Tech Inertia

Apple goes all 'Deckard'...
- 21 Oct 2011
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- iPad Android Google Steve Jobs iPhone
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I'm going to destroy Android...

An early sneak peek of Walter Isaacon's Steve Jobs biography, let's slip the reasoning behind Apple recent moves to sue Samsung and others.

"I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong," Jobs said. "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."

That 'wrong' clearly being allowing Eric Schmidt on the board at all.

It's well documented that Google did a 90 degree turn when then first saw the iPhone. Their phones up until that point were Blackberry clones, after the iPhone shook up the industry, their phones discarded the keyboard, became multi-touch capable and basically, ripped off the iPhone.

Now, lots of people argue that this 'ripping off' is hogwash and there are numerous viewpoints that support and go against that fact.

One thing that seems to have been forgotten, is that whilst Eric Schmidt was on the board at Apple, they hid the iPad's development from him.

This is very significant.

Why? Well it's also well known that Google have had a lot of trouble in re-imagining the Android OS for a tablet form-factor - it just wasn't built from the start with a tablet in mind. It has had to be hacked to get it there - and it shows.

To me, this points towards the fact that the Android OS was built to be a phone OS, not a mobile OS that could be re-scaled easily.

The reason for this is because when Eric Schmidt took the iPhone to Google and said "this is the future - copy it", they copied what they saw - a phone, not understanding the underlying construction to be scaled at some point into a tablet.

That's because Eric didn't know the tablet existed.
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That Apple 'something'...
- 16 Oct 2011
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- iPad Appstore PDF RIM iPhone
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It's very interesting being surrounded by people who don't 'do the Mac', or 'the iPhone'.

I'm not talking about your dyed-in-the-wool PC evagelist, but the neutral people, who didn't even realise that having an opinion on whether your computer was a PC or a Mac (or a RIM or an iPhone) was even an option.

I've recently observed with interest a guy who decided one day that an iPad just might be of use to him in his work.

He travels overseas a lot and needs to view PDF's and other documents at trade shows and finds even a netbook to be just too bulky.

He asked his IT Manager for an iPad, and basically got, "ugh, what is this Apple iPad of which you speak?".

Not deterred, he bought one himself, from his own money, and manages and troubleshoots it himself.

It's the comments he gives when you ask him about it that surprises you.

When you ask anyone about some new toy or gadget they have, their reaction is functional and technological - "it's got lots of memory, it's really fast" and err, that's about it.

His reaction to his iPad isn't like that, it's an emotional response.

"It's just amazing, it's fantastic, it's incredible, it's wonderful" is his response (I expect a 'magical' will come along eventually).

He doesn't know about the chip it uses, how much memory it has - it really doesn't matter to him.

He's found the app store and he's gone 'app crazy'. I'll tell him about updating to iOS5 maybe next week and we just might get a 'magical' out of him.
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Research In Motion?
- 14 Oct 2011
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- iPad RIM RIM outage iPhone
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It's been an interesting few days for RIM. How things can change in such a short time.

Apple release the iPhone 4$ and almost in parallel, RIM has it's most serious outage in it's history.

Nobody seems to think that the proprietary, walled-garden of RIM's messaging network could ever be a bad thing (those thoughts are saved for the Apple platform generally, and especially it's new iMessage service).

It seems as long as the IT Manager says that RIM's closed-off network is OK, then it must be fine, don't worry.

Where I work, I'm surrounded by Windows and RIM devices, running a small Mac-based studio, and usually when this happens, people just give the 'Microsoft' response, which is, 'oh well, watcha' gonna' do? Get used to it, it'll come back on eventually.'

The IT staff grunt, and the normal users just go and make a coffee, stand around the water cooler, talking about how their PC at home does just the same thing, so this is nothing unusual.

This time it's different. For the 1st time ever, the chorus has been, 'When are we going to get iPhones?'

Director's and Chairmen are having semi-heated discussions with IT Managers as to why this has happened. Some are satisfied with the, "it's RIM's problem and it's worldwide", some are not, even at my very conservative company.

Towit - a few 'key' staff now have shiny new iPhone4's in their excited little hands.

A couple of staff members have brought their iPad's in and use them extensively (keeping them hidden when the IT staff sniff around of course).

How things have changed - and will continue to do so.
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Microsoft's misguided tablet strategy is the apotheosis of the company | Tech Sanity Check
- 3 Aug 2010
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via blogs.techrepublic.com.com

TechRepublic report on Steve Ballmer's latest smokescreen discussion to investors, designed to explain why they have nothing, repeat nothing to compete with the iPad.

Quoted from the article:

So Microsoft has talked about five different mobile platforms in 2010: Windows Mobile 6.5, Windows Embedded Compact 7, Windows Phone 7, Kin, and Windows 7, with very little explanation about how these platforms relate to each other and which ones Microsoft wants to use in which settings. Is it any surprise then that Microsoft is flailing so badly in the mobile space and has no coherent tablet strategy?

