Mindworks Creation – Photography – Media Design – blog

That was the theme of today’s Apple event. Reduce the price, reduce the size but luckily not the functionalities.

Here are just a few comments in no particular order:
- not a lot of disappointment overall. Pretty much everything that was rumored has been announced. Steve proved me wrong on my prediction of a new iPad which does not really surprised me.
- although we did get a new Apple TV it does not run iOS and does not have Apps. It actually has the same remote control (steve spent 2 seconds on that) and the same user interface as the current product.
- I predicted that we would not see an iOS Apple TV and I was right. Like I said Apple is not ready for that and a TV box is not a touch based device (and we still have no clue how that could happen).
- Netflix on Apple TV looks really interesting. Could we have a software update to have it on our last generation devices. Oh well, one can hope.
- I notice one interesting comment from steve during the presentation of the iPodTouch. One of those little sentences that means a lot, he called it “an iPhone without a contract”. Any cellphone carrier heard that? If not, you guys should pay attention. Maybe replay that part of the event over and over again.
- Ping is like borrowing some from Twitter, some from Facebook, mixing it together and here you have your new music oriented social network! There was a rumor before the event of Facebook capabilities coming to iTunes. That was somehow true but honestly when you have a user base of 160 millions people it’s a pretty damn good starting point for a social network. How many years did it took Facebook to get there? I’m not even sure that Twitter has that many users. So I understand Apple strategy – why would they bring 160 millions users to Facebook, it’s way above the critical mass that you need to start your own social network.
- The size reduction of the ipod nano came with one little consequence, no more camera, no more video. The device is now simply too small to be used for video playback anyway.
- So if you want video in your iPod get an iPodTouch, that’s also a way to push consumers toward a higher priced device. Smart.
- I’m a bit puzzled by AirPlay and the demo of a video streamed from the iPad to the Apple TV. The iPad is not a device with a lot of storage, actually my 16GB iPad is almost full just with books, Apps and a few audiobooks, Why would I stream content that way? What I want to do is stream from my computer to my iPad. And actually that’s what have been doing for some time now with AirVideo a really great App that stream movies from my iTunes library.
- $99 for the Apple TV – that stuff will sell like hot cakes!

Last and not least HDR.
Remember my post a few days ago about how smartphone will kill point and shoot cameras because of their advanced software capabilities.
Remember my comment no later than today about how photography is impacted by technology and we cannot ignore it.
Well today we had steve jobs demonstrating HDR photos on stage on a device that will make it available to millions of people. A technology that no later than 3 years ago not even all my fellow photographers had used frequently. A technology that required specific softwares and long processing times.

Android, the open source smart phone operating system that Google generously develops for the benefit of the handset manufacturers and the wireless carriers, is undoubtedly a commercial success, in particular in the US. Each major US carrier has a few Android devices in its line-up, consumer electronics giants like Samsung, Sony and Motorola have abandoned Windows Mobile for it, and the Verizon “Droid” brand is almost as well known as the iPhone. According to Google, 200,000 new Android phones are activated each day of the week, which could mean an installed base of 30 to 40 million devices at the end of the year.

So why are reputable IT on line magazines like Infoworld or self proclaimed experts like Bob Enderle writing about the “Android train wreck”; why is frustration about Android mounting on the developers and end users forums?
• Unlike iOS and the iPhone, the Android platform is not managed by the iron fist of a single owner, powerful enough to impose its control on the whole ecosystem. With Android, smart phone manufacturers and carriers are free to modify and to add to the base program provided by Google, and most of them have developed their own user interface layer and their own widgets, as a way to differentiate each new phone from the dozen of new Android devices launched every other week. This code fragmentation is a promise for a software maintenance nightmare over time.
• Similarly, Google does not prevent the carriers and the cell phone manufacturers from removing modules from Android as they see fit, or from adding crapware in order to make a little more money, with a negative impact on the end user experience. The app store is not curated, which opens the door to the distribution of malware and spyware, and could lead to a major PR disaster in the future.
• Over the last 18 months, Google has been launching new versions of Android frenetically, without ensuring (as Microsoft would have) that all the hardware manufacturers are following. As a result, Android phones launched today can have very different technical characteristics, and run on versions as dramatically different as 1.5, 1.6, 2.1 or 2.2, adding to the end user confusion.
• The high level of customization, compounded with the frantic pace of the Android evolutions and the disparity in hardware specifications, makes the manufacturers’ promise to provide OS updates to existing customers untenable, a major source of discontent for tech savvy consumers who form the core constituency of Android.

But the worst is still to come. Oracle sued Google last week, for multiple patent infringements related to the use of Java in Android. If it is confirmed that Google irresponsibly reversed engineered Java and used the product of its hacking efforts as the basis for Android without permission, the future of the smart phone OS may be severely compromised. At best Google will have to pay very significant license fees to Oracle, and accept Oracle’s stewardship of Java, which will slow down Android’s evolution. Worst case, Google will throw the towel and RIM, Microsoft and Apple will have lost a very aggressive competitor.

Xavier Talfumiere (guest contributor)

Have been asked over and over why do I talk about photography and technology in the same blog.
Well, because those two subjects are totally connected.

Photography is so interesting to me because it blends art and technology. If you know everything about art, if you are the most creative person on earth nowadays, you will still need a little bit of technology to produce an attractive result.
Today photography has become a matter of technology and if you add video to the blend it becomes even more obvious.

Technology is also evolving very fast and has a constant impact on our daily life. New devices and new concepts are introduced constantly (I’m not being overly creative in saying that). when confronted with such a situation you can either go with the flow and see where you will end up. and that will probably mean that you will always be catching up on things, or you can try to analyze what is happening and try to anticipate the future.

