Lab49 begins development of iPhone products
Posted by Dennis SellersLab49, a technology consulting firm that builds solutions for the financial services industry, has begun developing applications for the iPhone 2.0 platform for buy-side and sell-side financial institutions.
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Will Google's Android Play DOS to Apple's iPhone?
Daniel Eran Dilger Today's broad array of smartphone operating system contenders are offering lots of potential answers to a problem that only requires one. It appears the market has two options ahead: either pool generic hardware makers behind a single operating system and deliver a smartphone marketplace that resembles the Windows PC market, or watch them fall to a dominant leader and have a smartphone market that resembles Apple's iPod ecosystem. This decision isn't going to be made by a class of intellectual elite, or by government mandate. it's going to be made by the market itself. Here are the factors that will influence the outcome, either marginalizing Apple's iPhone into a niche as the company has twice experienced previously at the hands of DOS in 1981 and Windows in 1991, or positioning it as the dominant leader as Apple has achieved for itself with the iPod since 2001. The third segment in this series looks at Google's Android and the Open Handset Alliance as a possible “DOS-attack” against Apple's iPhone. Subsequent segments will look at Nokia's newly opened Symbian and other mobile contenders challenging the iPhone. Will the iPhone Meet its Match from a Modern Day DOS? Will Windows Mobile Play DOS to Apple’s iPhone? Will Google's Android Play DOS to Apple's iPhone? Will Symbian Play DOS to Apple's iPhone? Google Acquires Android. In 2005, Google purchased a startup named Android, which had been in business for nearly two years. The secretive startup was known only to be working on software for mobile phones. It was being run by a who's who of mobile industry veterans, including Andy Rubin, the founder of Danger. Rubin had earlier worked at WebTV along with Chris White and Andy McFadden, both of whom had also joined Android. Richard Miner of Orange and Nick Sears of Tmobile also brought their mobile provider experience to Android. At the time of the acquisition, Google didn't announce any plans for Android and instead only told BusinessWeek, “We acquired Android because of the talented engineers and great technology. We're thrilled to have them here.” It appeared that Google was only going to be expanding its search services for mobile phone users, along the lines of the Google SMS answer system it had recently released. Google Buys Android for Its Mobile Arsenal - BusinessWeek Windows XP Media Center Edition vs Apple TV: The Fall of WebTV The GPhone Myth. As reports began to leak out about talks between Google and hardware makers throughout 2007, rumors began to fly about “the GPhone,” a competitive offering that was supposed to take on the iPhone. Some phone enthusiasts hoped Google would jump in to rescue the struggling OpenMoko project and turn it into a viable project that could attack Apple's new smartphone. In October 2007, I printed the Great Google GPhone Myth, taking apart the idea that Google would be directly competing against the iPhone, and describing that Google was really working on a free alternative to Windows Mobile as a conduit for getting its search and related services on a broader variety of mobiles. Google's services were already on the iPhone. In November, Google played its hand: it had organized a consortium of companies called the Open Handset Alliance to develop open standards for mobiles. The first product from the group would be Android, a mobile operating system built on the Linux kernel. Google wasn't getting into the phone handset business at all; it was only making sure that its mobile search products would not risk being marginalized by the threat of Windows Mobile on phones in the same way Microsoft had been working to leverage its PC monopoly to push Google search off the Windows desktop. The Great Google gPhone Myth Introducing Android: Leader of Linux. Two weeks later, Google released an early version of the Android software. On top of a Linux kernel, Android uses a specialized version of a Java Virtual Machine that takes Java language code and turns it into what Google calls “Dalvik bytecode” rather than Java bytecode as a standard JVM would. This allows Google to leverage existing and familiar Java language tools without paying Sun for a Java license. Like Mac OS X and its fraternal iPhone OS, Android includes a variety of open source libraries, including SQLite and WebKit. On top of that, Google developed a series of frameworks that handle the tasks Cocoa Touch does on the iPhone. Android also bundles a set of applications. While Apple adapted its existing Mac OS X to work in a mobile environment to create the iPhone OS, Android is more like a customized Java environment running on a specialized mobile Linux variant: elements of maturity in an otherwise experimental new platform. What is Android? -Google Android was by no means the first mobile OS using Linux. Both Palm and its amputated ACCESS software arm have Linux-based mobile platforms. Nokia has Maemo, which it uses in its Internet Tablets, and also recently acquired Trolltech and its Qtopia mobile Linux platform. Motorola has teamed up with MontaVista Software to use its Mobilinux. Intel created the Moblin project for mobile Linux, aimed at Internet devices. Google's OHA also isn't the first consortium to attempt to standardize a mobile Linux platform. The OSDL started the Mobile Linux Initiative to define requirements for hardware; the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum (CELF) then worked to define various phone profiles aimed at the Japanese market; the Linux Phone Standard (LiPS) Forum tried to do the same thing in Europe. In 2007, LiPS was folded into the new LiMo Foundation, along with the OSDL. All of these committees have had some overlap and some complementary features. Several of Google's OHA partners are also LiMo members, including NTT DoCoMo, Wind River, and Motorola. So why didn't Google just join LiMo? “LiMo, very candidly, wasn't moving fast enough,” OHA board member John Bruggeman told CNET. Google hopes to herd the Linux cats into a progressive, structured platform that can battle against Symbian and Windows Mobile to succeed as the new DOS of smartphones. Will Google fracture or unify mobile Linux? The Presumption of the Necessity of DOS. The previous segment examining Windows Mobile pointed out how the PC industry as a whole assumed that Microsoft's desktop Windows monopoly would easily take over dominance in the MP3 player market, pushing Apple into a niche position. This was expected because DOS had pushed Apple's early computers into a reduced role starting in 1981, and Microsoft had repeated this again in 1991 when the DOS world migrated to Windows, effectively pruning Apple's Macintosh into a Bonsai platform. The inability of one company to dominate any product category has been frequently repeated by PC industry pundits as a given, despite the fact that history is full of examples of this happening. Sony dominated personal music players for two decades under the Walkman brand even while equally large competitors tried to push it from this position; Nintendo has similarly owned handheld gaming despite ill-fated efforts to grab a piece of its pie by products running a generic platform such as Microsoft's WinCE (Gizmondo), Linux (GP32), and Symbian (N-Gage). In fact, outside of the Windows/DOS PC, there are actually few examples of a generic platform taking over an industry. Nearly every other consumer-facing product uses proprietary platforms: car makers, stereo equipment, appliances and so on typically all use designs custom to their maker. The paradox of the Windows PC market has been that Microsoft's broadly licensed software supposedly saves hardware makers from investing in software development while ensuring compatibility, when in reality it adds significant costs to PC makers while limiting their ability to differentiate themselves. That explains why PC makers have been perpetually merging together and going out of business while Microosft has rolled in money over the last two decades. Parallel efforts to copy Microsoft in broadly licensing an operating system have regularly failed: IBM's OS/2, Apple's Mac OS, Palm's PDA OS, even Microsoft's own efforts to duplicate Windows dominance in other markets, from copy machines to PDAs to smartphones to SPOT watches to music players. The closest copy may be Symbian, but its customers are partners, not simply consumers of a generic third party's operating system as Windows licensees are. That indicates it is not necessary to duplicate the dominance exercised by Microsoft over the PC industry in the smartphone market. Google's Android and Symbian exist more as technology sharing pacts among manufacturers, but both aspire to take Microsoft's DOS role among smartphones. However, the idea that Apple's iPhone must be dethroned by a modern-day DOS, whether Windows Mobile, Android, or Symbian, is not just debatable, but does not sync with the reality of more recent events. Apple's recent history of the iPod further refutes the idea that a software analog to Microsoft is needed. The iPod Emergence: Apple & Pixo vs IBM & Microsoft. Apple's iPod in 2001 made no effort to clone the DOS business model; it actually did the opposite. When Apple entered the market, there were a number of existing MP3 devices using custom software, hardware designs, and DRM codecs. The iPod used off the shelf components to deliver a custom MP3 player using third party software, but Apple also added its own technologies: easy to use sync with iTunes, a fast Firewire interface that made uploading music far faster than the prevailing USB 1.0, and an attractive industrial design. With the iPod, Apple played the role of IBM in 1981, using Pixo's embedded operating system to enter the market quickly, just as IBM had used DOS. The difference was that Apple didn't direct any market attention toward Pixo and added a lot of value on top of that core embedded OS. A modern day Compaq couldn't simply clone the hardware and license Pixo to run on it in order to compete against the iPod, because the iPod was much more than just generic hardware running Pixo software. As the iPod developed, Pixo's role diminished and was eventually displaced. Just like IBM, Apple jumped into a new market just as demand was beginning to explode. Apple made MP3 players far more attractive to a general audience by delivering greater playback capacity than most entry level devices offered, along with an ease of use that encouraged buyers to jump in at the higher end of the market. That left Apple with not only the lion's share of the market, but also by far the most profitable segments of the market. Two decades prior, IBM badly fumbled its play with the early PC and ended up irrelevant in the PC world by the late 80s, sideswiped by Microsoft's DOS and the cloners who were licensing it in parallel, notably Compaq and later HP and Dell. Steve Jobs had witnessed that happen, and was determined to not let it happen again to Apple. Rather than being manipulated by a software middleware vendor as IBM had, Apple worked to incrementally develop the iPod market itself. After consuming the hard drive-based player market, Apple took on the Flash RAM-based market with a tiny hard drive system used in the iPod Mini, and followed up with Flash-based devices of its own in the Nano and Shuffle. This allowed Apple to progressively serve an increasingly wider market, incrementally growing upon an established foundation. With the iPod, Apple became, in effect, an IBM with its own internal Microsoft. Microsoft's Failure Despite Features. In contrast, Microsoft entered the music player market by promoting music player hardware reference designs around WinCE. However, it was unable to ship a finished design until the iPod had become firmly established around 2005. Later branded as PlaysForSure, the devices were sold by various hardware makers and all purported to support the same DRM and the same music subscription services while also offering a broader array of hardware that presented video before the iPod did, supported wireless before the iPod, and so on. Despite these unique features, all of those PFS designs still failed. Microsoft blamed the failure of PFS upon its music store and hardware partners and decided to take Apple on itself in 2006. It relaunched a Toshiba PFS player as its own device under the Zune brand, adding WiFi music sharing features and a larger display than the current Pods had. It failed dramatically as well. Did Microsoft's attempts to float a new DOS among music players fail because of Apple's success, or due to Microsoft's own problems? The failure of the Zune, which followed the iPod model rather than the DOS model, seems to suggest that Microsoft itself was to blame. Consider too that Microsoft's Windows Mobile phones, which use the same underlying operating system as its failed PlaysForSure music players and the Zune, had similarly flopped even before Apple could release a charismatic phone equivalent to the iPod. Of course, when the iPhone was released, it hit Windows Mobile hardest. The iPhone made Windows Mobile Smartphones look ridiculous and underpowered, and made Windows Mobile Pocket PC phones look clumsy and awkward, despite the fact that they both supported a variety of features the iPhone didn't, including the ability to edit documents, capture video, send MMS, and so on. Simply adding on features did not enable Microsoft to compete against Apple. The only conclusion that can be drawn from all this is that competing against Apple requires more than just having a feature arsenal. Microsoft's failures in themselves do not necessarily mean that Google's Android will fail in its attempts to float its own smartphone platform. Why Microsoft’s Zune is Still Failing Microsoft’s Zune, Vista, and Windows Mobile 7 Strategy vs the iPhone Will Google Succeed where Microsoft Failed? Microsoft's demonstrated inability to successfully enter consumer markets for MP3 players and smartphones has given observers little faith that the company will somehow turn things around in late 2009 when its next generation of devices are expected to be released. However, prior to that the first fruits of Google's efforts to build its own smartphone operating environment will arrive. Will Google's Android take over Microsoft's crown as the “DOS vendor” among smartphones? Supporters of Google's Android project point to some parallels between Android for smartphones and Windows on the PC: Android will allow hardware makers to differentiate in ways that can offer features Apple can't (or doesn't want to); it should allow software developers to offer features Apple does not allow on the iPhone; it embraces open, hobbyist experimentation in ways that Apple currently isn't; and it opens the potential for content providers that Apple is not interested in allowing. Openness is Android's key competitive feature. Will all this openness allow Google to unseat the iPhone to become the primary platform developers want to participate in, and subsequently soak up the market for third party hardware makers that Windows Mobile serves? While Google currently has no market share due to the fact that no Android phones have yet shipped, it does have broad vocal support from a variety of the same kinds of hardware manufacturers that supported DOS and Windows and helped to make those platforms successful in the desktop PC market. HTC and Android. The first Android phone is expected to be the HTC Dream; Taiwan's HTC (High Tech Computer) also manufactures Palm's Treo Pro phone as well as many of the most visible Windows Mobile devices. In addition to models produced under its own name, HTC also sells Windows Mobile devices under the Dopod brand, as well as no-name phones branded by providers, such as AT&T, Orange, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Vodafone, and others. HTC will also be building the XPERIA X1 Windows Mobile phone for Sony Ericsson. HTC was quick to throw its support behind Android despite its long term alliance with Windows Mobile. Why would it so enthusiastically support an unproven platform from a company that has no experience in consumer hardware platforms? One can only assume that HTC is not happy with the current state of Windows Mobile, and desperately wants another “DOS” to succeed where Microsoft's has so spectacularly failed. As an Original Design Manufacturer for Palm, HTC watched as Palm adopted Windows Mobile in place of the Palm OS and subsequently fell even deeper into crisis. Palm's only successful phone since has been its Palm OS-based Centro. HTC undoubtedly sees Android as its ticket to becoming the next Dell, but without a similar dependance upon Microsoft. Android for mobile phones is essentially playing the role of Linux for PCs, except that it has the backing of a major company behind it. Can Android Take on the iPhone with Openness as its Feature? As great as this sounds, it's important to consider that Linux on the desktop has made no significant progress in eating into Windows dominance after a decade of trying. Being open, free, flexible, and decentralized hasn't been enough of an advantage to get consumers to migrate from Windows to Linux in any fraction of significance. Similarly, in the music business, Linux-based MP3 players have had no impact on the iPod, despite offering more features, flexibility, support for additional codecs, and so on. In the mobile phone area, Linux enjoys a sizable portion of the smartphone market, but this is almost entirely due to phones sold by Motorola in China, where the advantages of Linux' openness are void. Motorola's Linux phones offer nothing to users in terms of openness or flexibility, and are really no different in terms of features than other appliance 'feature phones' based upon closed operating systems. And again, a key problem with assaulting Apple in a feature war is that neither the iPod nor the iPhone became popular by being “highly featured.” They both delivered perhaps 80% of the functionality found in all other devices in the market. Rather than trying to match every feature and cater to every niche as Microsoft had with Windows Mobile, Apple's devices did a few things very well at launch, and incrementally developed into full featured devices that still lack some of the more unique features of their competitors. Further, in terms of openness, the demographic that embraces Linux' characteristic freedoms is not the same as the demographic that buys smartphones in quantity and then pays for data service. This is a critical fact to consider because a big part of the iPhone's success stems from the fact that it is being pushed by mobile providers who want to capture the cream of the market willing to pay a premium for data services. The Frankenphone. Combining the fractured aesthetic of HTC's Windows Mobile phone hardware with Android's software, based upon Linux' perpetually unfinished DIY openness and Google's Java-like development platform, will not result in a product similar to the iPhone. Instead, it will look a lot like phones that have already failed in the market. Apple's advantage comes from slick hardware designs with a close attention to detail, combined with software that purposely does less so that it can do what it does better. Even Apple's own conservative attempts to broaden its software capabilities with iPhone 2.0 have resulted in instability problems that can be blamed upon both Apple's early releases of its phone operating system and software from inexperienced third party developers new to the platform. Would the current frustrations with iPhone 2.0 be somehow mitigated by additional openness that also embraced all kinds of variables from different hardware makers with less quality control than Apple, a loose committee of additional cooks working to serve up operating system features targeted at every possible conceived need, and a wider third party software group with fewer constraints on illegal behaviors? The Failure of Open. While it is politically unpopular to criticize the well meaning efforts of open source contributors, the failure of Linux on the desktop, the failure of the vaporware Indrema game console, and the failure of the OpenMoko project to deliver a workable phone within a year of its deadline all underline the serious problems open development faces in the world of consumer oriented devices. Open has simply failed to deliver on its promises in the world of consumer hardware. OpenMoko was supposed to release its first mobile phone to consumers for $250 several months in advance of the iPhone. When the iPhone shipped, the group then announced new plans to get its phone out by the end of 2007. Instead, this spring the group announced new plans to move to an entirely different development platform, and ship its phone mid year for $400 with limited functionality and incomplete software outside of basic GSM phone features. Linux's notable successes, from Motorola's Linux phones to the Tivo DVR to Linksys Routers, have often come without any associated openness or freedom, and were instead delivered simply to provide their manufacturer with a free kernel to build upon. This indicates that while Linux may find its way into an increasing number of smartphones, it will likely not be accompanied by the glorious freedom of an open development environment Google has said it would offer with Android. Apple iPhone vs the FIC Neo1973 OpenMoko Linux Smartphone Can Google Succeed Where Open Has Previously Failed? Despite “openness” being Android's strongest competitive feature compared to Apple's iPhone, Google recently revealed that its wide-open development model is intentionally gravitating towards a closed association of top tier partners due to practical considerations. In July, Google accidentally sent out a notice that revealed that it had been seeding private SDK updates to only a subset of its contributors, angering those who believed that Android would be as open as Linux on the desktop or the OpenMoko project. Further, Google has restricted initial development to higher level APIs just as Apple did, further indicating that Google itself realizes that being wildly open to impress a minority of hobbyists will not result in the commercial success of its new platform. That serves to neuter Android's primary advantage over the iPhone. Without delivering on the premise of being wide open, Android is really just a less mature set of Java libraries used to create a specialized binary that runs on a Linux foundation. Unlike Apple's iPhone, Android phones won't have a slick user interface developed by professional artists, nor the iPhone's legacy of mature software development frameworks crafted over the last thirty years, nor the iPhone's tightly integrated hardware with award winning industrial design, nor its marketing power tied into the iPod and Apple's retail stores. Android won't be an open iPhone, it will only be a Windows Mobile phone with a better kernel that runs specialized Java software instead of Win32 or .NET code. Don't expect consumers to be impressed by that. The Biggest Missing Feature. There is one remaining factor that strangles to death any last remaining hope that Android might assassinate the iPhone and assume the crown of the “DOS of smartphones.” That is: Android delivers zero price advantage to consumers. In 1981 and 1991, consumers who wanted Apple computers faced the sticker shock of a somewhat arrogant price tag. Apple sold its computers, as it still does, at the higher end of the market, but there was simply far more range in prices available. In 1981, that meant the Apple II was $2600 and the new Apple III was $3500, even before you added a monitor. On the low end, Commodore sold its far less powerful, but “still a computer” Vic-20 for $300, while IBM entered the market with the IBM PC at $3000. Over the next few years, Apple focused on delivering additional sophistication at the same price, releasing the $10,000 Lisa and then the $2,500 Macintosh. IBM continued selling PCs in the same $3,000 to $10,000 range, but other DOS PC vendors began selling machines at prices that ranged as low as $1500. That left Apple with a roughly $1000 price premium over low end PCs. The products weren't really comparable, but consumers only saw the huge price difference. In 1991, Apple was still selling moderate to high-end Macintoshes for $3,800 to $10,000; the crippled Mac LC was $2500, and obsolete-at-birth Mac Classic ranged from $999 to $1500. Windows allowed PC makers to ship a functional $1500 PC and claim a rough approximation to Apple's $2500 entry level system, maintaining that apparent $1000 price premium. Today, pundits are lucky to find a Dell or HP system that is even a couple hundred dollars less than a comparable Mac. However, in the smartphone business, the iPhone 3G is now the same price, if not less, than generic competing phones on the market. Even more significant is the fact that the price of the phone hardware is nearly nothing compared to the cost of the service plan. This fact simply eases any price premium that could cause buyers to flock to a smartphone running a generic operating system over buying the iPhone 3G, regardless of whether it runs Windows Mobile or Android. 