Huibert Aalbers Portfolio

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The Apple TV is really a stripped down Mac Mini

January 16, 2007

When Apple first announced the iTV, back in September, we all assumed that it was just another CE device, much like ElGato’s eyeHome or more recent devices from Linksys. It turns out that this is not true and that the Apple TV is much closer to a traditional computer than previously thought.

According to AppleInsider, the device sports an under-clocked 1.0GHz Pentium-M processor, a 40GB Hard drive, 256MB of memory as well as an nVidia G72M video board with 64MB of video RAM. While the specs aren’t really impressive compared to current laptop offerings, this is as close as you get today if you want to develop a computer that sells for under US$300, doesn’t require a fan [correction: actually the device sports a small fan, however it does not seem to produce a loud noise] and fits in a very small form factor.

This design offers many advantages for Apple. Since it is based on an Intel Architecture, the code developed for iTunes and Front Row can be easily reused. Additionally, in the future, as prices for more recent components continue to drop, the Apple TV can be easily upgraded to support better technologies such as 1080p output and Blue-Ray high-definition DVD playback.

It is clear to me that the Apple TV is basically a low-end Macintosh computer that lacks some features in order to keep the price down and eliminate the need for a noisy fan, an important feature for a device designed to be used in the living room, something that Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo seem to be unable to understand.

We may never see Mac OS X (or any other OS) boot on an Apple TV, although I wouldn’t dismiss the idea. After all, hackers have been able to install linux on a WRT54G router and even on the iPod, so why not do the same with this much more powerful device. However, what really struck me was that at a time when Apple has just dropped the word Computer from its name it may have just released the cheapest Macintosh ever.

iPhone questions

January 11, 2007

The iPhone announcement may have put an end to years of speculations, however I feel that it still raises lots of questions. Many of these questions have already been discused, but surprisingly I haven’t seen any of the following questions asked on the web:

1. What does the iPhone mean for the future of the iPod?
If you were to believe Steve Jobs, the iPhone is an iPod, the wide screen iPod everyone has been clamoring for. The truth is that what people were really asking for was a US$249 80GB true video iPod. The announcement of the iPhone, while exciting, has not eliminated the need for such a product. Apple is expecting to sell 10 millions of iPhones this year, which is great but from my point of view, a true video iPod could easily beat that target. The reason is price, storage and global availability. The low end iPhone will retail at US$499 which is significantly more expensive than the current iPod with video. Add to that the price of the monthly Cingular fee and you can see that this is not a product most teenagers will be able to afford. Storage space is a problem too. I do not have tons of music, photos and videos, yet my 30GB of storage are almost filled up. Finally, there are large regions of the world where the iPod is currently an immense success but, at least initially, there are indications that the iPhone will not be available. Latin America is one of those regions. Most customers there buy the iPods in the US and then smuggle them back to their countries. That will not happen with a product that these customers cannot use at home. So, the question is, will Apple release such a product. That seems unlikely for two reasons. First, it could cannibalize sales of the iPhone which is dangerous since Apple needs a blockbuster launch for its phone if it wants to be a credible player in the cellular maker industry. Second, the true price of the iPhone seems to be close to US$1000, if you take into account the Cingular subsidy. By removing the cell phone features, it is unlikely that you can bring the price down to US$350.

2. Will some of the iPhone innovations eventually make it to the Mac?
Apple claims that the iPhone underlying OS is indeed Mac OS X and it implies that the iPhone inherits most of its power from the Mac. This is probably an overstatement. The truth is that Apple is probably using a deeply modified version of Darwin with a graphics layer that uses some Cocoa APIs but includes many new private APIs not available on the Mac today. That means that there are technologies that have been developed for the iPhone that could be useful for the Mac. Could some of these technologies be the “secret” features Steve Jobs was talking about when he unveiled Leopard at WWDC 2006? We will know pretty soon, when the new OS is released next spring.

