thomas fitzgerald.net

Apple and the importance of Macworld Expo

thomasfitzgerald — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:39:52 +0000

Chris Breen over at Macworld talks about Macworld Expo which starts this week without the participation of Cupertino:

“…it’s a particularly significant episode of Expo because Apple will not be counted among the participants. You know what this means: No Apple announcements or booth, no Steve-led keynote, fewer vendors, and little front-page coverage.

Yet when I put my selfish desires aside, I care very little about Apple’s absence. Because, for me, what Apple does and doesn’t do at Expo makes up a small portion of the value I derive from it.”

He makes some interesting points and it’s well worth a read. Personally I think we might see Apple release a few (or even one) thinks to coincide with Expo in a low key press release. I’m hoping for Aperture 3.0 (although I’ve almost given up hope on that one). Still, you can but dream!

From MacUser.)

Lego Dreams

thomasfitzgerald — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:31:56 +0000

There’s an interesting article and video up on the BBC website about some hardcore Lego Modellers. I’m a big lego fan although I am not nearly as extreme as these people. It’s worth a look if you like all thinks brick and minifig! Incidentally, if you are a lego fan and you haven’t seen it already, check out “The Brothers Brick”. It’s a great site with lots of great models built by people.

Charlie Rose Discusses the iPad

thomasfitzgerald — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 17:41:49 +0000

Charlie Rose discusses the iPad with Walt Mossberg from the Wall Street Journal, David Carr from the New York Times, and Michael Arrington from Tech Crunch. It’s an interesting discussion and devoid of any outlandish expectations or bashing you usually get from a post apple launch discussion. Worth a watch. (Via TechCrunch)

The iPad is not a Computer

thomasfitzgerald — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:28:00 +0000

I had wanted to wait a little while since the iPad was launched to let the implications sink in a bit before trying to write about it. I have had so many thoughts flying around my head about Apple’s new device over the last week that I haven’t really known where to start. The more I read about it the more enthusiastic I get about the iPad. I also get equally annoyed about some of the stupid things that are being written. One thought keeps resonating with me though: the iPad isn’t really a computer. At least not in the traditional sense. (I know that technically it is a computer) Instead you should think of it more as a device that happens to do computing tasks. Let me explain.

For years Apple has tried to make computing easier for the average person. The selling point for the original Mac was that it was “the computer for the rest of us.” While it certainly made computing tasks easier, even using a Mac still requires a degree of computing knowledge. As the internet became mainstream the world was promised the ideal of the internet being as easy to use and ubiquitous as news papers and magazines. While we got the ubiquity, we’re still using the same tools to access that information. At the end of the day, you still needed a computer, and you still have to deal with all that entails. Even things like having to boot a computer up before using it stand in the way of easy and fast consumption of information. While these issues have certainly been mitigated over the years they are still there. For some people though, this is the essence of computing and they don’t like the idea of that changing.

I read one complaint about the iPad that I thought was particularly revealing. The writer was taking issue with the fact that the iPad didn’t offer enough incentive for business users and would only be considered a toy. Therein lies the problem with many people’s perception, not just of the iPad, but of computers in general. Many people out there still see them as a work tool first and foremost. Even personal computers are still considered primarily as a device to get some form of work done, even if that’s just sending emails or using word processing. Simple and often mundane computing tasks still require you to know how to use a computer. You still have to deal with an operating system and a file hierarchy, even if you just want to send an email. Apple isn’t the only one to try and make some aspects of computing faster and simpler. Google’s approach to tackling this problem is to create an operating system that is essentially a browser. It figures you can both browse and be productive using just it’s online productivity tools. But google’s chrome os is still work focussed, and its still computer focussed. Yet computing has become as much about consuming media as it is about being productive. Whether it’s books, magazines, or tv shows, the internet has encapsulated them all and yet the only real way to consume media from the internet is through the tool that is still primarily considered a work tool. Even with chrome os and netbooks, the user experience is still the same. Apple has shown that there can be another way.

