Waiting for Apple’s “next big thing”

Posted on April 1, 2016 by Ted

The next big thing.

It’s what we are all waiting for. Well, at least most of us are. If you’re Samsung, there’s no need to wait; the “next big thing is already here.” Just kidding. Either way, the next big thing is a big deal.

Time was, Apple delivered the next big thing on a regular basis. Now, not so much. Inevitably, there are grumblings that Apple has lost its mojo and that we won’t be seeing a “next big thing” from them anytime soon — if ever. Last week’s media event added (or should I say “subtracted”?) fuel to that fire. The only two product announcements were a retro 4-inch iPhone and a downsized iPad Pro — hardly groundbreaking.

Personally, I found the smaller iPad Pro to be a compelling product: faster, brighter, louder, worthy new software features. It was certainly good enough for me to order one and dump my 3-year-old iPad Air. Still, it’s obviously not equal to the excitement surrounding the introduction of the original iPad.

This got me thinking: What exactly are the minimum requirements for a product to be justifiably labelled a “next big thing”? And when can we expect Apple to deliver the next one?

As today is the 40th anniversary of the founding of Apple (yes, April Fools day, but it’s no joke), it seemed worth pausing to reflect on this.

My definition of the “next big thing” dates back to the arrival of the original iPod in 2001.

There were already several MP3 players on the market, such as the Archos Jukebox and the Diamond Rio. As I recall,  Sony (trying to capitalize on the success of its Walkman products) also had some sort of proprietary mini-disc device. Most had limited internal storage — relying on discs to supply the music rather than a built-in hard drive. Their user interfaces were clunky; their battery life was poor (some used standard AA batteries). I don’t recall any non-iPod that allowed you to scroll through the device’s entire music library and play individually selected songs.

Then came the iPod: a thousand songs in your pocket, a revolutionary scroll wheel interface for navigation, easy syncing and custom playlists via iTunes on your Mac (or later Windows PC). It was, as they say, a game-changer. Today, no one remembers the MP3 players that came before the iPod. Every one remembers the iPod (heck, almost every one owned one at some point).

As I see it, the reason for the iPod’s breakout success was that Apple attacked the problem from a different angle than its competitors (“Think Different”?). Everybody else tended to be satisfied with eking out an incremental edge in features or quality — however small. Having a marginally better variation of  your top competitor (or at least being able to claim you did) was more than good enough.

In contrast, Apple was willing to throw out the playbook and, if necessary, start over with an entirely new design. Their premise was: “Let’s build a product that consumers will love, one that’s not limited by what’s on the market now. Let’s not be satisfied with being 1% better than our competitors. Let’s blow the competition out of the water.” And that’s what they did. The iPod became the “next big thing” and — probably more than the iMac — was the turn-around product for Apple’s financial recovery.

Even if you feel I’m exaggerating a bit here, you cannot make that claim for the iPhone. It could well rank as #1 on a list of most ground-breaking product introductions. You can divide the history of mobile technology into “before the iPhone” and “after the iPhone.”

Again, prior to the iPhone, companies struggled to come up with a winning concept. I am always reminded here of the ROKR — Motorola and Cingular’s Frankenstein phone. This disastrous attempt to meld a mobile phone and an iPod was so poorly conceived that it smelled like two-week-old fish before it even hit the shelves.

It was only after Steve Jobs and Apple maintained complete control over the end result that the iPhone emerged two years later. With its touchscreen keyboard, iOS app-based interface, visual voicemail, a full-featured web browser, and an MP3 player better than Apple’s own iPod — it was unlike any previous mobile device.

Back in 2007, the smartphone market was dominated by RIM’s Blackberry. According to the book Losing the Signal, RIM executives didn’t understand (or didn’t want to understand) what the eventual impact of the iPhone would be. They were certain the iPhone would fail. They were wrong of course. Today, the Blackberry is effectively dead. And every smartphone on the planet is either an iPhone or something that looks and acts like one.

Although the arc is longer, the story is the same for the Mac. Back in 1984, it was the first mass-market computer to feature a bit-mapped screen with a graphical user interface navigated by a mouse. PC users scoffed and called it a toy, doomed to fail. And yet today, MS-DOS is dead — and virtually every desktop or laptop computer uses either OS X or Windows (which began as Microsoft’s unabashed copy of the then Mac OS).

Sometimes, I wonder: Where would the computer and smartphone markets would be today if Apple never existed. Very different, and far less enjoyable, I am sure. My nightmare vision is that the market would be typified by ROKRs instead of iPhones.

