Talking about the iPhone, in 2006

January 11, 2017
by Riccardo Mori
Tech Life

The other day I received an email from Thomas, someone I had met back in 2004 at a meetup with other vintage Mac users and collectors. I hadn’t heard from him in a while, and after the usual “How are things going?” and “Long time no hear” introductions, he told me: After reading online about the iPhone’s tenth anniversary, I was reminded of our email exchanges in late 2006. Do you remember when I asked you for some predictions?? With hindsight, I think you were on the right track!

I had almost forgotten about this. So I went digging in my email archives and finally found this little gem. At the time I used to write more via email and on mailing lists. (Thomas was among those who insisted I should blog more and talk about Mac and technology publicly, on the Web. Good thing I listened.)

In November 2006, Thomas contacted me and asked my opinion about that possibly upcoming new mobile phone from Apple. This is the screenshot of my response to him. The text is small, so I’ve also copied and pasted it below. It turns out that my ‘long shot’ about a touch-based interface for the iPhone wasn’t so out there as I thought. 

IPhone email 2006

 

On 20 November 2006, Thomas S. wrote:

Hey Rick, sooo… What’s your take on the rumored Apple cellphone? Will it look like an iPod but cooler? Will it be like a PDA with pen input, like a mini-Newton? And what about the o.s.? Maybe what they’re using for the iPod is good enough? Dunno… As for the cost, well, we all know it’s not gonna be cheap!! Still, I’m sure Apple will come out with something that’ll make people talk A LOT!! What do you think? Exciting times ahead…

My reply:

Heh. Predicting an entirely new Apple product is not an easy task, and I’ve been wrong before (for ex., I remember being stubbornly sure they would not release an iPod with video, given the iPod’s small screen). But let’s see:

  • I think it has to be small like a regular iPod. I saw silly mockups on the web; there even was a guy who imagined the new Apple phone to open and close like a flip phone in the style of the Motorola RAZR, but I’m not convinced. Design-wise, it has to look like an ‘iPod evolved’ if you know what I mean.
  • The operating system and the user interface are the other two aspects that got me thinking a lot as well… I mean, an iPod-like touchwheel could make sense, but a menu-oriented navigation doesn’t scale very well. I guess this new “iPhone” (or whatever Apple decides to call it) will feature at least some applications and utilities like my humble SonyEriccson or even like other smartphones like Palm’s. And navigating through a series of applications using menus and a clickwheel doesn’t look very intuitive to me. Who knows, maybe Apple will use some sort of mini-trackpad to move around the UI. I certainly am not holding my breath for any kind of pen input — Jobs doesn’t strike me as being fond of the Newton.
  • This is a long shot, but I remember reading about a patent filed by Apple at the beginning of this year, titled Touch-sensitive electronic apparatus for media applications and methods. This led to speculations about Apple making a touch-based Mac or tablet… but what if they’re going to try with the phone first? (BTW I can send you the link to that patent if you’re interested.)
  • Speaking of the Newton, a modernised NewtonOS would be cool as the new phone’s OS, with icons and applications, and powerful flexibility under the hood.
  • In general, I think Apple is going to showcase a device with a simple, effective design, something sleek and elegant, taking clear inspiration from the iPod design and form factor, but at the same time pushing things further. If it has buttons or visible moving parts, they’ll be reduced to the minimum possible (I say, forget swappable batteries, and flimsy battery doors on the back). The interface, whatever it will be, it’ll be something equally intuitive to use, easy to navigate. I bet a lot of people will look at it and think: how come no one else thought about this before?
  • I know, I’m being a bit vague here, but this is a tough guessing game. For example, I still have no idea what Apple is going to use as CPU and GPU. The new phone will certainly need more processing power than an iPod, but they can’t exactly stick an Intel processor in such a small device. As for the storage, I seriously doubt they’ll put, say, a 30 or 60GB hard disk inside, like on the iPod. Flash storage saves battery and is lighter, though forget such capacities!

Well, as you can see I get carried away easily on these topics. Apologies for my verbosity. Thanks for writing and for valuing my opinions.

