Year: 2010

One little annoyance about Apple’s App Store model (both iOS and presumably the Mac App Store) is that there is only one way a developer can really offer customers a demo or trial of the software: ‘lite’ versions. As it currently stands on the Mac there are three methods that I can think of that developers use for allowing you to ‘test’ their software: trial periods, demo versions, trial demo versions.

Trial periods are straightforward – you can use the app full featured for X period of time, then you must pay up. Demo versions allow you to use the software for as long as you would like, but you don’t get all the features that the software offers until you pay for the full version. ((Like how SuperDuper! works.)) Then you have what I call trial demo versions, where it is a combination of both, you get X period of time to use a limited feature set of the app.

One of the complaints that I have heard about the upcoming Mac App Store is that Apple is excluding demo and trial apps from the store – effectively forcing consumers to pay up, for a presumably expensive, Mac app without getting to see if it is what they need first. This is a real problem, how many people want to pay $60 for a task management app like Things or OmniFocus without getting to ‘play’ with it first? Not many I would guess, they will opt for cheaper options like Taskpaper.

Why Apple is Doing This

I can only guess why Apple is setting this rule, but my guess would be that they too hate those annoying nag screens and the inability to print in demo apps. By that I mean trial/demo software is incredibly annoying to consumers, what if the feature you want to buy the software for is one that you can’t use in the demo version? What if you really want to test out a piece of software, but 14 days is just too short – sometimes life gets in the way.

There is only a small contingent of software developers out there that do Trials and Demoes right, everyone else just makes them as annoying as possible. That is what Apple wants to do away with, they want to improve the customer experience with 3rd party software.

Lite Apps

All of this talk brings us to so called ‘lite’ apps that you find littering the Top 100 in the Free section of Apple’s iOS stores. Most common with game developers – you get the same game, often with less levels, for free. The benefit to the consumer is that you get a try before you buy option. The benefit for the developer is that they get to expose a lot more people to their app that would not have paid for something they could not try first. The drawback to developers is that they are giving away part of their hard work for free and there is certainly a large portion of users who don’t end up buying the full version.

This is where the rub is for developers – how do you make a ‘lite’ version of a Mac app?

There are certainly some apps that excel at things like this: SuperDuper and Tweetie (back in the good old days) and so forth. They all have a good free or ‘lite’ version of the software that users can pay for a full version that does a bit more. How do you translate a ‘lite’ version to something like OmniFocus? Only allow so many actions or projects? Remove perspectives or syncing? With a piece of software like OmniFocus removal of any of those features severely cripples the users experience to the point where they begin asking: ‘is this app any good?’

Challenge

The real challenge for developers moving forward with the Mac App Store is not going to be deciding whether or not to allow Apple 30% of their revenue – rather it is whether they can and should make a ‘lite’ version. There are some apps (Games particularly) that lend themselves to having ‘lite’ versions fairly easily – others like OmniFocus are not as clear cut.

Say you do come up with an idea of how to make a ‘lite’ version of your app – will it even be worth your time rebuilding the app into a free, or way too cheap ‘lite’ version?

About 500 words into this post I deleted everything because I saw this:

Right now you can get any new MacBook Air with the ‘Ships in 24 hours’ availability, except for the base model 11 – that model has a 1-3 day wait on it. That alone doesn’t say all that much, but if you couple it with reports across Twitter that local Apple Stores are sold out of the base 11 model you start to begin to get a much bigger picture of what is going on.

I think the 11 is going to be much bigger than we think.

One would think that 1.4GHz 2GB RAM and a 64GBs of storage would make for a pretty poor computing experience, and one would be wrong, apparently. Take these reports from major reviewers across the web:

Jason Snell:

The release of the iPad made me wonder if I’d consider a Mac laptop as my constant traveling companion ever again; the release of the 11-inch MacBook Air proves that there’s still plenty of life left in the Mac after all.

