But there is one feature missing from iOS that will prevent it from ever being effective with an external display: a cursor. I know this seems blasphemous but if you have ever tried to us an iPad with mirroring, you know that you must still look at the iPad to get anything done.

To use the iPad as a desktop replacement, mirroring is not enough. I need a cursor displayed where my finger touches the iPad (or iPhone) so that I have context on the external display. Every time I see iOS app demo videos they are accompanied by cursor representations for the touch interactions, and I think “that would be a great feature on the AppleTV.

I have used AirPlay Mirroring with my iPad 2, and I agree that it’s weird to be forced to look down at your iPad’s display if you want to get anything done that’s not sliding presentations and photos. Even games, in spite of their less complex on-screen controls and interfaces than, say, an app like OmniFocus, can be hard to be played without looking down sometimes.

What I’d like to see — and something that likely won’t happen anytime soon — is a series of “desktop accessories” to better take advantage of the iPad when mirrored or connected to an external display. For instance, imagine some sort of Magic Trackpad for iOS that would allow you to retain gestures and multitouch, but have a cursor when the iPad is mirrored to an Apple TV. Something I often hear (and find myself into as well) is that some apps are just better with a cursor in the current state of software offerings — for example, image editing and highlighting text. Imagine if Apple built an official accessory that, through APIs (much like iCade does), allowed developers to enhance their apps with direct support for “cursor mode” when the iPad’s screen is mirrored or even when the device is held by a stand (magnetic latches could inform the system of the current orientation of the device). If I had to put my two cents in it, I’d say this could be a way to market the iPad as a device capable of switching to a more precision control-oriented environment if needed. Video professionals woud sure welcome such a move.

I’m not saying Apple should produce a convertible tablet that switches between iOS and OS X (albeit Apple’s direction seems to be making switching between the two a seamless experience) — I’m arguing that some specific software and functions are better with a cursor in the current state of things. So unless we’ll see revolutionary new touch controls that will obviate the need for such idea, I think cursor controls on an app-by-app basis is something worth considering for the future of iOS’ mirroring and external display connections.

Perhaps Apple is fully committed to multi-touch and we’ll never see new cursor-based interfaces/hardware coming out of Cupertino again. But I think cursor-based controls are still superior for some kind of apps, especially for professional software such as video and image editing.

I’m not usually one for making baseless predictions about what Apple’s going to do next. There are plenty of people who already do that, and I’m generally more interested in their current affairs than in unconfirmed rumors. But there are exceptions to every “usually”, and today I want to try my hand at speculating.

Though we tend to forget about them after the fact, iPads have always debuted with iPad versions of some of Apple’s biggest apps. The original was released alongside iWork, to show that the iPad could do real work from day one (never mind how many people derided it as a consumption device for months). The iPad 2 brought an iPad-optimized version of iMovie and GarageBand, which expanded the boundaries of what everyone thought could be created with a touch screen.

Now Apple is on a photography kick in a big way. Not only have they been relentlessly improving the iPhone’s camera since the 3GS, they have also added important and useful features in iOS 5 in the form of basic photo edits, built-in HDR and composition grids, the ability to organize albums, and Photo Stream, which near everyone agrees is their favorite feature of iCloud.

Given all that, I think that the next big Apple app to make its iOS debut will be Aperture, alongside the iPad 3’s inevitable announcement. Our own Cody Fink has written about the possibility of Aperture for iOS before, but there are a number of reasons why the timing for it makes sense now.

Retina Display
The one thing everyone expects about the iPad 3 is that it will finally get its long-awaited Retina display. It’s also the feature that everyone is most looking forward to (and for good reason, seeing what a huge difference it made when we first saw it on the iPhone 4). Of course this display will be great for reading and writing text, but what better way to really show it off than with photography, where the crispness and clarity of the display will be readily apparent?

A6
Another all-but-certain feature everyone agrees the iPad 3 will have is a quad-core A6, the next evolution of Apple’s A-series mobile processors. Like the A5, this chip will surely include vastly improved CPU and graphics performance over its predecessor, and in addition to games a great way to demonstrate it would be an iOS version of Aperture that shows how fast and fluidly the iPad 3 can manage tons of photos and perform complex image edits.

Photo Stream
Given Apple’s current photography kick the iPad 3 is likely to have better cameras than the iPad 2, but even if they’re not as good as the ones on the 4S —which, given how poor the ones on the 2 are compared to even the iPhone 4, seems likely— the brilliant thing with Photo Stream is that they don’t have to be. With Photo Stream, every photo you take on your 4S, your iPad 3, or even on a DSLR (once it’s been imported into iPhoto or OS X Aperture) would be available on your iOS Aperture library without you having to lift a finger.

iCloud Metadata Sync
We know iCloud is a big part of Apple’s strategy, and is only going to get bigger as time goes on. I can see iCloud playing a big part in Aperture on both iOS and the Mac. Any photo tagged, edited, or organized in one version of Aperture could be automatically mirrored with those same changes on another. Naturally this won’t make sense for current large Aperture libraries, but perhaps there will be a special iCloud section on the Mac version (like how there’s already a section for Photo Stream) specifically for photos that have been edited in this way.

Another Desktop Need Eliminated
iOS 5 may have given us “true” post-PC devices that could finally be used independently of our old-fashioned mice and window-based systems, but many people still need traditional PCs to store and manage digital photo collections. Aperture for iOS (along with iCloud and higher-capacity iPads) could be the next natural step in the iPad’s evolution towards being the only computer that 90% of people need.

Like I said, I don’t usually care to make baseless predictions, and everything here is certainly that. I have no idea if Apple will do any of this or not; for all we know they could be readying iOS versions of Logic and Final Cut Pro instead. But when you consider what the combination of Aperture for iOS with a retina-enabled iPad 3 could do, I think we may very well be seeing this alongside its announcement.

One More Thing: Open photos in any iOS image editor
This is more of a wish than a guess, but just like Aperture on the Mac I would love to see Aperture on iOS have the ability to open any image in any of the great image editing apps that already exist for iOS (with the ability to roundtrip them back into Aperture, of course). I have even less of an idea as to whether Apple will do this than I do my above speculations. Perhaps we will have to wait for a future version of iOS that better lets us share data between apps. But when and whether it happens or not, I think it would be a great way to let Aperture for iOS coexist happily among the many photo apps that iOS users already know and enjoy.

I, however, would like to take a different route and look at this issue from a broader perspective that includes data, Apple’s history, the current market’s situation, and the tech community’s change of direction on the “iPad as a PC” debate over the past two years.

The starting point, I believe, lies in the words Steve Jobs used to introduce the iPad back in 2010:

Everybody uses a laptop and a smartphone. And a question has arisen lately: is there room for a third category of device in the middle? Something that’s between a laptop and a smartphone. And of course we’ve pondered this question for years as well. The bar’s pretty high. In order to really create a new category of devices, those devices are going to have to be far better at doing some key tasks. Better than a laptop. Better than a smartphone. Now, some people have thought…that’s a netbook. The problem is, netbooks aren’t better at anything. They’re slow, they have low quality displays and they run clunky old PC software. So, they’re not better than a laptop at anything. They’re just cheaper. They’re just cheap laptops. We don’t think they’re a new category of device.

In the few minutes that led to the iPad’s introduction, Jobs carefully set the tone and Apple’s position for the upcoming discussions on the true nature of the device: the iPad is meant to be a “third category” that executes “key tasks” better than a laptop, and better than a smartphone. He didn’t compare the iPad to a PC, but he did mention that Apple wouldn’t follow the trend of releasing cheap “netbooks” that “aren’t better at anything”. Of course, Steve Jobs iterated on his statements regarding the nature of the iPad a few months later at D8 Conference. This is where Jobs famously compared PCs to trucks:

When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks, because that’s what you needed on the farm,” Jobs said at D8 last month. “But as vehicles started to be used in the urban centers, cars got more popular. Innovations like automatic transmission and power steering and things that you didn’t care about in a truck as much started to become paramount in cars….PCs are going to be like trucks. They’re still going to be around, they’re still going to have a lot of value, but they’re going to be used by one out of x people.

As you can see, Jobs’ public definition and positioning of the iPad slightly changed in the months between January and June 2010. I believe the more intimate setting of D8 got Jobs into a talking mood which helped him express what he truly felt about the iPad and PCs; I also believe Apple itself was (is) still trying to understand what the iPad ultimately is, thus definitions and public statements might change and evolve over time. Tim Cook stated numerous times that, whilst excited about the opportunities opened by iPad, Apple still has to fully understand just how much market there is behind it. Furthermore, keep in mind how Apple initially touted the iPad as a productivity machine (2010 keynote), then an entertainment platform (iPad 2 keynote) and subsequently as an educational machine (January 2012). Apple still has to fully grasp the potential of the iPad, and is firing on all cylinders to gain as much share as possible before the market is too crowded. That’s not to say Apple doesn’t have a strategy; in fact, they have multiple ones and they are trying to optimize the proper sequence for the company to put them in place.

Strategies, typically, are based on patterns, and Apple wouldn’t have gotten to exceed $46 billion in revenue if these patterns hadn’t been associated with the numbers and data coming in after the launch of the original iPad. The numbers speak clearly for Apple: of all iOS devices, the iPad has the most rapid trajectory in every quarter since launch with an impressive growth from 3.27 million units (first quarter) to 15.43 million units sold (last quarter). Horace Dediu has put together a nice chart showing the penetration of the iPad in terms of shipments and growth.

Numbers help establishing patterns that define strategies and business models. Sure enough, the early success of the iPad has allowed Apple to turn a product that represents a good 20% of revenue into a category worth focusing on for the future. As I explained in this article, if the source is to be believed, Tim Cook hinting at the iPad being a better alternative than a possible ARM-based, iPad-like MacBook Air is interesting for a number of reasons. First off, it sort of implies that tasks that can be accomplished with an iPad-inspired MacBook Air (that is, regular PC tasks with instant-on and a slimmer form factor) could be easily, if not better executed by the iPad itself. Indeed, the same report goes on to note that Tim Cook believes the iPad ”satisfies—or will soon satisfy—the needs of those who might have been interested in such a product”. More importantly, assuming an ARM-based MacBook Air has ever been in testing within Apple and that such a machine would be positioned as an ultra-portable, fast and durable low-end Mac, it means Apple sees the iPad as the portable and lightweight personal computer for the masses seeking a high-quality product in the low end. Read More

With quarterly earnings, education announcements and Macworld under its belt, this week the Apple community had time to think and reflect upon recent events. Much of the controversy surrounding the iBooks Author EULA is gone, thanks to a clarification from Apple with a software update and Zynga now taking the spot of most hated company on the planet. At least for this week. Independent writers and bloggers share their thoughts on what it means to attend Macworld besides getting to report on news and interview people, whilst Harry McCracken provides us with a fantastic piece against “Apple is like a cult” promoters. Meanwhile, Apple’s Q1 2012 results are still impressing a large part of the blogosphere.

It’s this week’s Reading List, so get comfortable, fire up your read-later application of choice, and enjoy. Read More

Apple doesn’t refer to iPad as a PC, but as a “post-PC device,” leaving the ARM-based tablet distinct from the company’s Intel-based Macs. Gardner further indicated the meeting dispelled the notion that Apple might introduce ARM-based Macs, countering rumors that a new MacBook Air featuring an ARM processor might appear sometime soon.

Gardner cited Cook as alluding to “rapid innovation on the iOS platform” that will “significantly broaden the use case for tablets,” and stated he “walked away from this meeting with the impression that Apple feels iPad satisfies—or will soon satisfy—the needs of those who might have been interested in such a product” as an ARM-based MacBook Air.

The rumors of Apple switching from Intel to ARM-based architectures on Macs left many wondering when they first surfaced online. And whilst it wouldn’t be a surprise to know that Apple has at least tested A5-based MacBook Airs and other sorts of ARM CPUs for portables — of course a company like Apple wants to experiment with as many hardware alternatives as possible — many debated whether it would make sense for the company to switch in the near future, when quad-core ARM processors are seemingly ready for the next-generation of iOS devices.

That Apple doesn’t believe an ARM-based MacBook Air — or, as the competitors would call it, an ARM Ultrabook — would be needed on the market isn’t a surprise, either. Assuming there is a market for users who want a low-power, battery life efficient portable machine in the range of 11″ and 13″ — a machine that, in theory, should be used for tasks such as word processing, lightweight image editing, browsing, and email — Apple believes that market can be satisfied — or will be “soon” satisfied as AppleInsider writes — by the iPad.

From a user’s standpoint, I think Apple’s reasoning here is that, ultimately, someone who’s seeking an 11-inch or even 13-inch machine with the technological perks of the iPad would be better off with an iPad, which is lighter, more portable, and has a richer selection of apps (from Apple’s perspective in looking at simple App Store numbers). There are edge cases, such as people who would strongly argue against iOS’ virtual keyboard, but I believe what Tim Cook is saying here — again, at least according to AppleInsider — is that the hypothetical market for an ARM MacBook Air should just settle with an iPad, as it’s a versatile, innovative machine that will get more feature soon. I don’t always want to look much into reports about interviews out of their original context, but if that “soon” is to be believed, I wouldn’t mind seeing more productivity-oriented software from Apple at the next iPad event — apps such as Aperture and, who knows, maybe even a portable programming suite would be perfect to further showcase the iPad’s capabilities as a “real” PC.

