John Lamansky

Why? Why has the iPhone been so successful? Why has an overpriced, under-featured gadget generated such excitement across the country, with people spending days waiting in line for a chance to spend $500-$600 for it?

After all, the iPhone does have a lot of limitations. As Wikipedia puts it:

iPhone lacks a number of common handheld features, including voice dialing, voice recording, instant messaging, memory card slot, MMS, A2DP (stereo bluetooth), common Bluetooth file transfer, GPS capability, text copy and paste, native games, and support for MP3 files as ringtones.

So what’s the reason?

Although the iPhone lacks much functionality, what the iPhone does do it does really, really well. The iPhone lacks many features common to other phones, but its feature set is sufficient for most people, and most importantly, it implements those features in a superior fashion.

Every product or feature has two conceptual components: the idea, and the implementation of the idea. Other phones may already have the same ideas, but with the iPhone Apple has really nailed the implementation.

And of course, Apple has done a fantastic job marketing this thing. They actually haven’t done a lot of marketing. Instead, they’ve used the consumer base to market the product for them. Everyone was talking about the iPhone. The media. Blogs. Podcasts. The iPhone was the coolest thing ever before it was even released. And as the release date approached, Apple leaked out additional details to keep the excitement going.

The whole campaign was very well done. The campaign was so successful, however, that in my opinion it does raise some concerns about society’s inordinate excitement about “stuff.”

But from a marketing standpoint, Apple has done a great job with the iPhone, even though the product itself isn’t the greatest. Though when a product has as many positive aspects as the iPhone, one is more likely to forgive or overlook the negative aspects.

What would be interesting to see is a technology product that is as close to perfect as possible in both the idea and the implementation, with a great feature set, great implementation of that feature set, and great marketing of that feature set. Who knows? Maybe in the future it’ll be something even more trivial than a cellphone.

Yep, I’ve decided that Kubrick just won’t cut it. The reason is that it isn’t “brandable.” So many sites have Kubrick that you can’t really tell them apart if you just look at the layout.

The reason I stuck with Kubrick in the first place was that I couldn’t find another theme I really liked. So I think what I’m going to do is design a new theme from scratch.

Of course, this will take a while, so keep an eye out for it in a couple of months.

I checked out Apple’s website recently and have noticed that they’ve replaced their generic anti-PC content with specifically anti-Vista propaganda. And I think there are a few things that need to be cleared up.

They say that Mac OS X is still the best OS, and then proceed to say why.

While Vista does its best to copy some features that have been in Mac OS X for years, Mac OS X offers an experience that is simply years ahead.

So what do they do after saying that? They go on to list features that Mac OS X has (all of which Vista has too) or will have in Leopard (all of which appeared in Vista first). Sounds a little turned-around to me.

Spotlight, for example, is always there to help you find that elusive file hiding somewhere in your computer. It shows search results literally as you type, in emails, contacts, PDFs, images, contacts, calendars, and applications.

Dashboard Widgets are small, focused applications for accomplishing discrete tasks (like tracking deliveries, checking the weather, playing Soduku, printing envelopes, reviewing your stock portfolio, etc.).

Based on what they said above, it’s clear that they’re trying to imply that Vista doesn’t have these features, which, of course, is totally false.

Unlike Vista, which comes in four distinct flavors at four distinct prices, each with its own distinct set of features (and each in 32- and 64-bit dialects), there’s only one Mac OS X. It runs on every Mac. With a full set of features.

OK, I do admit, Vista’s editions can be a bit confusing. However, it does ensure that you’re not paying extra for features you don’t really need.

But even as Vista falls short in features that have long been part of Mac OS X, it’s about to lag even farther behind. Because Mac OS X Leopard is right around the corner. And with it will come an even richer set of features to make using your Mac easier and more amazing.

This is where I start laughing, because all of these features have been in Windows for years.

