I love the new features of iTunes 10. I love Ping, the new music-centric social network that Apple introduced with the new software. I just have one question: What’s up with the buttons?

If there’s one thing that’s Apple’s speciality it’s attention to detail in design leading to excellent consistent user experiences. So, then it remains to be seen why Apple would deliberately make the the close/minimize/maximize buttons on iTunes 10 different than on every other piece of software for the Macintosh:

It’s not as if it’s difficult to figure out how to use the new buttons, but they are the wrong size and in the wrong position. The buttons now make me stop and think about where I’m clicking. Why introduce this nuisance? It’s very unlike Apple.

As a follow-up to my previous post on fixing iPhone 3G slowness after upgrading to iOS 4.0, I’m happy to report that at Apple’s music event today (watch the video here), Steve Jobs announced that iOS 4.1 will permanently fix the bug that caused the iPhone 3G issues.

You can check out this post from Engadget for more info.

Google vs. Apple

Remember the not-too-distant past when Google did Search and Apple made iPods and iPhones. They both had a minimalist aesthetic to their products, and both seemed to be obsessed with making computing simple and pleasant for their customers. Way back then, I thought a merger of Google and Apple could be the only company to take on Microsoft. Imagine their combined ingenuity and software running on Apple hardware accessing Google’s cloud services.

Then Google announced their own browser, and then a mobile OS, and then a desktop OS, and then a phone. Apple bought up a mobile advertising company. Suddenly, Google and Apple were waging a cold war. Google folks had to resign from Apple’s board. Verizon/Motorola were fighting AT&T in ads, which were really a proxy for an Android vs. iPhone showdown. Apple is suing HTC for patent infringement over their multitouch Android phones. Hell, Apple is even threatening to make Microsoft’s Bing its default search engine. That’s how stupid that is getting.

Adobe vs. Apple

Now let’s look at Adobe and Apple. They’ve had a rocky relationship from the start, but for creative types, Adobe and Apple went together like peanut butter and jelly. You wanted to do graphics work, you used Photoshop and Illustrator on a Mac. Right around the time when Apple switched to Intel processors, things got hairy. Adobe put creating Universal Binaries to support the new Apple platform on hold, and focused their attention more on their Windows products. Apple refused (and still refuses) to allow Flash on the iPhone OS, effectively creating a large chunk of web users (iPhone, iPod Touch and now iPad owners) that Adobe could not reach. The CEOs of the two companies are trading barbs via leaking company communications and tech blogs. That’s how stupid that is getting.

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows

Not wanting to get blocked out of the burgeoning mobile market, Adobe countered in two ways. First, it partnered with Google to bring Flash to the Android platform. Second, it built a cross-compiler into its soon-to-be-released revision of Flash to allow you to create an application in Flash, and port it effortlessly to native iPhone APIs. Yesterday, Apple’s new iPhone Developer Agreement, effectively negated the latter by declaring all cross-compilers out of the terms of service. This is potentially a huge blow to Adobe. What is left for them to do? How about that partnership with Google?

On the surface, Google and Adobe have few interests in common. They play nice and partner in limited ways. But Google is all about the web as a platform, and Adobe owns many of the tools with which the content for the web is made. Right now, Google and Apple are aligned in that their strategies are built on the forthcoming ubiquity of HTML5 and the rich content features that are built into the standard. It promises to do away with the Flashes and ActiveXs of the world.

But imagine an HTML5 world where Google owned Acrobat (and the PDF format), Flash, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Air, Illustrator, AfterEffects and ColdFusion. Could anyone stop a combined Google + Adobe on the web? Would Apple be forced to capitulate? Would Android tablets with a Flash/Air-based development environment quickly eclipse iPad?

Even though a Google acquisition of Adobe seems unlikely, it does have intriguing implications. Regardless of how this shakes out, Apple now finds itself fighting a two-front war against very formidable opponents.

