There is no doubt that Apple has several important new products lined up for 2008. A next-generation iPhone with 3G capability is nearly guaranteed by June, while analysts also think a new Apple TV is in the works that will include an LCD (display). The sexiest rumor of all is the Mac Tablet or iTablet, which according to some is supposed to be a much larger version of the iPod touch that runs OS X in some form, and according to others is a full-blown Mac in tablet form. An iTablet form factor with a touch interface would killer as a video player as well as an ultra-portable computer. Add a built-in camera you’d have a device capable of portable video communication. It would also be a far, far better electronic book reader than the Amazon Kindle.

Apple TV truly does need a boost, as Apple has sold about 800,000 units, a bit shy of analysts’ projections of one million. Of course, compared to TiVO and other third-party video devices, that’s pretty good, but Apple needs a winner in this category. Apple TV should be capable of working with iTunes and a subscription model for TV shows and movies — media that is mostly watched once. You should be able to dial up a show or movie directly from Apple TV, after having set up a subscription service via iTunes.

As for tablets and other Apple devices, Robert X. Cringely offers a must-read article about Apple’s strategy with the iPhone and possible future devices (including an iTablet) that pins its hopes on WebKit, an Open Source Web browser engine that underlies Apple’s Safari on OS X, Windows, the iPhone, and the iPod touch. Incidentally, the article also explains why you won’t see Flash on your iPhone real soon — Apple would rather see the WebKit (and its underlying standard, KHTML) evolve as a standard for rendering Web pages on all sorts of devices, and would rather promote Ajax for development than either Flash or Java. Ironically, Apple is using Open Source to gain some measure of control over mobile Web rendering, preempting Java and doing an end-run around the proprietary Flash technology.

The software development kit (SDK) for the iPhone and iPod touch is coming in Feb. 2008. Why the wait? On the one hand, Steve Jobs seems to plan these announcements well in advance, to give the press something to chew on every month — like the iPhone price cut. Apple always wanted third-party development, but the iPhone — as market leader in its own class of device — is a huge fat target for viruses and malware, and Apple needed to shake it out first. Apple knocked out all the “jailbreak” hacks and unauthorized applications with software updates, and I’m sure this helped the company immensely in learning how to deal with intruders. One thing is certain: Apple-authorized third-party applications won’t break your iPhone’s service with AT&T.

There is obvious pent-up developer energy waiting to be unleashed on the iPhone/iPod touch platform. Some cool apps are already in beta, such as ProRemote Pro Tools Controller, which turns an iPhone or  iPod touch into a wireless controller for Pro Tools LE — the video shows someone touching and flicking mixer controls on the iPhone as the Pro Tools LE changes on the Mac screen. Musicians can control the board levels from inside the playing area or sound booth. The innovative use of the touch interface will inspire all kinds of new apps. If you want to jump on this bandwagon, learn how to use WebKit, KHTML, and Ajax development tools.

For Mac

Awaken (version 3.1.5, $12.95) brings some of that wonderful iPod functionality to your Mac (for Mac OS X 10.3.9 or newer, and iTunes v6.0 or newer) — an alarm clock that wakes you up to your iTunes music, or any of the built-in alarm sounds. You can also fall asleep listening to your music with the built in sleep timer.

VoodooPad from flyingmeat, for OS X only, offers hypertext notepadding that can export to your iPod’s Notes section. Built like a wiki, VoodooPad lets you save linked pages as Word documents, Rich Text Format files, or HTML to view wiki in a web browser. Once inside iPod Notes, VoodooPad linked words show up for you to click on, and you can go from page to page just like you were using VoodooPad, only with an iPod scroll wheel instead of a mouse.

iPodDisk for OS X is described as “just another tool that enables you to copy your own music from your iPod” but what it actually does is make your iPod act like an iDisk drive, so that other applications to access it to copy files and music. You can browse, drag from, or even play music directly on the drive, with a convenient hierarchy structure well organized by artists and albums. Rather than burden the program with features such as search, the developer integrated it with Finder so that Spotlight works fine for searching. You can even use command-line tools.

Audiobook Builder v1.0.7 for Mac OS X from Splasm Software is a $9.95 alternative for importing audio book CDs (or any audio files) and converting them to be recognizable in iTunes as audiobooks so that they are stored in the proper Audiobook section and are easy to find. It lets you join audio files, set chapter stops, and save book construction projects.

