This is a comical observation because my position was endorsed (if not directly) by Peter-Paul Koch who daintily comments that “[He] will shout at web developers who think that delicately inserting an iPhone up their ass is the same as mobile web development.” He goes on to slam the web development community to catering to the iPhone in the same broken-record way that web developers catered to IE6 ten years ago.

Photo by Matt Buchanan

And adding insult to injury, the Guardian also picked up that story and offered their own ringing endorsement for both Peter-Paul and my perspectives.

I just got off the phone with an unnamed entrepreneur who wants to build a product that, while looking to the future and planning to diversify over a variety of products, looks at Apple’s forthcoming iPad as the launch device. I will offer you the same advice I offered him as well as the same advice I offer to iPhone only products like Gowalla.

If you want to start on the iPad, fine. You better be damn sure you’re ready to diversify quickly. I don’t care if you put it on a non-touch device like, oh I don’t know, the web with a normal browser on a normal computer… do not disenfranchise users. Peter-Paul Koch notes, in the article I linked to above, that the iPhone carries only 15% of the worldwide mobile market. Yet it gets an insane amount of attention as if it was the most important product ever created.

Newsflash… it’s not. It’s not even close.

In fact, it’s still not a business class phone (with rare exception). And in fact, developers continue to ignore other platforms… like the BlackBerry.

Sidenote: It’s okay to have a mobile web interface but don’t lose the forest through the trees. Users will feel like second-hand citizens if you don’t pay attention to their needs.

Mobile developers: Think before you develop only for the iPhone or only for the iPad. Entrepreneurs: Think before you start a company or launch a product made exclusively, or designed with a business model only for the iPhone or the iPad.

Written by Aaron Brazell on February 9, 2010

A year later, Apple announced their second generation phone, the iPhone 3G. With it, they opened up the ecosystem even more by allowing developers to build third party apps that could run on the iPhone. 50 million apps later, it is still the best thing about the iPhone.

Apple made some mistakes during this process, as it would naturally be assumed they would as a relative newbie to the phone manufacturing world. They took too long to open up the device to third party apps and when they did, they employed draconian and inconsistent rules that were undocumented, uncommunicated and, generally frustrating to companies building apps for the iPhone.

When their third generation phone, the iPhone 3GS emerged, there were some improvements (such as cut and paste, video and voice control), but the more frustrating aspects of the device remained unchanged. The iPhone still doesn’t provide a flash for its camera. It still doesn’t support Flash. It still can’t be tethered as was promised (at least in the United States under AT&T).

Worse, the inherent failure of the iPhone (undoubtedly expected to be it’s greatest appeal) is the restriction of the operating system to a single Apple device. I get why. But now let’s flip the card.

Google today announced the Nexus One, a new Android-powered phone that, in the words of Good Morning Silicon Valley, is “a worthy iPhone competitor“. Actually, that’s a tame phrase. Let me give you a piece of this article titled, “Google vs. Apple: There Will be Blood”:

No single device is going to “kill” the iPhone, and that’s not really Google’s intent anyway, iPhone users being the heavy Web traffickers that they are. But Google does have a strong interest in fostering enough competition to keep Apple from dominating the mobile market, which is why it chose the strategy it did — providing a strong and improving platform that could support multiple manufacturers offering multiple models to multiple demographic segments across multiple carriers. Google doesn’t need to tear down the iPhone; it just needs to make sure there are plenty of attractive alternatives for smartphone shoppers who for various reasons don’t feel compelled to join the Apple-AT&T axis. As an Android flagship, unlocked but initially aligned with T-Mobile, the Nexus One fits as part of that plan.

And now it might be time to note that Google is winning this battle. Besides last years flop G1 launch with T-Mobile (I’ll be honest, the thing was a brick and ran on a very early version of Android so not surprised it really didn’t go anywhere), Verizon Wireless has just launched the Droid by Motorola and the Droid Eris by HTC. They are promising three Android phones in 2010. T-Mobile is now launching with the Nexus One and Verizon Wireless should get it this spring.

AT&T will not get an Android phone as long as they have an exclusive relationship with Apple.

The road to victory is very clear and Google has the advantage. Despite Android being open source, it’s patron saint is Google. Therefore, Google has distribution interest. The more Android phones that can be sold and made – of multiple varieties – on multiple carriers – possibly including Netbooks, the more they control the market. The more Apple fails to radicalize their roadmap with the iPhone, the more they lose the market.

