The French Photographer Weblog

As you noticed already I write about Photography but I write also a lot about Apple, Smartphones and iPhones. So I cannot avoid a word on that antennagate story.
First, monday was an interesting day for me, FedEx delivered my iPhone 4. It took me about 5 minutes to have it activated and another 30 seconds to test the infamous death grip to the conclusion that… what a bullshit!
There is simply no problem there. Ok, there is some signal attenuation. Ok, if I hold the phone tight for a minute maybe the signal will decrease but nowhere enough to drop a call. And in real life who will grip a phone like that and hold tight and not end up with cramps after a few minutes.
Come on, this is just plain bullshit.

I also watched the press conference last week about this topic and like everybody I noticed the body language and sort of contempt in Steve Jobs attitude when he announced the free bumper for everybody. And honestly now that I have experienced the real extend of the matter (sorry, I cannot call that a problem) I understand much better his frustration and his general attitude with the media.
This bumper giveaway will cost Apple probably $150 to $200 millions because of something that has been blown out of proportion by the media. That’s kind of expensive for a media interference.

So what’s the bottom line. iPhone 4 has a new antenna design, with a trade off. There is one clearly indicated weak spot in an overall excellent product. Does that make the product unusable? No. Is it a reason for a recall? Never ever. Is it a real problem preventing a normal usage of this product? Not in my experience. Actually I don’t even think about it or pay particular attention to it. I never used a case on my iPhones and I won’t use one on the iPhone 4, because I don’t like cases, because they are ugly and not convenient.

Funny thing, now the focus has shifted from the antenna issue to Steve Jobs attitude during the press conference.
And honestly I understand him. To me his answer to this problem is exactly in line with the way he thinks and not very different to his answer on the flash controversy. Listen if you have not done so yet to the interview he gave at All things Digital a few month ago. The segment on Flash is particularly relevant, basically steve’s opinion is quite simple – we think that Flash is not appropriate for iOS devices, there are technologies that allow us to get the same result without the problems generated by Flash, so we don;t need Flash and we won’t invest in it. If people agree with us they will buy our products, and if they think we are wrong they won’t!
For that matter Steve is the ultimate believer in free market. He must be a good friend of Alan Greenspan.
And when you look at the last quarter numbers, the market tend to prove that steve is right. Yesterday Apple repeated several times that they sell the iOS devices as fast as they can make them and cannot keep up with demand.
Nowadays information travels fast and social medias are powerful to build or destroy the reputation of a product, obviously the iPad sales like crazy even without Flash and people buy iPhone 4 despite the antenna weak spot. And they don’t return those products.

So what happened? There is a weak spot on the iPhone 4 antenna. Maybe this should have been clearly explained during the presentation of the product. Instead, it was blown out of proportion by the media. We heard all sorts of conspiracy theory about Apple knowing about it and having ulterior motives. at the end of the day – money talks, bullshit walks. Or maybe customers do. People want to buy more iPhone 4 and iPads than Apple can produce. They don’t return the products. They experience some dropped calls but not more than any other phone on the market.

This bullshit is over. Price tag for this media stunt – about $150 millions.

I’m a strong believer in the freedom of the media but maybe they should really focus on the important topics nowadays, not on that kind of easy crap.

Well, let’s keep everything relative. It’s an historic time for the computer and mobile communication industry.

Google is holding its big Google I/o conference in San Francisco this week. Apple will have the WWDC in 2 weeks and from both events we can expect big announcements like the one we saw today.

What makes it an historic and interesting time is that the market of mobile computing is still totally open with some serious competitors fighting for their share of the market. I can see at least 5 serious competitors right now:

- Apple certainly got a head start with the iPhone and the iPad. They have already sold a millions of devices (can’t wait for their announcement of the 100 millions iPhone/iPodTouch/iPad).
It looks like they cannot produce enough iPad to keep some descent inventory in their own stores (75% of the Apple Stores were out of stock as of today).
iPhoneOS 4 should be available in a few weeks with more than 200,000 apps. Those are very solid numbers. The future sounds pretty bright for Apple with maybe a few clouds in that blue sky – the long term reaction of the end users to Apple addiction to controlling everything and anything and their overall attitude toward developers and opening the platform to contents not deemed acceptable.

