Sam Iles's Blog

Gizmodo recently wrote an article called “Lion – Not the Future We Were Hoping For”, in which they complained that Lion wasn’t a big upgrade and was a mishmash of interfaces which would confuse the basic user. Many other people have complained about this, comparing Lion to Snow Leopard and calling it a small, evolutionary, boring update.

Well, friends – THAT’S THE DAMN POINT.

Apple said a long time ago that the days of bringing incredible innovation and new features to OS X was ending and that the future would focus on crossing the Ts and dotting the Is, tightening the bolts, improving what’s already there, increasing stability and simplifying the systems across their different platforms. It seems to me that they are achieving that.

Remember, this is Mac OS X – 10 – and each update has been a new decimal place, with Lion being 10.7. Increasing a tenth of a version shouldn’t be a big jump.

(Also, Gizmodo’s comments about basic users not being able to use Mission Control, etc, are moot because a) they won’t even know it exists, they’ll just use the dock like they do now and b) someone who is so stupidly beginner they can’t work out Mission Control won’t have dozens of apps open anyway.)

One day, Apple will probably release Mac OS 11 and that update will be the big evolutionary one. Right now, Apple is fine tuning and making version ten better, as it said it would and as it should. One day, when it’s ready, it will revolutionise Mac OS with version 11.

Don’t complain that Lion isn’t changing the way you use your computer, because it isn’t supposed to. If you’re not happy with Apple’s roadmap, switch to Windows or Linux.

Steve demos NeXTSTEP in his inimitable style, right down to saying doing something which happens instantly on NeXTSTEP would take “weeks on Windows”. It’s also great to see him hatin’ on the Mac. Also fascinating is the way so much of NeXTSTEP is now in the Mac (most notably being the dock).

It’s long, but worth it:

What’s this – an Apple keynote in which the contents has been pre-announced…? Why, yes, it is! Here is what they said:

Apple will unveil its next generation software – Lion, the eighth major release of Mac OS® X; iOS 5, the next version of Apple’s advanced mobile operating system which powers the iPad®, iPhone® and iPod touch®; and iCloud®, Apple’s upcoming cloud services offering.

Now, I’ll talk about it for a bit:

• Lion: We’ve already seen a great deal of the unification of Mac OS X and iOS and I guess we can expect to see it in its near-finished form on Monday. If I recall correctly, they originally hinted at a “fall” release, which probably means something around September (that was the Snow Leopard date). Although I was greatly unimpressed and scared by the previous Lion unveiling, I hope to be a little more impressed this time. (On a side note, Windows 8 looks like it will be unveiled later today and looks to be a whole lot better than Mac OS X for a lot of reasons, so that should be jolly exciting…)
• iOS 5: Well this should be jolly exciting! All I really care about is some nice new notifications (“we waited because we wanted to get this right – AND WE HAVE!”) and that’s it. I am not in with the hipsters who want their widgets (“battery life is terrible on devices with widgets, so we didn’t do it”) and the like. In fact, iOS is perfectly fine as it is, in my opinion. But it will still be nice to see an update…
• iCloud: What’s this? An unannounced product in a press release? Why ever they did it, it’s still nice to know something is happening. The way I see it, there are a few options of what they could be doing (assuming it features some kind of music service):
  1. A digital locker service for music you already own. In other words, you would be able to play music from the web on your iOS devices. But, only music you already own. There are two ways Apple could do this: a) the Amazon and Google way of uploading music you already own and then letting you play that or, b) scanning your hard drive for music files and marking you off in a database for owning that file. There are two big differences between them:
     • Method a) requires you to upload gigabytes of data to the Internet and for Amazon and Google (and Apple) to store it. Even if a million people have the same Lady Gaga song, it has to be stored one million times. This is so that when the RIAA swing by, they can prove they are just storing data and not running a streaming service. This is obviously a silly way to do it.
     • Method b) would require deals with the record companies and means Apple scans your computer and then can say, “yes, Sam owns every single Beyoncé song, so he can now stream them to himself for FREE!”. This is obviously much nicer and a conceivable possibility.
  2. A streaming service like Rdio and Spotify. This would mean you open iTunes and type in the name of the artist you want and play their music to your heart’s content for a monthly (or, knowing Apple, yearly) fee. Apple offering such a service (and iOS app…) would no doubt spell the end for Spotify and Rdio and really could be huge. I hope they do it, because I might even pay for it…
  3. A hybrid of the two. This is really just the streaming service, but with some kind of concessions if you already the music (like the ability to play music over the streaming service which isn’t strictly in the steaming catalogue.
  4. All of these services are probably to be bundled in with MobileMe in some form. It makes little sense for Apple to call a purely cloud music “iCloud” and continue making MobileMe separately (which would be perfect if called iCloud). No, I think you may be looking at paying $100 a year for ‘MobileMe + Music Service = iCloud’.
• So, out of all these iCloud options, I guess I have to make a choice. My bet would be with music locker using method b) of not having to upload your content. Apple is (ostensibly, I guess) doing perfectly well with selling music and they have little incentive to switch their business model. Not to mention the fact that the labels have little incentive too, given that Spotify is still a (failing) experiment. Of course, it’s possible Apple could have secured something Amazing and could blow us away but, well, I just don’t feel it.
• Will there be a one more thing? They really have made it clear in the press release that this event is for software, and perhaps the prophecies will come true and the iPhone will be announced and released later in the year than normal. Perhaps the usual September event will be the place for iPhone 5? I won’t be getting the iPhone 5 anyway, so I really don’t care. All I do care about is this: iWork! Please, Apple, make your one more thing iWork ‘11 or ‘12. Or, any of these, of course.

