the thing. It’s with little stuff like this that inspires. Especially on the consumer side. But over the last while I’ve heard the creaks and cracks of too many shrugging shoulders, telling me it’s not all that.

I made a mistake. I listened to them. I shouldn’t have. I should have pushed, prodded, and produced. I didn’t. And now I’m bummed.

Put simply: I don’t like sitting on the back of the innovation bus. I don’t want to ride there and unfortunately that’s where I’m at in too many respects. I don’t like it.

So I’ll say it again: The Tablet PC/UMPC/MID-builder community better get a good touch solution out and fast or it’s simply not going to matter any more. I’ll put it more colorfully: That clock-is-ticking sound you hear is no clock–it’s the chug-chug of the technology train leaving the station.

On the launch of the iPhone SDK, several of us described how we saw that with the iPhone was essentially the initial victor in the MID market–even though the MIDs have yet to hit the street. After this, there was a bit of a debate about whether the iPhone market and the MID market overlapped at all. Looks like Intel agrees with our take. Check out this market diagram on MacRumors. In it you can see that Intel looks at the Smartphone market as a larger opportunity for MIDs–although it sees it as a “Generation 2″ opportunity. Of course, Intel is meaning this from a processor perspective–in other words, they will have a processor that will be smartphone friendly in their second generation. But it’s interesting to see that they are lumping the first gen MIDs and the iPhone along the same “mobile internet device” spectrum. Makes sense to me.

It does acknowledge, though, the lead that Apple essentially has in the MID market. Not so sure if this is a good idea. Well, I guess if it’s obvious to most, then there’s no harm. However, it sure points out–at least to me–that Intel needs to get better aligned with its MID partners–unless it’s simply looking at MIDs as 18-month devices that’ll get drawered about the time their batteries fail to hold any more charges.

So this begs the question: Is it going to be worthwhile for developers to write for the first gen MIDs–or just jump right to the iPhone. After all the iPhone is out now.

If Intel had a large software partner, this issue would at least have a retort. You could argue that MIDs run a full OS (if Microsoft was fully behind the MID initiative) or that MIDs have unequaled access to the Internet (if Google worked with them). As it is, Intel is left with MIDs as a chunk of hardware with a mixed story in terms of the software–one that is overwhelmed by the Apple “equivalent”–the iPhone.

This being said, I do think what Intel is missing out on is the differentiators they have in their first gen devices:

* larger displays–which most of us older types find much easier to view. Plus you can simply do more with more screen real-estate.
* open platform and marketplace
* add an IR device in order to support remote control scenarios
* room for GPS?

Likewise, in terms of scenarios, I’d go talk with the camera folks. Add a good sensor array and a real lens, and you may just have a new market. Check out what’s going on with the Nokia N95 and Qik if you don’t believe me.

One last possibility going on here: This diagram may be telegraphing–get this–not simply that the iPhone is a great MID, but rather that down the road, the makers of the iPhone may be joining in on the MID game. In other words, Apple might position the iPhone as it stands today as a MID, but it might also be creating a Moorestown “iPhone” family device that’s more MID than phone.

What might this be like? Dunno. But maybe a larger screen. Richer apps that can take advantage of a larger screen. And who knows what. Likely? Your guess is as good as mine. No matter. If you hear about a rumor like this down the road, you now know where it might have started. Ooops.

As much as I love the iPhone and admire the new SDK, this is why I usually wind up developing around Microsoft technologies. Will Apple ever learn?

I hope Microsoft’s Apple envy isn’t successful enough to wipe away its advantages.

Warner Crocker’s declaration that the MID market race is over now that the iPhone/iPod Touch SDK has been announced may be a bit provocative, but I think he’s onto something. What do I mean? For the near term the iPhone/iPod Touch is essentially going to lead the MID market in terms of price, availability, developer community, quality of user experience, and funding of its ecosystem.

For Microsoft, this doesn’t mean much, because Microsoft isn’t playing in this game per se. Yes, there’s XP and Vista for some beefier units and I guess “CE” is a choice too. But let’s be serious here, for the near term none of these reach the platform model of the iPhone/iPod Touch. Sorry.

