70% ue wireless to connect printers, smartphones

A massive 70 percent of   home users are using wireless technology to connect devices other than desktop PCs and laptops.

Half of all respondents to a poll on our sister site PC Advisor poll said that they use wireless to connect a lot of their gadgets and computing hardware, and a further 20 percent said they had done so in the past.

When asked 'Aside from a computer/laptop, do you connect different gadgets in your home together wirelessly?', 50 percent of readers responded with 'Yes, I wirelessly connect a lot of my technology'. The next most popular answer was 'Yes, I've tried it once or twice', with one fifth of the vote.

The least popular answer among readers was 'No, I don't have wireless', with only 2 percent of the vote. A similarly paltry 10 percent said 'No, I don't really know how to' - a perhaps unsurprising result from a poll of readers of a technical advice website. Four percent of respondents said they were not interested in wireless, and 14 percent responded with 'No, I don't have much wireless-enabled tech'.

The popularity of wireless is unsurprising -- it’s ubiquitous, and multifunctional. Around 19 million households in the UK have fixed internet access, and more than 90 percent of those have Wi-Fi-enabled broadband connections. Outside of the home, according to the Office For National Statistics the use of wireless hotspots almost doubled to 4.9 million users in the 12 months to August 2011. This has led to an explosion in the number of portable and household devices that utilise wireless connectivity.

Around 45 percent of internet users use a mobile device to connect to the internet, for instance. And with a connected PC and the right printer, it's now possible to print from anywhere in the house using a straightforward Wi-Fi connection, or anywhere in the world with a mobile device and wireless connectivity.

Once downloaded, you open the app, select a picture and hit send, and the app fires over the picture to the printer that's connected to your wireless network. With simplicity such as this, it’s easy to see why wireless gadgets are so popular.

See the full poll results here.

Google's Ice Cream Sandwich OS to launch before December

Android fans should expect to see Ice Cream Sandwich, the next version of Google's mobile operating system, in October or November, according to Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt.

"We have a new [Android] operating system, internally known as Ice Cream Sandwich...which is being released in October/November," Schmidt said during a talk at Salesforce's Dreamforce conference in San Francisco. Schmidt's comments were first reported by Android and Me.

Google has already said that Ice Cream Sandwich would debut during the fourth quarter of 2011, but Schmidt's comments suggest the release might come earlier than later during the last three months of the year.

Then again, it's not as if Schmidt gave a specific date or time frame for the release such as the last week of October or mid-November. So Schmidt's vague "October/November" statement may have simply been a general reference to the fourth quarter.

Waiting for Ice Cream Sandwich

Ice Cream Sandwich is an anticipated Android release largely because it will unify the Android OS from Gingerbread for phones and Honeycomb for tablets into one OS for all devices. That basically means smartphones will get some of the features first released for tablets in Honeycomb such as sliding widgets, the new task launcher and multitasking interface.

In August, leaked screenshots purportedly showed Ice Cream Sandwich running on a Nexus S device. The reports said the Android update had some previously undisclosed features such as a revamped Gmail interface, panorama mode for device cameras, and a new notification bar.

One of the first phones expected to run Ice Cream Sandwich could be the rumored Nexus Prime handset manufactured by Samsung. Like previous Nexus devices such as HTC's Nexus One and Samsung's Nexus S, the Prime will reportedly be a pure Android experience with no manufacturer overlays or carrier bloatware. The device is expected to have a large, Super AMOLED display with 1280-by-768 resolution, a dual-core processor, and a 5 megapixel camera.

Google has yet to officially announce when Ice Cream Sandwich will debut, but if you're thinking of buying a new Android phone, you might want to hold off for a few months to see what the initial Ice Cream Sandwich lineup will have to offer.

Plants vs. Zombies for iPhone gets an update

PopCap has announced that the iPhone version of Plants vs. Zombies has got a big new update. The update adds nine new minigames taken from the computer versions of the game; a new microgame; and new Game Center achievements.

The 9 new minigames come in packs of 3 and can be purchased either using coins acquired in game or by paying £0.69 per pack to unlock them instantly. The first of the three packs includes Walnut Bowling, Seeing Stars and Bobsled Bonanza. The second includes Invisi-Ghoul, Last Stand and ZomBotany 2. The final pack includes Beghouled Twist, Pogo Party and Zombie Nimble Zombie Quick.

The update also includes a "Race to China" microgame challenging players to dig their way to China as quickly as possible with the promise of Game Center achievements for the victorious.

Update your copy of Plants vs. Zombies for iPhone today to get hold of the new content.

Adobe releases second free beta of Edge HTML5 animation tool

Adobe has released a second free beta version of its new Edge software for creating animated web pages and elements such as ads in HTML5. It's available from the Adobe Labs site.

Here's the skinny from the Labs site as to what's in the new version:

Smart guides — Precision guide and dimension markers are displayed when an object on the stage is moved/resized, helping to align objects in relation to others.

Specify semantic tags on managed elements — Change the tag type of each shape, image and text in Edge to reflect appearance in the HTML document object model (DOM).

Copy and paste elements — You can now copy and paste elements in Edge, to easily duplicate shapes, images or text. Duplicate images will refer to the same underlying asset.

Align and distribute elements — Select multiple elements, and align and distribute them via new options in the Modify menu.

Drag and drop z-index manipulation — In the elements panel, you can now control the z-order of shapes, text and images created in Edge.

Playhead time editing — You can now type into the timeline’s counter to move the playhead to a specific location, or by dragging the numeric value up or down with your mouse.

