The Business of Bullshit

Lackey: Hi, Steve? Er – sorry; Mr. Jobs? Hi, my name’s Frank. I work down in, oh well, it’s not important. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that there’s this site – Spymac – that’s been getting a lot of press lately with some leaks about an Apple PDA. I know, I know – it’s total bullshit. They’re pulling these pictures out of their ass. But it’s got people talking. Their mockups are really hideous, but what if we did something like that? Not something so played, like a PDA, but maybe something like PDA, phone combo? Wouldn’t that be cool? Hello, hello?

March, 2003.

Lackey: Yes, Mr. Jobs? It’s Frank again. Hey, I’ve gotta tell you – we’ve been monitoring Mac-related chatter in magazines and on forums, and there’s this guy, Dvorak? You know him? God, he won’t shut up about Apple switching to Intel processors. I know, I know! Please don’t be angry with me – I know it’s a pain in the ass, and would require massive developer support. Yes, I know it would be almost impossible to get legacy apps to run well. But, but we have to do something! He just won’t shut up about it; he’s driving everybody nuts!

March, 2006

Frank: Hey, Jobso! How’s it going? I’m bananas about Intel right now, B-T-W. Anyways, just wanted to let you know, there’s a bunch of people running their mouth about that PDA rumor. I know, I know – I thought that we could shut’em up with the Rokr too, but that thing was such a piece, right? Anyway, I still think it would kill, if we did it right.

January, 2007.

Frank: Stevie! What’s happening? Congrats on the iPhone? That thing is pimp! It’s gonna move like nothing else. Yeah, umm, that’s what I’m calling about. I know, I know – we’ve given them Intel, we’ve given them a goddamn phone – what more can these people want? Everything they ever crow about is getting handed to them and it’s never enough. You know, I heard a few of them clamoring on, hoping that they’d be able to make apps for the iPhone. I know! I told them that the web is gonna be really bangin’ on this machine, but they wouldn’t let it go. We might need to look into that. Maybe some kind of SDK, some paltry gesture – well, we’re gonna have to do something to shut these people up.

And that’s not all. The latest thing? A subnotebook. Subnotebook. I don’t even know what that means either! Doesn’t matter that we make the best damn portables in the industry. They want something smaller! Something lighter! Yeah, it’s horseshit, isn’t it. Anyways, that’s it.

January, 2008

Frank: Another killer keynote, Steve. Love the new iPhone firmware. Those dancing icons are the fucking best. Anyway, diggin’ the MacBook Air, the new Mac Pros. Seems like everything’s sewn up, right? I mean…these rumor sites, they’ve got everything now! I’m predicting three months, max, and they’ll be closing up shop. Talk to you later, buddy.

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We don’t live in a vacuum. As people, it takes a long time to change our ideas, and the fact that Apple has managed such a transformation in mindshare in such a short period of time is fairly remarkable. I expect to see quite a few MacBook Air’s in there, the next time it’s taken.

A First Look at OpenSocial
Answering Questions About Google’s Effort at Standardizing Social Network Widgets, and the Creation of Your First OpenSocial Widget

Who should read it? Any web developer who has any questions about OpenSocial; anyone curious about what OpenSocial brings to the table; and anyone who thinks its a death knell to Facebook applications. By the end of it you’ll know all about OpenSocial, and you’ll even know how to write a social widget.

Oh, and please, give me feedback.

PoliticalBubbles.com

It’s fairly self-explanatory: choose a candidate, give’em a quote, and paste your code on your various websites/social profiles. It’s harmless fun. But don’t take my word for it; what do you think, Fred Thompson?!

. . THOMPSON LIKE!@#! Steal This Bubble! Get more Political Bubbles!

Please, feel free to post bugs or suggestions to this entry. (I’ve got a few things in the hopper, but would love to hear from others.)

Free IMAP on Gmail

We use Google Apps at Concrete Websites, so I thought I’d check, and – lo and behold – we have it! You have to check your account’s settings tab, and if you’re lucky, you’ll see Forwarding and POP/IMAP (it used to just be POP.)

Once I confirmed that this option was available, it was a matter of five seconds before I retrieved my iPhone, and attempted to get my Google Apps email account integrated into it – hoping that IMAP access would end all manner of painful interaction between the phone the Gmail account (much of which has been recounted elsewhere.) Fortunately, Google has a helpful page that lists connection information for a variety of platforms – including, yes, the iPhone .

So far I’m pretty impressed. Deleting messages in the iPhone deletes them nearly immediately in Gmail. Your various labels are reflected as IMAP folders (including All Mail, allowing you to keep your mail nicely archived while still using your iPhone.) I’m looking forward to being able to go back to using Apple’s Mail client, which I’d abandoned due to the difficult nature of sharing multiple POP clients with one POP mail account.

Thanks, Google!

What’s lemonade.com? Lemonade let’s you “add your favorite stuff to a Lemonade stand and put it on your personal profile, website, blog, wherever” (from the site.)

You can learn more here. And in the spirit of Web 2.0ishness, I present to you my first non-testing Lemonade Stand:

Yes, there are kinks to work out, and more retailers to get on bored (I really wanted to include the MOTU 8pre in the stand above, but it was nowhere to be found) but for now I’ll just settle for catching my breath…

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You’d think this would make people happy. Why is it going to result in another Great Apple Fan Implosion? Expectations. Simply put, they’re sky-high with a rumor like this. A casual glance at MacRumors forums shows the following features (and more) being actively advocated for this full-screen iPod:

WiFi
Mail/Safari support
Touch-screen games
GPS
160 GB capacity
The return of Firewire support (!)
Complete OS X application support (including Keynote, Pages)

I hate to burst the proverbial bubble, but there will almost certainly be no iPhone-specific features in this touch-screen iPod. What do I mean? I mean no phone (obviously), but also no IM, no WiFi, and no internet. You will likely have very nice interfaces for managing all of the same information you already had on an iPod (i.e: contacts, videos, photos), but items that are internet-based or made their debut in the iPhone will likely stay that way. The iPhone is a cash cow, and even if they priced a high-capacity touch-screen iPod at $499 – never mind that such a device cries out for a more natural $399 or $349 price point – it would still eat into the iPhone sales.

Secondly, just because these devices are now touted to run OS X, doesn’t really mean much to the end user. Yes, it matters to developers (should Apple ever choose to get off its ass and properly support development in such an environment), but otherwise it’s mostly just semantics. It’s simply a nice modification to the bottom line, if Apple can do all software development in-house with the same people who already work for them.

And finally – and I can’t stress this enough – a touch-screen iPod is not a panacea! I have an iPhone. I love it. But as an iPod, it’s not perfect. It has some irritating playback bugs. It’s a bit large to easily navigate one-handed. Its lack of tactile feedback is occasionally annoying. It’s impossible to use while attempting to focus on something else. Are these deal-breakers? Absolutely not; the iPhone is a sexy beast, and a touch-screen iPod would be a similar animal. There will be those who love the idea of a touch-screen iPod, but when they actually use them, will find them somewhat clumsy and a little bit sluggish.

I’m not worried for Apple: it seems to do best in such situations – witness the introduction of the iPod, the iPod Mini and the Apple TV. I am, however, worried about the future of civil discussions around the Mac Web. Oh well – maybe I’ll just hang out in the iPod Shuffle forums for awhile…

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In Safari 3, DHTML content displayed over Flash content no longer disappears or displays erratically!

Thanks, Apple. Now fix that memory usage, and get me Flash on the iPhone. Pretty please?