Posts by Techwriter10

Apple released details of iPhone OS 4.0 today, but let owners of older versions of the phone know that they wouldn't be invited to the party. Unfortunately, according to Apple, owners of first and second generation iPhones (and iPod Touches for that matter) don't have the processing power to handle multi-tasking.

That means, owners of older phones will have to do without multi-tasking unless of course, you upgrade. Imagine that.

Does Apple Even Consider This?

I wonder if Apple even considered this when they developed version 4.0. It might be they don't care. It certainly is a way to encourage people to trade up. It could even be why they waited until version 4.0 of the OS to do something any modern OS really should be able to do. Dole out that desired functionality in small doses, so you keep wanting the newer phone.

But it begs the question: Is it worth upgrading for multi-tasking capability? If you're using a device like the iPhone, do you really, really need to have multiple application open at the same time? You probably don't. I mean you've lived without it this long, but it would be nice to have a game open and your email and play music all at the same time wouldn't it?

I'm wondering how they deal with battery life issues with all those applications open though. Apple claims they have worked out battery issues, although they didn't get into details about …

I'm not clear how you would have scenario 1. The cloud is always going to be a service, so I'm not sure how you could have one without the other. It would be helpful if you have provided examples of each scenario to better understand what you mean.

Thanks for commenting.

Ron

Lubor,
Thanks for the comment and the RT on Twitter. I appreciate both. Your RIM idea makes a lot of sense, perhaps too much sense. For whatever reason Microsoft seems reluctant to pull the trigger on big purchases.

Thanks again for your comment.

Ron

John,
Thanks for the comment. You make excellent points and I think you are correct about Microsoft grasping at straws for ideas to save their company.

Ron

Software Dev:
Thanks for pointing out all those Microsoft failures for me. :-)

I actually think making Zune a service is a smart move for Microsoft, but the phone is DOA.

Thanks for the comment,
Ron

Rumor has it Microsoft will be jumping into the mobile phone market later this month. Much like Google's foray into mobile phones with the Nexus One, I think it's a horrible idea for Microsoft to sell phones, but according to this story in Barron's , that's exactly what they intend to do at a big launch party on April 12th.

Like Google, Microsoft has worked hard to build a phone ecosystem around it's Windows Mobile operating system, and like Google (as I recommended in Nexus One Could Torpedo Google Android Strategy ), the idea is to let your partners build phones for you. When Microsoft (and Google) build a branded phone, what they are doing, is kicking their partners to the curb, a strategy that makes little sense to me.

Would Anyone Want One?

Microsoft has never done well in the hardware business, the XBox not withstanding. The Zune has been a dismal failure, a feeble attempt to compete with the wildly popular iPod. By the same token, Microsoft appears to be following Google and Apple in creating their own phones, and while they have every right to get into this business, you have to wonder if it makes any sense for them to do so. My friend and colleague John Blossom pointed out on Twitter recently that Microsoft deliberately hid its own brand when it launched Bing because of the negative connotations with the Microsoft name. If …

You're too late, Ken. Word is they sold 700,000 of them yesterday. But don't worry, they'll make more.

Ron

Hey Mike,
You know, I suspected it was, but thanks for confirming.

Ron

Just a quick clarification. Jason Turcotte reports his iPad was working fine. He watched several Apple Store employees trying to figure out how to fix a display unit that wasn't working properly. He said when he walked past the store about 10 minutes later, it was working (or else they had replaced it).

Ron

The iPad hit the streets yesterday and reports have rolled in from bloggers, reporters and users. For the most part people seem very pleased with their new devices, but there have been some problems (as you would expect with any electronic device on its first day). Contrary to reports (including one from me on Friday), there didn't appear to be any real difficulty for Apple Store employees who didn't get to see the device until just before the store opened. Maybe it's that easy to use or maybe these people really are geniuses.

Here's a smattering of reports from around the country:

* TUAW reports that there was a mob scene at the Apple store in NYC, but the staff handled it well. TUAW reporter Mike T Rose reported people could have gotten one without a line at the Best Buy on Broadway. Go figure.

* Hiawatha Bray reports that there were about 100 people waiting in line at the Apple Store in Boston and Apple employees greeted the customers with coffee. He reported on one visitor from Germany who planned his vacation around the launch, but it still sounds like much smaller crowds than we saw for the iPhone launches in previous years.

* Online friend, Jason Turcotte shot a short video from line outside the Apple Store at the Holyoke Mall in Holyoke, MA.

