Edible Apple

Last week, Amazon purchased a company specializing in touchscreen technology called Touchco in an apparent attempt to spruce up the Kindle in light of Apple’s recently announced iPad. Now, it seems that Amazon has its eyes set on revamping the entire Kindle experience from the ground up.

The New York Times reports on a slew of job postings at Amazon that all hint at a major overhaul of the Kindle, which is currently nothing more than an e-book reader.

One job opening in particular, for a Hardware Display Manager, tells the applicant that “you will know the LCD business and key players in the market.” The key point here is the word “LCD,” which means the Kindle is possibly exploring color (unless they are hiring an LCD manager to simply gain an understanding of the color-display market).

Other job openings include Wi-Fi specialists (the current Kindle has only a 3G wireless connection), and openings for someone to “lead the software development teams that develop and maintain the applications.” The applications division could signal a move to create more apps for the Kindle, or someone who will manage the latest app store developments after Amazon announced a new software development kit was released last month to independent programmers.

The question then becomes, what exactly is Amazon trying to do with the Kindle? Originally a singular purpose e-book reader, will Amazon now try and position the as a multipurpose computer with built-in wifi, access to apps, and a web browser? Will it abandon e-ink and instead move to a color LCD display? WIll Amazon split the Kindle line into 2 separate products, as the report from the Times speculates?

So many questions, and it’ll be more than interesting to see what moves Amazon makes in the coming months. There’s no doubt, though, that Amazon has a long road to climb. The Kindle, though beloved by many a hardcore reader, isn’t exactly the pinacle of either hardware or software innovation, and it remains to be seen if Amazon can pool together its resources in such a manner as to effectively offer an attractive alternative to Apple’s iPad.

An iPhone repair site called iResQ has posted purported screenshots of a front panel from the next-gen iPhone. The most interesting, and obvious, feature of the alleged front panel is that its 1/4 of an inch longer than the front panel of previous iPhone models.

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Before the iPad was introduced, pundits, as Steve Jobs gleefuly pointed out, anticipated that the device would retail for as much as $999. Instead, Jobs shocked and pleasantly surprised everyone when he announced that the entry level price for the iPad would sell for just $499 - which isn’t all that bad when you consider that the iPad is simply a glorified iPod Touch.

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One of the more impressive specs on the iPad is that Apple managed to get 10 hours of battery life on a device with a sizeable 9.7-inch screen. The processor behind this incredible achievement is the Apple A4, a system on a chip running at 1 Ghz and based on the ARM Cortex A9 CPU.

In 2008, Apple purchased PA Semi, a fabless semiconductor company known for churning out powerful processors that utilized relatively little power. Indeed, rumblings seem to suggest that the A4 was built by Samsung and designed by the PA Semi team acquired back in ‘08. But what is it about the A4, exactly, that makes it so goddamn efficient?

To answer that question, Paul Boutin of Venture Beat put his ear to the ground, gathered up information from a slew of engineers (some of whom used to work at Apple), and even got a few “insidery sources” to chime in. According to Boutin, this is the best explanation he received regarding the iPad’s remarkable battery life.

PA Semi achieved something to write home about just as Apple defected to Intel:  a 65nm 2Ghz, dual powerpc core processor that maxed out at 25 watts.  That was supposedly tantamount to witchcraft, and an explanation I’ve seen for it was that PA Semi was able to break it up into a large number of smaller ‘power domains’ (if that was the term..), allowing them to keep more of the chip either at lower frequency or turned off completely. I also recall reading that this was extremely difficult.

The A4 story, really being whether it has much of an advantage over arm + graphics + … chips of the same generation (whether A8 or A9), hinges on whether Apple’s PA Semi talent and IP worked all that much magic compared to what e.g. TI or Qualcomm already achieved.  That’s probably THE question to ask your Apple sources: how much PA Semi is in there, and how much better is that?  They were previously the best of the best, does it still show in this new context?

Check out this online and lame-ass petition in the form of a letter to Steve Jobs warning users about the dangers of iPad DRM:

Mr. Jobs,

DRM will give Apple and their corporate partners the power to disable features, block competing products (especially free software) censor news, and even delete books, videos, or news stories from users’ computers without notice– using the device’s “always on” network connection.

This past year, we have seen how human rights and democracy protestors can have the technology they use turned against them. By making a computer where every application is under total, centralized control, Apple is endangering freedom to increase profits.

Apple can say they will not abuse this power, but their record of App Store rejections and removals gives us no reason to trust them. The iPad’s unprecedented use of DRM to control all capabilities of a general purpose computer is a dangerous step backward for computing and for media distribution. We demand that Apple remove all DRM from its devices.

We demand? Who the hell do these people think they are? It’s a f’n tablet style computer. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. If you don’t like iTunes, use Amazon. End of story.

This is all so ridiculous that I almost wish I had enough time on my hands to come up with pointless and holier-than-thou petitions myself.

Check out a great speech from DF’s John Gruber titled “Auteur Theory of Design” where he examines why some companies with a boatload of talented and creative engineers still manage to produce second rate products. It’s an engaging discussion, and though some of it may come across as obvious, Gruber does an admirable job of relaying his points in a way that make them seem fresh and instructive, and ultimately the viewer gets a better grasp on how companies like Apple (where everything has to pass through Steve Jobs) are able to outmaneuver larger companies with greater resources. The video is also particularly timely in light of the recent bashing levied upon Microsoft by former VP Dick Brass for Redmond’s inability to innovate and ship to market.