Windows 7 update — An error on the Windows version causing Edge to crash on startup is resolved, no longer requiring users to change the display bit depth from 32-bit to 16-bit.

jQuery update — Edge’s animation framework now works with the latest jQuery 1.6.2.

Further updates are expected soon.

Photograph 'taken on iPhone 5' emerges

What is claimed to be a photograph taken with the iPhone 5 has been circulated online.

The Pocket Now website has published the image which it says was shot by an Apple engineer eating his lunch at work.

The EXIF data of the image, which is of a rather appetising plate of sushi, shows that the original image was taken at a resolution of 3264 x 2448 pixels, which is just under 8MP.

However, the image has been cropped to 2235 x 2291, which is just over 5MP. But the EXIF data also shows the lens to be a 4.3mm f/2.4, whereas the iPhone 4 has a 3.85 f/2.8 lens.

The ThisIsMyNext website has further analysed the image and claims that the device that took the picture can be seen in the reflection from the edge of the plate. However, it's difficult to make anything out from the image, except for a person holding a something between two outstretched hands.

8MP camera for iPhone 5 evidence strengthens

"Is this the first incredibly indistinct picture of the iPhone 5?" the site asks. We're not so sure - after all, the EXIF data could easily have been faked.

Lion compatibility is music to Sonos customers' ears

Lion users who found that they could no longer stream music to their Sonos speakers after upgrading from Snow Leopard are in luck: As promised, the company has released an update to its Sonos Controller app that corrects the issue; choose Check for Updates from the Sonos menu to get the latest version.

Back in July, Sonos wrote on its official blog:

At Sonos, one of our goals is to to provide you with uninterrupted access to all the music on earth. Earlier this week, we failed to deliver on this goal for many of our Mac OS X customers. We realize that our communication on the issue was tardy and did not provide the exemplary customer service we strive to provide. We're incredibly sorry for any inconvenience our error caused.

The company said that "a file-sharing bug that is inherent to the OS" caused the extended delay in releasing the software update, which, at the time, it said would be available "in the next few weeks." In a since-removed forum post, Sonos explained that Lion employs a new, proprietary implementation of the SMB protocol, not the open-source Samba implementation that Sonos previously relied upon.

The update is free, and of course recommended for all Sonos customers running Lion.

iPhone 5 assembly has begun - report

Apple manufacturers have begun assembling the iPhone 5 in preparation for an October launch, it has been claimed.

According to Macotakara, a Chinese source has reported that Foxconn and Pegatron have begun assembling the iPhone 5 in preparation for an early October launch in the US and a late October launch for Asia. Timescales for other territories are not mentioned.

The report also claims that the units, once assembled, are not being boxed up. This is because Apple is not ready to install iOS 5 on them yet, so presumably this will happen at a later date.

Lost iPhone 5 prototype and other rumours

We heard back in early August that Apple had ordered 10 million iPhone 5s from Pegatron and that the company would begin shipping them to Apple in September, which fits in with the latest reports. A photograph taken at a plant belonging to Wintek in mid-August was claimed to show an iPhone 5 production line.

Components for the iPhone 5 went into production in July , Digitimes reported, and since then there have been several mystery components that could be for the iPhone 5 or perhaps an iPhone 4S spotted in circulation.

Police did help Apple in hunt for lost iPhone

History does repeat itself: San Francisco Police Department confirms it helped Apple in a hunt for a lost iPhone 5 prototype that went missing in July. Don’t hold your breath, though -- no photographic evidence is available this time, as it was the case with the lost iPhone 4 prototype last year.

Just a few hours later after denying any involvement in the iPhone 5 prototype hunt, San Francisco police spilled the beans. SFPD says four of its officers accompanied in plainclothes two Apple investigators in the unusual search, led by Apple’s GPS trace on the device. The officers apparently never entered the man’s house, while Apple’s security officials scoured the 22-year-old man’s house and computer for any trace of the lost iPhone 5.

Still doubt what unreleased iPhone Apple was desperately seeking? Reuters has pieced it together -- even SFPD named the Word document statement on the search "iphone5.doc." What’s unclear is whether Apple managed to find the lost iPhone 5 prototype. CNet says the prototype might have been sold on Craigslist for a mere $200 (last year’s iPhone prototype finder got $5,000 for the phone, trial is ongoing).

Lost Again

The news of a second lost unreleased iPhone broke earlier this week. CNet first reported the device went missing at a San Francisco bar in July; two days later, Apple investigators and police officers searched the house of a young man who denied ever possessing such a device. They did not find the phone and even reportedly tried to offer the man cash, no questions asked, in exchange for its recovery.

Further details on the mysterious iPhone prototype search came from SFWeekly, which identified the young man whose house was searched. But in a weird twist of events, he claimed the four men and two women who came to his home searching for the lost phone were impersonators -- while San Francisco police said the department had no records of such an incident involving its officers. The man later acknowledged only Apple reps entered his home.

Even if an iPhone 5 prototype is still in the wild, pictures of it are yet to surface. This leaves us with rumors of the upcoming iPhone, said to arrive some time in October with a better processor, camera, and probably thinner and with a larger display.

Apple rules phone, tablet browsing market

Mobile browsing has more than doubled in the last year and now accounts for over 6% of all online activity, a Web statistics company said today.

And Apple's Safari -- the default browser on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch -- rules the usage share roost, representing 53% of the mobile browsing market.

