Applepeels

A Sign That Apple Cares About The Desktop?

We all have different expectations from the companies that have helped define our lives.  My hopes for Apple revolve around the tools that the company created or helped popularize over the years. Many of those innovations let me do things that I could hardly imagine.

With me it started with an Apple II+, AppleWriter II, and an Epson MX-80 dot matrix printer.  Then there was the Mac, Pagemaker, and Illutrator, iPhoto, iMovie, and iDVD. While not all of these came from Apple, their initial releases were tied closely to the Macintosh.  Since the announcement of the Mac, the Mac desktop has been an important part of my life. Today I still use the Mac, just not as much. Linux has won a significant piece of my desktop.

Even when I gave my desktop over completely to Apple, it was not always been a smooth ride. Products like Claris Emailer and iDVD were dropped.  Some things like iPhoto's integration with the Cloud and web pages have changed for the worse.  Perhaps iWeb was the best indication that Apple never could quite understand that to be successful on the web you need to divorce the device from the data. Google certainly understands that.  I would even argue that Microsoft is better at it than Apple. Then there is an application like Pages which took me a long time to embrace for a few things only to watch Apple decide to ignore it.  I might not agree with Microsoft's direction on Excel, but I doubt they will ever ignore it.

Apple's misunderstanding of the cloud imight someday be looked upon as a major mistake. Still there is no question that Apple remains a money machine.  What I am wondering is can Apple still innovate in a way that really matters.  It is not a new question.  I found this August 18, 2011 article by Brandt Dainow, Why the iAd was a failure, an interesting read.  I especially like this quotation which refers to an earlier article of his.

The thrust of my criticism was that if Apple creates aspirational and innovative new products, but then restricts access to them, it forces others to create competing systems. By refusing hardware manufacturers such as Samsung and Nokia access to the iOS system, Apple forced them into the arms of Google and Microsoft. I argued that, just as the Mac had gone from 30 percent market share at its peak to less than 3 percent today, so would the iPhone go in the mobile market.

While the Mac has gotten up to 10% or so of market share, there are those who are now arguing that it has peaked. 

It turns out that a lot of what Apple has done throughout its history is to create innovations and then to try to wall them off.  There was a time before Windows 7 when many computer users would have loved to have the more secure and capable OS X running on their Dell or HP.  Apple was sure that letting OS X into the wild would destroy the company.  It turned out that Apple's success was not destined to come from OS X anyway.  It was going to come from the iPod, iPhone, and iPad and related services which now make up close to 86% of Apple's revenue.  I always thought that it was funny that I had to buy a third-party add-on for iPhoto just to do something as simple as put my photos in Google's Picasa web albums without resorting to a browser.

In a sense Apple is now trying to use OS X to drag along those of us still creating content with Macs.  It likely will not work.  The web is changing everything and Apple's walled worlds are showing some huge cracks.  Android may be as unstoppable in the mobile market as Windows was in the desktop market.

Android runs on a lot of hardware from different companies.  I like to compare the sharing options that I get when viewing an image on the Mac with what I get when viewing an image in the gallery on my Android phone.  There are twenty choices on my LG Spectrum phone instead of the seven choices in Apple's Preview.  Of course Apple is not the only guilty party in limiting our choices.  When I want to share a photo from my Amazon Cloud Drive using my Kindle Fire, I only get four choices.  That lack of choice has a lot to do with my decision to make a Nexus 7 my main tablet.  I get more choice on a lot of things.

By trying to control everything, Apple limits our choice and opens the door to innovation from others. But if the limitations that Apple forces on us are severe enough, then the market is guaranteed to respond with other choices.  Some of the choices might not be goods ones, but then again some of those choices might be really good ones like the Nexus 7 that I'm using.

While some argue that the only way for a good user experience is to let Apple control everything, my experience has shown that Apple cares little about the user experience except to want to use it to prod me towards their vision of a pure world with only Apple products and services.

It will be interesting to see how well Microsoft's experiment in using their operating system to prod us toward tablets and the Surface Pro will work.  Actually the operating systems of both Microsoft and Apple are not very high on my list these days.  I am moving towards a roll your environment using virtualization. Look for my upcoming article on it at readwrite.

For now I would like just one sign that Apple cares about my user experience.  I will nominate bringing back the "Escape" key in iPhoto as a way to return to the library instead of clicking on the annoying "Photos" button.  I doubt we will see that since the march of Mac OS X towards iOS likely will accelerate instead of slow down. 

In truth, it does not matter.  I have found a new solution, Adobe's Lightroom.  Guess what?  The "Escape key" works like it should there.  A better sign for me to pay attention to is Frank, our great egret from Canada.

Do Apple Employees Need A Witness Protection Program?

I am rarely surprised about what comes out of Apple, but this caught even me a little off guard.   Some of you know that I have a long history with Apple .  I have seen things that I still have a hard time believing.  However, my recent experience with Apple's unreal world is a reminder of just how weird things can get for you if your paycheck comes from the folks in Cupertino.

In October of 2001, I was named manager of the year for my team's outstanding performance in the federal market.  A friend took a picture of my team at the awards banquet.  I have always treasured the picture and been very proud of our accomplishment since we were covering the worlds largest IT market with a handful of people. 

I wanted to include the picture in my book and took the time to ask each person in the picture for their permission to be in the book.  It wasn't a controversial photo.  No one was nude or holding a Windows PC.  Much to my surprise three of the five current Apple employees declined to be in the photo.  I edited the image so they are unrecognizable.

One person admitted to being afraid of the consequences of being in the photo, and I respect that.  Two came up with excuses that were plain laughable.  

You can try to appreciate the situation by working through this.  For a moment imagine worrying about being in a photo taken eleven years ago when your team was the tops at Apple.  Then think about worrying about the photo being in a book that you didn't write and which you haven't even seen but which is basically a historical account of someone else's career in the fictional Pomme Company.  Then remember that none of these employees are even named in the book.

If you have that scenario in your mind, you now know just how much control Apple exercises over its people.  The whole episode reminds me a little of the "Minority Report."

When a former manager of mine who is in the picture heard about the incident he asked, "What is the story with these people? Are they in a witness protection program?"

He has been gone from Apple for almost ten years, and I exited a little over eight years ago.  We have both returned to a normal world where you aren't afraid to open a box of literature before a keynote speech.  I don't miss folks worrying about someone from the press tricking them into answering a question.

The culture of fear runs deep in Apple sale's division.  If you want to know about life at Apple in sales, you can now read my newly published book, "The Pomme Company."

Some friends have said my book should be required reading for people wanting to join Apple's sales force.

The book has taken a little over a year and was interrupted by a note from Apple's legal folks warning me to adhere to my non-disclosures.    That is actually easy to do since most of us at Apple heard no secrets.  The joke used to be that when we wanted to find out what Apple was about to announce we would check out MacSurfer.