Flailing is a strong word - and it describes Microsoft's position perfectly. Ballmer still thinks that his company is the top of the pile, he really does think that everyone will just wait, wait until Microsoft has the answer.

They don't. They have no answer, and, if everyone would just take their IT goggles off, just for a second, they'd realise that they've never had the answer, all the way back to DOS.

Since the beginning, Microsoft's business plan has been:

1) See what everyone else is doing

2) See if it jeopardizes anything that Microsoft does (and seeing as they want to control everything, it always does)

3) See if they can copy (doubtful) / steal (if they can get away with it) / buyout the technology (more likely) to create the 'Microsoft answer'

4) Launch the vapourware to freeze the market, so that everyone will wait until Microsoft are ready

5) When they (and their hardware partners) are finally ready with their buggy, incomplete, inelegant 'answer' Microsoft then tell their army of IT managers up and down the land to force into onto the users.

The companies these users work for either don't know any better or aren't interested anyway, and just use what they are told to use. Microsoft 'Everyware' continues.

This has worked on the desktop to the point where Windows is everywhere. But the desktop is now dying. Mobile is taking over.

Mobile is different - it has approached the user through a different route than the desktop.

The desktop came through the workplace first and onto the home second, along with the recommendation from the 'geeks' to just purchase Windows. The recommended this to further their own careers, empires and personalities, what the user wants isn't important.

Mobile isn't like that, it has come the other way, from the users, through to the workplace. What do the users choose? Well they choose 'ease of use' over everything else, and that's not Microsoft.

Microsoft has been flailing about since the beginning, it's only the IT Managers forcing it onto us that has hidden this fact. Now that mobile is in the ascendence, we seeing Microsoft for what the truly are.
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We sold more iPads' than Ballmer would like...
- 30 Jul 2010
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via 9to5mac.com

Earth to Ballmer - nobody cares what your opinion is on anything anymore. You lost - get used to it.
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Meet Flipboard, the iPad's Killer App has arrived...
- 29 Jul 2010
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- iPad Apple Flip Board Killer App
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via youtube.com

Just like, wow...
In the words of Steve Jobs, 'they had me at the page turning'.
Better start saving the cash for an iPad I think.
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Windows, the weak link in every chain...
- 28 Apr 2010
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- iPad Apple BitDefender Windows iPad Malware malware
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New Malware Threat Targets iPad Owners.

Well, that's not technically correct.

BitDefender has highlighted a new malware threat to Windows PC users that also own iPads. It doesn't actually touch the iPad in any way.

It's basically a social engineering threat, where the Windows user gets an email supposedly from Apple about a new version of iTunes.

If you fall for that, instead of downloading iTunes, malware downloads, and well you know the rest.

BitDefender gives this advice:

Identified by BitDefender as Backdoor.Bifrose.AADY, this piece of malicious code inadvertently downloaded injects itself in to the explorer.exe process and opens up a backdoor that allows unauthorized access to and control over the affected system.

It is important to say that Mac users remain unaffected by this piece of malware.
To avoid falling victim to this threat and others, BitDefender recommends the following five security tips:

They then go on to helpfully point out what you can do to stop this from happening.

Including buying their software.

Nowhere in the article is the advice, "Buy a Mac".

Nice to know that the bad guys, having tried to infiltrate the popular iPad, couldn't manage to get in, so they did the next best thing - fall back on their ever reliable army of Windows users.

It doesn't actually touch the iPad in any way, it just another social engineering attack on Windows.

It can't touch the iPad because the iPad is you know, horribly, terribly locked down, closed, un-open, not Android like, etc, etc...

Malware - this is one app you won't find on the AppStore.
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Apple & Adobe - a new era?
- 22 Apr 2010
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Apple responds to Adobe's response...

In order for Apple to control their own destiny, and prevent laggards like Adobe from holding them to ransom, Apple recently changed the iPhone Developer Program's small print, to specifically prevent anyone from using any other development platform other than Apple's.

Adobe being Adobe, is not happy. Mike Chambers, Principal Product Manager for developer relations for the Flash Platform is quoted:

"Adobe's Chambers added Google's Android OS was the platform of choice for future development, having become frustrated with Apple's iPhone restrictions. "Personally, I am going to shift all of my mobile focus from iPhone to Android based devices (I am particularly interested in the Android based tablets coming out this year) and not focus on the iPhone stuff as much anymore.""

Note the reference to Android, a childish statement in my view. Is Adobe really going to focus all mobile development on a sector of the market that has little market share, is making little money for the developers involved and is fragmenting before our eyes?

Yes they are, because it's the only game in town now. The only game that allows Adobe to carry on as normal with their development environment.