TiVoDecode Manager (version 2.1, free) for Mac OS X rivals the commercial Toast 8 Titanium in offering one-click transfer and conversion of TiVo videos into iPod- and iTunes-ready files. It can find your TiVo on a home network, and can create 640×480 videos in MPEG-4 format that transfer properly to the iPod. However, it does not do H.264 encoding.

For Windows

Soundcrank is a free program for Windows (Mac OS X coming soon) that helps you find album artwork and lyrics for your iTunes library and see what other Soundcrank friends are listening to in iTunes.

The winamp ipod plugin (aka ml_ipod) is a plugin for Winamp (for Windows) that lets you manage your iPod from within the winamp media library. It supports all models of iPods, from the classic first generation to the iPod mini, photo, nano and shuffle. Since iPod support is built into Winamp version 5.2 and newer, ml_ipod is an alternative for this built-in iPod support lacking.

EphPod (freeware) is a Windows application that can copy music to and from an iPod quickly — it takes under 30 minutes to transfer 1,000 songs to an iPod with a FireWire connection. EphPod supports standard WinAmp (.M3U) playlists, includes playlist creation features, and can synchronize an entire music collection with one click. It also imports Microsoft Outlook contacts and lets you create and edit your own contacts. EphPod can also be used to download the latest news, weather, e-books, and movie listings to an iPod.

XPlay 2 ($29,95m free trial version) unlike other applications for organizing music on your iPod, runs as a system service, integrating your iPod’s music database into Windows Explorer — plug in your iPod and it appears like any other hard drive or storage device. XPlay 2 allows you to use a Mac-formatted or Windows-formatted iPod on your Windows ME, 98SE, 2000, or XP system. Inside the XPlay music folder your songs are arranged just as they are on the screen of the iPod, and you can browse by playlist, albums, artists, genres, composers and songs. You can drag-and-drop songs from your PC to the XPlay Music folder to copy them to your iPod, and copy music files from your iPod to your PC.

TVHarmony AutoPilot (freeware) can keep track of what’s on your TiVo and automatically download shows you are interested in. You can also download and convert videos from YouTube and automatically convert videos into formats for iPods, PSPs, Palm and PocketPC devices, video capable mobile phones, XBox 360s, and Linux devices like the Neuros and GP2X. It requires a networked Tivo with TivoToGo capability, at least 10GB of hard drive space, a P4 or equivalent CPU, and Windows 2000 or Windows XP.

One More for the Road

YamiPod (Yet Another Manager for iPod, version 1.7b3, freeware) lets you copy music files freely from your iPod to your computer and vice-versa. It can copy playlists, RSS news feeds, and podcasts, and synchronize your iPod with computers running Mac OS X, Windows, or Linux. You can run it directly from your iPod.

Lots of free stuff is available in the iTunes Store but Apple only highlights the most recent offerings. Most of the older stuff is still there — a treasure trove of free music and other stuff. Check out Get Free iTunes Store Downloads for links into the store.

Just yesterday (as reported in Macworld) a chemical industry group came to Apple’s defense, claiming the report is unfair. The group noted that the brominated flame retardants used in the iPhone are commonly used in electronics products from all manufacturers, as they provide a high level of fire safety — essential in devices like laptops in which batteries randomly catch fire.

While it’s a true story that an iPod set a man’s pants on fire, I’ve had an iPhone in my pants for months now, and I can prove that I’m not sterile and have no sexual dysfunctions, but we won’t get into that. Fact is, there are plenty of dangerous substances around us every day. Scientists studying indoor exposures are a lot more concerned about formaldehydes from cleaning products than something like this. Even peanut butter has a potent cancer agent, aflatoxin. And you get far more toxic dioxin from a grass fire than from a bonfire of earbuds — though I don’t recommend smoking them.

What this story illustrates is how hysterical, and hysterically funny, people can be when confronted with a product they don’t like that is as successful as the iPod and iPhone. On the one hand, you can’t get enough of the press coverage that accompanies your attack on the popular product. On the other hand, the press coverage helps sell more product. It’s frustrating to be a curmudgeon!

