I received the notification yesterday. Two things strike me. The product is named “World Ease” on the tracking page and Apple and UPS have some amazing coordination. 1M units are, in theory, traveling by a similar route all over the country and due to arrive on the exact same day.
If everything works according to plan, iCloud should arrive next week. The only immediate actions are to get ready to download several application updates. iWork for Mac and iOS is likely to be released at the same time that iCloud goes live. In addition to the applications from Apple, I’m sure there are a number of top-tier developers ready to start using the iCloud syncing (for example the Omni Group).
That doesn’t mean there isn’t some long term preparations that need to be made. First and foremost, iDisk is marked for termination. I’m not a fan of iDisk but I do have a significant number of files still hanging around that I do not want to lose. It’s been the only way to easily get Omni iOS files on and off my devices. In addition, the webdav disk access from Windows was convenient back before my employer locked out that system extension from our desktops. iDisk has also been a good way to share files between iOS apps that do not support Dropbox (mostly Omni and Apple apps).
Here’s the deal: Apple has said “You will be able to continue using MobileMe iDisk through June 30, 2012, even after moving to iCloud.” That means it’s not an emergency, but something I probably want to do sooner rather than later.
There are some minor things to keep in mind about Apple ID’s and iCloud syncing but Brian Stucki has a good overview (via Shawn Blanc) of how a family can share one ID for purchases and still keep separate ID’s for calendars and contacts. There is also a very thorough discussion of how the existing Apple ID’s will transfer over to iCloud on the Apple Discussion boards.
So I have been pruning and migrating all of my iDisk files over to my documents folder this weekend. I’m also setting aside a bit of time to clean up my contacts and calendar. These additional efforts aren’t caused by the iCloud migration, but I’m taking advantage of some focus time to do a favor for my future self. I’ll thank me later.
Up early to pre-order a new iPhone. As of last week, my household is one mobile phone down from previously optimal levels. It seemed like the perfect time to get a new iPhone. Unfortunately Apple’s servers disagreed. I spent about 40 minutes refreshing my browser and enjoying the familiar “We’ll be right back” post-it styled note.
I’ve never pre-ordered an iPhone before so maybe my experience today was typical. I was surprised that what I actually pre-ordered was a reservation for an iPhone pre-order. I was informed at the end of the process that I would receive an email with further instructions “when it was time to complete” my order. I’m not complaining, I was just surprised that it was not more Apple-like. It was still much better than the usual AT&T web-of-confusion.
We are continuing a family-plan that started with waiting in line for the very first iPhone release. We’ve been thrilled with the phone ever since. Insanely Great.
iPhone 4S, black, 64GB, AT&T.
Ridiculous Fish has blog that is very good reading for beginners. It might well be good reading for more advanced Cocoa programmers but I’m not one to say since I am a beginner.
Make sure to start at the beginning of the posts and work towards the more recent articles.
I’m running Lion Server on a Mac Mini. Recently I was trying to configure an attached drive for Time Machine sharing and realized I could no longer log in. A bit of research revealed what I consider to be a bug in Lion. Visiting the Apple Support pages reveals a quick fix.
Apparently in “some situations” servermgrd may not start automatically, which prevents login to the server application. Yeah, just a minor bug. Seems like Apple could just include a simple cron job to check for the service and start it automatically if it’s not running. Would have saved me a few minutes of panic, thinking I had completely forgot my server credentials. At least there’s no automatic lock-out for more than 10 failed login attempts.
I don’t want to add to the echo chamber of Apple blogs so just go read Horace Dediu at Asymco. That’s one smart man:
Consider how HP and Apple faced the changes in the PC market almost exactly a decade ago.
- On September 3, 2001, HP announced that they would acquire Compaq.
- On October 23, 2001, Apple announced the iPod.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Marco Arment, of Instapaper fame, has repeatedly stated that he is not worried about the new Safari Reading List. He’s not worried and may be a little hopeful for it’s success. I agree with his estimates. The new Safari feature will introduce an entirely new option for reading web pages to the mass market. Instapaper will benefit and, collectively, we will all be a little better off.
You see, Marco makes a product that is for the nerds. Nerds(1) are bleeding edge adopters that like to experiment. They also have a low tolerance for things that don’t work right. Instapaper works right because it’s made by someone that understands the customers and does almost nothing but think about how it can work better.
For all of it’s great ideas, Apple doesn’t make products for nerds. They make products for aspiring nerds. That’s not a slight. Nerd is the new cool. Apple makes products that work well but ultimately are pale ghosts of their influences. Mail is an acceptable email manager. However, I have no less than three extensions installed to make Mail useful to me. I added a bunch of Nerd options. Tagging, shortcuts, auto-filling and customized views all round out a somewhat simple email application.
