EchoTech

iPhone OS 4.0 aka Mac OS X Touch 1.0 [updated x3]

Richard Stelling — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:06:15 +0000

Time to jump on the rumour mill and predict, with scary accuracy what Apple’s event due to take place at the end of January (’10), will hold.

Update: Looks like once again I have been spot on with my Apple predictions. I have linked to stories confirming my assertions where appropriate.

Mac OS X Touch

The new name for iPhone OS. Currently the iPhone OS runs on iPhone’s, iPod’s and inside developers Mac Pro’s.

It’s time for a name change — Mac OS X Touch 1.0. It will effectively be iPhone OS 4.0, we might get a few 3.x updates to smooth the transition but by the end of 2010 iPhone OS will be dead — Long live Mac OS X Touch.

Features

These features all taken form my musings on Twitter.

API

Voice Control API
Low level camera API
Bluetooth API
launchd API (instead of multi-process support)
Data detectors API
Advanced gesture API
UPDATE: Advanced iSync API (for 3rd parties)

Updates

USB support (for iSlate)
Extra non-standard WebKit extentions
UPDATE: ~~No Flash support~~ Definitely no Flash support
Multi-camera support (see Apps below)
Video output
UPDATE: Handwriting recognition

Interface Updates

Animated springboard icons
Advanced App management
Lock App positions in springboard

Apps

iWork App (instead of file system) [MacRumours.com] [AppleInsider]
iChat [Orange Exec Confirms Apple Tablet Is On The Way]
UPDATE: Remote Desktop App
UPDATE: Apple TV App

2010 Technology Predictions (part 1)

Richard Stelling — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:50:52 +0000

I love the prediction season, mainly because you can generate 1000s of page loads without thinking about it.

First the scores for some of last years predictions form The Guardian and myself.

Let’s start with a banker. No self-replicating worm for Mac OSX or the iPhone’s OSX by the end of the year.

FAIL. Too bad. We’ve had 2! There is an argument that it’s not a real worm because; a, It only attacks Jail-broken iPhones and b, It only effected Australians.

ZFS won’t be built into the kernel for Snow Leopard; it’ll be an optional install, for server honchos.

Well, half right, half wrong. I’ll give it a C-.

The iPhone software will be updated to 3.x, which will bring copy-and-paste and photo messaging. About time.

B+, only because these were such easy predictions.

Please read Charles Arthur’s full article as I have only cherry picked a few quotes.

5 Christmas Presents for App Developers

Richard Stelling — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:48:30 +0000

$99 get you quite a lot as an Apple iPhone developer; invites to Tech Talks, an Apple employee spending hours reviewing you Apps and of course the ability to list your App on iTunes.

Despite all this, developers have been moaning since day one. I’m not going to re-hash all the arguments about review processes etc, etc. But I do have a wish list, and if I’ve been a good developer this year maybe Steve Jobs will deliver some of them.

UK Promo Codes — our apps are mainly for the UK market and how can I get Jemima Kiss to review it if I can’t send her a free copy.
Aggregate Ratings and Reviews — Having to search for new reviews in iTunes is a nightmare and responding to them is impossible. What if my game is loved in New Zealand? I’ll never know. What if people in India are demanding a localised version? I’ll never know. Ratings and reviews from around the would should be accessible form iTunes Connect.
Discounted Development Devices — The current developer discounts leave a lot to be desired. I want 3 cost price iPhones or iPods each year.
Paid-for App Updates — Remember all the fuss with Tweetie 2? That could of all been solved if Apple made provisions for Paid-for App Updates. You could do it with In App Purchase, but it’s messy, and doesn’t allow for downgrades etc.
Relaxing of the App Store contract — An App we developed was rejected because it had recordings of swear words. Does Apple censor all the Rap music and Movies it sells?

Displaying Twitter messages using Growl

Richard Stelling — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:36:21 +0000

It’s been well-over a year since I hacked the the first few lines of code for Trowel, the open source, Perl solution to your Twitter and Growl needs.

