The recent celebration of iTunes tenth anniversary provided an opportunity to remember that it debuted before the iPod and was initially positioned as a way to get Macs to play well with the CD burners that had come to the iMac as well as to early MP3 players from rivals. Before and (mostly) after the iPod, it's surprising to see not only how many different companies sought success in the portable media player category, but the diversity and depth of their approaches. While some achieved a degree of success and implemented a few things that were ahead of Apple, none came close to matching Apple's success.

This column will focus on how PC companies approached the portable media player market while the next Reality Absorption Field will look at how competitors from other industries fared.

Dell and Gateway

Prior to the arrival of Microsoft's Zune, Dell was probably the most serious PC company in the media player space. Putting its own spin on Creative's internals, it released a few hard disk models of its DJ (Digital Jukebox), tapping out at 30 GB. It also released a microdrive line to compete with the iPad mini and finally the DJ Ditty line of flash players to compete with the first-generation "pack of gum" iPod shuffle . Dell even created a networked audio player based on the Rio receiver, a brand descendant from Diamond Multimedia's breakthrough iPod predecessor. The former stock market darling is now taking itself private.

Just as Gateway's PC line sought to keep pace with Dell's, so did its media player line roughly mirror Dell's interest with entries in the hard disk and flash categories. Gateway also had a networked audio player, a rebadged version of the excellent Turtle Beach Audiotron. None of these products ever competed effectively, though, and Dell's failure to take on Apple beyond the PC set a precedent for the company's struggles in other categories such as smartphones and tablets where Apple has excelled.

Compaq and Intel

Compaq and Intel both dipped their giant corporate toes in the MP3 player market and their one-hit wonder efforts were actually not too shabby. Both were early flash memory-driven efforts, Intel's Pocket Concert and Compaq-s iPAQ PA-1 (and its nearly identical follow-on, the PA-2). Intel sold a dock that allowed its blue-and-silver music player to work with matched speakers and Compaq's player -- while hardly a looker -- had a clip years before the first iPod shuffle integrated one. Intel retreated from the consumer device market while Compaq was acquired by HP.

HP

HP had what was perhaps the most unique reaction to the iPod. After holding back from the market after what was allegedly a poorly received prototype based on a partnership with Napster 2.0, it decided to try to join 'em if it couldn't beat 'em. HP iPods were identical to Apple's in nearly every respect except for the branding, which Apple also worked its way into since they were called Apple iPod+HP. HP tried to differentiate by coming out with a line of printable "tattoos" that could be affixed to the front of the devices, but in mid-2005 the strange relationship dissolved a year and a half after it began.

Microsoft

Microsoft tried to compete with the iPod in three main ways. The first of these was the launch of Playsforsure, a horrifically named digital rights management service that was to ensure compatibility between various music stores and music players. It drew support from many of the player makers, including Dell, SanDisk, iRiver, Samsung and others as well as subscription music services such as Napster and Rhapsody. The effort ultimately fizzled, though, and Apple worked to get even its digital rights management software removed from iTunes music.

Microsoft also tried licensing its software to power portable media players with a focus on video for devices called Portable Media Centers, a way to take TV shows and other media recorded Windows Media Center on the road via sideloading. Creative, iRiver, Philips, Samsung and Toshiba all hopped on that bus before it broke down.

Frustrated by the failure of these efforts and true to Steve Jobs' prediction, Microsoft jumped in itself with Zune. The first version, with its "double shot" coating and bulky, optionally brown exterior coating Toshiba's Gigabeat player internals, was unimpressive, but Microsoft made improvementst, adding the excelle "sqircle" touchpad that gave the click wheel a run for its money and introducing the sleek "full-touch" Zune HD, all with proprietary iPod-like connectors.

But the iPod touch inheriting the iPhone's avalanche of apps was the final nail in the coffin for the Zune device. And in fairness to Microsoft, the MP3 player market was already starting to move past its peak anyway. Microsoft kept the now curiously named Zune software around a while longer, but ultimately replaced it and the service to which it served as a conduit to Xbox Music. The confusing branding continues as much of what it serves today is Windows Phone devices.

The Portable Media Centers and Zune had at least one important legacy for Microsoft, though. They iterated what would become known as the panoramic Modern, nee Metro, touch user interface that Microsoft now uses on smartphones and PCs.

Ross Rubin is principal analyst at Reticle Research, a research and advisory firm focusing on consumer technology adoption. He shares commentary at Techspressive and on Twitter at @rossrubin.

Reality Absorption Field: iPod's trail of tears, part 1 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 May 2013 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Despite the great success and momentum of the iPad, the iPhone is still probably Apple's product that continues to receive the most attention by the broadest number of consumers as well as by investors. The smartphone slips easily into a pocket, accesses cloud from virtually anywhere, has a slick and engaging user interface, and supports hundreds of thousands of apps. It has been updated every year since its introduction and makes billions for the company. Microsoft covets its success.

But Apple has another product that in many ways is the anti-iPhone. It usually never leaves the home, doesn't access any cloud services and has no apps or even local user interface. Its rare updates often consist of little more than a capacity increase. And if Microsoft, which keeps chasing the idea of a cohesive user experience, wouldn't gain much from the revenue it drives, it would still do well to offer its benefits.

