The Inane Fuss Over Apple’s Secret Port To The ARM

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Feb 082012
 

If you read certain articles on the web you might be under the impression that Apple has had a secret project to port OSX to the ARM-based architecture with the intention of producing a cut down (although not necessarily very cut down) Macbook Air running on the ARM architecture.

Which is preposterous.

Firstly this secret project to port OSX was merely bringing up the ‘lower half’ of OSX (Darwin) on a particular variety of ARM-processor. The end result ? Probably something more or less equivalent to a “login” prompt on an old multi-user Unix system with no GUI. That is not to underestimate the accomplishment of the student involved – in many ways that would be a good 75% of the work involved.

But a few key facts here :-

  1. This is not the first port of Darwin (or even OSX) to the ARM-based architecture. Pick up your iThingie … that’s got an ARM inside, and whilst we all call the operating system it runs iOS, it is really OSX with a different skin on. Sure there are some differences and limitations, but they are merely skin deep – at the lowest level they’re both Darwin.
  2. If there’s a secret project to run OSX on an ARM-based laptop of some kind, this ain’t it. Take a closer look at the processor used in this experiment. It’s an ARM processor less capable than that in the very first iPhone. You won’t see it in any new laptops. If this secret experiment had any real product behind it, it would be more likely to be an intelligent embedded device – a really clever fridge or something (and no, not a TV).
  3. If there was a real product behind this, it seems pretty unlikely that Apple would choose a student on work experience to do the work. After all such a student might just spill the beans on a secret project given enough green folding stuff as incentive.

What is probably the case here is that Apple came up with this project for the student as a way of testing whether he was worth considering as a full employee – after all it is a better way of testing a potential employee than asking them to make the tea! And have no intention of using the result as a product.

What they will do however is use the student’s observations to feed back into the OSX team – what problems did he encounter that might qualify as bugs ? Etc.

In reality, Apple probably already has OSX running on ARM based machines in their labs. It’s an obvious thing to try out given that all their iThingies are ARM based, and it is not an enormous amount of extra work to finish off what is already in place to get something that looks and runs like OSX. After all, Apple did ages ago admit that early versions of OSX did run on x86-based processors when their product line was all PowerPC based, and keeping OSX portable across architectures is something they probably want to keep as a possibility.

Will Apple launch an ARM-based Macbook Air ? Not anytime soon. Whilst the value of a 64-bit architecture is over-rated, it would seem unlikely that Apple will ever again launch a 32-bit based “real” computer. But with 64-bit based ARMs arriving in a year or two, who knows ?

Islands In The Cloud

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Nov 172011
 

I have an Android phone that automatically uploads photos to Google; you have an iPhone that automatically uploads photos to Apple’s iCloud service. We both want to send photos to a Facebook gallery for some friends.

To solve this problem, we either have to copy photos manually from Google to Facebook, or make use of some special application to do the work for us. But isn’t this the wrong solution to the problem ?

If the different propriety clouds used an open standard for uploading photos, it would be possible to automatically upload to Google from an iPhone, upload to Apple’s iCloud from an Android phone, or … to some new competitor. Or even for those of us who prefer to do our own thing, to our own servers.

As someone who mixes and matches things, I have “islands of data” in different clouds – some photos are uploaded to Facebook (when I can be bothered), some are in Googleland, and some (the ones I regard as the better ones) are uploaded to my own server. And that is just photos; there are also contacts, notes, documents, drawings, etc. None of this can be easily moved from one island to another – sure I could move it manually, but why would I want to do that ? Computers after all are supposed to be good at automation.

This is all down to the convenience of the cloud providers of course – Google makes it easy to use their services and hard to use others because it’s in their interests to do so, Apple is similarly inclined to keep your imprisoned in their “perfumed prison”. And so on.

But it’s all our data and they should make it easy to move our data around. This not only would be useful for us, but less obviously would actually benefit the cloud providers. After all if I find it tricky moving from one online photo gallery “cloud” to another, I’m less inclined to do so.

Making it easier to move cloud data from one provider to another not only means it is easier for a customer to “escape” one proprietary cloud, but it is also easier for a customer of another cloud to move in. And it would not necessarily be that difficult to do – just produce a standardised API that works across multiple different cloud providers, and let the application developers loose.

