Category Archives: Apple Inc

Apple’s crazy iPod nano

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The iPod nano could be Apple’s answer to “How would a product evolve over time if its designers had a multiple personality disorder?”

Yesterday, at their media event, Apple introduced the latest in the line of iPod nanos. I’m sure the new nano is a fine device, a worthy successor to the previous generation. But come on!

One year the nano is long and skinny. The next year it looks almost like an iPod shuffle. A couple of years later it’s back to long and skinny. As if that is not enough, in between these flip-flops there was briefly a third basic shape: squat and fat.

Then there’s video support. Now you see it, now you don’t. One year, the nano doesn’t play video, the next year it does. Then video is removed. And now it’s back again.

Apple has never offered a clear rationale behind these shifts. They occur for no apparent purpose other than change for change’s sake.

Yet somehow, with each iteration, Apple wants to convince us that the latest offering is the “best design ever.” This is getting to be a really hard sell. Following the shifts in the nano feels more like watching a pendulum swing than forward progress.

I half expect that Apple will someday introduce a new nano as “the second, perhaps the third, most amazing nano we have ever made. The best one was three years ago.”

Dissecting Apple Link Bait

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As the result of a mention on Daring Fireball, I wound up reading a column by Jon Friedman titled “Get that Apple iPhone 5 out of my face.” That was five wasted minutes I will never get back again. The article amounts to a worthless piece of link bait. Here’s why:

Mr. Friedman says: “I am proud to say that I won’t rush out to get an iPhone 5.”

First off, note the not-so-subtle subtlety here: Mr. Friedman doesn’t say he won’t buy a new iPhone eventually. It’s just that he won’t rush out to get one. Maybe he will buy one a few weeks after the announcement. But rather than clearly say that, he phrases it in a more “controversial” manner, designed to make it sound as if he’s fed up with Apple.

Regardless, I’m glad for him and his decision. But where is the news is in this proclamation? “Wait and see” is good general advice for all buyers of any technological device, not something to be linked to a gripe about Apple. Unless you absolutely need a new iPhone in a hurry, or know you want the latest from Apple regardless of what it is, you’re almost always better off waiting until the dust has settled and you can be reasonably certain you won’t regret your decision.

Further, I don’t see why this is a source of pride for Mr. Friedman. It takes no skill, talent or wisdom to not buy an iPhone. Anyone can do it.

Mr. Friedman says: “I don’t want to hear about the presumably superior way I’ll be able to take and store photos and all the rest.” Yet, in the next breath, he adds: “Apple makes useful, shiny products that are more crucial to my existence than clean air or water. No argument here.”

Huh? Give his obviously favorable history with Apple products, why would he not want to at least check out the new iPhone? This makes no sense. If he is unimpressed with the new device, he shouldn’t buy it. It’s not as if Apple forces anyone to sign a contract for an iPhone before they can touch one. And, on the chance that the new iPhone turns out to be a truly revolutionary product, what’s the advantage to sticking your fingers in your ears and failing to find out the news?

Mr. Friedman says: “Fool me once, shame on you — fool me twice, shame on me. I already feel like I got taken by this company. I’m talking about my unsatisfying experience with the much-hyped Apple 4S model.”

“Taken buy this company?” What in the world is Mr. Friedman talking about? He bought a perfectly good iPhone 4S to replace an apparently broken one. Why is that foolish? As far as the reader can tell, his iPhone 4S has worked as advertised. The only feature that Mr. Friedman mentions as at all “unsatisfying” is that Siri did not live up to his expectations. That’s it. That’s the entire basis for his tirade of a column.

Give me a break. Very few people have been completely satisfied with Siri. That’s true. It’s also not news. At the same time, many people have been charmed by Siri and use it regularly. In either case, problems with Siri don’t make you a fool for having bought an iPhone 4S. I have not met one person who would agree with this assessment.

Bottom Line

Mr. Friedman has decided not to rush out and buy an iPhone 5. Personally, I don’t really care one way or the other what Mr. Friedman chooses to buy — unless there’s an interesting story behind his decision. There isn’t. There is virtually no useful information to be gleaned from his column.

