Riccardo Mori

Apple’s “Let’s Update Everything” event

October 24, 2012

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.

Confessions of an avid book reader

October 22, 2012

by Riccardo Mori

Handpicked

Source: Joe Queenan: My 6,128 Favorite Books — WSJ.com

As a lover of physical books myself, I couldn’t help but smile when I read this bit:

Books as physical objects matter to me, because they evoke the past. A Métro ticket falls out of a book I bought 40 years ago, and I am transported back to the Rue Saint-Jacques on Sept. 12, 1972, where I am waiting for someone named Annie LeCombe. A telephone message from a friend who died too young falls out of a book, and I find myself back in the Chateau Marmont on a balmy September day in 1995. A note I scribbled to myself in “Homage to Catalonia” in 1973 when I was in Granada reminds me to learn Spanish, which I have not yet done, and to go back to Granada.

None of this will work with a Kindle. People who need to possess the physical copy of a book, not merely an electronic version, believe that the objects themselves are sacred. Some people may find this attitude baffling, arguing that books are merely objects that take up space. This is true, but so are Prague and your kids and the Sistine Chapel. Think it through, bozos.

The world is changing, but I am not changing with it. There is no e‑reader or Kindle in my future. My philosophy is simple: Certain things are perfect the way they are. The sky, the Pacific Ocean, procreation and the Goldberg Variations all fit this bill, and so do books. Books are sublimely visceral, emotionally evocative objects that constitute a perfect delivery system.

I also liked some of the comments (something that’s getting increasingly rare for me nowadays), especially this one, by Craig Smith:

I love the printed book. I enjoy reading hardbound books for the ability to write notes in the columns and underline inspiring thoughts or well-written sentences with a highlighter — like articulate sound bites that I get to enjoy over and over. I bought books for my grandchildren when they were young, I would read the books to them on warm summer nights at the cottage, during rainy days on vacation or while babysitting. I’d always write the date and a short note about the day we were together on the inside front cover. They are both good students now and they love to read. But now, when we return to the cottage in the spring to get it ready for summer vacation or when they come back home for the holidays, they love to go to the bookshelf and find some of the old books we read together. They can’t wait to look inside the books to read the note I left behind years earlier. They love to recall the special time we shared reading the book together. I do too.

‘We are indeed less willing to agree on what constitutes truth’

October 21, 2012

by Riccardo Mori

Handpicked

Source: Shirky: ‘We are indeed less willing to agree on what constitutes truth’ | Poynter.

Clay Shirky:

There seems to be less respect for consensus because there is less respect for consensus. This change is not good or bad per se — it has simply made agreement a scarcer commodity across all issues of public interest. The erosion of controls on public speech have enabled Birthers to make their accusations against the President public; it also allows newly-emboldened groups — feminists, atheists, Muslims, Mormons — to press their issues in public, in opposition to traditional public beliefs, a process similar to gay rights post-Stonewall, but now on a faster and more national scale.

There’s no going back. Journalists now have to operate in a world where no statement, however trivial, will be completely secured from public gainsaying. At the same time, public production of speech, not just consumption, means that the policing of ethical failures has passed out of the hands of the quasi-professional group of journalists employed in those outlets, and has become another form of public argument.

This alters the public sphere in important ways.

(via Khoi Vinh)