TheMacAdvocate

I guess your employees don’t need a data plan to rip off Apple’s UI.

First off‚ in the interest of full disclosure‚ I own an XBox 360.  Despite Microsoft’s involvement‚ developers have managed to take a hilariously deficient piece of hardware (my personal RROD hit about 8 months after purchase) and build a gaming library that allows me to swear at 10 year-olds a couple of nights a week.

Now at E3‚ Microsoft pulled one of its game-changing-breakthroughs-for-which-we-have-no-release-date announcements.  Haven’t I seen this kind of thing before?  Tell me if this doesn’t look familiar:

-Is the product being pounded into the dirt by competition that is either better-in-class (PS3) or through the use of innovative technology (Wii)?  Check and check.

-Does the announcement have a delivery date?  Not really.

-Is the speculated release date for the product make it look less like vaporware?  Ummm…late 2010?  18 fucking months? Jesus Christ: that’s the tech equivalent of 10 years!

-Despite not having any official release date for a real-world product‚ has that prevented from demoing the non-product as something that looks pretty goddamned finished?  Or having it announced by an academy-award winning director (by the way Spielberg‚ after what you did to the Indiana Jones franchise‚ shilling M$ vaporware was a natural next step for you)‚ pimped by celebrities and hyped on late-night talk shows?   Nah.

-Are said demos staged‚ if not downright choreographed?  You tell me.  (Please make a note of the camera time depicting actual gameplay vs. the time spent on everything else.  I get 4 seconds.)

This is a classic M$ vaporware setup.

1. Announce something that looks like you have a shread of creativity.

2. Do not give a release date or imply a date so far out in the future that hybrid hovercars stand as good a shot of coming to market.  That way the product might be out in 18 months‚ but it could be 6!  OMG – which one is it?!?!

3. Enjoy the benefit of having frozen purchases of your competitor’s superior products indefinitely.

4a. Turn 18 months into 3 years‚ then shrug your shoulders and claim the product was “a concept”.

4b. Release something that has 10% of the utility (or as they like to say in Redmond “Teh Wow”) intimated by your breathless initial demos/celebrity knob-gobbling.

I have to give the company credit: they work this bit more effectively than anyone out there.

Update: Gizmodo reports that Ballmer has confirmed 2010 as the availability…year.  And we know that Steve the Less never misses a projection, right?

The guys over at Anandtech have completed their battery benchmarks for the new 15″ MacBook Pros. My favorite line: “Eight, freakin, hours. I couldn’t believe it…There’s no way this could be right.” This was for non-Java webpages (20 seconds per page) with iTunes songs looping simultaneously.

I have a feeling the people bitching about the replaceability of the battery might pipe down a bit.

I realize I come off as a total Apple shill 99% of the time, but that’s because I believe that Apple creates superior products. There was a time when Palm was also one of those companies. Because of its reluctance to adjust the value proposition of its PIM to the needs of consumers combined with some poor strategic decisions *cough* WinMo *cough*, they went from a company to watch to a company on deathwatch.  With the release of the Palm Pre comes a new era: Jon Rubinstein will add CEO to his role as Chairman.  Ed “Cyanide Capsule” Colligan will step down after 16 years.

Palm may be too far gone for Jon to save.  His company has been hemorrhaging money – most recently to get the Pre to market.  The bleeding has necessitated a transfusion: the private equity firm Elevation Partners shot up Palm to the tune of $325 million – a 27% stake. It sucks to have an staking millstone hanging around your company’s neck. When that millstone is warming a seat for the person that ran your company into the ground (Colligan’s next move is to join Elevation) – well that really blows.  At least the Pre gives the company its best chance: a great product.  That’s not always enough‚ but if Apple – and Rubinstein – have taught the consumer electronics industry anything‚ it’s that you shouldn’t underestimate the power of a great product to save a company.

I tip my cap to the man responsible for the iPod – and to the man who brought creativity back to Palm.  I wish him all the best.

The folks over at the Edible Apple have put together a nice little summary of the marquee features of the new iPhone 3.0 software scheduled to be released June 17. While Universal Search will probably be the most useful, the ability to download any iTunes content onto one’s iPhone is playing into my own particular fantasy feature.

Even though Steve Jobs was not wheeled out for the WWDC to announce the iTablet,  there was enough meat disclosed at the recently-completed keynote to “untank” Apple’s stock‚ which opened at $139.50 and now stands at about $144 (3:40 PM EST). This is a nice change-up from what usually happens immediately following an Apple keynote.

MBP Family Gets Bigger

The MacBook Pro line welcomed some former MacBook twins‚ leaving the $999 2.13 GHz model as the last remaining polycarbonate entry. The addition of the 13″ Pro models drops the entry price significantly ($1‚199) while adding some pretty substantial features to the former MacBook.  The enclosed battery of the 17″ model is now the standard for all MacBook pros, which I’m sure will incite the required amount of bitching from the 14 professional photographers who actually need to swap a laptop battery as an integral part of their workday. Seriously, people: the battery lasts up to 7 fucking hours. Get over it.  Other major changes include FireWire 800 standard for all models. SD slots will also be introduced for all models except the 17″, which will retain the ExpressCard slot.

