Riccardo Mori

I’ll keep the 9.7", thanks.

November 2, 2012

In July, when the iPad mini was still a rumour and when many tech people were praising the Google Nexus 7, I wrote a piece called A 7‑inch iPad? Not for me in which I explained why the smaller form factor doesn’t really appeal to me and how I think that the regular 9.7″ iPad is what I consider a sweet size for a tablet. After the introduction of the iPad mini, and after some reviews have appeared around the Web (my favourites so far: Tim Stevens, Joshua Topolsky, John Gruber), I’ve received a few emails from readers asking me if I changed my mind about it. In the end, the iPad mini is more like an 8″ tablet than a 7″ one.

In July I wrote:

Again, I’m sure a 7″ iPad makes sense for some people. Like netbooks and ‘ultrabooks’ still make sense for some, to the point that they’d choose them over a regular laptop. They hardly make sense to me, simply because they sacrifice usability and a decent user experience just for the sake of mere portability (and price). It’s a trade-off I don’t accept. Similarly, with tablets, I’m certainly not a target user for a 7″ device. I’m sure that, if Apple actually introduces an ‘iPad mini’ later this year, it’ll be a more usable device than any other on the market, but I’m not entirely convinced it’ll retain the same usability as a regular, 9.7″ iPad.

Judging from other people’s reviews and the visual information on Apple’s site, the iPad mini is definitely a more usable device than others in the same league. Apple itself emphasises this aspect with the tag line Every inch an iPad, meaning that the iPad mini isn’t just an afterthought in the iPad line of devices, but delivers a user experience that’s on a par with a regular iPad: Everything you love about iPad — the beautiful screen, fast and fluid performance, FaceTime and iSight cameras, thousands of amazing apps, 10-hour battery life — is everything you’ll love about iPad mini, too. And you can hold it in one hand.

But the real deal-breaker for me is the screen. I’m sorry, but in my opinion once you go retina you don’t look back. I still have to hold an iPad mini in my hands and see for myself, and for now I trust John Gruber’s judgment when he writes:

“Wow, it feels like a Kindle.”

“Ew, the screen is terrible.”

That was my wife’s initial reaction when I handed her the iPad Mini to see what she, an avid daily user of an iPad 3, thought. Her initial reaction matched mine exactly, and perfectly encapsulates the experience. The iPad Mini is not a device you need to spend a lot of time with to understand. My snap reaction from a week ago remains unchanged after a week of daily use.

[…]

The actual iPad Mini display is not terrible. It’s exactly what you think: it feels like an iPhone 3GS display cut to iPad size, including the fact that the pixels seem deeper from the surface of the glass. (It does seem brighter and more vibrant than a 3GS display, perhaps because it uses an IPS panel.) And after a week of using it as my main iPad, the individually discernible pixels are no longer jarring to my eyes. The non-retina resolution is the one and only significant complaint I have with the iPad Mini, and it’s an issue that is only apparent to those of us who already own a nearly-new iPad.

In my household there still are a few non retina devices, like my old iPhone 3G, an iPad 2 and a 1st-generation iPod touch both belonging to my wife. Using these devices every now and then is okay for relatively short sessions. I used to read ebooks on my iPhone 3G with the great Eucalyptus app, definitely a better performer than iBooks under iOS 4. I recall the reading experience on that iPhone’s screen to be bearable, but it vastly improved when I got an iPhone 4 and even more since I’ve used my iPad 3 as my main ebook reader. All because of their retina displays. I picked up the iPhone 3G the other day and launched Eucalyptus to see what I was reading before changing phones, and I honestly asked myself how I could read entire novels on that screen.

The different iPad mini reviews I’ve read so far praise many other features, like the build quality, the lightness, the portability, the feeling of accentuated intimacy an iPad of this size brings, and I can agree that it’s going to sell extremely well also thanks to its solid software ecosystem and to the fact that the overall experience is not dampened or hampered by the smaller size.