Let’s go back a few years. The great browser wars of the 1990s were dwindling down as NEtscape was acquired by AOL then turned into a bastard half-breed of itself. Firefox, under leadership of the Mozilla Foundation, was blazing new paths in the browser market. Microsoft had largely cooled its heels standardizing around Internet Explorer 6. No further browsers were expected to be made. The battle had been fought, the war had been won. Microsoft ruled supreme.

That was what they thought. Meanwhile, Firefox kept making progress gradually stealing market share here or there like a rogue flitting through shadows snatching purses and wallets.

This opened the door to other browsers – Opera, Safari, eventually Google Chrome – to enter the marketplace. Microsoft realized they had sat on their heels too long and finally began building Internet Explorer 7. Internet Explorer 8 would soon follow. Internet Explorer 9 is around the corner. All of the sudden, when competition increased, Microsoft ran heavy and ran hard to keep up.

This is where Apple is going.

In about 6 months, if history teaches us anything, Apple will launch their 4th generation iPhone. Conventional wisdom suggests that the fat days of Apple and AT&T operating in lockstep are over. Conventional business wisdom suggests that the iPhone must radically alter the playing field with this release to stay competitive in the market. While the iPhone still has market share, so did IE6. While Apple sits back and does incremental enhancements and call them major releases, the scrappy Android will take market share if given the opportunity.

What are your thoughts on this extremely interesting business environment?

* Photo by ColorblindPICASSO

Written by Aaron Brazell on January 5, 2010

As I arose from my grogginess yesterday morning, my first instinct was to reach for my Blackberry to ascertain important overnight occurrences. You know, such as what drunken text messages I might have sent or had sent to me, what the final score was on the Red Sox game or who was talking about me on Twitter. It’s a hard habit to break so when I realized my phone was nowhere to be found, I panicked.

Then I remembered Google Latitude, the new mostly useless location based service announced earlier this year. Google Latitude has a small piece of software that can be installed on [supported] phones. It uses GPS or cell tower triangulation to pinpoint the location of a person. As I’m a Verizon Wireless customer, the only option I have is cell tower triangulation. So I can be pinpointed to an area.

In a stroke of brilliant genius, I logged onto Google Latitude from my computer in the hotel. There were only so many places the phone could be. The last place I wanted to see it was in the back seat of the cab that had given me a ride home the previous night.

Fortunately, I was pinpointed (inaccurately because it was more my phone was pinpointed in Fisherman’s Wharf at the In n Out Burger that I had enjoyed a west coast delicacy the night before. I thought.

Fortunately, upon arrival at the In n Out Burger, the store manager did indeed have my Blackberry and I was able to carry on with my life.

This is a great example of how location based services can actually be useful. Instead of simply inviting the stalkerati or providing an unnecessary window into the life of the user, it is a good way for employees or assets to be tracked inexpensively. If you run a courier service, company-issued phones with Google Latitude might be a handy way to streamline your business operations.

Google Latitude is not the only “homing beacon” service out there. Tomorrow, with the launch of the iPhone 3G S, Apple is also introducing “Find my iPhone” with MobileMe which will pinpoint the location of a lost or stolen iPhone. Clearly a different benefit to the argument of value surrounding location based services

Written by Aaron Brazell on June 18, 2009

Without a doubt, the iPhone is the sexiest phone on the market. Even with Research in Motion’s Blackberry Storm launch and a variety of other touch screen devices from other manufacturers, nothing meets, much less exceeds, the beauty and elegance of an iPhone. With it’s intuitive scrolling interface, the presence of a real web browser and hours of entertainment value via games from the app store, iPod capability and social networking capability, a la Livingston Communication’s Mobile Manifesto, there is no doubt that the iPhone is the device of choice for the long tail of consumers.

However, the finger typing (as opposed to tactile QWERTY keyboard of other devices, such as Blackberrys) poses a significant architectural barrier to business adoption. From a business standpoint, a mobile device is meant for utility. Email, productivity, and collaboration. That’s what we in business need from our phones, no? We need to be able to ensure connectivity to mission critical offices, and projects.

In Washington, we are a working class. We may not be the working class, as bandied around in political campaigns, but we are a town driven by long hours, massive public-interest footprints and a very east-coast “on the go” mentality. In Washington, Verizon Wireless rules the roost because of solid coverage and underground Metro coverage (granted, other carriers will have expanded coverage by the end of the year and full access by 2012).

