Apple’s been touted as an example of what HP once was: an innovator and powerhouse that built its own successes. The iPad has become so popular so quick that it’s now outselling Macs. And so the mavens of the Apple world now consider how much longer the Mac can survive Apple’s own clever creation: the iOS environment, now driving 70 million iPhones and 15 million iPads, the new nirvana. These ideals are promoted by the people who have little invested in the Mac OS X. They forget to nurture their ancestors’ wisdom.

Exhibit A: A column from new contributor John Gruber on the back page of MacWorld. He seems to wonder if Apple is as typical as HP, because “At typical companies, ‘legacy’ technology is something you figure out how to carry forward. At Apple, legacy technology is something you figure out how to get rid of.”

There’s some problems with this take on how vendors work. First, legacy only gets carried forward at a big customer’s insistence. At typical companies like HP, legacy technology is something you figure out how to marginalize and push into the boutique shadows. Much of the decade before HP’s announced departure in 2001 from the HP 3000 enterprise world — just four weeks from being complete — was spent pushing MPE aside to trumpet Unix. (How’s that choice working for you now, HP? Those footsteps you hear are Linux, not WebOS.)

It’s always easier to sit in a developer’s chair and say the future lies in the newest design, especially if it’s growing more popular by the quarter. But customers — millions of them using Macs today, even in business — sit in different chairs and see investments they want a vendor to protect. A great company learns to balance protection with the innovation. Disney didn’t stop making cartoons just because it discovered live-action movies and amusement parks. Read the rest of this entry »

The big idea behind OS 10 release for next year — Lion — is that it shares technology Apple has polished for the iPhone and iPad mobile devices. “That’s what it’s all about,” said CEO Steve Jobs. “Mac OS 10 meets the iPad. We’d like to bring it all back to the Mac.”

The CEO peeks at Mission Control

Apple will bring applications to Mac users though a Mac App Store. There are two crucial elements in this model: Apple is taking 30 percent of each sale through the Store, a cut that comes out of developer pockets. But there’s extra sales traffic to offset that. Then there’s the automatic install and organization power of the Mac App Store. Anybody who’s tried to install an Adobe app might buy into the App Store to avoid that pain.

It all runs through an interface demonstrated as Mission Control. It will remind the Mac user of Expose and Dashboard and Spaces, but better integrated — and controlled by multitouch gestures on Apple’s Magic Mouse.

Apple plans to put out the Mac App Store first, within 90 days, for any Mac user who’s using Snow Leopard. The vendor is taking applications for apps right away. Lion is set for release in the summer of 2011, or as Steve Jobs said, “this summer.”

Lean Steve leads into iPhoto

You must use Safari, apparently, but it’s been place online at http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1010qwoeiuryfg/event/index.html. Tim Cook, Apple COO, announced that the Mac installed base is now 50 million users, and the Mac has outgrown the market for 18 quarters in a row. Apple’s Mac business — not the mobile iOS units — is already $22 billion a year. Apple claims to have a 20 percent consumer market share for PCs.

The first 10 minutes of this event provides accurate ammunition to prove that the Mac tent is getting large enough to justify a switch away from Windows. “Whether you look at the products, or the numbers, or the products behind the numbers, the momentum has never been higher,” Cook said.

New themes for slide shows

Then comes the new iLife demos, starting with iPhoto. Phil Schiller, Apple’s VP of Marketing, is showing off “Full-Screen” interfaces for the app. iPhoto now makes slideshows automatically, an aspect that can be used for marketing presentations in lieu of the everyday PowerPoint decks.

There’s also an extended look at the new, more powerful editing features in iMovie. It’s hard to describe how much this program has improved over the last two years. The trailers shown look Hollywood-caliber, using included music and effects. Frankly, iMovie became an embarrassment about three years ago, but Apple has rescued it and driven its capabilities much closer to Final Cut Express.

As always, during a major Apple event, the company’s online store was taken offline so the new products can be unveiled for sale afterward.

Over the first 30 minutes of the Apple event, the brief on the Mac business state and the two most visual iLife apps dominated  the stage. iMovie has credits now, storyboards, themes to speed up editing. If you’re using a Mac to create marketing materials, these are marked upgrades to the apps which Apple ships for free with new systems.

