May Contain Nuts

My thoughts, as always, are a bit lengthy to be able to cram them into 140-character fragments with any semblance of coherence (that was 127 characters right there), so here we go. Hopefully I can keep things punchy, even without the arbitrary character limit…

In fact, let’s try something new. I’ll do a one-word reaction followed by a more detailed commentary (hopefully still brief), so you can TL;DR as you see fit.

New iPods

Shuffle: Buttons!

Nano: Slick. Looks like Apple may be either branching iOS again for the new device’s itty bitty square screen, or they’re aping the UI totally and running something else entirely custom underneath. My money is actually on a device-specific branch of iOS, since it seems like they’re trying to provide a stepping stone to the multi-touch interface of the iPhone and iPod Touch now. With the iPod Classic not even warranting a mention as part of the “complete iPod line update” this year, it seems clear that the purpose of the Nano is no longer to give people experience with the bigger iPod Classic’s UI and controls, but instead to get their feet wet in Apple’s new hotness.

Touch: Sexy. Interesting to see that its design is still using the rounded back rather than iPhone 4’s squared-off sides, despite being even more of an iPhone without the phone now. It’s also interesting that the back camera isn’t 5 megapixel like its cousin on the iPhone, but only just big enough to do 720p video recording (iPod Touch photos are 960×720 max according to the specs page). Guess they were a bit desperate for a point of differentiation between the two. Sweet that it supports FaceTime using email addresses; less sweet that it needs to be an email address that’s registered with Apple to work. Not helping the “open standard” mantra there, guys.

Classic: Who? Apparently still around, but unchanged in design, specs, and price.

iTunes 10

Ping: Eh. I get the feeling Apple decided to roll their own social network because of Facebook being a total data mining ad whore, and nobody gets to data mine Apple’s customers but Apple. I think Jobs kind of tipped his hand to that when he explicitly mentioned the simplicity and ease of use of Ping’s privacy controls. Beyond that, I really don’t care. It’s getting increasingly difficult to succeed in being anti-social on the internet anymore these days…

UI: WTF? The new list view + album art is … interesting, I guess, but ultimately not a huge thing. The vertically-oriented traffic lights are just bizarre (way to stick to your HIG guns there, Apple…). Honestly, I’m actually more annoyed about the monochromatic Source List icons, though, because at least the close button is still in the same place. The lack of colorized icons in the source list is just frustrating, since color is one of those oh-so-important elements of UI design that help users quickly distinguish between objects (especially small ones). At least they tweaked the icons themselves to be more shape-oriented to compensate, but seriously. That’s just annoying.

Icon: Glowy. I’ll miss the CD, but given the sprawling nature of the app, I understand why it’s gone. The fact that it retains the musical notes seems like more of a formality than anything else at this point.

I’m at work on a limited-user account, so I can’t actually install the app here and get a feel for how it actually feels, but dear god I hope someone has bothered to do a code review of the thing, if only for the sake of the Windows users of the world.

Apple TV

Design: Teensy. I really don’t have an opinion one way or the other on the new design beyond that, except to say that evidently Sony has decided that matte black plastic with glossy inlaid text is in, and the world (including Apple) is following suit. At least Apple isn’t trying to pimp the Spider-Man font like it’s going out of style (because it is)…

Hardware: A4ATW! Interesting to see Apple continue to consolidate its chipset lines into Intel multi-core and A4 divisions on usage lines. The general-purpose Mac “truck” (lawl) computers get the Core 2 Duo and iN chips, and specialized devices like the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and now Apple TV get the A4. It’ll definitely cut down on the thing’s power draw, which is always good because the current one is a beast. Not sure how cool I am with the total removal of internal storage… streaming HD video content seems to be a little hiccup-prone on our wifi network. Of course, it’s sort of locked down to 802.11g speeds because of the iPod Touches in the apartment, and I haven’t bothered to spring for a dual-band router to fix that problem, so maybe bumping the network would solve that problem.

Software: Yay? I guess? I’m guessing the move to the A4 processor necessitated this, but, it’s being backed by a custom build of iOS with a 10-foot UI. At least, so sayeth The Gruber… Beyond that, there’s not really a whole lot new about the UI compared to Apple TV Software 3.0, just some reorganization. It’s cool that Netflix got added to the list of internet content portals, but the rumors of an app store for the device, and my associated musings on Apple taking on the console market are apparently unfounded. Stupid hobby… I would totally go for an Apple set top box that had a gaming controller and access to an App Store for games and entertainment titles, in addition to access to the iTunes media store, and cost $99 to $149. Given how dead-simple setting up an Apple TV already is (and how dead-simpler it is with the new version) and how easy it is to get your content onto it, with the right pricing structure and offerings, this could blow past the Wii for casual living room gaming and give Apple its much-coveted entry into the television space for content delivery. And speaking of content…

Content: Woo? Nice to see HD TV show rentals make an appearance (and assuming you’re not paying for cable and a DVR, 99¢ isn’t a bad price), but it sucks that it’s limited to ABC and FOX right now. Also, it kinda sucks that there’s no way to actually buy content on the Apple TV anymore… so much for that iTunes cloud-based streaming service that would store your stuff in the cloud that everyone was so sure of. As far as pricing is concerned, I’ve never actually had a problem with movie pricing for purchases or rentals. TV shows – especially HD ones – are frequently annoyingly expensive, but the season passes tend to be much better deals for that. Heck, I got the whole fourth season of BSG in HD for the cost of half of Season 4 on DVD (I paid something like $54 for it, and the DVD release for 4.0 was like $52). Warehouse 13 Season 2 is $30 in HD… even if SyFy does their stupid half-length season thing, that’s not a bad price for the show in 720p and near-immediate access to episodes past. (Of course, having gone to look up the price, Season 2 is no longer listed in iTunes. Awesome. Here’s hoping NBC/Universal isn’t being a douchebag again and I get the rest of the episodes I’ve already paid for. And people wonder why torrents are so popular…)

Boxee: Doubtful anymore, especially since the patchstick-friendly USB port has been replaced with a micro-USB port. Plus there’s the whole switch to the ARM processor thing… Not that I’ve bothered to Boxee-up my Apple TV in recent history. The only thing I ever used Boxee for was Hulu, so I could watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report without fuxing with the TV-attached computer, but between Hulu blocking Boxee and Comedy Central leaving Hulu, I really don’t care. The rest of my content is already Apple TV-compatible (sometimes by force), and the rest of the stuff accessible through Boxee just carries no interest for me. Plus, having a remote mouse/keyboard app on my iPad to operate the computer removes the annoying obstacle of dealing with tangled keyboard cords and insufficient wireless mouse range.