 

In retrospect, as claim chowder goes, it wasn’t so bad after all.

People and resources added to my reading list in 2016

January 6, 2017
by Riccardo Mori
Tech Life

About a year ago, when talking about what/who I periodically read online, I wrote:

When it comes to the list of resources I check on a daily basis, in 2015 there have been more subtractions than additions. Nothing in particular triggered this clean-up and reorganisation of my RSS feeds, but in retrospect I can say that it was a consequence of different factors, including:

  • The need to read more physical books and ‘offline stuff’;
  • A perceived decrease in quality of a few resources I used to follow;
  • More time devoted to my writing and the production of original content (fiction and non-fiction), leaving less time to keep up with the once-manageable reading list.

This trend persisted throughout 2016 as well, driving me to drop even more feeds, and to add very few new ones. Several blogs, and most tech news websites have been demoted to being checked every now and then, instead of having their updates delivered via feed subscription. The main reasons for such demotion are:

  • For individual blogs — [a] Authors getting progressively focussed (read: obsessed) on specific subjects I don’t particularly care about. [b] Articles devolving into linked lists or podcast episode announcements, for podcasts I don’t even follow, so no interest there. [c] All of the above, in a couple of cases. [d] It’s a technicality, but I had to remove a couple of blogs whose authors, perhaps to boost the direct visits to their sites, decided to truncate their RSS feeds to a point that keeping them in my reader was useless. I can understand their reasons for choosing truncated feeds, but Christ, at least don’t also truncate the first article paragraph mid-sentence!
  • For tech websites — Their sheer article output (hello Macworld, hello iMore). I was spending more time marking things as read than reading articles. This kind of feed management was becoming a chore, and not worth the time and the trouble.

Podcasts

I’m still subscribed to the same podcasts as last year, but the two I manage to keep up with the most are Covered with Harry C. Marks, and Release Notes with Joe Cieplinski and Charles Perry.

I have occasionally listened to a few episodes of other podcasts. Worth mentioning are:

Tech blogs

As I said, the list of new entries is rather short — only three new additions in 2016:

  • Hey Cupertino — by Patrick Dean. It focusses mostly on reviews of iOS apps, but there are also other articles and general commentary. I really like Patrick’s review style: each review is detailed, well written, and accompanied by meaningful screenshots. One immediately notices how Patrick decides to review an app only after having extensively used it on his device. This means his reviews are generally less superficial, and his recommendations are always worth checking.
  • Mac Kung Fu — by Keir Thomas. It’s mostly tips and tricks for Mac OS, iOS, Apple TV, Apple Watch, etc. Keir is a competent power user and writer. There’s always something to discover, even if you’re an experienced Mac or iOS user, and Keir often manages to surprise you. I think it’s worth adding Mac Kung Fu to your feeds. [Note: the website doesn’t load if you’re using some kind of ad blocker. Consider supporting Keir by whitelisting his site.]
  • Revert to Saved — by Craig Grannell. Main subjects, as helpfully suggested by the masthead itself, are technology, Apple, gaming and design. What I love about Craig’s style is that it’s concise and to-the-point. He contributes regularly to other sites too, such as Stuff, MacFormat, TechRadar, Macworld UK and TapSmart. Like Patrick Dean above, Craig is also a great app reviewer.

Photography

Like 2015, 2016 was a great year photography-wise for me. My film camera collection expanded a bit more, thanks to a few more acquisitions but also gifts, and I’ve enjoyed shooting mostly film as usual. Still, I decided to get a DSLR too, for experimentation’s sake for the most part. Being on a relatively tight budget and not needing anything state-of-the-art, I opted for a vintage semi-professional Nikon body, the 11-year-old D200. Unsurprisingly, I’ve been using it with a film photographer’s approach, which in my case means shooting slowly and thoughtfully, using mostly manual focus prime lenses instead of favouring big AF zooms.

But I’m digressing.

