I have been upon an impossible task: to find the best keyboard tray for a new desk I am building. After looking around online, and in some office stores, I have come to two conclusions: 1) there are far too many keyboard trays on the market, and 2) they pretty much all seem to suck.

Then I got to thinkin' that my comrades at Ars surely have encountered this issue, and perhaps defeated it. Now, I know one could just build their own, but I am looking to avoid that. The desk is taking enough time as it is. So, here's what I am looking for:

Beyond that, I think I'm pretty open. Here are the two that I've found online that look most interesting to me. But I'd love to hear more recommendations, and if any of you have used one of these, please let me know how it's working for you.

This is the Kingtray. It's nice and wide, but I don't know if it's rigid or not.

This is a slide-out tray from 3M.  It should be rigid, but it's kind of unappealing, less tilt options.

They aren't inexpensive, but since I practically live at my desk typing, then I think it's worth some skrilla. 

Today was the third time I have ever been on MySpace, and the first time it didn’t make me ill. Why? Because MySpace somehow reunited Ben Folds Five, and got them to play their last studio album front to back, and they’re hosting the video. If you’re a BFF fan, this is going to make your day. If you're not, you're probably going to complain that I made this post.

Thanks to Clint for the heads-up via IM.

P.S. I wish there was a place you could go and just rent time on a drumset. I feel the need to rock out. Like, a gym for instruments... that would totally kick butt.

Almost 5 months to the day after the acquisition of Ars, here I am, back on my staff journal. And I'm sad to say that it's been more than a year since my last post here. Time flies, especially when you have two young children (not counting this website).

That's going to change. I'm returning to my staff journal, and I'm doing so in order to have more contact with you guys--the smartest readers in the world--and to relearn how to write for non-business management types. From this day forward, this journal is going to be my outlet for talking about Ars, talking about life, and talking about just about anything else in between. Fair warning: there will be plenty of off-topic posts here, plenty of short two sentence blurbs that leave you scratching your head and wondering about my sanity.

So how's life on the other side? As most of you know, I don't talk about myself very much, nor do I talk about the site's many accomplishments. I let our work do the talking, and leave the mindless chest-beating to the attention whoring blogs that deal in platitudes (many of whom keep lowering their acquisition prices, so best of luck to them). All I'll say is this: we sold the business at the tippy-top of what is definitely a downturn in online publishing (at least in terms of traditional revenue streams). My biggest concern after we turned 10 years old was figuring out how to lock up another 10 years, and I'm glad we've done that. But there's much more work to do. More on that later.

Many of you wrote me over the last few months were wondering where I went. Some even expressed hope that I had escaped to Mykonos or some other lovely island for some R&R. Well, no vacation for me, aside from a week of paternity leave in which I ended up working anyway. When you're the Editor in Chief, you never truly get time off.

It's true though, I haven't been writing as much on the front page as I did in the past. Truth be told, I've been working tirelessly behind the scene on new hires, new projects, and getting integrated with Condé Nast. We've also shuffled the organization of the company greatly. I'm still running the show, but Eric Bangeman is now focusing his time exclusively on managing news, while Jon Stokes has taken over feature publication from Eric.

We've abducted Kurt Mackey and Aurich Lawson from their lives as freelance gangsters to become our Technical Director and Creative Director, respectively. We tricked Clint into leaving his cushy job, and he's now our Top Ranking Thug, also known as our Project Manager/Developer. We also added policy expertise in the form of Julian Sanchez, and more Mac and Web 2 coverage from David Chartier. Those guys were freelancing for us before, so you know them. In fact, everyone mentioned above has been helping Ars in one way or another for quite some time.

I'm also very excited to have Erica Sadun joining us, as well as Glenn Fleishman and John Resig, all as freelance contributors.  Give them some time to acclimate to the shark pool that is Ars Technica, and then watch out.

In closing, let me say that Dexter is a really awesome show.

--

P.S. I'm not joking, I will post again soon.

P.S.S. You can also follow me on Twitter, @kenfisher. Yes, I got sucked in. I don't update a whole lot (couple of times a day), but when I do, I try to make it special for the both of us.

P.S.S.S. This journal is never copy edited, so apologies in advance for typos and errors. Sure, I could re-read all this a few times, but then it would be a hassle to post, and I wouldn't do it.  Translation: warranty is AS IS.

As most of you know (or not), we switched on an integrated news discussion feature a few days ago.  This turned out to be a bit problematic.  "Problematic," in this case, means "a big, stinky, hairy ball of putrid dog vomit".  We've mopped up some of the vomit and will be working to get the last remaining splatters over the next month or two.

Our forum is an opaque black box that lives on its own sub-domain.  We don't have a good way of bringing the forum content to the main site, which makes it quite difficult to integrate discussions with content.  We've actually put off doing that (though we get requests for it quite frequently) due to the relatively dirty journal comment integration.  These last three days of fun were the result of us trying to give a more complete implementation with post, reply and delete functionality.

The forum vendor created a JavaScript based widget that sounded pretty spanky several months ago.  In practice, it turned out to be not-that-useful.  Cross domain Javascript is a pretty hairy problem, and they decided to proxy data through an invisible Flash widget to solve it.  Given the reliance on Flash, this is generally considered a lesser option than using a technology people call JSONP.  We knew this before we turned it on, and went to a great deal of effort to ensure that users without Flash installed or JavaScript enabled ended up directly on the forum thread.