Two trends are clear, said Vince Vizzaccaro, a vice president with metrics firm Net Applications, which released new figures earlier today. "Phones and tablets are stealing [browsing] share from desktops at an accelerated pace," said Vizzaccaro.

Users still do nearly all of the their browsing from a desktop or notebook computer, Net Applications' numbers showed, but that's changing: A year ago, desktop browsing controlled a 97.2% share, compared to 93.2% in August.

The other trend is Apple's clear-cut advantage. In the last 12 months, Safari's share has increased by 9.3 percentage points, and now owns a majority of the smartphone and tablet browsing market.

But Android also gained ground in the last year, boosting its browser share to 15.7%, an 8.1-point increase. Google's operating system dominates the smartphone market but badly lags behind Apple's iOS on tablets.

The clear loser has been Opera Mini, which lost 12.5 points in the same period, reducing its share to 20.8%. The Symbian browser that runs on Nokia smartphones has also been hit by the surge in sales of iOS and Android devices: It's down 3.6 percentage points in the past 12 months, and now controls just 5.8% of the market.

Apple's iPhone and iPad account for the bulk of Safari's share, although the former -- which has a nearly three-year lead on the latter -- remained slightly ahead last month. According to Net Applications, 27.4% of all mobile browsing was done from an iPhone, while 22.5% was conducted on an iPad.

Net Applications just revamped the way it tracks browser use by separating smartphone and tablet online activity from that on desktops and notebooks, a change Vizzaccaro said was prompted by the rise in mobile browsing.

"Mobile is such a big deal now," Vizzaccaro said.

Net Applications currently combines smartphone- and tablet-based browsing into a single number, but the company intends to break out tablets in the future.

Net Applications calculates browser usage share with data obtained from more than 160 million unique visitors who browse 40,000 Web sites that the company monitors for clients. More mobile browsing data can be found on the company's site.

Apple wants to put USB 3.0 alongside Thunderbolt in future Macs

Apple could build in USB 3.0 support in its future Macs to go alongside the high-speed Thunderbolt connection technology.

VR Zone reports that Apple is considering the move as prices for USB 3.0 host controllers at an all-time low - around $2-$3 apiece when bought in bulk. This compares to $10-$15 for a Thunderbolt chip, according to the report.

Though many commentators have put USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt down as competing technologies, Intel, the creator of Thunderbolt, plans to build USB 3.0 support into its hardware in the near future.

However, Apple will get there first, according to the VR Zone report, and Apple apparently sees the decision as a no-brainer, as USB 3.0 is backwards-compatible. Continuing to offer only USB 2.0 ports on future Macs when USB 3.0 controllers are so cheap just wouldn't make sense.

In terms of data transfer speeds, though, Thunderbolt has a clear edge over USB 3.0. But as the report points out, Thunderbolt-compatible peripherals are more expensive to produce than USB 3.0-compatible peripherals.

Thunderbolt ports were first introduced in the February 2011 refresh to the MacBook Pro line-up, and have since come to the iMac, MacBook Air and Mac mini ranges. Sony has also used the technology in its Vaio range.

Apple offers talks with Chinese environmental group

Apple has requested a Chinese environmental group to hold talks on a report that accuses the company's suppliers of polluting the environment and endangering the lives of residents.

On Wednesday, Apple's supplier responsibility department sent an e-mail with the request to the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE), which together with other environment groups, released a report investigating suppliers believed to be connected with the company.

The report, which was publicly released on Wednesday, provides several instances of manufacturers in China discharging harmful pollutants. In one case, the report links the pollution caused by two manufacturers with a rise in cancer rates among residents living nearby.

Apple said the company was "focused on constantly improving" its suppliers, according to a copy of the e-mail provided by IPE. But Apple said it found discrepancies with the list of suppliers IPE alleges are possible manufacturers of Apple products that have polluted the environment. IPE believes it has found 27 such suppliers.

"Several suppliers are not in our supply chain," Apple's e-mail said. "We would be interested in hearing more specifics on what you have discovered about these suppliers." The e-mail then asks if IPE would be interested in holding a private conference call to discuss the specifics.

IPE and other environmental groups have criticized Apple before, alleging that the company fails to monitor the work conditions and manufacturing processes used by its suppliers in China. But this is the first time Apple has responded to the groups' complaints, said Wang Jing Jing, vice director for IPE.

"This is a very positive sign," she said. "We are very willing to communicate with them."

IPE replied to Apple's e-mail and said the group welcomed discussions with the company. However, IPE wants the talks to include several other environmental groups, which were also involved in investigating the suppliers. IPE has also asked Apple to clarify which suppliers the company does not have a relationship with.

An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment on whether several manufacturers named in IPE's report were in fact suppliers of the company. Three suppliers named in IPE's report, Meiko Electronics, Kaedar Electronics and Unimicron have yet to comment.

Apple has previously defended itself by stating that the company works to achieve safe environmental standards with its suppliers. The company regularly conducts audits to ensure compliance and has made progress reports available online. In 2010, 127 Apple supplier facilities were audited. If violations are found, suppliers have to complete a plan to resolve the problem within 90 days after the audit.

Apple slow to fight Chinese fakes, according to Wikileaks cable

Apple did not have a global security team, including in China, until March, 2008, when it hired employees from drug company Pfizer, to counter rampant counterfeiting of its products in China, according to a cable leaked by activist group, WikiLeaks.