I must confess there was no great plan I just needed a solution, but looking at the comments the above posts generated, so did many of you.

Now Roland van Ipenburg has cleaned up the original code you can download the latest version. But for completeness I have reproduced it below.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w # -*- cperl; cperl-indent-level: 4 -*- use strict; use warnings;


## no critic qw(ProhibitLongLines)

# $Id$

# $Revision$

# $HeadURL$

# $Date$

## use critic
use utf8;

use 5.008000;
our $VERSION = '0.01';
use Date::Format;

use Digest::MD5;

use Encode;

use File::HomeDir;

use File::Slurp;

use File::Spec;

use Getopt::Long qw(:config no_ignore_case);

use IO::File;

use Imager;

use LWP::Simple;

use Log::Log4perl qw(:easy get_logger);

use Mac::Growl;

use Net::Twitter;

use Pod::Usage;

use Set::Scalar;
use Readonly ();

## no critic qw(prohibitCallsToUnexportedSubs)

Readonly::Scalar my $EMPTY   => q{};

Readonly::Scalar my $NEWLINE => qq{\n};

Readonly::Scalar my $COMMA   => q{,};

Readonly::Scalar my $ESCAPE  => q{%};
Readonly::Scalar my $APPLICATION       => q{Growl+Twitter=trowel};

Readonly::Scalar my $NOTIFICATION_NAME => q{New Tweet};
Readonly::Scalar my $DEFAULT_FORMAT   => q{%u: %t};

Readonly::Scalar my $MAX_TWEETS       => 200;

Readonly::Scalar my $MAX_TWEETS_INIT  => 5;

Readonly::Scalar my $DISPLAY_INTERVAL => 4;

Readonly::Scalar my $POLL_INTERVAL    => 37;

Readonly::Scalar my $AVATAR_WIDTH     => 32;

Readonly::Scalar my $AVATAR_HEIGHT    => $AVATAR_WIDTH;
Readonly::Scalar my $CACHE_DIR => File::Spec->catdir( File::HomeDir->my_home(),

    qw{Library Caches GrowlHelperApp} );

Readonly::Scalar my $TID_FILE       => q{tweet.id};

Readonly::Scalar my $ENCODING       => q{utf8};

Readonly::Scalar my $AVATAR_TYPE    => q{jpeg};

Readonly::Scalar my $ERR_MODE_SLURP => q{quiet};
Readonly::Array my @CSV_OPTIONS        => qw(exclude include sticky);

Readonly::Array my @NET_TWITTER_TRAITS => qw(InflateObjects Legacy);

## use critic
Log::Log4perl->easy_init($INFO);

my $log = get_logger();
my %options = (

    format   => $DEFAULT_FORMAT,

    poll     => $POLL_INTERVAL,

    interval => $DISPLAY_INTERVAL,

);

foreach my $csv (@CSV_OPTIONS) {

    $options{$csv} = [];

}
Getopt::Long::GetOptions(

    \%options,                  q{username|s=s},

    q{password|p=s},            q{interval|i=i},

    q{poll|l=i},                q{exclude|x=s@},

    q{sticky|t=s@},             q{include|I=s@},

    q{output|o},                qq{initials|n:$MAX_TWEETS_INIT},

    q{format|f=s},              q{config|g=s},

    qq{retrieve|r:$MAX_TWEETS}, q{help|h},

    q{verbose+},                q{exclude_self|X},

    qq{width:$AVATAR_WIDTH},    qq{height:$AVATAR_HEIGHT},

    q{man},

) or Pod::Usage::pod2usage(2);

$options{help} && Pod::Usage::pod2usage(1);

$options{man} && Pod::Usage::pod2usage( -verbose => 2 );
# Gather comma seperated items or items from multiple options into a set:

foreach my $csv (@CSV_OPTIONS) {

    $options{$csv} =

      Set::Scalar->new( split /$COMMA/xsm, join $COMMA, @{ $options{$csv} } );

