But Jobs has an opportunity to open his keynote, or at least the segment where he rolls out the new iPhone hardware, with one of the best lines he could deliver.

“So, this developer walks into a bar…”

Of course, the line refers to the Apple engineer who was testing a prototype of the next-generation iPhone when he lost it or it was stolen, only to land in the hands of Brian Lam and Gizmodo. But it’s so much more than that. The line is a variant of one of the most-used first lines of a joke ever. It is instantly recognizable as such. Humor should only be used in presentations when you know you’re going to get a laugh, or when your expectations for a laugh are infinitesimally low. This line is certain to draw a good laugh.

The line is also an opportunity to be self-deprecating. Jobs was asked about the incident at the D8 conference last week, and while conversational, he took a pretty hard line, referring to Gizmodo as guilty of extortion. That’s a big, bad word, and it may or may not be true. Jobs should let his legal team handle the heavy lifting on this one, and delivering this line is an easy way to hand it off.

Delivered correctly, it could also actually help to take some heat off of the engineer in question. See, that guy is just like the thousands attending WWDC. He’s one of them. And nothing could make a stronger statement to developers than to give this guy a break in such a public way.

Lastly, this is a tech conference. Developers will be walking into bars in droves over the next few evenings. So Jobs would be speaking directly to his audience in a very personal, timely way. Oh, and I don’t think I’d follow it with anything. Deliver the line, offer up a pregnant pause, then move on to topic du jour. It is so obvious and works on so many levels that it doesn’t need to be propped up with any further comment.

Come on, Steve. Let us have it.

Follow our live coverage of the WWDC 2010 keynote, photos and all!

I recently started a massive landscaping project at my house. It involves removing a lot of plant material, moving some plants, and adding new ones. It also involves putting in a new driveway, parking court and patio, as well as a new privacy fence. To get everything we want, I’m serving as general contractor, and I needed a single place to store notes, shopping lists, links to websites with products or inspiration, task lists, and more. On a whim, I launched Evernote and got the latest update. It fit the bill perfectly.

To manage all of this project’s information, I set up a notebook in the sidebar for the whole project, and I’m using individual notes for sub-projects. For example, we want a privacy fence that fits the historic character of our neighborhood (1880-1930) but also reflects our own, more modern sensibility.

This is a challenge, so I’m collecting links and photos of various fence designs in a single note, along with names, phone numbers, and price quotes from materials suppliers and installers. Getting info into Evernote via the menu bar icon and keyboard shortcuts is a snap, and I can organize and format to improve readability and findability. I’ve also linked external files, including the Numbers spreadsheet I’m using to track expenses.

Perhaps the best thing about my re-introduction to Evernote, especially as it relates to this project, is the iPhone version. Often, I’ll find myself near a nursery or other supplier, and I can call up Evernote to show an example of what I’m looking for or a shopping list for plants and supplies. I also love the photo and voice note capabilities.

A few times recently, my wife and I have seen examples of something we like that we might want to incorporate into our landscape, so I simply create a Snapshot note to add to the project notebook. The current version of the iPhone app is not buggy like I remember earlier versions. I have to say, I’m really looking forward to using Evernote on my iPad 3G, especially since all my notes are automatically sync’d to all my devices.

I’m glad to have become re-acquainted with Evernote. It’s making it easier for me to create, store, organize and retrieve notes when and where I need them.

