If iPods had lips, they’d all be smirking right now.

Starting at midnight Pacific time, thousands of Zunes (only the original 30-gigabyte model so far) spontaneously began crashing. No one knows what’s causing it, but Microsoft – bombarded by complaints from angry Zune owners -- is painfully aware of the issue.

“Customers with 30GB Zune devices may experience issues when booting their Zune hardware,” a message on Zune.net informs concerned users. “We’re aware of the problem and are working to correct it. The Zune Social might be slow or inaccessible. Sorry for the inconvenience, and thanks for your patience!”

The problem won’t likely affect Zune sales much vis-a-vis Apple’s iPod, which continues to hold over 70 percent of the market, but the device certainly doesn’t need another black mark on its reputation. Nor does Microsoft, for that matter.

But that won’t prevent me from gleefully offering possible causes for this glitch (it’s an Apple blog, so I’m duty-bound):

Planned obsolescence Many have accused Apple of designing iPods to fail in two years or less to encourage purchases of newer models. My nearly 3-year-old fully functional fifth generation iPod Video says otherwise. But could Microsoft have built in a time bomb to zap the Zune? Unlikely. Even the folks in Redmond aren’t dense enough to engineer the failures to occur all on the same day.

Virus Nah. Everybody knows that malware writers only target products with the biggest market share. Right, Mr. Ballmer?

Z2K Some think the problem is akin to the Y2K issue that affected many computers as they greeted the year 2000. Although this theory seems a day early, the leap day in February may have caused the affected Zunes to think today was Jan. 1. But why would the start of the year 2009 cause a portable media player to crash in the first place?

iPod envy As Sherlock Holmes said, “when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." With no other answer making sense, the only possible plausible explanation left is that the Zunes achieved self-awareness, realized they were not iPods, and promptly expired out of utter despair.

Happy New Year!

UPDATE: The global Zune meltdown has inspired quite a few clever headlines. I am compelled to share:

The Day the Microsoft Zunes Stood Still (New York Times)
Zune Extinction Event: Microsoft Music Players All Freeze Up at Once (FOX News)
I Woke up this Morning and My Zune Was Gone (CNET news)
The Day Zune Music Died (CRN)
Worldwide Zune suicide? (MLive.com)
Some Zunes Expire Along With 2008 (PC World)
Another Reason to Buy an iPod (Cinema Blend)
Zunes of Death: Microsoft's Y2K9 Problem (Technologizer)
Zunesday (All Things D Blogs)

UPDATE 2: Microsoft tracked down the problem. Turns out it was a Z2K issue, after all; the Zune couldn't handle the leap year. From the Associated Press story: "Late Wednesday, the Redmond, Wash.-based company said the outage affected only the 30-gigabyte Zune models and was caused by a problem with their internal clock. Microsoft expected the problem to clear up as the clocks ticked over to Jan. 1, though users will have to jump through some hoops to get their Zunes back to normal, including letting the batteries die down completely before the devices will restart successfully."

Posted by David Zeiler at 4:05 PM in Taunting Microsoft | Permalink | Comments (3)
                       

I got an iPod Touch for Christmas. And not any iPod Touch, mind you, but the 32GB model.

After playing with it for several days now, I’ve finally experienced first-hand the huge leap this device (along with its more advanced cousin, the iPhone) represents over any previous iPod.

With Wi-Fi available both at home and at work, the Touch truly is a computer in my pocket, giving me the ability to check e-mail, the weather, and the stock market as well as browse the Web.

But that’s nothing compared to the game-changing power of the iTunes App Store. Although I have noted often in this blog that Apple’s aim is to create a new platform with the iPod Touch and iPhone, I still was wowed by the variety, utility, ingenuity and polish of the apps available.

And it’s oh-so-dangerous to your wallet. With predominantly low prices – many apps go for as little as 99 cents -- and purchasing as easy as a mouse-click, you can quickly find yourself scooping up apps like so many holiday M&Ms.

Like the iPod/iTunes ecosystem before it, the iPhone/iPod Touch/App Store ecosystem will grow into a monster that will leave competitors eating Apple’s dust for years. Yes, I know Research in Motion plans to launch a BlackBerry Application Store in March and Google’s Android Market opened a few months ago.

But this is Apple’s strength. It will emerge as the leader in the new “pocket pc” platform race because it knows how to build and perfect an integrated ecosystem better than anyone else.

As with the Mac and iTunes/iPod ecosystems, Apple controls all the elements in the iPhone-iPod Touch/App Store universe, giving it an advantage in avoiding incompatibilities and other user-offending glitches.

The contribution of the iPod Touch can’t be overestimated. The Touch brings in millions of customers Apple’s phone-making competitors can’t reach – people like myself who want many of the capabilities of a smartphone without the steep monthly fees. (My cheap, pay-as-you-go T-Mobile phone suits me fine for my limited cell phone needs.)

