Apple censored an English dictionary.

A dictionary. A reference book. For words contained in all reasonable dictionaries. For words contained in dictionaries that are used every day in elementary school libraries and classrooms.

Apple, a dictionary? Are you insane? Not only should it not have been censored, but it’s ridiculous that it would have required a 17+ rating anyway.

This article is not about Ninjawords, except that it shows how yet another ridiculous rejection makes Apple seem more and more out of control, because it really has no handle on the process whatsoever. With hundreds of apps to review, and pressure from developers who want approval yesterday, they’ve lost control.

People are calling for written app approval guidelines, but it can’t be just that. I’ve seen numerous process breakdowns where the procedures were just fine. A written document only goes so far; the thing must be implemented. Two builders will not construct the same house from the same blueprint. One may be excellent, the other shoddy. It’s about people, too. For example, common sense would not allow app rejection based on a standard dictionary, yet here we are.

Aside from procedures, it’s a lack of control over the personnel. How else to explain similar apps getting in and others not? Or the same app getting in later with no changes? Different folks are interpreting the rules differently, with little oversight, and with varying degrees of “customer service.” (Here’s a hint, Apple: When a developer is trying to get their app approved, they’re your customer. Treat them like one.)

So what can Apple do? There’s no silver bullet to address this — we’ll see more silly rejections before this gets better — but Apple must act fast, because it’s falling apart. Personally, I think it’s time Apple personel had a meeting like they did after the MobileMe rollout debacle. I don’t know when or where that meeting took place, but I’ll bet it wasn’t pretty. It was probably downright ugly, but it was necessary.

Just like that screwup, these problems can’t be fixed in a week or two, so Apple shouldn’t try to pretend it can. When it came clean with MobileMe, Apple said it would take four months to make it a service it could be proud of. We need a realistic ETA for the App Store as well. Apple must perform whatever management shakeup/changes are necessary, communicate them to the user base and development community, and then start getting it done. Apple is just embarrassing itself.

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As more and more households have multiple PCs, the idea of a “family pack” (i.e., a piece of software with multiple licenses for use) makes a lot of sense. Since Apple and Microsoft are set to release new versions of their respective operating systems this fall (Apple’s Snow Leopard in September, Microsoft’s Windows 7 in October), let’s look at the family pack available for each.

Microsoft

Microsoft finally ended all rumors of a Windows 7 Family Pack, announcing that there would indeed be such a product:

The Windows 7 Family Pack will be available starting on October 22 until supplies last here in the U.S. and other select markets. In the U.S., the price for the Windows 7 Family Pack will be $149.99 for three Windows 7 Home Premium licenses.

It’s not that paying $150 for three licenses is a bad deal, it’s just that the paragraph above pretty much constitutes the entire announcement, which is bad because…

• Where is the Family Pack for Professional? What about Ultimate? Sadly, there is no such thing. Why isn’t Microsoft making its other OS editions available in similar “family friendly” offerings?
• It’s only for a limited time (“until supplies last”). This is a software product on disc that comes with a three-user license, there are no “supplies.” The only thing that can run out is Microsoft’s willingness to provide this value to the consumer.

So Microsoft will thwart consumers who desire Professional or Ultimate by requiring full licenses even if they want to run it on all the PCs in their home. This is practically an engraved invitation to pirate the software.

Further, after some as-yet-unnamed amount of time, the Home Premium deal will be withdrawn. Perhaps this is just a maneuver to juice up early interest and sales for PR purposes, and once they can report large numbers of licenses sold they’ll just end the deal.

Apple

Apple’s upcoming Snow Leopard will be sold in family packs of five licenses for $49. This is a better deal than Microsoft’s in many ways:

• Obviously, $50 for five license is much better than $150 for three.
• Unlike Microsoft, Apple doesn’t offer “crippled” editions. Their family pack will consist of the full (“Ultimate”, to use Microsoft’s term) version of Snow Leopard.
• There is no expiration date on availability.

Aside from its OS, Apple also offers family packs for their iLife and iWork suites that are incredible values.

Conclusion

While I’m not suggesting upgrade pricing alone would be a reason to switch to a Mac, I do believe Apple’s family packs (which are not new) are an impressive, and important, value. I consider them part of the Apple value equation; a computer is a combination of hardware and software, not just one or the other.