Instead, we have an article lacking in logic that offers general and unsubstantiated condemnations of all Apple iPhones, the company’s marketing policies and anyone who is “foolish” enough to buy a new iPhone.

But offering useful information is not the goal of this article. Its main purpose is, via its provocative headline, to attract hits. This is a common practice these days. Given the high interest in Apple and its products, a controversial headline with Apple in its title is almost certain to attract more than the usual amount of attention. Unfortunately, if you follow all of the links to such articles, you’ll wind up reading a good deal of garbage.

That’s why I typically don’t write about such stuff. Why give these articles more attention than they deserve? Still, every once in a while, I feel it’s worth pointing out an especially blatant instance of this trend. That was my intent here. If anyone is being fooled, it’s not Mr. Friedman. It’s the people who mistakenly take the time to read his column.

Loop-iness

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In a recent The Loop article, “OMG iOS is being OS X-ified,” Jim Dalrymple dismisses the idea that OS X is evolving to become more like iOS (as many others, including myself, have claimed). Nonsense, says Jim. He argues that one could just as easily claim that the iOS devices have evolved to become more like Macs. How so? Because iOS devices have web browsers and email clients and appointment calendars and so on — all of which were on the Mac first.

When I first read the article, it was hard for me to take Jim’s arguments seriously. In fact, it was a bit hard for me to believe Jim even intended the arguments to be taken seriously. As pointed out by a reader comment, his logic essentially amounts to a “strawman” argument. So I was glad to see Jim admit, in a comment reply, that the “article was meant to be sarcastic and nothing more.”

Still, I believe there is a serious intent behind the column or Jim would not have written it. In fact, in a previous Loop column, Jim un-sarcastically asserts: “These claims of Mountain Lion being more like iOS are just shit.” That’s a serious charge. So I’d like to offer a serious reply.

Yes, web surfing came to the Mac before it arrived on the iPhone. But that’s not an example of “Mac-ification” of the iPhone, at least not in the sense that Jim intends. The Mac existed for over twenty years before the iPhone was created. There is no doubt that the iPhone included many attributes of the Mac when it was first released in 2007 — such as a Safari web browser and a Mail app. How could it not? The entire iOS operating system was derived from Mac OS X.

But that’s not the point. The much more relevant question is, now that both iOS versions separately exist, each with their own distinct characteristics, do increasing similarities between the two OS versions derive more from changes going from iOS to OS X — or vice versa?

It is clear that the answer is iOS to OS X. Apple makes no secret of this. Steve Jobs stated back in October 2010, in regard to OS X Lion 10.7: “Lion brings many of the best ideas from iPad back to the Mac.” Except for not always agreeing with the “best” part, this is what I and many others mean when we refer to “iOS-ification.” I don’t see why Jim wants to argue with this.

Further, it is almost silly to equate the fact that Macs had an email client or a photo app before iPhones to the fact that OS X Mountain Lion is directly adopting iOS apps such as Reminders and Notes. Almost every computer platform on the planet has an email client and a photo app. These are generic requirements, much like tires on a car. This is quite different from a Notes app in Mountain Lion that is almost a 100% duplication of the look and feel of Notes in iOS. Notes on the Mac is more than a replication of function, it is a replication of design and (most likely) specific code from the iOS version.

Jim further claims: “If Apple were trying to make Mountain Lion more like iOS we would be touching the screen of our computers to interact with out apps instead of using the keyboard and mouse.” This too is a silly exaggeration. First, this is hardly the only criteria by which you can judge what Apple is trying to do here. Second, Apple is using the Trackpad, with its multitouch gestures, to mimic the effect of a touchscreen on a Mac.

Jim even manages to contradict himself in a single paragraph. He writes: “Mountain Lion added the Notes and Reminders apps — that doesn’t make Mac OS more like iOS, it means that…millions of iOS users can open their Mountain Lion computers and have a higher level of familiarity with the apps on their Mac.” Yes, but where does this “higher level of familiarity” come from? It comes from the fact that these Mac apps look and feel more like the matching ones in iOS!

