Whither .Mac in the age of Twitter?

If the real estate mantra is "location, location, location" the tech mantra is surely "timing, timing, timing."

For no company has timing been as bittersweet an issue as for Apple, which is so often early to the game.

Apple products like the initial, expensive, GUI desktops and the Newton handheld were simply so far before their time that the marketplace scratched its head in confusion while a few nerdy early adopters worked themselves into a froth.

And then, there's .Mac ("DotMac").

Launched just as the gel-colored iMacs were making Apple a true household name, .Mac internet services foreshadowed the Google/Yahoo suites of goodies we now find essential to our daily lives: Easy-to-use web-based email; easy-to-access online storage and backups, including simple file sharing; online photo albums; and web hosting of web page and photo album templates (and your own coded pages). In short, "your life, online."

A .Mac subscription runs about $100 a year, which left Apple in a hard-to-defend position as soon as Google turned up with free gmail, Yahoo put real power behind its still-unsurpassed Yahoo Groups, and Flickr photo sharing appeared on the scene. None of these are as sleek and complete as .Mac, for sure, but they're plenty powerful, dependable, easy to use -- and cross-platform.

While Apple has continued to make enhancements to .Mac, most of them are closely tied to Mac OS X and iLife applications such as iPhoto and iWeb. Meanwhile, the rest of the online world has been getting deliciously loud and messy with wikis, MySpace, and blogging software, essentially offering people free online "performance space." Amazon, Zazzle, and CafePress make possible the creation of "instant" online stores, complete with checkout systems.

Loud, messy, and commercial? That just isn't the .Mac style.

Rumors have it that a major re-vamp of .Mac (including a new name) will be announced at WWDC Monday. I'm trying to imagine .Mac in the age of Twitter. Some are speculating that Apple will merely transfer the back end of the service to a company like Google. Others are hoping for a richer, trendier suite of services. Still others are recommending more competitive pricing, with a free year of .Mac service to be bundled with the purchase of a new Mac. The most tantalizing rumors have .Mac playing a big role for the next iPhones.

As a long-time .Mac user (and former .Mac employee), I'm ready for the new incarnation.

Drink different

If you think that Steve Jobs' big contribution to American culture is the Mac or the iPhone, you didn't see Howard Schultz's performance at this morning's Starbucks shareholders meeting.

In a clear, passionate two-hour presentation—remarkably familiar to anyone who has seen an Apple keynote—Schultz wooed a packed house of worried stockholders (Starbucks stock has drifted down from 32 a year ago to 17 as of this morning) with video clips, third-party endorsements, flashy new hardware (two coffee machines) and tasty wetware (Pike Market blend). He even led into his announcement of the acquisition of the Clover French-press technology with Jobs' trademark keynote teaser "One more thing..." And, in contrast to last year's kinda lame video chat with Sir Paul McCartney, Schultz brought his friend K. D. Lang onstage for a soulful and highly appropriate rendition of "In Cold Dark Places (I Think of Spring)."

In Jobs' 1997 letter to shareholders, he asked rhetorically "how does a company manage to lose a BILLION dollars?"

Schultz was similarly blunt, and similarly disarming, announcing shortly after he took the stage that "performance has not met your expectations. Or mine."

Will the Starbucks CEO pull off as amazing a turnaround as Jobs did in his legendary return to Apple? I came away convinced that he will. And that's what the presentation game is all about, isn't it?

Nothing lost in translation

I'm back from three days of dancing at the Saratoga Dance Flurry in a very good mood. That's what lots of oxygen will do for your cells. I kept up with email on the trip, thanks to pretty much ubiquitous airport/hotel/coffee shop wifi, but didn't follow any blogs.

This morning I've been catching up on those. Many of the writers seem to be in exceptionally good spirits (early spring fever?). I particularly enjoyed John Gruber's post at Daring Fireball, which is a translation of the Macrovision CEO's reply to Apple's recent "Thoughts on Music" about digital rights management.

As usual, the translation from Corporate-Speak to plain English made things considerably shorter; I thought Gruber's rendering of the opening paragraph was exceptionally succinct.

Apple announces a new era

"Go to where the puck is going, not where it has been." -- Wayne Gretzky

Steve Jobs ended his keynote this morning with that quote, but I'll start with it because it pretty much sums up the news from Apple.

Jobs announced a new phone, a new iPod, and a new internet device. They're all the same product -- the Apple iPhone.

Is it as revolutionary as he claims? In a word, yes. I'll refer you to apple.com or one of the Mac news sites for more information.

In my favorite part of the demo, Jobs was listening to music on the iPhone in iPod mode (he also could have been watching a movie on the 3.5" screen -- which automatically switches between portrait and landscape mode depending on how you hold the device) when a phone call came in. The iPhone automatically turned off the music (faded it out tastefully, of course) and gave him a choice with on-screen touch buttons of declining or accepting the call.

He answered the call, and the caller asked him for a photo, which he located in the phone's iPhoto (did I mention the phone is running OSX? Yeah, really) and then he emailed it to the caller using an address in his Contacts (synced from his address book). He typed the message with a Qwerty keyboard that appears when you need it for email, search, or chat. With the caller still on the line, Jobs moved into internet mode (Safari is part of the iPhone software), went to his Fandango bookmark, and looked up local movie offerings.

After relaying the information to the caller, he touched the pulsing button that indictates an active call and ended the conversation. When he hung up, the song (remember the song?) faded back up.

Jobs then used Google Maps (part of the iPhone software) to locate the nearest Starbucks. He called and ordered 4,000 lattes, to go. "Sorry, wrong number," he said as he ended the call with an astonished Starbucks employee.

Four other mind-boggling iPhone features:

• The screen covers the entire device, bringing up an on-screen keyboard only when you need it for email or text messaging (the text message interface has colored balloons, like iChat).


• All scrolling is done with your finger. A pinching movement (also tapping in Safari) increases the size of the screen image.


• iPhone (developed in conjunction with Cingular Wireless) offers controlled access to voicemail messages. You see a list of the messages showing numbers (and, if available) the names of the callers. This means you can go right to the message you want instead of listening to a lot of blather. (I have to say, for me, that's the "killer app.")


• If you have two calls on the phone, the phone presents you with a merge button (looks like a traffic merge sign) you can tap to create a conference call. This simple solution to a perennial phone nightmare of conferencing got gasps and applause from the crowd.

"You know, I didn't sleep a wink last night," Jobs said, as he ended the demo. "I was so excited about today."

Jobs had opened the presentation by saying the new product would rank with the 1984 intro of the Mac and the 2001 intro of the iPod. I have to say I agree. And, as a former member of the iTunes Music Store team, I feel truly retired now. The era of the iPod is over. The era of the iPhone has begun.