Apple had not so much as registered its trademarks in China or Hong Kong until Don Shruhan, one of the Pfizer executives, joined the company, the September, 2008 cable from the U.S. embassy in Beijing said.

Apple was relatively unknown in China before the introduction of its iPod music player in 2001, and subsequently the iPhone. Now those products are so popular worldwide that China's notorious counterfeit markets are filled with knock-off versions, according to the cable.

Early evidence suggests nearly 100 percent of Apple products in unauthorized mainland markets are knock-offs, while factories in Guangdong province are exporting enough counterfeits to single-handedly supply the world with fake Apple products, the cable said.

The cable said that after recognizing the threat from counterfeiting, Apple hired in March, 2008 the team from Pfizer that had formed and led a multi-year crackdown on counterfeit production of its Viagra drug in Asia.

The cable, marked as unclassified but "sensitive", was among a large number of messages that WikiLeaks released recently, and was discovered by CNN.

Shruhan was hired from Pfizer in March as senior director of security for Asia Pacific to design and launch the company's security strategy, including anti-counterfeiting efforts, while his boss at Pfizer, John Theriault, was also hired by Apple for a global role, according to the cable.

Shruhan is said to have observed that customs seizure data definitively shows that there is enough counterfeit production of Apple products in Guangdong to effectively make China the single source for the world's fake iPods and iPhones, many of which are routed through Hong Kong to points onward.

While ruling out production of counterfeits by its own contractors working a "third shift", Shruhan attributed the poor-quality fakes to independent operators without links to the licensees, though he acknowledged the manufacturing molds for iPods or iPhones could be removed from licensed factories and used in illegal production, according to the cable.

Apple did not immediately respond to an e-mail request for comment. Theriault is listed as Apple's vice-president for global security on Linkedin, while Shruhan is senior regional director for security and investigations at Apple's operations in Hong Kong.

Apple's problems with counterfeits in China have however not been resolved, according to analysts. The company discovered recently that not only its products are counterfeited, but at times entire stores are fake. The Chinese city of Kunming has stopped 22 fake Apple stores from illegally using the company's trademarks after Apple lodged a complaint with authorities, according to the city government.

Apple locks in new CEO Tim Cook through 2021

Apple's board of directors last Friday moved to lock in new CEO Tim Cook through mid-2021 by awarding him 1 million shares of the company's stock.

"In connection with Mr. Cook's appointment as Chief Executive Officer, the Board awarded Mr. Cook 1,000,000 restricted stock units," Apple said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Half of the 1 million "restricted stock units," or RSUs, will be awarded to Cook in August 2015 if he is still with Apple, while the second half will be given to him in August 2021, again only if he is still employed by the company.

At Friday's closing price, the 1 million shares would be worth over $383 million.

Restricted share units are not awarded at the time of the grant, but instead are given when they're vested. The shares will be worth their then-current price, which could, of course, be dramatically different than their value Friday.

Apple's SEC filing also noted that former CEO Steve Jobs had resigned , but would continue as an Apple employee; that Jobs was named chairman of the board of directors; and that Cook has been promoted to CEO from chief operating officer.

For 2010, Cook's total compensation, including his $800,000 salary as COO, a $5 million bonus for his work while Jobs was out on a medical leave during 2009, and various stock awards, totaled just over $59 million.

According to a January 2011 filing with the SEC, Cook's 1 million-share award will eventually give him a stake in the company almost one-fifth that of Jobs.

At Apple's current share price, Jobs' holdings of 5.5 million shares are worth $2.1 billion.

Jobs' resignation last week and Cook's promotion were not unexpected. Last January, after Jobs went on his second medical leave in two years, several analysts, including Brian Marshall of Gleacher & Co., predicted that Jobs would step down during 2011 , and that Cook would be elevated to the CEO slot.

Cook, 50, has been with Apple since 1998. He is also a director on the board of Beaverton, Ore.-based Nike.

Google TV 'coming to the UK'

Google TV could make its way to UK shores within the next six months, the Telegraph has reported.

According to the newspaper, Google TV, for the UK will be announced by Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt during this year’s MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival.

The service will let you watch content from catch-up services such as iPlayer and other web video services like YouTube on your TV. It uses the Android operating system and content is accessed via the Chrome browser.

Android phones will be the remote controls for the service, and it'll run through set-top boxes that will be available in the UK within the next six months, it is claimed.

Mozilla defends "rapid release" of Firefox versions

The release of a version of the Firefox browser every six weeks is found to be disconcerting, and at times potentially unmanageable by enterprises, the chair of Mozilla Foundation, which maintains the browser, said in a blog post.

The compatibility of add-ons with new versions is also another issue, said Mitchell Baker, chair of the nonprofit organization.

But quicker releases of new versions ensure that new capabilities are not delayed for nearly a year before they can be delivered to people, Baker said.

Mozilla recently adopted a "rapid release process" that it said would allow a new release of Firefox every six weeks.

"Before Mozilla instituted the rapid release process, we would sometimes have new capabilities ready for nearly a year before we could deliver them to people," Baker said. Web developers would have to wait that year to be able to make their applications better, she added.

A browser is the delivery vehicle for the Internet, and the Internet moves very quickly, Baker said. But if the browser is to be the interface for the Internet, it has to be more like the Internet. That means delivering capabilities when they are ready, through a rapid release process, she said.

There is however work to be done to make the rapid release process smoother and hopefully more useful to more of the user base, Baker said.