When I was researching Nikon equipment (both digital and analogue), I found these places to be truly helpful:

  • byThom Sites — Thom Hogan’s portal. Thom is a professional photographer and has written countless reviews and guide books on Nikon cameras and lenses. I’d trust his advice implicitly. I even contacted him directly a couple of times to ask for clarification and he responded with astounding promptness, considering how busy he must be on a regular basis.
  • This database of Nikon lenses, maintained by Roland [I couldn’t find his last name anywhere, sorry], has been quite handy while looking for manual focus lenses on eBay, to check year of manufacture and other lens characteristics. Terrific resource.
  • Nico Van Dijk’s Nikon site. It has nice photos and lots of interesting information.
  • Through the F‑Mount — by Jürgen Becker. The articles section features many lens reviews, tips & tricks, etc.
  • Lens Survey and subjective evaluations — by professional nature photographer Bjørn Rørslett. This is a sub-section of the legacy naturfotograf.com site, which is now Nikon Gear. If you want to read detailed evaluations of many MF and AF Nikon lenses, you should definitely check the links at the bottom of the page. I chose to look for two specific lenses for my cameras thanks to this resource.
  • Nikkor is an amazing resource (available in English and Japanese) if you’re interested in the history of Nikon lenses. I’ve enjoyed its The Thousand and One Nights section, a growing collection of historical chapters written by Haruo Sato and Kouichi Ohshita, each dedicated to a single lens, explaining its design and development.

If, instead, you’re researching manual focus Konica cameras, there’s basically one resource you ought to add to your bookmarks: Andreas Buhl’s Konica SLR System 1960–1987 website (in English and German).

Similarly, a reference website for all Pentacon/Praktica cameras is Mike’s Praktica Collection. It’s a bit of a labyrinth to navigate — and the 1990s look and feel doesn’t help — but it covers all Praktica models with detailed data sheets and information. Useful if, for instance, you want to know whether a particular Praktica model used to be powered by an old mercury battery or it accepts newer silver-oxide or alkaline button cells.

Then there are a few places I found while looking for information on different vintage film cameras, websites that are usually maintained by collectors and enthusiasts who also write brief reviews of their equipment. The following are worth a mention:

  • The Camera Site — by Reijo Lauro
  • Simon Hawketts’ Photo Blog. Detailed reviews and test photos of many vintage cameras (check the Camera Index page for a direct access to the reviews), not to mention various tips for camera repairs. You’ll find many reviews of Minolta, Miranda, Olympus, Pentax, Praktica and Ricoh cameras among others.
  • The Favourite Cameras section of Gary Seronik’s Film Advance blog.
  • I probably already mentioned this, but despite not being actively maintained anymore, I still find Alfred Klomp’s Camera Page an interesting read, especially with regard to Russian film cameras.

As for general photography blogs and suchlike, here are some special mentions:

  • Silverbased — by Ross Orr. Ross doesn’t update it very often, but his blog is definitely a keeper for several interesting articles in its archives. Tips on which vintage cameras to search for and which to avoid, DIY solutions, etc. Do visit and explore.
  • Dave Lawrence Photography — Dave is a friend and a terrific photographer. His personal photography blog is always an interesting read.
  • Women and Dreams — by Ashley Pomeroy. This was a revelation, and a blog I actually added to my RSS feeds. I discovered Ashley Pomeroy through a mention on Lewis Collard’s site. I was instantly blown away by Ashley’s writing style and his photography. But calling his Women and Dreams a photography blog is rather limiting. As you’ll find out by reading a few posts, Ashley loves to digress, and many articles aren’t directly about photography at all. He may talk about music, cinema, or video games (his recent article on Half-Life 2 is astounding, by the way). A post that’s supposed to be a ‘Photoshop tutorial’ is actually… something else. Ashley is witty and quirky, and his style is something you either love or hate. I happen to love it. If you don’t care for his blog, you can find more of his photos on Flickr.

Finally, for quickly looking up information on cameras, a great resource has been Camera-Wiki.org. In my opinion it’s much better than Camerapedia, easier to navigate, especially because it’s not drowned in advertisements. If you find Camera Wiki useful as well, please consider making a donation to help it survive.