More importantly, Gardner’s “impression” that Apple feels satisfied with the iPad is also backed up by the numbers: in the past quarter alone, Apple sold over 15 million iPads, and “only” 5.2 million Macs. In the amount of time that Apple should spend transitioning a Mac product (the MacBook Air) to a new CPU architecture and getting developers to begin supporting this new “hybrid” machine, the company could easily sell another 20 million iPads. That’s not to say Apple will never switch to ARM (never is a dangerous word) on the desktop and that they haven’t considered it, but I’ve never believed it could happen in a short period of time as some of the early rumors claimed.

Looking at the first quarters of iPad sales and reception, I’d say Tim Cook is right to be focusing on iPads.

The fact is that these workers have a choice, albeit a limited one, about where to work. And they are working at factories like Foxconn —which, I remind you, is a wholly separate entity from Apple— because they are better than the alternatives: no job at all, or a job that pays far worse with even harsher conditions.

Think about that. As bad as the stories that we’ve heard about working there are —and make no mistake, they are horrid and no one should have to work under such conditions— the fact that Foxconn has a six-month waiting list of people hoping to become employees seems to suggest that they are still much better than any other opportunity these workers have available.

Given all that, is Apple being ethical by working with a company like Foxconn? A company that, for all its problems, still provides a significantly better alternative to the people clamoring to be hired? I would argue yes.

If Apple were to abandon their involvement with Foxconn and other abusive Chinese suppliers like these boycotts are calling for, what would happen to these workers? The boycotters apparently believe that they would be set free to find safe, well-paid work elsewhere. But if working at Foxconn was already one of the best opportunities they had, that outcome seems unlikely at best.

In reality, they would likely be forced to take a job at another factory with even worse pay and worse conditions. Or perhaps have no choice but to perform peasant work for a fraction of the money they were earning before. Worst case, they may not even be able to find another job at all.

If the goal of a boycott is to assuage the guilt of first-world citizens for buying Apple products made under harsh conditions, Apple leaving China would certainly accomplish that. But if the goal is to make things better for the workers themselves, the only realistic option I can see is for Apple to continue what they’re doing: work with these companies, demand better conditions, conduct audits, and have the workers paid as well as possible for people in their position. 1

Yes, the conditions these workers labor under are terrible. They may have no better choices in their economy, but that doesn’t mean what’s happening there is okay. If first-world companies are going to continue to do business with China and Chinese companies, the only ethical thing for these companies to do is demand continual improvement. And we too should demand as much of those companies whose products we buy.

But the fact remains that as of now, these people will be exploited no matter what we do. Ceasing to provide them better employment opportunities will not help them. Quite the opposite: it will only leave them subject to even worse alternatives. Given that, I believe the best thing we can do is support companies that are taking responsibility for improving conditions and wages for the people that make their products. And right now, the company that is taking the most responsibility…is Apple.

I’ll just start with this question: what computer is more personal than an iPad? The tablet form factor and iOS software combine together to make using the iPad a far more personal computing device than a traditional PC desktop or laptop, where you have to interact with the software from an arm’s length away, using a mouse or trackpad and a keyboard.

So the iPad is personal device, but is it a fully functional computer? John Mello at PCWorld says no, because in his opinion people don’t use it for content creation. Matthew’s article on TNW does a great job at dismantling this oft-quoted “complaint” about the  iPad and I recommend reading his entire argument. When the iPad first came out I must admit I had the same thoughts about the device, but as time has gone on I have increasingly used it for content-creation — whether it be annotating PDFs for studying, writing, and even some (very average) efforts at using iMovie. Content-creation on the iPad will continue to become more common as people adjust to the device and as app developers continue to adapt to creating great software for the iPad — just look at how productivity apps have improved and advanced in the past year on the iPad.

Sure, some content-creation tasks may never be as easy to do on an iPad compared to a more traditional PC — things like advanced video editing or long stretches of writing. But by the same token, a small netbook isn’t good for those tasks either and yet it is counted as a PC. I know I would always choose an iPad over a netbook for virtually any task because in my opinion it is a far more capable personal computer. On the flip side, I think the iPad is actually a better computer for things like annotating PDFs with apps such as PDF Expert. Then for things like advanced video or audio editing it’s only inevitable for those apps to transition to iOS, in fact just today Avid Studio was released – it may be a distilled version of the advanced desktop version, but it will evolve and become increasingly powerful for most tasks that an average user and even “pro-sumer” will need. The iPad is personal and (in my opinion) it is also a functional computing device.

So if you are excluding the iPad from the personal computer category, does that mean there is some checklist of requirements for a device to be a PC? Does it need a keyboard, or perhaps a trackpad or a mouse, or does it just have to be able to install any application you want (without the approval of a gatekeeper such as Apple)? All of these ‘requirements’ are completely arbitrary – with no practical reason as to why they are required to be on a PC. You can still connect a keyboard to the iPad if you need one for extended periods of writing, your finger is the “mouse” and Apple’s App Store has mostly protected consumers from nefarious apps or excessively useless/buggy apps — virtually everything I need is on the App Store (in fact there are over 170,000 apps just for the iPad). You may not like this policy (I can understand that, even if I don’t agree with it), but is it really a reason to bar the iPad from being counted as a PC? Again, that’s completely arbitrary.

Arbitrary: Based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.

If you are still thinking that the iPad doesn’t count as a PC, what will all those Windows 8 computers in tablet/slate form be counted as? You can’t bar them from being “a PC” because they will be able to “morph” into what is essentially a Windows 8 laptop with a traditional Windows desktop, use a keyboard (and even mouse) and yet you can use it like them as tablets with a different, touch-based UI.

But if you do count them as a PCs, you surely have to count the iPad as a PC too then. They will be virtually identical devices from a functionality and experience point of view, unless you say the Windows 8 tablet is a PC because it will still have the traditional Windows desktop, and then I go back to the fact that it is an arbitrary requirement. One might actually argue (from what we know at the moment), that the iPad is more functional and will provide a better experience because it has two years of developer support with apps that have been specifically designed for the touch interface, whereas any Windows 8 tablet may be handicapped with the Windows desktop because it isn’t designed for touch-input and Metro may lack many apps at launch. The reality is that both should be counted as PCs: it is the only logical solution.

But…but…..but….

You might now point to the fact that Apple has touted the iPad as a Post-PC device, so surely if Apple themselves aren’t calling it a PC, it shouldn’t then be counted in any PC marketshare analysis. It’s a decent point, but I think Apple did that as more of a marketing move, to point out that it is a different, unique device. In fact, it is the next evolution (if not revolution) of the personal computer. Maybe the solution is just calling the “traditional” PC category something different (Desktops & Laptops perhaps?) that would make much more sense than trying to arbitrarily force the iPad out of the PC category.

One other decent rebuttal may be to then ask, if you are including the iPad, why not also include the iPhone. It’s a very good point, because I think it is also a personal computing device to some degree. I think the reason why it’s legitimate to leave the iPhone and other smartphones out of most PC market analysis is because there are enough points of differentiation between the traditional PC/iPad and the smartphone in the way it is used and experienced. These include the fact that smartphones have a distinct use case of being always-on communication devices, time management devices (Calendar/To-Do apps, etc), time-wasters (Angry Birds in a long queue, anyone?), and are occasionally used for content-creation or content consumption. They are also devices you spend using for a few minutes at a time (typically), multiple times a day — rather than PCs (including iPad), which you use for longer periods of time.

You might claim these are arbitrary reasons and, yes, to some degree they are, but that’s because the line between whether a smartphone can also be counted as a PC is a far blurrier line than that of iPads as PCs. In my opinion at least, it would be OK to include smartphones as PCs in a market analysis if there is a good reason as to why it’s an important conclusion – such as an analysis of trends. A good example of this is Horace Dediu, who included smartphones as PCs in the final graph of his article entitled “The rise and fall of personal computing“.

So as Matthew Panzarino said yesterday in a very succinct title and what I completely agree with, “tablets are PCs, get over it”.

Starting this month we’re launching a new, month-in-review feature that will summarize the past month’s big news stories, apps and editorials that we have published on MacStories. Each month we’ll give links to all those big stories and give a summation of the big events: for example, this month we detail Apple’s Education Event and include links to all the important articles related to it. We’ll also include links to new apps, app updates and app reviews that we think are worthy of your attention. Finally, we’ll be including links to our standout editorial stories from the past month – the stories we are most proud of.

We hope you enjoy this new feature and find it useful. Our hope is that it gives some perspective on the events of the past month, particularly when news flows so fast these days.

Apple’s Education Event

The big news of January was probably Apple’s Education Event that was held on January 19th in New York. The education-themed event saw the release of iBooks 2.0 which featured the ability to read new multi-touch books and, specifically, textbooks. In order to promote the creation of these new multi-touch books, Apple also released the free iBooks Author application for OS X, allowing virtually anyone to create a beautiful and interactive book for the iBookstore. The event also saw the release of an iTunes U app for the iPhone and iPad to give students and teachers more control over their courses.

Apple’s Q1 2012 Earnings Call

The other significant piece of news from January was Apple’s Q1 2012 earnings call in which Apple revealed it had just had the best quarter in its history, posting $46.33 billion in revenue, selling 37.04 million iPhones and 15.43 million iPads during the blowout quarter. The Next Web pointed out an interesting statistic that by selling 37.04 million iPhones during the 14 week quarter, Apple had actually sold more iPhones than babies had been born during the same time period. We also posted some of the more interesting details and statistics from the earnings call in a follow-up post which is well worth the read. A final article related to the earnings call is the one about how the iPhone ASP rose in Q1 2012, despite the addition of the “free” iPhone 3GS.

Apple Continued To Rollout Products Internationally

January saw the next big wave of iPhone 4S launches in China and 21 other countries on January 13th, making the 4S available in over 90 countries. Apple’s recently launched iTunes Match also became available in 19 additional countries around Europe and South America – taking the total number of countries with iTunes Match to 37 – making it another quick international rollout.

Supplier Responsibility

This month the issue of working conditions at Apple’s suppliers again came under close inspection. It started with the NPR program ‘This American Life’ investigating the issue in one of its episodes. Apple then released its annual Supplier Responsibility report (earlier than last year) and revealed its list of suppliers for the first time. Towards the end of the month, The New York Times featured an editorial on the issue – focusing on Apple. We also linked to a paidContent article that put the NYT article into perspective and rationally laid out the reality that Apple can’t solely change manufacturing overnight.

Jailbreak

January saw the untethered A5 jailbreak finally being released, to the joy of many iPhone 4S and iPad 2 owners who had been holding out for a jailbreak for quite some months. In fact the demand for the jailbreak saw nearly 1 million downloads of the tool in just the first 24 hours. Jailbreak certainly hasn’t become irrelevant just yet.

New SVP of Retail

On January 31, Apple announced John Browett has been hired as new Senior Vice President of Retail, a position left open since Ron Johnson left Apple to become the new CEO of J.C. Penney. Browett has been the CEO of European technology retailer Dixons and previously held various executive positions at Tesco, including CEO.

Everything Else

• Kickstarter: TidyTilt, a Smart Cover Design with Smart Options for the iPhone
• Infinity Blade Franchise Exceeds $30 Million in Revenue
• Apple Releases iOS 5.1 Beta 3
• App Store Search Results Get “Quick Look” Previews
• iPad 3 To Launch In March with LTE, Retina Display, Quad-Core Processor
• Camera+ Reaches 6 Million Downloads, Over $5 Million In Revenue
• Virgin America Names Jet “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish” After Steve Jobs
• Adam Lashinsky’s Inside Apple Is Now Available For Purchase On The iBookstore
• Evernote Working On Todo List App Following Egretlist Acquisition
• Lion Full-Screen, New Tab Page Sneak Into Early Firefox 12 Build
• Obama, Romney Election Campaigns To Use Square In Fundraising Efforts

New apps, updates to apps and reviews that we published in January 2012.

• Google Translate for iOS Updated with iPad Support
• Day One 1.5 for iOS: Now With iCloud Sync
• Day One for Mac 1.5: iCloud Sync, Markdown, Full-Screen
• Analog 1.1 Launches With New Photo Options, Filters
• PDF Expert 3.2 Brings Full PDF Searching And Better Support For Bluetooth Keyboards
• Fantastical 1.2 Adds International Languages To Event Parsing Engine
• Smile’s PDFpen for iPad Is A Powerful 1.0 Version
• Calendr for iPhone: Fast and Elegant Event Creation
• Phraseology for iPad: Write, Remix, and Markdown
• Yoink 2.0 Brings Smarter Drag & Drop To Lion
• xScope 3: Measure. Inspect. Test.
• Clear: An Interview With Impending’s Phill Ryu
• Witness Home Alarm System Gets AppleScript Support, Sneak Peek, Face Detection
• Apple Releases iOS-like AirPort Utility 6.0 for Lion
• Apple Updates FCP X With Multicam Editing, Enhanced XML

January Quick Reviews

• Quick Review: Werdsmith for iOS
• Quick Review: Consume As An Online Usage Monitor
• Quick Review: Wikibot
• Quick Review: NewsFlash Aggregates The World’s Headlines

A selection of the best editorial pieces that we published on MacStories in January 2012.