During the Inauguration, while those in proximity to me (on the National Mall) lost coverage for all or a portion of the ceremony while using the Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile networks, Verizon Wireless troopered on without so much as a hiccup.

So, let’s review the iPhone. The iPhone is locked into the AT&T network (for now). Therefore, large collections of iPhones all throttle the same towers as opposed to dispersion of traffic across a multitude of networks. FAIL.

The iPhone presents significant usability and utility challenges to the “working” American due to the finger touch system. Additionally, the lack of viable Exchange integration (sorry, the iPhone OS 2.0 upgrade providing ActiveSync is junk), and lack of Group Policy mechanisms that prevent IT Administrators from effectively tying into a Enterprise Active Directory structure and enforcing group policy and security across an infrastructure in the same way they can for Windows Mobile or Blackberry devices, will continue to prevent the iPhone from seeing widespread adoption in enterprise environments.

Written by Aaron Brazell on March 30, 2009

We started 2008 with CNETs Caroline McCarthy reporting that MySpace voters preferred Barack Obama on the left and Ron Paul on the right. As we know now at the end of 2008, there was one group of netroots voters that managed to be successfully heard and we now have a new President-elect. On the other side, the GOP demonstrated their complete ineptitude tapping into the grassroots by marginalizing the candidate that would have fired up their internet base. At least at the end of 2008, there are some pockets of common sense on the right, but those pockets will likely not be heard or heeded.

In the first half of 2008, ridiculous acquisitions, funding rounds and business plays flourished. An example was when job search site, Monster.com acquired San Francisco-based Affinity Labs for $61M. On contrast, companies receiving funding or valuations at the end of 2008, are doing so on devalued terms while other companies are laying off workers and cutting back contract costs in an effort to extend their runways as far as they can into the second half of 2009 or beyond.

In every way, 2008 ends in a Dickensian way, highlighting two sides of a very different coin and leaving investors and entrepreneurs with a scared and tentative look in their eyes.

We made our annual predictions early in the year, and wanted to review those predictions for those keeping track at home.

Macworld/Apple

We said: Since Macworld is right around the corner I don’t think we will see any real new products but rather a grow what they have to meet their projections. This means upgraded iPod Touches, iPhone 2.0, iPhone SDK, upgraded Apple TV, patches to Leopard, improved Cinema Displays and upgraded Macs/Macbooks. The only thing I could see would be integration of their multi-touch technology on laptops (like the rumored sub-notebook).

What actually happened: Apple announced Time Capsule, an iPhone SDK for developing Apps for the iPhone (now available through the iTunes App Store for the iPod Touch and the iPhone 3G), iTunes movie rentals, Apple TV 2, and the now famous Macbook Air.

Accuracy: We accurately projected the iPhone SDK, Upgraded Apple TV, and the Macbook Air with multi-touch. Later in the year, we would see the iPhone 3G, improved cinema displays and the release of the new Macbook/Macbook Pro lines. We consider 100% accuracy here in 2008 with a 50% accuracy for Macworld 2008.

Microsoft

We Said: Let’s face it, Vista blows. It’s slow, doesn’t have any real innovation under the hood and takes more horsepower to run. I predict they will continue forcing it down people’s throats and in revolt people will continue to order machines with XP. On the other side of the coin, the Xbox is rocking and I predict they will announce an integrated Windows Media Center/IPTV version with HD-DVD to compete with the Playstation 3. They have a real opportunity to own the living room since Apple TV has flopped.

What actually happened: Some manufacturers, including Dell, decided that based on actual customer demand and trends (wiping pre-loaded Vista systems and installing Windows XP), computers could be shipped with XP instead. In addition, the Xbox did receive a much-needed face lift (called Xbox Experience) that we talked about here, though it did not go as far as we expected. We did not predict the emergence of Apple TV/Xbox Experience/TiVo challenger Vudu at the beginning of the year.

Accuracy: We consider our predictions to be mostly inline with actual results, but we missed or misjudged several things along the way. We claim a 60% accuracy rating here.

Web 2.0

We Said: Ok, hype over. Game over. Most “Web 2.0″ companies will go into the dust bin of history because their marketing strategy or ideas just didn’t pan out. Also, as more companies adopt these technologies into their “Enterprise 2.0″ strategy there will be less of a rush to create another social network or AJAX-ified web site unless it has real value. Side note – kill the term Enterprise 2.0. The enterprise hasn’t changed, the apps have just gotten easier to develop.

