Like the MacBooks, Lion is, in many ways, an evolutionary step for the operating system. Cast your eyes down the list of new features on Apple’s dedicated Lion web pages and it’s easy — at first blush — to be dismissive. Sure, fullscreen apps might be nice (particularly on the smaller screen of the MacBook Air) and features like Versions and Auto Save are a nice addition, but let’s be honest; they’re not going to set the tech world on fire.

But then I had a new thought: Apple is always telling us, year after year, that more than half of all new Macs are sold to first-time Mac buyers. And for more and more of those consumers, the thing that brought them to the platform is iOS. Whether it’s the iPhone or an iPad flavor, iOS is something of a gateway drug to the world of Apple technology.

With so many iOS-fluent users buying Macs for the first time, it makes perfect sense that Apple wants Mac OS X to feel equally familiar and comfortable to first-time buyers. After all, you don’t get a second chance at a first impression.

Simple Things

Making the Mac feel like an extension of the iOS experience doesn’t necessarily require obvious and dramatic changes; simple things can make all the difference. Look at the way Apple is bringing gestures and animations to the Mac. We’ve seen all of this before, right there in iOS. Some Mac stalwarts might declare the animations ‘eye candy’ — while iOS users will consider them an absolutely essential part of the experience.

The same is true of Lion’s Auto Save feature; a system-wide automatic document save feature that absolves the user from ever having to remember to save anything (pending developer cooperation).

Isn’t this precisely the same experience users have in iOS? Even after 30 years, the traditional file system is still a challenge for many people to understand. One of the great successes of iOS is that it does away with the File System. And while Auto Save isn’t the same as an invisible File System, combined with the iOS-inspired app model we know is headed to at least Apple’s own software with Lion, it’s definitely a step in that direction.

iOS-style multitasking is also coming to the Mac with Lion. Consider the following juicy morsel from AppleInsider’s Neil Hughes, describing the new Resume feature in 10.7:

After a restart, Lion automatically relaunches applications that were open when the user chose Log Out or Shut Down. The system also automatically restores the state of applications [...] after a restart, including the size and location of a window, selections and contents.

Mac OS X may terminate an application behind the scenes when it goes unused or has no open windows. The application usually relaunches instantly when the user accesses it again.

Users can still choose to manually quit an application, but Apple has reportedly told developers that quitting is no longer necessary.

In fact, it seems that open apps no longer even display a glowing dot underneath them in the dock, a clear indication that Apple isn’t thinking about desktop apps in the way we traditionally have.

Now think about how your iPad or iPhone behaves; the best apps not only remember what you were doing the last time you used them, but are right there, in memory, waiting to be used even after a full system restart.

Trucks

Back in June 2010, at the D8 Conference, Steve Jobs said;

“When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks, because that’s what you needed on the farm… PCs are going to be like trucks. They’re still going to be around, they’re still going to have a lot of value, but they’re going to be used by one out of X people.”

I look now at the flexibility of iOS, and how it’s shaping user expectations of how consumer electronics should work. I also look at how dramatically iOS is shaping the next iteration of the Mac operating system and I can’t help but think that, rather than drawing a clear line in the sand between desktop “trucks” and iOS “cars,” Apple is trying to make the line between the two far less distinct.

The trucks will get more streamlined, nimble and sporty (the Mac App Store and MacBook Air were the first steps in that direction — Lion takes us ever closer) while “simpler” iOS devices will inevitably grow and evolve until, beneath their slimline shells, they possess engines at least as powerful as any truck available today.

I know I’m taxing that analogy, but you get my point. Apple isn’t committed to ease-of-use at the expense of raw power; nor are they committed to ramping up power at the expense of awesome — and refreshingly simple — user experiences.

Do you want to know where Apple is taking us in the next five years? Then take a good hard look at Lion — the clues are there for all to see. Mac OS X 10.7 might appear to be evolutionary, but, like the new hardware it unveiled today, it’s setting the stage for the real revolution to come.

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…the Mac maker this weekend began informing some of its larger European resellers that they could expect delivery of sealed product pallets to their brick-and-mortar stores as early as Monday, which coincides with one of ten federal holidays (President’s Day) in the United States.

Secretive as always, Apple has also made it clear that the shipments are not to be opened ahead of an official announcement from the Mother Ship, issuing warnings of repercussions (official retailer license cancellations) to those who don’t do as they’re told.

