Apple is the new Microsoft 2.0

Apple recently announced:

• they're approving the Opera browser for use on the iPhone and iPad
• they're canceling the famous I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC advertisements.

These decisions are both driven by the same factor: Apple is the new Microsoft. Call them Microsoft 2.0

Apple has introduced a new channel by providing the (free) internet through their (proprietary) iPhone and iPad, and with their new advertising program that allows developers to embed ads directly into their apps. Apple has complete authority over what you can, and cannot, have on your iDevice.

With Apple's iDevices, you can only run software from Apple's distribution channel, and they take 30% of every purchase. It's the company store for the digital era.

Even when Microsoft was at the top of their game (and at the zenith of their arrogance), Microsoft never insisted on complete software hegemony. You could buy software from other companies and run it on Windows. The PC architecture that Windows promoted was open-box; you could open the PC and add memory or other devices.

Certainly, if you made software and wanted the Microsoft seal of approval on your products, you went through their standards and review process, but you didn't have to do that - end users could still put unreviewed, unapproved, third-party software on their machines. As Cory Doctorow explained last week in his criticism of Apple's closed-box philosophy, if you can't do what you want with it, you don't own it. You don't own "your" iPad if you can't run your own software on it.

The iPad is really a sales terminal for Apple Inc, and if you want anything on it you've got to buy from them. It's like Walmart having a digital sales shelf in your house, that happens to fit in your lap. And, by the way, you just spent $500 to purchase the Apple sales terminal.


O'Reilly's Jim Stodgill says it's like buying a TV from HBO for $500, which only lets you watch HBO, and you still have to pay for the subscription.

• They've approved the Opera browser because it provides them some cover and probably protects them from anti-trust litigation. The Euro-zone is going to give Apple's closed economy a more stringent scrubbing than they ever gave Microsoft.
  
• They've canceled the Mac-PC ad campaign because you can't juxtapose yourself against Microsoft when you've become the new Microsoft 2.0.

Google may want to "organize the world's information", but it seems like Apple wants to have profitable control over your use of the world's information.

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One team of clever hackers has already figured out how to get hard copies printed from the iPad:

Alpha, Beta, Gamma Testing at Apple, Toyota, and Boeing

Saturday the floodgates opened and 120,000 people pre-ordered their Apple iPads, which is possibly the worst-named product in recent memory. (One woman journalist immediately exclaimed, "OK, so no women were on the naming panel, I see."

Exactly what they're pre-ordering isn't very well known. The specs that are available were updated just last week. Industry watchers are pretty sure that iPad 1.2 will probably have a USB port, and that iPad 2.0 will be able to multitask (that is, run apps simultaneously). PC Magazine's headline read, "iPad PreOrders for Idiots Only".

This leads to a discussion of the software release cycle, which has been adapted into a product release cycle. The software release cycle evolved from the 1960's IBM product test cycle.

Alpha Testing is testing done within the company, by people other than the engineers, programmers, and designers who built the product. It usually involves white box techniques, but can include black box and even grey box techniques.

Beta Testing (following Alpha Testing) is user testing within a controlled situation. The product is not released to the market. A "beta version" is the first version released outside the organization or community that develops the product, for the purpose of evaluation or real-world black/grey-box testing.

As the Internet has allowed for rapid and inexpensive distribution of software, and as competitive pressure has decreased time-to-market, companies have begun to take a looser approach to use of the word "beta". Netscape Communications was infamous for releasing alpha versions to the public and calling them "beta" releases. Gmail and Google News have been in beta for years. This technique may also allow a developer to delay offering full support and/or responsibility for remaining issues.

With the ubiquity of the web, a lot of people know about alpha and beta products. There's more than just those two. Gamma testing is the third level of testing, generally for safety. Delta testing is the fourth round of testing, and Omega is the last round of testing. (This is the sequence of letters in the Greek alphabet). Unfortunately, Gamma testing is becoming a thing of the past, killed off by decreased time cycles, competitive pressure, and the myopic focus on quarterly profits.

