I’ve been following the news of Steve Job’s resignation as CEO of Apple since last night, and read posts from my favorite pundits and tech industry people (here, here and here). It’s a lot to take in, and there’s so much that’s been written already, from every possible angle, I won’t bother to try and re-do any of that.
My only encounter with Steve in a public capacity, with an intimate group of several thousand others. I was attending one of the famous Macworld Expo keynote addresses, known affectionately as the “Stevenote”, in 2007. I only ever attended one of these, and it happened to be the one where he unveiled the iPhone. (Holy crap, if I could have picked one to be at, what a one to pick!)
Leading up to the keynote, I’d heard stories about how he was able to project a “reality distortion field” and be charismatic and compelling. I’d watched scores of his keynotes in previous years, back when they used to stream them live, and I was pretty sure I know what I was in for. I was expecting just sort of a well-done nerdy tech geek chat. I felt I was pretty immune to any razzle-dazzle a gifted speaker might send my way.
As the keynote started, and Steve came out, he was good. Really good. He built up to announcing the iPhone, but not in a way that said “HERE”S THE DEVICE THAT IS GOING TO CHANGE THE ENTIRE PHONE MARKET AND PERSONAL COMPUTING FOREVER”. No, in fact, if I remember correctly, he set it up as, “…today we’re releasing three revolutionary products; 1) a widescreen iPod with touch controls, 2) a revolutionary mobile phone, and 3) a breakthrough internet communications device.” He repeated those three things a few times, and then asked “get it yet?”. His punchline was “This isn’t three devices, this is one device, and we are calling it iPhone”. Subtle. But the real moment was a few minutes later, before he’d shown us what the iPhone looked like. He mentioned that “…currently, there’s a category of phones called smartphones (supposedly)”. He went on “…the problem is, they’re not so smart, and not so easy to use. They have these little plastic keyboards and lousy interfaces…”
I, along with probably most everyone in that room, had one of those “most advanced phones” with me. In my hand I had a Palm Treo, (which I was furiously using to send images and chat text out to some fellow tech nerd friends who were not in the hall, but were anxiously awaiting the news of the event. This was waaaaay before Twitter.) which was one of the most awesome things out there at the time. I could feel it sweating, trembling, and starting to get heavy in my hand as Steve went on along the lines of how, really, you have to admit, these phones were a pain to use, poorly designed, and not very capable. A sinking feeling grew — he was right. I did spend a lot of time battling the thing; reading email was inconsistent, web browsing, although possible, was slow as hell and the pages, when they loaded at all, looked terrible, apps were few, crummy, and expensive. Back to the Stevenote. He then showed a slide of the leading four smart phones at the time; the Moto Q, BlackBerry, Palm Treo (ooh, that wass mine), Nokia E62. Then came the slide showing the iPhone. BANG! like a shot, it hit us all. It was as obvious as day to everyone in that room; when they’d walked in to that keynote, they were carrying the coolest, most advanced tech gadgets on the planet in their pockets. Now, after seeing the iPhone, they were carrying clunky, outdated, dinosaurs.
I still remember that feeling, at that moment, and how it hit me. Looking back on the video today, that moment doesn’t translate very well. It all seems so obvious now, in hindsight. But in that room, listening to Steve directly, it was palpable.
I think in that brief, public moment, I was lucky to have been able to directly sense of what makes Steve such a powerful figure. It was potent, and unforgettable.
Steve’s still with us, despite the obituary like tone of some of the comments out there, and he’ll be involved in Apple for hopefully years to come. Apple will be fine, has great people, and will make many cool things and innovations for years to come. but it is undeniable; it will never be the same. And I’m glad to be able to say I think I know why.
Apple, as an extension of Steve’s vision, has been part of my life since I got my first Macintosh, a Mac Plus in 1986. Since then, I’ve used Apple products personally and professionally virtually every day. I used Apple products as a student, then as some of my first jobs doing desktop publishing, then pre-press, web design, web coding, and now as a consultant. I used Apple products for doing audio recording and audio mastering for years, and recording and mixing bands I was in a mixing and creating records, CDs, and artwork. I use them for recreation, listening to music on iPods, iPhone, playing games, watching movies and TV shows, etc etc.
In that, I’m not unique, as millions of others have the same experiences with Apple. But what felt so odd is that I am embarrassed to admit I actually felt a tremor of… something… upon hearing the news. As corny as it sounds, it seems Steve was able to really connect and affect all those millions of people over those decades, and I guess I’m one of them.
Thanks Steve, best wishes.
