Geek Bravado

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Tag Archives: iPad

Apple’s beginning to test the limits of their fans

Leave a Comment Posted by on October 26, 2012

Strap in, it’s another Apple post! It’s been a busy week for them so you know I had to get one in.

We had the announcements of the iPad Mini, a tablet that’s substantially more expensive than most of its rivals and inferior to many of them on features. We also got a new entry is the ludicrously overpriced segment of the MacBook line as opposed to just the normally overpriced segment and to the shock of pretty much everyone, a new full size iPad, a mere 7 months after they started pushing the iPad 3. This was all intentionally timed around the launch of Microsoft’s own Surface tablet as well as Windows 8. All that was followed up by Apple’s latest quarterly earnings which were still very rosy but had a few negative surprises. As usual, the fanboy press corps is spinning like a washing machine in a tornado to minimise the negatives as if it’s somehow their job to keep Apple elevated in the realm of public opinion. None of this is a surprise.

However, the reactions I’ve seen from many an hardcore Apple fan mostly this week but to a lesser extent in the last month as well have me very curious and wondering if the company everyone loves to love is beginning to test the limits of their fandom.

Whenever Apple has a press event or an earnings call, the most telling elements are never what they say but what they don’t say. They are masters of massaging their message and spinning without the appearance of doing so. It’s incredible and no one I’ve seen can do it like they can (though having most of the press never ask tough questions for fear of losing access certainly helps too). They will always hype up their successes and distort numbers into universal positives but they will simply avoid talking about things they can’t brag about. iAds, iCards, Siri, Apple TV sales and many more are all examples. The notable recent exception is Maps, only because it was so unbelievably terrible that they had to say something because even the press had a hard time defending them on it. Being a public company means they can’t hide sales figures though and this quarter, the shock was that while they still sold a boatload of iPads, it was noticeably lower than forecast. This was made up for and then some by iPhone sales that clobbered last year’s but there’s a telling omission in that stat as well. They never say how many of the new iPhones being sold are to new customers and how many are just existing customers replacing old handsets. A sale is a sale either way but the latter is a worse kind of sale because it indicates that they aren’t necessarily growing the user base as much, something that could be a long term challenge as other platforms like Android and Windows Phone rapidly start catching them in the app department.

Everyone, fan or no, was stunned to see them announce the iPad 4 (or the new New iPad). There’s been much speculation as to why they would replace their flagship tablet after such a short period as they have built their empire on relatively predictable yearly product cycles.

Some are claiming that the iPad 3 was actually not fully baked when it was shipped and that it was merely a stop gap measure until they could get this one out. I don’t go for this as there have been no major reported faults with the iPad 3 and it’s biggest new feature was the Retina display which impressed everyone and still hasn’t been matched elsewhere. The only real change in the iPad 4 is a faster processor which isn’t a big draw since barely anything’s making use of the iPad 3′s processor yet anyway.

Others speculate that Apple wants to put all their iOS products on the same refresh cycle so that they can have new iPhones and new iPads both come out in the Fall and have the same guts, rather than the iPhone always leapfrogging the iPad for six months. I don’t buy this either because people don’t have unlimited money and if you release both a new iPhone and iPad at the same time, I think you’re less likely to guarantee a sale of both as opposed to staggering the releases which makes it easier for consumers to justify the additional expense.

I speculated after the reveal that there may be an unannounced tablet coming from a competitor that destroys the iPad 3 and Apple was desperate to get something slightly better out ahead of it so they don’t get killed in the high-end segment this Christmas. That’s a long shot though. While the Surface looks promising, no one thinks it’s an iPad killer and if someone had an superior device coming for Christmas, a PR push would already be in full swing. It’s possible that Tim Cook is scared of Windows 8 and it’s potential impact among the crowd who still own PCs but don’t have a tablet yet. Given how much time he spends making snide remarks about the platform, it certainly seems to be on his mind a lot.

iPad sales do seem to be in decline and while it is modest, that the year of the iPad 3 is the first year of this decline could be a bad omen for the future. Does a slightly faster upgrade fix that though? At best, it puts a finger in the dyke.

Of course, I have no real idea what their motives were in doing this. What I do know is that a lot of iPad 3 owners feel burned, many of whom are hardcore iFaithful. Now, this is technology and one can say that getting upset because something you bought got upgraded is a classic example of First World Entitlement Syndrome. The thing is, this is the culture Apple has carefully cultivated for many years now. The yearly technolust and turning technology into fashion accessories is what’s driving their growth. For whatever reason, they feel the time is right to push the boundaries harder and try to get consumers to upgrade yet again. Maybe it’s out of arrogance (which they certainly have plenty of), maybe it’s out of fear of the real competition that’s coming and the inevitable race to the bottom that will ensue, maybe it’s just an experiment that they won’t repeat . Either way, I’ve seen more than a few people who have lined up to give them money for years now questioning if they want to as often and some are even saying they’ve had enough with Apple altogether. Take this quote from the iPad Mini thread on Gamers With Jobs:

“I am a longtime Apple guy – a musician, audio producer, and have been using them almost exclusively for the past 15 years. We have 2 iPhones, an iPad 3, & an iMac in our home, and I switched my dad over to OS X a few years ago and just recently bought my mom an iPad. The last 2 or 3 years have really disillusioned me, though, and I’m no longer viewing Apple as exclusive in my home. I’m considering my next PC purchase and highly suspect it will be a PC. I’m switching to WinPhone 8 when it launches, I’m getting a Surface, and will probably move my composing rig over to Windows soon, too. Maybe I’m unique, but Apple isn’t winning me over these days.”

Notice how this isn’t a decision he just reached, he said this has been building for the last couple of years. This is not the first such sentiment I’ve read either. I’ve seen blog posts (I unfortunately lost the links to them) from decades-long Apple users who have become disillusioned with the company’s recent direction. They say product quality has gone down (in stark contrast to the public perception about Apple stuff), their software has become much less reliable and buggy and that they seem more focused on cranking out expensive, consumable consumer electronics on a yearly basis than supporting their existing customers well and keeping everything polished to a mirror shine. Some have too much investment into Apple hardware and software to be able to switch, some still consider them a lesser evil than Microsoft and a few are actually considering dipping their toes in the other ocean. I’m not talking fickle mainstream customers here, I’m talking guys who have been using Macs since they were in black and white, since long before OS X and who stuck with the company even when they were on the brink of bankruptcy. These are the people who started the iCult. And they’re considering change.

Is this the majority of Apple customers? Of course not. It’s a tiny, infinitesimal slice of the user base and even for how much money they give the company, no one would notice if they went somewhere else. The thing is, these people are the taste makers. When Apple was almost dead and released the first iPod, these were the people who convinced the mainstream to try it. These are the people who stuck with the company through thick and thin and who were the first ones to preach the genius of Steve Jobs to the world. They may not mean much monetarily now but some of them questioning their long-time loyalty is a very telling sign.

