Paging Robert Morgan

The iTV announcement takes the Macalope back.

That convergence you ordered ten years ago is here.

For those who don’t remember Robert Morgan, he wrote a rumor site ostensibly aimed at investors and then a column for MacWeek before it became eWeek.  He preached the convergence of computers and consumer electronics in long, sometimes rambling posts.  But these were some of the rumors the Macalope was weaned on when he was but a young Mac buck.

Morgan wrote around the time of the original iMac’s introduction when the rumor mill heavily bet that it would be a set-top box.  Witness this CNet article from 1998 which is both astoundingly wrong and accidentally prescient:

Apple Computer (AAPL) is working on portable and TV set-top entertainment devices that offer Internet access and play everything from music CDs to DVD movies, as the company refashions itself for the convergence of consumer electronics and PC technologies.

The top-secret project could throw the computer maker back into the limelight of the high-tech industry if, as planned, the company combines a WebTV-like Internet access device with a CD or DVD player to create an easy-to-use, low-cost computing device, sources close to Apple said.

Apple declined to comment, but one source said the convergence project is code-named Columbus.

Columbus turned out to be the iMac.  On the prescient side, the article notes:

“Studios need critical mass. It’s hard to justify new channels (for distributing) content if the subscriber base is small,” said one entertainment industry source.

Which pretty clearly describes how it’s Amazon and Microsoft that face the uphill battle here in 2006.

So, it’s been a long time coming – and it’s still not actually here yet – but the Macalope will be hefting a flagon of mead to Robert Morgan along with the modest portion of crow he’ll be eating tonight.

Because the Macalope was certainly wrong about wireless video vs. wireless audio.  Judging by Gizmodo’s specs, it appears the “iTV” doesn’t have a hard drive (although Gruber speculates it has one for caching) so it is, in fact, receiving streamed video from a Mac and, for smaller content, from the iTunes Music Store.  Certainly the “TubePort” was also wrong, though, and simply based off last night’s crop of rumors.  No dongles and no “iDisk-like storage component hosted by Apple.”

And no “true” video iPod.  We’ll just have to soldier on with these “fake” video iPods.

HD video requires transfer rates of 25 mbps and regular ol’ fashioned non-extreme Airport and mixed Airport/Airport Extreme environments only get up to 11 mbps.  So, while the Macalope hates to say it, it’s time to ditch that stylish but antiquated key lime iBook.

UPDATE 9/13 – Correction:  25 mbps is for uncompressed HD.  Commenter Jeff notes you could copy the movie file over 802.11b in less time than it would take to watch it, so you should be able to stream it.  He also points out the use of the term “802.11 networking.”  Is that because it’s 802.11b and 801.11g or because it’s 802.11a?

Special Event Eve

The Maclope’s guesses for tomorrow’s Special Event.

Ah, Special Event Eve. Much like Christmas Eve. Visions of a [sometimes] bearded gentleman who wears the same thing every time [one a black turtleneck and jeans, one a red suit] delivering presents [that you’ll either pay for monitarily or emotionally].

The Macalope is here to go out on a limb with his educated guesses about what Apple will deliver tomorrow.

  1. Movie download service – Unfortunately for Apple, this will come as a surprise to no one. At least the rumor sites aren’t to blame this time. What would be surprising is if Apple is able to deliver a studio besides Disney. For those looking to see how Apple conducts a real leak, the Macalope suggests looking at this instance. Amazon made a pre-production announcement and Apple made the headlines read “Apple, Amazon to Deliver Online Movie Stores.”
  2. New iPods – Will this be the long-heralded “true” video iPod?. Someone please shoot the Macalope at the thought of the year-late rumor site triumphalism. As with any large woodland creature, you’ll need at least a 12-gauge.
  3. Not an Airport-streaming video system

Come again, Macalope? But all the late night buzz is about the wireless video streaming device! Get with the program!

