Tis the season for mobile device firmware updates.
Here’s the links for ROM updates for the Microsoft Windows Mobile based Axim X50 Pocket PC and Motorola MPx220 Smartphone.
I mentioned the
Treo 650 Updater 1.12 adds dial-up networking over Bluetooth for Sprint PCS users
a few days ago (the updater for unlocked Treo 650 GSM devices is available now too).
Here are the links for ROM updates for the two mobile devices I carry everyday.

Dell Axim X50/X50v A04 ROM update

Motorola MPx220 1.430 ROM update

It looks like the Motorola download page only works when using Internet Explorer.
I couldn’t download the update file using Firefox.
I reviewed the Motorola MPx220 Smartphone earlier this year in the article:
On the Go with the Motorola MPx220 Camera Phone.
I’m not looking forward to updating the ROMs of my two main mobile devices…especially since this requires re-installing applications and probably going through the tedious process of rebuilding IMAP4 email configurations on the devices. Wish me luck over the upcoming long (US) holiday weekend.
If you note any fireworks coming from my direction, it probably means I bricked one or both devices during the upgrade (sigh).

Any other recent Mobile Device firmware upgrades that we should know about? Mention them here.

Related link: https://www.apple.com/podcasting

Well, as widely predicted, iTunes 4.9 (released today) includes support for podcast subscription and management.

Given that the iPod gave the podcasting phenomenon its name in the first place, it’s a clever move on Apple’s part to embrace it. Some might argue that Apple is attempting to commercialize podcasting, or at least create a public perception of ‘ownership’ of the technology.

Several telling comments have already been made by various reviewers.

Here at O’Reilly, Elizabeth Freeman summed up her quick review of iTunes 4.9 with the words: “I really like that I no longer have to use a separate application to manage my podcasts.”

Exactly. That’s going to be hugely appealing to anyone who already listens to any of Apple’s pre-selected podcasts and likes to do so with an iPod. The introduction of this feature in iTunes means people in that bracket are going to be drawn away from any third-party podcast management tool and towards iTunes.

Another comment comes from Edd Dumbill, in his appraisal of Apple’s use of certain RSS extensions in the podcasts section of the iTunes Music Store: “What could have been a useful and reusable addition to the world of RSS is really rendered only fit for the single use of adding content into Apple’s own iTunes store. Apple prove they know how to be cool, but they’ve got no idea about making friends on the web.”

Edd’s right. They’re expanding the scope of the iTunes Music Store. Why? What benefit does Apple get from doing this?

I suspect the answer lies partly in how podcasts have been integrated in iTunes.

Not as a playlist, not as a plug-in like an iPod device, but as a subsection of the iTunes Music Store.

I think Apple has seen a bright future for the podcasting concept (whether or not it will still be called ‘podcasting’ in future is another question entirely), as a means for professional radio to undergo rebirth and amateur radio to explode from the underground and into the mainstream.

Right now, podcasts are free to listen to, but this will change very soon. Popular podcasters will start to ask listeners to pay a fee. A small one per broadcast, of course, but a fee nonetheless.

If, by that stage, iTunes has become the leading software for distribution and user management of podcasts, it will be a natural next step for those fees to be paid via the iTunes Music Store. And every time you load up another issue of the Daily Source Code or Mommycast, it’ll be another few cents in Apple’s bank account. Ker-ching!

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My new Mac mini’s Displays preference panel allows me to spin the display through 90, 180 or 270 degrees. Here’s what it looks like at 90 degree spin on my Mitsubishi Diamond Pro monitor:

This feature is not enabled on all Macs. On some (Power Macs, some PowerBooks, Mac minis), it is visible by default. On other machines, a hidden command makes it available. On most older or low-spec machines, it simply isn’t available and won’t work. It all depends on video cards.

Much of the discussion I’ve seen about this feature on the web has been restricted to how cool it is.

There’s no doubt it’s cool, but I want to know why it is there in the first place.

Maybe: Apple wants to cater for users who own swivel-capable monitors that can display vertically. Or, Apple plans to announce a new series of displays that all have a new, swivel-enabled stand out of the box.

But there’s something about this that bothers me. For some time now, Apple has been pushing hardware and software that maximizes use of horizontal space. Quicktime, iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, the Dock - all are designed, by default, to stretch out sideways. That’s why they look so great on a 30 inch Cinema display. It’s also why the smart people put their Dock on one side of the screen, because vertical space is at a premium and by moving the Dock to one side, they can reclaim a few precious pixels at the bottom of the screen.

Rotating the screen to a vertical position throws all this stuff out the window. Luxuriant sidelong apps suddenly look cramped and uninviting. But apps related to reading and writing start to work better.

So maybe it’s something else. Maybe Apple is working on an unannounced device in which a rotated screen makes sense - some kind of tablet or laptop with a swivel screen; something that could be held casually in one hand and used in situations where people want to read, and write.

Anyone got any better reasons?

Some time ago, my esteemed O’Reilly colleague David Battino wrote an informative and entertaining review of the Olympus DS-2 digital recorder which inspired me to find out more.

I had already made public my wish for a recorder about the size of an iPod shuffle and David’s article set my head spinning in new directions.

After some swift research I settled on the Olympus WS-200s and Olympus very kindly offered to loan me one to try out.

The WS-200s is a very tiny machine, not much bigger than an iPod shuffle. It’s easy to put into any pocket, even a shirt pocket. I found it fitted well into a side pocket in my camera bag, perfect for toting around.

It’s very much representative of a new approach in digital recorder design, an approach I’m pleased to see the manufacturers considering.

There’s no messing about with docks and cables. Like an iPod shuffle, the WS-200 plugs directly into a USB port and shows up on your desktop. Importing audio files is just drag-and-drop.

It records in WMA format, but EasyWMA is a simple (and free) way of converting the files to MP3 (or WAV, if you’re so inclined).

