Perspective

On occasion, while listening to a podcast or reading an article, I cannot help but wonder if the orator or author is actually hearing what it is they are saying.  I am astonished at how far they sink into their own perspective that give the appearance they have lost all sense of objectivity.  The most distressing aspect to all of this is that they actually believe what they are saying is the truth.

To illustrate, let us conduct a little experiment.  Open up your web browser and head on over to your favorite search engine to have a look at the sites that come up when you search on "ipad too heavy".  For your convenience, I'll provide you with a few of the quotes I found which I am simply presenting in alphabetical order sorted by the author's last name.

The iPad is also too heavy to comfortably hold in most ways for long periods, and its wide range of software capabilities can be distracting. 

Marco Arment, creator of Instapaper

Unveiled Tuesday, the 9-inch HD Nook is 20% lighter than the iPad, a difference that is instantly noticeable after lifting the two tablets, but feels even more pronounced when holding either device in one hand for prolonged periods. The iPad feels overweight by comparison, experts say. 

Quentin Fottrell, MarketWatch

This thing is neat, they think, but isn't it kind of heavy? Yep! Heavier than a book, heavier than a Kindle. Too heavy to hold with one hand for more than a few minutes. 

John Herman, BuzzFeed 

For a device that attempts to change the way we consume content, the new iPad is far too heavy and thick. 

Brandon Miniman, pocketnow 

The iPad Mini is half the weight of the big iPad (0.7 pounds versus 1.4), thinner (. 28 inches versus .37), shorter (7.9 inches versus 9.5) and narrower (5.3 inches versus 7.3). Those specs add up to one towering meta-change: you can comfortably hold this iPad in one hand. 

David Pogue, The New York Times 

The iPad is just too heavy for reading for extended periods, I find. 

Danny Sullivan, c|Net 

I already had a great iPad. It's big and heavy, and hurts my arm to read in bed. It's my primary bed computer, and also the second screen when I'm watching TV. When I read in bed it leaves impressions on my arm where it rests. I can't imagine this is good for the circulation in my arm. 

Dave Winer, Gizmodo 

For the first time, Apple has been focusing on the wrong problems: how to cram 4x more pixels and a better antenna. Worst, this came at a cost that is impacting the 3 points above; The device is heavier.

Xavier Damman, the co-founder and CEO of Storify 

After reading through these missives, I found myself wondering if any of the authors recall what it was like to read BEFORE the proliferation of the World Wide Web.  The humble beginnings of the modern book started with the discovery of papyrus back in the third century BC.[1]  For millennia, the sum of human knowledge has been handed down from generation to generation on sheets of paper bound together into books.  After reading these authors lament about the weight of the iPad, I begin to marvel at how I was able to survive a college education.

Given you have made it to this point in the article, I am certain this admission will come as no surprise -  I am not a writer by trade.  Neither, as you will see, am I a photographer.  But as the old adage goes, a picture is worth a thousand words and by now I am certain you would appreciate some brevity.

iPad mini - 10.7 oz

iPad 2 - 1 lb 5.5 oz

"LINUX Server Hacks" by Rob Flickenger (222 pages) - 11.5 oz

"The Design of OS/2" by H.M. Dietel (389 pages) - 1 lb 8.5 oz

"Component Development for the Java Platform" by S. Halloway (222 pages) - 1 lb 10.3 oz

"Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture" by M. Fowler (533 pages) - 2 lbs 2.7 oz

"SOA Design Patterns" by T. Erl (814 pages) - 3 lbs 15.2 oz

How were those who bemoan the weight of the iPad as oppressive able to muster the stamina long enough to read anything before the inception of the iPad mini, Kindle or Nook?

I have loaded the same collection of 556 books and magazines in ePub, Kindle Format or PDF format on my iPad 2 and iPad mini.  I can comfortably hold a device in each hand simultaneously.  I feel like Hercules.

References

Arment, Marco. "The Kindle update". http://www.marco.org/2010/07/29/the-kindle-update 29 Jul 2010. 1 Dec 2012.

Fottrell, Quentin. "Is the iPad too Heavy?" http://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-the-ipad-too-heavy-2012-09-26. 26 Sep 2012. 1 Dec 2012.

