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Does the iPhone OS Need Multitasking?

ace@tidbits.com (Adam C. Engst) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:41:00 PST

A continuing complaint about the iPhone OS has been that Apple doesn't allow multitasking, a staple of the Mac OS since System 5 first added MultiFinder in 1988. Apple's stance is that allowing apps to run in the background would significantly hurt performance and battery life, but in iPhone OS 3.0, Apple added push notification, which addressed some - but by no means all - of the desires of those who were asking for multitasking.

For the most part, requests for multitasking capabilities had died down to a dull roar since the release of iPhone OS 3.0 and its push notifications. It wasn't that the desire had disappeared, but more that the debate was at a standstill.

The announcement of the iPad changes everything, because it includes a faster CPU (though how much faster is as yet unknown), 10-hour battery life in comparison with the iPhone's 5-to-9-hour battery life rating, and a screen with 1024-by-768 resolution that's far more spacious than the 480-by-320 resolution of the iPhone and iPod touch. The longer battery life could reduce Apple's concern that multiple apps running simultaneously would hurt battery life, and the larger screen raises the possibility of running apps side-by-side.

More generally, whereas the iPhone is aimed at short, focused tasks, the iPad is more likely to lend itself to longer, more general tasks that involve using multiple apps, just as we're used to on the Mac. It's easy to imagine wanting to use an iPad to read text in Mobile Safari, copy some text to a Pages document, and send that document to a colleague via Mail. That specific example may turn out to be possible with the current iPhone OS, but it points toward needing more ways for iPad apps to work together in the future.

Plus, if I'm on the right track with my suggestion that Apple's long-term plans involve even larger iPhone OS-based devices (see "iPhone Developer License Points to New Devices?," 28 January 2010), multitasking will be key - it's hard even to imagine what using a large-screen Mac would be like if you could run only one application at a time.

But what do we mean when we say that the iPhone OS should support multitasking? If we define what we're looking for more carefully, it might be easier to lobby Apple for support in iPhone OS 4.0 and beyond.

Push Notification -- The simplest form of multitasking is the one that Apple has already made available to developers, push notifications. In essence, applications register with a push notification service that runs at the system level, such that when a notification arrives, the iPhone OS presents the notification as though it had come from the app.

Notifications are one of the primary things that people want from multitasking - for one program to be able to notify the user of an event even when the notifying app isn't in active use. On the Mac, think about iCal - you want event alerts to pop up no matter what application you're using, and that can happen only if another process is paying attention in the background and can interrupt the frontmost application.

The problem with push notifications with regard to multitasking is that they are all responses to some external change in a cloud-based service like AIM or Twitter, not an example of a background app notifying you of some change. That is possible in the iPhone OS, of course, such as with calendar or timer alarms that presumably schedule internal notifications for specific times, but Apple hasn't opened that capability up to developers in any way that I'm aware of. It would be nice, though, and wouldn't seem difficult to add.

Background State Updates -- Another way we think about multitasking comes down to updating remote state in the background. This too is possible in the iPhone OS now, but only for Apple's apps. If you have Fetch New Data in the Mail, Contacts, Calendars settings screen set to Push, new email messages and changes to your contacts and calendars appear automatically. That's why you don't have to refresh Contacts or Calendar to make sure you have the latest changes; with Mail, you still need to check for new messages (or wait for the timer to trigger another mail check) for accounts without push. (You can of course make calendar and contact updating a manual process by syncing only via iTunes.)

While Apple's apps can make sure their state is always up to date by bringing data in while in the background, Apple hasn't opened that capability up to developers. Twitter apps, for instance, and RSS news readers, could benefit from being able to update state in the background.

I do want to distinguish between scheduled updates for something like Twitter or RSS, and continuous background execution, which I'll discuss later. You don't care if a Twitter client or RSS news reader checks every second, since each refresh can bring in old messages as well, whereas an instant messaging app might miss messages entirely if they arrived at the wrong time (and the server didn't maintain state with the client). That's why a chat app, or a GPS tracking app, might want to run all the time, since scheduled updates wouldn't be sufficiently fast or complete.

It would seem that updating background state on a schedule would be the sort of thing Apple could make available to developers, just as it's available for a few of Apple's own apps. Apps would have to register with the iPhone OS, which would mediate how often data was fetched, but that shouldn't be either terribly hard or excessively demanding on battery life.

Inter-application Communication -- On the Mac, we're accustomed to applications talking with one another in a wide variety of ways, such as Entourage sending a double-clicked URL to Firefox, Twitterrific asking Growl to display a notification, an iTunes controller displaying the current song, or even the Finder telling BBEdit to open a document.

A few of these behaviors are available on the iPhone, such as following a URL from an email message in Safari, creating an email message with a photo, and displaying an address in Maps. But for the most part, apps can only ask Apple's apps to do things; the main counter-example on my iPhone is Boxcar, which can open a variety of Twitter apps in response to a tweet notification. But Boxcar is extremely limited; it can open a Twitter app, but it can't control that app in any useful way, such as to display the specific tweet in question, for instance.

The reason for this is that the main way apps can communicate with one another now is via URLs, and the width of that channel of communication depends on how robust the URL handler API of one app is, and how much of it is used by the developers of other apps. But this approach is limited - the information must fit completely within a URL, and it's unidirectional - the receiving app can't send any information back. Plus, in the current iPhone OS, files are private to each app, so one app cannot send a file reference to another app.

I could see a future version of the iPhone OS extend URL handling with the capability to send file references to documents in a shared space, and perhaps to return another URL to the sending app. Such communication without requiring both apps to be active wouldn't hurt battery life or performance much, and might be better than the user flipping between apps manually now. But it would still be a clumsy way for apps to communicate, unlike the Apple Event system built into the Mac OS that enables applications to communicate with one another.

Apple Events can work only if the destination app is running, however, so it's much harder to imagine a similar system in the iPhone OS, given its significantly more limited CPU and RAM resources. I wouldn't expect to see this in the near future..

Of course, the other way to transfer arbitrary data from app to app is via copy and paste, a recent addition to the iPhone OS. Copy and paste solves many problems, but is entirely user-driven, unlike the URL approach or Apple Events on the Mac.

Quick Task Switching with Saved State -- The first glimpse of multitasking in the Mac OS came with Andy Hertzfeld's Switcher (from 1985), an application that almost made it possible to run two applications simultaneously, although under the hood it merely enabled switching between applications without quitting one and launching the other. Switcher was supplanted by MultiFinder in System 5 before System 7 made it a standard part of the operating system.

We've gone backwards with the iPhone OS, which forces you to quit one app (by pressing the Home button) before you can launch another (by tapping its icon on a home screen). It does so for two main reasons: consistency of user experience and to eliminate the RAM and CPU requirements necessary for keeping two apps active at the same time. Luckily, quitting and launching are generally quick, which is why Apple has been able to get away with it so far.

Still, it's frustrating to be forced back to the home screen constantly (especially for those of us who have lots of home screens to hold many apps), and Apple has even implicitly acknowledged that by providing a single shortcut action - a double click of the Home button - that you can set to display the home screen, the search screen, the Phone Favorites screen, the Camera app, or the iPod app. And even the fact that Apple allows four apps to be docked and thus appear on all home screens shows that they recognize users want to move among some apps more fluidly than others.

I'd suggest that two changes are necessary to meet most of the needs of quick task switching. First, the iPhone OS needs a faster way to switch between user-selected or recently used apps - the display of a shortcut screen could even be tied to a double or triple click of the Home button. Second, both the iPhone OS and individual apps need to work harder at saving the user's state, so every launch doesn't involve starting from scratch. It's not impossible; our TidBITS News app does it, so if you're reading an article when you leave the app, the app puts you right back where you were when you next launch it. Perhaps the iPhone OS could "freeze" the state of apps automatically, if developers so wished, without having to do extra work.

Neither of these suggestions requires apps to be active simultaneously, and should thus be the sort of thing Apple would consider in a future version of the iPhone OS.

Simultaneous Execution -- Here we come to the real nut of the problem - true simultaneous execution. But even here there are two actual scenarios: apps like iPod that need to run in the background, but which don't need to take up any (or hardly any) visible space in the interface, and the future possibility of multiple apps running side-by-side on an iPad.

Obviously, this first scenario is possible with the iPhone OS because the iPod app does it, so it should be possible for other apps like the Pandora music app or a GPS tracker app to do so as well.

Here's where we come back to Apple's claims that allowing background apps would hurt performance and battery life. Let's say you're playing a game on your iPhone, and it's taking most of the available CPU cycles. Running another app at the same time, like iPod, isn't going to hurt battery life significantly because all the CPU cycles are already in use, so if the game would have drained the battery in an hour, the game plus iPod would do so only slightly more quickly.

However, let's assume you're not using a game, and whatever app is active is using relatively few CPU cycles. In that case, adding another process like iPod would increase overall CPU usage and would undoubtedly drain the battery more quickly. That's not ideal, but it seems like the sort of thing that should be a user decision - much as Apple warns that fetching new data more frequently drains the battery more quickly.

A more serious problem revolves around performance. Let's say you're a passenger in a car, and you want to play a game, listen to iPod in the background, and have a GPS app tracking your location and speed, all while new message are pushed to Mail. Now the iPhone's CPU would have to share cycles among all the apps, and if it did so poorly, performance in the game might drop below acceptable levels. Tweaking how much CPU time to give to background tasks while keeping the foreground task responsive is a black art in all operating systems. And that assumes the iPhone's CPU is even up to the task at all - it may simply not have the power to keep the frontmost app responsive under the load of multiple apps. And that, I believe, is anathema to Apple - the magic of the iPhone OS's direct manipulation interface is that it's so responsive that it seems natural. Introduce lag or stuttering, and the illusion would fail.

Thus, the only way I can see Apple allowing background apps is if it could in some way control the percentage of CPU an app was allowed to use in the background, and the app would have to accept only occasional cycles if other things were going on. It's not inconceivable, but it feels like a hard problem that Apple is unlikely to solve soon.

A more serious problem may revolve around RAM limitations. Apple stays very quiet about how much is in each iPhone OS device, and it's entirely possible that there isn't enough for multiple simultaneous apps whose RAM requirements Apple doesn't control. Tweaking how much CPU time to allot to background apps may be difficult, but it's doable. Relying heavily on virtual memory (particularly if it's backed by relatively slow flash memory) instead of physical RAM could drastically hurt performance.

The second simultaneous execution scenario is more speculative, put possibly more easily answered. The iPad screen is large enough to display two (or even four, for that matter) classic iPhone apps simultaneously. Even with iPad-savvy apps, it would seem likely that if they were made to be resolution independent or could switch down to an iPhone-sized display when sharing a portion of the screen, it would be reasonable to run two side-by-side, with both being active at the same time. And, if the iPad's A4 processor is sufficiently fast and there's sufficient RAM, perhaps there would be enough resources to do that.

Here's where we start to move into the world of the Mac, because it's entirely commonplace to have two applications visible at the same time (and it's nearly impossible to avoid for those of us who prefer to work on dual-display systems). I constantly refer to a Web page while I'm writing an email message in Mailplane or working on an article in BBEdit. And if someone sends me email asking to schedule a meeting at Macworld Expo, I can show my calendar in BusyCal without obscuring the message or its reply. That's huge, and makes me more productive than I would be if I had to switch between them with Command-Tab. And the equivalent task on an iPhone OS device would be even worse, requiring me to quit Mail, launch Calendar, figure out what times I have available, quit Calendar, launch Mail, find the right message again, reply to it, and then try to remember which times were available.

Although allowing multiple apps to run side-by-side on an iPad seems like a stretch for Apple (I can imagine an interface a little like iPhoto's photo comparison approach), it would be a boon for anyone trying to use the iPad instead of a Mac for a lot of tasks that require visual access to data in multiple apps.

The main advantage this scenario has over the previous one, where the secondary apps are executing but not taking up interface space, is that with side-by-side apps, it may not be absolutely necessary that one continue processing while the other is active. The calendar could become essentially frozen in place while I'm replying to my email message, and activate only when I tap on it to switch to the next month, at which point the email app would freeze until I tapped back on it. That approach could address the performance problem, since only one app would actually be using CPU cycles at a time.

Putting It All Together -- Let's see where we are, now that we've broken down "the iPhone should have multitasking" into its component parts. Some are here today in only Apple's apps, others are purely speculative.

Push Notification: It's here today, and while it's possible Apple will tweak it slightly in the future, it does what it needs to do in terms of reporting external changes, and people generally like it. Internal notification of scheduled events is currently restricted to Apple's apps, but doesn't seem as though it would be hard to open up.
Background State Updates: Apple currently reserves this form of multitasking for a few of its own apps, but I see no reason it couldn't be opened up to developers, assuming a few restrictions to avoid abuse that could impact performance or battery life.
Inter-application Communication: Some forms of inter-application communication are possible on the iPhone OS now (sending URLs from app to app, and copy and paste), but they're quite limited now. Apple could enhance URL-based communication quite significantly without too much difficulty, but I don't expect an Apple Events-like system to appear on the iPhone any time soon, and I doubt it's worth asking for.
Quick Task Switching with Saved State: The iPhone OS would need some interface changes to enable this, but most of the responsibility lies with apps to save their state and restore it as quickly as possible. In the meantime, I think it's worth agitating with Apple for some app-switching shortcuts and perhaps OS-level support for freezing state.
Simultaneous Execution, Background Apps: Although this is here today, at least with the iPod app and some of Apple's other apps, I don't expect Apple to provide this more generally soon, since ensuring that the frontmost app's responsiveness doesn't suffer is paramount to the iPhone user experience. You can ask all you want, but it's going to be a while (or a more-capable device) before we see it.
Simultaneous Execution: Side-by-Side Apps: I doubt we'll see this in the initial release of the iPad, but if enough people start using the iPad for real work, where you need to see two apps at the same time, it could become a priority for Apple to add. It's worth requesting, but may appear only in a task-switching context until the hardware can handle it.

As always, the best (and only) way to submit feedback to Apple is via the Product Feedback page. The iPad isn't yet there, but I'd suggest making your wishes known for the iPhone or iPod touch, whichever you currently own.