Well, speaking of the program, the Unofficial Apple Weblog may have one.

But the Maclope’s not buying “TubePort”.

Let’s get this straight. TubePort streams – presumably via Airport Extreme – video content that is being streamed to your Mac from an “iDisk-like storage component hosted by Apple.”

That’s a whole lotta streamin’. The Macalope hopes they don’t accidentally cross the streams in his living room, causing his sofa and plasma TV to shoot off in opposite directions (OK, no one is more aware than the Macalope that two Ghostbusters references in fifteen posts is not good).

Also, if it’s Airport-based, why two dongles? All of the Macs this system would be likely to work on have Airport Extreme cards included.

And if mom and dad decide to watch National Treasure downstairs while the kids are trying to watch The Lizzie McGuire movie upstairs, that’s two movies streaming through the same Airport connection in two different directions – once from Apple to the Mac and then from the Mac to the TV.

Personally, the Macalope doesn’t want his Airport network so active it gives him a tan. Nor does he want to watch jerky video that makes Nick Cage stutter more than he did in Peggy Sue Got Married.

There are, of course, no certainties in this game, but the Macalope suspects that if there is wireless transfer shown tomorrow, it’ll have to do with music, not video. And that if there’s a Mac-to-TV connection for viewing videos, it’s wired.

Now, the Macalope must be off to bed. You know what they say about Special Event Eve. If you don’t go to sleep, it’ll never come.

Dear George…

The Macalope responds to George Ou.

The Macalope is in receipt of your most recent missive and is somewhat bewildered.

You say, among other things, that the Macalope is “a site dedicated to bashing” you.

Including this post, the Macalope counts 4 out of his 14 posts that focus on you.

(Sadly, you have dedicated but a couple of measly comments to the Macalope. George, this relationship is never going to work if you aren’t going to put something into it.)

But 4 out of 14 is still just 29%. Is that a lot? The Macalope is kind of new at this. How much time do sites dedicated to bashing you usually spend on you?

Frankly, it’s been a busy week for the Macalope. He already has two people who think his blog is dedicated to bashing them – one who thought the Macalope was George Ou and now George Ou himself.

It’s like the Horny One stumbled into an episode of Three’s Company.

But, George, the Macalope was most confused when reading this:

So it appears he just proved himself wrong all along and my camp has been telling the truth all along. If Apple is now leaking to Mac bloggers that a wireless patch will come out and they’re changing the story that Maynor and Ellch are “frauds” to “unprofessional” for refusing to share exploit source code.

George, you have to get over these paranoid fantasies of the mighty Apple propaganda machine before they start to eat you alive and you begin to think that Apple’s responsible for everything bad in the world and you fall into a spiral of hatred until finally you do something really embarrassing.

The Macalope has not heard that a wireless patch is coming and has never said that he did.

As for “proving himself wrong”, the Macalope is just scanning back over his posts from the last week and a half and… hmm… no… nope. No, George, he can’t find the post you’re referring to where he said there was never any hack and that Maynor and Ellch are liars and that the MacBook is invulnerable and Steve Jobs is God and the Macalope’s dad can beat up your dad (which, nothing against your dad, wouldn’t be a fair fight as the Macalope’s dad is a 600 lb buck).

Just because some Mac users have said Maynor and Ellch are frauds does not mean that all have said it.

As a matter of fact, in relation to the code the Macalope said:

Maybe they felt they should be paid for their time to help reveal a problem with Apple’s drivers. And maybe they should. But the Macalope would suggest that getting the attention of a prospective client by publicly dissing them isn’t such a great business model.

The Macalope never said it would be unprofessional of SecureWorks to refuse to give their code away. He actually leaned in the opposite direction.

This might be the bit you’re looking for about unprofessionalism, George:

You [Ellch] and David Maynor shot your mouths off about a vulnerability in the MacBook and then backpedalled when angry Mac users demanded you prove the vulnerability exists. Now you claim you don’t want to confirm it because it wouldn’t be responsible.