Joshua Topolsky:

The very low-powered 11.6-inch unit obviously had the bigger issues: while it generally acted just like you’d an expect a Mac to act — windows, applications, and new browser pages loaded quickly, and graphically heavy features like Expose seemed to have no trouble — we did notice some occasional stuttery behavior while scrolling heavy webpages and galleries, and full HD video in YouTube did not play back smoothly. (Maybe we can blame that on Flash… we’re sure Apple does). Still, the overall feeling was snappy and bug-free.

Laptop Mag:

The 11-inch MacBook Air is a powerful ultraportable that makes other systems in its class look positively bloated. More important, this machine never keeps you waiting, thanks to the way it uses flash memory.

Andy Ihnatko:

I’ve been using the 11” model nonstop for five days now. It left me with the emphatic conclusion that the Air is truly — finally — a “real” Mac. The Air certainly didn’t perform as well as my 15-inch MacBook Pro, but the key point is that it could handle every app and every task that I perform daily on my main machine.

Anand Lai Shimpi & Vivek Gowri for AnandTech:

As a pure writing device however, the 11-inch is great. The SSD ensures that performance is consistent and applications launch quickly. If all you do is write, browse the web, write emails and talk on IM – the 11 gets the job done. Ask more of it for long periods of time and I think you’ll be disappointed.

That is some impressive text written about this tiny little machine that on paper looks terrible under-powered. When at the Apple Store picking up my 13” MacBook Air I asked the guy helping me which model was selling the best, and which was drawing the most interest. He pointed to the table – table – of 11” MacBook Airs – they sold out the first day and have been running on short supply since being restocked.

I inquired what the typical buyer was, he told me it is 60% students and 20% business travelers. Imagine that, students opting to spend $500 more on a MacBook Air instead of the iPad. Interesting.

All of this lead me to think that Gruber is right about the 11” MacBook Air it is very much a non-primary Mac – that it is a complimentary device to your main computer. I don’t think that the 11 stops there though, there seems to be three types of buyers for the 11: students, business travelers, niche buyers.

Students

This, I think, is going to make up a huge segment of 11 buyers. I was trying to think about why, as a student, you would prefer to have a 11 instead of an iPad ((Assuming there is another computer of sorts in play already.)) when I realized that the great part about the 11 is that you get less hassle. Here is what a student trying to use an iPad in class would have to put up with today:

• Lack of multitasking on the iPad ((This is coming soon, yes. But I doubt that enters into the immediate decision process.))
• Having to use the onscreen keyboard.
• Limited to iOS apps.
• Syncing files via iTunes (worse than a root canal).

Now think about how much more cumbersome setting up an iPad for note taking would be if you add a keyboard dock or bluetooth keyboard to the mix – it really becomes a pain in the ass at that point. No student wants to be the nerd in the corner that takes a few minutes to set up his note taking system before class, and another few minutes to put it away after class.

Thinking about it that way the 11 starts to make a lot of sense for students. You can fly into class, pop open the screen and have no problem working right away. Likewise you can slap the lid shut, stuff it in your bag and walk out – there are no moving parts you need to wait for, and it sleeps really fast. Further, you can go goof off between classes without worrying about your battery draining, the thing has 30 days of standby. Absurd.

And the coup de grâce of the whole thing is that if you really needed to, the 11 could easily be your main machine when you are back at your desk. All you would need to make it your main machine is to spend $150 on a monitor, and another $80 on an external hard drive, and some change on a keyboard and mouse. You have now given students a notebook that does a few things they really care about, but most importantly that stays out of their way so that they can do what they want.

A tool that stays out of the users way – well that tool is invaluable.

Thinking back to my university days I would bet that I would get more use out of an 11 than I would out of an iPad. The only way that would be reversed is if all my textbooks came on the iPad, but even then I would probably just want both.

Business Travelers

Ah yes those men that rack up the miles and talk annoyingly on their cell phones until the flight attendant rips it out of their hands – the business travelers. Again at first glance I would think that this group would want an iPad instead of the 11. I mean the iPad has twice the battery life and is smaller and lighter – seems like a match made in heaven. What do we think business travelers are using a computer for though?