And of course, tell us what you think in the comments!

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Copyright © 2010 Adam C. Engst. TidBITS is copyright © 2010 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

TidBITS Watchlist: Notable Software Updates for 8 February 2010

editors@tidbits.com (TidBITS Staff) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 02:48:35 PST

FontExplorer X Pro 2.5 -- Linotype has released a major update to its professional font management tool FontExplorer Pro. The user interface has been updated and streamlined, a new widescreen mode enables the user to set the Preview area off to the right, a new transparency mode can be used to overlay and preview fonts in a working document, and printing is now enabled. Also, users can now tag their fonts for easier organization. Finally, several bugs related to the Apple font panel have been resolved, support for Adobe InDesign CS3 and CS4 has been improved, and various unspecified crashing bugs have been fixed. Full release notes are available on Linotype's Web site. ($79 new, free update, 28 MB)

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Espresso 1.1.1 -- MacRabbit has updated its Web authoring application Espresso with a handful of minor tweaks and fixes. Version 1.1.1 adds pixel dimensions to Image Preview, the capability to show hidden files in project listings, and support for some JavaScript commands in previews. Also, regular expression searches are now supported in Find in Project, Sugars now load faster, window sizing is improved when dragging multiple tabs out of the workspace, and a crashing bug related to SFTP publishing has been fixed. A full list of changes is available on MacRabbit's Web site. ($79.95 new, free update, 10.3 MB)

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iPhone OS 3.1.3 -- Apple has released iPhone OS 3.1.3 to provide a couple of performance improvements and address several security threats. Changes include improved accuracy on the iPhone 3GS's battery level display, a fix for a bug that prevented some third party programs from launching, and a fix for an issue that caused application crashes when using the Japanese Kana keyboard.

Also eliminated are three security vulnerabilities that could lead to application crashes and arbitrary code execution after playing maliciously crafted audio files, viewing maliciously crafted TIFF files, or visiting a maliciously configured FTP server. Another fix prevents remote image or video content being loaded in Mail even when remote image loading is turned off. And finally, the update blocks a vulnerability that could enable an attacker with physical access to a locked iPhone or iPod touch to gain control of personal data via the recovery mode. The update is available only via iTunes. (Free, 291 MB)

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iTunes 9.0.3 -- Apple has released a small but helpful bug-fix update for iTunes. Version 9.0.3 fixes an issue that prevented the "Remember password for purchases" setting from being enabled, addresses problems with syncing certain smart playlists and podcasts with unspecified iPod models, and resolves a bug that caused problems in recognizing connections with some iPods. Apple says the update also improves general stability and performance. The update is available via Software Update or from Apple's Web site. (Free, 90.82 MB)

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27-inch iMac Display Firmware Update 1.0 -- If you own a 27-inch iMac that's afflicted with the cursed screen-flickering problem, Apple's 27-inch iMac Display Firmware Update 1.0 will come as very good news. The update claims to correct the iMac's firmware to ensure proper display performance, eliminating the widespread flickering issue marring the displays of many 27-inch iMacs (see "New iMac Screens Cracking and Flickering," 10 December 2009). Be sure to follow Apple's warning not to turn your computer off during installation. More information regarding installation is also available on Apple's Web site. The update is available via Software Update or the Apple Support Downloads page. (Free, 294 KB)

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ExtraBITS for 8 February 2010

editors@tidbits.com (TidBITS Staff) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 02:40:43 PST

Not surprisingly, our focus this week was on the iPad, with links to a podcast with Adam, Tonya, and Andy Ihnatko; an interesting article from Macworld's Chris Breen suggesting how the iPad will be used in everyday scenarios; and the news that Amazon is looking to add touch capabilities to the Kindle. Plus, AT&T is relaxing its limitations on what can be transferred over 3G, and will be allowing both streaming video and voice-over-IP calls. Finally, Apple has added iPhone apps to the iTunes Preview Web site, a security firm has identified a theoretical vulnerability in the iPhone OS, and it turns out that Macs control the market for $1,000 computers.

Podcast Discussion of the iPad, Amazon, and Ebooks -- In this two-part MacNotables podcast, Adam, Tonya, and the inimitable Andy Ihnatko joined host Chuck Joiner to discuss the dust-up between Amazon and Macmillan. They segued from there into a discussion of the Kindle, the ebook market, and the iPad in general. Well worth putting on your iPod for the evening commute.

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Apple Enables Web-Based App Store Previews -- Apple's iTunes Preview Web site has enabled Web-based previews of many titles in the App Store, such as Tap Tap Revenge 2.6, linked here. Aside from making it easier for users to check out apps without having to leave their browsers and launch iTunes, Apple undoubtedly wants to encourage Web search engines to link into the App Store. Given that, it's not surprising that the iTunes Preview site still pushes you to iTunes whenever it gets the chance.

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Stay Alert for iPhone Phishing Attacks -- Security research group Cryptopath has discovered a vulnerability in the way the iPhone OS handles authentication certificates that could enable potential attackers to gain access to user data. To take advantage of this flaw, an attacker would have to trick users into downloading a malicious file under the guise of a legitimate update. While there are no reports of this security flaw currently being exploited in the wild, be extra careful when opening unverified links or files until an official security update is released.

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Slingbox for iPhone Will Work over 3G -- AT&T and Sling Media have worked out a deal where SlingPlayer Mobile app for iPhone will be able to stream content from an individual's SlingPlayer digital video recorder over a 3G network. AT&T also said it has worked out streaming video guidelines for 3G, which other developers will have access to in the second quarter of 2010. The updated version hasn't yet been approved and posted by Apple, but it's unlikely to hit other snags.

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Amazon Looking to Add Touch to the Kindle -- The New York Times reports that Amazon has purchased the tiny startup Touchco, which was working on a next-generation touch-screen technology that could be used to create full-color touch-screen displays that would be significantly cheaper than current touch screens. Gee, do you think Amazon may be acknowledging that slow E Ink screens aren't going to be sufficient to compete with the iPad?

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Skype Plans VoIP in 3G in Next iPhone Release -- Skype said in a blog post (with a brief video interview) that Apple's iPhone OS 3.2 update, currently available for testing with developers, provides the changes necessary to allow voice-over-IP calls using a 3G connection. Apple had previously not allowed this, but U.S. regulators pressed for a change, which Apple has made. Skype says the new release will come when it is confident of its software's capability to make high-quality calls.

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Chris Breen Ponders the iPad's Potential -- So where does the iPad fit in the world of gizmos and gadgets? Macworld's Chris Breen shares some thoughts regarding the iPad's potential uses in every room of your house, as well as when you're on the road or in the air. His visions suggest that third party accessories will be essential for integrating the iPad into our lives, much more so than the iPhone or the MacBook.

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90 Percent of $1,000 Computers Are Macs -- Joe Wilcox on Betanews reports on numbers gathered from research firm NPD showing that 9 out of every 10 computers priced at over $1,000 sold in Q4 2009 were Macs. This is evidence of Apple's success in positioning the Mac as a premium brand, but NPD also points out that most of the growth in the PC market is at the under-$500 price point. With Apple posting record sales and profits quarter after quarter, we don't see the company worrying about the low end of the market.

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External Link: Adam, Tonya, and Andy Ihnatko Discuss the iPad, Amazon, and Ebooks

ace@tidbits.com (Adam C. Engst) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 13:56:31 PST

In this two-part MacNotables podcast, Adam, Tonya, and the inimitable Andy Ihnatko joined host Chuck Joiner to discuss the dust-up between Amazon and Macmillan. They segued from there into a discussion of the Kindle, the ebook market, and the iPad in general. Well worth putting on your iPod for the evening commute.

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New Ebooks Aid Remote Support, Collaboration, and Administration

tonya@tidbits.com (Tonya Engst) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:42:56 PST

Do you use screen sharing? We do, all the time. As an editor, I use screen sharing to collaborate with my authors, since it's convenient to discuss the same document in real time, even if the people having the discussion are on different continents. It's also a great teaching and tech support tool that lets me control an author's Mac and show what I'm doing while I explain some odd behavior in Microsoft Word.

But the king of remote control is Glenn Fleishman, who uses screen sharing for these and many other tasks, including remote server administration. Glenn's enthusiasm for the topic has caused him to check out all the latest options while updating two screen-sharing-related ebooks - "Take Control of Screen Sharing in Snow Leopard" and "Take Control of Back to My Mac." They're available separately for $10 or together for $15 (look in the left margin of either book's Web page for the discount link):

In "Take Control of Screen Sharing in Snow Leopard," Glenn documents the many Mac OS X screen-sharing options - in Snow Leopard and Leopard - including iChat, Bonjour, direct, and Back to My Mac, along with discussing Skype-based screen sharing, controlling your Mac from an iPhone app, and lesser-known options for working with older versions of Mac OS X and Windows. All these choices bring complexity, but you'll learn how to identify, configure, and use the best screen-sharing approach for your needs. The 136-page book also includes troubleshooting information and assistance with router configuration.

In "Take Control of Back to My Mac," Glenn changes gears to focus deeply on the Back to My Mac feature available to MobileMe subscribers, since there's a great deal to say about it. With Back to My Mac, you can connect from one of your Macs to another for file and screen sharing, making it possible, for instance, to snag a forgotten document or to control your Mac Pro from your MacBook while on a trip. You can also connect remotely to drives attached to an AirPort Extreme base station or Time Capsule. Or at least that's the theory, since in practice, people have had huge trouble in getting Back to My Mac working. In this 95-page book, you'll find essential details on configuring common routers to work with Back to My Mac and learn about the security implications of using Back to My Mac.

Why two separate ebooks? As we untangled the many threads of this topic, it became clear that Back to My Mac has many unique characteristics, including file sharing and remote disk access (with certain hardware), as well as special security methods and considerations. Further, some Back to My Mac users need to know picky router configuration information that is unnecessary for other forms of screen sharing. So, we decided to cover only Back to My Mac basics in the "Screen Sharing" ebook, and then go much deeper in the full "Back to My Mac" ebook.

The books work together as a pair if you want to take control of the entire Mac OS X screen-sharing enchilada, and they're available independently. If you buy either one and then realize you want the other, you can use the Check for Updates button on the cover of each ebook to access a generous discount on the other.

(Those who have older versions of these ebooks should be sure to check their email - or click the Check for Updates button on page 1 of the ebook - to find out about upgrades. "Back to My Mac" is free to all who own an earlier version; "Screen Sharing" has an upgrade discount.)

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Copyright © 2010 Tonya Engst. TidBITS is copyright © 2010 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

External Link: Apple Enables Web-Based App Store Previews

doug_mclean@tidbits.com (Doug McLean) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:28:47 PST

Apple's iTunes Preview Web site has enabled Web-based previews of many titles in the App Store, such as Tap Tap Revenge 2.6, linked here. Aside from making it easier for users to check out apps without having to leave their browsers and launch iTunes, Apple undoubtedly wants to encourage Web search engines to link into the App Store. Given that, it's not surprising that the iTunes Preview site still pushes you to iTunes whenever it gets the chance. Finally, an odd - but likely temporary - problem is that not all apps appear to have Web previews, including Apple's own MobileMe iDisk App.

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External Link: Stay Alert for iPhone Phishing Attacks

doug_mclean@tidbits.com (Doug McLean) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:28:45 PST

Security research group Cryptopath has discovered a vulnerability in the way the iPhone OS handles authentication certificates that could enable potential attackers to gain access to user data. To take advantage of this flaw, an attacker would have to trick users into downloading a malicious file under the guise of a legitimate update. While there are no reports of this security flaw currently being exploited in the wild, be extra careful when opening unverified links or files until an official security update is released.

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Keynote Editing in Action on the iPad

jeffc@tidbits.com (Jeff Carlson) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:52:16 PST

At Apple's media event introducing the iPad (see Hands-on Impressions of the iPad, 29 January 2010), Glenn Fleishman and I wanted to know what the experience of creating a Keynote presentation would be like. Inspired by a blog post from Fraser Speirs ("iPad Fallacy #1: 'It's not for content creation'"), I created a short video of Glenn manipulating objects (resizing, repositioning, rotating) and activating the annotation controls (including a laser pointer) in Keynote's presentation mode. (A high-definition version is available at the video's page on YouTube.)

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Copyright © 2010 Jeff Carlson. TidBITS is copyright © 2010 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

External Link: Slingbox for iPhone Will Work over 3G

glenn@tidbits.com (Glenn Fleishman) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:39:51 PST

AT&T and Sling Media have worked out a deal where SlingPlayer Mobile app for iPhone will be able to stream content from an individual's SlingPlayer digital video recorder over a 3G network. AT&T also said it has worked out streaming video guidelines for 3G, which other developers will have access to in the second quarter of 2010. The updated version hasn't yet been approved and posted by Apple, but it's unlikely to hit other snags.

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Copyright © 2010 Glenn Fleishman. TidBITS is copyright © 2010 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

External Link: Amazon Looking to Add Touch to the Kindle

ace@tidbits.com (Adam C. Engst) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 14:54:45 PST

The New York Times reports that Amazon has purchased the tiny startup Touchco, which was working on a next-generation touch-screen technology that could be used to create full-color touch-screen displays that would be significantly cheaper than current touch screens. Gee, do you think Amazon may be acknowledging that slow E Ink screens aren't going to be sufficient to compete with the iPad?

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TidBITS Events at Macworld SF 2010

ace@tidbits.com (Adam C. Engst) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 14:36:07 PST

Apple may be boycotting Macworld Expo, and it may be odd having it a month later than usual, but many TidBITS and Take Control authors will still be in attendance during the show, which takes place from Tuesday, 9 February 2010 through Saturday, 13 February 2010 (but note that the exhibit hall floor is open only on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of that week; Tuesday and Wednesday are for conference sessions). Here's our current schedule, and please do come by and say hello!

Note that once again Macworld Expo takes place in both the new Moscone West and the old Moscone South, so plan for some walking time between the two. If there are any changes or additions, or if we learn about more room numbers, we'll update this article on our Web site, so check back there for the latest right before the show.