Saturday Apple started taking advance orders for the iPad (wifi not 3G), and 120,000 were ordered, sight-unseen, in the first 24 hours. People are willing to pay a premium to be an early-adopter and what is essentially a beta-tester. This in spite of the fact that the people who bought the first iPhone would shortly see an improved, updated version being sold for less.

For $600 you get a WiFi tablet with no camera, no Java, no Flash, no stylus, limited multitasking, and an Apple logo. For $600 you can also get a fully functional netbook. To a degree, such is the cachet of Apple and the major alpha-geek status derived from being the first person at the coffee bar with an iPad.

What's interesting is that Apple is selling a beta-test product to early adopters who are eager to participate in the process. Apple's not the only outfit selling a beta-test product to the public.

In the NY Times, Robert Wright blogs about Toyota and the increased tendency to conduct the "subsequent, de facto beta testing that is also known as 'selling the product and then reading the user forums'." I think the original Big Blue product managers would shudder at using Granny as a Gamma Tester.

In my time, the most egregious public-as-gamma-tester episode was the Boeing 737 rudder charade. There was a clear problem with the product that was not discovered during alpha and beta testing. 204 people died in these accidents between '91 and '94: United 585 (25 lost), Copa 737 (47 lost), USAir 427 (132 lost).

When the end users discovered the problem, the response was to keep the fleet flying (too big to ground) while the rudder hydraulics were reworked and updated. During the time between the discovery and the resolution, every passenger on a 737 was participating in an undeclared test flight. The government's bet in not grounding the fleet worked (in that we didn't have another disaster before the rudders were reworked) but IMO it was a terrible, cynical decision.

If the people pre-ordering iPads are happy to pay to be beta-testers, that's all good. But if they think they're buying a ready-for-market product, they're suckers.

Geek Frisson du Jour

That's frisson (the shiver of excitement), not 'fusion', just to be clear.

Apple has the wildly successful iPhone, packaged with an exclusive AT&T service that delivers poor service in cities with a lot of iPhones (notably New York and San Francisco). The iPhone isn't a stand-alone product, it's entry to All Things Apple, it's a platform backed by iTunes and the AppStore. It has been the Next Big Thing. Something happened in New York over the last few days where AT&T stopped selling iPhones online to people with New York City zip codes, but that's gone away now.

The whispered challenge to Apple's iPhone is Google's ... well, GooglePhone. Although several manufacturers are now selling smart phones running Google's Android operating system, the new Nexus (named in homage to Blade Runner's androids) is a phone designed and spec'd by Google, and produced by a manufacturer partner. They may introduce it this week, just prior to the CES trade show.

So that's an impending geekfest, Apple's iPhone vs. Google's Nexus phone.



January teases us with the titillating possibility of an Apple tablet. Whether the tablet is a large iTouch or a small MacBook is an open question, and some inquiring minds have discovered that Apple owns the domain islate.com, which may be the product's name.

Not willing to cede the vaporware buzz to the other guys, Google has leaked the specs for the Google tablet, running the Chrome OS and using a multi-touch interface. The Google tablet is reported to be a Cloud device, meaning that you'll store both documents (ie, work) and applications on the internet, and the client side (that is, your side) won't do the heavy lifting.

What I find most surprising is the identify of the players. At the consumer product level, nobody's talking Wintel (ie, Microsoft Windows and Intel); the discussion is Apple vs. Google, and the chips are mostly AMD. The only discussion you hear about Microsoft is they're selling a new version of Vista Windows7 that's not as terrible as Vista.

Here's a list of the lineup in the Apple vs Google competitive marketplace:

• Smartphone operating systems: iPhone vs. Android
  
• Web browsers: Safari vs. Chrome
  
• Music and video: iTunes vs. YouTube
  
• Cloud computing: MobileMe vs. iGoogle
  
• e-mail services: Mail vs. Gmail
  
• Address lists: Address Book vs. Contacts
  
• Calendars: iCal vs. Google Calendar
  
• Chat: iChat vs. Google Talk
  
• Photos: iPhoto vs. Picasa
  
• File storage: iDisk vs. Google Docs
  

Ah, it's a good time to be a geek. It's always a good time to be a geek.

