Microsoft Joins In On Apple vs. Adobe… Sides With Apple

This has to be really weird. Microsoft and Apple actually agree on something, and that something would be Flash. On the same day that God Steve Jobs ranted about Flash, I found this posting on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Blog where Microsoft basically takes Apple’s side of this argument:

The future of the web is HTML5. Microsoft is deeply engaged in the HTML5 process with the W3C. HTML5 will be very important in advancing rich, interactive web applications and site design. The HTML5 specification describes video support without specifying a particular video format. We think H.264 is an excellent format. In its HTML5 support, IE9 will support playback of H.264 video only.

And:

Today, video on the web is predominantly Flash-based. While video may be available in other formats, the ease of accessing video using just a browser on a particular website without using Flash is a challenge for typical consumers. Flash does have some issues, particularly around reliability, security, and performance. We work closely with engineers at Adobe, sharing information about the issues we know of in ongoing technical discussions. Despite these issues, Flash remains an important part of delivering a good consumer experience on today’s web.

So it looks like God Steve Jobs has an ally of sorts in his ongoing battle against Adobe. You have to wonder how Adobe is going to spin this one. Over to you Adobe!

Adobe vs. Apple: Who’s Right… Who’s Wrong

This morning God Steve Jobs posted an open letter about why Adobe Flash is not right for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. He basically says that it’s a relic, buggy, crash prone, insecure and not the future. I’d read the full text of his letter to get the gist of his arguments. Adobe’s CEO Shantanu Narayen didn’t waste any time in firing back at Jobs by saying that Jobs points in his letter are a “smokescreen,” Flash is an “open specification,” and suggested that any Flash-related crashes on OS X have more to do with Apple’s operating system than Adobe’s software. This is the latest in an ongoing battle between Adobe who wants to put flash on God’s Steve Jobs iDevices and how Jobs will do anything to keep them off his lovely iDevices.

So who’s right about this? It depends. Here’s my take:

1. Flash is unstable. It crashes on Mac OS X and Windows. It’s so crash prone that the next version of Firefox (which if you’re really brave you can preview right now) will have code to try and contain crashes to the browser rather than have a Flash crash spread to the OS. Maybe Adobe should do something about that.
2. Jobs points out that Flash is insecure highlighting the fact that Symantec backs him up on this point. However, I’ll point out that Flash runs on LINUX and the security issues that exist on Windows and OS X don’t appear to exist on LINUX. That to me sounds like an OS issue and not a Flash issue. Perhaps Microsoft and Apple might want to do something about that. Having said that, there are a ton of exploits floating around that use Flash as a gateway. Perhaps Adobe might want to do something about that.
3. Jobs points out that open standards such as HTML5 and SVG vector graphics are the way to go. True. Ultimately, moving to truly open standards that are cross platform is the way of the future. But, Flash is everywhere right now. People know how to code for it and it would be foolish to simply ignore it because God Steve Jobs says so.
4. Jobs writes in his letter “It is not Adobe’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps. And Adobe has been painfully slow to adopt enhancements to Apple’s platforms.” I think that translates to “Adobe pisses us off because they won’t support us and us alone.” I guess that’s why they changed the terms and conditions of the iPhone SDK to keep anybody who writes apps with something other than Apple tools (read: Adobe) off their phones and tablets.
5. Adobe Flash is a CPU and battery hog says God Steve Jobs. True. Flash heavy pages send the CPU usage of my Mac or my wife’s PC through the roof. That has to affect battery life at some point. Now to be fair, Adobe is working on hardware acceleration to make Flash more CPU friendly, but you if you take a look at at video on and HTML5 webpage and see how low the CPU usage is, their hardware acceleration would have to be damm good to compete with that.
6. Neither company is a paragon of being open despite what they both say. I guess if you want open, you’d have to go for Android. But then you’d get porn according to God Steve Jobs, and it’s his “moral responsibility” to keep you from seeing porn on any of his iDevices.

Both sides have their issues and nobody is the clear winner of this little pissing contest (although I have to admit that I am leaning towards Adobe at the moment). If Apple and Adobe were smart, they’d go back to the days where they worked closely together to produce really good software for their users rather than try to slag each other in the media. This little spat doesn’t help users and as a result nobody wins. Not Apple. Not Adobe. Not end users.

A pox on both their houses.

Rogers Says “Next Is Now”

My “best friends at Rogers” sent me a link to a video that they showed during their annual shareholders meeting where I’m pretty sure that shareholders rejoiced in the fact that revenue was up significantly year over year. But I am digressing. The video in question shows how the planet has changed because of things like Facebook, text messaging, smartphones, the Internet, etc. Some of the stats that are displayed during this video are:

• It would take 28 years to watch the video uploaded to YouTube this week
• At Facebook’s current growth rate, it will exceed the world’s population by 2014
• Today, 12000 books fit onto 8 Kindles

The only time you know the video is from Rogers is at the very end where they display the Rogers logo. It’s also very light on any sort of advertising which easily makes it the best advert that Rogers has ever produced. Take a look and see for yourself. Please leave your thoughts in the comments section.

