I just watched Steve Jobs’ keynote address at the WWDC 2001. It was an interesting event with both lots of underwhelming “new features” and some ground-breaking/game-changing announcements and I am writing this post to discuss my thoughts on it.
A bit of background first: I switched to Macs 2.5 years ago (I own an iMac and a MacBook Pro) after 20 years of working with PCs, including a successful 15 year IT career specializing in Microsoft enterprise technologies. I love my Macs and I’m happy with my choice, but unlike many Apple fan boys, I don’t think Macs are overwhelmingly better, just somewhat better and I can honestly identify and list the flaws and weaknesses in Apple’s products.
I do admire Apple as a company as it has accomplished a lot of amazing things in the past 10 years: it has created new markets, it has grown in the face of adversity, it has diversified and it is one of the most profitable companies on the planet.
OK, back to the keynote. If you watch it you will see that it was divided in 3 parts: Mac OS-X Lion, iOS5, and iCloud.
The Mac OS-X section was one of the underwhelming parts of the presentation. It basically shows a bunch of small UI improvements, some innovative adaptations of iOS technologies to the desktop and a bunch of new features that basically just integrate functionality already provided by third-party applications. Nothing earth-shattering, except for the quietly announced integration of iCloud into OS-X (more on that later).
The iOS5 section was not much better. The big announcement was the long-awaited arrival of a proper notification system. By the looks of it, they basically just copied Android’s excellent notification system, as they did for several other improvements and new features. Again though, the integration of iCloud services in iOS5 is, I think, the most important part.
And now I come to the iCloud announcement, which I think is going to be a game changer, one of those disruptive technologies that will change the face of computing and how we do things in every day life. In typical Apple fashion they took existing technology (“Cloud-based” storage, which Amazon and Google appear to be the current leaders in) and they made it easier to use (e.g. transparent) by integrating it into their operating systems and applications like iWork and iTunes. Then they created a set of free or very affordable services around it and they are giving the APIs to third-party developers so they can integrate their apps too.
The truth is that I can already do many of the things that iCloud does through the excellent DropBox service and I can do it across platforms (important since I use an Android phone). But Apple is taking it to an entirely different level of ease of use and integration so that most people will be able to use it without even knowing that they are. I forecast that in 2 or 3 years such cloud-based storage and sharing across devices will be so ubiquitous that we won’t even think about it anymore. It is one more step towards networked devices with little or no local storage.
So not a new technology but simply a new way to integrate it, market it and make it transparent to the end-user. The big story is not the underlying technology itself but the new features, applications and functionality that it enables in computers and mobile devices. From now on when you work in an iWork application like Numbers or Pages, your files will be automatically and transparently backed up to iCloud and made available on all your devices. So you get automatic and completely transparent file backups and sharing across all your computers and devices. I can do that with DropBox, but I have to consciously save the documents to my DropBox folder.
This takes a new meaning when it comes to pictures. Every time you take a picture on your iPhone, iPod or iPad, it automatically gets sent to iCloud and appears in your PhotoStream on your Mac and other devices. Even cooler, all the songs you buy through iTunes will be kept on iCloud and made available on all your iTunes enabled devices. Apple will even provide a free service called iMatch where they will look through your collection of songs (songs that you have ripped or ripped-off yourself) and they will also make those available in iCloud as long as they can be found in the iTunes library).
So you will no longer need to backup files or transfer them across devices. Your work, including the place your were at in your latest eBooks or Pages document, will follow you across devices and computers. One of Apple’s strength in recent years has been the synergy and ease of integration that you get when you own multiple Apple products, iCloud pushes that advantage to a whole new level.
Apple has spent billions of dollars building giant data centers to support this and yet they are offering all this for free (and a few other features for a modest fee), why? Because this will sell a whole lot more Macs, iPads, iPods, iPhones and AppleTVs. It will also sell a whole lot more songs, movies, books, TV shows and applications.
As a matter of fact, I myself am an Android fan (I favoured Android over iOS because of its openness, its support by multiple manufacturers, the fact that there are dozens of different phones of different sizes and capabilities that you can choose from, etc.) I just upgrade to an HTC Desire S and it is a fantastic device running the latest Android (2.3.3) and HTC’s wonderful Sense UI and Apps and it matches my needs very well. I had no intention of jumping on the iPhone bandwagon and I was sitting on the fence when it came to buying an iPad or one of the fancy new dual-core Android tablets that are coming out now. But with iCloud coming out soon that will definitely push me towards choosing an iPad instead of an Android tablet as I will be able to carry my work around with me when I’m working out in the field (although I could do that using Google Docs on the Android). I will probably still stay with Android phones because I don’t use my phone for working on documents and I need something that is rugged and is actually a good phone rather than a good multi-media device. I will be able to use the iPad for music, reading, working on documents, creating estimates, showing pictures to my customers, etc.