Now, there is another possibility the Macalope neglected to consider. It’s also possible that Brian Krebs screwed up and reported something he wasn’t supposed to. There are certainly those who think Krebs is to blame. So, if Krebs reported something that should have been off the record, Ellch and Maynor are just guilty of being jerks, not necessarily unprofessional.

Which leaves the bit about what contact SecureWorks had with Apple. You said you attempted to get some more information about that out of Lynn Fox, asking:

Did SecureWorks or David Maynor ever attempt to indicate to Apple that an exploitable flaw exists in the stock Apple MacBook wireless laptop regardless of whether Apple believes this qualifies as “evidence” or not?”

Like, maybe through a puppet show or an interpretive dance?

It’s been a week since I asked this in email and I left voice mails. Fox refuses to answer.

You should probably take note that Lynn Fox isn’t the only one not answering certain questions.

And the Macalope can’t imagine why she doesn’t want to talk to you. Particularly when you’re such an impartial observer.

It sounds like Apple was too lazy or incompetent to do their own work after they were given the crash dumps and disassembled drivers and it’s sour grapes.

Is that what they were given, George? Who told you that? Isn’t that evidence? If you knew that’s what they were given, why didn’t you ask Fox why she doesn’t consider those specific items evidence?

So many questions, George. So many questions.

What’s so odd is that the Macalope doesn’t recall there ever being such a stir over a Mac security vulnerability before.

Apple’s had a few. A couple of them (that’s two, George) rather severe. But never such a controversy.

He wonders why that is.

Well, until we next lock horns, George. Oh, by the way, Tuesday’s not good for the Macalope. He’s getting his antlers filed. Have your people call the Macalope’s people.

Yours truly,
The Macalope

P.S. Oh, and, George?

Since when do journalists have “camps”?

[Edited slightly for grammar.]

DO NOT FOLLOW THIS LINK

Just say “no” to Jim Louderback.

PC Magazine’s Jim Louderback, trolling for hits.

To spare you the dirty feeling you’ll get and the subsequent showering with the lathering and the rinsing and the repeating, the Macalope has read Jim Louderback’s desperate cry for attention disguised as a “serious” column about why Apple should license OS X for you.

The things the Macalope does for you…

Louderback is one of seemingly scores of PC magazine (small “m”) writers who wilfully forget the fact that Apple is…

Everyone say it together along with the Macalope now…

…a hardware company.

In fact, Apple has a significant opportunity to trump Vista as the desktop OS — if only it would stop insisting on being the sole hardware supplier for the operating system.

Ah, yes! If only Apple would ditch its primary revenue stream other than the iPod in order to act out Jim Louderback’s wooden and unimaginative technology industry porn script!

It’s not wishful thinking. I’ve talked with top execs from two of teh top 10 PC makers recently, and both said they’d be more than happy to sell PCs running OS X.

One was Michael Dell, who promised to start selling OS X-based machines as soon as Apple opened the doors.

Of course he would! Michael Dell would love to have any possible alternative to Windows. That’s why Dell sells Linux machines. The ability to offer OS X on Dell hardware would give Mikey another bargaining chip when negotiating with Microsoft and allow him to compete directly with one of his chief hardware competitors.

Apple.

Now, Louderback isn’t stupid, he just plays stupid on TV. He knows Apple’s a hardware company. He’s just punking us. Mad-dogging us. Mean-mugging us.

Still not convinced? Considering clicking over?

This should convince you:

Apple, are you listening?

Ponderous. Ill-conceived. Clichéd.

Now, if you’ll excuse the Macalope, he has to go roll in the dirt to get the stench off of him.

UPDATE 9/7: Some commenters have pointed out that Apple is both a hardware company and a software company (and a floor wax!) which is fairly obvious in as they make both. But it’s true that what makes the Mac shine is the tight integration of OS and hardware.

