@lindsay.at

So you say you’re concerned about Apple’s hegemony with the iPad. You’re concerned that the iPad is for media consumption only, and will quash creativity. You’re concerned that it’s a power play that closes off open formats. You’re concerned that it concentrates too much power in the hands of one gatekeeper to your applications. If so, then go away.

Go to the open source world, because there’s no closed-source corporation nimble enough to catch up with Apple on their touch-based OS.

Apple has just grabbed the high ground in this scramble, and some variation of their personal, slate-like computing paradigm will dominate consumer computing’s attention for years – if not decades – to come. The computer is growing up, and Apple thinks they have the key to turning a general purpose computer into a traditional consumer electronics device.

(Incidentally, I can’t name a player in the computer industry that doesn’t share this common goal of ubiquity. Consider Google’s overt actions in the past year. Nearly every major new effort Microsoft has made for well over a decade has been in this direction.)

So, if we accept that Apple will cast a shadow as long as it has with the iPhone, what is to be done? The only alternative I can see is to work on organizing the open source world into offering an effort that could compete.

Forget the tappity-tappity of single touch alone. Reviews of existing best-of-breed single-touch devices suggest that people already demand something more. Apple owns multi-touch (as in, has key interaction modalities tied up in US Patents), and you would do well to look at something else. Pen-based computing has been around for two decades. Go and improve writing recognition. Consider previous user experience successes (such as the Newton and early PalmOS), and integrate the best of their innovations.

What does a responsive pen-based web browser look like? Can you make it swoop and glide like Apple’s offering? Maybe that’s the wrong way to go about it, but you can be sure that consumers won’t accept either long times to refresh a page each time it is moved or the one-line-at-a-time emulation of a user holding down a scroll arrow in a window.

Consider ergonomics everywhere. Apple does. Study people with a pen, clipboard, and some set tasks. How do people act when standing with the clipboard cradled in their arms? When leaning back on a sofa? When poking at it on a table top? How do these three main body positions inform software interaction modalities? Can one UI design accommodate all three? Make sure you can accommodate left-handers easily, now (and others with disabilities).

Once you’ve cracked the basic interactions, make it easy to create an application: be opinionated. There’s already too much flexibility, especially in the open-source world. When presented with a choice, offer the simpler way of doing things. What developers need is a strong vision and the building blocks for making applications. Start with the basics: navigating a hierarchy, filling out a form.

Got that? Congratulations. If you’re very, very good, you might be able to compete with usability of iPhone OS 1.0.

So you say you’re concerned about Apple’s hegemony. So go. Go and run, because Apple has a huge lead.

Would you pay $849 for a new MacBook? - Apple 2.0:

According to AppleInsider's Kasper Jade, Apple sees the cuts — which could come in the next month or two — as an 'interim solution' to the growing popularity of netbooks, those sub-compact laptops that Steve Jobs once dismissed as 'a piece of junk' but which are flying off the shelves at $299 to $349 apiece.

Another round of wishful thinking via rumour, but I just wanted to point out that what's key with watching Apple here is not the bottom price points, but the interlocking matrix of price points. Over the years, led by their iPod business, Apple has mastered the art of the upsell through models with additional features. I think the turning point was the introduction of the iPod mini, at $249. For 'just' $50 more, you could get a full-sized iPod with nearly four times the capacity.

Take a look at the Mac portable and desktop, consumer and professional lines, and see that the jump from one product to the next is about the same as the jump between models within a product line. Really, spend some time at store.apple.com, and see that the price matrix is just as precise and artful as the company's engineering. The question is not "how low can Apple go?" but rather, "what shift in the prices of existing products will suggest more models in another product down the line where an upsell to the current cheapest product is an easy jump to make?" (Easy, eh?)

So let's speculate irresponsibly. If the current white MacBook model goes down to $849 (which is already a leap because Apple doesn't cut prices lightly, as they know it's hard to turn back), as the linked article proposes, then it would support netbooks at $749 and $649. Or maybe "MacBook Minis" at $599, $699, and $799. Adding one product line doesn't get you close to the mythical $349 that people are wishing for.

Wait, should that be "MacBooks Mini"?

