Has Apple Found a Base?

As shown in the chart below, Apple (AAPL) has bounced a bit over the past two days. This bounce occurred right after the stock hit the bottom of its trading range channel that it has been in for a few months now.If the stock can take out its highs from last Wednesday, it clears the way for a move back to the top of its range.

As shown in the chart below, Apple (AAPL) has bounced a bit over the past two days. This bounce occurred right after the stock hit the bottom of its trading range channel that it has been in for a few months now.If the stock can take out its highs from last Wednesday, it clears the way for a move back to the top of its range.

  • Gear of the Year 2009

    Apple and its partners released hundreds upon hundreds of compelling products this year. We scoured the hardware universe, tested the heck out of the most intriguing gear we found, and now share our exclusive list of the 15 very best.Apple doesn’t make product design easy for its third-party partners and the rest of the hardware-manufacturing universe. Jonathan Ive and his design team craft the most emotionally inspiring gear in all of computing and gadgetdom, which only sets the bar higher for those companies aspiring to make products that work with Apple gear. Add in the fact that Steve Jobs keeps many of Apple’s development plans private, and you have third-party vendors essentially “designing blind,” as they anticipate products that complement the Apple oeuvre.But, oh well, such is the price we pay for gear that moves the soul. Apple’s design process creates the coolest family of products on the market, and the best third-party manufacturers always find a way to create gear and accessories that match Apple’s hallmarks of slick design, simple operation, and clever, cutting-edge features. On the following pages, we present the very best of the hardware we tested this year, as well as the iPhone and iPod touch apps that made profound impacts on the screens of our handhelds.Notebook: 13" MacBook ProPretend it’s January 1, 2009, and you’re in the market for a 13-inch Mac laptop. Your choices are few: Either a plastic MacBook starting at $999 (for which you’d get 1GB of RAM, a 120GB hard drive, and a 2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo “Penryn” chip), or the svelte aluminum MacBook Air starting at $1,799 (2GB of non-upgradeable RAM, the same 120GB hard drive, and a 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo “Penryn” chip).The gulf between their prices: significant. The difference in their specs: yawn-inducing.The 13-inch MacBook Pro does a happy dance every time we sing its deserved praises.Thankfully, Apple introduced the 13-inch MacBook Pro in June, giving mobilistas the same features as the 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pros in a smaller, more portable package. Compared to the Air, it’s got more ports, a faster chip, upgradeable RAM, and a bigger and faster hard drive--and starting at $1,199, the 13-inch MBP is a few ducats cheaper too (the Air now starts at $1,499). From its all-day battery life to its oh-so-convenient SD card slot, the 13-inch Pro quickly became the favorite new Mac in our offices and a hands-down shoo-in for Gear of the Year honors.COMPANY: AppleCONTACT: www.apple.comPRICE: $1,199 and upDisplay: LED Cinema DisplayApple’s LED Cinema Display isn’t necessarily perfect. It’s kinda expensive and only works with Mini DisplayPort–equipped Mac models (unibody MacBook Pros, the now-defunct unibody MacBook, the MacBook Air, and the latest Mac Pro and iMac). If your machine sports a DVI or mini-DVI port instead of a Mini DisplayPort, you can’t use this display, even with Apple’s adapters. Yes, at press time, Atlona was releasing an adapter that purports to connect any DVI Mac to this display, but we haven’t yet been able to test it yet.Behold: 24 inches of wow.So, yes, it may present problems for the budget- and DisplayPort-challenged, but none are serious enough to rob this incredible display of GOTY recognition. The 24-inch LED-backlit screen is sublime, even without a matte option, and the $899 price tag doesn’t seem so steep considering that the monitor can also power your laptop with its built-in MagSafe power cord. It’s like having a second power adapter, which typically would cost you $129. The LED Cinema Display also reflects the environmental strides Apple made in 2009: The glass is arsenic free, the cables are PVC free, it meets Energy Star requirements, it’s free of BFR and mercury, and the glass and aluminum enclosure are highly recyclable. OK, OK, and it’s great looking too. We’re just shallow like that.COMPANY: AppleCONTACT: www.apple.comPRICE: $899 Camcorder: Zi8 Pocket Video CameraKodak’s pocket-size Zi8 edges out the Flip MinoHD (4 out of 5 stars, Mar/09), thanks to its uncanny versatility. Nearly the same size as the Flip, the Zi8 can shoot in full 1080p at 30 frames per second, 720p at both 30 and 60 frames per second, widescreen VGA (848x480), and also take 5-megapixel stills. Removable SDHC cards let you swap in new memory, and the rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery is also removable, so you can pack extra cards and batteries and keep shooting all day, weekend, vacation, or bender long. A tripod mount, macro mode, 2.5-inch display, and stereo microphone input round out the package.Removable memory and batteries keep you shooting all day.Oh, and it’s $20 cheaper than the Flip MinoHD too (though you will need to shell out for an SDHC card; an 8GB one goes for about $25). Even the PC-only software doesn’t rain on the Zi8’s parade too much--the MOV files play in QuickTime and can be imported into iMovie for further editing. We hear ArcSoft Media Impressions, the included software, is no picnic anyhow, although we really wouldn’t know, as we’re all Mac Lifers. (Mac Lifers who are now videotaping each others’ every move.)COMPANY: KodakCONTACT: www.kodak.comPRICE: $179.95Printer: Epson Stylus Photo R2880With multifunction printers like the Epson Artisan 810 running about $300 for quite impressive photo reproduction, some might think us decadent for choosing a photo-only printer that costs twice as much. Well, price isn’t a major consideration in Gear of the Year voting, and when we consider the Stylus Photo R2880’s special talents for black-and-white printing and fine-art reproduction in general, we can’t help but turn to Epson’s most prosumer-oriented wide-format printer.An eight-cartridge ink system includes special magenta pigments for breathtaking tonal range in color prints. But where the R2880 really excels is in the grayscale reproduction of black-and-white prints. Three levels of black pigments and a special Black-and-White Photo Mode eliminate all of the unfortunate colorcasting that occurs in black-and-white prints from lesser photo printers.Only the fancy blue lighting in our photo studio casts impure color on the R2880's neutral B&W reproduction.The R2880 also supports a huge array of paper sizes and types. Formats range from 4x6 inches to 13x19 inches and 13-inch panoramic rolls. Supported paper types include Epson’s own velvet, watercolor, and canvas mattes, each of which feature its own unique fine-art texture. You can even feed in 1.3mm-thick art boards! The R2880 is the artist’s choice. We love it.COMPANY: EpsonCONTACT: www.epson.comPRICE: $599.99Camera: EOS 5D Mark IIPro photographers would likely give the stink eye to anyone who even suggested using one of those toy digi-cams that shoots both still images and video. But the Canon 5DMII isn’t a toy--it’s a game-changing digital SLR that adds the ability to shoot 1080p video to an already unbelievable package. That’s right, kids: This thing shoots HD video out of the box.The 5DMII takes insanely detailed still images with its 21.1 megapixel, 35mm CMOS sensor, which is 60 percent larger than the sensor in most other DSLRs. This translates into crisper images all around and low-light photos with zero to little grain or noise. And thanks to an enormous 3-inch LCD screen, you’ll be able to preview your shots with amazing detail, all in real time.Doesn't look like a video camera--but it is.When you get tired of still photos, you can shoot up to 12 minutes of HD 1080p video per each 4GB of flash memory. Video quality is good, and if you eschew the stock lens for a manually operated Canon lens, you can achieve superb video quality that rivals that of pro-level HD video cameras. Will the 5DMII replace those expensive HD video cameras? No. But it does take one step closer to leveling the playing field.COMPANY: CanonCONTACT: www.usa.canon.comPRICE: $2,699 (Body Only)Desktop: 24-inch 3.06GHz iMacThere was a time not so long ago that when a pro content-creator needed a new Mac, we would emphatically point him or her to the fastest Mac Pro. You need to edit video? Get a Mac Pro. You got some huge photo files that need retouching? Get a Mac Pro. Mixing your latest album? Well, you get the point.The granddaddy of all iMacs is a winning mix of everything we care about in Apple computers.But now we’re not so sure, considering the sheer raw power and screen size of the 24-inch, 3.06GHz iMac. The biggest iMac in the Apple corral, this machine screams, thanks to its Intel Core 2 Duo processor, Nvidia GeForce GT 130 videocard, and cutting-edge DDR3 RAM. Throw in a 1TB of drive space and that huge beautiful display, and you have a desktop rig that’s gloriously well appointed for consumer enthusiasts and pretty damn zippy for professionals. The 24-inch iMac doesn’t beat the Mac Pro in terms of sheer processor power and expandability, but it’s perfection in terms of its price-to-performance-to-convenience ratios.COMPANY: AppleCONTACT: www.apple.comPRICE: $2,199iPhone Case: FeatherThe Feather case is less than a millimeter thick. That’s thin, y’all. Made of a light but strong polymer, it snaps around your iPhone with a satisfying click, providing a layer of scratch-n-bump protection and a splash of color without adding any bulk whatsoever. The Feather comes in more than a dozen colors, including eye-catching, limited-edition fluorescents. Incipio even includes two surface protectors (removable film for your iPhone’s touchscreen) and a soft cleaning cloth.The NBC peacock would be so proud.The bottom is open so you can dock your device in nearly any accessory without having to pull the case off first. Not every case can do that, which is why the Feather quickly became the iPhone case of choice in the Mac|Life offices. Our iPhones are nearly as busy as we are, in and out of docks, speakers, and other accessories all day long. Stylish, rugged, and thin. That’s the hat trick for an iPhone case, and the Feather scores big on all three points.COMPANY: IncipioCONTACT: www.myincipio.comPRICE: $19.99Networking Device: Verizon MiFi 2200At first glance, the MiFi doesn’t look impressive--it’s just a shard of shiny black plastic and a few LEDs. But once you charge it up and slip it in your pocket, it becomes a tool of furious networking utility.The MiFi achieves the seemingly impossible: making networking hardware sexy.MiFi uses Wi-Fi to form a bridge between your computer and Verizon’s 3G data network, allowing you to access the Internet from anywhere Verizon has 3G coverage. That