3. How long before competitors catch-up with the iPhone?
Apple claims that the iPhone has a five years leap over the competition and that over 200 patents will prevent competitors from releasing a similar product. This is probably an exaggeration. Let’s examine for example the browser included in the iPhone. Apple is just using the WebKit open source project which had already been adopted by Nokia for future phones and therefore, while any contributions made by that company have been available to Apple, it also means that Nokia will be able to soon release a similar browser on their own phones. Sure, the finger based user interface may be unique, but differentiation will diminish over time.

4. Will January 2007 will be remembered as the beginning of the end for the PC?
When Apple first released the original bondi blue iMac, one of its main innovations was the lack of a floppy disk drive. Everyone knew that the device wasn’t really needed but PC manufacturers did not dare to eliminate it. Today we are in a similar situation, this time the endangered species is the PC. Except for some computer intensive multimedia applications such as Final Cut Pro, most of us really use the PC to connect to the internet. By removing the word Computers from the company name, Apple inc. is recognizing not only that it manufactures consumer electronic products but also that the PC age is coming to an end. This doesn’t mean that Apple will stop manufacturing fine computers for the foreseeable future, it simply means that when analysts start to see a downward trend in computer sales to consumers Apple will be somewhat shielded from a negative valuation as they will be participating in other growing markets.

What do you think? Please share your thoughts.

Truth will make us free

January 10, 2007

One nice thing about traveling to a country every year or two is that you can better appreciate what is happening there (or not) and measure the pace of change. Now that I am back from my recent trip to Spain I can confidently state that from a politics standpoint nothing hasn’t changed much over the last twenty years or so. That country is Spain. After the death of dictator Francisco Franco, the country went to an accelerated democratization process that culminated with the election in 1982 of Felipe Gonzalez as the first socialist prime minister after forty years of fascism. That, in addition to over three decades of prosperity, shoul have put an end to a dark chapter of Spanish history. It did not.

It turns out that democracy and prosperity were unable to heal the deep scars that still divide the Spanish society today. Political tensions are currently running at an extremely unusual level for a country that is witnessing economic growth and slowly decreasing unemployment. On one hand, the right wing party (Partido Popular) simply does not stand being in the opposition and violently criticizes any decision taken by the government, trying to polarize society over any issue in order to regain power. The situation, is in many ways similar to what happened back in the thirties when the right believed that the country could not survive a socialist government and therefore started the civil war. This is, by the way, a common lie spread by politicians, as history has demonstrated that, in democratic countries that obey the rule of law, elected government really do not have the capability to cause irreparable harm during their term. On the other hand, separatist parties in Euskadi and Catalonia keep their fight to become more independent, or simply, independent. They claim that they want to separate from Spain because they are different from the rest of the Spaniards, however, what they really mean is that they are better than the rest. This isn’t new either.

This ridiculous belief that people in a region can be better than their neighbours, is a direct result of the industrialization process that occured during the 19th century. There are many countries where this can be clearly witnessed. In Italy for example, the industrious North has had many temptations to separate from the agricultural South. In Mexico, Northerners tend to feel superior to Southerners, because industry has made them richer. This is specially ridiculous because these regions did not prosper because their inhabitants were particularly smart or worked harder, it was simply because it was where natural resources were located. In some countries, that ill-gotten pride disappeared when the industrial model started to collapse in Western countries (this for example happened clearly in England during the second half of the XXth century). In other parts of the world, though, in industrial regions that were able to maintain their leading economic status, this transition never happened and this superiority complex that has been living in the collective unconsciousness is being used by politicians for their personal gain.

What really strikes me is how such an open society can still be fighting over the same battles that have caused so much pain in the past. The will to be right is definitively winning over the search for truth and peace. This is absolutely ridiculous. We live in a globalized world and the population is rapidly growing. We cannot keep paying attention to old quarrels when facing new global challenges such as global warming. The solution, from my point of view, is talking about issues that really affect the quality of living of the people. Providing free health care to everyone is such an issue. Creating new countries in large economic block such as the EU in order to issue new passports is not.