For the last four years, I’ve been battling a belligerent love triangle on my computer: Ubuntu, Mac OS X and me.

I’ve gone through many phases. For one time, I didn’t use Ubuntu for months. In another period, I didn’t use Mac OS X for months. But, let me explain my current set up:

On my desk, I have a 17 inch MacBook Pro. It has a 2.66Ghz processor and 4Gb of RAM. When I bought it, it was the best standard specced laptop in the world (and also the most expensive). It was also the thinnest 17″ laptop in the world, too. I love. I have an external hard drive plugged into it, which has Ubuntu installed. I also have Ubuntu installed on a virtual machine on the Mac.

So, I have three choices. I can boot into Ubuntu and use only that. I can boot into Mac and use only that. I can boot into Mac and then fire up Ubuntu in a VM so I can use Mac OS X and Ubuntu alongside each other and access each other’s files.

I have distinct use cases for each.

I use Ubuntu for work. I am a coder. A web coder mostly, and I need a good operating system for this. For me, Ubuntu is the best. It comes with PHP, Python, Apache, etc installed already and it takes seconds to make a new website. I can visit http://localhost/ and get my website right there, using the database on my own computer, rather than connect to the production database in America. I make a change in the code and it is viewable in Google Chrome right away. It is a fast, efficient, pleasant way to develop.

What’s key is that I don’t have a Twitter client or email program installed. I don’t browse the web on it. I don’t have a graphics package or GarageBand or iPhoto or anything else which distracts me. On Ubuntu, I literally have a FTP program, a web browser and a text editor. It’s beautiful. It’s clean. It’s peaceful. It’s enlightened.

And then there’s Mac OS X. That’s where I go for everything else. Twitter, email, web browsing, iThing syncing, iPhoto-ing, other coding, blogging, et al. Sure, I could do most of these in Ubuntu, but I like to keep this separate.

Which do I prefer? Well, neither really. If I had to pick one favourite, I’d say Ubuntu. But, it isn’t a case of preferring one over the other. More an issue of different uses.

But there are pros and cons. Ubuntu is blazingly fast for one thing. So fast it makes Mac seem like Windows. But, there is more software for the Mac. I think I prefer some of Ubuntu’s paradigms, but it can take a little more effort.

And that is the extent of my triangle. Sometimes I think I should build my own PC with low specs (you don’t need a lot to run Ubuntu very fast, really a gig of RAM will suffice just plenty) and buy a huge screen – or even two screens – and be done with Apple. Maybe one day I will. But right now, I am content to jump between the two as need so dictates.

Ubuntu is my day machine. My workhorse. My powerful, lightweight working computer. Mac is my plaything. My friend. My tool of fun.

This is the difference. For me, my setup is perfect.

P.S. Of course, I haven’t even mentioned the impact my iPad has had over the last year. I find myself turning my computer off earlier and earlier and doing more and more that I would usually do on my Mac (email and blogging to name a few) on my iPad. This means I use my Mac less, with no impact on my Ubuntu use. This puts my percentage in pure time between the three at around 60% Ubuntu, 20% Mac and 20% iPad…

Geez.

A.

Lou.

For a blog which started out almost exclusively about technology, I sure haven’t blogged about technology for a long time. So here goes: The iPad 2. It will be announced on Wednesday, if the hints from the invitation are anything to go by. I figured I had better write some kind of prediction post with what I think we might see. Naturally, nobody will care. But I like writing.