Apple have purposefully created and curated monumental, astronomical and I believe unsustainable market expectations for themselves and while they’ve managed to capitalise on them so far, cracks are beginning to show. The “old guard” may be beginning to lose faith and while that’s not the end, it could be that the bubble is about to pop. When that happens, the reaction will be massive and will likely multiply exponentially as more of the mainstream public realises that the company’s image of infallibility is just that, an image. This won’t happen overnight, it won’t even happen in a year but their fortunes can still turn quickly. The “old guard” customers are not where Apple’s making most of their money right now and they shouldn’t necessarily be focusing on them. I do however believe that what these people have to say is a sign of potential major challenges ahead. Apple’s leadership should be paying close attention to what these people are saying and taking their words to heart before their sentiment expands and begins to run away from them.

I know this post sounds very doom and gloom and I’m sure more than a few of you dismissing it as “haters gonna’ hate.” I am not a fan of Apple and have very sound, legitimate reasons for that but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I don’t want to see them fail or go away. Apple has woken up the rest of the technology industry from a stagnant slumber. They’re forcing others to think outside the box and innovate and it’s about damn time that happened. I guarantee that things like Surface and Windows 8 wouldn’t exist (or at least not in their current forms) were it not for Apple forcing the issue. I do believe Apple has gotten too big, too powerful and way too high on its own success. Their leadership is arrogant and greedy, their die hard fans are insufferable and they all need to be taken down a few pegs. Their growth needs to stabilise and they need to become one player in a vibrant, competitive market. Having one company so far out in front is not good for anyone, as Microsoft’s once near total dominance proved.

Despite Apple’s continued great successes, I believe some events in the last month or so are providing small signs of where things could be heading. The people leading Apple are much smarter than me and that they’ve managed to maintain this bubble as long as they have so far is remarkable and admirable. It can’t last forever though and if they don’t want it to burst suddenly, they need to reign themselves in a bit. Your most loyal fans are speaking Apple, you ignore them at your own peril.

Business, Mobile Phones, Predictions, Tablets, Technology , , , , ,

Microsoft’s Surface Tablet: The Bungle and the Potential

Leave a Comment Posted by on June 18, 2012

As I sat playing Battlefield 3 and watching Twitter on my other monitor, I was not unexpectedly shaking my head at the barrage of snide jokes from tech “journalists”, essentially pre-judging the tablet announcement everyone knew Microsoft was going to make because well, it wasn’t an Apple announcement and therefore is a failure by default. I wish I could have stayed on my high horse of smugness but alas, as the show wore on, I began to realise that Microsoft handed them a lot of ammunition for tomorrow. As someone who is only a mild fan of the iPad and was really stoked for a Windows based alternative, I’m now left only slightly more excited about Surface but with far more questions unanswered than I’d like. Microsoft has a potentially hit product on their hands but as usual, bungled the message.

First the good. I think Surface is a great name and repurposing an old and largely dead brand was a great way to keep this under wraps. From a hardware perspective, this thing looks pretty damn slick. Thin, light, powerful (especially the Intel version, holy crap), USB, HDMI and a case that turns into a keyboard and trackpad. If that thing works half as well as it looks, Apple’s Smart Cover just got curb stomped and the Asus Transformer looks bulky and overpriced. I’m also very pleased that they are releasing both ARM and Intel based versions for both the cost conscious and power hungry. As someone whose company has a lot of staff that works in the field and relies on specialised Windows software that needs Intel architecture, these could be a huge boon for us. They’re not much more expensive than laptops but far more convenient for our travelling staff, especially if they come with docking capabilities. The jury is still out on Metro on the desktop for me but I will make that judgement one day soon. iOS and Android are also disasters to get integrated into a Windows domain environment (I’ve heard Android’s improved this, haven’t had a chance to try) and having the native Windows platform will now make that a snap. Both myself and my users like a consistent experience across devices and as someone who thinks Apple’s user experience is both highly flawed and equally overrated, this is potentially a tablet I would want to buy for myself personally as well as for work, rather than splitting an iPad 2 with my girlfriend as I do now.

Pretty much all the rest was the bad. The first criticism every reporter is going to bring up is that there are no Metro apps yet and they’ll rightly say that apps are what make a platform. Microsoft could fix this by reaching out big to the development community (I’m thinking all the mobile game engine developers) and creating dead easy tools. The ARM version of Surface runs similar CPUs to iOS and Android so making “one-click” conversion tools wouldn’t theoretically be too hard and that gives them an instant base of core software to draw people in with. Once that base of apps is there, it’s a lot easier to sell numbers from the get go (this is a place where RIM really bombed it with the PlayBook) and the community will feed itself from there. Also, getting Valve to bring a version of Steam to Windows 8 tablets could be a game changer but with Microsoft’s ties to Xbox, that’s likely a pipe dream, at least on ARM. The problem is, none of this was even hinted at during this show. Apps weren’t really discussed at all from what I read and they didn’t trot out any popular developers to affirm their commitment to Windows 8. Given that none of what I just mentioned has happened on Windows Phone 7, I have to wonder if Microsoft foolishly thinks like RIM did, that developers will flock to their new platform just on the virtue of it existing. Sorry guys, not going to happen. If you don’t get developers on this in a huge way and scream about that from rooftops, this thing will gather dust on shelves.

Then there’s pricing and availability. One of the things I will concede that Apple does better than everyone is announcements. They do the events very well, they always have a date and a price on new products and in most cases, they’re available very shortly thereafter. What we got from Microsoft today was that the ARM version of Surface will come out with Windows 8 (no firm date was given), the Intel versions will ship more or less 3 months later, that version will be comparably prices to Ultrabooks and they aren’t talking about the ARM price at all. Umm…you’re kidding right? Now I know that unlike Apple, Microsoft has a lot of OEM partners they can’t risk pissing off. But make no mistake, the reason they’re doing Surface themselves is because their partners can’t get their act together and release compelling tablets of their own fast enough. Apple is eating the tablet market’s lunch and announcing a product with a nebulous release date that’s months away and refusing to even hint at the price of the ARM model that’s going to be the main driver with consumers is borderline suicidal. They managed to build a lot of excitement by showing the device and then left the most important details hanging in the air. Now it’s going to be left up to speculation and even as the show ended, I saw tweets from people asking what Microsoft’s hiding.

What they needed to do was go “Here’s Surface, here’s awesome software on Surface from people you know, here’s the price, it’s a lot cheaper than the iPad and oh by the way, you can buy the ARM version next week.” That would have blown people’s minds and gotten them positive PR like they’ve never seen. Instead, they went “Here’s Surface, the hardware is cool, no we’re not really showing software, we aren’t giving pricing on the cheap one, the expensive one will cost as much or more than a MacBook Air and it might come out in 4-5 months.” That. Sucks. Apple’s not going to announce the new iPad until next year, why did this have to happen now? What advantage did announcing today have against announcing in November and shipping right away, other than pissing off lazy OEMs who have largely dropped the ball on tablets? What, are Dell, HP, Acer, Lenovo etc. going to pout and refuse to launch Windows 8 tablets because you didn’t wait for them? Of course not and if they did, too bad guys, get with the program next time. Tablets are coming hard and anyone who doesn’t have the sense or ability to get in now deserves to get left behind.

