I’ll be the first to admit that Apple has had more than it’s share of trouble as of late—failed iPhone 3G and MobileMe launches, buggy iPhone 2.0 software, and the iPhone SDK NDA which hinders iPhone developers from sharing code and putting development resources like books into the market.

As a consumer, I had a horrible experience buying an iPhone. It wasn’t the worst experience I’ve had (buying a functional mouse from Best Buy took four trips to the store, and over 30 days), but it wasn’t an Apple experience. We traditionally hold Apple to a higher standard, because they have a history of excellence.

It seems that Apple is experiencing some growing pains. The iPhone 3G, MobileMe, and the iPhone SDK are all amazing products. However, the launch/implementation has left a sour taste in many people’s mouths. From leaving developers out in the cold to losing MobileMe emails to the several hour-long waits for the iPhone 3G.

Apple can’t use the excuse “we didn’t anticipate this much demand” anymore. They are growing up, and have begun to play hard ball with the big boys of the tech industry. If their superb marketing department hypes a product, the rest of the company better be able to handle the demand.

To be honest, I think it’s good that the iPhone and MobileMe launches were the failures they were. No doubt Apple has learned that they are no longer this little fruit company from Cupertino, but a tech superstar with global reach. And while they may be making the greatest products they’ve ever made, the experience they are giving consumers is severely lacking.

I always used to dream of a do-it-all device that fit in my pocket and allowed me to communicate with the whole world. One of those Star Wars-like devices that transmited your hologram instantly across the galaxy. One of those devices that can do anything—from giving me a 3D map of my location, to ordering a meat lover’s pizza with extra cheese, and having it delivered to my current GPS coordinates. Well, I have one of those—and it’s in my pocket right now.

The iPhone 3G. It’s been the talk of Twitter for the past two weeks. And while it may not be the futuristic gadget of my dreams, it’s the most innovative do-it-all device I’ve ever used.

06.29.07

I remember exactly where I was when the iPhone was announced: writing an exam. Not exactly the most exciting place to be. But I remember coming home, loading up Apple.com, and having my jaw hit the floor. All the rumors, all the mockups, had not prepared me for the iPhone that I saw that day. And from that day on, all other cell phones paled in comparison—I wanted an iPhone.

I was there on iDay. I was there on June 29th, along with all the other geeks. I watched, as thousands of people blogged, twittered, and purchased their shiny new iPhones. All I could do was watch from afar. There was no official word on a date for the iPhone to be released in Canada. But the rumor sites said “soon”—and we all know how accurate rumor sites are—so I waited.

It wasn’t easy. I waited a year. And when the iPhone was finally announced for Canada, it was paired with unfair and expensive data plans from Rogers. Canadians fought Rogers with a petition signed by 60 000 people, and forced Rogers to cave into the pressure and offer a decent data plan. And after an entire day of activation woes, I finally walked out of the store on July 11th with a Black 16GB iPhone of my own.

And so herein lies my review of the iPhone 3G after two weeks of usage:

Buying the iPhone

Photo by Dan Taylor. Thanks to Rogers for the lack of iPhone unboxing pictures of my own.

When you purchase a $300 phone, and sign 3 years of your life away to a carrier like Rogers, I think it’s only reasonable that you get to unbox your own phone. My family and friends think I’m crazy—who cares about the stupid box?

Apple has traditionally got this right. While other technology vendors have you digging through the kitchen cabinet Christmas morning for a sharp utensil—any sharp utensil—in order to tear open the impossibly tough plastic that encapsulates the phone that you spent your hard-earned money on, Apple takes the opposite approach.

Unboxing the iPhone involves carefully opening the gorgeous packaging to reveal iPhone, in it’s full simplistic glory. All of a sudden, you forget the $300 (plus 13% tax) that you paid for the phone. You forget the 3 years that you will be enslaved to the worst cell carrier in the world. You forget all that.

It’s called the Reality Distortion Field.

Unfortunately, my experience was much the opposite. Arriving at the Rogers store early, I saw a line—a whole 3 persons long. Perfect. Then I heard the not-so-good news: this Rogers store only had 6 iPhones. Whew, just made it. “Wait a minute, how many 16GB models do they have?”

Two.

“And how many of you are getting a 16 Gig?” Two of the three people raised their hands. Great. Then began my frantic search across Toronto for a Rogers store with 16GB iPhones.

After finally finding a 16GB iPhone, waiting 5 and a half hours for the Rogers activation servers to come online, convincing the Rogers employees that they needed to download the iTunes 7.7 update, and watching as my iPhone was handled by the grubby hands of multiple Rogers employees, I was finally handed my activated phone. Smudges and all.

Apple had the opportunity to introduce hundreds of thousands of new users into the seamless Apple experience, and unfortunately, both Apple and Rogers dropped the ball. There is a certain awe and joy that people experience when unboxing an Apple product for the first time. And instead of unboxing the iPhone like an Apple product, it was handed to me after hours of waiting, unboxed, like any other phone¹.

Hardware Design

After two weeks of use, it’s clear that the iPhone 3G is the best designed device I have ever owned. Fitting perfectly in my hand and pocket, and visually stunning—bravo Johnny Ive and your design team.