Well, and all that aluminum also makes it shine. And those shiny new MacBook screens.

While Windows or Linux on a Mac Pro are not going to be as rich an experience as OS X, the Macalope was really more looking at it from a P&L perspective. The company just doesn’t make that much on software as compared to hardware. The Mac OS is a loss leader.

While it’s doubtful Apple will ever sell Macs with Windows pre-installed, there’s a reason the company makes Boot Camp but cracks down on hacking OS X to run on non-Apple hardware.

And why do we have to keep having this argument? Because unserious pundits like Jim Louderback keep dragging out the same brilliant idea that would drive Apple out of business in order to troll for hits from Mac users.

Woe is Jon Ellch!

Ellch speaks.

Perhaps the most laughable element of the SecureWorks saga is the idea that Apple has orchestrated a “smear campaign” against David Maynor and Jon Ellch.

George Ou-the-Humanity! has pimped this idea for over two weeks, but now Jon Ellch has broken his silence (antler tip to Daring Fireball). Silence, that is, if you don’t count the frequent conversations with George Ou.

Ellch refuses to take Gruber’s bait and mostly focuses on the technical details of the exploit SecureWorks demonstrated, implying it’s all very complicated and it’s really only the kind of thing experts understand.

While the Macalope is sure the technical intricacies of the exploit are beyond his reckoning, he’s fully qualified to discuss the PR elements of this story. And Ellch and Maynor still have a number of steps to complete in their 12-step journey to PR recovery.

Ellch:

Am I doing a very good job of winning this PR smear campaign lynn fox ignited? No.

Sorry, Jon, but don’t look any further than the mirror when you’re looking to place blame for this PR debacle.

You and David Maynor shot your mouths off about a vulnerability in the MacBook and then backpedalled when angry Mac users demanded you prove the vulnerability exists. Now you claim you don’t want to confirm it because it wouldn’t be responsible.

You can’t be rogue hackers on the edge and button-down businessmen.

Some have taken Lynn Fox’s statement as a refutation of the existence of an exploit. It’s not. It’s a refutation of Maynor and Ellch’s professionalism. If the argument was soley about the science of whether or not Apple’s Airport is vulnerable to SecureWorks’ exploit, Maynor and Ellch would simply sit back and wait for their vindication via an Apple update.

But Apple took a shot across the bow of SecureWorks’ professionalism. They botched their delivery and then – according to the Macalope’s Apple sources – provided only vague information to Apple about how the exploit can be executed.

Maybe they felt they should be paid for their time to help reveal a problem with Apple’s drivers. And maybe they should. But the Macalope would suggest that getting the attention of a prospective client by publicly dissing them isn’t such a great business model.

In A Word, "Wrong."

The Macalope is misidentified.

Does the author of JackWhispers (correction: the site’s called Fix Your Thinking) really think the Macalope is George Ou? As an addendum to his list of the Goons of the Mac World, Philip writes:

George Ou started a new Mac blog on August 30th called, The Macalope: Covering the mythical Mac User – very goonish!

Now, the Macalope tried to find the irony in there, but after about three hours of sitting and staring blankly at it and shaking his be-horned head, he was unable.

So, let’s get a few things straight.

First of all, Philip, you got the subhead wrong. See above. Second, did you actually read the entry you linked to and decide George Ou is filled with self-loathing? Third, you don’t need that comma after “called.”

And finally…

Does George Ou have antlers?

No. I believe he does not.

You know, you don’t grow a rack like this overnight. So, this whole thing is kind of insulting.

UPDATE 9/5:  The author responds in comments, claiming to have fixed the post, and deletes the Macalope’s comment from his blog.

For the record, what the Macalope’s comment said was:

The Macalope is decidedly not George Ou.

Did you even read the post you linked to?

[Actually, the Macalope found a cached copy and “even” wasn’t even in there.]