The next “next big thing”

So…a “next big thing” has two primary attributes: (1) it derives from a “ground-up rethinking” of  a product (or even the invention of an entirely new product category), rather than relying on incremental improvements to an existing category and (2) the resulting product becomes so successful that all competitors either imitate it or die — leaving the “next big thing” as the primary or sole survivor.

The Mac, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad. With some small degree of stretching, they all fit within this definition.

What, if any, more recent Apple products similarly qualify as a “next big thing”?

I would definitely include the Apple Watch — even if current sales aren’t as great as Apple might have hoped. I remain optimistic that the Apple Watch will continue to improve with each update and that, within a few years, the device (and its imitators) will represent the entire digital watch market.

The Apple TV comes close. It was groundbreaking when it first came out; it preceded Roku and Chromecast and all similar competitors. What started out as a “hobby” has become a big success and an important piece of Apple’s product lineup. Still, I am uncertain about its future. Is it the prototype for all televisions going forward or will it get left behind by a competing vision? It’s very possible that some entirely different approach — from Sony or Samsung or Vizio or TiVo or (heaven forbid!) Comcast or even a new as yet unknown company — will emerge as the winner. How we use and control our televisions in still very much in flux.

So where does that leave us going forward? Is there another “next big thing” on Apple’s horizon?

An Apple Car could become the next big thing. But that’s still several years away. In the nearer term, Apple may be secretly planning to release a potential “thing” as soon as later this year. But I doubt it. If that were true, I believe there would at least be vague rumors by this point.

So, for the sake of argument, let’s assume Apple has no potential “next big thing” in its immediate pipeline. Does this mean Apple is in trouble? Is it even something we should worry about?

Probably not. Coming up with a “next big thing” is rare almost by definition. You can’t manufacture “next big things” on demand. It’s not like ordering pizza. Apple has had a remarkable run. But all runs come to an end.

Perhaps, as the company matures, its approach needs to change. This doesn’t necessarily imply a descent into complacency or mediocrity. It certainly doesn’t mean Apple is “doomed.” Apple can still strive to maximally improve its existing products as well as venture into new categories. And all the while, it can remain open to finding the “next big thing.” Even if one doesn’t come along, Apple can remain a very successful company.

Think about it. Many (probably most) successful companies never have even one “next big thing.” Certainly not more than one. When was the last “next big thing” from Toyota? Or Cuisinart? Or even Samsung?

And yet…there’s always the risk that some other company will come out with an unexpected “next big thing” — a product that could do to Apple what Apple did to RIM. Apple has become so huge and profitable that this no longer seems very likely. Apple can absorb damage and deal with it with less permanent harm that it could have in decades past. Still, companies like Amazon and Google certainly are not resting on their respective laurels. Dangers to Apple lurk on all sides.

In the end, I’m confident that Apple has a bright future. We’ll be seeing many exciting new products in the years ahead — regardless whether or not one of them qualifies as a “next big thing.” But it’s just as certain that Apple’s top competitors will be aiming to do the same. So keep your seat belts fastened. This ride is far from over.

Welcome to Apple’s next forty years!

Posted in Apple Inc, iOS, iPad, iPhone, Mac, Technology | Comments Off on Waiting for Apple’s “next big thing”

Trump: Vacuous, Phony, and Violent

Posted on March 12, 2016 by Ted

The vacuousness of Donald Trump’s answers in the debate last Thursday was truly astounding. And to the extent there was any substance to what he said, it was almost always factually wrong.

Two quick examples:

When asked what he would do to fix Common Core, Trump replied he would get rid of “education through Washington, DC.” That was completely vague. There was no mention of even one thing he would specifically change to accomplish this goal. But it also turns out to be wrong, as the moderator pointed out (and later confirmed by others) when he noted that states and local governments actually set the Common Core agendas.

When asked about his position on Social Security, Trump said he would maintain it at its current levels. To pay for this, despite growing deficits, he said he would get rid of “waste, fraud, and abuse.” Again, this is completely vague, offering no specifics of what precisely he would cut to reduce the waste etc. And again, the entire notion is factually in error, as the moderator pointed out when he noted that, according to several analyses, the total amount of “waste, fraud and abuse” in Social Security only accounts for a small fraction of its deficit.

And so it goes.

And when challenged to defend his statements intended to incite violence against protestors at his rallies (such as this one), Trump countered that the protestors were the “bad guys” and had started the trouble. Even if true, this would by no means justify his schoolyard bully replies, especially coming from a potential President of the United States. Further, as the moderator yet again pointed out, there is no evidence that supports the truth of his assertions.

As a last avenue of attempted escape from this dilemma, Trump now claims some of these incidents never happened. Incredible!