Reactions

For the most …

InsightsDigital:
That marketing info could work in our favor too, as in a restaurant knowing you're in the area and offer you special pricing or a free drink, but you're right there are a lot of privacy concerns associated with these services and it's really something we have to think about.

Ron

Apparently there were no problems, at least none that I heard about. Maybe they really are geniuses.

Ron

ODB_Info
Thanks for your comment. Backing up to the cloud makes a lot of sense.

Ron

I was having a conversation with my editor today and he brought up an interesting point about the iPad launch tomorrow. The personnel who are supposed to know the iPad cold, have to be able sell it, service it and train new customers on how to use it; have yet to actually see one.

I'm guessing that most Apple Store employees won't actually see the iPad until they walk into the store on Saturday morning just ahead of the big launch. You have to wonder how they'll pull this off. In fact, TUAW reports that the launch has been shrouded in secrecy and the employees are in the dark like the rest of us. I'm imagining it's not very comfortable place to be with a store full of customers awaiting you in less than 24 hours.

Check the Web Site

One way they could familiarize themselves with new device if Apple didn't provide a training device for the stores ahead of time is to watch all of that video on the Apple web site. There is a great tour of all the main functions. If the employees are smart, they'll cram ahead of time by checking the site. By the time they actually get their hands on the iPad on Saturday morning, given their experience working with iPod Touch and the iPhone, they should be able to handle the iPad too.

Why Leave Your Employees On the Hook

I understand …

The other day I was writing a review of an online backup product, and I wrote about the advantages of backing up to the cloud. Even though I have two external backup drives, they are both tied to the same electrical system in my house as my computer. If the house were struck by lightning for instance, it could hose my computer and my backups in one complete and utter disaster. My sister's house was hit a few years ago and it turned her TV, VCR, DVD player and several other pieces of electronics to toast.

This got me thinking that a cloud backup system would give me peace of mind I don't have now. If that worst case scenario happened, I would be covered because all of my data would be safely stored in the cloud. It occurred to me that enterprise users could extract that same benefit from cloud backup, that assurance that your data files are always secure and ready to restore.

Getting Past the Fear

There is still a lot of fear and uncertainty about cloud computing among IT executives. It's all about command and control, right? If it's on your servers, it's in your control. You have a vice president and management you can call into your office should something go wrong. Where do you point the finger of blame if something goes wrong with your vendor's software or servers? The lines of authority aren't quite as clear. But the …

Hi Dan:
Thanks for commenting. I use the Around Me app and Yelp when I'm in a place where I don't know the area to find restaurants, pubs, coffee, breakfast and so forth and I've found this works really well, especially when there are user comments to help you decide where to go and what to avoid. I think these types of services have tremendous value, but I'm still not sold on the ones that are just telling me where *you* are right now. I agree it's early and it will be interesting to see where this goes.

Thanks again for your insight.

Ron

Thanks, Mark. I haven't seen the service used in this fashion, although I have seen some folks using Gowalla in this way. It certainly raises its value if you can add comments over and above your location. As I say, I'm not a fan right now, but it doesn't mean I can't see that at some point it could have some practical application we are just not seeing yet.

Thanks for commenting.
Ron

Probably just about everyone over 25 remembers the game and show 'Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?' If San Diego were around today (maybe she is, who knows), we would all know exactly where she was because she would broadcast her whereabouts by tying her FourSquare account to Twitter. It wouldn't be much of a game. Publish 2 CEO Scott Karp pretty much nailed my feelings about FourSquare announcements on Twitter the other day when he wrote:

When you connected @foursquare to Twitter, you assumed everyone wanted to know where you are. Time to revisit that assumption.

The fact is most people don't need to know you're dropping off your kid at school or stopping at Dunkin Donuts for coffee or sitting in the terminal at Airport X. 99 percent of the people who are see your location-based tweet don't give a rat's petutti where you are.

Location Overload

We thought we were down to the lowest level of personal minutiae when we all started using Twitter. At first, people not sure how to use it, broadcast their meals. As the medium matured so did the level of tweets, and now we get actual insight such as the previous tweet from Mr. Karp. But we were wrong when we though that Twitter was the final frontier. It turns out that we can actually broadcast our every move if we are so inclined.

What I've found is services like …

Planostar:
I would ignore the estimates and leave it alone and see what happens. As I wrote, I found it a little slow as well, but it was much faster than the progress bar indicated it would be. Why not start your backup before you finish working for the day and see if it backs up successfully over night. Let me know how it goes.

