Today I’ll reflect on what always comes to mind first in the everlasting discussion about Mac vs. Windows — yellow folder icons. I know it sounds crazy and ridiculous. But I view it as an entrée into what fundamentally leads to preference and aesthetics. Follow me on a short journey of introspection on priming in my formative years as a computer user.

My very first interaction with a computer was the Commodore 64 in 1985. Its UI theme was light blue text on blue background. What a delightful contrast to the white/green/brown on black computers were associated with. It featured good graphics and outstanding sound capabilities including, an adequate amount of RAM – 64 kilobytes. For those of you born after the home computer revolution, Commodore was a major player. The C64 is estimated to have sold over 20 million units in the span of a decade. Unrivaled by any of its competitors.

The Amiga became its generational successor. To me, the Amiga marks the genesis of custom-designed, highly integrated multi-media systems. In its early GUI, it too featured a blue background, which later adopted a gray-ish look keeping light blue as an accent color. Unfortunately, Commodore failed to develop the Amiga as a viable platform against the rise of MS-DOS and IBM compatibles.

With Commodore’s demise, the only way forward was the Mac. In the summer of 1992, I started exploring System 7.1 on my new Macintosh LC III. It must have been my unconscious that chose – once more – an integrated system with a touch of blue. I’m sure you’ve picked up the theme by now.

I had been primed to use integrated systems that feature blue in its user interface.

But what does this all have to do with yellow folder icons? I cannot stand them. They represent everything I dislike about Windows ever since my first encounters with Windows 3.11 that summer in '92. Frankly, I can’t get accustomed to Microsoft’s design aesthetics, despite the many changes they have introduced, nor with the discrete design of hardware and software. Things may be different with today’s Surface laptops, but previous experiences with so-called system vendors were lacking at best. The only joy I get from Windows is by not using it. Else I feel sorry for the people that have to use it for work, including myself.

We all experience brand loyalty and preference. Interaction with computers is no exception. So, my favored computing experience since 1992 has been the Mac. But it goes without saying that I don’t drink the Apple Kool-Aid per se. There are many things about the Mac experience and development I had to endure in recent years. However, with the Mac’s upcoming CPU transition, I look positively towards the future.

Between Windows, Linux, and iOS, the Mac still is and will be my preferred computing platform — as long as the folders remain blue-ish :)

Do you remember the Apple iPod Ad Campaign? Graphic silhouettes of people dancing holding a popping white iPod wearing earbuds. Truly iconic, as the iPod itself – a masterpiece in design of consumer gadgets. Its novel white appearance made it an item to lust after.

Fast forward 19 years and white is still the sole color for EarPods and AirPods. To me this is baffling. It clearly made sense to keep the iconic white with the addition of color ever since the iPod mini, it makes no sense to not offer anything but white today. We’ve got beautiful colors in iPhones and great variety in Apple Watch band designs.

AirPods — I cannot put my finger on it — genuinely look odd. [1] A little less so with the AirPods Pro, still, the white makes them stand out too much. They unnaturally grab our visual attention. Look at this Interview and tell me your eyes can escape the focus of the bright popping AirPods Pros. [2]

Why not pour some color and taste into AirPods? White as the only color option is clearly out of fashion. Looking at the competition, I dig the accent colors Google is doing. [3]

I’d love for Apple to offer color options for AirPods, as they do with their iPhones and Watch bands. AirPods are wearables, like Apple Watch, they deserve fashionable colors. I don’t get why they seemingly hold on to the iPod white for branding.

I’ve been an Apple user long enough to be confronted with the argument of Apple’s hardware being too expensive. In the era when PCs entered the home, people gave precedence to the ownership of a computer over the experience of using a computer. The argument often came down to price and affordability.

Apple’s reputation for charging a premium for their products has an almost four-decades-long history. Over the past few years however, this reputation seems to add the notion of Apple customers being nickeled-and-dimed. [1]

Traditionally Apple’s prices for storage capacity and memory were hardly ever a great value. And up until these components became a non-exchangeable part of the device, you could get them cheaper from other vendors and even upgrade over time – at least so with most Macs. Sadly, this option has mostly disappeared. With the introduction of thunderbolt and later USB-C only ports, Apple’s laptops have suffered the out-of-the-box versatility that made them so great. [2]

Dongles among best selling Apple products at BestBuy [3]

You need ethernet? Buy a dongle! You need USB-A? Buy a dongle! You need an HDMI port? Buy a dongle! You need more than one port? Buy a multi-port dongle!