Addendum — If you’re into vintage film cameras or if you’re starting to explore the world of film photography just now and you’re looking for camera manuals, before getting ripped off by certain websites offering you a PDF download at a price (sometimes ridiculous prices, too), please stop by Camera Manual Library, by Mike Buktus. He has done a terrific work over the years and scanned dozens of camera manuals, and offers them as free downloadable PDF files (or you just can read them in the browser). If you find them useful, please support Mike by sending a donation.

A note about websites with ad-blocker blockers

I’m not against ads, and I understand that plenty of websites need them to stay afloat. That said, I also believe a lot of websites utterly disrespect their readers by not being very discriminating with the ads they choose to display (and their underlying technology). Thus, my current policy is to use ad blockers and anti-trackers (thanks Ad Block, Ghostery, uBlock Origin, and Better) and to occasionally whitelist sites and blogs showing ads in responsible (code-wise) and tasteful (display-wise) ways.

 

Allow ads. Not.

However, in recent times, an increasing number of big sites which usually employ plenty of intrusive ads, instead of working to ameliorate the issue, have decided to implement ‘ad-blocker blockers’; that is, if you visit them, and they detect you have installed an ad blocker in your browser, they won’t display their content. They will ask you to disable your ad blocker(s). Well, I will not do that. I will, instead, stop visiting your site altogether, and I’ll tell other people to do the same.

My RSS management

Unchanged from last year. To recap: on my main MacBook Pro I’m still using Reeder, while I keep older versions of NetNewsWire on my PowerPC Macs (version 3.2.15 under Mac OS X Leopard, and 3.1.7 under Mac OS X Tiger). On iOS, my RSS reader of choice is still Unread. Unread is also my absolute favourite iOS app with regard to gesture-based navigation. It’s really good and well-designed. A special mention goes to Feed Hawk by John Brayton, a very useful iOS tool to quickly add a website’s RSS feed to your reader of choice. My nano-review of Feed Hawk is here.

I think that’s all for 2016.

Past articles

In reverse chronological order:

Trajectories

December 23, 2016
by Riccardo Mori
Software

I have a hard time believing it, but for the sake of argument, let’s say the Mac has reached the end of the line. Let’s say there’s little room left to innovate on the hardware side, and just room for small refinements and life-support maintenance on the software side. Let’s say Apple is not entirely wrong in choosing to neglect the Mac. Let’s say iOS is really the future and the right bet.

How is iOS supposed to evolve to become as mature and versatile a platform as the Mac? 

If how iOS has evolved until now is of any indication, the trajectory points towards the addition of Mac-like features and behaviours to the operating system. For example, iPads have become better tools for doing ‘serious work’ by adding more (and more useful) keyboard shortcuts, and by improving app multitasking with features like Slide Over, Split View, and Picture in Picture. 

I may be wrong about this but my theory is that, in order for iOS to become more powerful and versatile, its user interface and user interaction are bound to get progressively more complex. The need may arise to increase the number of specialised, iPad-only features, features that would make little sense on the iPhone’s smaller footprint, or for the way people use iPhones versus iPads.

Current iOS power users, proficient tech people who have mastered the art of picking the right apps and perfecting workflows, would certainly be happier if iOS allowed for more built-in flexibility and interoperability, so as to make such workflows (mostly reliant on third-party apps) even smoother. They certainly wouldn’t mind the added complexity of the user interface/interaction.

Brief aside: I’m speaking of ‘complexity’ in relative terms. Think, for example, how iOS 7 was more complex than iOS 4, and how iOS 10 is more complex than iOS 7. It’s a complexity derived from the addition of features, gestures, layers of interaction.

There’s an observation that has stuck with me, something an acquaintance wrote me some time ago. I talked about his experience in this article. He said (emphasis mine): I can learn to become efficient on the iPad more or less to the point where I am now with Macs and PCs […] but at the same time I wonder why I should bother. […] My impression is that to switch to iPad-only, I have to take three steps back in order to make one step forward, while I just can keep moving forward by staying on the Mac. I may be totally wrong, but it doesn’t really feel like ‘progress’, this re-learning of workflows to maybe one day be as efficient and productive as I already am now.