Herman, John. "Why Isn't The iPad Getting Thinner?" http://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/why-isnt-the-ipad-getting-thinner Mar 2012. 1 Dec 2012.

Miller, Brandon. "New iPad: What We Love, What We Hate (Video)" http://pocketnow.com/2012/03/19/new-ipad-what-we-love-what-we-hate-video 19 Mar 2012. 1 Dec 2012.  

Pogue, David. "This Year, Gift Ideas in Triplicate" http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/technology/personaltech/presenting-the-nook-hd-ipad-mini-and-windows-phone-8-review.html 30 Oct 2012. 1 Dec 2012.

Sullivan, Danny. "iPad Mini or iPod Touch Maxi -- it may not matter" http://news.cnet.com/8301-33620_3-57487078-278/ipad-mini-or-ipod-touch-maxi-it-may-not-matter/. 6 AUg 2012. 1 Dec 2012.

Winer, Dave. "Is the iPad Mini the Beginning of Apple's Decline?" http://gizmodo.com/5959770/is-the-ipad-mini-the-beginning-of-apples-decline 12 Nov 2012. 1 Dec 2012.

Damman, Xavier. "Why the iPad3 is a step backward" http://storify.com/xdamman/why-the-ipad3-is-a-step-backward.  March 2012. 1 Dec 2012.

---

[1] "History of Books" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_books. 24 Nov 2012. 1 Dec 2012. 

A New Media World

Six years, two months and thirteen days.

That is how long it has been since Steve Jobs took the stage on September 12, 2006 to announce one of the newest members of Apple's i-family of products - the iTV.  On the 9th of January, 2007 I inducted myself into the club of Apple TV early adopters.  I was determined to be among the first to experience what the new product had to offer.

Shortly after placing the order for the Apple TV, I came across Handbrake which facilitated the transcoding of physical DVDs in my personal collection to H.264 encoded files which I subsequently added to iTunes.  Over the following year, each of the Macs the household spent their evenings diligently converting MPEG-2 DVD content into H.264 files.  The files were stored on an external hard disk drive attached to our Power Mac G5 via a speedy Fire Wire 800 connection.

At first, there were many skeptics who attributed this time-consuming encoding endeavor to my admitted obsession with products designed in Cupertino.  However, a brief demonstration was generally all that was required to illustrate the convenience afforded by having access to your entire audio and video media collection without needing to leave the comfort of your couch.  The enthusiasm I had for my new toy drove me to give those five minute demonstrations at every possible opportunity.

Fast forward to present day.  When the second generation device was made available, I quickly replaced the three originals that I had purchased.  When the third generation unit was added with support for 1080p video, we equipped our family room television with one.  The original external hard disk drive has been replaced by a Drobo with a 4 terabyte BeyondRAID volume.  Our media library consists of 8,549 songs; 740 movies; 2,810 television episodes; 482 PDFs, magazines, and books, and 324 iOS apps consuming almost three terabytes of physical disk space.

Aside from the local news or occasional award show, neither my wife, our children nor I watch linear programming.  We have become acclimated to the convenience of being able to watch WHAT you want WHEN you want and HOW you want.  Our kids command the Apple TV with ease as they switch between the content available from our local iTunes library and the content available through our Netflix subscription.  From time to time, we AirPlay video to the Apple TV from apps installed on our iPads or iPhones.

When I look back over the continuum of content consumption I have experienced in my life, I am amazed.  My parents are reticent to embrace modern modes of consuming content.  They remain fixated on legacy, non time-shifted cable television model.  They reluctantly allowed their only VCR to be replaced by a DVD player.  If they do watch a DVD, they watch it all the way through because they cannot seem to remember how to un-pause it - in spite of the hundreds of times I have explained it.  Our children reside on the opposite end of that spectrum as controlling the myriad of DVD players, Apple TVs and iOS devices is second nature to them.

I believe the traditional methods content distribution by conventional broadcasting is on life support.  There may still be some members of Generation X that prefer to receive their content in this manner, but it is unlikely subsequent generations will.  The post Generation X crowd is accustomed to being able to consume content on their terms.