means you can take your MacBook to the beach and iChat with your pals with your toes in the sand--or grab online copies of the dreaded quarterly TPS report. You can also work from your favorite café, park bench, or even a moving vehicle (as a passenger), all without having to worry about finding an open Wi-Fi network. Better still, unlike USB or ExpressCard devices that only work with a single computer, you can share your MiFi connection with up to four additional computers.Oh, sure, there are probably a bunch of Wi-Fi home network routers that did a bang-up job in 2009. Yay for them. Give them all cake and ice cream. We’ll still take the MiFi, a networking product that actually does something new.COMPANY: VerizonCONTACT: www.verizonwireless.comPRICE: $149.99 with two-year service contractSet-Top Media Player: Western Digital WD TVSorry Apple TV, but the WD TV gets the nod for being the best device to deliver content from your Mac’s multimedia collection directly to your TV. In April, we gave the WD TV a tepid 3-star rating for some awkward interface issues, but since then WD has issued firmware updates addressing some of the nits and adding support for more video formats. Yes, we’re still waiting for network connectivity directly from Western Digital, but an active hacking community has been expanding the WD TV’s feature set, including getting it to play nice on Wi-Fi networks.Firmware updates and community hacks elevated the WD TV to greatness. Nine months and several different set-top boxes later, we still find ourselves skipping more complicated competitors and using the WD TV to play media files on our HDTVs. This box seems to support every file format one can throw at it. And unlike Apple and other set-top box competitors, Western Digital takes a very hacker-friendly stance with the WD TV, which we applaud, as great developments often flow from a passionate hacker community. It may not be the highest-tech device in our entertainment center, but for ease-of-use and rock-steady reliability, it’s the media box we love most.COMPANY: Western DigitalCONTACT: www.wdc.comPRICE: $99.99Gadget: Pulse SmartpenThis überhandy pen records audio, all while a teeny infrared camera in the tip links the sound to whatever you’re writing at the time. This lets you sit back and really listen to a lecture, meeting, or presentation without frantically scribbling notes. Instead, you can just jot the quickest of notes (even a single number or letter--whatever you like) on Livescribe’s special dot paper and then easily find the associated audio clip later. To do this, just tap a note with your pen as you’re playing back the audio, and the recording instantly jumps to the portion that was recorded when you wrote that note. Docking the pen uploads your recordings and a digitized version of your notes to the Livescribe Desktop app, which lets you archive, search, organize, and share your notes and audio.The notebook in this photo isn't a random prop. It's a volume of Livescribe's special dot paper.It’s difficult to explain how useful the Pulse and Livescribe Desktop are (and they do more than we’ve outlined here), but the genius behind the idea, the pen’s classy design, and the “it just works” simplicity dropped the jaws of every single Mac|Life staffer when we got our paws on it earlier this year. It’s our Gadget of the Year--take a note.COMPANY: LivescribeCONTACT: www.livescribe.comPRICE: $169.99 and upiPods: Fifth-Gen iPod nanoThe fifth-gen iPod nano is the first iteration of the nano since the original to not receive a perfect 5-star score from Mac|Life, but it’s still undoubtedly the iPod of the Year. Its 2.2-inch screen is the biggest for a nano ever, it plays FM radio--something we’ve requested for years--and, oh yeah, did you notice that it shoots video? (Apple might have mentioned something about that in the commercials, but we just wanted to make sure.)The video camera interface includes a generous collection of 15 special visual effects, including ones that mimic thermal heat maps, creepy X-rays, old-timey sepia tones, and trippy motion blurs--just like when the vampires speed up in True Blood! This latest nano also includes a pedometer function that shows you how many steps you’ve taken on your latest hike. All in all, the fifth-gen nano has a cunning array of talents and is our iPod of choice, especially if price is a consideration.An honorable mention should go to the third-gen iPod touch, now at a lower price to bring App Store goodness to more people (cue the zombies: “One of us! One of us!”) without subjecting them to the slings and arrows of an AT&T contract.COMPANY: AppleCONTACT: www.apple.comPRICE: $149 (8GB), $179 (16GB)Earbuds: Future Sonics AtrioTwo bills for a set of earbuds isn’t exactly an impulse buy, but certain things in life warrant dropping a bit of extra coin. World-class computers, fine bourbon, and audiophile-caliber earbuds all make our short list of entirely justifiable splurges. Future Sonics manufactures “in-ear monitors” for professional musicians, and the Atrio earbuds reflect that professional pedigree. They’ve outlasted several other pairs of comparably priced ’buds, which is no small feat, considering the daily abuse we put them through. But it’s really their impressive bass response--even at low volumes--that kept us coming back to them during Gear of the Year deliberations.Comfort and excellent bass response are worth $200.True to their roots in performance gear, the Atrios are comfortable for extended wear, and their treble is crisp and clean, without becoming fatiguing after listening for long periods. We’ve used the Atrios in a wide range of playback scenarios, from listening to the latest Kid Cudi record on the train, to the new Beatles box set at home, all with stellar results. In fact, we like them so much, we’ve been tempted to spring for optional custom-fit sleeves--but that would require a trip to an audiologist to take molds of our ear canals. Oh well, the included tips still sound mighty sweet.COMPANY: Future SonicsCONTACT: www.futuresonics.comPRICE: $199Speaker Dock: SYD 5After testing a lab full of iPod speaker docks this year, we’ve determined an incontestable truth: Either go big or go home. Indeed, after being bombarded with flimsy, tiny, tinny docks festooned with clocks, radios, cute graphics, and other distracting “features,” we found audio excellence in the Kanto SYD 5. It’s large, it bumps deep, deep base, and its only “feature” is the color you choose for its smooth, shiny shell. At 22 lbs, the SYD 5 feels like speakers of days gone by--and when a speaker has heft, it usually also has the audio to back up the extra weight.The SYD 5 system comes in black, green, and blue--and a curious note on the Kanto website reads, "other Pantone colors possible." Someone out there please order Flame Orange, 15-1157 TPX!The SYD 5 accomplishes its feats of strength with four speakers hidden behind a removable front cover. Two 5.25-inch drivers and a bunch of reflex ports push deep, rich bass for your hip-hop mixes, while two 3-inch drivers deliver the high end for all the wailing guitars you can handle. Weeeee!The SYD 5 includes an audio auxiliary input and AC power outlet for Hessian-caliber iTunes rocking with an AirPort Extreme. RCA and S Video outputs allow you to watch videos from your iPod on your TV. The weight lifter’s belt for your lower back? That one’s on you.COMPANY: KantoCONTACT: www.kantospeakers.comPRICE: $359iPhone Headset: Griffin TuneBuds MobileApple has a headset problem. The one it bundles with the iPhone is, well…the dictionary definition is “craptacular.” And we’re pretty sure that cramming hard plastic into one’s ears doesn’t meet anyone’s definition of comfortable. And don’t even get us started on the sound quality. Bottom line: We’re now on the third iteration of the iPhone, and Apple still hasn’t managed to include a set of ’buds that is comfy, stays in place, sounds good, and includes a good mic.Griffin Technology’s TuneBuds Mobile succeeds on all four points, and we dig its reasonable price. We don’t have anything against expensive, audiophile-level gear, but we absolutely love affordable accessories that do a really good job, and that describes the TuneBuds quite succinctly.No more tangles! Thank you, Griffin.The TuneBuds will work with your iPhone or any recent iPod that sports VoiceOver or Voice Control. The cable is covered in braided nylon and feels sturdier than most headset or earbud cables. And when you wind up the TuneBuds and stuff them in your pocket, the cables don’t tangle quite as much as other headsets. A small detail for sure, but that’s the kind of quality that helps a product transcend from great to awesome.COMPANY: GriffinCONTACT: www.griffintechnology.comPRICE: $39.99Smartphone: iPhone 3GSInternet fanboys will hurl slander that we’re secretly on Apple’s payroll. Mac computer enthusiasts will say we’ve drunk the Kool-Aid for a silly little pocket toy. And iPod touch owners will cry that we just don’t get it--that the iPhone is considerably more expensive than the similarly featured touch and isn’t even a very good device for voice calls, which is a bit of a problem for any gadget with the word “phone” in its name.To our critics, we say bah! We’ll see your cynicism and raise you 100 chips of we don’t care. Ever since June 2007 when we all bought our first-gen models, we have been using, loving, and hourly depending on some version of the iPhone, and the improvements in this year’s 3GS only reaffirm what most of our readers already know: Apple’s smartphone is the coolest, most useful piece of technology to hit the market since the personal computer itself.Let us reiterate the key improvements introduced in the 3GS:» Significantly faster app load times and better graphics performance in games.» Higher-res, better-looking photos thanks to a new 3-megapixel camera, now with automatic focus, exposure, and white-balance control.» Video support care of the fancy new camera.» Voice Control, which lets you find contacts, call phone numbers, and play music simply by talking into the iPhone's microphone.» A compass function that orients maps correctly, among other sweet benefits.Six Mac|Life editors, but only five new iPhones. Who's the 3GS holdout!?Did you really think any other mobile phone could knock the iPhone from our top spot? Of course not. But because the iPhone 3GS is so incredibly handy and has become so thoroughly integrated into the flow of our daily lifestyles, we are also compelled to name it Mac|Life Product of the Year. The apps we use entertain us, inform us, and have disruptively replaced a slew of other products and tools that we used by rote only a few years ago. And the new wave of augmented reality apps bring a certain Minority Report fantasy function to a device that is already firmly sci-fi.So don’t come crying to us with protests of “AT&T sucks!” and “there’s no physical keyboard!” We acknowledge those shortcomings, but remain resolute in our conviction that the iPhone 3GS is quite simply the finest, most innovative piece of personal technology by a wide, wide margin.COMPANY: AppleCONTACT: www.apple.comPRICE: $199 (16GB), $299 (32GB) (Pricing for both capacities is for new AT&T customers and eligible current customers) 