Adding further fuel to the fire, an article today (also from AppleInsider reports that Apple has extended the shipment times for all U.S. online orders of MacBook Pros to three-to-five business days, while European supplies dwindled even earlier:

…Apple’s major European distributors ran out [of] MacBook Pros near the top of the month, regional resellers have not been able to place new orders for the notebooks for over two weeks, and Apple has not shipped a single unit of its own to the channel during the same period of time.

And finally, Engadget adds to the weekend rumor-fest with news that Best Buy has already added new Apple laptop SKUs to its inventory.

Of course, it wouldn’t be an Apple rumor party if there wasn’t at least one big claim thrown in for good measure, and this time it comes from CNET, which speculates that the long-awaited and much-anticipated Light Peak technology could make its debut in the new MacBook Pro lineup. But how likely is it that Light Peak is finally here?

Light Peak Primer

I first wrote about Light Peak here on TheAppleBlog back in 2009, shortly after Intel unveiled the technology at the IDF Conference in San Francisco. Devised by Apple and developed by Intel, Light Peak is a data transfer technology that promises speeds far in excess of the still-not-ubiquitous USB 3.0 (USB 3.0 will manage a throughput of 3 GB/s, while Light Peak teases a blistering 10 GB/s).

What’s more, Light Peak is designed to allow for multiple simultaneous device connections on a single port. Only last week, AppleInsider’s Neil Hughes reported on a recent patent application Apple made, titled “Magnetic Connector with Optical Signal Path” detailing the inclusion of a fiber optic line built-in to the existing MagSafe power connector, which certainly sounds like a possible implementation of Light Peak.

No one denies that Light Peak represents a significant new technology, but it seems to me that if Apple is about to launch something so revolutionary, it’d be keen to really talk it up. That means a special media event n bursting at the seams with the usual hyperbole.

New MacBooks are very likely being released in a matter of days, and while there’s some chance they might be more in keeping with the design of the MacBook Air — sporting longer battery life and flash-based memory — the lack of any announced special event suggests to me that there’s nothing more to the refresh than that. A thinner MacBook Pro with a wedge-shape and flash memory doesn’t require a media event; it would be a retread of the MacBook Air event last year.

And Finally…

If you’re dedicated to finding evidence of Light Peak’s imminent release, look no further than an article yesterday from MacRumors asking “Could the iPad 2 Be Getting Light Peak?”

MacRumors’ Arnold Kim muses over the rumored existence of a “mystery port” seen in some iPad 2 case designs, and says the inclusion of Light Peak in the next iPad “…could help explain some particularly incongruous rumors we’ve been hearing about the iPad 2 over the past few months.”

I can’t help but think of it this way; the iPad 2 announcement is likely only a few months away, and if both this year’s new MacBook Pro and iPad were to feature Light Peak, surely those product announcements would be made together? Of course, Apple is nothing if not unpredictable, so don’t count out Light Peak altogether.

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So why the controversy? Apple prohibits publishers from offering more attractive (read: cheaper) subscription deals to customers outside the walls of the iOS App Store. Whatever publishers offer outside the App Store must be matched (or bettered) inside the App Store. Oh and just one more thing; Apple will not hand over to publishers the personal details of customers making in-app purchases/subscriptions without the permission of those customers. This last point is great news for consumer privacy, but another nail in the coffin for publishers accustomed to using said data in valuable advertising deals.

If you’ve ever subscribed to a magazine or newspaper you know how it works: A subscription card often asks for far more than just your name, address and credit card number. Those mini questionnaires publishers require of their subscribers supply them with a huge variety of valuable information they can use when selling space to advertisers. In fact, advertisers now demand it; after all, they want to be sure they’re placing their ads strategically — and therefore, spending their money wisely.

It matters not one jot if a publication acquires a few thousand subscribers through the App Store; without the typically-concomitant subscriber data, advertisers will be less inclined to buy space in any iOS publication.

How Did We Get Here?

Much publishing today is less concerned with quality than it is with quantity. The more copies there are of a magazine in circulation — or clicks on a web page — the more eyeballs see accompanying ads. In a world where, more than ever before, readers have more choice of content, but less time to engage with it, for many publishers, the key to generating appreciable revenue lies not in value, but in volume.

And I’m not talking small-time publishers here; in early February, Business Insider revealed AOL CEO Tim Armstrong’s guide to his network’s editors, titled “The AOL Way”, in which the editorial priorities of the company are laid-bare; on a page directing editors in how to decide what topics should be covered, “Editorial Integrity” (in other words, editorial quality) is ranked last, after “Traffic Potential,” “Revenue/Profit” and “Turnaround Time.”

