AB's Reflections

Tag: Apple

  • A year with a MacBook Air

    I switched to a MacBook Air (2013 model with 256 GB storage) at work from a typical Windows 7 laptop over a year ago (since I manage the app store accounts and iOS needs a Mac) and have had a good while to experience the pros and cons of the system, particularly in a Windows centric enterprise environment. Customary thoughts on the same:

    • In terms of the build quality, weight and size, there are definitely very few Windows laptops that would come close, and none of them are likely to be priced in the typical enterprise purchasing range. And yes, the trackpad is lightyears ahead of a typical Windows laptop.
    • The display though not IPS or retina is definitely much better than the typical Windows laptops.
    • OS X has its advantages and disadvantages versus Windows. I particularly like the multiple desktop feature and Spotlight search.
    • I started off with Mavericks and am currently on Yosemite and do see how OS X has been injected with iOS paradigms. For me that turned out to be an advantage since I started off my Apple computing on iOS devices.
    • Battery life is also pretty good and I can manage a near full day of work without plugging in. However, since I use Chrome as my primary browser due to its cross platform presence, there is definitely a trade off here with it showing up as one of the “apps using significant energy” every now and then.
    • I’ve even used the MacBook for a bunch of video editing in iMovie for some office events and the editing process itself was quite smooth. Exporting the videos was only when I felt the Air’s slower processor.

    In the meantime, I’ve been using a Windows 7 laptop at home (reversed situation over many) and while Windows 7 is just as good an OS as OS X, the real difference in usage experience comes from the SSD, trackpad and display. These compromises by Windows laptop OEMS even in laptops priced close to MacBooks really sabotage the Windows usage experience even for . Things have been getting better in the Windows camp, but there still seems to be a long way to go.

  • A Tale of 3 App Stores

    I setup my company’s app store accounts for iOS, Android and Windows last year and have been managing them for over a year now. The journey has been quite interesting, starting from signing up for the accounts to switching to a MacBook Air last April for iOS development. Here are a few observations on the journey so far:

    • The signup process is pretty simple for Android and Windows and the cost is also minimal. Apple on the other hand has a comprehensive process if you opt to setup a company account that allows you to have development team members. Plus they are the costliest of the lot at $99 per year.
    • For all the flak that Android draws for its developmental difficulties, its app store management tools are the best. you can easily setup a decentralized account granting access on a per app basis to different team members. This makes it very convenient and easy to work with multiple development partners in case of an enterprise.
    • Windows Store unfortunately is on the other end of the spectrum with no support for any kind of team members. So, the account manager is left to do all the app listings and package uploads.
    • Apple is somewhere in between, allowing team members, but not providing app level access controls. So, one development partner could potentially look at the others’ work. Plus, the main account P12 certificate needs to be shared if you want to allow anyone other than the account owner to upload apps.
    • Alpha and beta testing is also very simple on Android where you can just upload the package, setup a Google Group to manage the testers and setup the process.
    • Testing for iOS is also fairly easy now that TestFlight is integrated into iTunes Connect. However, if you want to allow external testers then your app needs to go through a review process.
    • Windows Store does not seem to offer any testing support at the moment.
    • On the store management app front, Apple seems to be the only one offering an iTunes Connect app that lets you monitor your account. Nothing equivalent for Android or Windows so far.

    Overall, Android or more specifically the Google Play Store seems to be the easiest to manage with a decentralized enterprise account while Windows Store involves a lot of administrative overhead, with iOS closer to the Play Store. Let’s see if the situation improves with Windows 10 over the next one year.