Despite all of this, my initial read of “mainstream media’s” coverage of the debate found almost no mention of any of these matters. The press instead chose to focus on how “subdued” and “policy-oriented” the debate was, making the whole affair, including Trump, sound almost positive. The press is far too timid here, but that’s hardly a surprise.

It goes without saying that none of Trump’s antics will dissuade any of his supporters to change their minds at this point. Their brains are already on “do not disturb.” In many ways, this is the bigger problem. There will always be people like Trump running for office. We’ve seen it before. We’ll see it again. But never before have so many voters seemed so willing to elect one of these people President.

That’s the bottom line: It is both scary and embarrassing to think that someone like Trump could actually become the next President of the United States.

[Note: I originally posted a version of this on Facebook.]

Posted in Media, Politics | Comments Off on Trump: Vacuous, Phony, and Violent

Shame on you, Epson

Posted on February 22, 2016 by Ted

A familiar adage asserts that Gillette doesn’t make its money selling razors; rather, it’s the razor blades that generate the big bucks. You need only check the price of a package of razors (which can go for more than $5/blade) to confirm the wisdom of this observation.

This business model is not limited to razors. If you own an inkjet printer, you’ve assuredly seen the same principle in action  — via the cost of replacement ink. But the situation with these printers is actually worse. Much worse.

You can purchase a decent inkjet printer for less than $100. You may even get one for free (as part of a package deal when you buy a computer). Move up to the $200 range and you can get a truly outstanding inkjet. Take my Epson WF-4630 — please! Amazon currently lists it for $250 dollars, although I have seen it on sale for as little as $150. This is a massive 46 pound all-in-one printer. Capable of handling heavy-duty tasks in ”busy workgroups,” it’s built to last. It’s also built to drain your wallet.

A replacement package of the four (4) ink cartridges for this printer can set you back around $100! In other words, replacing the cartridges just two times will cost more than you likely paid for the printer (which included a set of ink cartridges)! And these cartridges don’t last that long. If you use the printer regularly, you can easily expect to need two or more replacements in a year. Looked at another way, if you are content with a low-cost printer, it can be a smarter move to buy a new printer every time it runs out of ink, rather than ever purchase replacement cartridges. Absurd.

As I said, this is a familiar lament. It’s a Faustian bargain we make when we buy one of these printers. We accept the absurd cost of the ink for the convenience of being able to print photos at home.

But here’s where it gets worse. Epson (and, to a similar extent, all inkjet printer manufacturers) design their hardware in a way that could easily force you to trash a perfectly good printer and buy another one, even if you would prefer not to.

I doubt that this is a deliberate strategy on Epson’s part. If so, it’s a risky one, as you may buy a different brand of printer next time around. More likely, it’s the inevitable fallout of gross indifference to its users.

For me, this realization began when I attempted to print out a greeting card a few weeks ago. The printout contained a series of yellow streaks where red should have been. According to the printer’s User’s Guide, the first step in dealing with this mishap is to perform a nozzle check. This prints out a pattern that will show if any of the ink cartridges is not functioning properly.

Sure enough, my check revealed a partial failure of the Magenta cartridge (by the way, forum postings suggest this printer has more problems with Magenta than other colors for some unknown reason; but that’s another story).

Having confirmed the cause of the failed printouts, Epson’s next recommendation is to do a head cleaning. If this works, it unclogs the affected nozzle(s). There’s no manual labor required. All you do is click an on-screen button. The printer takes over and does the rest. If one head cleaning doesn’t resolve the issue, Epson recommends repeating the procedure for up to a maximum of four times. You may then wait six hours and try yet another cleaning.

Epson alludes to the fact that a head cleaning will “consume some ink.” However, this hardly does justice to how much ink gets wasted by this process. In my case, I wound up trying three cleanings. By the end, all of the printer’s ink cartridges had gone from nearly full to nearly empty. In other words, this potential fix had now cost me $100! The kicker? It didn’t work. Not a bit. Printouts were just as bad as when I started. I was $100 in the hole and still had a failed printer. To continue with more cleanings, I would have had to buy and mostly use up a new set of cartridges — with no guarantee of success. I decided not to go further down this likely fruitless path.

This type of “uncleanable” clog can happen for a number of reasons, including not using use the printer often enough — thereby allowing dried ink to “solidify” in the printhead. Regardless, it had happened to me. What to do now?