The Videocassette Recorder (VCR) introduced the world to the convenience afforded by time-shifted consumption of video content.  The Digital Video Recorder (DVR) paired the convenience of a VCR with the capacity of a hard disk drive and provided a superior, more intuitive user interface.  The content industry railed against the DVR in much the same way as they did when the VCR was introduced.  Consumers, on the other hand, have embraced the technology and ACNielsen estimates that by February of 2011, 42.2% of US households employ a DVR. 

When Apple introduced the iTunes Music Store on April 28, 2003, they redefined the business of music distribution and, in my opinion, dragged the industry kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century.  Consumers agreed.  Within the first week, over one million songs had been downloaded.  By the fifteenth of December that same year, twenty-five million songs had been downloaded.  And in less than five years from opening, the iTunes Store bested Walmart to become the top music retailer in the United States having sold over four billion songs since its inception.

On the twelfth of October 2006, Apple made music videos, television shows and films available on the iTunes Store.  With that act, they have started the monumental undertaking of transforming the business of video content distribution.  They recognized that electronic downloading is the future of video content distribution.  Steve Jobs described Blu-ray a "bag of hurt" and Sony, the principal inventor of Blu-ray, has admitted Blu-ray is the last format for optical media.

Apple, having never embraced Blu-ray, is among the first computer manufactures to eliminate optical drives from their hardware.  Their final answer to Blu-ray came this year on the seventh of March with the introduction of full 1080p HD content in iTunes and the third generation Apple TV.  Google recognizes the future and has been diligently expanding their Android platform with the Google TV software offering which they are making available to hardware OEM partners.  According to The Verge, Microsoft is set to expand their XBox brand in 2013 with the introduction of a low cost, "XBox TV" device.


I can only hope contemporary video content providers demonstrate they have learned from the quixotic efforts of the labels and acquiesce to consumer preference to purchase and consume digital content at reasonable prices in a manner of their choosing.  Apple, in my opinion recognizes this as they have used their industry clout to convince media companies to make their wares available in the iTunes Store at a reasonable price point - $14.99 for standard definition and $19.99 for "full 1080p HD".

And with that, it is time for me to head over to the "Pre-Order" section of the iTunes store to see what movie I'm going to buy this Tuesday!

Netflix's Recent Pricing Change

I believe Netflix's recent decision to change their pricing structure is actually a move that promotes the streaming feature as a top-tier element in their catalog of products they offer to consumers. Initially, streaming was simply a perk you got if you subscribed to your one disc at a time offering. I am sure this was integral to helping spur customer adoption of the service. Equally beneficial was their AOL like partnership drive to embed a Netflix player in every conceivable consumer electronic device possible - Computers, iPhones, iPads, connected TVs, DVD/Blu Ray players, Wii, PS3, XBox, etc.

Once they had a number of people using the product, they started to hear requests from people who are ONLY interested in the streaming product (I'm one of them). Those customers wanted a cheaper option where they didn't have to pay for the option of getting a disc in the mail. Netflix, being the customer-focused company they are, listened to their customers and made one available. And it was cheaper (by a buck) because Netflix no longer had to send out DVDs.

The big question is WHY are they doing this? Is it because they have to or because they want to? Personally, I think it is because they want to and their ultimate goal is to kill off the desire to get physical DVDs in the mail. Not because they're losing money - but because the margins on streaming only are so much better - like thirty-three times better. Netflix was launched in 1997 and has been profitable since 2003.

Let's follow the money.

After doing a little research back in 2010, it cost Netflix $0.015 per gigabyte to stream a movie. Assuming a typical movie is about 1.8 GB in size, this works out to a cost of about 2.7 cents. Netflix had negotiated a special deal with the United States Postal Service which allowed them to use their specially designed mailers and qualify for the standard 1 ounce postage rate - $0.44 per mailing. So the cost associated with distributing a physical movie to a customer is $0.88.

Netflix ships discs Monday through Friday. This works out to an average of 21 2/3 shipping days per month (52 weeks * 5 days / 12 months). Shipping a disc to you and then back is going to take 2 days. If you assume Netflix sends the next disc in your queue to you on the same day they receive a disc from you, you will only get 7 DVDs per month. If they ship it to you the next day, then you're down to 5 DVDs a month.