Tuesday, February 9th -- Though the expo floor won't open for two more days, there are so many sessions that IDG World Expo starts them on Tuesday.

1:00 PM: Take Control author Tom Negrino will be running a hands-on MacLabs sessions called "Building Better Documents with Pages" in Room 2011, West Hall.
5:00 PM: Although this event isn't specifically related to Macworld Expo, Jeff Carlson will be at the Apple Store (1 Stockton Street) to talk about Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac.

Thursday, February 11th -- Along with expo floor opening, a number of TidBITS staffers have talks on Thursday.

10:30 AM: Joe Kissell will be giving a Users Conference session in Room 2022, West Hall, titled "Upgrading to Snow Leopard." As you might imagine, Joe knows a lot about that topic.
10:30 AM: If you're already using Snow Leopard, you might instead want to check out Take Control author Ted Landau's "Bugs & Fixes: Real World Mac Troubleshooting," again in West Hall (though we don't know the exact room yet).
3:00 PM: After lunch, Joe is back on stage in another Users Conference session in Room 2004, West Hall, with "The Paperless Mac Office," based on his need to keep paper in his tiny Paris apartment to a minimum.
5:00 PM: To finish off the day, you can listen to TidBITS Security Editor Rich Mogull talk about "Truths, Lies, and Fictions in Mac and iPhone Security" (we're unsure of the exact location of this talk, but it will probably be in West Hall).
5:00 PM: If security isn't your thing, Dan Frakes, who edits a number of our Take Control books, will be joined by a bunch of our other friends from Macworld to answer questions in the "Ask the Editors" session. The location is yet to be set on this one.
6:00 PM: Many of us will be meeting at the top of the South Hall escalators in preparation for the annual Netter's Dinner. At 6:30, we'll all parade to the Hunan at Sansome and Broadway, where the hot and spicy Chinese dinner (vegetarian dishes are available) costs $20. You must register in advance by Tuesday, February 9th, via Kagi; the link has all the details. Jon Pugh will once again be hosting, and it promises to be another great night of food and conversation.

Friday, February 12th -- Joe has even more to do on Friday, and you can come see Adam and Joe together late in the day.

10:30 AM: In Room 2022, West Hall, Joe will be talking more about Snow Leopard, specifically "Working with Services in Snow Leopard."
1:00 PM: With only a brief break for food, Joe will be back in Room 2022, West Hall, to give "Text Magic in Snow Leopard," although we doubt he'll be revealing just how he manages to write Take Control ebooks so quickly.
3:00 PM: Once again in Room 2022, West Hall, Adam will moderate a panel discussion called "Email Client Showdown" with Joe and a variety of experts on different email programs, including Jason Snell, Chuck Goolsbee, and John Welch. If you're at all unhappy with your current email program and wonder what features others might give you, don't miss this session.

Saturday, February 13th -- The date change and loss of Apple has freed IDG World Expo to extend Macworld to a Saturday, making it easy for San Francisco residents who can't take time off during the work week to attend. We have a few sessions on Saturday too.

10:00 AM: Dori Smith, who has helped out with Take Control editing and back end work in the past, will be giving a MacIT session called "Making Your Sites iPhone Friendly" in Room 2018, West Hall.
10:30 AM: Jeff Carlson will be in Room 2004, West Hall, to give a Users Conference session called "Livin' the iLife: A Beginner's Guide to the iLifestyle." We imagine it involves iMovie, iPhoto, iTunes, iDVD, iWeb, and, well, GarageBand, which clearly needs a leading i.
1:00 PM: If you haven't been able to see Joe at any of his Users Conference sessions, you can definitely find him at the Wiley booth (#1765), where he'll be signing his "Mac Security Bible" and talking about security on the Mac.

Even More -- Looking for more to do? IDG World Expo has plenty planned, so be sure to check out the Macworld Expo Web site for full details; their PDF-based Hot Sheet brings together all the special events.

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Zombie Authors Threaten Fiction Ebook Market, from the Grave!

pepper@reppep.com (Chris Pepper) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 13:40:29 PST

I've spent years on the bleeding edge of electronic reading, starting with a Handspring Treo 600. Back then, in 2003, I used Plucker to download Web pages which I later read on the subway and sidewalks, during my commute between Brooklyn and Manhattan. Since then I've only increased my electronic reading, and early last year I stopped buying paper books. I now routinely read fiction ebooks on my iPhone in BookShelf, Eucalyptus, Instapaper, and Amazon's Kindle for iPhone app.

I know I'm atypical, but it's clear that reading fiction electronically is beginning to take off. Reading ebooks is different in many ways from reading paper books, and some of the changes have far-reaching and interesting implications for people and businesses beyond readers and booksellers. Obviously publishers, resellers, and device manufacturers are keenly aware of this turmoil and frantically trying both to figure out what's going on and to ensure they are still viable in the new world - this tension has been palpable at the recent O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing conferences. Of course, all this is complicated by the fact that nobody knows exactly what that new world will look like.

I don't know how many fiction authors have fully grasped the personal ramifications, though. The very nature of ebooks, compared to paper books, is bound to have profound implications on what we read, with the largest challenge coming from an unexpected group: authors who long ago passed from this world, but whose books remain alive. In other words, zombies.

Mobile Phones Point the Way to Ebook Readers -- What could cause this sea change? After all, despite the continual improvements in reading technologies, many people are upset by the idea of reading anything but a paper book. They think of themselves as Luddites, refusing to use the newfangled technology - forgetting that today's paperbacks and hardcovers are themselves highly refined technology that we have been perfecting for thousands of years, developing and then obsoleting cuneiform, papyrus, illuminated manuscripts, and hand-set type presses along the way.

But the refusal of some adults to change their habits is irrelevant in the long run. Mobile phones are just as much a part of children's environment as books, and many young people don't have the habit of reading on paper. Instead they are accustomed to reading and writing Web pages, text messages, Facebook updates, and even email on computers and smartphones. Books are longer and (currently) less interactive, but there's no question that our kids will read them online. Short fiction is already popular on simple "feature phones," which are much less capable reading devices than smartphones and dedicated ebook readers.

And it's amazing how rapidly the experience of reading on an electronic device is improving. Modern smartphones use color LCD and LED screens with excellent resolution, color and responsiveness - my iPhone offers six times as many pixels as the Treo 600, enabling far superior font and image display, and Google's Nexus One and the Verizon Droid have even more impressive screens that display 800 by 480 pixels or better. Although it doesn't have the color or responsiveness of LCD and LED screens, the E Ink screen used in the Kindle and Nook has effectively solved the battery life and glare problems. And the 9.7-inch screen on Apple's iPad is gorgeous - full color at 1024 by 768 pixels. At this rate of evolution, in another dozen years I almost expect free ebook readers (subsidized by ebook vendors, as cellular phones are now), which never need recharging or run out of space.

It's significant that the iPhone and iPad share the iPhone OS, the Kindle runs Linux, and the Nook runs Google's Android cellphone operating system, which is also based on Linux. That's a good indicator of impending convergence for ebook readers and mobile phones, as are the component-level similarities - the differences basically come down to sizes, screens, and lack of microphones.

While there's no difficulty seeing how mobile phones are taking over the world, it's more difficult to determine the actual popularity of ebook reading devices given Amazon's steadfast refusal to divulge sales figures for the Kindle, although analysts have estimated that there may be 1,000,000 Kindles out there. Sony claims it sold 300,000 of its Readers between their introduction in 2006 and late 2008, but no new numbers have been forthcoming. Amazon did reveal that it sold more Kindle ebooks than physical books on Christmas Day, 2009, but that's deceptive because anyone who received a Kindle on Christmas Day would have started buying books that day, whereas paper books given on Christmas were all ordered ahead of time. So Christmas was likely one of Amazon's worst days for physical book sales, exaggerating the spike in ebook sales.

Whatever the actual sales to date, electronics companies clearly believe the potential market is huge, which accounts for the numerous ebook reading devices that have been announced to compete with the Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle, including the Barnes & Noble Nook, QUE proReader, Skiff Reader, and IREX Digital Reader, not to mention's Apple's iPad, due in March 2010.

The irony is that our most advanced technology may in fact be responsible for the rise of undead authors.

Zombies Start to Take Over Book Catalogs -- Reading on paper is constrained by physical availability of books, but the Internet has already solved this problem for ebooks. Twenty years ago almost all books came from bookstores, libraries, or schools. The first major change in book availability was the replacement of many small bookstores, each with their own unique set of titles for sale, with more homogeneous chains like Barnes & Noble and Borders. People adjusted to the changes in what was on sale but limited shelf space kept the zombies at bay, as bookstores focused on new books from living authors, largely relegating classic works from undead authors to dusty top shelves.

Next a variety of Internet vendors appeared, offering much larger catalogs of physical books. Since then ordering books online has become commonplace, with Amazon holding unquestioned dominance in this market. Concern about the impact of the loss of small bookstores and physical bookstores in general aside, we have much more choice in reading materials today than when I was a kid, mostly thanks to the Internet. And where did much of that choice come from? Zombies like L. Frank Baum, whose Wizard of Oz books were suddenly as accessible (if not as popular) as J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series.

The third transformation has just begun, as our ebook catalog choices explode. On the commercial side Amazon is easily the best known, with 390,000 Kindle ebooks available as of December 2009 (compared to the millions they sell in paper form). But commercial vendors are clearly adapting their existing business models for ebooks. Selling bits is easier in many ways than selling atoms: gratification is instant and Internet bandwidth is much cheaper than printing or shipping. This is a relatively simple shift, with a much lower barrier to entry than opening a physical bookstore.

The non-commercial side of this third transformation is more radical for the zombies, though, because catalogs of free books combine the best aspects of booksellers and public libraries, making available vast numbers of books for immediate download with no limitations. Project Gutenberg offers about 30,000 free ebooks (largely out-of-print classic works from zombie authors, as they are what people take the time to post) for download in a variety of formats. Google Books is commercial, but already offers 500,000 free titles. Project Gutenberg may not be nearly as famous as Amazon, and Google Books is still better known for its lawsuits than for its book catalog (see the TidBITS series "Google Books Settlement," for more details). But readers will inevitably discover the free options - aided by Google and every company that makes a Kindle competitor.

Many ebook reading devices can access Project Gutenberg's collection of zombie works directly, although hardware vendors have focused on their own commercial storefronts, and Barnes & Noble's Nook offers direct access to Google Books. Various modern authors offer free downloads of their own ebooks, but unfortunately there isn't yet a good way to search for books across multiple catalogs and personal author sites - the best option right now is to look for an author's site and hope to find download links. The Internet Archive's BookServer project is intended to tie together a searchable network of ebooks, making it easier to find books from a wide variety of sources - whether free, for sale, or for loan. Google is determined to be a player in some or all these areas, although the details are not yet clear. There's money to be made in curating books and power in brand awareness, which is why everybody is scrambling to get in on the ground floor. It's clear that reading choices are just going to keep expanding.

The Power of Free -- The vast catalogs of online mail-order booksellers broadened the competition for book buyer dollars. On one hand, this (combined with print-on-demand) meant popular authors had more competition, but they also made it easier for new writers to get published, and much easier for readers to buy a wider variety of books.

The current round of change, though, is likely to be hard on fiction authors. It's easier than ever to give your work away, but convincing readers to pay for it is becoming more difficult as the alternatives proliferate and become better known. Even the most self-confident writer might be daunted at the prospect of convincing readers to pay for a book rather than reading works from zombies like Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, James Joyce, and Jules Verne - all free at Project Gutenberg. (Creative Commons photo credit: sundaykofax on Flickr)

Classic works from the great authors throughout history have long been available in print, but on paper they weren't notably cheaper than current works. In ebook form, however, works from zombie authors have a steep price advantage. I've already read a few ebooks I never considered buying, both to save money and for cultural literacy. As copyrights expire (assuming Disney and friends don't continue buying extensions), and as people publish more free content, the pool of available free ebooks grows inexorably.

Additionally, the costs of printing and shipping have always provided a floor for prices of paper books - no one could afford to manufacture and distribute books without charging for them. Since the unit price of an ebook is negligible, ebook prices can vary much more widely (although the Google Books settlement, if it stands, may create a de facto price floor for ebook pricing as well). It's not yet clear whether reduced costs will result in authors earning higher royalty rates, or if dropping prices will reduce overall royalty income regardless of royalty rates. This is largely a new issue - for decades authors have been competing primarily with other authors in the same fields, at the same prices. Now authors are competing not just with each other, but with undead authors from all of history.

Every time I finish a book and decide what to read next, I have several choices. Will I read a free ebook, a (relatively expensive) Kindle ebook, or a cheaper non-Kindle ebook? Predictably, I have been reading a lot of free books - both titles from zombie authors that are available in the public domain and modern works posted by living authors. I've also been reading a lot of non-Kindle titles. The Kindle books I read are by favorite authors and unavailable from other sources. Faced with two books I expect to like about the same, my inclination is to read the free one, deferring the purchase for later. Faced with dozens of books to read and no particular preference, I tend to read the one I believe is "better," which is more likely now to be a classic title by a zombie.

For instance, in January and February of 2009 I read 7 books - all paperbacks. In March I started reading ebooks seriously, and my Goodreads history shows a dramatic shift. From March through December I read 14 paperbacks, 15 purchased Kindle ebooks, 8 ebooks bought from other vendors, and 24 free ebooks (some from Amazon's Kindle store).

Competing with the Zombies -- In the end, it's clear that the easy availability of older and free books has already begun to change the competitive landscape for fiction authors. Writers will increasingly find themselves competing not against their living peers for shelf space at Barnes & Noble, but against Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, and thousands of other zombie greats whose copyrights have expired - not to mention the many books contributed to the Creative Commons by living authors like Cory Doctorow and Peter Watts. To make things a bit more interesting, professional writers find themselves at a profound price disadvantage compared to authors who no longer collect royalties - being, well, dead. But that's not to say all is lost - competition can drive innovation, and dead guys don't dance... or blog, or podcast. (Creative Commons photo credit: Hryck on Flickr)

So how can today's authors avoid being steamrollered by works from zombies and other free content? One way is to engage with readers. Cory Doctorow makes a living giving electronic versions of his books away, which helps grow sales of the paper editions. Building a relationship with readers can be more effective than DRM for convincing them to pay. Authors connect to audiences through blogs (Laurie R. King), Twitter feeds (Neil Gaiman), podcasts (Spider Robinson), user forums (Orson Scott Card), and various other means, each of which helps build a connection beyond the bare text, hopefully encouraging readers to support their favorite writers.

