print action 2009 07 july
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iPhone and the iFuture of printTRANSCRIPT
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An Apple keynote used to be a big deal foranyone involved in the graphic arts in-dustry, but particularly for prepress
people banging on computers all day. At thesame time, busy designers needed to shopfor more computing power and the latestsoftware to feed overworked prepress de-partments trying to keep up with all the lat-est technological permutations. Originally,these Mac users looked to Macworld Expofor the skinny on the latest and greatestApple technologies, as well as related prod-ucts from software kings like Adobe andQuark.
Back in the day, these shows were pro-duced twice yearly by IDG – January in SanFrancisco and July in Boston. The exposwere well attended by hordes of Mac faith-ful, with the annual San Francisco showbeing the larger of the two. Apple graduallypulled back from these major tradeshows,first, by withdrawing from the East Coastshow in 2002, then in January announcingthat 2009 would mark the company’s lastappearance at Macworld Expo San Fran-cisco. Theories abound about Apple’s re-treat from Macworld Expo, but CEO SteveJobs himself stated that he didn’t like work-ing to IDG’s schedule – instead preferringto launch products at Apple-producedevents, more precisely timed to consumerbuying patterns.
So, by default, the keynote speech ofApple’s World Wide Developer Conference(WWDC), an annual meeting held eachJune for Apple’s third-party software devel-oper community, has become the preemi-nent launch pad for their next big thing.Reflecting this shift, expectations were highfor this year’s WWDC keynote. Not onlywere the geeks lusting for new product, butmany anticipated that the reclusive and re-covering Steve Jobs might make an earlyappearance prior to his scheduled returnfrom medical leave, which according to TheWall Street Journal, included a liver trans-plant.
I realize these days the graphic arts worldhas more on its mind than the next Appleproduct launch or the return of Jobs, but
old habits die hard – I was still excitedabout seeing the WWDC keynote. Sadly, Idiscovered that this year’s keynote wouldnot be streamed live, so instead I was gluedto my laptop on June 8, constantly hittingthe refresh button in my browser, trying tokeep up with the bloggers’ live blow-by-blow reports from the WWDC keynote.
[09:02PST – MACNERD 27]: playing cheesymusic, ok – lights out… show’s starting…
[09:03PST – MACNERD 27]: starting with the“I’m a PC” guy doing the welcome… hahaha, Inever get tired of those commercials…
[09:05PST – MACNERD 27]: oh crap,Steve’s a no show… it’s Phil…
After more than an hour of bite-size bitsof information, sandwiched between gener-ous slices of snarky, fan-boy editorializing, Iascertained the gist of Apple’s WWDC an-nouncements. The keynote, presented bysenior Apple management, started with arefresh of the Macbook Pro line, movinginto Mac OS X Snow Leopard and iPhoneOS 3.0 demos and finished with the unveil-ing of the worst-kept secret in the mobilephone world – the shiny new iPhone 3G[S].Initially, I didn’t tweak on anything thatmight rock the graphic arts universe in theWWDC keynote, but I really wanted to geta look at this new iPhone, so I decided todownload and watch the full keynote whenit became available later that day. It was dur-ing that video that I foresaw the beginningof the end for the graphic arts.
The happy newsAs reported, the keynote started with awitty recorded welcome from John Hodge-man, the I’m-a-PC guy taking a few shotsat Microsoft – preaching to the choir as itwere. Apple’s VP of marketing, Phil Schiller,then opened the keynote with his decidedlynon-Jobs, low-key style by chronicling thegrowth of the Mac OS since its inceptionback in 2002. Mac OS X has seen re-spectable growth in its first five years of life,gaining 25-million users worldwide. Moreimpressive, since the launch of the iPhone
and iPod Touch in 2007, the spinoff Macbusiness has grown threefold to 75-millionusers in 2009.