What actually happened: We feel that this was an overly-generalized prediction. It could have been more specifically Enterprise 2.0, as opposed to Web 2.0. That said, there was an actual push and adoption into the Enterprise space. Most notable of all Enterprise 2.0 companies was Yammer which is build as a standalone Twitter for Enterprise. Yammer won the top award at Techcrunch50.

Accuracy: Though there certainly has been more focus in recent months on utility over “bling” (Ajaxified sites, as we put it), we don’t necessarily believe that corporate Web 2.0 has advanced far beyond “Corporate blogging”, but with Yammer like companies popping up, we’ll claim a 40% accuracy rating.

Twitter

We Said: Twitter will get bought – it is a cool tool but not a lot money to made behind it. It needs to be part of a bigger whole. They also need better infrastructure because they crash whenever there is a big tech conference. CES will be a big test for them.

What actually happened: Twitter did not get bought, and in fact, took a third round of funding. It may have been their failures of June/July that prevented an acquisition, and there certainly were rumors of a Facebook acquisition of Twitter recently. The company seems to have turned a corner on reliability, and have a business model in mind, even if it hasn’t been outlined. In addition, Twitter development continues to proceed with a release of an all new Twitter API in 2009.

Accuracy: 0% – hands down, we were wrong. The company continues to confound even the experts.

Pownce

We said: Pownce will die – Twitter won this battle. Game over.

What actually happened: Pownce died.

Accuracy: 100%. ‘Nuff said.

Digg

We said: Digg will get bought – After rumors of a sale for the last 18 months, they finally get bought by a media behemoth. Sale price? $300 million.

What actually happened: While Digg did not actually get bought, they are bleeding money as reported by TechCrunch this weekend. According to the TechCrunch, the Microsoft search deal which was supposed to bring in over $100M over three years is clearly not doing that at all.

Accuracy: We want to take some credit for seeing the dark side of Digg, but clearly cannot based on our actual predictions. 0%.

Yahoo

We Said: Yahoo will continue to struggle and have massive layoffs – Yahoo didn’t change much with their executive restructuring and they have really sucked at integrating their products. They are going to get hit with lower stock prices and will have to cut the fat out.

What actually happened: What didn’t happen, might be the more accurate question. We had the Microsoft-Yahoo deal that was on, then off, then on, then off. The forced resignation, by all accounts, of CEO Jerry Yang, the hostile board takeover (“hostile” in the loose sense, not the SEC sense) by Carl Icahn, and the devaluation of Yahoo stock to approximately half of what it opened the year.

As for the predicted Yahoo layoffs… Well, it’s such a bloodbath that sites like this exist to track the chaos.

Accuracy: Can we score a 110%?

HD-DVD vs Bluray

We said: HD-DVD and BluRay will not have a winner, still – This year is just going to continue the fight with hybrid drives getting cheaper so by 2009 the choice will be irrelevant.

What actually happened: Bluray won.

Accuracy: 0%

Google and Wall Street

We Said: Google’s honeymoon with Wall Street will end – With the acquisition of DoubleClick there is more of a chance for Google to fail. Along with it trying to change to many sectors, Healthcare and Energy to name a few, it will need to shore up its core competencies before people start to trash it and the stock will be worth half what it is today.

What actually happened: Everyones honeymoon with Wall Street ended with the collapse of the economy. Google has lost over 60% of it’s value, falling from a Jan 2 open of $685/share to the current trading number of $298/share.

Accuracy: We will claim 75% accuracy on this. We can’t claim 100% because the reason for the value loss is not similar. It’s just the nature of the market at this time.

Facebook

We Said: They are a necessary evil right now and their beacon debacle will need to be fixed in order for them to go IPO. They will be the new IPO darling as analysts are ready to trash Google.

What actually happened: Facebook did not IPO in 2008, though they had a significant investment from Microsoft at a highly questionable valuation of $15B. Experts like Kara Swisher don’t expect an IPO until 2010. I might add that with the economy the way it is, pre-collapse predictions of 2010 might still be ambitious. I personally doubt Facebook will ever IPO.

Accuracy: 0%

Bringing 2008 In for a Landing

It’s always tricky to really predict a year in advance. With the economy and turbulence in the various sectors and markets, 2009 will be highly tricky to predict. Predict we will do, early in the new year, though so stick around.