Unfortunately, it wasn't good enough.  Many Flash/browser/OS combinations couldn't handle the Flash/data proxy.  In addition, a great deal of readers use a program called FlashBlock that causes the browser to misrepresent itself and say "I show Flash content" when in fact it does not.  The first is a real problem, the second is sort of a painful thing for us since it means those users are also not getting ads.  Boo.

We've since switched the news discussion to the same system we use for the Journals.  While it's not ideal, it's super fast and has zero reliance on Flash. Over the next few months we're going to be working with our forums vendor to see if we can convert to a more robust system that doesn't compromise loading times, add additional dependencies, and adds additional features as well.

One last note, we got a lot of really great feedback from our community during these past few days.  It was really nice to get input from such a wide group of really smart people and only highlights the best parts of our community here at Ars Technica. Rock on!

This afternoon I was all a-twitter about Chrome, Google's new web browser. Google's deft illustration of the technology and motivation behind Chrome left me primed for something interesting, and the actual product did not disappoint.

My enthusiasm at this point is not so much about the product as it is about the methodology. Google didn't set out to merely improve upon existing web browsers. Instead, it attempted to rebuild the web browser from first principles.

The last two successful web browsers have both taken minimalist approaches to their user interfaces, subtracting features from their popular predecessors before adding new ones of their own. Firefox was a back-to-basics browser, rising from the ashes of the huge and increasingly complicated Mozilla browser. Safari presented an even more svelte user interface. Both browsers have fought hard to remain slim as they've marched up from version 1.0 to 3.0, while still offering improvements with each revision.

On the back-end, these projects have been huge successes. The Gecko and WebKit layout engines have advanced standards support and performance by leaps and bounds. WebKit has been so successful that Google is using it in Chrome.

But when it comes to user interface, Firefox and Safari have both struggled to balance the desire for new features with the simplicity that contributed to their early success. As the version numbers increase, this kind of pressure is inevitable. What's the best defense against this sort of thing?

Google Chrome makes the argument that Safari and Firefox did not go far enough in their subtractive design approach. Consider, for example, Safari's lack of separators in the bookmarks menu, presented by some as a brave simplification. I say brave because this feature has existed in nearly every popular web browser since the birth of the web, making its absence a source frustration to many—including me. (Radar 3119012, filed in 2003.)

Google's approach with Chrome is different. Rather than removing features from existing web browsers, Google has taken its brightly colored forearm and swept the table absolutely clean. Forget about menu separators; why even have a bookmarks menu? Hell, why have a menu bar at all? Start with nothing. Assume nothing. Add features only as needed, and only in service of a well-defined design concept (more on that below).

That's what's most exciting about Chrome: not the individual features Google has added, not the most prominent aspects of its user interface, such as the top-mounted tabs. All of that stuff will be tried and tested in the market. But the approach, the philosophy, the sheer chutzpah on display...that is a thing of beauty.

And that's why, earlier today, I called Chrome "a wake-up call for the Safari UI guys." It's not that any particular feature of Chrome is so wonderful, or even that the sum of those features puts Safari back on its heels in the browser wars. It's the idea that someone other than Apple has taken such clear leadership in this area. Google Chrome makes Safari's user interface look conservative; it makes Apple look timid. And when it comes to innovation, overall daring counts for a lot more than individual successes or failures on the long-term graph.

All of this is made even more worrisome by Google's motivation for the design of Chrome's interface, baldly stated in Google's User Experience documentation (and indeed, in the product name itself).

And there it is, Microsoft's worst nightmare laid bare. Google has grown tired of the web browser ghetto, all its applications crowded together into a single, often unreliable container. "Real" applications don't have to put up with this. They live and die on their own terms. Their chrome is elegant, sleek. They are not mere content presented within another application. They are prime actors, first-class citizens.

That's what Google wants for its products, and it's decided that the only way to get it—the only way to escape the ghetto of the browser—is to make a web browser of its own. That must have been a difficult decision to make, and the road ahead is tough. But no matter how it turns out, you have to admire the bravery. Go on, Google, tell 'em where you're from.

Right up until the day it was published, I had a square on my WWDC keynote bingo board that read, "Mac OS X 10.6 ignored." I should have stuck with my first instinct, it seems. Mac OS X got the Heisman this morning in San Francisco. The few words that Steve Jobs dedicated to "the world's most advanced operating system" were spent telling the audience that the next version is called Snow Leopard, and that it would be discussed during the Mac OS X State of the Union session in the afternoon—a session that, like all of WWDC except the keynote, is subject to a non-disclosure agreement.

Apple was kind enough to provide a press release, however. It flits from point to point with the detached equity that is the hallmark of the form. The introduction confirms what was previously reported:

But if the handful of paragraphs that follow are meant to support this statement, they only get about half-way there. While it's true that few end-user features are described, the list of internal changes seems grandiose for a release that's supposed to "hit the pause button on new features to focus on perfecting" the OS.

Let's start with QuickTime X, which appears to skip QuickTime versions 8 and 9 and go right for a name befitting a long-overdue (though amply telegraphed) reboot of one of Apple's oldest continuously maintained APIs. Or maybe the name is just a marketing smoke-screen. It's kind of hard to tell from a press release.

Speaking of marketing, Snow Leopard will include something called "Grand Central" which will supposedly "[make] it easy for developers to create programs that take full advantage of the power of multi-core Macs"—whatever that means. The press release moves on to the next topic right after that sentence.