• Speed: Yes, I’m well aware that the “S” in iPhone 3GS is for speed. But I can’t help compare even the iPhone 3GS to the iPad for sheer perceived speed of the user interface. The iPad is powered by Apple’s own A4 chip, which accounts for much of the performance improvements, but I’m also hopeful that the OS has been optimized even further in ways that will be come apparent on Thursday.
• Multitasking: I’ve said before that I think multitasking is overrated, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want it. Support at some level for 3rd-party multitasking would be a great feature to have for certain apps, like Pandora, which I could then listen to in the background while browsing the web or checking email.
• AppSwitching: I often switch from one app to another, then switch right back. For example, I might be on a phone call, and need to check my calendar, then return to the phone app. It would be nice if there was a more elegant solution for moving among apps than clicking home, finding the app on one of several screens and launching it. A particular gesture or multiple presses of the home button could activate an app switcher of some sort, like command-tab on the Mac, but for recent, favorite or most-used apps.
• Consolidated Inbox: If you’re at all like me, you’ve got several email accounts. Switching between the Inboxes of these accounts is tedious at best. Having a single inbox for all your accounts, as with Mail.app on Mac OS X, would be a huge productivity boost for anyone with several accounts.

Of course, these are all software-related wishlist items. There’s a slew of potential hardware news to come, such as an A4 chip, high-definition video, and a higher resolution display, all of which seem likely based on the iPad, Android devices and other mobile products. One day and counting: we’ll know soon enough. What changes to the software do you expect for iPhone OS 4.0?

As I tend to work at home during early mornings and evenings, the biggest challenge in this new strategy quickly became how to keep files and app data in sync across the two computers. Now, to be fair, I didn’t approach this in any strategic way, but over the ensuing few months, I have migrated much of my Mac life into the cloud (for those interested in cloud computing or data centers, check out our Structure 10 conference in June). Here are a few of the key ways I made this happen.

Mailplane + Gmail

I have several email accounts for various projects and my personal needs, and they are all either Gmail or Google Apps accounts. Previously, I set them all up as IMAP accounts and used Mail.app as a client. Even though I accessed most accounts on a daily basis, Mail.app — despite its superior UI — quickly became an untenable solution. True, I can sync accounts, rules and other data using MobileMe, but I noticed some inconsistencies in the way messages were displaying, and I was using precious disk space on duplicate mailbox files, caches, and temporary files.

Mailplane is the perfect solution for me. As a direct view of the Gmail web interface, Mailplane ensures that there aren’t any inconsistencies. And nothing gets stored locally unless I choose to download it. Like Mail, I can easily switch between accounts, and I also have direct, integrated access with Address Book.

MobileMe for Address Book and Bookmark Syncing

Speaking of Address Book, Google’s contact manager is pretty weak, and despite integration with Gmail, I am not ready to turn my contacts over to Google’s less than desirable product. So I keep Apple’s Address Book as my primary contact manager, and sync it across MobileMe among my Macs and the iPhone. Syncing only certain contacts with others — my wife, for example, for our shared social contacts — is the next step for me. I am also using MobileMe to synchronize Safari bookmarks. Having the same bookmarks across devices has proven to be a lifesaver from time-to-time.

Google Calendar (including Mobile Sync) + Fluid for Calendars

As I described earlier, I have several Gmail and Google Apps accounts. With Mailplane, you get to see a list of accounts in a sidebar, and easily switch among them without having to enter your username and password each time. I’ve even combined some accounts by using one to send and receive mail from another, and deleting the account in Mailplane. To my knowledge, there isn’t a similar solution for Google Calendar. So I’ve set all my calendars to be shared with my primary account, then used Fluid to create an app-specific browser for the consolidated Google Calendar. As a result, I have one calendar app that displays all my various calendars but allows me to keep them separate (different colors, turn on/off, etc.).

SugarSync for File Synchronization

I have longed for Mac OS X features that allow file and folder-level synchronization across computers, to no avail. Many in the Mac community swear by DropBox, but I chose SugarSync for a couple of reasons. First, with SugarSync, you can add any file or folder on a computer to your sync profile, regardless of where that file lives. At least when I looked at it previously, DropBox required you to set up a special sync folder and move your files there, forcing me to reorganize my files, not something I wanted to do. And there’s always price: SugarSync is $5/month less than DropBox at the 100GB storage level. I now often save a file on my office computer as I’m leaving the office, then open it at home with those changes reflected.