After the stats, Schiller got down to busi-ness by announcing updates to Apple’swildly successful MacBook Pro line. Fol-lowing Apple’s typical 9-month productupdate cycle, the MacBook Pro line was re-freshed with faster processors (up to3.06gHz Dual Core), longer battery life (upto seven hours with a non-swappable bat-tery) and an SD memory card slot added tothe aluminum unibody chassis. Touted asApple’s greenest laptop yet, the new Mac-Book Pro can house up to 8GB of RAM,truly bringing it much closer to workstationlevels of performance.
Fans of the old 12-inch AluminumPowerBook rejoiced as Schiller announcedthe addition of a 13-inch MacBook Pro tothe line. However, instead of designing acompletely new machine, Apple shrewdlyrepositioned its existing 13-inch aluminumuni-body MacBook by upgrading thescreen, bumping processor speeds and (bypopular demand) bringing back a Firewireport to the diminutive laptop. Additionally,the sluggishly selling MacBook Air receivedsome much needed performance and ca-pacity improvements.
Of course, these updates were expected –Apple is well known for improving specifi-cations while maintaining price points.What was not expected was an across theboard price reduction of the entire Mac-Book Pro/Air line ranging from five to 15percent, depending on model and configu-ration. While it remains to be seen whetherimpressive specifications and price cuts willbe enough to spur lagging sales, MacHeadsagree that there has never been a better timeto be in the market for new hardware.
Schiller then introduced Bertrand Serlet,senior VP of software engineering to givethe first major public demonstration of theupcoming Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopardoperating system. In a bold move, Apple hastaken a different direction with this newOS. Instead of focusing on flashy new fea-tures, Apple’s engineers have completely
rewritten and optimized the operating sys-tem for Intel processors.
The old way of doing things in the OS-development world meant maintaining andincrementally improving an OS to run onseveral different generations of equipment.Subsequently, with each evolution of theoperating system scads of archaic codewould end up buried deep within the soft-ware. This OS bloat translated to an ever-larger hard-disk footprint while thenumber of instructions required to per-form tasks would grow exponentially – tax-ing processors and inflating minimumsystem requirements.
With the new OS, Apple chose to focuson current and future generations ofprocessors, deciding that Mac OS 10.5Leopard would be the end of the line OS forPower PC and older Macs. This completerewrite of Leopard will be 6GB smaller thanversion 10.5, while promising substantialspeed gains. This is not to say that SnowLeopard is without new features, for exam-ple the addition of Microsoft Exchangesupport will be welcomed in the growingranks of enterprise Mac users.
So, where does this newfound speedcome from? Besides optimization for Intelchips, Snow Leopard is Apple’s first true 64-bit operating system, which means the OScan address up to 16-billion gigabytes ofRAM (I’m not kidding), so the 32GB RAMmaximum of a Mac Pro workstation will beno problem. A bit of trivia – at currentprices, 16-billion gigabytes of RAM wouldcost $764,370,024,232.50 plus tax (but I’msure you could cut a deal…).
Additionally, Mac OS X 10.6 uses OpenCL (Open Computing Language) technol-ogy to harness the power of today’s Graph-ics Processor Units (GPU) capable of morethan a trillion operations per second (oneteraflop). Open CL is a framework for writ-ing programs that execute across diverseplatforms that can consist of CPUs, GPUsand other processors. Originally designedfor high-end gaming, these GPUs have ex-cess processing capacity that can be utilizedby the OS with the help of Open CL.
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The other major Snow Leopard speedbump comes from full access to multi-coreprocessors. The trend in processor develop-ment is towards increasing the number ofcores (or processors) on a single chip ratherthan ramping processor speeds ever higher.Previously, for software to be able to take fulladvantage of multiple cores, the developerwould have to program the app’s operationsusing threaded technology, a very time con-suming process. Grand Central Dispatch re-moves the threading process from theapplication level and threads the processeson the OS level, greatly speeding up any ap-plication optimized for OS X 10.6.