1990-1995: Planting Software Seeds Android Partners Have Already Failed. That same pricing principle similarly prevented buyers from considering many of the alternatives to the iPod. While Apple's original iPod models were more expensive than many of the first MP3 players on the market, they were price competitive with models offering similar features. By 2004, it was Apple who was undercutting MP3 competitors on price. Microsoft offered zero price advantage when it began selling the Zune, a major factor in its failure, but Microsoft simply couldn't out-price the iPod; it was already losing money offering the Zune at the same price as the iPod. Apple now has tremendous market power in buying RAM and other components that will prevent any competitors from being able to offer a huge discount over the iPhone's $199 price tag. Even if competitors were to give their phones away, they would only offer a $200 discount to users who would then still need to pay the same mobile fees to use the phone. Android's other partners, including Samsung and LG, have already failed to capture any significant market share in the music player market. Are they going to maintain their position as smartphone makers now that they face similar competition from Apple, its iPod ecosystem, its iTunes Music and Apps Store, Apple's retail store experience, and other factors that are pushing the iPhone? If they can, it is not obvious how partnering with Android will help. Other Problems for Android. Android was announced in early November 2007 and was followed with an early preview SDK within a couple weeks, a month ahead of Apple's initial announcement of the iPhone 2.0 SDK. However, between March and July 2008, Apple delivered nine progressive releases of its SDK, opened its App Store, and sold 60 million apps, raising $30 million to support iPhone software development in just the first month. It has since released three more SDK updates to developers related to iPhone 2.1, which is expected next month. Android just published its first open SDK beta update earlier this week, warning developers that “applications developed with it may not quite be compatible with devices running the final Android 1.0.” Additionally, Android still has no phones available. By the time the HTC Dream is expected to launch, Apple will have an installed base of around ten million iPhone (and iPod touch) users supporting software development through iTunes. The business model for selling Android apps is no better than that for selling jailbreak iPhone apps: there is no iTunes Apps Store to promote them, so users will have to track them down on their own. Android developers also have no real freedom that jailbreak iPhone developers lack. The only difference is that there are ten million iPhones to sell jailbreak apps to, and currently zero Android phones. If selling a jailbreak iPhone app sounds like more trouble than its worth, imagine trying to sell Android apps to a non-existant audience. Now add the official iPhone App Store into the mix, where publicity, promotion and profits are booming. What platform is going to have the most applications? How many users will flock to a smartphone platform with no apps? The wisdom of releasing a desirable phone and achieving a significant installed base before releasing an SDK makes a lot more sense in retrospect. Additionally, while Apple has a decade of experience in shipping regular updates to Mac OS X and its Xcode developer tools, Google has only shipped a random assortment of web-oriented SDKs (a number of which have been abandoned) as a tangent to its core business of selling advertisements. When the Android SDK 1.0 is finished later this year, developers will not only lack an installed base to sell their apps to, but will also have no high profile market for selling their apps in, and subsequently no financial incentive to develop applications that add value to the Android platform, just like Linux on the PC desktop. Around the same time, possibly within the next month, Apple will be shipping its second major OS release: iPhone 2.1. Apple will also be upgrading its entire user base to the new software so that developers will have a cohesive platform to target. This mirrors the efforts Apple has taken to upgrade its Mac OS X users to the same reference release. Mobile developers will be seeing money pouring in via iTunes while crickets chirp in the Android section of various mobile online stores. Apple’s iPhone Vs. Other Mobile Hardware Makers: 5 Revenue Engines Same Same, But Different: DOS Model Problems. Android developers will also have a series of other problems to manage. Like Windows Mobile, Android is intended to support everything, from BlackBerry-style keypad phones with a small touchscreen to the simple Windows Mobile Smartphone form factor lacking a touch screen to iPhone-like full size touch screens. Also like Windows Mobile, Android phone makers will have the option to leave off Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS location services, graphics hardware acceleration, and so on. Each Android phone will also have unique camera hardware, support for different video and audio codecs, and varied support for other differentiating proprietary services demanded by mobile operators. This will force developers to to make complex decisions regarding the lowest common denominator they choose to support. So while the iPhone will have a cohesive feature set, a managed software environment, and a functional market, Android will be a loose federation of hardware makers selling the same random features found on Windows Mobile today, with a chaotic development environment that lacks any central market for users or developers. And it will be run as an experiment by a company with no experience in consumer hardware or platform development. The Missing Tap. One specific example of the “DOS model problem” is that Android currently does not support multitouch. It's not touched on in the API, and Google quietly tap dances around its omission. Why no multitouch? Because multitouch screens are expensive, and most OHA hardware members are more interested in making a profit in a competitive phone market rather than impressing consumers as Apple did with the iPhone. Most existing smartphones, even those trying to directly rival the iPhone, use a stylus driven, pressure sensitive tap screen or a simpler, cheaper touch technology that lacks support for sensing multitouch. The iPhone's screen can actually sense up to five fingers at once, but the primary feature multitouch offers on the iPhone is the two fingered tapping and the pinching effects everyone associates with it. Android could certainly support multitouch if there were a demand for it, but that's the point: Google knows that its hardware partners are cheap and unlikely to put out hardware that actually competes with the iPhone. Instead of using expensive technologies that deliver clever yet largely invisible functionality, OHA members, just like PC makers, are far more likely to add flashy, impractical gadgety fluff that's cheap to tack on, such as slide out keyboards, neon tubes, and scratch and sniff stickers. That's how you impress gullible nerds on the cheap. Google itself is blowing smoke and erecting mirrors to distract from the reality that it being a “DOS vendor” means supporting bargain basement hardware from penny pinching duplicators. Android has been demonstrating some “wow” features such as a Street Maps app that pans around based on an internal compass in the demonstration phone. The problem is that that kind of thing only makes for a fun demo. Nobody needs to twirl around their phone in the air to see a view of the other side of the street, but everyone who has used an iPhone will wonder why they can't pinch to zoom out. Even worse, most Android phones aren't going to have a compass built into them, so Google is demonstrating features most Android users won't be able to use. That Sounds Like Microsoft… Google's design decisions are beginning to look a lot like Windows Vista; rather than actually working to make laptops boot faster, Microsoft came up with the idea of adding a small screen to the back of Vista laptops so users could check their email without having to wake the system up. But this was a stupid idea for a number of reasons, the most obvious being that most users just want a laptop that boots up quickly. Few laptops got the mini screen, but every user who tries Vista on their laptop will wonder why it doesn't boot up as fast as Mac OS X Leopard. In the same way, Google is advertising features for Android that most users won't ever see in their actual phones while ignoring things people will expect based on their exposure to the iPhone. Android is simply selecting the wrong features. Android will offer the advantages of supporting MMS, recording video, and the list of other features Windows Mobile already supplies. Those features didn't stop Apple from firing past Microsoft in the smartphone arena however, just as the Zune's highly touted WiFi and screen didn't phase iPod buyers. Incidentally, just months after the Zune, Apple had not only demonstrated a larger display but a higher definition multitouch screen, and not only WiFi, but functional WiFi that could be used to browse the web or check email. This suggests that Apple, with its faster release schedule, won't stay behind any of the leading features potentially offered by Android for very long. Android partners, however, will find it as difficult to catch up with Apple's unique features, just as Microsoft has been stymied to keep up with Mac OS X, the iPod, and the iPhone. The underlying reason: both Google and Microosft are tasked with maintaing support for a huge variety of hardware options demanded by all their partners. Apple has the unique circumstances to do only what it needs to do itself. Android in Windows Mobile's Shoes. Like Windows Mobile, Android faces a difficult market. In the US, it competes against the popular BlackBerry in corporate markets and the iPhone among consumers. Worldwide, it competes against entrenched market leader Nokia. The difference is that Google, unlike Microsoft, has no in. Windows Mobile was adopted by Windows-bound IT shops despite its weaknesses. Nobody has any preexisting reason to try an Android phone apart from hobbyists and open software enthusiasts, a demographic that has done little to move Linux on the PC desktop. Google also lacks Microsoft's installed base; it's starting from zero. The smartphone industry initially doubted Apple's chances of making much progress with the iPhone, despite the company having the Mac platform, the iPod, retail stores, platform development experience, marketing savvy, industrial design prowess, and so on. Google doesn't have any of those things. Mobile Providers vs Android. Apple also started with an exclusive partnership with AT&T, a three legged race that demanded effort from both. Google is hoping that hardware makers handle the hardware details and that mobile providers will be excited to sell its Android phones. While hardware makers such as HTC clearly appreciate having found a free alternative to Windows Mobile, it's not obvious why providers would be excited about Android, as it promises an openness that most mobile providers strongly oppose. AT&T took a big risk in getting behind the iPhone, as the phone encouraged users to use email rather than fee-based SMS and MMS, it supported WiFi for data access, and it bypassed AT&T's MEdia Net services to plug into iTunes instead. Verizon refused to parter with Apple and grant it those kinds of concessions. Is AT&T going to take a similar risk to partner with a phone that is not exclusive to it, and is Verizon now going to open its arms to support phones that do not exclusively support BREW, VCast and its other proprietary services? While Android may well eat into Microsoft's Windows Mobile business by stealing away its hardware makers, it seems unlikely that Android will ever serve as more than free alternative to Windows Mobile in a market where Windows Mobile is increasingly irrelevant. Android may have the dubious distinction of swallowing Microsoft's mobile business the same way Microsoft ate up the Palm OS, but even if it accomplishes that goal, Google will likely find itself unsustainably hungry immediately afterward. It will also find itself swimming in a shark tank of hungry rivals, including Nokia's Symbian, RIM's BlackBerry, and Apple's iPhone. Symbian is the final generic platform vying for the opportunity to play DOS in the smartphone market. The next article will examine Nokia's chances in its bid to match Microsoft's PC dominance in the mobile market while setting out in a new venture to copy Android's open software model. Did you like this article? Let me know. Comment here, in the Forum, or email me with your ideas. Like reading RoughlyDrafted? Share articles with your friends, link from your blog, and subscribe to my podcast (oh wait, I have to fix that first). It's also cool to submit my articles to Digg, Reddit, or Slashdot where more people will see them. Consider making a small donation supporting this site. Thanks!
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10 Years After Y2K -- Stories From the IT Battlegrounds
"This really could have screwed up our lives, and you know, a whole bunch of little geeks saved us." - Paul Saffo. Director of the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park, California, in an interview with American RadioWorks It was a fear fest of epic proportions. Magazine headlines predicted that the end of the world would shortly befall us. They told harrowing tales of feral computer systems going awry the minute the clock struck midnight on January 1st, 2000--planes would fall from the sky, power grids would fail, the global economy would crash, nuclear power plants would go into meltdown mode, lines of communication would be cut, and the contents of bank accounts would vanish."I cannot be optimistic...It's clear we can't solve the whole problem, so we have to allow some systems to die so mission-critical systems can work... Pay attention to the things that are vulnerable in your life and make contingency plans.... Don't panic, but don't spend too much time sleeping, either." - Senator Robert Bennett, then-Chairman of the Senate's Special Committee on the Year 2000 Problem, Y2K Citizens Action GuideThe cause of all this excitement was the purported Y2K bug. In response to dealing with computers that were about as capable as the iPhone, programmers prided themselves on being thrifty with their code to ensure it didn’t stress memory or capacity. One way to do this was to skip putting a “19” in front of the year and use only the last two numerals. And why not? These programs would be long retired by the time 2000 rolled around. However, not only were many expired programs, operating systems, and applications still chugging away as 2000 crept around the corner, they were also running critical systems like power grids, government agencies and financial systems, hospitals and airports, elevators and public transportation. And so, the race was on to fix the code before the bug bit. Often the fix was a simple patch, but in some cases, programmers struggled to figure out what little time bombs lurked in ancient and undocumented code. Around the world, attempts to squash the bug are estimated to have cost over $300 billion.Mac users were mostly immune as the system software was programmed to accept dates as far into the future as 29940. Assuming third-party applications didn’t go nuts, Macs would be fine. Apple happily pointed this out by airing a commercial during the 1999 Superbowl featuring the poster boy for naughty computers, Space Odyssey’s HAL.At the time, Apple's "acting chief executive" Steve Jobs had issued a statement saying: "HAL is the perfect spokesperson to address the Y2K issues because he lives in the year 2001 and speaks from experience. Plus, HAL is the foremost expert on things that can go wrong with computers." As the big day drew closer, gas masks, radiation kits, safes and water purification systems were hawked in magazine ads and late night commercials. People even began to horde survival supplies. An October 15, 1998 story in the New York Times shared the results of a poll stating that “10 percent of the nation's top executives are stockpiling canned goods, buying generators and even purchasing handguns.” Ominous quotes from experts seemed to indicate that life as we knew it might cease to exist for awhile."Suddenly, those individuals who have insisted that they will be withdrawing all their cash from the bank before the end of the year do not seem quite so misguided. The prospect of the millennium bug eating your savings may be more than just the nightmare of overactive imaginations. At a meeting in Washington recently, delegates were stunned to hear Henry Kissinger announce that he intended to withdraw all his money from the bank as 2000 nears."- The Times, London, March 20th, 1999But 1/1/2000 arrived and nothing dire happened. Perhaps enough code was fixed in time, perhaps the whole thing was insanely overhyped. Probably both. Even those who were on the frontlines of Y2K lunacy disagree about what might have happened. This is how they remember it.What's All the Fuss About?I'd like you to do me a favor. Get a steaming mug of coffee, herbal tea, or whatever beverage puts you in that relaxed, contemplative mood. Now close your eyes and drift back in time with me to early Spring of the year 1998. William Jefferson Clinton occupies the Oval Office, Dale Earnhardt still dominates NASCAR, Denver dethroned Green Bay in the Super Bowl, the U.S. unemployment rate is 4.3%, and the federal budget is enjoying a rare $70 billion surplus. Life is, all things considered, good. Fade in on a second floor conference room of the John Wesley Powell federal building on Sunrise Valley Drive in Reston, Virginia, headquarters for the U.S. Geological Survey. Around the table sit a half dozen (mostly) somber business casually-dressed technical types. The urgent mission that has brought them together is a discussion of the threat posed by and mitigation strategies for the impending Y2K disaster, looming a scant twenty months into a forbidding future.Speculation has been rampant, even this far from the target date. Voices of doom permeate the airwaves, print, and cyberspace. Aircraft will tumble, willy-nilly, from the skies. Trains will crash headlong into one another at high speed. Satellites will cease to communicate. Bank accounts will be drained. Personal information will be lost forever, or exposed for all to see. Twenty-four times, at the top of every hour, on average a little over 4% of the world's computers will freeze up or begin to spit out random nonsense as midnight processes along its inexorable westward path. The damage, the carnage, the impact on humanity will be horrifying. Society's misguided reliance on doped silicon semiconductors will lead to our downfall. All is lost. Cash in your 401(k) now and spend it all on Friends laserdiscs before Y2K drags us clawing and screaming into the slavering jaws of oblivion.One by one, the grim-faced custodians of the information systems that help guard our nation against a plethora of natural hazards--flood, volcanoes, earthquakes, invasive species, and more--give their candid assessments of the situation. The prognoses are poor. There is no cost-effective way to dodge the Y2K demon. Large-scale models are being created to simulate the event and ameliorate the consequences to whatever degree possible, but no one really knows what will happen on that fateful day. As we go around the table, administrators of the agency's thousands of Windows NT4 and 3.1 machines shake their ashen-countenanced heads at the terrifying uncertainty presented by this technological monster. Finally, it is my turn to report. I’m the Y2K coordinator for the Telecommunications Services Branch of the Office of Program Support at USGS HQI am reading ;Login: magazine and don't hear my name called the first time. They try again, with more stridency. I look up, eyebrows raised questioningly. "Please give the Y2K status for the Telecommunications Services Branch," the facilitator commands. I clear my throat. "We have two Sun 4500 clusters and about 250 Data General AViiON workstations. All of them are running some flavor of UNIX, whose designers intelligently provided the date function 32 bits to work with while Bill Gates was still mucking about in prep school. At 03:14:07 UTC on Tuesday, 19 January 2038, when this issue has some relevance to TSB, I will be long retired and quite possibly dead. I really don't see any good reason to make a fuss over it at this point. End of report."And that, dear children, is how I got excused/banned from all future meetings.Robert G. Ferrell is still an Information Systems Security Professional for the US Government and, ironically, now writes the /dev/random column for ;Login: magazine.A High Stress Non EventI was one of the senior network engineers at Long Beach Memorial hospital in Los Angeles. We had five hospitals in our circle of responsibilities. Long Beach which was the home site, Orange Coast, Anaheim, Saddleback and Miller's Children's Hospital. Plus there were many small offices, labs and remote sites that "kinda of sort of" fell under our roof.There was a very chaotic assortment of very old software and new software with a lot of it falling between the two extremes. One of our oldest applications was the surgery scheduling software which ran on even then "old" Netware 3.1 servers using Btrieve. This was akin to a "made in the garage" application and was not well supported even in the best of times. This was not the best of times.We had new software down in Radiology where they were using high speed networks to digitize and read x-rays etc remotely. Not to mention all the odd appliances like routers, switches, print servers, neonatal data transponders, wireless, security systems and so on. And I'm not even counting all the COBOL applications that had been custom written by long past employees or consultants, DOS, Visual Basic apps, home brew Access Databases and yes, the rogue server or two. Or three…or four.In a word, messy.We spent over a year and a lot of effort trying to identify problem apps and put fixes in place either from the vendors or hacking it ourselves in the case of the unsupported applications. The idea was make this as much of a non-event as we could.When it came time for the actual roll over, all IT staff were required