Some people are openly hostile to the idea of computing being redefined, but the claim that anything else is just a toy though is unfair. Are magazines just toys? Are books? No, of course not. Why then should a device that is designed to make their digital counterparts as easy to use as their analogue ones also be considered a toy? The iPad offers a new way to look at computing, and I think this scares a lot of people. Its “closed” nature is offensive to some because they can only think of it in terms of existing computers, but that’s not really what the iPad is, or what it’s supposed to be. The iPad is a consumer electronics device that happens to do computing tasks. While it’s designed to replace having to use a computer for certain tasks, it’s not trying to completely do away with the desktop or laptop for tasks that they are more suitable for. Once the iPad is released, computers aren’t going to suddenly disappear or stop working, so those arguing that the iPad represents a loss of freedom are simply missing the point. The iPad isn’t for running your c++ compiler or hacking your system, or for running multiple operating systems. That’s what computers are for. For other tasks though the iPad removes a layer of abstraction between the user and the information they are viewing. Just like you don’t need a tool to read a book, with the iPad you no longer need the tools of a traditional computer, the keyboard and mouse, to read electronic information. You can touch it just as you would a printed page. While this was pioneered with the iPhone and iPod touch, their small screen size has limited the impact of just how much of a revolution this is. On a full sized system this will make a huge change to the way we interact with the digital world.

While many may have wished Apple to produce a fully fledged computer in a tablet form factor, this just isn’t it. The iPad is not for geeks. It’s for normal people who want to read the paper online without having to boot their computer up. It’s for people who want to communicate on the internet without having to deal with operating systems, files, folders permissions and viruses. It’s for someone who wants to access information on the move without having to bring their laptop. There are multitudes of reasons to want a device that lets you do computing tasks without having to have a computer. It’s not for people whose life revolves around their computer. It’s for everyone else. If you want an “open system” buy something else. The iPad is not for you. Just as you wouldn’t hack the system on your dvd player or hi-fi, you can’t hack the system on your iPad. It’s not a personal computer. It’s a whole new class of device. It’s an internet and computing appliance. If you want to tinker use a PC or a Mac. For the rest of the world the iPad will be a breath of fresh air. It’s something that, when its released, it will have seemed like such an obvious thing. Just like the Lisa paved the way for the Mac and the GUI revolution, the iPhone and iPod touched paved the way for the first true revolution in computing in many years. While some might yearn for a fully fledged personal computer from Apple with a touch screen input, this isn’t it. What it is however is something far more poetic. It represents the culmination of a very long journey for Apple. Thirty years on after setting out to do so, Apple will have finally achieved its goal of truly providing a computer for the rest of us by taking the “computer” part out of the equation.

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iPad at the Grammys

thomasfitzgerald — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 08:53:34 +0000

And the winner for best product placement goes to… (Via C-Net) Related Posts The iPad is not a Computer New York Times on why there’s no flash in the iPad The iPad

New York Times on why there’s no flash in the iPad

thomasfitzgerald — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 08:24:58 +0000

The New York Times has a good piece on why the iPad doesn’t have flash

Numerous developers and executives that I interviewed for my story said there was a trend toward offering users an alternative to Flash video, the predominant video standard online, in the form of HTML5, an open standard.

Senior-level managers from many of the top video sites online, including YouTube, Vimeo, Blip.tv and Flickr, all agreed that video online is starting to splinter, and as some test out HTML5 for video distribution, many will begin offering both formats as the iPad makes its way onto the market.

(Read Why the iPad Web Demo Was Full of Holes – Bits Blog – NYTimes.com.)

It seems obvious to me (and to many others) that flash’s days of prominence are over. More and more websites are using css and javascript with dhtml to produce the kind of sites that would have previously required flash. Coupled with the numerous video heavy sites that have begun to offer alternatives to Flash you can easily see that developers are starting to look in another direction. John Gruber has a very good piece on this too that’s worth checking out.