Snow Leopard Extends Middle Finger to Windows 7

Speculation about Apple’s pricing of Snow Leopard was confirmed as well. Apple’s 10.6 operating system will cost $29 and will be available in September. I take the pricing to be directed squarely at Microsoft, who will be likely be banging its “customers” for a lot more scratch for what is essentially an incremental upgrade of Fista – once Microsoft actually gets around to announcing their pricing for Windows 7.  Will M$ risk bleeding more market share in order to continue pulling that sweet‚ sweet lock-in milk from its cash cow? Stay tuned.

iPhone 3.0 is Cooler than You Thought‚ Available Soon

Those of us thinking we could download the newest iPhone operating system immediately following the keynote were disappointed. After trotting out its traditional 342987492374 developer demos, Scott Forstall dropped the magic date: June 17. Now stop clicking that “check for update” button, douchenozzle. Some previously-unseen/seriously cool apps that were demoed include ZipCar, which allows you to search for, pay for and even locate vehicles (press a button on your iPhone and the car’s horn will honk) from the popular hourly car rental service as well as a port of Tom-Tom’s navigation front end.  Expect the added compass and improved camera of the 3GS to further fuel developer badassery.

iPhone 3GS Begins Unjustified Purchase Rationalization Process

No one can put pressure on a married man’s devotion to the latest and greatest gadget quite like Apple. The iPhone 3GS, with its new 3.0 megapixel camera/video camera, compass and 2 – 3x performance improvement will no doubt have people regretfully re-upping their relationship with AT&T. Did I mention they’re the only carrier not supporting 3G tethering? Fucktards.

You’ve all heard of the strategy of being a “loss leader” in a market; but M$ is looking to perpetuate its title of “loss follower” in its consumer product offerings.   Witness Microsoft’s latest flotilla of capital destined to do dance of the porcelin swirl: the Zune HD.

Hey. That design almost doesn’t look half bad. Wait a minute. Haven’t I seen this somewhere before?

Oh, that’s right. Jesus, M$. Could you even try?

Consistent with Microsoft’s previous duplication policies, they’ve taken the most aesthetically pleasing aspects of the design and fucked them in the ear.  In this case, we have visible screws (must be for that replaceable battery) and hard-angled bevels.

Companies with less capital than the average European nation would have tanked under the weight of the original debacle.   But Redmond is not content to sit on its laurels: they will not rest until they’ve diverted at least tens of sales that would’ve otherwise gone to superior products.

According to the Charlotte Observer, Apple and the state of North Carolina are negotiating a whopper of a tax break should Apple decide to locate a massive server farm there.  Of particular interest to me was this quote:

“Though the Apple site is initially expected to employ fewer than 100 full-time workers, legislators said the potential prize was so juicy it justified changing the state’s corporate tax formula to benefit a single company.”  Juicy is defined as a $1 billion investment by Apple within 9 years of start-up.

And why would Apple need a facility of that scale?  Well, there’s always a chance they’ve been peeking at my personal spank-bank…

Advertising Age is claiming that “Microsoft (is) Winning in Value Perception”, citing a BrandIndex daily survey of 5,000 people asked “whether they believe they get a get good value for their money” as related to Microsoft and Apple offerings.  The survey, which according to the BrandIndex chart included with the article, rates value on a scale from -100 to 100 and has run since the beginning of 2009.  Apple’s score of 70 in “late winter” (actually more like March 1 to my eye) is now languishing at 12.4, while Microsoft’s score has soared from 0 to 46.  Wow!  Because this is Advertising Age, and not Margin of Error Quarterly, the explanation must be the “Bargain Hunter” ad campaign.

Mmmk.  Couple of questions for the folks at BrandIndex:

-You survey 5,000 people every day about perceived value?  The same 5,000 people?  Because your findings really wouldn’t as mean much if the exact same 5,000 people weren’t asked every day the survey was conducted.

-”Value” is one metric you track, according to your chart.  I also see Mindshare, Buzz, Impression, Quality, Reputation and Satisfaction listed as metrics.  You’re sure “value” means the same thing to all those 5,000 people (and I’m sure it is the same 5,000 that are asked about quality, right?)?  I could easily see that those surveyed would equate “value” with “cheap”, given that “value” and “quality” have overlapping definitions.  Did Apple’s “quality” perception go up and M$’s go down?

As far as I’m concerned, the worst case scenario represented by this survey is that more people regard Microsoft as less expensive as a result of the “Bargain Hunters” campaign.  As we’ve known for a while, the margins on “less expensive” are pretty shitty.

Update: I received an email from a gentleman at BrandIndex last night who explained that the “value” and “quality” metrics are polled individually and that they feel “it is better to ask our questions from independent samples”, which I take to mean they ask only one question each day of their 5,000 respondents.   Also, they are not the same 5,000 people “(b)ecause (the sample) is representative, we do not have to interview the same 5,000 people each day”.  Maybe that is the only feasible way to conduct the survey, but I would contend that getting responses from different people may just as easily reflect different existing opinions they have about the brand, not the fact that their opinion about the brand had changed.

Timothy Leary's dead. No, no, no, no, He's outside looking in.

Scott Moritz is one of Jim Cramer’s merry band of stock manipulators over at TheStreet.com.   Either that or he’s really‚ really bad at his job – especially when it comes to Apple. I actually think sound investment advice would be “Do the opposite of what this toolbox says”.

Scott’s latest gem, available in both words and talkie form, is here.

Warning: if you click on the video, in addition to the content and tone of the interview‚ the JJ Abrams camera work may snap you into a three state killing spree.