I realise there are people today who experience iOS first, and maybe Mac OS later, or even not at all. The afore-quoted observation may not apply to them, but I think it’s still valid for a great number of people out there.

Suppose Mac OS is demoted to ‘hobby status’ inside Apple, and that iOS receives all the attention from now on. What is iOS’s trajectory going to be? How is it going to evolve? One of iOS’s major strengths is the hardware-software integration, which is perhaps even more cohesive than the Mac’s. If the future is iOS-first or iOS-only in Apple’s plans, it is necessary that new iOS devices appear at a certain point. Devices that need to be more sophisticated, maybe with bigger displays or with hardware capabilities that let them interface with external displays and peripherals. Solutions will have to be implemented to provide a seamless experience for the user if or when these hypothetical desktop-oriented iOS devices appear. If touch remains the only input method in iOS, how can the user interface and the user interaction be kept ‘simple’ when future iOS devices need to connect and interact with other peripherals? The relatively straightforward scenario where a future iOS tablet or laptop hybrid connects to an external display to do more than just desktop mirroring begets all kinds of user experience considerations. To make just one example — Does the main device display essentially become a touchpad and the OS interface gets transferred to the external display, and will there be some sort of pointer to manipulate the UI in this configuration? 

When I walk down this hypothetical path, what I see in iOS’s trajectory, more than sheer innovation, is a reinvention of the wheel. iOS was born as a simpler, streamlined version of Mac OS X; its multi-touch interface was ingenious and groundbreaking when applied to a smartphone and (similarly, but less strikingly) to a tablet; to then evolve — through a series of iterations and feature creep — into… Mac OS X? 

Perhaps I’m exaggerating, perhaps I’m just following a pet theory I have and am blinded by confirmation bias, but when I look at possible trajectories for iOS, all I see is a not-fully-mature operating system that, year after year, version after version, is approaching a point the ‘old’ Mac OS X reached a while ago. Innovation in the iOS platform is mostly hardware-driven, in my opinion. Oversimplifying a bit, the software part is a touch-based container for apps. In iOS’s software and user interface, the innovative bit happened at the beginning: simplicity through a series of well-designed, easily predictable touch gestures. Henceforth, it has been an accumulation of features, new gestures, new layers to interact with. The system has maintained a certain degree of intuitiveness, but many new features and gestures are truly intuitive mostly to long-time iOS users. Discoverability is still an issue for people who are not tech-savvy. 

What I’m trying to argue here is that — if we zoom out a bit and consider the big picture — the revolution in personal computing brought by iOS feels (to me) more like a reinvention of the wheel [1] than a tangible progression. iOS has made some things simpler for a wider number of people, and that’s really nice, but for now this purported ‘Post-PC era’ is (to me) still rough and somewhat disappointing. If I understood Steve Jobs’s vision, the ‘Post-PC era’ should be a time where iPhones and iPads can be valid solutions to accomplish most tasks in a mobile-driven scenario, instead of having to bring traditional computers everywhere, but where traditional computers — and especially the Mac — still have a place to take care of all the complex tasks they excel at. 

Instead, what I’m feeling when I consider how Apple is currently treating the Mac (both the hardware and the software), is a different take on the jobsian Post-PC era of ‘cars’ and ‘trucks’. It’s a take where the traditional computer and its operating system are dumbed down and made progressively less relevant to push a platform that is still not equipped to fully stand on its own. A Post-PC era where we should eventually get rid of traditional computers to switch to devices and an operating system that will have to behave more like traditional computers to provide a similar level of versatility. And we will have gone through the effort to reach a similar level of productivity as we have now on the Mac because…? Because iOS is nicer and feels fresher? And for how long will iOS keep feeling nicer and fresher? Is there something more in iOS’s trajectory than iteratively better iPhones and iPads? 