Powered by a single AAA battery, I used the device pretty solidly for a week and it showed no sign of weakening. The built-in 128MB of Flash memory is sufficient for over 4 hours of recordings at the highest quality setting, and I saw no need to use any of the lower bitrate settings.

What I liked most about this device was the simplicity and portability. It was something I could take anywhere and everywhere without any second thoughts, just throw it in a bag or shove it in a pocket and get going. It talks very happily to Mac OS X 10.4, with no need for drivers or additional software. Plug and play, kids.

The documentation makes no mention of this, but you can even use it as a flash-based drive for storing and transporting files from one computer to another. Audio recordings are kept inside five pre-determined folders, but you can add files at the root level and the WS-200 carries on working happily.

The quality of recordings was good, across a variety of conditions - quiet speech, lone voice singing, and standing in the middle of a crowded street festival. Choral singing distorted the mic at some points, but use of a better microphone might solve that.

Indeed that’s the only thing I’d suggest people do if they’re buying this recorder. It’s so sensitive that the built-in mic picks up the gentlest of finger movements on the body of the device — in other words, your gentle press of the Stop button creates an ugly muffled scratch right at the end of your recording.

I’m planning to purchase a WS-200s of my own just as soon as I can, but I shall probably investigate some small external microphones too, just to get over that minor problem.

Got any digital recorder tips of your own?

The folks at Smarthome, Inc are out beating the drums for their Insteon automation system, and James Coates of the Chicago Tribune has his reaction. As he says, the larger command space is nice, but it’s really the promise of greater reliability that could make it catch on. I’ve never thought of describing X10’s problem as being one of “limited range” but I think James’ use of that phrase as a summation is probably good enough for most people. The reality is a bit more complex, but not enough to matter, especially when discussing what makes Insteon attractive by contrast.

See also Insteon is real.

Related link: https://vocaro.com/trevor/treo-dun/

According to
Trevor Harmon, the
Treo 650 Updater 1.12 for Sprint PCS
users adds Dial-up Networking support over Bluetooth.
He provides a full description of the process on his web site and provides the following summary:

With the release of the Treo 650 Updater 1.12, dial-up networking over Bluetooth is now officially supported by Sprint. No longer must you install a hack; the DUN option is now available in the Treo’s Bluetooth preferences panel by default. All you have to do is turn it on! There is even a special icon that indicates when DUN is enabled. Thanks goes to Sprint for keeping their promises.

As a result, the portions of this document describing how to install Shadowmite’s hack are obsolete. You should ignore them and install the 1.12 update instead.

I don’t use a Treo 650. So, let us know if you’ve applied this updater and how it works for you.

I’m happy to have stumbled across Axel Bauer’s isightcapture utility. It’s a quick little command-line app that can grab a frame from your camera, and do some basic sizing and file format manipulations.

If you drop by the archives of any home automation discussion group (such as the XTension list) you’ll find a lot of not-so-simple approaches to this seemingly basic task. While there are some fine webcam utilities for the Mac, if all you need is a simple snapshot, most of them are overkill. And it’s yet another app to have running, keep updated, and so on.

So I’ve been experimenting with using Bauer’s isightcapture, driven by a Python script periodically executed by XTension, to keep an eye on my dog while I’m out of the house. So far, so good.

Like Scott McNulty, I’ve taken delivery of a shiny new Mac mini this week, and I’m also in the process of tweaking it to my liking, which means a lot of installing and messing about with bookmarks, web site login details, and preference panels.

Setting this machine up is more interesting, even more challenging, than I had expected. I deliberately did not use the Migration Assistant to import everything over from my old iBook, because I want to use this machine differently and organize the files on it in different ways.

Also, I want to try and keep it a ‘clean’ as possible; I’ve still got the iBook for messing around with. The Mac mini is going to be for long-term storage, music and photos, and other things best suited to a G4 processor. I intend to look after it.

What I’ve noticed over the last few hours of downloading and installing is how much I had become a creature of habit on my iBook. Having the new machine offers a chance to change my ways and break out from some routines.

Another noticeable thing: the Mac mini remains cool to touch after several hours of intensive disk-thrashing. A laptop would be burning up the table by now.

Finally, a story that demonstrates the power of the mini’s cute size:

Around mid-afternoon, a neighbour called round to collect something I’d borrowed, and asked about the tiny cardboard box open on the kitchen worktop.

“Another one of your gadgets, Giles?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I replied, “it’s my new computer.”

My neighbour’s eyes boggled.

“You can get a whole computer in a box that small?” he asked.

“Come and see,” I smirked, and showed him the new Mac mini in the next room. I pointed at the tiny box and said: “There. That’s the computer.”

I don’t think my neighbour will mind me describing his expression at that moment as one of dumbfounded astonishment.

“But - but - my computer’s only three months old and it’s - it’s much bigger than that. It comes up to here,” he added, putting a flat hand against his knee.

I smirked again.

“Yes. Small, isn’t it?”

Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together?

Related link: https://roadcasting.org/

If podcasting has become so five minutes ago for you, you might want to wander over to https://roadcasting.org/ to learn about what they describe as collaborative mobile radio.
This intersection of anonymous social audio networking and wireless technology is shooting for a 2010 release date according to their web site information.
Their description of the project is:

It is a system, currently in prototype state, that allows anyone to have their own radio station, broadcasted among wirelessly capable devices, some in cars, in an ad-hoc wireless network. The system can become aware of individual preferences and is able to choose songs and podcasts that people want to hear, on their own devices and car stereos and in devices and car stereos around them.