That product is Time Capsule, Apple's router/backup appliance that sits quietly on a home network, seamlessly and reliably sucking in incremental backups of every Mac it can find. In an era where the best-selling version of Apple's once straightforward iPod music player is an iPhone-like software chameleon, where hard drives are considered the dinosaurs of consumer storage, and the cloud is the place where shared files are stored, Time Capsule is a throwback. It is the hardworking Morlock to Apple's converged device iLoi.

Like any tech product, Time Capsule has its share of compromises. Backups can get corrupted, causing Time Machine to falter at the beginning or end of a backup. Time Capsule's doesn't provide a ton of status information on what's going on. And if the unfortunate circumstances require that you use it to restore, it can take hours as is the case for any network backup product.

And when it comes to features, Time Capsule's name is more than just a clever play on words. Unlike with cross-platform "shared storage" products from storage and networking companies including Netgear, Seagate and WD, there's no access to Time Capsule storage from outside the home network. It can't send video to most TVs or Blu-ray players due to a lack of native DLNA. You can't add capacity to Time Capsule or back up the backup.

Other companies have created slick iOS apps for accessing photos and other data on home networks from across the Internet. In an ironic contrast, though, Apple hasn't created one for Time Capsule, which could serve as a personal cloud alternative to or extension to iCloud much as Pogoplug has married its home storage and cloud storage products. Instead, only Mac-owning iOS device users can take advantage of Apple's network backup device, and even then only indirectly by having their Mac-based backups backed up.

Ah, but in conjunction with Time Machine, Time Capsule remains the best integrated home network backup experience on the market. It may never be the kind of thing that convinces someone to buy a Mac, but anyone who has ever been saved by it will consider it a reason to stay with the platform.

In contrast, while Windows had an integrated backup app before Apple did, its network backup strategy has been divided between a feature found only in the Professional version of Windows and the sputtering path of Windows Home Server that came closest to Time Capsule's automation and integration, but couldn't approach its simplicity. Windows 8 has added a file history feature that's network-drive agnostic, but that's only part of the solution. If Microsoft would offer a simple backup appliance that works with software built into Windows, it would instantly strengthen the case for all Windows PCs, including tablets such as Surface for which a key marketing point is the robustness of the Windows ecosystem.

Of course, it would also be great to see Time Capsule expand to back up Windows PCs, or even iPads and iPhones, or enable remote access, but one has to wonder how much more attention Apple -- fighting Google with its head in the cloud -- will give to its reliable relic.

Ross Rubin is principal analyst at Reticle Research, a research and advisory firm focusing on consumer technology adoption. He shares commentary at Techspressive and on Twitter at @rossrubin.

Reality Absorption Field: Backups Capsule originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 08 May 2013 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Among Apple competitors, it's become fashionable to pay the company a backhanded compliment regarding iOS. Yes, the patter typically goes, Apple created a breakthrough platform back in 2007. However, the paradigm has now shifted to... something. In the case of BlackBerry, that something is a smooth means of swiping in and out of all your communications at a glance without interrupting whatever else you're doing. In the case of Windows Phone (and for the new Facebook Home user interface layer atop Android), that something is seeing all the updated information around the people in your life.

Now, you don't have to be marketing a rival operating system to Apple's to make the case that updates from your personal connections should bubble up to the top of the interface. But there is also the case that business news should be at the top of that interface. Or information about where you currently are. Or your favorite games. Or, as a former colleague put it, everything related to Gilligan's Island if that is someone's preference (it wasn't hers).

The idea that communications should be the main feature of a phone is a quaint assumption these days. Apple showed its indifference if not disdain for this concept clearly when it designed the iPhone. Unlike previous phones and even many previous smartphones, there were no physical call or end buttons. And phone calling was just another app. Indeed, today a host of alternatives such as Skype, Tango, Fring and perhaps others waiting in the wings that one can use as their main dialer if they so choose. And of course, a host of voice alternatives -- messaging, video chat, -- now exist that were unimaginable when the phone was in its infancy.

A victim of its own success, iOS has given rise to an app sprawl that is difficult to manage once one acquires several pages of apps. But with the exception of not being able to delete those that come from Apple, apps are all given equal opportunity to be presented in the topmost layer of the user interface that Apple allows with the dock providing a favorable position to four of them on the iPhone (six on the iPad). Android widgets and Live Tiles provide different tradeoffs in taking that functionality to a higher user interface layer. Unlike the recently announced Facebook Home, they provide for multiple items to share the spotlight, not an environment that revolves around a single social network. That may work for HTC, but won't for Apple or other mobile OS vendors.

Of course, phones will probably always be used to communicate. Then again, just as voice has lost monopoly of the phone, the phone has lost its monopoly on long-distance, real-time communications. These days, tablets and PCs and even TVs in some circumstances can be used to reach out. By allowing users to choose the functionality that's most important to them, they can best manage when to have the exchanges they want, when to avoid the ones they don't, and how to improve efficiencies to eliminate the ones that don't need to happen in the first place.

Ross Rubin is principal analyst at Reticle Research, a research and advisory firm focusing on consumer technology adoption. He shares commentary at Techspressive and on Twitter at @rossrubin.