To a certain extent this is possible right now – for example, Facebook has an API and Twitter has an API and it is possible to produce code to send status updates to both places. But the equivalent to update a Google Plus status does not seem to be available, and combining status updates in one tool just isn’t there as yet – I have a simple script which sits on top of two other tools (and very nicely pops up a window, a text input box, or takes the status on the command line). But with a standardised API, the code would be much easier to write.

 

Remembering Steve Jobs

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Oct 062011
 

Today was the day we learned that Steve Jobs died. This is of course massive news within the technology industry as Steve Jobs has been such an important player in the industry since the beginning of the personal computer revolution (long before the iPod and all the other iThingies). As with everyone who dies, my sympathy goes out to anyone who knew him.

The reaction has been … interesting. Amongst the other compliments he has been called a great innovator, which to those who observe the industry closely seems a touch inaccurate. There are plenty of things that Steve Jobs was – he was a great businessman who not only built up Apple in the first place, but returned to rescue it from obscurity (and possibly saving it).

He had the ability to take innovations and introduce them to the mass market – he could somehow lead his engineers into producing usable mass-market products. But without meaning to criticise he was not as much of an innovator as is sometimes made out to be.

Looking through the history of the products he brought to the mass-market …

Apple I & Apple II

Neither of these were truly original. The Apple I was one of the first personal computers that were available fully assembled, but it was not the first. The basic concept of the personal computer released as a product can be traced to the IBM 5100 (1975) or the HP 9830 (1972). These may have been a lot more expensive but were probably more successful than the Apple I which only sold about 200.

The Apple II was a good deal more successful – probably the closest to a dominant personal computer around before the original IBM PC took off, but was no more truly original. For instance amongst the hordes of similar personal computers around at the time, there was the quite close Commodore PET (which was admittedly somewhat less expandable).

And the least said about the Apple III, the better!

The Macintosh

Most people assume that the Macintosh was the first computer with a graphical user interface, but it was not even the first from Apple themselves! They brought out the somewhat less successful (and very expensive) Lisa first. The first GUI computer was the Xerox Alto first built in 1973 – before Apple even existed! Admittedly this was never a commercial product, but Xerox did eventually launch a commercial workstation based on this early experiment – the Xerox Star, in 1981. That’s still 2 years before the Macintosh.

The Macintosh did however bring the graphical user interface to a mass audience even if the first Macintosh computers were more than a little constrained by lack of memory (128Kbytes anyone?).

The iPod

After a few successful years with the Macintosh (and having ditched Steve Jobs in 1985), Apple started to go downhill. Until Steve Jobs returned, and helped to turn the company around with the launch of Macintoshes that were better designed in terms of styling. Although he was probably right to kill it off, he also did something interesting on his return – he killed the Newton product line which although it was not really recognised at the time, was actually Apple’s first slate computer (it was marketted as a PDA but with a much bigger screen than most PDAs).

But the next big thing was the launch of  the music player that nearly everyone has tried at one time or another – the iPod. Again to disappoint the reflex Apple fans, this was not a massive innovation from Apple – there were portable digital music players launched before this. Such as the music player (with a somewhat limited capacity of 3.5 minutes!) envisaged by Kane Kramer way back in 1979 (and patented in the UK in 1981). Apple even hired him when they were facing patent litigation over the iPod.

Altogether there were five different music players launched in the market before Apple took a hand. But of course Apple made it easy enough for the man in the street to use.

The iPhone

The iPhone was an interesting product – a “smartphone” (it might have been more accurate to call it a featurephone) that on the basis of pure feature comparison was weaker than the competition in every way – a less capable data network (no 3G), many missing hardware features that were present on other smartphones (GPS, proper bluetooth support, a slot for memory expansion, etc.). It couldn’t even load additional apps – Steve Jobs tried telling everyone that apps should be on the Internet and not installed on the phone!

It did do two things better than the competition though – firstly the CPU was of reasonable strength to run a smartphone with. At least the pre-iPhone smartphones I used were positively anaemic in performance due to weak CPUs. Secondly, the iPhone made using a smartphone simple. And that was the real reason the iPhone took off – anyone could use it.

