Right now if you look at all of these applications that are designed in this real-objecty, faux wood paneling, faux brushed metal, faux jelly button kind of thing,” Duarte said. “If you step back and you really look at them, they look kind of juvenile. They’re not photorealistic, they’re illustrations. If you look back at the web, people did the same thing. All these cartoony things hanging off a page. If you tried that today, people would be laughing, unless you were doing it in a kitsch, poking-fun-at-yourself, retro art way.”

You mean like this?

I can’t say I’m sold on iOS’s Find My Friends “ride ‘em cowboy” theme, but for Duarte to call out Apple’s UI against Android’s bacon strip of a mobile OS shows just how far Mountain View is from the grown-up’s table.  As the Android team has shown us time and again, class isn’t their strong suit.

Matias Duarte also Does Children’s Parties originally appeared on TheMacAdvocate on October 19, 2011.

I have even less use for organizations that trade off the backs of peoples’ privacy, only to grab their ankles when the government asks them to. That’s what Google is likely doing to Jacob Appelbaum, who according to NBC Bay Area, is the target of the Fed’s investigation of the WikiLeaks volunteer. The government wants Google and the ISP Applebaum used, Sonic.net, to turn over of his all email accounts. So how does the largest provider of email react when questioned about the responsibility of maintaining its users’ privacy?

Google declined comment when asked but Sonic.net said it tried to fight the order but could not afford to keep up the legal battle.

No comment. You have got to be fucking kidding me. Your users want to know if you’re a service – a service that’s integral to your billions of dollars in advertising revenue every quarter – that’s going to stand up for them or one that’s going to knuckle under when the Man comes knocking.

Google: are you turning over the emails or are you defending the rights your users have to their privacy? Easy fucking question, guys. I mean, easy if you’re not turning them over, I guess.

Yes or No, Google: Are You Giving the Feds Jacob Appelbaum’s Email? originally appeared on TheMacAdvocate on October 11, 2011.

Monopolists everywhere tremble in the face of doddering justice

The curtain opened to none other than Eric Schmidt (apparently the people actually running Google were too busy explaining to another legal entity how they didn’t steal from Oracle to make Android). He quickly put into words what everyone in the room was thinking:

That’s actually a pretty accurate paraphrasing of his argument. Schmidt’s load of horseshit shouldn’t have surprised anyone: it was pre-ordained that anything falling out of his caketrap would be garbage. But it was still entertaining to hear the actual words he’d select. We also got to hear the CEOs of Yelp and Nextag call Google out for unabashedly abusing their business models. And lest you be forced to take my word regarding the utter inanity of the proceedings, see if you can stomach this exchange between Google’s antitrust counsel Susan Creighton and Sen. Al Franken. I apologize in advance for the out-of-window playback – and obviously for the infuriating content:

Creighton v. Franken: Fight!

Five minutes of that mummer’s farce – as Ned Stark would say – leaves me astonished that this country’s government allows anything productive to happen. Creighton’s total obfuscation; Franken’s embarrassing misuse of jargon. This is your government at work. The Schoolhouse Rock version of these proceedings would resemble barnyard pr0n.

Senate Antitrust Subcommittee Meeting on Google: Like Punching Myself in the Balls at 600 fps originally appeared on TheMacAdvocate on September 21, 2011.

Steve Jobs used the term “bag of hurt” to describe the BluRay format; I think he might use similar language to describe the HDTV television landscape, but to hear “making an Apple-branded TV” spout with certainty from the ballwashers of some analysts, you’d think Apple could just shove the existing AppleTV into a high-end HDTV. But that won’t work, and I’m going to swallow a little vomit to explain why.

The GoogleTV Didn’t Suck

I know, I know: I busted this thing’s balls when it appeared on the market, and in the end it panned out just like I – and a number of other people – knew it would: on a greased rail being shot off the TigerDirect clearance rack. But those who ignore their history are doomed repeat it, so let’s see what it did right, where it went wrong and think about what  the GoogleTV’s failure could mean for an Apple HDTV.