Reality Absorption Field: Making the top choice originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 11 Apr 2013 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Have you heard the news? There's this pretty successful Apple product -- starts with an "iP," ends with a "d" and has a vowel in the middle. And its average prices have dropped. Apple is (cue ominous music) doomed (cue evil cackle). Doomed, I say, repeating myself loudly so as to be heard above the sound effects.

That product is called the iPod. For now, let's confine its definition to the dedicated media players, not the iPhone-without-a-radio that will likely live on for quite a while. The iPod has proved remarkably tenacious and dominant since its introduction in 2001, smashing competitive products and leaving only a handful of cheap players such as the SanDisk Sansa Fuse in its wake.

You don't hear too much about it these days, especially beyond the annual product revision. Incredibly, the iPod classic, despite not being revised in years, remains on sale, and the Shuffle seems to have settled into a pretty familiar form factor. The nano went back to a big screen last year and incorporated a home button as well as Bluetooth (finally).

While Apple's seeking to keep the product fresh, though, the market for standalone media players continues to decline. The iPod may still be refreshed for many years to come, but it is sliding away from view -- and that is a good thing for Apple.

The iPod was unveiled in 2001 as the first major new product category from Apple since the doomed Newton. While the iMac had been a promising harbinger of how things would improve in the post-Amelio Apple, the iPod really started the virtuous chain going that resulted in the juggernaut built over the past decade.

Apple's franchise in digital music and iTunes helped beget the iPhone and app sales, and the iPhone, of course, helped beget the iPad. The iPod's slow decline has come against a backdrop of Apple showing transition from one product arc to the next. It has helped to prove that the product Apple has been best at revising is Apple itself.

What's next? A television? A watch? The iBed? When? Cynics have a point that it will be difficult to top the smartphone opportunity, but that is a constraint that Apple's competitors face as well. And so, returning to the idea that the iPad mini is reducing Apple's tablet margins in exchange for volume when it must compete with $200 (or sub-$200 in the case of the new HP Slate 7) smaller Android tablets, those concerns were voiced about the iPod as well. And that was when market share didn't have the broader implications of furthering an operating system to attract, retain and expand the developer opportunity. Despite cheaper competition, Apple maintained its dominance in media players. However, it also moved on to other categories and other opportunities. Perhaps some of the skeptics will as well.

Ross Rubin is principal analyst at Reticle Research, a research and advisory firm focusing on consumer technology adoption. He shares commentary at Techspressive and on Twitter at @rossrubin.

Reality Absorption Field: Apple's best product revision originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 16 Mar 2013 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

One could say that the Apple of the Michael Spindler era was like today's Apple in name only. However, even that is not quite true. (Apple dropped the "Computer" from its name just over six years ago.)

In the mid-'90s, Apple had an aggressive if conflicted Mac cloning program. Beige boxes from the likes of Power Computing, UMAX and Motorola were available. At that time, there had been concerns that licensing the Mac OS to a really big PC vendor would create more competition than Apple could handle. Nevertheless, there were persistent rumors that Dell, for one, was interested. Coincidentally, long after licensing ended, the Round Rock, TX-based PC company was early to offer a "Mini" netbook that could easily be turned into a "Hackintosh."

These were aberrations in a long rivalry between Apple and Dell that has been filled with contrasts. As Apple focused on building its own vertically integrated PCs, Dell was a master of supply chain and cost reduction in the PC clone model. Dell was welcomed through the front door by most IT departments; Apples were snuck in by enthusiasts. Dell was an early e-commerce poster child selling its PCs direct online, but Apple ultimately trumped it selling its PCs via its white-walled physical stores. And Michael Dell infamously said during Apple's darkest days that he would close down the company and give the money back to the shareholders.

Today, of course, the tables have turned. Apple is one of the world's most valuable companies and Dell has opted to flee public markets, perhaps even veer away from the PCs that are the last vestige of the company's roots as a direct sales pioneer. But a twist of fate may have OS X plastered across the screens of PCs from Dell -- and other PC vendors -- after all. As part of its work with Wyse, the "thin-client" company that Dell acquired last year, the company has developed a device and service called Project Ophelia.

Ophelia is a USB stick-sized computer that runs Android. Several of these have come to market. But there would be links to what would presumably be a Dell-powered cloud that could serve up a host of different computing environments similar to how OnLive or CloudOn -- or Wyse's own PocketCloud -- do on the iPad today. Those environments could include Windows, Linux or OS X.

Of course, accessing OS X remotely, even in a world that offers ever more prevalent and speedy mobile broadband, is not the same as running it on Apple hardware or even a well-designed Hackintosh. And any number of remote apps can call up an OS X desktop to a Mac, PC, iPad or Android tablet. But Ophelia represents the greatest deviation from standard Windows computing that we've seen from Dell since its short-lived Android tablet dalliance, and the freshest idea from the company in even longer.

Time will tell if Ophelia turns out to be, like its tragic Shakespearean namesake, desperate for love, crazy, or even suicidal. But if not, a pocketable Dell device may soon be vying to be your means to OS X access.

