The Apple Watch see-saw

Posted on September 10, 2014 by Ted

If you tried to stream Apple’s media event yesterday, you know how frustrating it was. Crashes, test screens, Japanese translators speaking in the background, unauthorized access warnings. It was like a cornucopia of everything that could wrong.

Thankfully, by the time Apple got around to announcing its Apple Watch (or Watch, as I will refer to it for this article), the technicians had wrestled the difficulties to the ground and gotten things under control. I was able to watch the event without further interruption.

So just how big a deal is this new wearable product from Apple? At this point, it’s impossible to know. Too much uncertainty remains. The final answer will have to wait till next year, when Apple reveals the full specs (including the cost of those 18K gold models) and people get their hands on the device.

Still, based on what we already know, we can begin to make some educated guesses. As I watched the Watch presentation unfold, my reaction kept shifting, as if I was riding a see-saw. First, I felt the board tip downward, then I was buoyed up and ultimately I was left dangling in the middle. The big question lurking behind it all: Is the Watch worth it?

My first reaction was to the physical styling of the watch — and it was one of mild disappointment. It certainly didn’t get my pulse-pounding (as the sensors on the back of the Watch would confirm, if I was wearing one). The design is a bit too boxy and bulky for my taste. I would have preferred something more like the prototype image seen here or the new Moto 360. Go into a watch store today and you’ll see that all the watches, except the cheapest ones and a few speciality items, have eschewed the “digital” look of the Watch for a more elegant analog appearance. Can the Watch successfully push back against this trend? I believe so, but I’m not sure.

I understand that form follows function. And, with all the Watch can do, it probably needed to look…pretty much like it does. And that may ultimately be the deciding factor. If you want a device with the capabilities of an Watch, you may have to make a sacrifice in style to get it.

On the other hand, I thought the wide variety of Watch straps, and the ability to easily swap one for another, was a brilliant stroke. It offers the customization and variety that I know people will want from a device that is visible on their wrist all day. It even allows a person to shift from a casual to an elegant strap, for example, depending upon their mood and destination. And the precision way the straps work and attach to the watch is…pure Apple. I found myself smiling as I watched the demonstration video.

When attention shifted to the digital crown, I felt my mood shift downward a bit. I’m going to have to turn a wheel to scroll through a list? This seemed like a step backward to the days of the iPod click-wheels. I also worry whether my aging stubby fingers can successfully manipulate such a tiny tool. Still, as with watch’s overall square shape, I understood that something like the crown was required. As Apple pointed out, the watch display is too small for access to be entirely via touch. But understanding a feature’s necessity is not the same as liking it.

Moving from style to features, my virtual see-saw veered sharply upward.

Assuming it works as demonstrated, the watch’s fitness monitoring features promise to surpass anything else on the market. I can certainly see myself using the Move, Exercise and Stand rings to assist in becoming more active. A definite big plus here.

What I am most looking forward to trying out are the watch’s notification and messaging features. I was especially impressed with the walkie-talkie-like Digital Touch for sending custom doodles and such. I can see all of this transforming the way we do casual communication.

The list just keeps growing from there. The Watch works with the new Pay. It will help find where you parked your car. It will unlock the door to your hotel room. It will track your flight status. And, with third-parties apps still to come, the Watch will be able to handle a countless assortment of other tasks. Eventually, you may find it hard to do without one. At least that’s Apple’s hope and plan. And I can see it becoming reality.

But it was at this point that I felt the see-saw start to drop again — as unanswered questions began to mount.

There are speakers and microphones built into the Watch. Will these be sufficient for even a brief phone conversation? Will it be practical or enjoyable to listen to music from the watch’s tiny speakers? Why even bother to try, when you have an iPhone in your pocket?

Will the light from the watch’s display be a distraction in darkened environments, such as a theater? Will we need an “airplane mode” for the watch?

