"Guess I'm Never Buying Anything from Apple Again"

I've been seeing a lot of stink being raised over a new patent from Apple by the media and especially by folks on Twitter.

The patent covers an idea for an camera system that includes an infrared receiver that can accept data. To sum up some of the uses of this new system, Patently Apple states:

On one side, the new system would go a long way in assisting the music and movie industries by automatically disabling camera functions when trying to photograph or film a movie or concert. On the other hand, the new system could turn your iOS device into a kind of automated tour guide for museums or cityscapes as well as eventually being an auto retail clerk providing customers with price, availability and product information. The technology behind Apple's patent application holds a lot of potential.

And of course, everyone latches onto that first sentence. And only that sentence.

I've seen tweets (well, mostly retweets) in my feed saying things along the lines of "Guess I'm never buying anything from Apple again".

Grow up, people.

It's a patent. Do you have any idea how many patents Apple files in a year? Enough to keep a site like Patently Apple in business. Now, with that scale in mind, how many of those patents make it into an actual shipping product? Not many.

With this in mind, let's save the outrage for if this system is ever implemented, and in an evil way. Otherwise, knock it off.

Thoughts on iMessage

One of the upcoming features in iOS 5 that I am downright nearly giddy about is iMessage. I am stingy with text messages because, frankly, they are expensive for what they are. I have had the 200 messages per month plan at $5 since day one with AT&T, which, unfortunately, is no longer an option. If I ever change my texting plan, I lose my preferred option forever. The next one up is $10 plan, which includes 1000 messages. Now, the message per dollar ratio is better with the new low-end plan, but that is an extra $60 per year.

Now, a fair amount of the people I interact with use iPhones (even more with iPads and iPods touch). With iMessage, I will get all the benefits of texting with none of the costs. The best part is the experience looks to be seamless. iOS will check the contact to see if they have iOS 5, and if so, will use iMessage. If not, it will fall back to your carrier texting plan.

I think one of the larger benefits of iMessage will be interacting with several friends in the UK quickly and easily. There have been many times where I have a question for one of these friends, and a text message would be a fantastic medium. Sadly, I've had to resort to twitter or email. Twitter is great, but not everyone is constantly checking it, and email — well, no one wants more email.

iMessage is one of those features that will change things a lot. And I love that it is practically a giant "screw you" to carriers and their insane texting fees.

WWDC11

Yesterday Apple announced a lot of new things at WWDC. Frankly, it has been a lot to process and figure out what the highlights worthy of discussion are. So I thought I'd share some (hopefully) brief thoughts on OS X Lion, iOS 5, & iCloud.

OS X Lion

Apple showed off a lot of the same things it did during the first preview months ago and also on its website since. Chief among those are things like Multi-Touch Gestures, Full-Screen Apps, Mission Control, Launchpad, Auto-Save and Versions.

The Lion part of the keynote was really just a recap to show off some polish, and give details on its release. I was very happy to see the price tag of $29.99, and that it will be distributed via the Mac App Store in July. I honestly was a little surprised to see Apple killing off the optical disc this aggressively. I knew it would happen sooner rather than later, but I expected it for the next iteration of OS X.

My only curiosity with the whole thing revolves around whether or not we'll be able to make some sort of bootable recovery, whether on disc or USB drive. I mean, what if your hard drive goes kaput? We'll find out in July.

I do highly recommend you peruse Apple's extensive information about OS X.

iOS 5

There were two things I have been wanting built into iOS recently, and those have been a better notification system and a ToDo List that would sync over the air with my Mac and iPad. I had bought a few apps to accomplish the latter, but none work as seamlessly as I expect out of my Apple devices.

Thankfully both of those items and more came to fruition.

Notification Center

Notifications have, honestly, taken a cue from Android. They pop in briefly from the top while you are doing something and quietly disappear for later inspection within the Notification Center, which can be accessed by dragging a finger down from the top of the screen. Here, notifications can be acted upon, left alone, or dismissed. Another nice touch regarding notifications is how they stack on the lock screen, and can be acted upon straight from there by sliding your finger across a particular notification, which unlocks the device and pops you into that app.