  • My Gadgets of 2014

    A laundry list of all the gadgets I used last year:

    • iPod Touch: I’d got this 2nd gen device in early 2010, and it has been pretty much reduced to the role of a music player now. The battery does not hold up for very long, but otherwise it’s fine. It’s stuck on iOS 5, and it made for some stunning contrast when I got my iPhone later in the year.
    • Lumia 720: This was my primary phone for nearly half of the year before I dropped it and busted the screen. It was a pleasure to use and I captured lots of photos & videos using this. I continue to recommend Windows Phones to people switching to modern smartphones for the first time.
    • Galaxy S3: A phone I got way back in mid-2012, and it never became my primary phone. It did serve as my primary internet device on the go till I got my iPhone. The performance also degraded over time and with my version of the device being omitted by Samsung for the Kitkat upgrade, I flashed it with Cyanogenmod 11. This did give a much needed performance boost, but I lost most of my gaming progress and ended up installing a lot fewer apps than I had before.
    • iPad mini: I had got the 64 GB version on the day it launched in India in Dec 2012, and it has become my go to browser & gaming device at home. iOS 7 & 8 have performed pretty decently on this though some of the newer games have performance issues due to the old old hardware. Even though I got the highest capacity, I still run into storage issues due to my large collection of games, music & comics (tons of them through Humble Bundle). Apart from this, my iPhone and office MacBook Air have ensured that I have companion devices to exploit the continuity features introduced in iOS 8 & Yosemite.
    • Kindle Paperwhite: I had gotten impatient and bought the 1st gen device in Dec 2013, just a few months before the launch of the second gen in India. Haven’t regretted the purchase though as my Kindle library has a couple hundred books plus there’s a bunch of them from other sources. I have read quite a few books on it and it is definitely more convenient than the iPad mini in that regard.
    • Canon EOS 550D: My DSLR completed 4 years this August, and I do manage to shoot special occasions on it – mostly cultural shows & family trips. The Lumia 720 & iPhone pretty much took over the casual (and not so casual at times) shooting role. Plus the phones are a lot more convenient for shooting video. My 4 lens kit along with a flash didn’t see any addition this year which is probably a sign of things to come.
    • Acer laptop: This Windows 7 machine has been through a hard disk replacement due to failure but manages to trudge on. I had bought it with the intention of gaming, but it seems to be having heating issues of late when running heavier games. Its role has been pretty much reduced to that of a home server, handling the occasional download and streaming duties. Gaming & browsing have been pretty much shifted to the iPad & smartphones though it manages to hang on to the printing duties.
    • TP Link modem & wifi routers: I had started off with a 3G wifi router a couple of years back to make the most of my MTS connection. We eventually went for an MTNL connection and a DSL modem cum wifi router took over as the main connection, and I shifted the old router to the role of a range extender for my bedroom. They’ve been doing pretty well apart from the streaming issues with the Apple TV.
    • MacBook Air: Thanks to my role of managing the official mobile apps at work, I ended up replacing the work HP Windows laptop with a MacBook Air in April. It’s been a pleasure to use, and took me a few weeks to appreciate the difference between Windows & OS X. In terms of the OS both Windows & OS X have their strengths & weaknesses. The real difference in user experience comes from the hardware – the default SSD in particular. This makes a ton of difference to the responsiveness of the machine and guarantees a near tablet\smartphone like response. I’m sure Windows laptops can feel the same way, but you’d be hard pressed to find anything priced below a MacBook Air equipped with SSDs by default.
    • Google Glass: Another device that I got to use for a few weeks due to my work role. Definitely not a mainstream device, especially in its current form, but it will certainly have a major role to play in the enterprise. The hardware is almost certain to get an upgrade this year and things should be interesting once more.
    • iPhone 5s: Ended up replacing my broken Lumia 720 with a gold 16 GB iPhone 5s after lots of debates. Bought it just before the 6\6+ launch when the prices were on the way down to reduce the cognitive dissonance a bit. The storage is definitely a limiting factor and the screen a tad small now that we have the larger iPhones, but everything else is just the way I wanted. My photo shooting has increased even more after the purchase, and so has my video taking. I’ve also finally got all the apps I use on my primary phone – Windows Phone was limited that way. TouchID is of course what it promises to be and has made me quite lazy. I suspect I’m now firmly in the iPhone camp with a finger in the Android camp.
    • Apple TV: Yet another Apple device for home. AirPlay is certainly handy to have for uses ranging from photo slideshows to showing off online videos. Plus the home sharing feature allows me to stream content from my laptop a lot more reliably (my TV could play some stuff, but not all formats). The Youtube channel also got a much needed overhaul towards the end of the year and I have finally started catching up on my Watch Later list.
    • Apple Airport Express: With the Apple TV came the limitations of my routers streaming capabilities. I’d faced it before when I’d tried to stream to the iPad, but the Apple TV just highlighted the problem even more. Did some research and zeroed in on the Airport Express instead of some ac capable router since I don’t have any device with ac yet. Things have been pretty smooth since then, though the range of the router is not that different from the TP Link ones.
    • Honourable mentions: I’ve still got my Altec Lansing ATP3 speakers purchased way back in 2007 as my primary speakers. The Senheisser HD 239 headphones purchased in 2013 saw a lot more use last year, though the SoundMagic earphones have been sparingly used. I also got a JBL bluetooth speaker that’s come in handy on many occasions. My Plantronics Voyager Pro HD bluetooth headset from 2012 is also going pretty strong and sees almost daily use.