For a given month, if a single disc subscriber watches the movie the day/night they get the disc and return it the next day, Netflix will pay $6.16 in postage to deliver (and receive back) 7 DVDs. $4.40 in postage at the 5 DVDs a month rate. Contrast that to 13.5 cents for streaming five movies or 18.9 cents for seven movies. Streaming looks better from a cost perspective, eh? Consider the fact that streaming has absolutely none of the other costs associated with physical DVDs - the mailers, warehousing, receiving and sending out DVDs.

At the end of the day, I think Netflix ultimately wants all of their customers to switch to streaming consumption and one of the best ways to do that is to make it the cheapest option. If you want streaming AND physical DVD distribution, then it is going to cost you twice as much. Some will pony up the extra dough. Many, I predict, will pick one option or the other. I bet streaming will win because theoretically, you can get a lot more value for your money because you don't have to wait for the physical discs.

It is funny to listen to the posturing from Hollywood and industry pundits at how they allude to the possibility that Netflix will lose access to the content it currently serves. According to NPD's VideoWatch Digital tracking service, in January and Feburary of this year 61% of the movies that were downloaded or streamed from Netflix. The next closest competitor was Comcast at 8% followed by a three-way tie for third at 4% between Apple, DirectTV and Time Warner Cable. When the contracts between content providers and Netflix come up for renewal, I would be willing to bet the content providers are going to get some more money for their wares. However, there is no way they'll pull their content because digital distribution is the future and Netflix is the 800lb Gorilla. Does anyone seriously think the content providers will get a better deal from Amazon or Apple? NBC Universal was unhappy with the deal they were getting with iTunes distribution and they pulled their content. Their digital sales flatlined and guess what you can buy/rent now on iTunes? I am an outsider, but in that little scuffle I'd say NBC Universal came back with their tail between their legs - making some money is better than making no money.

Netflix provides a great service to their customers. They offer DVD and HD quality streaming. They realize the DVD is "dead". Blu-Ray still has a little life in it, but let's revisit that after the iTunes juggernaught starts offering 1080p content this fall.

For the above numbers, have a look at the following articles:

"Netflix too big to fail?" entry on the I, Cringely blog

http://www.cringely.com/2011/05/netflix-too-big-to-fail/

"GameFly to USPS: higher postange than Netflix costs us $730k per month" - ARS Technica

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/03/the-cost-difference-in-mailing-netflx-vs-gamefly-all-of-gameflys-profits.ars

Netflix Fee Calculator

http://netflix.frogcircus.org/

Apple's "Mac App Store" versus Amazon's "Mac Software Downloads" Store

In my opinion, one of the reasons why Apple has been so successful in selling product is because user experience is paramount. There is a relentless focus on ensuring that software is designed to be as easy to use and intuitive as is possible. They always think about what is easiest for customers rather than what is easiest for them. Ultimately, they want it to be a conscious decision for customers to purchase their products and services.

Watch any Apple Keynote and you will hear references to how things "just work" on a Mac. This illustrates their believe that user experience is paramount and one of the best ways to ensure users have a good experience is to ensure that software and hardware just work together. They are best positioned to ensure things "just work" because they design all their hardware and write all their operating system software. For those things they do not do themselves (i.e., manufacturing), they hold their partners to very high standards which ensure that the end product "just works".

The Mac App store is a shining example of where Apple just leaves the competition in the dust. When I buy software, I tend to prefer to purchase software I can download. In part because I like the immediate gratification, but also because physical media typically gathers dust in my attic once the software it contains is installed. The download experience for stores other than the "Mac App Store" is generally the same:

1. Browse the on-line store.
2. Purchase the software.
3. Download the software.
4. Install the software.
5. Enter my license key.
6. Run the software.

With the Mac App Store, Apple has applied what they've learned from the iOS App Store and applied it to the Macintosh platform. The purchase experience for the Mac App Store is:

1. Browse the on-line store.
2. Purchase the software.
3. Run the software once it is installed.

You never run an installer. You never apply license keys. You buy it and within minutes (depending on the speed of your Internet connection), you are using it.

And the best part of the Mac App Store, in my opinion, is that you buy the software once and install it on ALL the Macs that you own.

Apple did not invent the downloadable software category for the personal computer. However, they have made it the most user-friendly experience for finding, buying and installing software around.

