Was it all the way back in 2002 that you guys first starting talking about the Digital Hub. That’s seven, count ‘em, years ago. When do you think we’ll see it come to fruition?
You have made steps, for sure, because we’ve got Macs, iPods, iPhones, Apple TV, and a monitor or two. That covers desktop and mobile computing.
There’s iLife and MobileMe to tie the hardware together giving us personal web site creation, photos, home movies, the ability to burn DVDs (those old fossils), and to share content with our family, friends, and the world on the Internet.
iTunes is a big part of the integration for music, movies, TV shows, podcasts and syncing to the other devices like iPods and Apple TV. In many ways, the features are targeted at making you more money than what’s best for your customers (don’t get me started on the 2G Shuffle and iTunes 8.1 fiasco).
It sure looks like you’ve got a hub strategy. Yet, you don’t promote the hub concept anymore. Is that because it would handcuff you into implementing features that would be detrimental to maximizing your profit margin?
Let’s talk about the rough edges and one huge group of people you’ve left out — family.
Rough stuff
Controls: [I was going to do a detailed analysis of the playback controls differences amongst all your various apps, but I had no idea what I was getting into, so this section is abbreviated to maintain my sanity. That's also an indication of what a mess things are in.]
Could you please get the design teams for QuickTime Player, iTunes, iPods, Front Row, iLife, Quick Look and Apple TV together and have them settle on a consistent means of controlling playback? Put them all in a room with lots of water and caffeinated drinks and then lock the door. No bathroom breaks until they deliver a seamless user experience across all your apps.
Note that I’m not going to talk that abomination, the 3rd generation Shuffle. The user interface designers for that thing should really find a source of higher quality drugs.
Quick Look
How about fast forward and rewind?
We can’t do that at all with Quick Look.
There doesn’t seem to be any way to use the keyboard in iTunes (no mention of it in Help either). We have to click and hold the on-screen fast forward button. But there’s no way to control the speed. Well, we can jump 5 seconds ahead by tapping or holding down the command-option-arrow keys. But, doing the same thing in iMovie results in the movie advancing frame-by-frame.
QuickTime Player is similar, although you do have a Jog/Shuttle control in the A/V window.
Front Row? We hold down the right and left arrow keys for a second to enable fast forward at one speed, hold down longer to go to medium, and longer still for highest speed. Or, we can get the lowest speed started, release the key and then press once or twice more to kick up to the medium and fast speeds. Apple TV is similar except you can only use the Apple Remote (or some other universal remote).
None of the above have audio even though VCRs from the ’70s could give us audio at the low speed fast forward. And none of them allow us to get into fast forward or rewind just by tapping a button.
iPod Touch? If we hold the fast forward button it accelerates the speed while playing audio. The audio is nice, but what if I don’t want the thing to get crazy fast? I have to release the button and hold it again to start the whole process over. How cumbersome is that?
I went to check out iMovie ’09 on my Power Mac G5, but it wanted to render thumbnails for 30 minutes before letting me do anything. I couldn’t even quit the app without force quitting. Hey guys, can I please remain in control of my computer?
So, I went to my MacBook where I’d done some other video editing. The only way I can find to fast forward or rewind is to drag the cursor over the thumbnails.
You know, it seemed like a good idea to illustrate the differences, but if I did that, it would require a very long blog posting of its own, so I’m going to cut it off here. You guys know how important consistency is in the user experience, yet you’ve allowed a high level of entropy to settle in and get deeply entrenched in your applications. We have to relearn the controls each time we hop from one device to the other.
In spite of the pain to the users who have mastered these idiotsyncrasies, you really need to strong-arm your own developers to fix this mess.
DVDs: DVD Player can play DVDs, but not Apple TV. DVD Player can also play Video_TS folders, but Front Row can’t, neither can Apple TV, and we can’t load them on to our iPods.
Still no Blu-ray support, even as an option. Steve said, “Blu-ray is just a bag of hurt. It’s great to watch the movies, but the licensing of the tech is so complex, we’re waiting till things settle down and Blu-ray takes off in the marketplace.”
Steve should know as I’m sure he was heavily involved in working through the iTunes music and video licensing worldwide. But ya know … I’m thinking that Steve has lost his influence if he can’t resolve Blu-ray licensing. Or is it that he, like many others, doesn’t believe there is a future for physical media distribution and that Blu-ray is too late?
I don’t care. It’s supposed to be all about what the customer wants, not what Steve wants. Darn, I spilled my grape Flavor-Aid.
No doubt the content providers are partially behind this disaster. I think I will have achieved Nirvana when I can understand why it is that content providers don’t want us to view their content.
I mean, what other business has a product for sale and doesn’t want you to use it? Do automotive manufacturers say only the buyer can ride in the car? Do bakeries say you can’t share a pie with your family and you have to eat it in the store? Do garden nurseries restrict you from growing flowers and then taking them over to your mother for Mother’s Day?
There can’t be any other business that says, “Don’t use our product that you’ve paid for.” Oh hell — yes there is — ISPs.
Remote access: iTunes can play music on the local speakers, to AirPort Express and Apple TV, but not other Macs. Unless I use something like AirFoil. But I can’t control music throughout the house from the host Mac. And forget about video.
The only way for other Macs to use content on another computer is to use Apple TV, iTunes sharing or Front Row. Only Apple TV keeps track of play counts and last position played, because it’s owned by the Mac. Other computers’ iTunes and Front Row apps are just sharing and don’t update the host’s metadata.
You can also use file sharing, but I find streaming that way is unreliable as there is inadequate buffering resulting in the video stuttering. It too doesn’t update the metadata.
