Applepeels

Apple Finally Loses Its Mantra

For years when we were selling Macs at Apple, our mantra was that "Macintoshes just work."  It was an easy thing to say for much of Apple's history.  There were a few times that Apple shipped products that weren't deserving of the Apple label, but by the late nineties Apple definitely had its mojo back.

I have slowly been working towards this conclusion and it is painful one.  There is a lot of stuff on the Mac that no longer just works.  I have tried really hard to like Apple's Mountain Lion operating system.  The weekend before Thanksgiving 2012, I came to the conclusion that Apple is trying to do way too much stuff with the result that Macintosh software is not getting proper attention.

I'll be expanding further on this in later articles, but I will offer up a few examples.  I would love to hear what others think. 

My first issue is Photostream.  I have complained a lot about Photostream being designed by an engineer who only shares a few photos from his phone and who cannot imagine someone taking one thousand pictures a day.  The problem is worse now.

I had Photostream going when I first installed Mountain Lion but I quickly turned it off. I didn't want hundreds of photos daily pushed to my Windows laptop.  This weekend I read that I could chose to share just certain photos with others so I decided to give Photostream another try.

I have to admit making Photostream work was like beating my head against the wall.  Eventually I did a Google search for "photostream keeps turning off" and saw that I was not alone in having Photostream problems.  I finally found this comprehensive set of steps to fix the problem.  I tried them without any luck. Actually I tried the steps multiple times.

I keep getting a message to sign into my iCloud account. I have already done that and I have checked that the email addresses all match.  I'm sure there is a solution, I can't figure it out, and I am to the point of not being sure whether or not I care if Photostream ever works.

The one thing that I know is that I spent more time trying to get Photostream to work that evening than I have spent on uploading thousands of photos to my Picasa web albums accounts which have never given me a single problem.

By the same token, my Drop Box account works perfectly as does my Microsoft Skydrive.  Neither have ever been a problem.

I find it amusing that I can see my Google Drive, Dropbox, and SkyDrive when I click on the finder in Mac OS X Mountain Lion. However, I don't see my iCloud there.  I guess it is supposed to be so seamless that it is invisible.

For years I have complained that Apple's problem is that it tries to tie data to a specific piece of hardware. If you ever used iWeb, you know the difficulties involved in working on a single website from multiple machines.  I still am trying to figure out how to get my music off my original iPod which seems to be married to a Mac that has long ago expired.  I suspect my Photostream problem might be related to having to switch my iMac to an external boot drive since my internal drive died, but I don't know how to fix it.

Photostream is not the only problem.  I got a comment on my recent post, Is Apple a Prisoner of its Design Decisions? regarding my complaint on the disappearance of the email option on the file menu of Preview.  The comment brought to my attention the system wide addition of a "share button."  There is now a little share button on Preview. Unfortunately, it is no longer on the file menu where it has been for a while.

However, the system wide share seems to have been implemented in enough different ways to make one wonder what they were drinking out in Cupertino.

If you go to any of the current iWorks 09 Apps including Pages, you won't find a working share button.  The apps have been rumored to be in line for an update, but I guess getting the small iPad out is more important or at least more profitable.

I was beginning think the intention to be consistent could be there until I looked at "share" in Safari.  Instead of being a little button, "share" is in the file menu where it used to be in Preview.  Then I had the thought that maybe iPhoto would have "share" implemented in the file menu like Safari. It was there years ago.  Of course I was wrong.  The iPhoto share buttom with menu is on the bottom on the far right corner.  I'm pretty sure including "Order Prints" in the share menu is just another way to make money.

I would never expect Apple to have a share to Picasa web albums since Google is their competition and they would rather cut their nose off than make it easier to use another company's products.  That in itself is amazing since that used to be one of the main things that Apple did.  Our system and software engineers were famous for making Apple stuff fit with other products.   I gave up paying for the little extension that made it easy to share photos from iPhoto to Picasa web albums.  It seemed to get turned off with every iPhoto update.