Users have however been asking for a middle ground between frequent releases of versions, and the delay in addition of new capabilities by almost a year. Kees Grinwis, commenting on Baker's blog post, for example, suggested a long time support (LTS) version of Firefox.

Mozilla could release an LTS version as a major release, say Firefox 7, and then release the versions between the LTS versions as 7.x versions, said Aashish Arora in his comment. "Make consumer installations silently auto update in the background while disabling auto update for enterprises," Arora added.

Others are dismissive. Users are finding that broken add-ons, and UI (user interface) changes are making Firefox difficult to use, commented Dan. "All of these people are turning their attention to alternatives," he added.

Mozilla acknowledged in June that a key challenge for enterprises is that they need to certify their websites, apps and add-ons each time Firefox is updated. "This can take weeks or months. Security is also paramount, enterprises need access to a version that includes all known security fixes," it said in a blog post.

Mozilla said it was exploring solutions that balance these needs, with active discussion in the community. The foundation however made clear that its focus was on consumers. "The Mozilla Community has focused our efforts on the needs of the individual user, and prioritized the product roadmap and features accordingly. However, as is the case with many technologies, loyal Firefox users and their IT departments have sought to bring Firefox into their places of work," it said.

Remembering the last time Apple was without Jobs

Just how visionary is Steve Jobs? It’s a loaded question that’s hard to answer. When Jobs and his friend Steve Wozniak cofounded Apple computers in 1976, it would have been impossible to tell that their computers would—at least in the first decade of the 21st century-- remake the way the world interacts with technology. But for at least a decade in its storied life, Apple was on the brink of becoming a second-tier brand, if not collapsing completely.

After the success of the Apple II in the late 70’s and early 80’s, Jobs’ imprudent spending and inexperienced management of his company led the Apple Board of Directors to request that a more experienced CEO run the company. The Board and Jobs chose John Sculley, a former president of Pepsi, to manage the rapidly growing company in conjunction with Jobs. But Jobs struggled with the new role, causing the board to oust him in 1985. On his way out, Jobs sold all but one share of his Apple stock: essentially a vote of no confidence in the company.

From that point on, Apple took hits in popularity and lost considerable ground to Bill Gate’s growing juggernaut throughout the 90’s. Sculley wasn't very successful, but after him, Apple hired two more CEOs who were even bigger busts: Michael Spindler and Gil Amelio.

Jobs and Apple were estranged until 1997, when Apple bought out Jobs’ personal computer company NeXT, and brought Jobs into the fold along with it. From 1997 on, Apple has been the golden calf of the computer industry, from hardware like the iBook in the early 2000s and the iPhone, to revolutionary concepts like the App Store. But what happened to Apple without Jobs and can that happen to Apple again?

Good Products, Bad Management

Looking back, there were a number of Apple products that came out in the Jobs-less era that theoretically should have been very good for the company, but were either poorly managed or not marketed well enough to gain ground. In these examples we can see how losing Jobs today bodes ill for Apple investors. Perhaps without Jobs telling us what we want before we want it, even the best, most revolutionary products will go unnoticed.

1993's Newton is a a good example of a strong Apple product that never found its following. The Newton was to be a revolutionary Personal Digital Device—one of the world’s first consumer PDAs. It had a touch screen and a pen stylus and almost no competition in that market. But it flopped despite its revolutionary design and "luxury" pricing (two of the things Apple enthusiasts tout as reasons for the iPhone’s success). One problem: Apple allowed Motorola, Sharp, and Digital Ocean to manufacture devices that ran the Newton OS, and ultimately the lack of uniformity may have been a turnoff to adopters (you hear that, Android?). Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury poked fun at the device’s learn-to-read-your-handwriting software, and although tablet enthusiasts still cite it as a great early mobile device, Apple announced it would discontinue the Operating System in 1998, a year after Steve Jobs returned to the company.

Bad Products, Period

But for the most part, Apple’s history without Steve Jobs is not of one of good products that can't find an audience. Instead, it’s a history of unfocused management, unable to make good products at all.

One example: In 1991, Apple joined forces with IBM and Motorola to create a company called Taligent to develop and license an operating system on IBM’s PowerPC architecture. The idea was to give Microsoft a run for its money. Apple put considerable resources in making the unholy triad work, and hoped it would streamline hardware, software, and design by creating a strategic alliance of the best companies in the electronics industry.

But around the time Apple was trying to lean on its friends, and the Apple, IBM, and Morotola Group (otherwise known as the AIM partnership), was trying to get the PowerPC chip into its Personal Computers, Apple’s worldwide market share fell from 12% to 3%, and Apple struggled to stay relevant in anything. Even worse, Apple refused to license its OS that worked with PowerPC, so IBM and Motorola lost any chance to make money on the product.

Another big problem was that the CEOs of Apple saw splintering the brand and partnering with other companies (like the PowerPC deal) as viable methods of competing in the world of PCs. In the early 90s, Apple was pushing both Apple II and Macintosh computers to two different audiences and even after the Apple II was laid to rest, Apple started producing lots of Macintoshes that were too similar to each other, and confused consumers. At the same time Windows, was becoming more average-user -friendly, and eventually the integration of Internet Explorer into all versions of Windows (helping regular Joes "get on the internet") gave Windows an upper hand.

Jobs needs Apple like Apple needs Jobs

But just because Jobs’ second term as CEO was so successful doesn’t mean that everything he ever did was successful. After he was ousted from Apple, Jobs went on to found NeXT, a company that came out with "The Cube", an expensive but elegant computer. It totally flopped in the marketplace and Jobs got a sort of bail-out when he was hired as a consultant in 1996 for Apple and they agreed to buy NeXT for $427 million.