A list of facts, for your consideration:

1. Microsoft discontinued their FrontPage product following Office 2003’s release.
2. Microsoft replaced FrontPage with Expression Web.
3. Microsoft officially deprecated FrontPage Server Extensions (FPSE) in 2006.
4. IIS 7 lists FPSE as an unsupported feature.
5. IIS 7.5 on Windows Server 2008 R2 won’t even run FPSE.
6. IIS 7 has integrated WebDAV support.
7. Expression Web supports WebDAV connectivity.
8. Visual Studio 2005 does not support WebDAV, but supports FPSE.
9. Visual Studio 2008 does not support WebDAV, but supports FPSE.
10. Visual Studio 2010 does not support WebDAV, but supports FPSE.

Microsoft, you are a multi-billion dollar company. How hard is it to get your software IDE team to talk to your server OS and webserver platform development teams to actually provide consistent support for connection types across your product line?

Frankly, it is inexcusable for you to have a professional product that costs thousands of dollars fail to support such a basic and fundamental internet connectivity method as WebDAV, but soldier on with FrontPage Server Extensions over 4 years after they were officially deprecated (by you, no less!), and 2 years after you released a version of your operating system that won’t even run them anymore.

I realize that it isn’t the end of the world for IIS 7 to not support one of your flagship development platform’s primary internet connectivity options, but seriously, it comes across as incredibly lazy and unprofessional. Get your act together, guys.

First off, can we stop appending “-gate” to the end of any and every major or minor “scandal” – real or manufactured – in the US (and how many non-manufactured scandals actually use the “-gate” suffix anyway… seems like something to research someday)? How many people even remember at this point that it was named “Watergate” after the damned hotel of the same name? “Scandalgate” just seems lazy, uninformed, and in search of sensationalism. But I guess that’s American “journalism” in a nutshell these days.

Wow, anyway, moving on before I drift any further off topic…

There’s been more than enough said by the tech press about the iPhone 4’s antenna issues, but I’ll go ahead and pile on with what I hope is a more level-headed commentary than what the rest of the internet has been flinging around this past couple of weeks.

Apple’s not had a good time of things in the press the last few weeks, and the bumbling public response to the outcry by their PR department hasn’t exactly helped. I was interested to hear that Jobs was in Hawaii on vacation last week, which is when the Apple PR-signed “it’s totally a software problem that has nothing to do with the phone even though every phone has this problem” press release weirdness happened. I’m wondering if Steve has taken over the public management of this issue, including calling the press conference, as a result of that, and whether he was involved in crafting the PR response that had everyone shaking their heads.

To a certain extent, while it’s demonstrable that iPhone 4 has a reproducible signal attenuation issue when held in the lower left corner, I think the impact of the problem has been considerably overblown by the media, and the tech press/blogs in particular. It’s something of a complex problem because in areas of good signal, it’s not even an issue (even though the problem still exists), and the antenna design by itself seems to result in getting better signal in more places. Locations with already-poor signal quality seem more likely to be affected by this, and the iPhone’s wonky bar reporting algorithm made it more likely to make you think you were outside of a problem location. Given AT&T’s spotty network quality track record, it’s possible that like previous iPhones, this may disproportionately impact people in places like NY and SF, while users in other markets have no problems at all.

I think this is backed up by four bits of data that are floating around now. First, Consumer Reports’ signal strength testing does show signal loss on a consistent basis. At the same time, however, the increased rate of dropped calls compared to the 3GS and its more traditional (and oft-stated “better” by tech press) cell antenna design is marginal at best: less than 1 additional dropped call per 100 calls made, according to Apple and AT&T. Still, it is marginally higher, and if Steve is to be believed, it’s not something Apple is willing to consider acceptable. Apple’s rate of return is also 1/3rd of what it was for the 3GS, coming in at just 1.7% (though there’s no breakout for why the device was being returned to provide more granular numbers on returns based on signal issues). Finally, Apple’s own customer complaint data indicates that just over one half of one percent (0.55%) of all calls they’ve received concerning iPhone 4 are related to the antenna. Put together, these data seem to indicate that while there is signal attenuation, it has little to no impact on the actual performance of the device on the network. I think that a lot of the perceived enormity of “antennagate” is due almost entirely to the breathless coverage by the online tech press, which has used its massive echo chamber to artificially magnify the severity of the problem.

The echo chamber’s already at it again with the dropped call delta, with people using percentage magic to claim that iPhone 4, assuming a low dropped call rate for the 3GS, is dropping up to 100% more calls, because 1/100 dropped to 1.9/100 dropped is a 100% increase, you know. If only the number were 0/100, then we could have an infinitely larger dropped call rate on iPhone4! The anti-Apple folks are spinning the number Jobs cited as either a massive increase in the dropped call rate assuming a low 3GS dropped call rate, or a condemnation of Apple’s phone line as a whole assuming a high 3GS dropped call rate. Where’s this “less than one additional dropped call per 100 means .9 additional dropped calls per 100″ logic coming from, by the way? Why can’t <1 additional dropped call mean .4 additional dropped calls?

In reality land, however, an increase from 1/100 dropped calls to 1.9/100 dropped calls means you’re a whopping 9% more likely to experience a dropped call on average, not 100% (or even 50%). Still not a good number, but miles away from the backwards percentage assumptions being thrown around in the Engadget comments. Bottom line: if you rarely experience dropped calls, you’re still not likely to ever experience one. If you experience dropped calls a lot, you probably won’t notice the minor increase. I’m also inclined to think that areas with high dropped call rates like NY (which is frequently quoted as having upwards of a 30% dropped call rate on earlier iPhone models) and SF are negatively impacting AT&T’s national dropped call rates, and outside of those areas the chances of a dropped call are dramatically lower than the national rate would imply.

As far as additional data go, I’d be interested in seeing the results of a Consumer Reports test of other cell phones when held in similar positions, to see whether there is any attenuation in them as well, and how severe it is. That would shed some light on the veracity of Apple’s claims and testing showing that other phones experience this issue as well. I’d also be interested in seeing dropped call deltas for non-US carriers to see if this is an AT&T-specific issue (as most network problems with the iPhone in the US seem to be).

Apple’s near-term fixes are largely band-aids to mitigate the problem, but based on Steve’s comments during his intro and during the Q&A, it doesn’t sound like they’re done researching ways to resolve the problem long-term, and hardware fixes within the phone itself may be pending down the line if they can figure something out. I think Apple has done the right thing by offering a free bumper with the phone, and while it won’t impact the hardware itself, the modified signal indicator algorithm seems likely to provide a more accurate indication of the impact of the attenuation on your network connection. In most cases it will probably result in a drop of a bar or two at higher signal levels where there wasn’t any drop before, but reduce the drop in areas where the signal was already low (2-3 bars). The indicator also reaches to a lower dB level now, so the signal indicator will stay at one bar in weaker signal areas than before. Whether this lower db level will be sufficient for making or retaining a call, I’m not sure. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think AT&T had anything to do with the “wrong” signal algorithm that was used prior to iOS 4.0.1, given their “more bars in more places” marketing campaign, but that’s the conspiracy theorist in me taking.