I think Apple’s philosophy on family packs is clear. Put simply, they take the sting out of wanting to run multiple licenses for multiple machines. They provide such an excellent value, the consumer has little issue with legitimizing multiple software copies in their home.

For Microsoft, this is new territory. I’m glad to see there was some truth to the earlier rumors, but it all falls short. While the family pack for Windows 7 is a smart move, Microsoft is misguided to limit it to just the “cheap” edition and to make the offer short-term. Indeed, why not encourage people to legitimize multiple copies, and up-sell Professional, by offering a family pack at the high-end? If the goal was to limit piracy, I believe it will have only a minimal impact there.

Nonetheless, if your decision to use Windows 7 is already made, and Home Premium is what you desire, then I’d certainly recommend snapping up the family pack before Microsoft changes its mind.

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Those new ultra-thin PCs, the first of which will be coming later this year and, presumably running Windows 7, won’t be as cheap as $299 or $399 netbooks, Ballmer admitted, but they will combine netbooks’ portability, with some unnamed but higher-sounding prices.

Though the MacBook Air won’t be running Windows 7 any time soon, the rest of the quote is a pretty good description of it. Ballmer had earlier defined this “new” class of PC when speaking at the kick-off presentation for Microsoft’s Financial Analyst Meeting:

Ballmer told analysts there would be a new class of “ultra-thin” PCs” — or high-end netbooks –coming this year that would combine the light weight of netbooks with high-power and high-performance of traditional PCs.

Yep, that’s the MacBook Air alright.

When the Air was introduced, Steve Jobs first outlined these three problems (compromises) with netbooks:

• Small screens
• Tiny keyboard
• Low processing power

The MacBook Air went on to address them all. And it did so as a “high-end” model for a “higher-sounding” price, exactly as Ballmer is predicting will not appear until “later this year.”

Will Ballmer’s bad track record seal the MacBook Air’s fate? Or will this particular “prediction,” which is of the past, and tantamount to predicting yesterday’s sunrise, be an isolated case of him being correct?

I guess only time will tell if the MacBook Air is truly finished.

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• People want to learn how to write programs on the Mac
• People don’t want to learn how to use programs on the Mac (or PC, for that matter)

The latter is especially interesting to me. Though my time in support taught me well about RTFM syndrome, there were always certain people interested in learning to use software to its fullest. This group understood that reviewing documentation was likely the best way to do that.

But expectations have changed. Usage should now be obvious or a lot of people won’t bother. I don’t mind the expectation that a manual shouldn’t be required to start using software right away. In fact, I like that attitude because developers must now give more care to their user interfaces. However, even in the best interfaces there are limits.

For my own usage, I bought an iWork 08 book to get a better feel for that suite of programs. Additionally, I downloaded a lengthy third-party Aperture guide to understand the various tools better.

I’m curious, at what point have you crossed the threshold, and either studied the full documentation or bought a supplemental book to learn a program in more depth?

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Truth be told, if NPD really stated this as market share, I’d say they were wrong. It’s hard to believe 9.1 out of 10 PCs over $1K are Apple’s. Come on, people, there are many non-Mac users who spend money, too. Whether for quality, style, or higher-end components, not everyone who gets a PC is a Laptop Hunter. I’ve never bought a Windows machine for under $1K in my life, and I’ve had many.

It doesn’t take much to refute the market share angle. I don’t agree with the article using just Best Buy as a point of comparison, but it’s still not hard to believe there’s no such ratio of Macs to PCs at the high-end.

But if not market share, what is NPD talking about? Let’s look at this as reported by Joe Wilcox (with a headline as misleading as the others):

According to NPD, in June, nine out of 10 dollars spent on computers costing $1,000 or more went to Apple.

Nine out of 10 dollars went to Apple? That’s a different beast than market share. It’s revenue share, and a lot more believable.

Consider the example where two people go to a Best Buy. One buys a PC for $1,045, the other a Mac for $1,455. At this point the Mac and PC market share is equal (one each, 50 percent). But now let’s look at the “dollars spent on computers costing $1,000 or more”, which total $500. PC got $45 (9 percent), while Mac got $455 (91 percent).

