From Daniel Eran Dilger at Apple Insider:

It turns out that while the tech media spent most of 2013 complaining that Apple “wasn’t innovating,” Apple was secretly developing its new Mac Pro supercomputer, perfecting its Authentech-based Touch ID technology that the industry has been flummoxed to copy, completing iOS 7 (while Google took a Kit Kat break with Android Key Lime Pie) and OS X Mavericks (while Microsoft fiddled as Windows 8 burned), while also bringing an entirely new 64-bit mobile architecture into production ahead of the world’s leading chip designers and foundries (which didn’t see a pressing need to move to 64-bit and lacked Apple’s experience in doing so), and, as nearly a side project, spending billions to build out a series of new iCloud data centers…
via Jason Putorti

BGR on Microsoft still not getting the whole tablet thang:

Windows-based tablets haven’t been big successes so far, whether they use the desktop-centric Windows 8 or the tablet-centric Windows RT. iMore’s Rene Ritchie does some sharp analysis of Microsoft’s latest marketing campaign and concludes that the company simply does not understand why people are buying tablets in the first place. Essentially, Microsoft doesn’t get that its central criticism of the iPad — that is, that it’s more of a toy that can’t be used for doing serious work — is precisely why consumers are drawn to it in the first place. Simply put, consumers have PCs at their offices if they want to do work. When they’re at home, they want to play around with their tablets instead; they like having toys.
As Clay Christiansen famously points out in The Innovator’s Dilemma, most innovations aren’t taken seriously when they debut and by the time they gain momentum, it’s usually too late for competition to respond. My favorite one was when people in the media and some people in the government thoughts the Internet a fad back in the 1990s.
The iPad might look like a toy because kids love them, but when I’m on business trips I see iPads being used in first class seats and then I see them again when I’m in client meetings at Fortune 500 companies.

From the Verge:

CBS CEO Les Moonves is the latest TV exec to publicly entertain the idea of halting free broadcast TV if streaming provider Aereo is allowed to continue its service. Responding to a question about News Corp. COO Chase Carey’s threats to make Fox cable-only, Moonves told The New York Times that he “wholeheartedly supported what Chase said.” He explained that CBS was in preliminary talks with cable operators in the New York – Connecticut area (currently the only area in which Aereo operates) about what the switch would take, emphasizing his reluctance to take such a drastic approach. “Frankly, we don’t think it will get to that point,” he explained.
The definitions of television are changing.
The definitions of a computer continue to change.
The definitions of everything you once knew and know now are changing.
I don’t care if I’m sounding like a broken record, but keep the words of Darwin in your head at all times. Adapt or die.

Over at SFGate, James Temple calls out Silicon Valley on it’s innovation bullshit:

It’s fairly obvious the region’s business culture and investing philosophy – that is to say, the free market – often doesn’t reward the kind of “deep innovation” Levchin and Thiel trumpet.

The media attention doesn’t go to pasty scientists working tirelessly on something that maybe, might, someday change the world, it goes to the fresh-faced entrepreneur with the game trending in the App Store.

Venture capitalists are eager to cash out on their investments in as few years as possible, which requires products ready to ship and stable financial track records. And the public markets don’t reward big risks; they applaud predictable growth.
It’s not just companies in Silicon Valley that have beaten the word to death. Go to most agency, start-up and consultancy websites and you’ll find “innovation” peppered through all the copy.
Everyone loves to think they’re innovative. Very few are.
link via Matt Mullenweg

Over at ABC News, details on the new HTC One (via The Loop):

“We think it’s time to shake things up in the smartphone space,” Mike Woodward, President of HTC America, told ABC News in an interview. “We have decided to come out and reinvent the smartphone.”
Careful with the ‘R’ word.
I got news for ya, Mister Woodward. Your HTC One smartphone is not a reinvention, it’s an evolution of the smartphone paradigm Apple introduced in 2007. Instead of making a phone with a few portable computing features, Apple made a mobile computer with the ability to make phone calls. The HTC One follows this paradigm precisely.
Follow?
That said, the phone looks really sharp. Nice work.

