Post Category → Apple & Tech

How pretty is *your* iTunes library?

I am more-than-averagely obsessive about my iTunes library. And yet, this is what most of it looks like. Ever see those pictures of ancient relics being restored in museums, when they’ll have exactly six pieces of some ancient textile and try to somehow fill in the gaps? It’s kinda like that.

Assuming I am more diligent about matching graphics with my albums than most people — and assuming most people acquire their music the way I did, rather than buying it exclusively through iTunes or Amazon — then it stands to reason that most iTunes libraries in the world look like this, or worse.

Kinda depressing, somehow.

And All That You Hear: Mastered for iTunes

Apple announced today a new service or product or category or something called Mastered for iTunes. You can see the thing for yourself in iTunes at this link courtesy of The Mac Observer; here is the description from Apple if you don’t want to bother reading it there:

Mastered for iTunes means these albums have been specially tuned for higher fidelity sound on your computer, stereo, and all Apple devices. Browse a range of music across all genres below, and keep checking back as we add more music that is mastered specifically for iTunes.

What this means is anyone’s guess, at least until people prod Apple for details and if Apple deigns to respond. Most likely they’re just compressing the tracks to make them sound louder and punchier. This would make them sound worse rather than better, especially on an iMac or a pair of pack-in iPod earbuds, but that does seem to be where modern tastes have landed us. I don’t suppose I will ever know, as I’m not going to re-buy any of my (relative few) iTunes purchases to compare old and new versions.

What caught my eye was the categories of music available in this new format. You have your Jazz, your Classical and whatnot. And then you have this:

Tastes come and go, but any format meant to appeal to serious audiophiles has to have the Floyd catalog. One day, music players may be able to stream music directly into our brains, leveraging the mind’s extraordinary sensory powers to make you feel as though you are within and surrounded by the music, inhabiting it in every fiber of your being, every nerve ending ablaze with it. And no one will buy it until you can play Dark Side of the Moon in it.

Edited the title to improve the Floyd reference. I can’t believe I got that wrong.

You Say Goodbye, and I Say Hello: Steve Jobs Resigns

If you’re an Apple fan, an Apple user or just a technology enthusiast in general, there is only one story today: Steve Jobs is stepping down as CEO of Apple.

This is not to say he is leaving Apple. He is continuing on as Chairman of the Board, so it seems reasonable to assume he will still exert considerable direct influence on Apple’s products and overall direction. That face-saving news probably helped insulate Apple’s stock from the bad news. As of this writing, it has taken a five-percent hit, much less than the cataclysm many predicted would befall Apple should Jobs have died, quit or otherwise left the company abruptly.

Apart from sadness and a vague sense of unease or disquiet, I have these thoughts on hearing this news.

Whatever health issues Jobs has been dealing with, he has not been able to overcome them. Jobs must have reached a point where he and his doctors realized his recovery would make no more significant progress. It is possible (and I certainly hope) that Jobs has many years ahead of him in which to contribute to Apple and to enjoy life with his family and friends. However, it is just as possible — and knowing Jobs’ concern for his privacy, not at all unlikely — that there may be more bad news about Steve Jobs ahead, and that it will come sooner than anyone wants to accept. I take no pleasure in thinking that. But I do think it.

In a sense, we are about to see the ultimate test of Jobs as a businessman and leader. How well has he inculcated his values and expectations into Apple’s culture? How well, in other words, has he enabled it to continue as though he were still there? The answer to this question will not be apparent for some time; Jobs will, as noted, continue to be involved with Apple, and it will take months or even years for the efforts he has overseen to come to fruition. That will not, alas, stop the tech pundits from clucking over Apple’s “loss of vision” at the first post-Jobs bump in the road to come along. For example, if the iPhone 4’s “Antenna-gate” issue had happened at a post-Jobs Apple, no one would skip a beat before denouncing the scandal as the inevitable result of Apple adrift in the leadership vacuum left by its departed visionary: “This would never have happened if Steve had been there.” There’s going to be a lot of bullshit like this in the months ahead, I’m afraid.

But it is true that, at some distant point, people will look at Apple and have to decide, as well as they can, whether the company they see is truly living up to its founder’s standards, or whether it shows the first signs of an inevitable decline. Apple could easily remain unassailable with no input at all from Jobs for at least three years, and probably closer to five. By then, the tech landscape may have shifted sufficiently to allow a smaller, faster competitor to undermine Apple’s dominance or to establish a new computing paradigm ahead of it. This is going to happen eventually; it’s just a matter of when. The only real question is: will it happen sufficiently far in the future that no one can reasonably blame it on Jobs’ absence? Indeed, could Apple remain dominant for so long that Jobs himself one day becomes a hazily remembered, almost mythic figure like Henry Ford, with no direct associations with any of Apple’s then-current products?

I think it could happen. If it does, that will be the true confirmation of Steve Jobs’ genius. He would not have merely started Apple. He would not have merely rebuilt it from a teetering computer company into the world’s most valuable technology company, capable of redefining entire markets at a stroke. He would have given it a soul, and not just a soul but his soul — the one thing even some of his greatest admirers were convinced he could not do. He would have achieved a kind of immortality: a cluster of dedicated people who absorbed his ways of thinking and distilled them into an essence that can be taught and passed on after he was gone. If he succeeds in this, then there is no telling how long Apple could remain in its present dominant position. Jobs came back to Apple 15 years ago. What could Apple be in another 15 years? It could come back down to earth, become just another successful purveyor of computers, gadgets and lifestyle accessories. Or it could be something that no one today can see, an integral part of industries we haven’t yet imagined. We might even one day call it the most powerful and innovative company that has ever been — greater than U.S. Steel, greater than Ford, greater than AT&T or Microsoft — a company so ingrained in our lives that it literally has no precedent.

