I do believe that Apple perceives a risk behind allowing this particular piece of software “hijack,” as it were, the iPhone user experience, particularly as the Google Voice service will likely become wildly popular amongst the demographic of folks who are attracted to products like iPhones. I must also note that Apple themselves pulled quite a similar customer “hijacking” trick on AT&T with the iPhone.

So if anyone knows the smell of this type of usurpation, it’s Apple. They’re also right to fear it.

I ultimately get exactly why Apple attempted to block it: to paraphrase the late father of a past girlfriend of mine, if you’re not pulling at least one foul per game, you’re just not playing hard enough.

It’s all a game of strategy, folks, and the stakes in the competition for slices of the burgeoning mobile Internet device market are pretty damned high.

Arrington does make one claim, however, that I just can’t get behind. He writes:

[Apple is] jealously guarding control of their users and trying to block Google and other third party developers at every turn from getting their superior applications in front those users.

The first half is spot-on, but the second half is very wrong—they are not fearful of developers offering better software than their apps. Apple doesn’t care, for example, about superior stock tracking, weather, or memo programs.

They do care about Safari, Phone, Contacts, Calendar, Mail, Messages, and iPod, App Store, and iTunes applications: they are the signature apps of the core iPhone user experience.

If Google Voice takes over the dialer, a significant problem is introduced: people may likely start demanding that the phone experience is designed around the Google Voice service. In such a case, Apple will have lost control of the UX of this core component of the product, as they would then have to choose between two paths:

1. chase after the Google Voice UX requirements, OR
2. consciously choosing to ignore it, causing customers that want it evaluate switching to an Android phone.

Apple are specifically looking to control the core user experience of the device, but that’s what Apple does, and what’s more: that’s what we (largely) want them to do! Their passion for that sort of thing is directly attributable for the design excellence of their products.

In any case, the ref is on the field, and we’ll get a call on the game play. The only certainty here is that—whatever call the FCC ultimately makes—the outcome will be interesting.

My call: offensive holding.

… while Apple caused a revolution [with the iPhone], it is unlikely to become dominant in the market. It has sold just over 20m iPhones since the first device appeared in 2007; in that time more than 1.5bn phones have been shipped by everyone else. A similar thing happened with the personal computer market. The concept was championed by Apple when it launched Apple II, the worlds first personal computer, in 1977, and the first Macintosh in 1984, but other players now lead the market.

This argument — whose conclusion, for some reason, hinges strictly on unit sales of the iPhone units sold vs. the rest of the phones in the market as a metric for performance — overlooks several critical points:

1. Looking at sales numbers for all phones worldwide is meaningless; rather an examination of the so-called “smart phone” sales numbers would make for more meaningful insights.
2. The iPhone isn’t available in every market — in order to make a meaningful point about its sales performance, they ought to (at least also) isolate its relative performance in the markets the product is actually available in.
3. The rest of their competitors have been selling devices for a decade or more.

I guess it makes for a headline that gets the click-throughs, but since their conclusion is antithetical to the understanding everyone else looking at the iPhone’s market performance has, I would suggest merely that I’d like to see them support their assertion with something slightly more compelling and meaningful than comparing iPhone sales versus the rest of mobile phones on the planet.

From the post:

The Pixie will use the same WebOS operating system and software as the Palm Pre, but in a smaller candy-bar form factor and a target $99 price point, say our sources. It will be released only a few months after the Pre in June, so this isn’t an upgrade device. It’s targeted at the lower end of the market.

I’m sorry, but this is all sorts of stupid.

For one, prove the concept first. Get the software out there, see what the initial responses are, and refine a bit. See if it sells. See what is and isn’t not working just right; it’s entirely possible a fundamental design decision of the hardware somehow needs to be reconsidered based in this information. Then — with some market reaction data in hand — think about a different flavor of hardware that could at least have the benefit of being informed by response to the initial model.

Secondly, they’re launching a new platform which will have to court developers into its fold with two different screen sizes. Developers interested in targeting both will therefore have a two-device testing matrix out of the gates. Some will go for the full-size features of the Pre, and others will target the Pixie.

Finally, but most importantly, they’re going to fracture consumer interest. Bringing two similar products to market like this will force prospective consumers to ask themselves which one they want, and whether they “really need” whatever’s in the “big” one. In these times, more consumers are likely to steer in an economical direction, given what may well be a relatively equal set of choices, and since Palm would presumably use lower-powered hardware for the Pixie, the general consumer experience will likely feel more constrained.

