Looking back this week, it was a watershed time for Apple. A lot of the news centered on reported problems with the Infineon 3G radio system in the iPhone 3G, and that came on the heels of of an embarrassing MobileMe roll out. Apple found out that when even the smallest glitch appears in a popular consumer device, all the vultures come out, looking for a tasty meal of revenge — even if served cold.

There is fear swelling in the offices of the IT Managers and the PC pundits. Apple is changing the game with leverage from a massive iPod infusion into the world, to the tune of 150 million so far. Now Apple is clearly using the iPhone and Cocoa touch as a platform for a next generation UI. The concern by the fearful is that Apple is dealing from a position of strength and Microsoft seems powerless to stop them.

Fairly soon now, we’ll be using touch tablets with a gesture language and dictionary. The mouse will be gone, and a generation of young people raised on iPods, iPhones and Unix will start carrying around the Internet in their pocket.
Walt Mossberg explained the vision fairly well this week.

As a result, every time Apple stumbles, there will be a witch hunt by people who find it in their interest to put the brakes on this new paradigm.

Part of the problem, and something I learned at Apple, is that a few cases, a dozen cases, a hundred cases make for a tasty meal of sour grapes in print, but it doesn’t always reflect the technical reality of the situation.

Apple has a reason for remaining silent. Even though the vast majority of Apple customers are spending their time working, playing, watching the Olympics, going to weddings, having barbecues, and watching their kids soccer games, the Web can get info frenzy mode and appear to have compelling force.
For most users, who aren’t professional Internet surfers, they’ll simply update their iPhone when iTunes tells them to and think nothing of it. Meanwhile, chicken little journalists will try to make Apple look bad to earn some page views.

I don’t think it’s a bad idea for Apple to occasionally make some consumer friendly statements. For example, “We are aware that a few customers have been having problems with dropped calls on their iPhone 3G. We’re looking into it.” The problem is that these statements have to go through corporate attorneys who typically advise that the safest and best course of action is to say nothing, admit nothing, and just quietly fix the problem.

Worse, once Apple opens up and says something, there are journalists who will press and press, dissect every word,
and still put their own spin on it.

Despite all this, Apple is learning, leaps and bounds, what life is like in the fast lane of consumer electronics that go beyond a simple music player. Once a company starts handling personal data, everything has to be perfect or people get really cranky.

I liked Jason Snell’s editorial this week. No one is quite sure what Apple needs to change internally to avoid or deal better with these high visibility technical problems, but we all hope they fix things soon.

This week, I’m going to go backwards in time (without the aid of a Time Machine) to look at some of the secondary stories that caught my attention.

My favorite, however, was from July 28, a story at APC about how every time Hewlett Packard sells a PC with Windows XP, Microsoft has figured out how to log it as a Vista sale.

You read that right.

According to Hewlett Packard executives, since June 30th, HP hasn’t been able to sell a PC with an XP license. But what they can do is ship it with a Vista business license and XP pre-loaded. So even though HP gives the customer what they want, XP, Microsoft gets to log it as a Vista sale.

That agreement lasts until January 2009, but HP wants to extend it. “Looking into the crystal ball, I don’t think businesses will see much value in upgrading to Vista until late next year, and even so, Microsoft will probably have come out with something else by then,” said Rob Kingston, Group Manager of Commercial Product Marketing for HP.

Hmm. Slam dunk.

I guess we’ll be taking all future Microsoft sales numbers for Vista with a microgram of salt.

On Thursday, I saw a neat article at TV Newsday about all the problems broadcasters are having with the audio feeds associated with HDTV. Apparently, some technicians, pressed for time, aren’t reading the manuals and aren’t aware of the in-place broadcast standards that keep audio levels from booming and busting. Lip sync problems are also a sign the engineers don’t have the time to do their homework.

On Tuesday, I read about IBM’s ever more aggressive work with Linux as a way to undermine Microsoft. The latest effort is the “Microsoft-free PC” effort. That’s an initiative with Red Hat, Novell and Ubuntu to assist customers with displacing Microsoft technologies.

IBM brackets Microsoft on the low end with open source solutions, Linux and small business solutions and on the high end with Linux, AIX, servers, storage, services, and even high performance computing. While we sometimes think about Apple vs. Microsoft, it’s really Apple, IBM, Google, Red Hat and Yahoo against Microsoft.

Also on Tuesday, there was a fun but dismaying article about the payroll system in California that runs on Cobol. What happens when the governor says to the state employees: “We don’t have an approved budget. Use the payroll system to cut your pay to minimum wage!”