Written by Aaron Brazell on December 22, 2008

Sustaining yourself with a small business doesn’t make headlines. Money-raising has been the mainstay of startup news since venture capital exploded on the scene in the ’80s. ‘Huffington Post Nabs $25M.’ And why not? It was validation that the company ‘has arrived.’ It was the Big Show. But ask any CEO what changes when investors step in. Everything.

No, they’re not (necessarily) evil. They’re just bound and determined to turn your company into a successful exit. It’s their job, in fact. It’s not about you, or even your technology.

Chances are, your primary mission is not to achieve successful exit. (If it is, you’re probably going to fail.) For most of you, it is about you — your passion for your technology, or your customers, or what you do.

If it sounds like that’s at odds with investors, well it often is.

So when Bunchball (the Silicon Valley company that applies gaming mechanics to making sites stickier) announces its new ex-Yahoo CEO, I hear a founder’s gut wrenching. When crafts-aggregator Etsy announces former NPR Digital head Maria Thomas taking the helm, I hear a gut wrenching.

Often from the outside, the decisions seem right. Geeky founders often don’t make the transition to leadership — ubergeek Bill Gates is an exception — and Heidrick & Struggles and CTPartners (formerly Christian & Timbers) and the like make a lot of money plucking SVPs out of big companies and placing them in VC-funded startups. (The genealogy of silly titles can actually be traced back to CEOs being made to step down — where do you think Chief Product Officer, Chief Strategy Officer, Chief of Insights, and other staff titles came from?) But then, investors aren’t all-wise. Gross blunders are made at the highest levels. (Remember when Pepsi head Sculley was brought in to run Apple? Not to mention Gil Amelio . . .)

There’s really only one way to avoid decisions in your company being made for you: captain your own destiny.

That usually means going slow, growing customer by customer, often staying small. If you want to go ‘big’ — and not everyone does — you’re most likely to find yourself at the investment/management crossroads. As an ambitious technologist/hard-core developer, you might decide to bring in someone to run the business. (Hey, it happens — sometimes founders themselves honestly recognize the need for new leadership.) That bespeaks true wisdom on the part of tech founders. Eric Schmidt’s install at Google was a coup — not a coup d’etat.

In his blog post, ‘10 Tips for Building a Profitable Business,’ Dogster CEO Ted Rheingold’s entreated:

So constantly ask yourself, are we spending 50% of our time selling? I bet you’ll always realize you’re focusing too much on the product and not enough on finding customers that want it.

Any of us who’ve consulted know that hard truth: love doing the work, hate hustling to get it. If that’s you, and you find yourself running a company, you either need to embrace being the CEO (read: chief salesman) and quit coding, or find someone who’s a good complement to you to do that job and leave you to program (or design, or write, or do whatever it is that you really do best.)

Once you’ve piloted your ship (to belabor the metaphor) past the shoals into the smooth waters of profitability and solvency, and feel the need to raise cash, get big, and pull away from your competition, the dynamics of a deal with a VC changes radically — you get the money on your terms. Still el capitan!

I’ve observed a lot of folks in charge of their destiny lately. (In the month of November, 533,000 who were not, had their ships sunk for them — so much for job security.) Software, the Interwebs, automatic ads, SEO, and (yes) social networking have made it a greater possibility than ever — unlike the previous waves of semiconductors, PCs, and computer networking. It’s akin to the artisans of the Renaissance — with skills, there’s always work. Entrepreneurs today can be captains of their destiny.

And I truly admire you folks. The ones scrapping it out, making a living, while they build their business, serve their customers, and develop a following. Those of you who eat, drink, and sleep (not much) your startups.

Remind yourself this at the end of your crappiest days: You’re the one making the decisions. Go make some really tough ones.

Written by Ray Capece on December 8, 2008

A new line of computers is announced with some new feature never seen before in the platform, and people make a rush on the store to get their hands on the new sexiness.

Apple announces a new line of iPods and the rush to get one takes over the market with a hysteria only eclipsed by the rush to buy other Apple products.

I wrote the post, The Apple Store: Where Intelligent People Go to Die last year but since then I’ve noticed that Apple really isn’t the only company that has this effect on its customers. Google does as well, in a slightly different way.

The obsession with Google is less about consumer usage and more about press and media obsession. Whenever Google does something, it is covered ad nauseum.