I’ll admit, upon first glance of the iPhone 3G on Apple.com, I was a bit disappointed. While the front of the iPhone 3G remains largely the same as the original iPhone save for being slightly wider, the back is completely different. Now in two solid colours: glossy black or white. It’s not often that Apple transitions one of it’s high-end products from aluminum to glossy plastic.

After handling the iPhone 3G for a few minutes however, it is clear that Apple focused on the feel of this device. Apple brilliantly tapered the edges of the iPhone, making the thicker device actually feel better in your hand. The volume/sleep buttons are now pure metal, and the slightly wider front helps with two-handed typing. One of my favourite aesthetic features is the chrome bezel wrapping around the front of the device. I don’t find it the least bit distracting, but instead find it adds to the class of the phone.

Surprisingly, the original iPhone’s design now looks clunky and out-of-date. Kyle Baxter, a first-gen iPhone user that upgraded found the same thing in his first impressions of the device:

The iPhone 3G, with its all-black rear case and front, is beautiful. The original’s aluminum and plastic back looks outdated and, oddly, ugly, in comparison.

Interesting that a device I’d admired less than a month early appeared outdated next to the new iPhone.

The major downside to the new iPhone is fingerprints and smudges—now on the front and back. While the entire phone feels glossy and very slick, it may not look very slick at the end of the day. Fingerprints and smudges cloak the whole device, but can be easily removed with a quick wipe of your shirt.

This is nothing new for Apple. It’s gotten to the point that whenever I walk out of an Apple store with a new purchase, I remind myself that fingerprints and dust are my new best friends. Problem solved.

Headphones, Speaker, and Camera

I’m often surprised by how the little things can make using a device so much more enjoyable. After my fourth pair of V-Moda VIBE earbuds dying on me in Africa, I’ve decided to go with the standard Apple earbuds. That is, until I can get my hands on a pair of Dr. Dre’s Beats, and see if they live up to the hype.

The Apple earbuds that come with the iPhone are phenomenal. The first noticeable change is that the wires are made out of a different material that prevents the cords from tangling in your pockets. And surprisingly, it works quite well.

And of course, there is the mic/remote that dangles from the earbuds. Playing and pausing music is only a click away, and answering an incoming call is just as easy. Skipping songs is a double click, and the volume controls can be felt on the side of the iPhone in my pocket. This alone makes the iPhone the best iPod I’ve ever used. It’s a shame Apple doesn’t include these earbuds with the iPod Touch, as having to take the device out of your pocket to simply skip a song can get tedious.

Having a speaker on the iPhone is a huge convenience. I always find myself wanting to show someone a quick video when I bump into them in the hall. Headphones are usually a pain to get out, and I don’t always have them on me. Having that speaker has made sharing videos and games a lot easier.

Another one of those conveniences is the camera. Some criticize the 2MP camera, saying it’s not that good. And I agree. I have a DSLR—I really don’t want to pay a lot for a phone, and have it sit like a brick in my pocket because it has to have that new 5MP sensor and flash. Having a camera anywhere you go is amazing (taking pictures of the section number in a parking lot, anyone?), and I even find myself bringing my DSLR around less because I know that if I really need to take a picture, I can use the iPhone.

That said, I’ve talked to some developers that have fantastic ideas for iPhone apps, but the lack of clarity in the camera prevents them from being developed. We don’t need a full-fledged camera, but the one in the iPhone 3G is getting a little long in the tooth.

Oh, and where’s video recording?

Keyboard

Photo by Michell Zappa.

The iPhone’s keyboard has been the topic of much debate over the last year. Some love it. Some hate it. But it is by far the most innovative mobile keyboard there is.

Working on the iPhone’s full screen, and only having the keyboard come up when necessary is fantastic. Plus, Apple uses the benefits of having a virtual keyboard—changing the display and organization of keys depending on the application. Safari’s URL bar, for example, does not have a space bar, but instead a period, backslash, and (interchangable) .com button.

I’m no developer, but if Apple gives access to customize the keyboard in individual third-party apps, it could provoke a huge spur of development in apps that would typically be frustrating to use on a phone. Think Coda for iPhone, with essential HTML characters within easy reach.

After two weeks of using the iPhone, the keyboard has quickly become my favourite text input medium on any mobile device. Period. Nothing can match the intelligence of the keyboard, and I find that I can type faster than on any other QWERTY keyboard smartphones due to the larger buttons and the visual and audible feedback when clicking a character.

Of course there is a ton of room for Apple to innovate on this front as well. The iPhone keyboard already ‘learns’ all the names of Contacts in your Address Book. I would love the iPhone to learn my primary email address, and recognize when I begin typing it and offer to auto-correct to my full email. The possibilities for improvement and innovation are limitless.

3G + GPS

Of course the major new feature of the iPhone 3G is—drumroll—3G. To be honest, I wasn’t as excited about 3G as actually getting my hands on an iPhone (previously the only way to get an iPhone in Canada was to hack it). However, 3G does indeed live up to the hype.

It’s fast. Really fast. Like Wifi fast.

Most times I don’t even bother searching for a Wifi hotspot anymore if I’m anywhere other than my home. I’m fortunate to live in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area, not Grand Theft Auto), where 3G access happens to be very fast. Your mileage may vary depending on where you live. Also exciting news is that Rogers and Fido—the only two GSM cell carriers in Canada—plan to double their 3G speeds by early 2009.

