…cause they’re all ‘Lite’ and ‘Free’ instead of explicitly full-version trials.

One of my biggest complaints about Apple’s App Store within iTunes is that I have to buy an app before I can use it. Of course, developers have long maintained separate ‘Lite’ versions of most of their popular paid apps, which are sometimes low on features, or have some other handicap that doesn’t quite demonstrate what the full application can do.

Well, Apple has managed to combine those two concepts, and in a PR-friendly way, but not a practical way. When I, and I would argue, most users, think of the phrase “try before you buy,” I think of the opportunity to use software for a period that features full functionality, during which I get to see if the software is something worth spending money. This is not that system, unfortunately.

When I opened the App Store today to check for updates, tapped the rather large and prominent yellow “Free On the App Store” button, and saw a new “Try Before You Buy” menu item, I thought that this was the moment that the App Store became nearly perfect for me. But when I started looking through the apps, they were all branded with ‘Lite’ and ‘Free’. Now, in all fairness to developers, a lot of the free versions of a paid app I have are more than sufficient for my needs, like Sudoku and crossword puzzles, nor do I use a lot of paid anyway, choosing to stick mostly to free services like Facebook, Twitter, ESPN, foursquare, and eBay. I’m just disappointed that the Android 24-hour policy, or something similar to its concept, wasn’t implemented, because I would be able to tell within a few minutes whether that $3 Tetris app is something that would be worth the price, instead of having to buy it, knowing that a case of buyer’s remorse has a higher likelihood than most purchased items of mine, which is slightly discomforting.

It’s a nice idea, and can provide some new exposure to developers, but the developer’s formula for success hasn’t changed.

Over at Mashable!, the always-delightful Christina Warren has taken an in-depth look at user trends concerning iPad use. Some of the basic premises taken from her analysis of study data regarding iPad use were that the iPad has somewhat unexpected potency as a gaming platform, a large percentage of iPad users are first-time Apple buyers, and the iPad is viewed by most people as an expensive toy, not a technological necessity.

When the iPad was first introduced in January, it was derided as being a “big iPhone,” primarily by those who were really, really glad that the Apple tablet wasn’t the Mac OS X tablet, PC-killer they thought it could be. It really appeared to be a relatively tame device that was good for book-readers, and about as good and popular a platform for email, photos, and productivity as the iPhone. Because the logo on the back happens to be Apple’s, the enormous consumer response, in the form of sales, was dismissed as Apple fanboyism, typical of an Apple product launch. And then the iPad sold a million within 28 days of launch, far surpassing the iPhone’s three-month timeframe for the same milestone. And then it sold two million in less than 60. And then three million in 80 days. The iPad sold three times as many units as the iPhone in less than the same amount of time. (Now, of course, the iPhone 4 sold 1.7 million in two days. But we’re talking about unproven product launches here.) Is it because the iPhone was so popular that consumers wanted to have a seemingly duplicitous, supersized device to match? Doubtful, really. The iPad is its own device in the eyes of consumers, clearly, and the study data tell the tale.