The final question for me is: Why is Jim getting so worked up about this anyway? Why is he so eager to “prove” that this trend is not happening? When I read his columns on this subject, it almost seems as if Jim feels threatened by the idea that OS X might be becoming more like iOS. As if, by admitting this is happening, one would be admitting some essential flaw in OS X, one that Jim feels he must oppose. I’m not sure where all of this comes from.

It is true that some people have been critical of the trend, arguing that moving OS X in the direction of iOS is making the Mac simpler to the point of “dumbing down” the OS. Others (including myself) have argued that some of the changes don’t fit very well; what works on an iPhone is not always suited for a Mac environment. And finally, some have expressed concern that “iOS-ification” will eventually result in a “closed” OS X, where only apps that are purchased from the Mac App Store will run.

These are valid concerns, worth debating. It doesn’t make them automatically true. I see merit on both sides of the arguments. However, Jim doesn’t mention any of this in his columns. In fact, he mentions no basis for his opposition at all. Instead, he just spews venom and sarcasm. So there is no way to know whether or not any of these concerns represent the reasoning behind his position.

Dave Hamilton suggests that Jim and I are, in the end, “saying the same thing; chosen changes are appropriate for Desktop OS.” At some level, perhaps this is so. Maybe the problem is that Jim and I have different definitions as to what “iOS-ification” means. If we could agree on definitions, we might agree in general. Jim and I certainly appear to agree that (as I wrote in my Mac Observer column last week) “Apple has not begun a conversion of OS X to iOS.” Still, both of us would accept that there is an increasing similarity between OS X and iOS — and that such similarity can have the advantage of maximizing “the positive transfer between the two platforms.” Indeed, I find myself largely in agreement with another Loop article on this same subject, written by by Matt Alexander. I assume Jim agrees as well. But the devil, as they say, is in the details. And in the details, Jim’s own postings have taken off in a more extreme and unsupportable direction.

In my view, iOS-ification by itself is neither good or bad. It is good if it works well and improves the experience of using a Mac. I contended, in my just-cited Mac Observer column, that this is precisely what Mountain Lion’s iOS-like features do; the forthcoming OS X “gets ios-ification right.” The trend is obviously bad if and when it goes in the opposite direction. I prefer to focus on such considerations, rather than making specious and dismissive claims that an “iOS-ification” trend doesn’t even exist.

Update: In a Twitter exchange between Jim and myself, which followed the posting of this article, Jim wrote: “If you are saying I don’t get it, you are saying Apple doesn’t get it.” and “Do you honestly think I spent an hour and a half with them and didn’t talk about this stuff?”

I find these quotes interesting on two accounts.

First, Jim appears to be implying that his articles are merely a (more colorful) restatement of Apple’s positions. If this is the case, I wish Jim would have acknowledged this in the articles, instead of passing them off as entirely his own opinions.

Second, assuming Jim’s restatements are accurate, he seems unwilling to realize that Apple might “spin” what they tell him. Surely, it is legitimate to disagree with Apple’s public presentation of its actions. If that’s what I am doing (and it’s still not clear to me that this is the case), I would be far from the first person to do so.

Jailbreaking, iOS 5 and Me

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iOS 5 is out. I’ve updated our iPad, iPad 2, and iPhone 4 to run the new iOS version. Plus, I purchased an iPhone 4S that comes with iOS 5 preinstalled. As installing iOS 5 wipes out any prior jailbreaks, this means I lost the jailbreak on all my updated iOS devices.

This, in turn, leads to the obvious question: Should I jailbreak any or all of my devices running iOS 5?

At least for the moment, the current limitations of jailbreaking have largely determined the answer for me. You can not jailbreak the iPhone 4S or the iPad 2 running iOS 5. The jailbreak for my remaining iOS 5 devices is tethered — which means I would have to connect the device to a Mac whenever I power down and reboot the device. In the past, I have resisted installing this type of jailbreak, not wanting to have to deal with such an inconvenience.