Changing the Game

Online publishing’s focus on advertising, sponsorship and syndication is problematic, for viewers and for Apple as a company that wants to provide worthwhile content for users of its platforms. Great quality content, in this model, is of little use to publishers, despite the fact that it happens to be precisely the thing readers actually want.

Apple, I think, has noticed this problem, and is now taking positive steps to solve it. Apple wants to ensure that publishing on the iPad is never anything less than top quality, where the paramount priorities of publishers lie always in ensuring the quality of their content.

Hard Work for Big Returns

You see, with the rules as they stand today, the only way publishers can be successful in the App Store is by concentrating on producing the very best content. And that won’t happen because they place “Editorial Integrity” in first place on a PowerPoint slide. Publishers will have to commit themselves to produce nothing less than the very best content in the industry. It will take a lot of investment, a lot of insanely hard work and, for some publishers, a serious restructuring of their editorial staff and policies. None of that is easy or cheap, and, for publishers used to and dependent upon advertising revenue, it must seem a ludicrous proposition.

Apple has established a sales and distribution platform that emphasizes content sales and subscriptions over advertising, but if the company really wants to help publishers embrace the “content is king” philosophy, I think they need to do much more to assist in content creation and promotion. However, it begins with giving publishers with something that is still sorely-missing; top-flight iOS publishing tools made available — for free — to all publishers and authors everywhere. iOS is a publishing platform bursting with potential. Apple needs to give content creators an easy — and powerful — set of tools for leveraging it. Its iAd Producer application for the Mac might be a good place to start.

In the end, I believe most publishers genuinely respect their readers and care about the quality of their content; and I suspect they would happily unshackle themselves from their reliance on advertising revenue if only subscriptions and sales revenues could take its place. Apple has provided a tantalizing new path for publishers to tread, provided they don’t just throw their hands up and walk away citing Apple’s greed as a way to take the easy way out.

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Before that, I had been using The Omni Group’s venerable OmniFocus as my task management tool-of-choice, mostly because, in mid-2010, I convinced myself I absolutely needed over-the-air sync between my Macs and iPhone (Omnifocus has it; Things does not).

Now, if you’re like me, you probably follow the work of some notable figures in the Mac community; people like Ben Brooks, David Sparks and Merlin Mann. It seems that those guys are OmniFocus ninjas. There’s nothing they can’t do with OmniFocus. I’m just not that good, and I don’t think I ever could be. To make the most of OmniFocus, I feel like I need to become both a GTD guru and commit hours and hours of my life to learning the software. Things, on the other hand, is so simple it requires almost no learning. For someone as old and inflexible as me, that’s a bonus!

Fiddly Bits

In trying (for six months!) to really get to grips with OmniFocus, I discovered that its greatest strength can also be its greatest weakness — everything is just so endlessly tweakable! Start dates, due dates, priorities, flags, perspectives, custom folders, nested folders, projects, location awareness, contexts, actions and who knows what else all add to the mountain of fiddly bits of detail that can be added, edited and generally mucked-about-with. In fact, there’s so much scope for fiddly details that Omnifocus offers its own Inspectors to make it more manageable. To be honest, when I have to open an Inspector, I don’t feel like I’m using a to-do manager any more.

Let me be fair; OmniFocus is a wonderful tool. But I always felt like I was neglecting some awesome functionality that could make me super-productive. I suffered a kind of productivity anxiety with OmniFocus: a nagging worry that I wasn’t making the most of this fantastic software the Merlin Manns of the world talk about with such enthusiasm. Finally, though, I’ve arrived at something of an epiphany; I wasn’t missing anything other than the discipline to stop tweaking my to-do lists and just get things done.

Choices, Choices

Mac users today are spoiled for choice when it comes to powerful, beautiful productivity software. Don’t like Microsoft Office? No problem; use iWork. Don’t like Pages? There’s always WriteRoom, Scrivener or TextMate. Every one of those apps is a great word processor without the Microsoft bloat.

This philosophy of “less is more” should be familiar to us all; it’s baked-in to Apple’s DNA, and it seems poised going to become even more of a Mac feature with OS X Lion. It’s also the reason Pages isn’t like Microsoft Word, and it’s why the iPad isn’t a Windows 7 Tablet PC.

So why, when it comes to personal productivity software as fundamental as a to-do manager, do we often think we need more complexity, more sophistication and ever more bells and whistles? Could it be that we all trick ourselves into thinking that time spent poring over our to-do’s is time spent getting things done?