My book is about my somewhat amazing journey.   I went from running a cattle operation in eastern Canada to being the director of federal sales for Apple.  The journey actually started just after we dispersed our cattle and I started selling Apple II+s for a small company in Fredericton, New Brunswick.  It ended with me as director of federal sales sitting on Capitol Hill with Avie Tevanian in a cyber security hearing.

My career at Apple transformed my life and that of my family.  I'll be interested to hear what people think of the book which is priced at $5.99.  It has lots of pictures of historical interest to people interested in Apple.

Most of all if you want a peak at the Apple culture that I saw, my book will be a cure for your curiousity.

Has Apple lost its soul?

My up and down relationship with Apple still hasn't reached a turning point. I remain hopeful that Cupertino will announce a product that will catch my fancy. I have a long history with the company.

I have enjoyed watching the launch of the new iPhone 5, but I am still happy with my Android powered LG Spectrum and the Kindle Fire my children gave me last fall.  I am waiting for some Apple products to excite all of us who built our digital lives around Apple solutions.

With all the media coverage around the iPhone 5 announcement, I especially enjoyed the Jimmy Kimmel segment where some supposed iPhone users couldn't tell the difference between the iPhone 4S they were being shown and the new iPhone 5.  However, perhaps that is a cheap shot.  I'm not sure I could tell you the difference between my latest LG Smartphone and whatever new product LG has announced.

Beyond being the butt of  a few jokes on late night comedy shows, there are some serious problems with Apple.

It is easy to ignore the issues if you just measure the company by their unbelievable stock price.  Before I go further let me say that I still believe that Apple makes great hardware products, and perhaps the latest iPhone and iPad are among the best they have ever made.

The question for me comes down to this, can the Apple of today follow through with its direction without paying better attention to its computer and software roots?

If you are new to Applepeels and want some perspective on me before reading more, try this link to my Apple history.

Perhaps the most worrisome issue for me, is the health of Mac OSX.  Having only recently taken the step to go to Lion, I still haven't upgraded to Mountain Lion.  I normally don't jump on an Apple first release, and I was actually hoping that Apple would announce a new Mac Mini by this time.  If that had happened I could take the step to Mountain Lion with new hardware.

Lion has been a mixed experience for me.  Perhaps you need an iOS device to really see its benefits, but I get the distinct feeling that there are now far too many ways to do the same thing on OS X.  I believe that some of the simplistic beauty of OSX has been lost as a layer of complexity has been added. 

While I am worried about OSX, I am downright depressed about iPhoto. I was at Apple when Steve was focused on the release of iPhoto. It was a revolutionary program at the time, and it had the full attention of Steve.

I'm pretty sure that Steve would not be happy with the current user interface on iPhoto.  One of the great things about the original version of iPhoto was the ease with which you could create a web album for your friends to see.  In the latest version of iPhoto on the Mac we are stuck with photostream which seems to be an all or nothing solution unless you want to use Flickr or Facebook.

As a photographer who sometimes takes a thousand pictures in a day.  I want to be able to quickly sort through the pictures, select the good ones, make some adjustments, put copies of the ones I like in cloud storage, and then create web albums of ones that I plan to show to more than a few people.  That process used to be very simple with a Mac.  That is no longer the case.

I now do my initial photo sorting and tune-ups on a Windows 7 laptop because it is easier with Picasa than it is with iPhoto. In a number of areas where iPhoto was ahead of Picasa, Apple has managed to dumb down recent versions of iPhoto.  While this was happening Google actually made Picasa better and more efficient.  While I have Picasa on the Mac, I have hung with iPhoto hoping it would get better.

While Picasa might not look as glitzy as iPhoto, you will get more work done with Picasa.  On top of that Picasa easily puts one or dozens of photos on the web with easily controllable access.  I haven't tried to find the extra cost plug-in that I purchased for my previous versions of iPhoto so I could directly load photos into Picasa web albums from iPhoto.  Likely the reason is that I resent paying for something that should be there.

It really is a final straw for me that in iPhoto Apple has built-in Flickr and Facebook support but has ignored Picasa web albums. I know they are doing this to spite Google, but users are the ones who suffer and Apple offers no solution of its own comparable to Picasa web albums.

If you want to delve into this deeper, read a post or two of mine which compares iPhoto and Picasa.

An even bigger problem is that Apple seems to have fallen into the old trap of if it wasn't invented at Apple, it can't be good.  The recent ditching of Google maps is just not something that will work out well for Apple over the long term.

I have no question that Apple has the money to create a great map solution, but I seriously doubt Apple has the management culture and the persistence to stick with their own mapping solution until it is a great product.  It is not in Apple's DNA to incrementally upgrade software or a backend solution until it is a really solid product.

If you don't believe me, just think back to the original .Mac product and all its many iterations including iCloud which was going to change everything.

Actually it has changed everything, just not for the better.

Compare Apple's cloud solution with GoogleDrive, SkyDrive, or DropBox, and it looks like making a home grown solution isn't necessarily the best path for Apple.

Apple has a history of alienating partners and having to go it on their own. Maps is just a symptom of that problem. As an Apple employee once told me, you can't say the word "partner" and Apple in the same sentence.  Let's hope that Apple makes nice with Microsoft so they don't pull the plug on Office for the Mac.

Even if Maps is a good idea, many good Apple ideas have withered on the vine for lack of attention.  Does anyone remember eWorld, Apple's online world that was going to be better than AOL?

And if that comparison doesn't ring true, just look at the history of Apple branded or backed word processors for the Mac and compare that to Microsoft which does have a history of banging its head against the wall and showering money on a project until they either succeed (Word & XBox) or fail (Zune).

Remember back to the introduction of the original Mac. It came with MacWrite.  It wasn't long after the introduction of the Mac that Microsoft came out with Word.  MacWrite after the Claris spinoff eventually became MacWrite Pro.

Then came ClarisWorks which eventually became AppleWorks before disappearing completely.  Now we have Pages which will eventually languish like the rest of Apple's word processors. Word is still around.

The lack of a culture built around incrementally improving products as opposed to ditching them is a huge challenge in the technology world.  While Apple might have mastered it with the iPhone, they have a number of other products begging for updates.

Beyond  this I believe the biggest problem that Apple has is the wall that the company throws up between the company and its customers.

While Microsoft and other companies are working hard to listen to customers, Apple is busy listening to itself.  If you are going to incrementally improve something like a map solution, you need a close working relationship with your users.  I have sent Google a few notes over the years about problems that I have found on their maps.  While I have never heard back from them, every problem that I found has been resolved.

I'm not sure Apple knows how to act similarly. Perhaps if Apple could develop a strategy to start reaching out to customers in a company supported blog, it might be a first step, but unfortunately the company's DNA would have to change before they started blogging.

As long as Apple can keep iPhones and iPads flying out the door, perhaps all these issues are irrelevant. But I do believe that Apple's OSX software is a strategic product and deserves serious attention that it is not getting.

