I’ve been asked many times about the best way to travel abroad with an iPhone without being hit at the end of the month with a jaw-dropping bill. Probably the best way to do this is to jailbreak your iPhone so it is no longer locked to AT&T. An unlock iPhone will let you use prepaid SIM cards you can purchase from local carriers – some even with data plans – giving you the full benefits of your iPhone wherever you travel.

The catch here is that you need to be willing to jailbreak your iPhone and deal with life outside the “safetynet” of the Apple ecosystem. Though the risk of problems with jailbreaking is low and the benefits are real, I made the personal decision a long time ago not to jailbreak my iPhone. I have enough technical complexity in my life, and just didn’t want to deal with another device requiring special attention. The entire iPhone ecosystem has worked really well for me, and I’ve never felt limited by the standard capabilities offered by Apple – except, of course, for the phone being carrier locked.

So can those of us with un-jailbroken iphones still make use of them abroad? Absolutely!

Here is a quick guide to maximizing your iPhone outside of the US:

1. Unless you have money to burn, turn off data roaming on your iPhone. This will prevent it from connecting to data network of the local carriers in the country you are in – and save you potentially thousands of dollars in data roaming charges.

   Just go into SETTINGS->GENERAL->NETWORK and make sure that Data Roaming is set to off:

   

   If you really want to be certain that you won’t be pulling data, you can also turn off the Cellular Data option above it.

2. If you don’t already have an account, you now want to sign up for Skype. Go to www.skype.com and click on the Join Skype button:
   

   It will give you a basic form to fill out to get your FREE Skype account:
   

   Once you have your Skype account set up, just log in to the site and you’re ready for the next step.

3. Next, you need to buy Skype credits. For pennies a minute, Skype will allow you to place calls to actual phone numbers – not just other Skype users. This ends up being a tiny fraction of what any carrier would normally charge.
   

   For a recent week long business trip I took to Minsk, I ordered $20 worth of credits. I ended up making about 3 hours worth of calls but burned through less than $10 in credits. Skype absolutely is the most cost effective way to call people globally.

4. If you would also like people to be able to call you via Skype from a regular phone, you can order what they call an Online Number. You can pick numbers local to any of 25 countries. I have a United States based Online Number from New York City, so anyone that has called me from there only needed to pay local toll charges – even when I was in Belarus.

   It costs about $60 a year to have an Online Number. Go in to your account details on Skype, and you will see the option to sign up for it:

   

5. The next step is making all of this available on your iPhone.
   
   
   With that all set up, you now need to install the Skype application on your iPhone. Just go to the App Store on your iPhone, search for Skype. Select the Skype application and click FREE to get it:
   

   The Skype application interface looks very similar to the standard phone interface on the iPhone and works in pretty much the same way:
   

So what’s the downside with this approach?

Skype requires that your iPhone be connected to the internet, and with Data Roaming disabled, that means you’ll need to be connected via a wireless hotspot. In most places you visit, there are many options available for this. Almost every hotel will have it available for guests, and many restaurants and coffee shops provide it for free. A useful resource for finding hotspots globally is a site called Hotspot Locations. You just need to choose a country and city, and it will give you a list of places there that offer wireless access. Make sure you pick several alternative locations in case certain ones are no longer available.

Another useful tip to keep in mind is that text messages can be sent and received even outside of hot spots. They will typically cost $.50-$1 per message, but can be a useful backup way of communicating when a hotspot isn’t available.

What I’ve outlined here is essentially what I use myself when traveling abroad. If any of you road warriors out there have other suggestions for world traveling iPhone users, just leave them in the comments.

It wasn’t that long ago that most of the computer technology used by people was provided by their employers. It started out being desktop systems physically located at their offices. Everything installed on these computers was work related. They connected to corporate services via an internal network, and accessed the internet in a controlled way through corporate firewalls.

As the workplace became more distributed and mobile, computing shifted over more to laptops. Since these systems were with people all the time, they started to get used for both work and personal things. Access to the internet became open, with people connecting via their home networks and public hot spots. To accommodate these mobile workers, internal corporate systems started shifting to browser based interfaces, letting them access these systems via secure connections back to the corporate network. Many corporations also supplied phones to these mobile workers – typically RIM Blackberries – to let them make calls and access email. In total, it was a fairly complete set of corporate sponsored tools.

But then a few interesting things happened:

• Laptop prices dropped dramatically, fueled in part by the popularity of very low cost netbooks.
• Apple introduced the iPhone and AppStore.
• Social networking tools became a popular way to communicate.
• Free, cloud based services expanded the range of capabilities available to people.

As laptop prices fell, people started to purchase their own systems to use. Some wanted to use MacBooks instead of corporate provided windows systems. Others wanted systems that had specific features or form factors not offered by their organizations. Instead of finding ways to squeeze the applications and services they personally wanted onto the systems supplied by their companies, these users flipped the model – looking at ways to integrate what they needed to do for work onto their personal systems.

The introduction of the iPhone continued the push away from corporate sponsored systems. The iPhone was the first mobile phone to offer a real browser, and people quickly gravitated to the promise of having the real internet available on something they could slip in their pocket. Despite little initial interest by IT departments to support the iPhone, people simply bought their own and used them for both work and personal needs. The introduction of the App Store a year later cemented the iPhone as a true mobile productivity platform, making it the smartphone everyone wanted to have.

Along side these developments, social networking started to grow in importance as a viable channel for people to communicate across. This led to more sophisticated social applications appearing – both on mobile platforms as well as PC’s – making social networking a practical tool for professional users as well as consumers. However, outside of cost saving tools like Skype, corporations have typically been slow to bring social applications into the sponsored fold.

Also during this period, cloud based applications started growing in both popularity and sophistication. Beyond the free emails services that had been popular for many years, this generation of cloud based services covered everything from comprehensive office productivity applications to services like CRM systems, cloud based disk storage, and even cloud hosted databases. Most were free or very low cost, and didn’t require technical sophistication on the part of users.

Collectively, these developments have had a real impact on the way employees view their corporate IT services, and where their expectations are now set.

People can now afford to buy their own equipment, and are comfortable using all of these tools on their own. There are now free or inexpensive applications and services available to these people that cover all the capabilities of their traditionally IT sponsored equivalents. There are also applications that people use on their own – like social networking – that aren’t yet being considered by most organizations.

In short, many people are now able to become their own IT providers, leveraging only a limited set of capabilities that are uniquely available from their employers. This represents a real shift in the ‘balance of power’ between users and their IT groups, and fundamentally blurs the role and mission of many corporate IT departments. Without acknowledging and adapting to the realities of this new environment, traditional IT departments run the risk of becoming irrelevant – or even worse, a liability to their organizations.

After spending over a week on my new Android phone (Samsung Captivate Galaxy S), I can’t help but wonder if the experience I’ve been having with it is typical for other Android phone users.

The Captivate has a lot going for it – a beautiful screen, fast processor, excellent video camera, and good battery life to name a few. It just seems to me that the software – Android 2.1 – isn’t really a serious production release. There seem to be so many things with it that simply don’t function well or reliably. And some of those things are pretty significant on a smartphone:

• The device constantly loses the settings I’ve configured for my Exchange server email. It completely forgets that the account existed on the phone and prompts me to enter a new email account as if I were starting email for the first time. I had it happen at least 7 times before I simply gave up and stopped setting it up again.
• During those times when it did remember the account, deleting emails would be problematic. I would select a set of emails and press Delete, but still see those ‘deleted’ emails sitting there even after the app said they were removed. Sometimes they would go away if I waited a bit. Sometimes I needed to exit out of mail and then return for them to be gone.
• The unit often becomes unresponsive if any I/O is taking place, with the touch screen remaining frozen until it finishes what it is doing. There were several times when I thought the unit had crashed on me only to have it spring back to life 20 seconds later.
• Getting the GPS in the unit to lock on to my position is a complete crap-shoot. Sometimes it connects right away while other times I need to try repeatedly to get it to work – with both experiences happening in the same location right outside my office.

