Ranting Kenya

Well, Apple’s WWDC event for 2008 has had it’s keynote now. As expected, the 3G iPhone has been unveiled. I must say, this phone does actually make the previous iPhone look kinda light in the features department. The wireless speed alone is a big difference, the GPS tracking should be awesome (doesn’t cost extra money to have like on my Moto Q). So July 11 should be a big day in Canada and elsewhere.

But aside from a release date from Apple (a search on Rogers’ reveals no matches whatsoever for “iphone”), there is no price information on the Canadian page. Two screenshots below show the differences between the US and Canadian pages.

US Page:

Canadian Page:

Also, there’s no info on data plan rates either. I find this interesting since it was heavily speculated that Canada may have been left out of the last round of iPhones due to Rogers’ data plan greed. But $199 sounds good to me.

At any rate, at least now there’s a date.

So by now, everybody’s heard the news.

Phil made an interesting comment on one of my other posts. He said:

…Chances are a lot of Telus subscribers will ditch their CDMA phones in favour of the trendy iPhone, especially the young and fashionable population…

While I believe this is certainly a possibility, with all the news surrounding the next version of the iPhone (Engadget has a bunch of posts), how many people are really going to go for it? Perhaps many, since not everyone follows this type of thing in the media.

If Rogers negotiated a lucrative exclusivity deal, and their voice/data plan is actually good, then yeah, I think Rogers will be selling them hand over fist. I heard a rumour that a 5GB data plan might be an alternative to unlimited.

However, I believe Rogers will be Rogers and will be greedy. Any really good data plan will undoubtedly be quite expensive. That’s really the deal maker/breaker in the Canadian iPhone story. The monthly charges.

It will of course sell out when launched, it will get all the media attention, and I will see more of them and want one more.

Here’s the price comparison from Daily Tech:

The numbers look too good to be true… A 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 GB of DDR2 667 memory, a 250 GB hard drive, DVD, and Integrated Intel GMA 950 Graphics, all for a lowly $399. To put this in perspective a Mac Mini with a 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, equivalent memory, a 160 GB hard drive, DVD, and the same graphics processor, will cost you a hefty $949. Of course the $399 Mac came in a full-size case, and the Mac Mini came in a shrunken footprint, but obviously for some Mac users, the decreased size wasn’t worth $550.

So what does this tell us about Apple, Macs, and the industry? Well for one, there’s interest in an actual low-cost alternative to the Mac. The Mac Mini gets a lot of attention due to it’s form factor, but it was billed by Apple as the cheap alternative. The computer that was for people who wanted a Mac experience, without spending thousands of dollars.

Some would argue that these computers are a good thing, that they will increase the Mac platform’s spread in the computer world. And they probably would. I would even bet that it wouldn’t cut into Mac sales much, if at all. The people who buy Macs still want “a Mac”. This however would bring more people in, and probably convert them to full-blown Mac users eventually.

Apple however, I’d bet, isn’t interested in this scenario. I forget where this comes from, but someone speculated that Apple isn’t all that interested in increasing their marketshare in the PC/Windows dominated world. They have their little corner of the market, and they’re happy with it. Why not sell a “premium” product at a premium price? They even get to play by a lot of their own rules as a result. They are in essence a monopoly of sorts. Sure they compete against PCs, but not really.

Hopefully this product doesn’t die. I’ve been thinking hard recently of hacking a PC to run OS X. It’s a cheaper alternative to buying a Mac and running Windows on it via Bootcamp. My PC has far more power than any iMac, and probably competes with the Mac Pros on some benchmarks, and is half the price. Which is really why Apple doesn’t like this Open Computer. They don’t want to compete on price (they’d lose), and they don’t want more of the market. Simple as that.

Update

One problem with Apple’s dislike of this company… it doesn’t exists really… Oh well.

Update 2

I guess they do exists. Who can keep up with this? Oh right, Engadget

Now that the music industry is allowing it’s content go out DRM-free, the music battle is more or less over. I believe that soon, music will be avaiable from all the major labels on all the major services. Apple pioneered the industry, Amazon was the first to fully nail it (in my opinion), and now there’s a baseline from which to judge the rest.

But what about video?

Well, the newest player out there (as of yesteday) is Apple. They started the music revolution (or was that Napster?), and now they look to duplicate that success for movies.

There’s another gorilla out there too, Microsoft (have you heard of them). They’ve been doing this for a while now on Xbox.

Amazon has their unbox service, which has already gone through some major revisions.

Aren’t we on the tail end of a format war right now?

So what’s the deal with all these services? From what I can tell, here is the list of similarities between them:

• They all use some form of DRM.
• They all work on different devices.
• They’re all rental services.
• They’re all unique, just like all the others.