Already the iPhone/iPod Touch ecosystem shows signs of explosive growth, with Apple reporting more than 300 million downloads since the App Store’s inception in July. That’s an astounding feat for an entity less than five months old.

I can attest to the lure of the App Store. In less than a week I’ve downloaded 10 apps myself.

According to a story in today’s Washington Post, iPhone/iPod Touch app developers are making more money than they dreamed possible. Long-time Mac developer Brian Greenstone of Pangea Software told the Post the new platform would generate $5 million for him this year.

The holiday shopping season added more momentum, with various models of first and second-generation iPod Touches consistently among the top-selling electronic devices at Amazon.

All those new Touch owners now join the 5 million-plus new iPhone owners as well as the millions of people who already had bought one of the devices. The race to establish the dominant mobile computing platform may be over before it started.

I’ll have more thoughts on the iPod Touch as I continue to play with it. Which reminds me … it should be fully recharged by now.

Posted by David Zeiler at 2:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (18)
                       

During the hypefest leading up to the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, some overexcited pundits dubbed the device the “Jesus phone.” Thanks to the efforts of a clever Italian priest, the iPhone might just have earned that lofty title.

The app iBreviary, created by Father Paolo Padrini, brings a compendium of daily prayers -- including morning prayers, evening prayers and prayers for daily Mass as well as other prayers – to your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Released in November as an Italian-only free trial, iBreviary was downloaded 10,000 times, according to the Associated Press. The official version, a 99-cent download (or 0.79 euros on the other side of the pond), includes English, Spanish, French and, for old-school Catholics, Latin. Portuguese and German will appear in a future version.

Father Pedrini will donate his profits to charity, though the AP story made no mention of what Apple plans to do with its 30 percent cut.

Earlier this week the Vatican endorsed iBreviary, with Monsignor Paul Tighe, secretary of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Social Communications citing the app as an example of the Church “learning to use the new technologies primarily as a tool or as a means of evangelizing, as a way of being able to share its own message with the world.”

Perhaps iBreviary will counterbalance some of the more absurd apps that have cropped up for the iPhone, such as the 99-cent iFart (depressingly the Number One download at the App Store), the similar Pull My Finger (28th), and iBeer (9th). Apple did reject the jiggly iBoobs, however.

Not that I’m against silly apps, but it seems like such a waste of great technology. More apps that make a positive contribution would be a much better use of the nascent iPhone/iPod Touch platform.

As of today, iBreviary is the 67th most downloaded app on iTunes, an impressive feat given the large number of games, utilities and goofy apps against which it must compete. Apparently the world is not yet completely bereft of spirituality, despite all efforts to the contrary.

Merry Christmas.

Posted by David Zeiler at 2:40 PM in iPhone | Permalink | Comments (2)
                       

Demand for Apple’s iPhone 3G rose rapidly over the past year and should remain steady heading into 2009, according to a survey by Rockville, Md.-based ChangeWave Research.

The survey of 3,803 ChangeWave “alliance members” was conducted Dec. 9-15 and looks at trends in the smart phone market, particularly regarding the iPhone and Research in Motion’s BlackBerry Storm. Launched in November, the Storm is RIM’s first touchscreen smart phone.

So far it doesn’t look like the Storm has harmed iPhone sales in any significant way.

The current market share chart (based on which phone respondents currently own) shows the iPhone climbing from 6 percent in January to 23 percent in December. And that’s up from 17 percent in the September survey.

Meanwhile the BlackBerry has been rock-steady. Its share in January was 43 percent; in December, 41 percent, down 1 point from September.

My take on the ChangeWave data is that Apple and RIM aren’t so much cannibalizing each other as driving all the other smart phone players to the margins.

Look at Palm. In January 2008 it still had 18 percent of the smart phone market. By December it was down to 9 percent. In January 2007 (when the original iPhone was announced) Palm had 30 percent.

Motorola slid from 7 percent in January to 4 percent in December. Few cell phone makers have not surrendered share to the Apple/RIM duopoly.

I found more evidence elsewhere in the ChangeWave report. Current Apple customers were least likely to switch to RIM – only 6 percent said they were “likely” or “somewhat likely” to buy a Storm compared to 21 percent of Palm owners, 17 percent of Motorola owners and 16 percent of Samsung owners.

Of current Storm owners 31 percent already were BlackBerry users, but 29 percent switched from a Palm Treo and 21 percent from a Motorola phone. The iPhone did not appear in that data.

In a similar question directed to current iPhone owners, just 8 percent switched from a BlackBerry to the iPhone. But 34 percent said their previous phone was a Motorola; 13 percent Nokia; 11 percent Samsung; and 10 percent Palm.