  • TUAW Exclusive: Aaron Patzer on the future of mobile finance, Mint.com, and Quicken on the Mac

    Filed under: Software, Internet Tools, TUAW Interview At the age of twenty-six, Aaron Patzer founded the financial website Mint.com. In many ways Mint was much like an Apple product: it had a simple interface, it was easy to understand and use, and many of Mint's early adopters became very loyal evangelists. Word of mouth spread, and just 18 months after its launch (Mint officially went public in 2007), Mint had added its one millionth user. To the dismay of many, Mint sold to Intuit in September 2009 for $170 million. I say dismay because many users of Quicken products had been less than thrilled with Intuit's offerings for some time, and some people were concerned what a twenty-year-old company that seemed stuck in its ways would do with a popular user-friendly Web 2.0 startup. Out of all the negative press, perhaps Mac users could be forgiven for having the most anxiety over the acquisition. Many had abandoned Quicken Mac 2007 in favor of Mint.com. Mac users wanted to move on from the stale Quicken ecosystem and go with something simple and easy. Now, that simple and easy solution had moved to where the users had escaped from. Luckily, Intuit wasn't like other companies who buy smaller start-ups just to eliminate a competitor. Intuit recognized that Patzer and his team possessed the much-needed original financial software ideas and UI design mojo to put a spark in their aging products. In November 2009, Intuit made Aaron Patzer VP/GM of Intuit's Personal Finance Group -- which left him in charge of Intuit's personal finance offerings, including Quicken for Mac. It was January 2008. At Macworld Expo, Steve Jobs had just unveiled the MacBook Air. Over at Intuit's booth, the company was previewing an anticipated update to Quicken Mac 2007 - one that didn't require Rosetta to run and didn't have an un-Mac-like UI. Unfortunately, the UI that Quicken ended up with consisted of a Cover Flow-esque interface. It was 2008 after all, and Cover Flow was the hot new UI element, but this was a finance app. We didn't need glitz when we just wanted to see how much cash we had in the bank. That aside, the single-window interface was a welcome change. Intuit announced that Quicken Mac 2007's sequel, Quicken Financial Life for Mac, would ship in the Fall of 2008. Fall 2008 came and went. At Macworld Expo 2009, Intuit previewed a new beta of Quicken Financial Life for Mac and delayed its release again until Fall 2009. I was an early tester of the new beta, and it was buggy; the user interface looked friendlier than it actually was - in other words, the beta was everything you had come to expect from an Intuit product for the Mac. July 2009 came around and, no surprise, Intuit announced it was delaying Quicken Financial Life again, this time until 2010. 2010 - four years after the last version of Quicken for Mac came out (2007 was released in 2006). This time Intuit released a statement all but admitting that the company had failed at providing the Mac with usable financial software: Feedback from Mac customers led us to rethink our approach to developing Quicken for Mac. We went back to the drawing board and are making changes to everything from what the program does to how it looks. We spent extra time building a reconcile mode for the new register, a robust Windows-to-Mac transfer function for new Mac users (and existing customers running Quicken on a Windows virtual machine), and redesigned the experience to make it look and feel like a native Mac application should. At the same time, Intuit announced Quicken Financial Life for Mac would be available for pre-order from Intuit's site on October 12, 2009. Guess what happened? That's right. But at least this delay was only two months. By the time the product actually did go live with pre-orders many, including myself, thought it was too little, too late. Luckily though, something happened at Intuit between the pre-order delay in October and the December pre-order release: Aaron Patzer was put in charge of Quicken Essentials for Mac (they scrapped the Quicken Financial Life name for a reason I'll get to in a moment). I interviewed Aaron by phone yesterday and he had a lot of things to say about the frustration Mac users have with Intuit. Perhaps that's because he experienced the same frustration with Quicken - and that frustration led him to found Mint.com. Speaking with Aaron, I could hear the passion in his voice for simple products that allow users to easily access their data in a straightforward way. Those original ideas and UI design mojo I mentioned earlier? Aaron put them to work right away. "When I first saw Quicken Financial Life, it had Cover Flow for no reason," he laughed. Cover Flow? No reason? Gone. "Quicken for Mac 2006 and 2007 were C/C++ programs that looked like bastardized versions of the Windows product. Little things matter," he told me. "In the old apps you would think you were supposed to press Command-A to select all of the entries in your registry, because that's what Command-A does on a Mac - it selects all. But in Quicken Mac 2007 it would actually bring up your accounts list. It's little things like that, that you could tell the people [writing the program] weren't real Mac aficionados." Aaron himself uses a 15" MacBook Pro. The team that he spearheads for Quicken Essentials is a group of "Mac guys who live and breathe this stuff." The team consists of "five or six developers and three guys on QA with product managers coming on and off and the graphics guys switching between the Windows and Mac versions." Speaking of Quicken on Windows, Aaron himself wrote the spec for the next version of Quicken for Windows (2011, due out later this year). Why is that important? Because Aaron has a clearly defined vision of what the future of financial software will look like. "You'll start to see the mess of all the [Intuit] products merged together. Longer term it shouldn't matter where you use your financial application, whether it's on the Mac, Windows, or Linux. I want to get everything to parity [on] the features and actually do the back-end so it's all a consistent single data model - probably based on Mint - and then just skin the front ends (applications) to look like a Mac product, to look like a Windows product, to look like an iPhone or an Android app - to take advantage of the unique advantages of those platforms. But the back-end would be the same so you can just migrate any time you want to from Mint.com to Quicken Essentials for Mac to your Android phone or iPhone." Well, that sounds awesome, but what about people that have years worth of old Quicken data? "Eventually we will make it so you can just one-flip click your 20 years of data into the cloud and pull it down on any of these devices - that's the holy grail and it'll take over a year to do that,' he says. "But you can see that already in using the new QEM - it's using a lot of the same user experience paradigm (the way you budget on the Mac, the way you click through the pie charts) and that makes the back-end easier." That's the larger picture, and after listening to Aaron's enthusiasm, if anyone can make it happen, it'll be him. Let's get back to Quicken Essentials for Mac, though. "It's called Quicken Essentials for Mac because it's what we consider to be essential for most users - about 80% of users." It's not just what Aaron and his team think is essential; it's what people tell them they want. "We do a lot of usability studies, that's why Mint turned out the way it did. We applied the same to QEM. We went to people's homes and watched them use it. The majority of them just want to know: How much do I have? How much do I owe? How much do I spend on gas and food? How many times do I go to this restaurant? How many times do I go to Starbucks? What investments do I have? Let me set a budget to control my spending." Yeah, but what about the thing many arm-chair reviewers talk about? "Only 6% of users across all platforms use bill pay," Aaron says. "Most people still go to their bank's website to pay a bill." What about other requested features, like deeper investment tools? That's where the future of Quicken on the Mac comes in. Intuit isn't abandoning the Mac platform anytime soon; in fact, they're embracing it: "For the next version of Quicken for the Mac we are planning two SKUs: Quicken Essentials and a Deluxe version which adds the deeper investment tools - history of investments, stock lots (buying shares of one stock at different times), etc." You may rightly point out that Quicken for Windows and even the old Quicken for Mac supported these investment tools and that Quicken for Windows supports bill pay (for the paltry 6% who actually use it), but give it time. Aaron has only been on QEM for four months now, but has already helped completely reinvent Quicken on the Mac in that short timespan (yes, it's finally a Cocoa app). Though many may complain of the lack of investing/bill pay features, I can only liken Quicken Essentials for Mac to QuickTime X. Both apps have been rewritten from the ground up to replace clunky legacy code that would have slowed their scalability in the future. Just as QuickTime X is missing some of the features of QuickTime 7, Quicken Essentials for Mac is missing some of the features of Quicken Mac 2007 - for now. But because of the clean-sweep rewrites, these new applications are just the launching point for the programs into a better, more feature-rich future. I've been playing with Quicken Essentials for Mac for a few days now (I'll have a full review of it on February 25) and I can already tell you, I'm a convert. I abandoned Quicken for Mint, but QEM has brought me back into the fold. It's worth it for the Cocoa rewrite alone. What else does Intuit have in store for the Apple community? Aaron told me that after Mint releases its Android app, the team will be adding features to the next iPhone version. Some of those features include adding manual transactions - the ability to enter checks that haven't cleared yet, and an easier way to enter cash. "Doing that on the iPhone is probably the most useful way to do it because you are usually paying cash in a cab or buying a quick coffee with it." Another thing under consideration is an ATM locator. "We know which bank accounts you have so we can tell you which ATMs in your area are not gonna charge you a fee." Also expect to see an iPad app. "Yes, it's something we've been looking into. Ideal implementation would be Mint's pie chart that you can click through and dive into to see Food-Dining-McDonald's, etc. Where you could use pinch to expand and contract." But the iPad app won't be available at launch and probably not before late summer at the earliest. What about Aaron's brainchild? I use Mint for all my US accounts, but what about my UK bank accounts? Will the rest of the globe soon be able to utilize Mint.com? "Mint is working with the Global Division at Intuit, planning how to internationalize our code base." As Aaron points out, that's one of the advantages of such a large company taking over a Web 2.0 startup - the startup can use the company's resources to go further than it could have on its own. As for that large company? Well, something tells me that acquiring Mint and Aaron Patzer is the best thing that could ever have happened to Intuit - and you can take that to the bank.TUAWTUAW Exclusive: Aaron Patzer on the future of mobile finance, Mint.com, and Quicken on the Mac originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read|Permalink|Email this|Comments Apple - Aaron Patzer - Quicken for Mac - Intuit - Quicken

  • 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!

  • Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

    Rumors of a Merkel resignation. German officials flatly deny rumors that German Chancellor Angela Merkel is going to resign, but the euro is being heavily sold off and was recently down 0.8% vs. the dollar. Google fails to find allies. Google (GOOG) reportedly reached out to peers to draw attention to the cyber-attack in China, but was rebuffed. Three other companies - Adobe Systems (ADBE), Juniper Networks (JNPR) and Rackspace Hosting - have now conceded they too were targeted, but their initial silence underscores the pressure firms are feeling to protect their business in China. The U.S. government said it may take formal measures against China over the cyber-attack, while Chinese officials played down concerns, saying the affair wouldn't affect U.S. trade ties. Meanwhile, Microsoft (MSFT) confirmed the hackers had used an Internet Explorer security vulnerability to carry out the attack. Shiseido buys U.S. cosmetic firm. Shiseido (SSDOY.PK), Japan's largest cosmetic firm, agreed to buy U.S.-based Bare Escentuals (BARE) for $1.7B in a deal that marks a 43% premium to Bare Escentuals' last closing price. Shiseido, which is struggling with a shrinking home market as Japan's population ages, is using the deal to help it break into the fast-growing natural-ingredient cosmetics market in North America. Shares of Shiseido closed up 6% in Tokyo trading. CF Industries drops hostile bid. CF Industries (CF) backed out of its year-long hostile bid for Terra Industries (TRA) yesterday, bringing a three-way battle for control of the North American fertilizer business much closer to resolution. The development may help Agrium (AGU), which is trying to advance a hostile bid for CF, but CF has sworn to fight the bid, and rising valuations in the fertilizer industry could make it difficult for Agrium to pursue the offer. Obama: Show me the money. As expected, Obama announced his plans for a bank levy yesterday, which will bring in at least $90B from 50 top financial firms over the next ten years. Speaking of "obscene bonuses" and "twisted logic," Obama said "we want our money back, and we're going to get it." FCIC widens its net. Phil Angelides, chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, said he is widening his probe beyond just bankers and plans to investigate the actions of regulators as far back as the Clinton administration. Angelides said Bernanke and former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan would likely be called to testify, and that he wants to find out "what did the FBI, the Fed, the Department of Justice and others know about subprime lending; when they knew it, and why didn't they act?" Monsanto faces antitrust probe. The Justice Department launched a formal antitrust investigation into Monsanto (MON) in connection to its Roundup Ready soybean, the nation's most popular genetically-modified crop. Around 90% of all the soybeans grown in the U.S. contain this Monsanto gene, which helps the crops survive a chemical weedkiller. The seed loses patent protection in four years, and Monsanto has been pushing farmers to switch to a newer, pricier model that will still be protected. Motorola reconsiders breakup. Motorola (MOT) is said to be reconsidering its breakup plan, and has put an auction of its largest business unit on hold. The company is facing lower-than-expected offers for its home and networks mobility division, with bids in the $3-4B range vs. the $4-5B Motorola was hoping for. Oil demand surging. The International Energy Agency said (.pdf) this morning that global oil demand in 2010 will reach the highest level since 2007, fueled by faster growth in emerging economies in Asia. After its upward revision of 10K barrels/day, the IEA now expects demand to increase by 1.4M barrels/day in 2010. Dodd may pull support from consumer protection agency. Sen. Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, may scrap the creation of an independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency, with sources saying Dodd has discussed abandoning the idea as a way to secure bipartisan support for financial reform legislation. Instead, Dodd is reportedly asking Republicans to support a strengthened consumer-protection division within another federal agency. China FDI surges. China continues to heat up, reporting this morning that foreign direct investment more than doubled in December from the year before. December's FDI was $12.1B, marking the fifth consecutive month of growth. Total 2009 FDI was down 2.3% to $90B, but that's still a fairly good showing considering the state of the global economy over the past year. INTC results tell story of possible tech rebound. Intel (INTC) posted better than expected quarterly results (details below), suggesting that tech demand, and specifically corporate demand, may be bouncing back. (Read Intel's earnings call transcript) Starwood adds new claims to Hilton suit. Starwood Hotels (HOT) stepped up its battle against Hilton Worldwide, adding new allegations to a lawsuit filed last April over corporate-espionage charges. Starwood claims Hilton stole over 100,000 commercially sensitive documents and used them to pursue a rival to Starwood's successful "W" hotel chain. The newest allegations say that Hilton's misconduct reached the highest level of Hilton's management, including its CEO Christopher Nassetta. Kodak sues Apple, RIMM. Kodak (EK) filed a lawsuit against Apple (AAPL) and Research in Motion (RIMM) over alleged patent violations in the iPhone and BlackBerry. Kodak hasn't specified how much it's seeking in damages, but said the patent in question was found to be valid and enforceable in a case that Kodak won against Samsung. Hershey ramps up bid preparation. Hershey (HSY) is accelerating its preparations for a Cadbury (CBY) bid, and has been in talks with credit-ratings companies about how to structure the bid without damaging its investment-grade rating. Sources say Hershey has also drafted commitment letters with lenders JPMorgan (JPM) and Bank of America (BAC) to secure a multi-billion-dollar loan package. JAL draws on credit line as bankruptcy nears. Japan Airlines announced this morning that it has received the 145B ($1.59B) remaining from a state bank credit line. A bankruptcy filing is expected as soon as Tuesday. Retail sales disappoint. Retail sales declined 0.3% in December, a downside surprise from the +0.5% expected and from +1.8% in November (revised from +1.3%). Excluding automobiles, sales were down 0.2% vs. +0.3% expected and +1.9% prior (revised from +1.2%). Jobless claims inch up. Jobless claims rose 11K to 444K, higher than the 430K expected. Continuing claims -211K to 4,596,000. Inventories grow. Business inventories grew 0.4% in November to $1.31B, slightly beating expectations of +0.3% and matching October's revised figure of +0.4%. Sales were up 2% to $1.03B. The inventory/sales ratio fell to 1.28 from prior 1.30, and is down from 1.43 a year ago. Earnings: Friday Before Open Carter's (CRI): FQ3 EPS of $0.84 beats by $0.18. Revenue of $481M (+10.7%) vs. $451M. Sees full year EPS of $2.10 vs. $1.85 consensus. (PR) JPMorgan (JPM): Q4 EPS of $0.74 beats by $0.13. Revenue of $23.16B vs. $26.8B. Adds $1.9B to consumer loan loss reserves, resulting in firmwide credit reserves of $32.5B and loan loss coverage ratio of 5.5%. "Though these results showed improvement, we acknowledge that they fell short of both an adequate return on capital and the firm's earnings potential... While we are seeing some stability in delinquencies, consumer credit costs remain high, and weak employment and home prices persist. Accordingly, we remain cautious." (PR) Earnings: Thursday After Close Intel (INTC): Q4 EPS of $0.40 beats by $0.10. Revenue of $10.6B (+28%) vs. $10.2B. Gross margin of 65%. Sequential revenue gains in PC Client Group (up 10%), Data Center Group (up 21%), Other Intel Architecture Group (up 22%). Atom processor and chipset revenue up 6% sequentially. Sees Q1 revenue of $9.3B-10.1B vs. $9.4B. Shares +0.9% AH. (PR) Today's MarketsAsia stocks were mixed Friday. Europe is mostly lower, and U.S. stock futures are under some pressure after JPMorgan (JPM) sounded a cautious note in its Q4 earnings release.

