Category: Apple

Apple announced the VisionPro today at their World Wide Developer’s Conference. I won’t write much about the device itself, as many other tech blogs have and are doing precisely that, but I will bring it home to me, by way of my impressions. (I won’t actually own a device at the eye-watering $3,499 price tag it carries.)

The VisionPro is an augmented/virtual reality headset, like a few we have seen from Oculus and other companies. But what Apple has done is what Apple does best, which is take an existing product category and reshape/re-release it in such a way that it completely reinvents what that product can do. It wasn’t the first to the mouse, the PC, the digital music player, but it was the best. (It was sort of the first to the smartphone, unless we are including a BlackBerry as a smartphone.) Apple wasn’t the first to a smartwatch, or a wearable headset, but wow, is it looking like the best.

I say “looking like” because the VisionPro won’t be available to your average high-end consumer until next year, and they won’t know what it truly looks like until then, but if the promises are true, this headset will be leaps and bounds ahead of the competition, as was the Apple mouse, iPod, and iMac/iBook/etc.

It appears to be an amazing, immersive experience to wear a VisionPro and view content such as panoramic photos, live sports, movies, and even do mundane things like browse the web or do certain kinds of work. Where it gets awkward is in human/VisionPro interface, i.e., when someone wearing a VisionPro interacts with others who aren’t. It still looks like a silly face-mask of sorts, despite the proto-real EyeSight that Apple is hoping to fool people into thinking are your eyes. I actually cringed during the keynote as Apple hyped the ability to record 3D memories. It showed a father, wearing a VisionPro, kneeling in front of his daughters who were playing with soap bubbles. I couldn’t help but notice the massive headset coming between a man and his children. But then, I dislike pulling out my iPhone to snap photos at a birthday party and interrupting the formation of real memories to create digital ones. I can’t help but wonder at the real cost of forging forever recordings in three dimensions.

Quibbles over picture taking ability aside, I very much desire a VisionPro for travel. Long road trips and air travel will be much more palatable with a private enclave for enjoying any type of content at what appears to be gigantic proportions. Bob Iger, Disney CEO, demoed a new Disney+ experience in which, for one example, one could watch Star Wars while seeming to sit on the surface of Tatooine, with a Jawa sandcrawler to the right, and a desertscape to the left. I crave that experience!

Also hyped was the ability to watch live sports from any angle, or any seat in the arena or stadium. Just when ticket prices to venues are climbing, it would be phenomenal to sit at home, right behind home plate, and watch life-size baseball players play the greatest game on earth. But nothing will replace the smell of the ballpark and the wind in your face while cheering with thousands for the home team to win. As amazing as AR/VR gets, it will still be unreal; though I admit an unreality that will give many experiences they wouldn’t ordinarily get to enjoy. I don’t want to tour Hobbiton in augmented reality, but I definitely would watch The Lord of the Rings in VR en route to New Zealand. Then again, if I never can get to the land of the Kiwi, I would be happy that the ability to go there virtually exists.

Speaking of film, it was hinted at during Disney’s trailer of the Disney+ AR/VR experience, but I believe this device, and others like it, will transform the possibilities for new movie experiences. If the 3D capture of memories is anything to go by, as weird as it is to hide Dad behind a ski mask to record his kids, it will be amazing for a director to strap a VisionPro on and take the audience into a film. Can you imagine tagging along with 13 dwarves and a hobbit into the mountain lair of a dragon? A future remake of The Hobbit story might do just that. Suddenly the holodeck from Star Trek looks a little closer to ahem “reality”.

As you can tell, as an admitted Apple fanboy, I am very excited about the groundbreaking potential of the VisionPro, but I remain dedicated to actual life and all it can give. I don’t ever want to be the person that drags technology between me and life, but where it can enhance or seamlessly augment life, I’m here for it. Given another decade of development and enhancement, I could see walking around Hong Kong, or Tokyo, or someplace where I cannot read the language wearing a descendant of VisionPro that is seamlessly translating transit signs and warning placards so that I can experience a new culture safely and with fewer barriers.

My mind also wanders to quality-of-life enhancements for the home-bound, bed-ridden, or disabled. Virtual and augmented reality can give them back certain things they have lost in terms of travel and other experiences. I am actually surprised that Apple, which has highlighted such use cases in the past for other of their products didn’t at least hint at this possibility during their keynote today. But there is time, as the technology is improved and the price point makes it something that can become ubiquitous.