The list of things GoogleTV does that AppleTV doesn’t isn’t long, but there are a couple of ambitious features that, on their face, make it a better TV-integrated device.

An Integrated UI

When you’re watching TV, you can use the GoogleTV remote (the 2-hands Sony version or the “LOL” 2 hands + lap Logitech version) to not only control the TV, but access the GoogleTV options. These options are overlaid in such a way that you can still see what’s playing on current channel. The “type to search” interface allows you to looks for any media content – whether it’s on TV now or available for sale, rental or on the Internet.

Not TOTALLY shitty

Some of GoogleTV’s functions allows you to use picture-in-picture – say to Tweet while you’re watching House. If you’re a DISH Network subscriber, you also get access to your DVR functions. All these functions co-exist with your HDTV without the user having to change inputs (related note: how is it possible for the high-speed HDMI standard to be so fucking slow to change inputs). This “always on” capability is one major way GoogleTV distinguishes itself from Apple’s offering.

The Internet

In my opinion, this feature isn’t as much about capability as it is about scale. The AppleTV does offer access to non-cable content such as Netflix, MLB/NBA TV, YouTube and Vimeo, for example. GoogleTV offers access to any content that isn’t tied down (which ended up being part of its demise, but more on that later). In addition to Apple’s non-iTunes content, GoogleTV offers access to Amazon, Napster, Pandora, not to mention network offerings from HBO, TNT, CNN and Cartoon Network, to name a few. The Chrome browser also comes baked-in to the GoogleTV, so you can surf the web right from your television.

So What the Fuck Happened?

So you have a device that plays nice with your cable box, providing you with access to its content along with a buttload of Internet video and music content and the Internet itself. Why did the GoogleTV faceplant?

Price

The first and biggest obstacle. When introduced, the set-top version of GoogleTV, the Logitech Revue, retailed for $299. Sony’s bundled TVs, which are already at the high-end of the market price-wise, added a premium to the HDTV’s and Blu-Ray players that baked-in GoogleTV’s functionality. $299 is a fair price for a Blu-Ray player/DVR/cable box, but not for something that lays over all of these devices and provides nothing but redundant functionality, a web browser and some connected content.

Access to Content

Definitely the biggest misstep Google made when crowing about the value of the GoogleTV prior to its release. Imagine this: access to all those network and cable stations you could only get on your laptop’s browser before! Imagine ABC, Hulu and Comedy Central on your HDTV: the way it was meant to be viewed! Now imagine the networks and cable companies slamming its doors on the dicks of people (yes, they were all men) thinking they were going to bask in free episodes HDTV – one by one. Far be it from Google to actually secure any of the relationships that would have been required to keep that from happening. Those episodes of Lost that cost millions apiece to produce want to be free!

Google promised me free Hulu, but all I got was this lousy t-shirt

Apple Didn’t Make It   

It pains me to say that the GoogleTV UI/UX didn’t totally suck, but it did suffer from the characteristic lack of polish that comes from having engineers outnumber designers on your campus 400 to 1. It’s basically Android on a TV. Inconsistencies, glitches and some flat-out labyrinthian UI quirks doomed a product that was already crippled on several other fronts.

#FAIL

How Does This Apply to an Apple HDTV?

To ask the question (as I have) another way: what’s the difference between Apple building the AppleTV UI into a high-end HDTV and stamping their logo on it and Apple continuing to produce the  AppleTV the way it does now as a standalone device? To my mind, the only things that could justify such a move would involve at least one of the following:

Integration of the UI

An Apple HDTV could work just like Sony’s GoogleTV. For that to happen would require Apple to mesh its UI with your cable provider’s, on the same plane as Apple’s own iTunes content to make it a “input one device” – the device you turn on to watch TV. It’s not out of the realm of possibility.

A Feature That GoogleTV Didn’t Have

DVR integration, broader access to cable channel and network Internet content or a blow-your-mind UI that ties it all together. Again, not out of the realm of possibility.