The Finder is far removed from the Bash shell and much more limited. I run PathFinder most of the time.(2) And Let’s just agree to ignore the RSS reader in Safari all together (maybe it will go away if we ignore it long enough). None of these are tools are for Nerds. But they are a huge steps forward from what most users have come to expect.
In the end, Apple took the ultimate nerd tool, Unix, and polished it into a pale version of itself. That’s great. I love OSX. I’d much rather work with their GUI than in the Terminal. But I also run Launchbar, Keyboard Maestro, PathFinder and TextExpander to give me a bit more customization that fits my work.
Instapaper will always be breaking new ground and adding features that aspiring nerds don’t want or need. My guess is that it will also continue to be my tool of choice for reading long form web articles. Here’s just a brief list of the extras that Instapaper brings to the market:
I will enthusiastically teach my wife, father-in-law and mother about the new Safari Reading List. They will absolutely love it and the simplicity that it brings. Some day I hope they will graduate to Instapaper.
In anticipation of the iOS 5 announcement tomorrow:
You know who could use voice commands and speech to text in their iOS devices? Anyone that works with gloves on all day. That includes laboratory scientists and hospital staff.
I’ve heard a number of people suggest that iPads would work great in the lab for recording experiments. Not so. Any bench worker will tell you that removing your gloves every time you need to record a bit of data is a real deal breaker.
Now if Apple provides deeply integrated voice services, then a whole new world of use cases open up.
Just saying.
By now, it has become fairly obvious that the latest round of iPad competition has made little impact on the public mindshare that Apple occupies. One thing that I have heard repeatedly from Apple supporters is that Apple needs competition to push their products. I have generally taken this for granted, but I have now changed my opinion.
Looking over the Apple product line, it is evident that they are only competing with themselves. From the Macintosh computer, to the iPod to the iPad, Apple has not chased competitors in their designs but rather iterated over a long term design plan. The closest early iPod competitors were the Rio player and the Creative Labs devices. Both companies went with large format players with a litany of features. The iPod remained true to the design until the iPod touch merged the line with the iPhone design. The iPod stayed simple and perfected a basic feature set and did not chase the competition.
The same can be argued for the current iPhone development. Apple started with a specific vision and has not deviated significantly from the original trajectory. The iPhone is a four button piece of hardware (home, power, mute, volume) that relies on a touch interface. Apple has not added additional “features” to compete. Instead of talking about how the iPhone competes with Android specifications, Apple has changed the conversation. Rather than increasing the screen size, Apple increased the resolution. They didn’t add a 3D camera. They added a high quality digital camera that rivals many point-and-shoots. They didn’t push out an LTE device, they increased the battery life instead.
The same story is playing out with the iPad. Apple is ignoring their competition and following their own agenda. There is no 7” iPad. There is a faster iPad 2. Again, they chose to improve the core feature set: speed, battery life and graphics performance. Apple is playing a different game than everyone else. Apple wins by not competing and they don’t need competition to push them to make their products better. They have vision for that.
Note: I am only referring to the Apple before and after Sculley, Spindler and Amelio. The Jobs Apple.
I’m surprised there has not been more buzz about this. There has been a lot of speculation that Apple will stream iTunes media some time in the future. The future is now on the AppleTV 2.
Apple is already streaming podcasts for the AppleTV 2. If you setup some favorite pdocasts on your little black brick, Apple registers those favorites with your iTunes ID. Now any other AppleTV 2′s that are using the same iTunes ID have the same favorites available for browsing and streaming. Apple even attempts to track the played info for the podcast. If you stop watching or listening half way through and move to another AppleTV, you can pick up where you left off.
I suspect that this is a sneak peek at how they will use streaming with iTunes and all Apple devices.
I’ve avoided much of the iPad 2 buzz this past week. Some of it was easy to avoid but I do read Asymco regularly and even Horace Dediu chimed in about the launch.
I prefer not to add to the mindless chatter that has been taking place in the Apple blog echo chamber, but I would like to say a bit about what I saw.
In Line not Out-Of-Line
I pre-ordered the iPad 1. Given that Apple did not provide pre-orders far in advanced of store purchases for the iPad 2 launch, I decided to wait in line on March 11th. I’m glad that I did, but not because I am writing this on an iPad 2 (black, 64G Verizon, if anyone cares).
I really enjoyed the camaraderie of the many like minded people anxiously awaiting the opening of the pearly gates. But what really struck me was the sheer numbers and attitudes of people there. The queue membership crossed all walks of life (limited to those that had >$500 to spend on a gadget). There were students and teachers and executives and hippies. There were spectacles in togas and pillars in suits. There was every variety of consumer anxiously waiting to pay Apple on launch day for an updated version of a piece of electronics. That is astounding.