With the addition of a completely newColorsynced version of hardware acceler-ated Quicktime and several major GUI en-hancements to boost productivity, Mac OSX 10.6 looks like an easy sell. Snow Leop-ard’s bottom line is speed and stability, mak-ing it well suited for professional andenterprise applications. In a shrewdly timedmove intended to beat Windows 7 to mar-ket, Apple will be releasing Snow Leopardthis September at a price that will ensuremost Intel/Leopard customers upgrade –$29.
Here come the smart phonesThe rest of the WWDC keynote dealt withthe new iPhone OS 3.0 and, of course, thehotly anticipated new mobile handset, theiPhone 3G[S]. Sure, I know what you arethinking… a mobile phone that playsmusic – what’s this got to do with thegraphic arts? Initially, that was my reactiontoo, and honestly I expected my article toend here. However, the curiosity andiPhone lust that kept me watching the
keynote soon turned to shock and awe as Irealized the full potential of this emergingtechnology.
When Scott Forstall (senior VP of iPhonesoftware) took the stage to demo iPhoneOS 3.0, I expected the usual dog-and-ponyshow featuring games and other fun stuff.Instead, I witnessed the unveiling of a ro-bust and powerful operating system capa-ble of far more than simple mobile phoneand entertainment functions. And whilethe features of iPhone OS 3.0 are impres-sive, the real story is in the rapid evolutionof the Smartphone market.
Apple’s iPhone App Store was launchedin July 2008 with a handful of games and afew useful utilities. The App Store nowboasts more than 50,000 applications forthe 40,000,000 strong iPhone and iPodTouch customer base. In the first ninemonths of operation, the App Store clockedover 1-billion downloads. Granted, a large
number of these downloads were gamesand entertainment apps, but a growingnumber of applications have significant po-tential to negatively impact the graphic arts.
For example, as news delivery transitionsfrom a newspaper industry in decline to on-line and rich-media channels, the iPodstands poised to capture a significant por-tion of this market. USA Today, The WallStreet Journal and The New York Times alloffer free iPhone applications granting real-time access to their news feeds – ironic con-sidering that the print editions of thesethree papers are struggling to stay afloat. Infact, there are more than 1,300 applicationsavailable for the iPhone that deliver real-time news in one form or another. Tradi-tional print vehicles simply cannot competewith the speed and low cost of digital deliv-ery. Adding in the mobile aspect just addsinsult to injury. “Stop the presses” takes on amuch more literal meaning in this instance.
During the iPhone OS 3.0 segment of thekeynote, several application developersshowcased their up-and-coming wares.ScrollMotion, a company formed to bringdigital books to the App Store demon-strated its new Iceberg Bookstore applica-tion. Utilizing the iPhone OS 3.0 “in-apppurchase” feature, ScrollMotion users canbuy content directly through the applica-tion and download over a 3G or WiFi con-nection without using a desktop or laptopcomputer. On launch, ScrollMotion willoffer online purchase of 50 major maga-zines, 170 daily newspapers and more than1,000,000 books. The upside is that authorsand publishers will get paid – the downsideis a vastly reduced number of pages printed.
ScrollMotion founder Josh Koppeldemonstrated the new iPhone OS “cut &paste” feature on one of the books in hisreader. Cutting the selected content andpasting it into an email produced a perfectlyfootnoted quote, ideal for the student mar-ket. He then announced that his companywas in talks with Houghton Mifflin Har-court, McGraw Hill and Wiley – the threebiggest textbook publishers in North Amer-ica. The argument can be made that read-ing a textbook on the relatively small screenof an iPhone is impractical, and for goodreason – 480 x 320 pixels is not enough realestate for hours of sustained study. Realisti-cally, this technology will make its impacton educational publishing through deviceslike the Amazon Kindle, or the larger for-mat Kindle DX, designed specifically for thetextbook market. On the other hand, a text-book or two in your pocket can come inhandy around exam time.
Continued on page 26
JULY 2009 • PRINTACTION • 15
In an attempt to divert attention from his recent medical troubles, the reclusive SteveJobs elevated his senior VPs to fill his pitchman shoes (left to right): Phil Schiller, marketing; Bertrand Serlet, software engineering; and Scott Forstall, iPhone software.