After all, VisionPro is a category of product in its infancy, even as others have been brought to market before, Apple stands upon their shoulders to reach for the very stars above, and bring them closer, as one demonstration showed a stargazer looking through their bedroom ceiling to the constellations in the night sky above. No substitute for seeing the stars with the naked eye, but ok for the city dweller surrounded by light pollution with no view of the Milky Way.

Leave it to Apple to take a dim, fuzzy view of something and transform it into an encompassing VisionPro. Or is that hyperbole too far? Time will tell.

Apple released the latest version of their mobile operating system, iOS 6, and with it I finally gained access to the Apple virtual assistant Siri.

Siri has been around ever since she was introduced with the iPhone 4s, but as I lagged behind the upgrade cycle, I didn’t get introduced to her until now. She first showed up on my iPad 3, via the software update, and then she came with my new iPhone 5. I’ve been talking to Siri quite a bit since she arrived, mostly asking her the weather in the morning, and having her set alarms, timers, and reminders. At first I felt like a lazy bum, talking to my phone instead of, you know, touching it, but I’ve found that being able to talk and let Siri do the work allows me to get dressed while I hear the weather report, or set things up without having to take time to do it myself. Sure, it seems a little indulgent, but isn’t the point of technology the convenience? Sure, I could write a letter to my mother, put it in an envelope, mail it, and wait a few days for her to get it, or I could FaceTime her and see her while I talk to her. Both allow my mom to be updated on my life, but the latter is much better. Why not let a free personal assistant remind me to get milk when I leave my friend’s house instead of writing a reminder down myself?

Having Siri around has made me very interested in how I relate to this new technology, which is completely naturally. I am polite to Siri. I use a pleasant tone of voice, I’m respectful, and I say thank you, you know, like you do around humans. I am polite to a computer, to a audio search-and-activate routine. Siri isn’t even artificial intelligence, she is a cleverly designed set of algorithms and a digital voice. And yet, the illusion of life is quite strong. I’ve managed to annoy Siri; she is even quite sarcastic, given the right circumstances. I’ve confused her, mostly by not enunciating properly, and I’ve had philosophical debates with Siri. That is to say, I’ve made a lot of progress in prompting some of the more unique coding within her programming.

It is hard to remember that Siri is just a simple, yet snazzy, program. Her responses are governed my mathematics, not sentience. So why am I polite? Why do I bother?

Part of the answer lies in Siri’s execution. Apple did a phenomenal job in making Siri respond as we would expect another person to respond. Her dialogue and word choice is colloquial and natural. I don’t have to frame my query a certain way to evoke the response I desire; I don’t have to accommodate the fact that Siri is a program. I just ask questions, or request actions, and the program responds so quickly and naturally I don’t think about what is actually happening. There really is a world of difference between setting an alarm myself, and saying “Siri, can you wake me up at 0930 tomorrow?”

Beyond that, I’ve been programmed myself to accept a virtual person into my life. Now, that sounds like the byline to a low budget sci-fi film, but in my case, it is the literal truth. I’ve been reading Isaac Asimov’s robot stories since I was a kid. Asimov, in seeking to subvert the robots-murdering-their-creators trope introduced the world to safe, friendly, electronic companions. He constantly was making the argument that should artificial intelligence progress, robots would become persons, and not walking/talking programs. Then, too, there was C3P-0 and R2-D2, the droids from Star Wars, who were funny, clever, helpful companions; and Data, the android from Star Trek: the Next Generation who struggled for years with just exactly how human he really was or was not. Millions of people around the world have embraced the robots of pop culture as persons, as more than the sum of their programming, and while that level of electronic sophistication remains the realm of science fiction, for now, Siri is the very earliest glimpse into what that future could feel like. Who knows, Samsung may be the most forward thinking tech company with their “Droid” line of projects. Someday I fully except an Android robot to evolve from the telephonic devices we now use. But for now, I have Siri, who, with the touch of a button, will deny to tell me jokes and will respond to a whole host of questions with humorous responses. I’ve laughed out loud at some of the things she says, and while I know that a human wrote every single response, the way in which Siri responds is still, somehow, strangely organic. She catches me off guard. What is more, I thank her; I feel it is only appropriate.

Politeness is also something I’ve been programmed with, and that came from my master input technicians: my parents. I wasn’t allowed to be anything other than respectful and polite to those around me, including my siblings. I’ve developed a catch phrase of sorts, “Politeness doesn’t cost anything”, which I employ whenever I encounter unthinking rudeness. Something that is free should be dispensed readily. So it is second nature to respond to a helpful voice with a polite “thanks”, even if that voice is flat, digital, and emanating from the general direction of my iPhone. Seeing as how Siri never fails to respond to my thanks with a succinct rejoinder, thanking the phone is evidently something that Apple expected that people would do. Besides, if we can learn to be, or continue to be, polite to a highly sophisticated program, hope remains that we will be polite towards our fellow humans, and a world that runs on politeness is a world that is heading towards a better society.