Nowadays I believe that if you want to anticipate what will happen to a professional photographer you need to keep an eye on computers, cameras, smartphones, web design, lighting equipment and also to everything that is happening to your clients.

If you work for newspapers, the demise and upcoming reorganization of that industry matters to you.

If you shoot catalogues for companies you have to keep track of the use they will have of your pictures, will they end up in a paper catalogue or will they find their way in an interactive iPad App or be simply replaced by a nice video.

If you have a web site entirely designed in Flash and all of a sudden the people consulting it start using iPads extensively… you have a problem.

Everything is connected.

So I will keep blogging about topics related to technology and photography.

Today I’m even bringing this to a new level and I’m opening the blog to guests contributors.
My friend and fellow blogger Xavier Talfumiere – yes, he is a little french too and no, that’s not him on the picture above – has offered to contribute some articles about smartphones and technology. Beside being a guru of network technologies and architectures, Xavier also contribute to CamerAgX his own blog about vintage film cameras (very insightful resource). He keeps experimenting with all sort of old film cameras but can also tell you a thing or two about the next generation of smartphones.

So I’m please to welcome Xavier on this blog with an article about Android phones.

Source: San Jose Mercury News

“Zach Burt, a 22-year-old Web entrepreneur who grew up in Palo Alto, just launched AwesomenessReminders.com, sort of a 21st century version of the singing telegram.”

AwesomenessReminders will call you to tell you how great your are and that will set you back only $10/month. Note: The website is as basic as it is ugly (very 1980s).

“Just when you decide you’re a worthless human being not fit to inhabit the Earth, the phone rings and a cheerful voice says: “Hi there. I just called to tell you that you’re awesome. I mean it. You’re really awesome.”

Ah! Technology is a beautiful thing and there is nothing like self gratification!
I will suggest to Apple the inclusion into xcode of a great new feature – every time you compile successfully your new great App, a nice female voice (of course) tells you a comforting “Good Job!”

Apple will have another event on wednesday. I have no insider information on what they will be talking about but we can assume that there will be a new line of iPodTouch, a new version of iTunes and people have been talking extensively about a new Apple TV running iOS.

More than a year ago when there was no iPad, no iPhone 4, no iOS 4 I wrote about how I felt that iPhone Os (that was its name at the time) was a fundamental component of Apple’s strategy for the future. I pointed out that there had been a lot of efforts put into this OS and that could not be only to produce one device (the iPhone was the only one existing at the time).
So I’m certainly not surprised by the rumor of yet another device running iOS. There has been rumors also of Apple producing a TV but if you remember Steve Jobs killed that idea with some very rational arguments during the Q&A at App Things digital. Still I’m a bit skeptical about that rumor of an iOS Apple TV.

I see 2 problems with it:
- the remote control: ok you need a remote control to interact with the device. You can use your iPhone or iPad for that but that’s a bit of an overkill. Some people mentioned a something like the magic pad that was recently released. But it sells for $70! If the new Apple TV is the $99 device that we have heard rumors about, you simply cannot have a $70 remote control, it needs to be something simple and inexpensive. a few $ no more.
So Apple has to come up with something new and creative for the remote control.

- the design of iOS: the question of the remote control directly leads to the question of how we interact with the device. Remember, iOs is a touch based OS. You do everything by touching the item you interact with. iOS has created a new direct connection between the user and the item on the screen with nothing else in between except your finger.
By the way this is exactly what a lot of people did not understood quickly enough and what makes iOS so essential. Also why it takes so long for the competitors to catch up. You don;t create a radically new touch based OS in a few months.
But back to the Apple TV, how can you create the same direct connection between the user and the item you interact with in the case of the Apple TV? This is to me the fundamental problem of an iOS Apple TV. You cannot use your finger on the TV screen! You need a way as direct as possible to point and interact with the device and right now I have no idea how that can be done!
So we will see. I’m not saying that it’s impossible. I’m just saying that I don’t see how it will be done. We already know that Apple won’t settle for a bad user experience. Actually they are so successful because they are all about the user experience, much more than anybody else in the business. So either we will see wednesday a new Apple TV based on iOS with an innovative way to interact with the device through some sort of remote control (maybe something like the Wii) or we won’t have a new Apple TV at all.

Personally I’m not sure Apple is ready yet for something like that and I’m not sure it should be their priority.

I think the iPad is more important commercially and strategically.
Let’s look at the current situation of the tablet market.
Apple itself was surprised by the success oft he device, only now they are able to catch up with the demand. Since the device was introduced they cannot make enough of it. There won’t be any serious competitor until 2011 and we don’t know yet what they will be able to come up with. So Apple can keep taking over this market segment. This is a very unique opportunity in the computer industry.
Let’s look at the last 40 years, how often did one company created a product line and dominated the market without any competitor for a significant period of time?
I can remember when HP dominated the market with its calculators in the 1970s, those were not computers yet but they were the closest you could get at the time. Apple was in that situation when they introduced the Mac, they had the only graphic user interface and it took years for the industry to come up with the Windows PC. But that’s about it.

This september event is all about the christmas buying season, let’s imagine an Apple christmas product line up with:
- iPhone 4.
- a new iPodTouch similar to the iPhone 4 with front and back facing camera and Facetime.
- a new iPad with iOS 4, a front facing camera and Facetime.

Do you need an iOS Apple TV in addition to that? Sure that would be nice but it’s not really necessary. Will Apple make more money by focusing on the existing products line, making it better, selling millions of iPad v2 and new iPodTouch, or by adding and iTV to the line up?
I’m not sure but that sure looks like a very strong product line of devices working together and very well integrated.

Anyway, 3 days to go until we know for sure.