And these lead to the biggest questions of all: Will the Watch add enough convenience, beyond what you already have with an iPhone, to justify its purchase? In other words, is the Watch worth it?

The  Watch “requires” an iPhone to work. It’s still not clear to me exactly what this means. I assume that some watch features, such as displaying the time, will function even without an iPhone nearby. On the other hand, it seems certain that you’ll need an iPhone for text messaging and phone-calls. The GPS and Wi-Fi from the iPhone will be needed for tracking your activity. I assume there are many more ways the Watch and the iPhone are linked.

In the end, it strikes me that the Watch is more of an iPhone accessory than an independent product.

Will the advantages of the Watch be enough to make it worth owning yet another device that you need to charge every day, sync with your other devices, maintain with current software, and so on. Will you want to add the Watch to the list of devices that you regularly upgrade?

These questions especially jumped out at me as I watched the demo of accessing photos from an Watch. I found myself asking: “When would I want to look at photos on the watch’s tiny display rather than take my iPhone out of my pocket to view them on a much larger screen?” The answer is “Never.” This query quickly spiraled into other directions:

Do I really need a watch to show me a reminder or a map or the weather or whatever else the Watch can do that the iPhone also does? After plunking down hundreds of dollars for an iPhone, will I want to spend an additional minimum of $350 for a watch that, in some sense, offers very little beyond what my iPhone already does?

Maybe. After all, I continued to wear a watch even after I bought an iPhone. So why not an Watch? In the end, there’s need and there’s want. I won’t need an Watch. But I may want one anyway.

[Update: What about Watch 2? This is a concern for all Watch models, but especially the gold one. As I pointed out on Twitter, and others have also mentioned, the gold Watch is likely to be super-expensive, likely in the thousands of dollars. As Watch technology inevitably improves over the years, and new models are released, will you be expected to shell out the same amount of cash for a new gold watch on a likely annual basis, assuming you want to stay up-to-date? Or will Apple offer some special discounted upgrade path?]

For now, I don’t know if I will even want one. I’m in the “wait and see” period — and I expect to remain there for quite some time. The Watch is not a device I intend to pre-order or rush to buy on the day it’s released. Rather, I will monitor events to see what early adopters report and decide from there. I’m guessing that many others are in the same boat. Which way we go will likely determine the success of the Watch.

Posted in Apple Inc, Technology | 3 Comments

Apple hardware: Break’s over

Posted on September 5, 2014 by Ted

Apple’s hardware division has been pretty much operating on cruise control for more than two years. At least that’s the way it seems to me. While Apple’s software has been steadily and significantly evolving (both OS X Yosemite and iOS 8 represent major advances), hardware not so much. Happily, this lag should end next week. With Apple’s September 9 media event, the company finally appears poised to put its foot to the hardware accelerator. But, before we get to that, let’s take a brief look back.

Hardware history

As I noted in a recent column here, it has been almost two years (October 2012) since Apple updated the Mac mini. This delay is hardly the exception. It’s been more like the rule:

• Apple’s most recent stand-alone display is the Thunderbolt display, released three years ago (July 2011).

• The last time Apple TV got even a minor hardware update was over two years ago, back in March 2012.

• The most recent iPod nano and iPod touch models are two years old, last updated in September 2012 (not counting the very minor update to the 16GB touch this year).

• The 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display was introduced in June of 2012, over two years ago. Although a 13-inch model was later added, and there have been a few speed bumps along the way, the basic design has not changed over this period of time.

• The situation is about the same for the MacBook Air. Indeed, the opening sentence of Macworld’s review of the 2014 MacBook Airs is: “There’s not much new about Apple’s updated MacBook Air lineup.”

• Moving to Apple’s iconic desktop model, the most recent iMac design (with the almost “invisible” edge) is now two years old (October 2012). Stretching farther back, while Apple added Thunderbolt to the iMac in 2011 and has made other minor improvements from time-to-time, the face of the iMac looks about the same today as it did when the silver-and-black model first shipped in 2007!

