May 2007 – Radar

Interview: Steve Jobs

Walt Mossberg conducts an interview with Steve Jobs at the All Things Digital conference. The following are important updates from the event’s website:

– Walt to Jobs: When you changed your name to Apple Inc., people wondered if Apple was exiting the personal computer business. Is it? Jobs says no and stresses Apple’s commitment to the PC business, touts Apple’s forthcoming Leopard operating system.

– Jobs says Apple is on track to ship iPhone in late June as planned.
Walt: Like the last day of June?
Jobs: (Laughs) Yeah, probably.

– Walt asks why there isn’t a physical keyboard on the iPhone, when RIM and Palm have shown there’s a real demand for them? “Was there no one in Cupertino who thought that was a good idea?” Jobs’s answer: “No. Once you learn to trust the keyboard, it’s a better keyboard. I’ll bet you dinner that you’ll love it.”

– Why is Apple successful in the music-player business? Jobs: It’s because Japanese consumer electronics could produce elegant software. And that’s why Apple enjoys the success it does with the iPod. If you look at handsets, the situation is similar. Manufacturers have the hardware down, but they just can’t seem to get the software right. The iPhone is great software wrapped in wonderful hardware, and its software is five years ahead of anything else out there.

– Jobs says iPhone runs “real OS X, real Safari, real desktop email.”
If that’s true, could other OS X applications run on the iPhone? Jobs says no. They’re not designed to.

– “The other thing you can do is buy TV shows.” Jobs pulls up a clip from “The Office.” He says sending stuff from your computer to the Apple TV isn’t the main deal here. “Wouldn’t it be great if you could see YouTube on your TV?”

Apple will be offering a free software upgrade come June that will allow Apple TV users to view YouTube videos on their televisions. Jobs demos the feature with a clip from “America’s Got Talent.”

Walt asks what sort of video resolution we are talking about here. Does Apple do anything to YouTube clips to optimize them for television? I guess not. Jobs says, “You get what you get.”

Is the iPhone’s platform closed? And if it is, will it be open to developers in the future? Jobs says it’s a security issue, but Apple is working to find a way to allow developers to build applications for it. Jobs says he doesn’t want the iPhone to be “one of those phones that crashes a few times a day.” He adds: “We would like to solve this problem and if you could just be a little more patient with us, we’ll do it.”

Google’s New 360 Degree Streetview

Google has will be announcing a new 360 streetside view for Google maps at Where 2.0 today, says O’Reily Radar. The 360 views are a better version of Amazon’s A9 static panoramas. Google’s views let users virtually stand in the middle of any street, able to look in a full circle around the location, giving a better feel of the place you’ll be going. It will reportedly be available in Denver, Las Vegas, Miami, New York and San Francisco.

The imaging used in the new feature was collected by a company called Immersive Media, whose vans throughout these cities to collect the photos. You can see a demo here.

Design Focus: Iseey Miyake Watch

Even though this watch doesn’t have MSN or tell you when someone’s calling, we’re still in love. Why? Because we love minimalist watches.

Instead of having two hands radiating from the center, this Issey Miyake OVO watch has two dials on the outside. The only way this could get any more minimalist is if the entire face was black and only lit up the time if you tilted the watch toward your face.

Product Page

Event Design 2007

The Second Annual Event Design Conference in New York was really great this year. If you’re thinking about going next year, we highly recommend it. Great weather, great location and an incredible lineup of speakers and sessions.

People at Event Design/Friends of Radar: Dan Hanover (Event Design Magazine); Ryan Fellabaum (XL Video); Jesse Seppi and Vivian Rosenthal (Tronic); James Frederick (Landor Associates); Sam Caban (Show Designers); Hillman Curtis (hillmancurtis); Jayme LaForest & Michelle (GO West); Irma Hardjakusumah & Tony Timms (Ethos Design); Margaret Aro; Davin Reich; Diane Murphy (Robert Boyett Theatricals); Steve Hand; Julie Johnston (Filmcore); some of the 53rd Street Girls.

Where You Could Find Us: kittichai, Thombar and rooftop bar (60 Thompson); Washington Square; SoHo; Midtown; The New School; Lucy’s in the East Village; Wined Up; momofuku (the smaller one); Burger Joint (of course); Joe Jr’s (6th & 12th); Pen-Top Bar and JFK Terminal 9 (Dear Tronic: check the monitors in the walkway, they’re glitching again!).

Click here for highlights.

[image used with permission from Creative Commons by Ralph Hockens]

Google DNA Venture

Here’s an odd story. Google just took a $3.9 million stake in a biotech company called 23andMe Inc. The company was co-founded by Anne Wojcicki, who married Google co-founder Sergey Brin earlier this month. Brin had personally loaned the company $2.6 million prior to the round. This debt was repaid after the Google investment.

The company is going to help people take DNA tests to get more information on their genetic health.

[image used with permission from Creative Commons by Andy Leppard]