If I had $199 burning a hole in my pocket, could afford the cost of the monthly plan, and didn’t already have a 3G iPad to do most of my mobile stuff on, I would get an iPhone 4. In my estimation, the improvements to the hardware outweigh the apparently limited impacts of the signal attenuation problems in daily use. And for full disclosure, I hold my phone in my left hand.

So I’ve had my iPad for a few weeks now, and frankly I’m addicted to the thing. I’ve taken to bringing it with me pretty much anywhere I go, even in situations where I’d figured it would be too much of a hassle. Admittedly, some situations actually ARE awkward, and I’m marginally more comfortable with leaving it locked in my car under a sweatshirt than I was the week I got it, as long as the truck is in a direct line of sight while I’m away from it. I think the biggest reason I’m so reliant on this instead of my iPod touch is because my iPod is really starting to show its age. It’s a first generation device with a broken headphone jack running iOS 3.1.3, so its overall utility is somewhat reduced from where it used to be.

It’s also interesting to me that, performance differences aside, the iPod touch just feels way more cramped after using the iPad so extensively, particularly when it comes to the home screens. The added icon spacing that seemed so excessive on the iPad when it was first announced really makes the tight grid of the iPhone-sized devices seem claustrophobic by comparison when coming back to it after a long absence.

In other news, I bought a stylus for doodling with, because my motor skills are lacking in the finger painting department. Unfortunately, it has a very soft rubberized tip, so it drag a horribly on the glass display. Fortunately, it was a set of 2 for $3.50 on eBay with free shipping, and I have a workaround: tape a piece of tissue paper (or straw wrapper paper in this case) around the tip. Voilà, a perfectly serviceable stylus.

It’s not, however, all unicorns and rainbows with the iPad, and there are a few things I wanted to bring up.

First, I want the timer/clock app back. Failing that, give me short timers built into my 3rd party alarm clock app once local notifications come to the device this fall. I’ve had to scrounge for my iPod a couple of times now to time oven usage, and it’s just kind of irksome when I’m already roaming the apartment with my iPad.

Next, what’s the deal with leaving out Voice Control? Or the voice recorder app for that matter? All of the hardware is already there to support both apps. Is Voice Control just considered too much of a mobile thing for the merely-portable iPad? ‘Cause let me tell you, it’d still come in handy when driving and trying to pick music to listen to.

Speaking of using while driving, is the iPad’s power draw just too high to charge via the cigarette adapter in the car? If not, someone needs to build an iPad-charging FM transmitter. For serious. It’s not a huge deal given that the battery life of the iPad anyway will very probably outlast any stint of driving I may be using it on, but it’d be a comfort having it charged when I get where I’m going and not in need of a wall socket to leech off of overnight.

I really hope iOS 5 comes with a better notification system. Push notifications never really bugged me this much when I was on my iPod because using it for hours on end or for “primary” computing wasn’t really an option for the most part. On the iPad, though, they get a bit tedious, especially where IM services are concerned. I might experiment this week with not having the dialog notice enabled, but keeping badges and sound alerts on and see if that’s more tolerable.

I can’t wait to get folders and fast app switching. The tendency for apps to remember their state when closing them in iOS 3.x seems to be decreasing rather than increasing as the platform matures, which is annoying to say the least. Apple’s stuff is generally pretty good at state persistence, along with some other apps like dropbox, but other apps are a serious grab bag ranging from great to suck. I’d also like to be able to put more than just games on an entire page of my home screen, and group some handy but simple and infrequently-used utility-type apps into a single slot on my home screen. The six available dock slots are a godsend though… I’ve got iPod, Safari, Mail, IM+, Osfoora HD (Twitter), and Settings lined up down there, which covers a good 75% of my primary usage (another 15% probably comes from FeeddlerRSS, which is on page 1).

Something else I really hope gets put into iOS 4 for iPad: using retina display-compatible graphics and text in apps that are built to support iPhone 4 when running them in the iPad’s emulator. There is no reason a retina display-compatible app should render all fuzzy and blocky at 2x on the iPad when its the exact same pixel dimensions as the iPhone 4 screen (albeit at a lower pixel density). Anything is better than the double-sized 320×480 pixels though. Maybe I should email Steve and make sure that idea is on his radar. It’d make using iPhone apps on the iPad a lot more pleasant.

Irksomely, I haven’t been able to find an Apple case for this thing since I bought mine and opted to drop the $40 for it later. Nobody else’s cases seem to get the whole notebook sleeve/stand idea that Apple’s has, and I really like that. Also, it seems I may not have a camera connector before Mysterium. Wonder if someone else will have one I can bum off them for a few minutes… Mine isn’t supposed to get here until the 18th of August. Sigh.

Yesterday, Hulu announced Hulu Plus, a service that users can take advantage of to watch Hulu content on mobile devices (such as iOS devices) and consoles (such as the PS3 and Xbox 360). The service costs $9.99/month, and retains all advertisements currently embedded into the free web service (their release calls it an “ad-supported subscription product”, which seems rather oxymoronic if you ask me). It’s not entirely without additional benefit though, as many more back episodes of many shows (such as X-Files and American Dad) will be available to subscribers, and they can be watched at 720p (the website only offers video in 480p).

As interesting as it is to see Hulu come to the iOS platform, I feel like someone in the executive offices still doesn’t really understand the way the internet works, or how converged our devices are becoming, and is trying to artificially segment the availability of their content to score additional revenue according to outdated concepts of viewership. Ultimately I guess it’s not that surprising of a move, since “Big Content” (ugh, now I feel like a conspiracy theorist/dirty fucking hippie) has historically proven itself to be completely opposed to changing its business model in the face of new technological challenges, but it is still disappointing nonetheless.

The biggest problem, as I see it, is that the content providers are still trying to distinguish between television screens and, well, everything else. They’ve even taken it one step further now and turned mobile usage into a premium-only experience that goes completely counter to the trend in video consumption over the past few years. This all started, of course, with Hulu’s media overloads expressing displeasure with the fact that Boxee was allowing users to legally consume content from Hulu’s own openly-accessible feeds, ads and all, without using Hulu’s website to do so. Worse, you could do it on your television! The horror! So, Boxee got banned from accessing Hulu, and they’ve been in something of an arms race ever since to get around the arcane distinction that Hulu has created between watching their content on a computer connected to a monitor, and watching that same content on a computer connected to a television screen. The EULA for Hulu’s own Hulu Desktop application actually expressly forbids you from installing it on a computer connected to your TV. Like that’s even remotely enforceable.

It’s like Hulu understands that the internet is an important platform, and even goes so far as to make their service trendy and modern with things like show queues and RSS feeds for available content, but totally misses the point of the internet as a ubiquitous-access platform, and is instead trying to protect their existing distribution methods while making token concessions to the internet-savvy crowd.