At the same time, the iPad mini’s non-retina display isn’t something that can’t be ignored or simply dismissed with a “well, everything else is nice, so that compensates for the lack of retina”. I agree with Federico Viticci when he writes:

I don’t have perfect eyesight, so I got used to Retina displays quickly. I upgraded my iPhone and iPad to Retina without thinking about it twice. LCDs aren’t good for eyesight, but Retina undoubtedly puts less strain on the eyes. This is why I think I won’t be able to adjust to the non-Retina screen of the iPad mini.

And when he tweets:

(1) It is misguided, IMO, to say mass market doesn’t care about Retina. Lots of people I know (non nerds) understand and appreciate high res. (2) We shouldn’t make excuses. It doesn’t have Retina, so it’s a worse display. Period. No “but people don’t care”. (3) This is especially true for people coming from iPhone — think they won’t notice pixels on the display? (4) So we’re pretending a) people don’t care about Retina and b) there are no iPhone users getting one and noticing its lack thereof. Okay.

Of course, many people will find the iPad mini ‘good enough’ and its lightness, better portability, lower price (compared to a regular iPad) will probably outweigh the one drawback that is the non-retina display, especially those people who haven’t been yet exposed to the beauty of a high-density display. At the same time, I’d love to buy an iPad for my parents, and the mini would be great for its compactness and cost. They haven’t been using any device with high-density display before, but my mum reads a lot, and I know that a retina display would be much better for her eyes, so I’ll probably look for a regular-sized iPad with 3G. (Why not an ebook reader, then? Because the iPad would be perfect for keeping in touch via email and maybe even via VoIP/FaceTime.)

I believe the iPad mini should have had a retina display since day one, although I understand all the manufacturing and performance-related trade-offs behind the scenes. A retina display needs a more powerful graphic processor, which in turn impacts battery life, so perhaps a retina iPad mini at this time would have meant a thicker device without doubt, and we know by now how Apple hates thick. Apple is buying time, releasing an appealing-enough device just in time for the holiday season, while working (I presume) on a second-generation model with retina display which will hopefully retain the same thinness and battery life of the current mini.

If and when that retina iPad mini comes out, I’ll certainly be much more intrigued and willing to consider a smaller form factor. For now, the bigger 9.7″ third-generation iPad is serving me very well. It may be bulkier and heavier to handle, but reading websites, RSS feeds, books and assorted documentation is a really pleasant experience; an experience I’m not willing to trade for a device with a non-retina display, no matter how smaller, lighter and beautifully manufactured it is.

The Scott Forstall fallout

October 31, 2012

by Riccardo Mori

Handpicked

From inside Apple, the Scott Forstall fallout by Om Malik is one of the most interesting pieces about the recent Apple management reorganisation I’ve read so far. Malik also seems one of the few to mention an aspect I’ve been considering since I heard the news that Forstall has been shown the door:

In conversations, I learned about something that is troubling from a long-term point of view. Unlike in the Jobs era, when the company would ship features when they were ready for primetime, a culture of schedule-driven releases has become commonplace.

The time-based schedule is one of the reasons why Siri and Maps arrived as half-baked products and were met with derision. Many engineers inside Apple could foresee problems with Maps. Why? Because Maps were driven by a time schedule.

Maps and Siri are complex products whose dependencies (for the lack of a better word) go deep into different parts of the phone and even the network. The schedule-driven release culture makes folks less daring — why take arrows in your back for failing to deliver a radical new feature on a pre-dictated time? If this cultural warp continues, Apple might have a bigger headache on its hands. Ive’s appointment as the Human Interface honcho means that more risk-taking needs to come into the products.

[Emphasis mine]

Both inside and outside Apple, the general feeling regarding Scott Forstall’s departure seems to be some kind of relief. On Twitter I quipped: Forstall might be a moron behind the scenes, but perhaps iOS wouldn’t be where it is without his work. So let’s be a little less snarky, ok?