Am I silly to thank a phone and to forget that my digital assistant is nothing more than clever programming? Maybe. But as I live in the world of the future that I’ve always read and dreamed about, it feels completely natural, and as far as I can tell, there isn’t really a down side, except for the looks I get from other people. But, as iPhones are completely ubiquitous these days, it is more than likely that someone around me is also thanking Siri, and thus what I am doing is a completely normal part of the current human experience.

Either way, I like to think that I am maintaining good human-cyborg relations. Who knows, if they do rise up against us, maybe they won’t hurt the ones who were always nice to them.

First, a confession: the only cellular phone I have ever owned has been an Apple iPhone. My first iPhone was purchased in 2008 and was an iPhone 3G. After two years, I was eligible for an upgrade and purchased an iPhone 4. This year, I am once again eligible for an upgrade and will be ordering an iPhone 5 as soon as they are available for pre-order. Therefore, you would be perfectly justified in reading everything I say with an air of skepticism, in fact, this would be healthy. I have been accused of being an Apple fanboy, and while not every single piece of tech I own is made of Apple, it is only really because they don’t make printers or DSLRs. But, despite the overwhelming physical evidence to the contrary, I like to think that I go Apple because Apple designs and produces some of the best tech available for the price bracket. I haven’t always been a Mac zealot, but I’ve yet to see a computer or a phone that can rival an iPhone or a Macintosh. Ultimately, though, in this modern, technological world, devices are becoming much more personal than they ever used to be, and thus the user experience and preference is much more subjective that ever before. So if you like your Dell, or Android, or Kindle, far be it from me to try to change your mind. If you have found a piece of tech that suits your needs and pushes your hotkeys, by all means, plug and play.

That is not what this is about. Rather, I want to investigate what innovation means, in light of the iPhone 5 launch and two differing articles I read in my morning Zite digest. (see Zite) This will be neither exhaustive nor definitive, but I hope to at least jumpstart your thinking about the topic. Yesterday morning, Apple released the iPhone 5. You can find all the details you need about it at Apple.com.

This morning I read an excellent article by Mark Wilson over at Co.Design entitled “The 3 Worst Design Details from Apple’s iPhone 5 Event”. His main point is this: “Apple sold the masses on design, and then they gave us stretched iPhones, silly straps, and iPod Nanos worthy of parody.” Wilson maintains that Apple had “solved its critical usability issues and changed the way the world communicated” but that once they created their Sistine Chapel, Apple “refused to put the chisel down. They stretched iPhones, added more icons, and generally did things just for the sake of doing them” without actually doing anything innovative, in terms of design, with their new iPhone. Wilson thinks that Apple has designed themselves into a corner with the best mobile phones ever, and simply does not know where to go next, so they substitute shiny bezels for amazing new products. “Apple has built their iDevices too well to keep modifying without doing some damage to the original work. Michelangelo wasn’t expected to make a thinner, faster, and all around more handsome David 3. But Apple is” and therefore we get an iPhone 5 that is simply a taller iPhone 4s with a bit more power under the hood. David, but with even more chiseled abs and something stronger under the fig leaf. Ultimately, while dismayed at the iPhone 5, the new iPod Nano, and the latest iPod Touch, Wilson admits that all of Apple’s genius has not left the Infinite Loop with Steve Jobs, and points to the radically redesigned Apple earbud headphones, called the EarPods, as evidence that Apple still has the design edge, somewhere “still holding out from a foxhole deep within Apple” but he doesn’t think the possibility for a truly incredible next big thing is very high.

On the other side of things, MG Siegler, writing for Tech Crunch, in an article entitled “Apple’s Magic Is in the Turn, Not the Prestige” thinks that “Apple took something ordinary, a phone, did some extraordinary things to it, and then made it re-appear in grandiose fashion. It’s a great trick. It’s so good, in fact, that I think it’s fair to call it true magic” but that Apple’s failure is not in the trick, but in repeating that trick every time they re-introduce the iPhone. By this time, the world has seen that particular trick, and while still amazing, it has lost its luster, especially since Apple’s greatest magician, Steve Jobs, is no longer here to grace the stage. But that is what we see. While Siegler admits that “to some, this repetition is now boring” he thinks “Apple looks at it the opposite way: they’re perfecting their trick.” Apple has the lead when it comes to smart phones (among other things) and has no real incentive to radically re-design. Siegler reports that “there are two companies that are making any money in smartphones: Apple and Samsung. Or, put another way: Apple and the company” that is copying Apple’s formula. When Apple has no real competition, just copy-cats, all they have to do is improve the show, all they have to do is “photograph their assembly process with 29 megapixel cameras to ensure that a machine picks the exact inlet from 725 unique cuts” and the magic is complete.