Sounds interesting.
But, what I really want is a wireless car-to-car communication system that warns me of too-slow or too-aggressive drivers during my morning commute :-)

What’s next for automobile-based social wireless networking? :-)

While listening to a podcast of an
IT Converstations
interview with Tim O’Reilly,
I heard him mention that the OReilly.com website is the first listing on Google when you search for the single letter O (I thought it would be Ogasawara :-).
So, what are the rest of the single alphabet character first listngs?
The list is posted below for your to peruse.
Many of the first listings are NYSE stock ticker symbols.
A couple of co-first listings occur because Google provides a non-web-linked first hit for some mathematical constants.
And, there are a few amusing web sites in the lists too.
As an added bonus, I searched for the first listings based on the single digit numerals 0 through 9.
Enjoy!

• A
  Aligent Technologies


• B
  B’Tselem


• C
  Citigroup and also the constant for the speed of light


• D
  Dominion Resources Inc.


• E
  E! Online and also the mathematical constant e


• F
  Ford Motor Co.
  
• G
  Glillette Co.


• H
  H-Net and also Planck’s constant
  
• I
  iTools


• J
  Jennifer Lopez


• K
  Kellog Co. and also the Boltzmann constant


• L
  Liberty Media


• M
  Texas A&M


• N
  Inco Ltd.


• O
  O’Reilly Media Inc.


• P
  Pflag


• Q
  Qwest


• R
  The R Project for Statistical Computing
  
• S
  McDonald’s


• T
  AT&T


• U
  University of Minnesota, Twin Cities


• V
  V-Day


• W
  President George W. Bush (WhiteHouse.Gov site)


• X
  United States Steel


• Y
  Yahoo! Messenger


• Z
  Z Communications

• 0
  Business 2.0


• 1
  Mozilla.org


• 2
  Shrek 2


• 3
  Three (a UK based mobile phone company)


• 4
  Channel4.com


• 5
  The Macromedia Flash download page


• 6
  Apple Quicktime download page


• 7
  Opera.com (web browser)


• 8
  Super 8 Motels, Inc.


• 9
  MichaelMoore.com

Post your favorite Google first hits based on oddball searches here.

Related link: https://www.techweb.com/wire/ebiz/164301597

CMP Techweb reports on the J.D. Powers U.S. mobile phone provider customer service rankings.
The relatively tiny T-Mobile USA scored the highest while two of the three largest providers (Cingular and Sprint PCS) scored at the bottom of the rankings.

1. T-Mobile, 108
   
2. Verizon Wireless, 104
   
3. Nextel, 103
   
4. AllTel, 100
   
5. Cingular, 95
   
6. Sprint PCS, 93
   

But, in an age when customer service seems to be going out of style (or at least not frequently found), does it matter anymore?
Some industry analysts tell us that only three large mobile phone service providers will survive going forward.
Sprint PCS has already bought Nextel.
So, the list above shrinks from 6 to 5.
So, who’s going to disappear in the next mega-merger?
And, what will happen to customer service then?

Who’s will be bought out next? T-Mobile USA or AllTel?

Don Hunt, writing for the Chicago Tribune, says that the promise of the last 10 years–a single, simple consumer-friendly home automation system–might actually be realized.

He’s referring to Z-Wave, a wireless method for controlling lights, appliances, and the like. I have to agree that Z-Wave is compelling, I’ve begun using it around my house, and its speed and reliability is much better than any real-world alternative.

But in order to have a chance, Z-Wave needs broader software support, easy-to-buy modules, and the technology must be built into common appliances. The latter was never achieved by X10, even some 25 years after its invention, so it might be too much to hope for. But without integration, it seems that home automation might always be doomed to the geek fringe and tinkerers.

My version of Christmas morning these days is when I open my mailbox or RSS reader and discover that someone in the open source world has solved a nagging software problem. My latest joy was delivered by emonkid who created the EX_M4S2 QuickTime Component under the GNU license. This piece of software enables a beautiful union between my Mac and the amazing Casio EX-P505 hybrid camera.

I fell for this camera at this year’s PMA show and bought one as soon as it was available. In my review of the EX-P505, I discussed a cobbled work around for Mac users to deal with the amazing, but stand-offish M4S2 Codec. Casio uses this codec to capture full frame, full motion video (that is only a notch below DV) on a standard SD card in their digital cameras.

The problem was that my default player, QuickTime, could not decode the video component. This destroyed my workflow. I catalog my movies in iPhoto 5 (which uses QuickTime to play them) and use QT editing tools to build my movies. Thank goodness for ffmpegX and the VLC Media Player that allowed me to work with my movies at all.

OK, fast forward to earlier this week. emonkid posted a talkback to my Casio EX-P505 review notifying us of his QuickTime component. I checked it out right away, and after a bit of testing, found it to work beautifully. I wrote him to thank him for his efforts.

He replied that 3 months ago he had bought a Mac mini. It was his first Macintosh. Then his old digicam broke, so he bought a CASIO EX-Z750. At first he didn’t have any problems because he knew that he could play M4S2 movies by using MPlayer or VLC on his Mac. But then he realized that he couldn’t use iPhoto to manage his video.

So he built his first QuickTime component referring to sample code on Apple’s site with help from the FFmpeg (libavcodec) that’s included in MPlayer (more open source goodness!). He said one of his biggest challenges was to change the component into a bundle and attach an icon.

If you’re using the M4S2 codec with Casio cameras on a Mac, visit emonkid’s site and grab his QuickTime component. Be sure to drop him a line and thank him too. He wants to work on other projects, so maybe you can help.

This software is the missing link that connects a great camera to Mac OS X, QuickTime, iPhoto, Final Cut, and more. And it was created by an independent developer who embraces open source ideals.

I love listening to NPR. When I would commute to/from work at O’Reilly, I’d have my car radio tuned to the local NPR station so I could get traffic info, hear the latest news, and more. But now that I work from home, my NPR listening habits have changed to when I’d make my morning coffee run (some habits die hard) or while running errands on the weekend (which I’d time appropriately so I could listen to Car Talk.