We keep telling adolescents that there are many dangerous things that they must avoid (alcohol, drugs, unprotected sex and now the Wii), even if it means not being able to belong to a group they want to be part of. I would argue that nationalism as well as radical ideologies are at least as dangerous for the adults, who are usually responsible for having their children fighting their own battles. Education is the main vehicle for passing hatred and misinformation from one generation to the next. As parents we have an obligation to maintain an open mind and try to understand all the perspectives. As human beings we have the obligation to always try to be objective, irrespective of what may have been taught to us. Truth shall make us free, but truth is sometimes hard to find. Keeping an open mind as well as always trying to be objective is probably an easier goal to reach.

Blogging over the Atlantic

January 2, 2007

As I am flying over the Atlantic, on my way to Spain for some well deserved family vacations, slightly bored by the in-flight movie, Miami Vice, I can’t avoid redirecting my thoughts to the future of the Internet.

The original idea behind the Internet was to build a tool that would help share knowledge by making it easy for scientists to publish information that would be easy to access and navigate. That original idea never really disappeared, but once large corporations entered the Internet and started the e-business era, that originally focus was largely lost.

Now, after Time named “Person of the year” You, we have officially entered a third era, the era of user generated content. This has a number of advantages as it makes sure that nobody can control the public opinion. However, there are also a lot of drawbacks, the main one being that all kind of questionable material is made available to people who are not prepared to separate truth from fiction.

I was recently listening to a podcast in which a member of a non-profit organization, devoted to make the Internet available to poor regions of Africa hailed some of the initial results that he had seen. He said that one community had started to create a site documenting traditional medicine that the population could use, which was important since this region was being devastated by the AIDS virus and that since anti-virals where extremely expensive, this could prove to be a good alternative.

That assertion got me thinking. How do we know that those traditional remedies are effective against AIDS? I have no problem helping poor people get cheap medicine, as long as it works. Otherwise this is just a total waste of time. The problem is, how do poor people with elementary education understand that this information has not been validated by the scientific community and that they may be wasting precious time using ineffective medicine?

This problem, of course, is not limited to Africa. Every day, students all around the world use the Internet in order to do their homework. Their process, Google, Cut and Paste, also known as plagiarism, is becoming the standard way to quickly produce reports and research documents. Most of the time, those who perform the searches go with the first result they obtain, without trying to analyze the quality of the data or the source of the information.

The result is that urban legends, questionable information and plain damn lies are quickly spreading all over the Internet. There is a clear danger that in the future, there will be no more trusted sources of information. Today, most quality data is posted by those who have gone through a classical education. However, as younger generations who rely on the Internet in order to obtain their information grow older and traditional, respected information sources start disappearing because they can no longer compete against free content, we may see start to see a new phenomenon, more information than ever before, with a rapidly diminishing quality or accuracy.

Many may say that Wikipedia proves me wrong. On the contrary. What will happen when a popular belief becomes so strong that those who know the truth are on the minority. Sure, the article may be disputed, but who defines the truth? Truth is not obtained through a democratic process, it is the result of analysis, investigation and science. Today, the most prevalent opinion is likely to get ahead on Google’s result page. It could mean that in the future we may, as a society, believe in Creationism, the Earth being the center of the Universe or the Horoscope being able to predict our future. That is scary thought.

In the past, we lived in a world full of certitude. The truth was available from a limited number of trusted sources. That was dangerous. Today we are moving to a world where the truth (if it exists) can be challenged by anyone, even if that person is absolutely not qualified to make an informed judgement. That is even worse, specially if our kids are not properly trained to develop a critical thinking and the general quality of education continues degrading.

The four hour long MacWorld keynote

December 26, 2006

Last year at MacWorld, Steve Jobs announced that 2006 would see many great new products. That was clearly an overstatement. Even though most Macintosh computers were redesigned as part of the Intel processor adoption plan, I think that it is fair to say that most Apple customers were clearly disappointed by the level of innovation displayed by the Cupertino company. This is specially true when it comes to the iPod product line. Sure, the iPod shuffle and the iPod nano were totally redesigned, but since the functionality remained the same, there really wasn’t much to write home about. Even less impressive were the marginal improvements made to the iPod with video. Sure, there were some bright spots, the iPod Hi-Fi offers rich sound in a practical form-factor and the Nike+iPod kit is a nice addition to the iPod nano, but nothing earth-shattering was released.

