But then right on cue comes iTunes 10 — which has successfully taken its place as the lightning rod du jour.

Let’s start with the undeniable: iTune 10 has flaws.

Personally, I’m fine with a flaw now and then. Apple is successful because it allows itself to take chances, and great leaps often come with a few stumbles. However, making mistakes is one thing — overlooking the obvious is another.

Ping launched with a nasty spam problem that turned off a lot of people. Literally as I write this, Apple has defeated the spam. It’s just incomprehensible that a company this smart would so naively launch a service like Ping without considering its vulnerability to spam. It was an unnecessary black eye.

I’m surprised that Apple unveiled Ping with so few participating artists. Following your favorite artists seems like at least half of Ping’s draw. It would have been an awesome start to have hundreds of artists signed up for the launch, but apparently secrecy trumped recruitment. Now Ping must go through a growing pain that also wasn’t necessary.

I’m surprised that Ping profiles allow users to express an interest in only three musical genres. Even I, ridiculed for my pathetically myopic taste in music, enjoy more than three genres.

Then there’s the matter of the new iTunes icon. Many believe it’s ugly and amateurish. Well, okay, good point. But its problem goes deeper. If Apple thought it was time to redesign the iTunes icon, I would expect them to aim for what iTunes is now, not what it was 10 years ago. Far more than music, iTunes has become the central access point for all our entertainment, including movies and TV shows. Yet the new icon focuses iTunes even more single-mindedly on music. (At least the now-discarded disc, archaic as it was, could have been loosely interpreted as music and movies.)

Apple's new iTunes icon vs. a concerned citizen's redesign (via Mashable.com)

In a Mashable article over the weekend, a number of designers pitched in their alternate ideas for an iTunes icon. You can be sure a similar exercise took place inside Apple. Obviously the priority was losing the boat anchor of the CD, rather than trying to capture the evolved spirit of iTunes.

Though I agree with some of the iTunes complaints out there, I don’t necessarily agree with the proposed solutions. For example, some believe that iTunes has simply become too bloated, and therefore needs to be broken into chunks. In my opinion, what they’re really saying is that it’s no longer as easy or fun to access the goodies as we’ve come to expect from Apple. Having everything in one place is the simplest way to go. iTunes just needs a thoughtful, imaginative interface overhaul. This is what Apple does best, and one wonders why this need has gone so long unaddressed.

I haven’t a shred of doubt that iTunes will quickly overcome its immediate issues. I will sit patiently, along with my three preferred musical genres, for the improvements to come.

A classic video of “interim CEO” Steve Jobs has turned up as the result of an archaeological dig. (A discovery credited to John Paczkowski at All Things Digital.) In it, we see Steve introducing the Think different campaign to a group inside Apple 13 years ago, shortly after his return from exile.

Though a few sites have linked to the video, none have noted its exact place in history. This is actually the first moment that the Think different campaign was shared with a soul outside the group who’d been working on it.

If Steve seems more subdued than usual, there’s good reason. We kept him up past 3:00 am the night before, going back and forth with final revisions to the commercial he unveils at the end of this video.

In the end though, these are merely production notes. What’s really important is what Steve had to say. His presentation is both a primer on the value of brand advertising and an insight into the soul of a company. If you dismiss it as yet another example of Steve Jobs programming his automatons, well — you just don’t get it. This thinking is what separates Apple from the hundreds of companies who simply churn out products.

But there’s something else about this video, something that makes its content all the more remarkable. Most CEOs reject the idea of pure brand advertising even in successful times — and here is Steve making the pitch when Apple was on its deathbed. Rather than circle the wagons, Steve went on the offensive. He spent millions simply to tell the world what Apple stands for, believing that only a strong brand could propel the company through tough times.

I can pretty much guarantee that most of the marketing people who watch this video will go to bed tonight wishing they had a client like this. I can absolutely guarantee that only a tiny handful ever will.

Any right-thinking person has to believe that competition is good. As Apple and Google go about thrashing one another, we all reap the benefits. And right up front, I do have to admit (gasp) that I’ve now tried a few Android phones, and in my superficial test drive they felt pretty good.

However, the philosophies behind the platforms remain night and day. To some, this means nothing — legitimately, they may only care about the phone in their hand. To others, it means a lot — because it affects the way they the platform is managed and perceived around the world.