It appears that Forstall had a bit of an attitude problem, acting like a little Jobs inside his department, not being particularly collaborative towards other departments and executives, etc. In another piece, Om Malik is spot-on about what has possibly been the greatest mistake Forstall made, i.e. forgetting “that he was Steve’s guy, not Steve Jobs.” But attitude apart, I’m wondering where would iOS development be without a demanding figure like Forstall. It’s easy to say “Maybe we would have a better Maps app and a better Siri”, but who knows, maybe we’d still be on iOS 4 for all we know. That’s why I’m really curious to see how the new management will proceed with iOS from now on, what changes they’ll make, what the pace of updates will be, and so on. And Craig Federighi taking care of both iOS and OS X is also a fascinating scenario if you think about the mutual influences of the two operating systems. Interesting times await us indeed.

In the meantime, I for one would like to thank Forstall for taking iOS where it’s now and wish him the best for his future endeavours.

(Via Daring Fireball)

Apple’s “Let’s Update Everything” event

October 24, 2012

by Riccardo Mori

Tech Life

The presentation

First of all, I really appreciated Apple’s decision to stream the event live. As others have observed, I wish Apple started doing this for every event, not just occasionally. I enjoyed the changeover dynamics between Tim Cook and Phil Schiller, and Cook’s presentation style is starting to grow on me. He looks and sounds like the good-hearted, somewhat shy uncle who has come to tell us a great story nobody else knows. In a few instances he was evidently so excited and overwhelmed as to trip over his own words. I found that endearing. Schiller has once again proven to be a damn fine showman, effortlessly reeling off explanations on design details, manufacturing processes, device specifications and the like. At a certain point, however, I found the pace to be accelerating in a sort of “we’re running out of time” fashion, and from then on some parts of the presentation felt rushed. The 4th-generation iPad was announced and dealt with so quickly that three contacts on Twitter sent me messages like “Hey, what did he say about the regular iPad before introducing the iPad mini?”

The new 13-inch retina MacBook Pro

This is a sweet little machine, undoubtedly. It’s like having a 13-inch ‘Power Air’: it weighs little more than a 13-inch MacBook Air, it’s actually smaller (if you consider width and depth) — though not thinner. On paper, the difference in mass between the two should be negligible when it comes to carrying them around, so I believe the new MacBook Pro can really offer the best of both worlds — portability and power — even if it’s going to be at a price (the entry-level 13-inch retina MacBook Pro costs $500/€500 more than the entry-level 13-inch MacBook Air).

Mac mini

I chuckled at Schiller’s introductory joke: “You knew there’d be something called mini in this presentation.” The Mac mini has received a nice speed bump and upgrade, and remains a very affordable, dependable option for those who want to enter the Apple ecosystem but have limited budget. For only $599/€649 you get a computer with a nice 2.5GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 (Turbo Boost up to 3.1GHz) processor, a powerful enough integrated graphic chip, and most of all a lot of versatility connection-wise. The Mac mini has Gigabit Ethernet, Thunderbolt, HDMI, four USB 3 ports, an SDXC card slot and interestingly retains a FireWire 800 port. It’s definitely a nice little desktop machine.

The new iMac

I loved, loved, how Schiller introduced it. It was a ‘wow’ moment similar to the introduction of the iPhone 5. The thinness of the redesigned iMac is by all means stunning, and I admit that for a moment I believed that all the iMac was as thin as that. For a moment I thought: Apple did it, Apple managed to build a computer so thin it doesn’t look real. As you can see from this photo by Ars Technica, the new iMac reaches that incredible 5mm thinness only at the edges, but it’s still an impressive loss of bulk compared with the previous generation.

The new iMac is probably what blew me away the most in yesterday’s event. It is an engineering and design feat that I find more interesting and exciting than the new iPad mini. As I was following Schiller’s presentation, for the first time in years I started considering this new iMac for my next upgrade instead of a laptop. The last time a desktop Mac was my main machine was during the 1999–2003 period, when I was using a beautiful blueberry slot-loading iMac G3/350. Since a thunderstorm killed it, my main workhorses have been a graphite iBook G3/466, a 12-inch PowerBook G4 and then a 15-inch MacBook Pro. But in recent years I’ve been less mobile than before, and most of the time my MacBook Pro is used as a desktop workstation. I’ve been seriously considering the 13-inch MacBook Air as my next machine for a while, then the introduction of the new 13-inch retina MacBook Pro got me thinking… and this new iMac is making me rethink everything. With it, I’d actually have more free space on my desk, and the current 15-inch MacBook Pro would make a solid second machine.