At this point, the Epson User Guide ran out of advice. So I turned to the web for further assistance. I already knew that, if a printer’s automated head cleaning failed, a clogged printhead might be rescued by a manual cleaning. The question was how exactly to do this for my printer. The basic idea is to lift the printer cover, locate the printhead and use a cloth (dampened with cleaner fluid or perhaps some diluted isopropyl alcohol) to eliminate the clog. The problem is that exact procedures vary by printer brand and model. What works for one printer may be completely irrelevant for another model. Further, whatever the correct procedure is, it likely won’t be obvious or simple. That’s why you’ll want to refer to a YouTube video for guidance.

I found several such videos for various Epson printers — one even described a problem specifically with Magenta (just as I had). However, none turned out to be applicable to my WF-4630. Well, there was one video, optimistically titled “How to fix an Epson WF-4630 printer,” that I thought would be the sought-after answer. However, its suggested fix, while tempting, was just too extreme; watch the video (really!) and you’ll see what I mean.

Thinking back, I can recall when fixing clogged printheads wasn’t this difficult. There was a time when users could reliably access and clean a printhead with relative ease. Often, the head itself could be removed and replaced if needed. Very few, if any, current inkjet printers are like this. Certainly not my Epson.

Back to my present dilemma. Before giving up entirely, I contacted Epson technical support. They confirmed what my YouTube search had already indicated: it was virtually impossible for me to access the printhead on this model. The best the support rep could offer was that I contact my local Epson authorized service provider to get the printer repaired.

I was skeptical that this would lead anywhere useful. I was right. The service tech said that, while he could do the repair, he didn’t recommend it — because the cost of parts and labor would exceed the cost of a new printer. He told me I was better off junking my printer and getting a new one!

So, while I can continue to use my Epson as a fax machine, a scanner or a black-and-white printer, it can no longer print color. If I want color, the only solution is to follow the tech’s advice — toss the printer and buy a new one.

Shame on you, Epson! And shame on all other inkjet printer manufacturers that are almost, but perhaps not quite, as awful.

Your business practices are egregious. The high cost of replacement ink is bad enough. Wasting huge amounts of ink on failed head cleanings only adds insult to injury. Must you also design your printers so that the one component that is most likely to fail (the printhead) is so inaccessible that, when it does fail, the only solution is to trash the printer? Especially when a simple manual cleaning might have saved 46 pounds of functioning hardware from winding up in a landfill? As I said, shameful!

[Note: Yes, inkjet printers can be viewed as part of a larger trend —  home appliances and digital devices that are now considered disposable rather than repairable. When one breaks, you trash it rather than fix it. It’s the most cost-effective solution, even if it’s terrible for the environment. A key difference here is that my Epson printer likely just needed some minimal maintenance; it wasn’t really broken.]

As for me, I’m done. I will never buy another inkjet printer. If I want to print photos, I’ll use Shutterfly or Costco or some similar service. For printing color documents, I’ll take them to Staples. Maybe I’ll buy a color laser printer at some point. Whatever. What I won’t do is get scammed by inkjet printer manufacturers ever again.

Posted in Mac, Technology | 9 Comments

Flash vs. Fusion: What’s the best choice for an iMac?

Posted on February 15, 2016 by Ted

Recently, I bid adieu to my 7-year-old Mac Pro and replaced it with a 27-inch 5K Retina display iMac. Overall, I couldn’t be more pleased. The display alone has been enough to justify the upgrade.

However, my indecision over one sticking point almost wound up derailing the move. It’s the reason it took me several months from the announcement of the new iMacs last October to finally make the purchase a few weeks ago. Even after the iMac arrived, my uncertainty remained. So much so, that I almost returned the machine. The dilemma? Whether to get a Fusion Drive or Flash (SSD) Storage? And, especially if the latter, what size drive?

While I believe there is no single best choice that applies to everyone, after much internal debate, I found the right one for me.

Internal

At first, it seemed so simple. I planned to get the 3TB Fusion drive. While I could have gotten by with a 2TB drive, it was worth a $100 to have the roominess of an extra TB. I figured I’d be buying a new Mac before I outgrew that much space.

My wife already had an iMac with 3TB Fusion Drive. So I knew that the drive was adequately fast and very quiet. Done deal.

Except…my inner geek was not satisfied.

True, a Fusion Drive is fast. But an SSD is even faster. In fact, thanks to design improvements in the 2015 iMacs, Apple claims the iMac’s Flash Storage is “up to 2.5 times faster” than the SSD in 2014 iMacs.

A Fusion Drive is quiet, but an SSD is not only quieter, it’s completely silent. Plus, SSDs are the future. Within a few years, I expect HDDs (hard disk drives) to be history. Even the Fusion Drive (which is a combination of SSD and HDD) will likely be gone. I wanted to go with the future.