Ron

In theory, it's a good idea, but in practice it's hard to make it work. First of all there are so many online news sources available. If only one reputable source offers their content for free, why would you pay for it elsewhere? And of course many publications will choose the free route. The only way I can see pay content really working is for niche content such as finance news from a highly reputable source like the Wall Street Journal. I have also paid for sports content like columnists on ESPN.com, but would I pay to get last night's scores? No, I wouldn't. So it can work, but publications have to pick and choose what they charge for and they have to provide real value for that fee.

Ron

Web Site: http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/online-backup/
OS: Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7
Cost $4.95/month or $49.95/year for 250 GB
Reviewer's View: Overall this a fine backup choice. It provides a generous amount of space for a fair price. They could do a better job of defining how to get started, and the web site recovery could be better integrated with the desktop software, but after you get going, it's a very straight-forward process.

There's a lot to like about backing up to the cloud. I've got two external drives I use for backups, but I've been thinking it would be good to have a cloud solution too. After all, it's not that far-fetched that an electrical spike could wipe out my computer and backups in one horrible step. With a backup in the cloud, you're always covered. If you can get past security/privacy concerns, having a backup offsite on somebody else's servers actually makes a lot of sense.

Acronis Online Backup is one of many options, but for $4.95 per month or $49.95 a year for a generous 250GB of space, it's an excellent choice. Getting started could be confusing for the non-technical user, but once you've got it going, it runs automatically. When it's time to restore files, it's a simple, straight-forward process.

Getting Started

You start by registering, after which Acronis sends you an email with a link for entering your payment information. Once you're registered, you can access your account page where you …

I love my iPhone. It's a cool device with lots of free and low-cost apps at my finger tips, but I've been wondering lately if some of these Apps are a good thing. I mean, why do I need a dedicated New York Times app, for example? Why doesn't the NYT simply detect that I'm on a mobile device in my browser and display a mobile site? Seems a lot more convenient and cost-effective for everyone (but Apple, that is).

Apps are great and at their best give you access to content in an interesting package, but at the same time, apps also promote content silos. That means, instead of linking out to the web and sharing data across different sites, you are basically locked into the site within the app. That's great for the publisher who gets your full attention, but not so great for you as a user, who has to open a browser to get at news outside of the content publisher's App.What's Wrong with Apps

There's nothing wrong with Apps per se, except in some cases we pay a price to be locked inside the app. Before I go too far, let me say that there are plenty of apps that are perfectly suited to this system such as games or the one that turns my iPhone 3G still camera into a video camera . These are applications that extend the iPhone's functionality giving you tools you wouldn't otherwise …

Great post, Davey. And I completely agree. You can't make money hiding behind pay walls.

Ron

Brin takes a different tack in this interview with the Guardian. He is much more critical of the US government for not taking a role and of rival Microsoft than he was in the NYT interview I linked to in this post. Of course, Brin was willing to put up with censorship to get into China, so he appears disingenuous when he criticizes Microsoft for the same thing. Google was after all censoring Chinese results until this week.

Ron

We can be Heroes For ever and ever What d'you say ~David Bowie, Heroes Yesterday afternoon I read with some surprise that domain registrar Go Daddy was following Google out of China . It seems they had had quite enough of the Chinese government's restrictions, and like Google, decided to take their ball and go home. I tweeted with my friend and fellow journalist Alex Howard after seeing this, that maybe all western technology companies should leave China in one big show of force. Leave them there dangling on the edge of their economic expansion without computers, gadgets and networking.

But then as I lay in bed last night, I thought, maybe if just its two fellow technology powerhouses followed them out, it would lead the exodus. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not naive, and I don't think this would ever happen, but it's fun to imagine, these three rivals sticking together for once and telling the totalitarian regime where to stick it.

This Ain't No Movie

As fun as it sounds to picture Steve Ballmer being played by James Stewart (as in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington ) and Steve Jobs being played by Gary Cooper (as in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town ), this is reality, not a 1930s Frank Capra fantasy. These two gentlemen have 21st century companies to run and they are not likely to give up profits without pressure. …

Santosh20,
You could be right, but we'll find out what we're getting in a couple of weeks.

Thanks for the comment.
Ron

Here is Google's official response today announcing they have stopped censoring results in China and have redirected Chinese traffic to their Hong Kong site.

jth1:
Thanks for the vote of confidence. Much appreciated. :-)

Ron

Bobva:
If you're going to use my blog to promote your own blog, the least you could do is be fair about your assessment. I think the section on Superior Design covers why people love Apple products.