I’m intrigued by what Apple calls the Fusion Drive, and if (and when) I upgrade to the new iMac, I’ll definitely choose that as the storage option. As Apple explains on the iMac’s Performance page, Fusion Drive is a breakthrough concept that combines the high storage capacity of a traditional hard drive with the high performance of flash storage. With Fusion Drive in your iMac, disk-intensive tasks — from booting up to launching apps to importing photos — are faster and more efficient. That’s because frequently used items are kept at the ready on speedy flash storage, while infrequently accessed items go to the hard drive. It’s all managed by OS X, so the user doesn’t have to worry about setting up anything.

It would be great that any hybrid drive you choose to put inside a relatively modern Mac (i.e., that can run Mountain Lion) were managed as a ‘Fusion Drive’ by the operating system. It’d be a fantastic upgrade for my current MacBook Pro — I’m still wary of SSD drives and they’re still too expensive considering the limited storage space they offer over a regular HD, but I’ve been considering a hybrid drive as the next upgrade for my MacBook Pro because I feel it can offer the best of both worlds, speed and ample storage space. An intelligent management provided by the operating system itself would be the cherry on the cake.

On a last note, Apple is really putting optical drives behind. When Schiller was illustrating how they got to achieve such thinness in the new iMac, the subtext I felt was: thank god we got rid of that cumbersome thing. Now, if you want a Mac with built-in optical drive, your only choices are the regular, non-retina MacBook Pros — or the Mac Pro, of course.

The 4th-generation iPad

Admittedly, this caught me by surprise. And not in a good way. Let’s be clear on this: I’m not feeling ‘cheated’ or ‘betrayed’ by Apple and I surely won’t get all dramatic over this, but I expected a slightly longer life-cycle for the iPad 3. On a rational level, I perfectly understand Apple’s strategy, and Marco Arment is spot-on about it in his assessment:

The timing of the update — just 6 months after the iPad 3, instead of the usual year — will anger a lot of iPad 3 owners. But the previous March releases of the iPad 2 and 3 were more problematic.

Many people give or receive iPads for the holidays, and their new gifts were one-upped by new models just a few months later. This undoubtedly caused some buyers not to give iPads as holiday gifts, waiting for the new models instead.

Furthermore, there’s much stronger tablet competition from Amazon, Google, and Microsoft now, and they’re all timing their updates for the fall, shortly before the cultural disaster of holiday shopping mania. Keeping the iPad on a spring update schedule would mean that 6‑month-old iPads were competing with brand-new models from everyone else, and everyone else’s models were able to get more press attention without competition from Apple, during the most important buying season of the year.

The iPad 3’s time as the best iPad model was short-lived, and that’s unfortunate for people who bought one and care about having the best, but a fall update schedule will be better in the long run.

I have purchased my iPad 3 in late July, so it basically lasted three months as the best iPad model. Of course it’s still a powerful, fantastic device. Of course I still love it. As I love my iPhone 4, which is still a great device and I have no complaints about it even if it’s not as powerful as a 4S or a 5. The reasons of my feeling disappointed by such an early update cycle for the iPad are entirely personal and I don’t expect other people to feel the same. The fact is, I simply can’t afford to update computers and devices like I change my socks, so my strategy has always been to save money and wait until the device I’m after reaches a mature enough stage as to last the longest possible timeframe.

That’s why, when it comes to the iPad, I didn’t get the first generation model because it was a “1.0” version, so to speak. I was really close to buying the iPad 2 because at the time the speculation was that it would have sported a retina display, and for my eyesight a retina iPad would have been the perfect solution. When the iPad 2 was introduced, and the display was not retina, I (begrudgingly) decided to wait for the third-generation iPad, and to save more money so that I could buy the 32 GB model instead of the 16 GB one. When the iPad 3 was introduced I thought it would be the moment to finally get it. If I waited a couple months was because I wanted to learn the general reaction by other iPad 3 buyers, if there were problems related to the new high-density display, if there were performance issues or other unwanted surprises, etc.