to be on site, not on call, be ON SITE which really tweaked more than a few spouses. In my department, we had our own itty bitty party and we got to see the fireworks from the Queen Mary from a parking structure. Right after 9PM we got a call from a sister facility back east saying one of their business scheduling apps died on the stroke of midnight. We used this same application, as did many other facilities, and we got calls as each time zone rolled over. Since it was a business app, I did not have anything to do with it. I was much more worried about my servers and network hardware. Happily midnight came and went and all my stuff was running fine. There were some instances where the date got jacked up but the firmware still ran even though the log files were nuts insisting it was 1961 or other silly things like that.In the end, Y2K was a high stress non-event for most of the IT staff at all our facilities. Mike Sweeney is now a Network Security Manager at an undisclosed location.Beanie Babies And Tulip Wars(Note: Mac|Life changed two names in the story below to protect the ignorant)Prior to joining True North at the end of 1998 (now InterPublic Group), which is the largest ad agency in the world, I was the CIO of Fallon McElligott, a much smaller ad agency. Fallon's CFO, Mr. X, and I began the "Y2K is like the Tulip Craze of the 1600s" war. My argument was that Y2K was just an end of the millennia mania, much like the Beanie Babies at the current time and the Dutch Tulipmania of 1633. All hype and not much reality. I argued that Beanie Babies were as worthless as the Dutch Tulip bulbs and in the same vein, Y2K would come and go with as many or as little problems as every other year. Mr. X, being a member of the bow-tie wearing, afraid of everything crowd, thought that Y2K would cause everything from elevator stoppages to airplanes falling out of the sky. I remember asking if he was related to Chicken Little. I was summarily let go from Fallon, only to "fail up" to being named the CIO of the world's largest ad agency.There I fell in with a much more enlightened crowd -- at least at the level of Management Executive Committee, or MEC (which was comprised of the CEO, the CEOs of the 14 major holding companies, the CFO, Chief Legal Officer, and myself). When I came on board at True North, the Y2K plan was like any other. We had the requisite letter-to-the vendors campaign (asking what they were doing), review of all software and OS configurations, and review of our Unix mainframe code.Because we were an ad agency, many of the thousands of computers were Macintoshes. No problems there. Many were PCs, and Microsoft was already addressing any patches there. That left outside vendors, physical plants, and our Unix mainframe. A quick call to the mainframe guys told me the one thing I needed to know -- if there was going to be a glitch, they'd catch it the day after, patch it, and we'd be back billing just fine. Besides, if someone doesn't get a bill for a couple of days, it wouldn't kill us.An hour or two of research on my part found that:1. International monetary float would not be affected -- no international financial downside to any Y2K problems2. Nobody would be billing the first few days after the 1st of the year anyway -- no world-wide downside to any Y2K problems3. Our ad system (the system that runs ads on more TVs, print, and radio than you'd ever expect worldwide) was always pre-bought anyway, and I was assured by all TV stations that "every ad would run, even if we have to manually push a button" -- no client problems there, even if Y2K did go crazy.In short, if we could bill, and we could put client product out the door -- who cared what else would happen? Well, that was the logic that the MEC shared with me.Then I started to meet the IT team. Our CTO wannabe, Mr, Z, was convinced, much like Mr. X back at Fallon, that the sky was going to fall down."Microsoft is going to have more holes than Swiss Cheese" he would run around saying. Our EDS contractor thought that his letter campaign would help any liabilities (at $150 an hour on his part). Our security guys thought that someone would find some date-based loophole to break into our systems. Our physical security guys wanted signs on all elevators saying "do not enter on 12/31/99 unless you want to be here for awhile." My own IT-CFO (my budget was in the high tens of millions) thought that every billing system we had would fail. I had found Mr. X’s missing flock of Chicken Littles.To ease everyone's nerves, I promised not to do anything "radical" until we convened my own CIO's council, made up of all of the holding company CIOs and the national CIOs. Over 100 people. We all met in Chicago at the beginning of 1999. Think over 100 Chicken Littles. Squawking in 40 to 50 languages that the sky was going to fall.I couldn't believe it.It took me until June to convince my own IT staff to transfer the EDS $150 per hour letter-writer to the legal side of the house so I could fire him.I had to permanently assign my CTO wannabe to the Unix mainframe programmers (after taking them out for a great Steak and Wine dinner in NYC and promising that I'd make it up to them) so that he could randomly test any code with dates in it. We purposely set up the tests for twice a month because there were really only about a dozen or so places where a date could be entered. We figured that would keep him busy until at least December 15th and they only had to deal with him twice a month.I even had to acquiesce (because of the rabid IT leadership complainers) to sending out an "international testing task force" to review all of the Y2K binders in each country and at each of the major holding companies. A wry note here -- I noticed in the travel bills that no one went to countries like Canada, Mexico, Bolivia, Congo or Ethiopia for testing. Of course the UK, France, Italy, Australia, Japan, Brazil and China; i.e., the "fun" places were visited.In short, I slashed the Y2K budget as much as possible. I would have killed it all had I been given the chance.By August the IT betting pool had me being "canned for short sited Y2K stupidity" at 2-1 odds.By October they upped the odds to 4-1. I took the bet.By November my CTO wannabe was writing "an official memoranda for posterity" and sending it to the head of HR and Legal that I should be canned for "Y2K Ostrich-like behavior". And he had additional signatures. The odds were now 6-1 against my making it to December 1st. However, our security analyst stopped staring at the sky and he convinced our IT CFO (who liked the "savings compared to our peers"), telephony, and physical plant staff to do the same.December 1st rolled around and the CEO and I had dinner on that night just for laughs (and to show support that leadership wasn't falling for any of the complaints). December 15th rolled around and the odds makers were now betting "for" me. I hedged my bet just in case.December 31st I held a party at my house in Chicago for anyone in IT leadership who wanted to attend. My CTO was at our HQ's call center "just in case." At "minutes after midnight" in every country in the world, I would get a phone call saying "all is fine". I told the CEO that by the time it hit Chicago, if I was still sober, I'd call him. About the time the fireworks on Lake Michigan died off, I called the CEO. I was semi-sober. He wasn't even close.When we got back to work I shipped everyone who had complained about my Y2K attitude a little "Clucky the Chicken" Beanie Baby and a Tulip Bulb (paid for by the big payoff on the bet I wouldn't be canned). Most didn't get the joke.Every December when I plant my Tulip bulbs here in California, I can't help but laugh.Dorian J. Cougias is now the founder and Lead Analyst of Network Frontiers and is the co-creator of the Unified Compliance Framework.NEXT: More Stories from IT BattlegroundsTiny Parachutes for SaleWhat really stands out in my mind about Y2K all these years later was the overriding unreasonable expectation of what could happen rather than what actually happened. Starting in about 1998 there were suddenly so many people who knew nothing about programming and next to nothing about technology explaining frantically why the Y2K bug was important and that programmers like myself really needed to pay attention to it. We were aware, thank you. I remember working on Y2K issues in 1981 for a product that was off the market long before 2000.I equated it to being in an airplane in bumpy weather. It’s then you wonder how good the pilot is. If you start screaming, “I wonder if the pilot knows about this” I’ll bet you could sell parachutes (even tiny ones that don’t work will help people overcome the fear you instilled). There was a lot of money made on Y2K, some of it was put to good use.But what everyone missed during the whole Y2K debacle is that your life depends on programmers honesty, intelligence and diligence. Yes, your life. That was true in 1999, it’s still true and everyone still misses the point.Geoffrey Feldman is now a software developer and senior problem solver at Seabase Consulting.We Learned NothingWe were hearing that Y2K was the end of the world, computers would crash, critical systems would fail, planes would fall out of the sky and we’d swiftly devolve to, at best, a pre-industrial age lifestyle. The newspapers were filled with stories about how people were building bomb shelters and stocking up on water and canned goods.And then Y2k happened but there was no meltdown because we fixed the issues beforehand. There were some minor problems around the world, passwords that thought they were expired, programs that figured their licensing period was up -- but no major issues. It made some people wonder if the superbug that they first created and then they fixed was worth all that money. Some people point to it as a problem that didn't exist. It existed, and we did a good job of fixing it. At the time I was dealing with Y2K planning for several years at IBM as a Development Manager and Certified IT Architect, focusing on their products and customers’ systems. IBM was taking Y2K quite seriously as far back as 1995. We had a local conversion center with more than 1,000 professionals working with IBM mainframe systems to solve the customers Y2K problem.I saw many IT executives inflating their budgets, under the umbrella of preparing for Y2K issues. This was the only time that I remember when IT executives were strongly encouraged to spend money. Suddenly there was a way to get the hardware and software you needed or wanted if you used Y2K to justify it. And as anxiety levels ramped up once the general public started hearing about Y2K you could justify buying almost anything by chanting those magic three letters.There was definitely a lot of cynicism after the fact, and some of it was justified.The whole thing reminded me about how important computers had become in our daily lives and how a small problem could have really big consequences. It sharpened my focus on doing quality work. Overall though, we really learned nothing because only failure teaches. It was one of the only times in recent memory that the world has come together and spent a ton of money and time to prevent disaster. We can't seem to do this now with other impending crises like dangerous economic bubbles, resource scarcity and climate change. I guess it’s because those deadlines can’t be clearly marked on a calendar.Ulf Mattsson is now the CTO at Protegrity.Got an interesting or funny Y2K story? Drop it in the comments below.
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Six Reasons Why Apple May Never Open the iPhone
Daniel Eran DilgerThe history of the Office Wars provides interesting context for Apple’s software strategy with the iPhone today. While third party software development offers all kinds of tantalizing potential for the new mobile, there are a half dozen reasons why Apple may not ever deliver the iPhone fully open to third party development, following the model of gaming consoles.Office Wars 1 - Claris and the Origins of Apple’s iWork Office Wars 2 - Microsoft’s Outrageous Office ProfitsOffice Wars 3 - How Microsoft Got Its Office MonopolySoftware Lessons For the iPhone: 1997 - 2007.When Steve Jobs gained the opportunity to retake control of Apple in 1997, he immediately set out to build and assemble a software business for the Mac platform. Apple restarted serious development of QuickTime, much to the chagrin of Microsoft, which had targeted its sights on quickly destroying it to make way for monopolistic expansion of its Windows Media. [Microsoft's Plot to Kill QuickTime][How Microsoft Pushed QuickTime's Final Cut][Why Apple Failed][How CPR Saved Apple][Why Apple Bounced Back]In addition to repurposing NEXTSTEP as Mac OS X and buying and building a series of professional and consumer software suites, the new Apple also developed the iPod platform. The iPod used intuitive software to differentiate Apple’s hardware, launching the computer maker into a new market for sophisticated, data-driven consumer devices. Microsoft’s own efforts in consumer electronics have flopped miserably with the failures of its Handheld PC, Pocket PC, UMPC, Windows Mobile, Media2Go, Mira, SPOT, and Personal Media Center initiatives, among many others.[Apple’s NeXT Server Offensive on Microsoft][The Spectacular Failure of WinCE and Windows Mobile][Windows XP Media Center Edition vs Apple TV]Microsoft Outgunned in Software by a Hardware Maker.Microsoft was late to realize the software threat posed by the new Apple. Five major revisions and over thirty free updates to Mac OS X have ran circles around Microsoft’s capacity to deliver one desktop operating system software update and a couple service packs since 2001.[Leopard, Vista and the iPhone OS X Architecture]Apple also introduced three generations of iWork as an expanding productivity suite during the four year hibernation period Microsoft left since its last version of Office for Mac. Apple delivered support for Microsoft’s own proprietary OOXML file format on the Mac even before Microsoft itself could. At $79, iWork will eviscerate sales of the $400 Office for Mac, which has until now been a cash cow lazily ruminating for years between releases.This year, Apple also targeted and destroyed Microsoft’s fledgeling efforts to repurpose WinCE as a smartphone platform, seemingly overnight. That has given Apple a significant new platform in the iPhone, soon to be joined by the new iPod Touch. [What’s New in iWork 08][Apple's Secret iPhone Application Business Model][Curious Stuff About the New iPods]Six Reasons the iPhone Will Stay Closed.Will Apple give third party developers the keys to its new vehicle and allow them to drive off with the value it has created? It hasn’t yet, and there are a number of reasons to think that Apple won’t. Note that I am not expressing an opinion that the iPhone should be left closed, but rather simply presenting why I think it is unlikely Apple will ever open it up in the same way the Mac is open to any and all development.First, the company has lined up a suitable outlet for third party expansion via the standards based web platform available within Safari. That’s not enough to do everything developers want to do--it has serious constraints for creating games, for example--but it offers a good enough alternative to serve more than 80% of most developers’ needs. [Mobile Disruption: Apple's iPhone and Third Party Software] [iPhone Gremlins: Crashing, Security, and Network Collapse!] Second, the company has developed and begun production testing of online software sales through iTunes, currently limited to 5G iPod games. This mechanism appears too sophisticated to simply be designed for a half dozen $5 games. Apple is quite obviously going to distribute other software through iTunes for the iPhone. If it were going to be open, there would be no need for such a secure software distribution system. [Apple's New Dual Processor Game Console] [Hacking iPod Games: How Apple's DRM Works] Third, historical perspective suggests that once a solid platform has been established, a vendor can sell software as fast as it can deliver it without even trying very hard. Apple’s Claris, Microsoft’s Windows, and the game consoles from Sony and Nintendo all provide examples of this. The iPod’s success suggests Apple can establish a viable mobile platform without the need for software partners. It can handle software transactions as fast as it can sell iTunes songs. That’s big. [Office Wars 1 - Claris and the Origins of Apple’s iWork] [Office Wars 2 - Microsoft’s Outrageous Office Profits] [Office Wars 3 - How Microsoft Got Its Office Monopoly] [Nintendo Wii vs Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3] Fourth, depending upon large third party developers has caused Apple--and Steve Jobs--some severe headaches. Microsoft's late 80s betrayal of the Macintosh led to Apple’s enslavement to Office, and induced CEO John Sculley to sign away broad intellectual property rights to Microsoft, which Microsoft then immediately used as a weapon against Apple. In the mid 90s, Microsoft led Adobe, Macromedia and other large companies to abandon the Mac platform. In the late 90s, those same companies refused to support Apple’s new Rhapsody plans following the company’s acquisition of NeXT, forcing Apple to spend half a decade retooling the Mac OS, primarily so those developers could sell their existing apps to Mac users without much effort, even while they were earning fantastic software profits and delivering minimal innovation. In other words, Apple’s technology game plan was delayed for a half decade so that Microsoft could sell its $400 copies of Office and Adobe could sell suites of its $500 and up creative applications, all while Apple did all the work in adapting its $99 operating system to run their Classic Mac OS code with minimal effort. Prior to returning to Apple, Jobs experienced his own betrayal and abandonment at the hands of partners--including IBM, HP, Digital, Data General, and Sun--related to NeXT and OpenStep. In all of these cases, the third parties were simply acting in their own best interests. With the iPhone, Apple will act in its own best interests. It will carve out a phenomenally powerful software platform for itself. [Why OS X is on the iPhone, but not the PC: The History of NeXT] [Office Wars 3 - How Microsoft Got Its Office Monopoly] [Cocoa and the Death of Yellow Box and Rhapsody] Fifth, open Application Programming Interfaces involve complex management and maintenance. This is not a problem unique to Apple; it exists for Microsoft and every other company that offers an API for developers to build upon. An API is an interfacing boundary between the software supplied by a vendor and the software supplied by third parties. Ideally, an API allows third parties to do everything they need very cleanly. That allows the vendor to make changes on their side of the API curtain without causing any compatibility problems for software on the other side. In reality, nearly every change and update has significant impacts for third party developers. The more complex and low level of an API being exposed, the more difficult it is to manage significant changes without introducing problems for third party partners. Apple has worked to develop objective APIs that are stable and resilient to internal changes, but if developers are unsatisfied with the level of performance or portability provided, they will work around the API boundary, almost guaranteeing that any significant changes made on Apple’s side will break their applications in the future. Microsoft has often accommodated such “bad programming? by expanding APIs and creating new ones, and lugging around a legacy of old APIs to retain broad compatibility with existing applications. The result is that it is very difficult for Microsoft to actually innovate, or to offer OS level enhancements that upgrade existing applications. This is particularly a problem for Windows Vista, which is hamstrung between the problem of providing entirely new hardware driver APIs on one hand while also maintaining a boatload of crufty legacy APIs on the other. It is absolutely the worst of both worlds. [Five Windows Flaws] [Leopard vs Vista 5: Development Challenges] Sixth, as is the case with software APIs, closed hardware platforms offer a vendor open flexibility for future expansion, portability, and upgrades. With the Xbox, Microsoft didn’t provide a wide open set of APIs for developers, only a subset for building very similar types of games. This closed API allowed Microsoft to move the console from Intel to PowerPC hardware in the Xbox 360 without extreme problems, something the company was unable to maintain earlier when it tried to deliver Windows NT for various hardware platforms in the late 90s. Apple has already benefitted from the flexibility of a closed hardware platform on the iPod. Had Apple allowed developers to write applications for the iPod, it would have to string along support for those old applications across every new generation of the iPod. Having to do that would complicate Apple’s own efforts to deliver new iPods. Additionally, customers would be upset with Apple’s iPod if the apps they downloaded crashed, installed spyware, or caused performance problems. While a rogue Mac app isn’t likely to drain a laptop battery down dead, power management is far more critical on handheld mobile devices like the 11 mm thick iPhone. Given that many consumers are already flummoxed by the reality that batteries wear out after a few years, imagine their rage at finding out that Apple allowed them to install a some worthless Tamagotchi pet that destroyed their battery early. Similar problems plague Palm OS and Windows Mobile devices. In particular, Microsoft’s attempts to provide a “one size fits all? solution and broadly license it to hardware developers results in API constraints that limit supported screen size resolutions, break compatibility with existing versions of applications, and severely limit the power management performance of those devices and their ability to deliver acceptable battery life. If there were any meaningful installed base of Windows Mobile phones, it would also be plagued with spyware and viruses, just as Windows is on the desktop. [Inside the iPhone: UI, Stability, and Software] [Device Problems In Search of a Solution] [David Sessions Tries to Milk iPhone Battery Panic in Slate]A Safe API Boundary for Third Party Development.The simple solution to all these issues is to not offer a custom, wide open API at all, and instead leave third party developers to build applications that make use of open web standards. Nothing new to learn, no barriers to adoption, no proprietary development tools to maintain, no pleading with developers to support a new platform that remains unproven in the marketplace, and no third party crisis to manage when the hardware and software are significantly upgraded.No API, no problem! Hackers can discover how to install tools and handy mini-apps, but Apple’s next software update or hardware revision won't have to figure out how to maintain compatibility with those hacks. That allows the hackers to hack without holding things back. Meanwhile, Apple can reserve the right to offer highly integrated applications of its own that take full advantage of the underlying system without revealing or sharing its intellectual property secrets with third parties that may choose to use those secrets against it--just as Microsoft did to Apple with Windows in the late 80s, or as Sony did to Nintendo with the original PlayStation just a few years afterward.