Microsoft is far from fighting for their life. There will be more Windows devices sold this year and the total lifetime sales of iPads and iPhones combined. But that’s a balance that can and is already starting to tip and while Windows is going nowhere any time soon, Microsoft has got to get in the tablet ring swinging. Windows Phone 7′s anaemic adoption (despite being the best mobile experience right now) is proof of that. I’m all for a tablet that has more function than form and this could be it. But much like Nintendo at E3, I went in ready to pre-order if convinced and left wondering if this is worth it now. I’m not the only one who thinks this way guys and when many are relying on an Apple fanboy laden tech press for their buying decisions, you can’t afford any missteps. Get your act together Microsoft, fast.

Business, Predictions, Tablets, Technology , , , , ,

On Gaming’s Future: Mobile Reality Check

2 Comments Posted by on April 4, 2012

In the last couple of weeks, we’ve had the launch of the iPad 3 and a slew of rumours about what we may see in the next-gen home consoles. As usual, the growing Apple-centric members of the enthusiast press were quick to chime in on how the iPad 3 is somehow revolutionising games yet again, how Apple are the only ones that get the future of games and how iPad specs are accelerating so rapidly that in a few years, it will not only have rendered dedicated handhelds obsolete but now home consoles as well.

Never mind the inherent dangers of Apple controlling the industry, this is where all gaming is going they say and somehow, a monopoly is now a good thing. I think the predictions as they lay them out are very much a result of the Apple reality distortion field that still permeates the press today. However, they’re not entirely off base and to say that the current AAA industry doesn’t have major problems that currently don’t have a clear path to being solved is also false. I think AAA games as they are today are in very real danger but I don’t think mobile games on your TV is where things are going either. As usual, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. I think if we’re going to answer the question on where gaming is going to be in a few years, it’s important to have a reality check of both sides of this debate as both are overstating their benefits and understating their weaknesses. Each have a lot of challenges both now and going forward and many of these are more similar between them than either would like to admit. This post is going to focus on the mobile space and the next one in a couple of days will focus on the AAA space.

When we hear the enthusiast press and Apple crusaders talk about mobile gaming (which is largely dominated by iOS, this can’t really be disputed yet), the talk is how it’s ushering a return to a golden era when games were less complicated, cheaper to create, the developers and not publishers controlled the content and innovation was encouraged and praised. Indeed, these are all generally good things. Games on iOS right now are low risk and every week, we hear stories about a small team having their project make a killing which leads to massive riches. Every time there are layoffs or departures from AAA studios, there’s usually a story the next day about how those people have gone off and formed new teams in the mobile and social spaces. Games on iOS are cheap to make, cheaper to buy and come with a massive and growing install base right out of the gate. It seems like the sector is in a stratospheric rise that has no limit and which will mean great things for innovation and new gaming experiences in the future.

That’s the reality for right now but the sad truth becoming more evident all the time is that mobile game development is quickly becoming as risky as other parts of the industry and will only get worse as the technology improves. There are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of games alone on the iTunes App Store right now and hundreds more being added every week. The better part of 90% of these offerings are garbage and not worth a second glance but the sheer volume makes it impossible to determine what’s good and what isn’t. iTunes has user reviews but like most other places, they often aren’t trustworthy and are dependent on personal taste. Even with many games selling for as little as a buck, people are being choosy because those bucks add up fast with that much choice and poor quality content out there.

So how does the average consumer decide what to buy? Usually by looking at the top seller or staff picks list, which are almost always dominated with the same few titles and rarely change. Unless a new game becomes a viral hit, has publisher and PR backing or gets co-promotion from Apple through one of these lists or placement in a TV ad, the chances of it becoming a huge seller are almost lottery-win thin. Apple has always thought of gaming as a red-headed stepchild and the revolution many say they started was something they fell into by accident and which has been perpetuated largely with their indifference. Steve Jobs believed computers were tools and that gaming was a waste of their potential and that’s still very much part of Apple’s culture.

The reality is that while we may always hear the press talk about runaway hits like Angry Birds or Draw Something, they are actually flukes and do not at all represent the norm. The makers of both of those titles had a string of releases prior to their seminal hits, most of which were flops. In fact, the often unspoken truth is that a tiny group of developers make almost all of the revenue on iOS and many respected developers are now seeing the platform becoming just like the rest of the industry it’s supposedly revolutionising. In other words, in only a few short years iOS has become almost entirely hit driven and dominated by a few key players who are following the money and not focusing on innovation or new ideas.

The one major advantage iOS has over home consoles and to a lesser extent PC is that the cost of entry is very low. One of the great things it has done has allowed the “bedroom programmers” to sweep back in and have a strong creative voice again. An individual or small team that would never be able to develop on a console can make an iOS game in their spare time, put it out there and maybe get rich from it. While there’s certainly a chance of that, the hard truths above make it a rare chance at best. Mark Rein, Vice-President of Epic Games who have released the very successful (and co-promoted by Apple) Infinity Blade series said on a podcast earlier this year that the average iOS game grosses $700 over its lifetime. Granted, he just threw that out with no citation but I’m going to assume given his position that he knows what he’s talking about.

$700 is nothing and makes even a part-time development endeavour a big financial risk. Even if we assume Rein is low-balling and the average return is ten to twenty times that, it’s still not enough for even one person to make a living on, let alone a team of people working full-time. For a lot of hobbyist developers, the risk may be worth it and I say more power to them. Some of the biggest successes and innovations in the world came from people with only a shoestring and a dream. But as a supposed new revolution that will bring with it a whole new facet of the industry, the picture is not super rosy. The press has people believing that the cost to get into iOS games is super low and because of that, it’s virtually a guarantee that you’ll get your investment back if not make a sizeable profit. That’s simply not the case and while the low cost of entry may allow a newly funded team to survive a flop or two, they can’t do so indefinitely until they get lucky enough to find their golden goose. Most of these people who are fleeing AAA development to make mobile games are going to fail and don’t have much greater a chance of success as they do in AAA, though getting funding to try is certainly easier. As tablets and phones get more powerful, it will only get worse.

The press is talking about how powerful the iPad 3 is and how it can rival the power of an Xbox 360. That’s actually not true at all right now but as these tablets continue to increase in power, there’s a good chance that in a few years, they will have similar graphical and processing capabilities as even the next-gen consoles. At that time, you could put your tablet down on a wireless video dock, pick up a Bluetooth game pad and play a AAA experience on your TV with a console you can pick up and take with you. Sounds pretty good from a user experience point of view and honestly, I really like the idea.