Reminders

Reminders is your regular old task list, with a twist. It has the ability to use geolocation as a way to alert you to a task, when you either arrive somewhere, or leave. For instance, you could set a reminder pick up dinner when you leave your office. As you are walking to your car, your iPhone alerts you. It looks like everything I could want and more.

Camera

The improvements to the Camera app have me fairly excited. There will be a software button you can tap from the lock screen to jump immediately into the camera. From there, you can now pinch to zoom, tap & hold to lock auto-exposure and auto-focus, and even use the volume up button as a shutter release.

After you take a shot, you can also do basic editing, such as rotation, cropping, red-eye correction, and an automatic touch-up process.

iMessage

iMessage is a new, free service, that allows you to send text, pictures, video, contacts, location data, etc to another iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. It will be the default system in the Messages app, with SMS/MMS being a fallback if the recipient isn't an iOS user. This is definitely huge and I am sure the carriers aren't happy about Apple sucking away their precious overpriced texting plans.

Independence from Computers

By far the biggest announcement for iOS is tethering via USB will no longer be needed to sync and make backups. Heck, iTunes isn't even needed to set up your iDevice out of the box anymore. Just take it out, run through a set-up dialog, and you're on your way. This will be great for upgrading to a new device, and even more so, those buying an iPad as their only device.

Another perk is iOS updates will now occur over the air, and as delta updates. Delta updates are just the changes. Up until now, iOS updates have been the entire OS, which is kicking around 600+ MB these days.

iOS 5 is set for release this fall (I'd guess September). Check out the new features and a video.

iCloud

iCloud is a new service from Apple that moves the focus of syncing off of iTunes and onto a server. Jobs said, "The cloud is the truth", meaning that all your devices — Mac, PC, iPhone, iPod touch, & iPad — will be communicating with iCloud as their main source of information.

iCloud will store email, contacts, calendars, iTunes, App Store, & iBookstores purchases, documents, photos, and backups. The idea is that you make a change on one device, and it uploads to iCloud, and then is pushed to the other devices.

For example, take a picture on your iPhone, and it is on your iPad and within iPhoto on your Mac in mere moments.

iCloud looks to be a big deal, and it will be available this fall alongside iOS 5, free for everyone.

I was very glad to see iCloud is free, and MobileMe accounts are being rolled into it.

---

Like I said, it's a lot of information to absorb. The implications of iCloud are staggering, something I'll expound on in a later post. I am excited to get Lion in a month's time, and find myself impatient, as always, for the next version of iOS.

It's All About the Software

From Apple PR this morning:

Apple® CEO Steve Jobs and a team of Apple executives will kick off the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) with a keynote address on Monday, June 6 at 10:00 a.m. At the keynote, Apple will unveil its next generation software - Lion, the eighth major release of Mac OS® X; iOS 5, the next version of Apple’s advanced mobile operating system which powers the iPad®, iPhone® and iPod touch®; and iCloud®, Apple’s upcoming cloud services offering.

It don't see how Apple could spell it out any more, but this year WWDC is all about software. Any next-gen iPhone hopefuls will have to wait until September, likely.

I'm glad to see Mr. Jobs will be on stage again. This medical leave has been very different than his previous ones. He is still very much involved during his absence.

Lastly, the iCloud rumor seems true. I can't remember the last time (if ever?) Apple pre-announced a product via press release. Needless to say, I have a feeling it will be big.

And who knows, maybe there will be "One More Thing".

¶ If You Mess with the Bull…

About a week and a half ago, patent troll Lodsys started sending out letters to US-based iOS developers claiming they were infringing upon patents held by Lodsys regarding the use of Apple's In-App Purchase system. In a gist, they claimed Apple held a license to these patents, but that license did not trickle down to third-party developers.