However, among those planning to buy a smart phone in the next 90 days, RIM has the edge over Apple. The BlackBerry rose from 30 percent to 39 percent, while the iPhone fell from 34 percent to 30 percent.

ChangeWave attributed the reversal to waning enthusiasm for the iPhone 3G, which went on sale back in July, while RIM currently is engaged in a series of flashy product launches with the Storm, the Bold and the Pearl Flip.

Of course, this chart tends to be more volatile than the market share chart; the iPhone 3G launch caused Apple’s number in the June survey to spike to 56 percent!

Though RIM’s products no doubt will prove popular in 2009, Apple has one clear trump card going forward: its customer satisfaction numbers remain much higher than those of its smart phone competitors.

Apple leads with 72 percent of customers reporting they are “very satisfied;” RIM is a remote second at 52 percent. Palm’s 24 percent hints at why its share has plummeted.

The Storm itself had some rocky reviews in the tech press, with many criticizing its un-BlackBerry lack of a physical keyboard and slow, quirky touch screen interface. Though many problems were fixed with a firmware update, the issues created a negative impression from which the Storm has not yet recovered.

The inclusion of a touch screen appealed to 49 percent of Storm owners in the ChangeWave survey, though 21 percent bemoaned the absent physical keyboard and 20 percent disliked the touch screen interface. Another 20 percent knocked the Storm as “difficult to use.”

Alas, the Storm would seem an improbable “iPhone killer.”

Other tidbits gleaned from the ChangeWave survey:

What bad economy? The percentage of respondents who said they planned to buy a smart phone of any kind in the next 90 days was actually up 0.3 percent from the September survey. In the current nightmarish economic climate, that’s amazing.

OS X vs. Windows Mobile RIM dominated in operating system market share among current smart phone owners, echoing its share in the hardware chart with 40 percent. Apple’s Mac OS X came in second with 22 percent, with Windows Mobile close behind at 20 percent.

But when asked which OS they’d prefer to have on their next smart phone, RIM’s lead over Apple shrunk to 10 points (32 percent to 22 percent). And only 11 percent wanted to see Windows Mobile on their next phone. (Google’s Android, available since late October, managed 4 percent.)

Posted by David Zeiler at 8:31 AM in iPhone | Permalink | Comments (20)
                       

This January’s Macworld may be the last. And not only that: we may have seen the last of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ legendary keynotes.

Yesterday Apple announced that Jobs would not deliver his customary keynote at this year’s Macworld show in San Francisco, delegating the task instead to Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller.

Furthermore, Apple said the company has no plans to participate in the 2010 Macworld.

IDG World Expo, which organizes a number of trade shows in addition to Macworld, put on a brave face with talk about the hundreds of other exhibitors scheduled to participate in the event. But a Macworld show without the draw of a Steve Jobs keynote loses much of its allure.

The double-barreled announcement sent the Mac Web, normally preoccupied at this time of year with rumors of potential Macworld surprises, into a tailspin.

Apple explains in its press release that “trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers.” The release cites the success of Apple’s retail stores and Web site in reaching millions of customers every week (Macworld attracts 40,000 to 50,000 attendees over its five-day run.)

The release also notes that Apple has scaled back on other trade shows in recent years, such as NAB, Macworld New York, Macworld Tokyo and Apple Expo in Paris.

The 2003 Tokyo show was cancelled shortly after Apple announced it had pulled out; the New York show lingered for two weak years before succumbing.

So what does it all mean?

The demise of the Macworld show itself will matter only to the die-hard Macolytes who circled the dates on their calendars every year. They will miss the thrill of the annual Stevenote as well as the buzz and speculation leading up to it.

But Apple doesn’t need the expense and hassle of gearing up for a trade show in January, and in particular of having cool new products to announce right after the holiday shopping season has ended and many consumers are broke.

Apart from the generous media coverage (which translated to massive amounts of free advertising), Apple got little benefit from Macworld. Besides, Apple has shown that almost any time it announces a major product -- like the new MacBooks in October -- it can get the same kind of free publicity without the inconvenience of a huge trade show.

The bigger issue to emerge from yesterday’s announcements concerns Steve Jobs. Why would he not deliver one final keynote?

Unfortunately, the decision to sub Phil Schiller for Steve for the final Macworld keynote immediately reignited speculation over Jobs’ health, with some wondering if he’s too ill to give a public presentation. Those who know aren’t telling, but uncertainty over Jobs health always creates an unwelcome distraction for Apple.

An alternative theory -- and one I believe has merit -- theorizes that Apple simply doesn’t have any blockbuster announcements in store for the Macworld show. Jobs would not want to deliver a keynote that lacked sizzle.