Given my lack of familiarity with Android, my initial reaction was that I was doing something wrong that was causing these things to happen. But after doing a little research to try and figure things out, I’m not so sure. It seems that I am not the only person having problem like this. Whatever the causes, I find myself in a position where I have no confidence in the device.

I had even considered returning it to AT&T for a different smartphone.

What kept me from doing that, despite the problems I’ve been having, is that I can see some real promise in the platform. It absolutely doesn’t feel completely baked or debugged to me, but I can still see glimmers of ‘something powerful’ in the software that are making me stick with it – at least until the new 2.2 FROYO version is released.

Once it’s out, I’ll do a through review of the device, and compare it in detail to my experiences using the iPhone.

And I’ll decide then for myself what I’m going to do next.

At this point, I couldn’t recommend (this) Android phone to anyone if it were the only smartphone/portable computing device they wanted to carry. The reliability just isn’t there – at least for the things I’ve been trying to do with it. If you needed to choose something right now, I think the iPhone is still the way to go – assuming you can deal with being on AT&T.

If you can wait, the best option is to see how good the Android 2.2 released ends up being, and to make your decision then.

I’ve been creating and manipulating media digitally in a variety of formats for over 20 years. For most of what I do, the mouse and keyboard are my main tools. Every tool – digital or analog – influences the creative process to some degree. That said, the digital experience still lacks the immediacy and transparency you can get when using just paper and pencil. In the same way that a tool like PowerPoint shapes the way you think about presenting information – and ultimately what you present – most digital media tools I’m familiar with seem to channel your creative energies in certain preordained directions. I know first hand that you can do some awesome original things in the digital space, but the technology behind it does seems to leave a lot of its own fingerprints on the creative process.

But this might be changing.

Touch based platforms are letting digital tools come closer to replicating the analog experience most of them are modeled on. The video below is an example I found on YouTube of an iPad based art program called “brushes” in action:

The video is really a bit too long, but it is worth skipping through it to see how things are starting to evolve in this space. Both the process and the end result are impressive. What makes this so significant is that everything in the video is happening on a basic portable device – the iPad – that costs just $499, running an inventive drawing program that costs just $7.99. You don’t need to be a digital artist to appreciate just how revolutionary this could end up being.

And this is just the first generation of these tools. Imagine where they’ll be in a couple more years.

Touch computing will be transformational.

It is no secret to anyone that reads this blog regularly that I am a big fan of the iPhone. I just upgraded my personal phone to the iPhone 4, and I’m extremely happy with it. I’ve been in the iPhone camp since the very beginning – I switched off of RIM on the day the first iPhone was released, and I haven’t looked back since.

For a variety of reasons, I recently needed to get a second phone specifically for work. My initial reaction was to simply get another iPhone and carry on. But in thinking about it more, I decided it would be more interesting to go in another direction and get an Android based phone instead. I felt that this would give me the perspective I needed to better judge where Apple is going with the iPhone, as well as to get some real-world experience with with what will no doubt be the most significant competitor to iOS.

After looking around, I decided to go with the Samsung Captivate Galaxy S (also on AT&T). It seemed to have a highly regarded implementation of Android 2.1, and Samsung has committed to have an upgrade to Android 2.2 available for it when it’s rolled out.

I still have a bit to learn with the Captivate, so I’m going to hold off commenting on it in detail until I come up the curve. My initial impressions are fairly positive, with the AMOLED display, responsive touch screen, and excellent camera all toping the list of well done features. The interface lacks the polish of iOS, and it has some non-intuitive aspects that I’m going to need to figure out. The app store also has relatively slim pickings and is difficult to find new things in – definitely not impressed there at all. That said, I’m really open to having a good experience with Android – especially as 2.2 is about to be released and more development focus moves to the platform.

I’m looking forward to sharing my experiences with you as I adapt to my first non-Apple phone in a long time.

I want to start posting about some of the mobile apps I use on a regular basis, and decided to start off by taking a look at an app I’ve been using for quite a while: Instapaper.

Instapaper allows you to ‘clip’ articles you find on the web and copy them to your mobile devices for later reading. It works on both the iPhone and the iPad, though there are a few subtle differences between the two experiences.

Here are a couple of short videos I put together to show you what it takes to get started using Instapaper:

Signing Up:

Clipping A Web Page:

When it comes to reading the articles I’ve clipped, I use Instapaper on both the iPad and the iPhone – it depends on the situation. (And though I don’t show it here, it is also possible to use Instapaper to create a batch of articles that can be printed out on paper, or to set it up to deliver updates on a periodic basis for viewing on Amazon’s Kindle. This range of options should cover most people today.)

I started with Instapaper on the iPhone. The iPhone experience has really been optimized for ‘on the move’ reading:

Click To Enlarge

One incredibly nice feature of the iPhone version is turned on by clicking on the blue icon on the bottom of the iPhone display. This option allows you to scroll the display as you read by simply tilting it down. This makes it ideal for reading in commuting situations like a crowded subway car.

Where the iPhone version focuses on convenience, the iPad version of Instapaper, with it’s larger display, is more about reading comfort:

Click To Enlarge

It has a slightly tinted background that makes the display easier on the eyes. It also offers a landscape mode that combines both headlines and articles, making it convenient to quickly browse multiple shorter articles .

In addition to viewing articles, both platforms make it easy to share and save them as well. They include built in links to both Tumblr and Tweetie, and an option to send articles via email. In addition, articles that might be worth a second read can be added to the built in ‘Starred’ folder, or you can create your own folders (in the paid version) and file them in a more organized way.

For me, Instapaper is like TIVO for the web. It lets me time shift the reading I’d like to do in a way that blends seamlessly into my workflow.

If you aren’t using it already, I highly recommend checking it out.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the features of the new iPhone 4 that I’ve been looking forward to using is the built-in 720p HD video camera. Here is a short video I recorded on the iPhone 4 that I hope will give you a feel for the image quality you can get with it:

This video was recorded with just the ambient light in the studio, and was compressed into h.264 and uploaded on to YouTube.

I would love your feed back.

I received the following email from Apple Store early this morning:

Dear Apple Store Customer,

You recently received a Shipment Notification email from Apple advising you that your iPhone has shipped.

This email is to confirm that your delivery will occur on June 23rd. Although Apple and FedEx tracking information may currently indicate a later date, you can check the FedEx website the morning of the June 23rd to track your package to your doorstep.

In the event that you will not be available to accept delivery on June 23rd, it may be more convenient to use our pre-sign delivery option by visiting our Order Status website at http://www.apple.com/orderstatus.

Sincerely,

The Apple Store Team

Early delivery? – No Problem!

Now that’s the kind of email I like to get.

After repeated attempts throughout the day last Tuesday, I finally lucked out around 6:30PM and was able to squeeze in an order for the new iPhone 4. The reward for that bit of luck was the email I received this morning telling me that my order has now shipped.

There’s a lot to like in this new generation of the iPhone, but I’m most excited about the sharper display (any help I can get for my fading eyesight) and the new HD video capabilities.

I’ll let you know what I think as soon as it arrives.

I wanted to let everyone know that the first cut of InfoNgen’s iPad newsletter generation application – Publisher HD – is now up and available in the Apple App Store. Equally exciting is the great reception the app has received. It was even featured in the New & Noteworthy section for productivity apps:

If you get the chance to download it, I would welcome whatever feedback you have. There are a lot of things we want to add, refine and extend in the current release of Publisher HD, and we are already hard at work on putting that next version together. You can leave suggestions in the comments section for this post, or just email me directly.