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Zac BolanContinued from page 15
Recently, Gov. Schwartzenegger of Cali-fornia cited digital textbooks as the answerto the state’s education budget woes, antic-ipating annual savings of more thanUS$350 million. While the Kindle is cur-rently limited to black-and-white imagingon so-called digital paper, industry punditsagree that Apple will likely produce acolour-based tablet computer, leveraging itsadvanced touch technology before year’send. You can bet ScrollMotion and otherdigital media publishers will flock to thisplatform, idling still more presses.
You say you have beat that rap becauseyou are not a newspaper, magazine or text-book publisher? The iPhone and similardevices are eroding other bastions of printas well! Back in the days when Palm ruledthe handheld kingdom, a company calledDataviz produced Documents to Go, a veryuseful utility which enabled the viewing ofWord, Excel and PDF documents on anysupported Palm device. Dataviz has now re-leased Docs to Go for the iPhone, takingadvantage of Apple’s quality display to re-produce minute details in PDF files. Like-wise, the Kindle DX supports the viewingof PDF files, making it the perfect viewerfor larger financial documents such as an-nual reports. These devices have created amobile platform for PDF, thus enablingbroader use and – you guessed it – reducedneed for print.
Another interesting permutation of theiPhone as a media reader concept is theproduction of digital museum guides, thusreplacing high-quality printed maps,brochures and catalogues. London’s Na-tional Gallery and Antenna Audio havepartnered to produce the first such iPhoneapplication entitled “Love Art”, which fea-tures 250 paintings from their collectionand more than 200 minutes of audio andvideo content. This free application allowsusers to take a virtual tour of the Galleryfrom anywhere in the world. The ability toupdate digital maps, guides and brochureswith a simple download is likely to triggerwidespread adoption by museums and gal-leries worldwide as their operating budgetsdissipate. They’d better save some museumfloor space for some of those idled presses.
So you’re a business-card printer cater-ing to the small office/home office user?You are still not immune to the dubiousadvance of the Smartphone and mobile-device invasion. Currently, there are eightdifferent applications for the iPhone thatallow users to create and exchange stylizeddigital “business cards”, the most popularbeing SnapDAT which offers a host of fea-tures in addition to simple business cardexchange. SnapDAT enables users to de-sign a digital card with company logo orphoto that can have multiple versions forboth personal and business use. The ap-plication integrates with the iPhone ad-dress book and offers links to YouTube,Twitter, Linkedin and other social and
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business networking sites.The card can be transmitted wirelessly to
other SnapDAT iPhone users or emailed.Also, when receiving a SnapDAT digitalcard, the GeoStamp mapping features usesthe iPhone’s GPS functionality to recordyour location. While currently limited to 40design templates, it’s only a matter of timeuntil designers can upload their own lay-outs. Likewise, other SOHO business is mi-grating from paper to pixels as cashstrapped small businesses flock to onlinemarketing tools such as targeted HTML e-mail and increased Web presence instead ofbrochures.
Apple gives, then takes awayFor most of Apple’s 33-year history, thecompany redefined the boundaries of per-sonal computing while changing the waywe get things done. By all accounts, the cre-ation of the first LaserWriter printer backin 1985 and a third-party application calledMacPublisher instigated the desktop pub-lishing revolution. By empowering a newgeneration of designers to produce theirwork digitally (and therefore economi-cally), Apple ultimately enabled the growthand delivery of more printable pages topresses worldwide.
To return the favour, the graphic arts in-dustry remained staunch supporters ofApple during the dark years of Jobs’ ab-sence when Apple’s innovation, industrialdesign, quality and market share faltered.Then the graphic arts industry benefitedfrom Jobs 2.0 and his guiding hand return-ing Apple to the path of innovation andquality. Premedia and prepress workers en-joyed ever faster, better-built computerswith relatively stable operating systemsloaded with maturing design and layouttools from the likes of Adobe and Quark.These were indeed the golden days fordesktop publishing and digital prepress.