Some authors have taken a page from musicians and open source programmers, developing ancillary revenue streams such as merchandise and speaking engagements. Virtual tip jars are common, although they generally do not produce enough to live on.

The explosion of iPhone books and comics in the App Store has shown that there are many excellent ways to present stories, with which the long strings of words from the undead populating Project Gutenberg can't compete. These new types of ebooks can be more attractive and engaging, more dynamic, and more interesting (particularly for the many people who find novels - whether old or new - boring). They can also be updated, tied into other books and applications, linked to video or educational activities, or enlivened in ways we haven't thought of yet. The Kindle and Sony Reader are perfectly adequate for books from zombies - much of the publisher and author interest in future reading devices like the iPad is driven by people who want to do more, even if they haven't figured out exactly what that means yet. It will be a long time before copyright expires on the first pieces of hypertextual fiction.

On the other hand, there will certainly be room for authors who just write, without adding graphics or reaching out to embrace interaction with fans, but they will need to adapt to the changing marketplace, and nobody seems to have fully figured out how yet.

Run for Your Lives! It's a tough time to be a professional (or aspiring) author. The zombies are crashing the ebook party, and they cannot be reasoned with or slain (again). Modern writers need to find ways to distinguish themselves from the undead, and to convince readers to become paying customers even when there are plenty of free alternatives. This might be through active participation in community Web sites, producing alternative content, or techniques that have not yet been invented.

But it's clear to writers like science-fiction author Charlie Stross that the old model of delivering a large chunk of words to a publisher, and then moving on to the next book, is in trouble. Over the long term, we need to figure this out to keep people writing the books we want to read, but the answer might not be comfortable - or look much like today's fiction marketplace. One way or another, change is coming, and without taking their fate into their own hands, writers might find themselves spending more time behind the counter at Starbucks than sipping lattes with their publishers.

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Copyright © 2010 Chris Pepper. TidBITS is copyright © 2010 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

FontExplorer X Pro 2.5

doug_mclean@tidbits.com (Doug McLean) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 13:22:49 PST

Linotype has released a major update to its professional font management tool FontExplorer Pro. The user interface has been updated and streamlined, a new wide-screen mode enables the user to set the Preview area off to the right, a new transparency mode can be used to overlay and preview fonts in a working document, and printing is now enabled. Also, users can now tag their fonts for easier organization. Finally, several bugs related to the Apple font panel have been resolved, support for Adobe InDesign CS3 and CS4 has been improved, and various unspecified crashing bugs have been fixed. Full release notes are available on Linotype's Web site. ($79 new, free update, 28 MB)

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Espresso 1.1.1

doug_mclean@tidbits.com (Doug McLean) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:55:18 PST

MacRabbit has updated its Web authoring application Espresso with a handful of minor tweaks and fixes. Version 1.1.1 adds pixel dimensions to Image Preview, the capability to show hidden files in project listings, and support for some JavaScript commands in previews. Also, regular expression searches are now supported in Find in Project, Sugars now load faster, window sizing is improved when dragging multiple tabs out of the workspace, and a crashing bug related to SFTP publishing has been fixed. A full list of changes is available on MacRabbit's Web site. ($79.95 new, free update, 10.3 MB)

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External Link: Skype Plans VoIP in 3G in Next iPhone Release

glenn@tidbits.com (Glenn Fleishman) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 10:05:42 PST

Skype said in a blog post (with a brief video interview) that Apple's iPhone OS 3.2 update, currently available for testing with developers, provides the changes necessary to allow voice-over-IP calls using a 3G connection. Apple had previously not allowed this, but U.S. regulators pressed for a change, which Apple has made. Skype says the new release will come when it is confident of its software's capability to make high-quality calls.

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(Not) Getting Things Done with Bumptop for Mac

jporten@gmail.com (Jeff Porten) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 08:35:10 PST

I've been keeping an eye on the Bumptop operating system ever since its founder, Anand Agarawala, presented it in a TED 2007 video. Bumptop is a desktop replacement which creates a virtual 3D workspace, and gives files a physical presence within that space. Bumptop for Mac was released last week, so I finally had a chance to put it through its paces.

I've been hoping to use Bumptop to fix a gaping hole in the current Mac OS. Unfortunately, it remains as wide as ever, but with any luck, pointing out Bumptop's one-point-oh flaws will either help bring these features to a future version, or spur some developer to solve the problem in some other way.

No Space Like Home -- The issue is this: like many folks who spend most of their day in Mac OS X, I have a tendency to work on many projects simultaneously, each of which may have its own windows, files, and assorted random bits. Ideally, when I'm focusing on one project, all of the other stuff is squirreled away elsewhere so it's not in the way, but, crucially, squirreled away does not mean closed. If the mood or my latent attention deficit disorder strikes, I want to be able to switch to another project for a few minutes, then bounce right back again.

Here's how I organize Finder Spaces for this kind of work, after much trial and error.

The center space, where Paul Lynde spent most of his time in Hollywood Squares, is also where I spend most of mine. Any project that is currently front-and-center is literally centered here. The top three spaces are always taken up by a standard selection of applications (Mail in space 2, iCal in space 3, and quick-access apps in space 1, including iTunes and Terminal windows). The other five spaces start their day as blank slates; if I find myself hopping down a bunny trail into a distraction, I gather up the windows I've opened and put them away elsewhere. A quick trip to Exposé gives me a heads-up view of what's currently percolating.

I used to work in 12 spaces, or even 16 when I relied on the superior Virtue Desktops (which sadly died when it wasn't upgraded for Tiger, and whose home page seems to have been taken over by spammers). But using nine spaces has two, er, virtues: I'm always adjacent to another workspace when I'm in the center space. And once I fill up all nine, well, it's probably time to apply some focus.

You can see where this is going: with Spaces, I can group my windows together. But there's no equivalent way of creating multiple Finder Desktops to go with these workspaces. Sure, I can arbitrarily create a folder structure, but as I've written before (see "Getting Things Done with Your Macintosh, Part 2," 31 July 2006), the Desktop is special, and it's damned silly that I can't make it more useful. I can drag files around to make little piles, but new files always show up off to the right; in short, working with the Finder spatially always makes a big mess.

Bumptop has the potential to solve this problem, but hasn't done it yet.

Bumping Your Desktop Files -- I tried out Bumptop using the freeware version. When I first fired it up, all of my Desktop icons were jumbled up on one side; after using Bumptop's "clean up" option, I had this screenshot as my canvas.

Right off the bat, there are some problems. First, the Desktop is a sacred space; in my opinion, no files should be there that aren't work files. Why is my entire hard drive appearing there? The hard disk is hidden in my Finder preferences, but it can't be hidden in Bumptop. Second, my Desktop files have specific colored labels that I've assigned; those are gone in Bumptop, and again, there's no way to put them back.

After fiddling in Bumptop for a bit, I came up with this next layout:

As you can see, Bumptop allows you to pin your icons to the walls of the virtual space, or rest them on the floor. I've added the files which normally live on my Desktop (and the drive icon which I can't remove) to the right wall. Bumptop's icon labels remain below the icons regardless of where they're pinned, causing the unfortunate placement you see in the screenshot. I presume that moving the labels to match the perspective of the wall (or resizing the labels in any way) are future features, because you can't do that now.

On the left wall, I've hung the Bumptop Stickies app - another icon which can't be removed. In the $29 Bumptop Pro, you can create as many stickies as you like, but you're limited to two in the freeware version. I've created a demo sticky and pasted it to the left wall; it has an advantage over standard text files in that it shows you its contents by default. But I'd rather have live previews of text files and PDFs, as with the graphics files.

On the virtual floor, I've laid out my files in a working spatial model. In the upper left, I've created a Bumptop "pile" of files which I'm using to write this article. Underneath it, I created a picture of the Bumptop icon and made it larger which makes it easier to associate files with particular projects. You can double-click a pile to display it in a Dock-like grid. Piles can also be given their own titles; I've titled this pile to indicate that it's a work in progress (obviously, you could skip the large graphic approach and just label the pile after the project).

In the other corners, I have the beginnings of my other projects. The spatial layout makes it easy to toss files into particular areas, or stick them on the wall so as to come back to them later. Double-click on any wall or the floor and the viewpoint camera swings around to focus on it.

After that, though, the spatial metaphor breaks down, badly.

Space: The Final Frontier -- Objects in Bumptop just don't behave as you'd expect. There's a much ballyhooed physics engine; fling a file into a corner and it will knock other files around with weight and momentum. So I tried to move my In Progress pile by dragging around the Bumptop icon it was "resting" upon. The result? The large icon takes the focus, and rises through the pile like a magic tablecloth eventually covering up all of the files. There's no "send to back" (or bottom) command; you get your files back by dragging the picture away, then dragging your pile back on top. This is hard to imagine, but you can see what I mean in this video I made.

Fiddling with these icons caused some interesting effects. A pile has height, so dropping the large icon on a pile generally causes it to drape over the pile. But after playing with all this for a while (trying to slide the picture under the pile), I managed to balance the large icon on the pile perfectly, which, unfortunately, prevented me from selecting either the icon or the pile individually after that.

I tried using Exposé and drag-and-drop to add new URLs to various working areas (it would be great to just throw a URL into the workspace of a given project). But all new dropped files end up in a heap in the center of the screen, and invariably, underneath other application windows. File organization remains a two-step process of create, then organize, just as it is with the Finder. Again, watch what I mean in this video.

And don't click on the exposed Bumptop desktop to activate the Finder; clicks on the Bumptop desktop are ignored by the Finder. If you want to switch to the Finder to hide all other windows, you have to use Command-Tab.

To Boldly Go -- Final verdict: I'm a bit surprised this is Bumptop 1.0. It behaves much more like a beta, and if anyone can make this software useful (as opposed to a rather cool demo of future technology), I'd be interested in hearing about it in the comments.

The real shame is that Agarawala is correct when he says in the TED video that we've been using the same crappy desktop metaphor for nearly 30 years. Files, folders, trash cans, and desktops were unleashed on the general public with the Apple Lisa in 1983, when hard drives held 10 MB, and organizing files manually was a crucial computing skill. Bumptop is an excellent idea for a new way of doing things.

Compare it to the other dominant (and far simpler) Apple metaphor: on the iPad and iPhone there are no files and folders. But you also can't multitask or layer windows atop each other, even though that could be quite useful on an iPad. iPhone OS devices are too simple to accomplish many tasks we perform on computers, but that doesn't mean that files, folders, and desktops are the best, or only, possible way of giving us the necessary flexibility.

Spaces and the Desktop are two rare examples of Apple's interface falling short of obvious alternatives. It would be in keeping with Apple to introduce something insanely great, and perhaps radically different, in the next Big Cat. Bumptop suggests one such idea, and with any luck, a future version of Bumptop for Mac will provide an implementation which follows through on its promise.

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iPhone OS 3.1.3

doug_mclean@tidbits.com (Doug McLean) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 08:01:27 PST

Apple has released iPhone OS 3.1.3 to provide a couple of performance improvements and address several security threats. Changes include improved accuracy on the iPhone 3GS's battery level display, a fix for a bug that prevented some third party programs from launching, and a fix for an issue that caused application crashes when using the Japanese Kana keyboard.

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iTunes 9.0.3

doug_mclean@tidbits.com (Doug McLean) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 07:56:09 PST

Apple has released a small but helpful bug-fix update for iTunes. Version 9.0.3 fixes an issue that prevented the "Remember password for purchases" setting from being enabled, addresses problems with syncing certain smart playlists and podcasts with unspecified iPod models, and resolves a bug that caused problems in recognizing connections with some iPods. Apple says the update also improves general stability and performance. The update is available via Software Update or from Apple's Web site. (Free, 90.82 MB)

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27-inch iMac Display Firmware Update 1.0

doug_mclean@tidbits.com (Doug McLean) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 07:55:46 PST

If you own a 27-inch iMac that's afflicted by the cursed screen-flickering problem, Apple's 27-inch iMac Display Firmware Update 1.0 will come as very good news. The update claims to correct the iMac's firmware to ensure proper display performance, eliminating the widespread flickering issue marring the displays of many 27-inch iMacs (see "New iMac Screens Cracking and Flickering," 10 December 2009). Be sure to follow Apple's warning not to turn your computer off during installation. More information regarding installation is also available on Apple's Web site. The update is available via Software Update or the Apple Support Downloads page. (Free, 294 KB)

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Greenpeace Hitching Itself to Apple's Star?

doug_mclean@tidbits.com (Doug McLean) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:57:20 PST

A few weeks ago the environmental advocacy group Greenpeace released its Guide to Greener Electronics, 14th Edition, a ranking of 18 consumer electronics companies. The list rates major electronics manufacturers - Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Panasonic, Lenovo, Dell, HP, Sony, Nokia, and others - on environmental goals such as eliminating harmful chemicals in their products, offering recycling programs, and publicly committing themselves to environmentally friendly positions and goals. At first the report seemed like standard Greenpeace fare, but given some time to mull it over, I've begun to think it may not be serving Greenpeace's long-term goals well.

This year, Apple moved up four spots on the Guide to Greener Electronics to claim fifth place. The climb results from a mere 0.2 point increase on its score (up to 5.1 from 4.9), combined with the drop of a few companies like Samsung that failed to meet previously set goals. Greenpeace continues to applaud Apple for the actual removal of PVCs and BFRs from all its products (except for PVC-free power cords in some countries that haven't yet approved them on safety grounds), though it also continues to ding Apple for a lack of public statements and commitments. (Like that's a surprise with Apple!) Apple loses points for failing to provide information regarding its supply chain, providing minimal information on future chemical phase-outs, and for reducing information available on its Web site.

