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About this site

For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Friday, February 06, 2004

Apple responds to furor over Panther-only Safari

Imagine if Microsoft released IE 6.0 only for Windows XP users. Well, you'd have to further imagine there were only 1 million XP users, and not 250 million XP users, but... anyway.

MacWorld: "Safari 1.2 'Panther-powered' Apple responds ... Apple says: 'Safari 1.2 has been designed to leverage advances in Panther not present in the Jaguar release of Mac OS X. These Panther technologies are needed to deliver Safari v1.2's most significant improvements. For example, personal certificate support is made possible by Panther-specific security technologies that are simply not available on Jaguar.'" In other words, Apple is integrating their Web browser into the operating system. Fascinating!

[ Posted at 1:03 PM | Permalink ]

iMacs, all Macs and trademarks

MacUser: "Why has Apple taken its eye of the ball when it comes to the consumer PC market? The iMac is clearly failing. Its plight is even more worse than it seems, because Apple includes sales of the eMac in the iMac's sales. Even more damning is that Apple's profile in consumer markets has probably never been higher."

[ Posted at 12:55 PM | Permalink ]

TiVo watchers uneasy after post-Super Bowl reports

CNET: "Janet Jackson's Super Bowl flash dance was shocking in more ways than one: Some TiVo users say the event brought home the realization that their beloved digital video recorders are watching them, too. On Monday, TiVo said the exposure of Jackson's breast during her halftime performance was the most-watched moment to date on its device, which, when combined with the TiVo subscription service, lets viewers pause and rewind live television broadcasts, among other features."

[ Posted at 12:49 PM | Permalink ]

Wednesday, February 04, 2004

My review of Apple iLife '04

... is available now on Connected Home Media. "Apple's iLife '04 isn't perfect, but it's an amazing software value and a must-have application for all Mac users. Run, don't walk, to your nearest Apple Store, CompUSA, or Apple dealer, and pick up this package immediately (or grab a copy from Apple's online store—assuming your system meets the modern Mac system requirements. For PC users, the story is a bit murky. Although you can often surpass the features and performance of iLife through separate applications, trying to assemble a software package that rivals iLife '04 would cost many times the iLife price. I've often argued that the Mac is a somewhat expensive proposition, but here's one case in which the Mac has the PC world beat cold. Please add my voice to those clamoring for an iLife for Windows. I'd love to see it happen."

[ Posted at 3:44 PM | Permalink ]

'1984'? More Like 'Lemmings': Pepsi/Apple Ad Flops

PowerPage: "Apple's ad launching its Pepsi iTunes promotion, aired on Sunday, seems to have flopped and is even coming under fire as inaccurate. Websites are criticizing the ad as 'abusive of minors' and 'misleading', sites are blasting iTunes as a tool of the labels and the enemy of artists, and worst of all, US audiences didn't seem to 'get' the ad."

[ Posted at 11:57 AM | Permalink ]

Since when is marketing a crime?

LOL. Today's Dilbert strip is clearly aimed at Apple. Isn't it amazing how the pointy-haired boss suddenly resembles Steve Jobs?

[ Posted at 10:48 AM | Permalink ]

One more thing about the Mac as a [BMW]

Macwriter.net: "I moved to the Mac platform in 2002 with the full realization that I would be cutting myself off from a lot of cutting-edge software. With the exception of Apple's own excellent applications, by and large you do not get your typical software developer's best efforts on the Mac platform. Especially the big guns. I knew that then, I know it know. I accept it ... To see fellow Mac enthusiasts buy into this complacent notion that we don't need to worry about marketshare because BMW doesn't have to worry about marketshare is disheartening to say the least ... Apple as BMW is a dangerously alluring prospect, but dangerous nonetheless. It invites one to be content with the status quo. Do you buy all of Steve Job's products? Don't buy all of his words either. He's the CEO of a publicly-traded, multinational corporation, and as such, your salt should already be on the table."

