The Angry Drunk

Link: Why Didn’t Apple Advertise During the Super Bowl?

2012-02-06T16:34:31Z

Lance Ulanoff for Mashable, linksterbaiting for all he’s worth:

In case you haven’t noticed, Apple’s iPad’s second birthday came and went without the introduction of the eagerly anticipated third generation of the landmark tablet. There is an iPad 3 in the works. Everyone knows it and numerous leaks all but prove it. We even have some ideas about the specs; a faster A6 processor and a high-rez retina display with edge-to-edge screen coverage. It may also be thinner and lighter or perhaps there will be multiple versions, including a 7-inch iPad.

Still, for all we think we know, Apple was not ready to tell us anything about it during the Super Bowl.

Here’s a more distressing fact. It has been more than a year since Apple released significant new hardware. Obviously, I’m aware of the iPhone 4S, which launched just a day before Jobs died. It’s a wonderful phone, and who doesn’t love Siri (some, too much)? But it’s essentially an iPhone 4 update and not a wholly new gadget.

facepalm

Drunklink

Macworld | iWorld 2012

2012-01-31T17:10:57Z

Another Macworld has come and gone. More correctly, the first Macworld | iWorld has come and gone and now it’s time to sit back, reflect, and process our feelings.

I make the point that this as the first Macworld | iWorld because that is actually important. A lot of the commentary, both positive and negative, has underestimated the impact of that fact. While it has a rich history in the form of Macworld Conference & Expo, the radical shifts in the technology market in recent years have necessitated that Macworld | iWorld forge new ground.

The first, and most obvious change is the name itself. I know that many people in the Apple blogosphere dislike the name. The truth is that I’m not certain how I feel about the name. What I do know is this, with more than half of Apple’s revenue being generated by non-Mac devices, expecting the show to remain simply “Macworld” is foolish. Like it or not, iOS is part of the Apple ecosphere now and ignoring it is a recipe for disaster. A the same time, abandoning the Macworld name is also a non starter. I don’t envy the folks at IDG the challenge of coming up with a name that properly encompasses the evolving nature of the community. I know that I couldn’t have done any better.

The second major change this year was separating the former MacIT “track” into essentially its own conference, MacIT. I didn’t really pay much attention to the MacIT portion of the conference as the material is generally irrelevant to my work but the presenters and vendors that I did speak with seemed to be in agreement that moving the more IT focused products off the main Expo floor allowed them to focus on their enterprise customers instead of having to repeatedly explain to confused customers what their products are for.

On the “user conference” side of the house, the major changes were the addition of a Midway featuring music and art exhibitions and the changes in pricing for the Tech Talks.

The Midway was a fun, and very welcome addition to the show. The “user” portion of past shows has consisted basically of roaming the show floor and the formal conference presentations. The Midway was a pleasant way to sample some of the amazing things being done in the visual and musical arts using Mac and iOS devices without someone hawking a product at you or sitting through a 90 minute lecture.

Likewise, the changes in pricing for the Tech Talks was extremely welcome. At past shows, the User Conference content could run as much as $300 for the full conference or $100 for a single day. This year access to all the Tech Talk content was available for a mere $125 dollars, with even more in-depth training available for an additional fee. The Tech Talks that I attended were of the same high quality as presentations that I’ve seen at Macworld in years past.

There has been much noise this year over attendance figures for the show. IDG will release numbers today which will do exactly fuck-all to change anyone’s opinion. Those that have clambered aboard the Macworld is doomed bandwagon will either view the numbers as proof of their assertions or as unreliable and to be dismissed. All I know is that every time I toured the floor, from the opening minutes on Thursday to the end of the day on Saturday the floor traffic was consistently steady. Also, the vendors I spoke with were all very pleased with the amount of traffic they were getting at their booths.

In the end, my position hasn’t changed since I first wrote about this before attending my first expo three years ago. IDG is not a charity. If and when the day comes that IDG is no longer making money from the show the show will be canceled. People attempting to expose IDG’s deep dark secret of flagging attendance numbers are more pointless than a fucking sphere.

All that said, was Macworld | iWorld perfect? Of course not. To give an example that struck close to home, the inclusion of podcasts in the general Tech Talks curricula and locating us in the same presentation rooms tended to suck the energy out of the shows. This is something that a few of us have brought up with IDG and are working on improving for next year.

The bottom line is this: in my opinion IDG did a wonderful job with Macworld | iWorld, but there is always room for improvement. As I told Paul Kent, General Manager of Macworld, when we spoke on the crowded show floor Saturday afternoon; the first two years following Apple’s withdrawal from Macworld Expo were an inevitable transition period. This year it really felt as if Macworld | iWorld was hitting its stride and is poised for great things to come. I’m glad to be along for the ride.

Link: Nvidia Latest to Claim Android and iOS Will Be a Repeat of the PC and Mac Market

2012-01-25T15:28:27Z

Craig Grannell:

I find the argument that there has to be—or even that there will be—one dominant player in the mobile market without foundation. If we look back through the history of technology, and even examine the present, the PC/Mac market was an aberration. You don’t have people arguing that only one company will become dominant in TVs, cars, sound systems, and so on.

I’ve made this argument before myself. Trying to use the history of the PC/Mac market as a model for any other market is stupid and doomed to failure.

Drunklink

Link: A Writer’s EULA

2012-01-24T00:03:11Z

Daniel Steinberg on the hideous and draconian iBooks Author EULA:

On the other hand, the work is my own. I’ve been told by a publisher that they want a second edition of one of my books. Their conditions on me are that I drop this series of ebooks I’m working on because it might compete with the title. When I said no they responded that that’s ok they’ll just get someone else to revise my book.

My book.

It’s not really mine. Even though the copyright is in my name, that turns out not to mean very much.