Possible business traveler computer uses ((Not ever having been a business traveler myself I can only guess.)) :

• Working on Excel files
• Working on a presentation
• Responding to email
• Writing reports
• Entertainment
• Video chatting with family

Here is the problem: have you ever tried to work on Excel files on an iPad? I have, let’s just say it is a less than pleasant experience. The iPad works great if you are just viewing files, and doing minor edits and markups – Numbers can handle that kind of stuff. Heck Numbers can probably handle most everything a business traveller might want to do. Your fingers are the weak point here. Your fingers and hands will tire long before Numbers runs out of features. It’s not that you can’t do the work, but that you would much rather not have to do it all on the iPad. I am in no way stating you can’t create content on the iPad – you can – but that on a cross country flight it is less than ideal.

Think about it another way, say you are taking a cross-country (U.S.) flight and you need to go over sales projections that your staff sent you as an Excel file. You have the option of using either an iPad or a 11” MacBook Air – which are you going to grab? If you think the screen is cramped on the 11, wait until the onscreen keyboard pops up on the iPad – then you will feel cramped.

Carrying a keyboard for the iPad has the same implications for the business traveler as it does for the student – you again become the guy with all these little parts and pieces that need to be assembled just so you can work. Not to mention: on an airplane, where would you prop up the iPad, and where would you rest the keyboard? ((Assuming a bluetooth keyboard. As the keyboard dock I would guess would make the iPad all together too tall to work off the tray in front of you.))

It further helps to solidify the 11’s place for business travelers when you think about the fact that most of these purchasers will probably have another computer at their office or home already. That means that for travel they must choose between the iPad ((Possibly other tablet devices.)), a Net book, a MacBook Air. When you think about it like that, and think about what most business travelers use a computer for, a MacBook Air moves to the top of the list.

You can almost remove the iPad from the list unless the traveler has an iPhone 4 that they can use to talk to their kids back home. I have talked to a few people now that want an iPad badly, but are waiting to get a FaceTime camera on one because they like to video chat with their kids while they are traveling. Don’t underestimate the power of that video connection for business travelers.

The Niche Market

This is the general group where we will throw everybody else that buys the 11” MacBook Air – these are the people who want it because it is small, or fills a very specific need, or they just want it. There does exist one other type of buyer though: new Mac users. I would not be so naive to think that there is going to be a mass of people buying Macs just because of the 11, but I do think it offers a more compelling reason to switch than Apple previously had.

The MacBook Air could act as a stepping stone computer into the Mac world for people. I am not saying this will happen on a large scale, but I bet it won’t be very hard to find people that buy an 11 as a secondary computer to their PC, only to come back later when they need to replace their PC and buy q Mac. The 11 could be a trojan horse for getting more Mac users.

Here is a scenario that keeps popping into my head, and seems to make a lot of sense. A stay at home mom wants to get a computer that she can use when the kids are gone, and when she is waiting for them and working on her various projects – in other words, light computing needs in short spurts. She has been turned off by the iPad because she has been told it is not a ‘full’ or ‘real’ computer, so instead she has been looking at a cheap Net book. Most likely playing with them at Costco and Best Buy, but the MacBooks keep catching her eye. Now she sees there is a Net book sized MacBook, that, while more expensive than all other Net books, really looks good. So she walks over and starts playing with the 11 and talking with the Apple Rep about it. She eventually says forget it – the price is way too high, and she just doesn’t need it.

Now what happens when she goes back to the Net books? She is going to find herself waiting for things to open. All of a sudden the 11 doesn’t just look like a sexy little over priced Net book, but instead a really, really, small computer. That is powerful, being able to draw a consumer in that would not normally look at your computers (in this scenario a stay at home mom) and give the a compelling reason that is hard for competitors to compete with – flash storage.