Microsoft Extracts Cash From HTC Claiming Patent Infrigment….WTF?

I guess Microsoft needs the cash or something because they woke up this morning and managed to convince HTC that Android infringes on one or more of their patents so that they’d get a check of some sizable amount. Here’s what Microsoft had to say:

“HTC and Microsoft have a long history of technical and commercial collaboration, and today’s agreement is an example of how industry leaders can reach commercial arrangements that address intellectual property,” said Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of Intellectual Property and Licensing at Microsoft. “We are pleased to continue our collaboration with HTC.”

Sure. Yeah. Right.

Maybe HTC didn’t want to fight a two front war seeing as Apple is suing them? Or perhaps this is an extension of Microsoft’s attempt to claim patents based on elements of LINUX (seeing as Android is LINUX based)? Or perhaps because of the fact that HTC also makes Windows Mobile phones, Microsoft maybe felt the need to bitch slap HTC? Who knows. The software giant isn’t talking. But the interesting thing is that Google who created Android in the first place isn’t a target of Microsoft, nor are they coming to the rescue of HTC (again). What’s that all about Google?

HP Scoops Up Palm For $1.2 Billion…. Never Saw That Coming

I have to admit that I did see Palm being bought out, but I didn’t see HP being the company doing the buying. But that’s exactly what happened today when HP announced that they have purchased Palm for $1.2 billion. Why did they buy Palm. Here’s what HP had to say via their press release:

The combination of HP’s global scale and financial strength with Palm’s unparalleled webOS platform will enhance HP’s ability to participate more aggressively in the fast-growing, highly profitable smartphone and connected mobile device markets. Palm’s unique webOS will allow HP to take advantage of features such as true multitasking and always up-to-date information sharing across applications.

Yeah. Sure. I guess they needed to get into the smart phone fight somehow and Palm was the best way to do it seeing as they were ripe for a takeover. But the only way I can see that this purchase working for HP is if HP customers see the value in an “all in one solution” where Palm fits into a larger HP solution. Otherwise, I would say that this is $1.2 billion wasted.

Oh, I did note this from the press release:

Palm’s current chairman and CEO, Jon Rubinstein, is expected to remain with the company.

There seems to be a bit of wiggle room in that sentence. Anybody want to take bets on how long he stays?

Blogger Who Broke The Prototype iPhone Story Gets Raided By Cops

Unless you were under a rock like I was (sort of) last week, You surely heard of the story of the Apple engineer who went drinking with some friends to celebrate his birthday and lost a prototype iPhone. Said iPhone eventually ended up in the hands of Jason Chen of Gizmodo who then posted the details for all to see. While he did return the iPhone to Apple…. eventually, the legality of the whole affair has been question as Chen apparently paid for the phone. That’s important because:

“There are criminal statues on [states'] books for the receipt of stolen property,” [Barry] Cohen [intellectual property attorney at Thorp Reed & Armstrong LLP] said. “I would be wary of buying something from someone not knowing the provenance. Everyone knows that Apple keeps a very tight lid on these kinds of things.”

So it didn’t come as a shock to me when the news that Chen’s house got raided by cops armed with a search warrant hit the wires. Gizmodo has the details from their side of the fence and they’re making a novel argument to keep the stuff that they took from being used in a future criminal case:

According to Gaby Darbyshire, COO of Gawker Media LLC, the search warrant to remove these computers was invalid under section 1524(g) of the California Penal Code.

And not to mention that they are saying that California’s shield law, which protects journalists from having to turn over anonymous sources or unpublished material to law enforcement during a search, applies here.

An already wild story has just taken another plot twist. Stay tuned for more.

RIM Announces A New Blackberry Pearl…. No Clue On A Ship Date Though….

For you Blackberry addicts out there, RIM has a new device to keep you addicted. Enter the Blackberry Pearl 2 which is also known as the Pearl 9100. The big news with this Pearl is that it has 3G network support and RIM’s optical trackpad to replace the scroll ball. There’s also external media keys and a 3.2 megapixel camera. I’ve never been a fan of the Pearl series myself as I like a full sized keyboard rather than the SureType keyboard that this comes with, but I do know a ton of people who will be wanting this device as soon as it’s on the streets. When will that be? No clue. Even “my best friends at Rogers” who sent me an e-mail announcing that they’d have this smart phone didn’t have an availability date either. So I guess we’ll wait and see. I do know one thing though, it will be a hit when it does ship.