The danger is that the technical arms race is what made AAA games so incredibly expensive and risky and with iOS being fairly risky already, it will get even more so as power increases. This will quickly lead to the small developers being marginalised and forced out and the larger ones to need bigger and bigger budgets (and by extension more marketing which means even more money) to ensure that their games succeed. See where this is going? Right to where AAA games are now. Long development times, huge budgets and teams and few creative risks being taken. $1-$5 games won’t be possible anymore when they go from costing thousands to millions and then tens of millions to make and market. As prices go up, so do the apprehensions of customers to try out a bunch of games in succession to find out what they like. The marketing for these larger games will also drown out indie developers and push them back from the mainstream to a low-profit niche for enthusiasts only. Different form factor, same problems. This isn’t good for developers or gamers.

The raw fact is this: Publishers are desperate for new sustainable revenue streams right now and with a couple of exceptions like Electronic Arts, none of them have gotten behind iOS gaming in a big way. Some might say they’re just dinosaurs stuck in old ways and not embracing new things but these are large companies that are run by smart people in one of the most dynamic, rapidly changing industries in the world. They know fortunes in gaming can change overnight and how to latch on to things that have big success potential. With their resources, it wouldn’t be hard for them to try a few iOS games out and see what happens. Yet they largely aren’t and most of them are tie-ins to other properties, not original titles. Why is that? Is that because they simply don’t see them as big enough for their league or could it be that perhaps they don’t see the long-term potential in the segment and that it stands to be more of a fad than the wave of the future? The AAA industry is hurting right now but it still makes far more money per year than iOS gaming and it’s foolish to discount their knowledge and decisions. If they are lining up to back the Wii U but aren’t paying much attention to iOS, I think that says something significant.

So what needs to happen to prevent this platform from burning out and becoming like the AAA industry it’s trying to avoid? I honestly have more thoughts on this from the AAA side, only because that industry has been around much longer and isn’t in such a state of flux. I think the first and biggest thing is that Apple needs to take some pages from the book of Steam. They need to stop thinking of gaming as an afterthought and start embracing it. Rather than just letting games exist on iOS and having Darwin rule the ecosystem, they need to start showcasing titles and really giving attention and promotion to indies. Don’t just let the best selling or viral titles get noticed, start showing off the unique and creative experiences offered on your platform and show why sometimes the smaller games can be just as good or better than the technical show pieces like Infinity Blade. Steam is its own platform and owned by a company that makes games too but Valve don’t shy away from promoting the work of others and giving great projects from all levels of development the spotlight. If they want iOS to take over living rooms and become the next great force in gaming, they need to show everything that makes the platform great and ensure that it doesn’t just become about flashy graphics and big marketing budgets.

Even Apple must realise that iOS’s current growth is a fashion trend and is going to slow in the next couple of years. The platform’s not going anywhere but sales of new devices will taper and their user base will begin to plateau. If they don’t step up and start selling the benefits of their hardware as a gaming platform for all kinds of different experiences, they risk handing the keys of gaming back to the console makers before iOS gaming truly has rubber hit road. The small developers are fuelling the growth of iOS gaming and they’re the reason the enthusiast press is so infatuated with it right now. If it simply becomes about flashy graphics and style over substance, it will lose its lustre and the renaissance will fade. There’s great opportunity for creativity to shine here, Apple needs to get off the sidelines and start backing that. Otherwise gaming may go roaring right past them.

By the end of the week, I’ll have my next post up which will tackle this same issue but from the AAA side.

Business, Mobile Phones, Predictions, Tablets, Technology, Video Games , , , , , ,

UPDATED: Mike Daisey Stretched the Truth But There’s Still A Problem In China

1 Comment Posted by on March 16, 2012

If you’ve been reading the Internet this afternoon you’re probably aware of this already but This American Life has retracted the story Mike Daisey about Apple factory conditions after further fact-checking revealed that some of the more dramatic portions of his story either stretched the truth or were outright lies. I did a post about this story and though I don’t claim to be any kind of journalist, it appears I now used a bad source and for that, I admit it and want my readers to know if you don’t already.

It’s always a shame when one of the few sources of real journalism left in the world has a misstep like this and I will give This American Life credit, they seem to be owning the mistake. They are planning to devote an entire one hour episode to coming clean, pointing out the errors that were made and asking those involved to clarify. You’d never see Fox News or CNN do that. I do think the timing of this is highly suspicious as this is iPad 3 launch day. While it’s easy to say that this shows they were bowing to pressure from a mega corporation and are doing this to appease them, I actually don’t think that’s true. I do think that they are intentionally making this announcement today in the hope it will get drowned out among the sea of other lazy outlets devoting “news” time to covering the lines at Apple stores, something that involves about as much journalism as the Apple advertisements that will likely follow. Honestly, I think that’s kind of a shady thing to do but This American Life of all people know that many are incredibly connected (especially those who would buy an iPad) and word of this is going to make it out regardless. Since their site is currently down due to overloading as I write this, I think it’s safe to say the word is out.

Regardless of the reasons for this retraction, my great fear is that this will give the iCult and those of it who have infiltrated the press like David Pogue cause to go “SEE! There’s no problem in China, it’s all just made up by Apple haters!” Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s true that I have many legitimate reasons to dislike Apple as a company but that doesn’t mean there is no problem. Around the same time as Daisey’s story, other detailed reports were made about conditions in Apple factories, reports that haven’t been called into question. And as I’ve said before, this isn’t just an Apple problem but one that involves nearly every major electronics manufacturer. That one guy misrepresented some things doesn’t suddenly mean there’s no issue and that companies like Apple and many others shouldn’t be doing a lot more than they are to make things better.

As for Mike Daisey, I think his attempt to justify what he did by saying “it wasn’t journalism, it was just theatre” is complete crap. He did what he did to get his story on the air and draw attention to his one-man show about it. By fabricating stuff as he did, he only served to damage the cause he was championing, a cause I believe in and which many more should. Now we have one of the most vocal and rabid fanbases in the world using this as a reason to deny the problem and one of the last bastions of truly great journalism has been shamed and perhaps damaged permanently for what many will say was slandering the world’s most powerful and admired company. Thanks Mike, a lot of good you’ve done. I really hope he’s smart enough to just fade away and not continue to try to defend himself or represent the cause for fair treatment of Chinese workers anymore. He screwed up, he got caught, now he needs to go away and leave the honest people to continue to press the issue. He should be disgraced.

If you’re one of the people who got an iPad 3 today (I almost was but am not going to be for now), please take a moment to think about where it came from and what the people who made it for you went through so you could have your shiny new toy. A lot of this stuff is made in not so nice ways and one guy’s exaggerated tale of those ways doesn’t mean that obscenely rich companies like Apple can’t and shouldn’t do more to address it. We as consumers are the ones with the ultimate power to make things better and there has never been a more important time to do so.