But it doesn’t end with hardware. The pitiful 5GB of storage that comes with iCloud, results in a lacking user experience on modern iOS devices, with more and more iOS services pushing to iCloud. Again, Apple’s solution is simple – pay up and get more storage. And they prompt you in not so subtle ways to do so.

Then there is the situation with the AppStore, where the price of admission for developers is 30% of all sales. The outcry for flexibility was long and loud from the community. It wasn’t until eight years after the introduction of the AppStore that Apple budged. Now Developers would make an extra 15% from their subscription offerings — after the first year.

Revenue from Apple’s Services, which includes iCloud and AppStore is a growing multi-billion dollar business by itself. [4]

All that is to say, to me, it’s how today’s Apple products are designed and shipped. I believe some of them are incomplete and make for a lacking customer experience. Taking up some of Apple’s offerings should add value to the product not complete it.

In an era when Microsoft owned 95% of the computing market and Apple was the barely surviving underdog, we were happy to shell over extra cash for the best computing experience. Though with Apple’s rise to a trillion-dollar company, the fact of having to pay extra here and there to have an adequate user experience feels irritating.

When it comes to Siri, I frequently try to give it the benefit of the doubt and not shy away from making use of it. But today something happened that genuinely alienated me.

Work required me to be on location out of town for two days. The production company got me a fancy Mercedes E class. Lucky me, it supported Apple CarPlay, as Mercedes’ dashboard controls are abysmal. For starters, there are no distinct media controls, neither on the wheel nor anywhere on the console. No Play/Pause, no Skip, only a volume knob on the wheel — no one else but the driver can control sound volume. No touchscreen — in 2020 — yet Mercedes still thinks a jog dial and a touchpad are the best input devices. But I digress.

Back to Siri, since I wanted the full Apple experience in CarPlay, I asked Siri to route me to Berlin — and so it did. I was happy to learn that Apple Maps can be a reliable source for navigation. There’s been a lot of bad-mouthing Apple Maps, especially outside the United States. However, in this case, perhaps because of Berlin being the capital, there’s nothing to complain about — yet.

It was only on my way home — actually, I had reached my home town already — when something very odd struck me. Upon departure, I had asked Siri to take me home. No specific address, just home and Siri correctly picked my address. After a few hours and just a few corners away from my house, Siri still dutifully called out every turn.

That’s when an estranging uncomfortable feeling came over me. This often heard, familiar voice, this supposed personal assistant acts like it doesn’t know anything of me. I felt really really strange. Here’s the thing, how personal is this assistant if it treats my home just like any other unfamiliar destination? Shouldn’t it be aware of the fact, that I’m already in my neighborhood?

Imagine a scenario where once you reach a familiar vicinity of your destination Siri informs you of any potential traffic incidences and asks you if navigation is still required. I bet that’s how it went before in-car-navigation systems. Your passenger giving you directions from a paper map wouldn’t be annoying by telling you to make that last turn into the driveway.

For Apple who prides itself with controlling the whole ecosystem, they most definitely have lots of room to improve upon this. Location services are already used throughout services like reminders, calendar, etc. Apple Maps in combination with Siri should strive for a more personal experience. The only comparison I can draw is to my Volkswagen navigation system, which does know my home address, but it too is tiresome dull about it.

I truly enjoyed Apple’s WWDC 2020 keynote. Craig Federighi did an outstanding job leading through the keynote. In the past, the subject of diversity felt a little awkward. This time around, I thought it was right on the spot. Also, all presentations were honed to provide a good flow – and it showed. It can’t be unmentioned, Johny Srouji in his secret lab was outstanding.

The presentation was packed, and there is much to be excited about. But the most thrilling is the transition away from Intel to Apple’s in-house silicon. Apple’s commitment to making this as smooth as any transition before is very reassuring.

I am genuinely enthusiastic about what’s coming to the Mac.

With the advent of mobile phones, we’ve gotten used to reaching out and being available at all times. Although potentially more intrusive to our lives, we’ve managed to integrate it quite well. I feel this all changed with smartphones. With phones today, it is less about making or receiving calls, which is usually a one to one communication, but more a continual drain on our attention. Sadly, many of us aren’t good at managing our time and attention.

How about introducing one day in your week where you leave your phone alone? Alone at home, when you leave the house. You know, just like before the days of mobile phones. Alone at home, while at home. Just turn it off. OFF – not airplane mode. No calls, no wifi, no messages, no notifications, no email, no eBay, no Amazon, no games … no social media.