So Steve Jobs wrote an open letter to all iPhone customers, offering a $100 rebate for those who bought one at $599. As Jobs explains, “This is life in the technology lane. If you always wait for the next price cut or to buy the new improved model, you’ll never buy any technology product because there is always something better and less expensive on the horizon.”

I couldn’t agree more. I have a shed filled with “antique” computers and peripherals to prove it. I spent a fortune on technology over the last 30 years, and so what? You wouldn’t be reading this if you weren’t willing to shell out the big bucks for the best toys.

And yet, one wonders how much Jobs is getting away with. $100 million in extra profit from the 500,000 or so iPhones sold at the higher price, according to Robert X. Cringely. “It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a thoughtless mistake. It was a calculated and tightly scripted exercise in marketing and ego gratification.” Steve Jobs waited until the end of this speech on Sept. 5, where controversy gets its biggest bang, to announce the price cut. As Cringely explains it, Jobs knew it would be disruptive and controversial, but wanted to do it anyway to stimulate demand. Jobs was ready to address the outrage with the $100 rebate, essentially splitting the difference with Apple’s early adopter customers and pocketing half of this extra profit ($50M).

If so, then Apple is doing right by its stockholders to “go for it” (in the words of Steve Jobs), and Jobs is shedding an old, obsolete perception of him as not being profit-motivated. I take this as good news — that Apple is ready to fully engage the consumer electronics industry. There is great price sensitivity in electronics. The price cut enabled Apple to hit its stated goal of 1 million iPhones sold a few weeks earlier than expected (there was a considerable surge after the price cut). Apple has more clout to get better pricing from parts suppliers, driving down the cost. The company has been more successful than others in meeting demand at a time when parts shortages plague other manufacturers.

Lost in the noise about the price cut was the lack of any real reason to buy an iPod touch — yet. While it’s true that Wi-Fi and Safari turn the iPod into an innovative personal internet device as well as media player, and with appropriate Web 2.0 applications and Web services, the device can act as your travel computer, all this is true of the iPhone also… and the iPhone phones home. The iPod touch model is the foundation for future iPods, but its first generation will certainly not cannibalize sales of the iPhone. And that’s probably a good thing, as consumer electronics companies need to put forward a substantial product line with plenty of innovation.

We expect a pioneering consumer electronics company to continually introduce innovative and useful products. Compare Apple to Sony, the former heavyweight champion in consumer electronics and the inventor of portable music players. While Apple rolls out the best lineup of consumer products that the company has ever produced in time for the holiday season, Sony is toying with the Rolly, a completely unnecessary palm-size, egg-shaped digital music player that rolls, swivels, flaps its ends and flashes colorful lights in time to music (according to John Batteiger in the S.F. Examiner’s Tech Chronicles). Sony, good luck with that.

So don’t pay much attention to the speculation that the iPhone is not living up to expectations. By comparison, today’s crop of cell phones and smart phones look and feel like clumsy contraptions from a different era, with inscrutable menus and features that take to long to figure out how to use properly. Compared to state-of-the-art smart phones that cost the same or even more (see this review by Peter Svensson of AP and reviews in “Shut Up and Play Your iPhone, Volume 2“), the iPhone holds up well in features and in price (and even in AT&T’s service, so far the only one to work with the iPhone without hacking it). But the iPhone takes a giant leap further in interface and design; opening a new path, so to speak, to a finer universe where everything will work better. Like the original Macintosh that kick-started the graphical computing industry (including Windows). Like the iPod and iTunes combination that rocked the music world.

The Web 2.0 sites and services I use most work fine on the iPhone, and I can use pop-up and drop-down menus on sites with ease and grace. The exception is Google Docs — I can edit in this comment from my iPhone using Google Docs in HTML edit mode, but I can’t edit or write very well. However, my WordPress blogs are easier to access and I can write and post blogs from the iPhone. Using a Web service in Safari on the iPhone for this is better than using the iPhone’s Notes feature, because in Safari you can tilt the iPhone to get landscape view for your display and also your keyboard — which makes the keyboard wider easier to use.

Gripes aside, I still see the iPhone as a platform and capable of leading the portable device industry into new realms and riches. And as any device that can run the game DOOM is considered a platform, the iPhone is hereby annointed with a DOOM proof-of-concept. Of course you can already play online games — check out PopCap’s Bejeweled.

