Panoramic pics from an iPhone

Here's an interactive panoramic view of the Braves & Marlins playing a spring training game on 3/22/12 in Orlando, FL. I built the picture using Photosynth - a very excellent free app for the iPhone that intelligently stitches together multiple images of the same setting.

More of my panoramas - including those from my visit to the Kennedy Space Center can be found here.

Quick guide to podcasts.....

I'm a podcast junkie. Podcasts are a way to get great targeted content for free. I use them to keep informed, get a diversity of opinion, and further follow some of my hobbies and interests. Some of my favorite podcast are:

(click the podcast title to see the podcast in iTunes.)

Business:
BBC Business Daily (well-rounded 15 minute daily business news magazine)

Bloomberg on the economy (15 minutes of informed economic analysis and opinion)

BusinessWeek Global Outlook (weekly 10-minute story on something going on overseas that I probably wasn't aware of)

EconTalk (weekly economists view of current topics such as global warming.)

Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders (lectures by prominent entrepreneurs visiting Stanford.)

HBR Ideacast (weekly insight from the Harvard Business Review)

Knowledge@Wharton (weekly insight from the Wharton School of Business especially market insight from Proj. Jeremy Siegel)

Manager Tools (focused business refresher lessons. Even simple topics like "How to leave a voice mail" are extremely valuable)

PIMCO Investment Outlook (monthly insights from Bill Gross, the 'Warren Buffett of Bonds.' I can't believe his advice and commentary is free and freely available.)

(If I had to choose only one podcast in this category it would be the PIMCO Bill Gross cast.)

Life Sciences
First Word Pharmaceuticals (5 minute review of the headlines of the day.)

Genetic Engineering News GENcast (interviews with scientists.)

PharmaVentures Business Review (regular interviews with pharma deal makers and news makers)

Science Talk (slightly more mainstream audio featuring the best of Scientific American)

News & Politics
Cato Daily Podcast (~5 minute daily expose of libertarian politics and policy. I learn something new every day from Cato.)

The Economist - The World Next Week (weekly look at what will become news next week.)

Hobbies:
ESPN Baseball Today (daily during the season)

Golf Tips (3 minute long video lessons - really well done)

My History Can Beat Up Your Politics (yesterday's lessons for today's politics - extremely well done)

NPR Intelligence Squared (moderated Oxford-style debates on the issues of the day featuring teams of acknowledged experts)

RealTime with Bill Maher (audio feed of HBO broadcast. Hard to believe this is free.)

WSJ Your Money Matters (personal finance news and tips)

These are just the best of the podcasts that I listen to, so yes, I am a junkie. However, I liberally delete new episodes that do not interest me, so I'm not THAT rabid. I generally have podcasts playing over my stereo in the background or on my headphones at the gym for two hours a day. I'd like to think I'm learning something by osmosis.

One other free audio option via iTunes: iTunes U - complete college courses available free. Right now I'm slogging through an MIT biology course team taught by Eric Lander and Robert Weinberg.

So how do you get started listening to podcasts?

1) Download and run iTunes if you haven't already.
2) in the far left column, click on "Podcasts." This will take you to the directory of podcasts.
3) Find an interesting podcast either by clicking on one of my links above, clicking on an interesting link in iTunes, or using the search box in the upper right corner to find a podcast of interest.
4) once you find a podcast of interest, click on either the "SUBSCRIBE" button, or click on the "GET" button to download a specific episode. If you "SUBSCRIBE," subsequent episodes will be downloaded automatically as they become available, while getting an episode is a one-time event - perfect if you want to try out a podcast before committing. Either way, the podcast of interest will appear under the "PODCAST" tab once downloading has competed.
5) At this point, you can play the podcast by double clicking the episode, or you can upload it to your iPod or iPhone to listen to it later.

I'd encourage you to try everything. There's absolutely no cost for any of the content (you may have to listen to a 30-second advertisement on some podcasts), and if you find something you don't like, you can delete it in seconds.

Please let me know how you like podcasts, and please pass along any good tips.

Recent travels

Following some business in NYC, I rented a car and zoomed around New Jersey for a weekend to see family and some old familiar places. Pictures, including my old home, are available thru the link above.