What would you do with all that regained time and attention? Maybe you’ll learn that you’re less distracted, more attentive to the social life that’s around you. Perhaps you’ll return to reading books, drawing, painting, writing. Or possibly you’ll spend time in your shop and build something, or finally fix this or that around the house. Maybe you’ll regain some spontaneity and take your family on a short trip.

Maybe nothing happens, because you’re already great at managing your attention and time. I, for one, will follow my advice — the next time I’ll walk the dog, I’ll invite my trusty iPod nano to join us instead of the phone.

Original photo by Florian Klauer

With the introduction of the original iPad in 2010, I was immediately hooked into its reality distortion field. I couldn’t wait to have one and explore its novel ways of using a computer. Today, after 10 years of using iPads here’s what I think.

With Steve Jobs’ often–quoted comparison of the computer to a bicycle for our minds, I imagine he thought of the Macintosh as that computer.[1] The most remarkable tool humans have ever come up with. One that takes us far beyond our inherent abilities. Now, I don’t say this lightly, but using an iPad in 2020 still feels more like riding a children’s tricycle.

Learning to ride a bike can be challenging at first for most humans. From 30 years of observations and experience, especially being at the forefront of home computers, I can say the same for humans learning to use computers. Computer, monitor, keyboard, mouse, icons, windows, applications, files, etc. is a lot to take in and mostly overwhelming to any newcomer.

Compare this to picking up an iPad where especially children and seniors learn to use it fearlessly and with ease. It’s more like sitting down on a tricycle. Simply go, no worries about balance, dropping chain, menus, files, file system, etc.

But simplicity and approachability often come at a price — flexibility and expandability. You see, humans have gotten quite good at using traditional computers. Just as with riding bikes. Once you master one or the other, it allows you to go pretty much anywhere.

Once you get going on a tricycle – next you want a bike.

The story is much different for a tricycle, though. It’s mostly okay on a level street, but you wouldn’t want to pedal up a hill, nor go downhill without getting your feet severed by the pedals. I feel the same for iPad. Sure, lots of computer tasks can be accomplished, but compared to my Mac they feel like tricycling uphill most of the time.

I bought a 10.5” iPad Pro in 2018 with the intent to use it for all my work–related communication while on my commute. I wasn’t very successful. While a keyboard helps with typing, the interaction with the touch screen is cumbersome. Although mouse support in iOS 13.4 helps in this regard, yet it requires me to carry more accessories along. The main show stopper remains, switching between apps to juggle information back and forth. It leaves so much to be desired.

Just last week, I had a video meeting, where I had to review a PDF and a movie, observe a channel in Rocket.Chat and participate in the video conference. I was more apologetic for using an iPad than actually speak to the participants about the work.

iPad as a post–PC device has been plagued by its convenience to consume media and for a long time, it had the reputation of not being a productivity device. I wholeheartedly disagree, the many great apps on the iPad clearly dismiss this. What the iPad lacks is the flexibility of integrating the whole creative process. How it all comes together. On iPadOS, things are inherently isolated, and while the system has evolved to accommodate the necessary data exchange, it still feels cumbersome. And no, Shortcuts are not a solution to this workflow issue. If I was mean, I’d say they’re even more hostile to the creative process. It simply isn’t Go with the Flow, but rather a thoughtfully planned process of creating shortcuts. As with past WWDCs, I’m looking forward to dramatic improvements to iPadOS. Be sure to follow up on my thoughts after WWDC.

Apple’s recent commercials tout iPad not as a computer, and they are right—it’s a tricycle.

While rumors of Apple moving away from Intel CPUs for Macs have spread for years, they are especially vivid around WWDC 2020. In the following, I’ll explore the transition of the Mac away from Intel. The benefits of doing so, as well as options and obstacles Apple would face in their third CPU transition since 1992.

Most speculations revolve around moving Macs to Apple’s own A series ARM–based CPUs and for optimal performance, developers would be required to recompile their existing software. Hence bringing developers on board at this year’s WWDC ahead of making new architecture Macs available to the broader public. But what about software that cannot be updated in time or at all?

To emulate – or not?

In the past, Apple used emulation to make CPU architecture transitions transparent to its users. [1] [2] Where the instruction set of one CPU is translated in software to the other. Though, emulation usually is a costly process and as such requires much higher processing power on the host CPU. In Apple’s 2005 transition, Intel’s leap in performance over PowerPC, among other optimizations, made this feasible.