When he returned to his company as CEO in 1997, he had learned from his mistakes and from the mistakes of Apple over the previous decade. According to Brian X. Chen’s book Always On, one of Jobs’ first and best decisions upon his return was to stop "cloning" Macintosh computers. Since 1995, Apple had been allowing the Power Computing Corporation to make Mac –compatible computers. The arrangement was cutting into Apple's bottom line and diminishing the quality of Mac computers in the marketplace. The same story applies for the Newton. With the OS being rented out to anyone who could create a device for it, the products lacked the uniformity and the quality control that Apple products are now known for.

Jobs came back and taught Apple that in-house products are the way to go, and Apple has been the world’s most successful "walled garden" ever since.

Bloomberg’s special on Jobs’ career also noted that after his stint at NeXT, he learned that he got more attention from being secretive, and although he burned through capital too quickly to make the company profitable, his mums-the-word techniques were honed there, and to this day drive the media wild, and probably amp up the hype for Apple products.

Today, as Jobs prepares to step down as CEO for the first time since 1997 (excluding a number of leaves-of-absence for medical reasons in which he remained in control of major decisions in the company) Apple investors are looking back on his career, and hoping the company can survive without him. Certainly Jobs as a "product impresario" had a vision, but it was a vision to get Apple back on the right track, and he taught the company lessons that it won’t forget.

Opinion: Why RIM's BBM Music service is destined to fail

Research In Motion (RIM) today made official the rumored "BBM Music" service, which is meant to enable "social and viral music discovery by allowing users to build an evolving, community-based music library that is shared amongst their BBM Music friends."

In short, BlackBerry users will pay RIM $5 a month, select 50 songs from RIM's cloud-based music catalogue, and then stream and share those tunes with their BlackBerry-Messenger-using friends.

The sharing means that BBM Music users gain access to every individual BBM friends' 50 songs. Basically, though you only get to select 50 songs a month for yourself, in reality, you have access to and can listen to many more tunes, since every one of your BBM-Music-using friends adds all of their selections to your shared library. You can also "swap out" 25 of your specific 50 songs, once a month.

BBM Music is currently available in beta-form, and only a select few have access to the service at this point. But RIM says it will become widely available "later this year."

Sounds interesting enough, right? Unfortunately, BBM Music is fundamentally flawed, and I'm already questioning its long-term viability. Here are a few reasons why.

BBM Music Focus is on Sharing

BBM Music is really a music sharing service, and not a traditional online music retailer like Apple's iTunes or Amazon MP3. And I'm not really sure consumers are willing to pay for the privilege of sharing digital tunes, even if the cost is only $5 per month, since plenty of other free methods for song-sharing and music discovery already exist.

For example, many of my online friends often share information on who or what they're listening to via social networks like Twitter or Facebook--and even BBM, thanks to a "Show What I'm Listening To" feature within RIM's mobile IM app. If I'm interested in something one of my connections is listening to, I'll pop on over to Amazon, have a quick listen of the song preview and buy it if I like what I hear. If the song isn't brand new, I'll often check YouTube or other music sites to see if the entire track is available for free streaming before I buy. And this works fine for me.

Also, I feel that popular music today mostly sucks. And I'm guessing that despite RIM's partnership with four leading music companies--Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMIand the "millions of available songs," many of my favorite, obscure tunes from lesser-known bands won't be available. (And I already own those tunes anyway, but more on that in the next section.)

You're Only "Renting" Songs on BBM Music

BBM music users won't really purchase music via the service, since the songs are all stored on the BBM Music servers; you'll only "rent" them for a month or sothough RIM says you can download some tracks for offline listening each month. If you want to physically own a track or an album, even if you discovered it on BBM Music, on your own or through a shared library, you'll probably still hit up iTunes or Amazon or whatever digital music shop you've used in the past for your purchase.

So in a way, BBM Music users could end up "paying twice," for songs, after shelling out the $5-a-month fee for BBM Music and then the dollar or so it take to purchase a song of interest. You could look at the $5 BBM Music fee as the cost of new-music discovery, but again, I don't really think your average BlackBerry user is willing to pay for that particular service.

Then there's the fact that you probably already own at least a few of your favorite songs, and since they're your favorites, you'll want to include them in your monthly allotment of 50 songs, so your friends can see them. In doing so, however, you actually reduce the number of "new" or unfamiliar songs you can add to your library, and in turn, you reduce the value of BBM Music overall.

BBM Music is Available Only to BlackBerry Users

You can only use BBM Music with other BlackBerry users, and it's unlikely that all or even the majority of your friends use BlackBerry smartphones, so the service is really only available to a small subset of your friends and other connections. In other words, you won't be able to use BBM Music with any of your iPhone- or Android-toting friends. Past rumors suggest RIM may bring BBM to other platforms, but until that happens, BBM Music is restricted to BlackBerry users. And I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for BBM to hit other mobile platforms.

BBM Music Could Reduce Overall Value of BBM

To get the most out of BBM Music, you'd want to have a lengthy list of BBM contacts, since each of those contacts could potentially add as many as 50 new songs to your shared BBM Music library. But that goes against everything that makes BBM valuable to me.

I purposefully don't have too many BBM contacts, because the value in BBM, for me, is that it provides my closest friends and colleagues with a way to contact me that's separate from e-mail, separate from IM, and separate from SMS text. And my BBM contacts know that if they message me, they'll get a speedy response.