I’m scared to death that Palm is killing the most promising new smartphone announced in a little over two years, before the poor thing has even come into the market.

There seems to be some question as to whether the project is completely green-lit, as Arrington mentions:

One source says it’s full steam ahead. Another says Palm is waiting to see how the Pre does before announcing the Pixie.

But, frankly, letting the information leak out like this (and at least having someone think this effort is “full steam ahead”) is enough to every bit as much harm as the actual release of the product; the anticipators will begin to demand its release, and start to play a wait-and-see, betting that Palm eventually will drop the Pixie.

And the pundits will buzz about it, and Palm will see weak sales on its Pre, and cave into the expectation of the Pixie’s release.

As I’d previously said: as die-hard an iPhone fan as I indeed am, I have been keenly looking forward to the Pre, both as a product of wonder and accomplishment, and as some great and much-needed competition for the iPhone, which will only make my favorite phone better, in the long-run.

Palm: good luck.

30 Apr @ 14:34: Let me add that this, of course, is merely rumor at this time; Palm has not officially announced anything. That said, TechCrunch has another post claiming to have dug up even more details. I would note that the claimed “shaky” photo of the Pixie in my original link above differs significantly in proportion from what is shown on the photo in this latest post.

I’m not referring to their first reported decline in quarterly earnings, and I’m not even talking about the repeated extension of the cut-off date for selling XP.

Paul Thurott of the SuperSite for Windows blog says:

we were briefed about a secret Microsoft technology that [...] would ship in final form simultaneously with the final version of Windows 7 [...] dubbed Windows XP Mode (XPM, formerly Virtual Windows XP or Virtual XP, VXP)….

So Windows 7′s killer new feature is that it runs an older version of Windows.

I get Paul’s point that this truly provides an opportunity for Microsoft to finally start making the sort of aggressive, much needed, and — frankly — long-overdue changes to Window’s central architecture, while delivering (most of) the compatibility requirements its enterprise customers have. I even agree that this is, in fact, a wise choice.

But there’s a reason Microsoft has kept this under embargo until now; it really says something about the state of their flagship product… something it seems they didn’t want to have to say.

Agreed Benefits

Even the critics of Macheist will concede to a number of upsides to participation, including:

1. Macheist is clearly a great marketing opportunity for each developer’s product,
2. any opportunity at growing their product’s user base builds upon its chances of retaining customers (and thereby capitalizing on upgrade fees for major versions later), and
3. participation with one product stands to produce sales gains on other products made by that developer

Naturally, these potential upsides are by no means guaranteed; if a product doesn’t compete well on its own merits, then its developer(s) will likely not capitalize on upgrade sales. But then Macheist can’t offer to make anyone’s products automagically good; this remains the responsibility of the developers, themselves.

Argued Problems

The basic arguments the critics have boil down to:

1. Macheist sells their apps at a [very] steep discount to their normal sale price,
2. this stands to undermine their perceived market value, and
3. general participation in Macheist may work to undermine the generally perceived value of shareware apps

As such, the critics argue that the developers may well be sacrificing more than they stand to gain in return for their participation.

These arguments, however, are missing a critically important point.

The Oversight

While it is certainly true that each developer could potentially make more money from any individual app (that is, per sale transaction), what these critics are overlooking is the fact that each of the participating developers also stand to make more money in a given time span than they would have if their apps weren’t part of the Macheist bundle.

As a quick aside, I would note that the Macheist sales are also final; even users that aren’t happy with any one app won’t demand their money back, which might well happen in the context of a single sale.

Consider, more importantly, the following screenshot (taken 27 Mar 2009, at ~20:15 EDT):

Note that 26,121 $39 bundles have been sold to date. Since 25% goes to charity, we’re talking $764,039.25 in gross sales.

Even if each developer takes just 1% of the pool, and if no more sales are made in the 11 days that remain, each participant would stand to take a $7,640.39 slice. I’m willing to bet that they’ll land a few more sales, and that developers may well make more than just 1% (anyone have any details?).

This, however, in the span of two weeks.

So, the question I’ll now pose to critics is: what are the chances these developers will have made this much cash in the given time period, without Macheist?

Of course it’s very possible for a piece of software to achieve better sales performance without Macheist. Many pieces of software do. I’m looking squarely at many of the OmniGroup‘s products. I’m willing to bet those developers happily avoid participation in Macheist.