Ron

Say what you will about Apple, love 'em or hate 'em, you have to admit they have a special magic when it comes to creating gadgets that consumers clamor for. They have a unique mix of design, build-up and marketing that when combined drive popularity and sales in huge numbers. People have to have these devices. They line up for days outside of Apple Stores. This is no ordinary curiosity. They create a lust for their products.

The next in line is the iPad. Now, I haven't held one in my hands yet, but I've seen enough to know that the key ingredients of the Apple recipe are there. What I don't get is how they always seem to produce devices that everyone else could have, but didn't.

Superior Design

Apple products look, feel and (generally) work great. They are intuitive to use. They feel good in your hands. They have a cool factor that no other manufacturer seems to be able to match. The iPhone was not the first touch screen phone, but it was the one that is most oft imitated.

In a couple of weeks, we will see the first iPads, yet another product that everyone could have produced, yet Apple somehow beat the market again. There will be other similar products, no doubt, but once Apple has everyone's attention, it's hard for other manufactures to be heard.

The Big Build-up

My friend and colleague Joe Brockmeier lamented i

Louis:
It's not my intention to rain on Apple's parade. I certainly don't believe I have enough clout to dampen their sales (far from it), although I wasn't trying to do that with this post. I've seen articles with a similar sentiment since I wrote this one, so I'm not the only one to suggest this. As I wrote at the end, I'm actually intrigued by the iPad and may in fact get one.

Thanks for your comment.

Ron

jwenting:
I don't think they were intentionally screwing the record company, but that was the end result in my view. Also the point of the post is to see the humor and irony in the situation, which you have to admit it has plenty of.

Thanks for your comment.

Ron

Mike:
My feeling is that this is unique to Pink Floyd. This contract was signed in 1999 long before MP3 players and itunes stores. Today, most artists are going to welcome the revenue stream they get from single song sales, and there aren't many artists today who offer an album that tells a complete story as deliberately as Pink Floyd has done in the past.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Ron

It's not exactly news that the relationship between Google and China has soured over the last month or two and it looks as though Google may quit China soon leaving the vastly lucrative Chinese market to Microsoft and others. What's not clear is what the implications will be for the search giant which has found itself caught up in the political machinations of a repressive Chinese government. The story sounds like the start of a John le Carre novel, but the fact is it's very real and the stakes very high.

Chinese Fire First Volley

It all started a couple of months ago when Google discovered a major attack against its networks that had originated inside of China with the goal of hijaaking the Gmail accounts of Chinese Human Rights Activists. (Little did the Chinese spies know they could have just waited a month until the release of Buzz and gotten those addresses much easier.) Google's chief legal officer, David Drummond wrote a lengthy blog post on the official Google Blog on the matter shortly after the story broke, and was less than amused by the incident. It was clear at that moment the situation and the relationship was deteriorating rapidly. Since that day, Google has continued to negotiate with the government, but recent reports suggest these talks are going nowhere and the end could be coming soon.

Everyone Knows China's Huge

comScore's 2009 …

Not many radio stations other than college radio can afford to play a whole album side uninterrupted. I respect Pink Floyd's desire to keep the albums as a whole, and some like Echoes really demand that, but not many stations can do that. It's not called commercial radio for nothing. They need to make money and they aren't likely to play an album side except maybe late at night when there aren't as many listeners.

Ron

getitright
I think you're right, and I as I stated this ruling probably only applies only to Pink Floyd, but it is ironic that a record company tries to go the modern route, only to get pushed back by the band. And that was my point.

I don't think anyone's disputing Pink Floyd's right to do this, although I question the wisdom of the decision, they certainly have the contractual right to do what they did.

Whether it's a smart move in today's market is open for debate of course. I do wonder how they reconcile the idea that these songs get played as individual entities on the radio all the time (as do Led Zeppelin's) and one can still enjoy the songs outside of the context of the whole piece.

Thanks for chiming in. I appreciate your comment.

Ron

I've been a fan of Pink Floyd's music for many years, but most songs even though they are often part of a whole story on PF albums still could stand alone on their own.

Using your reasoning (and theirs for that matter), you could never hear a Pink Floyd song on the radio (and I often have). Comfortably Numb from The Wall sticks out as a song that often gets played on the radio and which you can listen to and enjoy out of the context of the story The Wall album as a whole tells. It's still a good song on its own.

Thanks for your comment.

Ron

I actually wrote this post a year ago. I'm sure there are many more companies making a profit now, so much so that it's not worthy of pointing out in a blog post, and that's good news indeed.