  • 50 Rad Firefox Add-Ons

    Sometimes, one-size-fits-all doesn’t really fit, and this is especially the case on the Internet. It’s a wonderful place out there on the World Wide Web, full of sites for every purpose we can think of (and some we’d rather not). That’s why, we’re glad there’s Firefox. No Mac browser is nearly as flexible, nor as customizable. With the right--or the raddest--add-ons installed, you can transform Firefox from a tool to surf the Web into an Internet wrangling toolbox you can tweak to your heart’s content. We’ve collected fifty Firefox add-ons to help you get the most from your visits to the Worldwide Intertubes. Some aren’t for everyone, but that's okay. Read on, and you may discover ways to work a little easier and play a little harder. For those about to restart Firefox to complete your changes, we salute you.AppearanceAging TabsHow do you know when you’ve been browsing too long? Your musty old tabs can tell you. Aging Tabs makes them change color as they sit on the page waiting for your scrutiny. Naturally, colors and aging speeds are customizable. Should tabs fade to grey or yellow like newsprint? It’s your call, but you better hurry; those tabs aren’t getting any younger.Looks like our tabs could use a little Botox.Colorful TabsNeed a little more color in your life? Or maybe you just need to get organized? Try Colorful Tabs, the add-on that lets you apply colors to coordinate groups of tabs, make important tabs stand out, and make Firefox look pretty. Tabs can have random colors as you create them, one color specific to a site’s domain name, or you can apply colors to individual tabs with a context-click. You’ll have to keep up with the latest tab fashions from Paris, but that’s the price of progress.Colorful Tabs are cute and useful.GreasemonkeyDon’t like the way a Web page works? Don’t get mad, get Greasemonkey. With it, and hundreds of scripts available at the official website and third-party sites, you can make pages perform the way you want them to. Want Google Reader to look like a Mac app? There’s a script for that. Want to strip the ads out of Facebook? There’s a script for...you get the idea. Simply locate the script you're looking for, install, and...there is no step three! Just enjoy your favorite sites customized to your liking! Greasemonkey can make YouTube look like Google Videos.History TreeFirefox’s History browser is so...linear. And so yesterday’s news once you install History Tree. It displays your browsing history as a branching tree complete with screenshots, page names, and the time you visited each page. History Tree also enables you to search your pages’ descriptions to find a past page, view pages as a Cover Flow-ish series of screenshots, and open old pages in new tabs. You won’t look at browsing the same way again.We’ll take customizable browsers for $100, Alex.Multirow Bookmarks ToolbarKeep your favorite sites close and your bookmarks closer with Multirow Bookmarks Toolbar. Simply choose how many rows of bookmarks you want to appear beneath your toolbar--from 2 to too many--and get your freaky bookmark on. You may never need to click the Bookmarks menu item again! You’re not seeing double, you’re seeing Multirow Bookmarks Toolbar.ReadabilityReadability is as simple as it sounds: it strips away almost everything but an article’s text and links to maximize, well, readability. Instead of the original Web page, you get something closer to a book or newspaper’s layout (or even a Terminal window). It’s great if your screen is a little smaller than you’d like, and easier than futzing with menu items to change a page’s font size. If a story is worth your time, it’s worth Readability.A more legible Internet is here today with Readability.RSS TickerThis just in! RSS Ticker scrolls your Live Bookmarks below your toolbar or at the bottom of the page. When an item catches your eye, mouse over it to see a pop-up that offers more information, then right-click to open the article in a new tab or window. You’ll never be at a loss for cocktail party conversation again.RSS feeds keep on tickin’ into the future with RSS Ticker.Split BrowserYou’ve got a shiny new Mac with a honkin’ big screen, so why view just one web page in your Firefox window? Split Browser lets you divide your windows into multiple panes with a Menu Bar or context-command. Keep your web mail or calendar at the ready, compare multiple versions of the same page, or just create modern art with your panes.Two panes are better than one with Split Browser.StylishStylish lets you transform the way the Web looks, one site at a time. Just visit a page you’d like to re-theme, click the Stylish icon in your status bar, and view all available styles for that page. Installation requires just a click, and most effects occur after refreshing the page in your Firefox window. If you get tired of your new style, or if it causes problems displaying a page, you can turn off the theme (or switch to another) just as easily.Every day is Lego Google logo day with Stylish.Tab Mix Plus Tab Mix Plus puts you in charge of how tabs are displayed, made, and manipulated. Protect tabs so they can’t be closed, lock tabs so they don’t load new pages, and add these and many more commands to Firefox’s contextual menu. Got too many tabs? No such thing--just scroll right or left through your tab bar, add additional rows of tabs to your window, and keep track of unread tabs by styling their titles to stand out from the pack. Now you’re playing with power...tab power. Tree Style TabTabs rock, but wouldn’t it be great if the relationship between them was clearer? It can be, with Tree Style Tab. Once installed, tabs branch off from their parent tab, so you know where in the Interweb you are at a glance. Better still, an entire tab-tree can be closed or minimized with a context-click. Tabs’ appearance and position onscreen (left, right, or below the toolbar) can be extensively customized, as can their behaviors when opened or closed.Tree Style Tab and a misspent youth can explain how we got here. VertTabbarVertTabbar isn’t a lovable French children’s book character, it’s an add-on that makes your horizontal tab bar vertical to make the most of your fancy widescreen monitor. It’s a new look for the same tab bar you know and love, and you can even control tabs’ widths, placement of their icons and close buttons, and which side of Firefox’s window tabs appear on. It works well with Tab Mix Plus, too, letting you really VertTabbarMix things up.Let’s get vertical...vertical….Add-ArtAd blockers are nice, but what to do about all those empty spaces they leave on Web pages? Add-Art works with AdBlock Plus to replace static ads with artwork, populating your pages with online art shows that refresh every two weeks with new works of art. Most of Add-Art’s showcase isn’t the usual soothing stock image fare, but rather just the thing to spice up sparse, ad-free pages.The image on the left isn’t an ad, it’s art. Next Page: Daily Browsing >> Daily Browsing1-Click YouTube Video DownloadThe Internet made celebrities of the Dramatic Look prairie dog, a sneezing baby panda, and Rick Astley, but that doesn’t mean these lovable critters have to stay on the Web. With 1-Click YouTube Video Download (and, duh, one click) you can snag videos from YouTube.com as FLV, M4P, 3GP, or HD downloads to play offline. 1-Click, we’re never gonna give you up.That’s gotta hurt. Let’s see it again, and again….Adblock PlusSomeday beer will be free and Adobe will release a Mac version of Flash that doesn’t suck. Until then, there’s Adblock Plus to keep your browsing free of annoying Whack-a-Mole banners and other unwanted ads. Just install, subscribe to an ad filter unique to your country, and you’re good to go--no more ads on any site you visit. Or you can control-click on specific ads to keep them from loading, and allow certain sites to keep displaying important messages from its sponsors. MacLife.com, for instance….Those white spaces were ads before Adblock Plus.Auto CopyIf you regularly mine the Web for text and images to copy and paste into other documents, give Auto Copy a try. Once installed, merely selecting something copies it to the Clipboard. Auto Copy’s contextual menu commands also let you paste selections directly into Firefox’s address or search fields and reload previously copied items into memory. These and Auto Copy’s other time-saving tricks will give your mousing fingers a well-deserved rest.To copy with Auto Copy, just highlight, paste, and you’re done.Converter You know those currency and measurement converters all over the Internet? Forget ‘em...if you’ve got Converter. Just plug in your preferred units of time, currency, temperature, and measurement into Converter’s settings and it translates most Web pages to whatever you think is normal with a single click. Now you can plan that trip to Europe with confidence (we’re totally free to come with in the spring).Converter’s conversions appear right with the text.DownThemAll!You spend a lot of time surfing the Web, but how much is spent downloading application updates, movie trailers, and other vital stuff? If your answer is ‘too much,’ DownThemAll can help. Not only does it accelerate up to 10 simultaneous downloads, retry stalled downloads, and give you live statistics about each file as it zips to your Mac, it lets you grab all a page’s images and links at once with a few clicks. Oh, and that acceleration? Our demo download crept along at 40 kbs a second until DownThemAll gobbled up the same file at more than 150kbs. If you gotta download, you gotta get DownThemAll.Down the hatch with DownThemAll.Download StatusbarSay goodbye to moving the pop-up Downloads window out of your way. Download Statusbar replaces it with, well, a status bar at the bottom of your Web pages that’s there when you need it and gone when you don’t. Despite its small size, the status bar boasts plenty of information about your files, and it even lets you pause and resume downloads between sessions.Discreet downloads are yours with Download Statusbar.ErrorZilla PlusWhen a page’s server can’t be found, ErrorZilla Plus replaces the standard Firefox error page with a battery of tools to help you find what you’re after. Peek at a Google Cache version of the page and use Ping, Whois, the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to see what’s what. ErrorZilla is like a utility belt that magically appears when trouble strikes.ErrorZilla Plus lets you do more than just click the Reload button.FEBE (Firefox Environment Backup Extension) Sure, add-ons are rad, but applying your favorites to every computer in your life isn’t. Enter FEBE to back up and restore your add-ons, themes, bookmarks, passwords and more with a single click or on a schedule you define. You can backup your extras to a local disk or send them to the cloud with FEBE’s Box.net integration. Did we mention that FEBE plays wacky sound effects, too? Don’t worry, they’re optional.Want all your add-ons on multiple machines? You want FEBE.FlashBlockFlash gives us Web games and YouTube, but it’s also responsible for processor-hogging pop-up ads and annoying site intro movies. Try FlashBlock--it replaces embedded Flash with a generic box you can click to see the Flash file do its thing. If you don’t, you and your Mac’s processor can go happily about your business. FlashBlock also lets you leave your favorite sites unaffected if they always deliver Flash files you want to see. Ming the Merciless wishes he could block Flash like this.Quick DragIn a world of Multi-Touch pinches and swipes, we’re happy Quick Drag puts a new spin on the O.G. gesture control, the venerable drag and drop. Just select text and drag and drop it anywhere on a page to kick off a Web search, or drag and drop images to save them to your Downloads folder. Modifier keys let you mix things up, and you can even drag and drop partial URLs to open them in new tabs. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?Quick Drag doubles your drag and drop prowess.WeatherBugIf you organize your life around the weather, why not bring weather reports to you with WeatherBug? Just plug in your location and WeatherBug adds the temperature, weather alerts and up to three days of forecasts to your Firefox pages. Additional forecast details, radar information, and weatheriffic news items open in a pop-up with just a click. You may not need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, but for everything else, there’s WeatherBug.Looks like Saturday is a good day to stay in.XmarksThis may sound like science fiction, but someday people will use multiple computers to get their work done. If that future is now, you need Xmarks. It syncs your bookmarks and passwords across multiple computers and browsers (Firefox, Safari, IE, and Chrome), and lets you add tags to your bookmarks that help other Xmarks users find interesting Web pages. And hey, their tags help you, too! Maybe this brave new world won’t be so bad after all.Xmarks the spot and syncs your bookmarks, too.Yet Another Smooth ScrollingYou visit a lot of Web pages. That means a lot of scrolling, and if the iPhone has taught us anything, it’s that the right kind of scroll can make navigating lengthy pages a breeze. That’s why YASS is so nice--its settings apply only to your Firefox windows, giving you as much (or as little) smooth, accelerated scrolling as you like. You can set three custom scrolling presets and switch among them on the fly with an icon in the status bar.We nicknamed our presets First Gear, Second Gear, and Krazy Nitro.Next Page: Search & Communication >>Search & CommunicationCoolirisEver wonder what the Web would look like with a dose of Cover Flow? Then you’ve imagined Coolris. It turns the results of searches on YouTube, Facebook, Google Images, and other sites into a scrollable, zoomable, 3D gallery even Steve would dig. If you feel like keeping closer to home, Coolris also recognizes your iPhoto library and can display its pictures in the same slick style. That’s one giant leap for Google Images.FastestFoxWhich would you rather have, a fast fox, or the FastestFox? We thought so. After all, FastestFox throws up a tiny pop-up that puts a search for your selection on Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, and Twitter (among other sites) just a click away. FastestFox also adds instant Google search results to the address bar as you type, as well as a bookmark launcher you can call up with a key command to access your favorite sites on the fly. Searches are never far away with FastestFox.GlubbleThink of Glubble as your family’s private Facebook. Once parents add accounts for their kids and trusted relatives, everyone can log in to the family’s main page and send text messages, share photos, and schedule activities. Kids can explore the Web safely through Glubble’s browser. It takes over a Firefox window and limits Internet access to games, activity pages, and sites declared safe by Glubble (or mom and dad). Better still, Glubble is so simple and streamlined, even adults can use it.Glubble’s kids browser offers plenty to see and do.IMDb PreviewThe IMDb is the best way to settle bets about which actor starred in the original version of the remake you just saw, and IMDb Preview just may help you win your next dispute. Hover over an actor or movie’s IMDb link--in any site, not just IMDb.com--and a configurable, scrollable pop-up window appears sporting a relevant picture and links to related films and performers. The add-on also drops a link to IMDb’s My Movies feature on any movie’s IMDb page, letting you add flicks to your My Movies collections as you browse...er, settle the next score.Bring IMDb data to you with IMDb Preview.Integrated GmailAre you a Gmail junkie? Then you probably use Google’s other services on the regular. Why not put them all in a single window with Integrated Gmail? Just install, log in to Gmail, then access Google Calendar, Maps, Notebook, Picasa, and more in through unobtrusive, collapsable icons. Integrated Gmail is so good, you’ll wonder why Google didn’t do it first.Get mail and much more with Integrated Gmail.InterclueWhat’s behind that next link? Interclue can tell you. Click the Interclue button that appears when you hover over a link, and a pop-up window shows you--with a screenshot and selectable text--the page the link will open. Without even going to the page, you can add it to your bookmarks, open it in a new tab, post a link to Facebook, and more. That’s right--now you can share Web pages you haven’t even seen yet with all your friends. We’re through the looking glass here, people.  Interclue knows what’s new.ShareaholicIf you can’t get enough shareahol, we’ve got the add-on for you. Shareaholic adds a button to your toolbar that lets you easily broadcast pages to a zillion blogs and social networking sites, squash long Web addresses with URL shortening services like TinyURL, and even simply e-mail links to people with your default mail client. Don’t worry about running out of things to share. Shareaholic puts in your status bar links to the latest dirt on Twitter, OneRiot, and Buzzster--you heard it here first.New Sonic Youth in 2010? Gotta tweet that.SimilarWebEveryone wants to find cool new sites, but nobody has time to scour the Web for them. Enter SimilarWeb. As you browse, its sidebar suggests other pages related to whatever you’re looking at. You can approve or reject these suggestions to help fine-tune SimilarWeb’s topic matches, but what if you think you know better than SimilarWeb? No problem--just suggest your own site matches for other users to discover and vote on.SimilarWeb puts sites you may have missed right in your sidebar.Simple MailIf you want all your mail in one place, you want Simple Mail. It supports POP3, IMAP, and SMTP accounts, and lets you compose WYSIWYG messages with multiple fonts, colors, and other formatting options. Create mail folders, color-code messages, and set up filters to apply to incoming messages. It’s your mail, simplified.Simple is no sin when there’s work to do.YoLinkYou could search for text on pages like Craigslist or CNN.com the old-fashioned way, or you could use YoLink. Install it, load your page, then search with the new YoLink field in your toolbar. Instead of just finding and highlighting matched text, YoLink splits your Firefox window in two and lists summaries of all matches ranked by significance from within the site. Results can be saved to be read later with a free YoLink account, shared via social media sites, or plain-old bookmarked...but that’s so last-decade. YoLink finds links that lurk beneath the surface.YoonoBetween work and play, you’ve got enough to do online without making all the new tabs and windows your digital lifestyle demands. Yoono can help. It lets you log in to multiple social networking and media sites (all the usual suspects and more) so you can flit among them in a collapsable sidebar in your Firefox window. There you can also search for YouTube videos, Wikipedia articles, and bargains on Amazon while sharing them all with your friends. Why open another window again?Yes, we feel smug when we tweet we’re browsing the Smithsonian.Next Page: Work & Productivity >>Work & ProductivityEvernote Web ClipperOh, you smug Evernote junkies. You’ve got a Mac app to stay organized, an Evernote iPhone app to take your notes on the go, and the Evernote Web Clipper, a Firefox add-on that lets you easily add Web pages, links, or selections to your Evernote account. Bet you think you’re pretty tough. We’d show you a thing or two, if only we could find them! Never forget important sites with Evernote Web Clipper.FirebugIf you spend as much time making Web sites as you do browsing them, you probably already have Firebug installed. If not, what are you waiting for? Firebug puts a Web development toolbox in a new Firefox window or a split screen below the page you’re working on. You can edit HTML, fine-tune CSS, zero-in on JavaScript errors, and much more in a simple, easy to read interface that lets you get to work quickly. Now you’ve no excuse not to write the next great American Web page.If you’ve got the development bug, get Firebug.iCyteWhen you need to collaborate on Web research, or just keep all sites that interest you readily at hand, don’t copy and e-mail links...use iCyte. It lets you “cyte” pages or selections--saving the link and a snapshot of the page as you found it--and include them in projects to share with people you know, or total strangers. You can add tags and notes, too, and once you create an account, the iCyte sidebar keeps your projects and saved cytes in view as you surf...er, research.iCyte, therefore I remember.LeechBlockLeechBlock isn’t something to pack on your next camping trip, it’s a productivity booster that blocks access to distracting sites while you work. It lets you create 6 sets of rules to apply to troublesome sites, including what days and times sites are blocked, which sites users are redirected to, and more. LeechBlock works great for individuals, but its password-protected controls and ability to export and import settings can keep everyone on a network on the job. That’s a good thing, right?Get back to work with LeechBlock.Morning Coffee We admit it, we’re hooked on our morning coffee and on Morning Coffee. It lets us quickly add sites to lists for each day of the week (and weekends, or every day) to quickly access sites at those times. Gotta check out the news sites first thing each morning, or launch all your favorite sites that update every Thursday? With Morning Coffee, they can be launched together with just a click. Its even easier than adding cream and sugar.If it’s Friday, we must be reading the Onion A.V. Club.Read It Later We’re always doing things later...writing thank-you notes, meeting deadlines...so its no surprise we dig Read It Later. Just click a checkmark in your address bar to add the current page to your list of things to read later. When you have spare time--on a commute, say, with the Read It Later iPhone app--you don’t even need an Internet connection to access your list and catch up on your reading. Install it today...or, y’know, later.Procrastinate effectively with Read It Later.ToodledoDo you use Toodledo, the service that lets you manage your schedule and send it to an online calendar to share with others or read on the Toodledo iPhone app? Then you’re way more organized than we are. You’ve probably already scheduled time to install the Toodledo add-on that lets you quickly add Web pages, text selections, and general to-dos right from your Firefox window. Well...good for you!You have your to-do list, we have ours with Toodledo.ZoteroResearchers, rejoice. Zotero lets you surf news sites, academic databases, libraries, even Amazon and YouTube to save citations, links, snapshots of pages, and PDFs in a pop-up mini-app that lives in your Firefox window. There you can tag and add notes to your finds and organize them according to just about any parameters you can think of. All this can be synched to other computers running Zotero to follow you and your research across campus or the world. It even exports bibliographies and citations in almost any style you can think of when you finally get around to writing your dissertation.Zotero’s iTunes-like interface is easy to use.Next Page: Workplace Security & Shopping >> Workplace SecurityTab RenamizerAre you goofing off or hard at work? With Tab Renamizer, no one knows but you. It changes the names of closed tabs to something safe for work while leaving their contents intact. A few innocent looking substitutions--Wikipedia, Google, a 404 error message--are built in, but you can add your own. Then change individual tabs as the need arises, or set and forget Tab Renamizer to automatically rename tabs as you, ahem, “work.”Nothing shady going on here, no sir.PanicImagine you’re at looking at a site you don’t want your boss to see. Don’t panic, you’ve installed Panic. It puts an unobtrusive icon in your status bar you can tap to make any naughty tabs in your frontmost window disappear, replaced by the inoffensive page of your choice. The default page is a Google search for “increasing workplace productivity”...nice.Who’s panicking? We weren’t doing anything wrong!ShoppingCamelizer Like to buy things at Amazon, Newegg, or Overstock.com? Yeah, us, too--that’s why we installed Camelizer. It adds a button to items on those sites (and others) that delivers price histories courtesy of the camelcamelcamel service.Sign up for e-mail or Twitter updates when an item’s price drop to a figure you set, and you’ve got no excuse for paying too much for that USB-powered backscratcher Uncle Frank has been hinting about for his birthday.Hey, that price isn’t much higher than it was on Black Friday!GlueGlue is all about you--or more specifically, the things you’re interested in. Just install, sign up, and start letting Glue get to know you by rating movies, books, gadgets, and more with a simple thumbs up or thumbs down. Then visit the sites you already use (like Amazon, Wikipedia, Apple, and many, many more), and Glue reminds you of what you like and suggests new stuff you might like to like. Glue’s the good friend you always take shopping, if your friend was a pop-up banner at the bottom of your Firefox page.The more you let Glue know about you, the more accurate it is.PriceTrace ToolbarAttention, Kmart.com shoppers--and shoppers at Amazon, Macy’s, B&H, and many more online stores. The PriceTrace Toolbar add-on puts a PriceTrace.com search bar on your pages for instant comparison shopping on supported sites. You can compare past and current prices and subscribe to price drop alerts with a click, but the coolest feature is quick access to searches for fillers--items you buy to qualify for special offers--based on price range and other criteria.Shopping? Put PriceTrace on the case.

