Davison Online

Last year I wrote:

Having just concluded three days of Macworld SF 2010 after taking part in various user conferences and walking the show floor, I remain somewhat skeptical of Macworld SF 2011.

The joy of being right is rather muted by the embarrassment of actually attending this year’s dismal show. This year’s Macworld is even smaller than last year’s. I’d say that they’ve shoehorned the affair into the smaller Moscone West except that there are so few vendors there’s no shoehorning needed. No Apple obviously, but also no Adobe, Microsoft, Brother, Canon, Nikon, etc. When one of your star vendors is Dexim, a company I’ve never heard of, you’re in real trouble.

Macworld has already announced dates for next year, but unless there’s a dramatic announcement (“Apple returns!”), I can’t see how the show makes it. I’ve been going to Macworld for about 10 years, but this is it; I’m done. I arrived at the show late and covered the whole thing in under three hours. Given Apple’s record sales in Macs, iPads and iPhones, I can only conclude trade shows—or at least this trade show—are going the way of the dinosaur.

NOTES

• iGrill by iDevices is a Bluetooth cooking thermometer that connects wirelessly to your iPhone. Demos well. iPhone-owning BBQers rejoice.
• iPhoneLife magazine, already so in need of a renaming that they append “+iPad & iPod Touch” above the title, is a dismally written affair. The glossy paper and layouts are fine, but this is a good example of what you get when you ask non-writers to be writers. Quality goes up and down by the page. Some of the reviews are coherent—informative, even—but for God’s sake don’t make this the only tech magazine to which you subscribe.
• New magazine i.Business is worse. They intend to cover Apple technology and business, two subjects that have apparently never come together before, and I wish them well. The first issue wasn’t promising, but in life you get points just for showing up, so I’m happy to revisit the periodical in another year—assuming, of course, that there’s something to revisit.
• I had an extended conversation with a fellow from Marketcircle about the state of the show. Previously Marketcircle had a huge presence. This year, only a small booth in which to meet and greet. We didn’t really get into their products, since Billings (still) won’t integrate with QuickBooks properly and Daylite (a product in which I was even certified at one time) is far too confusing for the average business owner. (How confusing? You probably have to hire a certified consultant to show you how to use it.)
• The iPad app Art Authority looks terrific. It’s $7.99, which is expensive relative to other apps in the App Store, but for a historical overview of artists and artwork, it looks fantastic. Bought it as soon as I got home to the iPad.
• I’ve already got covers for my iPhones and iPads, so I didn’t find this compelling, but if you’d like to make a customized gel skin cover for your device, these are the GelaSkins are the guys who do it. About $40 for an iPad case and $20 for an iPhone one. They’ve got a bunch of fancy pre-made ones if you don’t want to do your own, but I think the only reason to do this would be that you want to put your own artwork on the outside of your iOS device.
• If you’ve found yourself desperately wishing you could go swimming with your iPhone, iPod Touch, or, God knows why, even your iPad, the solution appeared in the form of Dry Case. Waterproof down to 100 feet, the kit can be augmented by optional waterproof earbuds and sports belts. So confident is Dry Case of their technology that they offer a one-year Dry Case replacement guarantee. That is to say, they’ll send you a new case in which to place your now waterlogged iPhone. What could be more reassuring?
• What’s that? You say you have an idea for a great iPhone or iPad app but no idea whatsoever how to code anything? Did you also say that you have a minimum of $2,000 (and more likely $4,000) to make the idea a reality? If so, AppMuse can find you the programmer you need. Give AppMuse the idea—they’ll sign a non-disclosure agreement if you like (and you really better like, if you know what’s smart)—and they’ll put it out there to their roster of programmers, three of whom will submit bids to work on your project. I have every confidence that AppMuse and several thousand bucks can make your iPhone/iPad dream a reality.
• The number one thing you can do to make your Mac faster is to place it aboard a rocket ship. A close second is to replace the Mac’s internal hard drive with an Other World Computing (OWC) Solid State Drive (SDD). Don’t worry if that’s a lot of acronyms, most tech words barely make sense anyway. Be that as it may, SSDs are insanely fast compared to traditional hard drives, and as I’ve watched the prices creep down from the thousands into the hundreds I’ve become increasingly tempted to upgrade my laptop with one of these. Most everyday tasks become 2-3x faster. See this video for proof.
• San Francisco at night is a dim, broadly-lit place with a pervasive sense of unreality. I feel like I’m inside somebody’s performance art project.
• Want to download that YouTube video with the dancing monkey? Of course you do, and darn Google for making it nigh impossible. Happily, Jaksta will let you do it. It’s not free, but use coupon code JMACWORLD (valid until Feb. 15, 2011) to get $10 off.
• If you’ll be handing off that new iPad to the kids or if you’re the clumsy sort, Ektopad iPad cover is the most rugged thing short of an uber-expensive Otterbox. I’m not saying you should turn your iPad into a Frisbee to test it out, but for an accidental drop you’ve got much better odds that the thing survives.