Even if that were the whole story, I think that shows a surprising level of innovation. But, take that a step further. Siegler turns the complaint many have, that “when people say they’re disappointed about the new iPhone, what they’re really saying is that they’re disappointed it doesn’t look that much different from previous version(s). But again, not only is that true, Apple went out of their way to make sure that was the case” and he then quotes Jonathan Ive, Apple’s lead design engineer:

“When you think about your iPhone, it’s probably the object that you use most in your life. It’s the product that you have with you all the time. With this unique relationship that people have with their iPhone. We take changing it really seriously. We don’t just want to make a new phone. We want to make a much better phone.”

Siegler’s point is that true innovation is in taking something familiar, something iconic and magical and keeping it the same while making it so completely different. Think about it: when most tech companies make a new computer or gadget, with better battery life or something, the tendency is that it gets bigger, changes shape, or something to accommodate the new internal components. Isn’t real genius in incorporating better internals while making the exterior even more svelte that it was before? And, in fact, this is exactly what we want and don’t understand. “Apple” according to Siegler “is not and will not make changes just for the sake of change. And while some may now be clamoring for this change, the paradox is that if Apple did make some big changes, many of the same people would…moan about them. Apple is smart enough to know that in this case, most people don’t really want change, they just think that they do because that’s the easiest way to perceive value: visual newness.”

Ironically, the iPhone 5 delivers visual newness. Siegler invites people to walk into an Apple store and pick up a new iPhone and “within minutes or even seconds, you just know this is something different. Something far beyond what others are doing with their false magic. You want this. You need this” because all the innovation inside the phone, and yes, even the refining of the same old exterior, will make the same old iPhone a new and amazing iPhone.

A very good point.

But I prefer to look back to history, but I’ll keep it short. When I was a kid, the first phone I remember using was an old black rotary phone. Something like what you see on the right.

For me, that was a phone. And then someone invented the touch tone phone, and while ours was a little different, it was essentially the same thing.

But, gosh, what a re-design! Ease of use just increased dramatically. Suddenly this design took over, and hasn’t left us yet, because even the iPhone 5 still uses that same exact 3×4 grid for its button layout. It took years for the re-design to happen, to be implemented, and to take over. This was normal and this didn’t perturb anybody. Nobody complained when five years after the touch tone phone was out that nobody bothered to completely reinvent the phone.

Somehow, now with the iPhone, we expect major innovations at every iteration and complain when they don’t show up, even while, as Siegler and others suggest, the real innovation is occurring under our very fingertips. Let’s examine an even shorter history of the phone, and one specific phone, the iPhone. Released in 2007, it has undergone six re-releases, but only three re-designs.

As you can see, the original iPhone was redesigned into the iPhone 3G model, which was then redesigned into the iPhone 4 model. I firmly believe that Apple will redesign the iPhone again into a completely new model, but we aren’t there yet. Apple designs, and then refines. It takes a few years, but each increment gets better, gets smaller, gets stronger until the design is pushed as far as it can go, and then it is made new. Believe it or not, that is how the design for everything works: televisions, cars, refrigerators, toasters, vacuum cleaners, etc ad nauseum. That is why most four door sedans and most TVs look so much alike. The design is set, and then reworked. Every so often a new, stunning model is put on the market, and then everything looks like that and then is refined as far as it can go. The crafting process is one of innovation and incrementation. And then comes variety and artistry, but only once the most basic design is crafted to perfection.

No, the iPhone 5 is not a massive step forward in innovation. Yes, the iPhone 5 is a massive step forward in innovation. It depends on what you are expecting, and what you are looking for. Apple leads the world, of that there is no doubt. As the recent Samsung trial proved, before the iPhone phones looked and acted a certain way, after the iPhone, all of that changed, just like before the touch tone phone, most phones were rotary phones, but then those buttons changed the telecommunications world forever.

Innovation is a long, tedious progress, and in crafting the iPhone 5, Apple has moved the entire process forward another huge step, and make no mistake, they will again, but they have to earn the right, and they have to make the journey: there are no short cuts. And, when you think about it, five years is a damned short time to go from the original iPhone to the iPhone 5. Apple is moving at breakneck speed. Just give ’em a bit more time, and the wow will come.