Ross Rubin is principal analyst at Reticle Research, a research and advisory firm focusing on consumer technology adoption. He shares commentary at Techspressive and on Twitter at @rossrubin.

Reality Absorption Field: The Mac clone that wasn't originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 25 Feb 2013 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The last Reality Absorption Field discussed how CES is relevant to Apple -- mostly through major standards milestones -- even though the company doesn't attend the annual confabulation. But CES can also be seen as a mirror that is held up to the world of device makers, even those that don't attend CES.

In that vein, there were a number of significant new computing form factors shown in the desert. And while their having any impact on the computing world outside of Apple is far from a sure bet, it's still worth considering their relevance to the company.

NVIDIA Project Shield gaming handheld

Perhaps the most significant surprise at CES, Project Shield represents the first end-user gaming hardware from chip-maker and Mac graphics supplier (but ARM architecture competitor) NVIDIA. It's an Xbox-like controller with a flip-up lid that includes a 5" "retina-quality" display. Like Kickstarter projects OUYA and GameStick, it runs Android and can connec to a big-screen TV, but Project Shield will be the first Android device to include a Tegra 4, the company's state of the art system-on-a-chip offering. If all that weren't enough, the handheld can reach across a home network to access and remotely play games on specially-equipped PCs running Valve's Steam service.

Any possible connection between Apple and the TV seems to draw a lot of attention these days especially as Apple has enabled Bluetooth on Apple TV, but it's difficult to see an iOS version of something like Project Shield even without the far-out remote PC gaming features. Apple has built a strong case for buttonless games in iOS, and the iPhone or iPod touch serves the role of a controller in which the games resided and could be sent up to TV via AirPlay.

Lenovo Horizon Table PC

Remember Microsoft Surface? Not the iPad competitor Microsoft rolled out last year but the big honking table computer it rolled out around the same time as the iPhone? Well, it's still around -- sort of -- as the Samsung SUR40. And it's still pretty expensive. The Lenovo Horizon PC seeks to bring the Surface experience to a broader experience by embedding it within a 27" all-in-one PC that lays flat for table games. Alas, since its a Windows PC, Lenovo has had to create its own app store filled with apps that are optimized for such a form factor.

Now, if you scoff at the idea of a 13" Android tablet like the kind Toshiba tried, it's kind of crazy to consider a 27" iPad. And yet, the Horizon takes the kind of casual gaming people enjoy on the iPad and turns it into an engaging multiplayer experience by having people sit around it. Best of all, flip open the stand, and it turns into an all-in-one PC much like the iMac. This is a tough one to see Apple doing for a host of reasons, but it is an interesting extension of the iPad concept from a single user model to a multiple user model.

Pebble Smartwatch

The Pebble watch, which in part soared to record Kickstarter funding heights based on its compatibility with iOS, was well-known before CES, but the developers took advantage of the trade show to announce that the product would finally be shipping and it has. Like other entrants in the smartwatch space, such as the Cookoo and MetaWatch Strata, the Pebble gleans connected information and from your smartphone and offers basic controls for tasks such as playing music.

The chance of Apple coming out with a smartwatch are still probably pretty slim, but relatively high compared to a gaming controller or table computer. While Apple changed course from the wrist-friendly direction in which it was taking the iPod nano over the course of two generations of that product, that might have just been clearing the deck for what could be a bona fide wrist companion.

Such a device might even be capable of running true widgets that could be accessible via the iPhone, iPad or even Mac, imbuing new life into the Dashboard feature. We know that Apple remains focused on mobility, and the smartwatch space could certainly use the kind of design panache, focus on long battery life, and thinness for which the company is known.

Ross Rubin is principal analyst at Reticle Research, a research and advisory firm focusing on consumer technology adoption. He shares commentary at Techspressive and on Twitter at @rossrubin.

Reality Absorption Field: Forms without Apple function originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 01 Feb 2013 22:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

A few years ago, a senior Apple executive was once told that, even though Apple did not exhibit at the annual Las Vegas spectacle that is the International Consumer Electronics Show, its presence seemed to linger in the arid air and in the clouded minds of many attendees. "We love that," he replied.

But cashing in on the media attention around CES is but one reason that the the tech show from which Apple abstains has relevance to it. At this year's CES, for example, there were several trends that had relevance to Apple's business both from a cooperative and competitive perspective:

Displays

The main attraction in the CES circus is almost always television, historically the largest consumer electronics category. The show has long hosted advances in TV sets and their AV peripherals. Following in the footsteps of HD and 3D, 4K dominated the announcements of major consumer electronics companies at the 2013 show. Even with Apple's television set still a rumor, the heightened resolution represents an answer form HDTV manufacturers who have seen Apple boast that the iPad's Retina display contains more pixels than their living room behemoths (even though a 4K TV currently costs about 40 times what an iPad costs).

Radios

But it's not all a competitive story. The availability of TVs that can accommodate the iPad's Retina Display could add value to future versions of AirPlay. Of course, that would be helped by a bigger wireless pipe between the iDevice and the TV, and new Wi-Fi standards were on display at CES. 802.11ac -- the 5 GHz-only successor to 802.11n -- products are slated to be certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance with this year. And right before the show, the Wi-Fi Alliance noted that it had merged with the WiGig Alliance; the combined work on short-range sharing in the 60 GHz range which should facilitate the sharing of multigigabit video in the same room, again providing more options. Alas, the Alliance is also again providing more options for future Apple TV products. On the other hand, the alliance is also gearing up to throw its weight behind Miracast, the AirPlay competitor that is already supported by some smartphones.