So Apple is deepening it’s integration and ease-of-use advantages, making its products even more attractive in the process and consolidating its lead as a lucrative content provider. Again, no really new technologies here but a superb packaging of existing stuff. Simply brilliant.
*Edit: Here is ComputerWorld’s take on iCloud.
After several days of heavy rains, it’s nice to see the sun this morning.
Just created a an album of my dad’s trip, see it here.
And a video as well…
This picture pretty much summarizes my dad and sister’s day at the beach.
Last night we had a wonderful dinner with Fabien and Nathalie at their beach condo in Gorgona. What lovely views!
Bonne Fête des Mères chère maman! Happy Mother’s Day dear mom!
(Photo que j’ai prise en lumière naturelle venant d’une fenêtre chez mes parents lors de notre dernière visite en Octobre dernier)
(Picture that I took with natural light from a window during our last visit last October)
Nothing is more frustrating than having to deal with the Panamanian Government’s complex and inefficient bureaucracy. Anyone who’s been through the immigration process will attest to that. I guess if you make it through the whole thing, they know you REALLY want to live here…
I just had another brush with this incredible inefficiency while trying to register a trailer. I had this really nice trailer custom-made for my company, so I had to figure out how to get it registered.
First thing was to get it insured and while this has nothing to with the government, I hit the first road-block: the insurance company required a serial number, something the custom-manufacturer didn’t provide, but he made one up for me on request. I was also surprised by the cost of the insurance, which was about four times what I expected and nearly as much as for my car! Apparently that is because it is a commercial trailer…
Once I had the insurance I had to go to my local municipal office (Palacio Municipal de Chame) to get it registered. As usual they needed photocopies of all my documents including my passport and government ID (cedula). I always carry a copy of my passport, cedula and insurance, but I was missing copies of the trailer’s description. As usual, while they require a copy of everything they do not have a photocopier (in this day of $200 copiers, that is inexcusable, a scanner would be even better and save tons of paper). So I had to go out to the nearest photocopy center and come back. Then I needed to go out to the cashier to pay my $15 registration fee, and also go to the Banco Nacional to deposit $10 in the treasury account and obtain a deposit voucher.
I then had to go get a “revisado”, this ridiculous and useless yearly inspection process where they take pictures of your vehicle but never inspect anything, as evidenced by the thousands of completely unsafe vehicles on Panama’s roads. What they failed to tell me though is that because my trailer wasn’t yet in the system, I had to get something called a “pre-revisado”, where they create your record in the registration system and enter the vehicle’s description including weight, dimensions, serial numbers, etc. The problem is that only a few places are authorized to do the “pre-revisado”, so after some seemingly endless arguing with the clueless girl at the San-Jose revisado center I finally figured out the problem and had to go all the way to La Chorrera with my trailer. The pre-revisado cost $15 and showed me how easy it would be to get a stolen vehicle properly registered in this country, the process being entirely handled by some gofer in a second-rate garage.
Once armed with the pre-revisado, I had to go to the Palacio Municipal de La Chorrera with all my docs and went through another photocopy dance because I had already given away my passport/cedula copy! It was doubly frustrating here because the woman actually had a nice photocopier right on her desk, but when I pointed it out she sternly informed me that it was strictly for internal use and not for public use! After returning with a photocopy they could finally print the official registration certificate (Registro Unico) which includes a hologram and a government seal. They also assigned me a plate number, but I had to go back to my municipal office in Chame in order to retrieve the actual plate.
Something that should have taken a few minutes ended up taking several days…
Our old girl Tally was posing for the camera while taking a break during a recent walk. While she is slowing down with age, she’s still as beautiful as ever. Notice the always present stick! (click on the pictures to enlarge)
This huge (6″ long) grasshopper-like bug is really beautiful when seen up-close. It has very intricate designs and colours all over its body! (click to embiggen)
Yesterday was a good day for wildlife sighting! About an hour after I saw the toucan, I went to walk the dog and noticed something hanging from the lowest branch of a tree. At first I thought it was a nest, but as I got closer I saw the nest had a face, it was a young tow-toed sloth! I ran back home to get my big camera and got plenty of shots. He was so close I could almost touch him.
