A Quick Note on Navigation Systems

— Learn how to use a map.

Seriously. It’s getting ridiculous that one of the criticisms of the iPhone has become, “doesn’t offer free navigation and Google Maps isn’t good enough.” Really? Typing an address and getting directions to it from wherever you are isn’t good enough? You really need a creepy voice telling you exactly when to turn? You’re that distracted?

It’s no wonder there are laws, like in Oregon, that prevent people from texting while driving. People have become so brainless while commuting from one destination to another, they need distractions to keep their minds busy—so why not send a message to someone? That’s the bigger problem. Drivers should be focusing on the road, surveying traffic situations, and driving defensively, anticipating situations that come up.

Instead, people are punching in destinations on their phones or little boxes and just mindlessly driving until a little computer chip tells them to turn. That’s as scary as someone texting while driving in my book. Yet, people are so upset that the iPhone doesn’t have it for free. Weird.

I’m no technology hater, but I am a bad driver hater. (East Coast mentality perhaps?) Whatever the case, there are points when technology can be damaging to humanity and navigation systems are one of them in my opinion.

It takes 5 minutes before you are going somewhere new to figure out where you are going and relying on your intellect to figure out things like road closures, alternative routes, and unexpected events such as accidents is much more useful that hoping your navigation software has been updated to reflect the changes.

What do you think, navigation systems or not?

The Irony of the new MobileMe Mail

Something very exciting happened this month. Apple released a new version of their MobileMe Mail interface at Me.com. It’s so fresh and new that they released it as a Beta which is becoming an increasingly more prominent tactic for Apple (i.e. iWork.com). I for one was very excited to hear about the new Beta version of MobileMe Mail and signed up for it right away. The irony is, I never really have a chance to use it.

The new MobileMe Mail has added some important features that have made me very happy. In fact the two main feature additions are two elements that constantly tempt to lure me back to Gmail. The first one is an archive button. Now this might sound like a little thing, but I truly love it. Gmail runs on a system where you can automatically archive any message with the click of a button. One click and it’s out of sight, but still accessible by simply searching for it. I like this style so much that I created an archive folder in my MobileMe account. There wasn’t a single-click way to archive my messages, but I could drag and drop the messages and that was good enough. Well now MobileMe has an archive button. I love it!

For most people that will still feel like a cosmetic change and won’t be a big deal. But the next new feature is a big deal. You can now create mail rules at me.com and those rules will filter down to all of your devices. By that I mean, you can create a folder titled “ninja” and then tell MobileMe to filter all messages from that “how to be a ninja” website you subscribed to. You can already do this with the Apple Mail program, but it only filters messages that arrive on your computer. So messages don’t get filtered when you view them directly on your iPhone (unless you view them after they’ve been downloaded to your computer and then the SMTP folder syncing will come into effect).

This new feature is really important and puts MobileMe a step closer to being as strong as Gmail. There’s still a lot of steps before MobileMe gets to that point, but then again Gmail has a long way to go to being as stable and reliable as MobileMe.

There are some other nice changes to the MobileMe Mail interface as well and you can check them out at apple.com/mobileme. That being said, here is the irony. I may never actually use it.

Ever since the iPad came out all of my emailing has been done on the iPad or the iPhone. Before the iPad came out all my emailing was done in the Apple Mail app on my Mac, or on my iPhone on the go. I would occasionally also use the Me.com version of MobileMe Mail, but when you have such a strong Mail app on the Mac, why use a web app? The only time I used the web app was at work (I used to work in an Apple Store). I now work in an office with all PCs, running Internet Explorer 7, which is not fully supported by MobileMe. So rather than deal with the bugginess of that situation, I just use my iPhone which is as solid as can be.

So at home, I use the iPad for all emailing. On the go I use my iPhone. I really don’t know when or where I’d have the chance and the desire to use MobileMe Mail. I have played around with it because of my pure enthusiasm for it. And I have opened it up specifically to create some important mail rules. But other than that, I have no need/opportunity to use it.

It’s too bad really. It seems like it is going to be really great. Then again, the iPad Mail App is so good, who cares?