The iPad

And yet again Steve Jobs does it – take a product that was pretty much universally unpopular, or at most was popular only in certain vertical markets, and pushes it out to the mass market in a way that everyone can enjoy. Again very little in the way of innovation, but a great product (with some odd weaknesses until the iPad 2).

iPhone 4S: Yawn or What ?

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Oct 042011
 

So it has been announced at last. The iPhone 4S, which is more or less an iPhone 4 with some fiddling – a faster processor, an improved antenna, and a software update that gives it a feature that Android has had for a while. That is voice control.

Undoubtedly it will all be done in a very slick way – that is the Apple way, but is it enough ?

Well it all depends on what you mean by “enough”. It will undoubtedly sell – both to the Apple fans who worship anything Apple produces whatever the merits, but will it sell enough to keep Apple’s current level of influence in the mobile smartphone sector ? After all, Steve Jobs has now left and everyone is wondering how the new Apple will maintain it’s leadership in the smartphone and slate market.

Well the iPhone 4S is nice, but so is my iPhone 4. But it is hardly a major improvement – yes it’s faster; probably a lot faster. And the antenna improvement will please those who managed to tickle the antenna problem on the iPhone 4 (I could only do so by going through ridiculous contortions).

It’s a perfectly reasonable mid-life facelift, but it’s a touch late for a mid-life facelift, although admittedly a bit early for a whole new phone. Oh! Sure Apple will claim that the internals are completely different, but it’s still an improved iPhone 4 rather than an iPhone 5. Although it’s unreasonable, Apple’s problem here is that the iPhone 4S looks a little boring and in a post-Jobs era, they need to convince people that they are still able to release exciting products. And this isn’t it.

The big problem I see from my personal perspective is that there is no option for an iPhone with a big screen (and no I don’t mean an iPad!). If you look at the oodles of choice you can find in the Android phone market, you will find examples of premium smartphones with larger screens than the iPhone. Such as the Samsung Galaxy S II with a 4.3″ screen, and that is not even the largest smartphone screen you can find (although it may well be the best).

Sure not everyone wants a large screen on their smartphone, but I do and Android gives me that choice. And plenty of other choices – 3D screens, physical keyboards, etc. And no being chained up in Apple’s walled garden!

So yes, sorry Apple but it’s a bit of a yawn event. Try again with a proper iPhone 5 with a large (for a smartphone) screen.

The Toshiba Folio 100 Android Slate

 Computing  4 Responses »
Nov 062010
 

Well it’s here! An android slate that is – something I’ve been after for quite a while. And it turns out to be a Toshiba Folio 100. Perhaps not the best picture, but at least it hasn’t been stolen :-

55585

Hardware Thoughts

Supposedly some people thinks it feels cheap, well I can say it doesn’t. Admittedly there is a fair amount of plastic involved in the case, which is perhaps where the thoughts come from but it’s pretty good plastic. Perhaps it compares a little unfavourably with the Apple iPad or iPhone4, but for a half plastic device it’s not bad at all. The back is textured plastic which is perhaps a slightly dated design feature, but it does mean the slate feels less likely to slip out of your hands – that iPhone experience of the slick metal and glass (for the iPhone4) and slick plastic (for earlier iPhones) feels good out of the box, but most people end up sticking it inside a case and the need to feel it securely in your hands is at least part of the reason for the case.

The back is slightly smaller than the front, which makes it look a tad slimmer than it really is, but the thinner edge makes it easier to hold onto the device. The 25cm screen sits within a larger area leaving a 2cm border around the device. Again a slightly dated design feature, but it does mean that when you hold it with your thumb on the top surface for a more secure grip, you don’t obscure any part of the screen.

The top of the bezel holds the tiny lens for the built-in webcam and a hole for the microphone. The right edge holds in order, a battery/power light, and a series of four touch sensitive buttons which are quite possibly just sensitive areas of the touchscreen – the LCD panel doesn’t extend to the edge of the device, but the glass of the touchscreen does. The top edge holds the only physical buttons – an on/off switch, and a volume control rocker switch. The on/off switch feels a little loose, which isn’t good, but the volume buttons seem to work fine.