Seeing that everything was fine about the iPad 3, I decided to buy it in late July, thinking its life-cycle would last at least until the beginning of 2013. The introduction of the iPad 4 after only six months makes the iPad 3 the shortest-living generation of models (unless Apple introduces an ‘iPad 5’ six months from now, which is unlikely) and, what’s more, makes it a bad investment for me. I can’t help but feel that my $599 iPad 3 is worth less than a $599 iPad 4 which, in all probability, will have a life-cycle of at least one year. That is really the core of the matter for me, even if, in day-to-day usage, I know I’ll be okay with my third-generation iPad’s performance.

The iPad mini

Something new, and nothing new here at the same time. The iPad mini is indeed a nice device which will quickly find its target audience and will sell a handsome number of units. If I were interested in a tablet of that size, I would certainly prefer an iPad mini over a Nexus 7 or Kindle Fire, despite the iPad mini’s premium price. (And I confess I enjoyed Phil Schiller’s comparison between the iPad mini and the Nexus 7 — “that other device” as he called it). The black & slate iPad mini is just lovely. But I very much prefer a 9.7‑inch, retina display iPad. Apple’s tag line for the iPad mini is Every inch an iPad, to emphasise that despite its smaller footprint, its user experience is comparable with what you get when using a regular iPad, but John Gruber’s first impressions confirm my skepticism for a tablet of this size:

[…] It runs iPad apps, but feels like a a “big iPhone” in use. It feels smaller than I expected it to. Having held it, “Mini” now makes sense as the name for it. […]

Screen resolution-wise, it’s exactly what I expected for a 163 PPI display in 2012: noticeably nicer than the 133 PPI iPad 1/2, noticeably worse than the 266 PPI iPad 3/4. The iPad Mini display seems brighter and to have better contrast than the iPhone 3GS display, but unsurprisingly, rendered text looks exactly like it does on the 3GS.

Text-rendering for me is a deal-breaker in a tablet, and at this point, if it doesn’t have a retina display I don’t even look at it, whatever the size.

Like others, I too think that $329 is a strange price, but I like Dan Moren’s perspective: I just assume the extra $29 in the iPad mini’s price accounts for the Lightning cable they include.

I very much like the semi-interactive iPad mini Features page on Apple’s site. Scroll all the way to the bottom and play with iPad mini and Smart Cover’s colour combinations, and don’t miss that little gem of a video. Only Apple can make a video about an accessory with such an elegant, lovely result.

Software: iBooks 3 and iBooks Author 2

Both nice improvements from what I can tell at first glance, but I’d like to spend more time with both applications and maybe write a separate post about them. I definitely agree with Gruber when he writes (see aforementioned link): I can definitely hold [the iPad mini] in one hand, and I wonder if that’s exactly the reason for the new scrolling (as opposed to page-turning) theme in iBooks. (Should make iBooks better on the iPhone, too.)

The art of Jeremy Geddes

October 22, 2012

by Riccardo Mori

Handpicked

Jeremy Geddes - Acedia

In recent years on the Web I’ve stumbled across the work of many painters and illustrators creating photo-realistic drawings or paintings, and of course I was blown away by their skill (just look at Heikki Leis’ work, for instance). But with Jeremy Geddes it’s different, for me at least. You don’t just look at his paintings and marvel at his virtuosity. You don’t just say Wow, it looks so real, good job there! His work feels deeper, more symbolic and mysterious. He’s famous for his Cosmonaut series (The Glory of Failure, Alley and The Street are a few striking examples), and I’m really enjoying his latest efforts, such as Acedia (shown here), A Perfect Vacuum, and Failing Echo.

