Where anyone who has ever menstruated would not have named a product that

I’ll preface this by saying I am very much underwhelmed and I’m not the only one. I do not think it’s because of unmet expectations over the hype machine around this device; but that this thing is really just a bigger iPhone (no, I don’t buy the “it’s not just just an iPhone because third party developers will augment where Apple has fallen short” argument - the iPhone already has that down by spades). After two iPod touches and an iPhone 3G, I cannot justify the need for it, nor find any reason for its existence.

(the title above, by the way - I quoted from @hchamp on Twitter)

According to Engadget, Apple set out to make a tablet as far as 2002, but somewhere along the way, digressed and birthed a more pocketable device in the form of the iPhone. From a business perspective I imagine it’s easier to make a marketing case for a mobile phone, a product with an already-established consumer base, than one that flies in the face of excess baggage from past failed attempts and $300 netbooks in the middle of a recession.

I’ll back up a bit and just point out that both the iPhone and this newfangled device are really just “software in gorgeous hardware” (words of Steve Jobs from one of his past keynotes, I forget which one exactly). Keep this in mind as you read the next section:

My contention is that I’m sure more people would have been blown away if Apple released this derivative of Mac OS (which I’ll now refer to as “OS X iPhone” moving forward) in the tablet form factor before they did on a handheld device. OS X iPhone is, by far, the best implementation of what a “tablet PC” should be.

Imagine then three years later, Apple introduces the same OS X derivative in a form factor that could fit in the palm of your hand - and BAM! You get a second wave of excitement over what’s essentially the same product (i.e., OS X iPhone). Your third salvo (or second, as would be more likely) would be the App Store (and we all know how well that worked out for the OS X iPhone ecosystem).

But history has it already: Apple had sprung up for the smaller device first and we find ourselves in the extreme opposite ends of the argument.

Still, had Apple released this thing first and iPhone second, I’m sure I’d still gravitate towards the latter.

One more thing: this awkward situation that we have right now where iPhone apps run on the bigger screen by blasting the pixels 300% will just be a fleeting moment and soon enough we should see custom-designed applications that should look better than 8-bit Mario. Because all apps are be distributed through the same App Store that’s currently on the iPhone, the next wave of applications (with their additional bitmaps suited for the larger form factor) will almost definitely blow up the size of application binaries, which translates to longer download times (I wish Apple just got rid of the 10-megabyte cap on what can and can’t be downloaded over 3G and/or WiFi), with zero benefit to iPhone-only users such as myself.

Right now, the only thing I’m excited about is the release of Bioshock 2.

@1 month ago
#tech #Apple #iPad #iPhone 

On why "fixing" iPhone's Exchange support shows that Apple is clueless about the enterprise

I upgraded to iPhone OS 3.1 on the same hour Apple announced it was out, and it was good. I even thought it breathed new life to my aging iPhone 3G that was rendered slow-as-molasses useless with the 3.0 update, although it could just be placebo effect because I have not found any confirmation from the fountain of all knowledge. Not long after, cries from deserts far and wide started pouring in: the new update, when running off Microsoft Exchange 2007 SP1, renders anything but the iPhone 3GS useless for business users. Maybe I should not have been as antsy to upgrade. (Updated on 9/19: in two weeks I have had to restore my iPhone thrice already. There’s a bad bug that wipes out your entire Library on the device when the iTunes app crashes while downloading a song/podcast)

I had a BFO moment: Apple doesn’t get the enterprise, and here’s why I doubt they will anytime soon:

Exhibit #1: Apple discloses very little about its software. The recent 3.1 update for iPhone OS described feature changes to the way the device works, but not a peep that device encryption support for Exchange has changed fundamentally and left people whose lives depended on Exchange, in the washers, so to speak. Prior to 3.1, I have not read information anywhere that Apple’s devices essentially breached Exchange’s device encryption policy and it’s a little insulting that Exchange support has had a happy little section on Apple’s business page since the iPhone 3G was released in 2008.

Exhibit #2: Apple does not encourage predictability. Consider the highly published SMS hijack affecting multiple mobile platforms: after it was identified that the iPhone was also vulnerable, there was no telling when the fix will be made, and more importantly that if it will be fixed at all. iPhone OS 3.0.1 dropped without warning.

Industries have been built around ensuring maximum uptime, risks are identified and mitigation strategies are laid out ahead of time. This would be completely impossible without input on Apple’s part as to what and when known issues will be patched. I cannot wrap my head around the fact that Apple, an enterprise environment of their own with 35,000 employees and 251 locations as of early 2009, speaks out of both sides of its mouth. It’s either feinted naïveté, or that Steve’s Culture of Smug that has reverberated across the entire company has reached the new lows of arrogance.