It also struck me how seldom this sort of consumer spectacle occurs. The XBox and Playstation are the only other consumer product that I can think of outside of Apple’s iOS devices that draw this kind of crowd. It’s really quite stunning that one company draws such zeal for an item with an entry price of $500. It’s also not a niche of fans either. I was in line next to a small business owner and an apparent high school student. Both were there to purchase the same device with money that obviously did not come easy. What’s more, both could not stand to wait to make the purchase. There were audible cheers when the line began to move. It felt like Disneyland.
I also want to point out that not a single person in a line approximately 500 people deep had an argument or security related event. Everyone was just happy to be there in the hopes of getting a new iPad.
Reality Check
I don’t want to imply that everyone in line had altruistic motives. On the contrary, a good number of folks were there to buy units to resell on the grey market. That’s my supposition, but I do know that the AT&T 3G units sold-out first. This makes sense if you consider that the Verizon models are only useful in North America while the AT&T units can be sold overseas at a premium. A large number of the customers that were ahead of me in line purchased two units (the maximum allowed at launch).
The Big Give Away
I conducted an informal poll of several fellow line-squatters. A handful were buying an iPad 2 to replace their first generation device. That kind of shocked me. I thought I was alone in this approach. I intended to buy a new iPad and donate my “old” device to my father-in-law. I think this will be the new Apple halo effect. Happy iPad 1 users donating their device to family members that would have never bought an iPad. My guess is that those new users will fast become Apple line-standers of the future.
I’d like to posit a thesis that I have rarely heard about Apple. Apple understands that their market potential lies in their consumer advocacy.
Apple is often criticized by media producers for their self serving decisions that often hurt pre-established business models. It started with the music industry crying foul over Apple’s insistence on $0.99 per track. Later, Apple was criticized about the lock down of the iOS platform and advertising system. The most recent row is around Apple’s new subscription model for iOS.
The dubiously credentialed pundits have taken a very personal affront to Apple’s model. To be clear, Apple’s model has four primary facets.
Now you could argue that all of those rules are in Apple’s best interest. It forces publishers to use in-app purchases which Apple then gets a cut of. It also eases consumers minds and encourages them to pay for subscriptions through the App Store. I argue that Apple recognizes what is good for their customers is good for Apple. Here is how I view these:
I could discuss many other ramifications of these rules on the publishers and on Apple, but my primary thesis is that Apple understands where their revenue is derived. Happy and secure customers spend a lot. Whether by purpose or incident, Apple has become the world’s largest consumer advocate. Their computers are devoid of “crap-ware” and “spy-ware” deigned to trick consumers and ultimately prove hostile toward the end user. Their consumer products do not require users to sacrifice privacy and incur monthly fees for life.
Apple has historically struggled with their role of inadvertent consumer advocate. Their first struggle with this role came when the music industry suddenly realized that the future had passed them by. They demanded immediate and complete control over digital music pricing. Apple famously said no. Steve Jobs correctly declared that consumers would not pay more than $0.99 per track. While he was at it, it also wrote an open letter to music publishers and declared that DRM was hurtful to consumers and unnecessary. Apple rightly realized that consumers would buy more music if it was cheap enough and easy to manage. Consequently they would buy more iPods to play that music.
Next up was Apple’s bout with Hollywood. Apple wanted more digital movie downloads at consumer friendly prices. Hollywood, however, had learned what the music industry failed to realize. If Apple controls your market, Apple decides you business model. Hollywood applied leverage by creating Hulu and pushing movie rentals through Amazon. They tried to create competition for their business. Some networks even pulled their content from iTunes, like NBC did with most of their prime time “creations.” Apple gave more than they had with the music industry and we now have $20 digital movies in “HD” that are still not competitive with DVD quality. We did get more movie rentals, but at the same price point that cable networks charge for on-demand movies. Hardly a consumer win.
There was also a nice little exchange when Apple announced the switch to Intel processors. Steve Jobs was asked if Apple would be selling laptops with Intel logo emblazoned on them. Steve’s answer was unequivocal “NO.” This may not seem like consumer advocacy, but rather a reflection of Apple’s ego. Let’s be honest though. No consumer actually wants an Intel logo on their $2000 computer. The logo serves no purpose other than as an advertisement for Intel. What Apple customers get is a tasteful Apple logo that actually serves the purpose of telling you that your laptop in running.
