[figure] out what Google wants to be when it grows up. It’s now all over the map. What are the five products you want to focus on? Get rid of the rest, because they’re dragging you down. They’re turning you into Microsoft. They’re causing you to turn out products that are adequate but not great.

Not a week ago Google shot a few projects directly between the eyes and the rest they are going to give to the world via open source. Is Page listening to Jobs?

I was never much a fan of Steve Jobs. I was always so much more a fan of the company he had built and the products they created.

His idea of thinking differently was to not follow the trends but to set them. The age of computers was, directly or indirectly, crafted by Steve Jobs and his team. Although he is, deservedly so, getting a lot of credit for the revolutionary products Apple has built over the years he wasn’t alone. Apple’s 21,000+ member team all worked in concert to design, manufacturer, market, sell, and support these incredible products. The part that Steve brought – at least from my perspective in the cheap-seats here, was the drive for perfection at the expense of features.

It wasn’t until this last two decades that his methods truly proved themselves to the world and paid off for him. Although Apple saw success in the early days those that would try to copy that which Apple built would be the true benefactors for years. That is, until Steve Jobs stopped being a one-man-team and filled his entire company with people that shared his principles and learned his methods.

Apple products notoriously do less than people want when they’re first shipped. But, no one can ever say that they aren’t beautiful, work exactly as they say, and are the best products they own. Of all the things I own I can say that it is only Apple products that I have a strong affinity for. No other company has captured me as a lifelong loyal consumer of their products. Yet.

I can say that Steve Jobs has had an affect on my life. His passion for perfection at the expense of features has taught me that you don’t have to be first, your product doesn’t have to be for everyone, and your products don’t have to have every feature in order to succeed. Taking your time and building something “insanely great” can pay off. His experiences have also taught me that no matter how great you are you’re only as strong as the team around you. No one man (or woman) can expect to accomplish anything great in our field without the help of people that are talented, driven, and willing to think different. For me those are his legacies; the pursuit of perfection at the expense of features and understanding it takes a team of people willing to think different.

Don’t just do what everyone else is doing, think different.

My favorite bits are the real story behind the iPhone’s inception (which we’ve heard from various places but it was nice to finally hear it from him), his thoughts on why they are choosing not to include Flash comparing it to choosing to eliminate floppy and optical disk drives and the whole iPhone-theft story.

“I sometimes sit and wonder what sort of applications could have been made for the Macintosh if, say, Apple had opened up an App Store that supported iPhone, iPad, and Mac? Would the river of money have been split into three smaller tributaries? Would people flock to the Mac the same way they have iPhone and now iPad? Arguably the main reasons people buy iPhones and iPads is the ease of finding/installing software and content. Imagine if things were that easy on the Mac. And imagine if developers were excited to build applications for the Mac again!”

Well, I needn’t wonder anymore. In answer to an email asking about a Mac App Store Steve Jobs has replied “Nope”.

I know developers wouldn’t want the closed nature of the current App Store in any type of Mac App Store but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be in favor of a Mac App Store to help promote/sell their applications.

Oh well, software on the Mac will have to find another way to survive.

Today I find myself in the same state as I was yesterday, still wishing.

Apple’s Keynote did, in fact, reassure me that I will be able to check off a few items on my list, however. It looks like we’ll get a search in the contacts application.  Twitterrific on the iPhone, has been confirmed by Apple, in a round-about sort of way (see screenshot).  And games!  Apple made it a point to show that games run very well on the iPhone.

Although not confirmed, we can assume that we’ll get a few of the applications that I wanted on the iPhone through third party applications within the first few months of the App Store launching.

All-in-all I’m happy with everything that Apple announced today.  The iPhone 3G seems like a very welcomed update to the current iPhone, and at a price point no one can sneeze at.  Mobile Me will be huge for Apple and .Mac has needed an update for a very long time.  And of course all of the iPhone software updates and third party applications are going to be a game-changer in the mobile market.

You probably know what I’m going to say next.  I wish Steve said “One more thing”.  But he didn’t.  If he did, I would have wanted to see a new Macbook Pro.  I am not sure how long I can hold out before picking one up.

MeToday: June 11, 2007

So I’ve been catching some flack over my MeToday photo that, more or less, described my feelings towards the WWDC Keynote on Monday. Perhaps I’m overreacting, perhaps I’m being a little overly critical, or maybe I just needed more sleep, but the fact remains — I am not alone in my thinking that this latest Keynote wasn’t what we all thought it would be.

If you haven’t watched the Keynote, or weren’t fixated on the coverage during it, I suggest you watch it and then come back and read this post – because I’m not going to recap what Steve Jobs covered, but more cover what I think was sorely missing which lead to my disappointment. If you’d like my thoughts on what was announced, I suggest reading Michael Heilemann‘s “WWDC 07 fallout” post which nearly reiterates my thoughts on the what was announced during the Keynote.