No Flash and No Cash

It seems like only yesterday that people were irrationally lambasting Apple for their stance against Adobe and Flash. Now the commenters have a new reason to hate on Apple.

The Huffington Post published this article today which tells the oh so sad story of Diane Campbell who saved up her money “bit by bit” and went into the Apple Store with a $600 wad of cash and was told she could not buy an iPad unless she used a debit or credit card.

Now, as an ex-Apple Retail employee, and a current iPad owner, this story pains me for several reasons. I hate the idea of anyone not being able to get an iPad if they want one. Apple Retail employees thrive on making customers happy by helping them buy and use Apple products. And the iPad is such an amazing product that I want everyone to have one.

BUT…..Anyone who says Apple is evil for not letting this lady buy an iPad with cash, is stupid. I’ve seen articles about Apple’s “no cash for iPad” policy before but I was finally sucked in to reading the one posted at the Huffington Post, and then even worse I was sucked in to reading the comments below the article.

Ugg! I swear all the people who comment on these posts must have just filed out of a taping of Jerry Springer and then were funneled into another room full of computers where they are asked to comment on random blog posts. It’s not that these people are stupid. They’re just not thinking.

The comments section of this particular article is filled with things like, “Apple is now like Microsoft the enemy,” and this particular gem…

“That is the lamest excuse I have ever heard of. This woman had $600 cash money and wanted to buy one ipad.

How is plastic stopping anyone from doing the very thing they say that cash using cash would do?

I got one thing to say to apple, YOU ARE STUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUPID.”

Okay, so…imagine this. You walk into an Apple Store ready to buy an iPad (with any sort of currency your heart desires) and when you ask the friendly Apple Specialist for an iPad he says, “Sorry, we got a shipment of 50 new iPads today, but that guy came in and bought all 50 of them.” (okay, you got me, an Apple Specialist would never disclose stock levels.) WHAT!? THAT GUY BOUGHT ALL THE IPADS!!! HOW COULD YOU LET HIM DO THAT???

“Well, even though we are pretty sure that man isn’t going to keep all those iPads to himself, and he’s most likely going to sell them overseas, we have no idea how many iPads he’s purchased, and so we can’t prohibit him from buying iPads today.”

And you might think, “That’s easy, just limit how many he can buy per day.” Haha! Nice try. If Apple says only 25 iPads per customer, 2 customers will come in together. If Apple says only 10 per customer, they come in groups of 5. If you say only 1 iPad per customer per day, they’ll show up in groups of 50 every single day.

This is what it was like for the iPhone. As Apple Specialists we struggled with the internal debate. We didn’t want to be the police, but we hated watching normal everyday users miss out on the iPhone because re-sellers were snatching them all up before they could get there. It was painful to watch and garnered some pretty heated arguments behind closed doors.

I found myself in the middle of a hairy situation where in an attempt to save one remaining iPhone for a genuine customer who met with me earlier in the day and I knew was coming back, I lied to another customer who I recognized from multiple previous visits as a re-seller and told her we didn’t have any iPhones left for sell. Another Specialist opened the drawer revealing the last iPhone and I was immediately accused of being a liar and a racist (the re-seller was Asian).

I felt sick to my stomach after that was over. Oh, and the first customer came back after that and was heart broken and pissed at me that I sold the last iPhone to someone else. Not fun.

So Apple came up with a policy that helps protect the interests of the greater good. They decided to limit iPhone (and now iPad) purchases to credit or debit cards, that way if a Specialist recognizes a customer as someone who has been purchasing a large amount of iPhones/iPads, the Specialist can check to see how many have been purchased on that credit card. You can’t do that with cash.

It’s not a perfect system. I watched as re-sellers came in with books of credit cards and flipped through them to see which one they hadn’t used that day. But it at least slowed down their buying power and made it possible for the end users, like Diane Campbell, to get an iPad.

As I set out to write this tonight, I saw that Apple ended up giving Diane a free iPad and possibly changed their “no cash” policy. It should be known that for the iPhone the policy changed like a bazillion times. Why? Because this is not easy, nor is it fun.

