January 2010 General Meeting
© Lawrence I. Charters
Washington Apple Pi Journal, Vol. 32, no. 2, March-April 2010, pp. 13-16.
Just before the Washington-Baltimore area became a frozen, snowy wasteland, the Pi held a General Meeting at George Mason University, on January 23, 2010. Our featured guest was The Washington Post technology columnist, Rob Pegoraro. Rob started with the Post in 1993, and looked like a teenager. Not quite two decades later, he still looks like a teenager.
Rob Pegoraro is officially a technology reviewer and reporter for The Washington Post. He is well-equipped for the role, as he doesn’t have a degree in journalism (he studied international relations) and he met his spouse via email. He is the very model of modern technology journalism. A shortcut to his work at the Post can be found here:
http://wwww.washingtonpost.com/robpegoraro/
Rob’s talk to Washington Apple Pi was a mixture of extemporaneous observations about his job and, later, responses to questions from the audience. As the meeting was just a few days before Apple’s mysterious January 27th announcement, speculation about what we now know as the iPad was rife, but nobody really knew anything.
And that was Rob’s opening: Apple is a very strange company. “Apple keeps secrets.” Most computer companies saturate the media with rumors and previews and early announcements, sometimes years in advance, but not Apple. “With an Apple keynote, they tell you when it starts.” Rob got his invitation nine days before the January 27th presentation, but it gave no indication of the subject, and Rob admitted he had “no idea what Apple will talk about.”
Not only does Apple keep secrets, but even “getting to talk to someone at Apple is very difficult.” Rob mentioned how most companies all but beg for attention well in advance of a new product, dropping hints, sending packets of information, and trying to build enthusiasm and anticipation. In contrast, Apple says: nothing.
“This is why I respect the company [Apple].” Without any press releases, advance previews, and carefully crafted leaks — with no information at all — Apple managed to completely dominate the technology press for months prior to the January 27th announcement. Apple doesn’t hype its products because it doesn’t have to; everybody else hypes the products for it, even before those products exist.
Pegoraro confessed that “I am usually not among the first group of people that reviews an Apple product.” Apple is stingy with information, even after an introduction. Accordingly, he doesn’t usually try to rush something into print; rather, he spends some time with a product first. “I try to get into details that people may not have immediately seen… Sometimes you can only discover things after they’ve been out there and been in use by the public.”
It is also an error to simply review something by comparing it to existing products. “To review the iPhone as if it was a thinner version of a Palm Treo would have been a mistake.” Nor does a new product or feature have to work the way people expect. Just because it doesn’t work the way people expect it to work doesn’t make it bad. Rob mentioned Apple’s Expose as a prime example of ignoring what people said they wanted and delivering what they needed instead.
Pegoraro admitted that he loved covering Macworld Expo. It is large but manageable, held in a wonderful, walkable city (San Francisco) at a convenient time. Compare this to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Las Vegas is not a very amenable city, CES is scattered all over several massive halls, and the keynotes are scheduled at the end of the day.
Rob compared how Apple does a keynote and how Microsoft does an introduction. Microsoft has a huge stage, colored backdrops, lots of video, lots of very loud music, lots of props, and lots of guests. If there is a demo, it is buried in glitz, and what is important may not be obvious.
Apple, in comparison, has music before, but not during, the keynote. The stage is black, the black background curtains are unadorned, there are very few guests, and the presentation is very tightly focused, with no distractions. The demonstration – of hardware, or software, or services – is the center of attention. Everything is calm and measured, and the important points are obvious.
Responding to questions, Pegoraro said his title is “Consumer Technology Columnist.” His reviews look at technology from the perspective of the home user. By that, he means he looks at technology from the point of view of things you spend your own money buying. He isn’t as interested in technology for working from home, especially not in things that require enterprise IT support. “Do I want to spend my time figuring out Exchange? No, I hate that sort of stuff. Some of the most stupid software I’ve seen is for the enterprise.”
Rob also is wary of “lock-in” issues. Outlook, for example, is tied to Exchange Server, and entombs your data in a .pst file that nothing except Outlook understands. Digital Rights Management (DRM) poses another “lock-in” issue, as it is not “digital rights” for the consumer but digital limitations on the consumer. Rob buys his music through iTunes (which is no longer bound by DRM), but doesn’t see buying movies in that manner anytime soon, because they are governed by DRM.