The perception of iPad, one could easily and verily state, differs based on ownership of the device, and this perception is usually manifested in, “Do you like it?”, some other holistic approach. The survey asked prospective customers (those who do not :yet: own an iPad) which of the three following devices would be the best for mobile gaming: smartphone, portable gaming device such as the Nintendo DS, or iPad. Predictably (and this is my feeling on the matter as well), a majority (60%) felt that a portable gaming device would be best for such an activity, with the iPad coming in second with 23%, and smartphone coming in last with a dismal 8%. The response seems very reasonable, and still might be, depending on the types of games that are going to be played. Nintendo has not yet committed to iOS gaming, which would render a large portion of the gaming community (me included) uncommitted to the iPad to fire up Animal Crossing, Legend of Zelda, or Super Mario Bros,. The survey then asked iPad consumers which device they would NOT buy now that they had an iPad. The top choice (49%) was an e-Reader, as would be expected, but the next two choices are noteworthy. The second choice was a portable gaming device (38%), and the third choice was a netbook/laptop (32%). Portable gaming device took precedence over an MP3 player (29%), first of all, which I find shocking, although I suppose the price points between the two are drastically different, unless we’re talking iPod Touch-type of MP3 player. Once again, the type of gamer you are might have something to do with whether or not the iPad is sufficient, but I would be willing to bet that full-screen Tetris, Scrabble, crossword puzzles, and Pac Man whets the appetite of most people, as it surely does mine.
While Warren’s writing is focused on the gaming platform, of more interest to me is the 32% that wouldn’t buy a laptop or netbook because they own the iPad. Let’s talk about an old college power package, consisting not of a supercharged laptop, but the combination of a supercharged desktop and a netbook. The reasoning behind this arrangement is that a powerful desktop can be more powerful and had for less than the power laptop, and the netbook provides any mobile computing that would be necessary. 32% of respondents indicated that they would replace the netbook in that hypothetical arrangement with an iPad and be happy with it. Does that make sense? Would it be wise to replace a netbook, which can be just as productive with a Wi-Fi network as an iPad for much cheaper, with an iPad? I think it does make sense, especially considering the fact that a 3G iPad will be usable in most places, and the iPad’s 9-10 hour battery life. The 3G is even easy to manage, with most control in the consumer’s hands instead of AT&T’s. Moving toward the travel side of things, unless you’re working on a particular project in a particular application on the road, what can a laptop do that the iPad can’t do? Music, movies, games, and Internet are all the things I do when traveling, and it really doesn’t appear that the iPad is lacking in that department. Even for the home user, would a desktop-iPad combination be a bad thing? This situation might epitomize the placement of the iPad between the smartphone and the laptop. No, it doesn’t run OS X or Windows like a laptop, but it can be more than a novelty for notetaking, blogging, and web browsing. While it is tempting to say that the iPad is filling an intermediate market that nobody knew they needed, it is important to note that most respondents, even those who owned the iPad, saw the iPad as an expensive toy, or a luxury item, instead of a must-have do-all device. It may be safe to say, however, that the iPad is creating commercial possibilities that can be fulfilled, making it not only appeal to more people, but create the sense of must-have with a large and extraordinary additional feature set enhanced by applications (and smaller tune-ups furnished by hardware upgrades, which consumers may also be waiting for before buying).

I don’t own an iPad. I have only been an Apple-product owner for a little less than 18 months, in fact. I am also one of those affected by the “iPod halo,” in which consumers who buy or receive iPods are slowly transformed into Apple aficionados (o aficionadas), and sucked into the greater world of Apple products after remarkably softening any previous prejudice against the company. I bought an iPod Touch (1G) third-hand, and haven’t looked back after buying a MacBook from eBay in July 2009, and then a refurbished MacBook Pro in October 2009. For me, it was the fact that the iPod was done so well that turned me on to other Apple-produced products. The UI was something I had never beheld before, and the tiniest minutiae in delivering the features (Mail, Safari, Calendar, Contacts, etc.) was impressive. It became my iPhone Lite, as I took it everywhere with me, using Twitter, Facebook, mail, and Internet (aided heavily by campus-wide Wi-Fi) to communicate with anyone and everyone, except through phone calls, which is why I am hanging onto every report of Verizon’s January iPhone, as I am hooked on the device and its capabilities. That was the first impression I had of an Apple product that was meaningful. I suspect that similar to iPod, ownership of which doesn’t necessarily imply an undying love for Apple, the iPad was given as a gift to older book-readers or bought by people like business-class travelers to facilitate a connected, yet mobile lifestyle, and these people had never needed to use Apple’s services before. People who are 45+ are owning iPads, and 37% of the survey respondents reported that the iPad was their first Apple product. Do you see now where the “iPad halo” could become a reality? This represents a new age group that is getting excited about Apple’s products, which lets Apple get a foothold in that market for their other products, very similar to what the “iPod halo” has done for the other, younger end of the spectrum.

If I were to buy an iPad today, I find that it would serve as a giant iPod Touch, but with additional value. I would keep it in my bag with me, and use it to check mail, and check and update Facebook and Twitter, but also write blog posts, surf the web in a much more usable manner, display sheet music to put on a stand and play, as well as take advantage of the 3G capabilities. I think also that I would find use for it in ways that I can’t envision, because the mental canvas of my iPod Touch possibilities is much smaller than the feature set of the iPad, and that having it would actually inherently lend itself to other uses, which is a really exciting idea. Of course, if I were to buy a 3G iPad today, I would have to have $629+ to blow, which is really the only limiting factor for me, and I suppose that it really is the limiting factor for most consumers who want it, but haven’t bought it. Even at $300, I would probably give it a go, because it seems to me that the potential for the device far outweighs the possibility that it will sit in a drawer collecting dust. It would be the second-biggest weapon in my technical arsenal besides my MacBook Pro, and I would use it as such.

The iPad is so arresting for so many reasons. Is it time that everyone had one?