Is Apple turning into Microsoft? No. Is the number of customers that Apple needs to keep happy growing exponentially every day? Yes. Are they doing the best they can? Yes. Is anyone doing it better? No.

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Why Apple might NOT regret the iPad

The Inquirer published an article written by Nick Farrell titled, “Why Apple might regret the iPad” which claims that the iPad has DOOMED Apple. The only smart thing about this article is Farrell’s inclusion of the word “might” in the title. 

You can always smell an erroneous iPad article coming your way when you see a comment along these lines, “many have perhaps missed the true implications for Apple if the oversized Iphone does succeed as well as some fanboy media claim it will.” Anytime I see the “oversized iPhone” dig I think a few things. First I think, “Oh, you haven’t really spent much time with the iPad.” Secondly I think, “really? You couldn’t come up with anything more original?” And why aren’t people calling the iPhone an undersized iPad?

I’m of course being flippant but this point speaks to Farrell’s complete misunderstanding of the iPad and how it not only won’t DOOM Apple but it will launch Apple to new heights. 

Now, Farrell’s thesis is based on a lot of “facts” from “analysts” who have done “research.” Okay, that’s not fair. The analysts didn’t deserve the quotation marks. They’re legit. Morgan Stanley and Piper Jaffray. Look them up if you don’t believe me. The problem with their results is that they aren’t based on using the iPad. They are simply based on market research and surveys. And there are a lot of holes in their conclusions.

Based on one of their surveys Farrell concludes, “It seems the buyers of Ipads would normally have got a more expensive Macbook or an Ipod Touch…” This is a bit of a sneaky statement because surely Farrell realizes that iPod Touches are less expensive than iPads. Sure, Apple might be losing out on some some profit when someone buys an iPad instead of a Macbook. But Apple is also gaining some profit when a customer buys an iPad instead of an iPod touch. 

The thing to think about is that the iPad is not discouraging customers from owning any computer at all, in fact you really need a computer in order for the iPad to fully function (or a friend who doesn’t mind you coming over to sync and back up your iPad through his computer). Most iPad buyers are not first time computer buyers. They already own a computer. And probably most of the early adopters were already Mac owners. So yeah, Apple missed out on a few Macbook sales because people bought the iPad instead. But current Mac owners aren’t Apple’s intended target audience. 

What is Apple’s intended target audience? Anyone who doesn’t already own a Mac. Apple loves repeat customers and customer loyalty, but Apple wants to grow. I used to work for Apple Retail, and let me tell you what our mantra was. “5 down, 95 to go.” That was a quote Steve Jobs said quite a while back referring to Apple’s market share and what their goal was. Since then Apple has gained some ground on the market, but their goal stays the same. Apple wants 100% market share. 

How will Apple gain 100% of the market? With products like the iPad. Let’s take a little walk down memory lane, shall we? 

iPod: People said it was a stupid idea, it would never work, and Apple would suffer for putting so much effort into it. 

iPhone: People said it was a stupid idea, it would never work, and Apple would suffer for putting so much effort into it.

iPad: Nick Farrell said it will doom Apple. 

Are we seeing a trend? What did the iPod and the iPhone do, besides make gazillions of dollars for Apple? It’s a little something called the halo effect. The iPod and the iPhone both introduced Apple and the Mac to new customers who had never used one before. I started working in an Apple Store months before the iPhone was released and I can’t tell you how many customers told me they were buying their first Mac because they had an iPhone. After seeing how amazing the iPhone is, people just have to see what the Mac can do. And after experiencing award winning customer service that is unparalleled in the industry, people just had to have a computer that gets the same kind of support. (Am I a bit biased about that last point? Maybe. But check out Consumer Reports for an unbiased confirmation)

So the iPad costs less than a Macbook. Now, because the iPad is such a revolutionary product, people are buying it rather than it’s slightly more expensive counterpart. Man…Apple really didn’t think this through, did they? You know how Apple is. They just never seem to have a plan. They’re just this company with billions of dollars in the bank because they never quite think through their products. Classic Apple sloppy strategy. (Did you pick up on my sarcasm there?)