Along the same lines, Snow Leopard will include Open Computing Language (OpenCL) which makes the GPU available for general computation through a uniform (and presumably "open") interface. Googling for OpenCL turns up a lot of hits for the wrong things. It'll be interesting to see how much Apple can increase the mindshare of this technology.

Oddly, support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 is among the handful of features described. It may be just one end-user feature, but it's a big one for the people who need it. And really, it only takes one or two killer features to sell an upgrade.

Then there's a tidbit about improvements to the 64-bit implementation (16TB is now the RAM ceiling), a few sentences about the impressive, but already announced SquirrelFish JavaScript engine, and that's pretty much the end.

It's an odd mix of details, to be sure. But more importantly, it's a bit at odds with the idea of Snow Leopard as the "anti-vista," eschewing radical change to focus on stabilizing and refining what's already in Leopard. I mean, assuming we take the QuickTime X name at face value, overhauling such an integral part of the operating system hardly seems like a low-risk move. Similarly, OpenCL and Grand Central could be as significant to the internals of OS X as any user-facing feature in Leopard or Tiger.

Finally, there's the new branding: "OS X," sometimes with a suffix. So it's "OS X Leopard" and "OS X iPhone," just as the banners foretold. And yet the press release begins with "Apple® today previewed Mac OS® X Snow Leopard." Maybe it's just that Apple hasn't yet registered the "OS X" trademark? Curiouser and curiouser.

Considering my enthusiasm for Mac OS X internals, it's probably not surprising that I'm excited about Snow Leopard—and sorely disappointed with its eviction from the keynote. I can understand the need to down-play what could be a snoozer of a release from the consumer perspective, but this is supposed to be the world-wide developers conference.

Yeah, I guess the developers attending WWDC do get the details, under NDA. But I can't help thinking this has been another keynote usurped by The Platform With The Most Growth Potential, which is how I imagine Apple's executive team views the iPhone. I guess we're all on the same team here (and the same kernel), but those two bridges still seem quite separate, and not quite equal.

[Update: Apple now has some more Snow Leopard information available on its web site, including confirmation that Mac OS X Server will include read/write support for ZFS. Also, the "Mac" is back in front of "OS X" on these pages.]

This edition of WWDC keynote bingo presented some challenges. In the past, there's been more than enough rumor and unfounded hype to fill the board. This year, the near certainty of the 3G iPhone combined with the absence of any remotely credible reports of other exciting announcements has made square selection a struggle.

The bigger problem (if you can call it that) is that, in the past decade or so, Apple has fulfilled almost every long-standing product fantasy. A modern OS, crazy new case designs, x86 CPUs, a set-top box, a hand-held video player, a phone, a Newton successor (n.b., "successor," not "clone"), a sub-notebook...what's left, really?

Well, there's the xMac, I guess (don't hold your breath). Then there's the Mac tablet, though even that one's lost some of its luster in a post-iPhone world. For OS nerds, there's a new kernel, file system, and similarly esoteric stuff—hardly keynote-worthy. Then, of course, there's the Amazing New Thing That No One Expects, but that doesn't really help make bingo squares.

In the end, I found enough to cover the board by sticking to three themes: iPhone stuff (yes, "3G iPhone" gets a square), the next major release of Mac OS X, and the rumored .Mac changes. Still, I think we as a community need to come up with some new Apple-related pipe dreams.

Another problem was that my bingo board design idea didn't lend itself very well to making an actual bingo board. It was more of a "poster idea," really, so I'm offering it in both forms. You can download the usual bingo board, and you can also download the board background image as a separate file. Both are in PDF format, as usual, for easy printing. If you're attending WWDC and you'd like to perhaps print out a few copies of the "poster" and surreptitiously pin them up around the conference corridors, you might fool a few of the iPhone-spawned WWDC newbies into mistaking them for some weird part of Apple's official marketing materials.

Finally, as I've shown the card around I've been surprised at how few people get the reference. In case you're not as irretrievably immersed in all things Apple as I apparently am (or if you've just blocked out all memories of Apple in 1990s), the poster design is a play on the infamous "Pray" cover from the June 1997 issue of Wired magazine. (It's actually infamous, I swear! Wired even revisited it recently with its own follow-up story and cover homage.) Further analysis of the image is left as an exercise for the reader.

Anyway, to the downloads:

Hover your mouse over the image below to see the poster version.

Bingo card and poster created by John McCoy
(Mouse-over to see the poster version.)

For a refresher course on the rules, please read the inaugural WWDC bingo post from 2006. To learn why there's only one card, see the MWSF 2007 bingo post. Remember that this game is about what happens during the keynote only. It doesn't matter what Apple releases or announces through any other channels. The only thing that matters is what happens on that stage during the keynote.

The requirements for each square are listed below. Note well: for the purposes of this entire board, "Mac OS X 10.6" refers to the next major version of Mac OS X, whatever its version number or designation. Good luck!

Welcome back to the Tech Cocktail blog. Er, yeah. This is just a quick post to let you all know that, if you're planning on attending Tech Cocktail in Chicago tonight (again at John Barleycorn in Wrigleyville), keep an eye out for me and perhaps some other Ars folk. Feel free to come and chat if you spot us, and we might even give you an Ars button.