ACT I:
SCENE: Steve Jobs is standing on stage in front of a giant video screen. The screen is filled with a photo of Apple’s latest innovation – iProduct.

Steve Jobs: Today, we’re releasing iProduct. It can do X and Y and does those things better than anything else out there.

Hater: But it doesn’t do Z! Apple stinks.

Fan: Z isn’t that important. X and Y are really important to me though. I like it.

Hater: You’re so dumb, you don’t even know how important Z is. Product Q has been doing that for years!

Fan: Well, good for Product Q. I don’t need Z. It’s really not that important. I’m sticking with iProduct.

Hater: You’re a zombie. You were brainwashed by marketing. You need a shiny iProduct to make yourself look cool.

Fan: Huh? It just works and does what I need it to do.

Hater: You’re probably too stupid to use Product Q anyway.

(Blackout – End of Act I).

ACT II:
SCENE: Steve Jobs is again standing on stage in front of a giant video screen. This time, the screen behind him shows iProduct version 2.

Steve Jobs: Well, it’s a year later and today, we’re releasing iProduct version 2. It has many innovative new features, including Z.

Hater: I can’t believe all you Mactards are making such a big deal out of this. Product Q has had Z for years.

Fan: It’s cool they added it, but it’s still not important.

Hater: But why are you making such a big deal about it then?

Fan: I’m not. You are.

Hater: Well you SHOULD be. You should be pissed that Apple didn’t add Z a year ago.

Fan: I’m not pissed. In fact, I dont care.

Hater: You would care if you weren’t so stupid.

Fan: If you hate Apple so much, why do you even pay attention?

Hater: Because I can’t stand how Apple gets credit for being innovative. They’re so backward, iProduct can’t even do Z!

Fan: Well, it does Z now.

Hater: See, even Apple thinks I’m right!

Fan: So, I’m the stupid one here?

(Light fades out. End of Act II).

I have a Kindle.

I have a Mac.

So, naturally when Amazon announced that there would be a “Kindle for Mac” application, I was excited. So excited, in fact, that I signed up to be notified by e-mail when the application would be available.

Yesterday, I read on the blogs that the much-awaiting “Kindle for Mac” Beta had been released. Naturally, I immediately downloaded and installed it.

Then I thought, “Hey, didn’t I sign up for an e-mail notification months ago?” I thought it was odd that Amazon wouldn’t have made good on their promise to let me know when they released the application. I looked through my Inbox for an old confirmation e-mail, but couldn’t find one. I was pretty sure I had signed up, but finally, I decided that I was misremembering.

To my surprise I got an e-mail today from Amazon telling me:

Since you requested to be notified about the new Kindle for Mac app, we are excited to tell you that it is now available for free download.

Amazon really missed an opportunity here. Clearly, I and presumably thousands of other people signed up for the notification, because we were interested in the software. However, Amazon notified us after the general press release to the rest of the world. Why have the sign-up in the first place if you’re not going to tell everyone the news until after it’s old news?

You might say that I downloaded the software anyway, so I should quit whining about it. But what if instead, Amazon let those of us who signed up know about “Kindle for Mac” the day before the general public? They had a chance to make us feel more connected and “inside” by saying, “Hey, we wanted to let you know, Kindle for Mac will be released tomorrow. Since you signed up for the e-mail notification, we’re giving you a sneak peek.” Even better, what if they gave us special codes to download the app … gasp … one day before everyone else?

How cool would that have been? Would that have affected my review of the app for the positive?

—

My Review of Kindle for Mac

Kindle for Mac is thoroughly mediocre, with severely limited functionality. The only positive is that you can finally read your Kindle books on your Mac. However, you can’t zoom, annotate, or search any of your books. It’s actually less functional than a paper book.

My take: Amazon feels Apple breathing down its neck with iPad and is spending the bulk of its development budget on Kindle v3. Kindle for Mac is a total afterthought.