A development environment that started many years ago when they thought (as did most other people), that Apple was finished. Adobe decided then, that a development structure that referenced Windows and had Apple as a 'semi-ported' afterthought would suffice. And when Apple finally shut their doors, they could continue with Microsoft.

Well Adobe, that didn't happen. What did happen is a decade-and-a-half of half assed, 'just good enough' ports that didn't exploit Apple's technologies and allowed them to wither on the vine.

Apple isn't going to let that happen again, and with the new iPhone OS platform (which encompasses the iPad), they want to start as they mean to go on - in control of the developers, and therefore in control of their platform.

What will happen next?

I assume Apple is hoping that, sooner or later, Adobe will go where the money is. At the moment it's the iPhone/iPad AppStore. I say 'at the moment' because that may change. If the Android OS takes off, then Apple is stuck again with the same Apple vs Microsoft battle, only this time it's Google instead of Microsoft.

If the Android platform gains traction, Adobe and others will migrate to that platform and Apple's in trouble.

I'm worried because I always think of the future. 5-10 years from now, the mouse driven workstation will be dead. We'll all be using touch-sensitive, 7"-30" screens and pushing vectors & pixels with some serious, content-creation software.

Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver etc will all migrate, and if Apple doesn't play this right, those screens won't have an Apple logo on them.

It all depends on who blinks first. I understand why Apple wants to control the development environment, but they must think of the future.

Maybe Apple's sick and tired of Adobe and is hoping that the a new 'Adobe-killer' company will come along, play ball with Apple of the 'Touch' platform and Adobe will be consigned to history.

I don't see any new, up and coming companies though - so Apple, please think this through.
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Hack-proof?
- 3 Apr 2010
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- iPad Apple Mac Macintosh charlie miller forbes hack malware pwn2own spyware trojan virus
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Who said anything about the Mac being Hack-Proof?

Oh right, Forbes just did in this inflammatory headline.

Forbes is putting this headline: "Hack-Proof?" with this subheadline: "Charlie Miller has a habit of upending Apple's security claims."

The reader then inevitably links the two together so that the perception is that Apple's claims the Mac is hack-proof.

I'm not saying that Mac's are hack-proof, Apple's not saying the Mac is hack-proof, nobody's saying Mac's are hack-proof.

The only people saying that Mac's are hack-proof are those people with a vested interest in making the ignorant unwashed believe that Mac's are being sold as hack-proof and somehow immune to viruses, malware, spyware & trojans, and then make a living (I'm talking about Miller and Forbes here) in pointing this out.

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

At least Charlie Miller is passing on his findings to Apple, which I'm sure they're very grateful for, but the whole 'pwn2own' contest leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.

I've written before about exploits on the Mac are on the way, but nobody can say when - there's certainly none to speak of right now.

The Mac is a computer and you can execute anything on it, both positive and negative. The only way to stop the negative things is to restrict the writing and the installation process so that everything is approved and locked down.

What Apple needs to do is release a device that does just that - it would allow you get your work done, but stop you from tinkering, stop you from installing anything that isn't approved, stop you from writing your own programs, unless you've had your program approved.

Hmm, sound familiar?

It'll be interesting to see whether the iPad is hacked next year...
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Cory, I just want to go to the movies...
- 3 Apr 2010
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Why I won't buy an iPad (and think you shouldn't, either)

Cory Doctorow's arguement is centered around his observation that you cannot treat the iPad like a computer, in that you cannot install anything you like on it, or take it apart, install a new OS etc.

It's a valid point, twenty years ago.

I was one of those early geeks who had to hand code everything in Basic in order for my shiny, brand new computer to do anything. I enjoyed it at the time, because that was the best experience available.

I've then watched and experienced the rise and evolution of computers since, and the iPad is the next step in that evolution.

Do I hanker after those early days when in order to do anything on my £300 computer I had to hand code it myself or spend hours typing in code from magazines?

My god, I do not - whether Cory, or the other retro-geeks like it or not, the iPad is the future, they are confused as to what a computer is, or rather, what it has become.

I liken it to the car enthusiasts of days gone by. Previously, part of owning a car was the enjoyment of taking it apart and keeping/getting it working, only car enthusiasts could possible own one, everyone else was just a passenger.

A simple task such as going to the movies, meant a half an hour hiatus whilst they got the car started, in fact over time the whole experience was centered around the car, rather than going to the movies.

All the passengers simply got fed up and walked, leaving the car enthusiast (who had a great big grin on their face) up to his eyes in oil and grease.

Over the years cars have got better and better, to the point at which the passengers can now own one with confidence, and the enthusiasts have been sidelined.

They can now just get in the car, turn it on and go to the movies.

Cory, I just want to go to the movies please, as do the rest of us.
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