• Apple did release a major upgrade to the Mac Pro recently…but that replaced a model that had stagnated for several years prior. Consider this: until the new Mac Pro came out last December, the existing Pro models didn’t even have a Thunderbolt port!

• As for the iPhone, it’s been two years since the iPhone 5 introduced the 4-inch display. Except for Touch ID, not much has changed since.

• The iPads — with last year’s iPad Air and iPad Mini with Retina display — are the lone exceptions to Apple’s hardware doldrums. These were notable updates.

Stalled rumors

Even rumors of new Apple hardware have been languishing in recent years.

• Steve Jobs, as quoted in his biography, said: “I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use. It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.” Perhaps so. But there is still no sign of any forthcoming product based on what Steve figured out.

• Similarly, the rumor mill has been churning for several years with predictions about some sort of Apple “iWatch” or other wearable technology. It looks like Apple will finally deliver on this next week. Even so, the current rumors are that the device won’t ship until 2015.

Revving up

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not the sort to lament that Apple “must” do something about any of this or face certain “doom.” To the contrary, Apple appears to be doing quite well financially and shows every sign of continuing to do so. Its stock is hovering at an all-time high and its quarterly revenue continues to set records.

Still, over the long haul, the technology field is not one that rewards complacency and treading water. To quote Steve Jobs again: “If you don’t cannibalize yourself, someone else will.”

Apple knows this. And, whatever the reasons behind the slow pace of change these past few years, it looks to be over. As Eddie Cue stated a few months ago: “Later this year, we’ve got the best product pipeline that I’ve seen in my 25 years at Apple.”

Well, “later this year” is here now. And it all begins Tuesday. With the iPhone 6. And, most likely, an iWatch. And possibly more. Additional new products (iPads, Macs?) are expected to arrive in October. Assuming Apple delivers on Eddie Cue’s prediction, the doldrums of the past few years will soon be a distant memory.

You might say Apple’s been on a “break” these past few years. If so, Apple appears ready to heed the advice of President Bartlet: “Break’s over.”

Posted in Apple Inc, iOS, iPad, iPhone, Mac, Technology | Comments Off on Apple hardware: Break’s over

My iPhone’s vacation photos

Posted on July 28, 2014 by Ted

I’ve written previously about my decision to use the camera in my iPhone 5S as my only camera when I go on vacations and such. No longer do I additionally take along a separate point-and-shoot camera.

I had a major opportunity to test out how well this worked when Naomi and I went on a two-week road trip up the California and Oregon coast, stopping at Portland, and looping back down on an interior route that took us to Crater Lake and Lassen Volcanic National Parks.

Actually, Naomi insisted that I also take along our old Canon; she wanted to have the zoom lens available. I didn’t use it. But Naomi did. However, in what I swear was an unintended mishap, I broke the camera about midway through the trip. That effectively ended even Naomi’s limited use of the Canon.

With our vacation now over, and the photos reviewed and evaluated, I can say that I was overall very pleased with the results.

On the down side, there were times when I would have preferred a zoom lens and more control over exposure settings. I missed a few shots as a result, especially those of wild animals (elk, seals, etc.) where getting close to the subject was impossible. But this did not happen often.

On the up side, the iPhone proved capable of taking some incredible high-quality photos. At least to my eye. The photos are even more impressive when you consider that my photography skills skew toward the minimal – and most of the shots were taken “on-the-fly.” In assessing these photos, the iPhone (not me) should get most of the positive credit.

To give you a peek how the iPhone did, here is a sampling of ten (10) of my favorite photos from the trip. All were taken with the iPhone without any additional third-party lens. Two of the photos used the iPhone’s Panorama mode. The rest were shot with the iPhone’s standard photo setting.