Since Desktop CPUs can leverage much higher power consumption over mobile chips to drive performance, the general assumption of a performance gap held true for most of the past. Nonetheless, with Apple’s year over year performance gains in their A series chips and Intel’s lack of keeping up theirs, Apple today has mobile chips that go head to head or surpass Intels Desktop CPU offerings. At least for day to day computing needs. [3]

Now, is this performance adequate to drive an emulation layer without introducing a user noticeable performance loss? From the vast experience with emulation, one would assume not. Indeed Microsoft has introduced an ARM–based x86 emulation with Windows on ARM. The restrictions of only emulating 32–bit apps and the performance are a bleak outlook (pun intended).[4] Interestingly Intel seems to be on the fence about this. [5]

But it’s 2020 and today more than ever before Apple is a chip designer. Unlike in the past, they are not switching to another vendor’s CPU. They’re designing CPUs to their specific needs and over the past decade, this has resulted in what is today a flagship mobile CPU. [6]

Hardware support for emulation?

Can Apple’s experience in CPU design entertain the thought of adding hardware features that speed up software–based emulation? Apple’s ARM Architecture License certainly allows them to expand its Instruction set. And who knows maybe an x86 license agreement came included with the one billion dollar deal of Apple’s acquisition of Intel’s modem division in 2019. [7]

Hardware–based emulation is certainly not unprecedented as Transmeta has produced such CPUs in the past. According to Wikipedia Transmeta’s IP is licensed by Intel, nVidia, Sony, Fujitsu and NEC. Interesting nevertheless. [8]

Would you like some GPUs with that?

Although I’ve focused solely on the CPU I’d expect Apple to expand their powerful GPUs to the Mac as well. Something makes me believe that the conception of the Metal API on the Mac is a long year plan finally coming together. All recent Mac Laptops have relied on the integrated GPU options from Intel. While high-end models offer discrete GPU options, they have been AMD only for years. Whatever the beef with nVidia — it’s ridiculous for us users to be at the end of this feud. So yeah, the more options the better.

What about the Pro’s?

Current high-end models of iMac Pro and Mac Pro are available with up to 28 CPU cores. And creative professionals can make use of every single one. In contrast, the most current A12Z CPU in the iPad Pro features eight cores at max, while only 4 of those are high performance. It is unclear to me what Apple could offer in this regard. AMD has recently released a 64-core monster of its Threadripper CPU, a dream come true for all of us doing heavy multi-core computing. I don’t see Apple entering this arena any time soon.[9]

The long run

But what’s the long term benefit of moving the Mac to ARM? One would be control of the ecosystem. With Intel’s inability to deliver better performance with its Core architecture, Apple is better off by taking CPU design in-house. They would be in the same place as with iOS devices and they certainly are and have been in a great place. Another is better performance per watts. Something that was touted during the PowerPC transition. The A series chips deliver outstanding performance while using much less power at the same time. Future Mac laptops should have longer battery life if iOS devices are an indicator, all while needing less energy overall. Inarguably a good thing for users and the environment.

While I loved my Quadra 610 with its beefy 68040, it paled in comparison to the PowerMac 7100 that replaced it in 1994. The same goes for my Titanium PowerBook G4, which made way for a MacBook Pro in 2006. With the Mac back on regular updates, I am excited today as I was back then. The past CPU transitions were beneficial to me as a user. It empowered me to venture into new computing areas – and that is a great thing.

The speculation of Apple’s move away from Intel is years old – and for Intel, the writing has been on the wall. As the A series are mobile CPUs, I’d put my money down, that the first ARMed Macs will be laptops. The benefits of performance gain and power savings are front and center. We’ll know more on June 22nd.

So here’s what happened. I’m in the car on my way to the office. A responsible person that I am, I ask Siri to initiate a call.

Hey Siri, call my wife. — Silence.

So I tried once more, this time just a little louder. Yet again, my digital assistant kept still. I initiated the call using the dashboard screen instead and put the issue aside.
 
On my way home, I asked Siri to play an album.

Hey Siri, play No Ordinary Moments. — Silence.

This got annoying quickly. I reached for my phone to activate Siri manually.

Oh, there you are! But wait, who are you?

To my surprise, I was prompted by a British male voice. Where was the familiar German female Siri? Dare I say a true WTF moment?

Not only did Siri not react to my voice, because as I later found out “Hey Siri” had been dsiabled, but it had gone through a gender change without any user interaction on my part.

What becomes of a smartphone’s value when its proclaimed functions and services cannot be relied upon? Not only can it be frustrating, but outright dangerous, depending on the environment and one’s ability to manage expectations.

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