The volatility present in the rankings largely results from Greenpeace's emphasis on rewarding statements, promises, and public positions - as opposed to concentrating on what a company has actually done. This isn't a new critique of Greenpeace's methodology; Steve Jobs himself said much the same thing at a 2007 shareholder meeting (see "Steve Jobs Addresses Greenpeace at Shareholder Meeting", 14 May 2007).

However, a new rankings chart - appearing under the header "Which companies really sell greener electronics" - introduced this year gives new reason to question why Greenpeace ranks companies in the manner it does. In this new list, Apple prominently takes the top spot, earning four gold stars (the maximum) for having eliminated hazardous chemicals in all of its products. Yet despite winning the blue ribbon on this page, elsewhere Greenpeace makes clear that Apple is really in the middle of the pack overall.

So why, if eliminating harmful chemicals from manufacturing is only one part of the equation, does only this particular aspect of being green merit its own chart? If Greenpeace is interested in breaking things down a bit, showing which companies do well in specific areas, why isn't there another gold star chart evaluating how energy-efficient a company's products are, or how much renewable energy the company itself uses? It's most telling, I think, that Greenpeace has created a ranking that puts the spotlight on Apple, of all the companies in the list.

Perhaps Greenpeace is merely trying to appease Apple press and fans. Greenpeace has taken legitimate heat for not giving Apple's actual elimination of toxic chemicals enough credit, so maybe this chart is a way of recognizing that achievement. But if that were true, it would seem Greenpeace would be conceding its major point that changing manufacturing processes is only part of the overall picture.

Another reason might be even less attractive, related as it is to how one best markets a cause. Apple succeeds in large part due to its public image - the mere mention of Apple can evoke the surrounding culture (youthful, edgy creative types), the people that embody the brand (Steve Jobs or Justin Long), and the products themselves (the iPhone and iPad). The same can't be said of any of the other companies on Greenpeace's list. Just consider the recent fervor regarding the anticipated release of the iPad - you don't see that with nearly any other company in the world.

So what better company for Greenpeace to attach its message to? By scolding Apple, as it has done in the past, Greenpeace garnered attention for both its goals and itself as an organization. But slamming Apple can effectively generate press for only so long before everyone tunes out. But by placing Apple atop a list, complete with shiny gold stars, Greenpeace was once again able to attract some attention from the press and public. And this time, in addition to grabbing the spotlight briefly, Greenpeace can also claim that its past actions resulted in this new and improved Apple (not that that's at all likely to be true). In this light, the latest ranking says less about Apple's environmental citizenship than about Greenpeace's maneuvering and manipulation of the media.

Having said all that, it's not as if Greenpeace's goal is a bad one. We all place helping ensure the future of a human-friendly Earth on the list of good causes. But might that cause be better served by rankings based on verifiable actions instead of public puffery and easily changed policies?

Beneath Greenpeace's easy-to-read rankings is - presumably - a lot of research that attempts to determine what impact electronics companies are having on the environment and on policy decisions. In the age of the sound bite it's understandable that Greenpeace feels a need to dress this information up to attract readers who will hopefully continue on to read the finer details. I'm not unsympathetic to Greenpeace's need for attention, but I fear the slippery manner in which it has been doing that may damage its long term goals. If Greenpeace's public relations techniques impinge upon its perceived integrity or reliability as a source on green electronics, then the ends won't even have the opportunity to justify the means.

A fierce independence and commitment to envisioning the future has earned Apple its current celebrity. Greenpeace should take note, and allow its own hard work to become the sole spokesman for its cause.

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External Link: Chris Breen Ponders the iPad's Potential

doug_mclean@tidbits.com (Doug McLean) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:47:10 PST

So where does the iPad fit in the world of gizmos and gadgets? Macworld's Chris Breen shares some thoughts regarding the iPad's potential uses in every room of your house, as well as when you're on the road or in the air. His visions suggest that third party accessories will be essential for integrating the iPad into our lives, much more so than the iPhone or the MacBook.

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Prepare Your Enterprise for the iPad

rich@tidbits.com (Rich Mogull) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:16:18 PST

The initial response from many industry analysts on the release of the iPad was unsurprising, if disappointing. As expected, they cited a litany of reasons Apple's latest creation is completely unsuitable in the enterprise, firmly branding the iPad as nothing more than a consumer toy. The usual complaints were trotted out: security concerns, manageability, and lack of support for existing enterprise applications. These criticisms rolled off their keyboards and tongues as if from a well-rehearsed script.

They are wrong.

The iPad is a fundamentally transformative computing experience that will meet the needs of many business users far more effectively than their existing Macs or PCs do. Although initial business adoption will start slowly due to some of Apple's design choices, adoption will pick up over time, and businesses will find themselves increasing both support and use of iPads to meet employee demand and business needs.

While I don't expect the iPad to displace the inventory of enterprise laptops and desktops completely, it (and its eventual derivatives) are well designed to fulfill certain business needs underserved by existing solutions.

Filling a Technology Gap -- Although businesses often need some sort of a mid-size device for their users, the offerings have never really suited the requirements. Existing tablets either bolt a tablet interface onto a desktop operating system, or expand a PDA-based user interface onto a larger display. Tablets that use desktop operating systems still suffer from the battery life and usability problems of their desktop brethren, while the PDA-based devices start instantly, work longer, and cost less, but with severely limited displays and application performance. And neither of these options is designed for the form factor and usage scenarios they inhabit.

Many organizations, especially larger ones, struggle to strike the right balance for mobile computing. Certain types of users, such as healthcare, service engineers, and other on-the-go job roles have long sought a portable device to support their work in the field. Having used, supported, and even designed some of these throughout my IT career I can honestly say the vast majority are poorly suited for field work. They are clumsy, non-intuitive, and often both slow and unreliable.

There are also many business users who travel regularly, but who don't need the full desktop computing experience when they are out of the office. I rack up 50,000 to 100,000 air miles each year, but on most of my trips I need access only to email, the Web, my calendar, and a few productivity applications (the Microsoft Office suite). It's also nice to have some video entertainment options and a game or two to while away late nights in the hotel. Don't believe me? Next time you are on a plane, in an airport, at a hotel, or in a conference, take a quick look at the screens around you - it's likely that 95 percent of what you see are email, movies or games, a spreadsheet, a PowerPoint presentation, Microsoft Word document, a Web browser, or perhaps a PDF file.

But we road warriors have never really had a viable option other than a full-sized laptop. Even with all the advances in mobile computing design, we either have a full desktop user interface on a netbook's tiny screen and cramped keyboard, or a larger, heavier device you can't open and use comfortably (or safely, for the device) in the cramped seats of major airlines (in the United States at least). And neither laptops nor netbooks can get you through a full day unless you're on one of the few airlines with power outlets in economy class.

While it's always risky to speculate before a device is actually released, the iPad seems well positioned to meet needs of both the field user and the business traveler - at least eventually. Its size, simplicity, flexible user interface, and likely reliability are an excellent match for vertical and field applications, while its weight, battery life, and application support are well aligned for a certain class of business traveler. It's the first tablet that's designed as a tablet.

But notice I said, "eventually." As is often the case with Apple, the iPad needs a few tweaks before we'll see it formally supported in wide business use.

The Apple Adoption Cycle -- Apple has always had a tepid relationship with the enterprise. Apple is first and foremost a consumer electronics company, and, unlike Microsoft or major PC manufacturers like Dell, has deliberately avoided many of the requirements to sell into the enterprise. Rather than dealing with the sales and support overhead, Apple adds just enough features to their products so they'll work in an enterprise, rather than building out enterprise-specific solutions.

Instead of aiming for the corporate procurement office's specifications, Apple focuses most features on the needs of everyday users, while understanding that certain enterprise-class features, like Microsoft Exchange and Active Directory support, are essential for consumers to be able to use their devices at work. Apple's enterprise strategy is to reduce barriers to entry and then appeal directly to the users, avoiding the tremendous overhead of selling directly to a budget-constrained IT department.

Thus, nearly every Apple technology follows a typical adoption cycle that starts with high-end consumers, then business travelers and specific vertical markets (education, creative professionals), and finally expanded verticals (healthcare, financial services). Initially IT departments ban or fight the adoption of Apple's technologies before testing pilot support and eventually offering broad support.

Requests to support the iPad in the enterprise are inevitable, both from individual users and business units with particular needs. It's also inevitable that users will bring iPads to work even if they aren't supported. Although it isn't my place to tell you whether or not to support the iPad, it's important to understand that if you work in IT you will see these requests, and you should have a plan in place to handle them, especially once your CEO plays with one at the next executive conference.

As with the iPhone, the pressure will start slowly and increase over time. Since the iPad is a new product category, and not tied to the normal 18 to 24 month cell phone refresh cycle, adoption will start slowly over the first year or so, eventually ramping up with the second and third revisions of the iPad platform. The timing might be different, and could possibly be slower, but it will eventually follow the same cycle as other Apple technologies. It's a matter of when and how loudly, not if, users will start asking for iPad support.

Security and Management -- Assuming the iPad includes the same base feature set as the iPhone, security issues will be similar. The iPhone OS is relatively secure, and far more secure than any desktop operating system. It supports strong passwords, code signing, VPNs, remote wipe, basic encryption, and wipe on passcode failures. Despite all the theoretical attacks out there, the iPad is likely more secure out of the box than any existing laptops.

The more difficult problem is that the iPhone does not support security and management software. Although there aren't any iPhone viruses, corporate compliance requirements may still mandate additional security controls like antivirus, real device encryption (it's trivial to circumvent iPhone encryption), and user monitoring. This isn't often an issue on the iPhone, since, for better or worse, compliance policies don't treat phones the same as laptops. But the iPad is a new device class and may be subject to more stringent requirements. It's an open question, and one that your IT, security, compliance, and risk departments will need to work out... possibly in cooperation with your auditors.

You may be able to mitigate some of these concerns by managing support for the iPad; specifically by allowing access only to certain applications and services. For example, you could support connections to Microsoft Exchange (where all email messages can still be scanned for viruses), and limited corporate Web applications.

Until some new attack appears, the biggest security risk is that of a lost device. Unless you purchase and enable 3G connectivity on all iPads, remote wiping will be far less reliable than with an iPhone. Although the iPad is likely encrypted using hardware, if it uses the same technique as the iPhone 3GS, it will be extremely vulnerable to even a moderately skilled attacker with physical access to the device. Hopefully Apple has plugged this hole, but if not, the iPad will represent a slightly higher level of risk than an unencrypted smartphone. We'll need to evaluate this vulnerability closely when the iPad is released.

In terms of management, you don't have many options, just as with the iPhone. Apple supports over-the-air or tethered (via iTunes) deployment of configuration profiles for security and other settings, including application restrictions, and we can expect to see these on the iPad. The biggest issue is the requirement for iTunes for all system updates, although Apple does support restricted iTunes deployments so users can't use it as media management software.

As the iPad increases in popularity we may see additional management tools appear that support iPad management with other enterprise endpoints, especially those that currently offer iPhone support. Most of these tools leverage the same configuration profiles that Apple supports, but until Apple allows alternative update mechanisms, we're still beholden to iTunes, an awkwardly repurposed consumer media management tool.

Application Support -- One of the biggest obstacles to deploying any Apple device in the enterprise is application support. Even if we ignore custom desktop applications, there is still a massive base of Web-based corporate applications that requires Internet Explorer with ActiveX controls enabled. Worse yet, many of these applications require Internet Explorer 6, making migration even to current versions of Microsoft products difficult.

In practice, this shouldn't hinder potential iPad deployments since we are not trying to replace employee PCs, but instead want to add an additional device option. I highly doubt we'll see any organization rip out the sales team's laptops in exchange for iPads any time soon.

Unless you plan on banning iPads, those of you in IT might want to start testing to see which major applications work before your users start trying them out themselves. Even if you don't plan to offer formal support, publishing a list of usable applications will reduce support calls. The key is to manage expectations; because the iPad lacks Flash, Java, and ActiveX support, it simply won't be able to access many enterprise applications initially, no matter how much you might want to support it.

The other big issue is productivity applications, where Apple has an answer now: iWork. Based on the information on the iPad Web site, iWork will be able to read Microsoft Office file formats, but output only PDF or iWork files, which is clearly unacceptable for many business users.

Apple also hasn't released many details on file management, which may require an iTunes-enabled Mac or PC to place iWork files on the iPad (and possibly to manage file conversions). I use iWork heavily in my company (the advantage of being the CEO), and although it does a reasonable job of working with basic Office files, it's still fairly limited in more-complex situations. This could be a deal breaker, for example, for the sales executive who needs to manage expenses in an Excel spreadsheet with macros enabled.

Broadening the Application Horizon -- So far we've discussed only translating the existing enterprise application ecosystem to the iPad, which ignores the potential for completely new applications written for the device.

Years ago, when designing an electronic medical records application to enable doctors to collect patient data more easily during exams, my biggest struggle was creating a user interface to fit the physician's workflow. Existing touchscreen computers and laptops were poorly suited for the task, and all competing applications were clumsy and non-intuitive. Around the same time I faced the same form/function issues while working with a major hardware vendor to design a mobile application to support field service engineers at client sites. In both cases the iPad would have easily bested existing options, thanks to its physical form factor, battery life, multitouch support, and user interface.

As apps like SalesForce Mobile and Cisco WebEx Meeting Center show, the iPhone OS platform is capable of supporting major enterprise applications. Some sacrifice feature completeness to improve usability based on the deployment circumstances. In others, especially some of the medical examples we've seen during Apple's announcement events, the multitouch user interface enables application interactions previously difficult or impossible on a full workstation operating system.

The best enterprise iPad apps won't merely translate the Web or desktop client user interface to a slightly smaller screen but will take full advantage of the new user modalities and the device's portability to increase employee productivity. Key opportunities include customer relations management, sales and service support, expenses and billings, and vertical applications like my foray into healthcare applications.

Deployment Options -- There are four ways you can manage iPads in the enterprise.