Best of all, Publisher HD is free – just bring your own iPad. You can download it via the link below:

InfoNgen Publisher HD
Click here to download from iTunes…
Release Date: Jun 12, 2010
Genre: Productivity
© 2010 Instant Information, Inc.

ENJOY!

I wanted to do a quick followup on my previous post regarding AT&T’s announced changes to their wireless plans.

While Apple certainly had a lot of good things to introduce at yesterday’s WWDC keynote, support for a new carrier wasn’t one of them. I can’t help but wonder what went on behind the scenes over the last 8 weeks (from the launch date of the iPad 3G) that made AT&T decide to change something so fundamental with it’s wireless data plan – and why they decided to make it effective the same day the iPhone 4 was introduced. It can’t help but feel something specific is responsible for the way this has played out.

Of course, sometimes coincidences are just what they seem, and that may be exactly what happened in this case. Whatever the reasons behind it, metered access has the potential to change usage habits in a way that may slow the development of some interesting mobile media initiatives. That would be unfortunate, and a real opportunity missed.

While I’ve discussed this only in terms of Apple’s mobile offerings, AT&T’s service changes have actually gone into effect for every smartphone/data device that they support on their network. RIM, WebOS and Android based devices are all impacted by this in the same way. With this broad an impact, market forces will definitely be at work here. And that means the success (or failure) of any metered access plan will ultimately be something the marketplace gets to decide.

Both the iPhone and iPad are a big part of my digital life. To put it mildly, I was a bit upset when AT&T announced yesterday that – effective next week – they are doing away with their unlimited data plan options across all of their smartphones and devices.

From that point on, the closest option they will offer is what they call their ‘DataPro’ plan:

DataPro: Provides 2 gigabytes (GB) of data – for example, enough to send/receive 10,000 emails (no attachments), plus send/receive 1,500 emails with attachments, plus view 4,000 Web pages, plus post 500 photos to social media sites, plus watch 200 minutes of streaming video – for $25 per month. Should a customer exceed 2 GB during a billing cycle, they will receive an additional 1 GB of data for $10 for use in the cycle. Currently, 98% of AT&T smartphone customers use less than 2 GB of data a month on average.

While 98% of AT&T smartphone users may actually use less that 2GB of data per month, I am sure that the percentage of iPhone users that fall in to that camp will be considerably smaller. Smaller still will be the number of new iPad users that can fit within that 2GB limit. The people crossing this threshold aren’t doing anything crazy. They are simply using the mobile web the way people expect to use it – doing normal things like:

• listening to Pandora on the iPhone
• downloading a digital version of Wired magazine (at 500MB per issue)
• buying a movie before boarding a plane (at ~1.3GB per movie)
• using any cloud storage application (like MobileMe)
• sending emails with attached presentations or documents

There is nothing noble going on here with AT&T. They are simply trying to take away the promise of the iPhone and iPad under the guise of lowering prices and protecting their users from that “2% Club” of real data hogs. And while AT&T is going to grandfather anyone that already has an unlimited data plan (good for current iPhone users), this will effectively do away with the month to month nature of the iPad data plan. (If you stop paying that $30 each month for the unlimited 3G service, the only options available to you when you light it up again will be limited plans.)

The real question in my mind though is why is AT&T doing this now?

The easy, obvious answer is that they are trying to get a handle on the increasing load being placed on their network, and this is the best way to make that happen. While I have no doubt that this is part of the reason for AT&T’s move, I believe there is something else going on here.

Something big.

Steve Job’s went out of his way to highlight that Apple had worked with AT&T to offer two attractive month to month data plans, the main one being an unlimited plan at $29.95/mo. The iPad 3G has been shipping for less than 2 months, and now that plan is being killed. The only way I can see that happening is if AT&T was told that something else was being killed as well.

U.S. Exclusivity.

I’m guessing that AT&T agreed to those data plans contingent on remaining the sole carrier with the iPhone, and that they will be free to retool their pricing once that changes. Is it coincidence that he new plan takes effect this coming Monday -the same day that Apple’s WWDC 2010 begins? The same day Steve Jobs is expected to announce the next generation iPhone? And maybe some other type of phone or device?

Let’s see what happens.

This isn’t the first time this kind of thing has happened to me.

Last week, I went to a large electronics retailer in downtown Manhattan looking for a very specific type of microphone. I had a meeting to videotape, and needed what is known as a “boundary microphone” – a low profile microphone designed to pickup the voices of a group of people sitting around a table. I described what I wanted – and what I was trying to do with it – to a salesman in their pro-audio department, and asked if he had any specific recommendations he would make. He confidently directed me to a reasonably price shotgun microphone, telling me that it should work well for what I was looking to do.

Unfortunately, the type of microphone he was recommending was designed for a very different purpose from mine. In fact, it would be pretty useless in the situation I had described to him. It was clear from this that he was just looking to make a sale – even if it meant selling me something that didn’t really work for me. If I hadn’t known enough NOT to take his advice then, I would have ended up with an inferior (and potentially useless) recording – a situation I’m grateful I avoided.

But this type of situation isn’t that uncommon.

When it comes to more complex items, especially in computers and electronics, far too many sales people end up making confident – yet frivolous and uninformed – recommendations to the people they are supposedly “helping”. Their overt conviction may help them close the immediate sale, but it comes at a cost. They end up losing the more lucrative opportunity to convert someone into a satisfied long term customer that would happily recommend them to friends and colleagues. By not investing in the quality of their sales staff, many firms effectively squander the “network value” of their customers to get some kind of short term gain.

While many stores have reward programs for frequent shoppers, they seem to offer little to their truly highest value customers – the “frequent referrers” that keep sending new customers their way. The most important thing a sales person can do is convert a basic “shopper” into a networked “referrer” – even if it means not selling them something on a particular visit.

The more connected we become socially, the more important this approach will become operationally. The “velocity” of word of mouth referrals – both positive and negative – should become a a key operational metric in our 21st century economy. It’s the only reliable way to reach a highly oversold-to and fairly jaded consumer market. Customer service isn’t something that can be ‘bolted on’ at the point of sale. Being customer centric needs to become central to the way any modern organization thinks, plans, and operates. Long term success depends on it.

The role model for this market approach (as they are for many other things) is Apple.

Apple thrives off of referrals. They count on having their existing customers convert the ‘Apple uninitiated’ through enthusiasm and word of mouth. That is why Apple focuses so much on the design, quality, and usability of every product they make. Even the packaging is an experience. But they also invest very heavily in something almost every other electronics manufacturer tend to take for granted – their retail channel. The entire Apple Store experience is first class. All of the people working in the store are both personable and highly trained, and seem genuinely invested in both the company and the products they sell. You can’t help but feel that everything Apple does with their retail stores is designed to create a satisfied customer out of every person that walks in their doors. And they seem to get it right almost every time.

But you don’t need to be an Apple sized company to apply this to your business. At the end of the day, great customer service happens one salesperson at a time. Every contact they have with a potential customer is a chance for them to demonstrate their value and gain that customer’s trust. If they do a good job truly helping every customer that walks in the door, the sales part of the equation will take care of itself.

That’s a lesson far too many companies still need to learn.

If you haven’t actually used the iPad, it’s hard to appreciate what a compelling computing experience it gives you. Though at a physical level the device may seem to be nothing more than a large iPod Touch, in real world use it becomes something quite unique.

And that’s what makes the iPad so exciting.

I’ve been using the iPad as my main computer for the past three days, covering everything from email, web surfing and media playback to working on a detailed presentation and typing up the outline and notes to go with it. I even used the iPad to type up most of this post on the train this morning. While not perfect in every respect, the device has shown itself more than capable of handling everything I have thrown at it – no small feat for a small, mobile device.

Based on that experience, I wanted to share a list of those things with the iPad that seem to really work well, and also those that I think Apple still needs to focus on.

Working Well:
The iPad does so many things well, but certain things are really standouts. Here are some that I feel merit specific mention.