Chips

Speaking of competition, the number and kinds of products that compete with Apple's that are shown at CES varies. Following the release of the iPad, there were scores of tablets shown by exhibitors, nearly all of which flopped in the marketplace. With the exception of Lenovo, though, almost all major PC vendors shy from the hallways of the Las Vegas Convention Center. And with Microsoft now leaving CES, that left Intel to carry the PC banner.

The giant chipmaker employed some marketing mojo regarding the evolution of higher-efficiency chips that will benefit all of its hardware partners, including Apple, of course. Intel also continues to work toward expanding its role in tablets and smartphones, but it will face competition from ARM-based rivals, including Nvidia's Tegra 4. The new processor includes an impressive 72 graphics cores that should keep Apple on its toes as it evolves beyond today's A6.

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Ross Rubin is principal analyst at Reticle Research and blogs at Techspressive. Opinions expressed in Reality Absorption Field are his own.

Reality Absorption Field: What happens in Vegas originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 16 Jan 2013 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

photo by carl.lacey2 | flickr

Should auld iQuaintance be forgot and never brought to mind? Last year was a landmark year for Apple that saw significant leadership changes. Tim Cook has committed to preserve Apple's culture and seems committed to many of its fundamental tenets -- high-quality products, owning the customer experience, product secrecy and innovation that matters to the mainstream. But Cook has also vowed not to run a museum and has noted Steve Jobs' urging to do what is right and and not what the legendary Apple co-founder would have done.

As we head into 2013, there are three classes of predictions one can make about the company and its products.

Playing it safe

The new year will almost certainly see revisions to OS X and iOS. Facing competition against a relaunched Google Maps on iOS, Apple Maps will see meaningful improvements. There will be a new iPhone even if it continues Apple's emerging pattern of sticking with a case design through one revision.

And while one can debate the merits of a spring versus fall launch for the next iPad, it's all but certain that it will appear sometime within 2013 along with at least one more go-round for the iPod line. We also know that the first Macs to be made in the USA in many years are coming soon, presumably in 2013 -- and potentially in Apple's small form-factor desktop if the latest round of rumors prove true.

Going out on a limb

As one digs down a layer of specificity, there are a few areas that seem like reasonable extensions of current trends. Many believe we'll see an iPad mini appearing with a Retina Display and NFC may come to the iPhone or the whole Apple product line. As one arrives at the airport from which to board a flight of fancy, of course, there is that old Apple television set trope, so breathlessly anticipated that Tim Cook's mere repetition that it is an area of keen interest sets the rumor mill into overdrive.

Connected to any discussion of an Apple television set is that the company would package up a television service to compete with cable or, alternatively, partner with leading pay TV providers much as did with cellular carriers for the iPhone. And as long as you're dipping into new subscription or freemium Apple services, there's the Pandora-like radio service rumor. Once, having an operating system provider offer pay TV seemed far-flung, but Google is now doing just that in Kansas City, and Nokia seems to have finally found a viable way to differentiate its music experience with Nokia Music.

Then there's the even more far-flung notion that Apple might mash up the MacBook and iPad in strange ways such as an ARM-based MacBook, a touchscreen MacBook, or (if one purchases a first-class ticket on the flight of fancy) a Surfacesque keyboard-equipped iPad.

The unexpected

One way Apple could certainly benefit from all these rumors is if they all serve as a smokescreen for something completely out of left field. It is hard to believe that the iPad was introduced only in the beginning of 2010. Of course, prior to that, the iPhone was introduced in 2007 and the iPod in 2001. It may be a little early for a brand new product line from Apple. On the other hand, the company is investing more in R&D than ever. If Apple doesn't surprise and delight customers with a new product category in 2013, customers wil be counting on it to find other ways to do so.

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Ross Rubin is principal analyst at Reticle Research and blogs at Techspressive. Opinions expressed in Reality Absorption Field are his own.

Reality Absorption Field: Peering into the crystal apple originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 03 Jan 2013 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

While it was announced amidst the October departure of Scott Forstall, the news that Bob Mansfield would un-retire to oversee all of the company's semiconductor and wireless work didn't get as much attention. Obviously, we are moving toward an increasingly wireless future. The technologies Apple chooses to adopt and how it adopts them will play big roles in terms of its platforms' capabilities and compatibility.

Short-Range

In 2012, we saw Apple gain a lot of attention for a new Lightning cable connector to replace its venerable 30-pin iPod interface. But while iPhone watchers were contemplating adapters and docks, phones from competitors such as HTC and Nokia adopted wireless charging and NFC. Apple passed on NFC in the iPhone 5 -- somewhat justifiably, from a pure payments perspective. Nonetheless, NFC has other applications as Samsung has been showing off in its commercials.