To see a larger version of any photo, click/tap on its image:

Redwood National Park, California

Beach in Bandon Oregon [taken from our motel window]

Face Rock, Bandon Oregon

Oregon coast [near Coos Bay]

Oregon coast [near Devil’s Punchbowl]

Haystack Rock, Cannon Beach Oregon

Multnomah Falls, Columbia River Gorge, Oregon

Crater Lake National Park. Oregon

Crater Lake panorama

Mt. Lassen from Manzanita Lake, Lassen Volcanic National Park, CA

Posted in Apple Inc, iOS, iPhone, Technology | Comments Off on My iPhone’s vacation photos

Help me Mac mini; you’re my only hope

Posted on July 24, 2014 by Ted

I’ve owned a desktop Mac since Apple’s initial creation back in 1984. During this 30 year stretch, I’ve replaced each Mac with a newer model about every three years, occasionally more frequently. Until now! My current desktop Mac is a 2009 Mac Pro. It’s five years old and, at the rate things are going, it may be another couple of years before I replace it. Each day I keep it, I break my personal record for holding on to a Mac.

On the one hand, this is a testament either to what a great job Apple did with this version of the Mac Pro or how little computer technology has changed over the previous five years. Or a bit of of both. In the past, a major force behind my decision to replace each Mac was how out-of-date and under-powered my existing machine had become. For example, if my Mac did not have a USB port or a DVD drive or a processor fast enough to stream video or sufficient RAM to run Photoshop, I knew an upgrade was in my near future. Something like this has eventually happened to every Mac I’ve owned. Until now.

My current Mac Pro shows almost no significant sign of aging. I did upgrade to an SSD drive a couple of years ago. Aside from that, it’s pretty much the same computer it was when I first bought it. And, except for a few minor things such as a lack of a Thunderbolt port, there is nothing that newer Macs have that I especially crave. As long as my Mac Pro can run the latest version of OS X at a decent speed, it should be good to go for a long time.

Still…at some point, unless I give up on desktops altogether and go with just a MacBook, I’ll want (or need) to get a new desktop Mac. In fact, I’d probably get one tomorrow if there was a new Mac that fit my wants and needs. And here’s where I have a dilemma. Which Mac, if any, would I get?

As a Mac geek (I can show you my membership card), I’ve always gravitated towards the highest end models. I preferred the flexibility (such as for adding or replacing monitors), expandability (for adding additional drives and cards) and superior internal specs of the Pro. That’s why, when Apple announced its completely redesigned Mac Pro last year, I initially assumed this is what I would be getting. I was ready. However, for reasons I wrote about previously, the new Mac Pro is not for me (nor is it for most other people who place similar demands on their computer). As Dan Frakes explained:

“…even if you’re shopping for performance, unless you regularly use software that either takes advantage of multiple cores or subjects your Mac’s processor to sustained heavy loads (or both), you’re probably better off with an iMac or a MacBook Pro.”

As another Macworld article reported, the new Mac Pro is actually slower than an iMac for many common tasks in apps such as iMovie and iTunes. It concluded that: “The Mac Pro is…probably overkill for everyday tasks.”

When you throw in the fact that the Mac Pro’s internal expansion options are almost non-existent and that its cost, especially if you go beyond the entry level model, quickly soars into the stratosphere, it becomes hard for all but the most high-end professionals to justify getting the Pro.

So where does that leave me?

With an iMac? That remains a possibility. For now, I’m waiting to see what the next generation of iMacs will bring. Retina displays are rumored. That would be enticing.

Even so, I’d still prefer the flexibility of a Mac without a built-in display. In this regard, an entirely new mid-range Mac model, such as Dan Frakes’ mythical mini-tower, would be welcome. But I don’t believe Apple will ever come out with such a model. Apple isn’t going in that marketing direction anymore.

The Mac mini to the rescue?

That leaves one other desktop option: the Mac mini.

Given the limitations of the other alternatives, the Mac mini is looking quite attractive to me right now. True, it doesn’t have the internal expansion capabilities I would like, but then neither does the iMac or the Mac Pro. On the plus side, the mini allows me to choose my own monitor (or monitors), is very compact (even compared to the much downsized Mac Pro), and starts out very inexpensive (the base model is $599).