Not exactly Alec Baldwin’s monologue from Glengarry Glenn Ross.  The “correction” now reads:

A blog post about George Ou has been started called, The Macalope: Covering the Mythical Mac User – very goonish!

But that’s still not right.  And now it doesn’t even make any sense.

Well, the Macalope doesn’t want to make a whole “thing” about this.  On the whole, he agreed with the list, he was just flabbergasted at being mistaken for the man he just spent the better part of a week skewering.

[Edited for grammar.]

UPDATE 9/6: The Hatfields and the McCoys. Moby and Eminem. The Macalope and Fix Your Thinking.

Fix Your Thinking responds.

The Macalope responded in email thusly:

The Macalope certainly didn’t expect to start the firestorm he did with his post. It was certainly *not* intended to portray Fix Your Thinking as a “freak show.” On the contrary, he quite enjoyed the rest of the post.

There has been no effort to try to “discredit you.” The Macalope pointed out a mistake that he felt besmirched his name in the very early days of his blog. He did not want people to think he was George Ou’s sock puppet or that he was anti-Mac. First impressions are important (we can certainly see that now) and your mistake, the Macalope felt, would have given people exactly the opposite idea about his blog. In retrospect, his response may have been heavy-handed, but he thought that someone who’s been around the Mac blogosphere as long as you could take a little heat in stride. All he expected was a “Whoops! Misread the post!” correction.

As for the name of your site, your HTML title is “Jackwhispers – Fix Your Thinking”. Jackwhispers is first, leading one to believe more important and once you scroll past the banner, the HTML title is all you can see. The Macalope will correct the post, however, noting the mistake.

Finally, I fail to see why the Macalope should apologize when you haven’t apologized for your mistake. Corrected, yes. Apologized for, no.

Now, the Macalope has not *asked* for an apology. Merely an appropriate correction. As that has now been done, and you have asked for his apology, the Macalope will apologize for some specifics.

First, he regrets not mentioning that he enjoyed the rest of the “Goons” post. That could have gone a long way to softening the tone. Second, he regrets the punctuation crack. That was piling on. We *do* all make grammar mistakes and the Macalope will surely make his fair share in the future.

Sometimes he feels that if he mixes up “its” and “it’s” one more time he’s going to jump antlers-first into the venison grinder.

So, for those two things, he apologizes.

He does not, however, apologize for responding via post rather than email. The Macalope believes blog readers have a right to see our mistakes, know our flaws. Your first correction did not note any error on your part. While everyone has different styles, the Macalope believes blogs should adopt a newspaper approach – mistakes should be noted and corrected, not disappeared. But, your blog, your rules.

Hopefully this will put the issue behind us.

Regards,
The Macalope

Weekend Roundup

The Macalope comments on some odds and ends.

Some odds and ends collected by the Macalope this week.

Apple legal counsel sends a cease and desist to a guy who links to a YouTube video of Leopard features that already viewable on Apple’s web site – The Maclope is constantly astounded at how many lawyers who deal in technology intellectual property rights know so little of technology. These guys should really stop getting their information from Senator Ted Stevens.

One can’t help but wonder if some back-of-the-envelope math was done at O’Melveny & Myers LLP and they quickly realized that just sending one email to YouTube results in far fewer billable hours than sending 50 emails to 50 websites linking to that one YouTube video.

Microsoft Canada accidentally posts Vista pricing – Yes, it’s outrageously expensive, but when you consider that Microsoft only offers an OS upgrade every decade, it’s not that much at all. At rates like these, the Macalope thinks the company should be staffing the Windows Activation hotline with phone sex operators.

BusinessWeek speculates about Apple merging with Google – As Google’s whole business model is trying to make the PC irrelevant, the Macalope’s not really sure how this would help the Mac. And neither is BusinessWeek. Other than fight Microsoft, the article asks…

What else might they do together? The Mac is cool. So is Google.

Wow. You know, that question really needed an action verb in the answer.