Of course indecision on how to handle "share" and "export" is nothing new, I first wrote about Apple's indecision on the commands in 2005.

Apple is certainly not the only company to play around with the share command.  Google's decision to force the  sharing of photo albums through Google+ if you have a Google+ account is not one of my favorite decisions. However, it was easy to create a work around by have a second "free" Picasa web albums account which isn't tied to a Google+ account.

I know Apple's focus is on iPhones and iPads, but they have enough money to make Macs work right. We certainly pay enough for our Macs to work nearly perfectly.  Mac software apparently is just not a priority.  Why do we still have Pages, Numbers, and Keynote with non-functional share buttons?  When it comes to user interface, Apple used to be the standard that others hoped to emulate. I think Mountain Lion might have changed that forever.

Folks love to complain about Microsoft apps, but it you use their apps on Windows, you get a pretty consistent interface for sending things to others.  It is hard for me to admit this, but right now things just work on my Lenovo laptop running Windows 7.  Things don't just work on my iMac running Mountain Lion.   The loss of productivity from the bone-headed move to remove "Save As" along with Apple's refusal to be even in the same ball park as other hardware companies on prices just might be enough to get me off the Mac platform.

I'll be interested to see if Microsoft has gone forward or backward on Windows 8.  When I give it a try, it will be on a new machine because I really like having one machine where things just work and I don't plan to mess with my Lenovo.

I'm looking forward to some peace and quiet and perhaps some good weather during the holidays here on the Southern Outer Banks. I definitely won't be wasting any more time trying to use Photostream. Still Apple technology is still very important to me even if some folks have a hard time understanding that.

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.

Will Apple Ever Figure Out the Cloud?

Five years ago I wrote an article in which I said the following.

"Certainly if I considered the .Mac experience to be the best measure of Apple's web understanding, I would have to give Apple a failing grade.  There is no way around it, .Mac is not worth what many of us pay for it."

It is hard to believe that five years later Apple could decide to make its new iCloud service free, and iCloud might even be less useful than .Mac or MobileMe.

When I read the Register's article, "Sacrifice Another Goat, iCloud is Apple's biggest failure...," I could only nod my head in aggreement.

"Apple's cloud services continue to be more than a blemish on the company's reputation. They are a serious black hole."

I am not really surprised that Apple hasn't figured out the cloud because Apple has never understood that to really be a web player you have to free the data from the device.

All you have to is look at the way iWeb was built.  It tried its best to tie the website to a particular Mac.  Using iWeb to build a website on multiple Macs required jumping through hoops and moving huge files around by thumbdrives.

The shame of Apple's failures in the cloud is that when it came to many things about the web, Apple was a leader.  There was no easier way to put photos on the web than the original iPhoto.

Unfortunately that is no longer the case.  Adding photos to your Picasa web albums, Google drive, Dropbox or your Microsoft Skydrive is much easier than fooling around with your photostream.    If you take a hundred photos and want to put some of the best of them on the web, it is easy to do with any of the products besides Apple's iCloud.

Interestingly ever since I bought my original Droid in 2010, all the photos that I have chosen to be on the web have been automatically been synced to my phone, the web, and any computer that I choose.  In fact even with a couple of Gmail accounts to my name, things have worked perfectly with my contacts and mail.  I haven't had a glitch in over two years.  I can use Gmail as a web client or with Apple mail, Postbox, or Thunderbird.  It doesn't matter.

With Google's services I have access to my contacts, email, and photos from Windows, Linux, Lion, and all my older Macs.

With iCloud, my older Macs are completely shut out from iCloud unless I use Safari.  Interestingly my former MobileMe accounts work fine in Postbox and Thunderbird on Windows 7.  More importantly all the photos that I put on Picasa web albums and Flickr are still there instead of mysteriously appearing unannounced in my most recent iPhoto library and disappearing from the web.

I believe that unless Apple can figure out the cloud, the great products may not matter.  With the frustrations that I have had with Apple's software, I am less inclined to try the company's new hardware.