I had never noticed differential pricing within a normal sitcom series before. In the UK, £1.89 (~3.70USD) is the nominal price for a TV Programme. With certain "catalogue" titles, they have been recently experimenting with £1.19 (~2.33USD) per episode. This is the first place I've seen both next to one another.

It might make sense for Apple and partners to experiment with increased differential pricing abroad, first, before launching it in the US. The partners are happy because either price is still a premium compared with US prices.

On the other hand, it could be a mistake, in view of there being two episode number sixes.

phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewTVSeason?i...

Véro Pepperrell posted at her blog on the new iPhone announcement:

However, the biggest change isn’t in the physical device. It’s all in the perception. Last time around, Apple was looking for early adopters, geeks and IWOOTs* to test-run their product in a giant, live usability testing session. Now that they’ve been able to watch us use the device, it’s time to reach out to the normobs with lower upfront costs.

[* Def. IWOOT: “I want one of those”, otherwise known as saddos like me who can’t resist the latest gadget, even at exorbitant prices.]

Back in the day of frequent IM conversation with Fraser Speirs, we jointly coined a term regarding price points, OGOT. It stands for the rather British, "Oh, Go On, Then," and here signifying a price point that is perceived as being low enough for an impulse purchase. It's low enough to break through any price-based purchase resistance. It varies per product or per person, but you know it when you see it.

That's been the major focus of Apple's revamped iPhone, to address the reasons for purchase resistance head-on. The biggest reason that affects the most people has been price. In the UK, £99 sounds absolutely reasonable for a full-featured mobile on a £30-35/month plan. Oh, go on, then.

The iPhone steps out of the realm of the élite device into the mass market. Fantastic!

Looks like HBO has put series like Deadwood, the Sopranos, and Sex in the City on the iTunes store. Good for them, and good for Apple. What I don't understand is how all the commentary points to how this "new" variable pricing for television episodes suddenly augurs a change in the dynamics between NBC and Apple.

I've watched these negotiations for a while, now. And it annoys me that it's widely reported that it's a cracking of the flat-rate pricing stance. TV shows have been priced at more than $1.99 for a while now. Look at PBS, look at Lifetime. It's premium content, and it still presents a compelling savings over the DVD pricing.

Now that I look at it, it seems like bub.bilicio.us and Doug Amoth of PC World got it right. I'm glad someone has.

After seeing the appropriate portion of the Macworld Expo keynote presentation by Steve Jobs, I have some thoughts about the revamped AppleTV.

First off, I'm pretty happy about it. I'm very pleased that the "version 2" is just a software upgrade. It was pretty clear that the original hardware was over-specced for what it did at the beginning, so I bought early with a lot of confidence that the hardware would last. (Subsequent teardown reports that suggested tiny margins on the hardware increased that confidence.)

It's interesting to note that the UK prices haven't changed. At £199 and £269, Apple is treating the UK AppleTV as a niche product. If you know you want it, you've probably already gotten it. As soon as movies are available internationally, then I would expect the price to go down a bit. You gotta have the blades ready to go, if you want to sell cheaper razors...

Looking at the demos available online, it's unclear where the "source" menu has gone. We have a 40GB unit, and when Rosemary or I are feeling in an aimless mood, we'll mount our 500GB iTunes library and browse that for inspiration. I worry somewhat that streaming from arbitrary sources might be compromised in the new software.

The store integration is very impressive, and very inviting. It's what's needed to make rentals work: highly visual, presenting a multitude of choices, and accommodating to impulse buys (or rentals). It looks like a model that all others should follow.

However, the AppleTV now appears to be little more than a portal for the iTunes Store. The menu system puts an extraordinary amount of attention on the Store, and pushes one's own content to the bottom. It seems odd that streaming content over the internet is given such priority after the first version: Apple's view always seemed to be, "Don't trust the internet's quality of service, but you can stream over the LAN." LAN-based content, as far as I can tell, seems to be hidden.

I always viewed Podcasts as a back door for (free) content onto the AppleTV. They are the "other easy way" to get content pushed (automatically) into the living room. Before, entering arbitrary URLs into iTunes (perhaps via a clickable itpc: link) was about equivalent to subscription via Apple's iTunes Podcast directory. Now, via the AppleTV, the iTunes store solidifies its position as an orifice to podcasts. It looks inviting, instantly gratifying, and well done, but it makes Apple more of a gatekeeper to free content.