There’s just one problem. Unfortunately, it’s a big one. The machine is so underpowered that even its top of the line model is not acceptable to me. To see what I mean, let’s compare a top-end iMac to a top-end mini.

I could get a 27” iMac with a 3.5GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7 (Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz). To this, I’d go with 32GB of SDRAM and a 3TB Fusion Drive. I might be content with the standard NVIDIA GeForce dedicated graphics card, but I’d probably upgrade to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GDDR5 upgrade. Add it all up and its $3299.

The best I can do with the mini is a 2.6GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB of SDRAM and a 1 TB Fusion drive. The only graphics card option is a barely adequate Intel HD Graphics 4000. Configured with an Apple Thunderbolt display, a Magic Trackpad and wireless keyboard, it costs only $2536.

In every aspect except price, the Mac mini is distinctly inferior to the iMac. But the mini is only cheaper because of its lesser specs. An iMac with specs matched to the Mac mini costs around the same: $2549. For me, I’d gladly pay $760 extra for an upgraded Mac mini that matched or exceeded the specs of the iMac. [There is also a server version of the Mac mini, but I’m leaving that speciality model out of the discussion here.]

So the question becomes: Why does Apple maintain this Mac mini vs. iMac disparity? Why not beef up the mini? As far as I’m concerned, there isn’t a good explanation. Apple ought to be at least a little embarrassed by the Mac mini.

In Apple’s defense, some point out that the Mac mini hasn’t been updated for a long while. That’s why there is such a disparity. It’s true. The last mini update was almost two years ago: October 2012. The expectation here is that, when Apple finally gets around to releasing a new mini, the machine will achieve feature parity with the iMac. Of course, this doesn’t explain why Apple has dragged its feet on a mini update. Perhaps, given low sales, Apple hasn’t made the mini a priority. I don’t know. In any case, if and when Apple finally updates the mini, it could also update the iMac, maintaining the feature disparity. In other words, an updated mini might not resolve the matter.

Another explanation for the disparity is that the Mac mini is designed to appeal to the most cost-conscious segment of the market. Given their low-demand use of a computer, these users are content with minimal specs in exchange for saving some money. Apple is simply giving them what they want. The mini may especially appeal to PC switchers who already own a viable display, keyboard and input device. With an iMac, these users would be forced to get (and pay for) a new set of these peripherals. The mini saves them this expense.

The cost-saving logic makes some sense but I don’t see it as the total explanation. Apple could still keep entry level prices at their current low level while simultaneously offering a  top end model superior to the one now available. But who, you may ask, would want and pay for this souped-up Mac mini?

Me.

And I suspect there are many others like me who, having decided that a Mac Pro is no longer a realistic option, are looking for an alternative that is not an iMac. My guess is that, if Apple came out with a next generation Mac mini that had specs equalling or outpacing the next generation iMac, it would sell more than enough units to be classified a success. There is an opportunity here for Apple to expand the Mac mini market to people, such as myself, who are sitting on the sidelines with aging, but still usable, Mac Pros and iMacs, waiting to see what comes next.

A final “explanation,” given by many pundits, for why the Mac mini remains underpowered, is that Apple doesn’t want the mini to cannibalize sales of its presumably more profitable iMac lineup. I’m not convinced this argument holds water. Regardless, while I may be an outlier, I’m currently buying nothing instead of the souped-up Mac mini I would likely have purchased by now. This certainly isn’t helping Apple’s bottom line.

In the end, I remain cautiously optimistic that, among the slew of products Apple has promised to release before the end of this year, we’ll see a new and much improved Mac mini. My hope remains that, hidden beneath the mini’s current garb, a Jedi knight is waiting to be revealed—and that it will rescue me from my desktop Mac dilemma.

Posted in Apple Inc, Mac, Technology | 1 Comment