Is it believable that Macs, with an Average Selling Price of $1,400 in June, could hold that kind of ratio against PCs with an ASP of $515 the same month? I believe so.

Honestly, though, this is one of those statistics that sounds cool, but doesn’t really tell us much. By picking an arbitrary cutoff ($1K) it’s statistical juggling. What if the Mac cost $1,200 to make, and the PC $800? Apple would have that flashy 91 percent number, but only net 10 more bucks than the PC from the deal.

Which brings me to what matters. Ultimately, it’s about profits. Units sold, share of this category or that, supposed web usage figures by tracking browsers, etc., all make for interesting headlines. But where is the money? Microsoft and PC vendors have made plenty in the past despite their lower ASPs. They simply sell a lot more boxes (Apple is still under 4 percent globally). That’s why, to me, the real story this week is Apple’s stellar earnings report from Wednesday compared to Microsoft’s dismal results from Thursday. That’s more revealing than a 91 percent share of anything.

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It must be nice to be Verizon right now. Free from the intense scrutiny AT&T receives by having the hottest and “smartest” smartphone, it can appear to rise above it all. It can have TV ads to claim the best network on the planet, and it’s done. It can have legions of people claiming they’d drop AT&T in a heartbeat, or snap up an iPhone tomorrow, if only it could be on its network.

Even setting aside that the iPhone on Verizon would not likely be the iPhone we recognize, this is ridiculous.

Before we get into it, let me first say that if you live where there’s little or no AT&T coverage, then obviously Verizon or another carrier is what you need. But every carrier has holes in its coverage. Every. One. This article isn’t about that.

No, what this article is about are those places (and there are many) where either carrier is an option. In that case, there are general perceptions where Verizon seems to either have people fooled, or it’s no different than AT&T but it isn’t noticed.

• It must be nice to sell phones with less usability than the iPhone so your customers don’t hammer your network, and then sit back and let people assume you could handle the load under which AT&T is straining.
• It must be nice to utilize the same pricing and subsidy strategies as AT&T, but get to remain above the fray while AT&T takes the heat for what the whole industry is doing.
• It must be nice to charge for carrier cash cows like SMS and tethering, but have everybody only complain about AT&T doing it.
• It must be nice to brag about having visual voice mail on some phones, while quietly hiding that it’s an extra $3 a month.
• It must be nice to not allow convenient syncing of data, media, bookmarks, etc., via the excellent iTunes environment, instead using clumsier tools if anything is allowed at all, and have your customers just take it in stride.
• It must be nice to disable hardware features on many phones, such as Bluetooth, GPS, and Wi-Fi, with little complaint from the masses.
• It must be nice to avoid GSM, still using CDMA-based technology that the rest of the world (and AT&T) has abandoned. Its rollout to a 4G network could come with headaches as a result.
• It must be nice to brag about 3G speeds, and have no one point out that your CDMA 3G technology (EV-DO) can handle voice or data, but not both simultaneously. Browsing the web when a call comes in? You can have the call or the web, not both. Oops.

If Verizon received even half the scrutiny AT&T does, it’d be buried with criticism. If AT&T is getting a lot of bad press, Verizon would be ripped to shreds. But since it doesn’t offer a phone that’s particularly compelling, one that taxes its network, one that people actually want to use, few have bothered to look beyond the geek with the glasses it puts on TV. It must be nice.

Finally, this in not intended as a defense of AT&T, and in no way excuses it from legitimate complaints. I’ve certainly grown tired of all that company’s talk, but no action. However, the idea that Verizon would somehow be free from all these complaints — even assuming it allowed the iPhone as is — is not supported by its own actions. As a U.S. carrier it has far more in common with AT&T than people seem to realize.

I was a Verizon customer for years prior to switching for an iPhone over two years ago. The “Verizon envy” many AT&T customers possess is akin to the grass always being greener on the other side. Problem is, most of you would find out it’s crabgrass.

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Aside from Microsoft, consider these other examples:

• The Mac wasn’t invited to the Quicken launch party, but isn’t it nice of Intuit to throw it some crumbs next year?
• The Mac wasn’t invited to the Google Chrome launch party. But it’s OK, because Sergey Brin said it was “embarrassing.” Right. As if Google just forgot about the Mac, and was blushing about it. It wasn’t embarrassing, it was planned; don’t insult us by acting like it was some sort of mistake.
• The Mac wasn’t invited to the Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 or 6.0 launch parties. In fact, the 5.0 party was completely canceled for the Mac.