  • Hackintoshed: Life With My “MacBook Nano”

    After four months of lugging a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse along with the MacBook Pro — which, at 5.5lb, isn't exactly light to begin with — I decided enough was enough. Since I've been wanting to ease some load off of my shoulder, and I couldn't quite bring myself to buy the new 13-inch MacBook Pro, the time was right for me to consider a smaller and lighter alternative. To be more specific, it was time to consider a “MacBook Nano.” Opening Pandora's Box Four years ago, Apple announced a transition from powering its Macs with PowerPC processors to Intel processors instead. The biggest ramification of such an architecture change was an obvious one: Mac OS X, previously written for the PowerPC platform, could then theoretically run on any Intel x86-based computer. In the years after, enthusiasts have made much effort in making OS X run on generic PCs by hacking the various drivers — kernel extension, or kext files — so that the operating system can recognize hardware components beyond those used in Apple's Macs. This has been achieved to varying degrees of success; due to the extremely wide range of configurations PCs ship in, some brands and models sporting certain hardware components run OS X better than others. Do Your Homework First To ensure you get the smoothest 'Hackintosh' experience possible, you have to first know which netbooks are the best 'hackable' candidates before you make a purchase. Currently, the netbooks most compatible for running OS X — when every component, from Wi-Fi to built-in audio, will be recognized by an OS X installation — are the following four: Dell Mini 9 (everything works) Vostro A90 (the OEM version of the Dell Mini 9) HP Mini 1000 (everything works) ASUS EeePC 1000H (everything works) Close behind those four are the following models, of which OS X does not have the necessary kext for one particular component in each model. However, each of them can still be considered a suitable candidate for running OS X, depending on what you consider to be non-critical: ASUS EeePC 901 (everything except sleep) MSI Wind U100 (everything except audio input, though there's been recent development in this area which may have solved this) Lenovo IdeaPad S10 (everything except Ethernet) You may have noticed that these are all older models. That's the bad news. These models have already been superseded by newer models, and are therefore increasingly harder to find. But the good news is that most retailers are likely to have slashed prices in their bid to clear out existing stock precisely because they are older models. Picking the Candidate Last week, I marched into a local computer mall and found both a Lenovo IdeaPad S10 and a HP Mini 1000 sitting side-by-side in one store, going for $385 and $415, respectively. Talk about luck! Design-wise, I had eyes only for the IdeaPad S10 and the Mini 1000. Its lower price aside, I picked the Lenovo IdeaPad S10 in the end, even though I knew the Ethernet port would not work (I don't recall having used an Ethernet port in the past year). Not only was it cheaper, the IdeaPad S10 was better-spec'ed than the Mini 1000 in almost every aspect: Memory: 2GB versus 1GB Storage: 160GB versus 60GB Battery: 6-cell (5.5 hours, 56 watt-hour) versus 3-cell (3 hours, 24.4 watt-hour) Memory card reader: 4-in-1 (MMC/SD/Memory Stick/Memory Stick PRO) versus SD only The clincher, for me, is that the IdeaPad S10 has an ExpressCard/34 slot, with which I can use my 3G ExpressCard modem, and also a trackpad of which its buttons are positioned beneath it rather than to the left and right as it is on that of the Mini 1000. (Note to Apple: If Lenovo can squeeze a 4-in-1 memory card reader and an ExpressCard/34 slot into a tiny sub-notebook, you can certainly do the same for the 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pros. Just admit already you simply don't want to.) I should note that the one very good thing going for the HP Mini 1000 is that it has a 92 percent keyboard (versus the 85 percent keyboard of the IdeaPad S10), an impressive feat of engineering considering the fact that the Mini 1000 is of about the same width as the Lenovo IdeaPad S10. Installation is an Outpatient Day Op Installation is a breeze. Enough effort by enthusiasts have been made that installing OS X on a PC is a quick weekend exercise. While I will not detail how to 'Hackintosh' a netbook, there are essentially two ways to do so: by obtaining an installation disk image already hacked with the appropriate drivers (the easiest way to go), or by installing from the retail DVD and subsequently hacking the drivers (messier and not for the novice). Since most netbooks do not have optical drives, I had to use an external DVD drive. After making sure the BIOS of the netbook has been set to boot first from an optical drive, I popped the OS X 10.5.4 Install DVD in, booted the S10 up and off went the installation. Upon first boot, I had to replace a kext file for the Wi-Fi in the IdeaPad S10 to work. Once that was up and running, all that was left to do was to replace a couple more kext files for functions such as system sleep, two-finger scrolling, internal audio input, ExpressCard, and display hot keys to work. Once I was sure I had all the components working, I did a Software Update to 10.5.8. Doing so killed the Wi-Fi, keyboard and trackpad, but a repeat of replacing kext files restored them to a working state. Overall Impressions How does it fare? The 'Hackintosh' is more than capable of handling basic functionality well on a daily basis. Overall speed and performance of OS X on the IdeaPad S10, which is powered by the Intel Atom N270 1.66Ghz processor, is akin to that of an iBook PowerPC G4. There is Always a “But” The one glaring caveat to running OS X on a netbook is the lack of screen real estate. Most netbooks are equipped with either a 9- or 10-inch screen typically running a resolution of 1024 by 600. But the overall UI design of OS X is seemingly based on a minimum screen resolution of 1280 by 800, which is what the lowest-spec'ed Macs run at. This poses some usability issues when it comes to the window size of certain applications. System Preferences, for example, opens a window longer than the screen resolution of the IdeaPad S10 can display. As you can see in the screenshot above, anything beyond the first row of Preference Panes in the 'Others' section are obscured. The workaround to this is to click on any Preference Pane, and then click the 'Reveal All' buttons to go back. Doing that invokes a scroll bar within System Preferences, which you can then drag to reach the previously-obscured Panes. The other two issues I have with the IdeaPad S10 are the right-handside Shift key and the tiny trackpad. But these are all small annoyances, really, not show-stoppers. While a 1024 by 600 screen resolution means I'd mostly be running one application fullscreen at a time, once I think of this limitation as a way to force me to focus on one task at a time, it's not so bad. Plus, there's always Megazoomer; fullscreen is just a Command+Enter keystroke away. And LazyMouse helps mitigate the problem of the tiny trackpad. The Mac Netbook as the Middle Ground I had, from the get-go, meant to use this 'MacBook Nano' of mine for only web browsing, email, simple image manipulation and writing. Prior to getting the IdeaPad S10, there were days when I'd go out with only my iPhone 3G, knowing I can do all of the above with it. But there are times when I need to download, review, annotate and then resend certain types of documents neither iPhone OS nor a third-party iPhone app recognizes. Without a notebook with which to do that, I am pretty much stuck. So, until Apple reinvents the sub-notebook with its fabled tablet, this 'Hackintosh' fills the gap between the times when I don't need to lug around a workhorse like my MacBook Pro and when I need to do more than what my iPhone 3G lets me do. “Mac or No Mac, There is No Try” I'm sure I speak for many die-hard Mac users by saying that, being someone who cannot fathom using anything other than Mac OS X, and faced with a pressing need to have a lightweight portable, I'd rather use OS X on a netbook with all of the compromises it entails than to have to use Windows on the same netbook. To me, the Mac experience has always been more about software than hardware. Small, Light, and It Runs OS X. What's Not To Like? Having used the S10 every day for a week now, taking it instead of my 15-inch MacBook Pro everywhere, I can say with certainly that my MacBook Pro will be relegated to my desk on most days, and that my preferred portable computer from hereon will be this 'MacBook Nano' of mine. I can fish it out in places where opening a 15-inch notebook would be a clumsy thing to do; my tired shoulder has never felt better; I have desktop-class computing power everywhere I go, and can do far more than what I can with the iPhone. It is inexpensive, small, light, and it runs OS X. What's not to like, really? It is 3D Week at GigaOM Pro! Read our latest reports on the future of 3D TV, mobile, computing and movies.