The fact that high definition finally makes its appearance is exciting to me. It's not how I originally imagined it would be, but everything I've read suggests that SVC scalable video encoding isn't ready for prime time yet. It may make an appearance, once hi-def moves to a purchase model/off the AppleTV exclusively.

There has been some speculation on why hi-def is AppleTV only. Some think it might be due to piracy concerns by the studios, but I think there are technology reasons as well. For 5.1 surround sound, there is no reliable, universal way for Mac or PC users to enjoy content encoded that way. High-Definition video cannot be played out on any of the iPhone/iPod family, either, so simply placing that content into iTunes creates a confusing situation ("this content is not compatible with your iPod") for those much-beloved users. In other words, hi-def is AppleTV-only because the technology isn't ready to accommodate the other devices in the ecosystem. I've outlined the ways it could happen, eventually, but for now, a closed, black box solution is sufficient for content that will not have a lifespan beyond thirty days.

I'm really eager to see the updated software myself, but I do worry that Apple may have made itself too much of a gatekeeper to content in the rush to give people the movie rentals they wanted.

We've had an AppleTV in our house for about nine months now, and it really has changed the way my entire family views television. I am convinced that Apple has the wherewithal to make it a compelling story for a mass market. Much though I want to believe, Apple's big steps in this direction at Macworld this week don't necessarily have to include high definition. What's most important is that people see that the AppleTV is the best-of-breed device for viewing digital content in the living room.

I've bought into the Apple picture whole-heartedly, so I get why things are the way they are (the MPEG-4 video codecs are good, the complexity is well-understood, and they are much more legitimately standards than other video formats found in the wild). Still, people want to be confident they can view content without bothering about the format. The potential consumers are right.

The iPod was helped immeasurably by MP3s that people had on their computer already and by CDs that people own. People expect, by drawing a parallel, that the AppleTV's play is for downloaded DiVX-video and DVDs that they own. Ultimately, the winner in this race will be the player who can make that back-door content work seamlessly for people.

I suspect Apple got into the AppleTV to help the MPEG-4-encoded content (read: iPod) ecosystem along. It's been a success already, in converting YouTube to H.264. However, it draws too much attention to its own store as being the odd man out. Even though the iTunes store's content is based on an international standard with a much more open pedigree than Windows Media, it appears to the outsider to be a closed ecosystem: the only convenient way to get video onto the AppleTV appears to be through the iTunes Store.

Although I use the iTunes store a lot, I get video from a lot of other sources, from downloading .flv's and .avi's, to DVDs that I own, to content from my digital camera or mobile phone. VisualHub worked well for many months, but I eagerly embraced the Turbo.264 when it was released (and now that it reliably works on all content I throw at it, the workflow is easier). I do recognise that I've drunk the Kool-Aid: I mention "workflow" when talking about the AppleTV. That's a sign that getting video onto the AppleTV isn't good enough yet. The perception that the iTunes Store is the only convenient way of obtaining video isn't that far from reality.

Apple is sure to introduce a new way or ways to get iTunes Store content onto your AppleTV within fewer than 24 hours of me writing this. I'm a staunch AppleTV defender, but thinking about it, the critics are right: there have to be more and easier ways of getting your content onto the AppleTV.

While the "easiest" way would be to get Perian's Windows-centric codec support onto the AppleTV (and allow iTunes to understand and sync that content as well), I don't think we're going to see that so soon. It's an aphorism that broader choice of content will win over devices that restrict that choice. However, I think that because (1) no one else provides the same compelling device interface, (2) going with bastardised standards (like Xvid) is too distasteful to Apple, (3) it steps outside of the iPhone/iPod ecosystem, which is more important than the AppleTV on its own, and (4) it has to toe the line on piracy with Hollywood, Apple will not make a play for expanded codecs until there is serious competition.

Apple is almost sure to make it easier to buy content directly onto the AppleTV. Is it time to tap the other source of freely available content and enable PVR capabilities on the AppleTV? That has the possibility of working, because there's the possibility of getting reliable metadata into the mix.