Airtunes is cute, but there is no remote control of iTunes. That’s also true with Airfoil. Oops, I mean affordable remote control. You can use an expensive iPhone/Touch with your Remote application.
Sharing: iTunes can share music on the LAN, but not the WAN, even to myself. It’s my content now that I bought it. It can even be content I created, yet you won’t let me access it outside my home unless I use file sharing. But, that’s not integrated with the apps like iTunes or iPhoto. It’s disconnected content.
iPhoto has the same issue. Yet all of the photos in my library are mine and I should be able to access them remotely.
Oh, I can see you’re getting ready to tell me to just buy MobileMe. Why would I need to do that other than to give you more money? OS X is quite a capable network device that can even support VPNs, if you chose to make that possible. Yet, you’re putting your greed ahead of your customer’s needs.
Is the next thing you’ll be telling us is that we’ll need to buy an Apple camera to even get photos into iPhoto?
Media player: You really don’t have a media player concept. Your software is all over the map with QuickTime Player, DVD Player, iTunes, iPhoto, and Front Row. Have I left anything out?
Each has it’s own set of capabilities and limitations. None of them have DVR capability. Some share, others don’t. None of them provide or link to data like music lyrics, ratings and review sites, official band sites, lists of musicians or actors or writers or … well, you get the idea. You’re leaving so much potential untapped.
Remote control: I don’t want remote control. I don’t even want to know I’m at a different computer and have to set up all these different apps to connect to my home computer and make sure corresponding apps like iTunes and iPhoto are running remotely.
I want to walk up to a friend’s Mac, log in to my home computer, and my friend’s computer seamlessly transforms to become my computer in every way — with obvious restrictions. Other than screen size and speed of access, everything should be there.
You’re going to say, “Hey man, just use Back to my Mac and Screen Sharing.” But, you also know that that’s not the same thing as running apps locally using remote data. It’s much slower and I can’t get audio or video.
Much like Parallels and Fusion you can provide protected access between my home Mac and my friend’s Mac to facilitate sharing data.
iChat: iChat has too intensive requirements for A/V.
I was doing A/V at low frame rates in 1992 using CU-SeeMe. Don’t tell anyone as I don’t know if there’s a statute of limitations on this, but I used my Power Mac 7100/66av with a VCR tuner connected to the video inputs and a 128 kbit ISDN line to send the CBC coverage of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics to a Sun OS computer at work running a video reflector. At one time there were 15 people watching the Olympics at work. This was a technology demonstration inside Nortel. Unfortunately, they were a bit short-sighted when it comes to capitalizing on networking. Sad what’s happened to them.
Even great companies can slide into oblivion if they’re not paying attention. Are you paying attention?
So 13 years ago, using one of your computers, I was streaming audio and video to 15 people. And what do we have today — QTSS? Is that the best you can do? How many people reading this article have even heard of QuickTime Streaming Server?
We need something for mortals, like iChat. But only four people maximum on a conference and that requires these high-end requirements?
I don’t need 30 fps when talking to family and friends. Heck, an iPhone on 3G is vastly more powerful than the stuff I was using in the ’90′s and yet I still can’t do the things I was doing all those years ago.
You’ve lost your way.
Family and Friends
I’ve already discussed some of the limitations you have with your non-existent hub strategy as it pertains to sharing.
For content I’ve created, I should be able to share with family and friends. For content I’ve purchased, I should at least be able to share with family and certainly with myself no matter where I am or what device I’m using.
I can’t share iTunes managed content with family iPods unless they’re all synced to one computer. Like that’s going to happen. My wife, daughter, and I have wildly different tastes in music except where it comes to things like Christmas classics. Well, I do like some of my daughter’s music, which amuses her to no end.
Why can’t I have a media server that holds all our content and that we can load into our computers or iPods when we leave the home? And if we need to, why can’t we access that content while on the road?
Why can’t I let my friends preview clips from my purchased content?
Your support site is flooded with people trying to figure out how to share and manage a single copy of media and other data with iTunes, iPhoto, iCal, and Address Book. Yet, you provide no integrated solution.
We need a media server that manages all content for a family. Each family member can mark which content they are interested in and have separate resume points, play counts, ratings, last played time, etc. Deleting content wouldn’t happen until everyone marked it as no longer needed.
The media server should serve content securely to us anywhere in the world.
Shared events and to-dos in iCal, that my family can update, and shared Address Book entries are missing. As much as I dislike Now X and its predecessors, Now Up-to-Date and Now Contact, they are still far ahead of what you provide for sharing.
Rumour has it that the next OS X Server will have better iCal and Address Book sharing. That’s a business solution, not a family solution.
Maybe you should bring social media concepts in-house and let our family members and friends comment on our playlists, or suggest their own. We should be able to comment and discuss and link to other material. We should be able to suggest movie trailers or music tracks (yes, on the iTunes Store would be acceptable, but we shouldn’t be handcuffed.)
It’s not like all my family, including my immediate family, are in the same room. That’s why we need Facebook-like capabilities.
Where’s the excitement?
No, there is no hubbub about the hub, bub. Your digital hub strategy seems to have been derailed years ago and no work crew is patching the rails.
There’s no excitement lately about your product offerings. Well, in my house at least. You know, it’s sad — no, pathetic — that people are getting excited about iPhone OS 3.0 and Copy/Cut/Paste.
Maybe it is time for some new visionary blood inside your company. I think the current people are sick, tired or burned out.
I’m being more than a little selfish when I say I hope you find your way.