I think advertisers are also behind the curve on this one, which isn’t helping the adoption of internet-based services by content providers. Online ads are notoriously less profitable by a wide margin, compared to television ads. I understand why this is true for traditional web advertising, where banners and buttons are incidental content that can be easily ignored (or even blocked) by users. But when it comes to advertising on services like Hulu, where ads can be highly targeted, and are shown in a way that creates a captive audience, I would think that despite the smaller number of eyeballs, such ads would be more valuable to advertisers because viewers are more likely to actually pay attention to them.

Hulu really could make a strong case for charging premium prices for online advertising. The ads themselves already exist in most cases, since they’re just running existing TV ads, so there’s no additional overhead for creating them. They can be targeted to users based on their preferences, so they’re immediately more relevant to the end consumer than TV ads. There are a limited number of ads that run in a Hulu-broadcast episode or movie, which should again increase their value, not decrease it. Finally, because of this limitation on the number of ads being run, users are more likely to actually watch them than they are TV ads, which run for upwards of 5 minutes per break, giving users ample time to leave the room and perform quick tasks, and thus decreasing the viewership of your ad. With Hulu’s 30-second to 2-minute ad breaks, it’s much harder to go to the bathroom without missing something (assuming it’s more convenient to stay seated than to have to scrub back to the start of the segment, which for me it generally is).

When it comes to the whole Hulu Plus thing, I again think someone in the board room has misunderstood what I think could be called a generally-accepted social contract for advertising online. Namely, free content is very probably going to have ads. That’s understandable – and even acceptable –though depending on how the service provider chooses to implement them, folks may get grumpy about it. Paid content, however, is usually paid for so you can skip or avoid the ads. Hulu Plus doesn’t do this, instead opting to double-dip with both subscription and ad revenue. I think this is the source of much of the angst being expressed online about paying for content with ads, even though we already do so in so many other venues (cable TV is the oft-cited example, but it also applies to newspapers, magazines, DVDs, and even movies at the theater). People are used to buying into a web service to remove ads, and Hulu Plus doesn’t provide this convenience. That, combined with the $10 price, leaves a lot of people (myself included) feeling a bit put off.

As I mentioned earlier, this is further compounded by the fact that Hulu is only available on mobile devices with a Plus subscription. There’s no access to the existing free service through the Hulu app in the App Store, you have to pay for Hulu Plus in order to be able to use it. Again this strikes me as a move destined to leave money on the table. There are hundreds of millions of video-capable mobile devices that Hulu could put itself on to increase its viewership pool and thus improve its leverage against advertisers for more expensive ad rates simply by offering a free Hulu app. Instead, they’ve made a move that looks greedy (even if it actually isn’t) by instituting a pay wall on mobile devices.

Ultimately, for a company whose stated goal is to offer TV anywhere, they’re going pretty far out of their way to put up a ton of road blocks to that goal. Whether this is because of an internal lack of understanding of the internet (which I doubt… the Hulu guys themselves seem pretty savvy), a panicked move to try and improve their revenue stream (which is possible considering how many PSA ads get run these days), the result of external meddling by their largely technology-inept content overlords, or a combination of the three, it’s just frustrating to see such a promising service continue to shoot itself in the foot when trying to connect with its most fervent supporters.

I’ve actually come pretty much full circle on Hulu since it launched… at first I was initially skeptical of the obvious stick-it-to-Apple nature of the service’s unveiling just after NBC ditched the iTunes Store a few years ago, and was not even remotely interested in it. It eventually won me over because of the breadth of its offerings and the convenience of being able to watch shows whenever I wanted without tediously long ad breaks. Then they started doing week-long delays of new episodes (again, a concession to a media empire that just doesn’t “get it”) and losing providers, which decreased its value. The final straw for me was when they banned Boxee for entirely pointless and completely stupid reasons at the demand of their primary stakeholders, who happen to be NBC and Fox. Since then, the service seems like it’s been on a downhill slope in terms of mindshare and usage share, and Hulu Plus is a rather desperate bid to try and regain lost revenue without actually bothering to understand the reasons for their declining popularity in the first place.

Needless to say, I won’t be subscribing to Hulu Plus. I would almost certainly have put the app to decent use on my iPad if it offered the same level of service for free as their website, but I don’t need it nearly often enough to justify spending $9.99 for the convenience of being able to watch on the go a show or two a month that I might have missed, or want to revisit. I just don’t watch that much TV in the first place. I also tend to prefer buying the few shows I do watch on iTunes, since it’s generally cheaper and faster than waiting for the DVDs (even in HD), and the episodes are almost always available the following day if I miss one.

Apple made some upgrades to MobileMe’s web services last night. While I don’t use them terribly often (since I have a Mac at home and at work, plus an iPod Touch and now an iPad), I do still find myself dropping into them occasionally. With that in mind, I took a look at the new site to see what’s what.

Overall

Apple has replaced the gray color scheme with a somewhat higher-contrast blue one, extending all the way into the login page, which has also gotten a facelift. I don’t recall if it was there before, but there’s now a quite prominent link to sign up for a 60-day trial right next to the news block. I like the new color scheme, as it feels a bit more engaging and interesting than the previous austere gray. Oddly (though perhaps intentionally, to illustrate the importance of the task), the gray scheme is retained on the re-authorization dialogs used to access Find My iPhone and the Account settings page.

What I don’t particularly care for is the new app switching method. Prior to today, switching from Mail to the Gallery was a one-click process. Now, probably because of the new design of the header toolbar and the way it ties into the various applications on the site, all of the applications are hidden behind a MobileMe cloud button, which brings up a patently oversized OS X-style task switcher display. Switching apps now requires two clicks and a considerably larger amount of mouse movement.

The new MobileMe Task Switcher

I would much rather have preferred that the original switching method was retained, since it provides more immediate discoverability of features. Since the new design precludes that, however, I think a better approach would have been to tie the MobileMe cloud icon to a pop-out menu, similar to the one used in the account drop-down on the right side of the header. The design could even be kept similar to the current design (either horizontal or adjusted to vertical), but by making it a fancy drop-down menu and ideally resizing the images, it would have greatly reduced the amount of travel time and distance required to perform such a simple and frequent operation.

Mail

The New MobileMe Mail

I don’t intend to touch on every app individually, but I do want to talk about Mail in particular, because it’s seen the largest amount of improvement and alteration over the old design. Apple launched this as a beta about a month ago, and has now made it available to all with the web services upgrade. It’s frankly miles above the old web app, and much more pleasant to use. The service loads data much more quickly, and the new widescreen viewer mode is really nice. It retains a number of desktop-y features like multiple (and discontinuous) item selection, as well as drag-and-drop message moving (and adding drag-and-drop folder reorganizing, yay!), while adding more web-ish things as well, like the Move icon in the toolbar, which functions similarly to the move command in iOS.