DRM also plays a role in electronic book readers such as the Kindle and Nook. The Kindle ties you to the Amazon Kindle store; Barnes & Noble’s Nook is a slightly more open format, but still is designed to talk to Barnes & Noble’s servers.
Speaking a week before the iPad was introduced, Pegoraro mused that it would be “interesting to see” what kind of DRM Apple’s forthcoming “something” might require. Would it be something loose enough that it didn’t feel like handcuffs? When you buy something off the iTunes Store, for example, you don’t have to play it on a Mac or iPod; you can play it on Windows and a Zune. Why should a consumer be stuck with playing a song or movie only on a certain set of hardware deemed acceptable by the electronic store’s owner?
Asked what he thinks about Quicken, Pegoraro confessed that he’s purchased a few copies of Quicken, but doesn’t use it anymore. Even when a new Mac version of Quicken came out at the same time as a Windows version, there was rarely much feature parity. He now uses a Web site, www.mint.com, for his bookkeeping. The site, he noted, has been purchased by Intuit.
Rob did point out that Intuit has become a much more Mac-centric shop in the last few years. Roughly half the employees have Macs on their desks. Also promising: the guy who ran www.mint.com was hired by Intuit and put in charge of Intuit’s consumer products.
Noting that Rob seems to have a small inventory of hardware and software on hand for comparative reviews, he was asked whether he worked from the Post or from home. He told us that the Post recently did a newsroom renovation, and needed room for construction, so it offered reporters the chance to work from home. This was good and bad: good because he boxed up the clutter from work and took it home; bad because he didn’t have much room at home either, so now he has boxes of clutter. He usually has three laptops available for review, and two phones.
Having older hardware is often useful. For example, it allows him to put Windows 7 on an older laptop. For the average user, knowing how Windows 7 acts on existing hardware is more important than knowing how it works on a brand-new machine recommended by Microsoft.
Pegoraro has developed a reputation as “the tech columnist who doesn’t pay for TV.” Because he hates constantly rising cable and satellite TV bills, he decided to try out over-the-air HDTV when the TV stations went digital. He uses a $12 set of rabbit ears he got from his local Radio Shack. He admits to giving up a lot of sports viewing; “you have to take what you can” with over-the-air. Hulu (www.hulu.com) has “become our DVR.” He thought dropping cable would mean spending more money on renting or buying a movie on DVD; so far, that hasn’t been the case. “It’s nice to not watch $70 fly out of my account every month.”
Pegoraro was asked how much time he has for a review. Do vendors loan you equipment for long enough to get a good feel for it? “There are some reviews you can polish off pretty quickly,” he said. “For example, a new version of Safari.” He is already familiar with Web browsers and Safari, so doesn’t have to spend a lot of time figuring out how it works. For something entirely new, though, “like this new [rumored Apple] tablet,” he needs to do more. Some things might work like a Kindle or Nook, but other things might not. The technologies that are genuinely new take more time to review.
And there are more options for reviews today. Instead of a detailed, full-blown review that takes time, Rob can post a blog entry as kind of a “work in progress.” Then he can do the review, and even follow up with a “second thoughts” blog entry if appropriate.
Rob was asked about the New York Times announcement that it will start to charge for use of its Web site. He pointed out that it isn’t that simple: visitors will still get free access up to a point. The Times will be using a quota system: after you reach that quota, additional access will require a subscription. The Times will also not charge for incoming links, so if you see a link on Facebook or the Post, the Times will still allow you to see the story. Rob does not link to The Wall Street Journal stories that require a paid subscription, although if it is available for free, he’ll link to it.
Pegoraro was quite passionate about the question of Google and its battle against China. “Corporate blog posts are generally pretty dry stuff.” But Google’s posting about the attacks and censorship of Google in China was written “with a quiet anger throughout it.” The blog post doesn’t talk about profit, loss, products, or the usual corporate fodder. Instead, it focuses on the highly organized attacks on its assets in China, and said it won’t put up with it. Google didn’t threaten so much as say it would not allow business to continue as usual. “It’s a risky move [for Google] but this doesn’t seem to be a strictly business decision.” There seems to be genuine anger.