One of the primary reasons for my switching to the Mac was the Apple philosophy of design; everything that’s there — be it in the hardware or the operating system — is there for a clear and obvious reason. It’s simple; it’s easy, and it all just gets out of the way so I can concentrate on doing my work. That’s why I stick with Mail.app instead of using more sophisticated apps like Mailplane or Postbox. It’s why I use TextMate instead of Word. And I suppose I could even use TextEdit to keep a list of tasks; but then, that wouldn’t be as much fun as putting a tick in a box, would it?

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The WSJ’s Yukari Iwatani Kane and Ethan Smith write:

Apple Inc. is working on the first of a new line of less-expensive iPhones and an overhaul of software services for the devices, people familiar with the matter said, moving to accelerate sales of its smartphones amid growing competition.

One of the people, who saw a prototype of the phone late last year, said it is intended for sale alongside Apple’s existing line. The new device would be about half the size of the iPhone 4, which is the current model.

The authors don’t elaborate on what “half the size” means (half the screen real-estate? half the thickness?) though it’s hard to imagine an iPhone with such a small screen being particularly practical. Sure, the new iPod nano leads the way in tiny touch-screen form factors, but, by necessity, has only a tiny subset of the functionality and flexibility of an iPhone.

The new phone [...] would be available to carriers at about half the price of the main iPhones. That would allow carriers to subsidize most or all of the retail price, putting the iPhone in the same mass-market price range as rival smartphones, the person said.

Apple doesn’t usually try to beat rivals on price, so I’m not sure, even in today’s increasingly competitive smartphone market, that they would start now. Apple has long maintained that it isn’t interested in selling the most devices, but rather, selling the best devices. Despite the Wall Street Journal‘s reputation, I’ll remain skeptical about a new miniature iPhone appearing this year.

Still, it sounds like a mighty interesting device, even if it is only a prototype:

The person who saw [the prototype] said the device was significantly lighter than the iPhone 4 and had an edge-to-edge screen that could be manipulated by touch, as well as a virtual keyboard and voice-based navigation.

Revamped MobileMe

Last year, Steve Jobs reportedly said in an email to a customer that MobileMe was going to get a lot better, and the WSJ touches on this, too:

Apple is considering making MobileMe a free service that would serve as a “locker” for personal memorabilia such as photos, music and videos, eliminating the need for devices to carry a lot of memory…

MobileMe [...] could become a focal point for a new online music service that Apple has been developing for more than a year, the people said. Social networking would be another key component, one of the people said.

This sounds far more plausible, and makes much more sense. Remember that Apple bought Lala in early 2010 only to close it down a few months later; it seems likely the acquisition was more about getting Lala’s engineering talent into Cupertino to work on some kind so streaming music ability.

What’s more, Apple’s heavy dependence on flash-based storage in iPhones, iPads and now MacBook Airs (and, presumably, in upcoming MacBooks) greatly enhances the need for cloud-based, pervasive data storage and over-the-air access and synchronization. Flash storage is still too expensive to allow for 500 GB or terabyte storage capacities in MacBooks and iMacs without contributing significantly to their purchase prices.

It makes sense to use flash memory — it’s a much faster and more energy-efficient technology than the traditional hard disk drive — but to keep prices down, storage capacities will likely remain modest.

So with MobileMe’s (now) rock-solid Mail, Contacts and Calendar functionality in-place, and a hugely successful ecosystem of flash-storage-toting iOS devices selling faster than they can be manufactured, the stage is set for a much more sophisticated, cloud-based data and media-streaming service from Apple.

There is just one annoying fly in the ointment:

The new MobileMe file-storage and music service could be available as early as June, depending on the progress of licensing talks that are in their preliminary stages.

Streaming a user’s iTunes content requires a new — and complicated — set of distribution licenses between Apple and content creators, and that’s likely to take a lot of time to work out. Indeed, Kane and Smith write that Apple intended to launch this service a year ago — if I were a betting man, I’d wager the delay has been entirely due to the legal wrangles between Apple and content creators.

Even if this summer’s iPad refresh is only a modest upgrade, and the iPhone nano doesn’t materialize at all, this new MobileMe could still be huge news. After all, who else could possibly compete with such a service?

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Article author Lawrence Latif opened with the following totally-not-inflammatory statement;

JUST HOW LONG does it take for Apple to fix an antenna? That is the question Verizon Iphone [sic] 4 users must be asking after finding that the problems that plagued the device at launch over six months ago still persist.