Amazon's initial "answer" to the Mac App store is a step in the right direction; however, it is nowhere near as easy to use. Have a look at the Macworld article "Hands-on with Amazon's Mac Software Store". Amazon's freshman effort at a Mac App Store clone is a step in the right direction, but they have a lot of ground to make up.

Why I Do Not Miss Flash on my iOS Devices

I can honestly say that I fully support Apple's stance on Flash with respect to the iOS platform.

Back in 2002, when I started on my second entrepreneurial adventure, I reformatted the hard disk drive on my trusty Dell Latitude C840 and installed Gentoo LINUX as my primary operating system. One of the most frustrating things about my LINUX experience was the rather pathetic media support - something that I ultimately gave up on and moved the Mac. Support for standard formats such as MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and MP3 were plentiful. Support for proprietary file formats such as Flash, QuickTime, Windows Media was hit or miss. Most of the time, the best way to access the media files was to use the native player through an emulation layer such as WINE or a virtual machine. It was more trouble than it was worth.

On the web, the pervasiveness of Flash was incredibly annoying because there was no official Flash player available for LINUX. That didn't come out until January 17, 2007. While an official version for LINUX was a good thing to have, performance lagged behind Flash Player for WIndows. Adobe did what any company would do - they spent their resource dollars where it would get the most bang. Windows ran on 95% of the personal computers, why bother with a statistically insignificant OS like LINUX?

Probably more annoying than Flash was the preponderance of web sites that were designed specifically for Microsoft Internet Explorer. Microsoft makes great tools. They are extremely capable and allow lesser skilled developers to do some pretty amazing things. And they targeted those tools to produce code that worked well in their runtime environments - on Windows 96/98/Me/NT/2000 and IE. To run these sites "optimized for IE", I would actually have to run Internet Explorer. If I wanted consistent performance, I would have to run it in a virtual machine.

For me, the Apple vs. Flash issue is more about open versus proprietary. This isn't an iOS versus Flash issue. This is an HTML5 versus Flash issue. This is an open versus proprietary standards issue. With open standards, any company can produce a runtime that supports the standard. Consumers are not locked into a particular product because the cost to move to something else is too high (e.g., why Microsoft Office is so dominant). With an open standard, any company who sees an opportunity (and a profit motive) to produce a piece of software that will work with an open file format can sally forth and do so. Apple has iOS and Cocoa, Google has ChromeOS and Dalvik, Microsoft has .Net and Win32. All great platforms with their own unique strengths and weaknesses.

Flash was designed to bring multimedia to the web. It filled a void that desperately needed filling in the early days of the web. Now. It's time has past. The architects behind HTML and JavaScript got the message and their response has been mighty.

I am ecstatic that Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla are developing Safari, Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Firefox as "runtime" environments for the world wide web. Each company is constantly trying to one-up the rest of the pack and pushing back the boundaries of what is possible in a web browser. Google and the Mozilla Foundation are two companies that probably have the most to gain from standards-based development as both companies would likely prefer that people spend all their time in web applications. What is even better, in my opinion, is that Google and the Mozilla Foundation keep Chrome and Firefox fairly feature-comparable on the major operating systems available today - LINUX, Mac OSX, and Windows. Even Apple does a pretty good job of producing versions of Safari for Mac OS X and Windows.

All four companies are producing fantastic runtime environments for web-based applications. They each have their proprietary quirks, but those are the seeds of innovation. And they do not forgo standards compliance in pursuit of innovation.

The following site uses WebGL and is supported out-of-the box by the shipping versions of Chrome and Firefox. The Safari equivalent can be downloaded from webkit.org and you can enable WebGL support by following some instructions to enable WebGL support.

http://bodybrowser.googlelabs.com/body.html

Why waste time with a platform that is only be developed by a single company, when you have a platform that four large organizations are fervently competing to produce the best implementation? In the end, consumers win because you have choice. Run the OS you want to - the open, standards-based web will work.

Thoughts About the Open Source Movement...

One of my co-workers recently asked, via a discussion list, how we thought "... the open source trends [are] playing out."