Perplexingly, Apple has decided to roll their own scrollbars in Mail, something it has not done for any of its other web apps. This has the net effect of overriding my preferred scrollbar behavior of having the up/down buttons split instead of joined at the bottom of the scroll area, and makes the UI inconsistent with both the rest of MobileMe and the rest of the scrollbars on my machine. I can understand the condensed scrollbar overlay for the folders listing, but the redundant full-sized custom scrollbars in the message list and preview pane are kind of annoying.

They’ve also added an Archive feature, pretty much pulled straight from Gmail as far as I can tell. It will be interesting to see if this feature manages to migrate out of the web application and into Apple’s other mail clients in the future.

Other new features include push mail in the web client, some composition window improvements (including some slick auto-completion and a nice “add contact” dialog with live filtering and To/CC/BCC checkboxes for all contacts, but lacking the self-contained pill items on recognized contacts from the desktop Mail client), fetching of mail from an external address, the ability to send an email from an alias (or said external address), support for vacation auto-response setup, server-side mail rules, and a long-overdue implementation of https communication.

Overall, a very nice upgrade to the Mail app that brings it on par in many ways to the web apps offered by other mail services. It also still retains some of the desktop application feel that Apple seems intent on maintaining on the web, and brings some iPhone/iPad-like additions into the fold as well. Very solid, though obviously more evolutionary than revolutionary. This feels like what MobileMe should have been from the beginning, but I’m glad Apple has been busy putting effort into polish since the original launch 2 years ago.

Other Apps

As a whole, the entire set of web services feels much faster than it did yesterday. I have no idea if this has anything to do with Apple’s new data center in North Carolina, or if they’ve just gotten better at query optimization, but in any case, it’s welcome and appreciated. Pretty much the only service that’s still sluggish is the Find my iPhone page, but that has some external limitations that I don’t think are nearly as easy to overcome. The UI is much improved though, and features a really nice custom Google Maps integration with some slick pushpin annotation stuff for device location features.

As an interesting side note, the Gallery icon has changed from the iPhone’s “Photos” icon to the iPhone’s “MobileMe Gallery App” icon. While this provides some consistent branding, I think I’d much rather have the MobileMe Gallery functionality built into the iPhone/iPad Photos app than tucked away in a separate location on my device. Considering that the Photos app already allows you to upload files to MobileMe, it seems like it would make more sense to keep those files all accessible and manageable in one spot. This is more of an iOS rant than a MobileMe rant though, so I’ll leave it at that.

Summary

As a whole, the upgrade isn’t a huge change from what was previously available, but it’s a solid evolution of the service (Mail in particular seems to have been the focus of this update), and I hope that this is a sign of more good things to come.

As those who follow me on Twitter are probably aware, I bought an iPad on Monday. Specifically, a 64GB WiFi+3G iPad, which will make traveling to Mysterium far less dull since I can load the thing up with easily a dozen full-length movies and still have room to spare for music and photos. But I’m already digressing. This is a long-ass post, so the rest goes after the cut…

Read more…?

In my opinion, the two most useful features that have been added to Safari 5 are the extensions API and Safari Reader. For those who may not know, Safari Reader is basically an Instapaper-like reformatting of page content to remove extraneous elements and focus on presenting the actual meat of the page: the article. It also merges multi-page articles into a single extended view so that navigating from page to page is no longer necessary.

At least one staffer at Ars Technica has gone out of his gourd over this feature. He complains that Apple is being hypocritical by providing users a means of blocking ads on the web while building an unblockable ad framework into their mobile OS. However, I feel that the author, his like-minded co-workers at Ars, and the innumerable knee-jerk anti-Apple commenters are missing several key points that distinguish what Apple has done in Safari 5 from what they’re doing with iAds in such a way as to make the two situations incomparable.

First, Apple is not blocking ads with Safari Reader. They’re still loading the page in its entirety and serving that to the user with the option of then going into what is basically a super-accessible “printer friendly” view to read the content of the page. Considering how piss-poor some website layouts are when it comes to presenting content over irrelevant material (multiple navigation sidebars, inline and sidebar ads, overlay ads, intellitext bubble ads) from a reader’s perspective, this is a welcome addition to the web.

Ars argues that since Safari Reader auto-loads every page of a multi-page article in rapid succession, ad providers are likely to discount impressions on later pages as robo-loads designed to artificially inflate a site’s ad usage statistics. This is where Ars has a semi-valid point, but ultimately the widespread implementation of multipage articles on the web trumps whatever altruistic pro-advertising stance they may wish to take. While Ars argues that somehow, by definition, multipage articles are only those articles that are more expensive to produce (using their 24-page Snow Leopard review as an example), the simple fact of the matter is that many websites are already artificially inflating their site’s ad usage statistics by breaking even modestly-sized articles up across multiple pages, to the point where it has become a pain for users to actually read the content they came to see (how many “top 10 X” articles have you seen that are needlessly split into 10 one-paragraph pages loaded down with multiple ad placements?).

I do not fault Ars for breaking their Snow Leopard review up into 24 different pages. In fact, I tend not to fault Ars much for any of their multi-page articles, because they are well-implemented. Each page has a generous amount of content on it, a comparatively small number of ads, and the splits are done in such a way as to improve the readability of the article as a whole by reducing page size into manageable chunks. I would certainly not want to see a single-page article the length of their Snow Leopard review (and entertainingly, I just checked… Reader won’t be offered when viewing that review in the first place!). That’s just mentally and visually daunting. Still, the side effect of this decision to be intelligent about how they serve their content means I’m less likely to use Safari Reader when viewing an Ars article. In the end, Ars wins more ad revenue from me by doing the right thing with its content, while people who are already doing their best to game the system by making their content hard to access are going to be the losers because people will essentially be voting with their wallets by activating Safari Reader to get the whole Top 10 Most Awesome LOLcats of 2009 article on one freaking page.

Secondly, Ars is making a false equivalency argument when it comes to the nature of what ads Apple is willing to support and what it’s willing to “block”. Setting aside the fact that Apple is not blocking any ads with Reader, and that ad impressions on multipage articles are being discounted by the ad provider based on past abusive behavior, there is a fundamental difference between web ads and ads in applications that the author seems to be missing, either unintentionally or willfully.

Ads in applications have always been unblockable (at least by the average user… people who know how to use the hosts file and configure their router to block requests to specific domains are the exception to the rule here), whether they’re on the desktop or the mobile device, but have also been comparatively tame and tolerable for most users. If you want to get rid of them, you generally have to pay for that ability, and that ability is (usually) provided. Ads on the web – by their very nature – are much easier to block, and due to the abusive extremes web advertising has been taken to, people tend to be much more inclined to block them first and ask questions never.

Thus, asking Apple to provide an opt-out switch for iAds is inconsistent with years of general ad practices in applications. Beyond that, it would put Apple at a competitive disadvantage on their own platform, as other ad networks already provide unblockable ads in iOS applications which Apple would get absolutely reamed for if they tried to allow users to block against the wishes of the developers or ad networks.

