Thursday, January 21, 2010

Gizmodo: The secret of Apple's success

Credit to Gizmodo for this article on what makes Apple Events so different:


Flash an exotic prototype, then—Presto!—get people to buy your more boring stuff. That kind of thinking still rules at most electronics companies. Apple under Steve Jobs only shows off actual products. The difference? Apple's arcane secret to success.

A specter harrows the consumer electronics industry: malaise. Like washed-up Catskill magicians unable to let go of old routines while a brash upstart steals their audience, nearly every maker of consumer electronics in the world clings to a quaint song-and-dance about prototypes.

"Here is your possible future," they bark, flourishing the latest conceptual product from the lab. "Now watch us make it disappear!"

Apple's chief magician knows better, pulling solid objects out of the aether; products you can actually buy.

If this sounds like a minor complaint about most of the industry's lack of imagination in marketing, you're misunderstanding the whole act. The fact that Apple does not reveal prototypes but shipping products is the fundamental difference between their entire business strategy and that of the rest of the industry. It evokes a feeling of trust between Apple and consumers—that when Apple actually reveals a product, it's something that they're confident enough to support for years to come.

For the better part of the last century—starting arbitrarily with the 1934 Chicago World's Fair and its stark, Randian slogan: "Science Finds, Industry Applies, Man Conforms"—the producers of consumer goods have stuck to a basic formula: Show off a prototype; gauge public response; then release a commercial product that is less ambitious, if released at all.

It worked in part because it told a compelling story. "Here is what the future looks like; and here's an intermediate step towards that future that you can buy today." Electronics' sister industries followed the same tack. Car shows were populated with prismatic concept cars hewn with non-Euclidean angles rotating on raised daises. Videogame tech demos showed graphics too impossible to believe, but entrancing enough to betray our better judgment.

But in Jobs' encore performance, Apple has changed the routine.

Outwardly Apple's showmanship is competent, workmanlike. Jobs-as-performer wears an understated uniform that does not distract from the act. His humor, when it exists, is subtle. The closest an Apple keynote gets to pomp are pie charts that look like wooden logs.

Yet when Jobs reveals the company's next product, there's a critical difference: It exists. When possible, it is available for retail purchase the same day. There are fewmaybes or eventuallys tempering the presentation: "Here is the tiny miracle we've created. We want to sell it to you today."

As a counter-example, let me pick on Lenovo for a moment: At CES this year, they showed off the Ideapad U1 prototype, a netbook with a screen that could be decoupled from the keyboard to operate as a multitouch tablet. Clever idea, seemingly well considered and brain-bendingly not available for purchase today.

Do you see the story that Lenovo is spoiling for themselves? First, they've deprecated the imagined utility of every other laptop they sell without the flashy removable tablet screen. Yet they've also whispered a nervous apology to potential customers: "We could make something this cool, but we're not so confident in our plans to fully commit to them. Maybe you could tell us if you think you'd like this trick?"

Lenovo might make the U1. They might sell a few units. But simply by revealing it before it was a living, breathing SKU on retail shelves, they've relegated it to a quirky sideshow.

See also: The Chevy Volt, announced so long ago that GM has gone through a bankruptcy and shotgun CEO transition without actually being available for sale. Bet those will be flying off the lots.

Some of Apple's peers understand the need to manage expectations. Have you ever seen RIM show off a BlackBerry prototype? What about Nintendo? They don't pull a Microsoft-like move of showing very early-stage products to reporters and potential customers. They simply pull out a Wii or a DS and say, "This is it. Give it a try."

Everybody loves a prototype. Engineers get a chance to strut their stuff. If you've got a 40-inch OLED TV in a lab somewhere, bring it to your trade show. Executives take pride in their company's technical prowess. Marketers get an excuse to throw an even fancier party. And customers and press get idyll fodder for a daydream.

None of those things equal units sold. None of those things turn a customer into an ardent fan.

That an industry exists around rumors and leaks for unreleased products may be useful to Apple, but it is a side-effect of their product strategy, not the basis of their marketing. Consider that when Apple finally does release a product, the marketing tends to showcase the device itself in clear, comprehensible ways. Apple isn't shy to make claims about the grandiose, epiphanal nature of its products because—whether they pull it off or not—they have built a culture in which every product they make is designed to be world class.

Instead of prototypes, Apple makes patents. Although I'm certain Apple would keep these patents behind the curtain if they legally could, their existence proves something amazingly pedestrian: Behind the scenes, Apple is essentially the same sort of company as every other electronics star in the world.

They're developing prototypes. They're trying new tricks, seeing what works. They know experimentation is the lifeblood of innovation.