I literally receive hundreds of e-mail, IM and text messages every day, and as such I don't always rush to read every new message that arrives. But when I see that BBM new-message indicator, I immediately check it, because I know that I'm connected to people who will only message me if it's important. (Read my recent "BlackBerry Messenger Best Practices" for more details)

Adding tons of random BBM contacts simply so I'd have access to their BBM Music libraries would drastically reduce the overall value of BBM to me.

I'll end this post by stressing that I'm really not trying to condemn BBM Music before I even get to test the service. I'd love for BBM Music to succeed, and I'm anxious to get my hands on it. But until then, I remain very skeptical.

Find more official details on BBM Music on RIM's website.

Steve Jobs' resignation 'end of an era'

Steve Jobs announced Wednesday that he is resigning as Apple CEO. Steve Jobs' resignation Wednesday as the CEO of Apple will not disrupt the company's product plans in the short-term, but could dull its ability to dazzle consumers down the road, according to one analyst.

"Apple is fine, and will be," said Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research. "Apple knows what it's doing for the next big thing, maybe the next two next big things. They lose the showmanship of Jobs, but [the company's executives] have their marching orders."

Shortly after Jobs submitted his resignation , the Apple board of directors took his advice and named Tim Cook, formerly the chief operating officer, as the new CEO. Also on Wednesday, Jobs was named chairman of the board.

But to some long-time Apple observers, the departure of Jobs is a potential pitfall for the company.

"Apple will be a changed company without Jobs," said Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group. "It will be a very different Apple."

Jobs, who co-founded Apple in 1976 with Steve Wozniak, was forced out of the company in 1985, a year after the launch of the original Macintosh, by then-CEO John Scully and the Apple board. Jobs founded NeXT that same year.

He returned to an Apple in early 1997 when the company acquired NeXT, first as an advisor and then interim CEO. Jobs was named permanent CEO in 2000.

Jobs departure, the analysts agreed, will certainly affect how Apple markets itself and ultimately, how customers view the company.

"Longer term, Apple won't pull off the miracles it did during one of the great leadership careers in business," said Gottheil, citing the iPhone, which Jobs personally launched in 2007, and then the iPad in 2010.

Enderle was more blunt.

"Companies that lose an iconic leader, whether IBM when Thomas Watson Jr. stepped down, or Disney when Walt Disney was gone, or even Microsoft without Bill Gates, firms that went through that transition largely lost the magic," said Enderle.

He also compared Jobs to P.T. Barnum, and traced a line from Barnum to Disney to Jobs, saying each was "magical" in his own way. "Apple with Jobs was magical," Enderle said. "And [without those leaders] you can't do the magic. And Tim Cook isn't magical."

Jobs was best as Apple's creative spark, said Gottheil; Enderle saw it differently.

"It's how he marketed, how he announced products and how he put them in the public eye," said Enderle. "The iPhone wasn't the first smartphone. It was a success because of the way it was packaged and delivered."

While Enderle believes that Apple could show dramatic changes within 24 months -- conceivably before the already-stocked product pipeline is exhausted -- Gottheil was more optimistic about its chances without Jobs.

"Three years out, Apple is less likely to dazzle, to explode," said Gottheil. "There will be more duds. But the product lines begun during the Jobs years will be executed very well."

The analysts disputed whether collectively, the executive team at Apple equaled Jobs, or could stand in his stead. Gottheil thought they could, and with the exception of Jobs' performance on stage during product launches, would.

"The real question is whether the people at Apple can execute the strategies he's set, and use the lessons he's taught," said Gottheil, who believes they are up to the task.

"Of course, after this when a product launches with flaws, people will say, 'If Jobs were there, that wouldn't have happened.' Well, Jobs was there when Apple launched products with flaws," said Gottheil.

Enderle wasn't as sure.

"Operationally, Tim Cook is great," Enderle said. "But like [Steve] Ballmer [the CEO of Microsoft], who is incredible operationally, he's not the visionary.

Jobs' resignation may have been a surprise, but it wasn't totally unexpected.

A survivor of pancreatic cancer, Jobs took a leave of several months' duration in 2009 during which he had a liver transplant. In January 2011 , he again stepped away for medical reasons.

In a letter he released today through Apple's public relations department, Jobs did not give an explicit reason for resigning, but intimated it was health related.

"If there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple's CEO, I would be the first to let you know," Jobs said in the letter. "Unfortunately, that day has come."

Jobs has made few public appearances since January, among them the product launch of the iPad 2 in March and the keynote of Apple's annual developers conference in June. Also in June, he spoke before the Cupertino, Calif. city council to promote a new campus the company wants to build.

Gottheil and Enderle agreed that his resignation was related to his health.

"If he had the operational strength to run the company, he wouldn't have stepped down," said Enderle.

Both analysts bemoaned his departure.

"He was the CEO of the decade for an entire decade," said Enderle. "He was the iconic CEO that started off the century."

"It's the end of an era," said Gottheil.

Apple succeeds in getting Samsung Galaxy S, SII and Ace sales banned in EU

A court in The Hague banned the shipping of three Samsung Galaxy smartphones to Europe as of 15 October, ruling that the company has infringed an Apple photo management patent.

The Samsung Galaxy S, SII and Ace were banned because Samsung infringes on Apple's EP 2.058.868 patent, the court found. The patent is titled "Portable Electronic Device for Photo Management" and describes a way to scroll through a photo gallery using finger gestures on a touchscreen.