More recently, Apple has been criticized for their App store policies. Some have construed these rules as anti-consumer with arguments that they reduce consumer choice. I think otherwise. In fact, the vast majority of users do not want choices but are content with safety. They want to feel comfortable actually using their electronics. They don’t want to be afraid that they may download a virus or feel like they were tricked into installing malware. The App store rules are there to protect the consumer. Apps are not allowed to steal data, access private information or track users without their knowledge. You CAN NOT download malware from the App store.
Finally, with the new subscription model, Apple is further protecting their customers. Protecting them from publishers that prey on consumer data. Publishers that focus less on a product for the consumer and more on the consumer as a product.
Hazel by Noodlesoft is a really fantastic little helper application. It’s really what folder actions should have been. It’s the rare example of how Apple missed the target and an independent developer really nailed it.
I’m going to skip the Hazel tutorial and get right to the main show. I wanted a system for ripping DVD’s of all kinds. Typically this is a manual process where I rip a disk image to my harddrive and then extract the video at the appropriate resolution. I like to save the disk image externally, in case I ever need to re-extract the movie at a different resolution. This entire process was relatively manual until I developed this system that relies on four applications (2 free and 2 paid):
Here’s the setup:
I use RipIt to extract the disk image. It is simple and has never failed me. Set RipIt to be the default application for when DVD’s are inserted. You will also need a couple of specific settings in RipIt. For the Hazel workflow to process the file properly, the file needs to be ripped to specific folder. I’m also using the .dvdmedia extension so Hazel recognizes the completed rip.
Once the rip is done, Hazel gets to work with the file. It looks for the .dvdmedia files that DO NOT have a color label of green (more on this later). It then posts a Growl notification to let me know that the DVD conversion is starting. After the Growl notification, an Automator Workflow is run.
The Automator workflow is where all of the magic happens. It’s based on the automator actions you can find here on the Handbrake forum. It is essentially using the Handbrake CLI interface to extract the video from the DVD image file with my preffered settings. I prefer to use a custom encode string rather than rely on one of the Handbrake presets. I like constant quality video with several audio encodes. The Automator actions are pretty self explanatory. But you can read through the Handbrake CLI reference to set your own encode settings.
I have the workflow extract the video to a new folder so that I can tweak the meta data later. When the video encoding is complete, Hazel then sets the video label to green so that I know the file has already been processed. The file is then moved to a master directory where I store all of my dvd images.
That’s pretty much it. I followup later with MetaX for setting all of the meta data. I could automate that process too, but I’m fairly particular about all of the meta data so I like to manually set all of the chapter markers and synopsis info.
I think a large number of folks have already established the Pinboard.in is an excellent bookmarking service. Now, comes the task of getting immediate and convenient access to those bookmarks. I have been happily using the app DBD Delicious Bookmark Discovery ($1.99 on the Apple app store) for that very purpose. While the name indicates that it is a tool for Delicious bookmarks, it is a top notch tool for accessing Pinboard bookmarks.
Viewing bookmarks presents a two-pane interface with all bookmarks on the left. The right hand panel contains a webkit browser that renders the bookmark. There is also a rather large nested window that shows other Delicious users that have the same bookmark. Presumable this will be updated to include Pinboard users. Finally, there is a nested window that presents all of the details about the bookmark, include date added, notes and tags.
Editing bookmarks is performed through an easily accessed and very obvious button. The bookmark editor has access to all of the Pinboard fields so it is very easy to browse and tag all of your bookmarks. Tagging is really the strength of the DBD editor. The editor not only presents your own top tags but also the top tags from the delicious community. Bookmarks can also be deleted from the editor pop-over.
Beyond the standard list viewing of all bookmarks, there are two additional views available. View a list of all tags, along with the number of bookmarks linked to that tag. Selecting a tag presents a new list of the corresponding bookmarks. There is also the overwrought tag-cloud view that shows all tags in various shades of grey depicting the relative number of bookmarks with that tag.
Now for a few cons. For the most part the app is very responsive. However, when the app is first launched there is a few second wait for the bookmarks to be updated. The screen is locked during this time so there are a couple of seconds to wait before adding or viewing a bookmark. The app does not support iOS multi-tasking as of this writing so switching also requires waiting.
The Delicious bookmark integration is well done and logical. Unfortunately, the corresponding Pinboard meta data is not available yet. That’s probably not a problem right now, since Pinboard has a much smaller user base and far fewer bookmarks that are public.
Finally, the layout could be better. The screen space reserved for related Delicious bookmarks and bookmark meta data is quite large. You can minimize this panel but I’d like to see more of the web page while keeping the meta data in view.
Overall, DBD is a nice addition to a Pinboard.in account if you own an iPad. I dare say that the app is superior to using the Pinboard.in web interface. The app has made it’s way to my iPad home screen.