Another way to think about it is to think back to something that you were looking into buying – perhaps a car. You drive a whole bunch and maybe one, just for fun, that is a bit better and out of your price range. If that car is so good that it makes all the other cars you drove feel like a dog, you are probably really going to run the numbers to see if you can get that car. People like to treat themselves, especially if they feel they can justify said treat. With the 11 the justification would be that it is smaller, than most computers, looks better, feels faster, and is a Mac.

These are Powerful Markets

When I got my 12” PowerBook G4 there were very few Mac users on campus – by the time I left there were markedly more. The majority of them were 12” PowerBook G4s – it was just the popular machine to have. I think the 11 could do the same thing once again, by getting into the hands of a ton of people you are helping the 11 to become ‘mainstream’, instead of people looking at the 11 and thinking how cool it is, they look at the 11 and think oh yeah – there’s another one, what is so great about those?

When you get people interested enough to ask questions, then you get them interested enough to look into it. That brings them to Apple.com and that takes them one step closer to being a Mac user. Whether or not you like the computer that you use, every time someone sees you using it, you become an endorser of that computer, by virtue of the fact that you are using it and therefore must have bought it for some reason. Now imagine first-class being full 11s, lecture halls being dominated by them, and a mom waiting in her car for her kids checking email with one. That’s kind of how the iPhone started…

This could be powerful – or maybe I just need some sleep.

Last night John Gruber posted on Daring Fireball that he feels the MacBook Airs place in the Mac lineup is as a second computer for the 13” and a sort of iPad Pro for the 11” model. It is an interesting perspective and I was glad to read it, but I completely disagree with him. ((For a change.)) I don’t think that Apple sees the MacBook Air as a “secondary Mac” at all. In fact in light of the reviews and benchmarks coming out about the MacBook Air I would suggest – actually I am gambling on – the fact that a MacBook Air can and will be more than ample as an everyday, only Mac, machine.

Gruber:

Here’s the way I see it: the Air is a secondary Mac; MacBook Pros are for use as a primary computer. I.e., if you want your MacBook to be your one and only Mac, you should get a MacBook Pro. You’ll need the additional storage, and you’ll be thankful for the additional RAM and expansion ports. If you’ve got a desktop Mac (or perhaps even a big MacBook Pro) as your primary Mac, but want a small lightweight MacBook for use away from your desk, the MacBook Air is your best option. The biggest weakness of the Air is its relatively small amount of storage space — that’s not nearly as much of an issue for a secondary Mac.

I completely see where he is coming from, but I think he may be projecting his usage too much onto the machine. My wife for instance has an original MacBook Pro with a 100GB hard drive – all of her media is on the computer, nothing on external drives – and she still has 19GB free. The biggest HD I have ever had was 300GB in my laptop, I switched that a few months back for a 240GB SSD. Right now I have 97.6GB free, but I keep all of my photo archives and music/videos on an external drive at home.

My sisters keep all their media on one machine and have room to spare, ditto my Mother and step-mother. Ditto a co-worker that has an older Macbook. I don’t think storage space is at the premium that Gruber thinks it really is. There is certainly a large contingent of Mac users that have an overwhelming amount of data storage needs, but if you fall in that group than I doubt that even a 500GB ((Which is the current maximum hard drive you can get on a MacBook Pro)) hard drive will suffice for you. So let’s go ahead and just throw out the ‘needing more storage space’ arguments against the MacBook Air, most people can and will figure out how to deal with that if it is even an issue for them, even then I don’t think it is an issue for the average user.

That leaves the last two points that Gruber brought up: extra RAM, and expansion ports. Here is how Apple deals with the RAM in its computer line: MacBook Pros, Mac minis all support 8GB of maximum RAM, the iMac supports 16GB max, the Macbook and MacBook Air supports just 4GB of RAM max, and the large-and-in-charge Mac Pro supports 32GB of RAM max. So really to get more RAM you must buy at least a MacBook Pro if you want a laptop with more than 4GB of RAM, but that is going to add $400 to the price ((Unless you buy 3rd party and install for your self.)) of your MacBook Pro.