• My Educated Guess On What The Next Apple TV Will Be
• On Comments
• Mac App Store: Year One
• New Apps for 2012
• New Twitter Clients
• Review: Logitech Tablet Keyboard for iPad
• The Apple Community
• The Problem With The iOS Home Screen
• The Apple Of Gaming
• The State Of iCloud-enabled Apps
• The iOS-ification Of Apple’s Ecosystem

January MacStories Reading Lists

• MacStories Reading List: January 15 – January 22
• MacStories Reading List: January 22 – January 29

I am looking at my Mac’s screen right now, and I can count dozens of iOS-inspired elements now co-existing with “old school” Aqua interfaces and controls. This transition obviously started years ago, and in retrospect it’s hard to dig up the very first example of iOS-ification on the Mac, so let’s just take a general look at the things we have today:

iPhoto (updated in 2010);

Safari’s popover for Downloads;

Safari’s tap-to-define;

Launchpad;

Linen;

Settings;

Mail;

iCal;

Address Book;

FaceTime (released in 2010);

And now, the new AirPort Utility.

Of course, many great writers have already written about the general concept of graphical resemblance of Lion (our review) to, say, an iPad, noting how several iOS apps and UI schemes have been ported down to the last pixel to OS X. The screenshots above should provide some context.

Today’s (relatively minor) software update reminds me, however, that the iOS-ification goes far beyond simply converting graphics and updating apps from one platform to another. It is actually more a conversion of the entire Apple ecosystem to an iOS-inspired system of graphical elements, user interactions, business models, user experience paradigms, and functionalities. The iOS-ification isn’t simply visual, it’s a fundamental shift of strategy that, ultimately, I believe begins and ends with iCloud — something that I have discussed before.

Sure, many apps look the same across iOS and Lion now. Some features have worked the other way around, finding their way from OS X to iOS, such as Safari Reader and over-the-air software updates. Others weren’t ported — they were released at the same time across two platforms, such as Reading List (which fits in the bigger iCloud plan). From the user experience standpoint, there’s plenty of iOS goodness to go by in Lion: full-screen mode and Auto Save + Resume give users an iOS-like environment for working with apps and never lose data; natural scrolling and gestures have unified the way a user moves content around and interacts with the operating system; the Home user’s Library directory is not visible by default in Lion, eliminating an important piece of filesystem from the default configuration of the OS.

Then there’s the business side of the ecosystem. Both iOS and Mac apps have to be sold through the App Store, with Apple retaining a 30% cut off every transaction (Update: Mac apps can still be sold outside of the Mac App Store. Many have debated, however, that going forward the obvious path is the Mac App Store, with some feature such as iCloud integration being Mac App Store-only). Just like on iOS, Mac developers will soon be forced to implement sandboxing, which limits the access a third-party app has to the filesystem. And, obviously, boxed software is going away, leaving much retail room to Mac and iOS devices showcasing the App Store. Or shelves filled with iOS accessories.

iOS-ification isn’t merely graphical: I believe someday, very soon, almost every aspect of Apple’s operations will be iOS-inspired or iOS-unified: from hardware design to user interfaces and app distribution, from developer guidelines to marketing and the way people “see” Apple these days. Those who got to know Apple in the past five years likely already think of it as “the iPhone company”, and rightfully so for a business largely based on revenue coming from iOS.

There are many questions left unanswered and open to speculation. Will the Mac adopt iOS’ Home screen concept (and shortcomings) in the future? Will the next version of iWork for OS X look something along the lines of this? Will Mac-only applications (and thus Mac-like from a UI standpoint) like Aperture, Final Cut and iBooks Author ever be ported to iOS, triggering an iOS-based rewrite and redesign? We don’t know yet. But soon, maybe?

The complete iOS-ification of the ecosystem will be long and there will still be hardware features and design experimentations that will be tested on the Mac first. We can only assume that Thunderbolt will be made available for iOS devices in the future. Macs are still based on physical keyboards, and even if they (perhaps) don’t want to, Apple’s engineers are forced to test new apps with keyboard shortcuts and a different user interaction. Macs have bigger screens, which can lead to arguable design choices like a comically large Launchpad.

But the seed has been planted, and today’s software release is just another drip of water in a field ready to flourish in iOS-based similarities, like it or not.

Another week gone by, another Reading List collection of great articles we’ve found around the web in the past seven days. This week saw the release of Apple’s Q1 2012 results, with an impressive 37 million iPhones sold and over $40 billion in revenue for the quarter. Interesting discussions, however, are still happening around iBooks Author, textbooks, and publishing tools. Not to mention The New York Times’ articles detailing Apple’s supply chain in China, and the experience of an Android user trying an iPhone for two weeks.

It’s time for another Reading List, so curl up with your favorite browser or read-later app, and enjoy the links we’ve collected for you. Read More

iCloud went live alongside iOS 5 and OS X 10.7.2 on October 12th, two days ahead of the iPhone 4S’ launch. In retrospect, iCloud’s public debut wasn’t without its issues and hiccups, but it was relatively smooth in the following days and Apple acted promptly to restore interrupted services for its users. Looking back, it’s just weird how many times iCloud Mail has been down, and continues to be unstable, whereas iCloud sync (for apps and data) has been fairly responsive and, at least on my side, always up. This says a lot about priorities, I guess.

In 107 days since iCloud went live, and 235 since Apple’s announcement at WWDC ’11, it appears the majority of third-party developers are still considering whether or not iCloud is something worth investing their time — and customers’ money — or not. Those who have successfully implemented iCloud have done so in ways that require minimal user interaction, most of the times enabling sync capabilities through a single setting switch. Others have tried more complex solutions, often having to come up with separate tools to enable iCloud. Especially on the Mac, the fact that only apps sold through the Mac App Store can be directly integrated with iCloud isn’t helping developers who are still selling apps both on Apple’s App Store and their own website. Overall, there seems to be a shared trend among developers choosing to wait for Apple to clarify specific aspects of iCloud sync, improve the platform and fix some bugs that may prevent certain applications from being iCloud-enabled without requiring a major restructuring of the codebase on their end. Turning an iOS or Mac app into an iCloud-enabled app hasn’t turned out to be the 1-click process many, including me, wrongfully assumed when iCloud was previewed at WWDC last year.

Every app has its own way of storing local documents and user data. Some apps prefer keeping the original source of a document intact, say a .txt file, whilst others may apply their own file format to store documents and data internally in a proprietary database or multiple files, such as Evernote’s take on XML. There are pros and cons: keeping a universal file format such as plain text gets you more benefits in data portability; writing your own database structure allows you, as a developer, to do things exactly the way you want. What does this mean for iCloud?

Without getting too technical (also because my knowledge on the subject can only get you so far before I suggest you go read the developer documentation), the developers I’ve talked to explained that in the way iCloud syncs file, there may be some incompatibilities with apps that are based on complex databases and libraries. Apps that simply want to sync .txt files across multiple devices might be easier to port to iCloud, but then again there are always some aspects to consider such as conflicts, renaming a file, or getting a timestamp for the modification date when multiple devices are accessing iCloud. That’s not to say implementing iCloud is technically impossible for apps that are based on libraries, and not easily exportable files: below, I’ve collected some examples of apps that do just that, and quite cleverly too. However, getting to enable iCloud and make it reliable enough so that all kinds of apps can work with it without frustrating the user (who, in theory, never has access to the inner workings of iCloud) while at the same time providing the functionalities he or she expects. Read More

A great piece by Craig Grannell at Revert To Saved about the current state of Nintendo:

For a long time, I considered Nintendo the Apple of gaming—a company that cared about the details and about the right things (fun, excitement, enjoyment). Nintendo’s problem these days is that Apple is now the Apple of gaming—and the Japanese veteran needs to fight back, perhaps borrowing some of the tricks used by the plucky American upstart.

Yours truly, two months ago:

It’s always about the games, ultimately, but the hardware matters, too. More importantly, integration of hardware and software matters, and with my iOS gaming background I think Nintendo still has to get this right. Using the 3DS after years of iPhones and iPads feels strange because I’m dealing with a device that’s pretty capable spec-wise, yet doesn’t show the same amount of attention to detail, integration and flexibility that my iPhone has. I can play Angry Birds on my iPad, quickly look up a webpage, send an iMessage to my friend real quick and then effortlessly come back to the game. I challenge you to do the same on the 3DS with that joke of Internet browser and “suspended” software on the Home screen.

The problem with Nintendo is that for the longest time they thought only geeks and iPhone nerds were paying attention to App Store games, replacing their handhelds with iPads and iPods. It turns out, previous Nintendo customers are actually moving to mobile platforms — I’ll throw Android in the mix as well — for all their gaming needs. Blame changes in society, blame the recession, blame the advancements in graphics processing that made Infinity Blade II possible — mobile gaming is very much real, albeit immature, and Nintendo failed to forecast just how much of an impact it would have on its business. Shame on them for being so stubborn. Now they are paying the consequences, and will likely continue to pay until the Wii U comes out. To get a visual representation of what Nintendo is exactly facing, check out this chart by ngmoco’s Ben Cousins comparing Apple, Microsoft and Nintendo by revenue:

What’s next for Nintendo? That’s a question with no answer, really, as you can’t just know what the company’s up to without having some kind of inside knowledge of their secret plans. Rather, I’d start by proposing some ideas that might be worth considering at the light of iOS’ popularity in mobile games and the changes in consumer behavior:

- Ship a moden interface for managing a device: users don’t want to be treated like 3 years-old anymore. Make it accessible, flexible, elegant, fast. This is functional to the point below, which is:

- Make accessing, saving and managing digital content easier. Nintendo’s current solution is a joke — will Nintendo Network be any better? We shall see.

- Embrace social networking: let players link their Nintendo Network profiles to their Twitter, Facebook or Google+ identities, and allow them to interact with Nintendo content outside of Nintendo’s online platform.

- Create an ecosystem: make Nintendo Network the single marketplace for all kinds of Nintendo content. Drop regional restrictions and adopt an App Store-like distribution model with worldwide releases, price tiers, promo codes, developer pages. Unlike the App Store, drop user reviews and allow free trials. Let users rely on their Nintendo ID for all kinds of possible future Nintendo services.

- Drop resistive touch-screens: the future is multi-touch. Delay the Wii U if necessary to make it absolutely right.

- Don’t drop cartridges entirely, but embrace a digital distribution strategy that makes sense. Advise all developers to release digital versions of their games on Nintendo Network, and perhaps reward buyers of physical copies with free unlockable in-app extras. The goal is to achieve a win-win situation both if you’re buying digital or physical.

- Ditch friend codes. Because, seriously, why are we still using friend codes in 2012?

- Create fresh, innovative, strong new IPs while emphasizing the importance and value of historical brands. Fortunately, that seems exactly what Miyamoto is doing.

- Use cutting-edge hardware: let’s face it, people like to play Call of Duty and Uncharted these days. Whilst good graphics aren’t synonym of good games, they sure help in nurturing an ecosystem of variegate games — those who make presentation their selling point, and the ones that are more focused on gameplay with less impressive graphics. Angry Birds was possible in 2009, but that didn’t stop Apple from leap-frogging itself year over year with the A4 and A5. Make consoles that can stand the onslaught of the Tegras and A6s released every year.

- Ultimately, stay true to gaming. Users don’t want to read emails on their handheld or have Office on it. Internet-connected doesn’t mean PC-like.

This morning I retweeted three tweets by Zac Cichy:

1) Delay the Wii U, drop all plans for physical discs, include an SSD instead.2) Next 3DS – SSD.3) iCloud-isize Your Game Sales

— Zac Cichy (@zcichy) January 26, 2012

4) Make it so that VC / ware purchases can be universal between Wii / DS5) Invite Any and All developers to make Anything, within reason.

— Zac Cichy (@zcichy) January 26, 2012

Nintendo needs to ape Apple in some key ways that matter, and continue to be Nintendo in the ways that they already know work.

— Zac Cichy (@zcichy) January 26, 2012

I don’t know how Nintendo should implement these proposed changes in the next months, but I am sure these are ideas more than just a couple of bloggers agree with. The money just isn’t there anymore, and Nintendo needs to evolve before it’s too late.

[Nintendo Headquarters via David Offf]

The iOS Home screen is conceptually broken. Not “broken” as in unusable, unstable or technically flawed. From an engineering standpoint, the iOS Home  screen works. The concept of the Home screen we interact with today is broken because the Home screen wants to be a real, physical, tangible surface while providing access to the gates of the intangible: apps. Apps are data, information, connectivity, presentation, media. Digital content isn’t tangible in the sense that it exists in a physical space, unless you count the atoms and the electrons and the bits that make using an app possible. But that’s a long stretch. The iOS Home screen is based on the concept that app icons are objects on top of it;  this has created a series of issues over the years.

Throughout the release history of iOS, Apple had to compromise and, I believe, implement functionalities the original Home screen wasn’t meant to support. First users wanted third-party apps, Apple waited, but eventually allowed developers to create software to install on an iPhone or iPod touch. Apps are the most important addition to the operating system to date, and they kickstarted the App Store revolution we’re witnessing. In allowing third-party developers to create apps, however, Apple essentially lost control over the display of objects on the Home screen — Apple may be able to check upon the inner workings of an app, but they can’t ban apps based on lack of taste in choosing an icon. And with that, developers were free to choose Home screen icons that don’t necessarily resemble real-life objects, thus breaking the metaphor of manipulating “badges on a table”, as I like to think of it. Have you noticed how almost every built-in, Apple-made iOS app has an icon that resembles a real-life object? The only exception? The App Store and iTunes icons. Which are marketplaces for digital content.