If Apple does hit a blip, and it likely will, I suspect many of the customers who came to Apple's rescue in the past will be gone.  It remains to be seen whether current iPhone and iPad customers will be as loyal or just jump ship for the next shiny trinket.

Just a few updates and I'm off to bed.

We spent a good part of the summer doing our final move from our house in Roanoke, Virginia.  We have bid Roanoke adieu, and we will no longer be making our once a month trip from the coast to the mountain. 

We are very happy to be living here by our inlet.  The peace that I find in the wildness along the Southern Outer Banks has pretty well mended the nerve ends that were seared by Apple's winner take all culture.

If the fishing doesn't require my full attention this fall and if I don't fall under the spell of the area's blue skies, I hope to finally get the book about my Apple career published.  It has been a bigger challenge than I thought it would be.

 

 

 

With MobileMe Gone, Solutions for Photos?

Whatever you thought of MobileMe, it did offer one solution for sharing photos on the web.  With iCloud Apple has effectively gotten out of the photo sharing business.

The one good thing about iCloud is that you won't have to worry about losing your albums because there are none. I guess it is also a little harder to think of Apple as "the hub of your digital life."

Fortunately there are many other solutions besides Apple. I don't pretend to know them all.  However, I do come at this from the perspective of someone who started using the original .Mac service from the beginning so I feel the pain of those who have lost MobileMe albums or web sites.

I had my own interesting experiences in migrating to iCloud.

That said, years ago after the first change of architecture in Apple's online storage which resulted in many of my albums being forcibly retired, I became worried.  I started actively investigating alternatives.  Early on my good friend Stephen @batess turned me on to Picasa Web Albums while I was experimenting with Flickr.

Picasa Web Albums has over time become my default option for storing my photos on the web. I have never regretted the trust that I put in the platform.

There are plenty of "Cloud" storage options out there, and I use several of them.  Many are free and most have storage upgrades that are much cheaper than Apple was after the heyday of free .Mac accounts ended.

I hope to discuss a few of these alternatives and make it clear that even if Apple decides to have a way to store photos in their "Cloud,"  I would likely not bite on the offer a third time.

Just to be completely clear, Photostream is only a solution for sharing a small number of photos between compatible devices.  A compatible devices rules out an older Mac but does include a Windows 7 device.

For several years, in addition to hanging onto to my MobileMe Galleries, I have extensively used slide shows on my various websites.  Flickr, and Picasa Web Albums have also been in the mix. There is no perfect solution, and the simple thing is to try a few things and see what works best for you.  Of course that depends somewhat on your computing environment.

My computing world includes an I5 iMac, an I7 Lenovo laptop running Windows 7, an old Dell Pentium 3 running Ubuntu, and a couple of older Macs including my trusted Dual G5 system which I purchased almost eight years ago.  I am running the I5 Mac in a dual boot situation.  I have Lion running on an external hard drive and Snow Leopard running on the internal drive.  For my reasons behind that, you can see my post, The Mysteries of Apple, MobileMe, & iCloud.

I have both iPhoto and Picasa running on my I5 iMac.  For more information on my reasons for that check my post, The saga of Apple's iPhoto and Google's Picasa with some tests. 

However, in my workflow, usually the first place that a photo meets a computer is my Windows laptop since I no longer have a functioning Mac laptop.  The windows laptop stays on our kitchen table, and when I come in from my early morning walk and finish my coffee, I often upload my photos to Picasa on the Lenovo.  By the same token when I come in after a five mile beach walk, the photos usually go first into Picasa.

Picasa, while it is not as pretty as iPhoto, does a lot of things and does them quickly.  While the iPhoto user interface has become slower to use, Picasa's has become faster and more versatile.

It is not unusual for me to run through three or four hundred photos and pick out the best ones in Picasa and do some basic adjustments for light and post them in an album on the web like this Hammock's Beach Album on Picasa Web Albums.

I sometimes will export individual photos or several photos to either DropBox or GoogleDrive.  It is easy then for me to find the best photos when I go up to my office and sit down at my Mac.  I also usually upload all my photos to iPhoto and run Picasa on the I5 iMac often enough to let it include all the photos that I have uploaded to iPhoto.

The other day when I was talking to another photographer who had lost his MobileMe albums, I created similar examples of the same Hammocks Beach photos on Microsoft's SkyDrive and on flickr.  Clicking on the links will take you to the albums.

When I export individual photos, I usually want to use them somewhere besides an album.  An example would be the photo in the post, Life without Walls, on my Crystal Coast Life website.  The photo came from that same set taken at Hammocks Beach.  I currently use Pixelmator for anything that I can't do in Picasa or iPhoto.  Of course I also post photos to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest.

Sometimes, I want to make a self contained photo album and post it on my own website.  I have traditionally used ShutterBug, a Mac based piece of software to do that.  An example of a Shutterbug site would be this one that I created to sell stuff from our Roanoke, VA house which has just gone under contract. 

I attempted to create a Shutterbug site for the Hammocks Beach photos, but I ran into an incompatibility between my old dual G5, iPhoto, and Shutterbug.  Shutterbug could not see the iPhoto albums so it had nothing to work with in creating a slide show.  Shutterbug is a good product and certainly should not be judged on how it works on an eight year old Mac. I'm certain that I would have had no troubles on my iMac with more recent software.

With my inability to create the Shutterbug beach site, I decided to look for a free solution that would work on Windows and Macs.  I found VisualLightBox.  I downloaded the Windows version, and in two or three minutes created and uploaded this online album of the Hammocks Beach photos.  It was extremely straight forward, but to use VisualLightBox you have to manage your own website and understand a little about folders on websites.

As I get ready to make recommendations, two other factors are important in my digital life.  I have an Android phone, the LG Spectrum, and I have one of the original Kindle Fires.  I am no expert in iPhones or iPads, so make sure you run some tests of your own if those products are important to you.

First off the best and most complete solution is the one from Google. Picasa Web Albums has been a reliable photo partner for years.  It has never let me down like .Mac and MobileMe.  The photos that I put there years ago are still there.  It is easy to share individual photos or whole albums.  Picasa web albums are well integrated into Picasa and with a third party plug-in it is also easy to upload from iPhoto.

Google has over the last year made some changes in their effort to promote Google+.  If you have a Google+ profile attached to your Picasa Web Albums identity, Google pushes you to create the Google+ album first, and then an automatic duplicate one is created in Picasa web albums.

I actually find that a little inconvenient so I have two Google identities, one with a Google+ profile and the other without one.  When I upload photos using my identity without the Google+ profile, they go directly to my Picasa web albums account tied to that identity.  I like it better that way though I am warming to the way things are shared in Google+.

With an Android phone, both of my Picasa web albums accounts sync to my phone.  Of course I can log into either of the accounts using the browser on my Kindle Fire.

However that seems a little inelegant to me so I have recently discovered a new piece of software called Portfolio for Windows Skydrive.  The company, Snapwood Apps, makes a number of photo apps for different sharing services.