Recent tests that show the Nexus 7 tablet besting the iPad just confirm my recent unfortunate experience with Apple hardware which has a long tradition of being the best.  Since 2004, I have purchased five Windows laptops and two Mac laptops.  All of my Windows laptops except one which someone sat on are still running.  Neither of my Mac laptops are functional.  It is a small sample, but it has to influence my personal decision on hardware purchases especially since the two Mac laptops cost almost as much as the five Windows laptops.

The iMac that I purchased in October 2010 has also been problematic.  I am now running it off an external drive with Lion after having serious problems with slow Snow Leopard.  We have three Windows 7 laptops that have been models of software stability and reliability.  I don't say that to slam Apple but to convey my personal experience which has shaken my faith in Apple hardware and software.

When you add Apple lack's of understanding of the web, poor implementation of iCloud, and software problems, it makes you wonder if Apple is on the right track.

I remain hopeful, but seriously how many years is it going to take Apple to figure out the web?

Fortunately, I am living my dream far away from Cupterino and there are lots of tools out there better iCloud.

By the way this is the 400th post that I have written for Applepeels.  Only a handful of them are still online, but the book is coming this summer.  If you have ever wondered what it was like to spend nearly twenty years at Apple, you will be able to read my story soon.

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Update- The Pomme Company, the book on my nearly twenty years at Apple, has been available since the fall of 2012.  Read more recent stories about my challenges with Apple at my ReadWrite article archive.

 

 

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.

The culture change that might come back to haunt Apple

It is easy to say that Apple is all about great products because the company does have some very good products.  However, I wonder if that will remain the case as we head into the future.  There was a time at Apple when having a great product was an end in itself whether or not the product sold well.

Perhaps one of the best examples of that was Steve's G4 cube which was an absolutely stunning product which sold very poorly except to some pockets of NASA engineers.

It might not be too much longer before we see another very good product leaving Apple's price list. Last November, my former colleague, John Martellaro, wrote an article, "Why Apple’s Mac Pro Won’t Last."  I agree with him, but I also would not be surprised if Apple completely gets out of desktop computers.

My first question is why is the Mac Pro dying. I know that I wanted to buy one when I bought my last iMac in 2010.  Unfortunately the price band of the Mac Pro had gone up substantially from what I paid for my dual G5 system in December 2004.  An I5 iMac with a screen made more financial sense though it lacked some features that I wanted.

Perhaps if the Mac Pro had been reinvented and shipped at a better price point in case designed less than ten years ago, it might be selling a little better.  However, in Apple's defense, obviously focusing on less expensive higher volume products has been a more profitable course for Apple.

They are not alone in focusing on profit and specifically share price.  I recently read an article, How American Corporations Transformed From Producers to Predators, by William Lazonick.  The article talks about the time when "executives began to base all their decisions on increasing corporate earnings for the sake of jacking up corporate stock prices."

Reading the article brought back memories of management meetings at Apple in the late ninties and just after the turn of the century.  I clearly remember our financial people saying that while we had great products and were headed in the right direction, we were not moving the stock price.  It was also around this time when Apple decided to quit giving stock options to employees below a certain level.

One of the first theories that came out of these discussions was that it was much more important to sell lots of less expensive stuff than it was to sell just a few very expensive items.  I don't think there is any question that Apple has executed this strategy exceptionally well.  All you have to do is look at the stock price and how much gear Apple is selling.

So far the lots of iPads and iPhones have almost universally been rated as arguably best of class products. I might argue that they are almost addictive products.  I'm not certain whether the attraction of the product is what the product does, the features, or just being part of Apple's cool world.  That would be an interesting study.

However, there is a very fine line between delivering a product where the focus is to make it the absolute best at what it does and between creating a product which has lots of stuff which makes it buzz worthy and something that people just "have" to have.  One of Apple's favorite tricks has always been to create an upgrade that you must have or you get left out.  See my post on Apple's "free" iCloud service for more thoughts on this.