There are some Linux distros that are pretty slick that I’ve seen on some MID prototypes (at CES), but I don’t see these as major contenders either. Why? Because they are fragmenting. There’s not one single way to do things. It’s a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Nice efforts in some cases, but for the immediate future they are not going to lead the industry. They won’t condense into an industry. Sorry.

Where I think the big issue is, is not particularly in the OS “wars,” but rather in how essentially Intel’s MID initiative is left without a software partner. If Microsoft isn’t going to do it–if Linux isn’t going to provide a cohesive answer–Intel’s view of the MID world is going to have a tough time competing with the iPhone/iPod Touch family.

Actually, for Intel it probably doesn’t matter. I’m sure Intel will be quite happy if Apple switches to its CPU family and takes over the MID market. It doesn’t need the Intel-named MIDs to “win.” However, since it’s unlikely that Apple will ever license their OS platform to others to build like-minded devices, Intel will lose out in the total market it could achieve. So I’m sure Intel is struggling to figure this out.

As I see it there’s one possible software partner left–for the near-term–that could come to Intel’s aid. And that’s one that’s been quite good at filling holes left by Microsoft–Google. I don’t think it’s likely–just possible. Google could rework its Android initiative to make it MID friendly and this together with Intel’s hardware partners could possibly create an ecosystem that might have a chance at broadening the MID market. A chance. A thin one. But one nonetheless. I’m partially in doubt because of Google’s boardroom ties with Apple and Google’s lack of prior experience in this area. Besides they are thinking “phones” rather than MIDs at this point.

Note that in all of this I’m talking near term. Three, five, ten years out anything could happen. However, for the next year and possibly two Apple is in the lead and will most likely stay that way.

For all of you that are thinking I’ve fallen victim to the hype, let me encourage you to do a few things: First, get an iPhone. Use it and then tell me that it’s connectivity and form-factor don’t draw you in. Second, play banker for a minute. Where would you place your bets? In an unproven, fairly fragmented software market geared around an unproven family of MID products from hardware-based Intel and its partners or with Apple and its “iPod” family including the recent iPhone device that’s done remarkably well for its first year? And third, if you’re a developer, check out the iPhone SDK. Tell me it doesn’t have many of the things we’ve all wanted as rich-app, mobile developers. We’ve seen similar things before and beyond as well. But have they been so well packaged before? If you’re still not convinced, watch the demos during Apple’s SDK announcement event. And if none of this convinces you, I bet you’re not shaken by near term events, so no problem. I agree with you that in time the world will reach equilibrium and all will be well. What’s a couple years here and there among friends?

Yes, several years out, things will most likely be much different. And no doubt, there will be plenty of room for niche players across the board in the meantime. And Microsoft’s and Intel’s coattails are big enough to carry several efforts along the way too. But for the Kliener Perkins level break away products, I’ll be looking in the iPhone/iPod Touch direction.

As a Tablet/UMPC enthusiast and developer, I’m not going to dump what I’ve been doing and radically change directions, but you can rest assured that I’m keeping my options open. Like with the OLPC and Eee PCs I see an evolution occurring here and I don’t want to be left behind.

Good technology and good implementations deserve respect. And I’m treating the iPhone with such. Doesn’t mean my competitive instincts aren’t kicking in. Just means I’m very mindful and doing my best to do my best.

John Doerr of KPCB announced a $100M iFund targetted to iPhone and iPod products at today’s Apple event.

From the KPCB website,

KPCB’s iFund is a $100M investment initiative that will fund market-changing ideas and products that extend the revolutionary new iPhone and iPod touch platform. The iFund is agnostic to size and stage of investment and will invest in companies building applications, services and components. Focus areas include location based services, social networking, mCommerce (including advertising and payments), communication, and entertainment. The iFund will back innovators pursuing transformative, high-impact ideas with an eye towards building independent durable companies atop the iPhone / iPod touch platform.

How much will KPCB invest in each business? Again, from the website:

The iFund will invest anywhere from $100K of seed capital to $15M of expansion capital in mobile application and services companies

Very interesting idea.

