Steve Jobs vs Steve Ballmer.

Ok, this time I really promise that this is the last I write about Apple for a while...

This time however I'm going to compare Steve Jobs and Steve Ballmer via the magic of Youtube.

Firstly lets compare the two men think about the nature of what a computer should be:

Here's Jobs, now here's Ballmer.

Now before I continue, it would be easy to write Steve Ballmer off, however during his tenure, Microsoft has become the most powerful technology company in the Enterprise. I daresay Ballmer's stoic approach to computing has allowed to see things in the black and white manner that Business customers understand.

However is this a good thing. Does anyone remember how Microsoft got to the top? Bill Gates understood consumers, and that's how he drove Microsoft to the top. The question is does Ballmer understand them.

Now Steve Jobs is a character of note, and certainly not everbody's cup of tea. He's made some nasty comments about Microsoft and actually seems rather unfair if you ask me. But consider these interviews with Ballmer regarding Apple's iPhone, AppStore and iPad, just as they launched and then read this.

Android vs Apple.

I don't think anyone who reads this blog will doubt the fact that I love Apple products. I write this blog entry on a Macbook Pro, I have an iPhone 3GS and before that I had the 3G which my wife is now very happy with.

I also like Android.

For me Android is best poised to become the commodity mobile platform for Phones and possibly for Tablets. It's going to become the DOS/Windows of the Mobile world.

I also like Android because of it's Open Source underpinnings and the Java roots of it's SDK.

On top of that, I'm also a Google fan, I use Chrome and I'm watching the whole Google Wave thing with a lot of interest.

Furthermore besides the iPhone, I've looked at developing some Android apps (An activity that is unfortunately limited because Google doesn't offer paid for apps in my country)

I even attempted to try buy an Android phone earlier this year. And I honestly couldn't find one that I liked (although that is mostly due to the rather poor selection we have in our Country)

The thing about Apple is that they build a device for which the software and hardware is in unison from the ground up, coupled with arguably the worlds best user experience.

For example, take OSX. OSX is a great product on it's own, and technically you could run it on a standard beige Intel box. The question is would I want to.

OSX is the best part of my Macbook, but the sheer niceness of my Macbook hardware is enough to not make me want to run OSX on anything else. I would miss things like the integrated light sensors, the useable track pad, the lighted keyboard, the magnetic charger. Not to mention the eye soothing looks of the Unibody design.

There is however a problem with Apple's approach.

Apple provides the only way to use it's own products. In other words it's a pure product as opposed to being a platform like Android or Windows.

You can't build an "ecosystem" with Apple with new devices being used in new contexts, like embedding iOS into a robot or an industrial device like you could with Android.

More importantly you will never be able to use Apple in a corporate for anything more than a niche group of users. The reason is quite simply that you can't run OSX on anything but Apple, and corporates don't like having thousands of desktops so tightly coupled to a single supplier.

As a result Apple is never going to be a monopoly in anything. A fact that is unfortunately baked into the way it does things.

I fully expect Android to product a market vastly larger and much more diverse than anything Apple could ever hope for.

I will even go so far as too say that Apple knows this and accepts it.

So why am I writing this. Maybe because I don't like the fact that there is this belief in IT that for one platform to win the other has too lose.

It's the type of belief that allows monopolies to form and prosper.

Steve Jobs and the future of Apple.

Ok I promise this is the last blog on Apple for a while...

Steve Jobs recently published an article on Apples's web site detailing his reasons for why Flash is not allowed on the iPhone.

The article has obviously taken quite a bit a bit of flak.

Here's the thing though, much as everyone decries Apple, they tend to forget that Apple is not a monopoly in any market that it operates, and they can't force anyone to buy their products.

This is important because if Apple manages to annoy enough developers and users, there are sufficient alternatives in the market to Apple products to allow said users and developers to leave.

If this happens then it's fair to say that the only entity that is going to suffer in this mess is Apple itself.

A few thoughts on the iPad

Being the resident Mac fan I thought I might add my $0.02 on the iPad.

Firstly the name is aweful, I can't believe that someone didn't start giggling the moment the suggestion was made. I have two theories about how this one got through; 1) The obvious : Steve Jobs made the suggestion therefore it was so. Or 2) The marketing guys were stereotypically stoned so that means a) no one thought much about the giggling and b) they were - well - stoned.

Secondly, yes, it is a large iPhone. Rumor has it that the iPad design has gone back and forth between the drawing board and prototype stage a couple of times, in fact it's technologies became the basis of the iPhone, Now the leaked sources pretty much confirmed that the iPad was going to be using the iPhone OSX as a basis so the way the OS looks and works was not at all surprising, but I'm rather dissapointed that Apple chose to so blatantly follow the physical look of the iPhone, after all, it is a design which - while being very pretty - is getting on in the years. Now it was probably too late by then, but I hope Steve is going "Oh crap why didn't we think of that" when he watched Avatar.

Thirdly it's not an iPhone at all. If you drill down into this logic you can quite easily make that argument that my laptop shares many of the characteristics of my iPhone by virtue of the fact that both can perform many of the same functions.

So what is the iPad then, it's not a laptop, it's not a netbook, it's not a phone, it's also nothing at all like Bill Gate's vision for the tablet PC way back in 2001.

The fact is that the iPad simply doesn't fall into any of the current categories, Apple has the rather daunting task of trying to create a completely new class of mobile device.

This is both a blessing and a curse.

If the iPad takes off, it will be great for Apple of course, being the pioneers in a new category, the problem of course is that in order for this new category to take off you need to have customers who have a reason to buy one.

In other words you need a killer application.

Now with that in mind here are a few things to ponder:

The starting price is $499, which will translate into about +- R5500 after import duties (unless the importers decide to milk us dry). This makes it cheaper than many smartphones including HTC's Android phones. It also falls in the same pricing bracket as many Netbooks.

It has quite an awesome battery life, You could use this device for most of the day, no boot up time and no hibernating.

The type of functionality being offered by the iPad is basically 100% of what most mobile office workers need from a computing device, my boss for example spends his entire work day in meetings and uses his PC for nothing but e-mail and documents.

I think therefore that there is potential for this device, however Apple is going to have to work harder to make that obvious.

Now in closing it's worth noting that the device simple had no way to live up to the hype surrounding it. It's a version 1.0 device, it has many flaws and omissions which Apple will need to address (although at the price you DO get quite a bit), So quite honestly It mightn't be bad idea to wait for version 2.0.

Apple and it's nefarious ways.

I hope this whole Google Voice App scandal completely blows up in Apple's face.

A nice hefty fine consisting of least 9 digits would be perfect.

Why you ask, because like other iPhone developers I'm rather fed up with the whole process.

Furthermore Apple seems to forget that it's not a monopoly, I have plans to write software for the Android platform (when commercial apps come to my region), and quite honestly if the experience is better what reason could I possibly have to do iPhone work.

A nice scandal like this might have the ability to force Apple to be a little more transparent with developers.