What Portfolio for Skydrive does is turn a folder of photos in a slide show when I run the app on my Android device.  It works great and I love it.  I wish they would do one for Google Drive.  The limitation is that the slide show is driven by the app on your device so you can't share it.

However, having said that I think Windows Sky Drive has some of the best sharing controls that I have seen.

So if you don't have a home for your photos on the web, there are plenty of options and several more that I haven't discussed.  The one option not there is a solution from Apple. 

In this world of everything being online, Apple's absence is a major mistake in my opinion, but I suspect it all goes back to Apple not understanding what a "Cloud" really does.

I actually think Apple would have a far better understanding of what is needed if the company got a little more involved in social media, but that is a post for another day.

If you get a chance, stop by my View from the Mountain blog, and check on my latest post, The Three Kinds of People in the World.  There is not much doubt where Steve would have fit in my categories.

Take-out Tomato Soup and Apple's view of the future

I actually don't see very many television commercials because I watch very little television.  While I know that television commercials are not a locked-in-stone view of the future, they do give us some insight into the companies who put them on the air.  Commercials especially help us identify the products that business like Apple love the most.

While it might not go into the annals of silliest commercials, Apple's last "Siri" commercial which features someone ordering take-out tomato soup deserves some consideration.

Long ago, Apple had a marketing campaign based on a flying car. It didn't last long. Perhaps it was just before its time since flying cars seem to be coming back for real.  

However, some of Apple's campaign's have really resonated with computer users.

Perhaps my favorite was the one with the dog and the young boy who unpacked his iMac and got on the Internet faster than an adult male who had purchased a Windows computer.

I think the commercial was a homerun because at the time, getting a computer other than a Mac functioning was a really time-consuming and frustrating experience.  Getting an iMac going was pretty easy.  Of course life even with an iMac was a whole lot better when it got a Firewire port and could write CD-ROMs.

We have come a long way since the iMac was first introduced. Other manufacturers have learned a lot from Apple.  I would argue that setting up a new Windows PC is not very different from a new Mac today.  I have done both in the last couple of years.

I don't think it is difficult to argue that Apple isn't nearly as interested in desktop and laptop computers today as they are in iPads and iPhones.  Long ago I predicted that Apple desktop and laptop market share would peak at around ten percent.  I think that is pretty close to their current US market share.  I don't see it growing.

However, I never guessed that peaking at ten percent would be because Apple has lost interest in computers. I know that iPhones and iPads are selling like hot cakes but isn't a Mac still at the heart of it? You certainly can't run iCloud without a Mac to create your identity.

Maybe Apple's focus on small gadgets is finally reaching Mac lovers as it appears that users might not be jumping on Apple's iCloud bandwagon.  Apple is now giving away Snow Leopard to make it easier for users to buy Lion.

Maybe Apple's marketing has become silly enough that it is no longer a company strength. Or perhaps potential computer purcahsers aren't interested in searching for take-out tomato soup with their phone assistant?

If you ask me to define Apple's current marketing message, I would say it is all about very fancy screens for tablets and a future where we are reduced to ordering take-out tomato soup.

Maybe I grew up in a different world, but the thought of being lazy enough to order take-out tomato soup is beyond what I can imagine.  And in this world where people are struggling to find jobs, does Apple really believe that there are people out there who can afford to order take-out tomato soup or who even would want to?

If the computer future that Apple envisions for us is asking my phone silly questions and following the responses, it might be time to say out loud that Steve's absence is being felt.

Those of you who still know how to cook might want to try my grilled salmon recipe which is at the end of this post.

Lessons that Apple might learn from its past

If you are a long-time reader of Applepeels, you might know that I have said many times over the years the experience of being an Apple employee depends a lot on what you are doing and the management team in charge of your division.

Today I came across a presentation from RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) that talks about what really motivates people. 

Paying attention to some of the thoughts in the presentation would really help Apple fix a hidden weak spot in their culture and management philosophy. 

You might argue that Apple doesn't need any help with anything, but I actually know some very good people who have left Apple.   In the long run even for a great product company, losing very good people could lead to problems down the road.

Apple actually had some great results in the past from the techniques discussed by RSA, but I suspect that years of wet-behind-the-ear MBAs have erased the memories.

It is likely not a surprise to some readers that Steve Jobs was not a fan of the Apple sales force.  At best he believed them to be a necessary evil.  I did get to hear him in essence say that.  Unfortunately, I never got to have a personal talk to Steve about his views on sales. 

However, I did work for some of his Apple managers who really did not understand sales.

Understanding the potential for success by having good sales leadership as opposed to having nit-picking sales management might not matter today in this world where Apple has become the darling of just about everyone.  However, it did once and might again some day.

In the mid-nineties until early in the next decade when customers, especially enterprise ones, were fleeing Apple, it was important to have a sales force which kept customers in the fold so Apple could survive.  I suspect it will be important in the future even if Apple doesn't slip.

There was a time when it was hard to get good people to work at Apple.  There were a lot of reasons for that, but one of the most interesting ones was that Apple sales people didn't make as much money as other technology sales people.  On top of that selling Apple was much more difficult than selling a generic computer box based on price.

That was especially true when you were selling to the enterprise. You had to convince your enterprise customer who was sometimes betting his job on making a large Apple purchase that Apple actually cared about his business.  That was tough to do when Steve spent most of his stage time telling people that Apple was a consumer company that didn't care about large businesses.

Fortunately Apple had people like Fred Anderson and Tim Cook around who were good at talking to enterprise customers.  However, Apple was like many technology companies in one respect.  It believed in a highly leveraged compensation plan that in theory rewarded the top performers the most.

Most of you have likely never been in sales, but those of you who have had some experience in sales would not be surprised if I told you that there is a lot of room for error in setting quotas and measuring performance against them.  All of this boils down to how much money sales people make.

Much of my first experience with Apple was in higher education sales where in the early days it was pretty easy to measure what customers were buying.  Higher education customers bought everything directly from Apple.  You had years of data to help structure quota.  If you had a decent manager and a reasonable divisional goal, you could feel pretty good about having a chance at making money.

In the mid-nineties during one of Apple's countless reorganizations, I got moved over to the business division.  The team I headed was responsible for resellers and large accounts.  It didn't take me long to be appalled at how bad the historical data was and how flawed the quota setting process was in the business division. 

The first year I was there, my team was given quota for a couple of "reseller locations" that turned out to be bank accounts in Delaware.  They ended up being not used the year after we picked up the quota for them.  It was literally millions of revenue which was in our goal and which turned to vapor the year when we were supposed to grow their business.

Still I had a great manager at Apple, and once we got control of the numbers, the next year my team went on to be very successful.  In the fall of 2001, my very good manager fell victim to being blamed for the failure of a hair-brained scheme from upper management to win the enterprise by selling interactive iMac kiosks.