I’m still trying to remember what problems “plagued” the iPhone 4 back when it was launched. All I could think of were those interminable queues of eager customers snaking away from the Apple Store on London’s Oxford Street. Thousands of us, standing there for hours, not getting anywhere fast, burning gently in the summer sun. But our new iPhones? They were just fine. No plagues, as far as I can remember, not that day, or since.

However, my problem isn’t with biased (read “negative”) coverage of the iPhone (or even “Iphone”, if you prefer) but with the utter lack of critical thinking that fuels this sort of coverage, and the gossip that follows. First, let’s do an experiment. If you own a “shiny toy” of your own, go grab it and follow-along; we’re going to reproduce the infamous Death Grip!

The Grip of Death, in Three Easy Steps

STEP 1. Grip your iPhone in your left hand. No, grip it. No, really, really grip it. Smother its left-edge as much as you possibly can. It doesn’t matter how uncomfortable that feels, just do it. I know — that’s a completely unnatural way to hold any phone, but look, this is just how it’s done, ok? Are you gripping/smothering the thing so hard you’re actually obscuring your view of the screen? Good. Move to Step Two.

STEP 2. Try loading a web page. Yeah, I know, it’s not so easy to tap the screen because of the impractical way you’re gripping the thing, but, please, in the name of scientific discovery, persevere!

STEP 3. Behold! If you’ve got your smother-hold just right, you may notice a slow-down when loading web pages. Congratulations — you’ve done it! You have proved that the iPhone 4 is obviously fatally flawed and we can all agree our honeymoon with Apple is well and truly over! Let’s ditch our iPhones for Blackberry and Android devices instead!

Admittedly, I’m overstating things, but I’m trying to make a point here about how silly this whole non-story is. Here’s the deal: Absolutely every wireless device suffers some signal attenuation when smother-gripped by big, fleshy human hands. That’s pesky physics stubbornly obeying its own immutable laws, not, as some bloggers and tech press would prefer to believe, an egregious oversight by Jonny Ive and Apple’s engineers.

Interesting, But Insignificant

While demonstrating the Death Grip (or Death Hug, as people are referring to the Verizon version) in a video is obviously great for clocking-up YouTube views and exciting the tech blogosphere with a non-story, what really is whether this is an issue for ordinary people in everyday use.

So, how many people are truly suffering from the death grip in normal, non-crazy, smother-grip everyday use? So far — we don’t know. We may never know. What we do know is that the iPhone 4 is the best-selling iPhone ever, and has the lowest return rates of any model of iPhone produced so far.

Being able to significantly attenuate the iPhone radio signal in a lab or a YouTube video is academically interesting; but unless signal attenuation is causing real-world problems for ordinary people whenever they use their iPhone, it’ll remain academically, but not generally, interesting.

And then there’s that other teeny-tiny little matter of Apple’s iPhone R&D. Apple uses state-of-the-art testing facilities to ensure that new designs or configurations don’t fundamentally compromise normal functionality. None of this is cheap, by the way. Apple has never revealed how much the iPhone has cost them in R&D, but it’s safe to assume many millions of dollars have been spent to-date. Seems like an awful waste of money if the iPhone is truly so poorly designed it can’t function under normal circumstances, right? That’s the kind of resource mis-management that could get a CEO sacked.

So — what’s more probable? That, despite all their top-flight engineers, antenna experts and exhaustive testing and quality assurance procedures, Apple still creates and sells a fatally flawed phone incapable of maintaining a signal in normal use or that this whole Antennagate issue is (and always has been) little more than tabloid nonsense and breathless blogo-gossip?

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Dubbed “The Other Side of Apple,” the report is the product of a consortium of 36 environmental groups including China’s Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPEA) and lists what it claims are environmental and worker-safety violations committed by component suppliers working for multinational corporations including Apple, Toshiba and HP. The report claims that Apple’s suppliers are the worst offenders, responsible for the poisoning of “dozens” of factory workers exposed to hazardous chemicals.

The timing of the report — published in the same week that Apple announced record-breaking quarterly earnings — seems intentional, given the following excerpt from the report;

While Apple’s been busy updating their sales records, its employees have been enduring poisonous chemicals, with their rights and dignity being seriously trespassed on and the surrounding areas and environment being polluted by dirty water and emissions.

The IPEA’s spokesman Ma Jun spoke with Reuters yesterday, expressing frustration with Apple’s lack of transparency and the company’s silence in the face of the report’s findings;

Apple only care about the price and quality of their products and not the environmental and social responsibility issues. In some ways they drive the suppliers to cut corners to win their contracts. Apple’s lack of responsiveness eventually made us quite shocked. It’s the whole complacency that it doesn’t have to be accountable to the NGOs, to the communities, even to the poisoned workers.

