So, so wrong.

But so funny:



Hat tip: Scott (site comprehensively not safe for work unless you work for gay pornographers or your office has very relaxed Acceptable Use policies... in which case, click away!)

The sincerest form of flattery

In the 1980s, Microsoft created an incompletely successful imitation of Apple's revolutionary graphical user interface.

In 2009, they're copying Apple's hugely successful retail strategy:

Microsoft Corp. said it hired a former Wal-Mart Stores Inc. executive to help the company open its own retail stores, a strategy shift that borrows from the playbook of rival Apple Inc.

The Redmond, Wash., company said it hired David Porter, most recently the head of world-wide product distribution at DreamWorks Animation SKG, as corporate vice president of retail stores for Microsoft.

[...]

The move is a sign of the deeper role consumer-technology companies are playing in the retail business, despite the many risks of straying from their traditional businesses of making hardware and software. Apple, of Cupertino, Calif., encountered widespread skepticism when it first began opening its own retail stores in 2001.

Eight years later, though, Apple's chain of more than 200 stores around the world are widely credited with helping the company boost sales of its Mac, iPod and iPhone product lines. The Apple stores, with their eye-catching architecture, highly-trained sales staff and "genius bars" that provide technical support, gave Apple a way to showcase its products in an environment where they weren't lumped in with a gamut of other electronics items. Sony Corp. and Bose Corp. also operate their own stores.

Microsoft to open stores, hires retail hand (Wall Street Journal, 13 February 2009)

Nobody's business, or everybody's?

The most indispensable chief executive in the United States, beloved by customers and investors for his magnificent turnaround of the company he founded — and for the amazing gadgets his company produces — can no longer be trusted on the subject of whether he is healthy enough to continue running the company. Although Mr. Jobs says he will return in June, [Needham & Company analyst Charlie Wolf, who follows Apple] wrote in his note that investors were likely to “assume the worst — at the extreme, the possibility that Mr. Jobs will never return to Apple as full-time C.E.O.” And Mr. Wolf has always been a big supporter of Steve Jobs. Incredible.

It is really hard to write about Steve Jobs and his health. Nobody wants to see another human being suffer a recurrence of cancer. Everybody — myself very much included — hopes that Mr. Jobs will get well and come back to work. I can even understand why he doesn’t want to disclose details about his medical problems to the world — it’s very distasteful, and Mr. Jobs also believes strong [sic] that it’s nobody’s business except his and his family’s.

But he’s wrong. There are certain people who simply don’t have the same privacy rights as others, whether they like it or not. Presidents. Celebrities. Sports figures. And, at least in terms of his health, Steve Jobs. His health has become a material fact for Apple shareholders. His vagueness about his health, his dissembling, his constantly changing story line — it is simply not an appropriate way to act when you are the most important person at one of the most high-profile companies in America. On the contrary: it is infuriating.

Joe Nocera: "It's Time for Apple to Come Clean" @ NY Times Executive Suite blog (15 Jan 2009)

Related: Apple's Culture of Secrecy (New York Times, 26 July 2008)

Everything is just a few hundred clicks away

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

25 years of Macintosh

Dave Winer reminds us that this is the Mac's 25th anniversary year:

On January 24, 1984 a couple thousand people were present at Flint Center in Cupertino at the birth of something with real lasting value, the Macintosh.

[...]
Hard as it is to believe -- that was almost 25 years ago!
http://mac25.org/

My arc with Macintosh is not quite that long... I'm coming up on 20 years myself, with a couple of longish intervals of Windows/PC use:

First Mac purchased - Mac SE, 1989
(Other Macs owned: Macintosh LC, two PowerBooks... plus a couple of Newtons in there somewhere.)

Moved to NYC in 1996 as a Mac user (brought PowerBook with me) and promptly went to work for an all-Windows shop. :-)

Windows/Linux user from 1997-2005, despite an all-too-brief interregnum working in an all-Mac shop in 2000.

2006: After a bad experience with Microsoft Vista, I buy a Macbook for home use.

I liked it. I liked it a lot... and still do.

Most recent Mac purchases: 24" iMac, 2007; MacBook Air, 2008.