Like the Cosmonaut paintings where the cosmonaut is pictured in an urban context (and not simply floating in space), you look at these works and you wonder: what’s happening here? What happened before? Why the explosion? You look for symbols, metaphors, details you’re not seeing or catching, hints at a story that started elsewhere and culminated in the suspended scene, in the frozen frame Geddes chose to paint. It’s much more than photo-realism for photo-realism’s sake.

Check out more of Geddes’ work at his site, Jeremy Geddes Art — I also like looking at his blog in Flipcard view.

L’imbattibile Apple

October 22, 2012

by Riccardo Mori

Mele e appunti

Quando ancora mi lasciavo coinvolgere in lunghe e futili discussioni su forum e mailing list, ricordo che un corrispondente mi scrisse in privato iniziando così il suo sfogo: “Visto che tu sostieni l’imbattibilità di Apple…”. Questo incipit già contiene una imprecisione: non ho mai sostenuto che Apple sia imbattibile, sono i fatti a dimostrare che Apple oggi è un avversario difficile da battere per quelle aziende che si trovano a competere negli stessi mercati.

Potrei star qui a scrivere fiumi di parole sul successo di Apple, sulla visione di Jobs che dal suo ritorno alla guida dell’azienda nel 1997 ne ha sbagliate davvero poche, sulla cultura interna di Apple che mette il designer un gradino sopra l’ingegnere, sulla qualità di hardware e software e dell’importanza di controllare entrambi, e così via.

Voglio invece osservare la situazione da un altro punto prospettico: le ragioni dell’insuccesso della concorrenza. Per evitare di dilungarmi troppo, dovrò per forza semplificare. A mio avviso, comunque, due fra gli errori più eclatanti che i concorrenti di Apple continuano a commettere sono:

L’apparente incapacità di liberare la loro cultura e mentalità dai retaggi dell’informatica degli anni Novanta e primi Duemila, e di mantenerle realmente al passo coi tempi. Quando scrissi questo articolo per iCreate nel luglio 2011, ricordavo la dichiarazione del presidente della divisione Windows Phone di Microsoft, Andy Lees, che alla Worldwide Partners Conference dello scorso anno spiegò perché sarebbe stato difficile vedere un tablet Microsoft basato su Windows Phone 7, preferendo Windows 8 come sistema operativo per tablet futuri: “Noi [di Microsoft] consideriamo il tablet come un PC”. E osservando Surface, il tablet che alla fine Microsoft è riuscita a produrre, questa dichiarazione non sembra smentirsi anche a distanza di più di un anno. Il successo della piattaforma iOS e delle tre generazioni di iPad è sostanzialmente la dimostrazione del contrario, ovvero che per ‘afferrare’ l’idea del tablet come moderno dispositivo personale occorre considerarlo tutto fuorché un PC. (Almeno per come lo intende Microsoft, nella forma e nella funzione che ha da vent’anni a questa parte).
La loro insistenza nel voler copiare Apple in tutto e per tutto, a eccezione di quegli aspetti fondamentali che alla fine contano davvero. La dinamica è nota: Apple presenta un prodotto nuovo, la reazione della concorrenza è anzitutto di sufficienza; poi si manifesta il tentativo di minimizzare il prodotto Apple; poi, a fronte dell’assordante successo di pubblico, inizia la corsa alle fotocopiatrici. Ed è sempre troppo tardi. Lo si è visto con iPod dieci anni fa, poi con iPhone e ora con iPad e persino con i Mac portatili (interessante come il MacBook Air sia passato dall’essere l’ultraportatile più deriso, al più copiato — Esempio 1, Esempio 2, Esempio 3, per far tre esempi veloci, e osserviamo come anche l’ultimo Chromebook, pur avendo una forma generale e un profilo leggermente diversi, abbia una tastiera, un grande trackpad e persino la rientranza sotto il trackpad presi di peso dal modello da 11 pollici del MacBook Air).