- Google is the strongest contestant to Apple supremacy and come to the fight with some serious weapons. Their OS is slowly catching up, their browser is solid and they recently found their line of communication by pretending to be the white knight and our ultimate line of defense against Apple dictatorial attitude. By their book Apple platform is closed and managed by control freaks, they are our last hope of freedom.
The question is: how long is this going to last? For how long are they going to give away all that technology for free to cell phones manufacturers. If you look at some past experiences, Google always use the same strategy to enter a market – provide a service comparable to what is already existing but for free. Attract a large base of users and than align the price of their service with the competitors. If you want a confirmation of that look at Google Checkout. After a couple of years it is no longer free but charge the same transaction fees as Paypal.
Google is successful because they offer a FREE solution to cell phone manufacturers who want to propose inexpensive alternatives to Apple’s iPhone with a product that look similar.
Apple has never entered the market of discounted products. They have always favored the top end of the market (cellphones or computers) hence Google will most likely win the battle of the market share. But how long will they accept to not make money on this market?

- HP/Palm certainly the best thing that could have happened for both companies. Palm is finally saved (and about to dissolve into its new owner corporate maze) and HP acquires a much needed knowledge, patent and mobile OS. This move will certainly lead to an interesting development. Historically among all the computers manufacturers Apple has been the only one to do both the software and the hardware. Now in the mobile computer market HP will be the second company to control both aspects of the user experience. This move makes them independent from a software manufacturer (like Google or Microsoft) and place them on a course similar to Apple strategy. We will see if this was the right move.

- Microsoft: even if the company is way behind on this market they just cannot be ignored. Windows Mobile 6 was a disaster of a magnitude similar to Vista. Version 6.5 was not really better. Than for some strange reason the company announced that Window Mobile would arrive in about a year and would not be compatible with the devices running the current version. That was the best recipe to make sure that every cell phone manufacturer and end user (at least the one who pay attention to what they buy and not simply listen to a sales rep) walk away from their solution. So right now Microsoft is dead on the water in the battle and all they have to rely on is the hope that Windows Mobile 7 will be their salvation. Still, once it gets available it will require all the power of Microsoft’s marketing machine to reenter the market. At this time they will have to convince cellphone manufacturers that their OS is better than Google’s even if it has very little applications and it’s not free. Talking of an uphill battle!

- RIM: Is something different in my opinion. They are very strong in the corporate world but still seriously under attack. They were there before everybody else with their own OS (sort of), their own devices with their specific design, and even their own architecture to support the devices, but… they totally missed the evolution of the market they were sitting on. It’s only after they realized that Apple was coming up with a device and an OS so strong that it was a threat for them that they finally decided to react. And it was not a very strong reaction. Basically imitating the interface that was created by somebody else but falling short on a lot of aspects. Since everybody watches them losing market share and doing very little to stop it. They come last in the list of competitors because they are simply going down. It is another typical case of a market leader sitting on its position, not bringing any innovation and slowly losing its advantage. Wonder why? Try doing the same thing on an iPhone (or an Android phone) and on a good old blackberry and you will quickly understand that one look attractive and modern and the other is some sort of dinosaur of the mobile computing.

Now I can hear some comments and I would like to address those.
Why is not Nokia on that list? Well because they have nothing so far that can compete with Apple or Google. Nokia has been making cellphones for decade but they see those as phones maybe with a few added features. Apple like I explained some months ago did not created a phone, they created an eco system that includes prominently an OS but also an App store and the tools to support that phone. Google jumped in the same train relatively quickly and now HP is trying to catch up. Microsoft had an OS but it was so bad that they more or less had to abandon it and start again from scratch. RIM had a complete system but just forgot to update it and innovate. In the meantime Nokia is still making… cellphones with a few added functionalities.
And what about Motorola. Ah good old Motorola, remind me when was the last time this company did something right. They used to make microprocessors, they drove themselves out of that business years ago, they used to make cellphones, they still do except that they position themselves in the less profitable segment of this market. They had some success with the razor but them too missed the evolution toward the smartphones pretty much for the same reasons. Lack of a descent (you can say Touch based) operating system and lack of the ecosystem to support it. During the last quarter Apple sold more phones than Motorola. Motorola currently has a catalogue of 117 devices, Apple has exactly 5 references. Call that a victory of quality over quantity!