So, imagine my elation a few weeks ago when I saw there was a Dashboard widget (RabbitRadio) that would let you tune into a select few NPR stations. I think it took me about a millisecond to decide Rabbit Radio was a widget for me, and a few seconds later, the widget was downloaded and running on my Tiger system.

Except, there was one problem: I live in Portland, Oregon, and KOPB wasn’t included as one of the NPR stations you could listen to in Rabbit Radio. Bummed as I might be, it took a few more milliseconds for me to remember that Dashboard widgets are nothing more than HTML, JavaScript, and CSS, so I put my former web developer hat on and hacked on RabbitRadio to get it to do what I wanted.

For this project, you’ll need the following items:

• The RabbitRadio widget (download from the link above)
• A text editor, such as BBEdit, TextEdit (found in your Applications folder, or for you command-line junkies, vi.
• A URL for the audio stream for the radio station you’re wanting to listen to.

This isn’t rocket science folks, and it’s really simple, so here goes…

1. In the Finder, select your Home folder and go to Library > Widgets. This is the folder where all of the widgets you’ve downloaded are installed on your Mac.
2. Select the Rabbit Radio widget (it’s named RabbitRadio.wdgt).
3. Hit Return; this makes the name of the RabbitRadio.wdgt file editable. Hit the left arrow key and then hit the Delete key to remove the .wdgt file extension. Hit Return again and the Widget file turns into a folder. Now you can access the resource files for the Rabbit Radio widget.
4. Double-click on the RabbitRadio folder to open it up in the Finder (or if you use the Finder’s Column View, just select the folder and you’ll see all its contents in the pane to the right).
5. In that folder, you’ll see a file named RabbitRadio.html. You’ll want to open this file in your text editor of choice. You can do this by Control-clicking on the file and selecting Open With > and then select your text editor. For me, I use BBEdit (because it’s software that doesn’t suck!).
6. Scroll down in the document until you find a block of code that looks like the following:

   

7. Now copy the following line and paste another copy of it into the file:

   
   stationList.push(new Station(’KQED’, ‘West’, ‘QT’, ‘https://www.kqed.org/w/streamingfiles/kqed_qt.mov’));
   

   As you can see, this identifies the station name (KQED) and provides a link to the live streaming feed from that station.

8. Before I can insert the link into the HTML file, I need to get the URL for KOPB’s live feed, so I went to Oregon Public Broadcasting’s web page, clicked on their “Listen Live” graphic, and right at the top of the next page was a set of links for “Live Radio Stream (MP3)”. Perfect! Just what I’m looking for.
9. Control-click on the link that says “Stream for iTunes, Quicktime, Winamp or Real Audio Player”, and then select Copy Link from the context menu that appears. This copies the URL for KOPB’s live feed to the pasteboard (which, of course, means you can paste it into something else…hmmm…I wonder what that could be…)
10. Now go back to your text editor to the line you copied and pasted earlier. Select the text for KQED and replace it with KOPB.
11. Next, select the URL for KQED’s feed, and then hit Command-V to paste in the URL for KOPB’s feed. That line should look like this:

    
    stationList.push(new Station(’KOPB’, ‘West’, ‘QT’, ‘https://www.opb.org/programs/streams/stream-radio.pls’));
    

12. Hit Command-S to save the changes you’ve made to the file, and then quit your text editor.
13. Now go back to the Finder window and select the RabbitRadio folder (remember, you changed it into a folder).
14. Hit Return so you can edit the name of the folder.
15. Hit the Right Arrow key to move the cursor to the end of the folder’s name and type in .wdgt and hit Return. You’ll see an alert dialog box, asking if you really want to add that extension to the file. Of course you do, so click the Add button.

After clicking the Add button, the RabbitRadio folder changes back to its normal widget self. Now when you open the Dashboard, check the back of RabbitRadio’s interface and you’ll see KOPB listed in the pop-up that lists all the stations.

What’s great about this is that you don’t just have to add NPR stations to the list. If your favorite local radio station offers a live feed over the Internet, you can add that feed to RabbitRadio as well. So, go on, mix it up. Hack on those widgets, it’s just code.

What do you think of Dashboard and the widgets? Have you hacked on any? Created some? Let us know what you’ve been up to.

On my last trip, I found myself digitally isolated because neither my Smartphone nor my Smart Watch worked in Japan and none of the three hotels I stayed in had broadband connectitivy (see
Japan Primer for the Mac Techno-Tourist).

My trip last week was confined to North America (the US and Canada) were everything was available including WiFi in the 2nd hotel I stayed at.
However, the pace of vacation activities left me with just enough time to dump digital photos to the hard disk and burn a CD-RW disc before turning in for the night (I thought vacations were supposed to be restful! :-).
Fortunately, I was able to steal a moment or two during the day to check news, weather, and email on my Microsoft Windows Mobile based Motorola MPx220 Smartphone
(see my review of it here…
On the Go with the Motorola MPx220 Camera Phone)
and a Suunto N3 Smart Watch based on the Microsoft SPOT technology that piggy-backs on radio stations’ airwaves to provide oneway data transmission.

The Suunto N3 Smart Watch proved more useful away from home since I lacked the usual familiar news sources on the road. It automatically switched to time zones after picking up the local radio station’s signal.
Then, local weather, news, and even movie theater names and schedules became available to me as the relatively low-speed data transmission filled my watch with data.
I watched the watch pick up data in Los Angeles and Anaheim California as well as Vancouver and Whistler British Columbia.
The MPx220 Smartphone was my main email and web tool.
I’m too lazy to hunt and peck or use T9 to answer email.
So, I ended up recording voice responses to email and then attaching them to the reply email messages.

It was great to be able to keep up with a few things while wandering around last week.