Pix were taken using my new iPhone, which is a very cool device, but does not really meet my needs, and will probably be returned soon.

It was great to see my uncle and his family, the Jersey Shore, and the Pine Barrens. It's kinda weird how the utter desolation of the Pine Barrens really resonates with me, probably because to me it represents home. (Not the desolation part, Mom!)

Seeing the Jersey Shore again really re-ignited my thoughts about getting some sort of beach house or lake house. This will have to wait until I decide to put down full-time roots in some exciting geography like DC.

Other simple highlights from the trip include reading the Sunday Philly Inquirer, revisiting my alma mater Shawnee High School in Medford, and sampling a few soft pretzels.

Whither iPhone?

Well, I was pretty wrong on the iPhone.....for now, as it's clearly marketed as a cell phone solution. I'm amazed, though, at how the mass media hasn't yet honed in on the iPhone's wi-fi capability. I don't know when it will happen - either an enterprising hacker will figure out how to put OS X apps on the phone, or Apple will lower their guard, or Apple will take bids from GOOG, Skype, and others to be the exclusive IP calling solution, but you can be sure that people will be using the iPhone for free/inexpensive calls over wifi internet.

All in all, the iPhone looks impressive, and will surely be a success, but I don't see it as revolutionary. As far as I can tell, there are no brand new functions - just evolutions of current functions. Visual voice mail is an evolution, and tv shows and movies on a cell phone are evolutions, but maps on a cell phone? click to call from a webpage? music on a cell phone? pictures on a cell phone? wifi on a cell phone? All of these are already available (though not all in one unit (yet), with the possible exception of the Nokia N95.)

(The auto-shifting screen (vert to horiz) might be revolutionary - anybody else ever have one of those?)

Surprisingly, while initially gushing, the press has started to point out some of the non-revolutionary-ness of the iPhone, like in the title link and these:

Does the iPhone sow seeds of Apple's downfall?

Apple iPhone Will Fail in a Late, Defensive Move

The real verdict on this Apple initiative will become apparent when we see what else Apple does with this market entry. Will the iPhone be one-size fits all or will 'Lite' versions of the iPhone be introduced to hit different price points and market segments? Will non-cellular versions of the iPhone be offered (either no-radio, or wifi-only?) Will iPhone-like functionality be integrated in laptops and desktops?

If Apple's past is any guide, the answers will be "no," and Apple will be a niche player in high-end smart-phones. Right now, Apple makes basically 3 flavors of desktop computers, and 2 barely-differentiated flavors of laptops (though 3 flavors of iPods isn't so bad). The Steve has frequently compared Apple to BMW- both make premium products in a commoditized market, and both very profitably survive with only 5% of the market. I don't see any reason why the iPhone will be any different, unless Steve has a new vision for the company that he's not divulging. (Yes, dropping "Computer" from the name represents the fact that Apple is broadening in terms of markets, but not necessarily changing their approach.

About a billion handsets were sold last year, and according to one article, only a million of them were smartphones. The iPhone market is really anybody with a phone and an iPod, so that million figure is low, but as great as the iPhone is, there's plenty of reasons for a user to NOT want to combine these features. (Would you rather go jogging with an iPhone or an iPod shuffle?) The iPhone sales goal is 10 million units in the first year, equating to ~5 billion dollars in revenue, which would be a HUGE success. Unlike the articles linked above, I think Apple can achieve that so this critique shouldn't be considered a criticism, but this techno-geek won't be in line for a 20th century iPhone (yes, I mean 20th), instead waiting for perhaps more innovation from v2.0 of the iPhone. (Or preferably, a video iPod with a 3.5", rotating screen.

btw: I WAS right about one thing: no iLife '07 until Leopard is released.

"What Jobs told me on the iPhone"

More fuel for the fire: Apple is "more interested in defining markets than trying to catch other companies that were busy trying to create a market for questionable products."

While this doesn't directly relate to the cell phone market ("questionable products?"), I think the essence is important: Apple wants to define markets - which it could do in the wifi-phone market - rather than follow in established markets (cell phones.)