Thanks for your comments.
Ron

The band is just fantastic,
that is really what I think.
Oh by the way, which one's Pink?
~Pink Floyd, Have a Cigar

In the classic rock tale, the young, talented musicians are exploited by one of two entities: the unscrupulous manager or the greedy record company. This week Pink Floyd turned the tables on the record company, winning a case involving a 1999 contract that stated Pink Floyd's albums had to be sold intact. In other words they could not be broken up and sold as individual songs.

A high court in England agreed that the band had a right to preserve its music in the form outlined in the contract. The irony here is that EMI, the band's record label has been making good money selling individual digital songs, and if the ruling holds, the company, which has been reportedly losing millions, will lose this lucrative cash flow from a popular band. The band won the battle, and screwed the record company in process. Talk about a role reversal.

It's a Digital World

Today, people tend to buy individual songs, instead of an entire album, but back when Pink Floyd was at the height of its popularity, you had to buy the whole album and listen to both sides usually in order. Even with the advent of CDs, the whole album tended to be played in order, but that has changed in a big way. According to

droharai:
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. It all comes down to your own comfort level with how much information one company has on you and how much you trust that company, or even if you don't, how much you are willing to trade off for the convenience of the free service.

There are no easy answers to these questions.

Ron

missing pointer:
You didn't miss the point there. :-) It's so true.

Thanks for the comment.
Ron

Tom2332
There is that point I made though that they seem to be avoiding the mistakes that Microsoft and IBM made before them, but you could be right. What goes up must come down, right? :-)

Thanks for commenting.
Ron

capatainobvious
What tools are you using to replace the Google ones you had been using?

Ron

adugan:
Thanks for the comments. I agree. Google is a very powerful brand that lands at or near the top of trusted brands surveys every year. It's hard for anyone to get passed that, but it's not impossible. Google was a new company at one time too. It did something well. If there is a company out there that can change search as we know it, then anything is possible.

Ron

Von_Wanderlust

I actually link to that same video at the end of the first paragraph. Unfortunately there is no embedding on this site or I would have included it in the post to illustrate my point more clearly.

Even if the corporate mind-set is "to not be evil" and it may very well be, I don't think you can trust that it always will be. Google is a publicly traded company and answers mostly to its stock holders, not to its users. If things got sticky, they always have that huge database of user information to peddle.

Your example is a good one.

Thanks for your comment.

Ron

loganf:
As I see it, it's not an either/or proposition. I certainly don't trust Microsoft any more than I do Google (or any large corporation for that matter). As I stated in the post, I agree that they produce good tools. That's why I continue to use them, but for me, the amount of information they have on me makes me uncomfortable.

What's more, chances are they are using that data in conjunction with advertisers today to fine-tune ads and give the people who feed the corporate beast what they need to make more money.

In today's world where corporations are running amok, it is troubling at the very least, that one company could be consolidating so much power. You don't have to believe it or worry about it, but it's my job to put it out there so you can at least consider it and mull it over.

Thanks for your comment.

Ron

hpgoodboy:
Thanks very much, I appreciate that.

Ron

Right, I forgot about that one, Morriss. The announcements come so quickly, it's hard to keep up with them al!

Thanks for the comment,
Ron

Google does a lot of things well, maybe too well, and it's adding to its portfolio of tools on a weekly basis. At some point you have to look at the number of pies in which Google has its fingers and start to get a little frightened of this company. I came across this video the other day and it really summed up just how pervasive Google is.

Here's just a sample of what they've done in the last few weeks:

• Announced an initiative to bring high-speed broadband to select cities and towns in the US.
• Launched a new application marketplace similar to Salesforce.com's AppExchange where Google Docs corporate users can find third-party applications that link to the Google Docs eco-system and work with Calendar, eMail and so forth.
• Launched Google Public Data Explorer, a new Labs project to view public data in interesting ways.

As Google deftly moves into more and more areas of our computing lives, at some point you have to stop and ask yourself if this is a good thing, or if it's something to watch closely because with every tool (as the video shows), the more information Google has about you.

Will It Ever Stop?

I remember writing years ago about the uncanny ability of Google to keep itself in the news. Early on as it was developing as a company, that made sense, but today as …

WaltFrench:
I'm actually referring to a survey that found that most people aren't willing to pay even $100 for an eReader device. I wrote about this on FierceContentManagement. Now, I know that the iPad will do substantially more than a one-dimensional eBook Reader, but from what I've read many people plan to use it as such, and as an eBook Reader it's definitely expensive.

Also keep in mind that as writers, we sometimes stake out a position to explore it. Do I think it's cool technology? I definitely do, but it's my job to push back and try out ideas. You don't have to agree with them and I welcome your comments (but please try to be civil).

Ron