The above are just some of the Big Boys who operate “business as usual.” There are plenty of examples in the smaller development houses as well.

I know Windows has the commanding market share and user base in the PC world. I understand why you’d choose Windows if you just wanted to write for one platform. I have zero problem with this. However, I do take issue with vendors that support both platforms still spitting out one after the other instead of twin releases.

Don’t tell me it’s a resource issue; I see Apple do it all the time. Ever notice Safari comes out on both platforms at once now? As does iTunes, and QuickTime. Sure, Apple must cater to the larger Windows user base while not ignoring its own, but my point is Apple is proof you can release to both platforms simultaneously. Other vendors don’t do this because they don’t care enough about the Mac to change their ways, not because it can’t be done. Much like Mr. Brin, they’ll pay lip service to the Mac, but I’d prefer to judge them by their actions.

Any time Mac users get to thinking that Apple’s great success the last dozen years has changed how developers view the Mac, it hasn’t. Twelve years ago it was seen as a tiny percentage of PC users (maybe 2.5 percent globally). Today, it’s still seen as a tiny percentage of PC users (maybe 4 percent). True enough, so the Mac sits last in line despite the BS from various vendors. The only thing that’s really changed is how developers talk about the Mac.

The Mac user base used to be a lot more vocal about this. I’m not sure why it has gotten so quiet lately.

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“What’s interesting about the iPhone is [that] the capability of the device is tremendous,” he added. “We’re looking closely at it. There are a lot of people in IT who play around with it. So I wouldn’t say we have our heads in the sand. And as Apple catches up on the centralized management issues, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that we would replace BlackBerrys with iPhones, or add iPhones to the mix.”

I like the quote because it’s realistic. If you’re rolling thousands of these things out, then RIM is ahead of the curve in terms of manageability at this point. But, as he states, Apple is getting there. Someone with this attitude gives me hope that they’ll give the iPhone a fair review, keep an eye on it, and potentially roll it out as improvements dictate. With this kind of attitude, RIM should be worried.

On the other hand, there are still some backwoods folks, the kind RIM loves and hope to keep in its pocket forever:

“Frankly,” added a second, “some management in our organization think it’s more of a toy/gimmick thing because of the way it’s marketed.”

Ah, yes, the old “toy” argument. Just like a Mac was a “toy” 25 years ago. As if being fun, easy to use, and a major leap forward is a curse. Did they never consider that if a device is easy to use people will, you know, use it? Wouldn’t that be a benefit to their company? How short-sighted can a company get?

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When writing about Microsoft’s previous Laptop Hunters ad, I made the following plea:

So, Microsoft, I’m begging you to bring back Lauren #1. Give her the same $1,000 budget so she can easily rule out a Mac

In its newest ad, the company did reduce the budget (to $700), and I think this tack is its best bet.

The ad itself is unremarkable, but the “hunters” could easily rule out the Mac because of their budget. They didn’t have to invent ridiculous “excuses” that only make it clear they’re ill-informed. They simply had to point out there’s no Mac under a grand and be done with it.

It doesn’t mean they didn’t say stupid things (for example, I love it when he says “See how it just seems a lot more sturdy” when he’s not even holding the device). It’s especially stupid because having that line spoken while showing a silver PC reveals a massive case of “Unibody Envy.” And it doesn’t make the laptop they acquired any better. As I said about the original Lauren’s $700 choice:

Don’t kid yourself into thinking you got anything more than you paid for, or found some sort of computer bargain, or know some secret the rest of us aren’t clued in on. You asked for little, and that’s exactly what you got.

The point of using a low budget isn’t about the PC they get, it’s about avoiding comparing it to a Mac. Face it: When a valid comparison takes place, PCs frequently lose. It’s much better for Microsoft to avoid any comparison at all.

Want some additional advice, Microsoft? Run more of these sub-$1,000 ads. They tout low PC cost, get a shot at Apple, and yet avoid any direct comparison. It’s a win-win-win for you. Sure, the buyers get mediocre hardware, but what do you care? You’re selling software.