As a result, expectations for this MacWorld are high, extremely high. In fact, probably too high. People expect Apple to introduce the long rumored iPhone alongside a new “true” video iPod and even an “ultra-light” Mac Book Pro. This is simply not realistic. In order to be effective, a product launch has to focus on a limited number of products and convey a clear message. Apple understands this very well. In September, for example, the 24″ iMac was launched without fanfare, just a couple of days before an Apple event. Why? Because they wanted the press to focus on the new iPods as well as the strategy that the company had designed for the future, nothing else.

Simultaneous product launches and rare and usually ineffective. I recall a 2003 Hewlett-Packard product launch that introduced over 150 new consumer products, but that largely remains an exception. These types of events are generally targeted at industry analysts and resellers rather than consumers. That is not the kind of audience you get at a MacWorld keynote.

So, what should we expect from MacWorld?

1. State of the union address.
Last year was a great year for Apple. We should expect Steve to talk about significant market share gains for the Macintosh division as well as stellar results for the iPod.

2. Upgrades to iLife and iWork
This shouldn’t come as a major surprise as iLife and iWork are important cash-generators for Apple. That is why Steve has to generate excitement over new versions at each MacWorld. Last year Steve almost ignored iWork and instead focused on iLife which included many new features as well as a new application, iWeb. This year expect Steve to spend more time on iWork, specially if a rumored spreadsheet application is finally announced, which at this point is likely. Nobody really expects major changes to iLife, except for probably an important iWeb revision.

3. Leopard preview
Mac OS X is another important cash-cow for Apple. Steve has to generate a lot of buzz to make sure that Mac users lineup in Q2 to purchase the new OS when it becomes available. This is specially true, now that Microsoft is so close to launch Vista to the general public. Therefore expect Steve to show some of the “secret” features he talked about at WWDC.

4. 802.11 everywhere and iTV
We already know that Apple will officially launch the iTV (along with a new name). That, by itself is important, but I think that Steve Jobs will also use that announcement to endorse the emerging 802.11n standard and announce a free OS upgrade (10.4.9) to enable it on modern Intel Macs that already support it. He will probably also announce an external 802.11n adapter for older hardware as well as a replacement for the Airport Express.

5. Updated Mac Mini and/or new Cinema Displays
Apple has not updated their displays in over two years now, and it shows. This means that in order to remain competitive they need to refresh their line of Cinema Displays. Some expect the new displays to sport a built-in camera, but personally, I am not convinced. This is probably not a very important feature for the pros who buy multiple displays to edit video or design magazines. I find it more likely that Apple will add new features that will make the displays more palatable to consumers. On the other hand, the Intel based Mac mini, which is now turning one, could finally evolve into the media center everyone has speculated with.

6. One more thing
All these expected announcements do not leave much time to introduce a lot of additional new products, unless anyone expects Steve to stay on stage for four hours. My personal bet is that Apple will release a new video iPod with a much larger screen, but similar in concept to the current iPod with video. Don’t get me wrong, I do believe that Apple will ultimately release an iPhone but not at MacWorld. When that finally happens, probably after the echoes of MacWorld and CES start to fade, it will be at a special event, in order to generate additional buzz but primarily to have enough time to explain in depth how Apple will differentiate its offering from the competition as well as its mobile strategy.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

December 22, 2006

Wow, this year has gone fast, it is once again Christmas time and, like every year, I simply cannot believe it. From a professional point of view, it has been a very interesting year. Even though I have turned 40 and become a second line manager, I have been able to spend some time to return to my programming roots (which allows be to balance a less technical day job) and been able to attend WWDC, almost 20 years after attending my last Apple II developers conference. I really enjoyed 2006 and I can only wish for a similar 2007, more would simply be greedy, specially because it was also a great year on a personal side.

But enough about me. What I really wanted was to wish all my friends, as well as those who occasionally read my blog a Merry Christmas and a Wonderful 2007.

Giving up

December 21, 2006

I have heard recently someone say that if you are seeking balance between your personal and professional life, it basically means that you have given up. The person who said that was one of those Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs who most seem to admire/envy.