Back in 2002, I gave some lectures to students on multimedia metadata, and waved my first generation iPod. "I don't know if you've heard of this device yet," I said, "but it runs on metadata. All of the menus, scanning through by artist, album, or genre, depend on metadata to find your music." The same can be said of the AppleTV, as well. Electronic Programme Guides provide the link between broadcast content and getting content metadata covered. If you want to evaluate the strength of possible methods for adding video to the AppleTV, look to the metadata.

So, what does that mean to me in a couple hours? Rental content, content direct to the AppleTV, and the option of an interface to digital television? Likely. High Definition content amongst the content available on the store? WANT. But it's not as likely as I once thought, sadly.

Hey, has anyone else noticed that there has finally been a boost to the iTunes Plus library on Apple's iTunes store? I noticed while browsing the iTunes Wi-Fi music store, but confirmed it using the normal store.

There are some notable things about it:

• The independents have arrived: it's not a cluster of further EMI songs, but rather they appear to be from small labels.
• The per-track price of the iTunes Plus (DRM-free, 256kbps AAC) tracks are $.99, not the increased $1.29 price. See, for example, the new Iron & Wine album's listing. The album costs $9.99, but the individual tracks are still only $0.99.
• As of this writing, the FAQ has not yet been updated: it still says that "iTunes Plus songs are available at $1.29 per song."

Which came first, the agreement with the indies on the new price, or Amazon's MP3 store? From where I sit, this looks like a reaction to Amazon, which seems like a first for Apple with the iTunes store.

Oh, in case anyone is curious, but hasn't been following my Twitter feed, I got an iPod Touch last week. It's magnificent, and a delight to use. It's even more of a joy to demo it to my colleagues and friends around here. They're very impressed with the price (£199), as well.

[Update: last weekend, I had a chat with the local O₂ store manager. It turns out that some of my assumptions about unlimited data, and how they will be rolled out to customers, might be wrong. Some of the more spectacular claims made below should be taken in that light.]

I perform a lot of speculation on this blog. I think my record speaks for itself. With that pinch of salt out of the way, I dug into O₂'s pricing structure, and noticed a few things.

First off, let me state my bias: I am an Apple fanboy. I wanted to be excited about the O₂ launch of the iPhone. From an Apple-partisan point of view, I think that O₂ flubbed the launch. The carrier's intentions are clear, and somewhat understandable, but to someone who wants to see Apple technology in lots of people's hands, it was a disappointment.

The £269 price was as predicted. It sounds high when converted to USD, but it's in keeping with what the local market could conceivably bear, and is consistent with Apple's pricing here, and in relation to the rest of Europe. The British Pound is extremely strong, but there are no guarantees that it will stay that way. Apple cannot afford to be punished should the US economy unexpectedly recover.

No, the disappointment lies in the premium prices for the subscriptions. O₂ left no doubt that it sees the iPhone as an exclusive product meant to attract and capture high-end consumers from all other networks. They're not interested in disseminating the iPhone as widely as possible: they want to get high-tariff customers on the network, and to keep them for at least 18 months (which is now the standard "long" contract in the UK — the market is in transition from an earlier 12-month lock-in period for contracts).

Unfortunately for O₂, we can quantify the premium they believe they can place on the iPhone. O₂ is refreshingly open about their tariff policy, and has a "Simplicity" tariff that is a pay-monthly SIM-only tariff: if you don't want to upgrade your phone, you can put it on the Simplicity plan and be locked in at a much-reduced rate. If you want a non-Apple phone to go with your monthly tariff, you typically pay £10 extra, which we can take as pure phone subsidies.

In other words, if you buy a phone from O₂, you should expect a discount of approximately £180 from the hardware cost. O₂ knows how to profit from its network whether you do this or not.