Related reading: The Mac is just as compelling

 

  • 1. An undeniably cool one, but still. ↩︎

 

Notes from a short trip

December 21, 2016
by Riccardo Mori
Tech Life

One

There is a man sitting at a small round table in the Starbucks at Valencia airport this early morning. Remnants of what must have been his breakfast are pushed aside, and he’s busy checking stuff on an iPad. The iPad is propped up thanks to some sort of smart cover (non-Apple), and he’s using a third-party Bluetooth keyboard to type things every now and then. He doesn’t look like a novice user, yet he doesn’t strike me as being particularly comfortable operating the device. At times he’s unsure whether to use the keyboard’s arrow keys or raise his hand towards the iPad screen and just move around by using his fingers to scroll and swipe. He hops from one app to another, then back again. He looks more impatient now. He grumbles and frowns. 

He has some sort of eureka moment. He grabs the iPad and puts it in portrait orientation. Whatever it is he’s working on, it seems to read better in portrait orientation, but now he can’t prop up the iPad like before, because its cover only allows for comfortable positioning in landscape orientation. He takes some bestseller from his messenger bag and tries to use it as a stand, but without much success. He then holds the iPad with one hand and types with the other using the virtual keyboard, but he’s clearly more uncomfortable than before. Begrudgingly, he repositions the iPad horizontally and reverts to the previous setup. He sighs and checks his iPhone.

I like to do some people watching, every now and then, especially when it involves the use of tech products I read about every day and use myself. My vantage point is excellent for inconspicuously watching what this man is doing, while not invading his privacy, because I can’t see (and I’m not interested in) what exactly he’s doing on his iPad, but I can see how he’s doing it. Again, he looks like someone who knows how to use an iPad, but nonetheless his actions do not convey that he’s enjoying it much. The interaction with the device lacks fluidity. If this is ‘the future,’ I really hope the present will last just a while longer. 

Two

I’m travelling light, since I’ll be staying away just for one week. Yet, I need my primary iPhone, a secondary iPhone with my Italian number, and a third iPhone I will use with yet another SIM, because the data plan in that SIM is the most generous and convenient. I’ll have to work, since I’ve previously communicated my availability, so I’ll have to bring my MacBook Pro. What about my iPad? It would be a ‘nice to have too’ option, but a Mac, an iPad, and three iPhones are just a bit too much and certainly don’t qualify as ‘travelling light’, so I decide that the iPad is staying home. Will I miss it? I don’t know. It’s not my main device, but it’s also more than just a satellite in my setup.

After two days away, I realise I don’t miss it. Sure, bringing it with me instead of the MacBook Pro would have made for an even lighter travelling, but apart from the fact that I couldn’t have used it for work, I would have had to make a couple of adjustments I’m not sure I was willing to do. Storage is still an enormous advantage when you have your Mac with you. My MacBook Pro is equipped with a 240 GB SSD and a 500 GB hard drive. While I was away I could enjoy watching movies and shows I’d previously ripped or transferred to the Mac without worrying about running out of available space. If I had brought only the iPad with me, I would have had to delete games and other apps I probably wouldn’t need on my trip, to hopefully make space for those 9–10 GB of media I wanted to watch. 

But then another problem would have emerged: I wouldn’t have had enough space on the iPad to also transfer the photos taken with my DSLR. Yes, I could have purchased more iCloud space… to then enjoy the transfer of several megabytes on a cellular network with 3G speeds on a good day. No, thanks. Much better a Mac with lots of local storage space, a fast-enough USB 2.0 connection speed, and no hassles whatsoever. I’ll gladly carry 1.6 kilograms more on my shoulders if it spares me the time I’d waste trying to free up space on the iPad. For content I’d move away from the iPad just a few days later anyway. Sometimes, comfort goes beyond just how much a device weighs.

Three

In one day, I’ve taken a plane, two busses, a train, plus several underground trains while in Milan. I’ve passed through several crowded — and sometimes cramped — spaces. You can’t imagine how glad I was to wear wired earphones and not, say, a pair of AirPods. Getting off the train at Duomo station, a guy bumped into me so hard, both my earbuds dropped off. Being wired, I was able to put them back in quickly. Then there were places where the background noise was, in passing, too loud for me to keep listening to music: it was easy to just give the earphones’ cables a gentle pull and let the earbuds hang and my ears rest, to then resume the listening a bit later, in quieter places. I didn’t have to worry about where to put the AirPods when not using them. Sure, I could have temporarily stored them in my coat pocket. Or just paused the music and kept them both in my ears. Maybe mine are old habits, but I found my good old wired earphones to be too practical in these kinds of situations, and I never found myself wishing for wireless alternatives — as incredible as that might sound to some of you dear readers.