Connectors can be found on the right edge and bottom edge with some covered by rubber covers. After having seen so many devices that recharge through a USB connection, it seems oddly old-fashioned that Toshiba have included a conventional powerbrick to plug into an old-style proprietary power-jack. This is one place where being dated is not good – why not use the USB ports for power like everyone else ?

Without commenting on the software (yet!), in use the device works pretty well. The screen is nice and clear; the touchscreen is pretty responsive and accurate although there’s always room for improvement. The only oddity is those touch sensitive buttons on the right – they sometimes seem reluctant to activate. Of course the screen is both reflective and subject to getting greasy fingerprints on it.

The Software

Before I start making any comments, please be aware of two things that may influence my comments :-

  1. I haven’t used an Android device before so I won’t be aware of how this device compares in use to other devices. Plus of course nobody (according to Google) is supposed to be using the current Android builds for tablets!
  2. My home Wifi network is especially flaky so some problems may have been down to this.

The Toshiba may be running Android 2.2 but it isn’t quite the full Google experience – there are no Google applications, and the real Android Marketplace isn’t there. Of course Toshiba has bundled in some applications to get started with, including it’s own Marketplace application, but it would be nice to have a choice. What is missing from the bundled applications is a map viewer (admittedly this would have to be manually driven given the lack of a GPS unit, but even so), and a game or two. It may also be sensible to have a more obvious “widget” on the home screen(s) to lead into a quick overview of the device. And please explain the different power lights in that quick overview!

The Marketplace. Well it looks fine at first glance, but is a little flaky in operation. It is subject to frequent crashes, and there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot in it – for instance where is the Kindle app? And what there is in there seems to be very haphazardly arranged with some rather startling choices of categories.

Ok, perhaps Toshiba have restricted apps to things that will work well on the Folio which would explain the limited numbers. Well, no. At least two of the apps I downloaded turned out to restrict themselves to a phone-sized display which looks very silly. I could understand that sort of thing on the main Android Marketplace as Android slates are so new, but in Toshiba’s “walled garden” ?

The photo above shows that at least some applications originally written for a phone-sized display work “correctly” on the larger screen of a slate, although perhaps resulting in a somewhat humorous result. Although I can imagine some people would find calculators with such big buttons useful. What Toshiba needs to do is :-

  1. Debug their marketplace app so it doesn’t crash (and doesn’t have so many issues with long lists of apps!).
  2. Restrict apps in their marketplace to those apps that work well on the Folio, and categorise them much more carefully.
  3. Allow the use of the standard Android Marketplace – perhaps with the addition of a quality warning screen. Or indeed with an option in the settings to allow it’s use.

Despite claims that this device supports Flash, the Youtube experience shows that it isn’t quite there yet – you get a screen saying you need to upgrade your version of Flash. There was a slip of paper put into the box telling me to check the Toshiba Multimedia website for a Flash download, which doesn’t seem to be there. But why can’t the Flash update be included into the standard update mechanism ? This all has the feel of a slightly rushed product. In some ways this is fair enough, providing that there are frequent updates online (through the “Toshiba Service Station”).

Over a few days, my initial impression of it being a little rushed have been reinforced – there after frequent crashes of the Toshiba applications, and the system has a habit of slowing down to a crawl from time to time. The only update that has been provided so far has been to the Toshiba Marketplace application – which didn’t come through the “Service Station” app, and that has made things worse. Now there are no applications available at all!

Apparently Dixons have gotten so many returns, that they are effectively refusing to sell any more (see the article from The Register). Toshiba needs to buck up it’s ideas pretty quickly here. Even if it is just an update to :-

  1. Provide the standard Marketplace application.
  2. Provide an option to remove all of the added Toshiba applications.
  3. Provide an explanation that the Toshiba branded applications are being temporarily removed for quality issues.

At the very least they need to send out a message either on the device itself, or via an email to urge customers to apologise, be patient and announce expected dates when updates will be provided.

Final Words

Well, even after the long awaited update the Toshiba software was still sub-standard. The best option for anyone who hasn’t lost patience and returned their Folio is a community-hacked up ROM.

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