Google has now released their G1 Android phone, a first for a company who, like Apple, has never been in the phone business. The G1 phone was announced earlier in the year and is built on the Android platform, an open source code base that seeks to challenge the way phones are done in the age of the iPhone.

T-Mobile is the carrier of choice for G1 users. It is available in the United States and will be available on October 30 in the UK with the same carrier.

Fortunately there hasn’t been a consumer obsession with the first generation Google product yet, as there is already a security flaw that could allow malicious keystroke logging software to be installed on the device. What do you expect from a company who is perpetually in beta?

My point is this: Google is a great company that produces highly innovative products that always run a chance of revolutionizing the landscape. But, they are subject to the “Don’t buy Generation 1″ rule. Consumers and media need to be careful not to simply give the Big G a pass because they are the Big G. Approach every product with skepticism looking to falsify their claims. If they pass the test, then use the product. Google, Apple, Microsoft, or any other company with any other product out there. It takes time for a product to fully gain trust, and in the meantime, you don’t really want to have security or stability problems.

Written by Aaron Brazell on October 27, 2008

Now I’m not going to be a fanboi. I made the switch two years ago and I remember the awkward, out of body experience that happened for a few days (and it usually takes a few weeks for most people) afterwards. I do want to recommend powertips for Windows switchers who are just uncomfortable with their new Macs still. Learning the power efficiency tools will make your experience that much smoother and once you learn them, you’ll wonder how you ever did without them. Many of these tips are old hat to longtime Mac users, but if you’re an old time Mac user you should add your own tips in comments.

Spotlight

Spotlight indexes your hard drive looking for mail, applications, documents, dictionary definitions, etc. Anything that is on your Mac gets indexed by Spotlight. You can click on the magnifying glass in the upper right corner of your screen, or simply Tap Command (⌘) + Space. Start typing “Firefox” and it will find the browser for you. Start typing “Projected” and it will find that email that was titled “Projected forecast FY2009″ in your Apple Mail. And so on.

Dock Management

I’m of the mindset that, because of Spotlight above, I don’t need the Dock infringing on my workspace. So I keep the Dock tiny (as small as you can make it in System Preferences > Dock) and keep only the quick-find apps I absolutely need in there. Anything else I can access via Spotlight.

Right Context Click

In Windows, power users rely on the right-click. You can still use a Two or three button mouse (as long as it is of the USB variety) on a Mac and keep that familiarity. In fact, it may be a good idea to start off that way before switching to the one button (or the new buttonless) mice or trackpad.

Context click can be accessed two (or maybe three) different ways, depending on your setup. The ubiquitous solution is to Ctrl-click. The legacy configuration method is to access System Preferences > Trackpad and configure the Two finger + Click method. This allows you to place two fingers on the trackpad and click the button.

The third, new method that is only usable with the brand new aluminum Macbooks and Macbook Pros is to configure the trackpad to accept a click in one of the bottom corners. Note that the new Macbooks don’t have a traditional button anymore. The trackpad is the button.

Personally, I use the lower right corner of the trackpad to activate the context click but I’m on a new Macbook.

Exposé

Exposé is the tool that will artfully show you either all open windows from a single application or all open windows. Fantastic for quick switching or to find one of many many many open windows quickly.

Hand Gestures!

As a new Mac user, you really have to understand a few hand gestures on your trackpad. They will make your life super-easy if you get them.

1. Two finger scroll – In a browser or any other window with scrolling, placing two fingers on the trackpad and moving them up or down will scroll the window.
2. Four Finger Exposé – With the new laptops, you can now use the four finger trackpad gesture. Four fingers down moving up activates Exposé. Four fingers down returns things to normal
3. Four Finger Application switcher – Four finger sweep to the left or right exposes all the applications open. This is in the form of Alt+Tab which is accessible still in OS X and also on Windows.

Spaces

Spaces is my bugaboo. It’s so powerful and allows me to spread out my many, many, many windows across different desktop setups but it comes with the awkwardness of certain applications never wanting to stick on the proper space or having the application menu in one space and an application window in another one. Apple is doing a lot with Spaces to fix bugginess. Regarldess, if you have a lot of windows and apps, I suggest using Spaces.

Optimal layout is:

1. Browser, Email and Calendar on Space 1
2. Development and other productivity apps in Space 2
3. 2 Spaces for porn (kidding!)

Use Apple productivity apps

Unless there is something specific about Microsoft Office that keeps you there (everyone else in the office uses it is generally not acceptable enough, in my opinion, but Jason Thomas does make good points about collaboration) then you have everything you need in iWork ‘08, Mail.app, iCal and Address Book.