[ Posted at 10:34 AM | Permalink ]

Panther-only software leaves Jaguar users behind

MacWorld UK: "Apple released Safari 1.2 on Tuesday night – but Mac users are frustrated that the brand-new Internet browser requires the most current version of Mac OS X to function. Safari's system requirements demand that Mac OS X 10.3 be installed; causing concern to many of Apple's now 10 million OS X users who have not yet upgraded from a previous version of the 21st century operating system."

Opinions of the Wolf: "Is Apple intentionally doing this to force users to upgrade their OS? Will users keep having to upgrade almost every time there's a new Safari release, like a certain Microsoft company you might know about will be doing with their browser from now on?" [ahem, that will start in 2006 at the earliest and will occur in a major OS upgrade, unlike, say, Panther].

[ Posted at 10:25 AM | Permalink ]

Extremist Linux Advocates Hurt Their Cause

Heads up, Mac-heads. This applies to you too, of course. CRN has an interesting article about Linux extremists, who, get this, fire off angry emails every time they read something about their favorite OS that they don't approve of. "Industry watcher Rob Enderle no longer responds to angry e-mails from Linux supporters ... the anger and profanities that many of the missives contained began to wear on him ... Enderle's experience is part of a new phenomenon that has swept the upstart Linux operating system from feel-good, groundswell enthusiasm to an ugly environment of death threats and electronic terrorism from Woodstock to Altamont, if you will.

Increasingly, they say, the passion behind the operating system appeals to the disenfranchised, who see [their favorite OS] in quasi-political--'even quasi-religious'-- terms, but fail to comprehend the business and technical ideals behind it. As a result, they say, good technology is getting a bad rap."

[ Posted at 10:18 AM | Permalink ]

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

Mike Pinkerton: "I just noticed that the Apple propaganda machine is in full swing. The performance comparison for Safari 1.2 on their homepage compares it to Camino 0.7 and Netscape 7.0.2. Both of these products are more than a year old and are based off of Mozilla 1.0. Why not compare to Netscape 7.1? Because those numbers don't look as good. Someone needs to call Apple on the carpet for this misleading comparison." Mike, I've been doing that for years.

[ Posted at 9:23 AM | Permalink ]

Tuesday, February 03, 2004

Half-Life 2 ... Summer 2004??

The interminable wait over Half-Life 2 continues, according to this CNN article. "While still shying away from giving a firm date, Doug Lombardi, Valve's director of marketing, told me the company 'is currently targeting this summer for the completion of Half-Life 2.' Valve does not plan to reveal any additional information until the time surrounding the E3 trade show, where the game will once again be shown this year. E3 will be held in Los Angeles May 12-14."

[ Posted at 10:04 PM | Permalink ]

Nvu 0.1 Released

Mozillazine: "Version 0.1 of Nvu, the open-source Web development tool based on Mozilla Composer, has just been released. The application, developed by Daniel Glazman's Disruptive Innovations for Linux distributor Lindows.com, is available for LindowsOS, other Linux distributions and Microsoft Windows from the Nvu download page. Update: Windows users may have to copy the file msvcp70.dll to the folder into which they extracted Nvu to get the program to run."

[ Posted at 9:51 PM | Permalink ]

Google search engine tops global brand poll: Again

Reuters: "Google, the top Internet search engine which is expected by bankers to list its shares this year, gained a fillip on Tuesday as it was named Global Brand of the Year by consultants Interbrand for the second year running. And while Apple Computer Inc. was once again pipped into second place in Interbrand's Brandchannel ranking of high-impact brands, nostalgia-driven small car Mini zoomed up the list to third place from 11th." Following are the top 10 global brands as ranked by the poll:

1. Google
2. Apple
3. Mini
4. Coca-Cola
5. Samsung
6. Ikea
7. Nokia
8. Nike
9. Sony
10. Starbucks

[ Posted at 9:49 PM | Permalink ]

iTunes to win download battle, says Forrester

e-Consultancy: "'"Portals will take an early lead, Coca-Cola will fizz, but most consumer goods firms' [music services] will fall flat, and iTunes will bite back,' predicts Rebecca Jennings at Forrester Research, author of the new report on the European music download scene ... Apple's ease of use, seamless linking with the iPod, and enormous brand traction will see it overtake Napster and many of the smaller services in Europe in the longer term, she argues. 'Napster may give it [iTunes] a run for its money in the ease-of-use stakes but will suffer from lower brand awareness in Europe.'"