Apple states it clearly in the iOS Human Interface Guidelines:

When virtual objects and actions in an application are metaphors for objects and actions in the real world, users quickly grasp how to use the app. The classic example of a software metaphor is the folder: People put things in folders in the real world, so they immediately understand the idea of putting files into folders on a computer.

Think of the objects and scenes you design as opportunities to communicate with users and to express the essence of your app. Don’t feel that you must strive for scrupulous accuracy. Often, an amplified or enhanced portrayal of something can seem more real, and convey more meaning, than a faithful likeness.

Portray real substances accurately. Icons that represent real objects should also look as though they are made of real materials and have real mass. Realistic icons accurately replicate the characteristics of substances such as fabric, glass, paper, and metal, and convey an object’s weight and feel.

Later, users wanted multitasking and folders. Unsurprisingly, Apple gave them implementations of these features that look like objects, in this case objects with linen. Here’s where the situation gets more complex: folders and the multitasking tray, unlike app icons, actively interact with the Home screen, they don’t just sit on top of it. The way Apple designed them, the multitasking tray resides as linen below the Home screen, and folders are tiny containers with a linen background that expands atop of the Home screen. You can see how the entire concept of Home screen as a surface starts crackling under the design weight of  these features: is the Home screen a surface that has another layer underneath? Another one above as well? What do you mean I have music controls in the multitasking tray, too?

Most recently, iOS users began asking more vigorously for a better notification system, a unified reading environment for magazines, and widgets. Apple gave them Notification Center and Newsstand, but didn’t announce anything widget-related, at least for the Home screen. The Home screen, with iOS 5, got two new additions: a new layer, Notification Center, and a new default icon, Newsstand, which isn’t really an icon but it’s a folder with a different background and shelves.

As I said, I believe choosing the right approach to delivering new functionalities and keeping the original Home screen concept got trickier for Apple over the years. What started as a black background with a few default apps turned into a customizable area of hundreds of app icons with folders and multiple pages with a series of additional layers managed by the overly abused linen texture. But the seed of the broken concept can be seen way back into iPhone OS history: think about Spotlight and Springboard page indicators. What are they — how do they fit into the metaphor of a physical surface with objects on top of it? Surfaces don’t have search boxes and indicators. Notebooks have pages, but you have to flip them and turn them and touch them. Websites have search boxes, but they’re bits and lines of code.

If you follow my theory, you can understand how things start making sense from this perspective. You can’t move multiple app icons at once not because of some technical limitation, but because, I believe, in the original Home screen vision inspired by physics apps were meant as a single entity to manipulate, one at a time. On a table, you can’t “select” multiple buttons and pretend they’re all going to move as you touch only one. That doesn’t make any sense in real life. I could expand this concept to the entire skeuomorphism Vs. interface design, but I’ll leave that for another time. My concern right now is the Home screen, the first thing you see when you unlock a device, when you close an app, the place where you manage your apps, your content. There’s a lot of weirdness and inconsistencies going on in some Apple apps and interfaces, but the Home screen is the prime example of a user interface meant for 2007 which was subsequently patched and refined and patched again to accomodate new functionalities introduced in iOS (the same happened with the Home button). You could argue that some proposed features, such as widgets, haven’t been implemented yet because of technical constraints. It’s fair argument, and I’ll take it. Yet I think that, even if complex from an implementation standpoint, it’s the concept itself that makes widgets difficult with the current Home screen.

The problem Apple needs to overcome is that the Home screen tries to be a real object while providing access to the gates of the digital world. To reinvent it, Apple needs to tear apart the whole concept and rebuild it from the ground up.

Clear is a simple todo list app. Without spoiling too much now — you can check out the app’s webpage here, and promo video below — let me just say that the way Clear handles task creation, completion and list management has been uniquely and cleverly built around the iPhone’s screen and the way we can interact with our devices. In fact, I don’t think Clear would be possible on any other platform — when Clear comes out in the next few weeks, you’ll understand why you often hear of things such as “iPhone features the smoothest animations” or “fastest scrolling”. Everything in Clear is delightfully tappable, scrollable, responsive to your fingers with visual cues and sound effects. Yet it’s so simple. I’ll leave my thoughts about the app for a proper review.

What’s also intriguing about Clear, interface aside, is the team behind it. Take a look at the studio’s page: those who have been around long enough in the Apple Community will instantly recognize names like David Lanham and Dan Counsell; Impending’s webpage also reveals Ted Bradley, Jay Meistrich, Raphael Mun, Jeremy Grosser and Josh Mobley worked on Impending’s debut. Clear itself was co-created by Phill Ryu, Dan Counsell and Milen Dzhumerov. That was enough to trigger my curiosity radar, and ask Phill to sit down for a (virtual) coffee to discuss Impending and Clear.

Check out my interview with Phill Ryu and Clear’s promo video after the break. Read More

(Note: although commonly referred to as “4G” the current revision of LTE doesn’t meet the requirements for 4G connectivity yet. The LTE Advanced standard does conform to 4G requirements, but it’s likely that you’ll see the term “LTE” associated with 4G simply because it’s a major leap forward in terms of wireless connectivity)

Now, the debate as to whether Apple should have made the 4S an LTE iPhone or should have an LTE iPhone 5 this year is making the rounds again. Unlike previous debates, fortunately this time we have someone who’s trying to make some sense out of this and cut through the haze of rumors and theories to point out that, actually, it wouldn’t make much sense business-wise for Apple to implement LTE in the near term. Why? Because of all those 37 million iPhones Apple has sold in the quarter that ended on December 31, very few of them were sold in areas where LTE is available. Read: the United States, some parts of Denmark and Sweden, some cities in Canada, and Saudi Arabia. The “4G” rollout in countries other than the US is a slow process, and the ones mentioned above have a very small percentage of their spectrum covered by active LTE networks — they’re basically in the middle of initial testing right now. And even in the US, Chris Foreman assumes that whilst the major carriers have all implemented LTE or will start relatively soon, only half of subscribers would be covered in 2012, thus reducing the potential addressable market to 15% of iPhone customers worldwide. Why would Apple make an LTE iPhone for 15% of its entire customer base?

According to fourth quarter 2011 results, AT&T activated 4.1 million iPhones, while Verizon activated 4.2 million. Sprint would not disclose the number of iPhones it activated last quarter, but we feel safe in assuming that number is less than 4 million. Assuming Sprint was able to activate (perhaps a generous) 2 million or so iPhones, only a little over a quarter of iPhones were sold in the US. The other three-quarters, then, are sold in areas with practically no LTE coverage.

It goes deeper. You might argue that, yes, Apple could make an exception because they have made some in the past. But the WiFi-less 3GS and camera-less iPhone 4S were necessary modifications to get these devices on sale, otherwise they wouldn’t have gotten regulatory approval. It’s not like Apple is forced to implement LTE, especially considering the enhanced 3G still isn’t as widely adopted as the company hopes.

The LTE iPhone is primarily the result of months of speculation and countless rumors based on nothing. No evidence. Perhaps a few code strings here and there, but then again — go trust those code references these days. For all we know, the LTE iPhone doesn’t exist.

Or does it? A popular counterargument I often get is that Apple experiments with all kinds of new technologies in their labs; they take a look at new specifications and standards, and consider whether they should be worth investing more research and development resources for possible future implementations. I get it, and it’s entirely plausible that Apple engineers have at least looked at current LTE chips utilized by several Android handsets. But I don’t know how far they may have gotten into actually testing these chips, if only for verification purposes, at the light of Cook’s multiple remarks in the past about concerns regarding the effects these chips have on battery life. Those bigger screens Android makers tout in their commercials might be a requirement, rather than a feature. But I digress.

Another popular theory is that new LTE chips by Qualcomm, a component supplier Apple is already using, should become available in the first half of this year and, based on published specifications, allow device makers to considerably cut down on battery usage and required space. These new chips are smaller, consume less power and are made by a company Apple already buys components from. The next iPhone will have LTE! Not so fast. Read More

It’s about technology and getting to make a living out of writing for this community, the Apple community. Communities are made of people; in this case, the Apple community is made of developers, readers, fans of Apple devices, journalists, designers, PR guys — everyone who has at least some interest in following technology and the stuff Apple comes up with.

I don’t work for myself. I mean, sure, technically I do work for myself, but that’s not what gets me out of bed in the morning. I work for my readers. I work for the developers who come up with amazing solutions and ideas every day. I work for my team. Ultimately, I don’t work because I have to, but because it feels good to write about and for the Apple community.

“I do what I do” because I can provide for myself and my family thanks to what I love writing about — technology and software.

Because with the iPhone I have a world of information and data in my pocket; data that travels from a server who-knows-where in North Carolina, through a series of cables and pipes from the U.S to Italy, from another server to a cell tower, from a cell tower wirelessly to my device, and it turns into pixels I can see on a screen that, however, shows no pixels. When I stop to think about it, I still look at my iPhone with the amusement of a three year old kid seeing the night sky for the first time.

“I do what I do” because software is helping me make my life a little better. I can take photos and show them to my friends and archive them online. When I’m at the hospital, I can send text messages to my friends for free, in real-time, and feel good about knowing that someone on the other part of the screen is reading my words. With Rdio, I can listen to any song I want whenever I want, from any device I own, and tell my girlfriend she should check out the latest hit from Noel Gallagher. With Dropbox, I can write my articles on one device, pick them up again on another one, take a break and finish them up on a mobile phone that magically got the latest versions of those files over the air. Software is disrupting every industry it touches. I get to write about it, and even choose which app to use.

I write for the Apple community because in the past three years I got to know some amazingly talented and honest and caring people that, however, I’ve never met in “real life”. But isn’t this real life? What about having a team of four people around the world that greet you with “good morning buddy” every morning isn’t real? How could you exclude from real-life the works of developers who pour their souls into making a little piece of software — often just to make something work better for their customers — and are kind enough to tell you about it, in advance, with honest words and ready for any feedback you might have? Just because we haven’t shaken hands yet it doesn’t mean this, all this, isn’t real. Actual businesses are built every day on top of our community, ideas flourish and turn into projects with deadlines, projects that I will likely write about and share with other people that have decided to listen to what I have to say. The things we write, the feedback we give, the links we share — they do matter. Right now I’m writing this post on my iPad, in my living room, with my dad trying to understand how Gmail works. In a few minutes, these digital words will travel through a network, and end up on a website on a server somewhere in the United States. What’s not real about this, exactly?

“I do what I do” because I don’t think I’m better than anyone, but my words can make life slightly better for someone else. Maybe a developer who would really like to see his dream come true and hours of coding turned into an app anyone can see and use. Maybe a reader who needs help with his computer. Maybe someone who was having a bad day, but suddenly felt inspired in reading about Steve again. I don’t think the Apple Community is better than other circles of people who share a common interest. But I do believe we are better human beings because of it, because of what we decide to do to make even the smallest dent in the universe.

It’s easy to lose motivation though. Because the Internet allows for these kinds of communications that don’t require a physical confrontation or debate face-to-face, it’s easy to lose track of a conversation, misinterpret someone else’s words, or think a reader is “hating you”. Not that “online fights” and controversies aren’t real. They are very much so. But even when I’m reading about the latest Gruber-Thurrot (or anyone, really) blogging face-off, I like to think if they ever met “in real life” they would grab a beer together, look back at their “Internet fights” and say “Oh, screw it — what do you think of the latest iPhone?” with the enthusiasm of two people who are genuinely excited and passionate about technology.

Because, ultimately, it’s about the people. Even when we write about Google or Apple or Twitter and we imagine these big, faceless corporations in glass buildings “somewhere in California”, we’re actually writing about big corporations in glass buildings “somewhere in California”. But made of people. Of ideas. Of passion and genius and willingness to run a business successfully, to spread innovation and collaboration, to provide services that weren’t possible before. To show up every day because “it’s worth it”. Are tech companies greedy? Sure they are. But you have to believe there’s still a genuine, intact spark of passion in their core values. Otherwise they wouldn’t be here. Greediness alone doesn’t get you anywhere.

Which brings me back to the Apple Community. It’s easier to see what I’m talking about with the “smaller guys”, the indie developers and the bloggers. It’s easier to get to know them, work with them, maybe grab a beer with them and show them pictures of my kids someday, too.

And that’s why I do what I do.

The problem Apple had to face in the past four years is that for millions of people iPhones and iPads have become substitutes to the PC. Over a third of iTunes Store content is now purchased on iOS devices, Apple’s Eddy Cue said at the Let’s talk iPhone media event last week. What started and was celebrated as the hub of the digital revolution became a burden for Apple as millions of customers began using iOS devices as their main devices. Apple was once again faced with a challenge: if people no longer want to use the hub and accept the trade-offs required to manage our digital lifestyle, where’s the new hub? And how will content be distributed in the ecosystem if there’s no visible hub to start with?

[...]

iCloud changes the way we interact with our devices. Ten years after the digital hub revolution led by the Mac and iPod, Apple’s ecosystem has evolved and turned into a variegate selection of notebooks, desktop computers, iPhones, iPods and iPads. iCloud goes beyond the simple function of a new digital hub: iCloud, built into iOS 5 and Lion, is the new soul of Apple’s hardware that unifies music, videos, photos, apps, books and documents. iCloud is a huge change for Apple’s ecosystem not just because of its new technology — it’s a new software paradigm that will deeply affect Apple’s devices and how we work with them in the next years. Ten years from now, when it’ll likely be time for another digital revolution, we’ll look back at 2011 and iCloud’s launch.