Whether you agree or not, the linked Guardian article is well worth a read for insight into how Apple and Steve operate

Apple wifiphone thoughts #2

Got some great comments on the idea of the wifi phone coming from Apple shortly. Here's a few more thoughts and points:

It really helps to not think that the "wifiphone" is a direct competitor to existing cell solutions, much the same way that you would have said a few years ago that an iPod isn't just a cassette-less Walkman. Sure, a cell phone and wifi phone facilitate talking (and iPods and Walkmen both facilitate listening to music), but getting a layer deeper reveals greater differences than commonalities.

A likely wifiphone from Apple probably wouldn't aim to provide SMS capabilities, or perhaps even web access (at least for the first year or so), much like the early iPods didn't play videos. Apple products tend to be initially born to do one thing spectacularly well, rather than what you see from many other efforts suffering from complexity issues, 'feature bloat,' and the like. (Credit here goes to the Apple marketing team. Only superlative marketers can say to engineers "stop right there - we don't need to add that feature." (Weak marketers say "sure, put it in, I guess that the extra feature will grow the market potential in excess of the cost of integrating the extra feature."))

I believe an Apple wifiphone would be identified not as a "go everywhere, communicate every way device" (as a cell phone is today) but rather "an iPod that can make calls when I'm in a wireless zone."

(Or, perhaps any of several other identifications "a phone for home usage (assuming a wifi house)," or "another way to keep in touch when I'm at Starbucks," etc.....) I think beyond these there's some cool potential uses (ultimately a streaming video player, etc.), but I can't see Apple (or anyone else) trying to do all of this from the start.

(But when you think about it, when you have a wireless enabled handheld video screen, speakers, keypad and microphone, what can't you ultimately do? For years there's been an assumption that phones would subsume PDA functions (=smartphones), but why can't PDAs subsume phone functions?
)

In other words, the Applephone would facilitate multimedia access thru wifi networks versus cellphones that primarily facilitate voice and some data access thru prorietary networks. There some commonality between the two, but more differences. Cell phones will provide more reliable voice access (for the next 5-10 years at least, given small issues with VOIP), but won't be able to provide broadband media for the next 5-10 years. (Verizon and Sprint might argue otherwise, but I highly doubt they'll reach 802.11N's 200M speed in the next 5-10 years.)

btw: in order to believe this, you have to ultimately believe a sea of high-bandwidth public* wifi will provide more and better access than any of the current cell carriers.

* I don't mean to suggest that these nodes be held by a public utility - perhaps wifi bandwidth will be so cheap and plentiful that we'll provide the nodes in an open source fashion. The irony here, is that this would enable Apple - which fundamentally believes in controlling the Mac computing environment - would be making a business of usurping the carriers controlled environment.

In other words, long term thinking by Apple believes that in the end wifi beats CDMA, GSM, and the like. This might be corroborated by Sprint's intent to build a nationwide wimax network.

(As a non-techie, I could be mixing networks or worse, mixing metaphors. Please point out inconsistencies, if you see them.)

Another reason for the Apple wifiphone is that this plays much more closely to Apple's experience and competencies. Apple knows wifi (hard to remember that Airport was early), knows consumer software design (see iTunes, etc.), and making something already possible much, much simpler.

In contrast, an Apple cellphone would lean much more heavily on hardware knowledge, systems integration, unfamiliar telephony protocols (GSM? CDMA?). I think it would also be a detour from Apple's mission to be the hub of a digital lifestyle, as other than syncing iTunes music (and perhaps contacts), there's no strong connection for a cell phone to Apple's core products.


Some objections to the iPhone that need to be examined are network access and business model. Specifically, who wants to run the network, and how - after interoperability fees - could anyone make money?

This is sort of like saying that the iTunes Music Store would never work without Apple owning an integrated broadband network, and that iPods would only make money for the record labels.

There's already broad non-Apple wifi access, from coffee shops to hotels, with increasing penetration nationwide. Add in the fact that 802.11N vs the current 'G' standard will multiply data thruput by 8X and wifi range by 67%, and we're going to reach the wifi network 'tipping point'.