With the new Time Machine, built into Mac OS X Leopard, you’ll be able to peer into any folder on your Mac and travel back in time to retrieve an earlier version of a document. It’s an all-new (and fantastically cool) take on data backup.

This four-year-old (at least) Windows feature has been around in Windows Server 2003 (and quite possibly earlier versions, though I don’t know for sure), and is now entering the consumer editions of Windows.

The Spaces feature allows you to create multiple desktops so that you can organize your workspace differently for different tasks. And that’s just scratching the surface.

Excuse me? This feature is a free Microsoft add-on to Windows XP … that’s right, it’s a five-year-old feature. Sure, so it’s not integrated in the OS, but this still sounds like a rip-off of Microsoft innovation.

The choice today is between an OS trying its best to catch up— or Mac OS X, which continues to lead the way.

Pah! I do respect the Mac OS X, but this “marketing” just seems to be deceitful propaganda designed to take advantage of people who don’t know the full feature set of Windows Vista and earlier versions.

Apple feels threatened. I can tell.

It seems like wherever you turn there are reviews of 2006 predictions, investigating what came true and what didn’t.

I’m going to do that also, but my predictions list is different because I made these predictions back in 2003 rather than at the beginning of the year. In 2003 I actually made a list of predictions spanning from late 2003 to 2075. So here are the 2006 predictions from that list, made four years ago by yours truly:

1. Floppy Drives will become obsolete.
This has certainly happened indeed!

2. PDAs will become obsolete in favor of multi-purpose cellphones.
Not quite, but we might be heading in that direction.

3. Robotics will be in almost all toys
Well, maybe not robotics, but certainly electronics!

4. 14.0 GHz proccessors will be available
Woah, maybe not: we’re still at 4 GHz. However, realize that this was written during an era of huge acceleration in the development of ever-greater processor speeds.

So I was right-on in some areas, close in others, and totally wrong in others. Sounds like a typical predictions list to me!

It’s 11:59 PM at the moment, at least in my time zone. Goodbye two-zero-zero-six!

…Oops, didn’t finish typing fast enough. It’s 2007! Happy New Year!

I am just amazed at the seeming absurdity shown by some people as they fight to be one of the first to own Sony’s new PlayStation 3 console. People sleeping in parking lots, coming an hour early so that they can get a ticket that gives them a chance to purchase the PS3, etc.

I just don’t get it: why spend all that time, effort, and energy when you can just walk into a store and purchase the thing a week later?

That’s how much trans fat there was in the popcorn that our family consumed last night while watching Star Wars Episode I. Gross.

It seems like popcorn is one of the most-overlooked foods when it comes to trans fat content. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems that there hasn’t been a push to get popcorn trans-fat-free, at least here in the United States. There should be, especially considering how it seems like popcorn is sold by the bucket-full at movie theaters.

I’ve been thinking about AMD’s purchase of ATI and what it might mean for us computer users.

The big thing that comes to mind limited buying options: I can easily forsee having to choose between AMD/ATI and Intel/nVidia when buying a new computer, instead of being able to mix-and-match your processor and graphics card vendors. If someone was buying a computer a year from now and wanted an AMD processor and an nVidia graphics card, they might be out of luck.

And I have no evidence to prove that this is a possibility; it’s just something that came to mind: wouldn’t it be so weird slash funny slash cool if Intel bought nVidia? I mean, really … that would make things very interesting indeed.

In the middle of the Browser Wars 2.0 between Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox, a new application war appears. But it’s not about browsers. It’s about podcatchers. And it seems that history is repeating itself.

We start off in 1994 in the browser world and 2004 in the podcasting world. At these times there existed Mosaic and iPodder, respectively. Mosaic later changed its name to Netscape because of legal disputes. In the same way, iPodder later changed its name to Juice because of legal disputes concerning the iPod trademarks.