• The iPad extensions made to the iPhone OS interface make using the larger display both intuitive and efficient. The pop-over displays are a great idea for maximizing screen real estate, and the way apps reconfigure to optimize themselves based on screen orientation is brilliant. The entire user experience here is simple and refined.
• Every native iPad application brings more of a desktop experience than I’ve ever had on a mobile device. Unlike traditional apps running on netbooks, iPad apps don’t feel cramped or chopped up. In fact some iPad only apps – like Mail or the Wall Street Journal reader – actually seem to surpass the experience you can get on the desktop today. There is an opportunity for some groundbreaking innovation here that has been missing in the software industry for a long time.
• Though touch-typists may feel differently, I found typing on the landscape keyboard to be very similar to typing on a MacBook. Though lacking the tactile feedback, having the keyboard on the same physical plane as what I’m typing gave more visual feedback than I get from a separate keyboard and display configuration. The auto-correct is also excellent, saving me from going back to fix common typing and spelling errors.
• Battery life seems to be awesome. Unlike with the iPhone (where you always have to keep an eye on the power meter), the iPad just seems to keep running. I’d work on it for over 3 hours at a clip and never had the battery drop below 75%. I’ll be interested to see how well the 3G version does on this front.
• Once I started browsing the web on the iPad, it was tough to go back to the traditional browser experience. Using touch to navigate around full sized web pages is so much more satisfying than using a mouse or trackpad. It’s the most natural way I’ve seen to move through information on a screen.
• The iBook application is a real standout. I can see why so many publishers have become excited about the iPad as a delivery medium. I would like to see how this develops – especially around interactive and mixed media ‘books’. Short of reading in direct sunlight, the lack of eInk doesn’t seem to be much of an issue here. The display was crisp and easy on the eyes, and the book reading software was both playful and functional.
• Apple multi-use iPad cover is a must have accessory. Beyond protecting the device, it provides a stand that optimizes either viewing and typing based on how you orient it.

Missing The Mark:
Not everything with the iPad deserves acolades. Here are a few of the less than optimal features that Apple will need to pay some attention to going forward.

• While iPhone native apps do run on the iPad, they simply don’t translate well to the large screen. They look pixelated and lack the elegant interface touches that iPad native apps all have. I know that it will simply be a matter of time before most apps are updated to accommodate the iPad, but running ‘classic’ apps on the device right now isn’t very satisfying. Streamlining the process of getting converted apps approved and in the store needs to be a priority for Apple.
• It’s hard to believe, but there is no coverflow for media files on the iPad. Given that coverflow is almost a signature Apple interface element, I’m at a loss to figure this one out.
• While far from heavy, the iPad weighs more than I thought it would. I don’t notice it when I carry it around, but it is definitely tiring to hold it unsupported in a reading position for long periods of time.
• Apple has done an excellent job adding books to the iPad, but treating newspapers and magazines as general applications seems to be a real kludge. Even if the unique nature of magazines and newpapers benefits from an application based packaging model, that should at least be collected and organized outside the general pool of applications, with given a consistent way for people to purchase or subscribe to them.
• There is no obvious way to copy PDF’s or other published documents over to the iPad. I typically carry around a lot of reference documents and manuals, and was hoping the iPad could lighten the load of physical paper I currently need to carry around. Hopefully Apple or a third party will provide an app for that soon – it’s such a natural use for the device.
• It seems out of place that a media centric device like the iPad won’t be able to include a video iChat compatible application. The lack of a web cam is something of a disappointment. At this point, I’d at least like to see a basic text iChat application released.

Based on the time I’ve spent with it, I don’t see the iPad replacing either my laptop or my iPhone. It is a unique device with it’s own place in my ‘gadget world’. That said, I don’t consider myself the typical computer user, so your experience may vary. What does speak volumes to me about the capability that is in the iPad is that its the first device that I could see taking on trips or vacations instead of my laptop. It is also my clear first choice for doing email, web browsing, and watching video. It really does fill the gap between my iPhone’s portability and my laptop’s power.

I think that for many people (non-power user, non-bit tweaker, real world people) the iPad could even end up becoming their primary computing platform. It does so many things well, and with a simplicity unmatched by any other device on the market, that I expect it to catch on with this broad demographic in a significant way. Once you actually start to use an iPad, you understand the limitations of what today’s computing experience offers.

You simply don’t want give it up.

And that’s the thing that makes the iPad so ‘magical’.

I would strongly encourage you to experience it for yourself. In every way that really matters, the iPad does live up to the hype.

After years of waiting for a tablet device from Apple, the iPad will finally be shipping next week.

Based on the rumors/news online (hard to tell them apart sometimes), it appears that Apple has picked up some serious momentum in bringing content providers on board for its roll-out. Both media companies and software developers are scrambling to capitalize on the expected early demand for the iPad. And as more providers come online, that demand should continue to grow.

Unlike Microsoft with their tablet (mis)adventures, Apple has been placing less emphasis on the technical aspects of the device itself and more on it’s broader content ecosystem and unique user experience. This is a smart move, and should help make the iPad a major success.

But what ultimately makes the iPad so groundbreaking is it’s combination of power, size and simplicity. It packages all of the basic computing tasks people most want to use in a lightweight, portable footprint that doesn’t feel cramped. It offers an incredibly diverse library of 3rd party software covering games, news, utilities, and productivity apps. It has the largest selection of digital music and video available, and has begun adding books, newspapers, and magazines to the mix. Some of this is free and some of it’s paid.

And all of it is just a download away at the iTunes store.

Apple’s decision to base the iPad on the iPhone OS instead of the Mac OS makes it much more than just a sexy new gadget. What Apple is really offering through the iPad is a fundamental challenge to the existing model of personal computing. The device is always on. The operating system is transparent. Software distribution is standardized. Updates for everything are automatic. In short, its a platform where user doesn’t need to worry about taking care of anything – it just simply works.

And for many people, that’s all they really want in a computer.

Now I do recognize that there are clearly computing tasks that require more traditional computer platforms – especially in professional disciplines like media creation or mathematical modeling and in infrastructure roles like web services, database hosting, and large scale data analysis and management. Hardcore gamers will also demand the raw power available with traditional computing platforms. Traditional computing platforms will continue to have an important role to play.

But what they do well isn’t what most individuals use computers for – even in business.

With the iPad (and more specifically, the iPhone OS) Apple is asking people to reassess what they really need from a computer – and then offering them the first credible alternative to the traditional PC model they are currently locked in to. It’s a transition that will take time, and the release of the iPad is only the beginning of the process. I see Apple developing a whole line of platforms built around the iPhone OS ecosystem – each one extending the appeal of this new computing model to a broader audience.

It’s clear to me that at some point (sooner rather than later), Apple will introduce a keyboard/touch hybrid device that will transplant this new computing model into a more mainstream, laptop-like form factor. At that point, it can begin to attract that significant segment of the marketplace that wouldn’t be comfortable buying a pure slate based device.

And once it happens, the battle for the soul of personal computing will begin in earnest.

After remaining relatively quiet over the last few weeks while Apple was out trashing their FLASH environment, Adobe has finally decided to respond. In this video, Adobe lays out their case for having flash available on any device, and takes a few not so subtle swipes back at Apple:

It’s no coincidence that Adobe has chose to feature HP’s yet to be named slate platform in this presentation. With Apple’s big push for the iPad just starting up, they want to dangle the promise of an alternative coming later this year. You can see the similarities:

HP “Slate”:

Apple iPad:

While everything Adobe is saying in their video has a strong element of truth to it, they fail to address the two key issues Apple has had with putting FLASH on their mobile platforms – it’s voracious appetite for power (that reduces battery life), and a less than optimal code base (that causes performance issues). These are not trivial issues in the hand-held computing space, and they shouldn’t be dismissed as just an attempt by Apple to assert control (though there is no doubt some of that wrapped in to all of this).