Of course, Pegoraro was also asked, if Apple introduces a tablet on January 27, what does a tablet do? Rob said that someone had sent him a “100% authentic” photo of an Apple tablet: a Newton MessagePad. He then explained that tablet computers are not that new an idea. Touch-screen tablets were supposed to be the wave of the future — in 2001 — but none of them has really worked out. The Kindle has a keyboard, and the Nook does not, but both are tablets. Generally speaking, tablets are cheaper, and have Internet access, but have so far not generated much excitement.
Rob saw some new “slave PCs” at the CES that illustrate the problem. These machines offered Windows 7 with a touch screen. He thought this “kinda dumb,” as “Windows 7 is not a very touch-friendly interface.” Microsoft can’t just take the same interface, remove the mouse and keyboard, and say it is a touch interface; it doesn’t work very well.
“I assume Apple wouldn’t make that kind of mistake,” Rob said. He speculated that any Apple tablet interface would be probably a cross between Mac OS X and the iPhone OS, and probably would draw more from the iPhone.
One unusual question concerned the dress code for the Apple stores. Do they all dress the same way? Are they all that casual? Pegoraro has visited several Apple stores in different sections of the country, and while not an expert, he did note a remarkable consistency. “The retail store is a part of the product presentation.” In Best Buy, the computers may be stuck in a screen saver, and the store employees may know nothing about a computer beyond what is shown on the shelf tag. At an Apple store, the computers are always in working order, and you can spend some time with them, ask questions, and get answers. Apple even designed a special heating and ventilation system so customers are not too hot or cold.
On the other hand, Apple does make mistakes. Pegoraro is not enamored of MobileMe. He initially thought it was a good idea, but more hype than function. He has grown used to it, but there are things about it that he still does not like — for example, the fact that any email he sends from his iPhone says it came from mac.com or me.com, rather than The Washington Post. “We can’t rule out that the [rumored Apple] ‘slate’ may be the next iPod Hi-Fi,” he said, referring to a product that never attracted enough customers to be a success. “I’ll try to keep that in mind even in the middle of the reality distortion field [of Apple’s introduction].”
Rob was asked what he considers Apple’s successes, and products that he routinely uses. He mentioned the way Mail, iCal, and Address Book integrate so seamlessly as an outstanding example of what Macs can do. And everything is searchable through Spotlight. iPhoto was another favorite application; he has been using it since it first came out. The new face recognition and geo-tagging features are welcome additions, and easy to use.
Asked what he saw as the biggest advances over the last few years, Pegoraro cited the spectacular growth of mobile devices. First, you had PDAs, like the Palm, that could remember some things, but not do much more. Next came smart phones, which could interact in some way with the Internet. Then along came the iPhone, which opens up pretty much anything on the Internet. GPS-aware devices not only tell you where you are, but also tell you spatially what is around you. Augmented reality programs allow you to look at a building, say, call up information on what you are seeing, and maybe even buy admission or tickets to an event in the building.
Pegoraro mentioned this to Vernor Vinge a few months ago. Vinge wrote Rainbow’s End, a science fiction novel that projects a future world where such augmented reality was commonplace. Vinge admitted that even he was surprised at how rapidly mobile computing has taken off.
One final question dealt with the state of the newspaper business. Pegoraro admitted that recent rounds of layoffs and buyouts at the Post were painful. When he started at the Post, he was “the kid.” Now he is one of the older employees. The newsroom is much younger, and there are fewer people; there are also more typos making it into print.
Rob then noted that print as a technology has technological advantages: it is device independent and is high resolution. What isn’t quite as clear: does journalism require print? Can you distribute good journalism on a Kindle or through an app on an iPhone? You lose the crossword puzzle and the comics, but what else do you lose? The entire industry is desperately searching for answers.
As general meetings go, the January meeting was extraordinary. Coming just a few days before the introduction of the iPad, there was a tremendous sense of anticipation, which our guest speaker shared. Pegoraro didn’t know a thing about the iPad, of course, but we can’t wait to read his first thoughts when he finally gets one for review.