}

$options{exclude_self} && $options{exclude}->insert( $options{username} );
my @names = ($NOTIFICATION_NAME);

$log->debug('Register notifications');

## no critic qw(prohibitCallsToUnexportedSubs)

Mac::Growl::RegisterNotifications( $APPLICATION, \@names, [ $names[0] ] );

## use critic
my $twitter = Net::Twitter->new(

    username => $options{username},

    password => $options{password},

    traits   => \@NET_TWITTER_TRAITS,

);
my $last_id =

## no critic qw(prohibitCallsToUnexportedSubs)

  File::Slurp::read_file( File::Spec->catfile( $CACHE_DIR, $TID_FILE ),

    err_mode => $ERR_MODE_SLURP );

## use critic

my $switch = 0;
$log->debug('Entering poll loop');

while (1) {
    $log->debug('Getting timeline');

    my $ar_timeline = $twitter->friends_timeline(

        $last_id

        ? { count => $MAX_TWEETS, since_id => $last_id }

        : { count => $options{initials} }

    );
    while ( my $tweet = shift @{$ar_timeline} ) {

        $log->debug( 'Processing tweet ' . $tweet->id );

        if ( !$switch ) {

            $last_id = $tweet->id;

## no critic qw(prohibitCallsToUnexportedSubs)

            File::Slurp::write_file(

                File::Spec->catfile( $CACHE_DIR, $TID_FILE ), $last_id );

## use critic

            $switch++;

        }

        next if ( skippable($tweet) );

        my %tweet_data = get_data($tweet);

        if ( $options{output} ) {

## no critic qw(RequireCheckedSyscalls)

            print $tweet_data{body}, $NEWLINE;

## use critic

        }

        else {

            growl( $tweet, \%tweet_data );

        }

    }

    $switch = 0;

    $log->debug( 'Wait ' . $options{poll} . ' seconds' );

    sleep $options{poll};

}
sub skippable {

    my $tweet = shift;

    return ( $options{exclude}->has( $tweet->user->screen_name )

          || !$options{include}->is_null )

      && !$options{include}->has( $tweet->user->screen_name )

      && !$options{sticky}->has( $tweet->user->screen_name );

}
sub get_data {

    my $tweet      = shift;

    my %tweet_data = (

        n => $tweet->user->name,

        u => $tweet->user->screen_name,

        t => $tweet->text,

        d => $tweet->created_at,

        l => $tweet->user->location,

    );

    while ( my ( $key => $value ) = each %tweet_data ) {

        ( defined $value )

          && ( $tweet_data{$key} = Encode::encode( $ENCODING, $value ) );

    }

    $tweet_data{$ESCAPE} = $ESCAPE;

    my $map =

      qq{(?
    $log->debug( 'Using map ' . $map );

    my $re = qr{$map}imsx;

    $tweet_data{body} = $options{format};

## no critic qw(ProhibitUselessRegexModifiers RequireLineBoundaryMatching)

    $tweet_data{body} =~ s/$re/$tweet_data{$1}/gxs;

## use critic

    return %tweet_data;

}
sub growl {

    my ( $tweet, $hr_tweet_data ) = @_;

    my $avatar = get_avatar( $tweet, $hr_tweet_data );

## no critic qw(prohibitCallsToUnexportedSubs)

    Mac::Growl::PostNotification(

        $APPLICATION,

        $names[0],

## no critic qw(ProhibitAccessOfPrivateData)

        $hr_tweet_data->{n},

        $hr_tweet_data->{body},

## use critic

        $options{sticky}->has( $tweet->user->screen_name ) ? 1 : 0,

        0,

        $avatar

    );

## use critic

    sleep $options{interval};

    return;

}
sub get_avatar {

    my ( $tweet, $hr_tweet_data ) = @_;

    my $avatar_url = $tweet->user->profile_image_url->as_string;

    my $avatar_file =

      File::Spec->catfile( ($CACHE_DIR), Digest::MD5::md5_hex($avatar_url) );