As for the business model, the problem (or probably the opportunity) will be someone else's issue.

Finally, a couple of spare thoughts that make me sound like a conspiracy theorist, but like the Loch Ness monster, exist until disproved:

-Google Talk has been around a LONG time without it being loudly touted or otherwise connected. It's prime to be hooked to an iPhone. (Imagine if GOOG could simultaneously serve adds to a handset while facilitating P2P conversation?)

(Google Talk is built on an open standard, so Apple could just 'borrow' the standard without the need to tie up, but I think in this case Apple would be better off trading sole ownership of the upside for a wider net.)

-How come Skype offered free calls to US land and cell phone lines for half a year, ending January 1? This could be for other reasons, but could a large trial have been in the best interest of an EBay-Apple partnership? Along the same lines, why is Skype announcing a new pricing plan one week after MacWorld? Hmmm.....

-why is there such a paucity of Mac OS X cordless phones? Sure, Apple's <5% market share is the big reason, but could it be that Apple has already locked in the manufacturing capacity of the contract manufacturers who make the majority of cordless VOIP phones?

Maybe I'm making too much of the wifi opportunity - Apple could certainly introduce BOTH a cell phone (perhaps as a defensive manuever) and a wifi phone, and the wifiphone could be little more than an Apple-branded accessory

-another player of interest who has been relatively quiet recently: Intel. This partnership is expected to expose Intel to new markets by embedding Intel chips into more Apple devices. I wonder if Apple's new best buddies at Intel would like to provide Steve lower-power wireless chips and chipsets to increase demand for Intel's wimax chips?

Thanks everybody for your comments - please keep 'em coming, even if they're "Hey, you couldn't be more wrong."

(btw: the Loch Ness monster, or at least images thereof have been admitted to be a hoax.)

It's gonna be a wi-fiphone (Apple Wi-Fi iPhone)

There's loads of speculation about the upcoming MacWorld and new Apple product releases. Some of the better speculation is compiled here and here. (And don't miss the Cult of Mac article linked in the title.)

I'll chip in my $.02 on a few of the smaller things, but save the best and biggest for last. (Caveat: I'm not a techie, unless you consider biotech tech-y, just a Mac fan, as I'm the proud owner of a G5 iMac and 2 iPods (among other things)). Oh, and Steve, if you'd like me to remove any of these thoughts in advance of MWSF because they're too close to home, just give me a call (or Skype!))

iLife: I'm guessing this won't be updated until Leopard is released (late March?). Everyone seems locked on the MacWorld update schedule, but it's only happened twice, and there's no real reason why a January release does anything special. Won't iLife sell more if it fully leverages all of Leopard? This also makes sense if you believe that the iTV - probably released in late 1Q07 - also warrants updated iApps.

12" laptop: a must-do to trim out the product line. Aren't the lower-power and less hot chips a justification for the change to Intel? I can't imagine the engineering here is very expensive after already building 15"ers and previously offering a 12" versus the possible market returns.

iTV and others: the real story here is the progression to the 'N' wireless standard from 'G.' 'N' will enable better, high bandwidth, multiple streams, and appears fundamental to the iTV. 'N' gear is already showing up for sale (from Netgear and others) even though (I think) the standard hasn't yet been finalized. Still, Apple's adoption of 'N' at this stage is just like their adoption of 'G' (about 3 years ago?)

Robust reliable bandwidth will enable Mac to iTV broadcast, but also probably multiple rich streams of IP traffic, which begs the question: what could you do with more wireless bandwidth (and greater range)?


The immediate answer is: a wifi iPhone.

Apple has been rumored to be working on a mobile phone for years. I can't appreciate the technical challenges, but it seems that any Apple cell phone would face several abrupt strategic challenges:

-ferocious competition from big, established competition (Motorola, Nokia, etc.)

-market power (and control of the end-user) concentrated in the carriers (Cingular, etc.), each with entrenched business models.

-fairly well-established performance (i.e. regardless of how we're all still looking for the 'perfect' phone, you can easily and cheaply find one that satisfies 80% of your needs.)