It would be convenient to lay the blamefor the erosion of print at the feet of Mr.Jobs, after all the iPhone is driving the rich-media revolution. Nokia, Palm and the restof the pack are falling over themselves play-ing catch-up to the iPhone’s ability to de-liver a truly integrated mobile computingexperience. But in reality, the reservoir ofprint began to bleed pages with the birth ofthe Internet. As if to emphasize this point,Coupons.com announced in a recent pressrelease that the value of the digital couponsredeemed from their Website during thefirst five months of 2009 has already ex-ceeded the total value of all conventionallyprinted coupons in 2008 – US$312 million.
The other culprit is the growing preva-lence of wireless networks and publichotspots, impelling the mobile computinginsurrection. At first, mobile computingwas for an elite audience that could affordthe pricey WiFi-enabled laptops. But nowthis segment is being overrun by small andcheap netbooks, weighing under two kilosand packed with just enough computingpower for e-mail, web browsing and view-ing digital media.
Meanwhile, the growth of digital maga-zine distribution can be attributed to com-panies like Zinio who have been offeringhundreds of titles in a downloadable sub-scription format for several years now. Therise in digital audio book sales can be tied tothe growth of the personal music playermarket. Simultaneously, the mandate ofmobile phones expanded from simple call-
Continued from page 26
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ing, email and messaging devices to becomemusic players, then video, e-book readersand Web browsers. This inevitable missioncreep lead to the birth of Smartphone, thenext step in an evolution.
While Apple can be considered guilty fordriving innovation that enables this pub-lishing revolution, they have simply antici-pated a trend and delivered compellingproducts to an eager consumer.
The most significant danger of actuallyachieving this digital nirvana is the demiseof physical media – ink and paper. Few havereally considered that digital media is fleet-ing and ethereal in nature. My bookshelfhouses printed tomes which are more than200 years old and aside from a few toomany “thee’s” and “thou’s”, still work per-fectly – immune from electrical depend-ence and evolving operating systems.Ironically, I also have media of compara-tively recent vintage (10-year-old floppydisks) that I cannot read. Sadly, in far lesstime than the lifespan of a printed book, it’slikely that today’s CD and DVD formatswill become as unreadable as VHS and Be-tamax video tapes.
Those looking to online clouds to housethe world’s accumulated wisdom would bewise to consider that this information iscontained in millions of hard disks, whichbegs the question – how old is the oldestfunctioning hard disk? Likewise, informa-tion accessed solely on the Internet is rou-tinely controlled, limited and altered byagencies worldwide, both for benign andnefarious reasons.
The pendulum swingWhen digital photography invaded theconsumer mass-market, the traditionalphotographic industry crumpledovernight. Film and print media salesplummeted as everyone shared photos elec-tronically. Then, an unforeseen phenome-non began to reverse this cataclysm.Gradually, the mothers of the world cameto the realization that digital media alonecould not be entrusted with their preciousfamily history, triggering a turnaround inthe photo-printing business through newproducts such as photo books and calen-dars. Even in these challenging economictimes, this market is seeing growth. A recentInfoTrends report states that the overallphoto printing market is expected growfrom $940 million (2008) to more than $1.5billion in 2010.
Short of carving words into stone orpainting cave walls, the fact remains thatcurrently print alone is the best way toarchive information for the long term – themedium is durable and accessible. It’s onlya matter of time until the tide of print todigital recedes, allowing each media to findits appropriate niche – digital for dispos-able/short term, print for permanent/longterm. I’m just hoping that it won’t take acatastrophic loss of data or the collapse ofthe global digital infrastructure to start thependulum swinging back the other way!
To date, I have not succumbed to thecharms of Apple’s iConic iPhone. But, likemany consumers, I am sorely tempted toupgrade my functioning but featureless oldmobile and soon, a Smartphone will be myonly option. I will, however, continue to rel-ish the smell of a freshly printed newspaperor a magazine as long as possible.
Zac Bolan’s blog: blog.softcircus.com
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