Interestingly, the current Simplicity tariff corresponds exactly with the voice and text portions of the iPhone tariff:

minutes	200	600	1200
messages	200	500	500
SIM-only	£15	£25	£35
iPhone tariff	£35	£45	£55

The iPhone has been raising a lot of eyebrows because it's "unsubsidised": consumers are willing to pay a full retail price for the unique, full-featured phone, and flock to the exclusive network for the privilege. The premium that customers typically pay for a new phone is pure profit, shared by the carrier and Apple, in a mutually beneficial agreement. As we can see, the difference between O₂'s price for the iPhone tariff and a tariff unattached to a phone is £20. The only differentiators are the unlimited data and the unlimited Wi-Fi.

The unlimited Wi-Fi partnership with The Cloud was a smart move by O₂: The Cloud is well-respected and a market leader. Partnering with them automatically pushes iPhone users' most demanding data needs away from O₂'s anæmic EDGE network. A consumer could subscribe to unlimited Wi-Fi with The Cloud for £6.99/month. I could imagine that a corporate partner of The Cloud could easily cut a deal for wholesale prices of £5–£6 per bundled user, per month.

I think a tactical error from O₂ was pre-announcing unlimited data for all of their consumers. As the Guardian reported:

Will the unlimited data package be available for other users?

[O₂ CEO, Matthew] Key: We'll roll them out on October 1 to our other tariffs.

Boom. Unlimited data for the iPhone is taken out as a differentiator, and explicitly absorbed into O₂'s cost of operating their network. Ultimately, this is probably a good move on the part of O₂ in finding customers, but it doesn't help sell iPhones one bit.

[Aside: I believe the fair-usage policy of "1,400 internet pages per day" equates to 100MB per day, but the wording is spectacularly vague on that count.]

I was shocked and surprised at the rumours reported by the Guardian that surfaced on Monday that "O₂… will return to Apple as much as 40% of any revenues it makes from customers' use of the device." Put in the context of O₂'s tariffs, though, it starts to be plausible. Forty percent of £35 is £14.

I believe that the lion share – fourteen pounds per month – of the £20 iPhone premium (over O₂'s SIM-free fees) is dedicated to paying Apple. Nearly all of the remaining six pounds of the premium go toward paying for the Wi-Fi access partnership. O₂ might see a pound or so extra income per iPhone user, but it seems entirely plausible that they're making all their ongoing profit on the base network fees. O₂ will also earn some retail margin on the iPhones that they sell in their shops, which probably strikes the carrier as a tidy bonus.

[edit: I didn't make it clear: since the "iPhone premium" stays the same for all tariffs, I believe the profit sharing with Apple stays at a constant £14/month, no matter which of the £35, £45, or £55 tariff the customer chooses.]

So, in addition to whatever wholesale margins Apple gets on the iPhone, they get £252 in profit sharing per customer. That's plenty of reason to break the hearts of other potential carriers. O₂ clearly feels amply rewarded in making this deal, gets a lot of buzz, and captures desirable customers. Will consumers go for it? I think they will, but not to the same extent that they did in the US.

This is the last time I'll indulge in this sort of iTunes-HD speculation until at least January 2008. I will freely admit that it's colored by wishful thinking, but here are some thoughts about Tuesday's upcoming press conference at the Regent Street that allow me to hope that Apple could possibly advance the state of the art in Hi-Def video delivery.

I'm not denying an iPhone announcement. That would be a fool's bet. I just think there could be something else cooking as well.

1) It's been quiet on the new television season front. While there are a few US shows whose seasons have already started, the big series seem to be starting from Sunday (23 September). Last year, many pre-paid, discounted season passes were trumpeted and pushed on the iTunes store. The distinct impression I get is that the store is waiting for something.

2) As I've pointed out before, if Apple wants to include high-definition televisual content on its store, it is best done at the start of the US TV season. Changing mid-season will confuse and frustrate users. The next opportunity will be September 2008.

3) The BBC has a lot of high-definition content that's just begging to be more widely distributed than it currently is. "Planet Earth" is consistently cited as a best-selling title in both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray formats. Selling titles like "Hotel Babylon," "Robin Hood," and "Torchwood," for example, might actually benefit from the one-at-a-time taster format of the iTunes store (rather than the outlay required for a whole season on disc).

4) Partnering with content producers like the BBC may well be a way for Apple to soldier forward with its ambitious plans: Hollywood and the major American TV broadcast networks have been digging their heels in response to Apple's increasing power as a digital content distributor.