I would argue that one of the best examples that I have seen of a company focusing on being the best and doing just what needed to be done at the moment was actually Microsoft's Windows 7 product.  Vista was an unmitigated disaster or a quagmire as I labelled it.  Windows 7 had to be good or Microsoft was going to lose a lot of customers.  Windows 7 actually turned out to be a great product. There are number of things that I like better than what I find in OS X.

However, it appears that Windows 8 is being designed more from the perspective of trying to sell Windows tablets than anything else.  It will be interesting to see whether or not it is a success.

If I take the argument and apply it to Apple, I have to worry about the new iPad which seems to have a marketing campaign built around a screen which certainly appears to be better than anything else that is out there. The question is, do you really need that screen and what will have to happen to websites before the web "looks" better to new iPad users?

It is a complex question, I can remember debating university professors when when I was selling Macs with millions of colors. 

One actually told me that no one needs more than sixteen colors.  As a photographer, I certainly love great screens and lots of colors, but I wonder if tablet and maybe phone screens reached the point of being just the latest example of the megahertz race for computers or the megapixel race for cameras.  David Pogue has an interesting column, Spec Obsession Disorder: The Incurable Techie Malady.

I know that there are other reasons besides stunning screens that cause people to buy their iPads and iPhones. Many believe they are easier to use, though I haven't exactly struggled very much with my Android phone and Kindle Fire.  I have seen some talk about having to redesign websites to help them take advantage of the iPad display.

I have also seen an article about the new iPad greatly increasing data usage which at some point must make the phone companies pretty happy if they can figure out how to charge more.

On April 7, the Washington Post published an article about a Chinese teenager selling his kidney to buy an iPad.  It is sad commentary on the addictive nature of consumer goods and Apple's products in particular.

Apple obviously needs to keep selling products and being innovative is the best way to do that.  However, I hope Apple's next OS release focuses on being really good and something we want to buy because it works better and not just another product with features that mean little to most users.

I don't know enough about the latest iPad to make a judgment call as to whether it is something that works so much better that it is a must have upgrade or not.  Most commentators seem to be saying that if you have the previous iPad version, there are not a lot of reasons to upgrade unless you see the screen on the new one and can't live without it.

Over the years, I have always believed that we bought and used technology because it enabled us to do things which we could not do without it.  We are now to the point of having so much overlapping technology which can do many similar things that I believe it is right to question whether we really need some of the feature laden products that have come out.  

Apple is on a real roll, and I am more a content creator than I am a content consumer so my bias would be towards desktop computers with big screens. It is where I am most efficient.  I can easily do Twitter or Facebook updates from my phone or Kindle Fire, but I'm not certain that I would want to build websites or edit photos on either.  I'm not sure editing a photo on an iPad makes sense if only other third generation iPad can see it as I see it.

I put photos on the web on Pinterest and most people have screens that let them see my photos fairly close to how I see them. Would that be the case if I did my editing on the latest iPad?

As I think back to technology and the pieces that have come together to give us what lets us be productive, I remember when Apple started shipping CD-ROMs in their desktop computers.  Apple as I remember was losing some money on each drive but the belief was that the technology was so important and needed that it would eventually make money as volumes increasesd. If was a hard decision in those challenging times.

Apple doesn't have to make those kind of tough decisions today, but maybe they should.

That's it on this beautiful long Easter weekend from the Crystal Coast where the fish are starting to bite and the strawberries are ripe. 

Our week-ending rain brought much needed moisture but headed off the coast just in time for the full moon to bring us a little frost on top of the kayak which was okay since my nearby tomato plants were covered.

Toro and I settled our differences so if this week just marked the beginning of a mini-real estate boom in Roanoke, VA where our home is for sale, I would be one very happy camper.

 

 

The Real Essence of Apple in 2012

I have watched with interest the announcement of the new iPad and the subsequent grumblings about it running too hot or not having an accurate battery icon.  I have also seen the over the top descriptions of the new screen.  New products always have issues.  Technological advances like the new screen always come with some challenges.