    $log->debug($avatar_file);

    my $fh = IO::File->new();

    if ( !$fh->open(qq{< $avatar_file}) ) {

        LWP::Simple::mirror( $avatar_url, $avatar_file );

        my $img = Imager->new( file => $avatar_file );

        my $thumb = $img->scale(

            xpixels => $options{width},

            ypixels => $options{height}

        );

        $thumb->write( file => $avatar_file, type => $AVATAR_TYPE );

    }

    $fh->close();

    return $avatar_file;

}
exit;
__END__
=encoding utf8
=head1 NAME
trowel - display Twitter messages with Growl.
=head1 VERSION
This is version 0.01. It's based on

L
=head1 SYNOPSIS
	trowel -u -p [options]
=head1 DESCRIPTION
Shows the tweets entering a users Twitter timeline as Growl notifications,

including the avatar of the tweep. The format is the message in the

notification is configurable and the avatars are scaled to fit in the standard

Smoke Theme and cached locally.
=head1 DEPENDENCIES
L

L

L

L

L

L

L

L

L

L

L

L

L

L

L
Issue the following command in a Terminal to install these modules:
	sudo /usr/bin/cpan -i Date::Format Digest::MD5 Encode File::Slurp \\

	File::Spec Getopt::Long IO::File Imager LWP::Simple Log::Log4perl \\

	Mac::Growl Net::Twitter Pod::Usage Set::Scalar Readonly \\

	&& sudo /usr/bin/cpan -fi File::HomeDir
=head1 INCOMPATIBILITIES
=over 4
=item * File::HomeDir fails tests when it is being installed as root because

the user root doesn't have some special Folders only normal users have. It can

be installed as root by forcing the install with the -fi option.
=back
=head1 DIAGNOSTICS
This module uses Log::Log4perl for logging.
=head1 BUGS AND LIMITATIONS
=over 4
=item * This script aims to be compatible with the original version or

trowel, but it it not bug-compatible
=item * A missing password option isn't interactively requested later
=item * The format processing is improved so C<%%> can be used to display a

single C<%> and substitutes containing formats aren't clobbered.
=item * The location is not the location of the tweet, but of the account
=back
=head1 CONFIGURATION
To use this script you'll need an account at the Twitter micro-blogging

service. The avatars used are scaled to 32x32 to fit as graphic in the default

Smoke theme of Growl. The scaled avatars and the file containing the id of the

most recent tweet displayed are stored in the cache folder of GrowlhelperApp

in L<~/Library/Caches>.
=head1 USAGE
	trowel -u  -p  [-p -x -t -I -o -f -g

	-h -v -vv -vvv]
=head1 REQUIRED ARGUMENTS
=over 4
=item * B<-u> B<--username> The username of the Twitter account to connect to
=item * B<-p> B<--password> The password of the Twitter account to connect to
=back
=head1 OPTIONS
=over 4
=item B<-u> B<--username> Twitter username
=item B<-p> B<--password> Twitter password
=item B<-i> interval between displaying tweets
=item B<-l> time between polls of Twitter feed
=item B<-x> list of users to exclude
=item B<-X> B<--exclude-self> exclude yourself
=item B<-t> list of users who's tweets are sticky, -x and -i will override

this
=item B<-l> list of users to include
=item B<-o> output to STDOUT only, by-passing Growl, use this for piping to

another application
=item B<-n> initial number of Tweets to request, default is 5
=item B<-f"

"> format of the Tweet

%u - user

%t - tweet

%d - date time

%l - location
=item B<-g> B<--config> a configuration file that sets command line

parameters, this function is not implemented
=item B<-h> B<-help>
=item B<-v> verbose mode
=item B<-vv> very verbose mode
=item B<-vvv> debug verbose mode
=item B<-man>
=back
=head1 EXIT STATUS
The exit status is determined by L

=over 4
=item * 1 
=item * 2
=back
=head1 EXAMPLES
trowel -u -p
 -i5 -l180 -f"%t %d"