So here are my quick thoughts on each service:

Apple

Pros

• Apple’s biggest advantage is that it’s Apple. Their computers continue to sell, iPods are huge, iPhones are even bigger. They have a highly desirable brand in the public consciousness.
• In a close second place, it’s next biggest advantage is that they have all major movie studios onboard. That’s better than the iTunes music store, and a great place to start.
• The quality of the HD video that Steve Jobs outlined sounded excellent. Finally the Apple TV will have some HD content, and also 5.1 digital audio.
• You can rent your movies through the simplicity of iTunes, or another excellent Apple interface via the Apple TV that you access from your couch.

Cons

• However, unlike the iTunes music store, Apple will have a much harder time since other companies are working on the digital delivery model too. iTunes was revolutionary, but others have seen the virtues of Apple’s product and business models.
• Media companies are getting more savvy, and more wary of Steve Jobs. Many feel that he unfairly compensated the recording industry with his low prices. He has been hailed for negotiating some of the most lucrative business deal for his own company (hello AT&T and the iPhone).
• Another problem, you have to purchase an Apple TV to enjoy these videos from your couch. Another couple hundred dollar investment.
• Figuring out what you can do with these videos is also a problem (but not unique to Apple). Here’s an example from Engadget.

Microsoft - Xbox Live

Pros

• Microsoft’s biggest advantage is probably that there is already 10 million Xbox 360 consoles in the wild. As far as getting content from the net to the TV with some propietary box, Xbox 360 is way out front.
• Similarily, they’ve already been selling videos (both HD and SD) on their service for well over a year now. In the Xbox 360 vs PS3 battle, a headstart is clearly a big advatage to have.
• An Xbox 360 console does far more than an Apple TV. It’s not a dedicated media extender/set-top box/service. It plays games, plays HD-DVD (with appropriate attachment), plays DVDs, and a whole lot of other stuff.
• As much as it doesn’t hurt to be Apple, it doesn’t hurt to be Microsoft. They’re huge, they got fingers everywhere, they have excellent technology, huge amounts of cash, and they’ll be in the for the long haul no matter what.
• Xbox 360s, when connected correctly, can upconvert it’s output to 1080p. This is a minor destinction to most, but not all.

Cons

• However, Microsoft lacks full studio support. Content is clearly king.
• You need to have an Xbox 360 console, and it’s more money than an Apple TV.
• You have to use these “Xbox points“. And it’s not a 1:1 ratio with real money. And you have to buy them in bulk. They’re annoying.

Amazon

Pros

• TiVo integration. What could be better than having your videos already waiting for you on your TiVo?
• Amazon got music right. Low prices, DRM-free, huge collection.
• They also have a working video service right now. As far as I know it’s PC only, but they’re in the game.
• I also think that Amazon has some unique possibilities regarding sales. They could sell you the DVD copy, while allowing you to rent or buy a digital copy that you can watch before the DVD arrives in the mail. This also eliminates that whole rental/purchase issue.

Cons

• How do you get it to the TV?
• Doesn’t have the brand recognition in this space of a Microsoft or Apple.
• There is no HD as far as I’m aware.

Final Thoughts

All in all, now that HD-DVD seems to be on its deathbed (at the hands of Blu-Ray), we’re really on the beginning of another “format war” of sorts. How are you supposed to pick between services? Some work with some ipods, some only with specific hardware, all have strict DRM schemes, none of them have anything to do with purchasing content, none inter-operate either.

However, I believe that this is a battle that we can’t afford to sit out. I’m sure if the movie studios see no sales in this digital space, it will delay the roll out of truly good download services by years. Money really is the only motivation that us as consumers can provide for large companies to develop technology and delivery methods that work for us.

This is also essentially the problem the music industry just went through. How do we trust our customers and allow them to enjoy the content they purchase the way they want?

*laughs* Actually, wouldn’t cable card solve a lot of these issues?

 In my previous posts regarding Safari on Windows, I was a little underwhelmed. There was no real super feature that made me want to switch. To be honest, I’m too connected to Firefox and all my extensions to leave it on a regular basis anyway. However, I fired up the new update to Safari today. Version 3.0.4. I just wanted to see a couple pages without any cached version available. And I wanted to check my yahoo mail, which for some reason the new version crashes Firefox at my work when you exit it. Anyway, to my amazement, Safari 3 is fast. WAY fast. I was loading fresh pages faster than Firefox was from the cache. I tried different types of pages too. This blog, my portfolio site, digg, Bioware’s website. All loaded so much faster. Not even comparable. It even seems to load pictures faster once they start downloading. On a side note, I had another look at the MacBook Pros the other day. These ones were running Leopard and were brand new. The public hadn’t spoiled them yet. There wasn’t even fingerprints on the screens. Anyway, man, those machines are nice.

I finally got my hands on the iPod Touch at Best Buy the other day. It was a rather impressive device. I didn’t have any headphones, so I didn’t check out sound quality or anything like that.

My first impressions were that the screen was impressive. I have seen posts showing the superior screen of the iPhone, and I could see the iPod Touch’s screen limitation, but it was nevertheless a good looking screen.