This particular event is likely to be even more crowded than usual, as it follows the first annual Tech Cocktail Conference being held as we speak in Chicago today. We have Ars correspondent Chris Foresman on the scene covering everything going on at the conference, but we hope to see more of you tonight over a few beers!

Some Friday afternoon foolishness for your enjoyment. As part of preparing an upcoming feature, I wrote and recorded a little ditty about Comcast's P2P blocking technique and the resulting FCC fallout, as related by one of the TCP reset packets used for that purpose. No, I can't sing, but that never stopped Bob Dylan.

Download an MP3 version of the song here or watch it below. Lyrics follow (and if you can find a better rhyme for "statutory damages," I'd love to hear it). Enjoy!

"Ballad of the TCP Reset Packet"
By Nate Anderson

I'm not an ordinary packet flowing through the tubes
I need to scrub them out to keep the neighborhood's connection lubed
I'm here to make you see a cable company morality
Obfuscation is alright but not uploads that take all night

I'm not an ordinary packet but you wouldn't know it from my face
With my false mustache in place, I'm here to interrupt the pace
Of Kill Bill volumes one and two, don't download them, they're bad for you
Your fair share is not defined but I'll enforce it if you don't mind

Chorus:
Cuz I'm a TCP reset packet (it's true)
Flying down the wire to you
Sent from Comcast above to its users with love
I'm a TCP reset packet

Don't thank me now you will someday when you are eating cabbages
And see just how I kept you safe from statutory damages
I'm legal and a good idea, you don't have a thing to fear
Like Superman, you can't stop me, unless you call the FCC

At the hearing, Harvard's hallowed halls became a comfy bed
Our employees work so hard, without the rest they'd soon be dead
All this talk is sure terrific, but it's also soporific
Set me free to innovate, I see no need to regulate!

Chorus:
Cuz I'm a TCP reset packet (it's true)
Flying down the wire to you
Sent from Comcast above to its users with love
I'm a TCP reset packet

Here's your chance to grill Bell Canada. Ars readers will be aware that the company has recently started throttling P2P on both its own network and on service that is resold by other ISPs... even when those ISPs sell their services with a net neutrality promise. Some estimates say that Bell's move has crippled speeds by 90 percent, and people aren't happy. The Canadian equivalent of the FCC (the CRTC) has already been dragged into the debate, and the story could easily morph in to a Canadian version of the Comcast traffic "delaying" case here in the US.

On Monday, the CBC will hold Bell Canada's feet to the fire when Bell's chief of regulatory affairs appears on the CBC's The Spark radio program. And, in a sign that the CBC gets the Internet, it wants your questions. If you want answers to questions about P2P throttling, network neutrality, or ISP line-sharing rules, now is your chance to take them right to the top.

Even if you're not Canadian, this promises to be entertaining and (hopefully) informative. Even better: it's long-form, so hopefully we can get more answers than the typical PR-speak sound bites that seem to characterize such interviews. The comments so far have veered into seriously hostile territory, so Mirko Bibic from Bell had better pack his best-quality flame retardant suit. Sparks can burn, you know.

The interview airs this Monday, April 14.

By now you have heard the news: Photoshop CS4 will not be 64-bit on the Mac, but will be 64-bit on Windows. I discussed the dawn of the 64-bit age and the end of Carbon in my Leopard review, concluding the section with this warning.

That lack of a 64-bit Photoshop on the Mac is the first big bump. I wrote that "I have no idea what Adobe's going to do." It turns out that they chose the obvious answer: port to Cocoa. The consequences are just as obvious: delay.

This is going to be a huge job for Adobe, and is likely the most complex and difficult Cocoa port ever attempted. I can imagine it being surpassed only by a hypothetical Cocoa port of Microsoft Office. But, of course, Office has no pressing need to be 64-bit; Photoshop does.

So now we wait. The speed advantage of 64-bit code on Intel's x86_64 processors makes this wait particularly galling. The lack of a 64-bit Photoshop on the Mac doesn't just affect those who work with huge files. It represents a blanket 8-12% speed hit for Mac users when compared with Windows users running Photoshop on the same hardware.

Given these unfortunate facts, some assignment of blame is inevitable. Here are the two poles of this world of hurt:

Blame Apple: If Apple had not discontinued the 64-bit port of Carbon, Adobe could have shipped Photoshop CS4 as a 64-bit Mac OS X application as planned. At WWDC 2006, there were many sessions about developing 64-bit Carbon applications. At WWDC 2007, 64-bit Carbon was canceled. Adobe found this out the same time everyone else did, at WWDC. By canceling 64-bit Carbon so suddenly, Apple screwed Adobe.

Blame Adobe: The death of Carbon was inevitable. Adobe should have seen it coming and planned accordingly. It's been clear for years that Cocoa offers many advantages to Mac application developers. Adobe should have started its Cocoa port of Photoshop years ago. By willfully ignoring Cocoa for so long, Adobe screwed Apple.

As usual, there's some truth to both points of view. But the key to understanding this situation—and therefore to knowing how best to apportion blame—is to look to the past.

The end of the innocence

The defining event of the Jobs 2.0 era relationship between Apple and Adobe was the creation and subsequent scuttling of the Rhapsody project. Rhapsody was Apple's original plan for a new operating system based on the recently purchased NeXT technology.