I wonder how this will impact the MID development market if any–which in my book is a product without an advocate. Oh, yeah, Intel is evangelizing the platform, but what about the software side? Is it going to be freewheeling open source projects? Or is Microsoft going to get behind it? Or maybe Google if Microsoft doesn’t. That sure would be interesting, wouldn’t it? Google becoming a premeir MID developer advocate. It might fit well into their mobile browsing focus. I’m not sure if Android can get them there or not. I haven’t looked at it. My 10,000 mile high guess is no. But that’s just a guess.

I look forward to seeing how all of this will play out. Do you feel the world spinning? I do.

I was going to blog this morning that Steve Jobs’ comments the other day stating that Flash would not be coming to the iPhone any time soon was a huge mistake for Apple and a huge opening for Microsoft’s Silverlight and other smartphone manufacturers. However, I see that Robert Scoble beat me too it. Adobe, I’m guessing has been working on it, but since Steve Jobs is the gatekeeper it doesn’t matter how much they’ve done, it’s not going to appear for awhile. Quite unfortunate, for Adobe and users like me that consume lots of video content via Flash.

I think we’ve all seen that a good Internet experience on a phone is worth a lot. The iPhone demonstrates this. No other phone gets as close to providing this as the iPhone. Yet there is still much work to be done. The iPhone browser, for instance, does not support Flash at all. So I can’t watch Robert’s Qik videos on it as he broadcasts them live. I can’t see all the YouTube videos people post, as soon as they are posted. I can’t check out Chris Pirillo’s live feed when I don’t have anything better to do. And this doesn’t even touch on the other, increasing number of online Flash apps that are popping up here and there.

So the users lose on this one. A browser with no Flash at all is not a winning proposition.

I don’t think that Apple’s SDK is going to save the day either–especially since it appears that it’s going to be locked down. Most developers are migrating towards languages that technologies like Flash and Silverlight provide. Yes, I’m a big believer in C++-ish languages, but I can read the writing on the wall from here–no glasses needed. And the growth market in programming has moved on. It’s a reality.

The thing is by the time that Flash may actually get on the iPhone (let’s say summer time) the world will be different–if Nokia and Microsoft have anything to do with it. If I were them, I’d be working round the clock to beat Apple on this one. How hard can it be? Time to get the best working on this. And fast.

I need to used to the fact that the iPhone is just not a good video device. And by video I mean it can’t record video. It can’t broadcast video. It can’t play live video streams. It can’t play most online video content. Unfortunately, that’s the big thing right now.

Is it time to give up the iPhone? If this keeps up, yes. I’m bummed.

I have just a glimmer of hope that this is one of Steve Jobs’ misdirections. You know, when he cuts down something right before he launches his own version. You know what I mean. Could this be it? I hope so. The clock is ticking though. Hope gets me only so far.

Francine Hardaway says in her blog post today, “If it weren’t for the limits of the data download through AT&T’s lousy EDGE network and the lack of video capture on the iPhone, I’d be giving up carrying my laptop.”

Personally, I’m finding that I’m carrying and using my iPhone (for tasks other than making calls) more than my UMPC–even at home. The iPhone is simply smaller, lighter, faster and quicker at starting up and shutting down, and getting access to much of the content I want.

Would I exchange my Tablet PC on business trips and the like for an iPhone? That’s less likely. At least for now. My Tablet PC serves a broader service for me. I use it for development, for writing, and heavy duty surfing.

The iPhone works well for browsing techmeme, thredr, news.google.com, checking the weather forecast, looking up addresses, and the like. In fact, it works so well that I generally don’t do these things on my UMPC anymore. I use the UMPC more when I’m sitting down and will be reading or writing for an extended period of time. The iPhone is better at times when I don’t have time…or better yet when I have nothing  better to do with my time. And since I carry it with me most always because it’s my phone, I have easy access to it.

All this being said, the display on the iPhone is a bit too small. It gets frustrating to manually zoom in and out of pages. I also miss flash on it. Too many of the sites I visit have flash videos now. And, like Francine, I really would like to see video broadcasting supported by the iPhone as well as faster connection speeds. Provide these features and my UMPC will have an even harder time competing for “most often used device.”