Four

I’m getting back. On the train to Pisa, I decide to review some stuff and maybe write something related to my work-in-progress science fiction novel Low Fidelity. I take out the MacBook Pro. I open it on my lap. I find the right angle for the display to avoid stray reflections. I still miss the antiglare displays of a few years back. Mac OS X finishes booting and I’m presented with the same apps and windows I was using before shutting the Mac down. I write, read, check what I wanted to check. I hop from one app to another, from one virtual desktop to another, and then back again. My hands are firmly in place on the keyboard. My movements are minimal and measured. Sometimes I need to use the trackpad, but it’s right there below the keyboard. I’m comfortable. I feel in control of the interface before me. I don’t have to navigate it by gesturing like a conductor. I don’t feel the need to reach for something to tap on the MacBook Pro’s display, and I ask myself why some people would want a Mac laptop with a touchscreen. I may not be a fan of the latest MacBook Pros, but I’m really glad Apple still has a clear idea of how interfaces should behave on different kinds of devices.

Vantage Point magazine is ceasing publications

November 24, 2016
by Riccardo Mori
Et Cetera

Issue №24 — Off

VP cover iss24

The cover of Issue №24 — the last one for Vantage Point.

 

In June 2014 I launched Vantage Point, a compact digital magazine available on iOS’s Newsstand, as a way to offer a sort of Membership feature to this site. As I wrote in the original post about the launch of the magazine, “I wanted to create a sort of Supplement for this website. A publication that could offer new materials related to the subjects I usually talk about here on Morrick.me, and also be an extension of Morrick.me by providing articles about other topics I’m interested in but rarely mention here. I want this website to stay focussed on a few selected categories and subjects, and things like book reviews, music reviews, non-tech opinion pieces, articles about movies or television series, etc., would be a bit out of place on Morrick.me. But not on a dedicated, compact digital Supplement like Vantage Point.”

I tried to do everything right with this project. A monthly subscription to Vantage Point was an affordable $2.99. Each issue was made up of an average of 3–4 articles, plus an episode of my serialised science fiction novel Low Fidelity. I tried to find interesting subjects to write about (each issue had its own ‘theme’). I did my best to offer a good-quality product, in a digestible package (a fast reader could probably finish an issue in about 45 minutes). When I realised I couldn’t keep up with the initial self-imposed periodicity of two issues per month, I created the Vantage Point Single Special, a sort of stripped-down issue featuring a short story, that would be published along with a regular issue when I couldn’t come up with two full issues. I’m a one-man operation, so I advertised the magazine the best I could.

It was not enough.

I poured a significant amount of energies into Vantage Point, and since the technical side of the operation (content hosting, app creation and issue delivery) was handled by another company (Type Engine), maintaining the magazine has had its costs. After two years, 23 regular issues, 4 Single Specials, it’s time to call it and cease publications. When projects simply do not work, when it’s clear that they’re going nowhere, perseverance is unwise.

Overall I had fun publishing Vantage Point for these past two years, and part of me is sad to have to shelve it.

When I started Vantage Point, I took into account that I might have ended up operating at a loss for an initial period. But the magazine has unfortunately remained a niche product, and never reached a stage where I earned more than what I invested. If I didn’t close the project before was because I still believed in its potential; it was because I kept wanting to give it a second chance. With things like these, and with online writing, the advice you keep hearing from successful people is to persevere, to keep at it, to keep working hard, etc. It’s what I did, but hey, sometimes a cake doesn’t turn out that well even if you follow the recipe.