-ttwitter,stephenfry,rjstelling

-Iguykawasaki,twitter,stephenfry,TechCrunch,rjstelling
=head1 AUTHOR
=over 4
=item * Roland van Ipenburg  C<<  >>
=item * Echotech L
=back
=head1 LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2009 by Roland van Ipenburg
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify

it under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.10.0 or,

at your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.
=head1 DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY
BECAUSE THIS SOFTWARE IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY

FOR THE SOFTWARE, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN

OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES

PROVIDE THE SOFTWARE "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER

EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED

WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE

ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE SOFTWARE IS WITH

YOU. SHOULD THE SOFTWARE PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL

NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR, OR CORRECTION.
IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING

WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR

REDISTRIBUTE THE SOFTWARE AS PERMITTED BY THE ABOVE LICENSE, BE

LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL,

OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE

THE SOFTWARE (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING

RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A

FAILURE OF THE SOFTWARE TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER SOFTWARE), EVEN IF

SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF

SUCH DAMAGES.

=cut

Twitter & Growl — real world solutions

Richard Stelling — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:23:08 +0000

By-far-and-away the most popular blogs I have ever written are How To: Growl and Twitter and Twitter + Growl = Trowel v1.0.

These simple how to’s, provide a solution to a simple problem. How do I pipe my Twitter time line to Growl?

It shames me to say this but I no longer use my own solutions. If I ever get the time I might write a fully Cocoa native solution, but for now here is my real world guide to Twitter and Growl.

Tweetie

Adium

Both these application support Growl, they do have limited features but will the best solution for the vast majority of users.

Apple’s Misdirection? [Updated]

Richard Stelling — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:59:30 +0000

Over the last year this blog has argued the case for Apple’s mobile device strategy, I think this post sums it up nicely.

However, while I and every other tech journalist and blogger have been concentrating on the hardware, Apple has been secretly (duh!) plotting its most audacious product to-date.

NB: This is simply speculation, if anyone at Apple is reading this please don’t blacklist me I have Apps to sell.

Remember what everyone said about the iPod? Overpriced, under powered. Remember what everyone said about the iPhone? Overpriced, underpowered, crappy network. What will they say about the Tablet/Slate? Overpriced! underpowered! Can you seen the pattern?

But what made people buy these slow and expensive gadgets — especially when there were obviously superior competitors? iTunes. You heard me, iTunes, I’m no fan — believe me. Even on the Mac is a painful, bloated experience and I’ve heard on Windows is enough to dive you insane. But the infrastructure is what matters.

The humble iPod (later the iPod Classic) had one competitive advantage; a simple, (relatively) cheap and legal way to buy music. The iPhone now has 100,000+ Apps many free (FREE!) and many pointless. But it has an eco-system, and Apple own the infrastructure.

How will this help the iDevice/SteveSlate/WebBook? Applications. Not Apps. Not Widgets. Applications, fully functioning multi-featured Applications. Like Tweetie for Mac or any of the excellent games form Ambrosia.

Apple is going to do for regular software what it’s done for mobile Apps. The same walled garden, with the same terrible approval process and the same $99/year fee.

And as a software developer, I can’t wait. Being listed on the iTunes App Store for Mac will be a sign of quality and a guarantee to users of no viruses or Trojans.

Developers will be able to sell more applications and make more money. Users will have access to 1000s of Apps all with a ‘guarantee’ of quality and all in one place, rated and reviewed. Apple will be happy because it will totally own the device.

The process for developers will be easy, download a provisioning profile form ADC, recompile your application, submit to Apple (wait 4 weeks) and bingo, your application is in front of 20 million people.

So, while we have all been arguing about hardware specs, Apple have been building data centres and working on iTunes X (10).

This will change the way software is sold (certainly on the Mac) and hand Apple a massive piece of the pie. Microsoft have been trying to do this for years, but Apple have almost stumbled upon it. But I can’t help wondering if Steve had this in-mind back in 2001?