Ban the iPad. Offer no support, and do not allow access to the corporate VPN, wireless, or email servers. If necessary, block the iPad from connecting to corporate workstations via USB using a port control solution.
No support, but no ban. Allow users to connect their iPads to corporate workstations to synchronize contacts and calendar entries, but don't offer direct Exchange support. Allow connections to a wireless guest network, but only if the user figures it out.
Pilot or limited support. Allow advanced users to enroll in a pilot program, and use them as your test group. Enable Exchange support, VPN connectivity, and wireless access. Depending on your environment you can require full device management using the iPhone Configuration Utility (assuming it's updated for the iPad), or allow users to self-manage devices. Require iTunes on their day-to-day computer, and send out reminders to keep them updated with the latest security patches.
Full support/adoption. Allow any users to bring iPads into work and connect with enterprise systems. Formally support device registration and management. Write corporate iPhone apps for use on employee iPads and iPhones.

The one thing you can't do is underestimate the iPad's appeal and assume users won't start bringing them to work. It's also key that you not treat the iPad like a small Mac or a large iPhone - it's a new class of device that shares characteristics of its bigger and smaller family members, but one with a unique (for now) set of design elements and use cases.

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Copyright © 2010 Rich Mogull. TidBITS is copyright © 2010 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

Can You Get By with 250 MB of Data Per Month?

glenn@tidbits.com (Glenn Fleishman) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:26:40 PST

The iPad models that come with Wi-Fi and 3G will let users choose, on a month-by-month basis, whether to pay AT&T for 3G data service at one of two service levels. The unlimited plan is $29.99 per month, just like the iPhone's data fee; the 250 MB per month plan (combined upload and download) is just $14.99 per month. Will that suffice?

At first, I thought such a small amount of data laughable. I use my iPhone constantly, and must push vast amounts of data through it; with an iPad, I would surely use it even more. But I forgot that the iPhone tracks 3G usage separately from data sent over Wi-Fi until colleague Tom Negrino noted so in Twitter.

Tom wrote, "Checked iPhone's 3G data use. Since Sep[tember], when I last reset the counter, 35 MB out, 171 in. iPad 250 MB plan OK."

This prompted me to check my usage, which you can do in the Settings app by tapping General > Usage, and then scrolling down to the Cellular Network Data section and adding the two numbers there. As far as I can tell, I haven't reset the phone's usage statistics: I've used a combined total of 1.9 GB over 7 months or about 270 MB per month, just over the limit. I checked my AT&T account to see how much I used in January, a month in which I traveled with the iPhone and no laptop - just 150 MB total. Some research pegs average iPhone 3G usage at 500 MB per month. [And I've used just 589 MB since purchasing the iPhone 3GS in July 2009, well under the 250 MB per month limit. -Adam]

Neither AT&T nor Apple has said what will happen if you go over the 250 MB limit in a month. A rational approach would be simply to charge you $29.99 for that month and give you unlimited data for the rest of the month, but rational approaches have no role in the cellular industry - unless Apple has insisted on that as part of its continuing networking deal with AT&T. (The iPad could work on T-Mobile's network in the United States, but not at 3G speeds, as the iPad doesn't include the specific frequencies used by T-Mobile for 3G networking.)

One of our readers pointed out that Steve Jobs had said the AT&T plans would be prepaid; that's in contrast to so-called postpaid plans. A postpaid plan requires that you pay for monthly service in the month before you use that service, but allows you to rack up additional usage and fees which are billed in the subsequent month. Prepaid service, by contrast, lets you use only the services that you have paid for, protecting you from additional fees. (Postpaid relies on credit checks and credit cards; prepaid typically allows many methods of payment, and delivers only up to the precise service paid for in advance.)

If AT&T is charging on what it calls a prepaid basis, but will bill for overages, that could get pricey. Most cellular carriers charge in increments of 5 cents per MB - $50 per GB! - for plans that have limits. A few carriers warn customers via texts, email messages, and sometimes phone calls as the data limit is approached. Without a cutoff, warnings, or a bump to the unlimited plan, expect customer horror stories to abound in the first few months after the iPad ships as people unknowingly rack up huge data bills.

AT&T will include free Wi-Fi access at its 20,000-plus hotspots as part of both of the iPad 3G plans, and I'm sure I've used my iPhone plenty at Starbucks and other free locations, as well as over my home and office Wi-Fi networks. (McDonalds' is now entirely free for everyone, and represents nearly 12,000 of AT&T's 20,000 locations, by the way; see "Find Free and Inexpensive Wi-Fi," 23 December 2009.)

Wi-Fi is also being widely installed for commuters, often at no cost or as part of a low-cost plan. This includes trains, ferries, buses, and, one day, the BART system in the San Francisco Bay Area. Most airports are already included in AT&T's network through roaming agreements.

If I were to buy an iPad, I would lean toward spending another $129 to get a 3G flavor just for the advantage of having access, when I need it, everywhere I go. The fact that I haven't been overusing my iPhone's 3G plan is useful to know. To make the $14.99 plan work, I'd just have to be slightly more careful about watching the meter.

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External Link: 90 Percent of $1,000 Computers Are Macs

ace@tidbits.com (Adam C. Engst) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 09:58:32 PST

Joe Wilcox on Betanews reports on numbers gathered from research firm NPD showing that 9 out of every 10 computers priced at over $1,000 sold in Q4 2009 were Macs. This is evidence of Apple's success in positioning the Mac as a premium brand, but NPD also points out that most of the growth in the PC market is at the under-$500 price point. With Apple posting record sales and profits quarter after quarter, we don't see the company worrying about the low end of the market.

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TidBITS Watchlist: Notable Software Updates for 1 February 2010

editors@tidbits.com (TidBITS Staff) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 03:18:14 PST

Mailplane 2.1.4 -- Uncomplex has tweaked Mailplane, its WebKit wrapper for Gmail, with a handful of minor fixes and improvements. Picture optimization in outgoing messages can now be controlled via AppleScript, dragged messages now disappear as expected, dragging images onto Mailplane's icon now optimizes pictures reliably, and keyboard shortcut functionality broken by Gmail changes has been restored. ($24.95 new, free update, 19.9 MB)

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Keyboard Maestro 4.0.2 -- Automation lovers will be happy to hear that Stairways Software has updated its popular macro utility Keyboard Maestro. In version 4.0.2, macros can be imported via double-clicking or drag-and-drop, Command-Shift-Tab can be used as a hot key, the Hot Key view has been tweaked, Typed String triggers can be single characters, and the Hot Key menu includes an Other option to indicate that any key may be used. The update also fixes a handful of bugs, including a crashing bug related to the Hot Key pop-up menu and another caused by recording in 64-bit mode in Mac OS X 10.5, along with an issue with Dvorak keyboards. ($36 new, free update, 7.7 MB)

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BusyCal 1.2 -- BusyMac's latest version of BusyCal, the desktop calendar application with built-in sharing capabilities, mainly focuses on bug fixes, though it also includes a couple of handy feature additions. While the release notes don't go into much detail, BusyCal 1.2 fixes several crashing bugs, Google syncing bugs, various miscellaneous bugs, and a bug related to row highlighting in List View. The update also introduces a welcome Calendar Groups feature (look in the File menu) and a new global font size preference. BusySync, BusyMac's iCal synchronization software, also received a minor update to version 2.2.7 to address what we suspect are the same Google sync problems ($40/25, free updates, 6.2/2.2 MB)

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Aluminum Keyboard Firmware Update 1.1 -- Apple has released a firmware update for 2007 aluminum Apple keyboards. The update improves battery performance when using the Apple Wireless Keyboard in conjunction with other Bluetooth devices such as the Magic Mouse or some Bluetooth headsets. It also fixes an issue that occurred with both the regular and wireless keyboard wherein keys could repeat randomly when typing. More information, including installation instructions, is available on Apple's Web site. The update is available via Software Update and the Apple Support Downloads page. (Free, 1.52 MB)

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PGP Desktop 10 -- PGP Corporation has released the latest version of its communications and disk encryption software, PGP Desktop. Version 10 adds support for Whole Disk Encryption and Boot Camp under Snow Leopard, optimization for solid state drives, new Hybrid Cryptographic Optimizer technology that results in enhanced run times, a refreshed interface, and expanded support for Smart Cards. Also, compliance is now ensured across any mixed-system environment (i.e., a network with users running Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows). To learn more about PGP Whole Disk Encryption, read Joe Kissell's article "Securing Your Disks with PGP Whole Disk Encryption," 31 October 2008. (PGP Desktop Professional [including Whole Disk Encryption], $239; PGP Desktop Email, $164; PGP Desktop Home, $99; PGP Whole Disk Encryption, $149; volume discounts available; free update to all users with subscription licenses or maintenance)

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ExtraBITS for 1 February 2010

editors@tidbits.com (TidBITS Staff) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 03:13:32 PST

Most of our time last week was taken up with iPad-related writing, but we found the time to check out Fraser Speirs's contention that the iPad is the future of computing, look into the ongoing debate about the proposed Google Books settlement, and note that Google has created a Web app to work around Apple's continuing refusal to approve or deny the Google Voice app. Plus, AT&T admits that its network has problems in New York and San Francisco, and promises to spend an additional $2 billion on improving it.

Fraser Speirs on the iPad's Future Shock -- Mac and iPhone developer Fraser Speirs steps back from the specs and points out the revolutionary aspect of the iPad: It could actually be the "computer for the rest of us" in a way that even Macs have not achieved. Instead of dealing with how the iPad works, people can focus on the real work the iPad is intended to assist.

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New Google Books Settlement Fails to Placate Prominent Critics -- The latest revision to the Google Books settlement, an ongoing saga we've written about regularly here on TidBITS, is still opposed by Amazon.com and the Internet Archive, among others. The settlement in this revised version would still anoint Google with court approval as the only party in the United States that can scan and offer for sale copyrighted works that are out of print and for which the publisher isn't known.

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AT&T Promises to Spend More on Network -- AT&T told the Associated Press it would bump wireless capital infrastructure spending by about $2 billion this year, and admitted to the well-known network deficiencies in New York and San Francisco.

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Google Voice Web App Bucks the System -- Wired describes how Google has worked around its Google Voice iPhone app being stuck in App Store approval purgatory (it's shameful that Apple hasn't approved or rejected it by now). Google has instead updated its iPhone-friendly Web site, accessible by any HTML5-capable browser such as Mobile Safari, that enables users to place calls from their Google Voice accounts. Since the page can be added as an icon on the iPhone's home screen, the Web app ends up being largely indistinguishable from the original iPhone app, though it lacks direct integration with the iPhone's contacts list.

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External Link: Fraser Speirs on the iPad's Future Shock

jeffc@tidbits.com (Jeff Carlson) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 22:44:09 PST

Mac and iPhone developer Fraser Speirs steps back from the specs and points out the revolutionary aspect of the iPad: It could actually be the "computer for the rest of us" in a way that even Macs have not achieved. Instead of dealing with how the iPad works, people can focus on the real work the iPad is intended to assist.

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Is the iPad a Kindle Killer?

glenn@tidbits.com (Glenn Fleishman) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 15:00:01 PST

Media companies leak like sieves, so it was known for a long time before the iPad announcement that Apple was having conversations with book, newspaper, and magazine publishers about what those firms would want in an ideal device and in ideal software. We saw the first fruits of those discussions at the iPad launch, with the New York Times demonstrating a hastily revised demo app, and with Apple's bundled iBooks app.

Apple didn't discuss magazine and newspaper subscriptions, but the New York Times demo showed that Apple was clearly looking to the existing app approach coupled with in-application or one-time fees to suffice for that model.

For books, however, there's a new app: iBooks. The program combines a bookstore and a bookshelf, enabling you to purchase books and download them for reading on the device. (The iBookstore was not yet enabled on the iPads available at the 27 January 2010 media event, so I couldn't test it.)

While the iPad has the potential to render the Amazon Kindle 2 and Kindle DX obsolete, Amazon's Kindle books are not limited to the Kindle itself; special software lets you read any book that's available for the Kindle on an iPhone or Windows system. (The Mac OS X software has been "coming soon" for many months now; BlackBerry software is still on the way.)

Both publication subscriptions and book sales put the iPad into direct competition with Amazon - for any profit Amazon makes from selling Kindle hardware readers and for the income from selling content.

The iPad will certainly run the Kindle for iPhone app, and Amazon may trump Apple on book pricing, as the Seattle book and media seller has so far been willing to subsidize the cost of lower-margin or negative-margin ebooks - books that cost them money to sell - to keep overall sales strong. But Apple's revenue split - apparently 70/30 for the publisher, just as with the App Store - trumps Amazon's current general 50/50 split for large publishers.

Since I can't evaluate iBooks on the basis of its available catalog, the shopping experience, or pricing, I have to focus on four elements: the reading and interface experience, the screen technology, networking and Internet access, and the desire of publishers to have more control and reap more profit from ebook sales than Amazon offers in the Kindle model.

For a head-to-head hardware comparison, I've compiled a small spreadsheet (which you can also view as a Google spreadsheet).

(Disclosure: I worked at Amazon for six months as a senior manager in 1996 and 1997. I left before I vested stock, and own no stock in either Amazon or Apple. Besides Jeff Bezos, I'm not even sure if anyone I worked with at the company is still employed there.)

Reading -- The simplest part of this whole ebook reader equation is the actual reading. No matter whether you're absorbing text on a Kindle device, the Kindle for iPhone app, or an iPad, there's little friction between you and the words.

Syncing, storing, and accessing library. The Kindle readers and iPhone software maintain a list of media you've downloaded. You can download media you've purchased but aren't currently storing at no additional charge. There's also no charge to sync over USB. Any Kindle software or hardware registered to your Amazon account can download and read any book you've purchased or media subscription (subject to hazy limitations).

iBooks might use iTunes to maintain its library, as iTunes manages music, podcasts, movies, and acts as a conduit for photo galleries; Apple has so far been unclear about whether or not iTunes will manage books too. Nonetheless, Apple will provide some software that will enable multiple iPhone OS devices under your control to sync books you've bought or loaded. Unlike Amazon, Apple considers it your problem to maintain and back up your media library; lost songs and videos can't be re-downloaded. Of course, the fact that iPhone OS devices back up every time they connect to a computer makes data loss less likely.