[Mobile Disruption: Apple's iPhone and Third Party Software]Closed Development Involving Third Parties is Not Open.Incidentally, this is the same closed model that resulted in great success for Microsoft and Sony after they betrayed and then supplanted their former partners. Microsoft set up the illusion of an open, developer-friendly platform with Windows, but then used its home field advantage to plot out the assassinations of any and all of the potential rivals it didn’t want to compete against: WordPerfect, Lotus, Ashton-Tate, Borland, Netscape, Sun, and today’s targets such as Google and Symantec.The unsurprising result was that Windows users ended up using Microsoft’s Word, Excel, Access, Fox Pro, language tools, web browser, media software, desktop search, anti-virus, spyware management, etc ad nauseam. With Windows users completely enslaved to Microsoft’s own applications, it was easy to erect significant barriers to prevent the emergence of any new competitive applications from rivals. Clearly, Windows is only an “open platform? in areas where it suits Microsoft. Further, Microsoft’s idea of who a “competitor? is can change. For example, Windows desktop search wasn’t a rival feature for Microsoft to kill until it decided it wanted Google’s business.[Office Wars 3 - How Microsoft Got Its Office Monopoly]Windows Enthusiasts’ Slavery to a Vicious Master. Whether Microsoft’s closed Windows platform is a bad thing is a matter of debate; Windows Enthusiasts celebrate their enslavement. It is my opinion that Microsoft’s closed Windows platform isn’t bad simply because it is closed, but rather because Microsoft’s insatiable greed is holding back innovation that would otherwise flourish. One example is Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser, which rapidly advanced until Microsoft destroyed Netscape. After that, it went into maintenance mode hibernation and didn’t budge until Firefox began to threaten Microsoft’s position years later. That’s anti-consumer; Microsoft won’t do anything for its enslaved users until a would-be savior threatens to set them free. Microsoft isn’t bad because it is closed; it is bad because it is disgustingly greedy. Windows Enthusiasts need to stop deluding themselves into thinking that they live in a free world of an open platform. They are slaves, and their master is not only vicious, but also incompetent and has no taste. [Safari on Windows? Apple and the Origins of the Web][Apple in the Web Browser Wars: Netscape vs Internet Explorer][The Web Browser Renaissance: Firefox and Safari]Closed Without Pretense.At the same time, it is possible to voluntarily join a closed platform and benefit from its advantages. Nintendo carved out a closed video gaming empire that required third party developers to pay it licensing fees in order to develop any games to sell for its system. Nintendo’s closed business model worked better than Atari’s with the 2600, which had earlier allowed third party games developers to glut the market with bad games, resulting in the video game crash of 1983. Consumers were left thinking that home video games were done to death and would never recover.Sega, Sony, and Microsoft’s Xbox group have all similarly managed closed gaming platforms to deliver high quality expectations, even subsidizing game consoles to establish user interest. The only differences for Apple’s closed iPhone may be that:Apple’s iPhone hardware sells at a sustainable profit without a desperate subsidy, removing risk and allowing for regular feature upgrades. Apple is likely to use software downloads as a way to integrate the iPhone into Mac hardware sales and its online services, rather than simply trying to make a killing selling $50 to $75 game software titles as the console makers do.[Mac OS X vs Linux: Third Party Software and Security]Software as a Great Differentiator.By offering free or low cost software in the model of $5 iPod games, Apple will be able to use its closed platform to deliver software designed to:attract more iPhone and iPod Touch hardware buyers.earn iPhone mobile service revenue fees.earn commissions from WiFi iTunes sales and related deals. direct new iPhone users to iTunes and Apple TV.draw attention to the Mac, which will offer iPhone integrated features Windows does not. Microsoft does some of the same things with Windows Mobile, which ties into the company’s Windows Server products--including Exchange Server--and is also deeply integrated with the desktop sync services of Windows and its Office applications. The problem for Microsoft is that it does not sell phones or make money on service revenues as Apple does. Microsoft charges expensive client access and software licensing fees, but still can’t make a sustainable profit on its Windows Mobile business. It’s also stuck with lame vendors such as HTC, which make poorly integrated hardware that is embarrassing to use. Microsoft could make its own phone, but like the Zune it would alienate its existing hardware partners; further, the Zune disaster indicated that hardware sales isn’t a core competency of the company anyway. [Phone Wars: iPhone vs TyTN, Treo, Pearl, E62, P990, Q][iPhone Sales vs Zune, Palm, RIM, Symbian, Windows Mobile]Selling Hardware with Software vs Selling Software Licenses.Using software to sell hardware fits in with Apple’s past and present use of free or low cost software to differentiate the Mac. In the distant past, that included HyperCard and QuickTime; today it includes the shareware-priced but highly regarded iLife and iWork apps. The full version of Mac OS X costs $129, while Microsoft’s Ultimate Windows Vista is an absurd $400, the same price as an iPhone!Apple’s strategy of using low cost, high quality software to differentiate its hardware plays well against the fact that consumers simply don’t want to pay for software, while they think nothing of paying big money for desirable hardware. Nobody would pay much for an iPod “OS? or a software music player, but millions of people have paid hundreds of dollars for an iPod.That principle has worked in Microsoft’s favor in the past, as it hides the cost of Windows by invisibly bundling it into PC sales. However, its recent fantasy that consumers will widely upgrade their PCs to more expensive versions of Vista indicates Microsoft is highly delusional. Pro-Microsoft wags can chart out their predictions of “impressive Vista adoption? based entirely upon OEM bundled copies, but consumers don’t want it, and no significant number of people are going to pay big money to upgrade to the $400 Vista Ultimatum. [Windows 95 and Vista: Why 2007 Won't Be Like 1995]The Commodity Future of PC Software.What will happen instead is an increasing commoditization of the consumer PC and its software, driven towards standards by an industry that demands interoperability. Microsoft couldn’t hold back the web with its proprietary MSN a decade ago, and companies that once pushed Windows are now behind Linux, including Novell and IBM. PC OEMs are also rethinking their unilateral relationship with Microsoft as they struggle to survive in the shadow of Microsoft’s vast profits. Rather than paying $400 for a PC with a $50 OEM copy of Windows running IE and Outlook, nagging you to verify your software as Genuine and to upgrade to the $400 version of Vista and to hand your credit card number to the dancing paperclip recommending a subscription to Windows Live OneCare terrorism protection, the $250 PC of the near future will come with a standards based web browser and email client. It will be called an iPhone, and it won’t run Microsoft Office.What do you think? I really like to hear from readers. Comment in the Forum or email me with your ideas. Like reading RoughlyDrafted? Share articles with your friends, link from your blog, and subscribe to my podcast! Submit to Reddit or Slashdot, or consider making a small donation supporting this site. Thanks!
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Office Wars 3 - How Microsoft Got Its Office Monopoly
Daniel Eran DilgerOffice Wars 1 - Claris and the Origins of Apple’s iWork Office Wars 2 - Microsoft’s Outrageous Office ProfitsOffice Wars 3 - How Microsoft Got Its Office MonopolyMicrosoft’s Office monopoly gives the company more revenues and delivers nearly as much profit as its Windows software. How did it gain such a powerful position in productivity applications? The history of Office is rooted in decisions Apple made in the 80s with the Lisa and Macintosh, and also has an interesting correlation to Apple’s iPhone strategy today.The Origins of Office.While Microsoft has overwhelming power in desktop productivity applications today, it entered the market late. In the early 80s, Microsoft principally sold language software and struggled to license copies of AT&T’s Unix under the name Xenix. In 1981, Microsoft teamed up with IBM to license a copycat version of CP/M as the DOS for IBM’s new PC. Microsoft didn’t really get started in applications until Steve Jobs approached the company that same year with a proposal to develop for Apple’s new Macintosh.Entrusted with prototype Mac hardware and inside access to Apple’s development tools, Microsoft made an agreement with Apple in 1981 not to ship any mouse-based products of its own until a year after Apple introduced the Mac. In exchange, Apple promised to give Microsoft a rare opportunity to enter the competitive desktop applications market using its entirely new Mac platform as a launching pad.[SCO, Linux, and Microsoft in the History of OS: 1970s][SCO, Linux, and Microsoft in the History of OS: 1980s]Software Sells Systems!Prior to the Mac, Apple had released the Lisa as its first graphical desktop computer. Since developing new graphical apps for the Lisa was very different and required special training, Apple delivered its own complete productivity suite for the Lisa. It planned to open up the Lisa platform to third party development at some point after the initial launch, but the immediate focus had been to deliver a unique set of applications to demonstrate the power of Lisa’s new graphical interface.Recalling the software focus of the Lisa development team, reader Jim Hoyt emailed me several months ago in response to “Why Apple Bounced Back,? an article crediting Apple’s recent internal software development efforts with a large role in the company’s turnaround over the last decade. Hoyt wrote, “In 1979, John Couch, the soon-to-be head of the Lisa project, was in charge of all software at Apple Computer. He commissioned this poster: Software Sells Systems.? I’ve been meaning to publish the otherwise long since lost to history poster, so here it is, belatedly. Thanks Jim![Why Apple Bounced Back]Apple Delivers Lisa Suite Seven Years Ahead of Microsoft Office.The poster’s premise was obvious: the Lisa wasn’t going to sell itself; it needed practical software applications to usher in the future of the graphical desktop. Apple developed an entire suite of seven productivity applications that shipped with the Lisa system in 1983, including word processing, spreadsheet, database, drawing, graphing, project management, and terminal emulation programs. It was seven years later before Microsoft would first package its Word, Excel, and PowerPoint applications together as Office 1.0 in 1990. In his February 1983 review of the Lisa for Byte magazine, Gregg Williams concluded: “As you can tell, I am very impressed with the Lisa. I also admire Apple for deciding to make the system without being unduly influenced by cost or marketing constraints. The Lisa couldn’t have been developed without such a deep commitment, and no other company I can think of could afford such a project or would be interested in doing it this way (the Lisa project reportedly cost over $50 million and used more than 200 person-years of effort!). In terms of the actual, as opposed to symbolic, effect it will have on both the microcomputer and the larger-computer market, the Lisa system is the most important development in computers in the last five years, easily outplacing IBM’s introduction of the Personal Computer in August, 1981.?A year later, Lisa ended up being replaced by the much less expensive Macintosh, which delivered much of the Lisa’s functionality at a quarter of the price. However, the Mac did not include the Lisa’s expensive megabyte of RAM, its hard drive, or its productivity application suite. The Mac only shipped with a word processor and painting tools.Why Apple didn’t port its Lisa applications to the Macintosh is a confounding riddle, because it had more than a half decade of opportunity to do so. The main reason for this was a paranoid fear of alienating outside developers, along with jitters related to IBM’s rapid poaching of the desktop computing world after the arrival of its PC in 1981.[“The Lisa Computer System? Reprinted from Byte, issue 2/1983] [The Lisa, Apple's First GUI-Based Computer System - VAW][How Apple Keyboards Lost a Logo and Windows PCs Gained One]Apple’s Lisa vs the Third Party Mac Platform: 1980 - 1984.Competition inside Apple between the Lisa development group and the Macintosh team led to a different software strategy for the Mac. Since the smaller Mac group didn’t have the resources to develop a full suite of applications in advance of its launch, it planned to leverage third party development in the same way as the Apple II had.Sales of Apple II computers had exploded in 1979 with the release of Dan Bricklin’s VisiCalc spreadsheet software. That success was a large reason why IBM decided to get involved in the microcomputer business with the PC in the first place. It wasn’t until 1984 that Apple began making lots of money selling AppleWorks, its word processing, spreadsheet, and database package for the Apple II. It continued to sell the software with only limited updates well into the early 90s.Apple management failed to see the potential for delivering its own suite of Mac applications as it had on the Lisa, and as it very profitably would later do for the Apple II. Instead, it became increasingly enamored with the idea of partnering with third party software developers and delegating away the work--and the profits--of creating its own Mac software. Motivated by fears of inhibiting a third party software industry like the one that had grown up around the IBM PC, Apple intentionally stifled its own internal software development efforts and later spun them off into the Siberian gulag of Claris. That move would prove to be a devastatingly expensive mistake that would nearly destroy Apple over the next decade.Incidentally, three of the most important products Apple would release during that decade of decline were software products: the profitable AppleWorks for the Apple II in 1984.the free 1987 HyperCard for the Mac.the free 1991 QuickTime for the Mac.[HyperCard: Apple and the Origins of the Web][1990-1995: Planting Software Seeds][QuickTime: The Secret Weapon Inside iTunes]A Fearsome Future VisiOn for the PC: 1981 - 1983.Another contributing reason for Apple’s rush to embrace third party developers on the Macintosh may have been related to the fear of VisiCorp’s new mouse-driven VisiOn graphical desktop environment. VisiOn originally appeared on the Apple III in November of 1981, but the complete commercial failure of that new machine after the delivery of IBM’s PC prompted VisiCorp to announce moving its support to the PC in 1982, with a promised release target of mid-1983. Apple was still scrambling to release the Lisa and the Mac, both of which had slipped repeatedly.While clumsy, slow, and expensive--the base VisiOn software and a mouse cost $790, each application cost between $250 and $400, and it required a $5000 hard drive upgrade on top of a $2000 PC--VisiOn was backed by the legendary VisiCorp, the company that had helped launch the Apple II to fame with VisiCalc. VisiOn also tapped into IBM’s “up is down? PC, which despite its high price and low level of performance and innovation, had cut deeply into Apple’s business expansion plans, almost entirely due to IBM’s reputation and its monopoly position in business computing. After witnessing its first big failure with the Apple III, and then seeing a tepid response to the $9,995 Lisa in 1983, Apple was no doubt very concerned about IBM’s PC being converted into an ugly frankenstein Mac knockoff with that $7,500 VisiOn upgrade bolted on, cheered on by a press giddy at the prospect of being bamboozled by IBM’s overpriced and under delivering PC.The only way to compete with the threat of such a graphical system for the PC would be to deliver the new Macintosh as quickly as possible at a much lower cost with lots of applications from a variety of third party developers. Fortunately for Apple, VisiOn also slipped several months and wasn't delivered until the end of 1983. Right up until it completely fizzled, the press hailed VisiOn as a promising competitor to Apple’s Lisa and the forthcoming Macintosh.By 1983, VisiCorp had fallen apart; its star development manager Mitch Kapor had left to found Lotus Development. Kapor’s new spreadsheet product, Lotus 1-2-3 for the DOS PC, destroyed the remains of VisiCorp and its VisiOn.[VisiCorp Visi On - Toasty Tech][1980-1985: 8-bit Platforms]Frying Pan to the Fire: Apple Runs to the Arms of Microsoft: 1981.Finding developers willing to commit to investing in Apple’s next new platform was difficult after the failure of the Apple III and the wildly successful launch of the PC. Apple later found that its developer relations would suffer at the release of the “no other software needed? Lisa. For the Mac, Apple decided to copy the PC model by directing the majority of its efforts into courting third party developers and downplaying its own software releases, which were only intended to serve as basic placeholders. Even so, many PC developers planned to take a ‘wait and see’ approach to supporting the Macintosh.Hoping to prime an early and explosive business success for the Macintosh in the same way VisiCalc had launched sales of the Apple II, Steve Jobs made plans with Microsoft to deliver a graphical Mac interface for its struggling Multiplan--a VisiCalc spreadsheet clone--and a new Chart application.Microsoft had also secretly begun another Mac app initially called MultiTool Word, based on the Bravo word processor developed by Xerox PARC’s Charles Simonyi and Richard Brodie; Microsoft hired both in 1981. The company didn’t tell Apple about its new word processor project because the Mac team had already started developing a word processor for the Mac called MacWrite.[A Rich Neighbor Named Xerox - Folklore.org][An Office User Interface Blog - Microsoft’s Jensen Harris]Apple’s Problematic Partnership with Microsoft: 1981 - 1985Next to IBM, Apple was among the first companies to realize that getting into a business partnership with Microsoft was a really bad idea. Throughout 1983, Microsoft employees began intense discussions with Apple about how the Mac system software worked internally, involving issues unrelated to desktop application development. The reasons for this became obvious when Microsoft made a surprise pre-announcement at the Comdex trade show in November 1983 of a clone of Apple’s Mac environment for the PC called Windows, along with the release of a text-based Word for DOS using a mouse. Apple had previously worried about VisiCalc’s independent VisiOn appearing for the PC, but now its own partner had taken its internally developed graphical desktop work to deliver a competing product on IBM’s platform. Microsoft had discovered a loophole that allowed it to ignore its exclusive agreement with Apple because the contract had tied the year-long waiting period to the Mac’s planned ship date in 1982; that contract date wasn’t updated as the project slipped into 1984.It turned out that Word for DOS wasn’t very popular, since DOS PC users didn’t see much benefit from only using a mouse with a single application. It also turned out that Microsoft couldn’t deliver on its promise to ship Windows 1.0 by early 1984; it wasn’t actually available until 1985, and even then was a complete joke of a product and fully unusable. However, the problems Apple would suffer for trusting Microsoft were only just getting started. Windows 1.0 wasn’t much to look at, but it did offer an advancement beyond the neanderthal text interface of Word for DOS. Apple also had reason to worry when it found Microsoft was directly collaborating with IBM in 1985 to deliver a new DOS replacement called OS/2. [1990-1995: The Race to Deliver The Next New Platform][Mac Office, $150 Million, and the Story Nobody Covered]Apple Grows Dependent upon Third Party Software: 1985 - 1990.Apple’s partnership with Microsoft continued to worsen. Microsoft finally shipped its spreadsheet for the Mac in 1985, but threatened to also release it for the PC as well, prompting Apple CEO John Sculley to sign away rights to a variety of Mac system software details to Microsoft in 1985 in exchange for exclusive Mac development of the graphical Multiplan for two years. Microsoft’s Multiplan and Chart applications for the Macintosh were among the strongest software features Apple touted in its 1984 advertising. (Click to view full size).A very young Bill Gates appeared next to Mitch Kapor of Lotus Development in Apple’s Mac ads to observe, “To create a new standard takes somethings that’s not just a little bit different. It takes something that captures people's imaginations. Macintosh meets that standard.? Were he not trying to sell Windows Mobile today, he might say the same of the iPhone!Sculley had been arrogantly dismissive of Bill Gates’ July 1985 suggestion that Apple work quickly to broadly license its Mac technology to Northern Telecom, Motorola, and AT&T. Instead, Apple sought to retain control of the unique Mac desktop as a way to sell its hardware.At the same time, Apple grew increasingly reliant upon Microsoft to deliver updates to its applications for the Mac, and worried about threatening any of its third party Mac developers with its own internal application software efforts.However, in 1984 Apple had released AppleWorks for the Apple II. That program rapidly became the top selling software title of any computer platform, despite Apple’s minimal efforts to market it. It was nearly an embarrassment for Apple, which wanted to push the graphical new Macintosh, not a text-based 8-bit program. By 1987, Apple had spun off its own apps--including AppleWorks, MacWrite, MacDraw, and MacPaint--into the Claris subsidiary. Claris went on to profitably develop and acquire a suite of Mac productivity apps, but operated at an arms’ length distance from Apple. By 1990, Sculley realized the vast profit potential in application software. Apple had two solid platforms: the Apple II and the Mac. The company’s minimal efforts to market any software for them was clearly a huge mistake. Sculley subsequently decided to retain Claris as part of Apple rather than spinning it off, but that late decision shattered the subsidiary because its employees and managers had been given the expectation that a Claris IPO would make them rich. Many left in disgust.