Apple spokeswoman Carolyn Wu responded with a brief statement, saying, “Apple is committed to ensuring the highest standards of social responsibility throughout our supply base. Our supplier responsibility reports document the progress of our extensive auditing programme since 2006.”

So on the one hand we have an assembly of NGO’s accusing Apple of a lack of corporate oversight and social responsibility, and on the other we have Apple — as tight-lipped as ever. As is usually the case, the real story lies somewhere in between.

Standards Strictly Enforced

The consortium’s report is in Chinese, so I can’t examine the data for myself. We can only take on face value the claim that ‘dozens’ of workers have been poisoned while manufacturing components destined for Apple products. But should Apple be held accountable for its supplier’s health, safety and environmental protection policies?

Apple does already have a strict Code of Conduct (PDF) to which its suppliers must adhere. Apple enforces the Code with regular audits, described in detail in their 2010 Supplier Responsibility Report (PDF). It’s pretty dry reading, but here’s a succint excerpt;

We drive compliance with the Code through a rigorous monitoring program, including factory audits, corrective action plans, and verification measures. Apple audits all final assembly manufacturers every year, regardless of their location and past audit performance.

OK fair enough — Apple keeps a close eye on ‘final assembly’ manufacturers. That seems reasonable, given that it’s at these factories where components are brought together at one end and finished Apple products come rolling off a conveyor belt at the other. Since the final product is a MacBook or an iPad, any right minded person would conclude that Apple should take responsibility for matters of environmental protection and worker safety at these places.

But does this mean Apple pays no attention to early stage component suppliers? Not at all. The following also comes from the 2010 Supplier Responsibility Report (it’s more execu-speak, but bear with me);

We select component and nonproduction suppliers for audits based on risk factors, such as the prevailing conditions in the country where a supplier facility is located and the supplier’s past audit performance — enabling us to focus our efforts where we can have the greatest impact.

We continue to extend our compliance-monitoring program by auditing more and more suppliers across our supply base.

Apple takes its responsibilities seriously, and makes an effort to publicly report the findings of its audits. What’s more, Apple doesn’t claim to have a perfect record, but its reports show a sustained, annual increase in the breadth and depth of its supplier audits, and a steady improvement in audit results. Take a look for yourself and decide whether this is the behaviour of a company guilty of a serious lack of corporate oversight in China today.

Monsters?

It’s easy to criticize multinational corporations for a perceived lack of social and environmental responsibility; much-publicized controversies surrounding major brands like Nestlé and Nike have planted the seeds of mistrust in the minds of consumers. We often assume most multinationals are planet-killing, child-labor-employing soulless monsters, at least to some degree.

Sometimes that’s a fair assumption, but not always. Let’s exercise a measure of rational thinking before we start condemning Apple for neglecting its duty of care to the environment and workforce. In fact, in recent years, Apple’s efforts in these areas have set new standards in the consumer electronics industry, and it still does much more than is required by law and regulation.

And what of this report? Apple simply presents itself as a choice target and one that has the most power to effect change. By focusing on Apple and not just the companies it does business with, the report’s authors are able to draw the collective attention of the Western media — which is always hunting for anything Apple-flavoured.

And as is often the case, timing is everything for this story; China is undergoing a wave of reforms set to improve working conditions and worker’s rights, but political support for those reforms has traditionally been weak or ineffectual. The collective might of politically and economically influential multinationals like Apple and HP — pushed into action by bad PR — seems too good an opportunity to miss.

What do you make of this? Are these violations of worker safety a problem for Apple to solve? Or is this little more than canny political wrangling from a consortium of NGO’s? Corporate evil-doing, or sound public opinion manipulation? Sound-off in the comments below.

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From the Financial Times;

Apple applied to have the term trademarked in 2008, shortly after it launched its App Store for the iPhone. However, in a motion filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office this week, Microsoft points out that the term “app store” is used as a generic term by lots of companies to describe the online retail outlet used to sell mobile phone applications to consumers.

Microsoft lists other smartphone developers with App Store-like services (Research in Motion, Palm, Nokia, Samsung and, of course, Google) claiming that they all use the phrase “app store” in their marketing materials.

Microsoft trademark legal advisor Russell Pangborn said that the term “App Store” was no different to generic terms like “shoe store” or “toy store,” and that it was “…a generic term [that is] commonly used by companies, governments and individuals. The term “app store” should continue to be available for use by all without fear of reprisal by Apple.”