Google Docs for Collaboration

More and more, I find myself working with others on projects that require collaborative editing. Google Docs is a great solution, as it allows multiple people to access and share documents, spreadsheets and presentations. The user interface and available styles aren’t exactly aesthetically pleasing, but Google Docs works really well. Google recently added the ability to entire folders, not just documents, which made it even more valuable to me and my collaborators.

OmniFocus and Evernote

I’ve got a lot going on (probably too much), and I’ve started and stopped using various task management applications multiple times. I love Things, but I can’t live without hierarchical organization of my information and the Wi-fi based syncing with iPhone is tedious. I also really dig The Hit List, but after many months Potion Factory is still taking pre-orders and hasn’t released an iPhone app. I’m worried that it has stalled. I keep returning to OmniFocus from The Omni Group, which has some powerful organization and management capabilities, and also syncs perfectly among Macs and the iPhone. Lastly, I’ve recently rediscovered Evernote, whose web-based syncing has proven effortless and reliable (more on Evernote in a future post).

My Mac Life in the Cloud

I haven’t yet bothered syncing media, as I tend to simply use my iPhone for music, photos and more when I’m away from home. In the meantime, it seems like I can be anywhere and have access to all the files and data I need.

So, how are you keeping multiple devices in sync and using the cloud to make your life easier and more efficient?

Related GigaOM Pro Research: Report: How Mobile Cloud Computing Will Change Tech

I’ve been reading all the reports, like this one from our own Darrell Etherington, about how Apple is removing film-based screen protectors from its stores. Multiple accounts suggest that this is for one or both of two key reasons: First, the mere presence of them in the store suggests somehow that the iPhone needs them when in fact it doesn’t; and second, the liability to Apple of imperfect applications is simply too great to ignore.

I’ve got both a case and screen protector on my iPhone 3GS, and I used cases and screen protectors for the original iPhone and iPhone 3G as well. Upon reading these reports, I did the same thing that any cautious and deliberate person would do. I threw caution to the wind and tore off the screen protector, which was in need of replacement anyway.

Despite my hesitation, I have to say that I prefer my iPhone without a screen protector. Images are more clear, the user interface responds to touch controls much better, and the screen is really easy to keep clean with a quick wipe on my t-shirt or another clean soft cloth (as long as I’m not eating chips while using the iPhone). I also realized that I long ago set the brightness of my iPhone really low to conserve battery power. I used to travel much more than I do now, and often found myself needing to conserve my battery for necessary phone calls and email. Now I’m always closer to a power source for a recharge, and a friend gifted me a Mophie Juice Pack not too long ago for times when I’m off the grid.

I haven’t gone completely native, though. I kept the case. I’ll have to do some digging to remember which one it is, but it’s a very low-profile, hard shell case that simply and easily snaps on without adding any significant weight or bulk. I keep my iPhone in the same pocket as my keys, and I really want to preserve the back for resell value. Without the case, I’d be afraid that it would be scratched too much. The case also has a slightly more matte, tactile feel that still slides in and out of my pocket easily but doesn’t slide across the table or get slippery with sweaty palms (I know, I know).

If you’re using a screen protector, you might want to do what I did and take it off. It’s almost like getting a brand-new iPhone.

Image courtesy of Flickr user williamhook

I did wake up to a few iPad-related emails this morning, however. First up was notice from Apple that “iPad is Here.” The message was sent to the same email associated with the Apple ID I used to place the order. It would be nice if Apple sent people like me a slightly different message, like “Thanks for ordering your iPad. It hits the stores today, so when your friends and family go ga-ga over it, you know where to send them.”

The other two emails I received were shipping notices. Now, I have to say when I opened the Gmail conversation, I was a bit excited. The subject line of the email is simply “Apple Store Shipment Notification Order Number #####” with my iPad order number. It turns out that the first shipment is my keyboard dock, which was still a bit surprising as there were rumors that it was delayed well beyond the iPad’s launch on April 3. When tracking the shipment, only billing information has been submitted to UPS, and there isn’t any actual shipment tracking information yet, so maybe there is some truth to those rumors after all.