[Office Wars 1 - Claris and the Origins of Apple’s iWork]Microsoft Becomes an Applications Company: 1985 - 1989.At the same time, Microsoft’s graphical Multiplan for the Mac--which ended up being combined with the Chart app and renamed as Excel in 1985--became a huge seller for Microsoft. In contrast, the textual DOS version--which retained the Multiplan name--couldn’t compete with the top selling Lotus 1-2-3 on the PC side.Two years later in 1987, Microsoft’s deal with Sculley expired and the company released Excel 2.0 for the PC, along with Windows 2.0, which copied more of the Mac desktop, including the basic ability to display overlapping windows. No OEMs shipped Windows 2.0 on their PCs, but anyone buying the new Excel got a copy of Windows and a taste of the graphical Mac environment, albeit with Microsoft’s garish colors and its horrific MDI-style interface.Apple Sues to Stop Graphical Copycats, But Only On the PC: 1985 - 1988.While a number of companies delivered graphical environments in the pattern of VisiOn for various computer systems of the time, Apple was only threatened by those that promised to deliver the Mac look on the PC.For example, Apple ignored Berkeley Systems’ mouse-based, windowing GEOS environment, offered initially for the Commodore 64 and later Apple’s own Apple II systems.However, when CP/M maker Digital Research introduced its GEM/1 for the DOS PC, Apple sued and won an injunction that forced the company to remove certain features Apple had originally developed for the Mac, the most obvious of which was its use of graphics regions to draw sophisticated overlapping windows. At the same time, GEM/1 was also being sold for the 1985 Atari ST, but Apple completely ignored that product, enabling Atari to deliver a system so similar to the Mac it was commonly called the Jackintosh, after Atari CEO Jack Trammell. Apple also ignored overlapping windows in the 1985 Commodore Amiga, and a similar graphical desktop in the 1987 RISC OS developed by Acorn Computers. Apple was certainly aware of the British Acorn’s RISC OS, as the two companies had partnered to form ARM in order to develop a new generation of RISC based processors powering Acorn’s RISC PC and later, the Newton. Those same ARM processors now power iPods, the iPhone, and the vast majority of all mobile devices. [Origins: Why the iPhone is ARM, and isn't Symbian]However, Apple went ballistic upon the release of Microsoft’s Windows 2.0 in 1987. One reason was that Microsoft was pointedly using the product as a way to move its Mac applications to IBM’s PC, a move Apple correctly feared would quickly erode the unique value of the Macintosh. Additionally, Microsoft was also describing Windows as the basis of a new interface for IBM’s promised OS/2. Apple was livid that the trusted partner it had launched into the applications business would immediately sell it out and migrate those same applications to directly benefit its main hardware competitor. Despite the fairly insignificant sales of Windows 2.0, Sculley’s Apple sued Microsoft in 1988 over the use of Mac software details it had taken from Apple in its 1985 agreement. It also sued HP over a Windows 2.0 add on pack called NewWave, which supplied additional Mac-like features to the PC. Meanwhile, sales of Excel on the PC gradually began to grow and Microsoft worked increasingly hard to replace its Mac partner and then destroy it, using Windows as a tool to port its Mac applications to the PC instead. [Apple's Billion Dollar Patent Bluster: Patent vs. Copyright]Apple Loses Jobs, Opportunities: 1986 - 1988.In 1986--as Apple’s panic over Microsoft moving its Mac apps to the IBM PC was just getting started--Steve Jobs’ plans to rapidly move the Macintosh into the business and server arena were getting shot down by the more conservative minded Sculley. Apple’s board feared that increased investment in the Macintosh might spread the company too thin.[Steve Jobs and 20 Years of Apple Servers]Jobs subsequently left Apple in frustration to form NeXT, Inc, and develop his own ideas for business oriented workstations. Sculley replaced him with Jean Luis Gassée, who shared Sculley’s vision for dabbling in impractical technology ventures like the Newton and keeping Mac models configured for high end markets.Apple continued to make outstanding profits from increasing sales of the Mac and continued sales of the Apple II, but the company had made a grave mistake in ignoring and avoiding the software business. Even worse, it was now dependent upon a rival company to maintain key software titles for the Mac.Apple was also losing key engineering talent to Jobs’ NeXT, which by 1988 was delivering the first release of what Apple itself should have been working on: its next generation of hardware and software. [Newton Lessons for Apple's New Platform][Why OS X is on the iPhone, but not the PC: The History of NeXT]Sculley’s Apple Bungles Office Applications.While Sculley’s Apple fought Microsoft’s Windows in the courts, it did little to effectively compete in the marketplace, either with the Mac as a platform or in the applications arena to take on what would become the Microsoft Office suite in 1990. To deliver Office, Microsoft simply paired Word and Excel with PowerPoint, a Mac presentation application Microsoft acquired in 1987. Had Apple simply ported its Lisa applications to the Mac, it would have had a head start of several years to develop and refine its own applications suite, and could have maintained them as unique to the Mac without giving away its crown jewels to Microsoft in 1985. After ten years of trying, even Microsoft could eventually deliver a good enough copy of the Mac with Windows 95 in late 1995. After that, Microsoft pulled the plug on Office development for the Mac and didn’t release another update until 1998.[Office Wars 1 - Claris and the Origins of Apple’s iWork]Apple’s Squandered Opportunity in Software Sales.The bizarre thing was that Apple was making money selling AppleWorks on autopilot, and continued to do so from 1984 into the early 1990s. Additionally, the new ClarisWorks for the Mac easily captured the top spot in Mac software sales from Microsoft’s Works within its debut year in 1991. Even so, Apple did little to capitalize upon the discovery that software would indeed sell systems, just as Couch had foreseen back in 1979. Apple had a printing press for creating money, but simply left it idling while Microsoft delivered low innovation software titles and raked in millions of dollars in Mac software revenues. Sculley’s Apple essentially sat back and granted Microsoft full opportunity to clean out its entire business model without a fight, hoping that the law would rush in to correct the inequities at some point in the near future. Instead, the court deliberated for a tech eternity until 1994, and then threw out Sculley’s “look and feel? lawsuit, largely on the basis that Sculley had earlier granted Microsoft limited rights to Mac ideas back in 1985 in his desperate bid to keep Microsoft as a Mac developer. The bitter irony was that between 1985 and 1995, Microsoft needed the Mac at least as much as Apple needed Microsoft. Even in 1997, Steve Jobs could get Microsoft to agree to a half decade of continued development of Office for the Mac by simply adding Internet Explorer to the Mac desktop. Jobs turned down the hardball demand that Apple kill QuickTime, and even got a public relations coup out of the deal by having Microsoft announce a $150 million investment in Apple.Sculley’s penny wise, pound foolish conservative greed destroyed Apple and directly transferred the vast potential wealth of value Apple had originated at great expense for its 1983 Lisa graphical office suite to Microsoft, which subsequently ran with it and deserted the company. [Mac Office, $150 Million, and the Story Nobody Covered][Apple’s NeXT Server Offensive on Microsoft]Microsoft Betrays IBM and Uses Office Against OS/2.Apple wasn’t the only partner Microsoft exploited, turned on, and then tried to drive out of business. The earliest and most obvious example was IBM, which had launched Microsoft into significance as a reseller of DOS. Microsoft betrayed IBM in the development of OS/2, first by pulling out of the operating system partnership, then by canceling Office for OS/2 after shipping an initial version for it in 1992. IBM later bought up Lotus and worked to compete against Microsoft’s growing influence with Office. Microsoft responded by using its new monopoly positions to punish IBM in various moves documented in the Microsoft monopoly trial. That story follows in Office Wars 4. Using the Office Monopoly Against NeXT.Jobs carried lessons learned from watching the implosion of Apple under Sculley to NeXT. His initial goal for NeXT was to build a software platform. However, nobody was shipping hardware up to the task of running an advanced operating system, so NeXT began following the business model of Apple, selling new hardware with advanced software.While Jobs had found it challenging to find software partners for the Mac at Apple, the task was even more difficult at NeXT, which Apple had forced into the ultra high end of the workstation market using a non-compete agreement. NeXTSTEP pioneered advanced rapid development frameworks to make it easier for third parties to deliver software for the new system. When Jobs discovered that Lotus was working to deliver a new spreadsheet paradigm for OS/2, he gave the Lotus team a NeXT system and got involved in refining the software to show off the features of his new platform. In contrast, Microsoft used the productivity applications monopoly it had been handed by Apple to impede adoption of NeXT. When asked about writing software for NeXTSTEP, Microsoft’s Bill Gates famously fumed, “Develop for it? I'll piss on it.? Gates also announced plans to immediately deliver his own advanced operating system with object oriented development frameworks called Cairo, which turned out to be a vaporware lie Microsoft repeated from 1991 until NeXT was acquired by Apple in 1997.[1990-1995: Microsoft's Yellow Road to Cairo]Microsoft’s Murderous Partnerships.Microsoft helped to ensure that neither NeXT nor OS/2 could acquire a broad enough computing platform to drive a self-sustaining software business. Apple was able to maintain a struggling niche platform on the Mac, but fears of stepping on third party developers’ toes actively prevented the company from actually building on that potential until the late 90s. Ironically, Microsoft did just that, by developing its solo PC platform with Windows and then using it to destroy third party developers it viewed as competitors. By tying its Windows and Office products together, Microsoft could strangle its own former partners--the top developers of MS-DOS applications--including WordPerfect, Lotus’ 1-2-3, database and developer products from Ashton-Tate and Borland, and really every major developer on the PC that in any way challenged Microsoft.Microsoft’s coldly calculated murder of every rival DOS application developer and later many of its Windows developers, from Novell to IBM and Sun to Netscape, is an oddly public fact treated as a taboo secret by Windows Enthusiasts, who avoid all mention of it as they talk about how Apple “can’t work with partners? in the rich, supportive way Microsoft supposedly has. Any competition between Apple and third party developers--even with shareware programs--is paraded through the insufferable blogs of ZDNet and the pages of IDG’s InfoWorld/PCWorld/Computerworld and described as unconscionable conduct. This is from writers who all witnessed first hand Microsoft’s massacres of any and all “partners? the company decided no longer suited its fancy. Have these wags all been brainwashed, or are they just lying for money? As a side note, the Office Wars and Microsoft’s monopoly position in applications provide interesting insight into how Apple is deploying its iPhone software strategy, which the next article will examine.What do you think? I really like to hear from readers. Comment in the Forum or email me with your ideas. Like reading RoughlyDrafted? Share articles with your friends, link from your blog, and subscribe to my podcast! Submit to Reddit or Slashdot, or consider making a small donation supporting this site. Thanks!
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Why the iPhone Platform is Still the Best Game in Town
How quickly we forget our very recent history. On January 9, 2007 Steve Jobs announced the iPhone at the Macworld convention. The original iPhone was to be serviced exclusively by Cingular. Also in January of 2007 we learned that Cingular, originally a joint venture between SBC and BellSouth, would be re-branded as AT&T. We then slowly learned as the iPhone's official release date drew closer, that the iPhone would continue to be exclusive to AT&T, would not be subsidized by AT&T, and you could purchase phones directly from Apple Retail Stores. As the layers of this onion were pealed back even further, we learned that Cingular (or was that AT&T?) agreed to pay Apple nearly eighteen dollars per month per subscriber for the privilege of being exclusive. Apple was also in control of the activation process which required an iTunes account. Moving forward Apple was also responsible for distributing all updates to the iPhone, not the carrier, not AT&T. Apple was completely in charge, completely. Oh, and there was one more thing, no third-party native apps, only web apps. In fact, Steve Jobs was at that time quite adamant that there would never be natively developed applications for the iPhone and that web 2.0 applications would be all that developers would ever need. Who Owns the Relationship with the Customer? What this fundamentally did was change the dynamics of whose customers were they first. The carrier's or the device manufacture's? A question that, until this point in time, was never asked. The point that Apple was making, was that consumers would choose Apple products before they would choose a cell phone carrier. And Apple was right. For the first time, a device manufacturer was in control of the relationship with the customer ahead of the carrier. If you owned an iPhone, you belonged to Apple first, then perhaps to the cell phone carrier. This change in the fundamental relationship with the consumer was cemented by large numbers. Very large numbers. Some of the largest numbers in the history of mobile computing. Then it happened, the App Store opened on July 10, 2008 and the next day the iPhone 3G was launched with iPhone OS 2.0. All existing iPhones and iPod touches were able to update to iPhone OS 2.0 as well. A new player was introduced into the equation, the third-party developer. Apple may have won the battle with the carrier in establishing its position with the customer, there was no question there. Apple came first in that relationship. But where does this third wheel fit in? A distant fourth place in line would be the manufactures of development tools and technologies that third-party developers choose to use. Companies like Adobe that manufacture these tools and technologies are even further removed from the mobile customer. Their focus is on making life easier for developers, not better products for mobile customers. It only makes sense since their customers are the developers. But just how important would this new iPhone development platform be to third-party developers and companies that build solutions that these third-party developers use? As only time would tell, and that all depended on what was at stake. And in the beginning, what was at stake was not yet known. That is, not until the numbers started rolling in. Quarter over quarter record-breaking sales of iPhones and iPod touches, and quarter over quarter record-breaking sales of Apps and unimaginable download statistics. Now everyone wants to own the customer. The only player that was clearly out of the race was the carrier, they were just along for the ride. This is all well and good for the device manufacturer, cellular carrier, and third-party developers. But there was another quite player out there whose battle was already over. The music and movie industries. What everyone seems to have missed was that the explosion of the iPhone into the hands of consumers was more of a play of convergence than its ability to surf the web, respond to e-mail and play games. A cell phone, and an iPod in one device (not just a phone with iTunes installed). Forget everything else. Everyone had a cell phone, and everyone had an iPod. And in June of 2009, when the price dropped to $99, absolutely everyone started thinking about using their iPod to answer phone calls. This is an important factor to consider. Everyone who had (or still has) an iPod is utilizing iTunes to manage and even purchase their music. Once you have a sizable music library in iTunes, and you have grown accustomed to purchasing musing from the iTunes Music Store, you are pretty much hooked. And the numbers on this side of the equation are not too shabby either. In April of 2008, Apple finally passed Walmart and iTunes became the #1 Music retailer currently representing more than 25 percent of all music sales in the U.S. Consumers have a relationship with their music, not their device and certainly not their cellular carrier. What has always defined the relationship has been the music. And Apple was and still is in control of that. It really had nothing to do with how great the iPhone was or was not. The fact that the iPhone is great only strengthens the bond, but it did not create the bond. That bond between consumers and Apple began with the iPod and remains intact due to the consumers owning and maintaining sizable music libraries via Apple’s software, hardware and online services. Every so often the music industry has tried to wrestle control of the customers away from Apple, but has thus far been unsuccessful. So now we can come to understand why developers are flocking to the iPhone platform and developing applications for Apple’s iPhone. There is a huge install base of customers purchasing apps that seems to increase quarter over quarter. And these customers have proven time and time again that they are willing to pay for music, movies, apps and connectivity. Focusing on the Apps, for the most part, since its debut on the market, Apple has maintained a single platform. The variations between the iPod touch and iPhone has remained subtle. Each being able to host the latest version of the iPhone SDK. Making the current total of units an astounding 50 million units. 50 million units all on basically the same device, running basically the same OS, and all able to access the same software from the same App Store. With the device manufacturer owning the relationship, and in control of software updates and distribution of third-party applications. What's more is the length of time that this particular situation has been stable. Three years running on a stable platform (which also includes iPod touch devices) to a growing number of users that now totals 85 million customers. Never before has such a consistent mobile platform been available to as many users for this length of time. Multi-Platform Investment That brings us to the value proposition. There is a cost associated with supporting additional platforms when developing mobile applications. And that cost will be balanced against the total opportunity there is to be gained. Each splinter in the platform, be it screen resolution, device capabilities, of operating system difference all increase the cost of targeting and maintaining software on that platform. These costs are not only related to writing code specific to each platform. The way that a Blackberry user expects to interact with an application is different from that of an Android user and different again from an iPhone user. Each platform has its own Human Interface Guidelines. This requires modifications in the design of the application as well as the support of variations in the testing cycle. And depending on how great the variances between devices are within a given platform, the approach to on device quality testing may vary as well. Looking at the current competition, RIM may still outnumber based on the total number of units sold to date, but if one takes a closer look, one will quickly discover not only a seriously fragmented collection of device profiles to test against, but also some rather low numbers of individuals downloading and using third-party applications. The “Crackberry” does one thing better than any other device on the market, and that is e-mail. The problem is that times change and most consumers are not utilizing e-mail as their primary means of electronic communication. Twitter and Facebook are replacing SMS and e-mail. So much so that in a recent survey, 40 percent of all existing Blackberry owners claim that they will switch over to iPhone when they replace their current device. What would be interesting to know is how many of those same Blackberry customers already have an iPod and an established iTunes music library. RIM’s only fault is that they have been a player for a long time. And over time, a device manufacture’s will ultimately start to splinter, and their customer base will fragment making the maintenance of applications for third-party develops across all fragments more and more expensive. Then there is Android. Can anyone honestly deny that Google will help Android become the dominate licensed operating system across portable devices? The problem that third-party developers face is that right out of the gate Google fragmented the market. With the OS divided into almost equal thirds presently (1.5, 1.6 and 2.1), the number of new Androids coming to market is mind numbing. Buyers remorse with a locked in two-year contract has become par for the course. The support costs for third-party developers on the barley one year only Android platform is that it is actually in worse condition than Blackberry. The number of variances based on-screen resolution, device capabilities and operating system versions is a nightmare to manage. And at the rate to which new devices are coming out, it is impossible to test on device across all variations, simply impossible. What is worse still is that each device manufacture can decide whether or not to include the “Google Experience” with their device, and decide on their own when to provide updates for the carrier to push out to the carrier's customers. This will prove to be problematic for those responsible for identifying testing scenarios, budgeting time, and scheduling regression tests to ensure consistent quality. Android Platform Versions Return on Investment What will the ongoing development costs be and what is the potential gain? For iPhone the overall support costs are currently low as the platform is not too terribly fragmented. Another thing that Apple has going for it is the predictably in which it operates. Almost like clockwork year after year. Original iPhone released June 2007, iPhone OS 2.0 announced March 2008, iPhone 3G released June 2008, iPhone OS 3.0 announced March 2009, iPhone 3GS released June 2009, iPhone OS 4.0 announced April 2010. Developers can plan for it, and business investors that fund third-party development can budget for it. A very stable platform with extremely predictable release cycles. Can the same be said for Android after just one year? Who knows when the next device will be making its way to consumer, what version of the OS it will have on it, and which manufacture will produce it. We don’t even know if it will be a phone or a television set! Not only does Google not own the relationship with Android customers, neither does the device manufacture. The carrier is still in control of the relationship following the old school paradigm of cell phone carriers. With RIM, the majority of users are hanging on to older devices that are not capable of running a modern mobile application. Certainly nothing on par to what can be developed on the most recent Blackberry OS, or even on Android or iPhone. And will RIM have its Blackberry 5.0 out of beta and on enough devices long enough for any sort of return on investment before Blackberry 6.0 is released? While RIM may in fact have a model more closely resembling Apple in the fact that they own the customer relationship first, not the carriers, RIM suffers from its long running legacy. Conclusion The point being is that the iPhone is a very well-managed, barely fragmented (as of today) platform with a huge customer base that can’t seem to get enough apps to satisfy their need to make mico-purchases at the app store. The iPhone has effectively replaced the candy rack at the checkout aisle for impulse purchases. Under the guidance of Steve Jobs, and since October 2001 with the introduction of the iPod, Apple has been earning its right to own outright the relationship it has with its customers. Through rigorous engineering best practices, and the ability to deliver a quality product like clockwork year after year, the consistent stability of the platform has made the iPhone a safe haven for third-party developers. Developers that are interested in developing high quality solutions to a well-groomed customer base that is willing to pay for that experience. What could possibly be a justifiable reason for the government to step in and take all that away?