The fact that FLASH was able to gain ubiquity across the ‘traditional’ web doesn’t mean that it should necessarily play a significant role in the mobile web space. These are vastly different environments requiring different priorities and compromises, and I believe Adobe still has some serious work to do if it want to make FLASH a key component of mobile media delivery.

I’m just not sure if they see it that way.

Penguin Books seems to be aggressively embracing the concept of digital books. Take a look at this video:

While this is only a demonstration, it is clearly well developed conceptually. The model of using a traditional book framework as a ‘navigation map’ into additional content, applications, and services make complete sense. And it has the potential to redefine the economics of the entire publishing industry.

To make this happen in a way that can scale, the publishing industry (including Apple and other vendors) has to come up with a technical packaging model that moves beyond traditionally focused packaging like the ‘EPUB’ format. Having an open, commonly adopted standard for expressing/delivering these rich, interactive publications can shift publication from becoming one-off developments or publisher specific frameworks into a rich industry ecosystem. I believe that making this happen is the game changer the publishing industry needs. There is a lot to talk about on that front and I want to revisit and expand on it in a later post.

It’s exciting to see some momentum building behind the iPad. So much potential…

It’s great to see innovation coming from more traditional media companies.

Wired Magazine a must read for for anyone interested in the intersection of technologies and the digital life style. Though firmly anchored in the more traditional media world, they have never been conformists. Both in print and on the web, Wired’s design and packaging of the content they create has always shown a level of creativity and sophistication that can challenge the mainstream while simultaneously defining the “new norm”. As the industry starts to embrace Apple’s iPad and other tablet form-factor devices for distribution, Wired will no doubt play a significant role in defining this next phase of digital publishing. This video is a good indication of their thinking:

While I am no fan of Flash (HTML 5 is the way to build this type of interface), the creative possibilities and potential revenue opportunities hinted at in this video can make your mind race. Any time a market is in transition, the explosion of innovative and even crazy thinking that takes place is exciting, scary and inspirational all at the same time.

I am more convinced then ever that the iPad will finally set this all in motion.

Microsoft is betting ’7′ will be a lucky number for them.

Looking to build off of the initial success of Windows 7 (the consumer side looks good but still not sure how well corporate adoption will go), Microsoft previewed the next generation of their Windows Mobile operating system – the “Windows Phone 7 Series” at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona yesterday. As part of their introduction of the new mobile OS, they put together a video that essentially slams Apple’s iPhone platform:

While slickly produced, this video segment is somewhat misleading. It is comparing Apple’s current iPhone OS against an unreleased version of their mobile OS that probably won’t be available until late this year. I have no doubt that by then, iPhone OS 4.x will be out and offering quite a few new and updated features – including broader multitasking capabilities.

That said, there are some interesting concepts in Windows Phone 7 that give it a completely different feel from the raft of inferior ‘iPhone Wannabes’ that have flooded the market over the past 18 months. I would need to spend time with it to get a feel for just how usable it actually is in the ‘real world’, but it clearly represents a total reset of Microsoft’s previous phone OS efforts. This is something I applaud – the Mobile 6.x line was a complete dead end.

Ultimately, the biggest challenge for Microsoft and almost every other mobile OS provider is that they are trying to support a broad range of hardware options and capabilities. While ‘consumer choice’ may seem like a good thing on the surface, apps developed for this type of heterogeneous environment either end up being limited by the least capable device they support, or developers make a conscious choice to limit their compatibility to selected handset models. While this approach may be satisfying to tech savvy users, it tends to confuse and frustrate mainstream consumers, and ultimately works against broad adoption.

Windows Phone 7 Series definitely looks interesting, and does demonstrate a real commitment by Microsoft to be successful in the mobile space. This is probably the last real chance they will get at making something to work here.

And I believe this OS is more important to Microsoft’s future then Windows 7.

NOTE:To find out more about how the 7 Series will work, check out this complete video of Microsoft’s preview event. It will start to play automatically once you make the video window visible. You will need stop it manually if you want to watch it later.

There has been so much written about the iPad itself over the few days that I don’t think my fawning over it would add much to the discussion.

Do I think there will be more in the released version than we saw in the presentation? Yes. Am I excited about the potential of the device? Without a doubt. Will I get one when it finally goes on sale? Absolutely! And though I am pretty pumped about ordering one, there is clearly still a lot of speculation in the media over the true market demand for a device like the iPad. Passions seem high on both sides. Given everything that we still DON’T know about the final functionality of the software/OS and about what types of new content will end up in the various ‘iStores’ by the time the iPad is released, I’d rather wait till then before jumping in to the fray.

Instead, for this post, I’d like to dig down a level and look at three of the less sexy things that were revealed during the iPad event that could actually end up being quite significant both to Apple and the industry overall.

Apple’s A4 Chip:

Outside of the release of the iPad itself, the revelation that it is powered by a custom Apple chip (handling both general and graphics processing chores) could be the most significant thing to come out of last weeks event. While the A4 chip will almost certainly make it into the 4G version of the iPhone, I also expect the A4 (or some variation of it) to also be at the heart of the next generation of AppleTV. This would likely be as part of a move of ATV onto the same OS platform as the iPhone/Touch/iPad, and would probably allow the box itself to be re-engineered to better support HD video (eg – real 1080p) and also to open it up to running games available from the App Store. As a big fan of the existing AppleTV, I see this as something that is long overdue. (I expect it to be announced before mid-2010.)

Another way Apple could leverage the chip this year could be the release of a successor to the Macbook Air based on some version of it. This could give Apple a way to deliver the dramatically improved battery life and graphic muscle of the iPad in the super-thin laptop form factor of the current Air (not to mention integrated “always connected” 3G/4G ). It could even end up running the iPhone OS, and provide the ‘Touch’ aspects either through a substantial trackpad area or directly on the display. While I’m not trying to predict specific product details here, I do see an opportunity for Apple in this segment as well – a hybrid offering blending the best tablet and laptop features for true ‘road warrior’ types.

Ultimately the most exciting thing about the A4 is that it frees Apple from Intel’s lock on mobile processors, and can give them the ability to change both the economics and overall direction of products they launch in this area. And in the hands of Apple, that holds some pretty big promise for the future.

The Touch Based Version Of iWorks:

Apple’s iWorks has been around for quite a few years now, and has matured into a full productivity suite offering word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications. While no where near as popular as Microsoft’s Office suite, each component of iWorks is well thought out and a pleasure to work with. Unlike Office on a Windows tablet computer, the new iWorks isn’t simply an extension of the previous version that makes it usable without a keyboard. Instead, iWorks on the iPad has been designed from the ground up to work in a touch environment. From the way various functional menus are displayed to the way task specific virtual keyboards appear in different contexts, every element of the product is designed to be part of a native touch experience. While I will need to spend some quality time with the new iWorks before passing judgment, it does appear that Apple has learned a great deal from iterations of the user experience they developed for iPhone apps, and have done a good job scaling it to more comprehensive applications on larger displays.

While this is impressive on it’s own, what may end up being the most significant aspect of the new iWorks probably isn’t in the code or design at all, but rather in the business model surrounding it. iWorks for the iPad will be sold through the Apple App Store, with each component application available individually for less than $10. That means the entire suite can be bought for under $30 – less than a third of the discounted price Microsoft’s Office 2007 Home and Student edition sells for on Amazon. By unbundling the individual applications, selling them for such a low price, and making them available through their App Store, Apple is clearly challenging the current economic model for the sale and distribution of traditional software applications. This is not without precedent for Apple – even beyond what they did with pricing in the iPhone App space. When Apple moved into producing professional media creation software (known for outrageously high prices), they were able to reset the price points for applications like video editing, compositing, and audio editing in a similar dramatic fashion. It would not be surprising to see this model finally slip over to the Mac, with the desktop version of iWorks taking on similar pricing and packaging to the iPad version – and possibly being sold through the app store as well.