But here is what will happen. Every PC user who got an iPad and is currently realizing that yes, the iPad is better than their PC laptop, will eventually need to buy a new computer. Remember, you do still need a computer for the iPad to be fully functional. And let’s be honest, while I personally only use my Macbook Pro a total of 20 minutes a week now (that’s down from approximately 10,000 minutes) there are still some things I need a real computer for (like syncing my iPad). So those PC using iPad owners will start to think about getting a new computer. And they’ve been in the Apple store a bunch of times looking at iPad accessories and visiting the Genius Bar. And while they were there they noticed the iMac. Maybe they even asked a few questions about it or saw a Specialist demonstrating it’s ability to run Windows (in case your job uses software that requires Windows). Now when it comes to shopping for a new computer, the Mac seems like an extremely viable option. Before owning an iPad they would not have even considered the Mac. 

Thus Apple gains not just the sales of repeat loyal fans, but the sales of a new audience which helps their market share grow so they can develop a larger number of repeat customers. That’s the halo effect. 

Farrell made another point that further discloses his misunderstanding of the iPad. He says, “Customers that were not Apple product owners told the Morgan Stanley team that Ipad ownership would discourage them from buying e-readers, notebooks or handheld video game systems. Jobs may as well forget launching an Apple version of a Kindle or a PSP, then.”

Ahem…the iPad IS the Apple version of a Kindle or a PSP. I know this is hard to understand because the usual business model is to create a lot of individual devices that all meet their own individuals needs. This sure does make a lot of money for the company since the consumer has to keep buying more and more junk. That is, until the consumer realizes there’s a better way.

I have to take issue with another comment that Farrell made. He says, “Since many of Apple’s sales are to repeat customers the Ipad is likely to cause that company more harm than it would other firms.” Farrell says that “many” of Apple’s sales are to repeat customers. Not “most.” Many. There might be some sort of market research out there that says otherwise, but in my experience selling Macs for almost 3 years, approximately 8 out of 10 buyers were new to Mac. Even at the end of my time at Apple I was always surprised by how often I had to explain, “Yes, the entire computer is IN the screen. There’s no tower.” 

Apple really isn’t into doing business as usual. At every turn Apple has done something that has made all the analysts and the market researchers doubt them. And every time Apple surprises them all. When will we stop being surprised and just realize that Apple really knows what they’re doing?

Finally I will refute one last point made by Farrell. He says, “We are still sticking to our belief that pretty soon people will realise that the Ipad is not really better than any of the devices it is replacing. Users will chuck a bit of gear that is only really useful as a heavy drinks tray.”

I’m a blogger. I live my life on my “computer.” Writing. Internet research. Social networking. Photo editing. Posting. And watching the Mission Impossible trilogy. I do it all, and more, on my iPad and I don’t miss my Macbook Pro one little bit. That being said, my next desktop computer will be an iMac. 

There are plenty of articles out there from well known respected tech bloggers who are saying the same thing. The iPad is a very powerful computer and with such an amazing product in their line up, Apple is about to become more successful than ever. 

To Close or Not to Close

This debate on Flash with regard to its presence in Apple mobile devices seems to be getting out of hand. Instead of Flash supporters (and Adobe itself) actually doing anything to make Flash a worthwhile plugin for mobile devices, they have counter-attacked Apple, trying to highlight how terrible Apple’s closed ecosystem is for everyone on the planet.

What all of these articles seem to miss (and even a lot of pro-Apple replies to these articles) is the fundamental differences between Apple’s business and Adobe’s. Adobe says something to the effect of, “Apple is terrible because they’re closed off and force developers to only use Apple stuff and that’s wrong.” This has even led to an inquiry from the government to determine if Apple’s actions are in the antitrust space. 

Give me a break. 

Let’s think about Adobe’s gripe, which basically is this: “We should be allowed to do whatever we want on whatever device we want, despite the fact that the people making the device are in direct competition with us.” And that is what everyone is missing. The iPhone is Apple’s device. Not Adobe’s. So if Apple wants to say, “no thanks competing company, we’d rather do this our own way,” they can. And if that’s stupid, or unfair, the market will let Apple know. If it’s so important for Flash to be on an iPhone, or for developers to be able to develop for iPhone, the market will show Apple. Unfortunately for the petulant children at Adobe (and their supporters) this has not been the case. 