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TAB Welcomes: Geoffrey L. Goetz
Geoffrey L. Goetz An overwhelming feeling of “Jamais Vu” is how I would best describe the experience of re-entering both the mobile as well as the development scenes since the advent of Apple's iPhone SDK. Ground breaking new technology, ever-expanding features and capabilities in each new SDK. Innovative and hip company in Silicon Valley calling all the shots. And like a moth to a flame I just have to be there no matter what. Writing about it, speaking about it, teaching, mentoring, and building solutions with it. That was me in a nutshell back in 1997 when Java took off and Borland was the hip company in Silicon Valley (actually Scott's Valley, on the other side of the mountain, but close enough) that I could not help but fall in love with. Everything then feels like everything now, and is best described in Geoffrey Moore's Crossing the Chasm. I may have cut my teeth on a Commodore in grade school, but Apple has been the dominate computing platform throughout my education. Upon entering the corporate world, it was all Mainframe, Unix, Microsoft and even OS/2. Then with Java and the JBuilder IDE from Borland, I slowly started to re-enter the Apple platform professionally. I now live in a completely Mac household, work day in and day out solely on Macs, developing applications for the iPhone and other mobile platforms. At home, I fancy myself an amateur photographer with a decent array of prosumer Canon products. I take on average 25K photos annually and spend a good amount of time organizing, printing and getting creative with the image library I have managed to create. The subjects in the majority of the photos I take are my two children, who are also growing up Mac. My now six-year-old received her first iMac at the age of three, and my two-year old is perfectly at home watching his favorite YouTube videos of trains and race cars on either the iPhone or iPad. So what has changed? Why are things different now compared to then? I wish I knew exactly, it just feels very different somehow. Hopefully blogging about it will help me figure it out.
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Microsoft's Zune, Vista, and Windows Mobile 7 Strategy vs the iPhone
Daniel Eran Dilger What secret partner has Microsoft discovered to bail water from the deck of Zune and its Zune Marketplace music store in a last ditch attempt to take on Apple's iTunes, the iPod, and iPhone? Microsoft's own Windows Mobile, of course, with some help from Windows Vista! Who Else Will Help Zune? Certainly not Nokia, as one Zune fansite tried to suggest last week. Nokia has nothing to gain by promoting the Zune. A more credible sounding rumor, as long as we're inventing stuff, would be to instead suggest that it could be Sony Ericsson that is interested in putting the Zune software on its new phones. At least Sony has already demonstrated its complete failure at selling music on its own, and actually has a Windows Mobile phone in the works. The simpler reality is that Sony Ericsson may have no choice in the matter. Microsoft is clearly out to wed the Zune with Windows Mobile in a effort to get the two failures to prop each other up in its “I'm not dead yet!” fight against the iPhone. Microsoft is likely to make inclusion of its Zune Marketplace a mandatory feature that its Windows Mobile partners will have to swallow, just as it forced its PC licensees to bundle its Internet Explorer browser and later Windows Media Player, while prohibiting them from seeking their own bundling deals with other companies. Microsoft took quick steps to block Compaq's licensing of QuickTime, for example. Those deals were bad for HP, Compaq, Dell, and the other PC makers, bad for competition within the tech industry, and subsequently bad for consumers. However, they did enable Microsoft to use its powerful Windows monopoly position to push proprietary standards and or anti-interoperable technologies designed to expand its monopolized control, while making big money selling Windows in a market that lacked any alternatives. Will Nokia Rescue Microsoft’s Zune? Haha No. Apple in the Web Browser Wars: Netscape vs Internet Explorer Microsoft's Plot to Kill QuickTime A Lot Has Changed. This time around however, all Microsoft has to leverage is Windows Mobile, a struggling platform with little respect in the industry, now in a distant third place. Further, the technology Microsoft is trying to push is essentially its Windows Media DRM, which has already been swept up and trashed by Apple's iTunes, QuickTime, and the iPod. The dismal fate of Windows Media was sealed with the failure of PlaysForSure. The Zune's new, albeit incompatible, reincarnation of Windows Media DRM never stood any chance of making any headway. However, the most problematic part of Microsoft's strategy of pushing its Zune Marketplace store on its Windows Mobile partners is that music stores don't make money. Apple's iTunes Store is the biggest online music store on Earth, and does tremendous volumes of sales. Still, Apple reports minimal profits from the store. It recently warned its investors that it's now selling so much through iTunes that the low profit, high volume venture may have a negative impact on the company's overall profit margins. As problems go, that's certainly a nice one to have. Apple is not at all worried about turning a big profit with iTunes because it runs the store exclusively with the intent of ensuring new content for the iPod, iPhone, and Mac. That in turn sells its hardware. However, Microsoft doesn't have hardware sales to nurture. It has barely sold two million Zune units, many at fire sale prices (compared to 150 million iPods, 93 million of which have been sold since the Zune's release). It now faces impossible odds in tilting against the momentum of iTunes' rapidly spinning windmills, with no possible upside in terms of eventual music store profitability. There's simply no way that any amount of investment in the Zune Marketplace could deliver profits, because Microsoft is competing against Apple's non-profit motivation behind iTunes. Further, Windows Mobile is similarly a big loser with no potential because Microsoft has little ability to profitably license its mobile software. It's competition is the iPhone OS, which Apple develops for free to sell iPhone hardware (Microsoft does not sell its own phone hardware); RIM's mobile OS, which is also free for BlackBerry hardware; the Symbian OS, a partnership between hardware makers; and various mobile distributions of Linux, including Google's Android, all of which are also run as profitless ventures to support hardware sales (or in Google's case, service sales). The Great Google gPhone Myth Why Microsoft’s Zune is Still Failing 10 FAS: 7 - Apple’s Hardware and Dvorak’s Microsoft Branded PC Good Money After Bad. All that unpleasant reality hasn't phased Microsoft. Its executives haven't found a way to make money in consumer electronics yet, and the company's attempts just keep getting more and more expensive. Barron's recently featured the speculation of one Microsoft investor who hoped the company would spin off its hemorrhaging online services division as well as its profitless entertainment and devices unit, which includes the Zune, Xbox, and Windows Mobile. The investor calculated the value of Microsoft's other businesses (its high profit Office, Windows, and server divisions) and decided that the market wasn't assigning any value at all to Microsoft's consumer electronics and services products divisions. No wonder; they're nothing but a huge drain on Microsoft! Even so, the investor seemed to think there must be some value to obtain from selling off the black holes, citing the market value of the highly profitable Nintendo. The investor's real intent seemed to be finding a way to “discourage the company from overinvesting in the business.” Microsoft's stock has only appreciated by 6.3% over the last decade. Apple has appreciated 1,822.6% in the same period. Microsoft is trying to develop new markets as Apple has, it's just failing to do so. Microsoft’s Outrageous Office Profits Strength in Bundles. Microsoft has always been interested in promoting its products by using strong ones to prop up weak ones. From the start, it bound its strong Mac apps to the rather weak Windows offering to invent the PC platform, and has since tied Word and Excel to a suite of otherwise fair to marginal apps under the Office banner. Once Windows became established, the company tied in an unfinished, third-rate web browser and was able to rapidly build it into a strong competitor through market inertia. On the server side, Microsoft similarly ties in tragic products into package deals that often (but not always) enable the weak bits to gain some traction. So Microsoft is again working to stitch together its various properties to support each other, but now most all of its recent products are in flames and desperately need reinforcement. There's only so much one failure can do to support another. Even worse, Microsoft's historic strengths are no longer working. The Windows monopoly was supposed to brace up Windows Media Players, Windows Media Center, Windows Mobile, Windows Live Search, Windows Live Soapbox, and a series of other cobranded products that haven't gone anywhere. Office Wars 3 - How Microsoft Got Its Office Monopoly Office Wars 4 - Microsoft’s Assault on Lotus and IBM Why Does Microsoft Really Want Yahoo? Certifiable Failure. Windows itself is now in the throes of crisis, as the failed launch of Vista nearly two years ago has signaled the undoing of Microsoft's ability to rely on its desktop monopoly to advance failures into strength. Is Vista going to put out the Zune's flames by beating with its own flame-engulfed wings? That's part of Microsoft's current strategy, which included rebranding PlaysForSure as 'Certified for Windows Vista.' The Zune is also Certified for Windows Vista, despite not being compatible with the Certified for Windows Vista PlaysForSure. Confused? You needn't be for long, as the remnants of Microsoft's one-time strategy for creating an 'ecosystem of hardware, service, and software partners' to provide choice and freedom in the music industry is pretty much dead now. All of Microsoft's significant PlaysForSure store partners, including AOL MusicNow, MTV URGE, Musicmatch Jukebox, Wal-Mart Music, Yahoo Music, and Microsoft's own MSN Music have now unplugged their PlaysForSure stores, ironically making the brand among the least accurate names for a service ever. The remaining stores making use of PlaysForSure music, principally Rhapsody and Napster, are now on death's door. PlaysForSure video stores such as CinemaNow, which once worked with Microsoft's PlaysForSure-certified Portable Media Players no longer do. Even Amazon's UnBox service, which is supposed to sync with some devices that are PlaysForSure-certified, has not bothered to get certified under Microsoft's program. Incidentally, the failure of Yahoo Music and Microsoft's MSN Music (and the company's outrageous plan to simply unplug its customers from DRM authentication) caused CNET to wonder if Apple might be next in line to make users' music purchases unplayable, echoing the poorly conceived idea that Microsoft's Vista failure, its mobile platform incompetence, and desktop viral malware security crisis all somehow also predict a similar certain doom for Apple at some point in the future. For some reason, CNET saw no connection between the failure of Yahoo and MSN (hint: PlaysForSure), and no reason to speculate about the future of other media stores facing actual failure and likely disbanding in the near future, including Rhapsody, Napster, UnBox and Microsoft's own Zune. Nearly all of the recent DRM deactivation controversies, including Major League Baseball's, have been related to Microsoft's software, although Google decided to similarly to dump users of its paid video when it pulled the plug on Google Video last fall. Rise of the iTunes Killers Myth Forrester Research: Epic Terror of iTunes and Apple TV But Wait, What About This Ecosystem Failure Sounds Familiar? The complete failure of Microsoft's PlaysForSure hardware and software licensing program paints a damning prophetic picture foreshadowing the fate of Windows Mobile. Pundits often dance around this fact by spewing Microsoft's talking points: Window Mobile has lined up scores of hardware partners! Windows Mobile has lots of software partners! Choice is good! Oh wait, that's the same stuff they said about PlaysForSure in explaining why the iPod couldn't stand a chance once Microsoft could deliver its Windows Media Player reference designs and the Windows Media DRM that would enable PlaysForSure stores to open their doors. The only real difference between PlaysForSure and Windows Mobile is that the former was expected to prove that the Windows licensing model would work well among mobile devices, while the latter has already proven for some time now that it can't. Windows Mobile has been a snowball of failure ever since it launched a half decade ago with clumsy-looking phones running buggy, poorly architected software with abysmal battery life that makes the iPhone 3G look exceptional in comparison. Windows Mobile simply shares too much in common with the PlaysForSure failure to escape the event horizon if its blackhole. Pairing software from one vendor to hardware from another is problematic in the PC market, but completely untenable among highly integrated mobile devices. Microsoft tried to blame PlaysForSure incompatibilities on its music store and hardware partners, but the real problem was the model. Microsoft's own software problems didn't help either of course. The issue on Windows Mobile is even more significant because having functional mobile phone service is far more critical than being passively entertained by an MP3 player. Unchecked diversity among the devices of a platform is a bug, not a feature. The mantra of choice and freedom, hailed among Windows enthusiasts and homebrew hackers alike, makes for a great mission statement but in reality delivers products that just don't work. It's great to be able to compile your own servers from free and open source software, but most consumers don't want the accountability that comes along with that freedom when trying to dial 911 from their phone. For that matter they don't even want to troubleshoot the installation of a firmware update, or deal with why software designed for a tall screen looks awful on a square screen. With an integrated product like the iPhone, they can complain to Apple for a fix. With Windows Mobile, you get passed around by Microsoft from the mobile operator to the hardware maker to the third party software developer. Everyone is responsible but nobody is accountable. The Spectacular Failure of WinCE and Windows Mobile Count the Flames of Windows Mobile. And so, in terms of failing platforms, Windows Mobile is closer to PlaysForSure on the flames meter than it is to the only smoldering Vista, which is a moderate success by comparison. If attaching the Zune, Microsoft's phoenix on fire, to Vista's train wreck didn't have any impact on the relative salvageability of either, what will Windows Mobile 7 do for Zune 3 a year and a few months from now in late 2009 at the earliest? That's Microsoft's current schedule, barring any customary delays. By then, Apple will have had the iPhone in international distribution for more than a year, the App Store will be a year and a half old, and the WiFi iTunes Store will be more than two years old. What in Windows Mobile 7 will make a difference for smartphone buyers? According to Microsoft: copycat touch controls hobbled by an interface trying to look like Vista (below, and yes they did spell Internet Explorer wrong, as well as putting a space in ActiveSync), and no doubt a major new push to force Zune Marketplace media sales down the throats of Windows Mobile users in imitation of Apple. Microsoft is no Apple. The problem of course, is that the market for Windows Mobile phones is almost exclusively among corporate IT users, who don't give a rats ass about downloading music from the Zune store. So there's really little potential for cross pollination between Windows Mobile and the Zune. In contrast, Apple originally marketed the iPod and iPhone to consumers, who do buy up music to the tune of billions of tracks every year. Apple now has success to build upon, and has targeted its year-old iPhone platform toward the enterprise, with development tools, a software deployment infrastructure, and management utilities that in most cases meet or exceed what Microsoft has delivered over past decade on WinCE and Windows Mobile. On top of that, the iPhone platform has a far superior, standards-based web browser, development frameworks recognized to be easier to use than Microsoft's mobile .NET, and a core OS that is simply more stable, not to mention a user interface that's designed to look good and be simple to use rather than to match the flashy branding of a failed desktop OS. WWDC 2007: Kevin Hoffman Presents .Net vs. Cocoa The Other Problem: Windows Mobile is Going Down. Anyone banking on Microsoft's promises to deliver Windows Mobile 7 on time by the end of 2009 should also consider the company's track record in delivering Windows Mobile updates. The company initially intended to get Windows Mobile 5 out next to Longhorn [Vista] in mid to late 2004. Windows Mobile 5 was actually released in May 2005, and Vista finally popped out “officially” at the end of 2006, although one couldn't actually buy it until it was relaunched to consumers in early 2007. Even after Microsoft “released” its subsequent Windows Mobile 6 nearly a year later (based upon the same