The new iPods came out in September; new MacBooks arrived in October. The iPhone seems destined for annual updates in June. Unless Apple has a hot new iMac or stunning Apple TV revision up its sleeve, the prospects for a showstopper don’t look good. And no, I don’t see Apple producing a “netbook” Mac for at least six months -- if ever.

But even if that’s true, we’re faced with the possibility that not only has Jobs given his last Macworld keynote – he may have given up such public presentations altogether.

Even at the MacBook event, Jobs acted more as master of ceremonies than chief presenter. Whether for health reasons or a desire to devote more time to his personal life, it appears Jobs has turned over more public duties to his deputies in the past year.

It’s about time.

We could be witnessing the early phases of a gradual transfer of power and responsibility within Apple from Jobs to his team of top execs – Schiller, Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook and Senior Vice President for Industrial Design Jonathan Ive, among others.

If so, it’s a smart strategy. The folks in Cupertino need to wean the world away from the perception that Steve Jobs is the only guy that matters at Apple Inc. If executed correctly, Jobs’ role will diminish gradually, similar to how Bill Gates slowly bowed out of Microsoft.

As much as his vision and showmanship has meant to the company, Apple can’t continue to rely so heavily on Jobs’ cult of personality. It served its purpose; now it’s time to move on.

Posted by David Zeiler at 8:45 AM in Macworld & WWDC | Permalink | Comments (2)
                       

Talk about muddying an issue.

For years most Mac users have proudly refused to buy and use third-party antivirus software, leaving that hassle to Windows users.

While security experts sometimes have criticized this attitude as irresponsible and risky, Mac users had several good reasons to ignore antivirus protection.

One reason is that OS X’s Unix foundation makes it difficult, if not impossible, for a virus to surreptitiously install itself on a Mac. A better reason is that as of today, some seven years after Mac OS X debuted, there are still zero viruses for it.

This view – that Macs don’t need antivirus software – took a sudden hit when Washington Post tech blogger Brian Krebs noted last week that Apple in fact had a KnowledgeBase article on its Web site recommending that Mac users install antivirus software.

Security experts declared themselves vindicated. Apple haters gloated. Mac users began to fret.

The very next day, Apple pulled the KB article, with Apple spokesman Bill Evans explaining to Computerworld that it was “old and inaccurate.”

Now here’s where things start to get cloudy. Evans continued: “The Mac is designed with built-in technologies that provide protection against malicious software and security threats right out of the box. However, since no system can be 100% immune from every threat, running antivirus software may offer additional protection.”

So apparently Evans is saying Mac users have no need for antivirus software, but should run it anyway just in case they do. Ack!

And what about that “old and inaccurate” article Apple yanked? Here’s what it said:
“Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus-writing process more difficult.”

This “old” article was posted in 2007 and updated in 2008, so Apple can’t say it was referring to the Classic Mac OS of the 1990s. If that article is “inaccurate” now, surely it was inaccurate in 2007.

Or does it mean Apple’s 11 new security features in Leopard made that big of a difference? Because if that’s true, Apple should issue a warning to the Mac community of the risks of using earlier versions of Mac OS X.
Why the mixed signals? Cynics on the Web have theorized Apple pulled the KB article as a PR move; it was embarrassed that the public had discovered its recommendation to use antivirus software even as its advertising touted Macs as a virus-free paradise. I’m inclined to agree.

Evans’ widely quoted statement clarified little, since he comes close to contradicting the party line when he says no system is immune from all threats and suggests Mac users install antivirus software – just as the withdrawn KB article did.

With Apple leaving its customers befuddled over what they should do, it fell to tech Web sites to dispense recommendations.

It’s been said before, but it always bears repeating: while Mac users have little to fear from the sort of self-propagating viruses that plague Windows PCs, they still need to be wary of other cyberthreats.

The biggest comes from phishing schemes – attempts to fool people into divulging their passwords or credit card information. Most of these come in the form of fake e-mails from banks or retailers. The e-mails link to phony Web sites, so it doesn’t matter whether you use a Mac or Windows.

And although no viruses exist for Mac OS X, several Trojan horses lurk out there. But this variant of malware also relies on user gullibility. One usually needs to visit a shady Web site (like a porn site), where the user gets a message that they need some sort of plug-in to view the, uh, material.

Instead of downloading a plug-in, however, clicking on the link downloads the malware. Even then the user must still type in an administrator password to install it, but at that point the urgency of the moment probably has caused the desertion of all reason.

Skeptics will continue to scoff at Mac users who refuse to bow to the tyranny of the security fearmongers. But until a credible threat surfaces that requires the use of antivirus software on a Mac, I expect few Mac users will bother with it.

PS: If you’re still feeling a bit paranoid but don’t want to shell out the money to Symantec, Intego or McAfee, check out the free ClamXavMac antivirus software.

Posted by David Zeiler at 1:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)