(And a couple of iPhones in there somewhere.)

So... from this:


To this:


In 20 years. Not bad.

Jobs pulled the original Mac out of a carrying bag in 1984 and it was a sensation ("never trust a computer you can't lift") - in 2008, he pulled the MacBook Air out of a standard manila interoffice envelope, and that was just the logical conclusion of a lot of advances in technology and engineering since 1984.

I really hope that Apple doesn't introduce the long-rumored tablet Mac at the upcoming MacWorld Expo... Steve Jobs' absence would suggest that AAPL will never again use MacWorld for major product introductions.

I hope they wait for warmer weather to announce general availability of the tablet Mac. I hate standing in line in the cold. (And I'm already on record as stating that I'm buying two of these - one for me and one for her.)

Related: Mactracker is a great walk down memory lane if you're an older Mac owner, or an owner of older Macs if you prefer.

Paul Taylor on netbooks

Something extraordinary has happened in the market for portable PCs over the past year: a new category of devices, tagged variously as ultra mobile PCs (UMPCs), netbooks or mini-notes, has emerged. It was Taiwan-based Asus that launched the new sector when it brought out the first EeePC models and took many of the biggest makers of laptops by surprise in the process.

Unlike UMPCs such as the Samsung Q1 and the OQO Model 01, machines like Asus’s EeePCs and Acer Aspire One are designed for everyday, ordinary use that prizes convenience. Instead of tiny touch-based screens, BlackBerry-style keyboards and sky-high price tags, netbooks look and work like shrunk-down versions of full-featured, full-sized laptops, with traditional if smaller keyboards and bright 8in-10in colour LCD screens.

[...]

Most of the new netbooks are built around low-power Intel Atom microprocessors typically running at 1.6Ghz, come with 512Mb or 1Gb of Ram and either traditional hard drives or flash-memory-based SSDs (solid state drives). They usually support WiFi wireless networking (but not necessarily the fastest 802.11n standard) and come with Ethernet cable ports, and two or three USB ports for connecting peripherals including external hard drives, a mouse and 3G cellular broadband cards. Some have a standard VGA port for connecting a bigger external display or projector, slots for SD (secure digital) flash memory cards and, occasionally, an Express Card expansion slot – useful for plugging in 3G cellular data cards.

FT.com/Columnists/Paul Taylor - Pint-sized laptops grow up

The Wall Street Journal has Walt Mossberg, but the Financial Times is doing just fine for themselves with personal technology columnist Paul Taylor. This is an an excellent primer on the new cheap netbooks, including evaluations of the more popular models.

If I hadn't already shelled out bux for a MacBook Air, I'd be a serious candidate for an MSI Wind running Ubuntu, with one of those 3G wireless modems plugged in... for what I paid for the Air, I could have a 3G broadband always-on-the-net netbook, pay for 2 years of cell data plan, and still come out ahead... 5.5 hours of battery life with the 6-cell battery... sigh. :-)

Related:

• Ubuntu (free for the asking)
• Apple MacBook Air MB003LL/A 13.3 Inch Laptop (1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 2 GB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive) (at Amazon)
• MSI Wind U100-432US 10-Inch Mini Laptop (1.6 GHz Intel Atom, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, 6 Cell Battery, 802.11 b/g/n+BT, XP Home) Black (at Amazon)
  

Jobs swims the Yangtze

Apple's big event today in San Francisco left many people wondering: What the heck was that was that all about? Normally, the great Steve Jobs uses his time on the podium to delight and surprise the masses. But today he gave little more than a preview of the new holiday line of iPods, and the TV ads that will accompany them.

You don't have to be as cynical as me to understand the real reason this event was staged: It was so the world could watch Jobs swim the Yangtze River.

Surely you remember that bit of masterful 20th-century propaganda? In 1966, Mao Zedong, the communist leader who united China and brought it back from the brink of ruin, famously swam the Yangtze. This stunt confounded the China hands and others who had believed that Mao was either dead — done in by his rivals — or dying of some illness, as had been rumored. (He was 73 after all.) But, no, the Leader was alive and astoundingly healthy: On a day in July, the Chairman appeared in his bathrobe on the riverbanks in Wuhan, accompanied by 5,000 young people. He was photographed smiling and waving; the Party-controlled press reported that he swam nearly nine miles downstream, in a little over an hour — which is doubtful.