I admit it: I strive to be a pixel-perfectionist. I understand that this runs contrary to the very fluid and diverse nature of the web, and I place a lot of importance on standards, but clients and users place a lot of importance on having my pixels not broken in other browsers and operating systems. So, after poking around, I found a very neat Javascript sample by Rafael Lima that, when supplemented with a certain CSS syntax, can easily target those rogue pixels pushing your header down on Chrome for Windows, but not Chrome for Mac. You, too, can find it here. There’s a little demo on Raphael’s site with a colored square that changes hue based on browser and operating system, and I’ve been able to hit a few trouble spots, and it does the job. The best part is that it does not invalidate your CSS. I realize that this doesn’t work if the user has Javascript turned off, and it’s not a substitute for using valid XHTML to get as close as possible, but it sure makes eliminating inexplicable pixel placement in any operating system’s browser easier when time is short and the client HAS to have that particularly tricky feature that’s hard to get looking decent across different browsers.

CSS is an art. It takes a lot of practice, and it’s frustrating in the meantime, but it’s completely worth every second of your time when manifested as a great, cross-browser, and validated layout for a client (or just after you spent six hours in IE discovering “display: inline;”). I’ve never been proficient with it, even after five years with it, and I’ve always been frustrated with it, one browser at a time.

However, while being frustrated yet again while coding a comp recently, I realized that there is a very simple solution to CSS woes that has worked for me nearly every time some element won’t go where it should, and I think it’s worth a mention because I, for one, often overlook it in crunch time. And that is to stop, look at the code, and listen to what it’s trying to do, what it sounds like. Listen to the sounds of tags, and how they fit with other elements. Check your markup. Use Firebug, Safari developer tools, something that can inspect your work behind you. Ensure that nothing’s misspelled, every tag is in its correct place (this is usually the biggest source of my problems, especially concerning divs),  every tag is closed, and every quotation mark ended. This technique is certainly something that is old-hat to experts in not only CSS, but programming in general, but those principles can escape even the most diligent when time is short. It’s not going to get that liquid layout done for you, or make IE6 go away, but taking care to doing the little things once correctly can make the bigger things go more smoothly, and save a lot of headaches along the way.

The good

The Mac mini got a hardware update yesterday, featuring the aluminum unibody we’ve come to expect of Macs, as well as some souped up innards that actually make it a not-too-shabby desktop computer. From http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/06/15macmini.html :

“The sleek, aluminum Mac mini packs great features, versatility and value into an elegant, amazingly compact design,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “With twice the graphics performance, HDMI support and industry-leading energy efficiency, customers are going to love the new Mac mini.”

The Mac mini, for a suggested retail price of $699 (US), includes:

• 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 3MB of shared L2 cache;
• 2GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable up to 8GB;
• a slot-load 8X SuperDrive® (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
• 320GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm;
• NVIDIA GeForce 320M integrated graphics;
• AirPort Extreme® 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
• Gigabit Ethernet;
• four USB 2.0 ports;
• SD card slot;
• one FireWire® 800 port;
• one HDMI port and one Mini DisplayPort;
• HDMI to DVI video adapter;
• combined optical digital audio input/audio line in (minijack); and
• combined optical digital audio output/headphone out (minijack).

It has some really solid features, but one of particular interest is the HDMI port. I think this marks a shift in the range of possibilities that Apple wants consumers to consider when purchasing the Mac mini, because having HDMI allows the Mac mini to be used in the context of a home theater system, only with many more capabilities than Apple TV. Yes, people have advocated Mac mini to be used in the Apple TV’s place in the past, but this hardware update makes it awfully easy to share content, from the SD card reader to the HDMI port, along with the fact that Apple TV has restrictions on the sources and types of streaming media, preventing the streaming of content such as Hulu, Last.fm, and Picasa for video, audio, and pictures, respectively. Granted, the Mac mini is much more expensive, but for $699, there is some serious power in the package. Perhaps this is the beginning of the end for Apple TV?

The bad

The iPhone 4.0 really can’t catch a break, it seems. Putting the pre-order up at 4 AM EST would seem like a great way to avoid fanboys. But no. From http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/15/iphone-4-pre-order-failure/ :

Apple and AT&T’s online purchasing system for the new phone has been a complete and utter failure for the past hour. Judging from comments, tips coming in, and personal experience, most people don’t even seem to be getting past the first step of entering their existing AT&T information when the system simply times out.

