Why Apple fans accept restrictions that other people don't

It has finally happened! No, not the fact that I became a father although that kind of overshadows everything else, but the fact that I have more Apple products in my house than other brand gadgets. I now own an iPad, an iMac, two iPods, an iPhone and am still considering to give my wife a Macbook. Does that make me a braindead "fanboi"? Not really. There are some things that I really don't like about Apple as a company. One such thing is that they put seemingly random restrictions on their products. The iPod can't play FLAC files, the iMac monitor has no connection for my PC except through a very expensive adapter and the latest one; the iPad doesn't play Flash.

It always amazes me how the real Jobites accept these restrictions and even defend them with the arguments Jobs is using. "Flash is "old technology", "Flash doesn't support multi touch screens","Flash is closed technology". Fansites like http://www.tuaw.com/ and http://www.appleinsider.com/ are filled with derogative comments about Flash followers and how Adobe should just roll over and play dead for the mighty Apple and it's 'pad.

I'm not saying there is no truth in what Jobs says. Flash has always been a memory and processor hog. But now Apple even wants developers to stop using Adobe tools to port or develop their games. Again, the arguments are deceptive as according to Jobs using Adobe technolgy automatically leads to inferior technolgy. "Amen" is the sound from the church of Apple. So how is it that people like Jobs, Gates and lately Warren Buffet (but that's another story) get away with simplified truths to push their ideas across?

New Scientist seems to have the answer: Brain shuts off in response to healer's prayer - life - 27 April 2010 - New Scientist

"When we fall under the spell of a charismatic figure, areas of the brain responsible for scepticism and vigilance become less active. That's the finding of a study which looked at people's response to prayers spoken by someone purportedly possessing divine healing powers.

To identify the brain processes underlying the influence of charismatic individuals, Uffe Schjødt of Aarhus University in Denmark and colleagues turned to Pentecostal Christians, who believe that some people have divinely inspired powers of healing, wisdom and prophecy. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Schjødt and his colleagues scanned the brains of 20 Pentecostalists and 20 non-believers while playing them recorded prayers. The volunteers were told that six of the prayers were read by a non-Christian, six by an ordinary Christian and six by a healer. In fact, all were read by ordinary Christians. Only in the devout volunteers did the brain activity monitored by the researchers change in response to the prayers. Parts of the prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices, which play key roles in vigilance and scepticism when judging the truth and importance of what people say, were deactivated when the subjects listened to a supposed healer. Activity diminished to a lesser extent when the speaker was supposedly a normal Christian (Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsq023).

Schjødt says that this explains why certain individuals can gain influence over others, and concludes that their ability to do so depends heavily on preconceived notions of their authority and trustworthiness. It's not clear whether the results extend beyond religious leaders, but Schjødt speculates that brain regions may be deactivated in a similar way in response to doctors, parents and politicians."

The same is apparently true about Apple fans.

So all I can do is remain critical because even though my gadgets have become dominated by the Great Fruit, I will resist ever getting an iBrain. Having said that, I'm going back to playing Civilisation on my iPad.

For some time now, I've been reading my books on an Amazon Kindle. Singapore weather has not been kind to my existing book collection and it hurts seeing my babies molding away in the few years that I've lived here. Besides that, I never seemed to have enough books with me when travelling.

I've also converted to the church of Jobs when I bought a 27" iMac. I'm not a complete zealot though and haven't yet decided on the iPad. One of the discussion on the net is the conundrum Amazon seems to be in. The Kindle is a fantastic book reader but the iPad is determined to steal the crown for itself.

Apple has a simple formula that always makes their products come out on top. They look at what other gadgets do and then come out with a super stylish version that seems to do better then everything else. However, they concentrate at the essentials. It's all about user experience.
Simplicity however, is the hardest thing to achieve. The biggest mistake Amazon could make is to compete with the iPad. They should make a Kindle that emulates book reading as close as possible, not make an all-singing all dancing multimedia slab.

Do's

First of all the format. The iPad is about 20% too small to comfortably read comics without scrolling. So make the screen 12" or loose the bezzle and you cater to the thousands of comic book fans out there. It would also cater to the elderly who need big letters to read books comfortably. With a bigger screen you won't have to turn pages that often.

A color screen is a must but only if it is as readable as the e-Ink screen the Kindle is using now. The whole point of e-Ink is to emulate paper. The iPad could never do that so there is an opportunity for Amazon to distinguish itself.

Touch is a must have to emulate real book reading. However, with touch come finger prints and -smears. Make the screen as dirt resistant as possible. The current Kindle screen is perfect although the bezzle gets black stains very easily.

System speed is a big issue on all ebook readers. If the screen is responsive and books appear instantly the user experience would be much better. It would be great to emulate page turning like the iPad app does. However, coming back to comics and magazines, I remember going through the racks in the comic book store to find missing issues so why not emulate that as well?

One of the greatest features of the Kindle is the long battery life. Extend that to a month or so and you have a winner.

A large target group could be students. Amazon missed out when the Kindle was found to lack support for blind people. The limited annotation capabilities are another issue. Instead of including a keyboard or using (shudder) touch screen typing, why not market a separate keyboard with dock like the iPad has? There could even be a separate braille attachment.
Most important of all: content! With exclusive deals, special editions and a low pricing model for older books you can leverage on your position in the reading market. Don't get greedy but give your customers (readers AND publishers) a fair deal.

Don'ts

Apple rules the app market. Please don't get into that with the Kindle! Programmers will use their time on the largest potential user base so you would only get the bottom of the barrel programmers or ports from already existing apps.

Movies, music, TV whatever other multimedia. Besides the iPad, there are dozens of MP3, MP4 and HD capable streamers out there that can do the job. Concentrate on books, comics, magazines and newspapers! This doesn't mean the basic MP3 player should be out. For audio books or a tune or two during reading, the Kindle is still excellent. Anything more, make a truly great portable music device but don't use the Kindle for that!

Gaming. Kindle is a book reader, not a gaming platform. Besides maybe cross word puzzles and sudoku, leave gaming to the PSP, DS and iPad.