Rhapsody's proposition for Mac software developers was simple: write your applications using these NeXT-derived APIs. These are the APIs that eventually became Cocoa, and there was much to recommend them even back then. But for Mac developers with substantial existing code bases, the proposition was more aptly phrased, "rewrite your applications using these NeXT-derived APIs."

It was a hard sell, to be sure. The sweetener that Apple hoped would push the deal over the top was that applications written using this API could also be compiled to run on Windows. And so the complete pitch to the Adobes and Microsofts of the world was this: rewrite your huge existing applications using these APIs and end up with a single code base for both Mac and Windows. Alternately, just rewrite the Mac versions of your applications using these new APIs.

The answer from the Mac development community was, essentially, "Yeah, uh, no thanks." Remember, this is the Apple of the late 1990s, its power and influence at an all-time low. It's hard to imagine a company like Adobe or (even more laughably) Microsoft betting the future of its flagship software products on 1997-Apple's ability to ship and support a "new" API (its NeXT origins and history counting for little among this crowd). This is after years and years of Apple demonstrating a complete inability to ship a modern replacement for its aging operating system. As for rewriting just their Mac applications using a new API, even that represented a tremendous investment of time and resources for a platform that could very well be on its way out. So yeah, no thanks, Apple. We'll take a pass.

And so Rhapsody was shelved, and Apple's operating system strategy was revised yet again—blessedly, for the last time. There'd be no Mac/Windows cross-platform API, but there would be a new compatibility API that would let existing Mac applications be recompiled to run on the new OS with only minor modifications (for some definitions of "minor"). Thus, Mac OS X was born, and with it, Carbon.

But by then, there was no going back for either party. All their intentions had been laid bare. On the one hand you had Apple, née NeXT, which had revealed its inner-most fantasies for the future of Mac development, an inflated idea of its own platform's importance, and a startling disregard for the problems of third-party developers. And on the other, you had the big third-party developers that were finally forced to put politeness, friendship, and (in some cases) emotional attachment aside and tell some hard truths to Apple.

This is the defining moment. This is the schism. This is when old friends were forced to realize how far they'd drifted apart, and what they really thought of each other. In the case of Adobe, it was particularly painful. Apple was used to playing hardball with Microsoft, but Adobe was always a friend. Apple and Adobe grew up together, and owe much of their success—indeed, perhaps their entire existences—to each other.

Carbon and the eventual success of Mac OS X helped move things forward. Everyone tried to forgive and forget. But it's all still there, barely under the surface: the inner children of Adobe and Apple still sulking, arms crossed, in their respective corners.

This tension is evident in all dealings between Apple and Adobe. It's the thing left unsaid as minor disagreements take on an extra edge of animosity. Imagine thought bubbles below all the actual spoken text in a corporate comic strip. Apple: "You didn't want my new API. I was in trouble. I needed your help and you rejected me." Adobe: "You wanted me to risk everything for you. Though I wanted to help, I just couldn't afford to do it, and now you have the nerve to be mad about it. I give and I give but you always want more."

Hindsight

And so we come back to the cancellation of 64-bit Carbon and its consequences for Adobe and Apple. I said earlier that Apple made the hard choice, but also the correct one. Long-term, maintenance of two full-featured GUI APIs for Mac OS X is an untenable situation. Carbon is, was, and always has been a transitional API, though of course it could not be presented as such for political reasons in the wake of the Rhapsody misfire.

The choice was hard not just because it hurts Adobe and Microsoft, but also because it hurts Apple itself. Apple has its own extremely large Carbon applications, at least one of which is aching to be 64-bit: Final Cut Pro.

If I'm being cynical, however, I can't help but notice the playing field is not exactly level. When I suggested to some people at Adobe that Apple could perhaps continue its partially complete work on 64-bit Carbon and bury the resulting code inside (for example) the private ProKit.framework shared by Final Cut Pro and other Apple applications, I'm pretty sure I could hear several sets of teeth grinding. I think this scenario is highly unlikely, but the fact that it's even technically possible highlights the inherent inequities of the relationship—and once again pokes a stick into some old wounds.

For my part, I'm like the mutual friend that just wishes these two crazy kids could work things out. As I've said, I think Apple's decision to sunset Carbon was the right one. I'm also sorely disappointed that Adobe didn't start its Cocoa porting efforts until forced to by external events. But does this mean that I blame Adobe for this decision? Put another way, though it may not have done what I wanted, did Adobe do what's best for Adobe?

My initial instinct is to say no. It certainly seems like Adobe would have been better served to start down the Cocoa path years ago, if only as a skunkworks project running in the background. Again, the corporate psychoanalytical angle inevitably resurfaces. Here's what I would have said to Adobe circa 2003: "Dammit, Adobe, I know you're still sore about Apple's attempt to push those NeXT APIs down your throat, and I know you're annoyed by Apple's constant passive-aggressive behavior since then, but you're hurting your Mac customers by willfully ignoring the API that Apple so clearly still wants you to use. If you're sick of all the bullshit, then just get off the platform. But if you intend to stay, it's time to get on the Cocoa train. Someday, you may have no choice. Apple's a lot more powerful now than it was in 1997, especially with all this iPod stuff starting to take off. Swallow your pride and at least start looking into this Cocoa thing."

But there would have been risks to that approach as well. To make any meaningful progress on a Cocoa port, significant resources would have to be shifted to the project. Cocoa has also evolved a lot in the past few years, which means there would have been a baseline cost for Adobe just to stay above water.