The mental roadblock for many Windows users is that Outlook provides access to everything in one place but, while that is true, Apple makes a pretty significant transparent effort at app integration. If you get an email in Mail.app that suggests a conference call on Friday at 3pm, you can click on the date and create an iCal meeting appointment. You Can right click on an email address and add it to Address Book. Pages opens and saves to Word. Numbers opens and saves to Excel. Keynote opens and saves to Powerpoint.

You lose superb Exchange collaboration (right now) functionality, but for most people, the drop-off is not too bad and the stability and integration between apps is exceptional.

Installing Applications

This is dirt easy. Literally. If you’re coming from the Windows world, you are used to “installing” applications. You have to go through a wizard that installs all kind of cruft throughout the Windows registry. With Macs, every application is self-contained. Literally, that means that in almost every case, installing an app means drag the app from a ZIP file into the Applications folder in your Finder (Windows Explorer in the Windows world).

Likewise, uninstalling an app is as simple as dragging it into the trash can. There is nothing else. No uninstaller. No half-done uninstalls because the process crashed halfway through. Simple drag and drop.

Shortcut Keys

Shortcut keys can be a bugaboo for most switchers, and they will continue to be after you make the adjustment if you have to go back to Windows ever. All your main shortcut keys in Windows are Ctrl something. Ctrl+C is Copy, Control+A is Select All, Control+V is Paste.

Most of these are identical on a Mac, with an exception. You use the Command (⌘) key instead of Control on OS X. Power users will tell you that it’s actually a more natural keystroke because of the proximity of Command to most of your other keys. Control is farther away and makes your fingers stretch more. Learn to use that thumb for easy access!

Quick Look

My final tip for the day is Quick Look. With most common file types including images, PDFs and documents, you can actually highlight a file in the Finder and hit the Quick Look button (The eye icon on the top of the Finder window) to get a quick preview of what the document is before opening. This has proven to be a huge boon when looking through large numbers of documents for one item specifically.

I know I’m not mentioning everything and there are certainly more advanced tips (like getting to know Automator, calibrating your battery, screenshots, Applescripting and anything Unixy), so feel free to add your own “Switcher” tips in comments. Would love to hear more from you.

Written by Aaron Brazell on October 23, 2008

Naturally, I suggested the new Macbook that Apple announced yesterday. The same thing occurred when my dad took a new job with a non-profit and considered getting a Mac, but it was nixed due to concerns over business application and utility.

To be clear, there is no better time to look at Apple laptops than now because the total cost of ownership is usually lower given that in most business environments, the selling point is Microsoft Office and Exchange/Active Directory integration.

Most purchasing managers will get caught in the trap of looking at the higher price tag for the hardware and assume that means that the TCO is higher as well. Let’s break it down though:

Five Hundred Dollars in difference for the average small business. Not everyone needs Adobe Acrobat, but a lot do! Some companies are inclined to buy MS Office for Mac, but it sucks and iWork has almost universal compatibility. Mail.app has Exchange capability, or the Exchange server can turn on IMAP functionality to make mail clients other than Outlook work better across the board.

If IT purchasing managers take a step back and look at the reality of the purchasing, a hard look at Apple products is a strong move to tighten those belts.

Written by Aaron Brazell on October 15, 2008

And then yesterday came. Duncan Riley had an exclusive reporting the imminent release of an $800 laptop from Apple, the first sub-$1000 machine ever in the line of Apple products. From there, well read blogs like VentureBeat, MacRumors and Gizmodo – to name just a few – ran with the story.

Later in the day, Engadget reported an October 14th event where Apple would announce their new laptop line. Former Engadget editor, Ryan Block, 9 to 5 Mac and Digital Daily – again, to only name a few – ran with the story.

The result was fascinating. The DJIA is currently down over 300 points indicating yet another bloodbath on Wall Street. However, Apple stock is through the roof, up almost 5 points at this moment.

I am in no way suggesting people should go about trying to manipulate the market by creating stories or otherwise fabricating false positive pressure on the market. That is a crime. However, it’s important for blogger to recognize their ability to affect the market for the positive or negative.

And the pressure remains on the top-tier bloggers to use that power wisely and recognize that their words matter. If ever there was a “responsibility” at the feet of these bloggers, it is now.

Written by Aaron Brazell on October 10, 2008