Which might be the point here — selling the new systems over a holiday season is going to be easier with this included software’s new features. Apple will be selling the iLife ’11 package for existing Mac users, too. In a real upgrade to the value of these apps, existing users of iLife won’t have to re-purchase the product as we have in the past. There’s a $49 upgrade. Previous versions sold for $79.

There’s no update at all for iWeb and iDVD that is worthy of a demo in the conference. The former never had the simple-build ability for websites in its early releases, and later updates came after the blogging habit replaced a lot of websites with WordPress blogs. iDVD works well enough to burn movies built in iMovie, but the latter’s enhancements seem to have frozen any improvements on iDVD.

GarageBand got a nice demonstration that shows massive editing improvements for the tool we use to create podcasts, one of the most cost-effective marketing and customer-outreach tools. The Mac’s included software make it dead-simple to build podcasts with GarageBand. The fact that a six member band can better mix its music is nice for your off-hours, unless your business is producing music.

Mail checks get easier

Apple’s Steve Jobs waltzed around onstage for more than 90 minutes this morning, much of it showing off the soon-to-be-shipping iPhone 4 at the Apple WorldWide Developers’ Conference. While the new phone is 24 percent thinner than the current iPhones, the most impressive business feature comes from the new iPhone OS. Apple has renamed this operating environment iOS, because it runs the iPods, iPads, and the phone.

iOS 4 makes a distinct difference to Apple’s Mail program on the iPhone and the iPad and Touch iPod. Instead of breaking down your mail checking into multiple tries, Mail now consolidates your different accounts into a single “All Inboxes” menu item.

The current state of affairs is frustrating if you use more than one mail account, which is the case for so many small businesspeople. Your personal email goes to a separate account — or at least a separate email address. The new iOS 4 understands that you’ve got multiple personalities for mail.

The iOS 4 will be available to the iPhone and iPod Touch users later this month. The new environment brings things like a $4.99 iMovie, a choice of search engines including Microsoft’s Bing (take that, Google) and a PDF viewer that’s going to make long documents easier to read on Apple’s mobile devices. The Reader will be worked right into the iBooks application.

Oh yeah, and there’s that multitasking thing in the new iOS4, too. Palm hammered Apple on it all of last year until the Palmsters had to sell themselves off to HP. It was not a big enough deal to save the Pre, but Apple’s got the feature now. It’s probably best used with the newest Apple mobile devices, though — for reasons below.

Using iOS 4, there are now folders to organize that mess of apps so many of us have on our Apple mobile devices. But perhaps the best news of all for business phone users involves battery life. The new Apple chip just made things last a lot longer. Read the rest of this entry »

Apple pointed to the sales of the iPhone as the primary factor in its $13.4 billion Q2 report this week. The device, which Apple sold more than 8.7 million units of, is becoming the equivalent of the inkjet cartridge at HP. High volume, high profit, and a very different product than the company has been known for. You might argue that the iPhone has little to do with the mission of the Mac. But you won’t be throwing away an iPhone every month, like those HP ink cartridges. Using an iPhone in conjunction with a Mac makes the mobile device act like an extension of the computer.

What works in Apple’s favor it that the iPhone has plenty of competition, but no direct knock-offs. It’s the Apple product most likely to introduce the company’s computer solutions to a first-time customer. The second most likely product? The Mac itself. Apple said about 300,000 Macs sold at the Apple retail stores during Q2 went to customers who had never owned a Mac before.

Apple cites a “stronger product mix” including more iPhone sales while explaining how it beat analyst estimates by more than 2 percent for margins. Then there’s the $47 billion in cash the company reported for the period ending March 31: A lot of clams to toss at whatever research and development opportunities emerge.

Apple pointed at its “first mover” opportunity with the iPad as one place where it intends to exploit its advantages with fresh investment. Apple expects to release iPad units in 9 overseas countries by the end of May and ship the 3G versions by the first week of May.