Have any digital vacation tips? Share them here…

Two thoughts that occurred to me as I read through the Universal Binary Programming Guidelines (PDF, 1.5 MB) for making Mac apps that run on PowerPC and x86-based Macs:

• Will Rosetta increase the viability of G3-based Macs? Rosetta translates PowerPC code into x86 code at runtime, in cases where the code hasn’t been recompiled for MacIntel. From the docs:

  Rosetta is designed to translate currently shipping applications that run on a PowerPC with a G3
  processor and that are built for Mac OS X.

  When you read the list of things Rosetta can’t run, you start to see the point:

  Code written specifically for AltiVec
  Applications that require a G4 or G5 processor

  It makes sense of course - the x86’s don’t have AltiVec, and neither does a G3.

  Apple doesn’t make a G3 computer anymore, having migrated the iBook to G4 last year. But there are lots of G3’s out there. Since that’s the baseline for Rosetta, and since AltiVec optimizations are now looking like something of a white elephant, will users get more life out of their G3’s?

  I’m actually betting not - Apple has been pretty blunt in using the OS upgrade as a means of driving hardware sales. Tiger has a seemingly arbitrary requirement that your machine have built-in FireWire, an interface that Apple seemed to be walking away from with the new iPods. But it’s a clear way to push the first few generations of iMacs and iBooks to obsolescence. It’s as if Apple thinks the right lifespan for a consumer machine is about 5 years, 6 or 7 for a pro machine. So while Rosetta may support G3’s, we’ll see if Leopard does.

• Doesn’t the adoption of PowerPC by two of the three new game consoles (XBox 360 and Revolution) prove that it’s competitive? I’d argue the opposite - that the PowerPC’s adoption by consoles may have dug its grave on the desktop.

  Think about it: there’s no need to improve the PPC used by the consoles once they ship. There’s no megahertz race between different revs of a console. In fact, making any change at all is inherently risky and offers little reward. At most, a revised CPU might be able to run cooler (e.g., the “slim” PlayStation 2 redesign), but any more significant changes to a system’s specs or architecture tend to be disastrous (e.g., 32X, Coleco Adam, etc.)

  So imagine you’re IBM. You’ve just signed contracts to supply millions of PowerPC CPU’s over the next few years, with no incentive to change them in any way except hopefully to make them cheaper over the life of the consoles. That’s not going to drive much R&D.

  Now imagine you’re Apple. Think of the “road-map” Steve was talking about. It may have looked like this:

  2005	3.0 GHz
  2006	3.0 GHz
  2007	3.0 GHz
  2008	3.0 GHz

  Good roadmap for a console. Bad roadmap for Mac.

What other unintended consequences are lurking out there?

Late last night (UK time) I set about contacting a number of OS X developers, asking them for their initial thoughts on the switch to Intel chips.

Because I wanted them to be honest and speak from the heart, I offered them the chance to be quoted anonymously if they wished. Not one who has responded so far has taken up that offer; to their credit, all the individuals who responded were happy to be quoted by name.

Broadly speaking, the response is positive, although several respondents had concerns about the future.

First up, here’s what Eric Boehnisch-Volkmann of Devon Technologies had to say:

For us and our users it means basically — nothing much. We will have to update a few parts of our applications that are optimized to take advantage of byte orders, but this will take no longer than a week or two when the new compilers work as promised. For most of our smaller applications such as EasyFind, it will most supposedly be just a click on a switch in Xcode.

[The switch to Intel is] a logical step when IBM is not a reliable partner any more. We think that the switch to x86 processor — and so basically PC hardware — is a great move towards competitive Macs but also brings extremely high risks. What happens if some hackers develop a patch to make Mac OS X run on standard PC hardware? Apple depends on its hardware sales and this could drop into nothing when people buy standard PCs to run Mac OS X.

Personally, we don’t like the x86 architecture and believe that the PowerPC platform is/was the superior processor architecture. On the other hand, using standard hardware will bring a series of advantages: cheaper Macs, better compatibility to third party extensions from the PC market, Virtual PC running at full speed (important for all of us who have to work with one or two Windows-only applications) and a common PC platform for all operating systems, to name just a few. But, to be honest, we are completely unsure if this is a sunrise or sunset for Apple and the Mac platform. It could even be both.

David Watanabe, creator of NewsFire, said he’s happy with Apple’s decision, not least because his apps should be pretty simple to re-compile for Intel:

I’m entirely supportive of the move. I’m exclusively a Cocoa developer and have zero PowerPC dependent code, so all I need to do is recompile my apps. I imagine life will be harder for those who have legacy code to deal with, and I can understand how they might be upset by this. For me, though, anything that helps move the platform forward and expand the user base (which I presume is behind this strategic shift) is great news for me. I’m delighted with the news.

Here’s what Brent Simmons of Ranchero said:

My first thought that was that this is a Very Good Thing for selling
Macs. When the average person compares an Intel machine to a Mac, he or
she notes that the Intel machine runs at 3 Ghz and the Mac runs at 2
Ghz. So the “faster” machines wins. Never mind all the marketing about
how it’s like comparing apples and oranges, never mind the explanations
about how the PowerPC is a superior processor and so clock speed doesn’t
matter — that stuff doesn’t really penetrate.

My second thought was to be glad I’m a Cocoa programmer. Doing a
universal binary that works on Intel shouldn’t be much trouble. Sure, it
adds a little to testing, but it’s probably not as big an issue as
supporting multiple versions of OS X (which we do).

My third thought is that I have some questions. Could I buy a Dell and
run OS X on it? Could I buy a Mac and dual-boot with Windows?

My final (for now) thought is this: I’m glad I don’t have to hear
Mac-on-Intel rumors ever again!

Gus Mueller, developer of VooDooPad at Flying Meat made a good point; that Apple needs to communicate with customers and developers better and clearer than ever before:

My very first reaction was: oh crap. But after watchings some demos, I think it will be ok, and probably good in the long run. They are also a lot further along with it than I figured they would be. Quicktime, the Finder — everything in the the keynote today just worked. That’s amazing to me. Rosetta will be a godsend as well.