The first issue will be who does the presentation. I assume it will be Tim Cook, the acting CEO since Steve Jobs is on medical leave at the moment, or someone like Schiller. One thing I have seen thrown around is that the idea that it may be announced that Jobs will not be returning to the company at all at this event, or that a plan of CEO-succession may be announced. This will not happen. When Jobs does quit, Apple’s share price will have a seizure and nosedive. For this reason, any kind of announcement like this will be made after trading hours, giving the market the night to reflect on the change and time for Apple to explain why it won’t happen. The announcement won’t happen at ten o’clock in the morning at the start of a full day of trading. Moving on:

So, about the actual device. Firstly, what major changes will there be? Screen size, for example. I expect it will stay exactly the same as it is now. Apple has been more than happy to berate the 7″ devices as DOA and pointless. (I agree, too. I have used a Galaxy Tab and, for me, I found it to be portable but not at all useful.) The only reason I can see Apple making a 7″ device is if demand for them is very high and taking product sales away from the iPad, which certainly isn’t happening now. But, you never know. And, remember, just because Steve says he hates something, doesn’t mean it won’t happen – he said nobody wanted to watch video on an iPod, he said Apple would never make a phone, he said Apple would never get involved in books because people don’t read and he said they’d never make a tablet because they were so bad.

And, about the screen resolution. I think it’s perfectly good. Fantastic, even. I wrote a piece about the idea of it having a retina display before:

Then there is the issue of the screen. People are throwing around the idea of a retina display for the iPad. I think this is complete crazy talk. Let’s remember what the definition of a Retina display is: a display with which the average human eye cannot discern the individual pixels. Apple found this to be 300 PPI. Consider what this meant for the iPhone: Original iPhone: 480 x 320 = 153,600 pixels at 165 PPI iPhone 4: 960 x 640 = 614,400 pixels at 330 PPI This is a big jump and these remain very big numbers but let’s transfer this to the iPad. Giving the iPad a retina display with at least 300 PPI, the resolution would be 2560 x 1920. That may not sound a lot, but it is. That’s more than my 17 inch MacBook Pro. It’s twice as much as Dell’s highest class 24 inch monitor. We’re talking about a 10 inch iPad which would be displaying as much information as two 24 inch monitors. Imagine how much rendering this would take. There is no way that an A4 could do that. Even assuming a new processor was powerful enough for general apps, even an Xbox could barely render a fast moving game at sizes like this. You would to tie a generator to the back of the iPad to use it without a power source.

I stand by all that. I don’t think it will have a retina display. I also think people need to be more careful when they talk about things like a “slight resolution increase”. I do not think Apple will do this. The iPad is currently 1024 × 768 and increasing the resolution a bit would create a weird number of pixels. The problem is for developers. Android has this problem and Apple have slated (PTP) it before, saying that developers have to make several different versions of apps to cope with all the different possible resolutions and sizes. With the iPhone 3GS to iPhone 4, the pixels were doubled to make the retina display. This meant there was no problem for developers – Apple could easily deal with resizing things and just ask developers to make higher quality graphics whenever they could.

You can’t make 1.3 times more pixels and have it work this flawlessly. Developers would need to change things and there would be multiple inconsistencies and unpleasantness. I think there will either be a doubling of resolution (which will take us to 2048 x 1536 pixels and 264 PPI, just short of the 2560 x 1920 and 326 target for a retina display) or no change at all.

Of course, resolution doesn’t have to change for a better screen. The screen can have better contrast and colours or better viewing angles or better response to sunlight. I’m not saying it will be the exact same screen – just I don’t think a resolution change will happen.

So, what else. A camera? A cameraS? Sure, why not. While I don’t think Apple will always do things that make sense, everyone is just certain there will be two cameras. Just don’t be so certain. As I wrote before:

Apple doesn’t mind saying no to something. I can picture Steve on stage right now, saying that the iPad has a camera on the front because, ‘FaceTime is great, everyone loves FaceTime,’ and then smoothly explaining away the lack of rear camera with, ‘but, nobody wants a camera on the back, nobody wants to hold up their big iPad, nobody wants that.’

And the SD card slot? Well, I don’t think so. Again, as I wrote before:

Consider the rumour of SD slot. Right. Hmm. Well, I don’t think so. Currently, Apple sells a small piece of hardware which plugs into your 32 pin connector and acts as a SD card reader. That’s great. I can look at my photos. Yay. But thats all. It’s a reader, nothing more. If Apple puts in a SD slot, would they allow you to simply use it as storage space? I don’t think so. Apple sells three three storage sizes of iPad. There is a bigger markup on the bigger devices and I don’t think they’ll throw all that away by adding an SD slow. Reader, perhaps. But, it’s seems like too much trouble to go to to add just a reader when they can charge you an ungodly amount for an adapter.

And the boring stuff. RAM increase? Sure. New processor? Sure (I don’t it’s the A4unicorn). Storage bumps? Probably.

Then, the other news.

iOS 5: I HOPE SO. Apple usually shows it off before it ships and this seems like the ideal time. I expect one of the tent poles to be a new notifications system. And that’s really all I care about.

MobileMe for the peasants: Will it be free? Is this why Apple built their big data centre? They recently stopped selling boxed versions of MobileMe, so it’s almost certain that something will be changing. I hope it gets free.

iTunes in the clouds: Will it happen? Is this why Apple built their big data centre? I sure hope so.