While a bit late to the Bluetooth party, Apple has become an enthusiastic backer, supporting the technology well throughout the product line and being one of the first companies to implement Bluetooth Smart, the low-power version of the technology that is now finding its way into such objects as activity monitors, watches, and even light bulbs. While Apple will likely eventually adopt NFC, there is work going on in the Bluetooth camp on standards that could compete with NFC. Apple, of course, would prefer to deal with one radio instead of two.

Medium-Range

With the introduction of its first AirPort cards for the iBook way back in 1999, Apple led the industry in supporting Wi-Fi. Apple's efforts helped push the technology ahead of what was then a promising competing standard called HomeRF, backed by Intel. Nowadays, Wi-Fi is available throughout Apple's product line as it is for many other tech companies, and Apple has built AirPlay on top of it.

It seems likely that Apple will support the next generation of Wi-Fi, 802.11ac. It remains to be seen, though, if Apple will support Wi-Fi Display and Wi-Fi Direct as it has adopted its own alternatives in AirPlay and AirDrop (although these are not necessarily mutually exclusive). AirDrop in particular seems like a promising way to easily move files between a Mac and iDevice without having to go through iTunes; hopefully this will be addressed now that the OS X and iOS teams are united under one manager.

There are also other "whole-home" wireless technologies that Apple has heretofore passed on such as Zigbee or Z-Wave. These low-power radio technologies are at the heart of many security and home automation installations. But Apple will likely continue to refrain. Wi-Fi gateways can bridge control between iPhones and these products, and Bluetooth is becoming more competitive in terms of battery life.

Long-Range

In 2012, the third-generation iPad marked Apple's late jump onto the LTE bandwagon and the strong indication that the 4G technology would be the wireless foundation of the iPhone, which it was. LTE also made its way into the iPad mini, serving as a differentiator from inexpensive 7" tablets such as the Amazon Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet HD that lacked any cellular radio.

Apple is already supporting LTE on many different bands across the three models of iPhones and iPads. More may be coming in the next generation of cellular-equipped products now that T-Mobile USA seems set to carry the company's products in 2013. However, it likely also has its eye on technologies, such as DIDO from Rearden Labs, that claim to leapfrog well-accepted standards like LTE.

As wireless technologies continue to work their way into more objects and become cheaper and faster, Mac and iOS apps will be able to monitor, communicate with, and control a broader array of devices than ever before.

Ross Rubin is principal analyst at Reticle Research, a research and advisory firm focusing on consumer technology adoption. He shares commentary at Techspressive and on Twitter at @rossrubin. Views expressed in Reality Absorption Field are his own.

Reality Absorption Field: Apple's wireless way originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 14 Dec 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

When Microsoft talks about getting into devices so that it can integrate hardware and software in a way that HP, Dell, Acer and others don't or can't, one does not have to ponder long which competitor it has in its sights.

But you can't accuse Microsoft of copying Apple's clean product segmentation between iPad and MacBook. Indeed, the latest Windows releases support devices that mash together the best of -- and worst of -- the notebook and tablet. Among these are the Surface RT and Surface Pro. With its long battery life and $499 starting price, Surface RT is clearly trying to take on the iPad. But Surface -- with its precious adornments such as the kickstand and typing covers -- seeks out a customer who is yearning to use a tablet for more of the kinds of things traditionally done with PCs.

Starting from scratch on the app front, Microsoft would have faced a tough enough situation a year ago, and even tougher in a 2012 holiday field that includes the lower-priced iPad mini as well as even less expensive 7" tablets from Amazon and Google. But at least Microsoft is in the game with the Surface RT.

Microsoft more recently announced that pricing for the Surface Pro will begin at $899. In any number of products we see the price of backward compatibility in a figurative sense. But with Surface, it can actually be counted. A $400 difference separates the Surface RT from its Intel-based sibling. It surpasses the Surface RT in several ways, such as having a higher resolution display and integrated stylus support. But it also falls short of the first Surface tablet in some key ways, most notably with half the battery life.

The closest thing in Apple's product line to the Surface Pro equipped with, say, the tactile Type Cover, would be the $999 MacBook Air, and it's not a bad matchup on paper. Both are about 2 lbs. and about 0.7" thick. The MacBook Air has a larger screen although the Surface Pro has a higher-resolution one. Still, while the 11" MacBook Air has been embraced by Mac users seeking the ultimate in laptop portability (as well as some early iPad users who've found it a better if pricier fit for its needs), it's hardly the heart of Apple's MacBook line.

Just as Microsoft has found itself "forced" to enter the tablet market to compete with the iPad, it will have to consider driving a further wedge between it and its hardware partners to take on Apple in the high-volume notebook business. The company has broadly signalled that it will forge ahead with its own devices if it feels there's an advantage to taking on Apple.

But there's still no evidence that its approach with Surface has been more effective than the similar moves it made with Zune. There, Microsoft sacrificed its relationship with hardware partners in the name of taking down a device with a huge marketplace lead. Not only did its efforts crash and burn, but in doing so provided an opening for Apple to build upon key factors of its iPod success with the iPhone.