The answer: “But sir, it’s 30 years old and written in Cobol.
No one knows how to do that!”

On Monday, Ryan Faas, who continues to amaze, wrote an extensive article: “Macs in the Enterprise: Top Ten Assumptions, Myths, and Misconceptions.” Mr. Faas has worked as both a PC and Mac sysadmin and has written some of the deepest and technical articles ever on Apple products in the enterprise.

Every Mac IT manager or user who wants to see a wider use of Macs in their organization needs to read this. After that, read Jason Packer’s take on the article. Mr. Packer adds some additional, valuable insight.

With the Mac taking off in the enterprise, there are new insights to be aware of, and enthusiasts are able to use ever more persuasive arguments against the IT managers who have historically taken an easy but perilous Windows road with blinders on.

You have your homework assignment.

There was a boatload of debris this week. But before I get to that, I’ll have to backtrack a little on Apple TV. Back in April, I wrote an editorial about how the Apple TV is very focused and designed not to bewilder the average customer. Things have changed in just 3 months. In the fast-paced world of digital entertainment, the competition is exploiting Apple’s severe focus as a weakness. In addition, Netflix is moving fast, aggressively and smartly, even outmaneuvering Apple. So I can’t really disagree with Dan Frommer’s editorial on Friday. Apple needs to step up the possibilities on the Apple TV or drop from perceived hobby to perceived failure. In this case, perception will carry great weight.

Last week, Mac360 took a close look at Thunderbird and declared that, as a free e-mail program, it’s not ready for prime time. The principal complaints were that it’s ugly and that it’s a complete doofus when it comes to importing e-mail from other apps. Those two items alone are enough to disqualify Thunderbird. I can’t disagree.

On Tuesday, IBM announced an Eclipse plug-in that can scan and check code as it’s written to uncover coding errors before they work themselves too far into the development cycle. It looks very cool, especially since it can spot security weaknesses. However, it’s not cheap, so its really for large enterprise or government organizations. Check it out.

Also on Tuesday, an article I read linked to a very interesting Apple Time capsule, an occasionally humorous retrospective on the growth and use of Apple computers throughout the years.
It’s worth a look.

Have you ever wondered how to share apps between two iPhones you have? iPhone Matters wrote up the procedure on how to do it. Because iPhone apps are so small and easy to install, detailed licensing issues are foggy. However, this procedure depends on using a single iTunes account, and the iTunes procedure leads one to believe that the app belongs to an authorized account, not to a single iPhone or iPod touch. Just my opinion.

Cell phone users in California are finding it hard to put that phone down while driving. Handheld mobile phones are illegal when driving since July 1, and the CHP is raking in the dollars from people who can’t resist holding a phone to their head while driving. Lame excuses abound. All you iPhone users in California beware - and get that Bluetooth headset soon.

Buggy iPhone 2.0 software is driving Hadley Stone crazy, and he’s compared it to Mac OS 9. Someday, we’ll look back at the primitive OS on the iPhone, and its crashes, the way we do now when we recall OS 9 extension conflicts.

On Wednesday, I saw a story about local TV news having a death wish. [Subscription may be required.] It really struck home because I spent a lot of time reading, gathering and pondering news. The Internet is where it’s at, and most young people are getting their news from reliable Internet sources while the older people are watching Katie Couric with ads for Depends and Viagra. Local TV news is indeed headed for an awakening. The question is, are they powerless to control their fate — just like the dinosaurs?

Here’s a great “serves you right” story. A hacker has been owned by his own work. Hacker H.D. Moore who developed the Metasploit hacking toolkit had his own Website affected by his own hack. Can you spell karma?

On Thursday, I read that the Flip camcorder is the number one selling camcorder in the U.S. Why? Because it appropriates six basic rules for product design from Apple. Recently, TMO reviewed that great little video camera, and there’s definitely one in my future. If you’re jealous of those Johnny-on-the-spot videos that make the news or YouTube, all you need is one of these in your pocket. For $100.

Finally, On Friday I noted that the FCC has slapped Comcast’s wrists for blocking BitTorrent traffic and violating the principles of Net Neutrality. There was no fine levied, but Comcast and other carriers are now on notice. I liked this part: “The commission affirmed that it can and will enforce an open Internet and network neutrality principles.”[Applause for FCC please.]

To that end, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) published a tool, called Switzerland, on Friday that allows one to test one’s ISP for signs of interference with Net Neutrality principles. It’s a Python app that you’ll have to run from the command line. I’ve urged them to develop a GUI app for the Mac. We shall see.