Ok, so now we know! It’s out, no more waiting and wondering.
So let’s take a user point of view and see what we can tell about it.

The size

Small is what came to my mind first but like with every engineering project it’s a trade-off, give a little, get a little. The balance looks acceptable.
I tried to type on a 10″ netbook and it’s not really easy, let’s wait for a practical validation of the real usability.

The device

Well… it is an Apple product and you can tell. Great finish, very nice as usual. The technical specifications are unfamiliar. It is powered by a 1 Ghz chip designed by Apple and nobody has any experience with that. On stage the demo looked impressive but we will have to wait and see.
Maybe the greatest achievement is that Apple managed to create a real laptop with no keyboard. Time will tell, if that really works but so far it looks very promising.
And for a change the price is good too. Compared to a traditional netbook the entry level model is rather well priced.

The user interface

Nothing really disturbing here or fundamentally new. It is a touch base user interface just as expected. The attention to detail is even more spectacular than on the iPhone.
But a lot of elements will make it familiar to iPhone users, the tab navigation at the bottom, the home button, the automatic switch between landscape and portrait. Ok let’s say it – it’s a larger iPhone or iPodTouch.

The OS

We don’t know much right now. It looks like it does not do multitasking even if the processor looks powerful enough.
I will study the SDK soon and maybe I will figure out a few things.

The communication and networking

A good wifi chip, ok, what else could we have expected anyway. Blue tooth, normal. 3G, logical.
No contract needed and all devices unlocked. Even better. I assume it is a GSM device so it should work with multiple operators.
I wonder to what extend it is a device that you will carry with you all the time like an iPhone. It’s not like you can drop it in your pocket and forget about it, so maybe the 3G is not fundamental unless you are constantly on the road.
It also looks like you cannot make a phone call with it, even on the 3G model with headphones.

What is a surprise?

No camera!. Why the hell? Honestly I have no idea! Why such a device could not be used at home for video conferencing. I use my laptop for that connected to a wifi network all the time. The iPad would be perfect for that if only there was a basic web cam.
It does not make any sense to me. Except if maybe Apple want to come with an iPad+ in a few months with that feature.
In the meantime, sorry guys but it’s a pretty stupid omission.

What is it good for, especially for a photographer?

No camera. Ok, well, I will miss it for video conferencing but I won’t miss it for taking photos.
Where I see a flow int eh logic here is that this is a perfect device for geotagging due to the integration of the map but the device has no GPS. So what’s the point?
A good part of the presentation was dedicated to photos and it looked really good. It is some sort of iPhoto with a Cocoa touch flavor.
The iPhone was already a great way to show your portfolio the iPad will be even better.
Some people pushed the iPhone pretty far in term of creativity with the built in camera, with a larger screen I think that wee will see more serious photo retouching softwares. Once again it will depend of how sensitive the screen is and to what extend it will replace a graphic tablet. Maybe with an additional pen it can actually replace a Wacom tablet.
Another thing is not clear at all – connectivity. Could the iPad be used as a tethering device connected to a camera. Probably not out of the box or without some specific connectivity and custom software development.

A developer point of view.

To finish, let’s look at the device as a developer. The screen size is different from the iPhone. So the traditional iPhone applications will have to be adjusted, the traditional views won’t fully take advantage of the new device. But that’s not such a big deal. It looks like the screen in landscape mode is like 3 iPhone screens next to each other. For example the Mail application on the tablet gives you the list view of the iPhone and to the right 2 times the size of the list view for the detail of an e-mail. Same thing for the calendar. This was not possible on an iPhone, so the way to develop softwares will change for sure.
Unlike the iPhone there are floating windows and actually more than one window at a time. That will also be a big difference in the way the software function. Ok Apple call that “pop-over menus”, I guess it’s a new concept.

So, overall, no real surprise. No disappointment either except maybe the lack of video conferencing on such a device which does not make any sense. If ATT&T network cannot handle it at least Apple could have enabled this on wifi.