New management was brought in, and my manager who had been in charge of business sales for the US ended up with only one person directly reporting to him.  That person was me, and I had been given the unenviable challenge of turning Apple's tanking federal business around. 

While competitors often had hundreds of reps covering the federal government.  I was given two reps, one on the east coast and one on the west coast.  My area associate came with me and one system engineer along with a person to work with resellers.

It was a daunting challenge, but one thing I did negotiate was a team goal.  In other words I convinced management and the finance people that it was more work to figure out individual numbers for customers than it was just paying everyone on one number. Our small team worked towards one quota number.  If we hit it, we would all be successful.

Doing that made all of our lives much simpler, we focused on the customer and didn't really worry about who was getting paid for what business or even through which channel.  We were wildly successful.  We grew our business a phenomenal amount, and I ended up being manager of the year.

Now the compensation plan obviously was not the only reason for our being successful.  I had run a stealth federal sales organization for over three years.  With help from a number of operating system folks in Cupertino and support from upper management, we removed a lot of barriers facing our customers.  We made Macs attractive as an alternative in the federal market to virus plagued Windows machines.

Still I firmly believe that it you look at the historical records, the team goal was a big part of the reason that a relatively small team of committed individuals were able to turn around Apple's federal business.

We managed to keep our team goal for three years even as the number of people working for me grew to over twenty.  Though we didn't make a lot of money after the first year, we more than tripled Apple's federal revenue in less than four years at time when no other enterprise team was nearly as successful.  The reason we didn't make much money was that each year after the first our goal was set so high that it was almost impossible to make.  That a whole different story.

Still I had a very motivated team that was growing Apple's federal business by leaps and bounds while making less and less money each year.  In the final year that I was at Apple, the team goal was abandoned until six months into the year when Apple had to admit they couldn't figure out individual revenue performance.

It is interesting that most executives get paid on the total performance of the company, yet they almost all believe that paying sales people on just the business they "personally touch" is the only way to effectively compensate them.  I would argue that what is good for motivating executives might work even better for sales people.  It certainly did for the ones who worked for me.

My experience at Apple and the research presented by RSA seems to indicate that a leveraged monetary reward for the top performers isn't necessarily to way to get the best performance out of anyone.  Fixing that might make a huge difference in the Apple sales force over time.

At least that is the view from NC's Crystal Coast where the winds are still blowing this spring, but the ocean water has warmed enough for wading and the air temperature is to the point that a quick dip in the pool is possible.  We still haven't found a new owner for our home in Roanoke, but I have started a new career selling cloud-based network asset management tools.

I will be focusing on that new opportunity in spite of living in a spot where there is a special place around every corner and the beach is always calling me.

 

 

Thoughts on Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs and the technology that he brought to market had an incredible impact on my life.  I was fortunate enough to be at Apple the first time Steve was there and to still be there when he came back.  When I won business manager of the year for Apple in the fall of 2001, my prize was one of the original iPods that was among the first off the line.

Actually I was a little underwhelmed with the iPod since previous award winners had gotten computers.  I would have much rather have received an iMac than an iPod.  I still have the iPod and while I used it on many cross-country trips, it certainly has not been a product that transformed my life.  That role fell to many of Apple's earlier products which allowed me to do things that I might never have attempted.

I first fell under the spell of Steve during the original Macintosh rollout in 1984.  I was working for a reseller and helping to manage five Apple focused locations across the Canadian Maritimes.  Seeing Steve draw a circle on a computer screen with a mouse convinced me that I wanted to work for Apple.  It took several months before I got an Apple job, but on November 26, 1984, I started to work for Apple Canada.

It was a wild ride with many high points and more than a few valleys. I continue to believe that Apple survived more because of three groups than anything else. First and most important were the dedicated customers, then there were some resellers who just wouldn't give up, no matter how badly they were treated, and finally there was Apple's field sales force that acted as a buffer between much of the craziness coming out of Cupertino and the people who really wanted to buy Apple products.  That to a large extent was true at Apple before Steve came back and remained so even after he took over again.

I got to see Apple management at its best and at its worst.  I made calls with Gil Amelio, Avie Tevanian, Fred Anderson, and a host of others at Apple. I had a number of briefings with Steve and Tim Cook. I was on campus enough to verify some of the legends about Steve, but they are not what sticks most in my mind about Steve.

First and foremost he was a product person.  People outside of his inner circle mattered little to Steve, but when he was focused on a product, he had an intensity that was a wonder to behold.  I still remember a particular enterprise briefing when Apple was working on iMovie.  Steve came to the briefing and all he wanted to talk about was iMovie.  Not surprisingly, that didn't bother the customer, they just wanted to hear whatever Steve had to say.

Then there was a NASA CIO briefing when Steve showed up in shorts, sandals, and tee shirt.  Steve still held the room in the palm of his hand.

There was, however, a dark side to Steve, I still remember Apple's largest single site for Macintoshes writing to ask Steve to come speak at their 50th anniversary celebration.  They were willing to schedule the time for Steve and the anniversary celebration anytime during the year that Steve could do it.  They had gone straight to Steve and not involved me, but when they didn't hear anything after a couple of months, they asked me to try to get them an answer.  I took it up through our VP and after another three months of trying unsuccessfully to get a yes or no answer, I finally told the customer that Steve was unavailable. It was hard for them to swallow since the Apple campus is only a short car ride from their site.

This was the same Steve who did have the time to personally choose the chairs for our federal booth at FOSE the only time corporate ran the booth instead of the field.

I also remember the time when Steve was taking questions from the enterprise sales force. One of my system engineers asked Steve when Apple was going to do advertising for the PowerMacs that we were selling.  Steve replied never and that if he did, he could get rid of us all. It was not a motivating moment.  Steve didn't even get to speak to us the next year.

Steve did some great things with products, but his view of people and particularly the sales force was colored by his self-imposed isolation.  After Steve came back, we were told repeatedly that those of us who remained at Apple during his exile and helped to keep the lights on until he came back to rescue the company were basically worthless.

Perhaps the most difficult thing for the field sales force was the lack of trust.  Apple would often do non-disclosure briefings for customers and ask the Apple field employees to leave the room. In fact customers often knew more about what Apple was doing than we did.

There is no question that Apple leaked secrets for years, but the reality is that it was almost impossible for the leaks to have come from the field sales force, because we were never given much information.

One of the great challenges of being an Apple manager was standing up in front of a crowd after a MacWorld announcement or any product announcement for that matter and answering questions.  The only information that we gleaned came from Steve's customer presentation.  And to top it off, we were hearing everything for the first time exactly at the same time when the customers heard it.  Any literature that came before an event was often stamped with dire warnings of immediate dismissal if the literature were opened before the event.

Still working at Apple was a great privilege and an opportunity that changed my life. Some of things that I learned to do, I never would have mastered had I not worked at Apple.  The original Apple IIe, the Macintosh, the iMac, the Titanium PowerBook and OSX were products that I will never forget.  I still love the Cube, and though I have never owned one, I think the latest Mac Mini is an outstanding product.