Having 3G everywhere you go is quite incredible, especially on a phone like the iPhone. It’s the closest thing to having universal Wifi, and I love it. After heading north for a couple hours, you drop into Edge territory, where the Internet is still usable, but painfully slow.

One of my major concerns with 3G is just how much data I would use a month. I opted for Rogers’ limited-edition, virtually unlimited data plan for the iPhone. $30 a month for 6GB of data—more than AT&T’s soft-cap of 5GB on their so-called ‘unlimited’ data plan in the US.

After 2 weeks of power usage: watching Youtube videos, downloading apps, browsing Flickr, reading RSS feeds, and tweeting over 3G, I have only used 85MB of data. To be fair, I was home most of the week sick, so these are very conservative numbers. But to hit my 6GB limit, I would need to use 200MB of data a day. The only way that would be remotely possible to reach is if a tethering app, allowing you to use 3G on your laptop via the iPhone, was released.

Then, of course, there’s GPS. Surprisingly, it’s come in handy much more than I would have thought. Whether it be driving along the highway wondering if we missed a certain exit, or on the bus wondering if I have enough time for another Tap Tap Revenge game before I get off.

When you are outdoors—walking or in a car or bus—the GPS locates you within 10 seconds, and tracks your movement very accurately. While testing it on a bus, it followed the bus perfectly down the street, and stopped the moment we stopped. On a very cloudy day, GPS takes longer to locate, and positioning isn’t as precise. Indoors, it’s rare that GPS will actually find you, and if it does, it won’t track your movements very accurately. Of course, that is to be expected with any GPS device.

Skyhook’s Wifi positioning, as well as triangulation appear to do the trick when GPS isn’t available though, and get surprisingly accurate results. The potential of having a location-aware phone is limitless. While I was at Chris Thomson’s house the other day ordering a pizza for lunch, I found myself simply wanting to beam my GPS coordinates and phone number to the lady over the phone. Hopefully, the SDK opens up the door for third-party apps like this to be made. Location-based food ordering = killer app.

iPhone 2.0 Software

This being my first iPhone—or Apple touch device for that matter—I found myself in awe with “old” iPhone features. We get so used to these features that we forget how revolutionary they are to the mainstream phone audience. The Safari browser is a marvel, and the iPod features are incredible. I won’t go into the specifics of these apps, as relatively little has changed from the previous version².

The key to the whole iPhone software experience is the interface. And that is something that Apple continues to get right. The original Macintosh’s UI looks outdated and bland, but to this day, we still use most of the same input devices on our computers. We use a mouse and a keyboard. We use Cmd-C to copy, and use Cmd-V to paste.

Apple is inventing a new interface for mobile devices—from scratch. I wouldn’t be surprised if in 10 years time, we are still pinching and flicking and scrolling on our phones. Gruber points this out when writing about Apple implementing copy and paste on the iPhone:

“Whatever the UI for copy-and-paste for the iPhone OS eventually is, it’s very likely to remain as the UI for copy-and-paste on the iPhone for decades to come.”

Apple’s only been in the phone game for a year now, and look at how far they’ve come. Sure, I may really want filters or rules in Mobile Mail, and I would love the ability to record video and upload it to Youtube. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of features missing from the iPhone. But Apple will push out updates that continue to add functionality and features that further evolve the device.

What continues to amaze me is how the original iPhone can have 95% of the features of the iPhone 3G through a simple software update. Sure 3G makes a phone faster, but the iPhone 2.0 software made it faster for existing iPhones as well—with more enhancements to come with SquirrelFish.

The problem with the iPhone 2.0 OS is that it needed a tad bit more time in the oven before it shipped. It is rich with bugs ranging from interface lag to crashes to poor battery life. Rumors have it that 2.0.1 is on it’s way from Apple, and will solve most of the known bugs. But once again, with 1 million iPhone 3Gs sold in the first weekend, is this the experience that Apple wants to give its new customers? Just saying…

The iPhone Platform

The biggest news from Apple on the software side was the iPhone SDK and the AppStore. The AppStore finally turns the iPhone into a platform that anyone can develop for. The design and flexible user interface of the device allow for unlimited possibilities in applications that tap into the hardware features of the phone (camera, GPS, and multitouch gestures).

Shawn Blanc wrote this after the iPhone SDK was unveiled on March 6th:

After watching the apps get demonstrated I had this “my iPhone is a sleeper agent” sort of feeling. Realizing there is way more under the hood which I, as a user, haven’t fully had the chance to experience yet.

The phone industry doesn’t understand this concept. Why give the users new features without making them pay for a new phone. That is what sets the iPhone aside from other cell phones, and makes it into computing platform. The third party apps in combination with the iPhone hardware and AppStore, make the iPhone into a computer.

It’s the first computer that is not being sold on the amount of megahertz or the RAM or the kind of graphics card. It’s not even being sold because of the features—cause there are phones on the market that can outsell an iPhone when looking at the spec sheet. No, the iPhone is the first computer sold purely on the experience—the integration of between hardware and software.

Think about it, the iPhone + the AppStore could be a major paradigm shift in how people look at “computers”. For many people, the iPhone can be the only computer they need. Why do I need a big beige box, or a laptop anymore?