Apple, as many point out, is into the control thing. This is exactly why so many people love their iPhones. Apple guarantees the experience by crafting both the OS and the hardware, and polices the App Store to at least attempt some quality control. The dark side of Apple’s approach is the perception that they are stifling freedom. (225,000 apps be damned.)

The world of Android is very different. Google supplies the OS while a legion of manufacturers compete with one another to make the hardware. This guarantees choice. But the dark side is the potential for fragmentation, where certain phones run certain versions of Android, some are missing features, upgrades can be delayed or unavailable, etc.

In fact, it’s hard to classify this as “potential” anymore. In the short time Android phones have been among us, fragmentation is already rearing its ugly head. PC Magazine just observed that the rollout of Android 2.2 was a mess. To paraphrase:

• The first Android 2.2 (Froyo) upgrades to Droid failed to deliver Flash. An upgrade to the upgrade will shortly fix that.
• The overseas Droid (called Milestone) gets Froyo in late Q4, but only in Europe and Korea. Froyo is “under evaluation” for Canada, Latin America and Mexico.
• Motorola phones with pre-2.1 versions of Android won’t get Froyo anytime soon.
• The Motorola Cliq, Cliq XT and Backflip are waiting for Android 2.1, but the Devour won’t get it.
• Owners of the Droid Incredible are still waiting for their upgrade.
• The brand-spanking-new Dell Streak was delivered with Android 1.6 and won’t get an upgrade till the end of the year.
• Samsung Galaxy phones are expected to get Froyo, but no one knows when.
• The only company to “ace” the Froyo launch was … Google. Nexus One users got their upgrades back at the end of June.

Like I said, none of this matters if you love the phone in your hand and could care less about the guy sitting next to you. But if you’re a fan of simplicity — or even democracy — it’s hard not to be turned off by the fragmentation of Android.

Bill Gates: admiring Mac fan in 1984

While the various players and their market shares have changed, certain things haven’t. Take Apple-bashing, for instance.

Back in the old days, hating Apple was a simple thing. It was all about the technology. Some people attached to their PCs looked down their nose at Macintosh. That childish mouse just wasn’t serious enough.

Today’s Apple-haters have branched out. They still dislike the technology, but now they have two new things to hate. First, of course, is Apple’s raging success. This doesn’t reconcile with the fact that Apple sucks, so clearly the world has gone mad. They must carry the flag of freedom to stop Apple from controlling our lives and ruling the world.

The real nut-jobs have evolved even further. They hate those who use the technology more than the technology itself. Apple users are smug and arrogant, so Apple must be destroyed. Won’t they look silly when Apple discovers the secret of eternal life.

But back to history. Over time, it’s interesting to see how certain advantages have changed hands.

Back when Apple was dying a grizzly death, the weapon most used to bludgeon it was the PC software advantage. CompUSA had rows and rows of PC titles, but only a tiny rack of Mac offerings. It took a while, but this advantage became less relevant over time — until iPhone came along. iPhone’s biggest selling point quickly became its huge, indisputable lead in apps.

Unfortunately for Apple, they won’t keep this advantage as long as PCs did. Android is already up to 60,000 apps and its upside potential is a big lure for developers.

As things settle down though, iPhone vs. Android starts feeling eerily reminiscent of Mac vs. PC.

Like Mac, iPhone shook up the market by reinventing the interface and opening up new possibilities. Like PCs, the smartphone manufacturers jumped on the bandwagon and started churning out the alternatives. The participants have all picked up familiar roles. Android plays the part of Windows, the smartphone makers become the PC companies and Apple gets to play the part of … Apple.

iPhone will remain the “walled garden,” with Apple’s control of hardware and software offering a certain kind of experience. The Android side will exploit its openness — reincarnating the best and worst of the PC model. Already, the Android market is splintered with different phones running different versions, and upgrades offered to some but not others. Some carriers are even starting to stuff their phones with crapware demos, just like the good old days. When margins are smaller, they have to do something to make a few extra bucks.

So, technology may have evolved tremendously in the last 20 years, but the nature of the competition has not. It’s a safe bet that quantity and quality will forever be locked in mortal combat.

Here’s the latest iPad commercial. As one might expect, it features a bunch-o’-stuff you can do with iPad, set to a catchy tune.