During today’s earnings call — in case you missed it, Apple today reported its biggest quarter to date — CEO Tim Cook seemed to agree with this vision. He said that ”iCloud is more than a product, it’s a strategy for the next decade.”

What strikes me as remarkable about this statement isn’t the simplicity of the message alone, it’s how well it plays with Steve Jobs’ original Digital Hub strategy in retrospect. The way I see it, today’s comments from Cook about iCloud declared the historic Digital Hub officially dead, yet sounded amusingly familiar at the same time. That Apple is a product company that also happens to do business with services isn’t new — but listening to Tim Cook and Peter Oppenheimer discussing the results, the future projections, the customer feedback and overall strategy in a single conference call is enlightening in a way it provides insight into Apple’s core values. Products matter, but what customers expect to find around a product is equally important — the ecosystem matters. Every recent move from Apple can be seen as part of the iCloud big picture: the 4S with an amazing camera that shoots photos that are backed up online; iTunes Match and its cloud-based music library; content deals for Apple TV; iBookstore and Textbooks that are backed up to your iCloud account. And when you think about it with today’s numbers in mind, it all starts to make sense not just from a conceptual standpoint, but from a business perspective as well.

Apple customers are willing to pay for a superior user experience through a solid ecosystem. And Apple is betting on that.

The “strategy for the next decade” that we’re covering today is what, I believe, the majority of users will see as the operating system in 10 years. And if you need a quick recap as to why Apple moved on from the Digital Hub, let Steve remind you.

“We’ve got a great solution for this problem. And we think this solution is our next big insight. Which is we’re going to demote the PC and the Mac to just be a device. Just like an iPhone, an iPad, or an iPod touch. And we’re going to move the Digital Hub — the center of your digital life — into the cloud.”

Estimates and Previous Quarters

During last quarter’s earnings call, Apple said they were expecting $37 billion in revenue and diluted earnings per share of around $9.30 for this quarter. As Apple’s guidance for future quarters is historically low and conservative, the already high projection of $37 billion led bloggers to speculate Apple’s Q1 2012 would be a blowout quarter; some analysts, on the other hand, usually don’t pay attention to Apple’s guidance as the company lowballs expectations for the upcoming quarter.

Analysts and bloggers polled in the past few weeks had different takes on what Apple will report later today. Some of them, such as Robert Paul Leitao, Horace Dediu and Navin Nagrani projected revenue above $44 billion with iPhone sales of 34-35 million units and iPad sales in the range of 13 million units; as we reported three weeks ago, Asymco’s Horace Diedu estimates that Apple will report earnings of $12.3 on revenues of $44.6 billion, with the street price aiming at $9.75 EPS on $37.99 billion. As Philip Elmer-Dewitt also noted, analysts’ estimates need to be taken carefully, as several of them were released after the previous quarter’s results, and were never updated reflecting changes that took place through the quarter (such as fluctuating iPhone demand and international product launches).

Fortune’s comprehensive list of estimates for Q1 2012 is available here.

As far as iPhone sales are concerned (in Q4 2011, the device accounted for 47% of Apple’s revenue), this quarter will see Apple finally providing some actual insight into the iPhone 4S’ performance on the market. The device is well-regarded as a success on various international markets and the United States, but the only real numbers Apple posted referred to the opening weekend. Predictions for Q1 2012 go as high as 35 million units sold (those would indicate cumulative sales for iPhone 4, 4S and 3GS, not just the iPhone 4S), with an approximate figure of 30 million units sold being shared the majority of analysts and bloggers.

According to Nielsen, the launch of the iPhone 4S had an “enormous impact” on smartphone owners:

Among recent acquirers, meaning those who said they got a new device within the past three months, 44.5 percent of those surveyed in December said they chose an iPhone, compared to just 25.1 percent in October. Furthermore, 57 percent of new iPhone owners surveyed in December said they got an iPhone 4S.

This morning, Verizon Wireless reported 4.2 million iPhone activations. Reuters wrote Verizon’s ”business was hit by the high costs of sales of advanced phones such as the Apple Inc iPhone.”

Verizon reports 4.3 million iPhone activations in Q4. (My estimate was 4.2 million).

— Horace Dediu (@asymco) January 24, 2012

In Q4 2011, Apple posted revenue of $28.27 billion, with 11.12 million iPads, 17.07 million iPhones and 4.89 million Macs sold. The company posted quarterly net profit of $6.62 billion, or $7.05 per diluted share. iPhone represented a 21 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter; iPod sales were down 27 percent from the year-ago quarter, and Apple reported the best iPad quarter to date with over 11 million units sold and a 166% increase over the year-ago quarter. In the year-go quarter, Apple posted revenue of $26.74 billion with 7.33 million iPads, 16.24 million iPhones and 4.13 million Macs sold. Read More

At MacStories, we strive to produce great content every day. From news to stories and app reviews, we care about quality content to deliver to you, our readers, with insight and our personal analysis every day. But we can’t cover everything. And there’s some great writing on the Internet that we often can’t link to in our daily coverage, if only because there isn’t much we can add to an already excellent article.

Today we are introducing MacStories Reading List, a weekly selection of great stories from Authors that you should read. Every Sunday, we’ll publish a collection of links that we think you should read, such as the ones below. A very simple format for the great writing that is happening in the Apple community.

Even better, you can subscribe to the Reading List in your favorite RSS reader or Instapaper. We have created an Instapaper account dedicated to the Reading List, so head over this link to get the Instapaper feed for the links we’ll post here every week. You’ll also be able to able to find us in Instapaper if you’re already following @macstoriesnet and linked the service to your Twitter account.

On behalf of the entire MacStories team, I wish you a good reading. – Federico Viticci

–

World of Apple’s Alex Brooks reflects on his past few years of blogging, and ultimately decides that quality content, not the page views alone, is what matters. A must-read.

The site I want to read and will produce will post thoughtful commentary on Apple. The kind of commentary and prose that that’s sensible, articulate and adds value to a wider discussion happening across the internet. There are already a handful of sites just like this, authors who have in some cases taken grave risk to quit their day to day lives to produce content just like this. I value those sites, I enjoy reading their content.

- Reflecting on Change, Alex Brooks (@alexbrooks)

Every month or so an analyst comes out and claims the iPad can’t be included in the same market share numbers of PCs, and vice versa. Asymco’s Horace Dediu collects actual numbers and puts things in perspective, revealing the true effect Android and iOS devices are having on the PC market.

This last view corresponds to the data in the first graph (line chart). If iOS and Android are added as potential substitutions for personal computing, the share of PCs suddenly collapses to less than 50%. It also suggests much more collapse to come.

- The rise and fall of personal computing, Horace Dediu (@asymco)

How has the App Store third-party ecosystem evolved in the past four years? Is there still much of a difference between smaller developers who actually want to charge for their apps, and bigger studios that have adopted the “freemium” or in-app advertising models? App Cubby’s David Barnard has an insightful article from an indie developer’s perspective that’s worth reading and reflecting upon.

Ultimately, the users become the product, not the app. Selling users to advertisers and pushing in-app upgrades/consumables is a completely different game than carefully crafting apps to maximize user value/entertainment. It’d be a shame if the mobile software industry devolved into some horrific hybrid of Zynga and Facebook.

- Free and Low-Cost Apps, David Barnard (@drbarnard)

Wandering Coder’s Pierre Lebeaupin makes an excellent case for iOS needing some sort of file management system at this point. You can disagree with him, but it’s undeniable the majority of users who want to use iPhones and iPads in a professional environment are still working with documents, and iOS doesn’t offer a native, integrated way for easily managing and searching them.

Let us contrast that with another situation. My father is a high school teacher; for the last 20+ years he has been working using computers, preparing teaching notes, transparent slides to project, diagrams, tests and their answers, student average note calculation documents, etc. on his Macs (and before that on an Apple ][e). He shares some of these with his colleagues (and back) and sometimes prints on school printers so it’s not like he is working in complete isolation, but he cannot rely on a supporting infrastructure and has to ensure and organize storage of these teaching material documents himself. He will often need to update these when it’s time to teach the same subject one year later, because the test needs to be changed so that it’s not the exact same as last year, because the curriculum is changing this year, because the actual class experience of using them the previous year led him to think of improvements to make the explanation clearer, because this year he’s teaching a class with a different option so they have less hours of his course (but the same curriculum…), etc. Can you imagine him using solely an iPad, or even solely an imaginary iOS 5 notebook, to do so? I can’t.

- iOS lacks a document filing system, Pierre Lebeaupin (@wanderingcoder)

An amazingly detailed and in-depth overview of the iOS gaming scene with a series of post-mortems and sales figures for “blockbuster” and smaller iOS games. If you only read one article about mobile gaming this week, make it this one.

Eighteen months ago, when I left Ubisoft to start an independent game studio and focus on making my own games, I looked online a bit to get an idea of how much income I could expect to make as an indie. At Ubisoft I used to work on big AAA console games, and I had some figures in mind, but I knew they wouldn’t be relevant for my new life: $20M budgets, teams of 200 hundred people, 3 million sales at $70 per unit… I knew being an indie developer would be completely different, but I had very little information about how different it would be.

Angry Birds had taken off, Plants vs. Zombies was already a model, Doodle Jump was a good example of success, and soon after I started my “indie” life, Cut the Rope was selling a million copies a week. But except for what I call the “jackpots,” there were very few public stories or numbers on the web, and this meant we were a bit in the dark when we started SQUIDS. I have been tracking figures since then, and I’m writing this article to share what I’ve learned with my fellow indie dev buddies who might be in the same position I was, a year and a half ago.

- Money And The App Store: A Few Figures That Might Help An Indie Developer, Emeric Thoa

Dov Frankel explains how the iPhone’s mute switch and audio controls really work.

On the last episode of The Talk Show, Gruber and Dan Benjamin discussed the design tradeoffs at length. During the discussion, they mentioned that you can set the iPad’s volume level to 0, but you can’t with the volume buttons on the iPhone. I understand the difference, and it’s something it took me a little while to figure out, way back in the early days of the first-generation iPhone.

- Different Levels, Dov Frankel (@MrDov)

Last week, Apple unveiled its iBooks Textbooks project as the result of deals with major US publishers that have agreed to release digital versions of their textbooks in a new iBooks format. Brian Lam has an interesting interview with former Apple intern Joseph Peters, who might have fueled Apple’s interest in textbooks back in 2008.

In 2008, Apple had its iContest in its Town Hall building. The iContest is sort of an American Idol for great ideas that gives interns a chance to present their best thoughts to executives. Here, Joseph Peters and some friends outlined the idea of bringing Textbooks to iTunes, before the iPad even existed to the rest of us. They won a set of Macbook Airs for their idea.

- Open-Mindedness, Brian Lam (@blam)

Much has been said and written about Apple’s decision to make iBooks Author a proprietary file format that only allows for selling eBooks into the iBookstore. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber looks at the “issue” from Apple’s perspective.

Glazman looks at these new iBooks books and sees a nonstandard proprietary format. Apple looks at these new iBooks and sees layouts and design features that no other e-book platform offers today. One man’s nonstandard is another man’s competitive differentiation.

- On the Proprietary Nature of the iBooks Author File Format, John Gruber (@gruber)

Egg Freckles’ Thomas Brand looks back at Apple’s platform history and how the company has built its success on directly controlling the user experience in every possible way, from content sources to delivering software to the end user.

The iPhone may have been destined to become the world’s most popular smartphone due to the amazing multitouch technology it introduced, but Apple’s control over the iOS operating system, Xcode developer environment, and App Store distribution model have made the iPhone the central member of a new application ecosystem that can’t be beat.

Yesterday’s introduction of iBooks 2 and iBooks Author were significant announcements because they complete the platform pyramid Apple needs to enter the Textbook Market with the same control as its previous successes.

- The iBooks Platform, Thomas Brand (@ThomasBrand)

Macworld’s Serenity Caldwell follows up on Apple’s iBooks Author announcements and notes how authors welcome Apple’s entry in the digital publishing industry, but are still looking forward to a broader ePub-compatible publishing tool with advanced features, a polished interface, and Apple’s refined user experience.

It’s crazy that we have so few options after five years: The ebooks market is clearly making money. If Apple’s release of an authoring tool has shown anything, it’s that the demand is certainly out there. The publishing industry needs a Dreamweaver or Hype-type ePub application—one that won’t be limited by EULAs, or insistent on proprietary formats.

I’ve already written a wish-list for my perfect app; had I the talent, the skills, and the time to build it, I’d be half-tempted to try coding it myself. Silly, of course, but when it comes down to it, I just want to be able to make awesome ebooks. It shouldn’t take two weeks and six programs to create a book with images and interactive content.

- Holding out for an ePub hero, Serenity Caldwell (@settern)

Fraser Speirs, who knows a thing or two about iPad in schools, thinks that textbooks aren’t necessarily the future, but a way to get there.

Apple already revolutionized education when it invented the iPad. While iBooks textbooks are a bridge from the past to the future—and we do need a way to get to the future—they are not that future. If Henry Ford had been an educational publisher, his customers would have asked for electronic textbooks instead of faster horses.