So, the end of an era. I won’t miss the CalTrain (any more), and the six block walk to Moscone got a little old, particularly the stinky under the bridge part. But I did enjoy the Macworld event itself for many years, and I will miss the coming together of people to celebrate all things Apple. I’ve been through technological deaths before, notable Commodore with its Vic-20, Commodore 64 and Amiga. Apple’s never been stronger, so this isn’t that.

Rather it’s a change in the way people sell things and how they receive information about products. Apple’s internalized some of it with the app store for the Mac and for the iOS devices. The Internet and the ever-increasing number of Apple Retail Stores take care of the rest, I suppose. For me, though, nothing will ever take the place of a really good Macworld show. I’m sorry this wasn’t one, but I had a few and that’s more than many can say.

Tags: Apple, iPad, iPhone, Macworld

Pretty layouts, glossy paper, and alluring subject matter will get you in the door, but if the content’s not there (and boy is it not), you’re going to have a rough go of it. I’m looking at the March-April 2011 edition of iPhone Life that I picked up for free at Macworld, and ouch. It doesn’t bode well when you have to augment your periodical’s title (“+iPad & iPod Touch”). Presumably they’ll keep throwing names up there until Apple stops introducing devices or they run out of space on the cover.

Started flipping through and the ads look nice. The Editor’s lead commentary runs down what the issue covers rather blandly, but it’s the same sort of schtick every month, so I’m always inclined to cut slack there.

The “Meet our writers….” and iPhone Life Staff page is rather amateurish. A number of writers have professional head shots, but several look like they’re out on the beach surfing, one appears to be a mime, one is holding his kid, and another is driving in his car. The author descriptions are similarly disparate. The first fellow is a “Systems test and integration engineer” and you think, “Super! He’ll know what he’s talking about.” But then we get a freelance blogger, a “technology enthusiast,” and an “uber-cool soccer mom of four.” Methinks there might be a problem in the vetting of writers.

So it’s with skeptical eye that I turned to the first column, the “Social Media Report,” entitled “Using Social Media apps for Customer Service.” Really, it was just poorly named. It should have been “Using Twitter and Hootsuite for Customer Service.” But the article did close with what appears to be a theme:

I would love to know how you use your iPhone and iPad for customer service. Feel free to post directly to our Facebook page to continue this conversation.

This is intriguing in two ways. First, an author rarely ends a piece with a call for help. While it’s certainly fine to acknowledge that one can’t and doesn’t know everything about a topic, the job of the writer is to learn and share, not plead for assistance. Take that offline and do your research. Second, this is not a conversation. There is no two-way dialogue to continue. You may start a dialog on Facebook if you like and if others choose to pipe up, but this is not that since no one was quoted in the column and it wasn’t a Q & A.

In the reader mail section, a reader writes asking for iPhone Life to institute a star rating system on their reviews. The Publisher/Executive Editor answers:

In theory, I agree with your suggestion for a rating system. However, in practice, the engineer in me finds star ratings too subjective and inconsistent. We have at least 20 authors per issue, and it would be very difficult to standardize star ratings and to a lesser extent pros and cons about every product. Further, given that there are 200,000 apps in the App store, if we write about it in our magazine, chances are it’s a top app, so the difference between 3 and 4 stars wouldn’t be meaningful.

You think, “Great answer! He agrees that star ratings are nice but explains why it doesn’t make sense for the magazine. Perfect.” But then he tacks on this:

“Having said that, a rating system is an ongoing discussion, and eventually likely you will see it here.”

What the heck? You just finished elaborating why it didn’t work for your publication! So your answer to a star rating system is “yes, no, yes”? If this is the level of backbone coming from the publisher, I dare say all is lost. Don’t be afraid to offend your readers. Or minimally, disagree with them politely. Good Lord, man, it’s your magazine.

We turn then to the lead article, the one the cover touts as answering the question, “Next iPad: Still the best?” Now this is unknowable. Apple hasn’t released iPad 2 and they don’t talk about future products. So that’s a tall order to fill unless you have insider information. As you might have guessed, they don’t. Instead, we get a run through of what Apple rumors sites and pundits have speculated that a next generation iPad might have and a comparison to other tablets all of which are vaporware except for the Samsung Galaxy Tab. In other words, we’re comparing a hypothetical tablet against other hypothetical tablets excepting the Galaxy Tab, which runs a non-tablet operating system and which “many users complained…felt like a big phone.” Excellent. Good article. Let’s tackle how many angels on the head of a pin next.