UPDATE: I finally got a chance to listen to the full Retraction episode yesterday. I now have even more respect for This American Life than I did before and even less for Mike Daisey. The show went far and above what was required of them to admit their mistake and it was clear from his tone of voice that Ira Glass is deeply embarrassed and upset. As for Daisey, he did apologise for submitting the episode to them as journalism but still refused to accept responsibility for his lies which he was caught red handed in. He continued to use the “it was just theatre” defense and it clearly demonstrated to me that he has no remorse for what he did, only for getting caught. As I said, the man’s a disgrace to his cause. I was also pleased to hear the third act devoted to talking to the New York Times report I mentioned and addressing the real problems that do exist in China which Daisey used as the stepping stone for his narrative. I am glad they didn’t try to ignore the issue but said “We know we screwed up but this problem is real.” I truly hope that those who listened paid attention to that.

Thankfully, I haven’t seen that much backlash from Apple’s defense force. Even some of those I expected to scream how they’ve somehow been vindicated have either remained quiet or have praised This American Life for doing the right thing. I’m glad for that as the show doesn’t deserve to have its reputation tarnished. If anything, this shows how committed they are to proper journalism. When I have the means, I will be donating money to the show and needless to say, I will keep listening. I hope their listener base doesn’t take much of a hit from this.

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The Worries of An Apple Led Post-PC World

4 Comments Posted by on March 8, 2012

So the iPad 3 was announced yesterday (yes I know it’s just called the iPad but it’s the 3rd one so it’s the iPad 3) and as usual, the press tripped over themselves to give them free PR. The mainstream news media which wouldn’t give any other tech launch more than a cursory mention practically live blogged the event and well, the fanboy driven tech press did what it always does with Apple launches, gush like teen girls at a boy band concert, much like the legion of practically religious level Apple enthusiasts who clogged my Twitter feed during the reveal. It’s still gross and in the press’ case, the opposite of journalism but it’s also par for the course now and my getting mad about it is pointless. Truthfully, I was paying closer attention than I usually would because my girlfriend and I were strongly considering splitting the purchase of an iPad 3. She wants it to surf and do e-mail easily when she travels for work and I want it to see if it’s possible for iOS games to hook me in (which they haven’t to this point). Something unexpected happened after work that may result in us moving soon and thus delaying that money being spent for a while but we’ll see.

Among all the gushing comes the usual talking points about the “post-PC world” tablets are supposedly ushering in, points Apple themselves trumpet whenever they can. They are quick to point out that the term doesn’t mean the end of traditional computers (an area where they still make a lot of money) but it does mean a reversal of the current roles where the desktop or laptop is a person’s primary means of computing and the tablet complements that. Tablets don’t really fit in with how I do my day-to-day computing, mostly because I am usually either at home or the office, type at a blistering speed an on-screen keyboard simply can’t keep up with and I’m used to a heavy multitasking environment where I can do and monitor several things at once. You put two copies of myself on a couch with stuff to do and the version of me using my HP ProBook will leave the tablet version of me in the dust. However, I’ll be the first to admit that the way in which I use a computer now is not at all mainstream and this is most certainly a vision based around the mainstream. If my girlfriend and my Mom found themselves using a tablet first and foremost, that’s cool by me as long as I can still have my laptop and gaming desktop too.

Tablets require less material to make, can arguably be priced to be much more accessible than traditional computers (though Apple is trying their damndest to avoid this), can be carried around as easily as a pad of paper and can do most day-to-day computing tasks without even breaking a sweat. I’m not denying the benefits of the “post-PC” world and many elements of it I will welcome. What I do have many concerns with is Apple being the leaders of this world. The original iPad kind of came from nowhere and virtually everyone trying to compete with it has been stumbling over themselves to catch up, while also thinking they can charge similar prices for devices that are simply inferior. As tablets go the iPad is virtually unchallenged and barring some major missteps by Apple or a roaring comeback into the space from Microsoft (whose missteps with Windows 8 will be the subject of a future post), it stands to be that way for the foreseeable future. And this is not good for anyone.

Having a single dominant player in any market is a bad thing because it discourages innovation and leads to higher prices because of reduced competition. One need look no further than when Microsoft Windows was basically your only real choice for a desktop operating system. Poor performance, gaping security flaws, massive product delays, tiny incremental updates and bullying of OEMs were all the orders of the day back then. Apple is still a distant minority in the traditional computing space but they gain ground on Windows every day and the iPad led post-PC world could put the writing on the wall for Microsoft’s key rainmaker. When Apple put their feet to the fire, what we ended up with was Windows 7, arguably the most polished and solid version of Windows ever and a product which I happily use every day and firmly believe is superior to Mac OS. However, even when Microsoft Windows was at its flattest and most stationary, there were a number of key differences of PCs compared to Macs which Microsoft embraced and still does to this day. Apple does not share these values and should they become the dominant player in the market, their continued adherence to them doesn’t do good for the future advancement of computing. Here are some examples of what I mean:

  • Apple likes closed platforms: The original incarnation of iOS didn’t allow third party applications of any kind. This was the way Steve Jobs wanted it because he believed these external influences destabilised the user’s experience and he was right, they do. But after screaming demand from users (and Android right around the corner who embraced third party software), he relented and it was arguably the smartest thing Apple ever did. Apple nonetheless still holds the keys to the kingdom and while they’ll let anyone write apps for iOS, you have to get their permission to make it available and they can refuse you for any reason, including for things like making an app that’s better than one of their stock ones or making a game that raises awareness of their supplier’s factory conditions. The biggest innovations have come from people breaking the mould and disrupting trends with new things. You know, exactly like iOS did. On Windows, you could write any program you wanted and put it out there with permission from no one. In an Apple post-PC world, only one entity has control of what you get access to and they have an agenda that doesn’t always favour innovation. That only benefits them, not the innovators and not the users.
  • Apple hates user choice: Want an iPad? There’s three different memory sizes and you can have it with cellular capability or not. Want an iPhone? There’s 3 of them and they aren’t expandable. Want an iMac? There’s 4 of them. A MacBook? 8. Want a gaming system? Sorry, there isn’t one. Don’t care so much about having a lot of disk space but want a faster CPU? Can’t do that, you pick a template. Want a desktop PC but also use your own monitor setup? You can only do that with a Mac Pro that starts at $2,600. And since the Mac and iOS aren’t open platforms where you have different manufacturers offering different products and competing on price (someone tried to do this with Mac OS and Apple destroyed them for it), you either go with their options at their prices or stay out. For your average mainstream end user, this probably isn’t a big deal but the enthusiast and professional markets are massive and growing and Apple doesn’t care about those. With Windows PCs, you have all the choice you could ever want from a bare bones netbook to an $8,000 gaming rig that will dim the lights on your whole block. There’s something for everyone and it’s easy to find something that will do what you want for the price you’re willing to pay. Which brings me to the next point.
  • Apple products are purposefully overpriced: This is less of a problem than it used to be but it is simple fact that at least when it comes to desktop and laptop computers, Apple products cost substantially more relative to the technical capabilities you’re getting. You show me an iMac and I will show you a PC with similar specs that costs way less. Apple makes something like $200+ on every iPad sold from day one, an utterly obscene profit margin by modern tech industry standards. Now, there’s nothing wrong with a company charging what the market will pay and at least right now, Apple has managed to convince many people that paying hundreds more than a similarly speced competitor’s product makes economic sense. However, the only reason they’re able to do this is again because they have no competition in their space. Yes, we do still have Windows PCs that are fiercely competing on price but remember, we’re talking in the context of a post-PC world where tablets are the de facto standard. Right now, inferior Android tablets are going on sale for the same $500 price as the iPad because Apple has wrongly got it into the heads of the mainstream public that any tablet under that price isn’t worth considering. If we enter a post-PC world that Apple largely controls, the cost of computing will go up substantially, making it harder for less wealthy people to get into and thus, reducing the number of people using what is now a fundamental part of everyday life. Competition is key to lower prices, innovation and accessibility and with Apple running things, there would be no such competition.
  • Apple believes they still own the products you buy: If you have an iPad, iPhone or iPod and want to load media or apps on it, you do it through iTunes. Period. A Mac App Store is already available and many believe software on Mac OS will eventually go the same way. On Android, there are multiple app stores that compete to offer the best products and prices and on Windows, you can get software in literally thousands of different ways to suit your preference. On iOS, there is no such thing unless you jailbreak your device (which of course voids the warranty and locks you out of future updates). Apple claims this is in the interest of making sure the user experience is always seamless and reliable but that’s a thin smokescreen. In reality, it’s structured this way to make sure anything you do with that device has to be approved by and more importantly, purchased through them. Apple takes a substantial cut of every single thing sold through iTunes and as with hardware, it’s not in their interest to let you shop elsewhere where they can’t control the experience and more importantly, their slice of the action. So after paying a minimum of $500 for your new iPad, Apple still believes they have the right to tell you how to use it and if you don’t agree, you don’t get to play in their sandbox. This is incredibly arrogant and despite what their carefully curated marketing tells you, this isn’t about ensuring a great experience for you but about how much they steer you into exclusively giving them more money, even after you’ve already given them a lot of it. In other words, they still believe they have a right to control your device, even after you’ve paid for it. As anyone who has used Windows 7 on a capable PC will say, you can have an open platform with choice and still have a rock solid, pleasing experience. You don’t have to wall it up for things to work well.
  • Apple is becoming a patent troll: There’s no denying that at least right now, Android based tablet competitors can’t hold a candle to the iPad. Frankly, Google and their partners need to get their act together and fast because every month they don’t bring out an iPad killer, more Android loyalists get fed up with waiting and go to the Apple camp. Windows 8 is also a long way off and we have no idea how that’s going to go. Beyond that though, there is another darker reason for this. Apple has been on a patent bender for the last several years, locking down everything they can and threatening Android partners with potentially bank-breaking lawsuits. They are already locked in many such fights across Europe. One of the main reasons Google bought Motorola Mobility for billions of dollars a while back was just to lock up their patent portfolio in order to use it to stare down Apple. Yes, lots of companies are doing this and yes, much of this is a result of an American patent system that’s broken to the point of absurdity. I don’t deny that but one also can’t deny that Apple is a company with $100 billion in cash with no end in sight, they don’t need the money and patents aren’t like trademarks, you don’t lose them if you just sit on them and don’t sue everyone. They’re doing this to bleed their competitors dry and trying to stop other, potentially better devices from entering the market alongside theirs. This isn’t an innovating marketplace of ideas, this is Apple trying to use their massive cash reserves to bully out anyone who can mount a threat to them. If they truly stand behind their products, then they should be able to stand on their own and if someone uses a slightly similar case design or the magnetic charging connector, they should have nothing to worry about if their stuff is still better. Using the courts to stop competition is manipulating the market and that doesn’t serve consumers.

You’ll notice one common theme in all those points: Choice or in Apple’s case, lack thereof. Everything Apple has built their impressive and continuing success on is based around restraining user choices which keeps prices high and ultimately, limits innovation only to their own and the ones they permit. So far this strategy seems to be working for them and probably will as long as they can string out the fashion trend that’s fuelling their current growth. But competition is what made the PC strong and it was a need to compete in new and creative ways that made Apple invent iOS and all its associated devices in the first place. Now that they are ruling the roost (at least as far as tablets go), their objective is about shrinking the scope of choice down and that’s something that only benefits them, not the customers and not the high-tech industry as a whole. Microsoft was accused, tried and heavily fined and regulated in Europe and almost in the US for doing far less nefarious things than that what I listed above. They were considered an evil predator but Apple does the same and in some cases worse and is considered a pioneering innovator.

Is a company who does all of what I’ve written and more the one you want having dominance of the post-PC world? I don’t know if I am. If you’re a hardcore Apple fan, you’ve likely blown off what I’ve written as me just being another hater who dislikes the top dog and that’s not what I am. Keep in mind, I almost bought an iPad 3 today and the only reason I didn’t was because of an unexpected event that should it not pan out, will have me considering the purchase again. I don’t want to see Apple fail, I just don’t want to see them being the only ones who have a say in the post-PC future.

Apple has done one thing exceedingly well: They took a very bloated, arrogant and stagnant high-tech industry and shoved a massive wad of humble pie in its face, almost overnight. That’s damn impressive and the shake up is exactly what the industry needed. I thank them for bringing about that change. However, I believe the tides have changed too quickly and even when they were almost down and out, Apple and their devoted fans were still incredibly arrogant. If they control the post-PC world, the same problems we faced before could be faced again, only with a different company at the top and no one in a position to challenge them. That’s bad for the industry, bad for consumers and bad for innovation. I truly hope that some of Apple’s competitors who are still scrambling to find their feet manage to do so and mount a proper fight. And I really hope that as consumers get more tech savvy, that they start to realise that Apple is supposed to work for them, not the other way around.

The post-PC world has the potential to be awesome and revolutionary but for it to realise its full potential, user choice must be at the forefront of it. In their current form, that’s not what Apple wants.

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On Gaming’s Future: What does Angry Birds really represent?

2 Comments Posted by on January 15, 2012

Chances are if you own a mobile phone, use the Internet or really just breathe oxygen, you’ve heard of Angry Birds. In an massively and increasingly popular mobile game landscape this cutesy puzzle game, originally released in 2009, has taken the world by storm selling numbers never seen before, being ported to pretty much anything with a screen and spawning a popular line of merchandise. It has catapulted Finnish developer Rovio from a small contract developer to a media empire, with their ego ballooning at a similar pace. With this admirable success comes the speculation from various corners that this is where the video game industry will start to take queues from and that it shows how the real money isn’t in multi-million dollar console blockbusters but in small mobile games that don’t cost much to develop or purchase. Mobile games as a whole is a much bigger discussion which will be had in another post but Angry Birds goes beyond being simply a mobile game and is a force unto itself. Respected gaming journalists say that the hardcore ignores and decries Angry Birds at our own peril and that to turn a blind eye to it is trying to shut out where things could end up going. I think there’s wisdom to be taken from that but I also think while it’s time to stop ignoring Angry Birds, it’s also important to remember that one game’s unique level of success does not necessarily represent a trend, nor does it erase a past formula that has worked for a long time.