A Reasonable Price

This is a little bit fungible, especially if Apple hits it out of the park on the first two items. There aren’t too many things hardware-wise that you can do to really differentiate yourself in the HDTV market, and this is a mature, saturated, commodity-good market as it is. Remember: in relative terms, the AppleTV at $299 was a flop; at $99 it was a success.

If Apple can break new ground with the “iTV”, I could imagine a universe where it makes its own HDTV. But when I break it down to the fundamental question: “What can Apple do with an HDTV that it can’t do with the AppleTV?”, I do not see it happening. Sorry, Gene.

I’m Going to Give This Apple HDTV Thing One More Shot originally appeared on TheMacAdvocate on August 30, 2011.

I have to wonder how spectacularly Eric Schmidt’s political career is going to flame out once he’s deposed. Man, that’s going to be great.

FTC to Launch Anti-Trust Probe into Google; Apparently Not the “Pop-Up” Kind originally appeared on TheMacAdvocate on June 23, 2011.

People will no doubt be jumping on the “fluke” bandwagon, stating that iPhone 4 could never sustain this kind of growth. The fact that a year-old smartphone is handing Android its ass alone is worth a chuckle. Even if there is the customary fall-off in adopters prior to the release of the iPhone 5 does happen, Google may want to take a look at the slope of the BlackBerry downswing to get a sense of what iPhone 5 + iOS 5 + both major carriers is going to do to its share.

I’m sure it was nice while it lasted.

Android’s Salad Quarters Over; Engadget Commenters :( originally appeared on TheMacAdvocate on June 21, 2011.

“Google did not respond to a series of questions posed last week, including what measures it takes to filter out mobile devices and laptops from its database, what privacy policy governs this data collection, and whether law enforcement or civil litigants submitted requests for records from its database. The company also declined to specify how someone can remove their device’s MAC address from the database, and a question asking that in a support forum last September was never answered.”

If you don’t want Google – or anyone else – to know the location of where you’re doing something unsavory, perhaps you shouldn’t be doing it.

Why Yes, Google *Does* Know Where You’ve Been originally appeared on TheMacAdvocate on June 15, 2011.

According to the lawsuit, Google was in the midst of making a deal with PayPal to make it a payment option for Android’s Market, with Bedier representing PayPal. During that time, Tilenius was actively recruiting Bedier to work for Google. Right before Bedier jumped ship, ”Bedier transferred up-to-date versions of documents outlining PayPal’s mobile payment and point of sale strategies to his non-PayPal computer just days before leaving PayPal for Google on Jan 24, 2011.” Oh – and that Android Market/PayPal deal mysteriously dried up once Bedier flew the coop even though a term sheet had already been agreed upon.

Poaching employees is as commonplace in Silicon Valley as executive tossing at Microsoft, but you rarely have companies go after each other this openly over personnel. Then again, If you ask Oracle or MPEG-LA, Google’s not exactly ashamed of using “gray area” IP in its own offerings. Information wants to be free anyway.

Google Jacks PayPal’s Wallet originally appeared on TheMacAdvocate on May 27, 2011.

I’d call this a little skewed:

Wondering what other obvious search results you’re not getting with auto-complete?

Google Auto-Complete: No Bias Here originally appeared on TheMacAdvocate on May 13, 2011.

Then came Google apps like Gmail and Google Documents, which allowed Google to stick ads in your face while you did your work while also giving them access to all of your emails, contacts and documents.

Then came Google’s Chrome browser, which allowed Google to leverage tight integration with its apps to access all of your browsing behavior.

Then there was Android, which let Google track your mobile browsing and communication behavior – as well as use your shartphone or tablet to track your location.

Then came the Chrome OS, which will allow Google access to every keystroke you make on a more-expensive-than-a-netbook laptop, whether you’re using a browser or not.

And soon we’ll have Android@Home, which will give Google access to as many of your off-keyboard habits as there will be devices to plug into their services.

Is anyone else getting creeped the fuck out?

Google Wants to Be More Than Friends: a Brief History of Ever-more Intimate Offerings originally appeared on TheMacAdvocate on May 12, 2011.