How to conclude when purporting to answer the unanswerable? Here you go:

This is definitely the year of the tablet, but the big question is, will Apple still be on top when the year comes to a close? With over fifty competing tablets looking to take a market share, the iPad will have some stiff competition. Will other platforms be able to challenge Apple’s App Store lead in both iPad optimized apps as well as compatible iPhone/iPad touch apps? Will the next generation of iPad come out with any unexpected features? Time will tell, but one thing is for sure…It’s going to be an exciting year for tablets!

Yes, the tablets I’ve talked with are all very excited. And to answer your questions: Yes, no, and probably. Thanks for your help in sorting through that, “Enterprise Editor.” I see from your bio that you “strongly believe in the technology not for the sake of technology, but rather to improve capability and efficiency,” a stand for which you should be applauded in the face of a world that takes a diametrically opposed view. For who among us—other than the Enterprise Editor—doesn’t say to himself, “I need a technological gizmo that will do nothing for me, that neither improves what I can do nor how quickly I can do it. In short, I need to have this gizmo simply because it is a gizmo.” A brave stand, indeed. I can’t wait to read what you write next.

And there it is on page 18: “Apple’s Innovative Evolution: How Apple is facing the ‘innovator’s dilemma.” The Enterprise Editor graces us again:

In 1997, Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen wrote a book entitled The Innovator’s Dilemma in which he described a phenomenon where new technologies have a tendency to be quite disruptive in the market. Market leaders are focused on meeting the needs of their existing customers through incremental improvements in existing technologies, leaving the door open for new market entrants to leverage disruptive technologies. The disruptive technologies might initially only be attractive to a small, niche, or low-end sections [sic] of the market, but once they begin to mature and gain traction in the market, they can overtake the existing technologies with the previous market leader unable to do anything about it.

That’s a powerful idea (not his, of course), horribly written (absolutely his words). Are they paying you by the word? Let’s see what we can do with paragraph one:

In 1997, Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen wrote The Innovator’s Dilemma. He described how some new technologies can be quite disruptive in the market. Market leaders meet the needs of existing customers through incremental technological improvement, allowing market entrants an opening with revolutionary technology that initially only appeals to small or low-end customers. Once these technologies mature, they can quickly gain market traction leaving the previous market leader unable to compete.

That’s an admittedly imperfect quick fix, but it reads a lot better and, I should note, I’m not the Enterprise Editor for a national publication. The larger problem is that nobody cares particularly that some Harvard Prof wrote a book. It’s not the worst lead in the history of journalism, that quaint now-much-scorned academic discipline, but it’s not Edward R. Murrow either. So a better start might be something like:

In 1896 my great grandfather travelled from Montana to Oregon by covered wagon in a hard and somewhat dangerous journey of two weeks. Years later, he would fly the same distance in the relaxed comfort of an airplane in the span of just two hours. This is a story about Apple, technological change, and about what happens to the builders of today’s covered wagons.

Is that more compelling? I think so. It transports the reader a bit, at least a few of whom are likely saying, “Thank God. Not another iPhone app review.” More importantly, it draws the reader in while describing what the story is going to be about. I can write about technological change and Apple and iPhones, no problem. I’ve gotten the reader to at least the next paragraph without inducing narcolepsy, and I’ve probably decent chance at getting him to read several more paragraphs as well. Maybe the whole thing if I don’t mess it up.

Anyway, we get to the end of the piece and what do you suppose we find? Questions? But of course:

…What does Apple have planned next? Will they bring the simplified iOS to a laptop form-factor like the MacBook Air? Will the app revolution invade the living room with an iOS-based Apple TV? Since only Steve Jobs knows, we will all just have to wait and see.

Now that may be the single worst conclusion to an article I’ve ever read because it prompts one further question from the reader: Why on God’s green earth did I read this?

That in mind, I flipped through the rest of the magazine and watched as the quality of the various app reviews and articles bounce up and down. How could this be? Well, the answer is at www.iPhoneLife.com/writersguidelines and it goes like this: “Up front, please understand that we don’t pay authors.” Excellent. So what level of objectivity can we expect authors and, more importantly, reviewers to have? If I’m an iPhone app developer, like it turns out the Enterprise Editor is, why don’t I just have my brother/friend/cousin/mom write a review of my work for you because, you know, they really like it. Best thing since covered wagons. I’m not saying that’s what’s happening; I’m saying that’s what could happen based on the non-payment policy in place. You can’t argue, after all, that you’re paying your authors to be objective.

