This is the Dawning of a New Era…

The HTML5-era is rising:

• Flash – HTML5
• Flash Video – HTML5 + H.264
• Silverlight – HTML5

Thanks, Apple, for pushing!

The iMac and Noise

I actually really like iMacs. They are beautiful and sufficiently powerful machines that can do pretty much all that you want to do with a computer. But…

One fundamental problem of the iMac is (or at least can be) the noise it produces.

It’s not that an iMac is particularly loud or noisy. But they do have fans and hard drives and some of them are plagued by display noises like a high pitched tune or a crackling or buzzing sound.

The screen noise problem could be the same with every other computer. (In fact I have already returned two other displays because of their whining noises.)

With the noise that comes from fans and hard drives however the iMac has a particular problem because the fan and hard drives are standing right in front of the user, behind the display. Thus an iMac has to be particularly silent to not be heard by the user. And that is a problem. You can hear the iMacs I know quite clearly. A modern and silent »normal« PC in contrast cannot be heard at all because all components that make noise are located behind or under the desk.

So personally I would like Apple to produce an ordinary headless PC: cheaper than the PowerMac, faster and more capable than the Mac Mini. An iMac with a separate display, so to say.

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.