I’m not talking about the geeks. I’m talking about normal people: my mom, a teenager, the cashier at Wal-Mart. How do these people use their computers now? Email. Web browsing. Facebook. A bit of IM. Maybe some Youtube. Music. And a couple games. What if I device the size of a deck of cards could do all of that? It fits in your pocket, gets Internet anywhere, and costs $200.

The one downside to this argument is the lack of a proper word processor and an Office suite. If the iPhone eventually is able to pair with a bluetooth keyboard, I could see some people using it to take notes and type up short documents, but practically speaking, people want a bigger screens for that. Video editing, graphic design, and high-end photo editing will obviously be reserved for desktops.

I by no means believe that the computer will go away any time soon, but the iPhone replaces many people’s need for computers on a day-to-day basis. It’ll be interesting to see how Apple continues to position it’s products as we move further into this post-PC era.

AppStore

Apple did a very good job making the AppStore easy to use from the iPhone/iPod Touch. You can sort through apps by category, look at the 25 top free or pay-for apps, or browse the ones Apple’s chosen to feature. It gets a bit repetitive having to enter in your password to simply download a free app or an update. Can we please have an option in the Settings to remember our password for any ‘purchase’ that’s not going to charge our credit card?

And while the AppStore may be a great way for consumers to buy iPhone apps directly from their iPhone or iPod Touch, it’s evident that Apple forgot to think about one minor part of the equation—the developers.

No beta testing, no crash logs, no way to demo apps, and no way to distribute NFR review licenses. Updates that developers submit to Apple must be approved, and the approval process can take more than a week. I’m sure that Apple will address most of these issues over time, as they have already begun to show by allowing developers to use the Ad-Hoc system to distribute apps to up to 100 beta-testers.

Another complaint that many people have is the number of garbage apps in the AppStore. People lament that Apple shouldn’t have allowed these apps into the store. If Apple had turned down apps because their interfaces weren’t up to par, or they were “useless”, those same people would be complaining about Apple’s unwarranted control system. There are ugly and stupid apps for the Mac as well. And over time, the good apps will rise to the top, and the junky ones will be left in the dark corners of the AppStore.

Here are some of the apps I find myself using on a daily basis:

• Twitterrific, Facebook, and Exposure - You gotta have some social networking love on your phone.
• Aurora Feint and Tap Tap Revenge - Surprisingly, two of the most brilliant games on the AppStore are free, and both incorporate an online component.
• AIM and NetNewsWire - Not the most gorgeous apps, but they get the job done.
• Shazam and Urbanspoon - I love watching jaws drop when I demo either of these apps.

Battery Life

Steve Job’s reason for not including 3G in the original iPhone was battery life. And after using the iPhone 3G, it’s safe to say that that was the right choice. 3G drains battery life, and with the 3G chips around a year ago, battery life on the iPhone would have been pathetic.

My only requirement for the iPhone’s battery is that it lasts me throughout the day. If you use your iPhone like it’s meant to be used, there’s no getting around it—you’ll have to charge your iPhone every night.

I’ve found that after cycling the iPhone’s battery a couple times, I can consistently get a full day’s use out of it. A typical day will consist of an hour of listening to music and reading RSS feeds on the bus, reading and responding emails as they come in over MobileMe push, and browsing the web on 3G for a few hours. If I have time, I’ll play some casual games and watch some video podcasts. Even then, I have room for some mild GPS usage, 30 minutes of talk time, and twittering throughout the entire day. At the end of the day, the iPhone’s Usage monitor is telling me that I’ve used the phone for 6 and a half hours with just under 6 hours of standby. Oh, and all this is without turning 3G off.

By 6PM though, the iPhone’s giving me the 20% battery warning, which still has enough juice for a couple hours of music or phone calls, and a bit of browsing. While the battery life isn’t great, it’s enough to get me through a typical day of usage. I’m sure that if need be, the battery can easily be stretched to last for two or more days if used simply for calls/music.

I did find a couple things that helped to extend battery life:

• Turn Wifi off: Simple as that. When you leave the house, turn it off. There is really no need for Wifi with the 3G in the iPhone, and turning it off will buy you another hour of battery or so.
• Set the screen brightness to halfway. Well, unless you really need to use those flashlight apps.
• Face it, 3G’s a killer. Even if you are in an Edge area, the 3G chip remains active and continues to drain battery. Be sure to navigate to Settings > General > Network and choose to Disable 3G.
• Turn off Location Services when you don’t need them. When leaving Twitterrific open with GPS enabled, I found the battery life drained very rapidly. I’m not sure whether third-party apps that use the GPS only use it in certain parts of the app, or whether the GPS is active across the whole app.

After reading this list, you may be wondering why you purchased the iPhone 3G if you were simply going to turn 3G and GPS off. The obvious solution to this is for Apple to automate these settings.

Imagine something like Auto 3G. It switches to Edge when you are listening to music, watching videos, playing games, connected to Wifi, or doing anything else that doesn’t require high-speed Internet access over data. The iPhone will automatically switch to 3G when browsing the web, downloading apps or mail attachments, and loading Google Maps.

Even make it a preference that developers can code into their third-party apps that will make the iPhone switch to 3G or remain on 2.5G depending on how online-intensive their app is.

