Is there even a tablet market in the first place?

Since the keynote at WWDC, the world technology audience has been divided. Some fans have been excited for all the new features, while others are looking for every hole and flaw in Apple’s logic and plans. A recent tweet said, “Apple just pissed off: Dropbox, Sparrow, Instapaper, Readability, Remember the Milk, Facebook, RIM, & the carriers. Well done.” Let’s look at each item on the list.

- Dropbox. This in reference to AirDrop, but there are some notable differences. Dropbox’s purpose is to sync files across an individual’s machine. Place a file in a Dropbox folds and nearly instantly, that file is available on every Dropbox enabled computer/devices. You can, however, share folders with other Dropbox users to move files between people. That is not the common use case or intention of Dropbox. AirDrop, which is more like Receivd, allows users to send files to one another in a peer-to-peer fashion. AirDrop is Mac platform specific, Dropbox is not. There is no competition. I will use AirDrop to sling files among common Mac users, Receivd to send files to alternate platform users, and Dropbox to keep my own files in sync.

- Sparrow. It is a simple, minimalist mail client available for $9.99, from a year old startup. Apple updated its own native mail client. Does anyone expect Apple to ignore its own products. At the $10 price point, Sparrow loyalists are likely to stay and even draw new users, but Apple’s allegiance is to its own native applications. Other [more] popular mail clients include - Microsoft Entourage (pre-Microsoft OfficeforMac2011), Microsoft Outlook (current), and Postbox.

- Instapaper/Readability. Reading list in iOS 5 is nearly identical to Instapaper in functionality. There is nothing to say here except that if Instatpaper innovates or updates, they will keep their solid user base. Instapaper may actually be better than the built-in reading list function. The same goes for Readability.

- Remember the Milk. The angry Twitter user chose Remember the Milk as the to do list to defend against iOS. Meanwhile, Things has been leading the way with an iPhone app, iPad app (different from iPhone) and Mac desktop app. Things’ ability to set tasks, due dates, priorities and projects that houses tasks make it indispensible. Remember the Milk incorporates iCal or Google calendar which is handy. Apple improved on the provess by using GPS as well. Now when you walk into the grocery store you are reminded about the items you need so you will remember the milk even if you don’t use Remember the Milk.

- Facebook. There’s no doubt that Apple snubbed Facebook on Monday with the announcement of Twitter integration and the deep rooted connection between it and iOS 5. Users will be able to tweet from within any application native to iOS, making it accessible constantly. Facebook has not received the same treatment. However, is Facebook pissed off? Not likely. With 500 million users, they are not hurting for people. Additionally, there is no proof or reason to believe that Facebook even wanted to be involved. The Facebook for iPhone app has not been heavily updated and there is no official app for iPad. Facebook is very clear about their mobile vision and it is not platform dependent. 

- RIM. This can only be attributed to the new iMessages feature in iOS 5 and it’s being compared to BlackBerry Messenger (BBM). BBM works on BlackBerry only. iMessages are on iOS only. So where’s the beef between them? Did Apple take a page from RIM’s playbook? Of course they did. Apple did it with Android when they announced the new notification system. People have been borrowing from each other in this way forever. The similarities drive competition. You may notice that Ford is not the only vehicle on the road. RIM’s lack of innovation is the greatest detriment, not Apple’s iMessages. Remember the BlackBerry Storm that failed miserably? It was RIM’s first attempt at a full touchscreen and was labeled as an “Apple Killer.” So did RIM steal from Apple? Yes, but they did a terrible job at it.

- Carriers. Stumped. Is is the Over The Air (OTA) sync solutions? Did Apple say that most will work only on WiFi? Carriers should spend their energy working on the 4th gen network and achieving ubiquity and closing the gap of The Digital Divide instead of complaining that other companies are cutting cables and going wireless. This makes the carriers even more important to customers. Maybe they should consider unlimited plans again. Maybe the beef is about iMessages and the lack of SMS needed now. What many customers don’t know is that SMS is pure profit for the carriers. They pay nothing for our texts that go across their lines, but they charge us for them. If anything, it can be said that the sending of text messages is helpful to a carrier’s network - I’ll spare you the details about administrative channels in the frequency spectrum and partially full data packets and the injection of SMS messages in the holes creating full packets instead of partially full packets which actually increases efficiency - ever wonder why SMS messages are capped at 160 characters?

Everybody wants Apple to fail, which they had no trouble doing all on their own in the early 1990’s. Microsoft bailed them out with $150million and then Apple created the iPod. Then they revamped the Mac, released the iPhone and then the iPad. They didn’t steal or cheat their way to the top, but make no mistake, they are at the top. Microsoft Windows has looked, basically, the same since Windows 95 (start bar style). BlackBerry has not done anything revolutionary. Android is #2 in the mobile market because they have vision. The fragmentation brought on by the open source mentality will keep them at #2, but they are a good product. It is no secret that they stood on the shoulders of giants when creating their platform. It is what is done. Plain and simple.

So, looking back at the original list. Who is really pissed? Who has a right to be? What were they owed by Apple in the first place?

We have been hearing about this for years through all the grapevines but nothing has ever come out of it. Multi-tasking on the iPhone. That rumor is swirling around yet again. The iPad drops tomorrow. What is the next big thing on Apple’s plate? A new iPhone this summer and a new OS 4.0 to go with it.

Let’s set the record straight, the phone is totally capable of it - just ask anyone who has jailbroken theirs. That means that if multi-tasking is not done, that’s on purpose. Apple has its reasons for doing this and they all make sense but they it is still a hindrance and there is some hypocrisy involved. I’ll explain what I mean.

What are the detractors for enabling multi-tasking?

Battery life in a phone with existing substandard battery performance

Memory management - the iPhone’s greatest feature is that it never crashes which can be forgotten about with multi-tasking. Palm OS users want to chime in here?

App switching/closing - this is not a detractor as much as it’s something just needs to be addressed. You have an app open. How do you open another without closing the first? What if you want to close the first? This needs to be built which takes away from the simplicity of the home button.

Why is it a hindrance to not have it?

I can’t listen to music on Pandora and check an email while keeping the music going.

I can’t play a game and stop to respond to an SMS and come back to where I left off.

Think of anything you do on your iPhone for an extended period of time (let’s say 10 minutes straight) and then think about all the ways that can be interrupted (text, email, phone calls, push notifications) and realize how much productivity would be gained if you could pick up where you left off.

Hypocrisy?

Have you ever been listening to music in iTunes and moved applications elsewhere and the music kept playing? I suppose that means Apple will partially allow it with their native apps but 3rd party apps don’t count. Checking email and listening to music with the iPod function still causes battery drain, right?

I know there are push notifications now and that helps a little. So you can log into Yahoo messenger and leave the app and a push notification will alert you when a message comes in. Even with that, when you enter the app it is opening as if from scratch which causes a delay that you wouldn’t have if you were opening a minimized application.

So what does this mean? Will they include it. Several places are reporting this but there is no date for 4.0 out there yet. There is no justification for this except one major business idea. Competitors have offered multi-tasking all along but not enough of everything else to be an issue. With WebOS and Android picking up steam and Blackberry in the background with its own market share, it’s time Apple started addressing the concerns of their customers. I think everyone agrees that an overhaul of the OS to bring in some killer features like multi-tasking and something nobody really sees coming is needed. Bringing us a  new revision number on small hardware changes and no “wow features” this summer will narrow the gap and Apple will no longer have the lead they have now. They even run the risk of falling behind.