Exhibit #3: Apple has a track record of abandoning legacy systems and rebooting when it feels like it cannot further that technology. Cases in point: OS 9, PowerPC and iMovie HD; more recently and perhaps more relevant to the subject: the original iPhone, iPhone 3G, and the first two generations of the iPod touch without hardware encryption. For all the wrong decisions that were made in Microsoft’s history, there is something to be said for its stance on legacy support. Case in point: official support for Windows 3.1 ended only two decades (almost) after Microsoft cut off the oxygen late last year.

Exhibit #4: Apple works as if its marketing muscle impresses the enterprise,but this becomes an issue of unmet expectations where there are product feature gaps to be found between its engineering and marketing divisions (refer back to example in Exhibit #1)

To Mr Jobs: iTunes is not an enterprise application, not especially when you suggest that users can spend all of their nine work hours rocking out to Miley Cyrus; see, even Windows Media Player is restricted on desktops of information sweatshop workers.

Exhibit #5: Everything we’ve seen so far just makes it all the more obvious that Apple is half-hearted about the enterprise. Sure, there’s Exchange for iPhone and Snow Leopard, but the forms they take now are not what they had right out of the gate. Certificates, configuration profiles/identities, WPA2 encryption and Cisco IPSec VPN, were only introduced in iPhone OS 2.0, and were further extended to include L2TP, PPTP and on-device encryption only in iPhone OS 3.0 (the latter of which the security community just scoffs at). Apple’s feigned support for Exchange bites it back in the behind and only furthers the argument that the company is completely clueless about the market it’s trying to impress, and that they’ve bit off more than they can chew.

The takeaway here is that while Apple did not need the enterprise to build a successful empire, it understands the financial opportunity the enterprise market represents and realizes that it needs to move into the space to drive even more growth. Apple is clearly testing the waters, but with the mistakes it is making, it is clear that the company is a novice in this space. Enterprise customers tend to not forget easily and it might be better off for Apple to invest some of its 28.1 billion sitting ducks towards research as to how enterprise environments actually operate outside their happy little world.

This whole diatribe because I was this close to (and will soon likely be) unable to use my iPhone to get my work email and calendar. I just hope my sys admin doesn’t find out about the magic checkbox until I can replace my iPhone 3G.

@5 months ago
#Apple #Enterprise 
Where anyone who has ever menstruated would not have named a product that

I’ll preface this by saying I am very much underwhelmed and I’m not the only one. I do not think it’s because of unmet expectations over the hype machine around this device; but that this thing is really just a bigger iPhone (no, I don’t buy the “it’s not just just an iPhone because third party developers will augment where Apple has fallen short” argument - the iPhone already has that down by spades). After two iPod touches and an iPhone 3G, I cannot justify the need for it, nor find any reason for its existence.

(the title above, by the way - I quoted from @hchamp on Twitter)

According to Engadget, Apple set out to make a tablet as far as 2002, but somewhere along the way, digressed and birthed a more pocketable device in the form of the iPhone. From a business perspective I imagine it’s easier to make a marketing case for a mobile phone, a product with an already-established consumer base, than one that flies in the face of excess baggage from past failed attempts and $300 netbooks in the middle of a recession.

I’ll back up a bit and just point out that both the iPhone and this newfangled device are really just “software in gorgeous hardware” (words of Steve Jobs from one of his past keynotes, I forget which one exactly). Keep this in mind as you read the next section:

My contention is that I’m sure more people would have been blown away if Apple released this derivative of Mac OS (which I’ll now refer to as “OS X iPhone” moving forward) in the tablet form factor before they did on a handheld device. OS X iPhone is, by far, the best implementation of what a “tablet PC” should be.

Imagine then three years later, Apple introduces the same OS X derivative in a form factor that could fit in the palm of your hand - and BAM! You get a second wave of excitement over what’s essentially the same product (i.e., OS X iPhone). Your third salvo (or second, as would be more likely) would be the App Store (and we all know how well that worked out for the OS X iPhone ecosystem).

But history has it already: Apple had sprung up for the smaller device first and we find ourselves in the extreme opposite ends of the argument.

Still, had Apple released this thing first and iPhone second, I’m sure I’d still gravitate towards the latter.

One more thing: this awkward situation that we have right now where iPhone apps run on the bigger screen by blasting the pixels 300% will just be a fleeting moment and soon enough we should see custom-designed applications that should look better than 8-bit Mario. Because all apps are be distributed through the same App Store that’s currently on the iPhone, the next wave of applications (with their additional bitmaps suited for the larger form factor) will almost definitely blow up the size of application binaries, which translates to longer download times (I wish Apple just got rid of the 10-megabyte cap on what can and can’t be downloaded over 3G and/or WiFi), with zero benefit to iPhone-only users such as myself.