And it doesn’t have to stop at 3G. Apple can also automatically turn Wifi off 30 seconds after leaving a known network. By automating the majority of the battery saving features, users won’t have to constantly dig through the Settings to change features that will extend their battery life.

Trojan Horse

When it really comes down to it, all the tech specs and numbers don’t matter. It’s all about the experience. I’m able to pull out my iPhone, and browse the ‘To Read’ folder in my Safari bookmarks for all the articles I bookmarked on my Mac that have been synced to my iPhone via MobileMe.

It’s in those moments that the iPhone goes from merely being a phone, to a computer in my pocket. Directions, entertainment, surfing, news feeds, and games all wrapped into one little device with unlimited potential.

Apple has positioned the iPhone 3G to sell like hotcakes. And sell them they will. With almost worldwide availability a $199 price point, they will be moving millions of units into households and businesses everywhere.

I watch this video and can’t help but laugh. Steve Ballmer doesn’t get it. Apple isn’t merely selling iPhones with the same mindset as they’ve sold iPods in the past. The iPhone isn’t merely an attempt to take over the phone industry. The iPhone is a Macintosh wrapped in the case of a phone. When Apple sells a million iPhones in a weekend, they are not just selling phones—they are selling the mini-Macintoshes with Mac OS X. They are putting an Apple logo in Windows users pockets. And while Microsoft is busy fixing Vista, they will position themselves to be king of the post-PC era—selling more copies of Mobile OS X than Windows Mobile, or any other mobile platform.

The iPhone 3G is more than a phone. It’s a trojan horse.

After a long writing hiatus, I’m finally back. I spent the last month in Zambia—the cradle of the AIDS orphan crisis in Africa. There are things that I saw, places that I went, and tears that I shed that I will never forget. Loving children that have been abused, alone, and destitute. Loving orphans that have never been loved.

I took over 4000 RAW photos on the trip, taking up a mammoth 33GB of space—all thanks to my little friend. I am working on a website that will attempt to give you a glimpse into the hearts and minds of the orphans in Zambia. Seeing the things I saw and that broke my heart. More on that later.

Coming home, I opened up NetNewsWire for the first time, and was greeted with 2600 RSS items. A lot of these stories may be “old news”, but there are a few that jumped out at me, and that I wanted to share a couple thoughts on:

• The highly anticipated 3G iPhone has been announced. Really, the big news wasn’t the actual hardware of the new phone, as much as it was the deals that were made. Having a $199 entry price point and launching it in 22 different countries will definitely drive sales through the roof.
• Along with the announcement of the 3G iPhone, came the news that the iPhone is finally coming to Canada—with Rogers. I freaked out a bit when I saw the expensive data prices Rogers wanted to charge, but after the introduction of limited-time offer of 6GB of data for $30/month—more than the 5GB soft-cap on AT&T’s “unlimited” data plan in the US—the iPhone is finally affordable in Canada. And now, I’ll be picking up a black 16-gigger of my own come Friday.
• As I wrote about previously, the biggest news out of WWDC this year was Apple’s new initiative into MobileMe. Apple has covered most of my concerns with Living in the Cloud, by allowing you to access your data via native applications on an iPhone, iPod Touch, Mac, or PC, as well as providing an elegant web interface to use when necessary. While it’s not free, it’s definitely worth the $99 a year.
• Kyle Baxter from TightWind published a very thought-provoking post on Apple’s shift in focus with the introduction of MobileMe. Definitely worth a read.
• The AppStore is set to launch on Friday with thousands of applications ranging from twitter clients to games to excel editors. Gruber nails it when he writes that the AppStore is what makes the iPhone into a platform, and that’s the bigger story than the 3G iPhone.
• Apple sold their 5 Billionth song on iTunes in June. Great. Now, when can we get iTunes Plus standardized across the whole store?
• Any camera-lovers out there have to be drooling over the Nikon D700. For $3000 you are getting the photo-quality of a D3, in the size of a D300. This is the first full-frame DSLR in it’s price range. Canon better react quick; they are falling behind fast.
• Data Robotics unveiled the second-generation FireWire 800 Drobo. Faster, quieter, and FireWire 800. Exactly what I’ve been waiting for. I’m getting one.

There has been a lot of talk around the web about .Mac’s successor and it’s rumored appearance at WWDC on Monday. It started with the 10.5.3 update changing all .Mac references to a localizable string—%@—as opposed to a hard-coded name, possibly implying that Apple could change the name of .Mac in the OS with a small update.

The rumor grew as references to “MobileMe” were found in Apple patents and iPhone SDK beta strings. Then Apple was discovered to have purchased “me.com” as well as a variety of new top-level .me domains such as apple.me, ipod.me, and itunes.me.

Something is happening with .Mac—everybody knows that. The question remains as to what Apple will do to their web-based software as a service suite. I believe that if Apple plays their cards right, the new .Mac—or MobileMe—will be far bigger, and more important than the 3G iPhone announcement.

The Master Plan

Apple has always wanted full control of the hardware and the software of any device they’ve manufactured. They want you to have the best experience on your Mac, your iPod, and your iPhone. Apple, and more specifically, Steve Jobs, want to be in control of the experience you have with your Apple products.