Activation at last…

iPhone sales are well ahead of expectations. More rumors are swirling about a wide-screen, multi-touch iPod in August (using Wintek touchscreen panels), with more memory and integrated Wi-Fi, and even with the capability to share data with other iPods and iPhones in the immediate vicinity wirelessly (as well as yet another rumor of a Yellow Submarine iPod loaded with Beatles tracks). Analysts are struggling with predictions of an “iPhone nano” vs. additional 3G capability by the end of this year. All this buzz is fueling an unprecedented increase in Apple’s stock price.

And it seems all well deserved, because, surveys tell us, people love their iPhones. Apple has extended its reach — three of 10 buyers were first-time Apple customers, and 40% had never before bought an iPod.

Of course the iPhone lacks important features and is already in dire need of improvement. Longer battery life is high on everyone’s list, but check out “25 things wrong with the iPhone” in the Apple iPhone Review. I would add to this list the inability to run Google Docs, which I use to write this blog — which means I can’t write a blog entry on my iPhone unless I use the post-by-email feature of WordPress. The iPhone version of Safari doesn’t support Java on the client side, but it does support Ajax, which is widely used now for Web 2.0 development. It also doesn’t support Flash (QuickTime is fine for movies but doesn’t provide the interactive features of Flash). My “blidgets” (blog widgets) on my blogs don’t appear on the iPhone display. But there are developers who would argue that Safari has one of the best canvas implementations of any browser — allowing you to draw arbitrary images using JavaScript and obviating the need for Flash and Java.

While these camps argue, the list of new iPhone widgets and applications is growing exponentially (I’m checking out the MuniTime Web service with transit info for San Francisco, and considering buying the iPhoneDrive application to copy files to an from my iPhone). Enterprising bloggers and reporters are already tearing apart their iPhones and discovering secret test codes. I expect major improvements to occur this year and be available by download directly to the device. Gripes aside, I still see the iPhone as a platform despite the fact that this first version is not quite complete.

In line at the Apple Store in San Francisco

It’s hard not to like something you waited in line for — in my case, six hours at the San Francisco Apple Store. Several enterprising individuals and at least one disreputable one were selling their seats, but no one was buying. The Apple Store processed us quickly and we were off into the night beaming with pride, oblivious to the fact that folks were showing up at 11 p.m. and getting their iPhones without having to wait in line. We even stayed up most of the night hoping that the automatic activation would finish (the servers were overloaded). But it was the adventure itself that was rewarding — meeting people in line, sharing food and good humor, spotting each other for coffee and bio breaks. We deserved our iPhones and we all sincerely want them to be all that they can be. Apple has pushed marketing to a new benchmark, but so what? As Randy Newman sang about L.A., “We love it!”.

We’ve Got to Have iPhones Today

by Tony Bove
(Set to the tune “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” with apologies to Lennon and McCartney)

Here I stand, head in hand
Turn my face to the door
If it’s gone I can’t move on
From the line at the Apple Store

Everywhere WiFi’s there
Synchronize every day
We can use the Web for free
And we hear ‘em say
Hey! We got to have iPhones today!
Hey! We got to have iPhones today!

How can I even try
Any other service plan
Hearing songs, seeing videos
With AT&T an Apple fan

How could Steve say to me
FedEx will find its way
Gather ’round all you clowns
Let me hear you say,
Hey! We got to buy iPhones today!
Hey! We got to buy iPhones today!

While the debate rages on about its lack of a mechanical keyboard, the iPhone has already changed the way people think these devices should work, and how developers should provide third-party applications (besides, the iPhone virtual keyboard turns out to be quite useful, according to friend and co-author Andy Ihnatko). Developers should do as much as they can using Web 2.0 standards (such as Ajax) right now. Develop really cool widgets and iPhone-specific applications? Maybe later… But right now, make the iPhone work the way it’s supposed to regarding the Internet, because that’s the first major hurdle.