[ Posted at 9:45 PM | Permalink ]

iMovie Still an Exercise in Patience

Christopher Breen: "iMovie 3 was so slow that only those with the fastest Macs [relied] on it for working with multi-clip projects ... I recently completed my latest Breen's Bungalow in iMovie 4 and I regret to report that this advice applies equally to the version of iMovie included with iLife '04. Unlike iPhoto 4, which is noticeably more responsive than its predecessor, the latest revision of iMovie is as sluggish as ever. As projects get bigger, one sees the Spinning Beach Ball of Death ever more frequently as the program churns and churns away over actions as simple as shifting an audio clip or using the new direct trimming feature."

And on a humorous note, Breen later added, "Reader M. Clark was concerned that my observations might be based on a bad attitude toward Apple rather than iMovie's performance -- particularly since I didn't mention the specifications of the Mac I was working with." It's hilarious that a Mac advocate like Breen gets email like that.

[ Posted at 9:41 PM | Permalink ]

OmniWeb 5.0 beta 1 for Mac OS X 10.2, 10.3 released

I paid for OmniWeb 4.0, but have since moved to Apple's superior Safari. However, the recent beta release of OmniWeb 5.0, based on Safari's Web rendering engine, is interesting. John Gruber does his standard too-much-writing review, but it's worth reading if you're into this kind of thing.

[ Posted at 7:30 PM | Permalink ]

Apple releases Safari 1.2

I've been working with this build for a while now, but Apple released Safari build 125 as Safari 1.2 this week, offering users improved compatibility with websites and web applications, support for personal certificate authentication, full keyboard access for navigation, ability to resume interrupted downloads, support for websites that use LiveConnect for communication between JavaScript and Java applets (requires Java 1.4.2). You can get it via Software Updates or directly from Apple's Web site, but only if you're running Panther (OS X 10.3): Users of Jaguar (10.2) and earlier OS X versions are out of luck.

[ Posted at 7:14 PM | Permalink ]

Where Does Apple Go from Here?

A must-read Harvard Business School interview: "If you invested a dollar in Apple in 1992, it would be worth $.79 today. The S&P 500 over that same time would be worth about $2.75, or more than three times your Apple investment ... For longtime Apple watcher David Yoffie, the Max and Doris Starr Professor of International Business Administration at Harvard Business School, the jury is still out on prospects for the company's long-term success. And Job's track record is hit or miss, he says ... His latest case, Apple Computer 2004, co-written with research associate Debbie Freier, was recently published by Harvard Business School Publishing."

Some interesting highlights from this fascinating interview:

- "Steve [Jobs] was spectacularly good at getting the company highly focused in his first couple of years. He got rid of a huge number of product lines. He streamlined the operations and he bet on a very small number of products."

- "The Apple core customer base today is only about 8 million active users, in a world of 400 million Windows users ... There are roughly 25 million Macintosh users in the entire installed base. But in fact the real number of active users is something closer to 8 million, which is a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the real market for any electronic product. Historically, Apple was trying to sell to its installed base of Mac users, and that base has never been large enough to amount to a hill of beans."