Having played Angry Birds on the PC through Chrome, my impressions are fairly flat. It’s a competently made physics puzzle game with a cute aesthetic and hits the most important design point for mobile games which is that it’s easy to pick up quickly and play in short sessions. It does nothing innovative or that other games haven’t arguably done better before, nor is it a genre that’s particularly challenging from a creative point of view. No one is certain why this particular title became so popular when there are a bazillion clones out there, including many similar titles that came out before it. Personally, like FarmVille before I think Rovio just managed to hit a magic sweet spot with the cartoony graphics, a simple and easy to remember title, levels that are easy to understand but later can become hard to master and happened to release right when mobile gaming was starting its revolutionary period. In other words, they made a good game but also got incredibly lucky. As reductive as that sounds, there is still no denying that a lot of design chops went into this game and Rovio is to be commended for that.

The theory posed by some is that Angry Birds is showing that people like myself who like hardcore games with depth and complexity need to stop ignoring it because it’s not what most people want and it’s showing that the money’s in simpler titles. I can see where one would form that opinion but there’s a couple of kinks. Firstly, I don’t think anyone in the hardcore community is ignoring Angry Birds. We all know what it is and chances are we’ve played it. The thing is, it’s over two years old now and it didn’t hit critical mass until 2010. Hardcore gamers move between titles quickly because well, we’re hardcore gamers. To say that we’re ignoring a product because we aren’t talking about it this far into its life cycle is to say that we aren’t doing what we as a community do. In a world where games generally have flash in the pan life spans, it is impressive that Angry Birds still keeps the public consciousness at large so engaged after all this time. But hardcore gamers are not the mainstream public and saying that sites which cater to us should be focusing on this game is like saying that USA Today should have a section dedicated to theoretical physics. It’s just not what we as a community are interested in and even though more enthusiast sites are covering mobile games, they’re covering the new ones.

Secondly and more importantly, who can name another title on iOS that has sold anywhere close to the number that Angry Birds has? I’ll give you a hint: There isn’t one. This is the same argument that people used with FarmVille as proof that Facebook was the future of all video games. Except that nothing comes close to FarmVille’s numbers, not even the myriad of other Ville games released by the same developer since. While its success is admirable, it’s only a trend if it continues with other titles as well. Sure, there’s tons of other very successful games on iOS but nothing has been able to touch Angry Birds’ numbers and there’s nothing on the horizon that looks like it will. That’s not a trend people, that’s a fluke. Given that Rovio seems to be doubling down on the franchise and hasn’t even made a whisper about doing something else–despite having made enough money to absorb numerous flops–they don’t seem confident that the public at large will take to something new and different. They know that people aren’t buying Angry Birds because it’s a Rovio game, they’re buying it because it’s Angry Birds. If they can’t attach that name to another product, they’re basically starting with zero brand awareness again. Mojang, who released the amazing breakout PC hit Minecraft has has the same problem with the multiple new projects they’ve announced. Everyone out there knows Minecraft, no one really knows Mojang and Minecraft’s awareness is not going to be what drives sales of their next release. Since Minecraft also has a large hardcore gamer community with it, I’d say Rovio’s challenges are even greater since most of their players are people who wouldn’t call themselves gamers at all and say, follow the developers on Twitter.

This is not to deny the success of Angry Birds. It’s monumental and having even a sliver of the money this small Finnish company has amassed in such a short time would be considered massive success by any aspiring game developer. The CEO of Rovio will be the first to tell you that I’m sure. However, I think many people are overestimating just how big an impact this will have on the industry as a whole and that this represents a shift in public mindshare that just isn’t there yet. If we start seeing even half a dozen titles a year sell at this level, then I think we have something to talk about. Until then, we’ve got a single middling puzzle game that has done extremely well and while that’s something to observe, it’s evidence of only one thing that we already knew: Sometimes, certain single things achieve massive success. For Rovio to claim that they understand the gaming industry better than Nintendo does is incredibly arrogant and frankly, they haven’t earned the right to make such statements yet. If their next game does as well as Angry Birds, I may be inclined to say they’ve got something right. However, one title’s success does not a trend represent. Angry Birds is an important game but it as yet represents nothing in the long term. When it does, you can be sure the hardcore community will start talking about it again.

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On the Future of Video Games: Prologue

Leave a Comment Posted by on November 4, 2011

I’ve been thinking about how to start this since before I started Geek Bravado, mostly because I wanted to figure out how to make my point without sounding like an old man who is afraid of change. It was originally going to be a single post but there’s way too much to say so I’ve decided to make it a series. Anyone who knows me also knows that ‘s not the case. I love technology, what it’s done for us all and what it has the potential to do going forward. Few other places demonstrate and take advantage of technological progress more than video games. Want to see the latest stuff pushed to its limit? Gaming does it first and often best. I think this is awesome not only as a lover of video games but of technology itself. I love seeing things used to their full potential and that my favourite hobby is what does it makes it even better. I’ve played video games since the Atari 2600 era and seeing where they’ve come in my 32 years of life still makes me shake my head in bewilderment. However, I think the unusual, instant, massive success certain advancements have had lately has distorted a lot of people’s views of where gaming is going, how quickly we’re going to get there and what barriers stand in the way. It’s easy to get swept up in the tidal wave of change that we’ve seen and make predictions about it but I think stepping back for a minute and looking at what’s in front of us right now is in order first.

The last six years have been absolutely insane and unprecedented for the video game industry. We’ve seen the launch of three home consoles, three (soon to be four) handhelds, mobile phone gaming go from a note in the margins to a whole new paradigm and social network platforms seem to have just appeared from nothing. Nintendo’s Wii and DS completely changed the way games are interacted with. Both were laughed at when announced, went on to years of unimaginable success and plateaued overnight. The Xbox 360 and PS3 are still selling well even in their sixth and fifth respective years on the market and there’s only now hints they their successors might come out in 2013. Microsoft and Sony have also released their own attempts at motion controllers for their platforms, something neither intended originally. Digital distribution of big titles went from a technical impossibility to the primary way games are bought on PC and likely the consoles before long. Companies realised there’s buckets of money to be made in games that you give away for free and massively multiplayer games went from being thought of as a money press to needing to adopt the free model to survive. Smart phones went from something businesspeople do e-mail on to pocket computers that can run the Unreal Engine and tablets just fell out of the sky one day. Facebook has over 10% of the entire world’s population using it. More people play video games in some form now than ever before. To boot, all of this has happened since 2005. Like…what?

It’s safe to say that no one who runs this industry or partakes in its wares has a true grasp on all this yet or where it’s going to end up. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be an executive at a large game company these days (despite my dumping on one recently). Trying to figure out how to turn a profit with spiralling costs, stagnant pricing, an audience that demands innovation but only occasionally supports it and new platforms appearing from the ether must often seem insurmountable, especially since even nimble big companies often don’t turn on a dime. The triple-A industry has moved to a cost model where titles are either huge booms or catastrophic busts with very rarely anything in between. Even development studios with long, successful track records can be ruined by the failure of a single project. As the next generation of consoles come into being, these costs and their associated risks will only grow larger.