Software was always a more challenging thing for Apple.  iPhoto was really the first piece of Apple software that really hooked me, but I remain convinced that Steve had nothing to do with the latest incarnation of iPhoto.  It certainly isn't up to Steve's standards.

I don't think there is any question that Steve was a product genius, but I don't know whether or not the organization that he left behind really got a chance to learn from him or just fear him.

Certainly Apple has great products right now, but the company has some products that I can tell haven't had Steve's touch for a while. I still believe that the design  of the current iMac's with a SD slot inches below the DVD slot never got the kind of attention from Steve that he gave the white half moon iMac.

Even a genius like Steve only has so much bandwidth, but with an Apple culture where many felt powerless because Steve always had the final veto, I am not sure genius had much of an opportunity to grow in the shadow of Steve.

So in a certain respect, Steve being gone might let Apple begin to change its culture.  Apple now has to make room for other very talented people and give them true decision making power.  Tim Cook is a very smart man, and some of the things he has already done at Apple are good moves.  I seriously doubt that Tim sees himself as a product visionary, but I suspect he believes that he can find those people and give them enough rope to keep Apple successful.

There might never be another product person as brilliant as Steve Jobs, but it is important to remember that what he brought to us were just products even if they were elegant ones. Those beautiful products took a lot more smart people besides Steve to get to market.  Maybe Bill's products weren't as beautiful, but they still remain the choice of the vast majority of the world's computer users.

Time will tell if Apple learned enough from Steve to continue its success.  I remain hopeful, but most of all I hope Apple remembers one of Steve's most important lessons.  If you are going to do something, be the best at it and focus your energies on only the few things where you can be the best.

We will have to wait and see if Apple can do OSX, desktops, laptops, iPads, and iPhones all to the degree of perfection that Steve would want.  It is a big challenge.  I will keep my fingers crossed.

I am working on a book which will offer my view of Apple from the inside.  In doing the book my goal is to let people see what it was like to work for one of our era's most facinating companies.   I think my book will provide some insight into how Apple survived until it found the right products to be successful.  

The nearly twenty years that I spent at Apple gave me a view that few people got.  No one that I know has been willing to share with the public a similar view.  Many of my stories will be hard for outsiders to believe, but I can assure you that there are plenty of Apple folks who will verify what I have to say.

Working on the book has been a real trip down memory lane, but I am committed to finishing the first draft before the end of the year.  I plan to give the book the same exceptional effort that I gave to my career at Apple. 

Hopefully the great coastal weather and the lure of fall fishing and kayaking won't impact my schedule, but our recent summer weather has made staying inside and writing a little difficult.

One last batch of iPhoto and Picasa tests

I was traveling when I did the recent tests that I published regarding iPhoto 9.1.5 and Picasa.

Returning to North Carolina's Crystal Coast gave me a good chance to run some more tests and include my I5 iMac.

Again I formatted a SDHC device using my Sony camera.  I took 48 pictures.  I tested to see how long it took a computer to recognize the card, automatically launch the photo software and import all the photos.  I configured it so I only had to click once on each system for the import to start. Timing was done with the stopwatch App on my Motorola Droid phone. (Perhaps iPhoto 9.1.5 was protesting the Droid being the timer.)

Here are the results with the fastest system listed first

1. I5 iMac w/Picasa on Snow Leopard, time, < 30 sec.
2. HP I7 laptop w/Picasa on Windows 7, 31 sec.
3. MacBook, w/Picasa on Snow Leopard, 35 sec.
4. I5 iMac w/Photo 8.1.2 on Snow Leopard, 42 sec
5. Dell P3 w/f-Spot 0.8.2 on Ubuntu 11.04 47 sec.
6. I5 iMac w/Aperture 2.1.4 on Snow Leopard  52 sec.
7. MacBook w/iPhoto 9.1.5 on Snow Leopard  84 sec.
8. Dual G5 w/iPhoto 7.1.5 on Mac OSX 10.5.8 118 sec.

It is not unusual for me to import 500 photos in one day so speed in importing photos is important to me.

I have made my decisions on what to use. I will be using Picasa on my MacBook where I cannot go back to the previous version of iPhoto.  I'll continue to use iPhoto on my iMac where I still have iPhoto version 8 libraries.  I hope these tests might be helpful to others.

While it would be interesting to run tests with Lion, I keep getting reports from my more adventurous friends that are keeping me on Snow Leopard.

Here are two sample quotes from friends whose technical opinions I really respect.

"Not having a good Lion experience, it is a dog on my 2006 iMac and my 2009 MBP."

"Lion is not what it is touted to be. As have some others I have found it slower...."

However, this is not a discussion about Lion on which I have zero experience.

Also I realize that there is a newer version of Aperture, but I don't use Aperture nowadays so I'm am not interested in the spending the money for the upgrade.

The interesting question is why Apple would release a product like iPhoto 9.1.5 which is so much slower than the previous version?

I could speculate all day on that, and it would still just be pure speculation.  However, here a few thoughts on the issue.

From 10,000 feet, I still believe this has more to do with Apple trying to get their software more IOS like.

People who read the first post in this series might remember my statement that it took twenty years for Apple to come up with a piece of internally crafted software that I really loved.

Apple has also introduced some other really poorly performing software over the years with iWeb being the best example.  Additionally while I have finally grown to like Pages for certain uses, it has never been fast.

While this might seem out of left field, I believe the explanation can be found in some of my old experiences at Apple.

One of the interesting things about life at Apple is doing executive briefings and trying to get Steve to show up to talk to customers.  I can remember a time when we hauled some enterprise clients out, and Steve showed up and would only talk about iMovie.

Within Apple having Steve's focus is a good news, bad news scenario.  You will get the resources to do something, but it will be done Steve's way or heads will roll. A great breakthrough product like iMovie can result from Steve's focus.

One of the real challenges of a company driven by one person's genius is that even an extraordinary one like Steve has only so much bandwidth.  With very little real decision making power passed down to the troops, products or strategies can languish until Steve happens to turn his laser glance towards them.

I call it the "Keynote Phenomenon."  I believe Keynote has gotten regular upgrades and remained a solid piece of software because Steve uses it regularly.  I would be willing to bet that Steve never used iWeb and I suspect MobileMe services fall into the same category.

I can almost guarantee that if Steve tried to import 500 photos into iPhoto 9.1.5, we would have a fix and perhaps a much more usable piece of software.

If Apple still took the time to have customer advisory boards or to let heavy users test software changes, I suspect iPhoto 9.1.5 would have never gotten out the door.  Maybe Steve doesn't do movies and photos anymore?

Apple has a history of coming up with some really great ideas, but the company sometimes forgets the importance of staying laser focused on what is really important to users because it has so little interaction with users.  I think it is a company weakness, but I doubt it will change because it has been that way for so long.