Yesterday Steve Jobs introduced the world to Apple’s latest creation, the iPad. Say what you will about the name (you may have seen links to an old MADtv sketch for a completely different product of the same name), I believe Apple delivered a fantastic product. Does it live up to the hype? If it worked by mental telepathy instead of multi-touch, I don’t think it could have lived up to the hype. That’s the blessing and curse of Apple product launches.

While I expected the reactions both of the “gotta have it no matter what” fans and “gonna hate it no matter what” critics, I thought the general reaction would be something along the lines of “looks really cool but I’ll wait and try before I make up my mind.” To my surprise, the refrain I keep hearing is a rumbling disappointment that iPad is “only” a big iPod Touch.

The big revolution the iPhone brought into the mainstream was the idea that a smartphone shouldn’t be a phone with a few computer-like features. Rather it should be a pocket computer that among other things has a phone application. In fact, there was so much perceived value in this proposition that Apple realized that you could remove the phone from the iPhone and still have a product that lots of people would want. Thus was born the iPod Touch – the pocket computer that would replace your media player, give you access to thousands of applications and give you a great web and email experience.

That’s the innovation – pocket computing for the masses in a stylish device with a simple and intuitive user interface.

Personally, when I got my iPhone, my computing habits changed almost instantly. Very quickly I found that I did about 80% of my computing on my phone. I reserved booting up my Macbook Pro for media stuff and my PC for gaming.

But like many other people, I found there was a gap. For me specifically it was e-books. The phone screen was too small and the laptop too heavy and hot. So, I bought a Kindle for my “in-between” needs. It has it’s quirks but I am generally very happy with it. For other people, their “in-between” needs were met by small inexpensive basic laptops that came to be called netbooks.

As Steve Jobs pointed out in his presentation yesterday, the challenge of filling this “in-between” space between smartphones and laptops is what drove the design of the iPad.

So what would that device look like? It would give you a great web and email platform, play videos and music, let you update documents and presentations and read ebooks. It would be bigger than a smartphone and smaller that a laptop. It would be light and thin and have use a touchsreen for its primary interface. The screen would have to be big enough to give you a nice experience watching videos, browsing the web and typing on the virtual keyboard. Portable but not fit-in-your-pocket small. It would be built to leverage the scarcities of the mobile environment as strengths not to avoid them as weaknesses. Its underlying concept would not be a laptop with features removed, but rather a smartphone-like pocket computer with features added.

In other words, the perfect “in-between” device is a big iPod Touch. And if iPad isn’t seen as being a game-changer it’s because Apple already changed the game. Based on his opening remarks, it’s clear Steve Jobs intended iPad to further cement Apple’s identity as the company that defines how we do mobile computing.

And by filling the “in-between” ecological niche between smartphones and laptops with a big iPod Touch, I think he succeeded.

[My iPhone drama continued]

I went to my local Apple Store to meet with a Genius. Getting an appointment was easy to do online. I was helped right on time at 8:45 p.m.. The Genius was knowledgeable and was able to quickly replace my defective screen. The entire process was easy and painless.

My only critique is that nobody in the Apple Store was especially friendly. I got to the store a few minutes early and sat at the Genius Bar. Nobody greeted me, and I had to get a Concierge’s attention to ask what I was supposed to do now that I was in the store. I’m glad I did, because he had to check me in the system to let the Geniuses know that I was there. It would have been nice if they offered me a bottle of water or something while I waited.

Don’t get me wrong, I much prefer competent and stand-offish than stupid and warm-n-fuzzy. My primary concern was getting my phone fixed and they did a wonderful job with that. But still, I left thinking it would be better if they kind of pampered you a little.

My iPhone, faithful cell phone, web browser, e-mail client, iPod and portable computer platform lost its display due to complications from a fall on a hardwood floor. While initially I thought a reboot might be enough to get the iPhone back into working condition, I quickly realized that the device wouldn’t respond to any input. I couldn’t get it to reboot. I decided to flash the firmware, since that forces a reboot. However, this was not enough to bring it back to life.