Anyway, in the beginning both iPodder and Netscape were dominant. Everyone used them. Even though the user interfaces weren’t the greatest. I mean, you can’t even listen to podcasts from within iPodder, and to me Netscape’s interface looks really ugly. But who didn’t use iPodder for podcatching, and who didn’t use Netscape for Internet browsing?

Yes, there were some other programs. iPodderX (now Transistr) was the Opera of the podcatcher world. Both were commercial programs and both had a much smaller user base.

Then one day in June 2005, Apple became Microsoft. Just as Internet Explorer usage shot up after Microsoft bundled it into Windows in 1997, so did iTunes usage as a podcatcher shoot up after Apple incorporated podcatching into that program.

Why did this happen? The simple answer for both cases: hardware. Microsoft Windows could be used on the prevalent PC. iTunes was used with the iPod. Bundle IE with the popular Windows, and IE’s share skyrockets. Bundle podcatching with the popular iTunes, and up shoots iTunes usage for podcatching.

Now we’re in 1998 in the browser world, and late 2005 in the podcatching world. Who uses iPodder and Netscape anymore? iTunes and Internet Explorer have taken over.

iPodder development has branched off into other projects, such as the PodNova client. Netscape development had branched off into other projects, such as Nvu, the Mozilla Suite, and SeaMonkey.

We arrive at the year 2004 in the browser world and 2006 in the podcatching world. Firefox, a descendant of Netscape, has come on the scene, quickly eating away at Internet Explorer usage share. Now almost everyone’s talking about Firefox, and Microsoft has responded by kicking IE up a notch with the upcoming release of version 7.

But where’s the podcatcher that will become the next Firefox?

As I was thinking about this browser/podcatcher war coincidence, I was surprised at how my plans to build a podcatcher coincided with this repeating history. I was planning to make a podcatcher, which is currently codenamed “Salamander.” Hmm, an animal name, kinda like Firefox and Firebird. I wanted Salamander to be easy to use while having really cool features. Hmm, kinda like Firefox. I wanted Salamander to be the program that would eat away at the usage share of the dominating program (iTunes). Hmm, kinda like Firefox.

Will Salamander become the next Firefox? Time will tell. One little difference, though. Salamander does not have its roots in iPodder, in the way that Firefox has its roots in Netscape.

Oh, and iPodder did not start out as a paid program in the way Netscape did.

But besides those things and few other small differences, the history of 10 years ago has indeed repeated itself. And it just might continue to do so.

As you might know, I’ve tried Google AdSense on this blog several times before. For those who aren’t familiar with AdSense, it is a Google service that lets you put ads on your site (the same kind you see on Google search results). When people click ads on your site, you get a portion of the what the advertiser pays Google. Here’s an example:

I’m not sure how relevant the above ads will be, but every time that I’ve tried AdSense I’ve removed it because I have not been happy with what ads have been displayed.

For example, after I published the post Mr. Monopoly vs. The Deet, in which I described how some deet-containing bug spray ate the ink off my grandma’s Monopoly board, then my AdSense ads started showing advertisements for, guess what?, deet-containing bug spray.

About a month later I published a post called What is Bug Control?, in which I attempted to present a pun concerning the fact that a dead mosquito landed on the Ctrl key on my keyboard. But AdSense started showing ads for bug control, mosquito repellant, and pest removal. Even though my post contained the words “bug,” “mosquito,” and “control,” the ads displayed weren’t exactly relevant.

Then apparently, the AdSense algorithms saw the words “John” and “Catholic” and decided to put up an ad for John Kerry.

Frankly, that was the last straw. I removed those AdSense ads and haven’t put them back up since.

Until Google can increase the relevance of AdSense ads, or until I get enough traffic to the point that I’ll get clicks regardless of ad relevance, I probably won’t be trying to use AdSense again. Maybe lack of relevance is just a risk that advertisers have to take. But in addition, I didn’t get a single click throughout my entire site during the entire time I was displaying AdSense ads.

So in summary, I’ve decided that for now, AdSense for me doesn’t really make sense… or cents.