Right now, the only thing I’m excited about is the release of Bioshock 2.

1 month ago
#tech #Apple #iPad #iPhone 
On why "fixing" iPhone's Exchange support shows that Apple is clueless about the enterprise

I upgraded to iPhone OS 3.1 on the same hour Apple announced it was out, and it was good. I even thought it breathed new life to my aging iPhone 3G that was rendered slow-as-molasses useless with the 3.0 update, although it could just be placebo effect because I have not found any confirmation from the fountain of all knowledge. Not long after, cries from deserts far and wide started pouring in: the new update, when running off Microsoft Exchange 2007 SP1, renders anything but the iPhone 3GS useless for business users. Maybe I should not have been as antsy to upgrade. (Updated on 9/19: in two weeks I have had to restore my iPhone thrice already. There’s a bad bug that wipes out your entire Library on the device when the iTunes app crashes while downloading a song/podcast)

I had a BFO moment: Apple doesn’t get the enterprise, and here’s why I doubt they will anytime soon:

Exhibit #1: Apple discloses very little about its software. The recent 3.1 update for iPhone OS described feature changes to the way the device works, but not a peep that device encryption support for Exchange has changed fundamentally and left people whose lives depended on Exchange, in the washers, so to speak. Prior to 3.1, I have not read information anywhere that Apple’s devices essentially breached Exchange’s device encryption policy and it’s a little insulting that Exchange support has had a happy little section on Apple’s business page since the iPhone 3G was released in 2008.

Exhibit #2: Apple does not encourage predictability. Consider the highly published SMS hijack affecting multiple mobile platforms: after it was identified that the iPhone was also vulnerable, there was no telling when the fix will be made, and more importantly that if it will be fixed at all. iPhone OS 3.0.1 dropped without warning.

Industries have been built around ensuring maximum uptime, risks are identified and mitigation strategies are laid out ahead of time. This would be completely impossible without input on Apple’s part as to what and when known issues will be patched. I cannot wrap my head around the fact that Apple, an enterprise environment of their own with 35,000 employees and 251 locations as of early 2009, speaks out of both sides of its mouth. It’s either feinted naïveté, or that Steve’s Culture of Smug that has reverberated across the entire company has reached the new lows of arrogance.

Exhibit #3: Apple has a track record of abandoning legacy systems and rebooting when it feels like it cannot further that technology. Cases in point: OS 9, PowerPC and iMovie HD; more recently and perhaps more relevant to the subject: the original iPhone, iPhone 3G, and the first two generations of the iPod touch without hardware encryption. For all the wrong decisions that were made in Microsoft’s history, there is something to be said for its stance on legacy support. Case in point: official support for Windows 3.1 ended only two decades (almost) after Microsoft cut off the oxygen late last year.

Exhibit #4: Apple works as if its marketing muscle impresses the enterprise,but this becomes an issue of unmet expectations where there are product feature gaps to be found between its engineering and marketing divisions (refer back to example in Exhibit #1)

To Mr Jobs: iTunes is not an enterprise application, not especially when you suggest that users can spend all of their nine work hours rocking out to Miley Cyrus; see, even Windows Media Player is restricted on desktops of information sweatshop workers.

Exhibit #5: Everything we’ve seen so far just makes it all the more obvious that Apple is half-hearted about the enterprise. Sure, there’s Exchange for iPhone and Snow Leopard, but the forms they take now are not what they had right out of the gate. Certificates, configuration profiles/identities, WPA2 encryption and Cisco IPSec VPN, were only introduced in iPhone OS 2.0, and were further extended to include L2TP, PPTP and on-device encryption only in iPhone OS 3.0 (the latter of which the security community just scoffs at). Apple’s feigned support for Exchange bites it back in the behind and only furthers the argument that the company is completely clueless about the market it’s trying to impress, and that they’ve bit off more than they can chew.

The takeaway here is that while Apple did not need the enterprise to build a successful empire, it understands the financial opportunity the enterprise market represents and realizes that it needs to move into the space to drive even more growth. Apple is clearly testing the waters, but with the mistakes it is making, it is clear that the company is a novice in this space. Enterprise customers tend to not forget easily and it might be better off for Apple to invest some of its 28.1 billion sitting ducks towards research as to how enterprise environments actually operate outside their happy little world.

This whole diatribe because I was this close to (and will soon likely be) unable to use my iPhone to get my work email and calendar. I just hope my sys admin doesn’t find out about the magic checkbox until I can replace my iPhone 3G.

5 months ago
#Apple #Enterprise