Posted on August 25, 2011 by douglas , Posted in Apple, Blog ,
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One of my favorite features of Lion is the new version of FileVault, the security feature built-in to OS X since 10.3 years ago. In Snow Leopard and earlier, FileVault would encrypt your user’s home folder, so that in the event your laptop was stolen, all your personal info (documents, emails, etc) would be encrypted.
With FileVault 2 in Lion, Apple has taken it one step further, and instead of merely encrypting your user’s home folder, now encrypts the entire disk; applications, temp files, libraries, etc., making the whole thing that much more secure. For years, 3rd party companies have offered “Full Disk Encryption” software for he Mac. But now, Apple has it built-in.
As someone who carries a lot of sensitive client information on my machine, this is welcome news. Read Topher Kessler of CNET’s great overview of FileVault 2 here.
REMEMBER: Do not enable FileVault or FileVault 2 unless you deeply understand what you are doing. If you forget your account password, all your data is completely lost for good. Also, if you enable it with a weak, simple, short password, its about as safe as putting a screen door on a bank vault.
Posted on July 21, 2011 by douglas , Posted in Apple, Blog, Security ,
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Mac OS X 10.7 Lion isn’t due out until sometime this summer (which technically can mean as late as September 21st, 2011). And while Apple has shared a little info with us about the upcoming version of Mac OS X, developers have been getting their hands on the early pre-release versions. Brian Tong of CNET’s video blog “Apple Byte” did a quick but nice demo of the new user interface features we can expect to see in the final build. Brian is a little annoying, so feel free to skip ahead to about 2:07 where he starts the Lion demo. I think the features looks great, and it so far looks like we’re going to see another solid step forward.
direct link
Posted on March 14, 2011 by douglas , Posted in Apple, Blog ,
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Apple is forcing all MobileMe users to upgrade to the new MobileMe Calendar format on May 5th. From Apple’s official support page on the issue…
On May 5, 2011, MobileMe will transition to the new Calendar service… You must upgrade to the new Calendar by May 5, 2011 to maintain calendar syncing between your devices and to continue accessing your calendar at me.com. See How do I upgrade to the new MobileMe Calendar … for instructions.
While this is good news in that the new calendar structure (using the CalDAV standard) is more robust than the iCal/MobileMe calendar, it will cause issues for people who have enables the Daylite to iCl sync option in Daylite. IF YOU DO NOT SYNC CALENDARS BETWEEN DAYLITE AND ICAL — THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO YOU.
Do not enable the "Synchronization" preference in Daylite
So why is this happening, and why is it a problem? The new MobileMe calendars are truly cloud based: your iCal app on the Mac will talk to the MobileMe calendar server and sync its data from there. So will your iPhone/iPad. However, Daylite was designed to work with LOCAL iCal calendars, ones that stored their data on the Mac, and then through MobileMe, would synchronize those changed to other Macs using a MobileMe account. While the difference may seen unimportant, the current version of Daylite (designed before Apple announced these changes) expects to see the old, LOCAL, iCal data for each calendar on your Mac when it performs its sync to iCal. It has no way of communicating with the new cloud based MobileMe calendars. If you were to enable synchronization in Daylite for Appointments and Tasks, Daylite would create a new LOCAL iCal calendar, one that exists only on your Mac. This local only calendar would not be part of the MobileMe system, and wouldn’t sync across your Macs or iPhone/iPads. You would see calendar information duplicated in iCal, and it would be a data dead end.
The instructions provided by Marketcircle (http://www.marketcircle.com/mobileme/) recommend tuning off Daylite to iCal sync entirely, and I concur. Address Book and iCal are free for a reason. They are consumer products. They can’t handle the volume that a shared business database like Daylite can create. If you value your data, I recommend turning the Daylite to Sync Services feature OFF permanently. Instead, embrace the robust, multi-user calendar features of Daylite on your Mac and Daylite Touch on your iPhone and iPad.
Posted on February 28, 2011 by douglas , Posted in Apple, Blog, News ,
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Yesterday Apple announced several new MacBook Pro models. Although the form factor is similar to previous models (aluminum unibody construction, 13″, 15″ and 17″ sizes, etc), they feature two significant changes.
The first is that they are using the very latest in mobile processors, Intel’s Sandy Bridge Core i5 and i7 chips, in both dual- and quad-core configurations. Testing has shown that the performance gains are huge, with the current MacBook Pros testing as fast as or faster than last years Mac Pro desktops. That shows just how far laptop computing power has come. Previously, the trade off for laptops was power for portability. With this latest upgrade, that gap has closed.