I think I’ve found my favorite way to browse the Tablet PC/UMPC conversations list: on an iPhone.

My first stab at it was less than satisfying. The page was too small. Turns out there was an easy fix. All we had to do was add the following meta tag to each html page, which tells Safari how to scale the page in relation to size of the screen:

<meta name=”viewport” content=”width=320″/>

With this simple addition, pages now scale nicely so that by default the text is readable. I just tried taking some pictures of the iPhone showing the conversations list, but I don’t have a good setup yet, so instead I’m using the iPhoneTest.com iPhone emulator here and taking screenshots from it. (Be sure to use the Safari browser for best results.)

Here’s the Tablet PC list as of this evening much like it appears on the actual iPhone:

The Tablet PC conversation list is currently the default page on the server, but it’s also available as: http://www.thredr.com/tabletpc.html.

What’s really cool and convenient is setting up a home-screen icon for the page so you can get to it with a single tap after powering on the iPhone. Here’s how to do it:

1. Open the Safari browser from the home screen by tapping on the Safari icon.
2. Tap on the url edit box in the browser and enter:
http://www.thredr.com/tabletpc.html.
3. Then tap on the plus sign at the bottom of the screen and in the pick list that appears select the “Add to Home Screen” option.
4. You will then be asked to give this bookmark a name. I use “Tablet PC,” but any short name will do.

That’s it. Now when you go to the home screen you’ll see an extra icon that looks like a bit of zoomed out text with the bookmark name that you entered in the last step.

Now when you want to check what’s going on in the Tablet/UMPC world, you just pick up your iPhone, wake it up and tap on your custom icon. This brings up Safari with the conversations list ready to scroll through. Did I mention it’s addicting to use your fingers to flick through lists on the iPhone? Well, it is. At least for me.

Now as I’ve mentioned before, we’re working on a couple other custom micro-conversation lists too. There’s one that tracks Apple talk at http://www.thredr.com/apple.html. It looks like this on the iPhone:

As you can see in this screenshot, the conversation threader supports YouTube videos. When one appears you can tap on the link to watch it–although on the iPhone not all videos are available because they have to be re-encoded for the iPhone video format. There’s no Flash as of yet on the iPhone.

Well, here’s one other list that I have added to my iPhone home screen: http://www.thredr.com/msdev.html. It tracks a wide variety of Microsoft-oriented developers. (We still have many more to add to the watch list, but there are some good ones already.) Anyway, what better way to monitor what’s going on with Microsoft developers than on an iPhone :-).

What makes the iPhone so great for checking a list like this? It’s quick and easy to get to it. Waking up the iPhone or powering it up from a cold start is fast and getting to the page is only two or so taps away. The slow part will be downloading the content if on the EVDO network, but for the most part that’s not too bad. Plus it’s easy to flick through the content by sliding a finger up and down the page. And if the content is too small, it scales up nicely in landscape mode. Just flip the phone sideways.

Now wouldn’t it be cool if you could flick the page side to side to switch topics :-). (Probably would be too slow on an EVDO network, but it would be cool.)

Over the last couple years people have questioned the success of Tablet PCs because they say they haven’t seen people use them. (For the record, I’ve seen plenty in the wild, but I can understand how people miss them.)

This got me thinking: How many iPhones have I seen in the wild? The answer: Not many. In fact, the first ones I saw were this past week near an Apple computer store. You could say I need to get out more–or move to the Bay Area, but I think this isn’t too surprising. Even though several million iPhones have supposedly been sold, the numbers in use at any given time are probably not that high.

Have you seen many iPhones in use?

Lev Grossman of Time proclaims the iPhone the invention of the year. For me, in terms of tech, I think he has it right–although I might call it the “best new product of the year.”

Although there are some things that are a bit clunky, I’m still satisfied with the iPhone. I use it to check the weather when I get up. I use it to browse TechMeme and Google news when I have downtime waiting in line somewhere. I use it to jot down directions or little notes from time to time. And of course I use it to talk with people via the phone.

Is the iPhone perfect? Not even close. But it gives the best phone experience of any phone I’ve owned. And it rivals many computers I’ve owned too. That says a lot.