I don’t know about you, but as far as I can remember, “App Store” isn’t a phrase I ever heard, thought, said, wrote or read anywhere before it appeared for the iPhone. Since then, I’ve seen variations on the term appear elsewhere as alternatives to (and clones of) Apple’s App Store as they have launched on rival platforms — Google’s “Android Market” or Nokia’s “Ovi Store” and so on. In each case, I’ve always thought “Right then — that’s their version of the App Store,” and left it at that.

So what exactly is Microsoft trying to achieve here? They’re suggesting that, because the media at large refer to all these things as “app stores,” Apple shouldn’t be allowed ownership of the phrase. I can only see two reasons for being picky about this;

1. Microsoft doesn’t trust its PR staff/agencies to avoid using the phrase “app store” in marketing materials (and thereby face the threat of legal action from Apple) or,
2. Microsoft knows that, as far as customer perceptions go, “App Store” is a term synonymous with Apple’s high quality products and services, making it a valuable term in future marketing efforts. Or, put another way — “App Store” has some pretty glittery coat-tails that Microsoft wants to ride. After all, everyone has heard of the “App Store” — but who has heard of the “Marketplace”?

Granted, Microsoft had their Windows Mobile platform on sale for years before the iPhone was announced, for which third-party software was widely available. But Microsoft missed a trick — as they so often do — by not seeing an opportunity to streamline the process of app discovery, acquisition and updates. That Apple did have the foresight to make third-party application support an enjoyable experience was a breakthrough in the smartphone industry that Microsoft could have delivered first if they had only been more focused.

I’m glad they didn’t, mind you, or else a Microsoft app store would have been titled “Windows Mobile Universal Application Platform Services” or some other such unwieldy mouthful.

As far as I’m concerned, Apple should retain the trademark, since the Mac-maker deserves it. Apple did it first, and Apple did it best. Rather than wasting time and money fighting petty battles, Microsoft should instead concentrate on making their existing “Marketplace” such a compelling and easy-to-use service for Windows Phone 7 users that no one will even care if it’s referred to as an “app store” or not.

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But as the excitement wears off, it’s time to take a long, hard look at what the Mac App Store could mean for Mac users — not just now, but in the future, as the iOS-ification of the Mac continues.

First, the Good News

The Mac App Store improves personal computing in three huge areas; software discovery, security and maintenance.

Until now, the way most Mac users discovered new software was by word-of-mouth, labored research — or sheer serendipity. None of those are entirely bad things, but they’re far from the one-stop-shop ideal the Mac App Store represents. What’s more, it’s built right in to the Mac and it’s easy to use.

Security on Mac OS X has never been a headache, but that doesn’t mean Mac users should be careless. There’s no guarantee third-party software won’t do something naughty once it’s installed. With the Mac App Store, everything comes from Apple’s servers, and users can rest easy in the knowledge that it had to pass some sort of quality control before Apple approved it.

Finally, maintenance — a foreign word to most Mac users. Sometimes, updates are relatively painless and happen automatically. Other times, they require visiting websites, downloading and unzipping packages or messing about with disk images. The Mac App Store does away with all of this and replaces it with one-click updates, centrally located.

Inherited Flaws

That’s not to say there aren’t problems. Let’s first remember that the Mac App Store is modelled after the iOS App Store, which means that it inherits a few bad genes:

No Trial Software
Buy or don’t buy — there is no trial software on the App Store. And if you buy something you ultimately don’t like? Well, that’s tough. The money is gone. Better hope you didn’t spend a lot.

Flaky Reviews
iOS App Store reviews are often misleading and, sometimes, make entirely false (and detrimental) claims. Developers don’t have the option of turning off customer reviews (and imagine how suspicious it would appear if they did) but there has to be a better way for Apple to handle the review process.

Bumpy Approval Process
We’ve all heard stories about the painfully lengthy and opaque approval process developers sometimes face getting their apps (or updates) into the Store. Presumably, this will be no different for the Mac App Store, either.

Freedom

Let’s assume, though, that all of the above aside, the Mac App Store becomes the software repository of choice for developers and end users alike. In this case, it’s necessary to scrutinize the policies and ideologies of the App Store curators — Apple itself.

Foul language, nudity or sexuality, subversive or revolutionary political content — it’s all banned from the App Store, sometimes explicitly covered by the published guidelines, yet always ultimately at Apple’s discretion.

