The Facebook Effect

I’ve been considering the privacy concerns raised by the new Facebook Friendship Pages after having read “The Facebook Effect.” It’s a history and analysis of Facebook written by technology reporter David Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick was able to interview most of the players in the development of Facebook, including founder Mark Zuckerberg, but the book isn’t your usual “authorized biography” puff piece. Kirkpatrick doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to the controversies and missteps that have surrounded the social network.

Kirkpatrick’s access to those at Facebook’s higher echelons leads him to some fascinating insights. It turns out that many of Facebook’s strengths, but also many of the controversies the network has found itself in, are directly related to Zuckerberg’s notion of “radical transparency,” which is nothing less than a society where individuals don’t put on a professional face for some people, and a personal face for others. In such a society, nothing (or at least very little) is private. For those of us who are older, andused to being able to compartmentalize our lives, “radical transparency” feels threatening. But there is evidence that younger people are comfortable in a world where everyone knows everything about everybody, like an old-time small town but on a global scale.

The book was written in the early months of 2010 and published in June, so it’s already falling behind the most recent events, but “The Facebook Effect” is still full of insights about how what started as a student website may be changing our society.

Take Control of iPhone Basics, iOS 4 Edition

Since I don’t always feel like thinking about the future of civilization, I’ve also been reading something a bit more down-to-earth: “Take Control of iPhone Basics“, by tech writer Karen G. Anderson.

Per the title, this books covers the basics, and if you’re an experienced iPhone user, much of its content will already be familiar. But if you’re thinking about getting an iPhone for someone as a holiday gift, this book will be a great accompaniment. In fact, you might want to get the book early, as the author includes a useful “Decide What to Buy” chapter that helps you select the model and accessories that are right for you.

For the novice, this book goes through how to use the phone in clear, friendly prose, explaining everything from the difference between a touch and a tap, to how to use the iPhone 4′s FaceTime. I was pleased to note that the author has has laid out the book so that it can be read in sequence, or used as a reference if you need help with a specific issue.

The PDF e-book version takes advantage of its medium, with embedded links to the publisher’s website, where the author publishes a blog, and where updates and alternative formats (including EPUB and MOBI) can be downloaded. The MOBI version works very well on my Kindle.

And oh, yes, I’m also re-reading Roger Zelazny’s “A Night in the Lonesome October,” which I do every year around this time. It’s a slightly macabre fantasy that’s told from the point of view of a dog who’s… well, I don’t want to give anything away, but this is a great book for getting me in the mood for Halloween.

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The iPod touch sales figures — it’s the most popular iPod ever for Apple — lend credence to our thought that traditional game powerhouses are facing vastly increased competition. By leveraging its popular mobile products and app store economy, Apple is opening the doors for game developers to target the 120 million current iOS devices in the market. Additionally, with a now-annual refresh cycle, iPod gaming devices are likely to gain new capabilities faster than competing handheld game hardware: a key advantage as developers try to further push the envelope for games.

That envelope is already getting pushed, based on today’s demo of Project Sword from Epic, a game coming soon for iOS devices. Aside from multiplayer matchups with two iPod touches and Game Center, Project Sword offers an immersive 3-D world due to use of the Unreal Engine. Apple’s A4 chip — now in the new iPod touches — handled the high-resolution game flawlessly on the new retina display of the device. Based on the demo, Apple’s handheld runs the Unreal Engine at least as well, if not better, than Nvidia’s (s nvda) Tegra 2 chip, which I saw first-hand earlier this year, and surpasses performance of any handheld I’ve seen yet.

Another company that might be worried by all this isn’t Sony or Nintendo though; it’s Microsoft and its hopes for Windows Phone 7. The new Microsoft mobile platform will leverage the huge Xbox Live user base for similar social gaming aspects, but as I watched Game Center and the software demo, I shook my head. I saw yet another example of Apple beating others by getting a new feature to market, even though, in this case, Microsoft had a lead in this space by a number of years. I’m not predicting the death of Xbox Live, Windows Phone 7 or competing handheld gaming platforms, for that matter. But the ability of Apple to out-maneuver companies in markets they initially established continues to be a key strength for Apple’s future. It’s a game that Apple continues to win.

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It’s easier to show stellar growth in the beginning of  a product cycle, but Android is nearly two years old. One could make the valid argument that Android really began to mature over the past year with Android 2.1, so from that standpoint, Google’s platform is still an infant when compared to iOS4, BlackBerry and other mobile operating systems. But the uptake of Android among handset-makers is another factor in such growth. Motorola’s Mobile Device division has swung from losses to profits on the back of Android, for example. And HTC — once primarily a Windows Mobile phone maker — embraced Android even as Microsoft’s mobile platform is undergoing a major facelift. The result? HTC revenues were up 66 percent in June from a year ago.

