This is one of my least-favourite Apple adverts, for the iPhone 4:

I dislike it to some extent merely because of the intro, which, rarely for Apple, is about a technical component, the lithium polymer battery. And yet in 30 seconds, it nonetheless shows:

• Use of the email client, with an embedded chart (“work”);
• An ice-hockey videogame (“play”);
• A movie being played (“laugh”);
• Album navigation in the iPod app (“listen”);
• Video being taken in the Camera app (“shoot”);
• Basic video-editing being worked on (“edit”);
• The SMS app sending the video (“share”);
• A Facebook feed (“update”);
• A game being installed (“download”);
• iBooks in use (“read”);
• A tweet being composed (“write”);
• A FaceTime conversation.

In other words, the advert is primarily about what you can do with the device, showing a dozen things consumers might be interested in.

Compare it with the Samsung’s Galaxy SII ad below, which says to ‘unleash your fingers’ by spending more than three times the length of Apple’s ad showing “JayFunk, the internet Finger Tutting phenomenon” titting about with his fingers in front of the camera. It’s 1:39 in before the product is even shown, and at no point is it ever shown in action.

It’d certainly be interesting to see how consumers react to these different approaches. I suspect the latter might have people amused by the finger tutter but immediately forgetting the brand, while Apple’s had is more likely to have people realising the iPhone does more than they thought, and therefore consider actually buying one.

David Pogue and John Gruber have gone head-to-head, highlighting an increasing problem in IT journalism. Pogue reporting on the Samsung Chromebook:

How well does Google’s newfangled concept hold up in the real world? Unfortunately, not very well. […] With very few exceptions, when the Chromebook isn’t online, it’s a 3.3-pound paperweight. Truth is, considering how stripped-down the Samsung is, you have to wonder why it’s as big, heavy and expensive as it is. You can find plenty of full-blown Windows laptops with the same price, weight and size. Maybe the Chromebook concept would fly if it cost $180 instead of $500.

Wow, that sounds pretty poor. But Pogue concludes:

For now, though, you should praise Google for its noble experiment. You should thrill to the possibilities of the online future. You should exult that somebody’s trying to shake up the operating system wars. But unless you’re an early-adopter masochist with money to burn, you probably shouldn’t buy a Chromebook.

Pogue’s conclusion is weak, and the qualifier if anything makes things worse. He’s written about something with a lot of problems, but argued we should praise Google, for creating something that would have been exciting a couple of years back or if the iPad (or the MacBook Air, for that matter) didn’t exist. Gruber:

Would everyone have praised Apple for its “noble experiment” if the $500 iPad had been too big and heavy, felt like it was worth only $180, and was “a 3.3-pound paperweight” when offline? Fuck that. This is the big leagues. There is no credit for trying.

Only there is, all over the tech pundit world. Apple gets slammed for the slightest perceived drawback or very real fuck-up; by comparison, other companies are too often congratulated for churning out garbage, because, hey, you shouldn’t be expected to be Apple, right? That’s utter bollocks, and the sooner everyone is held to the same standards, the better the entire tech industry will be. This also goes in ‘reverse’, for Apple pundits, by the way, who argue everything at Cupertino is spiffy when it isn’t.

So, pundits, if something is utter crap, have the balls to say so. If something is at best a botched, half-arsed attempt to compete with another product, tell it like it is. And if a massive company spends years and millions of bucks working on a product that turns out to have some potential but in reality is a waste of time and space, don’t praise them and don’t call them noble—bury them.

Harry Marks, writing for his Curious Rat website on Apple’s true legacy:

Apple is getting ready to finish the first volume of its 10 year long opus on the true definition of “ecosystem”. With your iTunes ID, you can make sure any music, apps and books you purchase on your Mac, iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad are automatically downloaded and synced on all your devices at once. If you start a document in Pages on Lion, it automaticaly saves each change and uploads it to iCloud, then syncs it back down to your iPad where you can work on it later at a coffee shop, or waiting for your train. No buttons are pressed to initiate the sync, no wire is required to transfer the files. Everything is done in the background without the user’s knowledge. Apple’s iCloud is one step closer to making “user error” a thing of the past and that’s the brush being used to paint the bigger picture.