I think for all the moaning about the iPad not having flash, I think the bigger concern is what effect will the iPad have on Flash. If it’s even moderately successful (and it will be) then you’ll start to see Flash disappearing from web sites. Given how poorly flash often performs, and how good some of the alternatives now are, I don’t see that as a bad thing.

The iPad

thomasfitzgerald — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 22:52:38 +0000

There’s so much I want to say about the iPad but I just haven’t been able to get my thoughts together yet. Mainly because I’ve been battling a nasty virus which has left me drained, but that’s a whole other story. I think a lot of the complaints from people are eerily reminiscent of when the iPhone launched and a lot of people were to preoccupied with moaning about what it doesn’t do that they forgot to take a good look at what it does do.

Here’s something I wrote when the iPhone was first introduced. Just replace iPhone with iPad and iPod with iPhone and you’ll see the pattern. I think the iPad is a truly revolutionary game changing device. I think it will take concepts first introduced with the iPhone and bring them to the world of general computing. There’s lots I want to say and once I’m feeling a little better I’l put my thoughts together properly. For now though, here are some things I reccomend you read, as they echo my onw sentiments on the iPad.

Scott Kelby’s excellent piece on the iPad and why the nay sayers have got it wrong (again)

HardMac on why the lack of Flash is not that big a deal.

John Gruber’s Various Thoughts

Lonley Sandwich on why the Aspect Ratio is 4:3

Incredible CGI Shuttle Animation

thomasfitzgerald — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 20:54:04 +0000

I just came across this incredible CG animation of the remains of the Space Shuttle after a mythical disaster, floating in orbit. What’s incredible about this is that it’s all done in 2d. There’s no 3D animation here other than what I presume is the use of 3d layers in After Effects.

(Via Gizmodo)

Why the iTunes in the Cloud Rumour Makes No Sense

thomasfitzgerald — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:43:10 +0000

There’s been a rumour doing the rounds the last few days that really doesn’t make sense. It started when some analyst (I think it was on techcrunch) said that they’d heard that Apple plans to offer people the ability to put their iTunes collection “in the cloud”. Basically, it would allow people to access their music anywhere in the world. CNET are now reporting that Apple have been talking to the record labels about the possibility. Needless to say the mac rumour web has jumped on this. I have doubts though. There’s one aspect in particular that just doesn’t make sense. Here’s an example From 9-5 Mac:

“Apple didn’t reveal much, but much like what was reported yesterday, the idea is that people would upload their music to Apple’s servers and it would be available to them anywhere in the world on any device.”

Why though would Apple make you upload your music? Surely it would make more sense to scan your library or even your iTunes sales records and see which tracks you’ve bought and allow you to stream them from Apple’s servers. I mean, why download a song from iTunes only to then re-upload it to another Apple server? There’s no way in hell you’ll be allowed to do this with content you didn’t buy through iTunes either, so forget about using this for music you’ve bought on CD.

Then there’s the whole problem of availability. Although it may be the dream of some people, ubiquitous connectivity is a long LONG way away. This whole concept only works if you have a permanent internet connection, but then the very idea of having your iTunes collection in the cloud is of primary benefit to mobile users, which by their definition do not always necessarily have internet access. Then there’s the bandwidth issue. Techcrunch have been floating the idea of iTunes in the cloud for a while now as a solution to the amount of space on your computer that iTunes content takes up, but streaming that content constantly would require considerable bandwidth. With most broadband providers outside the US capping monthly bandwidth, and many us providers considering caps, this again becomes a big issue depending on how often you listen to music.

It seems to me that a far more likely option is that Apple could give you the option to stream tracks you already own from their iTunes servers as added value to buying music on iTunes. You buy a track and you can also play it directly off iTunes whenever you want. I really don’t see them offering to host your whole music collection though. I think this is a little too much pie in a very cloudless sky.

Remote Control SR-71

thomasfitzgerald — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 21:40:26 +0000

This has to be the coolest remote control airplane ever. Related Posts Amazing Remote Controlled Underwater Enterprise How Grandma Sees the Remote…. PSP 3.50 firmware available: “Remote Play” over the Internet