On a somewhat related note, when Palm CEO and former Apple executive Jon Rubinstein was asked about the biggest thing he learned from all the years he spent working alongside Steve Jobs at both NeXT and Apple, he answered:

“I learned a sense of taste at Apple. I learned how to make products for consumers rather than engineers.”

And like Gruber mentions, if the person making the final decisions has no taste, then it makes no difference how talented the people working below him actually are.

Note: The video above is from Macworld 2009. Macworld 2010 is set to take place from February 9 to February 13. Apple, of course, won’t be in attendance but David Pogue, John Gruber, and Leo Laporte will be just a few of the featured speakers at this year’s event.

Rumor has it that the following video from Google, titled “Parisian Love” will air later today during the Super Bowl. Eric Schmidt even tweeted, “Can’t wait to watch the Superbowl tomorrow. Be sure to watch the ads in the 3rd quarter (someone said “Hell has indeed frozen over.”)

My thoughts? It’s a damn good commercial that does a great job of striking an emotional chord.

With Windows Mobile now in the depths of despair, and lucky to even be included in a conversation about big time players in the mobile space, comes news that Windows Mobile 7 might make its debut at the upcoming Mobile World Congress set to take place on February 15, 2010. Microsoft is reportedly confident that their new mobile OS will be ready for primetime by September 2010.

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As a member of the iPhone developer program, one of the things if you have access to is the iPad Human Interface Guidelines. Not a member? No sweat. UX Magazine has a sweet overview of them below. It’s an compelling read if you happen to be design minded, and an interesting look into Apple’s theory on UI design and how they envision or idealize the functionality of the iPad itself.

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With Apple now over 30 years old, it’s sometimes easy to forget that they were on the vanguard of technological innovation years before the Mac came to be, and decades before the iPod and iPhone took over the world. The Apple II, which was introduced at the West Coast Computer Faire in 1977, helped launch the personal computer revolution - a fact which Apple gleefuly points out in every single one of their press releases.

One of the more revolutionary aspects of the original Apple II was its support for color graphics, a feature which, at the time, seemed impossible to support on a personal computer. Steve Wozniak was the brains behind the Apple II, and below, he talks about how he figured out how to add color support to the Apple II without a multitude of chips.

Electronista reports:

The iPhone platform is more popular to write games for than the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP, according to a new study from Game Developer Research. Demand for the iPhone has surged to where about 19 percent of all game developers are writing for the iPhone and iPod touch. The figure is more than twice as high as for the DS and PSP and results in three quarters of all mobile game developers writing for Apple’s handhelds.

Mobile games represent about 25 percent of the entire game development community, or more than twice the 12 percent from before. Apple’s presence is believed to have spurred on most of the growth.

The shift also puts the iPhone OS in a favorable light compared to traditional TV console developers. Although the Mac/PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 still have the brunt of support at 70, 69 and 61 percent each, interest in writing for the Wii actually fell from 42 percent in 2008 to just 30 percent. Nintendo’s child-oriented image and a general lack of interest for third-party games contributed to its slump.

Steve Jobs made headlines last week when he reportedly referred to Adobe as lazy during a company townhall meeting about the iPad. Now, Hardmac reports, citing a source close to an Apple executive, some of the more precise details surrounding Jobs’ characterization of Adobe as lazy and why Apple and Adobe haven’t been seeing eye to eye as of late.

For starters, Adobe “completely missed the transition to Cocoa, and tried to extend the use of Carbon, causing problems for both users and Apple. They only now start to work within the programming environment, however, the first beta of the new Creative Suite 5 remain incomplete and unstable.”

Second, the source notes that Adobe has been “very slow to react” when Apple sends them bug reports pertaining to Flash on OS X. Apple reportedly sent Adobe a list of 410 bugs relating to Flash running on OS X, but Adobe has thus far only addressed 25 of them. Speaking further on Flash, Jobs was said to have stated:

Flash has become a collection of cobbled together technologies - a Kludge. It takes a huge amount of processing power and memory - it is too inefficient, and takes too long to learn.

Since its inception, the iPhone has been criticized for its lack of flash support, and most recently, those same complaints have surfaced in the wake of the newly announced iPad. For Apple, though, the decision to exclude flash from the iPhone OS was not a conscious decision to screw over Adobe, but “rather the consequence of the inability of Adobe to offer a mobile and power efficient bug-free Flash version.” Though we’re sure Apple’s appetite for controlling as much of the underlying technology in its products undoubtedly factors into their stance as well.

Apple is also none too pleased with the way Adobe implements their anti-piracy protection measures for their suite of software titles.

Apple is also upset about Adobe Software Activation, their anti-piracy protection. This system forces CS users to validate their license online. In order to prevent any bypassing by software-based debuggers, the ASA shunts the system in order to directly access the deepest layer of the CPU and the RAM, without considering the protection of such components built into Mac OS X. As a consequence it would increase the risk of crash and fragmentation, making Mac OS X unable to manage or better control them. So, every time the ASA is modified or updated as it has already been hacked a certain number of times, Adobe asks Apple to take measures on its system to let the ASA work efficiently, without creating too much instability

And finally, Apple is reportedly un-impressed with the current user interface designs of Adobe applications, and believe that they appear old and aren’t as user friendly as they could be.

Further reading:

Apple and Adobe: Who’s moving away from who