    2015 is probably too early for getting anything VR related, but I have a very strong suspicion that I’m going to end up with a wearable this year.

  • Thinking about the next iPhone

    The rumour mill is really heating up, and there have been quite a few leaks showing a larger iPhone. Healthkit is also getting more features in the new betas, including built in support for step counting.

    What will be more interesting this time will be what Apple does with the internals, particularly the SoC and camera. On the SoC front, we’ve been stuck on the 28nm node for almost a couple of years, and they’ve already played the 64-bit card to improve performance last year. Maybe they’ll astound everyone by announcing that the new SoC (A8?) is fabricated on Intel’s facilities on their next-gen 14nm process. In fact, even using Intel’s mature 22nm process would be pretty revolutionary. There have been regular rumours of such partnerships over the last few years, so maybe this is the year of the switch?

    On the camera front, the decreasing thickness of the iPhones will surely limit the sensor size & optics. The 5s was probably the limit for the 8MP sensor size. This is going to be a really interesting area as Apple has thus far never traded off device aesthetics for camera specs.

  • Apple doing to software what Microsoft did to hardware?

    Now that Apple has announced that OS X updates will be free going forward, and many of its first party apps like iWork are going to be free with new devices, Microsoft seems to have its task cut out. Many people seem to think that this move by Apple will really hurt Microsoft. In some ways Apple is trying to commoditize software the way Microsoft commoditized hardware over the last 2 decades. However, there are a few key points that not many have mentioned:

    1. Microsoft has given away major OS updates for free. E.g. Windows XP SP2. In a way, the Apple move was preempted by the free Windows 8.1 update.
    2. Microsoft is a past master of bundling free software with its OS. Remember Internet Explorer vs Netscape? Or more recently, Office being given away with Windows RT.
    3. Apple hardware remains luxury items, and free OS upgrades are not going to make budget conscious people switch from Windows to Apple devices. That said, the real threat comes when people realize that a tablet meets their requirements and is probably cheaper than a PC (desktop\laptop) when it is time to get a new device.
    4. The real threat to Microsoft comes from Android, as OEMs are gradually warming up to Android as an alternative for Windows for laptops. Since the market is undergoing a major shift in the kind of personal devices being used (desktops to laptops to mobiles & tablets), there is a big scope for a free OS. Android has been successful on mobiles while Linux failed on PCs due to this very reason.
    5. OS development has an associated cost even if you do not pay a third party for it. Apple is just subsidizing the software costs through hardware margins. Even if OEMs decide to opt for Android or Chrome OS, they will need an in house team to customize the OS. Of course, OEMs probably already have an in house team developing software for Windows given the typical bloatware that comes pre-installed on PCs.

    The bottom line is that Microsoft has to continue to woo its OEM partners who bring in the OS revenue, while at the same time transform its revenue source to hardware. The Nokia acquisition becomes even more important now.