Everybody’s having fun speculating about Apple’s supposed iWatch. Bloomberg is telling us there’s already a team of 100 people working on it at Apple.
Over at The Atlantic’s new site Quartz, they went step further and are telling us some 18-year-old could beat Apple to market with his own iWatch. Ha! Take that!
It seems even Samsung is trying to preemptively copy Apple and release one of their own smart watches, which they’ll inevitably change in order to look like whatever Apple ends up shipping because, well, they told us they like to copy their competitors.
I was talking with Bryan about this over instant message earlier today and I agree with his view, “If I think it’s an ugly watch, I’m not wearing it.” I’m not wearing it either (OK, OK, maybe I’ll wear it.).
This is why Apple made the iPhone as much as an uncarved block as possible. Jony Ive’s philosophy is to distill a product down to it’s essence. Like a naked body, let individuals decide how to “cloth” their devices. Me? My view on cases for iPhones is the same as bras on beautiful cars.
But as Bryan pointed out in our conversation, there’s a big difference between a phone and a watch. A phone can go in your pocket. A watch goes on your wrist for everyone to see, all the time. A phone only has to be fashionable some of the time, but a watch is on the catwalk the whole day.
Which is why I think everyone is thinking about it wrong. Here’s the thing. The iWatch, if it is in-the-works, is as much a watch as the iPhone is a phone. It brings to mind the (unverified) quote attributed to Henry Ford, “If I had asked my customers what they wanted they would have said a faster horse.”
Everyone is thinking of a faster horse right now, while Apple (if they are working on something) are working on an automobile.

News Corp. Shuts Down The Daily.

Rock on with your disruptive, subcompact publishing, Marco.

Another solid post by Drew Breunig on tablets, faster horses, cars and tablets:

But tablets are more dynamic than cars, whose use case is relatively clear, and their flexiblity allows for much habitual misuse. Some are not sure what the iPad is used for and are engaging it like a netbook. Others create apps to emulate existing tools. It’s as if the Model T was released and people kept adding carriage components.

No surprise I’m a fan of this line of thinking.

I’ve added new rewards to my Kickstarter project, Faster Horses. There’s now a third poster design set I’m calling ‘Asymmetric.’

Quick post.
I just started reading Steven Johnson’s new book, Future Perfect: The Case for Progress in a Networked Age and I’m liking it a lot so far (my emphasis):

The popular response to the Miracle on the Hudson encapsulates just about everything that is flawed in the way we think about progress in our society. First, the anomalous crash landing (fatal or not) gets far more play than the ultimately more important story of long-term safety trends. As a news hook, steady, incremental progress pales beside the sexier stories of dramatic breakthrough and spectacular failure.

This point Johnson brings up is especially relevant in light of all the “boring” news around the iPhone 5.
Apple made a dramatic breakthrough with the original iPhone in 2007 and has since been making incremental progress on it ever since. But that incremental progress hasn’t been good enough for the tech press.
One final though before I get back to reading: If the iPhone 5 is boring, what Android phone is making huge breakthroughs?

The key to remember when disrupting an industry you’re new to.
You don’t need to know everything, you just need to know enough to be dangerous.
Smart newbies don’t know the so-called “rules”, so they’ll try anything.

Earlier today, Kickstarter approved my project proposal for Faster Horses.
It’s a series of 14 posters illustrating innovations from various industries over the last 100 years.
There’s 7 innovations, with 2 poster designs each:

• The Model T – A Faster Horse
• The Light Bulb – A Brighter Candle
• The Phonograph – A Portable Orchestra
• The Geodesic Dome – A Stronger Brick
• The Macintosh – A Smarter Abacus
• The iPod – A Portable Record Collection
• The iPhone – A Smarter Telephone

Unlike my previous Kickstarter project, Bicycles For Our Minds, this time around I’ll be screen printing everything myself. I’m really excited and I hope it gets funded.

Submitted, my new Kickstarter has been.
Their approval, now I wait for.
mmmMMMmmm.