- Apple’s announcements further iPad revolution in education, Fraser Speirs (@fraserspeirs)

How does Apple’s iBooks Textbooks initiative look from a teacher’s perspective? Kieran Healy’s post on the subject is insightful and detailed.

Apple’s proposed model would kill the used market, dead. The presentation emphasized that once you buy a book you always own it, and you can download it to any new devices you buy. But a corollary is that once you’re done with the book you can’t give or sell it to anyone else. So, at least initially, publishers can charge much less for their textbooks and make it up on volume. That’s fine by me if students end up paying less, though I immediately wonder whether the next step would be for publishers to modularize the books. Instead of your one giant Bio or Calc or Econ book for $14.99 rather than $129.99, you can have various shorter books available for the same price, but have to buy all of them over the course of a year or semester—like 19th century serial novels. This would likely be pitched to faculty as allowing for greater flexibility in curriculum construction, but again it’s the students who end up paying for the books.

- Apple for the Teacher, Kieran Healy (@kjhealy)

Earlier today I tweeted:

Idea: Apple doesn’t want its name and brand (iBooks) associated with purchasing systems on other websites. For free, it’s okay.

— Federico Viticci (@viticci) January 19, 2012

Bigger problem is that Apple doesn’t see iBooks Author as an authoring tool for everything – it’s a part of their ecosystem. — Federico Viticci (@viticci) January 19, 2012

John Gruber posted similar thoughts on Daring Fireball:

Second, it’s about not wanting iBooks Author to serve as an authoring tool for competing bookstores like Amazon’s or Google’s. The output of iBooks Author is, as far as I can tell, HTML5 — pretty much ePub 3 with whatever nonstandard liberties Apple saw fit to take in order to achieve the results they wanted. It’s not a standard format in the sense of following a spec from a standards body like the W3C, but it’s just HTML5 rendered by WebKit — not a binary blob tied to iOS or Cocoa. It may not be easy, but I don’t think it would be that much work for anyone else with an ePub reader that’s based on WebKit to add support for these iBooks textbooks. Apple is saying, “Fuck that, unless you’re giving it away for free.

To recap: iBooks created with iBooks Author can be given away for free or sold through the iBookstore, where Apple takes a 30% cut. iBooks created with iBooks Author cannot be sold outside the iBookstore, as stated in the iBooks Author EULA

Now let’s consider the complicated scenario Apple must have faced when deciding as to whether iBooks Author 1.0 should have been a broader authoring tool, or a desktop editing suite for the iBookstore. Many devices nowadays are capable of displaying eBooks: smartphones, computers, tablets. There are several participants in the eBook race with the biggest player being Amazon, followed, I guess, by Apple with the iPad/iBookstore and many others including Barnes & Noble, Google, and so forth. eBooks are variegate: there are many file formats, different distribution networks with their own licenses and terms, different desktop editing programs that comply to a few standards, the most popular one being EPUB, which Apple also accepts for iBooks and the iBookstore. Apple is not alone in the eBook market.

Apple, however, doesn’t make much revenue off Internet services and the various Stores it operates. It’s a known fact iTunes and the App Store have been a break-even operation for many years, with the main goal of providing content and not making a serious profit. I assume the numbers for the iBookstore fall in line with iTunes and the App Store — Apple doesn’t make much money out of iBooks, nor did they ever plan to base their business on it. But: iBooks, apps and media are ways to get people to buy iOS hardware, which is where Apple makes money. Apple is a hardware company that produces fine software that helps them sell a lot of hardware. The iBookstore is, ultimately, a way for Apple to tell people that an amazing eBook reading experience is possible on iOS devices. iBooks is a brand that Apple should care to protect and maintain because it is associated with its main source of revenue — the hardware. Other companies, too, seem to understand that software and content drive hardware sales.

Because iBooks is Apple’s brand and platform now, Apple obviously wants to have some kind of control on the whole experience and distribution. And this is where things start to get tricky. On the App Store, apps have technical limitations that force them to go through the approval process before a user can install them. You can’t install apps in any other way, unless you’re willing to hack into your device’s operating system. Apps are made with Xcode and sold by developers enrolled in the iOS Developer Program. The setup is fairly similar with the iBookstore: iBooks are created in iBooks Author by writers/editors enrolled in the program, sold in the iBookstore so a user can download them. But there’s a big difference: we learn today that iBooks can be distributed for free elsewhere. This is not possible for iOS apps, and this is the reason I believe today’s announcement has been so controversial.

The problem, I think, is that allowing iBooks to be distributed for free anywhere but forcing authors to sell them only through Apple is seen as a pretentious move from a company that many were expecting to announce a grand plan to save the publishing industry today. It’s the sort of gray area that’s open to discussion and generally causes the sort of debates we’ve seen on the Internet. But, in fact, it is a move from a company that wants to make money: if you were to run a business you know it’s going to break even, giving away a great desktop application that costed thousands of dollars in research and development knowing that you’ll have to maintain it for years to come, wouldn’t you want to have products in your own Store and at least ask for a 30% cut?

Others say the main issue is not with the 30% cut itself — we’re used to it now — it’s with the requirement of having paid editions of iBooks only in the iBookstore. It’s not like it’s technically impossible to sell them elsewhere, right? It’s not like apps — and that is correct. In theory, Apple could allow .ibooks files to become just another file format that you can distribute digitally online, and even sell it for a price as several designers do, for instance, with .psd files. But the problem lies deeper, not in the revenue cut but in the locking-in philosophy that is leading some people to believe this is akin to banning free speech. So let’s look at this from a more conceptual standpoint.

@mpanzarino @viticci @gruber Of course they do, because iBooks on iPad is the premier content destination & best experience.

— Jason Snell (@jsnell) January 20, 2012

I mentioned above iBooks is a brand that is functional to Apple’s primary way of making money. Imagine this: if Apple were to allow distribution of paid eBooks anywhere, nothing could stop an author from selling it on other channels — I’d say Google and Amazon but let’s assume “his website” for now. What would stop this author from selling his iBook at a lower price on his website, and at a 30% more on the iBookstore to make up for Apple’s cut? And now with the second scenario: imagine Google rolling out support for .ibooks files in the eBookstore. Why would Apple want Google, of all companies, to get to brag about .ibooks? And even if it’s not about the .ibooks published format (of limited use outside of iBooks 2.0), why wouldn’t Apple require a small kickback for the result of a desktop program they gave you for free?

Keeping a brand, lock-in, revenue cut: it’s all part of a bigger plan, which is selling hardware people want because of the experience it provides. This experience is provided by content. Again, ecosystem.

So, in a way, iBooks aren’t too different from apps. I could even argue that in Apple’s vision, everything that goes through iTunes has some sort of exclusivity attached to it. Yes, even music and movies: iTunes Extras and LPs aren’t as popular as apps and books, but they’re an example of the integrated media/platform experience that Apple sells.

From my perspective, of course I would have been more excited to see a broader authoring tool announced today with no licensing terms for paid eBooks and full EPUB support. But as I’ve stated in a Twitter conversation with Jason Snell, this is a 1.0 version of a tool that was clearly meant for textbook publishers, and released today for other authors as well. What I could really argue is that it’s not like Apple doesn’t have the resources to come up with a full-featured authoring tool on Day One, and it would have been much better to appeal to all kinds of authors and audiences starting today with a great format and a great app. But: not all apps are perfect on day one. Not even Apple’s. Political speculation aside, I wouldn’t be surprised to know they had to get this out of the door today in preparation of the big iPad 3 launch. We’ll never know why iBooks Author was released today and not in two months with more features, but we know that Apple is a company that in the past months hasn’t been afraid of reversing a couple of unpopular decisions.

As usual, we wait.

Following the announcements Apple made this morning about iBooks 2.0, textbooks and iTunes U, some interesting discussions have surfaced online in regards to Apple’s willingness to improve the education system — and reinvent textbooks — using iBooks and the iPad. Being based in Italy, I can’t comment specifically on the U.S. school system and what these new products mean for students, school districts and educational institutions, but I do have a few ideas and links to share.

iBooks has turned into a platform. No more just an e-Reader, with the addition of textbooks and books created through iBooks Author Apple seems to be betting on iBooks as a platform that stands on its own, just like iTunes and the App Store. You could argue that this was already clear from the start with the dedicated iBooks app and iBookstore within iOS, but it’s even more relevant now because of one key factor: content creation. Provided you have an iBookstore account, you can now create content-rich books on your Mac and sell them through the iBookstore. You can also export them locally, and preview them on your iPad. I have no idea how smaller, independent publishers and authors will respond to iBooks Author in the long term, but as far as creating content goes, Apple’s latest desktop app looks fantastic. The double nature of this announcement (rich textbooks, books by authors) combined with the existing features of iBooks has a real chance of creating “an iBooks ecosystem”.

Software sells the hardware. Obvious consequence: books created with iBooks Author (packages, not the actual content) can only be sold through the iBookstore. Now, assuming authors like the functionalities and workflow enabled by iBooks Author and assuming they also like money, if this initiative proves successful in the long term, what devices are authors going to recommend?

…It depends. iBooks Author looks like a great eBook creation app, but some authors are skeptical. We will have to wait and see if authors will adopt the software, if Apple will provide continued support with updates and, ultimately, if iBooks Author can be used effectively for all kinds of eBooks, not just those heavy on media and fancy effects. For instance, it doesn’t look like EPUB is supported right now as the format seems to be different. Ben Brooks is right: Apple seems to be targeting Kindle Singles directly with iBooks Author.

Rich content made simple. iBooks Author simplifies the process of creating content-rich books with drag & drop, pop-out menus, auto-align controls, and more. From iBooks Author’s Help section:

• Gallery: Add a sequence of images your readers can swipe through, each with its own custom caption.
• Media: Add a movie or audio file readers can play.
• Review: Add a sequence of interactive multiple-choice or drag-to-target questions.
• Keynote: Add a Keynote presentation (exported as HTML).
• Interactive image: Use labels (sometimes called callouts), panning, and zooming to provide detailed information about specific parts of a graphic.
• 3D: Add a 3D COLLADA (.dae) file readers can rotate.
• HTML: Add a Dashboard widget (.wdgt).

By using web technologies, desktop-class content creation software and an iWork-like interface, with iBooks Author Apple is offering what Xcode is to the App Store. For free.

Accessibility. iBooks Author fully takes advantage of VoiceOver and other Accessibility technologies to let people with disabilities read and experience books. Apple takes Accessibility seriously, and it shows.

Other uses for iBooks Author? I haven’t played with it yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see iBooks Author being used for other purposes.

iBooks Textbooks remind me of Push Pop Press. And guess what, the folks behind PPP (acquired by Facebook earlier this year — coincidence?) sound pretty pissed off.

Prices. iPads are expensive! But so were PCs and Macs. As Stephen Hackett correctly points out, Apple doesn’t disclose educational pricing, and several schools already have leased Macs in the classrooms. Will Apple provide a 1-1 “switching program” for schools that don’t need Macs anymore? And what will base pricing of leased iPads look like? The Verge spoke to Apple’s Phil Schiller, who told them “he thinks the numbers work out favorably for school districts if you weigh the costs of textbooks and classroom computers against iBooks content and iPads”. Joshua Schnell has a slightly different take and suggests that iPads may only end up being used in ”rich white kid schools”. I think we don’t have enough details to speculate on Apple’s educational pricing right now (as usual, a Volume Purchase Program for apps and books is available). The only data point we have is that iBooks Textbooks will be cheaper than physical textbooks…if publishers don’t change their minds.

Yes, physical books are more “durable” if you drop them. But what do you use today, an encyclopedia with a typewriter or a PC? Time to move on.

Other devices. I’m hearing reports of iBooks 2.0 and iTunes U not running smoothly on the original iPad and older iPhones, confirming my theory that textbooks seem to be heavily targeting the speedy A5 processor of the iPad 2 (I have no idea why would iTunes U and regular books run slower on older-gen devices though). Let’s not forget that an A6-enabled iPad 3 is rumored to land soon, and Apple may keep the iPad 2 around at a lower price.

Digital books are still heavy. Pearson’s Biology textbook is a 2.77 GB download. We complained about iPad magazines and their absurd download sizes, but it looks like there isn’t much you can do about heavy content like images and video. When I was a kid, I often needed a bigger backpack for textbooks. Now kids will need bigger flash memory.

It’s up to schools and teachers. Pricing issue aside (and that is a huge “aside” for now), schools and teachers will obviously have to learn how to deploy and manage iPads, as well as integrate textbooks and new learning experiences into their curricula. In the current scenario, it’s very likely that kids already know how to use iPads, and their teachers will have to play catch up. On the technical side, I’d suggest schools to look for inspiration in Fraser Speirs’ experiences.

Apple doesn’t want to fix textbooks. They want to improve learning. The underlying message of today’s announcements isn’t strictly about textbooks — surely they play a big role in education, but the scope of Apple’s mission is much broader. Apple wants to re-imagine learning and improve current standards with new technologies: content management systems for classes are nothing new, but iTunes U takes it to a whole new level with a beautiful, always-connected, interactive application. There are big corporations that control the education/textbook market and who knows if they’re really willing to give Apple the leading role in this game with distribution, standardization of technologies and guidance. As Dan Frommer notes, change is not going to happen overnight but you can’t believe in paper textbooks as “the future”.

Apple’s revamped education strategy will be interesting to follow.

