Apple

When the Apple Store came back up after revamping, somewhere around the WWDC this week, I went to http://me.com and was redirected to the Apple MobileMe page.

But for the past 2 days now, me.com has been down. DNS is hell.

Via MacWorld:

“This is not good; this is a security risk,” he said. “We’re a bank.”

Wilson said it has taken him the better part of a week to remove Safari from his network and prevent it from being reinstalled.

In an e-mail interview, Susan Bradley agreed that the updates are creating a problem for administrators and making users less secure. “It impacts all of us when more potential attack surface is installed in a group of folks that are vulnerable enough as it is,” said Bradley, who is chief technology officer with Tamiyasu, Smith, Horn and Braun, Accountancy Corp.

Of course I don't have any stats, but I wonder how many of these IT folks are the same ones keeping IE6 alive.

Last week, after suffering through the appalling un-usability of the Blackberry 8830 "worldphone" throughout DrupalCon -- which followed more than a year suffering from my worst technology purchase ever -- I bit the bullet and swallowed my distaste of Apple's increasingly closed-and-controlling technology, and my lingering resentment of AT&T Wireless (ugh) by going into the Apple store and buying an iPhone.

Yeah, I know. I'm sooooooo late to the party.

I was drawn by the user interface, not the newly "opened" application development path that has gotten all the press. The user interface was enough.

And wow, did my interest ever pay off!

This "phone" has the highest screen resolution I have seen, not just in terms of pixel resolution but also what they do with it. They aren't afraid of going small. This means that the iPhone is the first "smartphone" with a real web browser -- no wonder the iPhone Safari ignores handheld stylesheets. And it's not just the browser that enjoys this detail -- its all the appls. This means that reading emails is not a matter of having to suffer through some clunky awkward font, such as what Blackberry offers.

The iPhone just makes it easier to read stuff.

The fact that there are no real applications available to add to the iPhone is somewhat of an annoyance, although the default apps aren't bad. To be sure, there are some "webapps" available, but in generally they pretty much suck -- all running through the browser with minimal usability.

And the iPhone "keyboard" simply sucks. The buttons are too small, and the "smart" spelling tends to override what you're trying to type.

Don't even think about using txting abbreviations. The iPhone will "correct" those "typos" into totally irrelevant words.

Why the iPhone keyboard won't display horizontally across the landscape orientation of the screen is beyond me. We surely could use the extra space between the buttons.

The unboxing

I took some photos of the unboxing of the iPhone. When I saw that Matthew, who bought an iPhone only because I did (heh), posted his iPhone unboxing, I thought I'd get off of my duff and download the unboxing images and post this blog post.

As usual, Apple gets so much right. Once you remove the flimsy shrink-wrap -- no bullet-proof plastic container -- you're left with just a box without any additional steel-strength tape tabs.

Lift the lid and you see your iPhone (wrapped in an easy-to-remove cellophane).

Funny that this device, which costs 20-30 times more than a DVD, is so much easier to unbox. It's so nice to be treated as a valued customer instead of a guilty-by-default thief.

Remove the iPhone and you are left with a plastic tray with an easy-grip tab. (Boo to Apple for using cycle 7 plastic! How much more would it have been to use easy-to-recycle cycle 1 or cycle 2 plastic? It would have been nice to have a totally recyclable package.)

Each item is easy to unbox. No tools required. Easy. Usable. Inviting.

Are there any product lawyers reading this?

As a citizen and computer user, I agree that Apple is wrong to push Safari on Windows users:

Debate is raging today over the news that Steve Jobs has made good on his summertime promise and is now sending Apple's browser Safari along for the ride when Windows users are prompted to update iTunes or Quicktime.

Users can deselect the additional software download, but let's be realistic - there's got to be millions of people unwittingly downloading Safari onto their computers right now. Downloading software has to be opt-in, not opt-out.

As a web developer, however, I am quietly thrilled that there's a real possibility that a significant number of people will stop using the crapware Internet Explorer -- especially IE6, which cannot die a soon enough death, in my book. Microsoft's browser has been a huge sap on productivity in web development, thanks to its continued refusal to adopt CSS standards.

So "boo" to Apple, but a bigger and pre-existing "BOO" to Microsoft. Here I prefer the lesser of two boos.