The other change is the addition of a new interface, Thunderbolt. This new port, developed by Intel with the help of Apple, has the same appearance as the mini Display port that appeared on older models, but it is a whole lot more. It is a high speed data port, display adapter, and power port. In Apple’s words…
Thunderbolt is a revolutionary new I/O technology that delivers an amazing 10 gigabits per second and can support every important I/O standard which is ideal for the new MacBook Pro.
Apple’s Thunderbolt page shows Thunderbolt being twenty times faster than USB 2.0, twelve times faster than FireWire 800, and twice as fast as the new, but barely implemented USB 3.0 standard. Apple and Intel are looking to position this port as new high speed/all-in-one connector for displays a peripherals. look for third party manufacturers to be developing hard drives, displays, and other peripherals with Thunderbolt interfaces soon.
Posted on February 25, 2011 by douglas , Posted in Apple, Blog, News ,
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Today, Apple held an event where they talked about the future of the Mac, Mac OS X, and unveiled a pair of new MacBook Airs. Among the highlights were showcasing the new iLife ’11 suite of iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand. Also shown were future iPhone/iPad like features that are being incorporated in Mac OS X Lion, which will feature multi touch gesture navigation and full screen views, as well as a Mac App Store, styled like the current iOS App Store. Finally, the two new MacBook Air models show were notable in that they have no optical drive or hard drive — they use flash memory technology to provide iPad like “instant on” with 30 day standby times.
Another nice announcement was the availability of FaceTime for the Mac, so you can make Facetime video calls between Macs or iPhone 4 users. The beta is available for download today for Snow Leopard users.
Some good summaries will be popping up soon, and I’ll post those links here…
“Mac App Store is Good News” – Macworld.com
“Apple previews Mac OS X 10.7 ‘Lion’ at media event” – powerpage.org
“The new MacBook Air” – marco.org
Posted on October 20, 2010 by douglas , Posted in Apple, Blog, News ,
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It appears as if Apple is recalling some flawed Time Capsule devices, sold between February and June 2008. If your device was purchased in that date range, or more specifically, your Time Capsule’s serial number is in the range of XX807XXXXXX – XX814XXXXXX , bring your Time Capsule in to Apple for a repair or replacement.
Here’s Apple’s Knowledge Base article on the matter:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3351
And a summary from TUAW:
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/07/11/apple-recalling-flawed-2008-time-capsules/
Posted on July 12, 2010 by douglas , Posted in Apple, Blog, News ,
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You would need to have been living under a really, really big rock to have missed the news about the release of Apple’s new iPad. The Wi-Fi only version of the iPad went on sale Saturday, April 3rd at all the Apple retail stores, the Apple online store, as well as Best Buy and other Authorized Apple Resellers. A Wi-Fi + 3G model will be released within a few weeks, which includes the option to use the AT&T 3G network for data transfer. The best part about that is no contract is required — you just sign up for either a $15 or $30/month plan that you can enable or disable as needed.
The costs and pricing options are shown on the Apple Store store site. I’ve purchased the $499 Wi-Fi only 16GB model that I’ve been playing with and testing since Saturday. So far, I am very impressed. While there have been thousands of reviews published already, most loving, and some hating, the device, my own experience is that it is a joy to use. For most home/casual users who currently lug around a laptop to surf the web, check emails, upload photos, Twitter, Facebook, etc, the 1.5 pound iPad is a GREAT replacement. For those who do more specialized tasks, the iPad could be a great companion, but not replacement for, a more capable MacBook or MacBook Pro. Apple has release iPad versions of their iWork suite of Microsoft Office compatible word processing (Pages), spreadsheet (Numbers), and presentation (Keynote) applications. These really make the iPad a “work capable” device, and using them is a joy.
As has been widely reported, one of the gripes is that the web browser on the iPad, just like on the iPhone, does not support the Adobe Flash web browser plugin. However, Apple’s stance on this has been that Flash is a proprietary format that makes most Flash based web content locked to a single software vendor (Adobe). Instead, Apple has been support the open web-standards approach of support CSS3, HTML5, and Javascript. Where most site using flash for video content, like YouTube, had been using Flash exclusively, there has been a sea change to supporting HTML5 based video and content. In addition to YouTube, Apple has posted a list of some major websites that support HTML5 content. And there are more coming over every day it seems. So all in all, the Flash “issue” is turning out to be a non-issue.
All-in-all, Apple seems to have once again produced a unique, slick, fascinating piece of technology. I am looking forward to seeing how the platform develops.
Posted on April 5, 2010 by douglas , Posted in Apple, Blog ,
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