Oh, and bring back Lauren.

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I’m talking about Google’s brand-new (on paper) Chrome OS. Introduced only a day ago, I’m disappointed we didn’t get a comic book to describe to us simpletons how this will revolutionize our life. Because it’s from Google. So you can run the company’s services. And see its ads.

With all the talk about how this impacts Microsoft, Linux, Apple and hardware manufacturers, the most important participant is ignored: the consumer. We already knew netbooks were primarily a geek’s toy, at best mildly interesting to general consumers, until Windows became available on them. Suddenly, they became an even cheaper cheap laptop, and sold in the millions. That’s still their consumer image today, and still fuels their sales. Google says people are clamoring for a leaner base from which to just launch a web browser, but that’s exactly how netbooks began — with the Linux/Firefox combo already mentioned — and consumers didn’t go there.

Besides, if Google just wants a newer web experience, it could port Chrome to Linux and work with a Linux distro to strip it to run lean. There’s no reason whatsoever for Google to write its own OS if this is all it wants, especially given that its first OS hasn’t exactly taken the world by storm.

Since this is Google, there are numerous posts hailing Chrome OS and questioning how it will change everything. I’ve seen the Wayne Gretzky “puck” quote bandied about. It’s nice to talk about skating to where the puck will be — Steve Jobs used it, and Apple seems to get there. The problem is that Jobs usually knows the users’ end goal, and therefore does know where the puck will be. Others do not. In fact, they frequently don’t even know the puck is going to be in the rink, let alone near the net.

Here are some things to consider before we get too excited about Chrome OS:

• It’s vaporware. Over a year away? That’s a lifetime in this market.
• In timing the announcement near Windows 7′s RTM, Google may hope to stall potential netbook gains Windows 7 might garner for Microsoft (i.e., The “Google OS” is coming, let’s wait). A market-freeze-via-vapor-announcement is classic Microsoft, and though it’s amusing to see its own tactic used against the company, it doesn’t make it any better coming from Mountain View instead of Redmond.
• Given Google’s track record, we can expect to see it in a year (assuming it’s on time) with a beta tag for maybe two years.
• Will being “Google” be enough to push the masses (there are those pesky consumers again) into buying netbooks in droves like the availability of Windows did?
• Netbooks are a familiar and traditional form factor; there’s nothing really different there. Consumers have shown they want a familiar and traditional OS on them.
• The real creativity in operating systems today is in the smartphone world, and will require a non-traditional form factor — not a small laptop — to carry over into larger devices.

Finally, Google’s announcement implies a certain disdain for a traditional computer OS, like it’s something that only hinders launching Google’s browser to use Google’s stuff. Sorry, while my browser is one of the apps I run all the time, I have many others as well. The web is nowhere near ready to replace this. It hasn’t the ubiquity, it hasn’t the reliability, it hasn’t the diversity and it hasn’t the speed. The idea that in a year we’ll begin moving from OS’s providing great flexibility and numerous functions — of which using the web is just one — to some “all-web” OS is not analogous to skating to where the puck will be; it’s analogous to people who once thought flying cars were just around the corner.

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I’ve been playing with Fluent News on the iPhone for the last day, and consider it a fine first effort as a news reading app. However, when it comes to sharing the news stories you’re most interested in, it falls short.

Reading

On my iPhone’s first Home page, I have readers for the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and AP Mobile. I may very well be able to replace them all with Fluent News. It culls news from a myriad of sources’ mobile sites and aggregates them into its page views. By default, you see Top News, but are only two taps away from other categories (e.g., U.S. News, Business, Sports, etc.).

I’m impressed with the speed of the app, as it does most of its work in the background. I’m also impressed that it shows only one headline for a given major story, and then adds a button for “related” stories that lets you see other sources’ stories. This keeps the primary lists short, yet still allows you to see full coverage. And all from one app. It’s a very good idea, and for reading purposes is well implemented.

There’s an ad at the bottom of the first page of links, but instead of being stationary, it scrolls with the page, so the majority of the time you don’t see any ads when reviewing headlines. When you click on an article to read it, you see exactly what that particular source’s mobile news looks like. This means articles do not display consistently, but only because, say, the NYT mobile format does not look like CNN’s; it’s not a bug in the program. By grabbing these sources’ already-formatted data, it keeps things fast.