The iPhone is, as I wrote before, a platform in infancy, waiting to be exploited in the next decade. Even as naysayers pointed to the lack of a decent software developer kit for third-party applications, two new iPhone applications appeared from third parties within two days of Steve Jobs’ appearance at the conference. When it ships on June 29, 2007, the iPhone may very well be the first platform designed for Web 2.0 technologies. This is significant because Web 2.0 applications that run on servers demand a certain level of performance in the browser to work properly. Showing real, unadulterated, unfiltered Web sites and running Web apps — that’s the full Internet experience Apple needs to promote to get beyond the smartphone set and make iPhone a success for everyone, including third-party developers. It’s a good move for Apple, not a bad move for developers, and guarantees that the iPhone experience won’t be ugly.

The iPhone uses the full Safari browser, which will also be available for Windows, completing the platform picture. Web 2.0 developers are accustomed to making their services work in Explorer and Firefox, but anything that works with Safari will most likely work with these other browsers as well, making Safari a “least common denominator” for testing their services. Expect Google Apps (with word processing and spreadsheets) to be available on the iPhone, maybe not when it first ships, but soon thereafter — as Google Apps are part of the Safari 3 framework. (I am writing this using Google Apps and will be reporting immediately on how useful an iPhone is for this purpose, as soon as I can get one of my own.)

But developers are peeved that Web site are considered “third-party applications” — even if those sites offer Web applications. Developers want to make something unique to differentiate their offerings. They want to innovate on the iPhone platform with the same gusto (and developer resources) that they brought to the task of innovating on the Mac platform.

There’s that word again: platform. Bottom line — to quote one commentor on the miffed developers story: “Developers should be bloody relieved that there IS actually a way of developing 3rd party apps for iPhone!”

The news media had a momentary lapse of reason about personal information in the song tracks. Apple’s new DRM-free songs still have your full name and account e-mail embedded in them, just like the lower-priced songs sold on iTunes. According to Ars Technica (”Apple hides account info in DRM-free music, too” by Ken Fisher), “The hidden data [in the DRM-free songs] is more significant since it could theoretically be used to trace shared tunes back to the original owner.” But of course all iTunes-purchased songs have this data, which is really not so hidden — it’s plain text, according to “iTunes Plus scaremongering” by Stephen Withers in itwire. The point is that DRM-free songs might be shared; and if they are, Apple or the record labels could track it.

As of one day after it was announced, boomers rule. Of the top 25 songs, 15 are from boomer artists such as Pink Floyd and The Beach Boys (12 are by Paul McCartney!). The #1 album is Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and Paul’s Band on the Run is #3; conspicuously absent are Beatles albums but that seems only temporary. Where is all the new music? It is certainly hyped on the front page of iTunes Plus but it has to compete with the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, and even Frank Sinatra.

The Baby Boomer generation still has more influence than most people think. We are not all washed up… yet. 40 years ago today, Sgt. Pepper by the Beatles (read a brief history, or read the news story) was introduced to the world, and we still celebrate it. How many other music albums are celebrated this way? And as the titans of our industry, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, put on a show for the technorati this week, the word was love in all the press reports, and Jobs even quoted from the song “Two of Us” to summarize their technobuddy relationship. On the day that Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band arrives in the iTunes store, the entire world will know about it. Unfortunately today is not that day. Maybe next week.

The iPhone has been granted FCC approval and the blogs expect Apple to be on time with the iPod-phone’s introduction. According to The New York Times, Europe is all abuzz over the iPhone and Apple may push forward plans to implement the so-called 3G (third-generation) mobile technology for the European market, if only to secure the right carrier (U.S. models don’t offer 3G). The iPhone will be available for sale by the end of June at 2,000 retail store fronts (Apple’s and AT&T’s).

The iPod will soon sport a force-sensitive touch-surface on the back side with the display on the front side, according to reports of a recent Apple patent filing. You’ll be looking at the display while your finger manipulates controls on the back to select menu options, music, etc. The design enables you to operate the iPod with one hand, selecting items and moving through menus without lifting your finger. It might even incorporate a virtual keyboard that you type on with your hand facing up rather than down as you look at the display.

Toyota is rolling out an integration kit this summer for plugging an iPod into the car glove box and using either the steering wheel or usual audio system controls.

So it is no wonder that as of this writing, Apple stock is soaring. Bear Stearns analyst Andy Neff gives it an Outperform rating with a price target of $143 per share.