Tag Archives: apple

This Is Dumb

GM has sent a memo to Chevrolet employees telling them to stop using the term “Chevy,” because they seem to think it’s diluting their brand.

“When you look at the most recognized brands throughout the world, such as Coke or Apple for instance, one of the things they all focus on is the consistency of their branding,” the memo said. “Why is this consistency so important? The more consistent a brand becomes, the more prominent and recognizable it is with the consumer.”

Yes. The memo mentions “Coke.”

From Saving Chevrolet Means Sending ‘Chevy’ to Dump

UPDATE this afternoon: The policy is already reversed.

Coated in oxytocin

I’ve said it before, and the evidence is mounting: the iPad is coated in oxytocin, a hormone that has been linked to orgasm, social recognition, pair bonding, anxiety, trust, love, and maternal behaviors.

“After a 13-hour wait, it’s like giving birth,” he said after emerging from the Apple store.
“You’re in labour for 13 hours and you’re tired and exhausted, you’re hot one minute then you’re cold the next, and you’re in pain, but then there’s the ecstacy when you have this little thing in your arms.” —iPad goes on sale as Apple faithful flock to Britain’s stores

Eating Apple’s Lunch?

This one feels inevitable, doesn’t it? Apple has one heck of a phone in the iPhone. But that’s all it is — one phone.

Android software is being sprayed across so many handsets that eventually one of the handsets will deliver an experience better than the iPhone. Apple vs Google: The Next 10 Battles To Watch

When was the last time that “sprayed across so many” devices “eventually” yielded an experience (for regular users) that was substantially better than a carefully controlled and designed UI limited to a few, thoughtfully specified hardware configurations?

Business Models Are Hard

Look, let’s face it. The iPad is the most exciting opportunity for the media in many years. But if the press is ceding gatekeeper status, even if it’s only nominally, over its speech, then it is making a dangerous mistake. Unless Apple explicitly gives the press complete control over its ability to publish what it sees fit, the news media needs to yank its apps in protest.

Yes, this is that serious. It needs to wrest back control of its speech from Apple Inc.

It’s Time for the Press to Push Back Against Apple:
Yank iPad apps unless Apple cedes complete control over the right to publish, by Ryan Chittum

In an aside, he includes, “yes, the iPad has a Web browser, but the monetary leverage it could gain with apps is what’s concerning.”

Getting the App Store dropped into its lap is the best thing that’s happened to print media in decades, and arbitrary restrictions are a pretty good deal in exchange for access to hundreds of millions of accounts already set up for more or less one-click purchasing. Yanking apps because you don’t like the restrictions is a perfectly fine recommendation, but I’m not sure what kind of leverage print media really has that would allow it to dictate terms to Apple. Face it, media outlets: building a large base of users that keep active credit cards on file with you is hard work, and Apple—not you—succeeded in doing that work.

(As a matter of fact, no, I don’t think I’m entitled to get news for free. I am a longtime subscriber to quite a few websites.)

Update: Jobs has replied to an inquiry saying that the Fiore app-denial was a mistake that is being fixed. Which is fine—maybe the terms of service were meant to apply to harassment or defamation, or came from an overprotective pen in legal. Maybe Jobs is responding to the “Pulitzer” part of this story. Who knows. The point stands: it’s Apple’s store, not a First Amendment issue.

iPad Hate

I’m a little amazed by the iPad hate. It’s quite a few of the usual suspects, so it’s not necessarily surprising. The iPad doesn’t have enough ports, or it needs a stylus — there are plenty of angsty laments from people who’ve watched Win-based tablet after Win-based tablet fail to gain any traction at all. My gut reaction to them is that they haven’t given any thought to why Apple went in a different direction, and those people are generally not buying any Apple products, so there’s no reason to expect them to welcome this one.

But with the iPad, Apple critics have been joined more vociferously than usual by (perpetually) disappointed Apple true believers, who have always had a hard time seeing where their devoutest wishes end and Apple’s real-life product development begins. That the iPad will transform all who touch it into DRM-constrained consuming machines. That having to go through the app store will destroy innovation. That it will kill communication. What? No, really?

Were today’s iPad contrarians outraged that when the Sony Reader was released, you couldn’t write a book with it? Do any developers of smartphone applications do all their design, prototyping, and coding using a smartphone as their primary work environment? I don’t take hi-res macro photos with my laptop, and I don’t color correct, generate multiple file formats, and manage photo libraries on my SLR camera. Just because a device has a computer inside doesn’t mean it has to do everything, or even be elaborately customizable and configurable.

A low barrier to entry is the single best hook for nascent makers, but iPad critics are simultaneously condescending and overdemanding about what constitutes a barrier and what constitutes creativity. With my photography, for example, what I want from computer-based devices is anything that enables me to better pursue my photography. I do not care about my computer’s schematics. I do not care about exploring programming. Somehow I find it hard to believe that this attitude toward tools is killing my creativity. And the iPad supports a text editor. Let me remind iPad haters: a text editor is all you need to build a website.

General-purpose devices can encompass novice-level tools with ease, but once the novice is hooked and has to know more, he or she moves on to different tools. Not only will the iPad refrain from killing creativity or communication, but Apple will continue to make and improve flexible, powerful tools that enable people to create stuff that can be used and displayed on the iPad. As with the iPhone, developers are already making apps for the iPad, some that focus entirely on display and others that will enable creativity and communication. And of course, the iPad itself will develop, getting new features and capabilities — Apple’s track record is crystal clear on this path.

The iPad is not Jesus. It is not the Devil. It will not rescue magazines, and it will not enslave users. It is a device, a tool whose major defect is that people outside its development team are projecting too much of their own fantasies onto what it can — and can’t — do.

The Walled Garden

Does anybody remember what using a computer is like? I spent a week after reinstalling my operating system picking out the right tweaks and gizmos and gadgets to make things more manageable. Weblogs exist that do nothing but teach you how you can make your experience on a computer less shitty. On a closed system, you can’t do that. You work with what you’ve got. Rory Marinich, “I Love Walled Gardens”

Marinich goes on to extol the virtues of having a sandbox to start in instead of having an expert system that must be learned before you can make anything. He’s absolutely right – not least because lower barriers to entry mean more people will experiment but because the more people who experiment, the broader the range of potential creations are out there, because that broadens the range of itches that people will discover and be inspired to scratch. (Besides, expert users who want to root around on the insides: isn’t that what the dev kit is for?)

He speaks harshly about the role of compulsive behavior in the environment in which people often define success in computing, but it’s impossible not to nod along with him, especially after another Apple release cycle. He is spot on about the people who speculated wildly, overexamined every leak, made elaborate laundry lists of every little thing a new Apple product should do, and then freaked out when Steve didn’t deliver exactly what they imagined. I happen to enjoy watching that particular parade unfold, but it seems like an agonizing place for the people marching in it.

And they must be getting tired after making the same complaints over and over again for so long.