After comparing many programs for my regular note-taking, I keep returning to Yojimbo. The tagging system and spotlight support are enough for me to find my misc notes. Syncing via .Mac has a nice wrinkle in that it will merge changes to individual files, so if you update a file on one computer, and another file on the other computer, when you sync them both changes are reflected on both machines. Still, while the tagging approach can be fast, creating more complex relationships is difficult, if not impossible. In the end, Yojimbo is not ideal, and I'm still planning on trying alternatives, but this is what I have.

What's worse, I'm kind of painted into a corner because BareBones has decided, in their wisdom, to provide no way at all to export your items except one at a time. There's also no way to export for backup, unless you want to manually back up the Yojimbo Application Support folder in your user Library.

This means that, out of the box, the only way to move files or back up your notes in Yojimbo is to use .Mac ... which is not ideal, when you consider the rather objectionable .Mac EULA, that includes such lovely items such as:

Subject to any specific license agreements for various .Mac software
features (including third party software), Apple may change, suspend or
discontinue any (or all) aspects of .Mac at any time, including the
availability of any .Mac feature. Apple may also impose limits on the
use of or access to certain features or portions of .Mac, or restrict
your access to any part or all of .Mac, in all cases without notice or
liability.

In other words, they can just kill your stuff without consequence. Oh sure, they would never do that! But if not, then why do they claim the right in the agreement?

And:

Apple reserves the right to terminate your access to .Mac at any time,
with cause or without cause, in the event of any breach of this
Agreement by you (or anyone using your account or any sub-account),
your infringement of Apple's or .Mac's or others' intellectual
property, or any other circumstances which, in Apple's sole discretion,
merit termination. Any such termination may, if Apple elects (and
subject to applicable law), be without any refund to you of any prepaid
fees or amounts.

Translation: Apple can arbitrarily cancel your account and keep your money, and you have no recourse.

And:

APPLE RESERVES THE RIGHT (SUBJECT TO APPLICABLE LOCAL LAW), IN ITS SOLE
DISCRETION, TO MONITOR ALL .MAC FEATURES AND CONTENT, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO A USE OF A USER'S MAIN ACCOUNT AND ANY SUB-ACCOUNTS, FOR THE
PURPOSE OF INVESTIGATING VIOLATIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT.

Translation: Apple can look at all your private files.

Why would I pay $99 a year, or more, for service under such terms? So this is now what I'm trying to avoid.

So does anyone out there know of a way to synchronize Yojimbo between machines without .Mac?

It doesn't take a "genius" to know that there is something seriously wrong with my MacBook Pro. When you can't hold a wi-fi connection and get the gray screen of death two or more times a day, you pretty much have a worthless piece of junk taking up space.

I took it into the Apple Store on Twenty-Ninth Street and was greeted by a guy dressed more for playing ultimate frisbee than for working pretty much any kind of retail. I told him about the problems I was having and he snorted -- this was a familiar problem, apparently.

He walks me up to a computer "to make an appointment." Apparently nowadays you cannot have a problem with your Mac unless you have an appointment. Those of us with unscheduled failures can just twist in the wind.

After having to type in my contact information, he navigates to a screen and says, "You can have an appointment tomorrow."

"I need an appointment to have a problem taken care of?" I asked.

"You have to wait just like everyone else you see here," he said with a sneer, waving his hand at some 10 or 15 people all having problems looked at by "geniuses."

"Why can't I just drop the thing off and the tech department can deal with it when they can?"

"You have to be here."

"Why?"

"So they can know what the problem is."

Whatever.

I have never had to have an appointment to drop something off to a repair shop. I may have had to wait to get it fixed, but I've never had anyone tell me, in effect, "Take your problem away from here! Begone!"

Some years ago, home insurance companies were found to be deliberately shuffling adjusters so that people making claims would have to see several adjusters -- starting over each time -- before even getting a settlement offer. Presumably this was done because the companies wanted to delay as long as possible having to pay out money they owed to their clients.

Is this Apple's approach? Spread out how many people can actually have computer problems addressed in a given day, so that they don't have to deal with the crappy hardware they're using in their devices?

We have three other MacBook Pros in the office, and two of them are experiencing the same gray screen of death and wi-fi connection problems. (The guy with the functional MacBook Pro had at his previous job another one with the same gray screen of death problem.) Obviously this is something of a pandemic that should require a recall, not sending people with problems out into the street with no acknowledgment of anything.