But it's certainly true that he lived for another decade.

When Jobs, who battled pancreatic cancer four years ago and has been the subject of whispers of ill health since he appeared looking gaunt at the Macworld conference in June, took the stage today, it was in front of a giant slide that said, "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."

Steve Jobs: Not Dead Yet (Time.com)

I suppose some things are so obvious as to not need saying, but making the Jobs/Mao analogy without continuing to connect the dots to the concept of personality cults is a strange omission.

Macs in suits

Millions of consumers are seeing the Mac in a new light. Once an object of devotion for students and artists, the Mac is becoming the first choice of many. Surging demand for the machines led Apple to predict revenues will rise 33% in the second quarter, to $7.2 billion, even in the face of an economic slowdown.

What's less obvious is that the enthusiasm is starting to spill over into the corporate market. It's a people's revolution, of sorts, with workers increasingly pressing their employers to let them use Macs in the office. In a survey of 250 diverse companies that has yet to be released, the market research firm Yankee Group found that 87% now have at least some Apple computers in their offices, up from 48% two years ago. "There's always been this archipelago of Macintosh use" among graphic artists and advertising managers, says Scott Teissler, chief information officer of Turner Broadcasting System (TWX). "My sense is that CIOs are more willing to see that expand without putting up as much resistance as in the past."

[...]

Mark Slaga, chief information officer of Dimension Data , a large computer services firm based in suburban Johannesburg, says he has received 25 e-mails recently from employees who want permission to use Macs at work. So far he has refused, because he doesn't want to hire people to provide Mac tech support, but "it'll happen someday," he concedes. "Steve Jobs doesn't need a sales force because he already has one: employees like the ones in my company."

BusinessWeek: The Mac In The Grey Flannel Suit (12 May 2008)

Thinking about Microsoft Vista will make you dumber and slower, too

You don’t need to be a Mac owner to be a cutting-edge hipster. Turns out just thinking about Apple can make you more creative.

That’s according to researchers at Duke University and the University of Waterloo, who found that exposing people to a brand’s logo for 30 milliseconds will make them behave in ways associated with that brand. And in Apple’s case that means more creatively, Gavan Fitzsimons, one of the Duke professors who conducted the study, tells the Business Technology Blog. The study will be published in the April issue of the Journal of Consumer Research.

Think Apple: It boosts creativity (WSJ Business Technology Blog)

Holding the future of computing in your hand

At this very moment, in a building somewhere in Silicon Valley, I guarantee you that a team of engineers from Google and Apple are designing a set of devices that, hooked up as terminals to Google's "supercomputer," will define how we use computers in the future. You can see various threads of this system today - in Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch, its dot-mac service, its iLife and iWork applications as well as in Google's Apps suite and advertising system, not to mention its vast data-center network. What this team is doing right now is weaving all those threads together into what will be, for most of us, the fabric of cloud computing. (This is so big, you need at least two metaphors to describe it.)

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog - Google, Apple and the Future of Personal Computing

(via GigaOm)

Thanks, Steve

Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs this afternoon responded to a flood of complaints from existing iPhone owners over yesterday's $200 price cut by promising the company would issue a $100 credit to anyone who bought an iPhone before the change.

"I have received hundreds of e-mails from iPhone customers who are upset about Apple dropping the price of iPhone by $200 two months after it went on sale," Jobs said in a statement posted to the Apple Web site.

Jobs apologizes for iPhone price cut; Apple to issue $100 credit (Computerworld)

Mac notebooks in third place in U.S.

While Apple may be focusing a lot of its attention on the iPhone lately, consumers are clearly still interested in the company’s computer offerings. Data from one market research firm shows Apple’s notebook business broke 17 percent while another research firm said Apple has moved into third place among computer makers.

According to NPD, Apple’s U.S. retail notebook market share for June 2007 was 17.6 percent, an increase of 2.2 percentage points over the same period last year when Apple posted a 15.4 percent market share.