One analyst said the iPad has a chance to become “the Mac of the masses.” In the 1980s Apple called the Mac “the computer for the rest of us.” Many analyst questions during the Q2 conference Q&A covered the iPad. As of this week, one tracking site estimates more than 1 million iPads in use: An introductory rate that outstrips the adoption of the iPhone in its first quarter of sales. Perhaps what the iPhone has done for Apple is a sign of what the iPad might add in several years.

Apple just announced a record $3 billion in profits and $13.5 billion in sales for the quarter that ended three days before the iPad was delivered. The company’s COO Tim Cook said the company was confident about future quarters, too.

Meanwhile, the stock is starting to approach the estimates that analysts clocked in once the drumbeat of iPad took off. As of this afternoon, the Associated Press reports that shares are at $261 each, about an 8 percent after-hours rise after trading was suspended during today’s Q2 news conference. One investment house thought earlier this month that shares could hit $300 during 2010.

Once upon a time, the analysts and industry experts were predicting nothing as different as Apple’s products could succeed. The company is now at a $50 billion run rate, something that goes along well with a No. 1 rating in most innovative companies (BusinessWeek) and the No. 38 spot in the latest Fortune 500.

Investment in Apple solutions can get looked at askance in some companies. Doing this well in the latest quarter, when Apple sold 3 million Macs in addition to its mobile products, ought to qwell any kvetching you may hear from corporate IT.

We’ll have more tomorrow on today’s Q&A between stock analysts and Cook.

A friend and marketing analyst sent me his belief that Apple’s campaign against Flash was a mistake and might cripple the company’s empire. Guy Smith of Silicon Strategies Marketing, who consults for software and hardware makers on marketing around the world, looks at CEO Steve Jobs’ anti-Flash campaign as a rare error. Blocking Flash from the iPad and iPhone cuts off content, Guy said, adding in his latest post that “Jobs is trying to string-up Adobe, and in the end might make Apple look like Il Duce on his last day.”

The latest rattling of cyber sabers comes from Apple and Adobe, with Apple’s insistence that Adobe Flash be banished from Jobs’ walled garden of iEverything.  Certain slurs have been sounded, including an odd instance by Jobs proclaiming that Adobe Flash was bug ridden. (Jobs is obviously not a Windows user, for he does not know the true meaning of “buggy.”)

Such bogus blusters are convenient covers for real issues. Flash currently commands a huge share of the Rich Internet Application market by virtual of antediluvian virtualization.  Long ago, Flash did what people wanted, which was to add value to surfing the Web while eliminating cross platform/browser/religious sectarianism.  Want to watch videos of cute kittens or suicidal teenagers on motorcycles, or listen to the latest excuse for music coming out of Nashville on the Web, regardless of  whether you are on a PC, Mac, Linux, minis, odd ducks, occasional mainframes, virtual desktops or smart phone?  Adobe Flash made it happen by bundling [the player] for free into everything. Except iPhones and iPads.

[To be accurate, Flash is only bundled long enough to force you to update it via download, to combat the latest malware and virus attacks. Much of the bundled Flash is already out of date by the time a new Windows or Mac system boots up. But Guy continues on eliminating Flash from Apple's most mobile devices.]

Therein lay Apple’s finest error (aside from the Newton).  As any performer will attest, you give the audience what they want. Putting Snoop Dogg on stage at a cotillion is an error.  So is creating an information/media device that does not deliver information/media.  Since so much of the world’s content is and will for the foreseeable future remain in Flash, and since Adobe is not sitting still in extending Flash for ever better uses, banning it from hardware is inane.  It goes directly against what the audience (market) wants and thus gives them the motivation to consider alternate venues.

First, the Apple devices deliver information and media. Plenty, just not that written to run on Flash Player. To the resulting consideration of alternate venues, I say, “So what? Assume that happens — then what?” So then I’m buying an HP Slate to run Flash? “So much of the world’s content is and will for the foreseeable future remain in Flash,” that’s a real longshot. The key to track the Flash future is the phrase from above, “Long ago, Flash did what people wanted.” Long ago, people watched cable TV for the latest news, too. And Seinfeld. And modems that winked up when you got connected to the Internet.