While the truth is always somewhere between the headlines, I am sure Apple has a winner in their new iPad 3.  Coming out with a product like the iPad 3 with great advances which make you want to buy it now is really what makes Apple the most successful company in the world by any number of measures.

Yet here I am on the Internet about to suggest that perhaps Apple has become the technological equivalent of the soft drink company that Steve Jobs mocked when he got John Sculley to come to Apple.

There is no question that Apple has made lasting changes in way we use and view technology. During my career at Apple many of us were driven by the belief that an Apple product came with enabling technologies which were hard if not impossible to get with other products.

That changed over time, but I do belief that making new powerful technology available to people was part of the reason for Apple's early success.  Just look at desktop publishing and printing on laser printers.  With the help of Pagemaker and Postscript, Apple was the leader in that revolution.

That Apple has changed and become more successful for the change is unquestionable.

However, do more people buy Apple products now because they are cool and sexy or because of what they can do with them?  Are Apple products now just pricey status symbols?

I still use my I5 iMac because there are a few web design and graphic applications that I really like and which I believe add to my productivity. 

While we were working at selling our mountainside home in Roanoke, Virginia.  I used RapidWeaver 5 to design a website promoting our home.  I also wanted wanted to include a slideshow with larger images so I used Shutterbug.

Most days I use the graphics program Pixelmator to tweak  photos like I have inserted in this post.

I am pretty sure that if I could get those three programs on a Windows PC that I would give up using Macs.  However, I feel no pressure to give up Macs.  On the other hand I am still waiting for Apple to deliver a compelling reason for me to keep using Macs.  Lion certainly was not it.

I actually have not run into a lot of new Mac users, but I do know plenty of iPhone users and a good number of iPad users.  Both are solid products, and many of their users have good reasons for using them.

However there are plenty of alternative products.  I am on my second smart phone. My first was an original Droid, and I was very happy with it until it died.  The second is a LG Spectrum.  The MyTracks App probably was the reason that I stayed on the Android platform. I love maps and GPS. Right now I think the Android platform is ahead of the iPhone in GPS and maps.  Also I was familiar with MyTracks, and I wanted 4G so I didn't consider an iPhone for my second purchase.

I haven't seen enough need for a iPad type device to use my own money to buy one.  However, I have greatly enjoyed the Kindle Fire that my grown children gave me this year for Christmas.  I use it for checking emails when I am sitting in my easy chair. I also do some light web browsing and check the weather in some of my favorite spots.

The most important use that I have found for my Kindle Fire is entertaining our three year granddaughter.  After she has been running full steam for several hours, putting puzzles together or drawing on the Kindle is a great change of pace for her.  However, I am happy that she only has access to the Kindle when we do our monthly visit.  I would rather her spend time collecting earthworms or playing in the water than using any kind of computer, even an iPad 3.

I will give Apple full credit for pulling the rest of the industry into the smart phone and iPad world.

However, I guess the question I really want to pose is,  "Has Apple moved to the point of just sugar coating technology so that people want to buy it more because buying the product makes them feel cool than for what it really does?"  Of course there is some of that in all technology and technology companies.  New products create demand.  Without demand technology companies die.

I would be very interested in hearing some feedback from new Apple users.

Do you have an iPad 3?  What do you do on it that you can't do on an iPad 2?  With all the tiny finger prints on my Kindle Fire, I'm pretty sure the new screen would be wasted on my needs.  How has the new screen changed the way you use your iPad?

If you have a new iPhone, what apps are the ones that make the new iPhone essential to you?

And if you are a Mac user, are there Mac specific applications that brought you to the platform?  Or did you come for Apple's new iCloud?  If you came for iCloud, what do you think of it"

For those interested, my book has been finished for a while.  Professional advice that I have received indicates that even if my book is favorable to Apple which I think it is and even if the book doesn't reveal any proprietary information about Apple, which it doesn't, Apple will likely sue me just for the fun of it.