Honestly, I just don’t see anything intellectually dishonest or hypocritical in Apple’s actions on both Safari and the iOS when it comes to ads. Apple is driven by a desire to give users the best possible user experience. In their opinion, existing ad platforms “suck”, not just for users, but for developers as well, who aren’t getting as much value out of existing advertising as maybe they could. So, to improve the user experience on their mobile devices, they’re offering their own ad platform. In the opinion not just of Apple but also of many web users, reading stuff on the web “sucks” too, depending on where you go to read it. So, to improve the user experience on the web, Apple provides Safari Reader as a way to get around efforts made by obtuse web developers and content producers to make actually viewing their content as odious as possible in a desperate (and in my opinion, self-defeating) attempt to drive up ad revenue.

To be clear, I don’t think Apple is in any way trying to be altruistic towards web users by building Safari Reader. It is, however, an entirely intended consequence of selfishly trying to make something they themselves enjoy using, and then sharing it. At the end of the day, stuff like this improves their profits by providing a better user experience than their competitors, which is all that really matters, corporately speaking. However, I don’t think Apple is being intentionally antagonistic towards advertisers or the people who use them on their websites as a whole, nor do I think they’re being hypocritical in their behavior. They’re just being incidentally antagonistic towards ad networks and websites that are already being antagonistic toward their readers, and even then only in one small metric (multipage articles) whose real-world use in no way matches up to Ars Technica’s altruistic “multipage articles cost more to produce, and so require more ad revenue” argument. While this may be true (and entirely acceptable) for their multipage content, the web as a whole has an entirely different reason for creating such content: it artificially drives up page views on content that’s no more expensive to produce than Ars’ “etc” posts, and that’s just fsking annoying.

In the end, Safari Reader continues the fine browser tradition of empowering users, and will likely have even less of an impact on actual ad revenues than the invention of the pop-up blocker. Bringing iAds into the argument is nothing but a non sequitur which ignores the differences in advertising usage and history across two very different platforms. It also ignores the present realities of mobile advertising, and the proposed solution would put Apple at a competitive disadvantage at best (by only blocking iAds), and draw the ire of its competitors and developers at worst (by allowing users to block all ad platforms). Pretending that Google isn’t up to the same practice with Android, and not tearing them a new one as a result, is just downright disingenuous.

So it looks like the idiots in Microsoft’s marketing department responsible for the laughably inaccurate “IE9 is more awesome than Firefox” list that I deconstructed last year is at it again, this time comparing Windows Live Essentials to iLife ‘09.

I’d first like to put aside the absurdity of Microsoft comparing and contrasting the two creativity suites in the first place. The simple fact that this chart exists demonstrates how prevalent the “Macs are better creativity machines” meme is in the marketplace. You just don’t do stuff like this when you’re in a confident leadership position. And you especially do do such a piss-poor job of fact-checking your claims.

Second, this is being written in advance of the WWDC keynote, which could change some of these arguments depending on what Apple decides to announce. This most heavily applies to MobileMe’s pricing, which is rumored to be getting a serious overhaul today. Still, I’ll be going to battle with the facts I have, not the facts I want.

Ultimately though, there is a degree of apples-to-oranges comparing going on, largely because Microsoft considers Apple’s lack of support for Microsoft’s services as dings against Apple, but frequently fails to ding themselves for failing to support MobileMe (ah fairness, wherefore art thou?), but also because Microsoft keeps having to drag other OS X applications into the chart to fully compare the two suites since Essentials includes stuff like an IM client, mail client, and (bizarrely, IMO) parental controls which are built into Mac OS X. But bizarre comparisons aside, how accurate are they? Well… not very, I’m sad (but not surprised) to say. I’ll be tackling this section-by-section, so hang on for a lengthy bitch-fest .

Application Suites

Cost & Multitouch Support

What a bizarre (I know, I keep using that word) category heading. Whatever. I don’t think either of the “cost” columns really accurately portrays the cost of purchasing these two offerings. First, iLife comes free on every new Mac, so the effective cost of the suite itself is effectively nothing for those reading this chart from the Windows side of the fence. However, new Macs start at $599, so on the other hand there’s a hidden cost to be factored in there. From the other side of the fence, buying a new Windows 7 machine (or at least a new Windows 7 license) to run Live Essentials is between $100 and $250, depending on which version you buy and whether you skirt legality with OEM or system-builder licensing (unless you’re a student, in which case you may be able to get it for right cheap).

Ultimately this pricing thing feels like a huge gimmick spun up by marketing to intentionally misrepresent the facts of the situation as they pertain to their target audience. People interested in actually comparing the capabilities of these two suites for the purposes of buying a new computer are likely to be taken in by Microsoft’s implicit claim that in addition to getting that new $600+ machine, they’ll need to spend $79 to do anything “useful” with it, which makes Apple’s offering look even worse in comparison to getting a new Windows machine (which may or may not be cheaper, depending on the user’s needs) and getting a free software bundle on top of it.

Further, Microsoft seems intent on wrapping MobileMe into the iLife suite as well, which is by no means necessary for taking advantage of the capabilities of any of the iLife software. Sure, it allows you to take advantage of additional outlets for sharing, but it’s not like you’re locked into Apple’s platform end-to-end if you go with iLife. But sure, whatever, point to Microsoft for offering their cloud services for free. We’ll see how long this advantage lasts though.

Finally, the multitouch thing just kills me. How many people are going to take this bullet point seriously? First off, Apple doesn’t sell touchscreen devices that will run iLife, so the point of being able to use screen-based multitouch in their software is moot. More importantly though, who the hell cares about this feature in the first place? Are there really that many people with touchscreen computers aching to be able to rotate their photos with their fingers? Ugh. Points for the feature sprawl, Microsoft, but nothing else.

Chat/IM Apps

Instant Messaging

From here out, we get into the nitty-gritty stupid. Let’s leave Adium out as a free downloadable alternative multi-chat client and just stick with Microsoft’s decision to put MSN Messenger and iChat head-to-head.

Okay, MSN Messenger (from here out, MSMM) supports YIM, iChat doesn’t. Fair enough. And shock of shocks, iChat also doesn’t support the arguably arcane and proprietary “Office Communications Server”. Shocking.

Personalization (Scenes/Themes). Wow. Because I always thought MSMM was way more beautiful to look at than iChat. Why is this always such a huge bullet point when all it ever seems to do is make your application even uglier than it is by default? And seriously, games? This is an IM client, not a full-on replacement for fucking Facebook.

And now, the first of many actual inaccuracies (rather than pointless marketing fluff): iChat does indeed support tabbed chat. It’s had it since Leopard came out in 2007. It’s even on Apple’s feature sheet for iChat! I found this in 5 seconds by googling for “ichat tabs” images. Maybe Bing just doesn’t find that result… (oh my god, it really doesn’t!)