Macworld: Apple's notebook market share climbs to 17.6 percent

I, too, would be kvelling with pride

“BUT I DON‘T—”

“And then we’re going to the Apple Store.”

Leta suddenly remembers all those times Daddy has taken her to the Apple Store to pass the time, those outings where he would inspect new hardware while she got to play Dora games on an iMac at the back of the store.

“Daddy!” Her tone changes instantly from CURRENTLY DYING to polite conversation over tea at the tennis club. “I’m going to the Apple Store with you! I love the Apple Store.”

Jon staggers backwards two steps, holds his hand over his heart and says, “If I were a normal man? This—” and he points back and forth between himself and Leta signaling what they have between them, “—this would be me teaching my son how to throw a baseball.”

"Because they needed something else in common," Dooce, 17 July 2007

Damn you, Steve Jobs

sync in progress iphone is activated
Originally uploaded by enrevanche.

You know, it seems like there was a whole lot of big talk in these parts recently about being over and done with Early Adopter Disorder, letting other people buy the Rev 1 Apple hardware and do the debugging, and so forth.

No iPhone for me, not yet, no sir.

And I was pretty damned smug on Friday about all the folks standing in line for their Jesus Phones. (I don't stand on line for *anything*. If the restaurant doesn't take reservations and it's full, I go somewhere else.)

My sainted grandmother gave me some good advice once: "Make your words sweet, son, because someday you might have to eat 'em."

And then a guy in our building reported a completely painless experience picking up an iPhone today...

Hi. I'm Barry, and I'm a gadget-holic. ("Hi, Barry!")

I must admit that the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue was handling a daunting logistical challenge with grace and style. Nobody enables better. The place was *packed* with people... but the longest and most difficult part of the transaction was getting up and down the stairs as the crush of acolytes descended and ascended.

From the time I walked into the store until the time I walked out with the iPhone... eight and a half minutes.

Total time, once home, to download iTunes 7.3, sign up for an AT&T account and switch our service from Sprint, and start receiving calls on my existing cell phone number on the iPhone: 45 minutes.

Yow.

So far I am completely and utterly delighted.

We're all living in a science-fiction novel; you realize this, of course. :-)

David Pogue, liking the iPhone

As the ball player Dizzy Dean once said, “It ain’t bragging if you done it.”

Things I have learned about Applecare

I am still waiting for the shipping box, "'overnighted" on the 30th of April, to arrive so that I can return my broken MacBook to Apple... again. (Counting the couple of days that the little laptop spent at the Genius Bar less than a month after my purchase, this is the *third* time that the computer has been returned to Apple's custody for repair in under a year. So glad I bought the extended warranty.)

Anyway, here's what I've learned from the latest festival of incompetence.

(1) Apple doesn't know how to give DHL the information it needs to deliver shipping boxes to office addresses in New York City, and

(2) DHL doesn't know how to find massive buildings in Lower Manhattan by conventional, US Postal Service-compliant street addresses. (I got a call on my cell phone from DHL yesterday morning, asking for clarification about where "17 State Street" was. Um, it's the HUGE F***ING SKYSCRAPER RIGHT ACROSS FROM THE STATEN ISLAND FERRY TERMINAL.)

Why I recommend Applecare...

...to anyone who purchases an Apple product of any kind.

Saturday, January 6: I call Apple Tech Support and tell them that the plastic around my MacBook's keyboard is discolored and cracking. They authorize an immediate repair.

Monday, January 8: DHL delivers a protective shipping box direct to my door. I package up the MacBook per the directions and peel off the shipping label to reveal a correctly addressed priority overnight label.

Tuesday, January 9: Carrie drops off the packaged-up MacBook at a DHL pickup point.

Wednesday, January 10: Apple technicians perform the necessary repairs *and* get the MacBook back into the DHL system, same-day. DHL records indicate that the computer is in Apple's actual possession for less than 12 hours.

Thursday, January 11: A perfectly repaired MacBook in working order arrives at our door.

Elapsed time from initial phone call (on a Saturday!) until a repaired computer is back in my hands, five calendar days.

Service: Insanely great.

Charge: $0.00.