The only thing that worries me is that people/customers will get scared. Apple has to do some marketing magic here, and get their reps out there showing people these new boxes with Intel inside. If everyone could see what I’ve seen today, with how easy it is to port cocoa applications, I think everything will be ok.

Nobody I’ve really talked to seems freaked out - which is a good thing. But most everyone I know uses Cocoa, and nobody uses Metrowerks.

Steven Frank, of Panic, was pleased to see a way out of the IBM “dead-end”:

I’m not really worried about it from a technical standpoint. We’ve lived through the 68K to PowerPC transition, and the Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X transition. We’ve already migrated all our apps to Xcode, and all but one to Cocoa, so I don’t expect a lot of work to be required on our part. It should be substantially easier than the OS 9 to OS X transition.

It does feel like we (the Mac community) were at a bit of a dead-end with the IBM chips. The G5 gave performance a nice boost, but then things started lagging again. My gut feeling is this is a plan that’s good for the long term, although it’s going to cause a little pain up front. I think that’s as true for this transition as the last two.

If the net result is it moves more Macintoshes, that’s good for our business, and I’m all for it. I don’t really care what’s in the box as long as it runs Mac OS X well, and I think for the most part that will be the opinion of the casual end-user as well.

Personally, my top two concerns at this time are:

1. Is this announcement going to create an “Osborne effect” where Apple sales halt in anticipation of the new Intel-based Macs? Even if it does happen, Apple has a lot of cash, so I expect they should be able to ride it out.

2. How does Apple prevent Mac OS X from being hacked into running on budget PCs? Do they intend to try? Apple is primarily in the business of moving hardware, so this seems to me like the biggest threat to their bottom-line, yet also seems inevitable.

OmniGroup CEO Ken Case said the company’s history of developing for various processor types would come in useful:

We’re looking forward to the Intel switch: we already have experience with developing our applications for multiple CPU architectures (from our experience on the NeXT platform, where we simultaneously supported NeXT, Intel, HP, and SPARC processors) and it adds the benefit of more hardware options with only a little additional mental discipline.

By the way, our open source application frameworks still include support for the Intel processor, and may work without any changes at all.

The last word (for now, because this is by no means the last we shall hear on this subject) goes to Rich Siegel, founder of BareBones:

For developers who, like us, have been following Apple’s recommended best practices, we expect this transition to be a smooth one. If you’re building using Xcode and writing software using supported and documented APIs, we expect that the conversion and continued development of software to run on Intel-powered Macs to be a straightforward task.

By using Apple’s tool chain and adhering to the recommended best practices, we don’t anticipate any serious difficulty. We have every confidence that Apple will provide what we need, including answers to any technical questions that may arise, in order to ensure the smoothest possible transition.

Apple’s efforts are clearly intended to provide customers with the best personal computing experience, and from the business viewpoint they are clearly focused on growing the Mac market. As a longtime Mac-only developer, we consider this a very good thing, and we certainly don’t feel let down by this transition.

It’s natural to be cautious on the cusp of a transition as big as this one, but we’ve successfully led the way in making big transitions in the past (such as 680×0 to PowerPC, and of course Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X), so there’s not much in the way of angst.

These are just the responses I’ve had so far; I hope more developers will be in touch soon with their thoughts.

And you have any thoughts you’d like to add, you can add them here.

Here’s a shot I took before the booth opened. I don’t think you’ll see it looking so peaceful the rest of the week.

Do I even need a Mac any more? I can run OS X on my old PC now, right?
I know this is obvious but I think it’s important to stress the difference. Just because the chips inside the boxes are going to be made by Intel, it doesn’t mean that Apple is going to release a version of their OS that will run on any box with an Intel chip. I’ve no doubt it will be possible to wrestle OS X on to a standard PC, if you have the time and inclination, but it’ll be a labour of love.

What good reason is there for buying a PPC Mac now?
Well, if you want an up-to-date machine running OS X, it’s your only option. Some time around 2008, Apple will stop supporting it officially, so you might only get three years of ‘official’ life out of it. Three years is considered a reasonable life for many computers, especially laptops. It will probably continue to work for a lot longer than that, just without Apple support. No doubt macosxppchints.org, or something similar, is being registered as we speak. There will be a lively community of PPC Mac owners willing to share help and tips with one another.

But this will have to affect sales, won’t it?
Common sense suggests that, doesn’t it? It would seem only logical that sales of high-end machines, particularly, will slowly decline between now and the release of the new Intel-powered machines next year. Unless someone has an urgent need for dual G5 oomph right now, many are going to just sit it out. Personally, I’ve been planning to buy a G4 or G5 Mac for a couple of months now. I think I shall just go with a Mac mini, which should be sufficient to do what I need until next year.

I’ve been telling everyone I know how much Wintel sucks. Now I look like an idiot.
You and me both, sunshine. But relax. Grin, shrug, and admit what Steve Jobs has admitted: PPC architecture was great, but if people wanted newer, faster Macs in 2006 there was no other way of ensuring they could be manufactured. Those mythical 3GHz processors were taking too long, and Apple couldn’t afford to wait any longer.

So my G4 laptop has to last until 2006? Maybe even mid-2006? It’s going to feel like an antique by then!
Yup. Above all other Apple customers, you’re the kind that they really have to pay attention to now. Apple will have to work very hard to stop you from buying a Wintel laptop and running Windows or Ubuntu or something. But that hadn’t even occurred to you. Had it?

Intel will have a monopoly on the desktop.
Yeah, almost. Don’t forget AMD. As several folks have commented, the switch away from PPC gives Apple more freedom in the longer term, to use whatever chipset comes along. But I think it’s fair to say that, to the average (non-technically minded) consumer, it will seem as though every single computer for sale in the local mall will be using the same chip. Maybe people will start to wonder if there’s any difference at all. At that point they will (hopefully) compare OS X and Longhorn and make their choice based on the software.