So I appreciate the free issue at Macworld, but no, I don’t think I’ll be subscribing.

Tags: Apple, iPad, iPhone

It is abundantly clear that huge advantages accrue to having personal information—email, contacts, calendar, etc.—available anywhere. Apple’s MobileMe (buy the old version and save) syncing service handles most of this wirelessly. If I update a contact on my iPhone, for example, it’s automatically pushed up to Apple’s MobileMe service “in the cloud” and sent to all my other computers and devices. It’s incredibly handy, and if you have more than one device (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Mac laptop or Mac desktop) to keep information on, I highly recommend it.

It doesn’t sync everything, though, and it’s those last bits of informational distribution between devices that I’m struggling with. Specifically, I’ve got issues with email storage and financial recording and record keeping.

I have virtually every email I’ve sent or received since about 1993. I’ve deleted spam, some mailing list stuff, etc., but otherwise I’ve pretty much got everything. That’s a huge and personally meaningful historical record. (And one of the reasons I don’t see myself ever abandoning email for instant messaging, Twitter, or Facebook messages. In fact, I have all Facebook messages emailed to me so that I can archive them.)

I can already pick up new messages from anywhere, but what about accessing these historical emails? The more tech-savvy among you already know what I’m going to say here: I’m putting them online. Not for just anyone, of course, but for me. I’m creating email folders at my IMAP-based email server and I’m moving my tens of thousands of messages into them. I will be able to access them from anywhere. I know I’m late to the party—IMAP has long been capable of doing this and GMail has offered it for years—but I finally now feel the need and see the advantages.

The second issue is recording and accessing financial data, notably Quicken and QuickBooks. I have no solution yet other than to log in remotely to my Mac Pro in the office and record and view things. It’s not intolerable, but it’s wildly inefficient. Here’s the ideal scenario: I get a bill at a restaurant, I enter it in the iPhone and the data is automatically synced back into my main Quicken file at home (or online). Since I don’t have a good solution—I suspect the answer will have to come from somebody like Intuit—I’m not fully mobile.

But I’m getting close, and that’s a very exciting prospect.

Tags: Apple, iPad, iPhone, Travel

I’ve just received the iPad Keyboard Dock. This entry is being typed on it using the iPad’s WordPress app. What I’ve discovered so far is that the Dock has a feel very much like the standard Mac keyboard. (I’ve also found that using the Tab key in WordPress crashes the app, but I’m guessing that’s a short-term WordPress issue, not a Dock issue. In these early days of the iPad, developers need to be cut some slack with minor bugs like this. They didn’t get an iPad to do QA testing on any sooner than the rest of us did to play with it.)

I have liked typing on the iPad’s virtual keyboard. For me, a 60 wpm touch typist (who remembers when he used to be able to do 80-85 wpm and still occasionally hits those highs) the virtual keyboard was a significant step forward compared to the iPhone’s puny type with thumbs arrangement. Of course the iPhone’s virtual keyboard was in turn significantly better than almost every other cellphone typing system, Blackberry being the notable exception, so it’s not like I’m complaining on that account.

Still, there’s nothing like typing on a real keyboard and the text entry here is so much faster than I fear it will be painful to go back to the iPad’s virtual system. Time will tell. I do think, however, that if I were buying an iPad 3G, I would also buy a Bluetooth wireless keyboard to go with it.

The Dock’s keyboard has some specialized function keys, which made me wonder at first if Apple would create a special Bluetooth keyboard for iPad. A closer look leaves me doubtful. The song forward/back/play/pause group is there as is the volume up/down/mute set. Ditto the brightness up/down. One new key, a magnifying glass, takes you to the Search screen. Handier than double-clicking the Home button? I dunno. The button next to that (where Escape would be on the top left) literally is a second Home button. Utility again dubious. There’s an instant slideshow start button which is all right. The Virtual Keyboard button is, I suppose, required in case you must use the thing, but again I’m not sure how much real world use it will get. The top right button is a lock of some kind—I assume it turns off the iPad since it appears to shut off the screen. On the whole, none of these strike me as essential.

The Dock itself holds the iPad in a vertical manner and seems adequate to the task. There’s a dock connector port out the back so you can power the iPad while you type. It all seems perfectly practical for a guy like me who will be keeping his iPad near the bedside for daily use. For those getting the iPad 3G, look at the non-keyboard Dock and a Bluetooth wireless keyboard instead.