However, as a special bonus Apple has cleverly embedded a copywriter’s aptitude test. Here’s the sequence of words that appear on-screen. Which one doesn’t fit the pattern?

iPad is: delicious, current, learning, playful, literary,
artful, friendly, productive, scientific, magical

Visually, iPad does look delicious in this spot — even if Apple neglects to promote it as tableware. For the moment though, let’s just say it remains one adjective short of magical.

]]> http://kensegall.com/blog/2010/08/a-smorgasbord-of-ipad/feed/ 7 http://kensegall.com/blog/2010/08/a-smorgasbord-of-ipad/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/observatory/~3/1J0zXznKiaU/ http://kensegall.com/blog/2010/08/blackberrys-little-dream-world/#comments Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:09:35 +0000 ken segall http://kensegall.com/blog/?p=10004

In this world, dreams and aspirations come in every size and shape.

Look hard enough and you’ll find a brain surgeon who wants to be a toreador. Or a truck driver who wants to be a nun. Maybe even a BlackBerry that dreams of being the life of the party.

Well, that’s weird. Here’s that BlackBerry now. AT&T just started running this ad for the new Torch. They sum it up like this: “Business, meet fun. Fun, business.”

It’s a curious approach, because business and fun have not only been meeting for three years — they’ve been shamelessly involved in a wild, passionate affair for all to see. It’s only RIM, maker of BlackBerry, who’s been watching from afar.

But let’s mind our manners, and first lavish this commercial with the creative praise it deserves. It’s tremendously cool. The concept is fantastic. The production is first-rate, the soundtrack is quirkily fitting, and I smile every time I watch it.

Unfortunately, this Torch ad is in serious danger of proving an old marketing adage. That is, nothing kills a bad product faster than a great commercial. Drawing a large crowd can be fatal if the crowd is largely disappointed.

No matter how you twist your reasoning, it’s hard to escape the basic fact: Torch ain’t fun. In fact, it’s shockingly un-fun when compared to iPhone and Android. On the day it was released, it was panned for its underpowered processor and undersized, low-res display (Gizmodo: “like going back to standard definition after a year on HD”). If apps are any indicator of fun, iPhone offers 225,000, Android 100,000 and BlackBerry only 8,000 — most of which aren’t even compatible with the BlackBerry 6 OS at the core of Torch.

Seemingly determined to prove the fun, those mirth-makers at RIM have done just the opposite. They’ve shipped Torch with a version of the 20-year-old arcade game, Sonic the Hedgehog. (Engadget: “the experience is abysmal. Slowdowns, garbled audio, horrible controls. It’s actually kind of sad.”)

Given the grim reality, Torch’s sluggish initial sales are understandable. During opening weekend, there were no lines and no sellouts. Total sales were only a small fraction of what iPhone and Android have seen.

Comparisons to Torch’s competitors are so one-sided, AT&T can’t possibly be talking to the general public with this ad. They have to be talking to long-term BlackBerry customers who have the itch to upgrade, but are being distracted by those flirtatious newcomers. If this is the case, they really mean to describe Torch as “relatively fun.” Compared to the humorless old BlackBerrys many of these people are carrying, the Torch is a laugh riot.

In the end, Torch is a stopgap measure at best. It can only hope to stem the tide of BlackBerry defectors, but clearly it has no hope of stealing customers from iPhone and Android. That’s bad news, considering iPhone and Android are rolling in cash by stealing customers from RIM.

Clearly RIM needs to be less concerned about the party clothes, and more concerned about what’s beneath.

In the wake of CEO Mark Hurd’s “resignation” (wink) last week at HP, quite a few stories have popped up about the man’s lovability quotient. Apparently, they weren’t exactly weeping in the halls over there.

This brings up an interesting subject. That is, exactly how do employees feel about their own CEOs at the major technology companies?

Turns out, there’s a site for that. Glassdoor.com offers “a free inside look at over 84,000 companies.” Here, employees can anonymously rate their own places of employment, so perspective employees can hear some straight talk before they sign on the dotted line. It’s hard to draw conclusions from this stuff, since negative voices are usually the loudest. But if you’re comparing one company’s loudest responses to another’s, you have to take notice when the differences are stark. And they are.

Let’s start with Mark Hurd’s pitifully low approval rating: 34%. This is in sharp contrast to Larry Ellison’s high 78% and Steve Jobs’ absurdly high 98%.