What do developers think of this? I mean, really?
I’m trying to find out. I’ve been contacting lots of developers large and small to get an idea what they think about it all. I’ll report back when I have some responses. So far, they are broadly positive.

Note about the title of this post: here in the UK, we say ‘chips’ when we’re talking about fries. There’s a certain kind of cheap cafe, also called a ‘greasy spoon’, that serves chips with every item on the menu; hence the phrase, “Chips with everything.” My journalism teacher once told me a pun was no good if you had to explain it to the readers, but anyway…)

You’ve had a few hours to think. Feeling happy, or sad, or something else?

I had to step away from the reality distortion field that engulfed Moscone West and think about one of the biggest moves Apple has ever made. Switching from PowerPC to Intel is the heart transplant that makes the head spin.

OS X is the brains. And our suspicions were confirmed today that Apple’s brilliant OS has been running on Intel all along. To prove this point, Steve’s entire keynote demo had Intel inside.

I’ve got to hand it to Apple. They seem ready for this transition. Xcode 2.1 can compile the universal binaries right now that enable apps to run on both Intel and PowerPC processors. They have a developer kit ready to go for $1,000 that includes all the tools you’ll need to start developing for the next generation of Apple computers. The kit even includes an Intel-powered Mac. And as always, Steve’s arguments for the change were persuasive.

As I sit at my desk over a mile away from Moscone West, far enough away from the reality distortion field to digest this logically (I hope), I can’t help thinking that this is a good move. Mac users haven’t seen the 3 Ghz PowerMac or the G5 PowerBook that they’ve yearned for. What’s arguably the world’s best operating system deserves maximum horsepower.

What a year 2006 will be. We’ll not only see Longhorn running on Intel, but OS X too. Should I be thinking now about partitioning my hard drive?

That’s right, folks. In the words of a famous intergalactic travel guide: DON’T PANIC.

In a year from now, there will be Macs for sale with Intel inside. (Does that mean they will be forced to sport an ugly “Intel Inside” badge on their otherwise sleek and attractively designed cases? I doubt that Steve Jobs or Jonathan Ive would consider that for even a second. Have any recent Macs had any kind of IBM logo on their exterior?)

In two years from now, all new Macs will be running on Intel processors. (Does that mean you’ll be able to buy and install OS X on any Intel-based PC? Well, not officially. In fact, while it will no doubt be technically possible, I suspect it will remain very, very difficult for all but the geekiest geeks.)

During the next two years, anyone in the business of creating software for OS X will, at the very least, have to recompile their code to get it to run on the new Intel-based hardware. Even if they don’t, a translator called Rosetta will attempt to make PPC-designed code work transparently on the Intel chipset. Cross-platform ‘fat binaries’ will allow developers to create apps that run on either chip.

Anyone who thinks Apple is full of moles should think again, because there have been x86-based builds of every single OS X release for the last five years. They’ve been working on Rosetta and on the Intel transition kit for a long time. None of this stuff got leaked until the very last moment, when C|Net scooped us all last week. Even then, details were thin and speculation was allowed to go crazy over the weekend.

Apple’s been preparing for this for five years. That’s contingency, people. That’s planning ahead. That’s Steve Jobs all over.

Yes, there will be problems for sure. There’s bound to be fat binaries that won’t work on one, or both chipsets. There’s bound to be third-party hardware, software and hackery that goes haywire. There’s bound to be a lot of moaning and complaining, some of it justified.

Three thoughts lurking in my head this evening:

• Does this mean the current G4 laptop line gets no significant processing boost at all until next year?
• What does the “3.6 GHz Pentium 4 Mac” offered in the new developer kit look like? Is it just a Power Mac with different insides? Something completely different?
• No-one at Apple seems to have answered this question: “Why should I buy any Apple hardware between now and 2006?” Is a G4 or G5 worth the same sort of money now?
• I’m not worried. I’m not in any kind of panic. I’ve never felt any kind of loyalty to the chip, only to the computer as a whole. To my own surprise, I’m curious. I want see OS X for Intel at work. I can’t wait.

Go crazy, now’s as good a time as any

Related link: https://news.com.com/Apple+to+ditch+IBM%2C+switch+to+Intel+chips/2100-1006_3-5731…

news.com.com.com.com.com.com.com said it first, so they’re the ones wiping egg off their face if it’s wrong. But let’s assume that Steve comes out to the WWDC crowd on Monday and says “hey kids, you’re all writing Intel code now”.

Not… I repeat… not a problem. Not a cause to be “be surprised, amazed and concerned”, as the analyst in the news.com.com.com.com.com.com article says. Does it make sense? Jason Snell doesn’t think so. I’m more optimistic.

Everyone talks about Apple’s great transition from 680×0 to PowerPC in the 90’s and credits the remarkably stable 680×0 emulator. But have people already forgotten “fat binaries”? These were applications that contained both 680×0 and PowerPC code, so they could work on either architecture. Surely, with the well thought-out structure of the bundle, there’s a place for PowerPC code, and a place for x86 code. If XCode starts supporting cross-compilation for the two architectures on Monday, we could all be shipping compatible applications long before an x86-based Mac hits the market, and not even know it.

Consider this too: with the 680×0 to PowerPC transition, there were a lot of applications that were basically “done” - they were widely deployed but not undergoing active development. These had to be emulated, because they couldn’t/wouldn’t be recompiled. But widespread interest in Mac OS X only really picked up a few years ago with the launch of Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar)… a pretty short time for a codebase to be abandoned. It’s hard to think of anyone who’s shipped OS X apps and then dumped them. OK, Samsung printer drivers, but their stuff sucks anyways, and they won’t be missed. Anyways, my point being, the apps we all use are still under active development, and with cross-compilation tools made available early, it could be trivial to support a new architecture. It would obviously behoove Apple to see to it that this is the case.