For products have low sales (or even no sales yet), their income potential dramatically increases. Developers with multiple products stand a great chance to get their non-Macheist products on the radar of potential customers.

And so it’s really difficult to argue that the developers participating in the promotion actually lose.

The Shareware Community

Even so, there remains the argument that bundles such as Macheist — as well as similar ones organized by MacUpdate, and others — wind up harming the independent developers participating in the shareware market by undermining the perceived value of shareware apps as a whole.

In short, I would disagree.

My view here is that the shareware market is a commercial space like any other, and that such bundles are essentially yet another element of competition that’s simply part of the game. New entrants need a means by which to get their products noticed on the playing field, and everyone on the field must continually compete against each other to remain in the game.

Through it all, customers will continue to pay whatever price they feel is a good value. We are, after all, talking about a consumer demographic that choose to buy Macs over commodity PCs.

I really love my Pulse smart pen. One of the most valuable affordances it’s provided me is the peace of mind I have, knowing everything I’ve written is safely backed up on my computer (and in the cloud), after I’ve synchronized.

It’s certainly replaced my normal notebooks, but I find that I’ve also started leaving my laptop behind more frequently. I often bring it along “just in case” I want to capture a thought or other information that I’d likely want to share.

In a fantastic feat of accomplishment, the Pulse actually also played a part in “permitting” me to leave my laptop home, when I set off to a two-week vacation.

All of this is just great.

On the other hand, however, I’ve been finding that I’d like to synchronize and/or share information that I’ve written down with it sooner, rather than later. Of course, I could easily install the sync software onto my laptop instead, but then I’ll be back to being tempted to bring my laptop along for the ride – what a step backwards.

But there is an answer: iPhone OS 3.0‘s External Accessory framework.

This new API will allow third-party devices to communicate with iPhone / iPod Touch devices via either the dock connector, or Bluetooth. This, naturally, opens the door to “on the road” syncing with the cloud, without the use of a personal computer. And, really, isn’t the “untethering” of the human from his PC one of the fundamental goals of paper-based computing?

Please, oh please make this happen!

Best Regards, John Lianoglou

AppleInsider published a piece covering the story, and included a couple of photos taken in a private 20,000 square foot mock-up retail store constructed on Microsoft’s campus.

The piece includes this wonderful photo, showing a customer that we can only assume is a PC, pushing a shopping cart around the store:

We can infer immediately from this photo that the people designing this customer experience seem to think that shoppers will actually be pushing a shopping cart around the store.

Think about that.

And even more interestingly, the store designers intend to “deliver targeted, real-time information to [the] shopping cart.”

So, after Microsoft have finally decided to kill Clippy, these store designers decide it’s a great idea to create “Carty.”

Worse still, this invokes the thought of another super lame Windows feature: balloon tips.

If you’ve ever used Windows, you know exactly what these are &emdash; that tedious series of yellow, comic-like speech balloons that pop out of the task tray, proudly announcing a number of painfully irrelevant “accomplishments,” including finding a wifi signal, connecting successfully to the internet, and recognizing an attached printer or USB device.

Here’s a little screenplay I wrote to illustrate the design goals for that shopper’s experience:

Oddly, 85% of visiting customers that make it this far into the shopping experience will actually complete their visit with a purchase.

The piece kicks off with this gem:

…BusinessWeek asked me about Apple potentially open sourcing the iPhone over a year ago. Since then: nothing out of Apple, despite mounting pressure from projects like Android that are vying for Apple’s throne.

I guess I missed the part where Apple has any incentive or desire to concern itself with a question Business Week asked this guy. Then, I missed the part where Android is applying “mounting pressure” on Apple’s iPhone.

Continuing:

I’m not asking them to completely open source the iPhone. I’m just asking them to crack the door and let the breeze in.

I thought I was about to embark on reading about 5 reasons Apple should Open Source the iPhone.

At this point, and in the absence of any true guidance from the author as to a thesis he might be driving towards, I began to wonder if he knew that the code base for Mobile Safari (WebKit) is Open Source Software. What about DTrace? I mean… these are all Open Source Software components that are in the iPhone.

Open source is becoming the default way to develop software in many industries.

What does that even mean? I’m at a loss for what even constitutes a “default way to develop software.” It’s hard enough to get everyone to agree on whether or not unit testing is a critical part of the software development process, let alone being anywhere near some sort of industries-wide consensus on whether to Open Source all software, or not.