The problem is not that Apple is a big meanie. The problem is that Adobe is a sore loser. No one had problems with Apple being a closed system when the company almost died in the late 90’s. In fact, most people cited their closed ways as being the reason for their failure. Fast forward 10 years and now it’s an unfair competitive advantage? 

As I posted last week, if Adobe really wanted to do something about this, they can rework Flash to be a great plugin for mobile devices. Or better yet, they can get in with a mobile device maker and make the “FlashPhone”. Give Apple a direct competitor that shows what a terrible mistake they’ve made. But whatever you do, Adobe, stop with the whining. And then, trying to say that, “well, Apple is closed too and that’s bad,” is just plain sad.

In plain language: Apple makes hardware and software that run seamlessly together. They do not want someone else interrupting that ecosystem. Adobe makes software that relies on hardware adoption. Just because Apple does not adopt Adobe and Adobe’s business suffers, does not mean Apple is evil. It means they are a shrewd business. Adobe’s software negatively affects Apple’s hardware and Apple makes software (and allows developers, under certain guidelines, to create software) that can replace Adobe’s software without a negative impact to Apple’s business (as recent quarterly earnings and a surging stock price illustrate). 

The problem here is that Adobe needs to shift its business model in regard to Flash and its mobile adoption. Crying is not a sustainable business model (even if it results in a government inquiry and a bunch of sniffling bloggers). 

How to be a fully functional blogger on the iPad

Hi. I’m Nate Smith, author of the wildly celebrated parenting blog improvisingfatherhood.com (“wildly celebrated” = my mother-in-law really likes it). Today I’m going to show you how I have managed to completely abandon my Macbook Pro and have successfully shifted my entire blogging work flow over to my shiny new iPad. Before you begin blogging on the iPad you will need two things. A Tumblr account and a Flickr account. If you have any accounts that end in “er” just get rid of them. Of course there are other ways to successfully blog on the iPad, but this is how I do it.

Step 1. Content All good blogging starts with the content. I like to type out my content in Apple’s iPad app, Pages. I’ve toyed around with other options, such as using the Mail App and saving my work in the drafts folder, to using Evernote, and simply using the notes app provided by Apple. Each of these had their own special quirks that ultimately drove me back to Pages. Pages sells for $9.99 in the App store, and if that is too steep a price then I’m sure there are some other good note/documentation apps that are cheaper or even free. The reasons I have settled on Pages are simple. Formatting and Filing. When using the Mail App or Evernote, I found that when I copy/pasted the content to Tumblr (step 2) the formatting got all wacky. So then I would have to spend a decent chunk of time adding paragraphs and generally making sure everything was ready to be published. With Pages, all of the basic formatting is maintained when you copy it into Tumblr.

Be warned though, formatting such as bold and italic text won’t copy over. The second reason I like Pages is for it’s filing system. It’s pretty simple and meets my needs. I keep all of my drafts right in Pages basic filing system and if I need to access the documents from another device I can share them to myself easily via email or iWork.com. I like iWork.com because then the files are available as Pages, Word, or PDF format without any extra work on my part. But the main thing I like about filing my documents in the Pages system is the stability. With both the Mail app and Evernote, if I wasn’t connected to wifi when I was ready to save a draft, it seemed questionable as to whether or not my work was really saved. With Pages, all I have to do is exit the app and it’s saved. For extra measure I upload my files to iWork.com so I have a second copy.

Step 2. Copy/Paste Once you have your content ready to go, it’s time to post it. So the next step is to simply copy/paste your text into your Tumblr post. Before the iPad came out I had visions of what it would be like to use the iPad to do all of my blogging. The reason I decided to go with Tumblr originally was because of their amazing iPhone app. I assumed they would either have an iPad app ready to go on launch day, or that they would find a way to make their web interface iPad friendly. For the first few weeks neither of these things were true and editing Tumblr posts on the iPad was not easy. I was sad. But just a week ago the Tumblr staff announced that they had made a tweak to their rich text editing system. They didn’t mention the iPad, but I had a hunch. Lo and behold, now when you try to edit a post from the iPad the rich text editor is gone and you can edit in HTML. Now you can add your text, make certain text bold or italic, and add links. Everything you need for a good old fashioned bare bones text post.