While your Mac and your iPhone might function and integrate perfectly, there is something missing that connects them. Currently, the only “integration” between the Mac and the iPhone is a two-foot, USB cable that may occasionally get plugged in. That’s not the seamless integration and design that defines the Apple experience.

Apple’s goal—and the reason for their existence—is to integrate and control your experience across all your devices. And while Apple has succeeded at creating a stunning Mac and iPhone experience, there has always been an area that Apple has had little to no control in—the Cloud.

Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing is nothing new—I’ve written about it’s pros and cons before. Apple has a chance to completely revolutionize the cloud computing space. They have the advantage over any other company (Adobe, Google, Microsoft, etc.) because they already control the hardware and software. Combine this seamless online experience with your desktop, laptop, and iPhone, and you’ll never have to leave the cohesiveness of the Apple environment.

Apple can begin to change the way people use the Internet even with existing .Mac technologies. Kyle Baxter—author of TightWind, one of my favourite new blogs—beat me to publishing a brilliant piece on the integration of .Mac with the iPhone:

I can imagine Apple enabling iDisk on the iPhone so you are never “disconnected” from it — it connects more or less invisibly to your iPhone. No FTP login, password, and directory data to input, no UI even necessarily needed to login and connect — it does it itself.

Placing a file on your iPhone would not require the annoying steps of mounting it on your desktop, dropping it into your phone, and dismounting it. Instead, you would just drop the file in your iDisk, and suddenly that file is available to all of your devices, seamlessly. Forgot to print out a homework assignment or paper? No big deal; just access your iDisk on your iPhone and email it.

Effectively, your iPhone and your Mac would be tied together at all times by shared storage, whether they are physically connected or not.

This is just the beginning of the power that a connected experience will bring to the iPhone. Forget about an Internet connection simply meaning the ability to surf the web. The Internet will begin to be associated with the term “connected”. When connected to Apple’s online “Me” service, all of your devices will sync up—contacts, calendars, emails, passwords, and notes.

But imagine the possibilities beyond that. Imagine if Apple positions this “Me” service along with it’s mobile division rumored to be called “MobileMe”, as a consumer’s identity management. This service will know the podcasts and RSS feeds you subscribe to. It will know your user names and passwords for all the popular social networking sites. It will know the IP addresses of all your devices at any time, and will be able to access any file, located on any device at a moments notice. It will know precisely where you are via GPS or triangulation. Yes, it may sound terrifying that one company has all this power—but imagine the potential.

No one company has ever been able to successfully pull off a move this big, because they simply do not have the leverage that Apple does. They did not have control of both the hardware and the software. And that is what cloud computing is truly about.

The Apple Way

.Mac is not going to be overhauled. It’s going to be entirely revamped from the bottom up. And if Apple does this right, they can become the first company with a complete 360° solution. In order for this to catch on though, they need to do a couple things:

1. Give it away: In order to do this right, Apple has to make it free. Free as in Google free. Make the online services accessible to everyone. Make it so that you get a free access to “Apple Online Services” with the purchase of an iPhone or Mac. Make it so that pro users can pay a minimal annual fee to upgrade their features.
2. Ensure that it’s more reliable than Twitter: If I’m going to be sending you all my private information, I want to be sure that I can access it at any time. And having it work 24/7 would be a bonus as well. .Mac isn’t really known for it’s reliability and stability—hopefully Apple will work to improve this before launch.
3. Don’t duplicate services already in place: I love making .Mac Web Galleries. They’re beautiful, dead-simple to make, and integrate perfectly with the iApps and Aperture. But I’d much rather use Flickr with an established community. Don’t try to replace Facebook or Google or Flickr or Twitter. Make the new .Mac’s goal simple: To integrate all Apple devices with services on the Internet. Integrate the Apple experience with other online services (i.e. Flickr and YouTube upload from the iPhone)

Apple has the opportunity to do something game-changing with .Mac. Something that can, potentially, be bigger than the 3G iPhone. Brett Peters says it best: “Faster bandwidth allows me to do the same things I already do, only … faster. It’s equivalent to an incremental increase in storage capacity or processor speed. That’s just not sexy.”

Steve Jobs is not going to go on stage, come Monday, and announce a 3G iPhone that everybody knows about, without telling us the super-cool Star Trek-like things that we will be able to do because of this 3G technology. RIM, Nokia, Samsung—better watch closely.

I’ve been keeping a close eye on the ‘Snow Leopard’ rumors as they’ve circled around the web today. Cory Bohon over at TUAW broke the news this morning:

TUAW has received some information that suggests Apple may be working to seed developers with an early build of Mac OS X 10.6 at this year’s WWDC. 10.6 will not include any new significant features from 10.5; instead, Apple is focusing solely on “stability and security.”

We have also learned that OS X 10.6 may go gold master by December 2008 in an effort to start shipping it in January ‘09 at Macworld Expo. Mac OS X 10.6 will be a milestone release for Apple, as it will leave the PowerPC behind: a fully 64-bit clean, Intel-only Mac OS X.