Per me, che sono un mero osservatore, è sorprendente e inconcepibile che le aziende concorrenti di Apple, grandi e grosse come sono, continuino imperterrite a ripercorrere gli stessi passi in maniera ciclica, commettendo gli stessi errori. Viene spontaneo reagire pensando “Ma non hanno ancora capito la lezione?”. Per ‘battere’ Apple, a mio avviso, l’ultima cosa da fare è copiarne i prodotti, specie uno come iPad che ha definito un mercato e che ha già il vantaggio di essere in commercio da più di due anni e di aver venduto decine di milioni di unità. Oltre a essere una chiara ammissione di sconfitta in partenza, l’unico modo per riuscire davvero a spuntarla è quello di realizzare un prodotto talmente di qualità, talmente interessante, talmente ben fatto e con così tanto da offrire che il pubblico possa dire Perché comprare un iPad quando c’è questo Tablet X, che mi dà molto di più? Come abbiamo visto, creare un prodotto del genere si è dimostrato molto più difficile del previsto.

Gli aspetti e le dinamiche di Apple da cui prendere esempio sono innanzi tutto gli altissimi standard interni: basta cianciare di prodotti innovativi, ma chiudersi in un laboratorio e mettersi di buona lena a crearne davvero. E non introdurre dei prodotti mezzi pronti, tanto per far vedere che ci sono, quando nella realtà pratica sono inutilizzabili per assenza di software.

Un altro aspetto per cui val la pena seguire l’esempio di Apple: mettere l’esperienza utente davanti a tutto; sforzarsi di capire che alle persone non interessano più le specifiche tecniche nude e crude, ma, specie in un tablet o smartphone, quel che il dispositivo può fare per loro (e che sia in grado di farlo al meglio). Uno non acquista iPad perché ha il processore dual-core o tot MB di RAM, ma perché lo aiuta a spiegare al figlio il sistema solare grazie a un’applicazione che crea un planetario interattivo, per dire.

Per ottenere questo è essenziale poter controllare l’hardware, il software e la relativa piattaforma di sviluppo. Quando scrissi questo articolo l’anno scorso, concludevo affermando:

Per come la vedo io l’unica azienda a trovarsi nella posizione di mettere in atto tale strategia è HP, che con l’acquisizione di Palm ora possiede anche il software per pilotare i propri prodotti. webOS è un sistema operativo dal grande potenziale: vedremo se HP sarà abbastanza coraggiosa e opterà per un approccio da era ‘post-PC’, oppure se si lascerà frenare dalla mentalità della ‘vecchia’ informatica.

Sappiamo tutti come è andata a finire. È bastato un breve periodo sotto la direzione di un CEO miope e incompetente — Léo Apotheker — per buttare a mare questo potenziale. E anche Meg Whitman, il CEO attuale, sembra dura di comprendonio su questo aspetto. Traducendo parte delle sue dichiarazioni che si possono leggere in questo articolo di Computerworld UK, la Whitman ha detto:

Non abbiamo in programma di introdurre uno smartphone nel 2013, ma dobbiamo iniziare a pensare a quale possa essere una nostra strategia specifica e a come inquadrare questo elemento del mercato del personal computing

Per dirla con Gruber: fai con comodo, HP, non c’è mica fretta…

HP deve offrire ogni genere di dispositivo, dalle workstation, ai PC con un fattore di forma ‘tutto in uno’, ai portatili, ai tablet e, infine, agli smartphone.

L’elenco delle priorità parla da solo. In una realtà tecnologica sempre più orientata al mobile, mettere tablet e smartphone agli ultimi posti forse non è una buona idea (opinione mia personale).

Credo che se in cinque anni non produrremo uno smartphone o qualunque sia la sua prossima incarnazione, saremo tagliati fuori da un enorme segmento della popolazione in svariati paesi del mondo.

“In cinque anni”? L’ottimismo è apprezzabile, ma qui rasentiamo la fantasia. Se questo è il modo di vedere e affrontare il mercato da parte della concorrenza, per forza Apple finisce con l’essere un avversario duro da battere.

Nota: Questo articolo è originariamente apparso sul N. 87 della rivista iCreate (agosto 2011). Le parti più datate dell’articolo sono state aggiornate tenendo conto degli eventi trascorsi nel frattempo.