Recently Phil Schiller has defended the current App Store:

“We’ve built a store for the most part that people can trust,” he says. “You and your family and friends can download applications from the store, and for the most part they do what you’d expect, and they get onto your phone, and you get billed appropriately, and it all just works.”

I think this adds weight to my argument, Apple want to build a closed, secure eco-system.

11 Early Christmas Presents from Apple

Richard Stelling — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:28:38 +0000

It would be very nice to see these in my stocking come the 25th of December, but I don’t hold out much hope.

Virtualized Snow Leopard — developers would love the ability to run multiple copies of Snow Leopard on there 8-core Mac Pro. And all it would take is a change to the licence agreement.
FireFox on the iPhone — I can honestly see this happening, but with one caveat, it’ll cost you. A change in SDK terms might allow paid-for-apps to replace existing functionality.
Family Pack of iTablets — 3 devices for $999.99, runs the iPhone OS but with keyboard and mouse support. A Kindle/Netbook killer!
iPhone discounts for developers — we sold 2 billion f**king Apps! How about some love, 2 per year at 80% off?
UK App Store Promo Codes — all I can say to this is AHHHHHHHHHHH! How can I get Jemima Kiss to review my amazing App if she has to buy it!
Apple TV that works — it’s easy; Blue Ray player, Hulu, iPlayer and 4OD support. Job done. Drop the price by £50 / $100 and you have instant living room domination.
WWDC Europe — I love San Francisco but a London or Paris event would make a lot of people happy
Playing nice with Google Voice — Apple and Google do some much better against Microsoft when they’re not fighting
Buy Adobe — you’ve got the cash, you could kill Flash (or make it better), 64 bit Photoshop, …, etc, etc
End the exclusivity, sell more iPhone — iPhones account for more than 40% of smartphone sales in countries with out exclusivity (i.e. France). How many more of my amazing Apps would I sell if iPhone got a 2-5x market increase? Enough to stop plugging it every 5 minutes.
Buy Dell and install Snow Leopard on every computer, just for fun

Stackoverflow iPhone App — solving non-existant problems

Richard Stelling — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:37:11 +0000

This weekend I decided to solve a problem that only existed in my head, namely that of no official (or unofficial) Stackoverflow iPhone App.

There have been some questions raised about the possibilities of an API to allow such an App but, alas no noticeable development effort.

Stack Overflow is a programming Q & A site that’s free. Free to ask questions, free to answer questions, free to read, free to index, built with plain old HTML, no fake rot13 text on the home page, no scammy google-cloaking tactics, no salespeople, no JavaScript windows dropping down in front of the answer asking for $12.95 to go away. You can register if you want to collect karma and win valuable flair that will appear next to your name, but otherwise, it’s just free. And fast. Very, very fast. — Stackoverflow

Alpha Launch

This is simply a heads-up on what I achieved in about 6 hours of design, programming and testing. I’d like top get some feedback from the community before I launch head-long into a project that’ll make me no money.

My questions are:

Is there a demand for this?
Is anyone willing to help with testing?

Testing

If you want to help with the testing, send me your iPhone/iPod Touch UDID using the form below.

Open Source? App Store?

I’ll be blogging more in the coming weeks about how (and why) I solved some of the problems with the lack of API. If the initial feedback is positive I’ll submit to the App Store early next week fore a (hopefully) early November availability – it’ll be a FREE App — ALWAYS and I’ll probably open source it at some point.

Logo Help

As you can see the logo is not great.

If anyone has a better idea of can produce a better version of this logo please contact me.

Feedback

Please post questions and feedback in the comments section — good or bad. Also feature requests will be seriously considered.

If you want to help fund this and other projects you could always buy my 59p ($0.99) Profanity App (iTunes link).

Video

Here is a short video showing the use of the Stackoverflow iPhone App.