But what if you want to add pictures to your post? Then what do you do?

Step 3. Add pictures This is where Flickr comes into the picture (pun not intended but I feel like I should take credit for it anyway!). Flickr doesn’t yet have an iPad app, but its free iPhone app works just fine on the iPad. From the iPad I take the pictures I want to use (either sent to me via email from my iPhone, or snagged off the interwebs via a Google search) and upload them to my Flickr account using the Flickr app. Once I have uploaded all the pictures I need for my post I open Flickr.com in Safari and navigate to the first picture I want to add to my post. I copy/paste the HTML embed code for that picture and place it in the body of my Tumblr post right where I want it. Repeat this process for each picture. The one downside to this method is that the HTML embed code includes a link back to your Flickr account, which is not really the intended result. But you can just change that link to whatever you want.

So there you have it. A complete blogging experience all from the comfort of your iPad. Don’t believe me? How do you think I created this post? For more information about Nate Smith go to www.natesmithcomedy.com.

Dear Flash, You Have Been Owned.

Originally posted on 503Blog:

Oh my. If you’re not quite up to speed on what’s going on, the short version is something like this: Apple creates the iPhone a few years ago and does not include Flash support. Adobe raises all hell and heads an anti-Apple campaign attempting to show consumers that without Flash, they don’t get the “full Web”. Three years later, Apple experiences another record quarter in sales for iPhones and releases the iPad, again with no support for Flash. Adobe continues to campaign against Apple to no avail. Then, today, Steve Jobs posts an open letter concerning his thoughts on Flash on the front page of apple.com. 

I posted about this over on MacFixIt. You should totally read the whole thing, but the bullet points are:

1. The concept of ‘Open’. Specifically, though Flash is widely used, Adobe controls the entire Flash ecosystem, which makes it 100% proprietary and therefore entirely closed.
2. The concept of ‘The Full Web’. Adobe has been bashing the iPhone OS for its lack of providing the “full web” experience due to its lack of Flash support. Jobs notes that nearly all the major sources for Flash-based video provide the open Web standard H.264 encoded versions of those same videos that work great on the iPhone OS platform.
3. Reliability, performance, and security. With Adobe’s Flash being ranked as having one of the worst security records in 2009 and the noticeable lack of performance on low power devices (like iPhones, iPods, and iPads), the already shaky reliability of Flash in Apple’s experience gains no points. Not to mention, have you seen a mobile device running Flash yet? Neither have I.
4. Battery life. See the above issues with performance. Flash is a battery killer, especially on mobile devices.
5. Touch. Apple’s mobile strategy is based almost entirely on a touch interface. Flash, on the other hand, was built to be used by a mouse, utilizing concepts like rollovers which do not exist on touch interfaces.
6. Control. Though Jobs doesn’t expressly say that his final reason is about control, he does imply it. With Adobe coming between Apple’s iPhone OS and developers (and users), Apple loses control over important things like feature implementation. By sticking to open standards like HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript, Apple is free to innovate as quickly as it can, without having to worry if Adobe will include new features with Flash.

Owned.

But, the real issue is this. Apple said three years ago, “No Flash.” And in the three years since, the only response Adobe has had is, “Apple sucks.” Which is hardly a response and clearly one that consumers do not agree with (Google “Apple Quarterly Sales Results” and you’ll see what I’m talking about). So, instead of innovating Flash, creating a usable product and one that Apple could clearly not survive without, Adobe just bitched about it. Meanwhile, Apple has released two more iPhones and an iPad with rave reviews, only accentuating their original stance of, “No Flash.”

If you support Adobe here, I feel sorry for you. Clearly you love “how it’s always been”. But in technology, that way of thinking only pushes you to the bottom of the barrel. The world is going mobile and Flash will not be a part of it. Apple, on the other hand, is leading the charge.