What iOS needs is the Twitter equivalent to Adium: a well maintained, open source Twitter client that is targeted at the most hardcore and passionate users of both Twitter and the iOS platform.

That, of course, is easier typed than done. Many open source projects fail because of lack of vision or direction. Others fail because they are just badly engineered software that aims to shove every pet feature into a unified product. Projects like Adium succeed because there is an established hierarchy of managers, developers and contributors. Each release has a focus and direction much like a commercially produced project.

My first Twitter client was Twittelator Pro by Andrew Stone, which I installed soon after I got my first iPhone in 2008. After that, I switched to Twitterrific, which I kept until Tweetie came out. For a few months I bounced back and forth between Tweetie, Twitterrific and Birdfeed but, eventually, I settled with Tweetie 2. I loved Tweetie 2. It was the perfect Twitter client for my needs, it was fast and Loren was (is) a great guy. But then Twitter bought the app, started doing all kinds of crazy things to it, and the excitement wore off. I went back to Twitterrific, but it wasn’t the same — I had become very accustomed to Tweetie (now Twitter for iPhone) and the simplicity of Twitterrific was disorienting. Like Justin, I’ve always had a problem with inline DMs in Twitterrific.

Throughout 2010 and 2011 there’s also been a period when I went back to trying every Twitter client out there, including Twittelator Pro (again), but also Echofon, Tweetings, HootSuite, Osfoora, TweetList and TweetLogix. I was addicted to trying Twitter clients until Tweetbot came out and, as I wrote in my review, proved to be a Twitter app for iPhone I could once again fall in love with. I’ve been using Tweetbot for iPhone ever since, and the app keeps getting better on each release. Personally, I don’t agree with Justin’s point that Tweetbot is ”the best designed Android app available for iOS”, but this isn’t the main problem.

The real issue is that these days iOS Twitter nerds are left with Tweetbot and nothing else. Twitterrific clearly isn’t targeting power users — maybe a better expression would be “users that don’t just casually check on Twitter” — and Twitter for iPhone, well, let’s just say it’s not exactly focused on Twitter geeks anymore. How about the other clients? I see very few innovators around, and the only third-party app I’m excited about (again, except Tweetbot, which I use every day) is Twittelator Neue — Stone’s app has a good chance to reinvent a few things especially if it ever comes to the iPad. But looking at the whole Twitter software landscape today, it’s clear to me there isn’t the kind of verve and anticipation for new clients that we experienced three years ago, with developers constantly updating their clients, one-upping competitors in terms of features, and teasing new products that (sadly) never came to be.

In a scenario where the less popular Twitter clients are either a) maintained through bug fix releases or b) updated with minor features every once in a while, lacking major additions like iPad and Mac counterparts, I see a glimmer of hope in Tweetbot — Tapbots are always up to some great stuff — and services like Tweet Marker: available for free to developers to implement in their apps, Tweet Marker is the first step towards that kind of client-side unification whose lack made switching Twitter clients on a daily (or even hourly) basis so painful in 2009. Check out the apps that already support Tweet Marker, and note how they’re the same names that I’ve mentioned above.

Building an Adium-like model for the ultimate Twitter client might be a viable plan, albeit an elaborate one considering all the technical complexities and frequent changes behind the Twitter API. An ideal modern Twitter client for power users should have delightful and powerful iOS apps and an outstanding Mac client that makes it extremely easy to switch environments without user fatigue; you have to make sure the apps are always brought up to date with the latest Twitter features from Twitter itself and iOS 5 (I’m fairly sure the technologies and APIs behind AIM aren’t updated nearly as often as Apple releases new iOS betas), and when everything’s distributed for free you have to make sure you’ve got a dedicated, kick-ass team of contributors and leaders, or things start to get messy (and slow) because of updates, user support, feature request, and so forth.

So here’s another possible scenario. Let’s continue to diversify the offer of available Twitter clients, and settle with one app for power users. Justin doesn’t like Tweetbot, but perhaps one year from now Tweetbot will be available on more platforms with changes and tweaks that everyone will like and use on a daily basis, even Justin. Around that Twitter client for power users, I imagine a flourishing ecosystem of innovative Twitter apps that don’t simply focus on building an alternative to Tweetbot — a daunting task at this point — but provide a unique experience that can live alongside the main, full-featured client. I’m thinking Tweet Library, also by Tweet Marker’s Manton Reece: instead of just focusing on being the perfect regular client, Tweet Library’s built-in client is functional to the app’s real feature: curating tweets and archiving them. This is the path I believe developers should strongly consider for building Twitter-connected apps: focus on APIs, services and interactions with other software. Where’s the Twitter app that integrates with Evernote and lets you annotate tweets? Where is the app to run, manage and archive online polls exclusively via Twitter? Where’s the service that lets you use your custom vanity URL and get beautiful, real-time, reliable click analytics instead of the ugly mess that’s HootSuite?

You see where I’m getting at — I believe developers are (obviously) completely free of investing their time and resources into competing with Tweetbot, but on the other hand I don’t think focusing on other aspects of Twitter means admitting defeat. It’s easy to say “Tweetbot won” or “Twitterrific is the best” when, really, the story is much more complex than that and also goes back to a company that has shown a “peculiar” approach to guiding its own third-party developers.

Will we ever go back to the Birdfeed and Tweetie era? I don’t think so. Twitter is now integrated in iOS 5 and seeing massive growth because of it, thus justifying the prospect of creating an app “for power users” even less. Yet I can’t help but think about a time, not too distant from now, when the power users will finally settle on a single solution for their power-hungry needs, and let other developers innovate atop of the Twitter platform in disruptive new ways. The ideas, devices, APIs and users are waiting.

[Photo by Jorge Quinteros]

I’d like to briefly elaborate on my Todo.txt setup, which I only started using last month as a way to keep my “todo articles” separate from general “todos” that I now keep organized and synced through Remember The Milk. Several readers have emailed me asking why I chose Todo.txt of all text editors and task management systems, so here it goes.

Todo.txt has a simple syntax that requires no learning curve. I can fire up Todo.txt’s iOS app or TextEdit on my Mac, and add a new line for a new todo, which in my case is an article I’m working on or I know I’ll be working on in the immediate future (this week or next week, I try not to project too distant in the future as blogging priorities can rapidly change). I’ve tried other text-based todo solutions like TaskAgent and TaskPaper, and I like them a lot as apps with outstanding support from their developers, but I just feel more comfortable using Todo.txt’s syntax, which appends new lines as todos and marks those beginning with an “x” as complete. Obviously, Todo.txt comes with much more complex possibilities and interfaces such as a full-featured CLI and support for contexts and priorities, but I use none of these features. To me, Todo.txt is the easiest way to maintain a list of “todo” Vs. “not done yet” articles that I want to have on MacStories.

For this reason, I keep the Todo.txt iOS apps (on my iPhone and iPad) as simple and clutter-free as possible. Developer Gina Trapani made sure that you can sort by date and todo ID, enable app badges and date new tasks but, again, I haven’t found myself needing any of these (I could have enabled badges on the Mac too). In the Todo.txt iOS app, I chose to display line numbers to give me an easily scannable overview of just how many items I have, and I’ve disabled everything else as you can see in the screenshot. With this setup, it takes 30 seconds to open the app, quickly see what’s up while it’s syncing (takes a few seconds as the file to load is very lightweight) and enter a new todo. I don’t use contexts and projects either: as I mentioned last week, I don’t need a “context” for my MacStories articles, and the project is always the same, writing for the site.

If possible, things are even simpler on my Mac. Todo.txt is synced via Dropbox and alias’d on my desktop. When I need to check on the articles I have in my queue I can use TextEdit or, better, nvALT, which also displays all my other Dropbox notes synced inside a “Notely” folder (no particular app preference here, I just liked the name). Adding new todos to the file requires a few seconds, but if I’m feeling really keyboard-junkie I can append a new todo to the end of the file using an Alfred extension. I use Alfred for a lot of different tasks on my Mac (adding items to Remember The Milk, converting currencies, generating new random passwords, etc.), so it helps that I’ve found a way to integrate Todo.txt with my existing workflow.

And when an article is done and a todo is complete? I just delete it. I don’t archive, “review”, flag or categorize. Articles are just there and it’s up to me to write them.

Text-based todo management systems go back a long way. In learning about Todo.txt’s history, I stumbled upon relatively old articles that described how it was popular “back in the day” (we’re talking pre-Tiger days as well) to keep everything, from notes to passwords to long-form articles, inside a giant .txt file formatted in some way for easy scanning. These days we’re using the modern versions of those systems, which may be Evernote, Yojimbo, or other anything buckets. These services come with a fantastic set of features — I’m a huge fan of Evernote myself — but as far as my articles go, I want them to be highly portable in an environment that’s open to any other app for access and modifications. With plain text, I can have my MacStories-related todos synced in a text file that can be opened and correctly read by any text editor — and I’m sure it’ll remain that way for the next 20 years when .docx files will be corrupted and biting the dust.

Some parts of Todo.txt are modeled after David Allen’s GTD methodology and, at least for my articles, I’m not using GTD at all. But I am getting things done, for real, with a system that I can trust, is reliable and works anywhere.

Which means I have to get new tools and understand how to properly use the ones I already have.

So instead of making up new year’s resolution and give up on losing weight after three weeks as most people do (but won’t admit), I actually went ahead and got new tools. Which, in my case, means I bought new apps and gear to get work done.

I recently wrote about how I’ve switched from OmniFocus to Remember The Milk, Calendar and Todo.txt to effortlessly manage my tasks, events, and articles. I’d like to quote for the sake of context:

I don’t have access to my Mac 24/7 anymore. I work from different places, and 80% of the time I prefer to keep my iPad with me than a MacBook. Obviously, the tweaks and adjustments I had made on my Macs didn’t carry over to iOS devices.

Articles, app releases, website management and finances are all different kinds of tasks. I used to keep them in OmniFocus, and tweak the app and its view options to fit the way I worked. It turns out, having separate tools for different sets of tasks is helping me focus more and avoid distractions. Articles need research and are more text-oriented; app releases only need a quick ping or alert; finance and website management can go into a proper GTD app with lists, due dates, etc..

These are two key points: access and writing. I don’t have access to my Mac(s) 24/7 anymore and I have to give up on pretending my articles are tasks that need to be managed with tags and due dates. Writing is a creative process (even when I’m breaking news or analyzing a rumor, I try to offer a perspective for debate and analysis), and I don’t think creativity can be managed with strict rules and app badges.

So here’s a short list of new apps that are helping me rethink my workflow. Some of them will stick around, others will probably be deleted – I don’t know. What matters is that taking a step back and reconsidering your work habits is a healthy practice (clearly better than telling your friends you’re going to lose weight or quit smoking) that, I believe, can lead to better relationships, a new knowledge of your workflows, and, ultimately, better results. Read More

For the past couple of years, I’ve been using OmniFocus to keep track of my projects and tasks. I love OmniFocus: it is a trusted system from developers I respect with an amazing set of native apps, constantly updated to take advantage of the latest features Apple has to offer. Yet for as much as I’d trust OmniFocus to handle everything for me, when personal needs change, habits are re-imagined and your workflow has to be finely tuned in a different way, software that is not meant for the purpose can only cover so much before you figure out it’s time to move on.

In the past months, some things changed in my personal life, I started a couple of new projects (including the next two iterations of MacStories), hired new people, and started helping out my girlfriend more with her job, too. To keep track of all this, I used to rely on OmniFocus, which worked extremely well until I realized I wasn’t really following any GTD methodology anymore and I had tweaked the app and made compromises with the software that turned OF into a beast it really isn’t. At the same time, I realized a part of my job — writing for this site — just can’t fit into OmniFocus’ style, at least not in the way I work. Which is to say, my colleagues use OmniFocus to manage their articles, and it works pretty well for them.

I compromised because I love OmniFocus too much. I have a deep respect for The Omni Group — a piece of history in Apple’s third-party development scene — and I have spent hours just browsing the company’s forums to read more about how people use Omni Group apps to get things done. I have dedicated Evernote notebooks just for OmniFocus and OmniOutliner, full with tips, stories, AppleScripts and lots of other cool resources. But it comes a point when, even if a specific software is flexible enough to allow for a huge amount of customization, spending hours learning and tweaking isn’t worth it anymore, especially when you have actual work to get done and people to report to. And tweaking is not getting work done, although it can give you such illusion sometimes.

I’ve been working exclusively from my iPad and iPhone for the past two months. Most recently, I got back to writing full-time again and decided to use my iPad for that, too. In this short period of time, I have used a different set of tools than OmniFocus to get things done, and this ‘experiment’ seems to be working so far.

I don’t blame it on OmniFocus. Like I said that app is fantastic, and version 2.0 is on my wish list of apps I’m looking forward to this year. I kept denying this, but the way I work (and, more generally, live) has changed in the last months of 2011; the app I used to manage my tasks wasn’t the perfect tool for the job anymore. So I stopped tweaking and moved on.

I’m now using a combination of Remember The Milk, Todo.txt and iCloud calendar. This setup is very simple, really, and I can assure you it’s more straightforward then what I had done with OmniFocus over the years. Read More

Often overlooked by iOS geeks in favor of Apple’s iPad app of 2010, Flipboard, Zite is a great “personalized news service” that I had ignored too, but started using a lot more recently. It has become an essential piece in my daily news consumption and discovery worlkflow, even more so than Flipboard which, unfortunately, is still largely based (at least on the iPad) on presenting content from your social streams in a new way, not necessarily making new content surface. That’s where Zite “clicked” for me.