Social Networking

Beyond the falsehood of the initial claim that iChat can’t connect to Facebook Chat (yes it can, Facebook Chat uses Jabber, which iChat supports), I’m guessing that the rest of this is accurate, if irrelevant in my opinion. MSNM is a bloated pig of an application (as evidenced by the fact that it has games built into it) that tries desperately to be a social media hub by taking on huge swaths of functionality that are poorly designed (again, in my opinion) and make the application less capable for its original purpose: instant messaging.

A couple of final notes on this section, though… first, is anyone actually using this impossibly vague “Web Activities” feature? And is it just me, or is Microsoft actually working hard to make sure that you’re less productive at your computer by incessantly telling you about what all of your hundreds of Facebook friends are doing right this very instant?

Finally, what the hell kind of email integration is MSMM capable of that iChat isn’t? iChat ties into your address book to pull contacts into your buddy list (which I guess is technically Address Book integration on the Mac)… beyond that, what other aspects of my email would I even need to have integrated? Explain, Microsoft! Vague, unexplained bullet points in a vast sea of feature lists do not a convincing argument make!

Access Anywhere

Does Microsoft have an MSMM client in the App Store, or are they just proclaiming that since apps in the App Store support MSMM, they have an iPhone client? A search for “MSN Messenger”, “Windows Live”, and a review of apps published by Microsoft in the App Store revealed no first-party Messenger clients, so I’m not sure why they get a check mark here when iChat – which uses chat protocols equally well-supported in the App Store – doesn’t. The rest is fairly tech-y… IM on the web I can see as being marginally useful in out-and-about situations, but “IM Developer Platform”? You’re really pushing that as a client-relevant feature? Also, iChat may not specifically support SMS and mobile chat, but AIM – which iChat integrates with – does. Just because Apple hasn’t poured unnecessary resources into duplicating others’ work in creating mobile AIM clients doesn’t mean you can’t use them.

This whole category feels improperly targeted, to be honest. Microsoft is running their own social network through MSN Messenger on top of the MSN Messenger (sorry, Windows Live Messenger) client application, so they get to claim a ton of ecosystem benefits that iChat can’t, because Apple isn’t running the AIM network. That doesn’t mean iChat is less capable, as is implied, it just means that if you’re tied into the AIM network, you need to use other pieces of software when taking advantage of non-desktop-specific use cases.

Photo Gallery/iPhoto

Here we go…

Organize/Find

Top People: I’m assuming this lists the people who appear most frequently in your photos. In that case, I can’t easily find a way to replicate this feature in iPhoto. Fair enough.

Photo Finder Filters: For quick searches using the search bar, yes, iPhoto only allows one type of filter at a time (name/rating/tags/etc.). However, I’m not above creating a quick, disposable Smart Folder to do a search on multiple criteria. This seems to be something of an Apple-ism: want to find something quickly? Use a general search. Want to find something a bit more involved? Use a Smart Folder.

Batch Face Detection Confirm: Um… iPhoto does this. I’m not at home with my library of face-tagged photos, but I’ve done it before. It’s not hard. I think it’s a tied to a button in the bottom toolbar actually. Fail again, Microsoft.

Touch Up

Microsoft wins this category fair and square with some more advanced photo editing capabilities, especially the content aware fill-like Photo Fuse (which I think is just kinda creepy) and panorama stitching. I’m amused that it took them until Wave 4 to add a retouch feature though.

Publishing & Sharing

Flickr Sharing: It’s like Microsoft doesn’t even bother opening these applications before comparing them to their Windows Live counterparts. Flickr sharing is indeed supported in iPhoto. In fact, again, this is even called out by a huge “Flickr” button in the bottom toolbar!

Share to Windows Live: “for MobileMe”. What? If anything, I guess I should give Microsoft credit for giving iPhoto a check mark here, but I guess the alternative was to add another row for “Share to MobileMe” which Photo Gallery would have failed at.

Plugins: Not really a huge deal for me, and I can’t imaging it being one for many others, but whatever. Point.

Native Sign-in: Again, vague feature is vague. iPhoto features integrated, native sign-in with MobileMe (I just opened iPhoto for the first time on my work machine and all of my MobileMe albums were already accessible), but not Flickr or Facebook. Of course, “publishing partners” under Photo Gallery’s check mark is equally vague, so I can’t say for sure if Photo Gallery automatically signs you into Flickr or Facebook either. In any case, fail for not mentioning the integrated MobileMe sign-in when touting your own product’s Windows Live sign-in.

Video & DVD Apps

Editing

A lot of the reasons Movie Maker wins in these feature comparisons is because Apple completely rebooted iMovie a couple of years ago, and has yet to rebuild the feature list in the new product. And to be fair, comparing your release to your competitor’s current release is pretty standard. Still, for those looking for more capabilities without springing for Final Cut Express, iMovie HD is still floating around the Interwebs.

AutoMovie from movies, photos, music: iMovie does a limited version of this, but I don’t have the media at work to test the extent to which this is still true. iMovie HD did a lot better in this arena.

Auto-preview effects, transitions, & animations: Again, the new iMovie doesn’t live preview against your own content, but the non-rebooted version did. I can’t imagine this disparity persisting for many more versions, but Apple does have a bad habit of pushing people into the more expensive solution sometimes unnecessarily, so we’ll have to wait and see. If we’re lucky, Apple getting some competition in the “free” media editing software space should help spur faster development.

Publishing & Sharing

So remember in the Photo Gallery/iPhoto comparison when I said it was a wonder Microsoft gave iPhoto a pass on publishing to Windows Live? Yeah, they reversed course here for no readily apparent reason and split out Windows Live and MobileMe into their own rows. Also, Microsoft continues their Facebook hard-on. Was Facebook video publishing even available when iLife ‘09 was released? I expect that if not, it’s something that will be remedied in the next release of iMovie. Apple’s getting better about social networking outside of their own services.

Output Support

I need to check at home to verify the output resolution claim, but I also don’t really have any 1080p video to work with, so… yeah. Also, I’d much rather have h264 video than WMV. Seriously. Finally, video mail? How important is that to people, or are we just padding the feature list again? Besides, I can do video mail… it’s called a private YouTube video with the link sent via email, or a video uploaded to MobileMe with the link sent via email. Way more efficient, and way less likely to consume the recipient’s entire email quota.

Mail Apps

I can’t believe Microsoft is actually tooting Apple’s horn here by promoting Mail.app’s Exchange support. But hey, I did make the point at the beginning of this post that these guys are idiots .

Why is Mail listed as having an attachment file size limit? I’ve never run into an attachment size problem in Mail.app. If that’s a mail provider limitation, then be specific about that, MS. People can use Mail.app with Hotmail, which I’m guessing is where your claim of unlimited file size for photo attachments is coming from. I’d still much rather cloud-source the files than potentially destroy the recipient’s ability to receive more mail by stuffing their inbox… not everyone uses your services, Microsoft!

Point for irrelevant “Slim Cal” feature… can’t say I’ve ever needed or missed the integrated calendar from Outlook after moving to my Mac at work, where I use the calendar a lot more than I do at home.