The upside of all the new innovations and platforms that have emerged in recent years is that triple-A isn’t the only way to bring games to market. It costs a fraction as much to develop and self-publish on mobile platforms, Facebook or Steam which has breathed new life into small, indie game producers who are driven by the art more than the business. If you lose, you don’t lose as big but if you win, you can win huge. If you have a desire to start a game studio, you don’t suddenly needs millions of dollars of venture capital or publisher loans to get things rolling, you just need some talent and access to the Internet. Games cost a few dollars or in some cases, nothing at all and thus the barrier to entry for newcomers is extremely low. All of this is awesome.

The problem is that the gaming and tech press have latched onto this as the only way of the future, that the current methods of making and playing games are obsolete, the current giants of gaming are already a dying breed, things like iOS and Facebook are the way everyone’s going to play everything in the future and that the era of expensive games is over. These are all nice ideas to embrace and it’s true that all these new innovations are making big, likely permanent changed to the landscape. However, the enthusiast press is in the business of pushing hype and in this, they’ve certainly succeeded. I think we need to step back a bit and look at the reality of the situation both in terms of the present and where existing trends show it to be going.

Over the next few posts, I’ll be detailing some of these emerging trends, the impacts they’ve already had and where I see them going. I’ll attempt to cut through the hype and manufactured statements to look at the reality of things and attempt to address the salient points that the press is not. I’m not saying my way’s going to end up being the right way as like everyone else, I’m only going on the details I’ve seen. I don’t have all the answers but the thing is, no one else really does either and the uncertainty of the future for this industry is partially what makes it so exciting to witness and discuss. This is going to be a lot of content and a real challenge for me to write but I’m looking forward to it and I hope you’ll enjoy it.

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Steve Jobs, An Amazing One of Many

Leave a Comment Posted by on October 5, 2011

This isn’t going to be a particularly long post because there isn’t a lot more I can say on the passing of Steve Jobs that hasn’t been said everywhere else. To claim that he was a once in a generation mind who has had incalculable impact on the world of technology would be a huge understatement. It is not an exaggeration to say that many of the innovations we’ve seen from other companies in the cell phone, tablet and operating system spaces were born out of a competitive environment that would not be nearly as fierce without his influence. He made a lot of things better and made a lot of people rich while doing so. Anyone who knows me from elsewhere knows I don’t have a lot of love for the man’s attitude or many of the ways Apple does business. I think he and they have brought us ahead in many ways and backwards in others. However, had I the chance to meet the man before today, I would have shaken his hand and told him I was a fan.

The only other thing I can say is that should this post pass in front of the eyes of any of Apple’s 39,000 other employees, never forget that while Steve was the brilliant vision man, you are all the ones who made his visions a reality. He may have been the face of Apple but you all are the heart of it. You can and will continue to do amazing things without him and I think no greater tribute can be made than that.

Rest in peace sir.

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Why I’m An Apple “Hate” Maven

2 Comments Posted by on September 24, 2011

Apple is a subject you’ll probably hear me talk about fairly often here and is one where my opinions will differ greatly from the mainstream. It’s kind of ironic as my main point of contention is how Apple is talked about too much, yet here I am doing it more. Funny that.

First let me make something clear: I don’t hate Apple or their products. There’s only one thing in the world I truly hate and it has nothing to do with technology. I think they make some really cool stuff. I think it’s largely well made stuff. It’s very pretty stuff. I respect their willingness to take risks and jettison what’s worked in the past in pursuit of a better future. I think in terms of a single company’s contribution to technology as we know it, they have had a massive, world shaking impact. They are right up there with the likes of IBM and Commodore in historical importance to the computing world. I think Steve Jobs is a once in a generation mind that had made a lot of people rich. The world is better for Apple existing.

I also think their products are overpriced. Their reliability and security are not nearly as good as claimed. They are useless in a business environment. Their patent enforcement policies are approaching troll levels. They treat their customers as if the products they paid for still belong to the company. They feel their job is to tell people what they want, not listen to what they want. Their vision is to lock people into a treadmill of forced obsolescence. They believe in moving their products ahead by putting a gun to their customer’s heads. And while Steve Jobs is an amazing individual, he’s also a colossal asshole whose real contributions are overhyped and at the expense of the army of smart people who make his ideas a reality.

All of these are points people can weigh themselves and they can choose to participate if they wish. That’s cool by me and it’s how things should work. I choose not to for my own reasons. What frustrates me about Apple is the growing army of people who need to defend them to the degree of a religious holy warrior. The tech press is as guilty of this as anyone which is the most disturbing. Flaws in their products are not talked about or glossed over. Everything that comes out is compared to Apple and considered a failure simply because it’s not from them. Apple rumours are exclusively given mainstream press coverage by outlets who should know that proper journalists don’t report on rumours. Critics are often shouted down as haters who just don’t get it or just want to be different and our often valid counterpoints are marginalised as a result. That Apple has managed to inspire this level of devotion in their fans and the press is one of their greatest achievements but it’s also disturbing.

I believe that while Apple’s current growth (especially in a down economy) is a wonder to behold, it’s also not sustainable. Apple has managed to take technology, something once though of as only for geeks and nerds and make it a mainstream fashion trend. Many of the people walking around with iPhones and iPads right now do so not because they like the experience but because it’s cool to be seen with those devices. Of course, many are buying them because they’re useful and that’s fine but that alone is not what’s fueling their current growth. All fashion trends eventually pass and while Apple products are here to stay and will always be a big part of the technology landscape, their growth will plateau and settle, especially once enough time has passed that people experience the treadmill I mentioned above.

Why I bang on about this trend is because I believe it has infected the press, mainstream mindset and Apple’s competitors as if it’s a permanent thing and I think that could do major long-term harm to the technology industry as a whole. Entire companies are restructuring their operations and pumping out rushed products to compete with Apple because they think they’ll get killed otherwise and the bar has been artificially raised to a ridiculously high level. I’ll be the first to say that the old relics of this industry need a good disruptive shake but altering your corporate vision around someone else’s fashion trend creates a financial bubble for yourself that will pop with nuclear force when that trend slows.

When you release a product that doesn’t sell as well as an Apple version, it doesn’t mean that product is a failure. You don’t always have to best Apple to be a success. And hey, there’s nothing wrong with liking something else more and publicly saying why. This level of evangelical devotion ultimately does everyone more harm than good. I said the same thing to Microsoft devotees who tried to defend Windows Vista’s numerous problems as hype from haters and I’m saying it now.

Expanding this argument out will take way more space than is reasonable for a single post so I’ll be going into it over time in multiple others. If you’re someone who buys into Apple stuff and enjoys it, I’ve no intention of converting you. However, one of the reasons I started Geek Bravado was to say things that need to be said and largely aren’t anywhere else. On the subject of Apple, there are many such things.

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