Reality Absorption Field: The one-two punch (minus the two) originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 06 Dec 2012 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

When Apple's exiting iOS software chief forestalled the continuation of Google Maps as the default iOS location source in favor of the long-in-development Apple Maps, the crowd responded with its typical mix of adulation for the exceptional presentation quality of the forthcoming software and capabilities as well as a bit of schadenfreude for Google. There, that oughta show 'em to copy and, allegedly according to Steve Jobs, seek to kill the iPhone. But when Apple Maps arrived with its host of inaccuracies and surreal distortions, some of those who sought to kick Google on its way out the door were eager to welcome the search leader back through it. The question on many of their minds is whether it will happen.

Differing reports offer inconsistent accounts of how much advance notice Google had or should have anticipated regarding the replacement of Google Maps in iOS. The displaced provider has publicly said that it wants to have Google Maps available everywhere. Even less surprisingly, Google chairman Eric Schmidt has said that he thinks Apple should have stayed with Google's solution. Consistent with this, we've seen reports that Google is not only working on a new iOS app, but that it includes features that the old one lacked, principally free voice-guided turn-by-turn directions.

Google, however, can't commit to when, if ever, a new Google Maps app might appear on iOS because Apple gets the final say on its approval. The grappling between the two companies over the Google Voice app that lacks the dialer integration of its Android counterpart became public prior to that app's eventual approval. Google seemed more confident about the imminent iOS approval of its Chrome browser announced at its Google IO developer conference this summer. It has become one of the most popular free apps even though it uses a slower JavaScript engine than the one available to Safari.

If Google is doing its part to bring its Maps back to iOS, then, will Apple let it in? A stronger current of decisions indicates that it will. While Apple once blocked apps that replicated the functionality of its own integrated apps, such third-party offerings are now commonly accepted and iOS is richer for it. Prior to iOS 6, Apple had allowed apps that provide free turn-by-turn direction such as the offbeat Waze and the unpalatable MapQuest in addition to a host of offline navigation apps from dedicated hardware brand refugees such as TomTom, Magellan and Navigon.

And last week, Apple let in two more navigation applications that shift the competitive location landscape on iOS. The first, Telenav Scout, has been available on the platform for some time, but has finally incorporated free voice guidance for its turn-by-turn directions. The second, Nokia Here, comes from a company that is another location-based information rival to Apple and Google. The bottom line is that, at this point, Apple would face a lot of pressure were it to reject a new Google Maps app while it would have little apparent reason to do so.

But that doesn't mean returning to the world the way it was rendered before iOS 6. A Google Maps app would have to be downloaded, giving it a far less prominent presence than being the default option once afforded it. Apple Maps, on the other hand, are continuously improving as more consumers adopt it. And finally, Apple's favoring of default choices for many tasks means that even consumers who install and favor a new Google Maps app will likely continue to often find themselves in Apple Maps -- just as Google Voice users find it hard to avoid Apple's built-in Phone program. But for those who at least occasionally wish that Apple hadn't told Google to get out of Dodge, there will likely soon be an iOS app option it can use to make its way back.

Reality Absorption Field: Navigating the return of Google Maps originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 28 Nov 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

After all the teasing and secrecy and controversy around its launch, the recent announcement by Steve Ballmer that Surface with Windows RT (the only chip-defined flavor of Microsoft's debut branded tablet that's currently shipping) was off to a "modest" start might have seemed like a shocking admission of failure. Did consumers not appreciate its VaporMg exterior? The crisp, car door-inspired snap of its kickstand concealing an SD slot? Its USB port? Extended range Wi-Fi? Angled rear camera? Elaborate choreography-inspiring click?

Of course, some consumers have appreciated these points of differentiation, but Windows RT has now become the fourth tablet operating system to get off to a slow start versus the iPad (joining webOS on the short-lived Touchpad, Playbook OS on the sputtering Playbook, and Android). Google's Android OS has has been the only one to make significant gains on Apple's tablets, primarily by employing the familiar tactic of undercutting on price. In the case of products such as the Kindle Fire HD and Google Nexus 7, all profit margin on the razor (hardware) has been sacrificed in the name of trying to use the device to build up sales of blades (content).

Ballmer was quick to divert attention away from the slow start out of the gate while also risking further turning off potential customers from the current offering by heralding the arrival of the Surface with Windows 8 Pro. That Intel-based version of Microsoft's tablet will embody the tradeoffs that sent Microsoft looking to support ARM processors in the first place -- among them, a thicker frame and shorter battery life. However, Microsoft believes that Intel-based tablets can leverage their backward compatibility with Win32 applications and PC industry momentum to help build the base for tablet-optimized apps, one of the shortcomings not only of Surface or other Windows RT devices, but of all the tablets that have failed against the iPad.

The ideal situation for Microsoft and (other) PC hardware makers would be to extend the tablet or at least minimize its cannibalization of primary PCs -- similar to what the netbook did in the Windows market (albeit more profitably) and what the iPad has done in the Mac market. Of course, in Apple's case, that's easier to pull off because of what had been the $500 entry price difference between the first iPad and lowest-price MacBook (and what is now the $670 delta between the iPad mini and the baseline MacBook Air).