As hot a seller as Google Android phones are right now, its user base isn’t the most satisfied with their device. When surveying current Android device owners, Nielson found that 71 percent would buy an Android phone again. That sounds like a high loyalty rating, but it falls noticeably short when asking iPhone owners about their next handset — 89 percent are happy with iOS4 and plan to buy a future Apple handset.

Both the Android and iOS4 platforms still trail the 33 percent U.S. share held by Research in Motion’s BlackBerry devices, but for many, BlackBerry needs an overhaul. One half of the current BlackBerry owners surveyed don’t want another RIM device when it comes time to upgrade, but instead are looking at replacements running either Google’s or Apple’s mobile platform. Even with the top market share spot in the U.S., RIM share has been trending down because the current devices are seen as inferior when it comes to browsing or offering apps. That should change tomorrow as RIM is holding a press event where it is widely expected the company will debut its new BlackBerry 6 operating system and potentially new devices, such as a tablet.

Given that the U.S. currently has the largest smartphone user base — Canalys estimates 14.7 million smartphones were purchased in the U.S. last quarter — it’s easy to overlook the current king of smartphone sales globally: Nokia. In the second quarter of 2010, the Finnish phone-maker sold 23.8 million handsets. Nokia saw a 41 percent growth rate over the prior year’s second quarter sales, which sounds positive, but when compared to Android’s 886 percent gain, Nokia’s growth pales in comparison. The overall smartphone market is growing, which is lifting sales of nearly all. But some — like Android — are clearly growing far faster than others.

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Before the latest iPhone operating system arrived, the only choice in terms of iPhone security was to add a passcode to your device and ensure auto-lock was enabled. The passcode system, which is still in place, is a user-defined four digit number which, once entered correctly, allows a user access to a locked iPhone. For the majority of users this numeric-only passcode is a sufficient measure for keeping unwanted hands off your iPhone. Yet for those wanting a little more protection iOS 4′s new addition of a password feature can offer increased peace of mind.

Acting as a complimentary choice to the existing passcode system, setting up a more tricky alpha-numeric password is a breeze. As normal you will need to head into the Settings application and then select General. Once there you need to head into the Passcode Lock settings page, here you will see a new option titled ‘Simple Passcode’. With this option turned on, a simple four digit number passcode will be used, however if you turn it off the iPhone will present a full-keyboard, allowing a user to enter a more detailed password.

An alpha-numeric password can include letters, numbers and symbols, allowing for a far greater level of complexity and a harder iPhone to gain access too. As ever, in addition to the password system, the timer and erase data functions are still in place. Simple security!

Here are the details of the problem — which Apple says existed since the original iPhone — according to the Apple press release:

“Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.”

While the new stainless steel frame of the iPhone — which doubles as an antenna — may indeed be an improvement over prior designs, I see nothing in the press release indicating a software fix for a hardware problem. In other words, unless I’m misunderstanding the whole problem, the software fix will simply reflect a more accurate number of signal bars.

We’ll have to see what happens when the software update arrives — the iPhone 3G and 3GS will get the fix too — but my take: if you hold iPhone 4 in your left hand now have a problem with the signal today, you’ll still have it after the update. Unless you spend $29 on a stunning bumper, that is.

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Tablets Are Now Designed for Mobile Use

Having been around since before the turn of the century, slate computers aren’t new. But recent attempts were desktop-centric in terms of interface and design, requiring software shells for better usability. Trying to fit a desktop environment into mobile device has failed time and again, as the user experience doesn’t match the form factor — on a smaller touchscreen, apps must be optimized for size and be finger-friendly, for example. With the quickly maturing iOS4 and Android platforms now available, however, current and future tablets are actually usable by anyone — even a cat.

Low-Powered, High Performing Chips Are Available

Most tablets prior to the popular Apple iPad were based on x86 technology from Intel and the Windows OS, which only served to exacerbate the desktop environment issue. And it caused short run-times — my first 7-inch tablet, a Samsung Q1 from 2006 that I repeatedly upgraded, was lucky to run for 3.5 hours on a charge. That’s changed recently thanks to ARM-powered chips like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon and Apple’s own A4, the engine behind the iPad. And Intel has made great strides to reduce power consumption, so between now and 2015 we’ll see even better chip options for tablets, such as a dual-core Snapdragon CPU.

We’re Shifting to Task-Based Computing

As little as five years ago, many of us sat in front of a desktop or a laptop and stayed in the same applications all day long: perhaps a productivity suite, undoubtedly an email client and occasionally, a web browser. That mindset has changed dramatically and will continue to do so over the next few years. Today it’s all about mobile apps that handle bite-sized chunks of specific functionality — Apple alone has delivered more than 3 billion app downloads from its iTunes store. A tablet is well-suited to quick hits of functionality at various times.