I disagree with Guy about the iPad’s need for Flash, in part because between the two of us only I own an iPad, and so and have the same 10 days of experience as every other owner. (Perhaps not exactly the same experience; I didn’t buy the $49.95 OmniGraffle app for it [think Windows' Visio planning]. On the other hand, I wrote most of my reply to Guy off an Apple Keyboard Dock, and plenty of people are still waiting for that marvel.) I haven’t missed Flash more than a handful of times out of hundreds of media and content deliveries.

I told Guy he simply needed to see the iPad in action to observe how a Flash-less experience means less than you’d think to business content today — and perhaps little to nothing once content providers adapt to millions of iPads joining the 85 million iPhones and iPod Touches out there. The only difference is that Apple has decided to make a stand against Flash now, after selling 85 million devices that don’t use it.
Read the rest of this entry »

In a move that looks to be all about boosting first month shipping numbers, Apple has announced it will accept a trade-in of three iPod Touches to get a new iPad.

The trades can only be executed at an Apple Retail Store, the company said in an e-mail to the millions of iPod Touch owners who’ve registered the devices. “Since the tech media has announced that the iPad is simply a large iPod Touch, we’re embracing the comparison,” said marketing VP Phillip Schiller. “We’re Apple and can set the rules for our own products. It’s important for the iPad to succeed.”

The 3:1 ratio is thought to represent the aggregate screen size of three of the Touch devices. Many have begun to experience battery fatigue, according to analyst Rob Enderle. The tech expert lauded Apple on its admission that the iPad batteries might disappoint early adopters, and so would accept three older devices to spread its newest product into the market.

The exchange terms identify a special 8AM to 9AM Swap Hour at the retail outlets in the US. Owners who’ve gathered up three Touches will be admitted to the front of the lines expected to form on Saturday for the first day’s delivery of the iPad.

Companies may be thinking of Apple’s new iPad as a business tool, because Apple’s tool box has run dry for about two unexpected days this month. Orders placed for the revolutionary tablet are now promised to ship by April 12; orders placed by March 27 are set to arrive on the original April 3 date.

That a unseen device which starts at $499 blew out its initial run in two weeks of sales is a sure sign that small business owners are investing in the new mobile form factor. Apple may have engineered the size of its first run to ensure a sellout before first delivery. Whatever the reason, e-mail notices arrived this morning that first shipments have left Apple’s plants to arrive by April 3.

We ordered our first iPad for Bites HQ on Friday, dropping into the Apple online store to plunk down a $499 pre-order for a WiFi model with 16GB of memory. It was the minimal investment to get a business tool in our hands — and see what it might be worth.

It’s a beloved bromide that you shouldn’t buy a 1.0 version of anything computing-related. Some say that you’re only helping the manufacturer iron out the bugs in such an early version of a product. Apple has fired a warning shot across the bow of us eager sailors, cresting into the uncharted iPad waters. If your iPad develops a charging problem, the vendor advises, it will only be $99 to replace the battery. Yeah, an extra $99, plus tax and the pain of parting with your new tool. Apple will give you a refurbished model as a replacement, so you need to have dumped your data into your Mac before the pokey iPad goes into the post.

Us early adopters take such arrows in the back as an expected part of being the first on our block. Apple enjoyed a healthy 1.0 release of the iPod (I owned mine within the first month in 2001), while the iPhone was much better on second and third releases than the $599 rollout model. (We added ours last year, about two years after the intro.) But we invested in the 1.0 iPad because it might move the needle a lot for quick computing, the kind that a small business needs to keep up with a jammed to-do list. That’s an experience we want to share first-hand, instead of repeat from others.

One of our allies, Bruce Hobbs of Engineered Software, is developing iPad applications after decades serving the HP enterprise business community. Hobbs is enlisting other software writers with experience in COBOL, a bedrock business language, to create something new for the iPad.

I’ve been reading books about and working through tutorials on Objective-C, Xcode, Interface Builder and iPhone and Mac OS X development. Michael Watson and I took a two-day iPhone development course back in November. I’ve also been attempting, with limited success, to lure a couple of other HP 3000 COBOL developers into a joint effort. Not sure yet exactly what we’ll put together, but I’m still hoping to have something in the App Store before Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference. Read the rest of this entry »