“Oh, and there is one more thing:

We are making a hydrogen car! It’s called the Apple Car.

Oh, and we’ve made a super intelligent robot to clean your house and stuff!”

Man, that would be cool.

This is not a review of the Kindle, but of the entire Kindle platform. I don’t read tree books anymore, only Kindle books as they’re better for the environment and I find them generally more convenient. Being able to buy a book and have it on your device in under 60 seconds really is great.

The store full of books – hundreds of thousands of them. If you want a book, it will nearly always be in the store. Books are usually cheaper than their paper counterparts, too. Some newer books are a little more expensive (often the same process as the hardback if that’s all they are available in). But, there are also books that are much cheaper for example, you can buy all 60 entire books by Dickens for just a couple of pounds. This would cost a few hundred pounds if you bought them all in paper form. There are many collections like this. Dickens, Shakespeare, Lovecraft, Wodehoouse, Austen, Wilde and thousands more for a few pounds. I think these incredibly cheap collections more than make up for some slightly expensive newer books. There are, however, somembooks which aren’t available, some very notable. For example, Harry Potter is nowhere to be found, and nor is James Bond. This are books which really should be in there, but I expect they will be soon.

I have the second generation 3G Kindle, which I got just over a year ago now. I think it is a fantastic device. It is very light and thin (with the new third generation Kindle being even thinner). The keyboard isn’t that nice to type on, but the third generation’s is said to be much nicer. I find the screen of very high quality, but the refresh rate in undeniably slow. Again, the new Kindle is much better. Moreover, the new Kindle is just £109. If you read books: it’s worth it.

The Kindle iPad app is well designed and works great. It offers all the features you could need and allows highlighting and bookmarking. Your place is also synced between the iPad app and the Kindle, meaning you can switch between them effortlessly. If you own an iPad, I really see no reason that you would use Apple’s iBooks for reading. The Apple iBookStore has very few books, and is far more expensive than Kindle books. Plus, with iBooks you’re tied to Apple iBooks. Sure, it’s available on the iPhone too, but if you buy a Kindle book, you can read that one books on the Mac, PC, Kindle, iPad, iPhone, Android, Blackberry and more. It just makes so much more sense than iBooks.

The Mac app is simple, but does what it says. I use it rarely, as I don’t see much of a reason to read on my Mac. However, it would be perfect for, say, a programming book. I’ll never buy a programming paper book again. It makes a lot more sense to have it on the iPad and Mac (because it’s searchable and highlightable).

It’s pretty much a prerequisite for me now. Before any Apple event, I take to my blog to post my predictions. So here goes:

Apple have said it’s ‘back to the Mac’, which is great, because many people have been foreseeing the end of the Mac (with multiple crazy people even saying Apple will just open source Mac OS X)… The first thing (which is pretty much a given) will be 10.7. Do remember that it was over a year before Snow Leopard was announced and shipped, so don’t expect immediate availability. I did a blog post a while about about what I wanted Mac OS 11 to be – these aren’t predictions though, merely requests. Linux kernel is my favourite, although I doubt that would happen…

A new MacBook Air seems the popular rumour right now, and I agree that this makes sense. However, I don’t think a smaller screen is likely – that’s what the iPad is for. A new Air really doesn’t interest me, so let’s move on.

iWork. All we’ve got at the moment is 2009. We haven’t had an update for ages – I’m still using 2008! Since it’s so late in the year now, expect it to be called 2011. I think it’ll also ship immediately as that’s what they usually do with this kind of software.

iLife 2011 will probably join iWork too. I can’t really imagine what they’ll add, but I expect it’ll be good.

Although I do think this will be mostly about the Mac, I think we’ll get the usual updates (particularly updated AT&T call drop data, if it’s better), Apple TV sales info if it was good and maybe something else crazy (like a Verizon iPhone)…

I’ve decided to write a book, for no other reason than I think it will be fun. I always wanted to be a journalist. And I don’t really do anything else with my life, so I figured it’d be relaxing too.

I don’t really expect to finish it – or to even attempt to get it published in the sense of sending manuscripts to people. But, if I decide to I will publish it to the Amazon ebook store so that anybody with a Kindle or iPad or iPhone or Mac or PC can read it – and everyone has at least one of those…

The book is about something I’m passionate about – animal rights. That makes it really interesting to research, if nothing else (it’s amazing learning about all the people who cared about animal rights too, like Albert Einstein).

To write the book, I’m using Scrivener, which is simply amazing. It is one of those few Mac apps that feels like it was developed by Apple and that is really quite perfect. I love it and would recommend it to anybody doing any kind of slightly long writing project – you won’t regret it.

I’ll keep you updated…