Sure, sure – this is Apple’s store, these are Apple’s policies and if we don’t like them … well, we don’t have to use Apple products, do we? But is that entirely fair? And where does it end?

(Un)Fair Exchange?

There is a difference between responsible curation and outright censorship, and while the former is applauded, the latter is generally considered reprehensible. Yet this is the situation we are in today, both with the iOS and now the Mac App Stores. In my opinion, Apple doesn’t just curate, it censors.

Are the benefits of software discovery, enhanced security and ease-of-use a fair trade for restrictive content policies? When Microsoft enjoyed its absolute power in the 1990s, we called it “The Borg” for exerting such dominance over businesses and end-users. Is Apple so different today in the way it regulates the iOS software ecosystem?

This can never happen on the Mac, some will argue. No Mac user is forced to use the Mac App Store. But what happens when a future version of Mac OS X makes the Mac App Store the only way to get software onto a Mac? It seems like a very real possibility, considering how supportive many developers are of the new marketplace.

Worried

Believe it or not, I’m no conspiracy theorist and, if I’m really honest, I wouldn’t mind if — in a future version of Mac OS X entirely dependent on the App Store for third-party software — Apple rejected certain titles on the grounds of insufficient quality, stability or power efficiency.

But I worry that what started as the cautious regulation of a novel software distribution platform might one day mutate into something far worse — absolute control of my beloved Mac by a company that has decided I shouldn’t be allowed to make it my own in the same way I once could.

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The largest U.S. wireless carrier will make the long-awaited announcement at an event Tuesday in New York City… The phone will make its way to Verizon Wireless stores around the end of January.

The move will for the first time let U.S. consumers choose the network that carries their iPhone and perhaps give them additional pricing options that could affect their monthly bills.

The article confirms that the Verizon iPhone will feature a radio chip making it compatible with the carrier’s CDMA wireless network. By comparison, AT&T iPhones work with the (globally ubiquitous) GSM wireless network.

Verizon’s invitation-only “special event” will be held tomorrow, at New York City’s Lincoln Center. According to John Paczkowski of All Things Digital, the event will be headed by Verizon COO Lowell McAdam, and, “barring any unforseen circumstances,” Apple’s very own Steve Jobs.

More details (also from Paczkowski) on Verizon’s shiny new iPhone suggest that we can expect the phone to debut with an unlimited data plan;

Sources close to Verizon tell me the carrier will offer the iPhone with an unlimited data plan (presumably the same $30 unlimited plan it offers for other smartphones)–though they wouldn’t say for how long. That should distinguish it a bit more from the iPhone on AT&T, which requires a capped plan for data service.

For AT&T, the Damage is Already Done

Of course, the question now is how much a Verizon iPhone will impact AT&T’s business. Since the iPhone launched in 2007, AT&T has been the only carrier in the United States to officially offer Apple’s iconic smartphone to customers; but in the last three years, AT&T has been criticized for high prices and shaky service. The carrier has cited iPhone-customers’ insatiable hunger for data as the reason for sometimes-unreliable service and dropped calls, pledging significant upgrades to their network in order to better meet demand.

Even Steve Jobs (sort of) defended AT&T’s difficult position when he spoke at the D8 Conference in June last year, saying;

“They [AT&T] worry about the network, while we worry about the phone. They’re improving, but they do have some issues. Remember that they’re handling way more traffic than all other competitors combined.

Credible people tell me that things get worse before they get better as the carriers switch things around to make improvements. If you believe that, things should get a lot better soon. Should be better by end of summer. We’ll see.”

However, no amount of high-powered Execu-speak could change the fact that, for AT&T, the damage was already done — by Sept. 2010, Credit Suisse reported that nearly a quarter of AT&T iPhone customers would switch to Verizon “if given the chance”.

Mounting a Desperate Defense

AT&T has already put something of a defense strategy into action; last week they reduced the price of the iPhone 3GS from $99 to $49, presumably hoping that pricing alone might convince customers not to choose an iPhone from their competitor. Apple followed suit today, reducing the price to $49 on its own website.

In addition, AT&T’s PR executive Larry Solomon reached out to Business Week‘s Silicon Alley Insider yesterday with a dig at Verizon;

The iPhone is built for speed, but that’s not what you get with a CDMA phone. I’m not sure iPhone users are ready for life in the slow lane.

Will you be jumping ship to Verizon? Or are you grandfathered-in to the best deal AT&T can offer? Are you, like me, just relieved that these endless “Verizon iPhone” rumors will finally be put to rest? Are you willing to change carriers now, or will you wait another few months for the iPhone 5? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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