Further, Flash Storage, because it has no moving parts, is more reliable than a Fusion Drive. Of special note, the technology that “melds” the SSD and HDD components of a Fusion Drive can fail, even if the separate components are otherwise fine, leaving you with an inaccessible drive. This will require Apple to fix it. While not common, this has happened to a few friends of mine.

The HDD component of a Fusion Drive spins at 5400 RPM. Most internal drives sold today are 7200 RPM. Obviously, I would prefer the faster RPM speed. I also don’t like that, with a Fusion Drive, I have no control over what files are shunted to the SSD portion; it is all determined by Apple’s software. While such matters might not significantly impact the performance of a Fusion Drive, they still irked me.

On the other hand, the biggest problem with pure SSDs is that they are much more expensive than Fusion Drives. The largest capacity Flash Storage you can get preinstalled in an iMac is only 1TB — and it costs $700 more than a 2TB Fusion Drive.

The result? Indecision! After mulling things over for a couple of months…and changing my mind numerous times, I finally settled on the Flash Storage.

I was not quite done. I still had to decide which size to get. The 512GB option, at only $100 more than a 3TB Fusion, quickly emerged as my preferred choice. The lesser, 256GB drive, although twice the size of the SSD portion of the Fusion Drive, was too small to hold my essential files (System and Home Libraries, Applications and Documents). At the other extreme, the 1TB Flash Storage still wasn’t large enough to hold all my files; not worth the extra cost.

External

With the main dilemma decided, I had one more problem to resolve: What sort of external storage would I use?

The 512GB SSD was 1/6 the size of the 3TB Fusion Drive I had initially planned to get. To accommodate all my data, external storage was now a requirement. Even if I could fit all my data on the internal SSD, I would still need external storage for mirrored backups. In other words, I would need at least 2 external drives.

Initially, I decided to buy an OWC ThunderBay 4 ($400). With this unit, I could transfer the three drives that had previously lived in my Mac Pro, saving the cost of having to purchase new drives. In addition, the ThunderBay provided the fastest possible transfer speeds (Thunderbolt 2) with the greatest capacity for future expansion, all via a single compact box that needed only one connection to the iMac.

This was a fine, albeit still expensive, solution. I would have stuck with this setup except for one thing: noise. Don’t get me wrong. The ThunderBay is quiet overall. Depending on your sensitivity, it may not bother you at all. But it is far from silent.

For starters, the ThunderBay has a constantly running fan. While not a noisy fan, the sound is definitely noticeable, even with the unit placed under my desk. Compared to my wife’s Fusion Drive iMac, I could instantly hear the difference.

Second, the 3.5-inch HDDs inside the ThunderBay made significant noise during read and write access. The noise was not annoyingly loud, but, once again, it was much more noticeable than similar sounds from my wife’s iMac Fusion Drive.

While all of this was tolerable, I wanted better. Better than even the Fusion Drive. I wanted to maintain the near total silence afforded by my iMac’s Flash Storage. So I looked for another solution.

Eventually, I settled on Seagate portable drives. These USB 3 drives are essentially noiseless. At least I can’t hear them. They are also about as small and unobtrusive as a drive can get. And, as they get their power from the iMac’s USB port, there are no power cords or bulky adapters to worry about.

As a bonus, they are a cheaper alternative to the ThunderBay. The two drives I got (1 2TB and 1 4TB) cost about $200: half the price of an empty ThunderBay. You could save even more money if you could fit all your data on the iMac’s internal Flash Storage (perhaps needing only a 256GB SSD?) and thus could get by with only one external drive.

The one downside is that transfer speeds via USB 3 are distinctly slower than via Thunderbolt 2. If you need maximum speed, the ThunderBay remains the preferred solution. In my case, as I use the external drives only to hold my media libraries (iTunes and Photos), archival data and backups, I didn’t think the speed difference would matter at a practical level. Most of the time, the drives would not be in use at all.

[By the way, overall, I prefer to keep my media libraries on a separate drive from my System and other Home directory files; it makes the media files less likely to become collateral damage in the event of a disaster with the startup drive.

I do have some concern regarding the long-term reliability of keeping fan-less portable drives connected to a Mac 24/7. However, my past experience doing this with other Seagate portable drives has been excellent, so I am willing to take the risk. Still, I have my data backed up elsewhere — via the cloud-based BackBlaze as well as a separate networked Time Machine drive.]

Wrapping up

So here I am typing on my new iMac. With its 512GB Flash Storage, it is both superfast and completely silent. The external portable Seagate drives provide the extra space I need without adding noise or detracting from the iMac’s curb appeal.

If your requirements are at all similar to mine, I highly recommend this solution.

Posted in Apple Inc, Mac, Technology | 2 Comments