Does all of this mean gloom and doom for traditional computing? No, I’m not suggesting that the desktop or laptop paradigm is going away, and neither is Forrester. In my lifetime, I expect there will always be specific use cases in which a traditional computer with mouse and keyboard are the best tool for the task. But with a tablet it’s just you interacting with your data, one little app at a time. More and more, that’s all a user really wants.

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Could we see iMovie or other iLife apps arrive for the iPad or even see iWork show up for the iPhone 4?

The Case for iWork on the iPhone

There’s quite a bit of evidence to support an eventual release of Pages, Keynote and Numbers on the iPhone. First, looking at Apple’s screenshots showcasing iOS 4, there is mention of a feature that allows attachments to be opened in a native application, if the application is installed. The example shown by Apple (the real image from Apple’s website is shown to the left) depicted opening a presentation in Keynote, but Keynote doesn’t exist on the iPhone just yet.

Another consideration is the iPhone 4 supports the Dock Connector to VGA cable and Apple actively promotes this as an accessory. While there’s potential for developers to make use of this, it seems more likely that this accessory serves the same purpose it does for the iPad — to output presentations to an attached projector. Does Apple really make its accessories for third parties or don’t they really have to serve a function for Apple first?

Yet another reason to believe that iWork is coming to the iPhone is support in iOS 4 for bluetooth keyboards. Sure, if you email all day on your iPhone, there may be a reason why you’d want an external keyboard. But don’t you think they have something a little bigger in mind? Like composing a document in Pages?

To learn more about using iWork, check out our iWork screencasts on TechUniversity (subscription required).

The Case for iLife on the iPad

First, while iMovie for the iPhone looks to be phenomenal, there’s clearly not a need for it on the iPad yet because the iPad doesn’t have a built-in camera. But that super-fast A4 chip and large display just seems to be screaming to edit some video.

Here’s some more evidence. The iPad Camera Connection kit supports more than just photos. If your camera also records video, they will copy into your camera roll on the iPad. Guess what? If you record video now on your iPhone 3GS, it goes into the your camera roll. That’s where iMovie for the iPhone searches for source footage to edit. There’s two logical conclusions that I draw from this. The first is that it should be possible to use the same connection kit on the iPhone 4 as a means to get additional video onto the device (though we won’t know for sure until the device ships). The second thought, and most important, is that we already have a method to get video clips onto the iPad, so why not allow us to edit them? The technology is already in place and with Apple pushing towards universal binaries to allow iPhone and iPad apps to share a same codebase, it’s not as hard as you’d think for them to port the app over to the iPad.

As an aside, when I refer to this app as iMovie for the iPhone, the “for the iPhone” emphasis is my own. Look around on Apple’s website and you’ll notice that when they refer to the app itself, it’s just iMovie, just like Pages, Keynote and Numbers.

What about the potential for other iLife applications? The Photos app already lets you see your photos by Faces and Places. While the current Connection Kit just imports into an album, the next logical step would be for the iPad to crunch away and tag your photos with existing people and locations that it recognizes. In terms of editing your photos, this seems like a no-brainer as well. Considering the fairly limited editing functionality built into iPhoto ’09, it seems that it wouldn’t be too difficult to add that functionality into the iPad, especially considering the nature of finger input and how this would be a very natural way to touch up a photo.

In the areas of GarageBand and iWeb, well these are a bit harder of a sell. Certainly there’s plenty of argument for the success of music-related apps and the iPad is a great platform for this. When these types of apps are successful, Apple wants to get in on that action. iWeb is probably the least likely of these, but who knows?

With such a large screen and Apple’s push towards these devices paving the way towards a future of new ways to interact with technology, I feel we’ve only seen the beginning of what’s to come. When the original iPhone launched, everyone oohed and ahhed but the device was rather simplistic. It had some fancy features, sure, but the real power wasn’t tapped until developers started creating apps for it. Of course, Apple contributed its own plethora of apps and feature updates as well. The iPad still exists in this space but that’s starting to change with new apps and whenever we may finally see iOS 4 for the iPad.

To learn more about using iLife, check out our iLife screencasts on TechUniversity (subscription required).

Some of this may be speculation, but there’s also some evidence that point to some surprises Apple may have up its sleeve. Remember Steve’s quote… for a device to exist between the iPhone and the laptop and be successful, it’s “going to have to be far better at some key tasks. They’re going to have to be far better than the laptop and better than the smartphone.” Steve even listed off what those key tasks were, including photos, video and music. So what do you think? Share your thoughts!