Wave’s Google Problem

Google has announced that it will axe its Google Wave product due to insufficient demand. Wave is a real-time communication system that could potentially replace e-mail, instant text messengers and collaborative text editors. It also has a plug-in system to include further functionality.

Some think it is the extended or mixed functionality that lead to Wave’s lack of success. IMHO Google Wave has an excellent feature set.

I think Google Wave basically lacks just one thing: a native client.

You just can’t replace native app functionality and system integration with browser pages. HTML 5 won’t change that fact either. John Gruber is right when he says Wave is a very Google-y product. In this case Google’s browser-centric approach was just the problem.

Addendum:
To prove my point, just ask yourself: Would you use Twitter without a Twitter client?

So true…

The New iPhone’s Camera: Sensor Size and Pixel Count

The just announced Apple iPhone 4 has a new 5 MPix camera. Now, 5 MPix cameras are not uncommon but Apple did not do what most other manufacturers do. They did not just stuff more pixels into the same sensor size. No, Steve Jobs even took the time in his iPhone 4 presentation keynote (00:51h) to explain the fact that if there are more pixels on the same sensor size, this means a smaller sensor area per pixel, and that means each pixel can capture less light (less photons).

The website 6mpixel.org explains this phenomenon.

So Apple did not only increase the pixel count but also increased the sensor size to keep the sensor area per pixel the same. This is just one of the reasons why I love Apple products.

Videos on New Features in Adobe CS5

This is something for designers! Terry White presents new CS5 features on Adobe TV. Some of the new features are really cool and Terry is an awesome presenter. I watched:

• Illustrator (Best feature: new line-width/stroke options.)
• Photoshop (Best feature: new selection/edge tools)
• InDesign (Best feature: new Illustrator-like layer/elements palette.)

By the way:
A good part of the new features concern Flash and interactive electronic content. Though I don’t like Flash and can understand some of Apple’s motives to not let Flash run on iPads/iPhones, it is very interesting to see Adobe’s very design centric approach to user interfaces created in CS5/Flash. I can imagine Adobe’s tools to be attractive to print publishers who want to put their content on mobile devices. Apple and Adobe might eventually become direct competitors as software platform providers for an emerging market for electronic publishing on iPads and other slate devices.

Addendum:
Obviously Adobe is already working on a native publishing solution for the iPad: »Introducing WIRED Magazine on iPad«. IMHO that looks much more promising than any Flash-based approach.

Apple Still Can Blow It

As mentioned in recent posts: With the iPhone OS, the App Store and the iPad Apple has a huge potential to change how people will use computers and read books and magazines.

But …

Apple still can blow it

… if they do not change their admission policy to the App Store and/or allow users to install other software than apps delivered via the App Store.

On the publishing side the main problem is political censorship by Apple. That of course should be totally unacceptable for any newspaper or magazine publisher.

On the software development side the main problem seems to be the vagueness and/or obscureness of Apple’s criteria for the rejection of software from the App Store.

Update:
If Apple just continues to behave like this, they can have the best system in the world technologically (IMHO they have), but will still loose against their competitors.

The iPad Will Revolutionize Publishing (And That’s Not All)

Despite the iPad’s negative reception in the tech blogoshere (for example the Engadget team’s reaction, or compare this »Fake Steve« video or David Appleyard’s somewhat feeble defence of the iPad) …

I am convinced that the iPad will not only revolutionize modern computing but also will revolutionize publishing.

Today there are printed journals, HTML-web-pages and—already—iPhone (and iPod) apps for many journals, which have their own native interface. Since iPhone screens are very small those native clients are an addition to regular printed journals or web pages but certainly no replacement.

Now imagine those native journal clients optimized for the iPad!

That is a whole new world for publishing. Journals will have full multimedia capabilities, no restrictions due to HTML, CSS or Javascript limitations (although those clients will almost certainly use these technologies), and most importantly …

they will be able to use micropayment via the AppStore and In App Purchase.

Thus Publishers will eventually be able to earn money with their electronic publishing just like the can charge for their printed journals. Even more, they can easily introduce new payment options like time-based subscription, pay-per-article, pay-per-quota, you name it! They can even create opt-in or opt-out models for advertisement. People who despise most ads (like me) can pay for ad-free publications. Or people who don’t care or even like ads might be able to pay a budget price for publications with ads.

Apart from that I still think that the iPad shows us today how computing for the masses will work tomorrow. Apple IMHO has just released the most important electronic device of the new century. Just watch the revolution take place!

P.s.:
I surely didn’t come up with this; check Om Malik’s article from back in February 2009: »Can Apple Please Kick-start Micropayments?«

Or read the following article by the German news magazine »Die Zeit«, with a more skeptical undertone but recognizing the iPad’s potential: »Symbol der neuen Ordnung«. Google translation: »Symbol of the new order«. Or view this pro/con discussion: »Is the IPad (sic) Publishing’s Saviour?« or watch this video on Forbes: »Apple iPad: Publishing Saviour?«.

P.p.s.:
I must say that I wrote some of the above in some sort of naïve ardour. Much depends on how strong the momentum (i.e. market share) of the iPad will be. Paying options depend on Apple’s terms for the App Store. But I still think that to a large extent the future of reading is electronic, now that I have seen a device that, both, aesthetically and in terms of usability, can compete with books and journals.

Update:
The CEO of Axel Springer, a German newspaper publishing corporation, says the iPad is starting a new era, says Steve Jobs is saving the publishing industry:

• Article on Heise Online (German).
• A video of the interview (English). Note: You should ignore the second half of the interview in which the CEO expresses his right wing conservative political views, although it is interesting, almost funny—and a little frightning—how fond this self-proclaimed defender of democracy and freedom is of China’s non-democratic version of capitalism (“It’s a very interesting version! You don’t have to discuss. You just do. You’re very efficient!”).

Update p.s.:
Of course the content industry can always screw up, also on the iPod. It seems the first Axel Springer newspaper app is terrible: Article on Netzwertig.com (German).

The iPad—A new type of computer

I agree with this blog post by Panic Inc.’s Steven Frank. Apple’s iPad is not only a new handheld device but a starting point for the development of a new type of computer, equipped with a simpler, easier to use interface than today’s computers, an iPhone-like application installation process and hopefully a new simple (abstracted away) file management system.

Via John Gruber’s »Daring Fireball«.