This is especially troubling for the iOS ecosystem because the majority of developers are individual people or very small companies. These developers cannot afford a long, drawn out legal battle with a company that exists solely to litigate patent suits. Instead, these developers would just have to pay the license fee. Granted, the fee Lodsys was requesting is quite small and likely wouldn't put too many developers out of business, the problem stands that once one patent troll goes after developers, others will follow.

That would make developing for iOS fairly unattractive. How could a developer trust that a new feature Apple rolls out in the SDK wouldn't invite more licensing fees? Basically, if Lodsys had its way with developers, iOS as a development platform would dry up really fast.

So ever since all this broke, a lot of folks have been waiting to see how Apple would respond.

From Apple Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Bruce Sewell, to Lodsys, LLC, today:

I write to you on behalf of Apple Inc. (“Apple”) regarding your recent notice letters to application developers (“App Makers”) alleging infringement of certain patents through the App Makers’ use of Apple products and services for the marketing, sale, and delivery of applications (or “Apps”). Apple is undisputedly licensed to these patent and the Apple App Makers are protected by that license. There is no basis for Lodsys’ infringement allegations against Apple’s App Makers. Apple intends to share this letter and the information set out herein with its App Makers and is fully prepared to defend Apple’s license rights.

[…]

Under its license, Apple is entitled to offer these licensed products and services to its customers and business partners, who, in turn, have the right to use them.

[…]

Because Apple is licensed under Lodsys’ patents to offer such technology to its App Makers, the App Makers are entitled to use this technology free from any infringement claims by Lodsys.

[…]

Therefore, Apple requests that Lodsys immediately withdraw all notice letters sent to Apple App Makers and cease its false assertions that the App Makers’ use of licensed Apple products and services in any way constitute infringement of any Lodsys patent.

A saying my Dad has favored as long as I can remember comes to mind:

If you mess with the bull, you're going to get the horns.

Well said, Dad. Well said.

¶ PIN for iOS

Yesterday evening, I saw an interesting tweet from Kevin Rose:

If a four digit pin is good enough for the ATM it should be sufficient for an iTunes purchase on my phone, putting in passwords sucks

Now, I really believe in having strong passwords that are different for the various services I use. To do this, I employ the use of 1Password on my Mac, iPhone, iPad, and my Windows 7 virtual machine. And it all stays in sync via the wonderful Dropbox. Using this, not even I know the various passwords for the different sites and services I use. But 1Password does, and I know how to get at that information.

However, I am forced to either remember my password for iTunes/App Store purchases/updates on my iPhone and iPad, or delve into 1Password each and every time I need to do anything.

I can see why Kevin seeks a PIN for iOS. And I am nearly inclined to agree. Apple provides the free Find My iPhone service, which gives an extra security to lock someone out of your data or erase that data entirely if your iDevice falls into the wrong hands. I think for most people a PIN would be sufficient. Much like an ATM, you need to have two things: something you have (the card) and something you know (the PIN). The situation is very similar with Kevin's idea. You have your iPhone and you know your PIN. And just like if you lost your card and report it missing, you can lock down or erase your iPhone if necessary.

I think the PIN system could work. It should at least be an option for those willing to take a little greater risk.

Apple Responds to the Location Kerfuffle

Apple responded to the controversy over the location logging file that was making its round through the media last week.

In short:

• The file is an appropriate, relevant subset of data (cache) from a crowd-sourced database to aid in speeding up location locks when a user requests their position. (I was right)
• When a user authorizes a position request, Apple does receive data about the geo-coordinates of nearby cell towers and Wi-Fi hotspots to add to the crowd-sourced database. This data is encrypted and anonymous.
• The cache shouldn't be storing nearly a year's worth of data. It should be closer to a week. This will be fixed in the coming weeks via a software update.
• The same update will fix a bug in which the iPhone still collects this data even if Location Services are turned off.
• The update will also remove the cache from iPhone backups.

The entire Q&A is worth a read. It satisfies all of my questions.