It is clear that those who agree with such an assertion have set for themselves very high goals in terms of professional success. They must also have high levels of self-confidence in order to believe that they can reach them by investing long hours of hard work into their dreams. I have no problems with that and I wish them well.

However, putting long hours of work into a project is not really hard for those of us who happen to enjoy their work. In fact, when I program, time simply flies. Therefore, if I had to spend all my day working on a personal project, I wouldn’t call it a sacrifice, on the contrary. So, in theory, for me and everyone out there who have a passion and are good at it, it should be easy to fight for success and riches.

The question is, do we really need to focus on a single objective and sacrifice everything else in order to achieve success? I really cannot agree with such a statement. Success is not an absolute, we define it ourselves and everyone uses different metrics to measure it. For me, in order to consider myself successful, I need to be successful at work as a manager, I have to be able to prove myself technically constantly by writing computer programs and, last but certainly not least, I need to spend quality time with my family and friends. If I feel that I am failing in any of these three aspects of my life, I start to worry and devote more time to fix the problems. It is true that I could probably achieve more in any of these aspects by focusing just on one of them instead of all three, but I do not want to. That doesn’t mean at all that I am giving up, it just means that I am fighting three battles instead of just one. That is a personal choice, and I am totally comfortable with it.

Don’t get me wrong, the fact that I do not agree over the assertion that we must focus on a single objective in order to be successful in life does not mean that I condone giving up, on the contrary. We all know people who have lost interest in almost everything, spending their days watching TV and apparently just waiting for death to come, while in their 30s or 40s. That is totally depressing. For me, giving up means not having any passions and watching life pass by. That can happen to anyone, no matter how hard you work.

Collaboration and recognition

December 20, 2006

The new Internet is all about collaboration. Wikis, team rooms and other technologies look to foster team collaboration as an effective way to quickly reach better results. As community efforts like wikipedia yield amazing results, the private sector is looking into using similar tools in the enterprise to make significant productivity gains. The question of course is, does this model work within for profit organizations.

I do not believe that it is very controversial to say that in all teams there are high and low performers. In the past, this could easily be detected by the team leader. However, as we are moving to virtual (geographically dispersed) teams and virtual offices, understanding perfectly the level of contribution for each team member can be challenging, specially if the software used to publish and share those works does not include some kind of management system. It may seem silly but this is a real problem because while most employees are willing to share, they expect to be compensated or recognized for doing so, and I believe that this is a fair request. There have always been individuals taking credit for someone else’s work, and as technology evolves, this could become easier than ever. If we want to work effectively in this new world, we must make sure that everyone is fairly evaluated.

The problem therefore consists in accurately measuring individual contributions. This is not easy. How-much recognition do you get for a new presentation, compared to say modify or add a couple of slides to it? What is the value of a new reusable component? Those are obviously subjective values, but an automated system that tracks contributions can help.

If we think that web 2.0 is all about collaboration, we should use that fact in order to rank contributors. By allowing employees to rate documents or even specific versions of that document, we can see how a document has improved over time as a result of individual contributions. This information could allow us to quickly find out who the top contributors are and reward them accordingly. Today, most wiki tools lack those features which, from my point of view makes them unsuitable for the enterprise. There are fundamental differences in what motivates a person to work on an altruistic project such as wikipedia and what motivates a person to work for a company. This needs to be recognized by enterprise collaboration software vendors. It is nice that enterprise wikis offer features such as better security, spam prevention and change control. However, that is not enough. For collaboration to work, employees must be certain that they will benefit personally from sharing their work. Today, most systems I have used do not recognize that fact and therefore fail after a while, usually when the managers stop forcing employees to use it.

Harman Kardon Drive+Play

December 19, 2006

I was recently assigned a new company car by IBM, a 2007 Toyota Camry. I must say that, so far, I have been pleased with it. My only major complain has been related to the audio system, which cannot be replaced by a different one. The reason I wanted to change it was because of the poor integration it offered with the iPod. Sure, there is an AUX entry which can be used to connect any MP3 player to the car’s audio system, however, this is not very practical as you need to take your eyes off the road in order to control your device. Furthermore, if you are charge your device by connecting it to the cigarette lighter, you will immediately notice an annoying noise distorting the sound, which makes it very unpleasant to listen to music while charging your iPod (this is not considered a flaw, it is documented in the car’s manual).