-fairly tight margins in a fashion-like business.

For all of it's good graces, Apple has not been really great at deep partnerships with large entities (like carriers, or see also the Moto ROCKR). Apple is best when independent, so I can't see them tieing up with a single carrier, nor can I even see them tieing to one communications standard (CDMA or GSM in the US.) It's possible that Apple could innovate by making a phone dual standard (GSM + CDMA) which would be distinctive, or that Apple could go the MVNO route, but both are complex efforts prone to Apple fielding problems from other market players ("I'm not getting reception here - darn iPhone!") Each of these approaches also disintermediates Apple from the end consumer.

For years, the driver for creating an iPhone is to reduce the number of devices carried (and pre-empt cell phones from becoming the device of choice for mobile audio fans), but I think while a noble goal (and one that I'd enjoy), this doesn't seem too important to most. I'm pretty sure that condensing my iPod shuffle and Blackberry wouldn't change my life, like Apple likes to do.

And that's the crux of the issue, or more accurately, opportunity: one reason we love Apple is that among other values (such as design, simplicity, and integration), Apple is an innovator. Because of this, I just can't see Apple following into the cell phone market.

But, I can see a huge opportunity for Apple to innovate and reach a new, growing market: peer-to-peer internet telephony.

As of last April, Skype (the leader in PTP telephony, but by no means the only choice) broke the 100,000,000 user mark. I'm guessing that growth since then puts Skype plus Google Talk (and others) in a market addressing north of 150 million users.

(Please forgive me if this non-techie mixes varying 'net telephony standards - focus on the bigger issue.)

To date, there's a few decent attempts at providing phone hardware (i.e. non-plugged headsets), but you'll notice that there's only one available for Macs (which I ordered a few days ago - d'oh!)

There's also a few neat looking computer-independent wireless phones (Netgear, Linksys, and Belkin). I haven't had one in my hands yet, but they appear to be good first efforts, but something the team at Apple could really improve upon. This echoes the stage the MP3 player market was at when Apple jumped in with the iPod.

Big, new, growing market (think Apple would be happy to sell iPhones to 1% of the world market (=1.5M TODAY) and competitors to be leapfrogged. You've got all the ingredients for an Apple innovation, and that's not even including innovations such as Google city wifi access (only in SF right now, I think) and possible corporate connections between Apple & Google (remember Gooogle Talk?) or just up the road at eBay (owners of Skype).

So, I think the stage is set for an Apple wireless computer-independent net phone (let's continue to call it an iPhone for now). Apple could easily offer a superior product at an iPod like price point ($299?) that would transform how we communicate - and that's not even including possible connections to existing Apple assets. (In other words, even without music, the iPhone could be huge).

It boggles the mind, though, to think what an 'N' enabled iPhone could do today or in the future when combined with other Apple assets. With robust wireless bandwidth, why bother with storing much music on the phone? What if you could stream via your home iTunes hard drive? What if you could convert the phone (when not used as a phone) into a Front Row-type wireless media controller? What if - provided the screen is large enough - you could watch movies on your phone? How about an iSight enabled iPhone for PTP video conferencing?

(I'm drooling right now, so I have to take a short break.)

I don't know about the timing wrt an iPhone and iTV, but there's an amazing combination to be made here, all enhanced by the 'N' bandwidth.

I'll reiterate that I have no connection with Apple, nor any inside information, but I'd bet on the wifi-phone coming from Apple soon. The next question (besides "How can I get one?") is "how can I bet on this (or otherwise make money?)"

If you really believe in the wifiphone, T-Mobile looks good (T-Zones Wifi becomes even more valuable, and Starbucks probably becomes even more popular (well-established T-Zone spots)). Sprint becomes a good investment as they're looking to build a nationwide wifi network. Handset manufacturers like Motorola and Nokia don't look as good. Perhaps a PTP telephony partner (GOOG? eBAY?) gains thru a partnership, or perhaps even a VOIP company like Vonage. Also, don't forget infrastructure plays like Cisco or Juniper.

In short, hang in for a life-changing and VERY profitable innovation from Apple in 9 days (Jan 11). I can't wait!