I am not a huge fan of either Adobe or Microsoft software, but I still reach for Word and Excel at times, and I have been doing that for more than 27 years in the case of Word and almost that long for Excel.  I also still pull Photoshop out once in a while.

Unless Apple can figure out how to give products like iPhoto a life of their own, and Filemaker might be a good example and even role model, iPhoto, introduced in 2002, might not make it much beyond the ten year mark as a tool for those of us who are more than just casual users.

We can always hope that small developers continue creating more great tools like Rapidweaver, Coda, Pixelmator, Nisus Writer, and Shutterbug which I recently used to create a very nice non-flash based slide show that will play on my smartphone.

 

 

A Mac user's conclusion that Vista is a quagmire

I am six months into my Vista experience.  Today I reached the tipping point.  While I have to continue using it, I am going to say flat out that Vista is not worth the effort.

My efforts at liking Vista go far beyond what I would normally do for any piece of software.  I have used Vista ever day for over the last six months.   I have let Microsoft do whatever it wanted to do to my system through automatic updates.

I have intervened once and that was only when the wireless networking on the my Vista HP laptop was so bad that I was ready to throw it into the water behind the house.  I searched out some new drivers for my wireless card.  That improved wireless performance to the point where the system became usable.

Still I struggled through the stupid situation where every time I put the system to sleep I had to deal with a distorted screen once the system wakes from sleep.  The only solution seemed to be rebooting the laptop. Any Vista user can tell you that takes far more time than any computer in recent memory.

My guess and the guess of others is that I have graphics driver issue.  So I went to the nVidia website.  After I finally got it to figure out what system I was using, I was told that I could only get driver updates from HP.com.

When I got to HP.com, I found that there were over 40 systems with the name of HP Pavilion dv6000.  So I looked on the back and found another model number HP dv6451.us.   I made a mistake typing and put "Pavillion dv6451" instead of Pavilion dv6451.  At that point I was told that over 400 products claimed the name.  I finally got the name right only to find out that HP has no recommended driver update.

While I was on HP's site, I decided to see why my system has not been updated to Vista Service Pack 1.  First I found HP Notebook PCs  - Update to Vista SP1 Frequently Asked Questions and then the even more scary HP Notebook PCs  - Precautions to Take Before Updating to Vista Service Pack 1.  After reading that I decided that I did not even want Vista Service Pack 1, but I still wanted to fix my problems with the video.

I have been a little suspicious of HP Update program anyway since it has failed to install updates recently so when I saw this paragraph I decided to roll the dice and see if I could shake things up on my system.

The HP Update utility will check for updated drivers and software, however the older versions of HP Update (v4.000.005.007 or earlier) will not work properly after upgrading to Vista SP1. To install the latest version of HP Update, open the Control Panel and uninstall the older version of HP Update. Then go to the hp.com web site and search for the softpaq SP38202 HP Update and HP Software Update - Critical Security Update (English only).

I uninstalled my HP Update software and managed to get the new version working after a number of tries. When I finally ran the new HP Update, I got a message that no updates were available for my system.

So at this point I was beginning to think there was no hope for the driver update that nVidia hinted that HP might have available for me.

I decided to run Windows Update just for the heck of it.  Windows told me that there were no critical updates available for my system.  However, when I looked in optional updates there was a new graphics driver update for my system.  I installed it, and just gave my system the sleep-wake from sleep test.  Much to my amazement, I no longer have a distorted screen on waking from sleep.  Tomorrow we will see if that was chance or it is really fixed.

One would think that I might be making some type of convoluted progress, but it was just the appearance of progress.  If you have perhaps read my On the eve of Apple's Leopard, I buy a Windows Vista Laptop post, you might remember that the overriding reason for me, a user of Apple products for 26 years, to buy a Vista system was so that I could do real estate forms.

This afternoon I once again needed to send a PDF form to a remote customer so they could renew their listing with me.  Last week I had a problem doing PDFs with the forms package that I had installed to get around the one which had become very flaky on Vista.  An older program seemed to work once I retyped the client's information.  When I tried to do that tonight, I got an error and could not create a PDF. I tried the first program, and it wouldn't work either.

I resorted to the help menu only to get this message. It is amazing to me that Microsoft would not build some sort of mechanism to read old help files.  After all Apple figured out how to run non native software on Intel processors.  I decided that it was time to punt on the two forms packages on my Vista machine.

This was a two page document so I decide to save the file to my Sony USB thumb drive which I have never used in my Windows Vista machine.  I inserted the thumb drive and Vista started searching for a driver.  It actually hung the machine, and I had to reboot.  At that point I decided to print the document to my upstairs office where my old XP machine is.  I did that successfully and entered the information on the real estate forms package on the XP machine.  The PDF file was created successfully, and I emailed it to the client.

I had carried my USB thumb drive up to perform a test.  I stuck it into my Zonbu Linux computer.  I was not surprised when it automatically was able to use the USB drive.  I took this screen snapshot and actually sent it to my Windows Vista box.  First it went as a PNG file.  I tried to upload the image to Typepad.  Typepad didn't recognize it.  So after checking to make sure it had an extension, I went to my Mac and imported it to iPhoto and emailed it again as a JPG file to the Windows Vista machine.  Once again I tried uploading from the Vista machine and Typepad refused to recognize it.

At that point I saved my post as a draft, turned around, and climbed on the stool by my Mac.  I took the same file that had been sent by the Linux box and uploaded it to Typepad without any problems.

While all this might seem like enough to chuck the Windows Vista box, it really isn't the straw that broke the camel's back.  That actually came earlier in the day.

I have multiple email accounts from a variety of providers since I live by email.

This morning I noticed that two of my email accounts were unresponsive.  Since I used to work for the company hosting those accounts, I chatted with their Director of Infrastructure using my Adium instant messenger client.  He admitted they were having "bandwidth" problems.  I did not think much of it as my Mail app on OSX just put those two accounts offline.

Unfortunately I had something to do on my Vista laptop and happened to click my Outlook email client which was running and trying to download messages. Those two unresponsive IMAP accounts hung Outlook completely.

All of this taken together shows me that Microsoft has done a terrible job with Vista.  The Linux from Zonbu works better.  The forms packages that I bought the Vista system to use barely work and certainly do not have the promised functionality. And if two unresponsive email accounts are going to lock up my email package, I need another email package.

The amount of lost productivity due to Vista is amazing.  Now there are likely people out there whose Vista systems work perfectly for them.  Mine doesn't.  It was a brand new machine, and is only six months old.  While I am getting a few problems fixed, worse ones are cropping up.  The machine is scanned regularly, and the worst thing that has ever shown up is one tracking cookie.

It all boils down to this. Windows is a time sink. This morning we were having a debriefing on a promotion that our company recently did.  Someone happened to mention that it would have been a better promotion if he had been able to get to his files off his crashed Windows machine.  Apparently our support person has been trying to recover them for a couple of weeks.