Common sense says that employees at successful companies will generally approve of their CEO’s performance. Yet HP has been very successful, and Hurd’s approval rating was in the tank.

Maybe it’s just that he was a tough guy? Well, Ellison and Jobs aren’t the most cuddly CEOs around — and their ratings are sky-high. So it seems that Mark Hurd really did have something special going for himself. He had that rare ability to push his company forward as he pushed his employees away.

Common sense also says that on a site inviting negativity, it would be virtually impossible for a CEO to score 98% approval as Jobs did. Not so difficult to understand, though. (A) Apple’s success is beyond phenomenal, and (B) tough as he can be, Steve Jobs demonstrates respect and responsibility for his employees. Cutting jobs is not the way Steve produces profit, and he does not wall himself off from employee contact.

And let’s not forget our friends Ballmer and Dell. They received 52% and 51% approval ratings, respectively. Sound roughly respectable? Nice middle-of-the-road numbers? Only if you’ve been conditioned by presidential approval polls. Personally, I find 50% to be shockingly low in a corporate poll. Unless your CEO had stolen your wallet or poured sugar in your gas tank, most would support him or her by default. 50% seems like a given, with bonus points for actual performance.

The fact that Ballmer and Dell dwell at the 50% level shows a lot of nothingness. Their failure has not been a matter of months, it’s been a matter of years. And when half your company wishes someone else had your job, it doesn’t bode well for your future.

After playing the part of punching bag in the Apple’s long-running Mac vs. PC campaign, then fighting back with a peashooter in its own I’m a PC campaign, Microsoft is on the warpath. With a new section in their website entitled PC versus Mac, they’re turning the volume all the way up to 7.

Before we pause to read, let us enjoy the accoutrements. While most web pages display a window title, Microsoft actually crams a mini-ad into that tiny space — complete with a double-dose of “more.” You can almost hear the marketing chief exhorting his troops, “Make every pixel on this page sell!”

As you can see above, the navigation area atop the main image does a perfect job of differentiating PC from Mac. It’s a mess. We get two navigation bars (awkwardly spaced), four tabs, a “Were you looking for?” pop-up and an ill-placed, barely noticeable “PC versus Mac” title. Appropriately, the woman’s face seems to be saying, “No, really, I’m glad to see you — I just didn’t have a chance to clean up.”

Well it’s August, maybe the web designers are on holiday. Let’s just skip directly to the content. Like Apple’s Why you’ll love a Mac pages, Microsoft breaks its story down into bite-size chunks. Do they pass or fail?

1. Macs might spoil your fun.
Microsoft makes a point that in the universe of PCs, you can find models that have Blu-ray, TV tuners, 3G wireless, and the ability to connect to Xbox and TV. Can’t do that on a Mac. Fair enough. Pass.

2. Macs can take time to learn.
This section boldly states, “The computer that’s easiest to use is typically the one you already know. While some may say Macs are easy, the reality is that they can come with a learning curve.” It’s been a while since I’ve seen logic as lame. This is like telling the stick-shift owner that automatic transmissions are easier, but they come with a learning curve. Of course they do. Everything in life has a learning curve. Once you learn, it might just make what’s left of your life more pleasant. Fail.

3. Macs don’t work as well at work or at school.
This isn’t just a scare tactic, it’s at odds with Microsoft’s own business. Here we are warned that it can be difficult to share files with PC users if you use Apple’s productivity suite. No mention that if you use Microsoft’s own fabulous Office for Mac, you get seamless compatibility guaranteed by Microsoft itself. Ugly fail.

4. Macs don’t like to share.
I never knew it was hard to share on a Mac until I read this. I share things instantly and effortlessly all day. Whatever setup was required was so insignificant I don’t remember it. Fail.

5. Macs might not like your PC stuff.
Here, we discover that files from Apple’s productivity suite won’t open on a PC. Hey wait a second. Didn’t they just say that? Oh, and if there is a Mac version of the software you want, you’ll have to buy it again and relearn it. Uh… buy it again, yes. Relearn it, no. Double fail for redundancy.

6. Macs don’t let you choose.
This section starts by saying “PCs give you a lot more choice and capabilities for your money.” Interestingly, they never mention the money part again, even though it’s probably their strongest argument. Instead, it’s all about Blu-ray, TV tuner (didn’t we already discuss this already too?) and all the colors you can choose from besides Apple’s white or silver (watch it pal, that’s aluminum!). Fail.