- "The last generation of operating systems cost about a billion dollars to develop. In fact Apple spent roughly a billion dollars to deliver OS X . They get to amortize that investment over 3 million annual buyers. Microsoft spends the same billion dollars to develop XP and they get to amortize that investment over roughly 120 million users a year ... [Apple] can't sustain that business model. The next generation operating system, the one that will ultimately replace OS X and XP, is probably going to cost $1.5 billion to $2 billion dollars. So, Apple's underlying economics will never allow them to support their next generation operating system. If (Microsoft's) Longhorn is ever successful, the pressure that will place on Apple will be enormous because Apple simply will not have the resources with 8 million active users to ever be able to support it."

- "There are at least three different ways in which you can imagine Apple going forward ... One is to say they're going to build their business off of the digital home, the iPod, iTunes, iPhoto, etc., and become more of a service and software digital home application company ... The question is, can they sustain the huge premiums they earn with today's iPod when Dell is coming in with much lower-priced products and other competitors are entering the market? They're also running into the same challenge of selling a proprietary solution. (Music on the iPod can't play on non-Apple devices.) ... A second strategy for Apple is to really go back to the Mac OS licensing business and try and generate a large enough volume so that the economics of their operating systems business will make sense in the future ... The third option is that Apple says our real advantage is in application and industrial design. In my view, Apple has three critical advantages over anybody else in the markets they serve. One is they have an incredibly strong brand; two, they have been the best at industrial design, far better than their closest competitor, Sony; and third, they have been very good at delivering applications in the digital home space ... This strategy would suggest that Apple give up on the Mac OS, become a Microsoft customer, and go after the consumer PC in a very big way."

- "Ultimately, the iPod by itself is not a business because they have to develop a whole suite of products that would go along with it."

- "We're in a standards war right now, and there is proprietary standard with iTunes, and there are going to be alternative standards pushed by Microsoft, Real Networks, and others. If Apple doesn't open itself up and make sure that it becomes the dominant standard, it could end up becoming the niche product again that makes it a little bit less attractive for users."

- "Even with Jobs back in the seat now for six years, they continue to shrink. So here we are now, twelve years later, and they've gone from $11 billion to roughly $6 billion in annual revenue. But they're not burning cash and they're cash-flow breakeven. They made a lot of cash during the last years of the boom, and because Steve did such a good job of streamlining the company they were able to hold on to that. But, fundamentally, they're still relatively flat growth. Their core business continues to shrink, with iPod and iTunes driving their current revenue growth."

- "[Apple's mall store retail strategy] ... has had a positive impact on the brand. You do get people browsing through the stores. Despite what Apple says, the statistics suggest that there is no significant conversion of non-Macintosh users to Macintosh users on the basis of the stores. So, if you think of it as an investment in brand marketing, it has probably been a reasonable investment. However, I don't expect it will ever generate significant revenues or significant profits."

- "The [Apple] brand stands for cool, hip, cutting-edge products that capture people's imagination. Jobs is a CEO who has a flare for the dramatic, and also captures people's imagination. He is the rebellious part of the computer world. Like Bill Gates, he's another college dropout who is a self-made man, but he does it with much more flare than Gates."

Great, great reading, and this guy is almost 100 percent correct in his take on Apple. Very interesting.

[ Posted at 6:41 PM | Permalink ]

Apple Defends Its iLife

The Motley Fool: "Apple Computer may have finally found a market niche it can dominate. But can it become the newest consumer electronics giant? Tim Beyers thinks that while the long-term outlook may be uncertain, the short term at least is looking pretty healthy ... If computer sales remain flat -- iMac and PowerMac sales are sliding while PowerBook and iBook sales are rising -- then the additional moolah from iPods and iTunes could grow full-year revenues by 22% over 2003 to $7.6 billion."

[ Posted at 6:26 PM | Permalink ]

Some info from today's Java Desktop System Webcast

I actually found the time to sit in on Sun's Java Desktop System Webcast, which was hosted by Sun executive vice president Jonathan Schwartz and Director of Desktop Solutions Peter Ulander. Overall, it was an interesting show, albeit it one with numerous technical glitches, most of which were caused by a massive turnout: Schwartz noted that over 4,000 viewers were flooding the available bandwidth at one point. Some interesting notes from the show:

- Today's JDS is based on Linux, but Sun is releasing a Solaris-based version as well and isn't particularly married to Linux, though it's hard to imagine what else they could use.