Knowing what little I do about Steve Jobs, I am guessing that is the legacy he strives for. Will he succeed? I wouldn’t bet against him. How amazing it is to think that for all Jobs has accomplished, today really only marks a new beginning.

My New iPod. (Please, Apple?)

My New iPod. (Please, Apple?)

Recently my 160 GB iPod classic began showing signs of advanced age. I would fully charge it, play it a bit, leave it to the side for a day and return to find the battery nearly depleted, sometimes so low it wouldn’t turn on. I began to think it was time, that this device had finally reached the point where it could be allowed to retire gracefully.

I bought this iPod, my third, shortly after the “classic” designation was first introduced. I was thrilled: this was the first iPod large enough to hold the entirety of my music collection, freeing me from the burden of curating playlists and trying to second-guess what my tastes would be on a given day. (I have largely re-assumed this burden with my 32 GB iPhone, but that is another matter.) It did not trouble me at the time that, merely by calling its former flagship product a “classic,” Apple was signaling that the iPod’s glory days as a music device were behind it. A classic is something beyond the need for evolution or change, something that provides the same pleasures over and over, something — if I may get momentarily pretentious — more associated with memories than hopes.

So, back to my ailing iPod classic. I had some extra money and, what’s more, an impeccable justification for replacing my current model. Except I dragged my feet. I looked at the refurbished models on the Apple website and noted with approval that I could save quite a bit of money buying used. Gradually it dawned on me that I didn’t want to buy a new iPod. Not because of sentimental attachment to the current one — though I love Apple technology, the devices themselves are completely fungible to me, and I have no hesitation in dumping my current object of affection for something new and improved. The problem is that the current iPod classic really isn’t improved from the model I bought in 2008. Today’s classic supports Genius playlists and … I’m not really sure what else. There is certainly no difference of any substance. I can’t think of another Apple product so little improved over so long a time. But then, why improve a “classic”?

I see the logic. Apple is about iOS devices: the iPad, the iPhone and its bastard offspring, the iPod touch. The iOS platform is Apple’s chance to directly influence the evolution of an entire new computing paradigm, in a way they didn’t quite do with the Macintosh. They’d be crazy not to put all of their eggs in that basket. And let’s face it: mp3 players are so five years ago. Continue reading →

Party like it’s 1995: the launch of Windows 7

Most of you reading this are probably old enough to remember the launch of Windows 95, even if that event, which took place a scant 14 years ago, seems to belong to another era. It is probably the most widely mainstream manifestation of techno-lust ever witnessed. Stories were legion of people queueing for midnight sales outside of CompUSAs, or wherever the hell people bought their software back then, or having Windows 95 barbecues and just generally getting all giddy about having a Windows that was actually usable. Probably a lot of the stories were made up, but it didn’t seem to matter; for the most part, they felt true. Hordes of people — hundreds of thousands, maybe millions — felt they were getting something new that was going to tangibly make their lives better. That doesn’t happen too often.

Anyway, whether you remember this or not, Microsoft certainly does. Every succeeding version of Windows has launched with an enormous fanfare, an attempt to demonstrate by sheer willpower that Windows is still very much a Big Deal. It’s kind of absurd when you think about it: retail sales of Windows represent only a trickle of the software’s vast currents of revenue. Most Windows installations are licensed to businesses or to computer manufacturers, and most consumers encounter a new Windows version either at work or when they bring home a new machine. It seems silly to expend so much time and money and hope — for these extravaganzas reek of a desire to impress, to delight, to awe — in order to market something that most people are simply going to buy, or otherwise acquire, anyway.

I tend to shy away from comparing Microsoft to the Borg or whatever other evil totalitarian entity strikes your fancy. But it’s hard not to look at a Windows product launch as one would look at, say, the annual pageant given on the birthday of some dictator in a banana republic. It is not enough for Microsoft to dominate, to be the single greatest presence in most people’s computing lives. They want you to love them, too. In Microsoft’s case, the desire is exacerbated by the fact that, for a time, people really did love them — back in 1995, when everyone lined up to buy what is still remembered as the most important consumer software upgrade ever.

Images of khaki-clad guys firing up the Weber must still be playing in Microsoft’s collective head, lo these many years later. How else to explain the company’s strategy for launching Windows 7? Its idea is to encourage people to host software parties, like Tupperware parties except that, presumably, the attendees will include men. Take a look at this, if you can get through it:

I frankly couldn’t. Blandness on that scale is almost beyond parody. I can’t watch that without thinking about those poor actors, hard-working folks no doubt, grateful for a shot at any high-profile gig, reading the script the night before, wondering how in god’s name to inject any kind of humanity or genuine feeling into something so anodyne. Their hearts must have sank anew on arriving at the set and seeing what appears to be a wall-mounted oven straight out of the Brady house. The only thing missing from the scene is Beaver, trotting in to grab a cookie and talk about how he can’t wait to install Windows 7 so he can use it to sync his Zune. It’s a shame Buñuel isn’t alive to see this.

Microsoft’s advertising has always been unusually revealing of the company’s culture, that peculiar brand of left-brainedness that is determined to be hip if only it could find the right algorithm for it. (People thought Jobs was being a snob when he said Microsoft had “absolutely no taste.” As usual, he was more right than most people realized.) There is something autumnal about this piece: it represents Microsoft wistfully and unashamedly reaching back into the past, trying to conjure up some lingering shred of that sunny autumn when the sun never set on Windows 95. Maybe they should look into licensing “Time Is On My Side.”