So I will likely self publish, but I am still thinking about the risks.  Those who have read the book believe that it offers a very interesting perspective on life at Apple.  However, I am not sure that I feel up to being bashed around by Apple at this point in my life so that is the delay.

By the way, I am still grateful to Apple for my career which gave me the opportunity to choose where I wanted to live for much of my life.

Aside from that, the tomato plants are in the ground here on the Southern Outer Banks.  Life is pretty good on this watery side of the horizon.  The weather has been so good that it is hard not to hear the beach calling.

 

 

Not a great Apple innovation: the robotic spokesperson

I had to laugh when I read Joe Nocera's NY Times article, "IPhone Spin Goes Round And Round."

The author was trying to get a straight answer from Apple on the iPhone battery which has to be replaced by Apple.  He found Apple's only response was to repeat a stock answer which didn't come close to answering his question.

Anyone who has worked for a time at Apple can relate to his frustration.

We had a similar circular experience with our Apple executives in 2002 when many of the federal magazines were interested in determining if Apple was serious about the federal market.

We could not get our executives to talk at all, but they finally did send a canned PR statement that said something about how successful Apple was in the design and publishing markets.  It didn't come close to answering the question.

Apple is even better at being a PR machine than it is at getting new products out the door.  Being a PR machine means controlling the message.  No one does that better than Apple.

I really got a kick out of this part of Mr. Nocera's article.

So I asked her the same question I'd been asking Mr. Dowling: how was Apple going to handle battery replacement? ''I'll look into that and get back to you,'' she said cheerily. I could hear someone standing next to her say: ''We're not talking about that.''

The ''We're not talking about that'' response is so much a part of Apple that I am surprised it doesn't have an acronym within the company.

Everyone thinks Apple is this really together company that has all its ducks in a row at product launch.  That is often not the case.

I believe it was Panther that shipped nearly on time and yet it took over six months for Apple to decide what to say about Panther's security.

The Xserve was a great example.  Apple shipped it, finally figured that the target market wasn't former AppleShare users, and then called in the field and had the field teach itself how to sell the product.  Apple corporate certainly wasn't ready for the Xserve and its capabilities.

There are also things that Apple really just doesn't like to talk about even to people inside Apple.  We used to think it was a conspiracy to keep the field in the dark (Mushroom Management style), but often it was something far simpler, Apple's planning is far from exhaustive.   It is not unusual for a certain scenario to be missed with the result being that Apple doesn't  know what to say.

My favorite was NetBoot.  We had a large customer who wanted to Netboot two hundred systems.  We kept being assured that it had been well tested but no one would give us details.  Eventually we figured out that "well tested" meant that it had booted three whole systems at once.  We arranged our own test of a couple of hundred systems at Va. Tech's Math Emporium.

Part of this is that Apple does not do a good job of testing products in customer hands because practically all testing before shipment is done in house due to secrecy requirements.

As Mr. Nocera says...

Go without a cellphone while Apple is replacing the battery? From where I'm sitting, this is classic Apple behavior. It is perfectly happy to sell you the coolest $599 device you've ever seen. Just don't expect them to be especially helpful when it runs into problems.

OS X is another example of a great product as long as it doesn't run into problems. It has a gorgeous user interface and is a piece of cake to install unless something goes wrong. 

Don't get me wrong, OS X is an order of magnitude better than anything else out there, but it might be nice to have some options besides starting all over again.

Still these comments are just nits about a company that continues to do well.

I am impressed that Apple is finally growing its market

Apple has always chosen profit over market share.  It is a credit to the quality of the products that what was a very anemic piece of the market, now is headed towards a relatively healthy piece of the market and still a very profitable one.

Still I have to wonder what computer magic Apple has left to deliver?

It has been over a year since I have purchased a computer either Mac or Windows, and I am feeling no pain.  There are no new apps to drag me to a new computer, but I remain ready to be seduced by some great hardware and software.

The iPhone wasn't it for me, so Steve if you want my money,  I need to be amazed once again.