Apple Tablet — The “digital watch” of 2010

Richard Stelling — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 12:59:44 +0000

The rumour mill has been swirling – Apple Tablet they cry. “Doom to fail” they sneer. I’m not so stupid as to predict an Apple device to fail, if we’ve learnt anything since SJ’s return it’s that, Apple learns from it’s mistakes!

I shall enumerate these “mistakes” and point out the silver lining:

1. Apple Cube… Mac Mini and Apple TV
2. Newton (and killing it)… iPhone/iPod Touch
~~3. Mac Clones… Intel processors~~
4. No iPhone SDK (at launch)… The App Store
5. Apple TV… Apple TV 2
6. Apple TV 2… TBA

Recently I wrote a post called iDevice, the one paragraph that keeps popping into my head is this:

Back in the late 90’s when Steve came back to Apple he gave a Keynote (I have it on VHS somewhere), where he talked about the similarities of digital watches and computers (bare with me). He pointed out that in the 80’s the average American household had 1 digital watch and today (late 90’s) it’s 8 (NB: I’m writing form memory but the point stands). — iDevice

I now believe this to been even more relevant. Any new iDevice from Apple will try and fill the gap between laptop and iPhone. Just as we all now own 8 digital watches we’ll all have 3 or 4 iPads/iDevices/What-ever by the dawn of the next decade.

Apple has no interest in Netbooks, it has MacBooks to fill that gap. It is however, very interested in selling a few billion more Apps and defining an entirely new market segment.

The killer App here is an eBook reader, but not necessarily for novels. The iPhone SDK 3.0 has in App purchase, and the ability for subscriptions. My guess is; newspapers and magazines.

Download the OK Magazine App or New York Times App, the publishers finally get a revenue from online content, Apple gets 30% (or more like 10% form big publishers) and you get the daily papers downloaded to your iDevice before you leave the house in the morning — ready to read on the train.

Add to the mix; games, web access, external keyboard and mouse and you get a Netbook killer not iPhone sales eroding.

Don’t expect an Office type suite, Google Docs or what ever Microsoft are calling Office online today, (Office Live.Net XP SP 3?) will do just fine thanks (oh and Apple’s own Mobile Me).

The best guess for price will be $100 more that the most expensive iPod Touch. But, a subscription to a mobile data plan at $10 / month might half that price. Apple want you to buy 2 or more of these; office, lounge, bed room and one for the kids. So a 3 pack — as bizarre as it sounds — is a real option, maybe for as little as $899 (with a data plan). You can’t get a MacBook for that, the family pack; 3 iDevices for under $1000 would be very attractive.

*Pricing: I’ve used $ and not £ values because Apple seem to price every thing in $ and then use their own exchange rate to convert to £. I love to see 3 devices for £500 but it’ll be more like £800.

The Matters Network – Relaunch

Richard Stelling — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 11:59:32 +0000

Below is the definitive list of sites within the Matters Network. Launched 12 months ago we’ve have mixed success and learn a lot about community building.

Although the core concepts of the Matters Network have not changed, localised sites for; groups, charities, clubs, events etc. The execution had a radical rethink. The entire team will be blogging, speaking and evangelising much more over the next few months, but I wanted to open the network to a public beta.

Please get involved, the community needs you to grow and evolve, the concept is simple; useful, well presented and relevant information is voted up by the community allowing quick and simple access to events and organisations in your area.

Aberdeenshire — http://www.aberdeenshire-matters.co.uk

Barking and Dagenham — http://www.barkinganddagenham-matters.co.uk

Barnet — http://www.barnet-matters.co.uk

Bedfordshire — http://www.bedfordshire-matters.co.uk

Belfast — http://www.belfast-matters.co.uk

Berkshire — http://www.berkshire-matters.co.uk

Bexley — http://www.bexley-matters.co.uk

Birmingham — http://www.birmingham-matters.co.uk

Bradford — http://www.bradford-matters.co.uk

Brent — http://www.brent-matters.co.uk

Brighton — http://www.brighton-matters.co.uk

Bristol — http://www.bristol-matters.co.uk