It is my opinion that the Open Source Software (OSS) movement represents what will become the dominant mechanism for producing software in the not so distant future. It is important to note that the term open source is not exclusive to software licensed under the GNU General Public License. To be considered "open source," software must conform to the principles outlined in the Open Source Definition (OSD):

1. Free Redistribution
2. Source Code
3. Derived Works
4. Integrity of the Author's Source Code
5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
7. Distribution of License
8. License Must Not Be Specific to a Product
9. Licenses Must Not Restrict Other Software
10. Licenses Must Be Technology Neutral

At the time this article was written, the Open Source Initiative has a list of sixty-five approved open source licenses of which versions of the GPL/LGPL constitute four.

Software in and of itself is a commodity. In my opinion, a proper use for software is one that supports or contributes to the successful execution of an organization's primary line of business. A company's products, processes, and business practices are the key success in the marketplace. Any successful commercial venture whose key market differentiator is the software they use will ultimately cease to be competitive. This will happen because success attracts competition and sooner or later one of those competitors will either obtain the same (or functionally similar) software thereby negating the previous market leader's competitive advantage.

Contrary to what many perceive, the very nature of open source software fosters innovation. In software engineering, as is the case with many other disciplines, there are often times where many paths lead to the same destination. Given the notion that brilliance in software engineering knows no political, cultural or geographic boundaries and the precept "that many hands make light work" (John Heywood), it is more probable than not that like-minded individuals who have the opportunity to view, change and redistribute an application's source code will be able to make and share improvements.

The dominance of open source software does not have to represent an end to one's ability to build a successful career writing software. What this does represent is a fundamental shift in the perceived value of software away from the end product (i.e., the code) and toward the individual's understanding of the code. I think this will elevate the whole of software engineering because it will require software engineers to stay competitive in the market by constantly refining their skills.

No longer will simply writing code be sufficient. One will have to understand what they are writing as well as how the code they are writing actually performs it's work. For example, Simply knowing that System.out.println("Hello world.") writes "Hello world." to the computer's console will not be sufficient. The software engineer of tomorrow will have to understand that this single instruction directs the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) to use an output stream to pass data to the console.

Ironically, it will be traditional economics that will bring about a fundamental shift in the role that commercial software plays in the market. There will come a time where OSS alternatives to most pure-play commercial software solutions exist and those alternatives will match and in many cases exceed the feature points offered by their commercial counterpart. It will not make fiscal sense to pay exorbitant license fee solely for the right to acquire commercial software.

Genesis of a Technologist

I vividly recall my love of technology and software development starting as a nine year old in a fourth grade Enrichment class in Fayetteville, Georgia. On a table against the outer wall of the classroom sat a black and gray Radio Shack computer.

Everyone in the class was afforded some time on the computer to complete educational assignments. I believe, for the most part, our computer work consisted largely of mathematics exercises and quizzes. There were a few spelling and vocabulary activities as well. When we completed our work, or as a reward for particularly good behavior, we were given the opportunity to play some games. The one I remember playing the most was a turn-based game where I drove a dog sled while exploring the frozen arctic. The goal was to reach to the North Pole while traveling to specific destinations along the way. How much could you explore?

On every "turn", I had to determine the direction in which I wanted to travel and how far I wanted to go. When my dogs were hungry, I had to feed them. When they were tired, I had to let them rest. If a dog became sick or wounded, I had to decide how to care for it. The game would be over if I ran out of "turns" before arriving at the assigned destination. I could bring about the end of the game if the decisions I made caused me to get sick or mortally wounded. Alternately, if I did not take proper care of my dogs and lost too many of them, then I would be lost in the arctic forever.

There were no graphics. Players were forced to use their imagination to picture the sled racing across the snow. At each "turn" the game presented a brief summary of your current state and the environmental conditions. Decisions were made and actions taken by navigating through various menus with a myriad of keystrokes. One could inquire as to the health and condition of the pack, take inventory on current supplies, or determine the current location. The most fascinating aspect of the game was that no two sessions were the same.

I remember being in awe at the amount of control I had over the outcome of the game. All the decisions I had to make in order to ensure that my dogs and I safely arrived at our destination. I wondered how the computer made it all work? How did it keep track of everything? How did it determine which of the many hardships I would have to overcome as my team and I trudged through the snow? How was it possible that no two games I played were the same?

I was smitten. From that moment on, I knew what I wanted to do as a career.