  • App Review: Tap Tap Revenge 2 — New Tunes and Achey Fingers

    App Quick Stats Tap Tap Revenge 2 FREE iTunes Link Taking the iPhone's potential even further, Tapulous is here to show us how games can play good and sound awesome. The Tap Tap Revenge series has come a long way since its humble beginnings almost two years back. Indeed, back in September '07, indie developer Nate True spent a couple of days designing the game's first incarnation: Tap Tap Revolution. The latest edition of the game, aptly titled Tap Tap Revenge 2, arrived at the App Store today. Tapulous has been hard at work polishing and updating the original, bringing it right up to spec with App Store high-flyers like Rolando and Zen Bound. The game sports a wealth of features — online multiplayer, a library of free tracks to download, career mode — alongside a serious graphical overhaul, taking the title into 3D territory. Start! Taking its inspiration from the rhythm-action genre, in particular the Dance Dance Revolution series, Nate True's original 2007 creation squashed the rhythm experience down to the touch and iPhone. It was a different time though — there was no App Store and therefore no official Apple-sanctioned place for True to develop his creation. And so Tap Tap Revolution found its first home on jailbroken iPhones and iPod touches across the globe. The game design and aesthetic evolved, the community grew and bustled, Tap Tap Revolution became an illegitimate classic. Jump to present day, almost two years later, re-named Tap Tap Revenge, the rhythm-action series has found its home at the App Store. Now published by Tapulous — the crew behind Twinkle and Friendbook, amongst others — it's got serious backing and has been embraced by the music industry, evident by the wealth of tracks available in the latest edition. The folks at Tapulous have been crazy busy since releasing the original Tap Tap Revenge. Capitalizing on the game's engine and boiling hot reception by iPhone and touch owners alike, TTR has become a series in its own right. In the past year, Tap Tap Revenge has been followed by two other editions. There's TTR: Nine Inch Nails, a re-skin of the game which exclusively features Reznor's weird industrial dabblings and, for folks who fancy something a little more upbeat, TTR: Dance which includes tracks from Justice, Moby and Daft Punk. No Limit The latest addition to the series, Tap Tap Revenge 2, isn't just a small tweak, it's a complete update, upping the ante with a new features, new graphics and new modes. The basics of the gameplay are still intact, though. After picking a tune to tap along to, you're presented with a playing field with lots of glowing orbs flying towards you from the distance. Once the orbs hit the threshold at the bottom of the screen, you simply tap them. For beginners to the whole rhythm-action thing, it can seem a little strange and unnatural at first, kind of like putting your jeans on backwards to be just like 80's hip-hop sensation Salt-n-Pepa — it works but it doesn't feel right for a while. After some practice, you get your head round the notion of tapping in time to the music and your focus can turn to the brand-new achievements board accessible via Career Mode. Modes And Scales It's an all-encompassing game, as is evident in the various different modes offered; there's One Player for soloists, Two Player for those who like to swing to the groove together and, ideal for those with a competitive temperament, a feature-rich Online Mode. The One Player mode comes with the standard difficulty options — Easy, Medium, Hard and Extreme — but also includes a new one that I'd not seen before: Kids. The Kids mode is a particularly clever addition on the part of Tapulous. The idea is that the game is stripped down to a kind of immensely simple level, nothing too demanding, flashing light to tap on. Testing Kids mode out, though, I couldn't help but think it would be perfect for beginners, too. There's a whole raft of potential new players who would find this mode an ideal starting point but may find the fact that it's called Kids a tad alienating. But I'm nitpicking because, so far, there's so much to love and so little to complain about. The other difficulties seem to be paced just right for players looking to skill up before learning the game's nuances — like scoring even higher by using Revenge Mode — and taking it online in an attempt to advance up the ranking board. When I'm not writing for TheAppleBlog, or making music, rhythm-action games are something I adore and like to think I excel at. As such, after a few practice rounds on the lower difficulty levels, I tried out Crystal Method's exclusive TTR 2 track Double Down Under in Extreme and had a serious blast: It was challenging, fast-paced and, I'm pleased to note, seriously good fun. Getting The Band Together Several months back, I was sat on a train speeding through Finland. My travel companion and I had an array of tech goodies to keep us entertained, including a Nintendo DS, Macbook and iPod touch. We ended up playing TTR's original Two Player mode on my touch. The updated version of Two Player overhauls the graphics and adds in a catch-up feature, but keeps the essentials that made it so appealing in the first place. The big thing is that two people can play off one device, simply by laying it flat on the table and putting the iPhone between you. It leads to crazy, kinetic tsunamis of tapping as both of you frantically tap and bash away, trying to eek out the track's rhythm amid the flurry of tapping and confusion which ensues. There's not much to it but there doesn't have to be, it's quick and easy fun, and a great way to get beginners involved in the game. TTR has a dedicated following and its this base of users that will make for a vibrant TTR 2 community in the weeks and months to come. The online mode certainly makes sense in the general scheme. One Player becomes a place to practice alone, building up your technique and learning tracks, then, when you're ready for live musical carnage, take your game online. Unfortunately, while testing the game, the Tapulous server seemed to be inaccessible a couple of times. Not a good start but I have faith in Tapulous. This game is a big deal and a massive investment of time and money to them; as such I know that they'll be working to resolve any day-one toothing issues and I'm already looking forward to some hectic online battles in the coming weeks. Wired For Sound The music selection on offer in TTR 2 is a seriously big deal. The folks at Tapulous have been hob-knobbing with the industry big wigs, meeting with the fresh talent and even getting independent artists in on the action. What essentially results from all this deal-doing is that there's an immense library of music on offer. Before you even get to the downloads, there's an exclusive track included with the game from Crystal Method which, while it isn't my cup of chai, fits the game perfectly. Tap on over to the downloads section and there's purportedly over 150 tracks on offer, absolutely free. In among the stuff you've not heard of, there are some big names in the Tap Tap Revenge 2 library, including Death Cab for Cutie, Daft Punk and The Whip. As if that wasn't generous enough, apparently there will also be new tracks released every Thursday. It's not all about giving though, dig a track enough that you've just got to have it and you can also buy it by clicking a handy iTunes link. It's savvy on the part of Tapulous and genuinely useful for us players. Summing Up Tapulous seems to have gone above and beyond anything I expected for Tap Tap Revenge 2. The game is still very much part of the series, there are no massive, paradigm shifting changes, however what is on offer is an overwhelming evolution, a bold and engaging step forwards. I'm pleased to be awarding this game TheAppleBlog App Review's first Gold Award. This is no small thing, these awards will be rarities reserved for essential App Store releases. For iPhone and iPod touch gamers, Tap Tap Revenge 2 is an essential download. Green your IT. Save Money. Save the Planet Register at $295/$495 regular Hear Microsoft, IBM, Dell and Cisco execs at GigaOM's Green:Net.

  • Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

    UBS posts Q2 loss, plans to restructure. Swiss banking giant UBS (UBS) reports a Q2 net loss of CHF358M ($329M), including $5.1B in writedowns. Looking ahead to the second half, UBS says it doesn't expect any improvement "in the adverse economic and financial market trends that affected this quarter's results," adding, "UBS will continue its program to reduce personnel levels, costs and risk." As anticipated, UBS said it will begin separating its troubled investment bank from its wealth-management unit - but said it has not plans to sell the I-bank. UBS continued to cut back on its exposure to toxic debt: Subprime holdings fell to $6.7B from $15.6B while Alt-A exposure dropped to $6.4B from $17.1B. Shares rose 2.8% in overseas trading. Cuomo drags three more banks into ARS melee. NY AG Cuomo sent letters to JPMorgan (JPM), Morgan Stanley (MS) and Wachovia (WB), warning them to get on board with auction-rate securities settlements. Morgan Stanley's $4.5B ARS offer fails to impress Cuomo. Morgan Stanley (MS) said it is willing to buy back $4.5B in auction-rate securities, following similar settlements by Citigroup (C), UBS (UBS), and Merrill Lynch (MER). NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo called Morgan Stanley's (MS) buy back offer "too little, too late." Cuomo is expected to press for fines on top of a more substantive settlement. After you finish reading Wall Street BreakfastSeeking Alpha's Market Currentswill keep you current all day long. IEA breathes a bit easier. The IEA (International Energy Agency) says tight global oil supply that has seen crude rise to record heights this year is easing - but cautions that heavy China consumption and geopolitical tension still have the potential to send prices back up. "In terms of oil fundamentals, crude and product supply tightness has eased," it said. But "we continue to stress the supply uncertainty that's out there. The events over the past week in Georgia and Turkey have only reconfirmed that." The IEA dropped its global demand growth forcast by 100K barrels/day due to a major demand pullback in the U.S. (-3.1% this year and -2% next year). (.pdf) JPMorgan hit with $1.5B writedown. JPMorgan (JPM) warned that credit-market turbulance forced it to take a $1.5B writedown on mortgage-backed assets in July. The firm says mortgage market trading conditions have substantially deteriorated since the beginning of July. Bankers are saying July was the worst month for mortgage-backed bonds since the crisis began. Mitsubishi UFJ plans UnionBanCal buy out. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MTU) plans to spend $3B to buy out minority investors in U.S. commercial-banking unit UnionBanCal (UB). At $63 per share, Mitsubishi UFJ's offer represents an 8.3% premium on UnionBanCal's Monday closing price. Mitsubishi UFJ has made it clear that it wants a bigger presence in the U.S., and plans to take part in future consolidation of the U.S. banking industry. The bid is the latest in a series of multi-billion dollar deals in the U.S. by Japanese companies that have emerged relatively unscathed from the subprime crisis. Middleby buying TurboChef for $200M. Middleby Corp. (MIDD) announced an agreement to acquire TurboChef Technologies (OVEN) for approximately $200M. TurboChef shareholders, who need to approve the merger, will receive a cash-stock payout combination of $3.67 in cash and 0.0486 Middleby shares for each TurboChef share. TurboChef has greatly expanded its customer base in recent years and is a leader in speed cook technology, a field Middleby believes is in the beginning stages of gaining broader market acceptance. 3M iPhones in first month. After just one month, iPhone 3G (AAPL) sales reportedly top 3M - way ahead of expectations. "They are seeing unprecedented demand," Michael Cote of the Cote Collaborative says. While not commenting on Cote's estimates, Apple did disclose it sold 1 million iPhones during the first three days; it took Apple 74 days to hit the one million mark with the original iPhone. Germany mulls limiting foreign investment. The German government will vote on August 20 on a bill that could be used to prevent foreigners from buying 25% or more in German companies deemed crucial to the country's security. Opponents say it will deter foreign investment. (ETF: EWG) Airlines soon profitable? Airline stocks extended their rally Monday after Morgan Stanley said there's a chance the industry could return to profitability by 2009 if the price of oil stays down. The broker says recent moves by carriers to reduce seats and increase fees could ultimately be a positive for the battered sector. UAL +10%. AMR +8%. CAL +8%. UAUA +5.4%. Fed Survey on Bank Lending. 65% of banks said they tightened credit-card lending, car and consumer loans during the last quarter. 70% say they'll tighten standards on commercial real estate loans. Major loan categories were tighter across the board. Toyota mulls exporting us gas guzzlers. Trying to stay ahead of the auto industry downturn, Toyota (TM) said it is considering downsizing U.S. manufacturing jobs, and may start exporting U.S.-made U.S. pickups and SUVs abroad. Some analysts were puzzled by the proposal; the larger vehicles are not big sellers outside of U.S. borders. Precious metals plunge again. Gold, platinum, and silver hit 7-month lows on concerns of reduced demand for raw materials. Commodities descend Monday into bear territory, with S&P's GSCI index off 22% from its July 3 highs. Blue Chip economists sour on H2 and 2009. They now see Q3 GDP growth of 1.2%, down 0.1% from previous estimates, and Q4 growth of just 0.3% - down 0.3%. Year-end unemployment is seen at 6%. 56% think the U.S. economy is in recession. India production up 3.4%. India's production in six key industries, accounting for a quarter of the country's industrial production, grew 3.4% in June from a year earlier. (ETFs: INP, EPI) Inflation pulls back in China. China's inflation slows to a ten-month low, allowing the government a chance to focus on sustaining economic growth instead of fighting rising prices. (ETFs: FXI, PGJ) Earnings: Tuesday Before Open Fossil (FOSL): Q2 EPS of $0.36 beats by $0.11. Revenue of $353M (+15.2%) vs. $347M. [PR] JA Solar (JASO): Q2 EPS of -$0.01 vs. consensus of $0.15. Revenue of $180M (+170.7%) vs. $170M. [PR] Earnings: Monday After Close Fluor (FLR): Q2 EPS of $0.87 beats by $0.05. Revenue of $5.77B (+36.8%) vs. $5.18B. Sees full-year EPS of $3.39-3.54 vs. $3.29. Shares +3.9%. [PR] LDK Solar (LDK): Q2 EPS of $1.29 beats by $0.87. Revenue of $442M vs. $282M. Sees 2008 revenue of $1.65-1.75B vs. $1.16B. Shares +25.3%.[PR] Napster (NAPS): FQ1 EPS of -$0.10 misses by $0.01. Revenue of $30.3M (-6%) vs. $30.5M. Shares -1.1%. [PR] McDermott International (MDR): Q2 EPS of $0.77 in-line. Revenue of $1.79B (+26.4%) vs. $1.85B. Shares -8.1%. [PR] Safe Bulkers (SB): Q2 EPS of $0.82 beats by $0.21. Revenue of $51.4M (+48.1%) vs. $49.6M. Shares +3.6%. [PR] TravelCenters of America (TA): Q2 EPS of -$0.69 beats by $0.23. Revenue of $2.28B vs. $2.15B. [PR] TW Telecom (TWTC): Q2 EPS of $0.00 misses by $0.01. Revenue of $290M (+2.7%) in-line. [PR] Verasun Energy (VSE): Q2 EPS of $0.15 beats by $0.13. Revenue of $1.01B (+498.7%) vs. $925M. [PR] Today's Markets Asian markets closed lower on Tuesday. Nikkei -0.95% to 13,304. Hang Seng -1.0% to 21,641. Shanghai -0.52% to 2,457. BSE -1.88% to 15,213. Europe at midday: London +0.2%. Paris +0.05%. Frankfurt -0.05%. U.S. futures at 7:10 AM: Dow -0.08%. S&P -0.04%. Nasdaq +0.15%. Crude -0.74% to $113.63. Gold -0.65% to $822.80. Tuesday's economic calendar: 7:45 ICSC Retail Store Sales8:30 Trade Balance8:55 Redbook Chain Store Sales10:00 IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism10:00 Job Openings and Labor Turnover10:30 Fed's Gary Stern on CNBC2:00 PM Treasury Budget5:00 PM ABC Consumer Confidence Index Notable pre-open earnings: CNO, FOSL, GOL, JASO, TJX, UBS, VSE Notable post-close earnings: AMAT, BZP, CREE, DNDN, MELI, NVDA Seeking Alpha editor Rachael Granby contributed to this post. Get Wall Street Breakfast by email -- it's free and takes only seconds to sign up.

  • Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

    TI dips on weak guidance. Texas Instruments (TXN) reported in line Q1 EPS of $0.43 on revenue of $3.27B (+2.5%, in-line). TI's Q2 revenue forecast ($3.24-3.5B) fell short of analyst estimates ($3.44B). Anticipated Q2 EPS is even weaker: $0.42-0.48 vs. $0.51 consensus. "Given uncertainty in the near-term economy, we have become more conservative with our outlook for the second quarter," CEO Rich Templeton said. In that light, and given that shares gained 3.3% in regular trading Monday, a 2.5% drop in extended trading is hardly a selloff -- perhaps a testimony to TI's long-term growth potential. Citi turns to HP; selling $6B in hybrids. In a novel move to defend its controversial business model, Citigroup (C) is asking Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) for advice on both IT issues and general strategy. Sources say Citi execs want to know how HP managed to overcome investor pressure to spin off its computer business, similar to the present calls for Citi to split its wholesale and retail banking units. Meanwhile, Citi is bolstering its balance sheet by selling $6B of hybrid bonds at 8.4% for 10 years, after it posted writedowns of almost $16B last week. Hybrid bonds allow banks to bring on cash with deferred interest payments, while the bulk of the offering is considered equity by credit-raters. "It's a way of not upsetting the apple cart," portfolio manager Bill Larkin said. "They don't want to dilute shares, and they don't want to issue more debt." RBS: Big writedown, big share sale. Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), #2 UK lender, is selling £12B ($23.7B) in shares to reinforce its capital. It announced £5.9B in asset markdowns, and said it will cut its 2008 dividend. RBS said its 2008 outlook is still "inevitably clouded" by U.S. subprime fallout, not to mention its $22.7B spend on ABN Amro, which now seems impossibly expensive. RBS has lost almost half its market value; shares were down 5% in London. "I can well understand this is not easy for shareholders. It is not easy for me," CEO Fred Goodwin said. He told journalists he would consider selling the firm's insurance unit, but not ats "fire sale" prices. Netflix plunges on weak outlook. Netflix (NFLX) posted in-line EPS and revenue of $0.21 and $326M. For Q2, it sees EPS of $0.33-0.42 (consensus: $0.39). Netflix lowered its full-year guidance to $1.16-1.29 from $1.18-1.30 (consensus: $1.25). On its conference call, NFLX said that the numbers assume its market continues to grow. Investors were spooked: shares fell 13.5% in AH trading. Gross margin (31.7%) was down 2.1% sequentially and 4.4% from a year ago. Churn rate dropped to 3.9% from 4.4%. Netflix shares were up almost 50% YTD on reduced competition from Blockbuster (BBI), which turned its focus back to in-store rentals, and is now bidding for brick-and-mortar retailer Circuit City (CC). The wildcard is how emerging online video offerings from Apple (AAPL) and Amazon.com (AMZN) will affect its sales. CIT to squeeze $1B from stock sale. Commercial lender CIT Group (CIT) will raise $1B in a stock offering, as it tries to escape a liquidity crisis. It will use the proceeds for general corporate purposes; to pay a dividend; and to meet debt payments. Unfortunately, CIT already cut its dividend by 60%. It also sold $5B in assets and drew down $7.3B of its emergency credit lines. Shares fell 13.7% in AH trading. Intrepid Potash's intrepid IPO. Fertilizer producer Intrepid Potash (IPI) priced its 30M share IPO at $32 ($960M) -- $3 better than the top range of the $27-29/share forecast (which was originally 24M shares at $24-26). Underwriters including Goldman Sachs (GS), Merrill (MER), Morgan Stanley (MS) can purchase another 4.5M shares. Intrepid accounts for about 1.5% of global potash production. Some have compared its IPO to that of Google (GOOG) and Visa (V). CME beats on large volume jump. CME Group's (CME) Q1 EPS of $4.67 were just short of analyst estimates ($4.80). Revenue of $625M (+25.5% adjusted for CBOT acquisition) was in line. Volume grew a robust 32% during the quarter amid broad strength. "This performance illustrates the benefits of the exchange model for managing risks in diverse global markets," CEO Terry Duffy said. DuPont beats; guides in line. DuPont (DD) reported Q1 EPS of $1.31, $0.05 better than consensus. Revenue of $8.57B (+9.3%) was in line. For Q2, DuPont sees EPS of $1.05 (consensus: $1.08). For 2008, sees EPS of $3.40-3.55 (consensus: $3.48). "Our investments in agriculture and emerging markets enabled us to capitalize on robust growth in those areas which, when combined with gains from our productivity improvement programs, more than offset higher ingredient costs and weakness in certain U.S. markets," CEO Charles Holiday said. Baker Hughes beats by penny. Oilfield servicer Baker Hughes's (BHI) Q1 EPS of $1.21 was slightly better than analyst estimates ($1.20). Revenue of $2.67B (+8%) was in line. "Results from North America were better than expected," CEO Chad Deaton said. "Improving fundamentals for natural gas reflected in lower storage levels, higher natural gas prices, increased oil-directed drilling, and announcements by E&P operators of spending increases support higher drilling activity and additional opportunities for Baker Hughes in North America in the second half of 2008." Oil-services provider Smith International (SII) posted in-line EPS of $0.87 on in-line revenue of $2.37B (+12.5%). Slick quarter for EnCana. EnCana (ECA) beat Q1 EPS estimates of $1.28 by $0.11. Revenue of $5.34B (+20.4%) were better than $4.9B consensus. Free cash flow rose to $540M from $271M. AU Optronics shines. Liquid panel developer AU Optronics (AUO) smashed Q1 EPS estimates: $1.12/share vs. $0.48 consensus. Revenue of $4.5B (+85%) was better than consensus estimates of $4.24B. For Q2, AUO expects PC LCD shipments to fare better than TV panels. The firm said it will build a new factory. "In my crystal ball, I'd say visibility of the LCD industry is clear because it's a growing market," Taiwan asset manager Kevin Yang said. "TV is a very promising sector and the pie is getting bigger and bigger." UnitedHealth drops outlook. UnitedHealth Group (UNH) posted Q1 EPS of $0.78, $0.02 short of consensus estimates. Revenue of $20.3B (+6.6%) beat consensus of $19.88B. UNH lowered its full-year guidance to $3.55-3.60 from $3.95-4.00 (consensus: $3.87). "These financial results are not acceptable for a company with our capabilities and potential. They are due in part to broader economic challenges and in part to our own performance. We are adjusting our approaches, in particular to strengthen organic growth and address operating costs, to deliver financial performance that more appropriately represents the capacity and potential of our organization," CEO Stephen Hemsley said. Shareholders are unlikely to be appeased. SunTrust sees cloudy future. SunTrust Banks' (STI) Q1 EPS of $0.81 were $0.21 short of analyst estimates. Revenue of $2.3B (+22.9%) beat consensus of $2.13B. SunTrust increased its loan-loss provision to $560M (1.25%) due to the deterioration of residential real-estate markets. "The backdrop of emerging recession fears clouds the near-term outlook," CEO James Wells said, adding, "SunTrust is financially strong, with ample liquidity, adequate capital, and a solid balance sheet." Cash infusion socks NatCity. National City (NCC) agreed to sell a $7B stake to a private-equity group led by Corsair Capital at a 40% discount, sending shares plummeting 28% to $6.03. Shares are down 84% over the past 12 months. KBW analyst Melissa Roberts thinks banks will still seek to raise another $12.4B, adding to the $163B they've already sought since July (not sure if she's including Citi's $6B hybrid offering). "There's an appetite out there for risk, but at a price," RBC analyst Jason Arnold said. Oil price keeps gushing. Oil posted new highs of $117+ a barrel amid a falling dollar and attacks on Nigerian pipelines owned by Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A). "We are clearly headed over $120 a barrel and we are targeting $125," said MF Global's John Kilduff. "The last thing we need is another supply disruption. The outage certainly adds to the bullish sentiment." Lexmark beats; guidance midpoint is low. Lexmark (LXK) posted Q1 EPS of $1.16, $0.26 better than the consensus. Revenue of $1.18B (-6.8%) was in line. For Q2, Lexmark sees EPS of $0.65-0.75 vs. $0.73 consensus. WSJ loses managing editor. WSJ managing editor Marcus Brauchli is expected to resign as early as today after just 11 months; publisher Robert Thompson may take over for now. The separation is said to be "amicable" and Brauchli is expected to stay on with WSJ parent News Corp. (NWS). Sources say that Brauchli tried (unsuccessfully?) to find a middle-road between the Journal's traditionalists and Rupert Murdoch's new vision for the paper. Separately, sources say Murdoch has all but sealed a deal to buy Tribune's Newsday (excluding its real-estate) for about $580M. Murdoch is thought to see Newsday as the solution to the New York Post's lack of profitability. Today's Markets Markets in Asia were mixed Tuesday. Nikkei -1.09% to 13,548. Hang Seng +0.88% to 24,939. Shanghai +0.99% to 3,148. BSE Sensex +0.27% to 16,784. In Europe, markets are essentially flat at midday. FTSE flat at 6,053. CAC +0.22% to 4,921. DAX +0.13% to 6,794. U.S. futures are also flat at 7:15 AM. Get Wall Street Breakfast by email -- it's free and takes only seconds to sign up.

  • 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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