Paradoxically, though, despite all the tablet hardware support in Windows 8 and Microsoft itself investing heavily in slow-selling hardware, it's an understatement to say that Microsoft doesn't care about the tablet market. Hence its lack of cognitive dissonance in describing Surface as both a tablet and a PC. It doesn't want to believe that a distinct tablet market exists, and if it does, it wants to make sure that it doesn't continue. That appears to be the only way to stop the iPad, or at least the potential of iPads to grow into a more credible threat to PCs.

And so, in contrast to the sales pop that occurs when Apple introduces a new iPad, sales of Windows-based tablets, hybrids and convertibles will follow the more mellifluous mature sales cycle of PCs. It's a slow-growth replacement market, but one that ultimately results in hundreds of millions of devices with baseline capabilities. To Microsoft, the touchscreen of the 2010s is the sound card of the 1990s, slowly but surely penetrating the installed base until it's taken for granted.

For Microsoft, there really is no "PC-Plus" scenario. It is the "PC" scenario, the "Plus" a grudging nod to a form factor. As that scenario plays out over the coming years, though, Apple will have a great opportunity to build on its momentum. To seize it, it will need to start thinking more about iPads used in scenarios where iPhones are not. The key to that won't be adding SD cards, kickstands, keyboards and other geegaws to its tablet, but by making the software ever more powerful and capable to create Microsoft's worst nightmare.

Reality Absorption Field: A slow rise to the Surface originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 15 Nov 2012 23:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Welcome to Reality Absorption Field, a new bimonthly column where veteran industry analyst and occasional TUAW TalkCast contributor Ross Rubin will discuss industry developments and how they relate to Apple.

On October 23rd, following presentation of slimmed-down Macs and a beefed-up iPad, Apple introduced the long-anticipated iPad mini. With its 7.9" diagonal screen, the smaller iPad doesn't seem dramatically smaller than its bigger brother. Indeed, it's screen is a bit more than 80 percent as large as that of the iPad 2, with which it shares the same screen resolution. And at $329 (up to double that stuffed with 64 GB of flash memory and LTE), it's also a bit more than 80 percent of the iPad 2's starting price.

At $329, the iPad mini starts at $130 more than the 16 GB Kindle Fire HD or ASUS-built Google Nexus 7. The displays on these 7" devices are about 70 percent of the size of the iPad 2's display, but they cost only half of what the iPad 2 costs. Perhaps in part to justify the price premium, Apple played up both the hardware and software differences between the iPad mini and the Google Nexus 7 at the iPad mini's introduction. On the hardware side, Apple highlighted the iPad mini's lighter weight and premium materials versus the plastic competition. On the software front, Apple showed off the impact of the larger display of the iPad mini on Web content.

Apple, which promotes the importance of pixel counts on its Retina displays, ignored raw pixel counts versus the Nexus 7, which has more than a million pixels as opposed to the iPad mini's 786,432 pixels. But taking into account Chrome's tabs and Android's ever-present soft-buttons as well as the iPad mini's 4:3 aspect ratio, the diminutive iPad was able to show more of a Web page's length in landscape mode. The other card Apple (again) played was the optimization of iPad apps as opposed to scaled smartphone apps. One issue, though, is that many of the companies that Apple has highlighted in these comparisons, particularly Yelp and Twitter, compete at least partially with Google and may be less inclined to optimize for a platform it controls.

There's no definitive answer as to whether the iPad mini is too expensive as buyers have different budgets. It's certainly more expensive than smaller competitors, but is made of more expensive materials that Apple regularly claims are more valued by recyclers. Also, if one is looking for a tablet close to the iPad mini's size that can access LTE networks, the Nexus 7 is out although one could look to the Galaxy Tab 7.7 or the Droid Xyboard 8.2, Those tablets and the iPad mini round out the 8" class of tablets from major vendors, (although Archos also has an offering there). They give up some portability while creating a larger canvas for apps and movies.

The initial reception appears to be very warm. While Apple did not break out iPad mini sales, it noted that, in the first weekend of availability it sold three million iPads, a notable bump from its usual run rate. Most of that was probably due to the iPad mini, which opens up the iPad to less affluent buyers. The fourth-generation iPad, while mostly a dramatic spec bump in terms of processor speed, surely contributed a bump as well as "new" goes a long way with consumers.

Apple certainly would have sold even more iPad minis had it launched them at $299. However, it seems likely that Apple, which has brought retina displays to two MacBooks, iPhone, iPod touch and flagship iPad, will eventually bring it to the iPad mini and may want to leave some margin for the more expensive display. Until then, though, the tradeoff between the iPad mini and certain Android tablets such as the Nexus 7 and Barnes & Noble Nook HD, is one of screen size for resolution. Of course, what you can do on those pixels also matters, and the iPad mini has a broad selection of optimized apps.

But with its size and especially price so far removed from the likes of the Nexus 7 and Kindle HD, the real question for most buyers who value the iPad experience likely won't be between the Nexus 7 and the iPad mini, but between the iPad mini and its favorable competitive position against the iPad 2.

Ross Rubin is principal analyst at Reticle Research, a research and advisory firm focusing on consumer technology adoption. He shares commentary at Techspressive and on Twitter at@rossrubin. Views expressed in Reality Absorption Field are his own.

Reality Absorption Field: Sizing up the iPad mini originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 07 Nov 2012 22:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.