The interface for picking stored books to read on the iPad probably demonstrates at the outset what the Kindle is up against. You can see how book covers appear on a Kindle DX in this image. Contrast that with the iPad, which uses a bookshelf metaphor to show browsable shelves of full-color covers.

(I'd be remiss if I didn't note that Apple appropriated much of the look and feel of the bookshelves from Delicious Monster's Delicious Library software. That application didn't invent the concept of using bookshelves, but it seems clear where the iBooks app got its visual inspiration.)

Amazon and Apple use different digital rights management systems to prevent books from being read on other devices or in other software. Both platforms can, however, read unencrypted files in a number of major ebook formats. Amazon requires that such files be transfered via USB, or via a special email address dedicated to each Kindle reader that requires additional fees.

Apple hasn't yet explained how non-purchased ebooks can be added to the iBooks app. Apple supports PDF display in iPhone OS, but that's only as an email attachment or within programs like GoodReader, AirShare, or Dropbox that open stored files. It would be lovely if iBooks would manage and allow PDF reading.

Reading interface. The Kindle's main function is to read, and Amazon has made that process simple. Reviewers - including yours truly - expressed disdain for the original Kindle design, notably its poorly placed and sized previous/next buttons. The design was notably improved in the Kindle 2 and carried through to the Kindle DX.

Select a book to read, and the display opens in portrait view on the Kindle 2, or can auto-rotate to portrait or landscape (a single column's width) on the larger Kindle DX. Amazon tracks the last position you read in a book regardless of which device or software program you last used. If you switch from a Kindle reader to the iPhone app and then to Kindle for Windows, you never lose track of where you're at in the book.

On the Kindle hardware, changing pages involves using hardware buttons that you press to move forward or back. Other menus let you reach the table of contents. The E Ink hardware offers an irritating flash as the page is rewritten for each turn. For smaller changes - such as a menu appearing - only part of the screen is rewritten, the flash isn't noticeable, and the Kindle momentarily appears fast.

Words can be selected in a somewhat awkward manner using a stubby joystick and looked up in the dictionary. You can also search the contents of the book for matching words or phrases.

You can annotate selected text, and your annotations are stored and synced across whatever devices you own. Annotations can't be extracted from Kindle to other formats, however. You can choose among six sizes for type. Books are justified ragged right or fully across the page (leaving rivers of white) based on the publisher's preference, apparently, and cannot be changed.

The Kindle for iPhone app uses swiping gestures and a draggable position indicator to move through a book, and offers five type sizes from which to choose.

iBooks is equally simple, but designed around the multitouch experience. Tap a book in the bookshelf to read, and it opens to where you left off. We don't yet know if Apple will sync the last-read position among devices registered to your account, but that's the behavior used for listening to podcasts and audio books. You tap or swipe to go backwards and forward through the book. Swiping slowly lets you see the page curl and turn. You can select among five fonts and several sizes to read books. You can also quickly navigate to the cover and table of contents.

iBooks shows either a single page in portrait view or side-by-side pages in landscape orientation. Black-and-white and color images, as well as video, can be embedded in books, although I didn't see any video in the sample books I looked through. Full justification appears to be the only formatting option.

The version of iBooks I saw is certainly not what will ship, but the omissions at the launch event were notable: no annotations or highlighting, no way to look up references, and no bookmarks. There was a search icon, but the feature wasn't yet activated.

Amazon got around the "where in the book am I?" problem by indexing a book using reference locations. These reference units allow sync across devices by referring to the same unit, regardless of format and type choice.

Apple, so far, is using absolute page numbers derived from the current typeface and size. This would make it difficult to refer to a precise location in an iBooks title, and would be a particular problem with textbooks that may appear in ebook and print formats and be used interchangeably by the same students in a class. Nevertheless, most readers won't care at all, since by far the main use of page numbers in the real world is to remember your place in a book, something the iBooks app should just do for you.

Screen versus Screen -- Amazon made hay from using the E Ink screen for its Kindle, despite the technology's previous inclusion in the Sony Reader. E Ink has a tremendous advantage over LCD displays in two ways: persistence without battery drain, and no need for backlighting.

When pixels are changed from one shade to another, the screen technology causes a fixed physical change, as opposed to varying the charge applied as in an LCD display. An E Ink display's image remains in place without any additional power consumed. That's a big reduction in battery use right there.

The relatively high contrast without backlighting also makes for easier reading for some people - many of our friends on Twitter swear by the ease of E Ink screens on their eyes - while also consuming less power than a backlit LCD. Like paper, the screen can be read from varied viewing angles, too.

However, those two advantages seem to be eroding. The iPad uses a color LCD with a wide range of viewing angles. I noticed the angle issue at the iPad launch: you could see an iPad at an extreme rotation and still make the screen out clearly, even from many feet away, or hold one up closely and move it around without losing screen acuity.

We have only Steve Jobs's word so far on battery usage: he said 10 hours, and apparently meant 10 hours of real usage, as he cited watching movies from San Francisco to Tokyo. If so, that's a huge improvement over any comparably sized and featured device.

While the Kindle devices promise one week of reading with the wireless 3G modem turned on and two weeks with it turned off, the Kindle is used for far fewer activities. I'd imagine that with wireless off and just reading, the iPad will have a far longer lifetime than the 10 hours cited. You can also adjust backlighting on the iPad to reduce battery drain, just as on an iPhone or iPod touch.

The use of an LCD allows books to include videos and full-color images, which makes possible the correct reproduction of certain types of books, like graphic novels and anatomical textbooks, which simply wouldn't work on the Kindle's grayscale screen.

I have no trouble reading a backlit display all day long, but as noted above, many people seem to prefer the Kindle, noting especially how well the Kindle readers work in daylight conditions. LCDs often perform poorly with any kind of direct light or glare. Whether this advantage of the Kindle screen is significant depends on your usage patterns. If you do a lot of reading at the beach, it's important, but if you prefer a comfortable couch inside, it's largely irrelevant. On the flip side, reading on a Kindle in bed requires additional light, whereas the backlit iPad won't.

From the screen size and pixel density standpoint, the difference isn't great.

The Kindle 2's 6-inch screen (measured diagonally) has 600 by 800 pixels at a 167 pixel-per-inch (ppi) density.
The Kindle DX has a 9.7-inch screen, 1200 by 824 pixels in size, and a 150 ppi density.
The iPad uses a 9.7-inch screen with 1024 by 768 pixels at a 132 ppi density.

The iPhone and similar smartphones have about a 167 ppi display, while newer phones, like the Droid, feature even higher resolutions. The higher you go, the closer to paper a display resembles: type and graphics appear smoother.

I didn't notice any artifacts except in the page curl in iBooks with the lower-density iPad screen.

Networking -- Amazon broke through the indifference to ebook readers by building a cellular modem into every Kindle. More recently, it switched its carrier partner and modem technology from Sprint, which uses a network standard widely employed only in the United States, to AT&T, which uses the worldwide dominant GSM standard. Both current Kindle 2 and DX versions use the GSM modem and can work (with different delivery prices) on over 100 GSM networks worldwide.

Amazon lets you use the cell modem only to purchase and download content or subscribe to paid content. Free content that can be converted or read in native format on the Kindle 2 or DX must be transferred while the Kindle is plugged in via USB to a computer. The Kindle mounts as a USB drive, and synchronization is manual. On the other hand, you don't have to sync the Kindle to a particular machine. You can also send documents to your Kindle via email, at a cost of 15 cents per megabyte, rounded up to the next whole megabyte.

Amazon's avoidance of Wi-Fi is odd, because Wi-Fi networks are abundant, and ever more of them have turned free-with-purchase or entirely free. (See "Find Free and Inexpensive Wi-Fi," 23 December 2009.)

The iPad will come in two versions. The less-expensive flavors, with price determined by built-in storage, have only 802.11n Wi-Fi, the fastest wireless networking version currently available, and one that is supported by all three Apple base station models released since 2007. As with the iPhone and iPod touch, it seems clear that you won't be able to sync media over Wi-Fi, however, but must instead use USB to connect to a single copy of iTunes.

Apple will also offer iPad models that support 3G technology, using GSM as in the iPhone and adding $130 to the price of each iPad, but requiring no service plan on purchase and no service contract for use in the United States.

Amazon bundles the cost of each download into the price of the books and subscriptions it sells; it's probably pennies per transaction given the 15 cents per megabyte cost Amazon quotes in general. Apple, by contrast, struck a deal with AT&T to allow 250 MB of use per month for $14.99 and unlimited use each month for $29.99. For a general-purpose device, this makes far more sense as a plan, of course. (AT&T's 3G service is coupled with free Wi-Fi access at its 20,000-plus hotspots, although nearly 12,000 of those are McDonald's restaurants that have already switched to free service as of mid-January 2010.)

Given that Apple is requiring iPad purchasers to pay the cost of Internet transport, Apple has no secondary payments to network operators, giving it a small slice of additional revenue to play with when pricing books.

The Kindle fares far more poorly in its network pricing outside the United States. Amazon charges a small fortune - sometimes dollars per book - for downloads of books on a U.S. Kindle taken overseas, and for titles purchased on non-U.S. Kindles in the country in which the Kindle was bought (see "Amazon Extends Kindle Beyond United States," 8 October 2009).

Apple will have no such problem. Wi-Fi can always be used as an alternative to 3G. Apple will strike carrier-specific deals akin to the AT&T arrangement as it expands its 3G plans for the iPad outside the United States later this year.

Publishers -- This last of these four elements is the trickiest, because it's not about you - unless you run or work for a media company - but about the book, magazine, and newspaper companies that are worried in various ways about the future of their industries.

Yes, the biggest of these firms used to reap huge profits and control their fortunes; now, newspapers in particular appear to be sliding down a ramp into bankruptcy and obsolescence. That's why the iPad has assumed disproportionate interest - especially among the newspapers covering Apple.

Amazon may have sold "millions" of Kindles according to a remark by company founder Jeff Bezos, but that's still a drop in the electronic bucket. The Kindle penetration couldn't begin to produce enough revenue on the subscription side, even if it's pulling in many millions of dollars of ebook revenue. (Bezos said millions of people own Kindles, but his choice of words might mean he's counting all members of households that have Kindles as "owners." Consumer electronics analysts have pegged the Kindle at more like a million units sold to date, and Amazon has coyly refused to give solid sales figures.)

Publishers also hate Amazon's terms on subscriptions and book pricing. Amazon gets 70 percent of the revenue from subscriptions, which seems excessive for what it delivers. The reason there are so few subscriptions available on the Kindle - relative to the number of periodicals in the world - is that Amazon hasn't offered a particularly compelling deal.

Media firms don't want to get locked into the bad revenue split, and can already get visitors to their sites where they display advertising that provides direct revenue. The New York Times earned $100 million in online advertising in 2008, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Apple plans to flip the revenue split around, although, so far, it doesn't seem to be on the path to offer automatic downloading of new content. Kindle subscriptions include downloading new media content as it's released, so you don't need a network connection at the time you want to read the latest New York Times article.

At the iPad launch event, representatives from the New York Times showed off a hastily revised iPhone app that took advantage of the larger screen for better layout, integral videos, and other elements. The model Apple is pushing is clearly that periodical publishers should create custom iPhone OS apps designed for the iPad, and Apple will keep 30 percent of subscription revenue as it does now for in-app purchases and flat-rate app sales.

Because Apple hasn't released any specific information about periodical subscriptions, I'm reading the tea leaves and extrapolating, of course.

Book revenue is trickier. For major publishers, Amazon pays 50 percent of the list price of the current cheapest print format book. If a book is only in hardcover - a new release like a Dan Brown blockbuster - the cover price might be $30 and Amazon pays $15. When that book goes into paperback format and sells for $12, Amazon pays just $6.

However, Amazon wants ebooks to be cheap, and thus charges $9.99 for books still available only in hardcover. It subsidizes the price of these books to set the overall price low, and reaps its profit margins from cheaper books for which it makes its full 100-percent markup - or even more. Since Amazon is the dominant ebook seller, it may be using that position to charge more than double its wholesale cost for less-expensive books.

Just before the iPad launch, Amazon offered a new set of terms for smaller publishers that gives 70 percent to the publisher, in exchange for a requirement that the book is priced between $2.99 and $9.99, isn't sold for less at other ebook stores, and is at least 20 percent below the cheapest print edition. (See "Amazon Opens Kindle to Developers, Changes Royalties," 21 January 2010.)

Apple reportedly wants just 30 percent of subscription and ebook revenue, and doesn't want to set book prices, although the $13 to $15 range is more likely to be the top instead of the $10 line Amazon has tried to hold.

As I write this, Amazon is fighting a public battle with Macmillan, one of the largest U.S. publishers. Macmillan wants to set a higher list price for newly published books as they appear in electronic form (that $13 to $15 mentioned earlier) and give Amazon 30 percent of that list price. If Amazon doesn't want the new terms, Macmillan would offer a far smaller catalog than it currently provides when it starts its new ebook pricing system in March 2010. (Macmillan is one of the five publishers Apple said it had signed up at the iPad launch.)

Macmillan is in part trying to prevent the erosion of revenue from the big push for new big books in hardcover. If Amazon can sell such titles for $9.99, even at a loss, and even if Macmillan makes $15 from Amazon selling at that price, it sets the wrong expectation, and overturns some of the economics for both blockbusters and mid-range books. (The blockbusters' margins make possible the more interesting books that sell vastly fewer copies.)

Amazon balked, and not only pulled Macmillan's ebook titles, but also stopped selling all Macmillan print books temporarily. That's the biggest hissy fit I've ever seen a company pull. Macmillan's head issued a letter to its authors and illustrators (and their agents) which noted that what Macmillan wants is control over its own destiny. I also like author John Scalzi's take in "Amazon.fail," in which he enumerates the contempt shown by the firm.