My second shipment email notification contains my case and VGA connector. This shipment is actually scheduled to arrive on Monday or Tuesday, and based on the departure scan from Nashville, which is just three hours away, I expect to see it on Monday. Still, that will only whet my appetite, and part of me wishes I’d ordered an iPad without 3G so I could revel in today’s feast of instant gratification. (Patience, grasshopper.)

My day will probably be something like this: Breakfast with my family. Check iPad coverage at TheAppleBlog. Drive to the nursery and check iPad coverage on my iPhone. Come home, spread some mulch, then take a much deserved break and check iPad coverage. Work in the yard some more, shower, then check iPad coverage. Watch the final four tonight, checking iPad coverage at halftime and between games. You get the idea. No, I won’t be getting my iPad today, but I will be getting my iPad fix.

Related iPad Content from GigaOM Pro (subscription required)

Like I have with most watershed Apple products of the last decade or more, I’ll order an iPad on the day they become available. For me, this has included, but is probably not limited to, the original iMac, iBook, Airport (gray UFO!) and 5GB clickwheel iPod, and more recently the MacBook Pro, Time Capsule, MacBook Air, and of course, gen 1, 2, and 3 iPhones. Yes, yes, I’m a fanboy, but this is also part of what I do for a living.

You know by now that there are six models of the iPad, three with Wi-Fi only, three with Wi-Fi and 3G data access with the same 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB storage capacities in each model. For the sake of discussion, I’ll call them the iPad Wi-Fi and the iPad 3G, even though the 3G model also has Wi-Fi. The iPad Wi-Fi will ship on April 3, with the 3G model due some 1-2 months later. The iPad 3G carries a $130 premium over the iPad Wi-Fi across the lineup to account for costs related to the 3G access, such as a modem and antenna. Other than providing an additional type of Internet access, there don’t appear to be any differences between the iPad Wi-fi and the iPad 3G.

I’ll be ordering the top-of-the-line 64GB iPad 3G, the most expensive of the six models, but the one with the most storage capacity and both ways to connect. Why get the most expensive model when a cheaper one could suffice? Here are my key reasons:

• Storage Capacity: I’m really looking forward to iWork on the iPad, and these files will eat up precious space on the device. I use all three apps in the suite — Pages, Keynote and Numbers — on a daily basis, and I can’t wait to try them out on the iPad. Phil’s demo looked great. I’m also doing a lot of work in Internet video these days. Having video files on the hard drive that haven’t yet or won’t be encoded for Internet delivery will be very useful.
• 3G: My second favorite feature of the iPad (behind the keyboard dock) is the 3G data plans. At only $30 for an all-you-can-eat buffet of Internet bandwidth, the AT&T plan is a great deal (note that I haven’t had 3G call, connection and speed issues like many have reported). But the fact that you pay as you go and turn on and off the service from the device is killer. Say you don’t have it turned on but find yourself in a location without Wi-Fi; simply turn it on for a month, then turn it off when you’re done. Sure you pay a hefty price for a day or even a week of usage, but if you don’t use it again for a few months, you don’t pay for it. No-contract unlimited 3G Internet is a killer feature.

I expect to use my iPad extensively for client presentations. I use my MacBook Air today, and while effective for presenting to two to three people, I can imaging the iPad as an easel position will be much more elegant and effective. I also plan to use it for note-taking when I conduct usability tests. Using Numbers, I’ll be able to create input screens ahead of time based on the test plan, and quickly and easily capture data about each test and participant. The data will already be compiled, collated and ready for analysis as soon as test sessions are completed.

These are just a few of the uses for the iPad I have in mind, but the possibilities are limitless. I’d rather have the most capable model so I’m prepared for whatever opportunity arises.

I first used Fluid, the site-specific browser creation tool for Mac OS X, a long time ago. But I didn’t find it compelling enough to integrate it into my daily life, in part because virtually all of my digital life still lived on the desktop. As I personally moved more and more to the cloud, it became key.