McAfee Offers To Pay For PC Repairs After False Positive Fiasco

I’m guessing that the blowback from McAfee’s recent disaster with a recent update to their anti virus product that caused damage to Windows XP SP3 computers must have been so big that they have decided to do this if their support staff and downloadable tools don’t fix your issue:

If you have already incurred costs to repair your PC as a result of this issue, we’re committed to reimbursing reasonable expenses. Steps to process your reimbursement request will be posted in the next few days. Please check back here in a few days.

Because we value our loyal customers, if your PC was rendered inoperable or severely impaired as a result of the faulty file released you are eligible for a two year extension of your existing McAfee subscription free of charge.

No word on what “reasonable” means, but it should be really interesting to find out their definition of “reasonable.”

While I do think that this is attempt to cover their backsides show some goodwill, I also think that this might be a mistake. Why? They’ve all but admitted that they screwed up (after all, they use the word “faulty” in the link above). That now leaves the door wide open for lawsuits to come flying in their direction. Not to mention that they’re likely not going to reimburse the costs of an IT department who has deployed a McAfee solution to hundreds or thousands of computers that may be affected by this. That’s sure to tick somebody off. I might be wrong, but I doubt it. Expect the lawyers to be at the gates shortly.

The other thing that pops out at me is the fact that they are offering customers who got hit by this a two year extension of their subscription. Great PR for sure, but let’s think about this for a second. If you’re a customer who got hit by this issue, what are the odds that you’ll keep using McAfee products? I would say that that those odds are between slim and none and slim has packed his bags and left town.

Oh by the way, this little problem with McAfee hasn’t been a boon to me. I recommend a few other products that don’t cost my customers a dime and work very well. Which I guess proves that you don’t have to pay to get good protection for your computer.

Review: Kanex Mini DisplayPort To HDMI Adapter

One of the things I’ve always done with my MacBook Pro is hook it up to my HDTV to watch movies that I <ahem> “acquired” over the Internet. My current MacBook Pro came with a Mini DisplayPort video connector rather than the DVI port that was on my last MacBook Pro. So I needed to get an adapter that allowed me to hook it up to the DVI to HDMI cable that I already owned. That’s when I stumbled on the iAdapt Mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapter from a company called Kanex. One of the features that intrigued me was that it would send sound via a USB connection to the HDTV over HDMI. That meant that I could avoid hooking up an extra cable to get sound. Cool!  My perusal of their website showed that there’s actually two versions of this device. There’s the iAdapt 20 which has 2 channel audio, and the iAdapt 51 which has 5.1 audio with a digital audio output. So with that in mind, I ordered the iAdapt 20 and got it in a week.

My verdict? It is a plug and play device on the Mac that works as advertised. The only thing you have to do is switch the sound output to the USB device. Other than that, it’s really easy to use. I’ve run 1080P video with excellent picture and sound quality. I can’t really think of anything negative to say about this device, and that’s rare for me. So I’ll give this a must buy if you have a MacBook or MacBook Pro and you want to hook it up to your HDTV.

Bye Bye Bell! – Part 4

So we’re one month into our adventure with Teksavvy Home Phone and two things have come up that I’d like to update you on. First one of my readers made this comment in part 3 of my adventure when I mentioned that I’m expecting a bill from Bell because they want 30 days notice:

“I bet you will get billed. It seems that unless you give 60 days notice, you seem to get billed. Lots of people on DSLReports have had it happen.”

Guess, what? We got billed. My wife paid it before I could stop her from doing so. If we get billed again, we’ll be phoning Bell as clearly this is a cash grab. The funny thing is, that when you look for info on how to cancel your service on bell.ca, they tell you to phone a Bell customer service rep. I guess they do that so they can try to convince you not to switch. It would be nice if Bell gave you those details up front, but they don’t strike me as the type of organization who would want to do that. After all, why would Bell want to actually do something that facilitates their customers ability to leave them?

The second thing that happened is that we got a card from Bell saying that “It was better with you here” and thanking me for our business. Oh yeah, they offered to waive the reconnection fee if we decided to come back. It was a nice card on a good paper stock and it made a bit of an impression on my wife. However, she did point out that if Bell really wanted to retain our business, here’s what they had to do:

• Charge a fair price for their service: Seeing as we were paying $40 a month for phone service and Teksavvy was $12 a month cheaper for phone service, Bell is way out of line. Now Bell did offer us some deals when we asked about our contract status, but they would only last a year and then we’d be back to $40 a month. Sorry Bell. No deal.
• Provide excellent customer service: Our rather horrific customer service experience is what started this ball rolling. Perhaps if Bell had handled this better, I wouldn’t be talking about this in my blog. Now I will admit that Bell claims to be improving that, but those improvements are way too late for me to stay with them.

Bell didn’t do either of those things which is why we’re with Teksavvy now. Speaking of Teksavvy, we’ve had no problems with our phone service at all and we haven’t had to call them for anything. That’s a good thing in my book.

We’ll keep you posted if anything else happens.