Now let's look at the risks of doing nothing until forced. We've pretty much had the worst case scenario play out for Adobe. All signals were pointing to a smooth 64-bit upgrade path for Carbon Photoshop until a sudden revelation at WWDC 2007 dashed all plans and a Cocoa port had to be started immediately. That means no 64-bit Photoshop CS4 for the Mac, and no guarantee that the 64-bit Cocoa port will be ready in time for CS5. The cost to Mac users is clear, but what's the cost to Adobe? Will Mac users refuse to buy CS4 because it's not 64-bit? If so, what will they buy instead? CS4 for Windows? Nothing at all?

Try as I might, I cannot convince myself that the sales lost due to the decision to keep Photoshop on Carbon until forced to do otherwise even comes close to outweighing the benefits to Adobe of this approach. During all the years it wasn't porting to Cocoa, Adobe had more time, money, and resources for all its other projects. And though it's not currently able to deliver a 64-bit Photoshop to Mac customers, I believe Adobe will sell a copy of either the Mac 32-bit version or the Windows 64-bit version to nearly all the people who would have actually purchased a 64-bit version of CS4 for the Mac. The lack of a serious Photoshop competitor is ultimately what saves Adobe, and what makes its decision financially and strategically sound, even as it annoys and disappoints many of its customers.

Speculative fiction / friends forever(?)

This leads nicely to the final piece of the puzzle. Imagine if, around 2003, Apple had embarked on a secret project to build a serious Photoshop competitor using Cocoa. Further imagine that this competitor was released, in 64-bit-capable form, just as Adobe was forced to announce to the world that its Carbon-only Photoshop strategy had finally reached its limit. Even if Apple's Photoshop-killer version 1.0 was a dog, it'd soak up a significant number of disgruntled Mac Photoshop customers, perhaps enough to outweigh the historic benefits Adobe reaped by delaying its Cocoa efforts.

To the best of my knowledge, no such project exists at Apple. Though Apple's relations with Adobe told it that Photoshop on the Mac should not be taken for granted, and that Adobe was "not enthusiastic" (ahem) about adopting Apple's favorite API, no plan was made to supplant Photoshop with an Apple-controlled alternative. (Premiere, on the other hand...)

In the end, both Apple and Adobe chose not to mitigate their risks with expensive long-term projects. Adobe believed its investment in Carbon would be protected. Just as Apple created Carbon in the first place to help Adobe, so too would it stand by its friend by bringing the framework into the 64-bit era. And Apple, for its part, continued to believe that its gentle persuasion would eventually bring Adobe around to the Cocoa side of the fence. For all the bad blood and unfortunate consequences, it's somewhat heartening to realize that the two companies' faith in each other so thoroughly informed their decisions.

(Of course, if Apple does turn out to have a Photoshop killer in the works, it'll be clear who really had more faith in whom.)

Sizing up the competition

The Cocoa port of Photoshop has disaster written all over it. It's tempting to count Adobe out at this point, but that'd be a big mistake. Recall when Apple released Aperture 1.0 to, er, less than universal praise. My reaction was to boldly predict that "Aperture will go on to become an extremely successful product, perhaps even the dominant application for professional photographers in the coming years." My reasoning was straightforward: Apple had proven its ability to create successful professional applications even in markets with strong existing competitors, and Aperture's market-defining design meant that it had almost no direct competition.

To come at it from another angle, I thought Apple had a big head start with Aperture, and I simply didn't believe that Adobe, or anyone else could catch it. I was wrong. Lightroom came seemingly from nowhere and capitalized on all of Apple's Aperture 1.0 mistakes. Lightroom 1.0 was a Cocoa application, and a damned good one. Apple bounced back with Aperture 2.0, but just as quickly Adobe has responded with Lightroom 2.0. And oh, by the way, unlike Aperture, Lightroom 2.0 is 64-bit. The new sound I hear is Apple gulping.

In the grim future of Apple/Adobe, there is only war

I see no signs of the Rhapsody schism being fully mended any time soon. Apple and Adobe will continue to eye each other warily for many years to come, the battle lines being drawn ever more clearly. If you need a reason to be optimistic about Adobe's Cocoa port of Photoshop, look no further than Lightroom. If you'd like to wallow in depression, consider the ever-decreasing areas of shared interest between Apple and Adobe. In particular, ponder Adobe's newfound desire to define its own platforms, first with Flash and now with AIR which is starting to quietly make its way into Adobe's flagship desktop applications. For all the turmoil over Photoshop and Cocoa, the real storm may be yet to come.

Quick programming note for Ars readers who want to go beyond the written word. I'm appearing on All Things Considered this Sunday afternoon/evening (check local stations for times or listen to the live stream from npr.org) to talk about the Comcast/P2P "delaying" episode and what it means for your average 'Net user in the US. You can also listen to the particular segment after 7pm EST by going to the All Things Considered web page and selecting the Comcast feature.

As a side note to the whole story, a high-level Comcast exec told me today that the company doesn't need FCC regulation of traffic management practices because Comcast really will reconsider its ways in response to vocal criticism. But didn't the threat of FCC action provide a powerful incentive to cut a deal before the Commission regulated, I asked? No, I was told, the user complaints and the widespread press coverage were enough.

The exec then laughed and noted that the irony of Comcast supplying the very infrastructure that made it possible for the company's own customers to spread news of the TCP reset packets, organize, and make their voices heard. The Internet, he argued, is largely self-healing in this way.