And who said it had to be x86? Maybe it’s something else. If there’s an issue that I’m interested in seeing an answer for, it’s endianness: the Mac CPU’s have always been big-endian, x86 is little-endian. Or is it? Many modern processors are flexible about endianness (before G5, PowerPC’s could run little-endian too, which made VirtualPC work well until the G5), so maybe whatever goes in this new hardware will appear big-endian to the developer.

Who knows - maybe they’ll keep PowerPC in the portables, where its low heat and modest power consumption is a big win, and just use x86 in the desktops, where it has long since humiliated PowerPC’s performance. This strategy makes sense: with a processor-agnostic OS, Apple can further optimize hardware for the best user experience.

Blind optimism, or does fortune favor the bold?

Related link: https://news.com.com/Apple+to+ditch+IBM%2C+switch+to+Intel+chips/2100-1006_3-5731…

Now, I don’t want to go alarming people, but I think we may be coming up on a fairly large moment here. ZDNet is reporting that Apple will switch to Intel chips on Monday at WWDC. This is the sort of earthshaking news that caused one Slashdot reader to adequately describe the situation in the terms of Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and others:

Mayor: What do you mean, “biblical”?
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath-of-God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling.
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes…
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria.

Of course, when the original rumor hit the wires last month, John Gruber was there to take it all apart and look it in detail. His best argument, and perhaps the most compelling negative here is:

No, the obvious problem with this idea is marketing: the minute Apple announces they’re moving to x86 processors, sales of current hardware dry up. Who’s going to spend $3000 for a deprecated CPU architecture?

Apple is still a public company. Apple still needs to make money hand over fist. Apple wants to keep their stock price high. Personally, as a shareholder, I’m glad this is hitting on the weekend when the markets are closed, this is the sort of wacky story that would either cause my stock to plummet or skyrocket depending on how folks are interpretting the rumors.

If Apple does this, and doesn’t do it with such crystalline clarity that explains why people will continue to buy Apple CPUs over the next year until an Intel switch would occur, why Apple is making such a monumental leap over the Springfield Gorge on a skateboard, and the timing for such a decision, this is going to be a horrific event for Apple in the PR marketplace, on the floor of the stock exchange and in the hearts and minds of every Apple fanatic.

These are the times that try mens’ souls. Or, at least make you think a little harder than usual. Or something on that order. That being said, I trust Apple to do the right thing. They know they can’t get by entirely on iPods for a full business year until the new hardware is ready.

Intel? Big Blue? What’s your thinking?

Time’s short this week, so I won’t waste too much of your time with nonsense. (Oh wait, I just did.)

There’s a great Widget Development FAQ over at DashboardWidgets.com. If you’re just getting your nose wet with building Widgets for Tiger, you might want to bookmark this one.

Props to Chris O’Brien for sending along the link.

I received an email question from A.L. regarding Pocket Access databases on the Pocket PC. A.L. asks:

i have a little problem. I saw your articles and maybe you can help me. I need to develop a mobile pocket pc 2003 application
based on a access database. I need a datagrid to display record that are in a table in an access db but i can’t link the access db to
the datagrid. What can i do? i can only use access.

While this specific issue doesn’t turn up in my email often, the general topic area of working with Microsoft Access data on a Pocket PC does.
The response is:
The only thing you can bring over from Microsoft Access on the desktop to the Pocket PC are the tables in the database.
That’s it. No relations, no macros, no VBA, no datagrids, nothing else.
And, in fact, you are limited to 64K records (or at least was the last time I looked). So, if you have a larger database, you need to build and work with subsets.

The alternatives are to rebuild the appliction on the Pocket PC using either 3rd party databases that can work with the Pocket Access database files or Microsoft SQL Server CE (Windows CE).
Here are some resources to get you started:

• Pocket PC Access Database Alternatives (Missing Apps Part II)
  My blog on this topic from way back on June 20, 2003 has a list of 3rd party database applications for the Pocket PC.


• Microsoft SQL Server CE home
  

If you need more pointers to other desktop-to-Pocket PC application analogs, you can find them in my MobileViews QuickFAQ at:

Where Is It for the Pocket PC QuickFAQs?

Have any Microsoft Windows Mobile (Pocket PC and Smartphone) database recommendations? Let us know here…

While looking at an advertisement for a large computer manufacturer yesterday on my way to lunch, something struck me: I had not seen the logo at the bottom of the poster, barely had a chance to glance at the picture and yet my mind was already thinking “What has Panasonic came up with this time?”…

Was it a usual location for a Panasonic ad? Nope… A typically recognizable Panasonic device? Well, maybe for their fans but I had certainly never heard of that product… So, how come I could immediately spot that ad as a Panasonic ad?

A bit of research showed me that I actually lucked out that one time… My skills do not (yet?) go that far and I easily mix LG, Panasonic and the token NEC ad. However, I can almost always tell when I see an ad for an asian manufacturer — at least for those we see in Paris.

It seems that these companies love product shots. It is always a camera, a computer, a camcorder, at the center of the frame with, in the background, a barely recognizable person (or a very stereotypical one) that holds the product. European and American manufacturers on the other hand seem to sell the person more than the product — iPod ads always feature some cute looking guy or gal who happens to listen to an iPod, not an iPod that is being listened to by a person.

Note that I am not criticizing either style here. Both are legitimate, both can be beautiful and both can effectively sell a product. It is however interesting that, despite companies investing billions in marketing research every year to find out what appeals most to the «international» audiences and what, country-by-country, people are more responsive to, that one big divide stays… Actually, the fact that two groups with equal researching power can consider their own, radically different style to be the best one makes you wonder whether people do look a