Samsung infringes the Apple patent by using Android 2.3 in the three phones, according to the ruling by Judge E.F. Brinkman. Android 3.x that is used for tablets does not infringe this patent. The patent issue can be fixed by updating the Android software on the phones to Android 3.x, Samsung said in court earlier this month and that point was also noted by the judge in the ruling.

If Samsung fails to do this, the consequences can be very big for the European smartphone market. The Dutch infringement could block the import of all Samsung phones to Europe, since Samsung's distribution centers are located in the Netherlands, Dutch ICT news site Webwereld revealed . That is the main reason why Apple is suing Samsung in The Hague.

The judge denied all the other grounds on which Apple tried to ban the import of Samsung products into Europe. Samsung does not infringe on two other patent claims about intellectual copyright and design, the judge ruled. Further, according to the court, Samsung does not "slavishly copy" Apple's iPad and iPhone.

Analysis: Are Motorola's patents enough to protect Android?

Google's $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility will land it a vast portfolio of patents, but the legal obstacles facing its Android operating system are far from over, legal experts said.

Android has been beset with legal challenges from all sides, including a multibillion dollar lawsuit filed by Oracle, and complaints brought by Apple against Android device makers including HTC and Samsung. Meanwhile, Microsoft has been extracting license fees from Android device makers, saying it owns technology patents related to Google's mobile OS.

The Motorola acquisition, announced Monday, should help shield Google and its partners from future legal action by Apple and others. But it may be too late to help device makers facing lawsuits already under way, and it won't help Google to fight Oracle's Java patent infringement lawsuit, which is due to begin trial in October, legal experts said.

Google never put much value in building its own patent portfolio and was caught off guard by the "patent arms race" that has come to define the wireless industry. Last week it lashed out at competitors, accusing Microsoft, Apple and others of trying to impose a "patent tax" on Android to stifle its runaway growth.

So its announcement Monday that it will pay $40 per share for Motorola -- or 63 percent over Friday's closing stock price -- came as little surprise to some observers. The acquisition will "increase competition by strengthening Google's patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies," CEO Larry Page said in a blog post.

Alexander Poltorak, chairman and CEO of General Patent Corp., said Motorola's portfolio will serve as a deterrent to companies thinking of suing Google or its partners. "Now they will think twice before filing a complaint, because they can be guaranteed Google will strike back," he said.

The deal will give Google "a lot of heft," said Jonathan Goldberg, a research analyst at Deutsche Bank. Motorola is among the oldest wireless companies and has a strong and credible patent portfolio, he said. Motorola Mobility has said it owns about 24,500 patents.

'I think it's a big step and I expect there will be a big sigh of relief at Google once this deal closes," said David Mixon, a patent lawyer with Bradley Arant Boult Cummings. "They were outbid in the Nortel patent auctions and that was a consortium led by Microsoft and Apple. They clearly were feeling some pressure."

If Google is targeted by another lawsuit, Motorola's patents will help it broker a settlement and secure a license for Android, Poltorak said. That license would cover Android device makers as well, under the "exhaustion doctrine," he said. "If Google obtains a license for the OS, then everyone else who uses that OS will be licensed as well."

If a company targets a Google partner instead, Google could transfer ownership of some the Motorola patents to that partner temporarily, so it can defend itself with them, Poltorak said.

Not everyone agreed that Motorola's patents will be an effective deterrent, however. Florian Mueller, author of the FOSS Patents blog, noted that Apple has already sued Motorola Mobility for patent infringement. Motorola's patents appear "too weak" to be a deterrent against lawsuits, he wrote in a blog post.

"This isn't going to be a protective shield for Android," Mueller said. "Motorola Mobility has already fired its best shots in its lawsuits against Apple and Microsoft, with little impact as it seems."

But Motorola fired the first shots in that battle, Poltorak noted. Motorola sued Apple in October for allegedly infringing 18 of its patents, and filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission. "Apple had no choice but to defend itself," Poltorak said.

Mueller argued that Motorola expected the lawsuit from Apple, and that its own lawsuit was a pre-emptive, defensive move. He sees Google's Motorola purchase as "buyer's desperation."

One thing observers did agree on is that buying Motorola is unlikely to help Google with its Oracle lawsuit. Google doesn't expect to complete the purchase until late this year or in early 2012, while the Oracle trial is scheduled to begin in 11 weeks. Oracle isn't in the wireless business, so Motorola's patents wouldn't be effective bargaining chips anyway. And Oracle is suing Google for copyright as well as patent infringement, Mixon noted.

Neither Goldberg or Mixon see the Oracle case as a deal-breaker for Android, however. Oracle wants Android to flourish so it can collect royalty fees from it, Mixon said. And Google has deep pockets, so it could afford to pay significant damages to Oracle if necessary, Goldberg said.

"To me, a bigger concern is what Google is going to do to protect the whole ecosystem," Goldberg said.

It's unclear if Motorola's patents will be able to help Android device makers fend off the lawsuits against them. It depends how fast Google closes the acquisition and exactly what patents Motorola owns, Mixon said.

Samsung has already been hit with an injunction that blocks it from selling its Galaxy Tab in much of Europe, and the company may feel pressured to settle with Apple before Google's Motorola acquisition closes, Poltorak said.

Still, Google has made a significant step in the right direction, according to some observers.

"I see this as a meaningful deal, but it's just one more step in the process," Goldberg said.