Agree?

I just returned home from a single day in California and another five days in Austin, Texas for South by Southwest Interactive. It was my first time at SXSW, but it was certainly one of the best conference experiences I have ever had. 

I don't plan to write my own little deconstruction of the event (and no, I did not attend Mark Zuckerberg's apparently disastrous interview)—there are plenty of those online already. I will, however, say that my time spent in Austin was absolutely well worth the cost of attending. I had the opportunity to meet and hang out with so many excellent individuals (and many, many readers) who all filled those five days (and six long, booze-filled nights) with intelligent discourse. Yes, even if some people managed to blow a 0.25 (or higher).

I was able to connect with some of the people I have been meaning to meet for a long time, like sex blogger/educator Violet Blue and she who coined the term "dooced" herself, Heather Armstrong. There were also throngs of geeks, many of which I have met at other conferences (like the Macworld Expo) and just around town in various cities. If you are ever looking to network with others in the tech industry, SXSW is the place to be. Even though many of the panels aren't super-technical in nature, they can be quite fascinating (or comical, at least), and the face time you get with all of these bright individuals over a few beers is priceless.

Speaking of panels, our own Ken Fisher participated in an excellent one about independent successes. The podcast is expected to be up sometime soonish, if you're interested in checking it out.

I won't keep babbling—I got 3.5 hours of sleep last night before flying home and working all day—so we'll just end it here. I look forward to seeing you all, and maybe even a few new faces, at next year's SXSW. 

Last year, I described the iPhone as a new frontier for Mac developers, offering the promise of a clean skill transfer from Mac OS X development combined with the thrill of a completely new, uncharted world of user interface design. From the moment that giant "X" appeared on the screen during the iPhone introduction, Mac developers have been bursting with desire to get on this platform.

Yesterday's SDK announcement brought a year's worth of iPhone application fantasies to an explosive climax. (Sorry.) The technology and tools are better than most dared hope for in the first SDK release for a new platform: a simulator, a remote debugger, an impressive media stack, Interface Builder support—it's all there.

Developer reaction to the announcement has revealed an aspect of iPhone application mania that was not as apparent to me during the run-up to SDK Day. It's the subtext of the "frontier" view of the iPhone: developers see dollar signs—a lot of them.

Skilled Mac developers are uniquely positioned to be the first to market with the iPhone applications they've been designing in their heads since last year. They know the tools, they know the technology, they even know a lot of the APIs already, and those they don't know look a lot like the ones they do.

Mac developers also know the audience, which means that not only can they be the first to market, they can also arrive with the best products. Aesthetically and culturally, the iPhone is platform extremely close to the Mac.

The big difference for Mac developers is the size of the market. The phone market is bigger than the PC market, and Apple has a much larger chunk. Oh yeah, and don't forget the portable media player market, which might as well be called "the iPod market" at this point. It seems inevitable that the iPhone OS (née OS X) will sweep across all (non-Shuffle) iPod models in the coming years.

All told, the number of potential customers is staggering, especially to a Mac developer accustomed to selling to a tiny fraction of 5% of a smaller market. Cha-ching, indeed.

This heady mix of a potentially huge, but still nascent market and a year's worth of pent-up technological and capitalistic enthusiasm is what makes the iPhone development business proposition offered by Apple pass muster with developers. The deal: all iPhone application sales must go through Apple, and Apple takes 30% of every sale. In exchange for its cut, Apple handles application hosting, automatic updates, and customer billing.

But perhaps most importantly, Apple will also put your application a few impulsive finger taps away from every single iPhone and iPod touch user by including an icon for the new App Store on the home screen of all iPhone OS devices. Customers can wirelessly pay for, download, and install your application, using their existing iTunes account and credit card information. (Developers may pause to wipe up their drool.)

Is Apple's cut too big? As one developer put it, "70% is 100% more than you're making on iPhone apps right now." (Or, more bluntly, "How about we make shitloads of money at 70% and ask questions later.") In a nutshell, it's a land-rush mentality.

But how is this sales model going to look in a few years, when land has been claimed and lines have been drawn? For a strong argument against this kind of closed development model, look no further than the PC (and yes, Mac) software market. As Steve Wildstrom of BusinessWeek put it:

Is he right, right, right? My initial inclination is to agree wholeheartedly. But I can't help but at least consider one particularly strong argument for the viability of Apple's model: the game console business. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft all control which software gets sold on their respective platforms, and they all take a cut (in some form or another). And, like Apple, all game console manufacturers also create and sell software for the platform they own.

While the exact numbers differ wildly, and the console business also has an unseemly and grim brick-and-mortar retail component, it's still a strong validation that a "gatekeeper" model can work. Now, does it work well? Ask around the game development industry and you'll get a wide range of answers. Many times over the long history of the video game business, power has shifted too far in one direction or another—though usually towards the platform owners—and software developers have been hurt badly.

The average life expectancy of an independent game development studio should give "indie" Mac developers some pause. Granted, the financial realities of the game business are very different than those of the traditional software business, with artwork and associated digital asset management now dwarfing all other aspects of the game development process in terms of time, money, and manpower. And it's also true that the console industry has recognized this weakness in its model and has moved to address it on many fronts. But the fact that it's gone so far in the other direction that it requires this kind of (thus far scattershot and largely ineffectual) reaction definitely says something.