UPDATE: It didn’t take more than 4 months for the Dock part of the Keyboard/Dock to break like so much kindling. I’ve talked with other Apple techs and this is not an isolated problem. Avoid the Keyboard/Dock device, I think. Opt for an Apple Bluetooth keyboard and maybe one of these.

Tags: iPad

After what seemed an interminable wait, the UPS truck finally pulled in and delivered my 32 GB wi-fi only iPad this afternoon. I have played with it for a couple of hours now and have a report.

First, it is every bit as gorgeous as the PR photos make it look. The hardware fit and finish are exactly what you’ve come to expect from Apple which is to say that it is superb. The battery life is exceptional in my limited testing. I am used to running my iPhone down to near empty after a hard day’s work but I don’t think that will be the case here. I will also say that the thing is fast—considerable so versus the iPhone 3GS and light years versus the original iPhone. Thus far the hardware is almost everything I could have wanted which is a very good thing because software deficiencies can be fixed through the update process. Hardware you’re stuck with.

And there are some software deficiencies. The virtual keyboard, though much faster and easier than the iPhone and frankly than I expected, suffers from the omission of the apostrophe on the main typing screen. Apple attempts to make up for this be autocorrecting any abbreviated word that uses an apostrophe, but it’s going to take some getting used to. That’s a statement that’s true of the virtual keyboard as well. Much to my surprise, it is quite useable for touch typists—I’m in the 60 wpm range myself on a standard keyboard—but long form documents (like is one, haha) would be better entered on a Bluetooth wireless keyboard or, once it ships, the iPad keyboard dock.

Another temporary issue is the dearth of iPad software. The iPad runs iPhone software in a emulated mode that centers the app on the screen and gives the user the option of pixel doubling the screen to fill the larger iPad display. For most iPhone apps this is a horribly ugly alternative, though admittedly a few pull it off nicely. By and large, be prepared to get new iPad apps.

Most of the Apple apps are fantastic. Mail, Safari, Contacts, Calendar, Photos, etc. are all very well done. Google gets special praise for their Maps app which is, much like Photos, a visual and experiential treat. Additional third-party apps worth mentioning: WordPress, USA Today, Netflix, AOL’s AIM, Dragon Dictation, and Zillow. I am certain I will discover more as I have more time to play with the device. Despite the great hardware, the iPad is nothing without software like this, so I’m thrilled to find developers turning out great stuff.

The biggest disappointments so far have been crash-prone apps like ABC’s video player and, sadly, Apple’s own iBooks app. Third-parties can be forgiven since they didn’t get advanced iPad prototypes to test their software on, but Apple can hardly put up the same excuse.

Indeed, though the iBooks app looks spectacular, it’s the biggest disappointment of the lot at this point. One of the books I downloaded from the store seemed to get frozen (for lack of a better term—I couldn’t read, delete or re-download it) and now iBooks crashes on launch. Further, iBooks lacks an ability to annotate the text and it’s unclear to me whether other epub formatted books can be copied into iTunes and thus onto the iPad, or if readers are simply stuck with Apple’s limited selection. I would love, love, love to see the iPhone app Stanza on the iPad, but as Stanza was bought out by Amazon, I’m not holding my breath. (Yeah, I know the Kindle app with its onerous DRM is available. That’s not what I want.)

But as I say these are software issues of a version 1.0 device. Like e original iPhone I expect the iPad to get better and better as time goes by. In the meantime, there is more an enough to like for me to highly recommend Apple’s latest gadget. I named mine Harmony.

UPDATE: The ABC app has been updated after but a day so I’m taking them off my bad app list. Indeed, such a quick update is rather impressive.

I’m happy to report that the iBooks app is also working again after resyncing to the Mac and I’ve successfully added a raft of third-party ePub-based books to the app via iTunes. The future looks very bright indeed.

Tags: Apple, iPad

In short, the Wi-fi only, 32 GB model. I strongly considered the 16 GB version, but since we’re not certain how big apps will be or just how many one can install, I wanted to give myself a little breathing room. I don’t see putting music on it and any movies I watch will probably be streamed. eBooks are famously small—can’t wait to start unloading physical books as frankly my house is overloaded with them—so I think 32 GB will be initially perfect.

Now I say “initially” for a reason. I’m already sold on getting the iPad mark 2. That’s the iPad I’m more likely to spend heavily on, though I think the 3G option remains speculative. At this moment I don’t see the iPad as a device that travels. Maybe I’m wrong about the whole thing but I’m really picturing the iPad sitting bedside.

I’m sure to post more on the topic on or shortly after the iPad’s April 3 delivery date.

Tags: Apple, iPad