But like the consummate showmen they are, they temper the wooly process of building the future with something missing from nearly every other technology company: restraint. Apple may come off at times as a bit soulless, but at least they've got class. And when that class allows them to sell more products that make happier customers, I'll take class over flash every time.

That the Consumer Electronics Show is held in Vegas is no accident. It's a derelict spectacle meant to cater to mid-level buyers, gilt with the threadbare trappings of Innovation and Progress, but sending most of its audience home with nothing but a hangover and a t-shirt.

When Apple pulls a tablet out of its hat next week, it's likely that we won't be able to purchase it for a couple of months, but rest assured that's only because of regulatory pitfalls. And besides, there will be no doubt that when Jobs shows us his vision of the future, Apple will be doing everything they can do to get them into our hands.

That's the trick of it. Consumer audiences have grown wary of nearly a century of predictable sleight-of-hand. We've seen too many companies promise us the future, then fail to deliver it.

I believe that there are dozens of companies out there with the talent to pull the future toward us along some retail tesseract. But until they conquer their stage fright, leave aside the vaudevillian antics that savvy, jaded audiences no longer find compelling, and embrace a more honest and practical sort of conjuration, Apple will continue to be the defining technology performance of our age.


Send an email to Joel Johnson, the author of this post, at joel@gizmodo.com.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Wed 27 Jan 2010: Latest Apple Event!

Hold onto your horses.... Apple's officially preparing for a big event next week! All eyes, ears and salivating mouths are anxiously awaiting the mythical Apple Tablet, as well as further iPhone/iPod Touch evolutions.

(Invitation card design viewable here at Appleinsider.com: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles..._creation.html)

The biggest thrill that I'm getting is the rumour that an Apple employee said that even Steve Jobs likes it. And that guy is a damn perfectionist. He almost canned the iPhone because afew months from the announcement, he said "We still don't have a product". I don't know how, but I reckon he could still wring blood from a stone, given how he gets his staff to do the impossible: Take existing ideas and make them drool-worthy.

I mean, Tablet PCs have been around since 1990s! Back then, Bill Gates envisioned a time when everyone would be toting one, from students through to business leaders doodling the next enterprise workflow or scientific invention. But it never happened. Why? My understanding is that no one really saw much point in paying a premium for a laptop that is lower-powered than a standard one, and you're supposed to interact with a stylus pointing at small things designed for a quick and accurate mouse. One look at how the iPhone differentiates itself from Windows Mobile shows a clear schism in UI doctrine: WM tries to emulate the same Windows UI of windows, menus and sub-menus; iPhone tries to give everything a easy-to-tap interface that is pretty much obvious and intuitive. One coaxes you into doing something you're familiar with (start bar, menus), while the other tries a different approach. That same categorical difference looks set to be repeated on the Tablet scene very soon.

I'm really damn excited about this!!! I'm practically telling my wife that part of my bonus is going towards this new toy. (Haven't really... still scared, hahaha) But its going to be so awesome.

On a related note, the iPhone 4.0 demonstration expected is also rumoured to have a 'simulator' that will show how apps would look on a higher resolution screen! Now that could mean that iPhone OS is basically portable to the iTablet, or it could mean we're due for a new iPhone hardware revision, with a sharper screen to match those of the latest Android devices. That would be very interesting to see how that pans out. As it is, Android developers already have - in the space of afew months - to accommodate three different screen resolutions somehow! Apple's been smart to keep the same resolution across its mobile devices while the App Store gained traction. I would hate to see it lose its momentum like that.

Do you guys and girls have any thoughts on this? Or don't really care all that much?

Monday, December 28, 2009

Flickr upload alternatives to iPhoto

For greater control on data sets and uploading:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/guides/2009/12/flickr-uploading-alternatives-for-the-discerning-iphoto-user.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Magic Mouse configuration preferences

So, the Magic Mouse is the new multi-touch mouse from Apple, but still really hard to find in HK.
In the meantime, there have been several smart developers who've gone afew steps further than Apple in allowing full configuration of the Magic Mouse beyond the three-finger swipe to go back and forwards in iPhoto/Safari.

BetterTouchTool: http://blog.boastr.net/

MagicPrefs: http://vladalexa.com/apps/osx/magicprefs/ or from http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/magicprefs.html

MouseWizard: http://www.samuco.net/web/node/23 or http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/mousewizard.html

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Gizmodo guide to Win-Mac networking

Mini tutorial on how get Windows and Macs to share files over the same local workgroup

http://gizmodo.com/5430678/how-to-make-your-pc-and-mac-share-stuff-like-best-friends

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Browse iPhone storage like a USB flash

http://www.redmondpie.com/browse-iphone-like-a-usb-flash-drive-without-ssh-9140156/

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Powerbook G4 12" assembly instructions

http://www.powerbookmedic.com/xcart1/files/G4alum12.pdf