Hurley goes on to say:

More importantly, many folks that aren’t traditional developers are starting to develop apps for platforms like the iPhone. He who satiates that audience wins the war.

Check out the post; it doesn’t carry any additional meaning when it’s experienced in its full context, either.

Choice

William contends that “Customers love choice.” On the surface, that does seem like a sensible assertion; when I’m in the market to purchase a product or service, I always appreciate having at least a handful of options from which to make my ultimate choice.

On the other hand, too much choice can be a hindrance, as it can get difficult to fully grasp all the merits and trade-offs associated with each choice.

So, there’s a balance.

Naturally, the verdict on where anyone’s threshold of “too much choice” gets drawn will depend on the number of options they are being asked to consider.

Hurley continues:

Open sourcing the iPhone gives customers a much broader selection of applications.

Of course we’re back to what exactly Hurley does or doesn’t mean by “open sourcing the iPhone.” Apart from that, he fails to demonstrate that the selection of applications will be any broader; the App Store has a pretty fucking broad selection.

It seems like the next sensible matter to consider is how a more open ecosystem, like Android, compares against the iPhone’s App Store with respect to volume of available apps.

The numbers seem to defy Hurleys predictions.

Though, to be fair — as the update appended to that link mentions — we may see more apps appear in the Android Marketplace once Google makes it possible for software developers to charge money for their apps.

And what about “all those” Openmoko platform apps out there…?

Customers faced with a plethora of attractive applications when they visit the app store will spend money.

Many developers are now worried that the sheer volume of apps available in the App Store has gotten so large that it’s becoming increasingly difficult for developers to get their apps to stand out.

Many are even calling on Apple to devise ways to let the better ones bubble to the top.

And so this may interestingly be where Apple is on the ironic “downside,” beginning to fall victim to its own success, but where — in deliciously layered irony — Hurley remains chasing a hollow argument.

An open source iPhone dulls some of Android’s luster.

And here I was thinking that Android’s luster was being dulled by the inability for developers to be able to rely on:

1. screen size
2. input capabilities
3. availability of various components

Ol’ Steve can level the playing field—he holds sway over a loyal following of diehard developers.

Last time I looked at the playing field, “ol’ Steve” doesn’t have a whole hell of a lot to gain by leveling it.

Linux on the iPhone

Hurley then goes on to argue that if Apple doesn’t open up the iPhone, then someone else will find a way to do it regardless. Why this insight seems particularly riveting to him, I can’t really know.

One might pause to wonder if he’s heard of jailbreaking and rockbox; this happens.

Then, he drops this bomb:

Earth to Apple: if the iPhone had been open sourced, [Linux on the iPhone] probably wouldn’t have happened.

Let’s take a step back. I think we can all agree, at this juncture in history, that if a device has a microprocessor in it, somebody is going to try to get Linux running on it!

So, my alternate-reality wager is that Linux would have been ported to iPhone regardless of whether Apple were more “open” with it or not.

Besides, here we have iPhone Linux and Apple didn’t have to spend a dime on its development. And they won’t be spending any money on supporting it, either.

This is perfect for Apple: nothing to engineer, nothing to QA, and no responsibility to field support calls for it.

If anything, it seems like the teams at Apple have been struggling to keep up with QA issues on their closed and tightly-controlled platform; does anyone really think it makes any sense for Apple to take on the additional resource burden acting on this idea would incur?

The OSS route, however, is finally here.

Now, anyone can install Linux as an alternative OS for their iPhones, and even switch back and forth between iPhone OS; let’s see how many people actually have enough interest to install this.

Perspective & Respect

So, what I want to know is: how many folks with Macs out there are running the Nautilus file manager via X11, instead of dealing with Finder?

Now, I use open source every day.

I’ve been an occasional contributor to a handful of projects (most recently, I’ve submitted a number of patches to plugins for a PHP MVC framework called symfony).

I even published two projects of my own to Sourceforge.

I love, respect, and regularly participate in the phenomenon that is OSS in various capacities, including software development and community support.

That said, I personally can’t bring myself to find any fault with Apple for not having any interest in “open sourcing” the iPhone. At least, not without a compelling economic incentive.

And, let’s face it, all the data points to Apple’s economic model playing out reasonably well, for the time being.

15 Dec: Apple has tweaked the iTunes App Store, in response to some developers’ mounting distress that their for-pay apps were getting buried by the popularity of the free apps, by better showcasing the most popular for-pay apps.