The text entry was difficult for me on the narrow screen. The first time I tried to enter a url, everything that was typed from my left thumb was one letter off. I continued typing trying to “trust it” but it was way wrong. The wide keyboard was way easier. I did get better however in a few minutes. Not good, but better.

Scrolling through lists and using coverflow was surprisingly awesome. I was skeptical before, but it’s quite efficient.

But seriously, how awesome is the web browsing on that device. I personally have a Motorola Q. I’ve used Microsoft Deepfish, and the regular IE. Safari on the iPod Touch blows it out of the water so completely, I can’t even compare them. Some of the sites I visited loaded very quickly, others less so. I think the WiFi was a little sketchy in the Best Buy so I’m not convinced that the slowness was necessarily the iPod.

If I had any gripes about it, it would be that moving from some of the applications back to the home screen was sluggish at times, also switching from landscape to portrait or vice versa wasn’t as snappy as I would’ve liked.

All in all, when the iPhone comes to a carrier in Canada that is good (i.e. NOT Rogers), I will seriously consider it based on the iPod Touch. The web browsing alone is enough to sell me. The integration that I’ll be missing (potentially) with my computer and Windows Mobile 5/6 is the lesser evil when compared with the impressive web browsing.

Jack Kapica wrote in the Globe and Mail an article concerning data rates in Canada and the iPhone.

Here’s my comments on the article and the situation.

Rogers, this is directed at you, and I’m not one of your customers. Cut your data rates. Get the iPhone ASAP. Apple is making a 3G iPhone right now, if it’s not done already. They’re not stupid. They won’t let their new baby, their new industry changing device languish on your GSM network. Get it now while you still can. Nobody is going to be interested in a GSM iPhone if another version is available.

Also, consider that this is the first revision of the iPhone. Your customers of your data plans are largely business clients. Do you really think Apple isn’t going to improve the business functionality of this device? It already has Microsoft Exchange Server compatibility, which if you remember, competes with Blackberry’s push email service.

When the 3G iPhone comes, and remember that it will, do you really think that both Bell and Telus are going to pass on this device? They’re going to see your weakness, your high data rates, and they’re going to cut theirs and leave you high and dry. I’m not in marketing, but I can already see the promotion: New iPhone with new low data rate, and a first in Canada. Compare that to your counter-campaign: Same Blackberry, and we’ll lower our rates too because we don’t care about you, but Bell and Telus are forcing our hand. Seriously, your rates are anti-consumer, and because of that Telus and Bell have made a killing too. Up until now, there’s been no real reason to change the rates since you’re all sleeping on hundred dollar bills, but the iPhone is the reason. It is the change that the entire Canadian wireless industry needs, and it will come to pass, with or without you. Most people aren’t willing to unlock and have firmware updates mess things up. They need a real solution, the one only you can give.

Seriously, Apple has given you the greatest gift you could ever ask for. The un-disputed hottest electronic device in years, hotter than the iPod, and you are the only one who can really bring it to Canada (for now).

Only, you’re saying, “No thanks.”

Well, it seems that the iPhone may come to Canada sooner than anyone previously thought, according to the Ottawa Citizen.

A mobile phone unlocking company called PureMobile will be offering the iPhone to Canadians in an unlocked version. They evidently announced a partnership with the 17 year old New Jersey kid who had received a lot of press the last few days for unlocking his iPhone.

Here are a couple screenshots of PureMobile’s website.

I was thinking about the clickwheel on Apple’s iPod and where they got the idea from. I also wondered why this strange circular movement of the thumb is so easy to use.

Well it finally dawned on me. Combination padlocks.

Personally, I don’t use the “pinch and rotate” technique with my fingers to select my combination on my padlocks, I use my thumb over the actual numbered surface. This, I found, was more accurate and quick for me to open up my locker at the gym, in college, high school etc.

Then it dawned on me, virtually everyone has used this type of lock before. It’s a brilliant evolution of an interface everyone has used. Nobody realizes their thumbs have been trained for the iPod for years. Maybe the lock manufacturers should sue Apple. I’d say prior art is definitely established.

There’s no question that the iPhone hype is as high as any product in the last decade. Everybody knows what it is, even if they’re not Apple fanboys, gadget aficionados, and mobile phone connoisseurs. And everybody knows the product is from Apple and AT&T.

So while Apple’s reputation continues to skyrocket to the stratosphere, the universal sore spot on the product is AT&T’s Edge network necessity. It’s the one thing that is truly holding the phone back.

But Apple’s not taking any heat for that, it’s solely on AT&T’s shoulders. So in the long run, will AT&T’s reputation will be hurt by iPhone exclusivity, or will it not matter? No doubt they will make a ton of money, but everyone is going to loathe network service. Will everyone forgive and forget, or will all the subscribers bail on AT&T as soon as a real 3G version is available? I think so.