How many people out there are really going to pay to upgrade to 8GB of RAM? I would guess not many, and I would further guess that not many are going to pay to upgrade the MacBook Airs 2GB of RAM to the 4GB. So we are really comparing a 2GB RAM machine with a 4GB RAM machine – and in that case the MacBook Pro looks a lot better. There is a huge usability difference between 2 and 4GBs of RAM, so much so that I would recommend 4GB as a base starting point for all Mac users.

That brings us to expansion ports, here is what that looks like:

Essentially then we can leave out the 17” as I bet Apple will sell more Airs than they do those and a 17” notebook is bordering on being a desktop only machine to begin with. So that leaves the rest of the lineup. With a Macbook you get less expansion than the Air, and with the MacBook Pros you get firewire and only in the 15” do you get the audio in mini-jack.

What your choice then boils down to is a MacBook Air or a 13/15” MacBook Pro. We can eliminate the storage space needs by virtue of my above argument that anybody who needs more than the 128GB you can get in the Airs is probably going to need more than the 500GBs you get in the Pros. We can further eliminate the ‘more RAM’ issue by saying that most people will see a $100 upgrade on the Air as trivial (well most people that read this article). That just leaves the expansion port issue, and unless you do a lot of audio recording, or use firewire at all there really is no net gain to getting a MacBook Pro. I would further guess that most people would take 3 USB ports over 2 USB ports and 1 firewire – most people (read non-geeks) don’t use firewire. Also these same people that don’t use Firewire don’t use that extra audio port either. ((I use firewire and never have used that audio port, have you?))

So really the choice is down to price and size, if all my above assumption are correct. ((And I do realize I have given no hard facts, just used my life experiences thus far.)) Base 13” MacBook Pro $1199, base 13” MacBook Air $1299, but as I said it is really $1399 because you need to pay for that extra RAM. So for $200 less you get a slightly faster computer with more storage and more expansion ports – except that it is not faster than the Air. Macworld showed us yesterday that due to the Flash hard drives in the Airs it is two points better on their benchmark system that the MacBook Pro 13″ – even with half the RAM in the Air.

That means that to get ‘better’ ((Again it is not better across the board, but given the way most people use their machines and stock Air will feel and perform much faster than a stock Pro due to the flash drive speed)) performance from a MacBook Pro than a MacBook Air you need a MacBook Pro with an SSD drive. If you configure it that way here is how the pricing breaks down: 13” MacBook Pro w/ 128GB ((There are larger SSD options, but the prices increases significantly and I am trying for an apples to apples comparison. If you subscribe to the thinking that storage is needed then go ahead and waste a ton of money on the 512GB option.)) SSD $1549 versus a 13” MacBook Air w/ 4GB RAM for $1399. Now for $150 less you get the same machine with one less expansion port and a lot less fat to the device.

Realistically then I think it is safe to call the price difference between a 13” MacBook Pro and a 13” MacBook Air a wash (if they are similarly configured). Given that your choice is between a computer that you can change out the RAM and hard drive on yourself and a computer that you can’t, but that is much lighter and thinner. The best way to think about that decision is two-fold:

1. Have you ever upgraded your computer yourself?
2. Do you plan on carrying your computer?

If you answered ‘yes’ to #1, then you really need to think about if you are OK with not upgrading any components of the Air, if you are not OK with that don’t get it. If you answered ‘yes’ to #2 then are you OK with carrying an extra 1.6 pounds with you? Like the saying goes: ‘the best camera is the one you have with you’ – so it goes for computers: ‘the best computer is the one that you have with you not the one sitting on your desk back home’.

I think it is reasonable to assume that the majority of Mac users will never use their Mac to the degree that they need the added processing power of the MacBook Pro. I would also guess that most Mac users carry their Macs places than they bother to desire to crack the case open. So for most Mac users wouldn’t the Air make more sense than the 13″ MacBook Pro?

All of this to say: the 13” MacBook Air is no secondary computer any more than the 13” MacBook Pro is. ((I will address the iPad Pro / 11” MacBook Air thoughts later.))