The beauty of Apple’s famous-but-now-defunct Mac vs. PC campaign was its tone of voice. With humor, it delivered a very aggressive message without making Apple sound nasty. On Apple’s website — then and now — the comparisons to PCs are presented positively (“It’s designed to be a better computer,” “It’s compatible with your stuff,” etc.). Microsoft’s tone is far less appealing — you might even say whiny and threatening.

I don’t knock Microsoft for creating these pages. They have a business, and they need to stop the growing number of defectors in their tracks. However, I will say that some artful writing would have helped. A lot.

They might have waited till the designers got back from vacation, too.

Dell, Ballmer, Hurd and Torch — doing their best to lower the bar

After a solid month of Apple and Steve jobs being pummeled by the media over Antennagate, it’s refreshing to see other CEOs and companies step forward to take their beatings. Let’s thank them all for their creativity. While they’ve chosen different routes, each gives new meaning to the word “leadership”:

Michael Dell, CEO, Dell
Here’s a guy who made a fortune by breaking the rules in the computer business. Now he’s graduated to breaking S.E.C. rules for financial reporting. Not only does his company get fined $100 million, he personally gets zapped with a $4 million fine for participating in a scheme to mislead Wall Street. This isn’t exactly the inspirational behavior employees (or shareholders, customers and analysts) like to see in a CEO. While Michael fiddles, Dell burns. The Dell brand is fading, as is the value of its stock. But it’s okay. Dell’s board has just reaffirmed its “unanimous support for Michael’s continued leadership, transparent accounting, integrity in financial reporting…” It’s enough to make me believe in alternate universes.

Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft
Steve has done nothing in the last couple of weeks to deserve louder calls for his ouster — but then doing nothing has become his specialty. Under Steve’s leadership, shareholders have received a steady diet of embarrassing delays, often followed by even more embarrassing products. There was the revolutionary Courier tablet, which was in development forever and then killed before release. And the concept-challenged Kin phone that was killed just 60 days after release. Let’s not forget the grand-daddy of them all, the long-delayed and ill-received travesty called Vista. Most damning though, is that in the world’s most important market — mobile technology — Microsoft is but a whisper while Apple and Google have become the superpowers. (Oh, right, I forgot. Windows Phone 7 is coming.) Is there any measure by which Ballmer deserves to keep his job? With the resources available to Microsoft, you have to wonder what the company might be if it had a real visionary at the top.

Mark Hurd, ex-CEO, HP
Justice is harsh, isn’t it. The one guy who was actually doing a good job for his shareholders was sitting on top of the world one day and sent packing the next. The official story is that after marketing contractor Jodie Fisher filed a sexual harassment suit against HP for Hurd’s behavior, an internal investigation revealed discrepancies in his expense reports and payments to Fisher for work she didn’t do. Personally, I love the idea that the CEO of HP was sitting up at night fiddling with his expense reports. Whatever, there’s a lot about this story that just doesn’t add up. Henry Blodget has an interesting take on it this morning in SFGate. All I know is that you or I don’t get severance when we resign from our jobs or when we get fired for cause. Mark got a nice little $40 million severance package for accepting exile.

BlackBerry Torch, Newborn, RIM
Ain’t it cute? Say hi to the new Torch. Hard to remember the last time a non-Apple product got knocked about like this one has been. That RIM released this phone is surprising, given the company’s heritage. It’s not like they’re a newcomer to smartphones — they were literally the first guy in the pool. They’ve had plenty of time to analyze the success of Apple and Google. With all this skill and knowledge, they’ve created a new version of their software and launched it with the “all-new” BlackBerry Torch. Torch might appeal to the BlackBerry crowd but won’t be even remotely tempting to iPhone and Android customers. It has an underpowered processor, a cramped lo-res screen, and it’s thick and heavy. The words “clunky” and “cluttered” seem to pop up often in the reviews. It’s way too early to start writing BlackBerry’s epitaph, but maybe not too early to start checking out gravestone prices, just in case. The latest Nielsen survey says that only 42% of BlackBerry owners plan on buying another BlackBerry — compared to the 89% percent of iPhone owners and 71% of Android owners who plan to remain loyal.

Given the temptations and humiliations people have suffered at the top, you might want to think twice before you go applying for Hurd’s job…