Selling Books In The iBookstore Instead Of On iTunes:

I think the fact that Apple chose to build a completely separate ‘iStore’ for books is interesting. By approaching print publications as truly unique forms of media with unique content and marketplace dynamics, Apple stands a good chance at reshaping the ebook market and really challenging the current dominance of Amazon’s Kindle platform. I believe that what was shown at the iPad launch is simply the most basic starter functionality for this store. I see it ultimately having different business and functional models to address some unique opportunities found in this marketplace. For example:

• renting eTextbooks for a semester instead of buying them
• offering subscriptions to magazine and newspaper content via special viewing applications unique to each of them
• selling content that is pretty much static – like a daily newspaper – with options for dynamic updates
• integrating social elements to let people discuss or interact around specific titles – much the way a college study group or typical reading club might interact

There is a lot of room in this space to innovate. The upheavals we have already seen happen between Amazon and publishers like MacMillan (almost 2 months before the iPad is even released!) are a good indication of how dynamic this marketplace still is – and just how disruptive Apple’s entry into this space will be. By having an independent store that can evolve quickly and embrace new and unique ways of accessing media, Apple will have the flexibility they need to learn, adapt, and adjust. Success wouldn’t be achievable with a more static approach.

I am firmly convinced that the iPad will have just as significant an impact on the media marketplace as the iPhone did on the mobile phone market. The convergence of these two markets, and the increasing importance of mobile computing will continue to present incredible opportunities for Apple. I believe the three elements I’ve discussed here will be important differentiators for Apple as the aggressively pursue this new market.

I can’t wait for my iPad…

The marriage between TechCrunch and Fusion Garage was supposed to bring us an exciting new internet tablet called the CrunchPad. When that relationship fell apart and Fusion Garage co-opted the project (not sure which came first) they simply rebranded the device and have come to market alone with what they are now calling the Joo Joo. Here is a quick demo of it:

From what I can see in this video, the Joo Joo appears to be a well thought out browsing device with sleek lines and a nice looking touch screen. At a suggested price of $499, however, it does seem a bit pricey for what is essentially a “browser in a box”. No clue on battery life either. I believe a device like this – with this larger form factor – needs to offer a “full day” untethered from power. Without significant battery life, it would be hard to justify carrying something this size around with you. That said, it is exciting to finally see a touch screen based tablet come to market, and I would love to see it find it’s niche.

Seeing the Joo Joo, I can only imaging what a tablet device from Apple would offer. I know I’m not alone in thinking this.

Hopefully we’ll have some real competition in this space by early next year.

It’s interesting to hear the ringing criticism of Apple over the way they are actively ‘breaking’ Palm’s ability to have their Pre sync with iTunes. While painting Apple as some kind of “ugly monopolist” out to kill the Pre makes for provocative copy, it is an unfortunate misrepresentation of what is actually going on.

It would probably surprise most people if I were to tell them that iTunes is a fairly open platform when it comes to working with 3rd parties. Both Amazon as a music seller and RIM as a smartphone developer have ways to work with iTunes without resorting to the “hack of the week” approach Palm has decided to take. This doesn’t require special insider knowledge or special licensing agreements. It only requires developers to work with the free XML mirror of it’s iTune’s library file that it generates automatically in real time when changes are made. This XML file provides any easy way for developers to access all of the metadata and source files associated with any iTunes based media files – music, movies, podcasts, and even playlists.

Here is a clip of the XML for a track from my own library:

There really isn’t anything hidden here. Anyone that wanted to sync this track to their device could read all of the meta data, format it for their own library structure, then follow the link to the media file and copy it all over to the device. This is a fully open way for any third part application to interact with iTunes stored media.

Instead of leveraging this open format, Palm has made the decision to try and impersonate an iPod and use Apple’s undocumented protocols directly with iTunes sync. Assuming they are not totally strapped for cash, they could have easily written their own sync code. My guess is that they thought they could make some headlines for themselves and generate some bad press for Apple if they tried to make this into an issue.

It doesn’t need to be.

As I’ve said before, the Palm Pre looks like an excellent device and has some very innovative features. I just can’t understand why Palm thinks it makes good business sense to try and score point against Apple by providing a terrible media experience for their customers. These are the folks they need to have in their corner. “Word of mouth” advertising is critical to any newly launched device – especially for a company in Palm’s position.

And the word that comes to mind right now is “unprofessional”…

There’s been a lot happening recently in the ebook marketplace..

In the update I wrote a couple of weeks ago on the Amazon Kindle, I commented on the price of readers:

…the recent Kindle price cut, bringing it down to $299, is another step in the right direction. Though I personally believe it will need to move below $100 to really start to gain mainstream traction, breaking below the $300 price crosses a psychological threshold that makes it easier to bring in that next level of interested buyer.

Well Sony just moved the bar a little closer to that tipping point price, breaking the $200 barrier today with the announcement of their new Reader Pocket Edition. It has a somewhat smaller 5″ e-ink screen and can hold about 350 books. Sony has also announced that they will be matching Amazon’s price of $9.99 for recent best sellers.

Though it doesn’t have any way to let you buy books wirelessly like the Kindle does, the Reader Pocket Edition does cost $100 less – probably a fair trade off for many people. By having an under-$200 reader, along with lower ebook prices, Sony should be able open up the ebook market to a much wider audience. This is a significant move down the price curve, and will hopefully keep pressure on Amazon to continue moving their own prices lower.

Another bit of good news in the ebook world is that Barnes & Noble has decided to jump back into the business. For those that don’t remember, B&N was the supplier of digital books for the pioneering Nuvomedia Rocket eBook in the early 2000′s. After acquiring Fictionwise earlier this year (relaunched as ereader.com), they are now starting to pull their digital book strategy together. Unlike Amazon and Sony, B&N decided not to launch their own dedicated ebook device to go along with their new digital store. Instead, they are starting out by releasing a free software reader that runs on both the iPhone and iPod Touch, with an eye toward partnering with potentially multiple ebook device makers in the near future. This could be an excellent strategy for them. Given the lead Amazon and Sony have in this market, it makes sense for B&N to become the ‘open platform’ in the ebook world with the broadest choice of reading options available. Backing up this effort, they have launched with a significant number of ebooks already available for sale, as well as around 500k free public domain books available for download. Though not as splashy as Amazon’s launch of the Kindle 2, B&N has made a very credible entry into the ebook market here. And like Amazon, they have the buying power and focus necessary to evolve, become successful, and turn this into a viable component of their overall business.

With three major competitors in the ebook space (and many smaller ones as well), it’s clear that this market isn’t going to fade away this time like it has in the past. Between the introduction of new reading devices and the continually expanding catalog of books now available in digital format, the ebook business shows every sign of being a young, healthy consumer product segment.

But there could be one big shakeup coming in the near future.

While there isn’t a lot of clarity around their intentions, Apple is shaping up to become a possible “800lb Gorilla” in the ebook space. With mobile reader apps available from both Amazon and B&N, the iPhone/Touch already offers a great platform for digital book readers. Rumors are also making the rounds that Apple with be launching a color “tablet device” with a 10″ screen – a general portable media platform that could easily include ebooks in the mix. What lets Apple cast such an long shadow over this space is the power of their iTunes ecosystem. They have the store. They have the desktop footprint. They have the device footprint. The introduction of a larger form factor ‘tablet device’ could place them in the perfect position to subsume the ebook market within the already significant digital media market they dominate today.

While even the launch of a new device from Apple is only speculative at this point, their ability to dominate a market has a clear precedent in the way they have moved from music, to audio books, to podcasts, to television shows, and recently to movies. They started out small in each of these areas, but over time have managed to become the dominating force in all of them.