- JDS is pretty cheap at $50 per employee (or $100 per desktop; $50 for a limited time) and included free at home use, but Sun never answered my TCO question regarding the relative cost of JDS compared to Windows XP.

- The current JDS version will soon be supplanted by JDS 2.0, which will add developer tools, a Solaris version, and integration with JES.

- Sun's Longhorn-like Project Looking Glass is like a "concept car," according to Schwartz and would not be a specific JDS release. Instead, various PLG technologies will be rolled into JDS over time.

[ Posted at 6:11 PM | Permalink ]

Mozilla Calendar Project Page Redesigned

(From Mozillazine) Simon Paquet writes: "I completely reorganized, redesigned and extended the Mozilla Calendar homepage to make it more accessible for end users and new contributors. I split the big frontpage into several smaller pages, added a screenshots page, a themes page and (most importantly) a roadmap (contributed by Gabe Wilde) outlining the features that are needed to reach the 1.0 milestone and the inclusion into the Mozilla default builds. "At the moment the Calendar project is progressing very slowly because only two people are currently working on the code. So if you have some time and are looking for a worthwhile project, take a look at what we need and code it. :-)"

[ Posted at 6:02 PM | Permalink ]

Mozilla Firebird due Monday, February 9

Mozillazine: "The target release date is Monday February 9th. This according to Ben Goodger, Chief Executive Software Engineer Guru and CEO of the Mozilla Firebird Corporation. The reason for the delay has not been related to code issues. More on that after the 0.8 release. Stay tuned."

[ Posted at 6:00 PM | Permalink ]

Another Look at Mozilla

Web Monkey: "The development team seems to have been working extra hard on Mozilla 1.6, improving the tabbed browsing, adding a pop-up blocker, and incorporating a handy 'find as you type' function that begins searching the loaded page for text as you type it. Mozilla 1.6 is still a little sluggish, but it renders pages more quickly than last October's 1.5 release. Most importantly, Mozilla's levels of Web standards compliance and compatibility are head and shoulders above Internet Explorer."

[ Posted at 5:59 PM | Permalink ]

KDE 3.2 released

KDE.org: "The KDE Project is pleased to announce the immediate availability of KDE 3.2, the third major release of the award-winning KDE3 desktop platform ... Common desktop tasks such as web browsing, file management, email, personal information management, instant messaging, software and web development, multimedia, education and entertainment can be accomplished quickly and easily. This impressive collection of software is complemented by a recent update to the KOffice integrated office suite."

[ Posted at 5:56 PM | Permalink ]

Science fun: Mars in 3D

Thanks Keith! This doesn't work in any browser besides Internet Explorer, but definitely check out Microsoft Research's 3D reconstruction of Mars, which was "created by [Microsoft Research's] computer technique which automatically fuses the NASA input images by simulating the human brain." Good stuff!

[ Posted at 9:26 AM | Permalink ]

Monday, February 02, 2004

Greatest Super Bowl ever!

Congratulations to the injury-ridden New England Patriots for winning their second Super Bowl in three years, with the world's greatest football team defeating an unexpectedly capable Carolina Panther squad 32-29 in spectacular fashion. As CBS Sports' Jim Nantz noted during the awards ceremony after the game, it was "the greatest Super Bowl ever," but then that's what sports analysts were saying after the Patriots' first Super Bowl victory against the heavily-favored St. Louis Rams. This time around, viewers were treated to a score-a-thon fourth quarter as the Patriots answered every single Panthers run with a score of their own. Capping it off, as with the previous Pats Super Bowl victory, was a nail-biting, game-winning Adam Vinatieri field goal, this one from 41 yards.

[ Posted at 9:03 AM | Permalink ]