In my previous car, a Chevrolect Vectra (also known as Opel Vectra in Europe), I had replaced my built-in stereo with a Pioneer device that allowed me to easily control the iPod from the radio controls, with my MP3 player hidden in the glove compartment. That is why I immediately started looking for a similar product for my Camry.

I must say that there weren’t many options for my vehicle. Products like the iCruze from Monster simply do not support my car and I know that many other car owners face similar problems. So, when I finally found the drive+play system from Harman Kardon, which works on any car, I was relieved to see that there was a solution to my problem. The best part is that the functionality I get from this product is much better than what my previous car stereo offered me, as I can now have access to all my songs and not just a limited number of playlists. In addition, this device not only allows me to easily control my iPod but also see the songs that are playing on a small but slick screen that does not obstruct my vision. Last but not least, I can also finally listen to the music while charging the iPod. The background noise is still there, but is much less noticeable. I can even swear that I get better audio quality than before, but this is just my particular perception, your mileage may vary. No wonder this product has won so many awards, it is an outstanding, well built solution.

Although I totally recommend this product to any serious iPod user, it has a number of small irritating flaws. The first one is that it cannot handle non-ASCII characters. Since I listen to a lot of international music which often includes accentuated characters in the song metadata (title and artist), seeing them replaced by blanks is disappointing. The other problem is that the scroll wheel is not as responsive as the iPod’s and therefore, navigating through long lists of songs, albums or artists can be cumbersome. However, this does not change my overall opinion that the Drive+Play product is the best car accessory I have seen so far for the iPod.

Sun R&D working hard…for Apple!

December 18, 2006

With the recent revelation that Apple will add support for ZFS it has become totally clear that Apple does not suffer from the “not invented here” syndrome that has affected many other hardware and software manufacturers. This is the second open-source project created by Sun that has been quickly adopted by Apple, the other one being DTrace which is at the core of Apple’s new XRay application that will help developers debug their applications more easily.

It is important to mention that while ZFS and DTrace are open-source, they are not licensed under the GPL. Instead, SUN decided to use it’s own CDDL which is not compatible with the GPL and therefore complicates efforts to add ZFS and DTrace to Linux. While some are willing to overlook the license issue and are trying to port these projects to Linux, it is unlikely that any of these project will make it into any standard Linux distribution, because Linus Torvalds and other important members of that community are not willing to add core kernel modules that are not GPLed. That means that Mac OS X will probably become the first OS after Solaris 10 to implement ZFS since there are no plans to add it to AIX, HP-UX or Windows.

While many will think that this is great news for Mac users, who will get a greatly improved file system, the way I see it, this situation underscores some of the problems with the way some companies deal with open-source projects. While I do understand why companies want to keep some level of control over the projects they initiated, they must also be aware of some of the negative consequences that the use of restrictive licensing can have over the adoption of their technologies. Sun must have known that by not releasing these technologies under the GPL or LGPL licenses, only Apple was likely to consider its use in their OS (as neither HP or IBM are likely to endorse a technology from a direct rival). So, why do it? Is this just another marketing stunt to try to get some publicity and win over developers without risking to lose valuable intellectual property to competitors? I am inclined to think so.

Apple also started dealing with open-source in a similar short sighted way when they decided to publish the source code for Darwin, the heart of Mac OS X, under the Apple Public Source License which is very restrictive.

However, even though Apple has not changed the license for Darwin, they have used the much more liberal Apache 2.0 licence for their projects hosted on Mac OS forge. This is a big step forward, as most developers feel very comfortable with that license. On that site there are a lot of great projects initiated by Apple such as Bonjour, Launchd and Webkit, to name a few. Therefore, while I still believe that Apple is getting more from the community than what it is giving back, I feel confident that they have learned their lesson and are really playing fair now with the open-source community by sharing some valuable projects in a way that allows everyone to use them, without significant restrictions. On the other hand, it is clear that Sun still needs to walk the talk.

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