Do you need an appointment to buy a computer? Don't be silly!

Oh, and I was going to buy a screen while I was there. Funny how treating the customer with contempt has an effect on sales.

It's not just that we were unboxing a top-of-the-line Mac. It's that we were experiencing the unboxing of an Apple product.

The box itself was a little battered. Opening the box entailed cutting the shipping tape along the top opening. In fact, that's as hard as the unboxing got. No more tape to cut or structured plastic to try to rip open. One seal. That's it. (Compare that with opening your typical DVD.)

So we learn from Secret Notes:

Apple's stylish stores and computers, all of which feature unrestricted Internet access, have become such the hang-out and gathering place for MySpace junkies that the powers that be have elected to block the popular social networking site from its systems.

By the close of business Thursday, most Apple retail stores will have implemented the block, designed to reduce the level of loitering at the stores.

More likely Apple's design aesthetic just cannot brook dreadful MySpace page designs appearing within their bricks and mortar.

The horror! The horror!

So says Thomas Hesse, president of global digital business and US sales for Sony BMG. That's right, the company that betrayed such contempt for the consumer by deliberately infecting its music CDs with its Rootkit, before stopping when it faced major PR and legal backlash, still has plenty of contempt for the consumer.

The article on the Forbes website -- itself littered with interstitial and numerous pop-up ads that make you just want to hurry back and experience more -- covers how music industry executives are fretting over life in the digital age.

“No intellectual property business is going to cross the digital divide without figuring out how to protect its content and to ensure that transactions are associated with the acquisition of content,’’ Nash said. “The music industry simply has to solve the content security problem or risk the obsolescence of its business model.’’

So says Warner's senior vice president of digital strategy and business development. In other words, the world must conform to their business model, not the other way around.

At issue is that people who buy and download music might do what they have been able to do for decades: copy it and share it, which is something you still can do if you buy a CD.

Says MacDailyNews:

The horse left the barn decades ago when the music industry opened the doors wide and began selling billions of Compact Discs without DRM. Hence, most of the music sold today is already without DRM and, we can get any new release for free - just like being in a college dorm - on the day of release via P2P. Don't steal music.

Lastly, it doesn't matter what the music labels' agendas are, the only agenda that really matters is Steve Jobs' - and his seems focused like a laser on DRM-free music sales.

DRM-free music is already here via CDs and P2P. There is no logical reason to try to restrict legal online downloads with DRM - all you are doing is turning people towards pirating music and/or turning them off from using legal online stores like Apple's iTunes Store.

It never fails to amazes us how some people in the music industry don't understand the absolute basics of their business model.

We're all criminals. Especially those of us in college. That seems to be the message from the executives. How's that for "business development" strategy?

A few weeks ago, I started telling friends my wild and crazy prediction that Apple will own a majority share of the personal computer market within three years. Apple's biggest weakness is in their vertical monopoly over their own hardware. OSX is fabulous, but their hardware is crap, let's face it. You simply have to figure the cost of Apple Care into any Mac purchase because you can count on some sort of hardware problem.

Despite this -- and who's to say Apple won't change its tune regarding hardware? -- Apple's star is definitely rising, while Microsoft's is in a self-inflicted crash and burn.

Paul Graham, in is post, "Microsoft is Dead," has the quote of the month:

Microsoft's biggest weakness is that they still don't realize how much they suck.

The same could be said for a number of companies. Graham recognizes that a number of folks will scoff at these assertions.

Half the readers will say that Microsoft is still an enormously profitable company, and that I should be more careful about drawing conclusions based on what a few people think in our insular little "Web 2.0" bubble. The other half, the younger half, will complain that this is old news.

Graham still succumbs to the notion that all "applications will live on the web—not just email, but everything, right up to Photoshop." Such black-and-white thinking may provide a poetic flourish, or add drama to pronouncements on the future, but my own sense is that the general public is going to start noticing the pound of privacy flesh web companies, like Paul Graham's employer, demand for the convenience of the services they offer.

The desktop is not dead, but it is changing. So is the web (duh), and just as desktop übercompany Microsoft is feeling the heat for their business practices and strategic decisions, we might see the same thing happening to the übercompanies of the web before too long.