On the face of it, this seems like a bad deal for consumers. Wouldn't you rather pay $10 than $15 for a book? Absolutely. But in the long run, Amazon would achieve de facto control over book pricing, which would hurt small and large publishers. It also locks in users who become accustomed to lower prices.

But it's not that Macmillan wants to sell books for $13 to $15 forever; rather, "Pricing will be dynamic over time." That is, Macmillan can price books in response to demand, instead of being stuck in whatever pricing system Amazon wants to impose; it frees Macmillan and Amazon from structuring pricing around print book list prices, too.

With more control on the supply side, Macmillan can reduce prices as demand lessens. Those who desperately want a book immediately might pay $15 at its launch; Macmillan would also guarantee print and ebook editions would be issued at the same time. If you can wait, you might pay less and less.

As science-fiction writer Charlie Stross - who writes for a Macmillan imprint and whose own books were pulled - wrote, "Such a system would allow them to get a lock on the price elasticity of demand, and thus work out the price point at which they can maximize book sales."

This is good for readers, writers, and publishers, as well as ebook distributors, including Amazon and Apple. More books will be sold this way, and more revenue directed at the creators, not the middlemen.

For its part, Amazon is saying this is about Macmillan setting its ebook prices "needlessly high." But the firm also notes, "Amazon customers will at that point decide for themselves whether they believe it's reasonable to pay $14.99 for a bestselling e-book." That's right: they will! That's how the market works. And because Amazon can sell Kindle ebooks to read on an inevitable updated Kindle app for iPad, we can see market choices directly on that one device.

Amazon said it will capitulate to Macmillan's pricing structure, but as I write this only the print editions of Macmillan's titles have been restored for purchase; ebooks remain "shelved."

Part of my interest in this area is that the "in-print" catalog of ebooks from Amazon, Sony, and Barnes & Noble remains pitifully small compared to all in-print books. There are perhaps as many as three million books available from the trade and publishers in the United States, but Amazon offers fewer than 10 percent in its catalog. The reason is partly its revenue split and interest in control of the market.

I suspect that Apple's emergence into the ebook market precipitated this Amazon temper tantrum. Apple may be able to offer publishers more of what they want than Amazon, and Amazon is freaking out. Apple, after all, has not viewed music, video, or app sales as profit centers; instead, the company's approach is to sell devices (with higher margins), like the iPad and iPhone, that excel at playing media. (Amazon's behavior reminds me strongly of this November 2007 Crazy Apple Rumors Site parody article, "Apple e-Book Reader Captures the Market." [Language not safe for work.])

Kindle Co-opetition -- In the end, Amazon is a bookseller, and its foray into hardware shows that it's better at moving media than making machines. The Kindle has evolved into a nice piece of hardware that gets great reviews from those who keep it.

But, put bluntly, the Kindle DX just doesn't compare favorably with the iPad in any way other than battery life and screen visibility in sunlight; the Kindle 2 benefits from being smaller and cheaper. And the Kindle ebook library may offer titles at a lower price, though Amazon may be forced to capitulate on that.

When the iPad ships, we can get a better sense of how it will be received. If most people consider it a glorified book reader with a Web browser, then the ebook portion of the iPad may be vastly more important than if people instead see it as a new kind of computing device in which ebooks are just another bullet point.

It's interesting to note that Apple's dominance of the downloadable digital music market led music publishers to cut deals with Walmart, Microsoft, and Amazon to provide full catalogs without any digital rights management - partly because Apple refused to compromise on pricing!

The music publishers forced a crack in the digital music world, and incidentally gave us what we wanted in terms of removing DRM from music, while creating a range of music and album prices that averaged just above what the one-price-fits-all model had previously provided.

Strange that Amazon doesn't see the poetic reflection.

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Hands-on Impressions of the iPad

jeffc@tidbits.com (Jeff Carlson) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:29:02 PST

To give you an idea of what it's like to use Apple's new iPad, we need to jump past Apple's media event announcing the tablet and go to lunch. (What can we say? Food and information go hand-in-hand in our world, and Glenn was getting faint.)

Over the course of 10 minutes determining where to eat in San Francisco, there were a handful of moments when we thought an iPad would be better than our iPhones: searching for restaurants on a map; jotting a few notes from our conversations about the device; checking Twitter to see if anyone we knew had restaurant suggestions; looking on the Web to see if the first TidBITS article was online yet; checking the calendar for our return flight information.

In each case, nothing about the iPhone prevented us from doing these things. But after handling the iPad following Steve Jobs's announcement, our fingers wanted more room to type, more of a document-style grasp of the device instead of cupping it in the hand, and faster performance. Our still-shiny iPhone 3GS units suddenly felt small and slow.

The iPad is something to be held and experienced, because so many of its advantages are tactile: how it feels in the hand, of course, but also how the software responds. (Where our opinions differ, we break them out.)

(For full details about the iPad announcement and the device's specifications, see "The iPad Arrives, 27 January 2010.)

Speed and Smoothness -- We definitely noticed the speed. Even after minutes of using the iPad, the performance was still surprising. Web pages load in Safari ridiculously fast. Full-screen video plays as smoothly as it would to a TV set from a DVD or Blu-ray player - often better than our experience on some Macs. The animation for moving between pages in the iBooks app provides a neat interactive scrolling page-turn effect that keeps up with the finger if you keep it pressed against the screen as you move. (You can also simply tap the left or right side of the screen to turn the page.)

Perhaps the best term for how the speed and smoothness combine is immediacy: there's no wait for something to happen, and no delay in following a finger or gesture. Even the seemingly most complicated and arbitrary activities have the same fluid sense of something happening in the real, not virtual world.

For instance, the Photos app on the iPad lets you see photo groups by albums (and also by events, Faces, and Places if you sync with iPhoto on the Mac). Use two fingers on a stack of photos in the events view to stretch the photos apart and back together, like you had just randomly spread out and restacked pictures. No matter how many times Glenn did this, it still seemed remarkable.

The Screen -- Once we found a suitable lunch spot, we joked about the many "artists' renditions" of Apple tablets that appeared before the introduction, because the iPad turns out to be what we expected from a design standpoint: a large iPod touch. Most of the front face is a beautiful, high-resolution color LCD screen. A black bezel surrounds the 9.7-inch screen to give you someplace to put your thumbs (otherwise you're activating the multitouch sensors). The 1024-by-768 pixel size is enhanced by its 132 ppi resolution. Items onscreen are crisp and clear, and even resized objects such as current iPhone app icons and upscaled graphics aren't painful to view.

The upscaling of iPhone apps is noticeable (when you tap the 2x button to fill the screen instead of running at actual size), especially in games such as Bejeweled where most everything is bitmapped. But apps that rely on the iPad's graphics engine to render resizable items such as text appeared to cope well. We couldn't tell whether the operating system is cleanly changing the size of text or just doing a great job of doubling the pixel counts, but we suspect the former.

The screen has the same oleophobic fingerprint-resistant coating as the 3GS, but it definitely smears up fast. The cheerful and informative Apple employees assisting us in trying out the iPad devices would regularly ask to clean the screens - although that was to keep them fresh for the tens of thousands of photos being taken, too.

Of Transitions and Polish -- We expect excellence from Apple when it comes to visual styling, but the iPad surprised us. Subtle animations abound, imparting the sense that the iPad is a single cohesive, consistent design. For example, tapping an iBook to read it doesn't just immediately fill the screen with the text. The "book" opens and moves toward you; it's a very quick animation, so it doesn't feel like the designers tacked it on to be cool or burn CPU cycles. When you switch from portrait to landscape orientation in the Mail app, the Inbox list appears as if it were a piece of paper that had been folded behind the current message.

Then there are visual cues that work to integrate the iPad into the real world. When the keyboard is visible, the F and J keys appear with the "bumps" typically used as guides for touch typists. It's silly to put them there, because the screen is a flat piece of glass, but it makes the keyboard seem more "real" for people who use keyboards all the time. Or, consider the List view in the Calendar app. When viewed in the iPad's landscape orientation, an event selected from the list appears to the right, and if you look closely you see little clumps of torn paper where previous days' entries appear to have been removed.

The surprise comes not just in the level of detail that Apple has created, but that the company is adhering to images of physical, real-world objects to make the iPad experience more believable. It's not necessary for the iPad's functionality, but it will likely go a long way toward making the experience more comfortable for people who want to bring it to a couch or on vacation.

Size and Weight -- We spent about 30 minutes holding and using an iPad, and came away with distinctly different feelings about the weight and heft of the iPad.

Glenn: I worry that the iPad is a bit horsey. The 1.5-pound weight doesn't sound like much, and I don't have weak wrists or forearms, but I found it tiring to hold the iPad in one hand for more than a few minutes. I'd definitely want to prop it somewhere. During Steve Jobs and Phil Schiller's demonstrations, they sat in a chair and propped on a knee or in a hand supported by a knee.

Jeff: Glenn is criminally insane. Not because he thinks 1.5 pounds is too heavy, but because he seems to be envisioning that he'll be holding the iPad at arm's length for hours at a time. When reading, I always prop a book on a table, my lap, or other surface. Maybe I have minimal muscle mass, but I don't foresee weight as a problem.

We both found the curve of the back surface to be subtle and comfortable in the hand. Unlike the iPhone or iPod touch, the edges aren't completely rounded: the back curves up, and then squares away to create a flat edge around the device.

It also feels sturdy, no doubt thanks to the solid aluminum processes developed for the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. The glass screen makes us unwilling to throw the iPad into a bag unprotected, but we're not worried that it will bend or otherwise feel flimsy. Cases and slipcovers will undoubtedly be available well before the iPad itself.

The Handwriting Is on Some Other Wall -- At no point did we wish we could write on the iPad with a stylus and have it recognize our handwriting. Although handwriting recognition has improved significantly since the days of the original Newton, it's just not a good computing input mechanism. Just because you're holding something that roughly resembles the shape of a notepad doesn't mean it needs to be treated like one.

What's funny, though, is that the Notepad app on the iPad goes to great lengths to look more like a notepad, especially in landscape orientation.) Instead of asking the iPad to attempt to decipher swirls and loops (which are nearly incomprehensible to us, and we're the ones doing the writing), using the iPad's onscreen keyboard ensures that the data you input is legible and searchable.

Minor Nits -- We did find some annoyances and outstanding questions, some of which may be eliminated by the time the shipping versions appear. It was clear that the software on the demo models were still being baked; some features had non-functional controls (like the search capability in the iBooks app), many preferences were missing, and Glenn managed to crash the iPad by trying to access Wi-Fi network settings. None of the iPads on display included 3G networking (which is due to arrive in April 2010 in the United States).

The icons on the home screen seem too small and too widely spaced. Given that all iPhone app icons must be delivered to Apple at 512 by 512 pixels, we would think the home screen on the iPad could display more of them and make better use of the space. The iPhone can hold a 4-by-4 grid of icons on each home screen, plus the 4 icons on the home row. In comparison, the iPad appears to have a 6-by-4 grid, plus only 4 spots on the home row, but it could easily increase that to an 8-by-6 grid and 6 spots on the home row.

The iBooks app has a problem with page numbers. When you change the font size or type face, iBooks repaginates the book silently and without any noticeable slowing of the interface. However, it makes using page numbers for academic reference impossible, something about which fiction readers and most non-fiction readers won't give a fig. However, we hope Apple will think more about this before the release, given its obvious utility for schools and universities. One suggestion: use a reference edition, perhaps hardcover, to allow the optional display of absolute page breaks in that edition.

The iPad works fine in either portrait or landscape mode, featuring an accelerometer that detects changes and rotates accordingly. However, there's only one dock connector, below the Home button in portrait position. This is sensible from a feel and production standpoint, but we can envision many circumstances, from using it with a keyboard to watching videos, that you'd want to dock it lengthwise. The optional iPad case lets you stand it on end, but that prevents you from connecting a cable - if you don't opt to spring for the dock - for charging.

The revised Photos app provides better organization, a better interface, and better integration with iPhoto in Mac OS X. You can even import pictures from cameras (using a $29 USB dock adapter) or SD cards (via a $29 dock card reader). But you seemingly can't organize photos once imported, nor upload photos en masse to a storage location, a service like Flickr or Facebook, or even a MobileMe gallery - it's limited to just one photo at a time. (You can email multiple photos simultaneously, but that's hardly the same thing.) The Flickr app for iPhone OS lets you upload multiple photos, and third-party apps will likely fill this gap.

Also, photos currently do not reveal any metadata, even basic items such as date, title, and caption (a characteristic shared by the current version of the iPhone OS). Given the new feature to use the iPad as a slideshow viewer when docked (a button on the lock screen enables this mode), as well as the capability to import photos directly from a camera or SD card using an optional adapter, we'd like to see some method of exposing that information.

The room in which we viewed the iPad was crammed with journalists, so we couldn't tell whether audio from the built-in speakers was acceptable. However, there's just one speaker port on the bottom. Jeff attempted to listen to the output and noticed that the bass response made the back of the unit vibrate, so perhaps there's more oomph than was discernible during the event. Our suspicion is that you wouldn't want to rely on the built-in speakers as the main source of audio when playing music.

(As an amusing side note, photographer Justin Sullivan captured a shot of Jeff listening to the iPad, which, in addition to looking as if he's caressing the device, ran on the front page of the paper edition of USA Today (PDF), in the Wall Street Journal, and online at the Huffington Post.)

Whether Apple will be successful at selling the iPad, no one can predict. But the firm has certainly built a remarkable device, and one that sets a new bar for mobile device performance, even if it were to sell just a handful. (Seriously, does anyone think Apple will sell just a handful given the $499 price?)

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Fetch Softworks: Fetch 5.5 has WebView, the easy way
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Mailplane 2.1.4

doug_mclean@tidbits.com (Doug McLean) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:55:21 PST

Uncomplex has tweaked Mailplane, its WebKit wrapper for Gmail, with a handful of minor fixes and improvements. Picture optimization in outgoing messages can now be controlled via AppleScript, dragged messages now disappear as expected, dragging images onto Mailplane's icon now optimizes pictures reliably, and keyboard shortcut functionality broken by Gmail changes has been restored ($24.95 new, free update, 19.9 MB)

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