Macs and PCs, Catholics and Protestants: Umberto Eco

I've been enjoying the comments on Nullspace, in which I am guilty of hijacking the thread, so I thought I'd continue the PC vs Mac riff over here. The essay below, by Umberto Eco in 1994, is the best thing I have read on The Great Schism.

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Insufficient consideration has been given to the new underground religious war which is modifying the modern world. It's an old idea of mine, but I find that whenever I tell people about it they immediately agree with me.

The fact is that the world is divided between users of the Macintosh computer and users of MS-DOS compatible computers. I am firmly of the opinion that the Macintosh is Catholic and that DOS is Protestant. Indeed, the Macintosh is counter-reformist and has been influenced by the ratio studiorum of the Jesuits. It is cheerful, friendly, conciliatory; it tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach -- if not the kingdom of Heaven -- the moment in which their document is printed. It is catechistic: The essence of revelation is dealt with via simple formulae and sumptuous icons. Everyone has a right to salvation.

DOS is Protestant, or even Calvinistic. It allows free interpretation of scripture, demands difficult personal decisions, imposes a subtle hermeneutics upon the user, and takes for granted the idea that not all can achieve salvation. To make the system work you need to interpret the program yourself: Far away from the baroque community of revelers, the user is closed within the loneliness of his own inner torment.

You may object that, with the passage to Windows, the DOS universe has come to resemble more closely the counter-reformist tolerance of the Macintosh. It's true: Windows represents an Anglican-style schism, big ceremonies in the cathedral, but there is always the possibility of a return to DOS to change things in accordance with bizarre decisions: When it comes down to it, you can decide to ordain women and gays if you want to.

Naturally, the Catholicism and Protestantism of the two systems have nothing to do with the cultural and religious positions of their users. One may wonder whether, as time goes by, the use of one system rather than another leads to profound inner changes. Can you use DOS and be a Vande supporter? And more: Would Celine have written using Word, WordPerfect, or Wordstar? Would Descartes have programmed in Pascal?

And machine code, which lies beneath and decides the destiny of both systems (or environments, if you prefer)? Ah, that belongs to the Old Testament, and is talmudic and cabalistic. The Jewish influence, as always....
Umberto Eco

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I believe one test of great writing is whether it remains relevant in the face of subsequent events, and I submit that Eco's essay retains pertinent. There has been a tremendous amount of evolution change in the world of computers and yet Eco's theme remains valid.

His description may have anticipated the rise of the platform-agnostic Linux community and even the humanistic DIY Open Source Movement. We leave to the future the placement of the Apple-iPhone/Google-Android conflict along this spectrum, and tend to ignore the comments of those who believe that the appearance of a Google phone will signify the beginning of the End Times.

Windows Vista 7 : Trust Me

It is remarkable that a lot of the geek pundits proclaiming the qualities of Windows7 were the same people who once announced that Vista was the cat's meow.

John Dvorak is to be praised for his objectivity. One blogger refers to the new product as Vista 7.0 (Written via XP).

Apple Bites Pie

I've heard that PC manufacturers are struggling - the economy is rough, nobody's going to buy a PC with Vista with Windows7 coming out in October for Christmas someday, Netbooks with XP are driving margins way down - but I had no idea how far it had gone.

Ars Technica reports that Apple has taken 91% of revenue sales of computers over $1000 in June.


From the article:

Based on NPD's data, the average sale price (ASP) of a Windows laptop was $520—$569 if netbooks are excluded. The ASP of a Mac laptop is $1,400. Similar trends hold for desktops as well—the ASP of a Windows-based desktop PC in June was $489, while the ASP for a Mac was $1,398.

Though Apple only holds about 8 to 9 percent of the US market share by units, its strategy of focusing on quality over quantity is paying off.