But let’s ignore these restrictions. Suppose I could jailbreak all of my iOS 5 devices with a minimum of hassle. Should I do it? I’m not asking this in the ethical or political sense. That’s a different kettle of fish that I intend to cover today. Rather, I am asking a more personal question. I have previously jailbroken nearly every iOS device I have owned. Why? Because, as I have written on numerous occasions (such as this posting), I have found it worthwhile to do so. But what about now? Is it still worth even a minimum of trouble to jailbreak? Or has iOS 5 changed the equation in such a way that I would rather not bother at all?

My answer is: With the release of iOS 5, I am ready to abandon jailbreaking. Well, almost.

This is because iOS 5 has managed to eliminate almost every reason I previously had for jailbreaking. People jailbreak their iOS devices for a variety of different purposes. There’s a wealth of jailbreak apps out there. While each app has its champions, I have ignored all but a select few of them.

There have been, at most, a half-dozen features that have led me to consider jailbreaking. Apple’s iOS 5 offers an alternative for all but two of those features (and only one of those two really matters).

I give kudos to Apple for this. Apple has shown a willingness to respond to what drove many users to jailbreak their devices, yet still maintain the company’s limits in regard to what they allow on an iOS device. It’s a difficult balancing act, and Apple is handling it well.

What exactly has iOS 5 delivered that has caused me to change my tune?

Well, there’s Notification Center, Wi-Fi syncing and AirPlay mirroring. I have previously used jailbreak apps to accomplish these tasks. No more. I should also mention internet tethering. You’ve been able to do this “legally” on an iPhone prior to iOS 5. However, for me, doing so would mean giving up my AT&T unlimited data plan — something I do not want to do. As such, I considered using a jailbreak app to accomplish this tethering. However, the truth is that I have almost never been in a situation where I wanted to use this feature. So I can easily live without it. Again, this means no need for a jailbreak.

What remains for a jailbreak to accomplish for me? Two things.

The first is Home button disabling via IncarcerApp. This app puts an iOS device in a kiosk-mode. Apple uses it in their Stores for the iPads that sit on their product display tables. It’s also useful when sharing an iOS device with a young child. It means you can let a child play with a given app without worrying that they will press the Home button to exit the app and begin an “exploration” of the rest of your device.

So far, Apple prohibits any such feature on an iOS device. This represents my quintessential annoyance with Apple’s iOS policies. Here is a feature that is clearly helpful (even Apple uses it), seems easy to implement and has worked perfectly in my use. Yet, because of Apple’s restrictions on what can and can’t go in the App Store, this jailbreak-only app remains unavailable to the vast majority of iOS users. That’s how Apple rolls. Maybe someday, Apple will offer this feature, as they finally did with mirroring. We can hope.

On the other hand, I personally have had very little “real world” use for the app. I would certainly not bother to jailbreak an iOS device just to get this feature.

This leaves only one remaining reason for me to jailbreak. And it’s a big one. So big, that I am still debating jailbreaking my devices just so I can have the feature. That feature is root access to the iOS. With a jailbreak, even without adding any additional software, you have access to the entire contents of an iOS device: System folder, Library folders, UNIX directories and everything else. Connect a jailbroken device to a OS X app such as PhoneView and the entire iOS opens up to you. As I have covered before, this allows for troubleshooting and “power user” tricks that you could not otherwise do.

Install the jailbreak app iFile on your drive and you have root access right on the iOS device itself, via an easy to navigate Finder-like interface.

All Mac users have root access. The Mac has survived quite well despite openly offering this power. I am confident the iPhone and iPad would survive just as well. If it made Apple feel better, they could restrict this access to an “advanced” mode, one that most users would almost certainly ignore. As it stands now, iOS devices are like cars that have the hood locked so that only dealers can see and modify what’s underneath.

I understand that most people are content never to peer into the System folder on an iOS device or look under the hood of a car. I am not one of those people. For me, and for those who share my interest, jailbreaking remains the only solution. If Apple provided some form of root access to iOS devices, I would without a doubt be ready to bid adieu to jailbreaking.

Even so, iOS 5 is such a giant leap forward that, for the first time, I can imagine giving up on jailbreaking even if it meant a loss of root access. In fact, that’s what I am doing now. I wound up jailbreaking my original iPad, just to test things out. However, my iPad 2 and both iPhones remain unmodified. So far, things have been going well. Very well.