‘Snow Leopard’ has been the topic of many heated debates today. I’ve been most interested in the posts on the MacRumors forum regarding the 10.6 rumor. Comments ranged from: “Does it make sense to do a speed and stability upgrade only? That sounds like a 10.5.X, not a 10.6!” to “Steve Jobs needs to go sooner than Ballmer if he things that is a good move.” to my personal favourite “It’s NOT GOING TO BE Snow Leopard.”—I recall hearing something similar to that in January regarding the MacBook Air…

First, let’s clarify a few things:

• This is a rumor. None of this is confirmed.
• ‘Snow Leopard’ is a codename.
• “Speed and stability” are not the only new features—Snow Leopard is said to be ‘pure cocoa’ as well.
• ‘Pure Cocoa’ does not mean abandoning all Carbon APIs. Apple may only axe the Carbon UI stuff.
• Giving PPC users all the features of Leopard and giving Intel users a “speed and stability” boost is not Apple abandoning their loyal customer base.
• Steve Jobs: “I’m quite pleased with the pace of new operating systems every 12 to 18 months for the foreseeable future”

I was very skeptical about this rumor at first, but as it has developed throughout the day, pieces have fallen into place. The Snow Leopard upgrade may very well be the last version of OS X. It’s a chance for Apple to tie up all the lose ends in the OS before they move on to even greater things—OS 11.

Think of all ‘loose ends’ in OS X. The Finder, FTP, Quartz GL, Resolution Independence, ZFS, etc. This is Apple’s chance to fix the integration and interoperability of their OS, as well as optimize it for the computers/devices on which it will run.

Snow Leopard could mark the end of the Intel transition. Why should the people going out and buying a Mac today have to deal with the bulk of code in OS X and third-party universal binaries? It would make much more sense to have a leaner, faster, more-optimized version of OS X running on those machines. Apple increasingly needs to slim down OS X for it’s growing lineup of mobile devices—iPhones, iPod Touches, MacBook Airs, and possibly a Mac Tablet.

If this rumor is true, and Apple is working on an Intel-only, leaner, faster, more reliable version of OS X, I have to give props to the people over at Apple. This is something that Microsoft has never done, and has put them into the hole they are today with Vista. Feature-ridden bloated code is no solution for an OS. Sure, there will be some unhappy devs, but in the long run, this decision will prove it’s worth to both Apple and their user-base.

The Future for Apple

If Apple seeds developers a beta of Snow Leopard at WWDC next week, it could give us a glimpse of what Apple has planned for the future—both hardware and software-wise. Possibilities include:

• An all-Intel iPhone and iPod Touch
• Beating Microsoft to the game with a multi-touch Mac at Macworld 2009.
• A free—or next to free—upgrade in January for all Intel Mac users that will improve the performance of their systems.
• Resolution Independence, ZFS, and a tabbed fully Cocoa Finder.
• Improved battery life across all portable devices.
• Cocoa updates to iTunes(8?) and Final Cut Pro.
• OS 11—Intel & Cocoa only—slated for a late 2010 release.

Exciting times are ahead for Apple and the Macintosh. It will be interesting to watch how Apple markets Snow Leopard, and the real-world performance gains from leaning the OS. I want to publicly ask Microsoft to stop their photocopiers, and refrain from pulling any stunts like ‘Snow Vista’. Please Microsoft, no.

Apple has done it again.

They released an under-featured, 1.0 product into an over-saturated market, and managed to dominate the competition. They saw the junk that was coming out of the phone industry. They saw the feature bloat. They saw the hardware developers that didn’t know a thing about writing good software. And they said, “we can do better”.

And they did.

With the iPhone, they have done in 8 months, what Microsoft or RIM or Nokia or Palm did not do in 10 years. They didn’t just reinvent the phone, or revolutionize the iPod. They created the next-generation of the Internet. The internet that lives in your pocket. Already, they have garnered over 70% of the mobile Internet-browsing market with only 4 million phones sold.

On March 6th, Apple did it again. I think Fake Steve said it best:

I mean 29 June 2007 might be the day the world changed, but today it just changed again. BlackBerry is dead. Microsoft is dead. Windows Mobile is dead. Amazon is dead. Kindle is dead. Nokia is dead. Motorola was already dead but now they are even more dead. Google’s Android is dead. Samsung is dead. LG is dead. Sony is dead. UTStarcom is dead. We’ve thrown $100 million into an iFund so people can build iApps to sell on iTunes and give us 30% of their iMoney. The coming onslaught of new applications will make iPhone the only smart phone that anyone in the entire world will ever want to use.

With the iPhone SDK, Apple did everything right. Through classes like UIKit, Apple has given developers access to every aspect of the phone - wifi, camera, and EDGE - as well as providing them with technologies like Core Animation and Core Location to help them create the best possible applications.

Apple could have just taken the easy way out. They could have kept the iPhone a proprietary phone with a heavily crippled SDK, and lackluster developer support. On the contrary, they provided a full development kit with all the applications needed for designing, coding, analyzing, and testing iPhone apps.

They even created a whole new framework known as Cocoa Touch, that will allow developers to create applications that integrate with the built-in iPhone apps, and respond to a slew of multi-touch gestures.

They managed to give developers all this control, while ensuring a safe and sandboxed environment. It sure took Apple a long time, but it was definitely worth the (very long) wait.

Before the SDK, the iPhone was simply a phone, an iPod, and a mobile Internet browser. With the SDK however (which is a free update to all iPhone users), the iPhone now becomes a powerful computer in your pocket. It is a killer gaming platform. It is a medical research assistant. It is a business communicator and organizer. It is a digital communicator. It is iPhone.