My only hope – a Genius at the Apple Store.

[to be continued]

I had a great conversation last night with my friend Mark. Among many other things we talked about, we came around to the topic of the paperless office. For about a decade now, we’ve heard that we are at the dawn of the paperless office. Documents can be virtualized, then organized and re-organized on a whim. Data in XML format can be ported and shared between people and applications with very little loss due to “friction” in process. We are no longer beholden to the costs of filing and storing physical paper pages.

So, why do we still use paper?

I think there are two main reasons:

• Paper is cheap.
• Paper is simple to use, and as a technology, provides additional functionality over what current computer displays can provide.

Since I know very little about the economics of paper production, I can’t really address the first point, other than to say if paper suddenly jumped in price the way gasoline has, I doubt you’d see nearly as many people in the office sending those 200 page reports over to the LaserJet.

The second point however is firmly in techno-weenie land (my happy home). What kind of digital technology can compete with paper for functionality and ease-of-use?

Readability
Face it, computer screens are hard to read. If you look at them too long you go cross-eyed. Innovations like the Amazon Kindle make me hopeful that in the near future, all monitors will be similarly optimized for document readability.

Organizing, highlighting and notetaking
The one thing you definitely learn after you’ve shuffled papers around your desk for any length of time is that paper is easy to shuffle around. If you want to combine a spreadsheet and a document into one report, all you need is a stapler. Marking up printed documents is simple and quick.

Touch screen interfaces seem to be the best prospect for easy manipulation of digital documents. Personally, I think the best current implementation is Apple’s iPhone. Microsoft also has an exciting offering in this space, called Surface. Rather than being a touchscreen you can fit in your pocket like the iPhone, with Surface, the interface is a multi-touch tabletop. The demo shows applications in the home, restaurants, bars, etc.

Imagine a different application where your physical desktop is replaced with a Surface interface instead. You can do your regular computing with your standard keyboard/mouse/monitor. Then, we you need to, you just drag your document over to your Surface desktop, where you can use the touch interface to flip through documents, shuffle pages, blend documents together, insert photos, markup documents with a pen or stylus … whatever you want to do, all with the same relative ease of manipulating paper documents. The best of both worlds.

The biggest downside to this is that currently Surface is not available to consumers. Also, it’s very expensive, the main current target market being hotels, resorts, casinos, trendy high-end bars, etc. Also, let’s face it, as this hysterical Surface parody from SarcasticGamer points out, Surface is a big-ass table. There is a long way to go before this could be integrated into the workplace.

Power Consumption
You don’t have to plug paper in. Not sure what we can do about that one.

I believe the paperless office can actually become a reality, but we’re not really there yet. Why do I care so much about it? Because even though I’ve never hugged one, trees are nice. They provide shade, they make the air smell nice, they use up carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen, and it sounds cool when wind blows through their leaves. We should cut fewer of them down.

When the first wave of iPhones came out, there were three missing components that to me were deal-breakers:

• No GPS chip
• No third-party applications
• Slow broadband network

And while the iPhone 3G is not perfect (there are a whole bunch of “like to haves”, just no more “must haves”), I love the interface and I think coupled with my Mac at home, will be a very convenient way to take my personal computing mobile. I’m ready to jump in and buy an iPhone 3G. Trouble is, so is everyone else.

OK, definitely not “everyone”. There are iPhone haters for sure, and certainly a large number of fence-sitters who are waiting for still more features, or just to see how the 2.0 rollout shakes out. However, as reported on ZDnet, iPhone 3Gs are sold out nationwide and there won’t be any more for four weeks. I could understand the two-hour lines on launch day, even the three-hour lines the day after launch (it was a Saturday and more people have free time to stand in line). But a four week wait?!? That just sucks.

Taking the long view, I’ve lived without an iPhone this long. I can wait another four weeks. Hopefully by then, even more of the kinks will be worked out of the system, any my iPhone experience will be smooth sailing.