Finally, the data when pulled down is local to the phone, so you can read it even when not on a network (though of course you won’t pull in later data until connected). All in all, the reading experience on this thing is very good, and I like the idea of replacing several icons with just one on my Home page.

Sharing

So you’ve read a great story and want to share it with your friends/family/whatever. Fluent News allows this, but it falls down here. The app has ties to email, Twitter and Facebook.

For Twitter, go into settings and enter your account information. Then, when reading an article, click the Share button (you get all three choices) and click Twitter. What happens is that a tweet is composed for you, and all you can do is say OK or cancel. You don’t get to write the tweet, or modify it any way. Did you want to quote the article in your tweet, or shorten the URL? Too bad.

Clicking the email button transfers you to the email app. Here, at least, the pre-written text can be modified, but it leads to another issue with Fluent News’ sharing: Its article reader is “dead.” It’s a read-only environment. Click a link? It goes nowhere. Click and hold a picture to save it? Nope. Copy and paste? Nope. So even with an email there’s no way to quote from the article, or do anything else.

The above reader limitations wouldn’t be bad if the reader had a button to open the article directly in Safari, but for now it has no way to do so.

And the above isn’t even the worst part. I haven’t yet discussed the URL it sends. You might reasonably expect it to be a URL for the article you’re reading, but no. Instead, it’s a link to a Fluent News page that contains a link to the article you’re reading, and in some cases an ad for downloading the iPhone app (as if you only share articles with iPhone users).

Frankly, lots of people I share with are not going to get this. If they get an email saying this is a great article to read, and then click the link only to see a Fluent News page of links, they’re going to reply to me that I must have sent them the wrong URL because it isn’t the article I mentioned. I don’t see why Fluent News has to turn sharing a link into a page hit/ad for their site.

So how do I get around this?

1. Email the link to myself.
2. Click the link in the email.
3. Click the link on the resulting Fluent News web page.
4. Now I have the article in Safari, and can interact, email or Twitter as I normally would.

That’s quite a bit of extra work, but at least I know everyone will get a link that takes them directly to the article I’m raving about. Well, the mobile version of the article I’m raving about, which looks pretty weak in a desktop browser.

In some cases, the mobile page allows you to select the “normal” view, in which case that would be step 3.5 above. But in the example shown here, I don’t have the option.

Summary

If you don’t share lots of links, or are fine with pre-written text and a detour through a Fluent News web page to get to the article, or have no desire to interact with an article you’re reading, then none of this matters to you. For me, I’m using the reader, but will take the workaround above any time I decide to share a link, and hope Fluent News will save me a lot of trouble by adding a button to open the current article in Safari. And do it soon.

Fluent News is available in the App Store for free.

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Windows 7 pricing was made official not long ago, and the general consensus is that, despite a slight drop in Home Premium pricing compared to Vista, it’s too expensive.

Still, there are some in the Microsoft community that try to justify it by comparing it to Apple’s pricing for Mac OS X. Microsoft can never win this game. Heck, Microsoft never even gets in this game. And yet, you have folks like Ed Bott at ZDNet giving it a shot. Here’s his latest salvo:

In two recent posts… I took a closer look at the differences between Windows 7 editions and their counterparts from Apple.

That’s from the first sentence, and already the article is off to a misguided start. There are no “counterparts from Apple” to Windows’ OS Editions. Every Mac OS X sold is — to use Microsoft’s terminology — Ultimate. Let’s keep that point in mind.

In previous posts, Bott had taken some criticism because Apple offered a Family Pack, something Microsoft would not talk about for Windows 7. But now he thinks Microsoft has beat (or is at least competitive with) Apple there. He supplies a partial screenshot of the license agreement for Windows 7, and then clarifies it with this:

If you can’t read the screen shot, here’s the relevant section: “If you are a ‘Qualified Family Pack User’, you may install one copy of the software marked as ‘Family Pack’ on three computers in your household for use by people who reside there.”

Bott seems pretty excited about this. To his credit, I appreciate that he understands a Family Pack is not a particular luxury any more. There are simply too many households with multiple PCs. Microsoft is still silent on the issue, so Bott has to speculate:

I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that Microsoft prices the Family Pack at $189, which is $10 less than Apple’s Family Pack (although Apple’s license is good for five Macs in a single household).