That which went missing

The days leading up to any keynote by Apple’s CEO are always filled with rumors of new products or services that Apple will announce. These generally range from iPods that will do your laundry to cloaks that make you invisible like Harry Potter. Though Harry made an appearance in this keynote – no cloaks were added to the Apple Store. A lot of times this rumor-mongering builds up the expectation to such a level that, no matter what Apple introduces, those expectations are ultimately let down. However, I do not want anyone to believe that I “expected the unexpected” and was thus let down by the contents of the keynote. On the contrary, I think nearly everything that was mentioned in the keynote was, in a word, great — but I definitely feel a few things were missing from the keynote and that is why I reacted the way that I did.

Ok, so there was one rumor that, in the end, let me down. The iPhone SDK isn’t really an SDK at all – which only lets me down from a “user” perspective since my Cocoa-foo is lacking to say the least. No, I don’t want to build Cocoa apps for the iPhone – but I know a few developers who I would have loved to have the opportunity to do so. Yes, I like the fact that Apple is providing hooks into the iPhone’s core system via OS X services that can be “called” via the Web. Yes, I will build a few “iPhone applications” for my own personal use – but there is something I’m not happy about. Speed, responsiveness, and local caching on the iPhone will all become a factor with having 3rd party web apps be the only way that the iPhone can be developed for. Most of my time is spent near wifi (by necessity currently) but when I’m accessing the web over AT&T’s network I imagine that my mobile version of NetNewsWire is going to suck. Google Gears for iPhone plz?

Where was the latest version of iLife? While watching the keynote during MacWorld in January I was sitting on the edge of my seat, waiting for Steve to announce iLife 07 and give a preview of the enhancements made to, what has become, my most used suite of applications on any platform. Nothing. Surely another opportunity to let us iLife-faithful know what is in store for the next versions of the applications wouldn’t slip by. Obviously, iLife 07 is destined to become Leopard-only (which I’m fine with) – and perhaps the keynote had a “bigger agenda” for this conference, but even announcing that an update is coming might have quenched my thirst.

One might argue that WWDC is not the platform for announcing consumer products but rather is focused on showing off features that developers would find most interesting and valuable. Good argument. But that doesn’t mean that Steve couldn’t show how iLife takes advantage of the new Core Animation API in Leopard to allow a much richer experience when sorting your photos in iPhoto, or how iMovie can burn HD DVDs (or something). Of course I could argue the point further that the new movie listing Dashboard widget being released in Leopard (oh thank God this was a top-ten feature of Leopard, gives me a lot of faith in the other 290+ features) is much more a consumer product than a developer one.

I also wanted to see updates to .Mac since Steve Jobs mentioned at D5 All Things Digital that we should expect updates to this service soon. No, he didn’t say that they’d be announced at WWDC – but still. .Mac is falling behind and really needs a shot in the arm. I’ve only used 60 day trials of .Mac – but I did like being able to use it during those times. However, with free and better alternatives available – there is almost no reason to use .Mac besides greater system-level integration. I’d love to see a partnership between Google and Apple on integrating .Mac with Google’s offerings. Having close ties with Google Docs, Maps, Gmail, and several other Google services inside of Leopard – via .Mac somehow – would be great to see. Obviously it would save Apple the need to reinvent the wheel – and with Google’s open APIs it wouldn’t be that hard for Apple to put some really slick interfaces ontop of these great services (like they did for Maps on the iPhone). Perhaps this is wishful thinking since Apple makes a fair amount of cash from .Mac subscriptions – but I’d also love to see .Mac go free as another pull to switch to the Macintosh and have the best system level integration with web services on any operating system.

Something new! In January Steve mentioned that they had to keep wraps over a few of the Leopard features because they didn’t want Redmond’s photo copiers to start early. Fair enough. But he couldn’t have been talking about Stacks or the movie widget, was he? Obviously Time Machine and Core Animation are Leopard’s most notable features (from my perspective). I’m sure there are a ton of advancements under-the-hood being that Leopard has been in active development for 21 months! And maybe, just maybe, we won’t know of the best features until we install it – but I really thought Steven built-up the expectations there a bit and never really came through with anything bigger than what he had mentioned in January. This isn’t to say that I’m not just as excited to update my operating system as I was in January, just that I thought there was going to be “one more thing” worth noting about Leopard.

So to recap. I’m pretty happy with what was shown in the keynote. I’m just a little disappointed with what I thought was missing in it.

Mr. Jobs I must appologize for my ignorance and arrogance. I love my iMac, I really do, but I have always had problems with this or that. Not with the computer itself, mostly just connecting to my other computer. Well, today I decided to read the documents on your well design website. Side note: Your website is always fast, and reliable even though a large percentage of the Internet population downloads movie trailers, and now music from it. Kudos.

After reading few docs about connecting my iMac to the PC, I found it incredibly easy to do so. My sincerest appologies for ever doubting.

Your friend, and future 100% switcher,
Colin

I still find it pretty funny how long it took me to switch fully to Macintosh and how now I’m still mad at myself for being on the OS for so long. For any of you on the fence, pick a day and switch – you’ll not regret it.

[tags]apple, macintosh, imac g4, steve jobs, letter, repost, pc, mac os x[/tags]