Whatever ends up happening with Apple, it’s great to see so much new activity going on in the ebook space. It seems to be moving into the mainstream on the consumer side even faster than I thought it would.

Hopefully publishers will take note and finally start to ramp up their digital efforts.

It feels like the tipping point is finally getting close.

Fred Wilson has a great post on his blog this morning about the semantic web (Making The Web Smarter). Beyond the mention of my company InfoNgen, it also provided an interesting perspective on the how the web is evolving in practice. This is a subject I’m passionate about, so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to throw in my two cents.

With InfoNgen, I spend a great deal of time thinking about potentially new and innovative ways to analyze and classify content – including a broad range of web based content. Without a doubt, the research going on around the semantic web is some of the most interesting in this field. While there has been some really exciting progress in applying this research to many constrained information domains, creating this self-describing, intelligent network of information on an “internet wide scale” is still an incredibly daunting task.

And as Fred points out, it isn’t one we are making a lot of progress in.

I am struck by the similarities between the efforts happening here, and the work that took place from the 70′s to the early 90′s in the field of artificial intelligence. In computer circles, A.I. was the cutting edge discipline of it’s day. Until the arrival of the Internet, it was a magnet for creative engineers and scientific talent. People saw it as the next great revolution in technology. Encouraged by successes like chess playing computers that could beat grand masters and medical expert systems that demonstrated real value in clinical situations, expectations were high that we would soon see computers that would be able to interact with us conversationally – personal assistants that could carry out spoken directions and provide us with relevant advice and information. This video – done by Apple in 1987 – is a great example of what people were hoping computers would soon be able to do for them:

It’s more than 15 years later, and we’re still a very long way off from the promise shown in this video.

Today’s efforts to create the foundation of the semantic web are in some ways like a reemergence of artificial intelligence – but now repackaged for a web centric world. Many of the concepts and technical disciplines that were sitting behind A.I. – Bayesian inference, natural language processing, weighted decision trees, classifiers, and knowledge bases just to name a few – are now in some form or fashion powering various commercial and open efforts to realize the semantic web. And while they do share a common set of technologies, that doesn’t mean they need to share a common fate.

But to be successful, things will need to start coming together in a different way.

This time around, these technologies will need to leverage the core social fabric inherent in the web architecture. Analysis needs to be pushed out to the edge and become an integral and interactive part of the content creation process. This would not only be able to suggest tags or other meta level markups, but also offer potential summaries for quick display, highlight ambiguous terms or content blocks for refinement, and suggest unique topical terms that could be included in the content to improve discoverability. The human generated editorial insights that exist in trusted content sets need to be leveraged to mine for relationships in other content sets that exist more broadly. (Fair use/copyright law will need to be updated and clarified keep up with innovations in this area.) Most importantly, the creation of public databases, taxonomies, and ontologies need to become a priority for open source efforts, potentially leveraging a DBpedia style model of publication and quality control. Freely available datasets will be the fuel that powers many of these efforts going forward. Overall, any successful approach here needs to blend the things people do well with technologies that can amplify and extend it, producing something neither could accomplish well on its own.

With all of that said, I’m not naive. I don’t believe we will ever have a truly global, harmoniously classified semantic web. There are simply too many perspectives to rationalize in a way everyone can agree on, and too many people looking to game the process for their own gain. The Utopian model discussed academically is really an idealized goal that isn’t achievable on a practical level. But I strongly believe that it will be possible to offer to the broad web community the same improved web experience currently provided by vertically focused solution providers like InfoNgen. Meaningful progress at this level will require more than the isolated technological breakthroughs of any single company or organization. Though it can be anchored around the same core semantic concepts, getting the scale and scope needed to succeed here will require some kind of cooperative framework to share and enhance the currently disconnected efforts and innovations that are taking place today. Without having some mutually beneficial relationship exist between the various commercial and open sourced initiatives, it is likely that the global semantic web will end up hitting the same kind of wall that the original efforts in A.I. did.

While a technical discussion of the various solutions in this space may be interesting, the end goal of the semantic web is to make it easier for for individuals and organizations to discover and apply information that is relevant to them. This means that access to content needs to become more flexible, and conform to the variety ways people may think about it and want to consume it. This is in sharp contract to the traditionally rigid way publishers have wanted to package and present it in the past.

None of this will be easy, but getting publishers to embrace this kind of change may be the biggest challenge of all.

The number of readers accessing this blog via a mobile browser has grow considerably over this past year – the vast majority using Safari on the iPhone. Since the design of The Digital Edge isn’t particularly ‘mobile friendly’, many have contacted me asking if I could do anything to make it render faster/better for them.

Starting today, anyone connecting with any generation of iPhone or iPod Touch will see a slimmed down rendering of the regular site when they connect:

You can now scroll through a summary of posts on the home page, and click on the “Read Entire Post>” to view the full story – including all images and comments. Controls are also available to let you share posts on popular social sites.

I have been working – albeit slowly – on a complete refresh of this site that is going to include a more customized version of this iPhone template. However, with interest in a solution increasing, I figured it made sense to go ahead and get this basic iPhone support rolled out now. I appreciate your patience.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks to the folks over at iWPhone for the plugin that makes this possible.

My new iPhone 3G S has arrived…

I’m excited to dig in to it in depth, and once I do, I’ll post in detail on my experience with it. Before that, I want to share some photos of my unboxing of it:

I’m already impressed by the 3.0 software update which I’ve had for a couple of days now, and I’m really looking forward to the speed increase that comes with the new hardware.

For those also getting your new iPhones today – enjoy!

Probably the biggest piece of the new iPhone 3G S release is coming out today…

I know the new handset won’t arrive until Friday, but Apple will be releasing the iPhone 3.0 software update sometime this afternoon New York time. In many ways, this release is something of a “catch-up”, adding some fairly standard features like cut and paste and MMS support. But there are also some key foundational features that will help solidify Apple’s lead on the application front. Probably the three most significant ones are:

• Push Notification will allow developers to send dynamic notifications to users via hosted functionality. This could have applications in financial services (news and price alerting), healthcare (eg – notifications around taking medications), and even gaming (letting friends know you are available to play online) – just to name a few.
• In-App Purchasing will allow a whole new class of applications to be developed. For example, the iPhone Kindle could now include a book store as part of the application, or you could order and pay for your Starbuck’s on the train simply pick it up on your way to the office.
• CalDAV Support will lay the foundation for syncing up all of the different calendars you deal with (Google, Yahoo, etc). It could even allow for some interesting collaborative hosted applications (Think – “find and schedule a time in all these people calendars when we can meet for coffee”) as well as more integrated updates (think – “I bought a ticket on Ticketmaster and the event is now added to my calendar automatically”).

Until it arrives, think of the following screen as part of a character building exercise reminding you that patience is a virtue.

This should be good…

I was given a brief demo a few day’s ago of a beta version of the open source Moblin operating system. I went into it thinking: “Just what we need, yet another Linux variant”, but came out of it with a very different impression. Unlike more traditional operating systems, Moblin doesn’t try to be a generic foundation for any type of system, application, or user. Instead, it provides a more tailored experience built around the typical work flows of mobile users. It combines lightweight application support – with browsing, communications, and media playback – in a coheasive interface optimized for netbook screen size and power. This video will give you a quick introduction:

While I am quite impressed with Moblin, it isn’t the first OS targeted at this space. Linux vendor Xandros recently released Presto, a similar attempt to strip away most of the operating system details that can get in the way of a person simply using a device to get stuff done. Though both are based on Linux, these platforms are specifically not aimed at the “hardcore geek” Linux demographic. Their goal is to provide “run and gun” computing – letting people quickly get on, do something fast, and shut right down. They are not just targeting mainstream computer users – they are also targeting mainstream consumers that don’t fit the typical computer buyer demographic.