underlying WinCE 5), it took six months or more for many of Microsoft's partners to approve it and set up distribution so that users could actually get the software on their phones. In contrast, Apple releases regular iPhone updates every month or two that are always available to users immediately after their release, directly from Apple. Microsoft doesn't exactly have years of leisure at its disposal. Windows Mobile has already been hit hard by competition from the iPhone and from other rivals, including RIM in the enterprise market and Symbian internationally. That competition has resulted in Microsoft's mobile market share slipping year over year. This year, Microsoft failed to meet its frequently repeated goal of selling “more than 20 million units” through all of its various hardware partners, and instead only sold 18 million. Microsoft senior vice president Andy Lees blew off the missed goal as a “rounding error.” He cited numbers from IDC that indicated Windows Mobile had grown from 11% to just under 13% of the worldwide market for smartphones, growing faster than the overall market, and that unit sales of Windows Mobile phones have both outpaced sales of BlackBerry phones and outsold the iPhone by a factor of two. Windows Mobile misses target Oops, Microsoft Fibbed a Bit There. Canalys reports that Microsoft actually started out with a 23% share of the smartphone market in Q1 2004, which fell to 18% in Q1 2005, then down to 12% in Q1 2006, where it remained in its Q4 2007 figures. Apple ranked at 7% worldwide in Q4 2007, but that was based on sales in one market, of one model, and on one mobile provider, after only being on the market for six months. Smart mobile device shipments hit 118 million in 2007, up 53% on 2006 (Canalys press release: r2008021) If the best Microsoft can do is to claim victory for selling twice as many phones as Apple, worldwide across all of its partners despite having a many years long head start and that great ecosystem of manufacturers behind it, then it should probably just not say anything. Incidentally, with the release of the iPhone 3G, AT&T is reporting having doubled its sales volumes, not to mention all of the other new markets the iPhone 3G is now being sold in worldwide, at half the price of the original model. Within just the US smartphone market, which was Apple's only market last year and is also Microsoft's strongest market for Windows Mobile, the iPhone grabbed a 27% share in its debut third quarter of 2007, and maintained a 28% share in the fourth quarter 2007, behind RIM with 41%, but ahead of Palm at 9%. Adding up all of the Windows Mobile manufacturers selling in the US, Microsoft could only claim to have its software on 21% of the phones sold, a significant step behind Apple. Canalys, Symbian: Apple iPhone Already Leads Windows Mobile in US Market Share, Q3 2007 iPhone Grabs 27% of US Smartphone Market Also, all of these figures bundle in all of the “convergence” Pocket PC mobile devices sold by Microsoft's partners, but none of the iPod touch units Apple sells, which are likely to be in well in excess of its iPhone sales. So Apple's mobile WiFi platform is actually far larger and growing much faster than market statistics companies report under their smartphone category. Anyone hoping that Windows Mobile 7 to going to reverse that trend when it arrives over a year from now is seriously delusional. Did you like this article? Let me know. Comment here, in the Forum, or email me with your ideas. Like reading RoughlyDrafted? 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Ten Big New Features in Mac OS X Snow Leopard
Daniel Eran Dilger Apple is marketing the idea of there being “no new features? for Snow Leopard and instead promising an overall improvement in how Mac OS X works under the hood, thanks to a diligent code optimization and refactoring cycle discussed in the previous article. At the same time, there are plenty of significant new features coming in Snow Leopard to look forward to. Here are ten big new features (plus a few minor ones) that you probably haven't heard much about from anywhere else, including my previous articles on the subject that already described QuickTime X, Grand Central, and OpenCL. WWDC 2008: New in Mac OS X Snow Leopard Snow Leopard Server Takes on Exchange, SharePoint Pulling Invisible New Features into Snow Leopard. Apple's increasing collaborations with the open source community have pulled back the veil of secrecy on several new but mostly invisible enhancements that will be showing up in Snow Leopard. One relates to LLVM, the Low Level Virtual Machine compiler architecture project originally founded at the University of Illinois. Apple began contributing to LLVM development in 2005, and started using it Leopard to expand support for OpenGL hardware features. Lower-end Macs that lack the silicon to interpret that specialize graphics code can now do it in software. LLVM is also working its way into Apple's Xcode IDE, initially as a highly efficient optimizer and code generator that works as a bolt-on upgrade to components of GCC, but eventually as a complete compiler replacement. That project, known as Clang, was opened up last year. LLVM compiler technology not only makes developers more productive, but also results in code that runs significantly faster on the same hardware. Apple's other open secret: the LLVM Complier The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure Project Another openly hidden secret in Mac OS X is CUPS, the Common Unix Printing System. Beginning with Jaguar in 2002, Apple adopted and licensed CUPS from its developer as Mac OS X's printing engine. It then purchased the project outright. CUPS is also the de facto printing system for Linux distros and is available for BSD and other commercial Unix systems. That means Apple owns the project that develops the printing architecture for Linux. That's not an issue because Apple has established a reputation in open source as a strong contributor and open sharer. According to a review of bug fixes and improvements in CUPS software, 24% of the enhancements came from Apple while 76% came from free and open source software contributors working with Linux, OpenSolaris, and other projects. Of course, 100% of both sides benefited from that sharing. CUPS collaboration has resulted in high quality code and the advancement of new features. CUPS 1.4, the version sources say Snow Leopard will use, adds performance enhancements and a variety of security improvements that use sandboxing to prevent malware attacks on the printing system from being able to read sensitive documents that may be in use by printers. Common UNIX Printing System A third significant new feature originating from an open source project in Snow Leopard is ZFS support, portions of which come from the OpenSolaris project (along with Sun's DTrace technology, which Apple uses in its Instruments performance profiling tool). Leopard debuted read-only ZFS features, but Snow Leopard and Snow Leopard Server will provide both read and write support for Sun's new 128-bit file system. ZFS was designed to provide “simple administration, transactional semantics, end-to-end data integrity, and immense scalability.? ZFS hype during the development of Leopard helped the new file system reach buzzword status as news of the three letter acronym swept through blogs and the tech media. It is frequently described as being the imminent replacement for the Mac's native HFS+. However, the benefits of ZFS including as storage pooling, data redundancy, automatic error correction, dynamic volume expansion, and snapshots all apply primarily to servers and higher-end workstation users who deal with multiple disk drives. ZFS isn't going to replace HFS+ outright in Snow Leopard, and has limited relevance today to desktop and laptop users, particularly those who never move beyond the single disk drive installed in their system. More Predictions for WWDC 2007: Solaris, Google, Surround Apple - Mac OS X Leopard - Developer Tools - Instruments Symbiotic: What Apple Does for Open Source Apple's Open Source Assault Pushing Visible New Features in Snow Leopard. Apple's extensive work in developing push support for Exchange Server on the iPhone will also be included in Snow Leopard's Mail, Address Book, and iCal. Push support in those client side apps are also being used to power MobileMe's push messaging subscription service and Snow Leopard Server's push messaging services. Apple will be offering both in parallel as alternatives to Exchange, thanks to smart planning on the part of Apple's engineers to develop an interoperable push architecture in Mac OS X and on the iPhone. There is also a fourth application of push that has developed alongside push messaging: Apple's new Push Notification Service. PNS allows iPhone and iPod touch users to set up server side notification alerts that don't require mobile applications to stay running in the background just to update users of the external events they track. Along with Bonjour discovery, PNS will keep iPhones wirelessly connected in all sorts of sophisticated ways that third party developers can imagine in their applications. Whether Apple will integrate a listener for the same PNS system into the desktop side of Mac OS X remains to be seen, but it would allow a single, unified interface for alerting client users of new events. I proposed a system wide, Growl-style notification system in the Leopard Wish List published back in 2005. Snow Leopard Server Takes on Exchange, SharePoint Apple’s Mobile Me Takes On Exchange, Mobile Mesh With the strong push into push messaging, Apple will make mobile devices even more tightly integrated with its desktop products. Leopard delivered Back To My Mac as a novel way to use Wide Area Bonjour's dynamic service registration as a mechanism for sharing resources served from home to any location without configuring static naming services for address lookups. Because any software can register itself with .Mac/MobileMe, this opens the door to third party developers with the vision to exploit the potential of these enabling technologies. A Global Upgrade for Bonjour: AirPort, iPhone, Leopard, .Mac Ten Big Predictions for Apple in 2008 Among the technologies profiled earlier in Myth 3 that have been trickling from the iPhone into Mac OS X, there's at least one idea I proposed for the iPhone that will be in Snow Leopard's Safari: self contained web apps. The new feature will allow users to run web applications as a local app in its own window, essentially making the web platform into a native-looking app that can run outside of Safari. I proposed a similar feature as a possibility for the iPhone prior to the announcement of the Cocoa Touch SDK: web apps packaged up into a set of files that could be run on the device as a Dashboard widget-like standalone app, even when off the network. Why Apple hasn't pursued such an obvious strategy is a little hard to figure out, but it seems they've got the ball rolling on the desktop. That ball will be rolling even faster thanks to SquirrelFish, a new JavaScript interpreter that will make Safari and any other WebKit-based browsers, standalone self contained apps, and Dashboard widgets all a lot faster. Apple's MobileMe, Yahoo's Flickr, and Google various web apps will all gain new speed thanks to faster JavaScript execution. SquirrelFish will also raise the bar in performance and efficiency in the Rich Internet Applications sector in general, giving Flash, Silverlight, and Java a faster, simpler, and more openly interoperable runtime to compete against. RoughlyDrafted: Leopard Wish List: 2005 How Open will the iPhone Get? Surfin’ Safari » Announcing SquirrelFish Microsoft's Application Features in Mac OS X, System Wide. Microsoft's business model of tacking on features hasn't been a total wash. The company's desperate efforts to invent novel marketing features for every new release of Windows and Office have pioneered a number of ideas that have later found their way into Mac OS X. One example is the idea of Fast User Switching, which Apple added to Panther. Windows XP pioneered the trick, but built it upon the kluge that is Terminal Services. Microsoft also helped originate the basis of Ajax web apps by inventing XMLHttpRequest in order to make its Outlook Web Access 2000 web app work decently within Internet Explorer. Today, standards-based web apps are eating a hole into Microsoft's monopoly on the proprietary desktop platform, and tools such as SproutCore and resulting products such as MobileMe are poised to tear down interoperability barriers and level the playing field. Microsoft may now regret having opened Pandora's Box in terms of standards-based web applications, but its efforts to seal the web back up with the proprietary Silverlight plugin, which turns web apps into .NET programs, will now be next to impossible. Another example of a Microsoft innovation are the fancy text features in Word, such as red underlining to highlight spelling mistakes and the green squiggle for grammar errors. Word also features a variety of word auto correction, smart dash insertion, and text replacement features (such as typing TM to get the ™ character). The former have already become system-wide features in Mac OS X, while sources indicate that the latter text processing features will find their way into Snow Leopard, and therefore every application that runs on it. RoughlyDrafted: Remote Display part 3: Terminal Server Cocoa for Windows + Flash Killer = SproutCore Super Size Me. On top of injecting Word features into its OS for the use of every application, Apple will also expand the use of its own Data Detectors, a technology it invented in the mid 90s for identifying useful bits of text and making it actionable. Leopard introduced Data Detectors in Mail as a way to extract contacts and events for use in Address Book and iCal, but Snow Leopard will expose Data Detectors everywhere it draws text. Sources also indicate Snow Leopard will expand upon Font Book to provide full Auto Activation of any fonts requested by any application, using Spotlight to track them down. Snow Leopard is also suggested to have a new set of frameworks specifically for working with multitouch trackpad gestures, patterned after those introduced with the MacBook Air. Speaking of the ultra-thin Air, sometimes less is more. However, the high cost and relatively low capacity of Solid State Drives like the $1000, 64 GB SSD option offered for the Air means that one Microsoft feature Snow Leopard could do without is bloat. As one reader noted, “Currently, Leopard requires 9 GB of available disk space for installation and iLife requires an additional 3 GB. This means that a product such as the [SSD] MacBook Air comes with the hard drive 20% full.? How the MacBook Air stacks up against other ultra-light notebooks Leopard Predictions for WWDC 2006 WWDC 2007: An Inside Perspective From the Halfway Point Think Small. Snow Leopard aims below the bloat to accommodate the coming wave of SSD-based systems. In the latest build, sources say Apple's own apps are losing weigh dramatically across the board. The apps in the Utilities folder all drop from 468 MB to 111.6 MB, for example. Other apps are similarly svelte, as the graph below indicates. Is this the product of just code optimization and shared resources? One factor likely relates to work on Resolution Independence, which substitutes bitmapped raster graphics (which define every pixel) with smaller vector graphics files (which draw GUI elements and controls by recipe). Vector graphics can be scaled to any size while retaining a high quality appearance, while bitmapped graphics can quickly look blocky when scaled up. Adding larger bitmapped versions can solve that problem, but at the cost of consuming more disk space. Apple earlier told developers it would be providing a library of shared, high quality vector graphics they could use instead of each packaging their own bitmapped art into every app. The dramatic size reductions in these apps must also involve more efficient Localization. For example, Mac OS X Leopard's Mail currently weighs in at over 285 MB, but the majority of its bulk comes from 18 language localizations inside the application bundle that consume 276 MB. The actual Universal Binary code is only a few megabytes and even its associated graphics and other resources only amount to 2.8 MB. Why does Apple default to dumping support for 18 or more languages in every app without providing any simple, centralized way to get rid of the unnecessary ones? Perhaps that question is answered in Snow Leopard, where Mail is reportedly just 91 MB. That's too big to simply to be an English-only, stripped down version for developers, but still far smaller than than Leopard's. Across the board, it appears Snow Leopard apps are about a third as large as their Leopard equivalents. And so while Snow Leopard paradoxically gains more useful features through code improvements and under-the-hood retooling rather than from a Microsoft-style new feature focus that aims to deliver “wow? with flashy marketing gimmicks, the system is also getting smaller and tighter. There must also be some other subtraction, right? Will Snow Leopard scrape away the old Carbon API? That's the next myth. WWDC 2008: New in Mac OS X Snow Leopard WWDC 2008: Is Mac OS X 10.6 the Death of Carbon? I really like to hear from readers. Comment in the Forum or email me with your ideas. Like reading RoughlyDrafted? Share articles with your friends, link from your blog, and subscribe to my podcast! Submit to Reddit or Slashdot, or consider making a small donation supporting this site. Thanks! Technorati Tags: Apple, Development, Mac, Software
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How Open will the iPhone Get?