¶ My Theory on Why iOS Logs Your Location

Media coverage is sensationalizing an open source tool, iPhoneTracker, which maps out location data points collected by a 3G-capable iOS device. Be sure to read their FAQ, which isn't so sensational.

Using this app to look at my data, it definitely pings off cell towers, not GPS. With this in mind, I posit that Apple may have the iPhone (and 3G iPad) keep track of cell towers to aid in speeding up its Assisted-GPS, which uses cell towers to triangulate a smaller search area for the GPS satellite. The device would be able to provide location results to the user much more quickly if it had an index of nearby towers.

This would also explain why this data is included in the iPhone backup. It would be inefficient to rebuild the database from scratch if you had to restore your phone.

And to pre-empt the argument of why doesn't Apple include a pre-made database:

• Databases take up drive space. The method of logging towers near you makes the data relevant to you, and excludes a lot data that would be largely useless to you.

  Addendum: Of course this still results in a database that takes up space, but it wouldn't be nearly as large. The point is that you have a database of relevant data.

• Also, Apple doesn't have to maintain updates to carrier databases when new towers are added. Instead, your iPhone just maps a new nearby tower itself.

Lastly, I haven't seen anyone provide any evidence that this data is transmitted back to Apple. So if this data only exists on your device and its backup file, what's the big deal? Especially since it is probably saving you time when you willingly tell the world where you are via geo-tagged tweets, Foursquare check-ins, and Instagram updates. Never mind that the Camera app geo-tags every photo you take in an instant.

¶ Seamless

Nearly ten years ago, Apple introduced the original iPod. In their first ad for the iPod, before the silhouette dancers, we are introduced to a guy jamming out to a song on iTunes, which he then drags onto his iPod in the source list, stuffs headphones in his ears, clicks play on his iPod, and seamlessly continues jamming out to the song.

That was the dream, wasn't it? To seamlessly pick up where you left off. Unfortunately, that dream has never been a reality — until now.

Enter Seamless, a new app for iOS and your Mac. Seamless allows you to transfer what you are currently playing on one device to the other, without skipping a beat. Press one button, and music fades out on one device as it fades in on the other.

The dream has been realized. And I can't believe this isn't a feature found in iOS and iTunes already.

Seamless works completely as advertised. It is pure magic.

Seamless for iOS is a buck in the App Store and the companion Mac app is free in the Mac App Store.

They even have a great video which, like all great app videos these days, is done by Adam Lisagor.

Hat tip to a tweet from my close friend and fellow writer, Samantha.

Tweetbot

Tweetbot is a new Twitter client that debuted yesterday in the App Store. Rather than write ad nauseum about it, I suggest you read Shawn Blanc's excellent review.

My brief thoughts are:

• This app is really polished.
• I love the gesture support, especially the slide right and left actions.
• Being able to use a list as a main timeline is a thoughtful feature that hasn't been done this well until now. It makes me want to do a better job at curating my lists. I hope other clients take note.
• I also love Tapbot's solution for the bottom tab bar. Having the last two items be configurable is a great UI and UX solution. I hope Apple takes note on this one, because the "More" tab they use sucks.

Tweetbot is two bucks right now for a limited time. I have no idea when it will go up, or by how much. But for two bucks, this is worth having in your arsenal.

I do have to mention one thing though. As much I like Tweetbot, and I think it is as good, or perhaps better than the official Twitter app, I am still sticking with Twitterrific as my main client. I like Twitterrific's unified timeline, the themes, and the interaction. Maybe it's just what I am used to. Though I do love that Twitterrific has a unified experience across the iPhone (and iPod), iPad, and Mac.

Regardless, when I do feel the need to occassionally reach for a backup client, that will now be Tweetbot, instead of Twitter for iPhone.

Update on 2011-04-14 21:55 by Chris De Jabet

I would be remiss if I didn't point out Tapbots' very well done video for Tweetbot, which you can watch here.