I tend to use Fluid apps for things that I want to have open and at the ready all day. These are things I consider to be more like apps than websites, so having a separate window makes sense, if for no other reason than I can easily command-tab among applications by selecting the appropriate high-resolution logo. With Safari, Chrome and Firefox, I’m in and out of a lot of websites throughout the work day, but most are content sites, or web applications that I use once per week or less. Here are a few of the key ways I’m using Fluid today.

Google Calendar

I long ago tired of problems with invitations in iCal. There were just too many frustrating examples of invitations not coming through properly or at all, and I invested the maximum amount of time I was willing to solve it. Last year, I also tired of Mail.app’s performance when dealing with many accounts and large numbers of messages. I was using Google Apps for several accounts with IMAP enabled, and using Mail.app as my client. Since they were all Google accounts anyway, I made the decision to switch to Mailplane, which performs flawlessly and had the added benefit of saving a lot of precious space on my MacBook Air’s hard drive.

Then I started noticing how good email invitations looked in the Gmail interface, and how easy it was to add them to the Google Calendar associated with that account. It just worked. But I also have several calendars. So I decided to make one Google Calendar account my main or master account, and shared all my other accounts with it, with full read and write permissions. Then I created a Fluid app for that Google Calendar account. I now have one Fluid app called gCal that holds my various calendars in one view, and I turned on Google Mobile Sync for them all, so I immediately get changes on my iPhone and vice versa.

Pandora

Pandora has become my music source of choice while working. I’ve got several stations queued up, including Wilco, Spoon, Ben Harper, and Res, among others. I haven’t really tracked it, but I don’t think I come close to Pandora’s maximum of 40 hours of listening per month. If I exceed that, I’ll need to look into a paid Pandora One account, which has its own player download. In the meantime, I’m quite content to load Pandora in a Fluid app, start it up, and hide the window from view until I need to click the button that says I’m still listening. Again, having it in a separate window that I can hide from view while still using Safari is a huge win for me.

Facebook

There’s not much I need to say about Facebook, which has taken the world by storm. But I am now syncing my contacts with Facebook via their iPhone app, which I love because it’s the easiest and best way to have friend’s pictures show when they call. I once suffered from Facebook Fatigue, but I’ve gotten past that and now use it as an essential communications tool for certain contacts. I’m just starting to use it for some serious social marketing for my projects, and having it open in its own window makes it easier to keep abreast of messages and other updates.

WordPress

Finally, TheAppleBlog is hosted on WordPress, so I created a Fluid app specifically for creating posts like these. I’m also finding it more and more useful to tap out ideas that pop into my head and create rough outlines while the ideas are fresh, and save them as drafts. Then, when I have dedicated time later in the day or week, I can spend more time working on the posts.

Are you using Fluid in your daily Mac experience? If so, how do you use it? If not, why?

Because the technology press and hardcore technology users have an unprecedented platform from which to speak and be heard. Period. End of story.

Last week’s iPad announcement made this abundantly clear. The technosphere has labeled the iPad an unqualified failure, in large part due to lack of multitasking. News flash: multitasking is overrated. Its not nearly as important to average, everyday users as it is to the people who cover technology for a living. Despite the fact that Palm’s WebOS and Google’s Android both support multitasking, neither has come anywhere close to the success of the iPhone.

With the iPhone and now the iPad, Apple is clearly targeting a mass consumer audience. Many of these users aren’t comfortable with computers. They use them almost because they have, for email and a few other core tasks. Obviously this is changing, as the number of computer and Internet users continues to grow. Its not because computers and the Internet are incredibly easy to use, because they aren’t. In fact, the difficulty in using computers has probably slowed adoption of computing and Internet services into consumers’ daily lives, and part of that complexity comes from multitasking.

Here are three observations that also lead me to believe that multitasking just isn’t that important to most people.