So am I bothered by the iBooks Author EULA? No. But maybe that’s because I’ve been signing contracts with traditional publishers for so long.

It’s always fun to see how the tone changes once the blogoratti stop braying and the professionals speak up.

via Daring Fireball

Drunklink

Fuck Me — Actual Journalism?

2012-01-23T18:41:16Z

Everyone and their cousin has linked to or blogged about this article in The New York Times about the rise of foreign manufacturing but I think it’s still worthy of pointing out. It’s a rare treat to read an article on this topic that doesn’t appear to be written by complete fucktards. By all means, use Apple as an example of the issue — but don’t pretend that some hyperbolic screed in ZDNet blaming all ills on Apple or some jackass online petition is going to change shit.

But real change takes work, and working is hard.

The Answer Is in the Name

2012-01-20T03:31:14Z

Today Apple held their much-anticipated education announcement at the Guggenheim museum in New York. As you are probably aware, Apple announced three new products during the event: iBooks 2, iTunesU.app and iBooks Author. I’m not going to go into any deep analysis of the event. It’s been so long since I was even vaguely involved with the education market that I really can’t muster up any deep insight into Apple’s initiatives. As usual, though, the reaction to Apple’s announcements by the blogoratti does provide a rich and fertile ground of annoying stupidity which we can harvest.

One emerging theme annoys me in particular: the idea that Apple is exerting Draconian control over how you can sell content produced with iBooks Author.

The story goes like this. When you attempt to export your work from iBooks Author a dialog appears stating:

Note: Books can only be sold through the iBookstore. To publish your book on the iBookstore, choose File > Publish.

This is reinforced by language within the end-user license agreement (EULA) that reads:

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you charge a fee for any book or other work you generate using this software (a “Work”), you may only sell or distribute such Work through Apple (e.g., through the iBookstore) and such distribution will be subject to a separate agreement with Apple.

This, of course has raised the hackles of the punditocracy. The restriction is being called “unprecedented”, “audacious” and DRACONIAN. John Gruber even goes so far as to call it “…Apple at it’s worst.” People are shouting, “How dare Apple tell me what I can and can’t do with software I bought¹? No one else does this.”

The thing is, I’m fairly certain that those people didn’t see the same announcement that I did.

I’m going back over the live-blogs of the event, and looking on Apple’s iBooks Author product page and for the life of me I can’t find where Apple is positioning this product as a generic ePub editor. In fact, from what I gather from people who have done the research, the iBookstore format, while based on ePub, diverges pretty strongly from the standard.

The bottom line is, the answer is in the name — iBooks Author, not ePub Author, or Pages 2012. As much as people would like to think that iBooks Author is a general purpose book publishing tool, Apple clearly thinks otherwise.

I can sympathise with the frustration. I’ve been noodling on an article with the thesis that Apple needs to step up and provide both a professional level ePub authoring tool as well as a professional grade application for producing better Newsstand apps. But iBooks Author is obviously not that particular hippogriff. I honestly don’t find it unreasonable for Apple to expect that paid content produced within it’s free tool (designed and marketed as a tool to work with one specific storefront) should be sold via official channels. Hell, I’m actually amazed that Apple is putting no restrictions on unpaid content. You can export ibooks format files and scatter them to the four winds for all they care. Just as long as you don’t get any dosh for them.

Once again, the tech press and pundits would do much better if they would actually pay attention to what Apple announces instead of the announcement that they make up in their heads.

iBooks Author is free. ↩

Drink With the Bastards

2012-01-18T15:31:48Z

I mentioned before that the Angry Mac Bastards would be performing live at Macworld | iWorld again this year (details here). In addition I’m happy to announce the inaugural Angry Mac Bastards Drinkathon. If your going to be in town on Thursday, January 26th we’d love to get you shit-faced.

Link: Reflecting on Change

2012-01-16T17:08:41Z

Alex Brooks:

The site I want to read doesn’t churn out the same news and rumours that thousands of other sites have, the site I want to read doesn’t post fanatical rumours from idiotic sources. To make matters worse this churn effect often comes with a form of chinese whispers, led mainly by eccentric, traffic seeking asshole bloggers who are unable to distinguish fact and fiction, unable to pick up the phone to a public relations team to check a detail or more unbelievably spend the time to produce something thoughtful.

It’s nice to see yet another tech blogger see the light. It really doesn’t take much to rise above the morass of rumor-mongery and link bait. All it takes is a little integrity.

via The Loop

Drunklink

Really?

2012-01-11T16:16:41Z

Really BGR? Are you shit-bags so desperate for fucking table scraps that you’re going to actually run with Jeremy Horwitz’s bullshit claims that he’s seen an iPad 3? Congratulations fuckwits, that swishing you hear is the sound of what tiny bit of credibility you had left flushing down the toilet.

Boy Genius indeed.

Link: We Take for Granted What Has Already Been Invented. (The Impact of the Original iPhone.)

2012-01-10T14:56:16Z

Craig Grannell:

But we forget. Multitouch is obvious. Pinch-zoom is obvious. Slide-to-unlock is obvious. The manner in which Apple designed its iPhone, its iPad, and even iOS itself? Obvious. Then why didn’t anyone else do this stuff first? Why did it take Apple’s iPhone to kickstart a smartphone and tablet revolution? If the slew of cloners out there all argue Apple didn’t really invent anything new, why didn’t they have iPhone– and iPad-like devices in the market before Apple? Why did Google’s Android rather rapidly shift from being a BlackBerry to an iPhone if the iPhone was so obvious?

Exactly. Sometimes we forget how much the world of consumer technology has changed over a very short period of time — and many people conveniently forget exactly how much of that change was driven by Apple.

Drunklink