  • Thinking about the most forward thinking smartphone in the world

    As with the “S” iPhone releases so far, the iPhone 5s continues the trend of looking practically the same as the previous version while making radical improvements under the hood. I have never had and iPhone of my own so far, but that should not stop me from sharing some thoughts on the new release:

    • The A7 processor with its 64 bit architecture is undoubtedly the most forward thinking part of the launch. In 2 years, Apple’s entire mobile portfolio should be 64 bit, and 3-4 years from now, most iDevices will be 64 bit as well given the typical upgrade cycles.
    • The A7 also probably sets the foundation stone for a possible move to Apple’s own SoC on their larger devices like the MacBook and iMac. The A7 is in touching distance of Intel’s new architecture for Atom, and 4-5 years of incremental updates should bring it up to the good enough mark. Of course, Intel would have pushed the performance envelope even further by then, but how much of that will be meaningful remains to be seen.
    • It should be interesting to see what happens to the Apple TV going forward. It has the most modest of specs at present, and without an app platform there is no need for much improvements in performance. This is likely to change by the end of the year, or at most within the next year.
    • The GPU is also interesting as it supports pretty high resolutions (well above 4K). Another point to think about for the Apple TV.
    • Then, there is the M7 motion processor that is decoupled from the main SoC. This serves as a perfect test bed for whatever wearable device that Apple may be designing, but also indicates that there are likely to be A7 based devices without the M7 – iPads maybe or even a future Apple TV.
    • Motion processors seem to be getting popular, and Google-Motorola arguably beat Apple to market in this regard with the Moto X. On the Android front, this is bound to bring in some efficiencies resulting in better battery life. And there is of course Google Now which is bound to start making greater use of such processors sooner rather than later (Kit Kat & Nexus 5?).
    • The TouchID fingerprint sensor is likely to be just as radical, and I’d say a bigger feature than Siri. Initial usage feedback is pretty positive. Let’s see how it holds up in the longer term given that the 5s is supposed to be a future thinking device.
    • The lower “s” of the 5s is also pretty forward thinking given that we’ll have a Galaxy S5 in 5-6 months.
    • As for the Android copycats, we can be sure that the flagships of next year will feature 64 bit processors, motion processors, fingerprint sensors (S Finger a la S Voice?) and dual tone flashes. Hopefully they also get out of the megapixels race on the camera front and go for larger pixels (Windows Phone seems to have avoided it so far).
    • iOS 7 also possibly indicates what a notification centre on Windows Phone would look like given the similar design language in many areas.

    Update: Some very interesting thoughts by Cringely as well about Apple outmaneuvering Microsoft on the no compromises PC model:

    Jump forward in time to a year from today. Here’s what I expect we’ll see. Go to your desk at work and, using Bluetooth and AirPlay, the iPhone 5S or 6 in your pocket will automatically link to your keyboard, mouse, and display. Processing and storage will be in your pocket and, to some extent, in the cloud. Your desktop will require only a generic display, keyboard, mouse, and some sort of AirPlay device, possibly an Apple TV that looks a lot like a Google ChromeCast.

  • iOS 7 on the iPad mini: First impressions

    I managed to install iOS 7 on my iPad mini over the course of last night. Some initial thoughts on the experience so far :

    • It’s a pretty large download at around 750 MB OTA.
    • Lot of greetings in different languages once the device reboots & the setup begins.
    • It is evident that iOS 7 is designed for Retina displays from the setup screen itself with the jagged fonts & display elements, and definitely increases the chances of a Retina iPad mini release this year as some reviewers have noted.
    • The notifications finally make use of the larger display of the iPads.
    • Quite a lot of animations, and it really taxes the hardware resulting in some choppiness at times. Seems to happen the most on the revamped task manager. This is bound to be a lot worse in the iPhone 4, which has the most dated hardware of the devices getting this update, and it’s pretty clear why Apple left out many features on the iPhone 4. I doubt the iPhone 4S will fare much better than the iPad mini or iPad 2 for that matter, as it has a higher resolution screen than either coupled with slower hardware.
    • Speaking of the task manager, it is totally revamped, and totally resembles the Windows Phone task manager including a card for the home screen (which in turn was inspired by WebOS). The multi-finger gesture (4 finger+ upward swipe) to launch the task manager is still the same, but feels odd as the feature is full screen now.
    • Flickr & Vimeo are now first class citizens of iOS, just like Facebook & Twitter.
    • iPhone apps look a lot better now as they use the Retina assets and run only in the 2x mode. Definitely a big improvement on the looks front.
    • Folders seem to have no app limits anymore and open up full screen. However they show only 9 apps at a time, which results in a lot of wasted space. Should’ve been 16 IMO.
    • Auto app updates are finally here, but haven’t seen it in action yet due to the App Store behaving wonky at times possibly due to the load from the iOS 7 release – app updates seem to show up and disappear periodically.
    • The title bar clock now has am\pm in small letters, and can change its colour depending on the app. E.g. Facebook makes it blue

    Below are a few screenshots of the iOS 7 on my iPad mini.