I’ve made a few mistakes with Vantage Point, no doubt:

  • I could have been more aggressive in promoting it. I always err on the side of tact and politeness in promoting what I do. I don’t like to annoy people and push them away.
  • I could have looked for collaborators or asked other people to contribute to the magazine with an article or two. This way, these contributors themselves could have helped to spread the word among their circles, and consequently bring more subscribers. I could have done this, but it always felt a bit like cheating to me. I wanted to offer something that had my voice and style. I have a strict No guest posts policy on my site, and I wanted my magazine to reflect that. While that policy will likely never change for this site, I realise it’s been a somewhat myopic decision for my magazine.
  • I probably should have kept a stricter publication schedule. In its second year especially, Vantage Point magazine issues have been following a more erratic periodicity. Sometimes the reason for a delay was illness, sometimes it was work or other personal stuff. I should have perhaps lowered the subscription fee in light of this. In truth, I was afraid to break something in the process (again, I wasn’t in direct control of the technical aspects of the magazine’s distribution — I should have asked Type Engine support for help).

I’m immensely thankful to all the (few) subscribers who decided to give me and my magazine a chance, and to offer their support. I really, really appreciate that.

At the same time, I wish the people who subscribed and appreciated the magazine and my fiction would have been a bit more, er, vocal about their appreciation. Save for a couple of exceptions, in the two years I published Vantage Point, there has been very little endorsement, and an absolute lack of feedback, either positive or negative.

Just to make myself clear right away: I’m not saying my readers should have taken care of advertising the magazine and do the marketing legwork for me; but you know, spreading the word with a tweet or writing a few lines in a Facebook update if that’s more your thing, or even leaving a brief review on the App Store… it wouldn’t have taken much of your time, and wouldn’t have hurt. I see many other tech and creative types get this kind of support on social media for everything they do. I’m just wishing I got the same treatment.

What about Low Fidelity?

The worst part of ceasing publications of a magazine that features a serialised novel is when such discontinuation leaves the narrative unfinished. The first book in the Low Fidelity series is made of 32 episodes, and so far I’ve published only 23 on Vantage Point magazine. I intend to publish the entire book in the first quarter of 2017 and make it available for both iOS and the Kindle platform. Watch this space and the Crosslines/Low Fidelity website for more updates on the matter.

Closing remarks about ‘memberships’ and ‘exclusive content’

Vantage Point magazine was my idea of providing a membership model for this site, but via a stand-alone paid product with original, previously-unpublished content (for the most part), instead of paywalls, newsletters and other solutions I saw on other tech blogs — solutions I didn’t like much.

In the two years I published Vantage Point, however, I often found myself preparing an article for the magazine and thinking that somehow it felt wrong to make it available for just a subset of my audience. And the more I thought about it, the less I liked this model based on exclusivity. I want to reach as many people as possible with what I write — whether it’s tech-oriented commentary or a fiction piece — and establishing a membership-based paid option that provides ‘exclusive content’ divides readers in tiers, the standard audience and the premium audience. For other blogs and authors, this option for monetising their spaces works well. I, on the other hand, feel a bit uncomfortable publishing an article or commentary not everybody can enjoy. Of course with fiction it’s a whole other matter: my books of short stories are finished products that are one-time purchases and can be enjoyed separately. I’m not ‘hiding’ potentially interesting content from the visitors and readers of my blog.

Between my translation work, writing fiction, preparing materials for Vantage Point magazine, I’ve ended up writing less on this blog — something I truly regret. It’s hard to find a balance between producing/curating ‘exclusive content’ for a selected premium audience and writing stuff for the standard audience at large. That’s why, until I find a better solution (i.e. a solution that makes me feel better), I’m done with the membership model. The ideal would be that writers receive support/patronage so that they can continue to write for everyone. While I know that most people won’t care, I’ll place a PayPal link on this blog’s sidebar in case someone wants to show their support every now and then.

For now, a heartfelt thank you to all you Vantage Point subscribers, and my thanks to Type Engine and The Smyth Group for the opportunity.

Any comment or feedback, you know where to find me.

 

Technical note

All current subscribers will get an email from iTunes stating that their subscriptions will not renew. Any content a user already has downloaded will remain on their device (unless they delete it).