Imagine apps like Skitch and Delicious Library and PhotoBooth and GarageBand for the iPhone. Suddenly, the iPhone has an infinite number of uses. Businesses will love it. Universities will love it. Consumers will love it. In many ways, the announcement of the SDK is almost bigger than the actual iPhone itself.

Why?

I’ve written about it before. It’s a growing trend this year. Software is more important than hardware. We saw it with both the AppleTV and the iPhone updates at Macworld. Apple added functionality to both of these devices without actually changing the hardware.

And now with the SDK, this is truer than ever. The hardware of the iPhone has had the ability to do all these things the entire time, but just now the software is being released that will make that possible.

Shawn Blanc:

After watching the apps get demonstrated I had this “my iPhone is a sleeper agent” sort of feeling. Realizing there is way more under the hood which I, as a user, haven’t fully had the chance to experience yet. [...] I don’t have to buy another $500 phone.

The first version of the iPhone may very well be the greatest 1.0 gadget released in history.

This is an ongoing trend that I think we’ll see more of in the future. The software is simply catching up to the hardware.

The single biggest realization I had while watching the SDK event was that Apple listens to their customers. Although they still love to keep secrets and build up rumors, they are listening to their users. They gave businesses all the enterprise features they wanted for the iPhone - even Microsoft ActiveSync compatibility. They gave developers an entire development kit with APIs and classes that will help to make the absolute best third-party iPhone apps. And they gave all of their existing costumers a free upgrade to version 2.0 of the iPhone (which, I’m sure will include even more, great new features).

The iPhone SDK has changed the state of the iPhone platform. Now, the iPhone has more potential than any other device on the market, and is positioned to take over the mobile landscape. The only question left in my mind, is when can I get one of these in Canada?

If you’ve been following me on twitter, you’ve heard about my newest toy - a 500GB Time Capsule. My initial impressions of the device are very positive, and I will hopefully have a full review up by week.

In the meantime, I decided to test this device to it’s limits. I attempted to initiate a Time Machine backup from the mailbox at the end of my street. Watch the video to see what happens.

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Undoubtedly, the most debatable announcement at Macworld yesterday was the iPod Touch upgrade. Apple released free major updates to the iPhone and the AppleTV, but when it came to updating the iPod Touch, users were asked to pay $20. The upgrade for the iPod Touch would make it more like the iPhone. It would add the Maps, Mail, Weather, Stocks, and Notes applications to the iPod Touch, which originally didn’t ship with the device. However, all new iPod Touches come with the new apps pre-installed. The question is, why didn’t Apple include these apps in the iPod Touch from the beginning?

I don’t think that Apple is perfect, and I believe they made a mistake about the vision of this device from the beginning. They first envisioned the iPhone as a “phone” and the iPod Touch as an “iPod”. The iPhone was meant to include and iPod, a phone, and an Internet communicator, while the iPod Touch was meant to focus music, photos, and videos like most traditional iPods had. However, when the iPhone and the iPod Touch were hacked, there was a clear message sent to Apple saying, “We want third-party apps”. I think Apple woke up and realized that these devices were not just a phone and an iPod. They were the beginnings of an entirely new computing platform.

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Today, Steve Jobs took the stage at Macworld, and unveiled four new products. Some were disappointed. Others were in awe. But instead of going through each product individually, I want to look at the big picture - the overall theme of Macworld this year. Clearly, the theme this year was wireless. It was portability. It was moving away from the desktop computer as we know it.

At the beginning of this year, I predicted that we would see technology becoming more portable, as well as moving towards the living room. Desktops were to become machines only going to be used by content-creators and scientists doing high-end work. And indeed, in just the first two weeks of the year, we have seen the 8-core Mac Pros get brushed aside, for the announcement of the AppleTV 2.0 and the MacBook Air - the products that target portability and the home theater. What many considered a mediocre keynote, could possibly be the beginning of the next 5 years of technology. I want to talk about the three main themes that I observed from this keynote.

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Macworld 2008. The one day of the year that Apple fans know that they will see some new Apple-ly goodness out of Cupertino. Steve Jobs and Apple attempt to keep the upmost secrecy. But there are many rumors floating around the dark corners of the internet. Here are some of my Macworld 2008 predictions.
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Apple always has a different way of doing things. And today, again, they have proved just that. Exactly one week before Steve Jobs takes the stage at Macworld, Apple has announced updated Mac Pros and Xserves. Bringing the Mac Pro lineup to an 8-core standard, and upping most of the specs of the machine. Many believe that this move was to steal the thunder from CES. But the question remains. Why would Apple announce an update to a major Mac product line just before Macworld?

Any other company that I can think of would save all of their product announcements for the “big event”. Steve Jobs however, realizes that releasing a bunch of new products at Macworld is not going excite the world. Look at Macworld last year. The main attractions were solely the AppleTV and the iPhone, however, everything got swept away in the iPhone buzz. The AppleTV was sorely forgotten and under-hyped. Steve Jobs didn’t want to introduce the Mac Pros along with the exciting new products planned for Macworld, because he knew the Mac Pros would get pushed to the side.

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