1. I have facilitated or observed literally thousands of web usability test sessions over the last several years. In watching people use computers and the web, I’ve noticed three very specific behaviors: 1) most people instantly maximize windows to fill their screens and minimize distractions; 2) only the most tech savvy users use alt-tab (Windows) or command-tab (Mac) to switch between apps; and 3) people are far more likely to be confused when multiple windows and apps are open.
2. There has been a surge in interest in the last few years for desktop applications that take over the screen. This is true of Firefox, for example, which has a full-screen “kiosk” mode, and several word processors designed to let users write without distraction.
3. Despite pretty regular usage, my wife still struggles with some basic Mac operations related to multitasking, such as closing windows as an attempt to quit an app, switching between apps, not realizing which window is active, etc. While she still uses the Mac, she has moved more and more of her computing activity to her iPhone because she doesn’t have these same issues.

Sure, many of us heavy users like multitasking on our computers and might not feel nearly as productive without it (I say feel because there is evidence to suggest that we aren’t really multitasking but fast switching, and performance suffers when we do). But the majority of people in the world aren’t like us. They want something that is really easy to use and understand, and that provides some level of enjoyment or helps make their lives easier. Apple’s iP products (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) are designed for these people.

What Apple is really doing is making technology disappear, surfacing content in a very human way. Even if processing power and battery life are currently capable of delivering multitasking, I’m not sure Apple will implement it in the way we think of multitasking today. Perhaps it will allow background processing and easier switching among apps, which get at core user needs, but I expect it will maintain a solotasking approach well into the future of its product designs.

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I have a strange sense that we were watching what is perhaps the penultimate performance by the master of the keynote. Please understand, this is entirely an intuitive sense that something wasn’t quite business as usual. I have no knowledge of any such information, nor am I making a prediction. I’m just offering my take on what I saw. And I saw several telltale signs that Steve Jobs may be on his way to relinquishing his CEO role at Apple. Here are my thoughts.

1. Jobs went out of his way to point out that Apple is a $50 billion company.
2. There were a couple of historical references, including the great black-and-white photo of Jobs and Woz and the first PowerBook.
3. Though they weren’t necessarily presented in this manner, that sounds a lot like personal legacy to me. Reading between the lines, the unspoken message is “I’ve turned this garage band into one of the most powerful companies in the world today.”
4. With one quick comment and supporting slide, Jobs made a major strategic shift and repositioned Apple as a mobile products company, which has a much more exciting future than computers.
5. He also made a clear effort to convince the media in attendance that they could sell this device. The subtle message is that if they can get traction on the iPad while growing or maintaining the other three product lines, they can succeed well into the future without him.
6. Schiller and Forstall played pretty significant roles in the iPad announcement and Jobs is nowhere to be found in the announcement video. Neither of these unprecedented, but noteworthy nonetheless.

My gut tells me that the earnings and iPad announcements this week was the first real indication that the public reveal of Apple succession is underway. I expect Jobs to become non-executive chairman, maintaining a public profile and involvement as inspirational leader and assurance for investors. Cook will take over as CEO and Oppenheimer remaining CFO. Cook will remain the behind-the-scenes operational genius, with Schiller, Forstall, and to a lesser extent Madsen being the public personae for products. Schiller is the Mac guy (yesterday, his role was relegated to iWork, which is a port of a desktop suite of apps). Forstall is the iP guy (iPhone, iPod, iPad). If the future of the company is truly as a mobile products company, that suggests Forstall will have an increasingly visible role with the company, with Schiller taking a back seat. Indeed, Forstall seems more at ease leading a major presentation, save for his inability to hide the remote while clicking to change slides or averting his eyes to the confidence monitor. The wild card is designer Jonathan Ive, but my guess he is very passionate about the design side of the company and doesn’t want the hassles of the business.

Apple doesn’t need a breakthrough device for some time. If it continues to execute well on its current product lineup–something Cook excels at–they should be in great shape. Right now or soon after the iPad ships might very well be the perfect time for Jobs to announce his successor.

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