I appreciate that Bott points out five licenses are greater than three. However, to do so parenthetically minimizes that five licenses is a lot more than three. It’s 66 percent more, to be precise. Based on Bott’s price guess, it means you’re getting two additional licenses for 10 bucks! I’d say italics and bold were called for more than parenthesis.

Further, Bott again ignores that Mac OS X licenses are Ultimate, not two notches below that in the form of Home Premium. (Bott’s tack regarding the whole Professional and Ultimate thing is to simply claim you don’t need them, doing so with a cheesy marketing checklist of cherry-picked OS “features”.)

The biggest fact Bott ignores — and I played along, because Apple wins anyway — is that Snow Leopard will be $29, and the Family Pack $49, for users of Apple’s current OS. Even if you’re using an older Mac OS, Apple offers a sweet deal via a boxed set containing Snow Leopard, iLife, and iWork for just $169. Throwing in the latest iLife and iWork is a major plus since Leopard and Snow Leopard have features the latest “i” versions can take advantage of.

Finally, the above great pricing is not “special,” or “pre-order,” or “limited time,” or “mail-in rebate,” it’s simply The Pricing.

I think it’s time to get Lauren and have a series of “OS Hunter” ads. “Hmm, this OS is $29 and contains all these great features, this one is $120 and is two steps down…”

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Hey, AT&T is a carrier, OK? They live and breath subscription models. So I don’t blame them for bringing their Navigator GPS app to the iPhone in the same manner as they do their other GPS phones. Still, no thanks.

It’s not just the subscription model, but the maps aren’t even local to the iPhone. If I’m in the middle of nowhere, can we assume that maybe I won’t have a carrier signal sufficient to get me out of there? Bad enough I have to hope for the GPS signal, but being dependent on the vagaries of a carrier’s signal in the boonies is a risk I should be able to avoid. I want my maps with me, not in the cloud somewhere.

This is what I want from a turn-by-turn app:

• Purchase outright (no subscription)
• Allow for in-app purchase of new or updated maps, but don’t require them, and don’t hard sell it. I see no reason to upgrade maps more than maybe once a year.
• Maps downloaded and local on the iPhone.
• Reasonably priced

The latter is obviously up for debate, as we all have opinions on what’s “reasonable.” Tom Tom did not discuss pricing when they demoed their app. However, one can get a relatively cheap Tom Tom device for perhaps $100. I want their app to turn the iPhone into such a device, but I should not have to pay for the hardware again. I do realize good software is worthing paying for, so I’m not expecting a 99-cent, or $10, or even $20 app. I can understand it’s worth more than that.

For me, if it’s in the $40-$50 range — and assuming it gets good reviews — I’d snap it up without hesitation. My enthusiasm will wane rapidly after that, and if it approaches the $99 mark, I believe they’re pricing it like a standalone device even though they’ve saved the cost of hardware. In other words, a rip-off.

This is especially true since Tom Tom showed a hardware accessory that will hold the iPhone, boost its GPS signal, charge it, and allow hands-free communication. This looks like a great add-on, but is all the more reason the iPhone app itself should not approach the price of a self-contained unit.

Tom Tom, in my opinion, has a chance to make a killing here by being first to market with the kind of GPS app a lot of people are looking for. I hope the bean counters don’t try to take advantage and price themselves out of it.

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Keep in mind that neither company guaranteed I’d get the phone on Friday, June 19. They used wording that certainly implied it, but they were pretty careful to cover themselves in case they couldn’t make it. Fair enough.

So, it’s been a few days since then, and tomorrow is the big day. How are they doing?

Apple

Despite concerns I had before, they seem on top of it. I received an email Thursday morning:

It looks like I’m all set for Friday. I’m also thinking my concern about their ability to handle my AT&T Family Plan account may be less well-founded, though of course I have no way of knowing unless I show up.

Still, Apple’s ready for me, which is a nice thing to know.

AT&T

As of noon PT Thursday, the status was identical to what it’s been since I ordered a week ago. The entire order was “In Progess.”

There are only four possible statuses (stati?), but one of them is “Canceled” and another is “Partially Shipped” (impossible since I only ordered one thing), so I’m looking for “Shipped.” Bummer.