Daniel Eran DilgerThere is obvious interest in iPhone development, and users of the device have good reason to demand a vibrant software ecosystem growing up around it. There are a lot of applications Apple doesn’t have the time or inclination to deliver, but which would greatly increase the value of the phone and subsequently expand sales. Apple needs third party help.At the same time, I have taken it upon myself to act as the tiny minority voice in explaining why I think Apple isn’t simply being foolish and shortsighted in the way that it is rolling out its iPhone software platform. Back in January, I explained why Apple might face resistance from third party developers, and why it might be best suited following a managed platform strategy in the model of video games, where Apple would developing its own apps and work with developers to co-publish, without setting up a wide open development platform like the Mac or Windows. [Inside the iPhone: Third Party Software]I also defended against the market-speak droids that came out in a vengeance against Apple’s so called “closed platform? by highlighting the absurdity of ABI’s claim that not running third party software made the iPhone “not a smartphone,? pointing out that the overwhelming majority of today’s third party mobile software either:solves problems in Windows Mobile that shouldn’t exist.fills voids left by Windows Mobile that Microsoft should have covered.exists without reason as frivolous garbage-ware.is overpriced trash.or will work on the iPhone already.[More Absurd iPhone Myths: Third Party Software Panic]With Journalists Like These, Who Needs to Report a Factual Story?In May, I went to Apple’s shareholder meeting (just barely; they use metal detectors for security and I have a metal plate in my arm from a motorcycle accident), and used the opportunity to ask Steve Jobs about iPhone development In front of all those rich stockholder and media types.“While Apple's closed platform policy may make sense for consumers,? I asked, “does Apple recognize the needs of large, institutional buyers who are excited about the prospect of applying low cost, handheld computers with their own custom development??Jobs went on record to answer that Apple was working to balance the needs of software security and deployment with demands for custom development on the iPhone. The “real? press, including Ellen Lee in the San Francisco Chronicle and Troy Wolverton of the San Jose Mercury News, failed to ask any interesting questions or even note the interesting answers. Instead, Lee published a diatribe about how Jobs was “feisty? and “fired back? at anyone who dare ask any questions. Lee also described an unhappy shareholder contingent based entirely upon--as reader David Barnes noted--conversations with two union leaders with clear political goals. She may as well have invented that story from her desk and saved herself a trip.Wolverton turned in a tepid report in May, but then tried to retell Lee’s story in August, in an incendiary article that spun the meeting’s vote--three months later--as a hotbed of shareholder outrage and discontent. Wolverton still hasn’t got back to me as promised to explain away his documented record of half-truths and negative spin on all things Apple. What a coward![Answers from Steve Jobs at Apple's Shareholder Meeting][RoughlyDrafted Forums - Answers from Steve Jobs at Apple's Shareholder Meeting][Troy Wolverton Documents Faux Apple Shareholder Outrage]An iPhone SDK at WWDC?Prior to WWDC in June, I explained why I didn’t think Apple would release a software development kit for it, and that it would likely orient apps around the web as Dashboard-like widgets instead. I outlined reasons why, in addition to pointing out that being “closed? did not necessarily mean being a completely locked down black box, and that Apple’s viewpoint was subject to change as the surrounding circumstances did. [Mobile Disruption: Apple's iPhone and Third Party Software][An iPhone SDK? Predictions for WWDC 2007!]An Open iPhone Software Plan.Days before the iPhone’s release, I pointed out that Apple had already gone on record about its plans for the iPhone back in an April earnings report:CFO Peter Oppenheimer stated, “We believe the iPhone is a revolutionary device that is years ahead of the competition. At Macworld, we demonstrated a number of the iPhone's breakthrough features, including its pioneering multi-touch display and user interface, visual voicemail, desktop class e-mail and web browsing, and of course, the best iPod ever. “We plan to build on this incredible foundation by continuing to develop new software features as well as entirely new applications and incorporate them into the iPhone. Since iPhone customers will likely be our best advocates for the product, we want to get them many of these new features and applications at no additional charge as they become available.“[Apple's Secret iPhone Application Business Model]Since then, I’ve pointed out the same thing: the iPhone isn’t likely to become a Mac-like open platform anytime soon, but its really not accurate to call it a closed platform either. Two recent articles presented more details on why, integrating in the historical events of the Office Wars.[Six Reasons Why Apple May Never Open the iPhone][How Closed Is the iPhone?]Reasons for Wanting an Open iPhone SDK.Reader Ken Tozier responded with three main reasons he thinks Apple should open up the iPhone to developers. He wrote:“A supported SDK would eliminate the negative ‘hacker’ stigma for third party applications. Since Apple never partners with anyone but large corporations, under the closed model, the little guy will never get a chance to legitimately write applications for the iPhone. Without this legitimacy, only a miniscule proportion of iPhone users will ever take the risk on hacked applications. The average user will just be too scared off by the label ‘hacked.’ “A supported SDK would bring a large percentage of developers, who want to create iPhone/iPod-Touch apps under Apple's control. It's just easier and faster to use Apple's Cocoa classes than plod through open source SVN trees trying to stitch together disparate code fragments into your own ‘big idea.’ “Small developers are the ones who will be writing the most creative iPhone apps. Fleshing in the iPhone universe with myriad stars, that are just too small for Apple to bother with. Bar code readers based on the camera. Foreign language flash cards, Road trip license plate games for kids where, when they see a new license plate, they could press a button for info on that state. Lava lamps, virtual fish tanks. Carpenter's levels. Nail finders. The possibilities are endless and Apple will never do any of them.“The iPhone already contains a large chunk of ARM adapted Cocoa classes with the exact same method prototypes that have been in use for years in OS X. Apple isn't going to change classes like NSDictionaries, NSStrings, NSURLs etc for the simple reason that it's battle tested, ‘just works’ and changing these would break all their stuff too.“So, that just leaves a handful of high level iPhone specific classes. For example, I'd be a happy camper if, in addition to file read/write, Apple gave us the following iPhone hardware accessor classes:NSBasebandServiceNSBasebandClient NSBluetoothServiceNSBluetoothClient NSWiFiServiceNSWiFiClient NSMultiTouchClientNSAccelerometerClient“With NSBasebandService and NSWiFiService, it would be possible to create a wireless modem application where your laptop talks to the phone in WiFi-ese and the phone talks to another phone on the other side of the world through the baseband. Teleconferencing from a camp site.“With NSMultiTouchClient, you could use the raw coordinate (and pressure?) data however you wanted. Keys on a virtual instrument, pads on a virtual drum kit, whatever.“With NSAccelerometerClient you could create really cool multi-player games and physics demonstrations for the classroom.“Apple needs to do this. I can't put an accurate percentage on it, but my gut feeling is that third party apps could increase iPhone sales by 10 to 15 percent. Maybe even more if someone comes up with something revolutionary.?The Hacker Stigma.Tozier raised some good points. However, regarding the hacker stigma, what great or useful applications do people not use because of such a stigma? Mac the Ripper, Handbrake, and torrent apps and sites are wildly popular, even though they are known to be "grey area" and require thwarting of laws and jurisdictions just to host them. People might be afraid of putting unknown third party software on their mobile, but they should be. If Apple rubber stamped its approval on all third party software to remove this stigma, it would only confer all rage related to glitches, battery loss, spyware, and other problems directly upon Apple. Why would Apple want to take responsibility for a bunch of hobbyist apps when it faces regular petty lawsuits over "whether it adequately informed users that batteries might wear out" and other frivolousness?Frozen Cocoa: Tastes Great But Doesn't Flow.The hackers are already working to use Apple's Cocoa classes. There is no alternative system on the iPhone to use. Just as on the Mac desktop, many apps are existing Free and Open Source Software wrapped in nice Cocoa interfaces. That's what iPhone apps would largely be as well. But for Apple to offer official support for this, it would have to freeze its Cocoa frameworks and make them public.Apple already maintains private frameworks in Mac OS X; developers can't really use these, not because Apple wants to reserve them for itself, but because they are in flux. Apple commonly develops a framework privately, then after testing it in production and refining it, opens them up for developers to use in the next release of Mac OS X. If developers were allowed to build against the closed versions, their work would break as Apple made improvements. It's the same on the iPhone. If Apple opened up its internals as a public API, it would then be hamstrung to make any changes.We already know that Apple plans to make major changes to a number of things, particularly Notes and Calendar in relation to Leopard. If Apple allowed developers to go out and build a "Notes+" they would be angry after Apple released its own plans related to Notes, and "outraged Mac users" would be paraded around offering their opinion that Apple shouldn't step on developers shoes and should pay third parties before offering a similar solution to the same problem. Think of Watson and Konfabulator.An Expanding iPhone Software Ecosystem of Small Developers.At the same time however, Tozier raises salient points about the breadth and depth of software that Apple will never provide solutions to. I have an iPhone. I want to install cool things on it. I can imagine things that would be incredibly useful and powerful and fun. I'm surprised Apple hasn't made any allowance to even package up "local web apps" that developers could distribute that could do things without a network connection. It would be great if Apple could deliver a sandbox environment that would skirt around all the problems I raised and deliver a vibrant software ecosphere for the OS X devices.I can also think of a dozen other things It would also be great if Apple could tackle. Unfortunately, market realities mean that the company's abilities are constrained and it has to focus on the most valuable opportunities. As the company builds the iPhone platform, I think it will make sense to progressively allow increased access to third parties. Steps Toward Open.I think "local web apps" would be an extremely important first step, along with simpler Dashboard-like widgets similar to the iPhone’s Maps, Weather, and Stocks. Put them on a separate set of pages behind "Dashboard" or something. Very little risk.A second step would be to allow access to the cooler stuff via the web, so local web apps could access sensors and Bluetooth and other things. This begins to raise security risks and liability risks. The first apps are going to be used to copy around songs and pop up ads; there is too much money in "not paying for content" and "pushing messages at people." Look at Windows: open ubiquitous platform, satiated with software piracy and viral adware.I agree that the idyllic paradise is flowing with the milk and honey of third party software, but there are real threats to defend against as well. Which is why I brought up Mac OS licensing. Who would have guessed that software licensing would cost Apple more money that it made? Good ideas are sometimes really just ideas.But ideas are so much fun to speculate about. Let’s play Reverse Bingo for iPhone Software, by trying to correctly guess which icons will fill up the iPhone’s home page. I have a few ideas, but there’s still time to suggest your own.What do you think? I really like to hear from readers. Comment in the Forum or email me with your ideas. Like reading RoughlyDrafted? Share articles with your friends, link from your blog, and subscribe to my podcast! Submit to Reddit or Slashdot, or consider making a small donation supporting this site. Thanks!
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How Closed Is the iPhone?
Daniel Eran Dilger"Six Reasons Why Apple May Never Open the iPhone" outlined the rationale behind the strategy driving Apple's software plans for its new mobile. At the same time, it's important to take a reasonable appraisal of the iPhone's supposedly closed nature. While Apple is unlikely to open up the iPhone in the same sense as the Mac anytime soon, it is already an open platform in ways that matter. [Six Reasons Why Apple May Never Open the iPhone]Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't.While it's always easy to criticize Apple's position, it's not as simple to plot out an alternative course that would actually work better, or work at all.Recall that pundits fell all over themselves over the last two decades insisting that Apple do a variety of things they assured us would solve all of the company’s problems, including ideas to:License its OS to other hardware makers.Copy Microsoft's Windows strategies.Compete directly against Microsoft in IT markets.Split into hardware and software companies.Buy Be, Inc. for its BeOS.Adopt the Linux kernel.License Windows from Microsoft.While it was easy for the advice columnists of industry rags--who don't run multibillion dollar hardware companies--to insist at various times that Apple should have done all those things, it was all wishful conjecture. In contrast, Palm actually did all of those things and none of them worked out for that company, which was facing circumstances similar to Apple.[The Egregious Incompetence of Palm]Closed as in Managed, Not as in Locked Down.Apple is keeping mobile OS X devices closed to manage the experience of users, not so much to kill or prevent third party development. The company just officially clarified that, indicating that its policy on third party development was indeed largely related to the difficulty of maintaining APIs for developers, as I described on Monday.[Apple not opposed to native iPhone app development - AppleInsider]Since 2001, Apple has kept the iPod closed in the sense that it has made no efforts to sponsor third party software development. It did not prevent any third party development however, and made no efforts to stop users from either porting Linux or developing the alternative RockBox firmware for it.Apple didn't want an array of shareware applications holding up future development and bringing scorn upon the company for changing how things worked in new models. That policy allowed Apple to remain competitive and nimbly improve iPods across new generations of hardware in various directions with the Photo, Mini, Nano, video, and now the Touch. At the same time, Apple also expanded its own iPod software development in partnerships with Nike+, various games developers, and an ecosystem of integrators, resulting in a platform that is actually openly active despite being officially regarded as closed. The iPod is really best described as a managed platform.Now compare Microsoft's Zune and its Xbox line. While Microsoft welcomes games developers to its platform, it's only welcoming in ways that suit the company. It refuses to allow Linux developers to roll their own firmware, erecting signed boot barriers to thwart any unauthorized software. While Apple has no problem with RockBox on the iPod, Microsoft has worked to stop the XBMC "Xbox Media Center" project, an effort of identical intent. With the iPhone, while Apple has only ever officially supported a web platform for third party developers, it has similarly done little to stop anyone from assembling and distributing their own software for it. So far, it has only been AT&T that has worked to stop certain efforts, and those relate to commercial distribution of hacked versions of Apple's own firmware. [Inside the iPhone: Third Party Software]Software Wrapped in Hardware.Apple's core competency is in offering a managed experience. Its products are known to "just work," a reputation that has spanned two decades. While Apple has only enthusiastically jumped into application software over the last decade, the secret to Apple's slick hardware integration has always been software. The difference between Apple and Microsoft is that Apple sells its software wrapped in hardware. Microsoft only licenses software, and its few and failing hardware products have always really just been software licenses tied to loss leader hardware. That results in Apple being confident that only a small minority of users will want to put Linux on their Mac or RockBox on their iPod, and that in neither case will it pose any threat to the company, because it's happy to offer those users hardware at a profit.However, Microsoft is very threatened by the prospect of its hardware devices being wiped clean and replaced with free software, because it fears it will cut into Xbox Live and Zune Marketplace sales, where the company plans to make most of its revenues. It loses money on the hardware, particularly after all the warranty maintenance it has to pay.[Leopard vs Vista 4: Naked Sales]Apple's Shaken Software Sales Confidence.If Apple is so confident in its software, why doesn't it sell it head to head with Microsoft, either in PC licensing, IT sales, or in kicking open the door to rival Microsoft's Windows Mobile, which embraces development? The answer lies in the irrational, upside down world of software sales that Microsoft has constructed and maintains in place.It's easy to insist that Apple could open up the iPhone and bring about world peace, but that's a lot like insisting that Apple could have successfully licensed its Mac OS, or could have used Linux or Be, or split in half, or any of the other things that may have looked wise until they failed elsewhere. I think Apple feared developing a mobile platform that wouldn't gain critical support. Remember that Apple not only offered the world Rhapsody gold and got nothing but blank stares, but also couldn't sell NeXT's WebObjects even after reducing the price from $50,000 to eventually essentially making it free.WebObjects is the dynamic web application server engine that delivers the online Apple Store and the iTunes Store. Prior to being acquired by Apple, NeXT's WebObjects was used to power Dell's first commercially successful web store and by MCI to develop the back end of its Friends and Family campaign, a feat other providers scrambled in vain to copy but couldn't because the technology was so unique.[Cocoa and the Death of Yellow Box and Rhapsody]I See Screens of Blue; What a Windows-ful World. Apple's software was ignored for years because everyone wanted to throw money at Microsoft for stuff that didn't work.How many times have you had the iTunes store crash during a transaction or even while browsing around? How many times has it gone offline for unscheduled maintenance? Now go search Microsoft's Knowledge Base. It SIMPLY DOES NOT WORK. The only way to reliably find answers in Microsoft's support pages has always been to search Google for it. Yet Microsoft sells everyone the same Active Server Pages that DOES NOT WORK at Microsoft. At the same time, nobody is very interested in WebObjects, the engine behind Apple's revolution in high volume music transactions and its very profitable online Apple Store operation. How many times have you crashed in a database web app and gotten an error message with .asp? That's Microsoft at work. Remember when ATM's didn't crash? That's back when they were mostly all running OS/2. Since many banks have migrated to Windows in the last few years, it's now common to see bluescreens on ATMs. Why did they do that? It's hard to understand. It is absolutely fantastically absurd that major businesses would trust Microsoft with their mission critical applications when Microsoft can't even successfully maintain its own website.Back in the days when AT&T and IBM wielded their monopoly power, at least things worked. Microsoft has killed innovation and replaced it with a cruel joke of arrogant incompetence, and yet retains more cheerleaders than IBM or AT&T ever had. This makes no sense. It’s a bit like the US, which congratulates itself about being a free country while shaking down tourists and taking their shampoo. Relatively little is said about this particularly irrational paradox between fantasy and reality either.Competing Against Stacked Odds.So you have a upside down reality where Apple is not able to sell its excellent NeXT technology despite a proven legacy in high-end enterprise segments well back into the early 90s. In large measure, that’s because of a 24/7 false information system full of Windows Enthusiasts paid to talk about how dangerous the alternatives to Microsoft are, regardless of their actual qualifications to speak about the enterprise market. Now look at the Mac. Apple has fair support from developers, and things are improving as Mac sales are swinging up, but the desktop is still very Windows-centric. Getting games developers to support the Mac is a challenge, and the fact that Microsoft is buying interests in game developers and making them Windows and Xbox-only doesn't help. Building support for a new mobile platform with Apple's limited resources could only be a potentially embarrassing failure. As is the case with WebObjects, I think Apple will have to show the world its utility by applying it first. And also like WebObjects, it may be that no amount of proof would ever convince the IT world that Microsoft is charging them for software that just isn't very good, or that alternatives could save them the outrageous software licensing fees they pay. Faced with the potential prospect of throwing an iPhone developer party where nobody shows up apart from some enthusiastic hackers and shareware authors, Apple decided instead to go it alone, working exclusively with a tight group of developers that it could trust. Apple will likely continue to announce new partnerships with outside services companies like Google, integration with car companies and other hardware manufacturers, and innovative new lifestyle partnerships like Nike and Starbucks. It won't however sit at home waiting by the phone for third parties to call it back about the great iPhone party invitations it mailed out weeks earlier. [Apple's Open Calendar Server vs Microsoft Exchange]Mobile Platform Not Another Desktop.Also note that the mobile application market is very different than the desktop apps market. That confounded the plans of Microsoft and Palm, who both behaved as if they were inventing the next PC as they rolled out their identical software development strategies. Look at what software is available for both the Windows Mobile and Palm platforms: a few useful utilities that could often just as well be web apps, a few mobile games that struggle to sell for $20, and really zero market for anything substantial. There's really no potential at all for profitable $100 - $500 software titles on mobile devices as there is on the PC desktop. Mobiles are a shareware market.Who makes high quality, shareware priced software? Who else but Apple? Who makes anything like iLife or iWork? Nobody can afford to! Adobe sells applications in the $300 and up range. Its consumer applications sell for around $99 each. Apple bundles several good apps into an $80 box, which makes them around $15 programs. No significantly sized company can develop serious software with substantial annual updates and afford to sell it for $15, apart from Apple. That's because Apple is using those titles to sell Macs.[Five Ways Apple Will Change TV: 2]A Messed Up Market.On the PC, Microsoft locked up the applications market by homogenizing the world with Office. Nobody can deliver a full Office at a lower price. Individual companies can deliver a killer standalone app that can't compete against a bundled suite, or alternatively struggle to establish an entire suite to compete against Office, but both options are a high risk, massive undertaking that swims against a heavy current. In neither case could you charge anything close to Microsoft, so even if you could match it in sales, you'd never catch up. Microsoft maintains its monopoly by thwarting competition, not by being so good that people drop alternatives and choose Microsoft. The result is that the rest of the industry - Novell, Sun, Google and now IBM, are all behind OpenOffice, an Office knockoff that is basically free. That's not a functional market.Meanwhile, Apple is delivering iWork, which is good and value priced, but also brand new and demands refinement. I think it will really develop over the next year. I hope Apple releases an '09 version and keeps advancing it rapidly, even if its only making a paltry $80 a copy compared to Microsoft's $300 and up Office. [How Microsoft Got Its Office Monopoly]Opening the Gates of iPhone SoftwareSo the point that I was destined to eventually get to is that Apple has figured out how to roll its own software by basically subsidizing it through hardware sales. There's no way Apple could profitably sell an $80 iWork for Windows or for Linux. Now, imagine an iWork-like mobile productivity pack for $25 for the iPhone, a similarly priced Utilities pack with VNC remote desktop and an ssh client. A couple dozen $5 games. A series of partner packages, BES integration from RIM, and maybe an iPhone Quicken from Intuit (whose board chair Bill Campbell originally ran Claris and also sits on Apple's board). Suddenly Apple's closed iPhone looks a lot more appealing than an "open phone" with as much support as WebObjects and Rhapsody ever saw. On top of Apple's "managed" efforts, there's also the hacker community, which has already developed a handful of tools and even a simple enough installer for non-technical users. That makes the iPhone unofficially open, even if its not part of Apple's managed plans. I have other ideas for iPhone software I'd like to see that I'll write up in an upcoming article. Send me any ideas for titles you'd like to see.What do you think? I really like to hear from readers. Comment in the Forum or email me with your ideas. Like reading RoughlyDrafted? Share articles with your friends, link from your blog, and subscribe to my podcast! Submit to Reddit or Slashdot, or consider making a small donation supporting this site. Thanks!