Conversation threading: again, Microsoft fails at actually knowing what they’re talking about. Mail’s supported threaded conversations since at least Leopard, if not Tiger or before (I came in on Tiger and don’t really use the feature, so I can’t say for certain when it showed up).

I have no idea what “integration with cloud storage” Microsoft is talking about here that Mail doesn’t support. Mail.app can access any web-based mail service that Live Mail can, plus a few more that may support Exchange ActiveSync, which Live Mail doesn’t.

Publishing Apps

Here again, Microsoft is going for an apples-to-oranges comparison between Writer and iWeb. They serve different purposes and different audiences, but they tried to shoehorn them into a single feature comparison chart. The end result is that neither really looks exceptional in all categories (as would be expected when comparing to products with wildly different aims). Bullet points like “Familiarity with Microsoft Office” just make it look like they’re trying too hard to come up with downsides to ding iWeb for. This whole section doesn’t even deserve a more drawn-out review.

Security Apps

Once more I’m puzzled as to why Microsoft is offloading parental controls into a separate, non-bundled product, but whatever. I’m betting they’re using Family Security to trojan the rest of the Live Essentials platform into the computer by promoting that Live Essentials (through Family Security) can give you more control over how your kids use the machine.

I’m not even sure why most of these check marks are in this list, since they pretty much exclusively apply to Windows Live and Family Safety themselves. About the only thing you could possibly give them credit for is the live website filtering. Everything else is either totally irrelevant to a Mac user, or OS X supports out-of-the-box.

Music Creation Apps

I’m entertained that Microsoft is even choosing to promote the fact that this is something you can’t do with Live Essentials. Aside from that, I’m not sure why they aren’t using the GarageBand icon, or why GarageBand isn’t spelled correctly (there’s no space in “GarageBand”).

Wrap-up

To be fair, this list is a bit better than the IE9 vs. Firefox/Chrome/Safari chart they came up with last year. However, there are some pretty incredible and glaring inaccuracies that even a brief usage of the apps in question would reveal. Plus, the majority of the pro-Essentials check marks are relatively obscure features that seem to be there mostly to give Microsoft something to brag about, rather than something that would provide actual utility to the user (particularly in the MSMM/iChat comparison). Between that and the obscure FUD-ness of the pricing at the beginning of the chart, it seems like this was hastily thrown together to meet some new demand from management that they counter the “Macs are better at creative stuff” meme in advance of whatever Steve might say at WWDC today. D-, Microsoft.

Engadget has rumors of a new Apple TV product refresh that seems to play into a few of the ideas I had for the device after the iPhone OS 4 announcement.

Possibly the most interesting thing is that the report indicates Apple is ditching the Apple TV-specific branch of OS X for the iPhone OS. This is indisputably a good move. Apple TV’s software is still built on 10.4 Tiger, while the Mac has advanced to 10.6 and the iPhone OS branch of OS X is nearly 4 revisions along now. It always struck me as odd that Apple would put so much effort into maintaining a major product on such a legacy platform (by Apple’s standards, anyway) when the newer releases of both OS X and the iPhone OS are so much more capable.

Also interesting (and a point of pride given that I freaking called it! ) is that the Apple TV is moving to Apple’s A4 processor, away from the tremendously underpowered mobile Pentium-era chipset in the current model. Again, this makes considerable sense, because it reduces development expenses and complexity across Apple’s product line. Apple’s done a good job at demonstrating the power and efficiency of their custom silicon through the iPad (and presumably the new iPhone), and leveraging that hardware in another product seems like a given. Apple TV’s form factor and performance needs are much more suited to an ARM chipset than anything from Intel. Hopefully this will also bring the device’s power consumption down to more “environmental checklist”-friendly levels.

Given the paucity of onboard storage space (only 16GB SSD), I think this rumor also dovetails nicely with the rumors of an upcoming cloud-based iTunes service that have been floating around since Apple started building their new North Carolina data center, and which intensified after they bought Lala earlier this year. It’ll be interesting to see how this service ends up working, and whether it will allow users to upload their existing non-iTunes content into the cloud for universal access.

The thing that interests me most about this rumor, though, is the possibility that Apple could open up the Apple TV as a new platform for applications. Depending on how they approach this, it could be as simple as allowing services like Netflix and Hulu to stream their content onto the device through custom apps, or it could be as advanced as a full-on gaming console-type device. I think the “standard” approach would be to limit the device to audio and video playback, with the basic Apple remote for navigation, since that’s what most people would likely be buying one for. However, provided it had a Bluetooth radio in it (and why not?), it wouldn’t be difficult to expand support to more complex inputs such as dedicated controllers – or even iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad inputs – for gaming.

As I mentioned in my iPhone OS 4 post-mortem, Apple has a significant amount of support on their mobile platform for gaming (and now with Steam on the Mac, growing support for gaming on their desktop platform as well, hooray!). Major companies like EA and UbiSoft are developing major titles for the iPhone and iPad. Why not build on that support by expanding from the mobile space into the living room? With additions to the iPhone OS like Game Center, a robust platform for development, high-powered and highly-efficient hardware drawn from the mobile space, and serious support from major publishers, I think Apple could easily leverage their success with the iPhone OS into a major play for the living room by providing a familiar and broadly-supported platform to the masses who have already bought into Apple’s media ecosystem through iTunes.

The one potential sticking point in the gaming arena is the paucity of onboard storage. 16GB isn’t a lot for games designed for the TV, presumably complete with major-platform price points and gameplay length. I sort of hope that Apple differentiates the line-up with larger-capacity devices (up to 64 or 128GB) and supports cloud storage of apps and app data so you can swap out titles as you play them without having to worry about losing your games or your progress.

Will all of this happen? Perhaps, perhaps not. Regardless, the potential is there for Apple to swing straight from their success in mobile computing into a play against Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and now Google for control of the living room, using their experience with the “hobby” of Apple TV as a springboard. If nothing else, ideally the promise of third-party streaming services like Netflix and Hulu will come to pass. Given the rumored $99 price point, that may not happen as Apple may seek to make money off of this device through services rather than the actual hardware, but one never knows. I kind of hope this ends up being the “One More Thing” for the WWDC keynote despite Engadget’s assertion that it won’t be mentioned, because with the next iPhone essentially being a known entity already, it’d be nice if there were something like this to announce and flesh out to retain a certain level of interest and surprise. Assuming Apple plans to open this platform up to developers, WWDC seems like as good a place as any to get the word out – even if it doesn’t ship the product until later this year – so that the device can hit the ground running with a broad range of applications already available for it. I don’t think the iPad approach of scaling existing apps up to fit TV screens is going to work at all for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that TVs aren’t multitouch-compatible. There’s going to need to be a longer lead time on 3rd-party development to build apps that are Apple TV-compatible; existing apps simply won’t translate despite the commonality of the underlying architecture.

Hey, this tech pundit stuff is easy! Why can’t I get paid for it?