However, checking back much later in the day (17:30 PT), I see a change.

Status is “Shipped!” I have a ship date of today, and a carrier of FedEx. No tracking number, but still, it looks a lot better. I assume AT&T is not shipping from China, as Apple does, but rather from one of their own stores more or less locally. Therefore an overnight FedEx shipment today could easily arrive by tomorrow.

I’d sure like to see a tracking number, and I’ll keep checking tonight, but we might just have a horse race here, folks.

To be continued…

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Apple’s recent tech note regarding third parties using iTunes’ syncing has caused plenty of discussion. Should Apple “break” the Pre’s ability to sync as an iPod? Why would Cupertino do this? The comments across the web vary in their opinions, so I’ll throw mine in here as well.

First, it’s no secret what I think of Palm’s decision to hack its way into iTunes as an iPod. I also believe Apple should put a stop to it. But in a broader view, this isn’t just about Palm or the Pre.

Let’s look at the three most common positions in this debate.

Apple hates competition

There are those who think Apple “breaking” the Pre’s ability to sync is because Apple doesn’t want competition. This is the view I have the least patience with, and disagree with the most.

I have no idea how these people define “competition,” but I fail to see how any reasonable definition could possibly include not writing your own software, and instead hacking into someone else’s. The whole competition angle is a red herring, in my opinion. It has nothing to do with that.

Grin and bear it

There are those who think Apple doesn’t have to like it, but shouldn’t waste the time or resources to put a stop to it.

Fair enough, I suppose, and if a large effort were required, there may be some value in this. But the details I’ve read seem to indicate the time needed would be pretty small. Seems to me it could be easily rolled into the next iTunes update and, with a new OS and iPhone model coming out now, the next bug fix release is likely to be pretty soon.

Close the hole that’s being hacked

And there are those, like me, who think Apple should close the “loophole” that allows Palm to do this in the first place. I touched on why I think this before, but here’s a summary:

• While third-party players can use iTunes (as a mass storage device), and many of them do, the “sync” capability is a differentiating feature Apple wrote and provides to iPods only. Common sense would suggest it’s Apple’s to allow (or not) for other devices. Palm’s feigned surprise is disingenuous at best. Obviously Palm know it’s a great feature or it wouldn’t have hacked the software in the first place.
• The idea that someone can trick iTunes into being an iPod never came up before. One could argue it’s a hole in iTunes that needs to be closed.
• Apple will get calls for support if this is not stopped and there are issues with Pre syncing. I would argue that the release note was more a preventative measure (though futile) against that than it was any specific warning to Palm, because no such warning should be required when a third party hacks your software — it ought be understood.

But there is another reason, one even more important than the others. Until now, no one exploited the hole because they didn’t know about it. Palm had the advantage of lots of ex-Apple talent, so it knew just what to do. Good for Palm, but now that it’s shown the smartphone world how to pull this off, what’s to stop others from doing it as well?

In other words, forget the Pre, or even Palm. There’s an exposure for iTunes here that could have BlackBerrys, LGs, Nokias, etc. all passing themselves off as iPods. Again, the obvious question to me is that, having learned there’s this hole in iTunes, Apple should take steps to close it. An iPod can be an iPod, and the rest can be, well, the rest. If they want seamless syncing, they can write their own software to do it.

I have no idea what Apple will do here. I’ve already stated I think the tech note is less a warning and more a preemptive “CYA,” but a company that prides itself on customer service will not want to continually refer Pre owners to a tech note. To me, that’s a short-term thing. Ultimately Apple needs to close that iTunes hole.

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I’m already on record saying that I think AT&T’s upgrade pricing for iPhone 3G owners is not only comparable to the industry, but maybe even a little better.

Despite what could already be considered reasonable terms, AT&T has responded to the complaints by shortening the contract duration for 3G owners to be eligible for the full subsidy:

We’re now pleased to offer our iPhone 3G customers who are upgrade eligible in July, August or September 2009 our best upgrade pricing, beginning Thursday, June 18.

This means you can get a full subsidy having used the iPhone 3G for as little as nine months out of a 24-month contract. There’s a FAQ about the changes, and also a video. Nicely done, AT&T.

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