Last year, one of the biggest trends of the App Store and software developers was that of launching “social magazines” and “personalized newspaper-like experiences” that leveraged social networks and your online friends to display content (articles, videos) in a new format. After Flipboard came out on the iPad and quickly captured the tech press’ hearts and eyeballs with a beautiful design and fresh approach to Twitter and Facebook, dozens of more or less similar services popped out promising to offer a better experience than Flipboard. Among them was Zite — at least I thought — and I easily dismissed the app as yet another take on the category that Flipboard created. Sometimes it’s good to be wrong, and I surely was.

Read More

John Biggs writes “Why Samsung Is The Next Apple”:

Then consider Samsung’s lead in cellphone sales. While many would argue that Samsung specializes in meh and me-too, 60 million cellphones sold in 2011 can’t be a fluke. This isn’t about Android or iOS or Windows Phone – it’s about Samsung making and selling millions of phones to millions of people. Samsung is mercenary. They’re happy to use anyone’s OS as long as it puts phones into boxes and boxes into shopping bags.

So you have two superlatives: biggest phone manufacturer and biggest TV manufacturer. Add in some tablets, some washing machines, and some acceptable software and you have a real and vibrant ecosystem. The next year will bring plenty of efforts to bring streaming media into the home, but the guy who is already there will win.

John Biggs surely has been to CES more times than I have (actually, I never have) and he knows this industry, but he’s plain wrong. On several fronts. John is looking at the problem from the tech nerd’s perspective — the one that considers gadgets alone, and probably tech specs, the most important factor in the ecosystem equation.

There are many issues with this way of thinking. First: “some acceptable software” and “some washing machines” alongside mobile devices and TVs are not enough to build a “real and vibrant ecosystem”. It’s a start — though we could argue on the washing machines — but it takes a lot more. Ask Apple, who’s the company Biggs is comparing Samsung to, that is been building an ecosystem and devices for more than 10 years and yet sometimes still struggles to keep it all together. Ask Google, who still can’t get their social act together after all these years spent indexing people’s search results and web behavior.

Samsung is huge. It’s a huge company with a huge array of devices in a variegated catalogue of different hardware. But it takes an awful lot of software to build ecosystems, and TouchWiz is a laughable foundation for a “real and vibrant” ecosystem.

Second, it takes experience. Apple and Google (and Microsoft, too) have been building ecosystems of apps, services and users for years. It’s not just the software itself, as in the operating system that runs on computers and smartphones. Does Samsung sell songs? Do they host millions of user accounts? Do they facilitate digital purchases thanks to a system that has millions of credit cards on file? Do they run the most popular email web service in the world?

The answer is they don’t, but they sell a lot of Galaxy S units, Smart TVs and consumer devices. Yet in the popular line that Biggs mentions, the smartphones, they don’t completely own the experience: for as much as they customize Android with their UI “innovations”, the OS is still being made and maintained by someone else. Samsung may be selling millions of smartphones and they’re undoubtedly on track for a successful 2012 with televisions, but I just don’t see how the millions of devices Samsung is selling now can nurture a vibrant ecosystem with just some acceptable software and washing machines.

Is there any doubt that owning the experience is key to building a real ecosystem?

Apple, Google and Amazon seem to agree with me. Also worth remembering: Samsung comes from an OEM perspective that’s always generally used software by others, or at least never fully committed to building real ecosystems with its own code. The three companies above have been preferring the integrated approach as of late, with only some exceptions (Google has its own OSes but lacks hardware; Amazon is doing its own hardware but still forks Android).

Third: Apple — which I mention because Biggs compared it to Samsung — doesn’t just sell millions of devices, build and own its software ecosystem and nurture customer lock-in (as loyalty is apparently defined these days) — they also have a direct, strong relationship with customers through a retail presence worldwide. The importance of retail stores in relation to the ecosystem can never be stressed enough — it’s overlooked sometimes, so I’ll just link to the actual numbers again. Retail stores have become the link between software ecosystems (which are intangible) and the real world, which is made of people. Does Samsung have any plans about that? They’re doing something, and they also have good taste in icons.

Last, I could illustrate the theory on Samsung doing pretty well as long as Apple designs great things, but I’ll just make the facts speak for themselves (again).

It takes years to build an ecosystem. And I don’t see how we can write Samsung “will be the next Apple” just yet.

CES, the tech industry’s largest (and most crowded) trade show, is happening this week. By now, I’m sure you have already seen many of the important announcements, watched a couple of press conferences, and perhaps even read multiple tech blogs to get all the possible news from CES.

Good for you. Unlike previous years, I won’t be bothering skimming through all the headlines this time, because I’m seeing a trend that, at least for me but I believe for others too, is tiresome and deeply annoying.

As bloggers, we’re subject every day to shameless copies and imitations of Apple products. I’m not making this up. Watching CES from the outside these past few years (that is, reading from home) has been an initially ironic, then quickly annoying rush towards having to learn about the latest product from company X that is not an Apple product but looks like one. I swallowed the obvious shift in smartphone design and the hilarious copying of interface elements and tablets. Maybe those weren’t strictly related to CES, but I don’t care, because the underlying problem is the same, with the difference that during CES it’s all there in its shameless glory, rolled up in one week. We hear about these things all year. With CES 2012, I decided to stop paying attention.

Now I won’t rant and say that the tech industry doesn’t innovate. And I won’t even say that I stopped watching CES altogether, because I’ve had my fun with Ballmer and the Tweet Choir. Sony does have some amazing products (including, wait for it, two distinctive tablet designs) and they seem to be *at least* understanding what the concept of ecosystem is. Microsoft, Ballmer aside, has great taste with WP7 and, it appears, certain parts of Windows 8. Some guys made an awesome touch-based-whatever cooktop that doesn’t waste energy. Thunderbolt is looking more promising every day. The Nokia Lumia 900 is great.

There’s still some innovation going on in this industry, thank God. But the rest is bullshit.

Let’s see what CES offered, shall we? Acer unveiled a cloud-based service that looks somewhat familiar — where by “familiar” I mean look at those slides. The Ultrabooks — God bless Intel, it understands the market’s needs — were in full force at CES. They all look awfully familiar to the MacBook Air, which isn’t an “ultrabook” because Ultrabook is something the industry made up to justify the need for Windows computers that look just like MacBooks. So yeah, it looks like a MacBook but it’s not a MacBook. Get it? HP did a long time ago.

I mean, Sir Jony Ive must be proud. Even Vizio is now, well, being inspired by Jony’s creations and coming out with, again, familiar faces. Cheers to Vizio for being bold enough to announce the whole family.

We even have the computer that copies a purpoted Apple computer that doesn’t exist. They copied the patent.

Then there’s the mobile market. Smartphones and tablets. Man is it difficult to keep up with all those Android phones. Even Samsung, skilled player, must have thought this, as they have created a new category of their own so it’ll be easier to keep up with that. They call it “phablet“. Well okay Samsung, I guess I’ll take a padfone next. Oh wait. I’ll just settle for the UltraTab (No joke, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this coming out later this year). I can’t even count how many iPhone and iPad lookalikes I’ve seen on The Verge and Engadget. And don’t get me wrong, it’s their job to report on these things and I completely understand how you can get excited for the latest Android phone or 7-inch tablet. I, however, have stopped paying attention.

I personally don’t get people that purposefully buy gadgets that “look like _insert name here_, only to save a few bucks. Problem is, they might not even save those dollars anymore, because “a race to the bottom” has begun and Apple is winning. I blame those prices on the recession. Perhaps corrupted politicians, too.

It’s not all bad though. After all those clones, I look at the Nokia Lumia 900, Windows Phone 7 and OnLive and I’m reminded that there’s still hope. The innovators are out there, and there are some incredible companies working on amazing technologies that don’t make headlines at CES. There are even people who seem to get what I’m thinking here, more or less.

No one is defending the argument that folks like Samsung copy everything that Apple does. Or that Apple doesn’t copy certain trends sometimes. But the amount of shameless copying and blatant efforts of coming up with unoriginal marketing jargon going on at CES are just too much for me.

You can still find innovation. Just make sure you don’t get the Chinese rip-off.

Ultimately, I had to ship Instapaper 4.0 with non-renewing subscriptions, I was able to delete all of the clunky auto-renewing server code, nobody sees that terrible dialog in my app, and I need to ship an update soon that will annoy my best customers with manual-renewal notifications.

But this is a great example, like Newsstand Kit’s background downloads, of Apple adding a capability to iOS that’s potentially useful to thousands of developers, and then restricting it so that only a handful of players (usually big companies) can actually use it.

I hope that, in time, they unbundle some of these myopically targeted enhancements and make them potentially useful to all developers. But Apple’s record on this isn’t great so far.

Marco is right — auto-renewable subscriptions are easy to use (and understand) and more developers should get access to it. Imagine being able to subscribe to Instapaper through iTunes, or getting your Evernote Premium account billed automatically every year or month, instead of having to purchase it manually (as it happens now). But I could argue that, at the same time, new technologies like Newsstand Kit’s background downloads (described here) and auto-renewable subscriptions are more of a conceptual and technical issue for Apple rather than a “limitation” imposed to developers. Imagine if every app in the Store went free, and started billing users periodically for “usage”. That would create an unrealistic ecosystem of free apps with in-app subscriptions for all kinds of content. I’m not saying apps like Instapaper shouldn’t get access to auto-renewable subscriptions — it actually seems like a perfect fit to me — but I believe that instead of going on a case-by-case basis, Apple decided to roll out the feature for “publishers of new content” first. That’s easier to scale.

It gets murkier with the background downloads of Newsstand. Periodicals and newspapers get this neat implementation of automatic downloads of new issues. Would a third-party app like Instapaper benefit from it? Sure. Imagine being able to have your Instapaper queue delivered to you wirelessly, each morning, instead of having to download it manually (which takes seconds but it’s still a manual action). That’d be great. Or the aforementioned Evernote, which could, in theory, figure out a way to push changes from its remote database once per day without a user’s direct action (case in point: I add a lot of items to Evernote on my Mac overnight, I see all the changes automatically pushed to my iPad the next morning). Again, I believe some apps should get this functionality for increased usability and overall enjoyment of the user, but there are exceptions I’m fairly certain Apple considered. What if every developer of every app starts implementing background downloads for remote content? Even once per day, for every app, it can be  a lot of data. And when you add data caps to the mix and start imagining games that can download new levels remotely on 3G…not good.

Obviously, if we follow this argument — that every developer should get access to the latest technologies used by Apple, or that at least some developers should be able to — we could say that Apple did figure out solutions in the past to avoid problems with, say, data caps and 3G downloads. Granular controls, like “Use Cellular Data” in the Store’s Settings, or the common limit of 20 MB for App Store downloads on 3G. But again, imagine a scenario where every developer gets to implement subscriptions or background downloads. Is the user supposed to go through a list of 100+ apps and switch every single one of them to “off” for background downloads? And if the list is a bad idea, and we argue again that only some apps should get these features — why, say, just Instapaper or Evernote? Why not Infinity Blade II?

Last, it is true Apple doesn’t have a great record for bringing iOS’ enhancements to third-party developers in a short period of time — but keep in mind that the iPhone launched without multitasking and background applications and eventually got one of the best implementations of multitasking out there and background tasks (for some apps) up to 10 minutes. The other side of the coin, obviously, is that third-party apps can’t run in the background all the time like Apple’s Music app – but the same question rises again: can you imagine every single developer doing that? (Speaking of enhancements in Apple’s apps: I expect Mail’s rich text controls to be opened up next to developers for integration. And did anyone mention Siri?)

In the past four (almost five now) years, Apple has taught us (and the industry) that iOS isn’t about big press releases and revolutions as much as it’s about incremental progress, iterative improvements and refinements. Apple rolls in its very own way, and looking back at the differences between iPhone OS 1 and iOS 5, it’s clear that a lot of work went into all the updates and fixes and changes that got us this.

Developers rightfully want access to cool new features as soon as they’re available (especially when they seem such a good fit) and users are always eager to see the latest software functionalities implemented in delightful new ways, but the App Store’s ecosystem is so variegate and unique that sometimes waiting is the best option.

It’s not absurd to say many didn’t even know it was possible to “install apps” on a Mac before the launch of the Mac App Store. What the Mac App Store did — besides allowing long-time Mac users and developers to consolidate their software library in a single place and provide them with a better way to discover and showcase the latest indie hit — is it finally created a viable and consumer-friendly way to find and buy apps. Before the Mac App Store, the average Mac user could get work done easily with just Safari and Mail because he or she knew those were all the apps a Mac came with. Great apps, for sure, but just those apps. The Mac App Store, just like the iOS App Store, opened a whole new portal for users and a market for developers (and a way for Apple to break even on costs with a 30% cut) to know a completely new world made of utilities, productivity apps, games, news readers and more. The Mail aficionados of 2010 have likely jumped over to Sparrow, and those who swore by Preview perhaps have found something more attractive in Pixelmator 2.0.

With 100 million downloads under its belt and Apple’s latest major OS X revision, Lion, available digitally, there’s no denying the Mac App Store had a great run in 2011. Here’s a look back at these 365 days, and how the Mac App Store we know today (quickly) came to be. Read More