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  • Should you really care what tech critics say?

    One thing that has been made abundantly clear over the last decade is that technology critics have endless amounts of advice for the leading companies rooted in conventional wisdom. Somehow, companies that have kept their ears shut or added liberal doses of salt to the advice seem to be the ones that have done better.

    Want examples? Here’s what one had to say about Apple in 2004:

    If Apple is really the brains of the industry–if its products are so much better than Microsoft’s or Dell’s or IBM’s or Hewlett-Packard’s–then why is the company so damned small?

    Regarding mobile devices:

    Newton had its problems–it was clunky, hard to use, and probably ahead of its time. But it still seems baffling that Apple failed to capture a meaningful stake in the $3.3 billion market for personal digital assistants (PDAs), a business that by some measures is now growing faster than either mobile phones or PCs.

    And iPod & online music:

    That’s why recent releases of competing portable music players take on great significance. Selling for as little as $299, the Dell DJ is about $100 cheaper than the iPod with the same 5,000 song capacity. (A $500 iPod holds 10,000 songs). A third product, a 20-GB unit made by Samsung to work with Napster 2.0, costs $100 less than the 20-GB iPod, or about $300, and boasts a lot more features, including a built-in FM transmitter–to play songs on a car radio–and a voice recorder.

    …

    And the competition is swarming. Dell and Samsung are challenging enough, but this business is about to turn into a battle of the titans. Wal-Mart is launching a cut-price online music store of its own–and now Microsoft and Sony, no less, are joining the fray. So Apple’s venture into online music is beginning to look like yet another case of frustration-by-innovation. Once again, Apple has pioneered a market–created a whole new business, even–with a cool, visionary product. And once again, it has drawn copycats with the scale and financial heft to undersell and out-market it. In the end, digital music could turn out to be just one more party that Apple started, but ultimately gets tossed out of.

    Ending it with this note:

    If Apple teaches us anything, it’s that effective innovation is about more than building beautiful cool things.

    The rest as the conventional saying goes is history, starting with the iPhone in 2008 and iPad in 2010, and of course iTunes is the defacto online music resource. Also, not to forget Apple’s brief stint as the most valuable company in the world last year. The entire article makes for some very weird reading in hindsight.

    Fast forward to the present and critics have upgraded their conventional wisdom to what Apple\Google\Amazon have done, and here’s what one has to tell Microsoft that slipped up on the web and mobile revolution:

    Ballmer oversaw a decade of missed opportunities, and he very well may have hastened Microsoft’s decline. But it might have been inevitable. The truth is that for all its claims of innovation, Microsoft never generated much in the way of profits by innovating. This then is a tale of the long, slow death of an enormous cash cow.

    And so Apple and Microsoft have had their fortunes reversed in less than a decade, and the critics have been having a ball over the last couple of years as they dish out unsolicited advice to both. Google and Amazon are gradually beginning to receive their share as well, as people try to figure out their long term strategies.

  • Blast from the past: Nokia, the N810 Tablet & the Long View

    Long in the tooth, but gotta give some leeway, considering that this was written before the App Store debuted on iOS, and before Android (which incidentally is the Linux OS that ate Nokia’s lunch):

    Contrast this war with Nokia’s handset, which is based on Linux. Nokia is building a platform that can run arbitrary software. It’ll be messy, and will go through several iterations. But in the end, we know how this story plays out: iPhone is Compuserve; Nokia is the Internet. (Google’s (GOOG) much-speculated mobile device is also rumored to run a pared-down Linux.)

    via Nokia, the N810 Tablet & the Long View — Tech News and Analysis.

  • Apple CEO Tim Cook on Collaboration

    via Macrumors