This new approach to operating systems recognizes that a rapid shift toward mobile computing is starting to take place. It is powered in large part by the runaway success of Apple’s App Store for the iPhone/iPod Touch platform, as well as the growing consumer adoption of netbook devices. While these devices are different in nature, both offer viable alternatives to more traditional computer usage. The “lower cost, easy on, always there” aspect of small, mobile devices is starting to trump the “higher price, fuller featured” aspects of full size laptops.

And it’s creating havoc in the software industry right now.

Software application vendors became obsessed with adding new features to their products. They attracted new users by delivering these extra features with each release at a similar price point to the previous release. They wanted to generate a perception of increasing value for the money spent. The goal was not just to get new people buying a product, but to sustain the lucrative revenue that came from existing users upgrading their now “feature deficient” software every 12-18 months. Adding features was the only way to make this model work.

Operating system vendors – specifically Microsoft – took a different approach. They aggressively pushed OEM agreements with all of the PC systems manufactures, and buried the cost of the operating system into the cost people paid for the computer. From a consumer’s perspective, the operating system came “free” with the hardware. They counted less on adding new features and more on new hardware sales to drive their revenue. And hardware sales were driven by PC manufacturers creating faster, more capable systems at roughly the same price points as the previous generation of hardware.

So why does mobile computing present such a problem?

Mobile computing is all about simplicity – getting things done quickly and easily. It doesn’t make sense to have products with hundreds of seldom used features crammed onto lower powered devices with smaller screens. There is a certain zen to the mobile computing experience that focuses people on what is really important to them. It creates a mindset that sees feature overload as diminishing a product’s value – not adding to it. And that mindset runs counter to the revenue model application vendors have counted on for the last two decades.

Operating system vendors face a different challenge from the mobile marketplace. Folks like Microsoft were able to leverage new hardware sales so profitably because of Moore’s Law – available computing power doubled every 18 months while the price stayed the same. Hardware vendors always had something new to replace the “old version”. But the push to mobile devices has flipped the benefit offered by Moore’s Law on its head. Instead of looking to double computing power, netbook providers are looking to ride the curve down and halve the price in that same timeframe.

The lower that the prices of these devices go, the less room there is to hide the cost of the operating system. This has driven most netbook manufactures to offer a Linux based derivative as a baseline system, and charge extra if someone want to take a version with Windows instead. It’s not clear that Microsoft, even with Windows 7, has a good answer for this. And if mobile is the real growth market of the next decade, they will need to come up with a viable offering in this space – not an artificially crippled version of their “mainstream” operating system.

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You can sense a major realignment starting to form in the technology industry. Mobile computing, open source, software as a service, and search as a platform are all pressuring the status-quo from different directions.

This will be a very different industry 5 years from now.

Maybe sooner…

In The Mobile Disruption (Part 2), I’ll take a closer look at what Apple is doing in this space. There are some exciting things going on in Cupertino beyond the new iPhone 3G S.

Here is a new ad Google produced to start promoting their Chrome browser:

This is a great stop-motion production, and it reminded me of some of the more creative ads tech firms put out during the go-go days of the early internet.

This particular ad was produced by Google’s office in Japan, and is part of viral campaign they are launching to try and boost the market share of Chrome. I’m not sure how much of a push Google will put behind this globally, but I hope that get some traction with it. Chrome is probably the best browser in the market today, though the beta of Safari 4 also looks interesting. Both Chrome and Safari have embraced HTML 5, making them attractive vehicles for the next generation of sophisticated browser based applications.

While I’m interested to see how effective this Ad campaign ends up being, one thing has become very clear. Web standards matter more now than they ever have before.

The days when Microsoft’s Internet Explorer ruled the web have come to an end…

In the world of techno-toys and gadgets, it’s easy for companies to think that taking cutting edge hardware and wrapping it in an elegantly designed package will go a long way to making their product successful.

That was clearly what Sony had in mind when they built the PlayStation 3. Their PlayStation 2 game console was the undisputed market leader, easily besting both Microsoft’s original XBox and Nintendo’s Gamecube. Sony wanted their new console to deliver a knockout blow to their rivals, and went all-out on both hardware and design. They took the incredibly advanced “Cell Processor” multi-core CPU (developed jointly with IBM & Toshiba), a custom graphics chip set developed by nVidia, a RAMBUS designed memory interface, and a BluRay disc player for both games and movies, and packaged it in a sleek, curved, glossy case offering digital audio and HD video as standard features. It was a far cry from the boxy, plastic look of consoles past. Sony was so confident in the PS3 that they were willing to give Microsoft nearly a year lead in the market with their XBox 360 – and a $100 price advantage – to make sure they could bake all of this technical goodness into their console.

And they didn’t even consider Nintendo to be in the competition.

But to the surprise of many people, things haven’t worked out quite the way Sony planned. In fact, neither technical firepower nor case design have proven to be a factor in the success of any of the current generation of gaming consoles.

So how have things turned out in the marketplace?

Sony’s PS3, the most powerful of the three main gaming consoles, takes third place with 20 million units sold. Microsoft’s XBox 360, built using high-end but more mainstream components, takes second with a little under 30 million units sold. Claiming first is Nintendo’s Wii, a relatively modest technology platform estimated to have sold somewhere between 35 and 40 million units.

In short, low-tech and boxy handily beat hi-tech and sexy.

While price may play some role in this – the Wii sells for just $249 compared to $399 for the PS3 – I don’t believe it’s the main factor behind it. Microsoft lowered the XBox 360′s price to $199 almost a year ago but hasn’t seen any real gain in market share as a result.

What really propelled Nintendo from also-ran to market leader was their decision not to fight the battle on Sony or Microsoft’s terms. Instead, they decided to risk everything on an unproven, innovative design with the potential to shift the market in their favor. While both Microsoft and Sony built their consoles with the traditional hard-core gamer in mind, Nintendo choose to focus on expanding the gaming market to include an entirely new demographic – casual gamers.

Nintendo’s innovative wireless Wii controller changed the nature of console gaming. It swapped out complex button presses for intuitive gestures. It turned traditionally sedentary game play into a physically challenging social activity. It created a buzz that helped them build awareness and momentum. It gave game developers an exciting new model to design games around. It promised a whole new way to look at gaming.

And most importantly – it delivered on that promise…

Nintendo’s launch of the Wii console is a case study on the power of disruptive innovation. They were able to jump from last place to first, with their Wii beating out two technically superior products funded by companies that placed massive marketing muscle behind them. But despite it’s success, Nintendo can ill afford to become complacent. There is a new competitor with an equally disruptive approach now entering the gaming arena.

Apple…

Gaming on Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch is really starting to take off. Apple has already sold over 30 Million of these devices, all of which are capable of playing fairly innovative games based on multitouch and motion sensing.

Apple’s approach to gaming is unique and compelling for more than just the innovative interface their devices offer game developers. Each iPhone and Touch comes with a built in software storefront – the App Store. The App Store lets any user shop for software right on their device, buy it with a single click, and have it downloaded in a matter of minutes. Apple handles all of the fulfillment and administration associated with the transaction for a percentage of the sale price. This gives even individual developers a way to reach a mass audience – all they need is talent and a great idea. It democratizes console game development in a way that no other platform vendor has attempted to do.

Apple’s approach to gaming will also let them grow the audience for gaming to what I’d call the opportunistic gamer – someone with a few minutes to kill while waiting in a line or sitting in a cab. Both the iPhone and Touch are multifunction devices you are likely to carry with you all the time, making them ideal platforms for this type of gamer. And as a potential marketplace, the opportunistic gamer probably represents the the biggest demographic ever targeted by any platform.

At the end of the day, success in the gaming arena will depend on innovation. This innovation can happen on many different fronts – technical, social, and commercial. We are just at the beginning of what will likely be a period of rapid innovation in the gaming world. Some will be evolutionary. Some revolutionary.

And a rare few may be disruptive enough to transform this entire industry…