I just smiled to myself since the head of our company had told me that the flyer I produced recently was one of the best he had seen.  It had taken less than an hour on Pages.

It is clear to me that if you are an independent contractor like I am, you might have to use Windows for some Windows specific things, but if you are trying to produce high quality work with a minimum effort,  a Mac is the only way to go.

Otherwise consider yourself in the never ending quagmire of Vista.

It might be easy to say that the problems with Vista are to be expected since the OS comes from one company and the hardware is thrown together from a variety of companies who have lived in a world where no one has taken responsibility for the user's problems for years.

However, it is not easy to be that Vista user in an environment where you have to support yourself.

It is much easier being a Mac user.  Apple certainly isn't perfect, but using OS X is an order of magnitude better than fighting with Vista.

There lots of things to do here on the Carolina coast that are more fun than trying to use a Vista computer.  Tomorrow, I plan to not torture myself with Vista.  I might even go fishing again.

A Vista perspective from a Mac user

Actually I like to think that I am more than just a Mac user.  I have been using Windows XP for over four years, and Linux for nearly the same amount of time.  I have also seen operating systems come and go since 1982 when I got my first Apple II+.

First off I suspect that Microsoft will work hard and eventually get Vista to be the operating of choice for most of the planet.  The reason that it will have that honor has more to do with inertia than engineering prowess.

The inertia comes from two sources, Apple and end users.  People do not like to get out of their computing comfort zone, and switching operating systems is a sure way to get a few headaches no matter how good the new system is.

After a few months of using Vista, I have some opinions on the product. 

It is almost deadly slow when it comes to booting, shutting down, and waking from sleep.  A Powerbook running OS X is an instant on machine compared to a Vista machine.

Second wireless networking on Vista is a work in progress.  While I will admit that my Airport Express network needs replacing, a number of laptops visiting us including multiple XP ones have had no trouble using it.

in the mornings I often get to the point of having to reboot my Vista laptop before it will connect to the wireless network.  In its defense, I do not have that problem at our office or at our other home which has a standard Airport network.

I have found Outlook to be a fairly capable email client, but it also is slow and somewhat prone to stopping if I click once too many times.

I have seen far fewer 'Firefox has stopped working" problems on Vista than I do on the Mac.  I still do not like Internet Explorer though the 64 bit version seems fast.

I also find Google Desktop search integrated into Outlook by far the most productive search engine that I have used.  I like Google Desktop search better than Apple's Spotlight, but I am only speaking from OS 10.4 Tiger experience.  I have not used Leopard (OS X 10.5).

Google Desktop as a side panel hangs regularly on Vista usually after the machine awakes from sleep.

I have had far fewer problems than I anticipated using Vista to hook up the wide variety of printers that I have access to at home and work.

I am not particularly fond of Windows Live Messenger, and I try to use Pidgin when chatting.  I find that I keep wishing for Adium on Windows.

I have the latest version of Microsoft's Office Suite.  I have had little trouble with it, and it seems to do whatever job that I throw at it.  Here I have to admit that I am no longer someone who is a power office suite user.  I have used Excel more than the other applications.  The new user interface took some getting used to, but now I find it more productive.

I also miss Fetch, the FTP Client that I use on the Mac.  I use FileZilla but it is not as nice as Fetch.

One of the best applications that I have found on Vista is SnagIt which does screen capture and a lot more.  I certainly do not mind paying for it.

On Vista I miss the ability to turn something into a PDF from any application at the operating system level.  I think it is a huge feature advantage for OS X.

In general most of the applications done for Vista do not look as good as Mac applications.  However, there is so much flexibility in Windows, that you can build a very productive work if sometimes painful work flow.

The combination of a built-in photo memory card reader, Picasa and SnagIt do almost everything that I need in the world of graphics.  I find it faster than iPhoto and  Photoshop.

I  have yet to do much web work on my Vista machine.  To be fair, I think I will wait until I have some more time with the Vista products.

So would I recommend Vista as a main operating system to anyone who had other choices?  The answer is probably not.  It just doesn't have the high quality feel that I thought it would after all those years of development.

Vista is not unusable, it is just disappointing.

But I am also disappointed in Apple.  It continues to amaze me that a company with Apple's financial resources and popularity cannot seem to fight its way out of the paper bag of Windows.

Bill and team have done everything possible to hand over the market to Apple, yet Apple does not seem to want the opportunity.  Back when XP was having unbelievable security problems, Apple was so insecure about their own security that they would not market it.

Apple has changed chips, and Macs can run Windows natively and in virtual machines.  Still Apple's market share even in the US is barely half way to double digits.  As we have heard  from some international visitors to Applepeels, Apple is not exactly rolling over the competition selling and supporting computers in other countries.

Apple might have a few bumps with Leopard, but I seriously doubt it is the anything like the pain in the rear that Vista is.  With Vista languishing while waiting for a service pack, the best Apple can do is a few funny commercials.  Even with the best retail chain in the nation and  a stock price that is headed over $200, it looks like the majority of the computing world will remain Windows centric for the foreseeable future.

I guess there is not enough pain in the Windows environment or enough innovation in the Apple world to get consumers moving on their own.  Steve Jobs apparently was serious years ago in his concession to Bill over desktop operating systems.  He certainly does not appear to be interested in winning that war even with his superior weapons.

I would love to see the innovation of the Zonbu computing  model married to the better than anything else user interface of Apple and the nearly unlimited choice of the Intel hardware world.  If you could integrate it into better bandwidth and a choice of server providers that would store and protect our data, we might get people to try something else.

Right now I guess I am stuck with Vista for my real estate world,  and Macs for my website work with whatever computer I am using being the repository for my photos.

I managed to get a batch photos into my Zonbu machine, but I do not see me using it for the 100 photos or more a day that I do until we take another leap in bandwidth.

So maybe Apple will surprise me and take the next leap forward at MacWorld this year.  If it is iPhone II, pardon me if I yawn.

_____________________

A Real World Update

_____________________

I had to work this afternoon so I lugged my Vista laptop into one of our offices.  The wireless network was down so someone rebooted it.  The Windows XP machine on my desk connects immediately.  The Vista laptop which had successfully connected to this network several times before, cannot see it either before or after the wireless reboot.

So I decide to reboot the Vista machine.  I joke to one of the administrative assistants that the best thing Microsoft can do is to buy OS X from Apple and replace Vista with it.

While my Vista machine is still in the process of rebooting, I pull out my spare computer, a MacBook, and bet that I can be surfing the net before the Vista machine is done booting.

I count out loud and in eight seconds from the time of opening my MacBook, I am surfing the web.

While I am logging into Typepad, the Vista machine finally gets to the point of needing a password for login.  Even with the reboot, I still cannot see the network which the MacBook sees and the Windows XP desktop beside it also sees.

I would be embarrassed in the year 2007 to ship an operating system that cannot reliably and without failure hook to wireless networks.

As I said long ago, Windows, This is nuts.