That’s a thing a lot of people are missing about Apple’s plans and also the iterative nature of its OS evolution. Apple very rarely these days pushes massive new features, resulting in people screaming that everything past the original Mac OS X release has been a service pack. But things like Quick Look (instant, browsable previews of items in Finder) and upgrades to Preview (which has gone from Acrobat Reader Very Lite Indeed to a really good app for PDF edits, scanning and basic image manipulation) are attempts to make computing easier, a little at a time.

With iCloud, iOS 5 and Lion, though, Apple’s digital hub dream finally comes to fruition, but in a manner even Apple couldn’t have foreseen a decade ago. Assuming it works, you’ll get seamless computing across devices, a massive reduction in user error for tasks we take for granted but shouldn’t have to deal with (document sync, saving work on a regular basis), and that’s why people like Paul Thurrott look like dolts for dismissing what Apple’s doing as ‘more of the same’ or nothing different to the competition. It’s not about any one feature—it’s about everything. And until Microsoft, Sony and others get this, the playing field won’t be remotely even.

John Walker’s coverage of Tim Langdell’s latest disaster is gold for anyone who’s been following the case. And if you feel any pity for Langdell, don’t. Over the years, he’s had numerous developers and creatives claim they’ve not received payment, bullied dozens of companies into paying him over marks he couldn’t defend, sued indie developers (and other companies) who had the audacity to use the word ‘edge’ somewhere in their product names, provided inaccurate submissions to the USPTO in order to get marks, lied to courts in the US and UK, and claimed to have ‘spawned’ Edge magazine and numerous other products (including, bizarrely, a Marvel comic). Additionally, it’s revealed in Walker’s story that Future paid off Langdell in 2004, to the tune of $275,000, in order to get him to shut the hell up and go away. In return, he cunningly carried on claiming to have invented Edge, including a US version, and said he’d designed the Edge logo and that Future ripped him off. Shameless. On the plus side, the section about the 5.25-inch disk in Walker’s piece is a fantastic read and great advice on what not to do if you’re ever involved in a court case relating to IP issues.

Maybe Lodsys, currently suing pretty much the entire world, should take note. Langdell survived when he went after the small guys, but by becoming prominent and biting off more than he could chew (i.e. EA over Mirror’s Edge and Future over Edge magazine), he’s been given international spankage. I rather hope the same happens to Lodsys.

Note: for the full bonkers Langdell story, Chaos Edge is your best bet.

It looks like the rumours regarding Doctor Who, sparked by Private Eye, weren’t that far off. While the BBC clearly won’t say the show is in chaos and has committed to another 14 episodes, when they’re going out is a concern. According to Digital Spy, BBC One controller Danny Cohen has confirmed Doctor Who will not get a full-length series in 2012. Instead, some of the 14 episodes will air in 2012, and the remainder will be broadcast in 2013, possibly as part of a run of anniversary episodes.

Of course, the series is split this year. We’ve already have the first seven episodes,  culminating in A Good Man Goes to War, and the rest will air in the autumn. However, this makes sense, because Doctor Who’s ratings fell off a cliff during summer broadcasts. Running the show in late spring and early autumn increases the number of eyes watching. But splitting the series over 2012 and 2013 effectively reduces Doctor Who to the UK’s second-shortest run tier, the six- or seven-episode series. With the show finally gaining a foothold in the USA, it’s bizarre that the BBC is reducing output further, and I can only imagine the show is now too expensive for the corporation, despite its potential for sales and merchandising. Either that or some higher-ups at the BBC still hate the show (as was well documented in the 1980s) and are reigning it in.

Regardless, this seems a crazy decision for the BBC to make. Doctor Who has become a flagship show, and although it’s not to everyone’s tastes, it’s inventive, unique, fun and quintessentially British. Still, I’m sure the BBC won’t have trouble filling the time-slot with yet another generic talent show.

UPDATE: Show-runner Steven Moffat on Twitter:

Dr Who: misquotes and misunderstandings. But I’m not being bounced into announcing the cool stuff before we’re ready. Hush, and patience.

What this means is anyone’s guess, given that Cohen’s words left little alternate interpretation.

UPDATE 2: BBC blames 2012 Who shortfall on show-runner Moffat’s workload, since he’s also dealing with the second series of Sherlock.

UPDATE 3: Moffat on Twitter say the BBC are talking shit.