Who knows, maybe either AT&T or Apple caught a bit of whatever Twitter had earlier. And just imagine if they [sic] white version was actually available to pre-order too!

The misfortune timeline:

March 18 – The iPhone 4.0 is found in a Redwood City bar by some guy who sold it to this other guy who happened to be a tech journalist and Apple’s secret was out. The effect? It just made people want it even more. Apple was afraid that its competitors would have an edge by knowing about the device in advance, but it really hasn’t seemed to slow down demand or produced any other device that could hope to maintain the long-term popularity the iPhone enjoys.

June 7 – The network fail at WWDC 2010 kept Stevie from proceeding as planned. The effect? Elicited a hearty yelp of approval for Verizon as the solution to Apple’s 3G problems. Hear hear.

June 15 – Pre-order frenzy shuts down system, likely keeping prospective iPhoners waiting until late June or early July. This has no effect on the rabidity of Macheads (and now the new faction of iPhoneheads, perhaps), but with any other company and any other product, it would be a rather significant deterrent. Really, though. When a product goes through a leak, a partially failed demonstration at the largest arena for its exhibition, and a failed ordering system, and still completely sells out under 24 hours, there’s something to this thing (and it’s not AT&T, almost assuredly). And the white version wasn’t even being offered yet.

The other

With the Mac mini update, Safari 5, and Mac OS X Update 10.6.4 as things that were speculated to be revealed at WWDC 2010, and instead were revealed a week later, this gives me hope that other developments scheduled for WWDC that didn’t happen can become reality soon. Number one on my wishlist (and actually feasible): free MobileMe. I sort of come to expect a free cloud service from Apple, since there are numerous free (and really good) competitors. I use SkyDrive. It works, but it requires installing another application, where iDisk would not require any additional installations AND would integrate directly into OS X. Saved bookmarks I could go without, since I use Read It Later, but cloud contacts, emails, and calendars would be a really nice touch for my iPod, so I don’t have to go back to the base station to sync the changes I made when I’m traveling, for example. Other things of interest other than MobileMe that aren’t really feasible outside of a major Apple event are Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion?) and, of course, the Verizon iPhone (which remains the only way I will ever get one, given AT&T’s horrendous coverage in Blacksburg).

Why is Apple so fascinating?

Microsoft Office 2010 was released today. From http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/15/microsoft-office-2010-now-available-worldwide/ :

Mircrosoft’s [sic] much hyped new version of its productivity suite, Microsoft Office 2010, is debuting to the public today and will now be available for purchase at 35,000 retail stores and a number of online retailers including Best Buy and Amazon.com.

The suite, which was announced last year (see our coverage here), had 9 million downloads in its beta program. One of the more notable features in the suite is the interconnectivity between the web and the desktop.

I’ve been using the beta now for nearly four months, and the first thing I noticed was the new interface. Gone are the days of that choppy interface (especially in Outlook) where everything felt clunky and separated from the other features. Outlook now sports more of a desktop feel, with the central portion (mail, calendar, tasks) being “laid” over the background, with the surrounding components not dominating the UI, but subtly sitting until needed. Much fuss was also made about the ribbon menu interface in Office 2007, and that has been spruced up, as well, although not as drastically as the general layout of some applications. Of course, word processing is still word processing. If all you do is type documents occasionally, there’s really no reason to rush and spend over $100 so you can have the same core functionality. I haven’t noticed, needed, or used any new, giant feature that has completely revolutionized the way I type letters and other documents. If you don’t use Microsoft Office already, however, I would highly recommend this suite, because the other alternatives aren’t nearly as good. OpenOffice.org Calc cannot even compare to Excel, and GoogleDocs work fine and are good for sharing, but Office feels much more robust, and the online Office portion makes it very easy to share while still allowing one to enjoy a superior experience with the desktop version. For all the grief Microsoft gets about its software failures, Office is one product with which Microsoft has done consistently well. Maybe there’s no way to mess up word processing, but the features in 2010 introduced in 2007 combined with the improved ribbon and general user interface make this one a sure bet for someone without Office already.

Yay! Finally got around to getting a domain name after about four years, WordPress is up and running (in its famed five minutes, no less), and the depth of the Internet is mine to harvest.

Let’s talk about what I’ll do here. I like goofy stuff, and I’m going to talk about it. I also want people to see what I’ve done in web development, and consider me for the future, and I’ll show them that. I have an investment to protect, both in my skills and the domain space, and I scheduled the use of this facility to use both, and so I shall.

We’ll see where we are once this domain expires in a year.