Still, from the lofty perch of the boardroom, the game industry looks pretty good on the all-time graph. Peaks and valleys aside, that line is pointing up, and the numbers on the y-axis are big. Looking up from what is potentially the bottom of such a graph, iPhone developers can be forgiven for getting a little starry eyed.

In the end, it's a question that the iPhone development community will have to answer for itself. As a means to jump-start the market for iPhone applications, there's no disputing the clear advantages of Apple's "App Store" model. Today, it's a win-win-win for Apple, developers, and consumers. But if you plan to be part of this world, ask yourself what kind of environment you'd like to live and work in five years down the road. It's definitely something that indie Mac developers in particular should think long and hard about between cashing all those early-days iPhone application sales checks signed by Apple.

The 2007 Rainbow Reader Helper Team

Last year, my daughter Marlowe and three of her friends organized what they labeled the "Rainbow Readers Helper Team." (I had no input on the name). They asked friends and family to sponsor them for a small amount of money for each book they read in the weeks leading up to Easter. Their goal was raising enough money to buy a family in Congo a cow. Our goal was to nurture a love of reading and a willingness to reach out and help those who find themselves in much more dire circumstances than we do.

Between the four kindergarten and first-grade girls, they raised just over $1,000—enough to buy four cows and 27 chickens for villagers in the war-torn African nation.

The Rainbow Reader Helper Team is back once again. Instead of raising money for livestock, they're going to try and make life a bit better for HIV-infected African mothers and their newborns. All of the funds raised this year will go towards buying and administering doses of Nevirapine, an antiretroviral drug. When administered to an HIV-infected mother during labor, it drops the newborn baby's chance of contracting the deadly virus from 24 percent to 8 percent. 

Marlowe is hoping to read 60 books between now and Easter, and we're hoping that some of you would be willing to sponsor her reading efforts, whether it's 5¢, 10¢, 50¢, a dollar, or some other figure per book. 

Would any of you be open to sponsoring Marlowe this year? The aid will be disbursed through the Paul Carlson Partnership, which is in turn run by the Evangelical Covenant Church, but the money raised by the girls has been and will be used for aid, not proselytization. About 10 percent of the donations will go towards administrative overhead, I'm told by people at the Partnership.

A bit about the Partnership:

If you're willing to sponsor Marlowe or any of the other Rainbow Readers, shoot me an e-mail with the amount, and when the Rainbow Readers are done with their books, I'll let you know what the total is and will post the completed reading list here. You can settle up via PayPal or check, and all pledges are 100 percent tax-deductible.

It's a great opportunity to help out some people who are less fortunate than most of us are while nurturing a love of reading in young children. 

Update: thanks to all who have e-mailed with pledges. We really appreciate them. I got an e-mail this morning from someone at the Paul Carlson Partnership who told me that my 100% goes to aid statement was a bit overzealous. In fact, about 10% of the funds collected goes towards overhead. If that's cause for concern for anyone who has already pledged, I understand completely.

Bookstores, like other bricks-and-mortar businesses, are feeling the heat from online retailers like Amazon.com. While in Ann Arbor, Michigan, this last weekend, I had the chance to drop in on Borders' brand-new concept store (the company is headquarted in Ann Arbor), a revamped bookselling/digital media destination that hopes to keep the bookstore relevant in a changing world. As Borders notes, "With a mission to be a headquarters for knowledge and entertainment, Borders simply had to evolve and participate in the digital business." Indeed it did. But are the changes enough?

If you're not in the Ann Arbor area, you can take a look at the company's "concept store" photos online, but here's the gist: a brighter, more open space, leather chairs, a performance stage, TVs and kiosks, good coffee, and a large digital media space.

The concept store
(Courtesy Borders)

The digital media space is the most interesting update. The area allows customers to come with MP3 players, buy music and audiobooks from PC-based kiosks, and load them into their devices before leaving the store. It's clearly targeted at less tech-savvy users who might be intimidated by syncing a music player to a PC. But does it work with the iPod? No. (Burning to a CD is also an option.)

Consumers can also pick up self-publishing packages sponsored by Lulu.com, can print digital photos and order custom photo books, and can use computerized genealogy services. Borders also sells a wide range of gear now, including Sony Readers, the Slingbox AV, and digital cameras.

Customers can do all of this from home, but Borders is clearly hoping that by providing a trained human presence, it can attract a new audience to these digital tools and services.

The digital music kiosks
(Courtesy Borders)

The "personal touch" theme, one that can't easily be replicated online, is also the driving force behind the built-in stage at the back of the store. The stage area also features a LongPen device with video screen and microphone that allows fans to get books "signed" by authors who are far away.

Finally, far more books in the stores are shelved "cover out" (as opposed to "spine out") than before, making browsing easier but cutting down on potential inventory. With casual browsing often a weak point online, Borders hopes to keep its stores a preferred destination for those who just want to scan the shelves.

The concept store "officially" opens this weekend, and Borders has plans to roll the concept out across the country in the next couple years. More power to them.

The upgrade seems like a solid one, though as the population becomes increasingly tech-literate, Borders may have a harder time pitching its in-house digital services to users (and those who want to buy a camera will no doubt just go to the Best Buy next door... if they leave the house at all).

I've been using Yahoo's AJAX-heavy webmail since it was in beta. It's the best webmail I've tried, in large part because of how much it feels like a desktop app. That happy feeling fades whenever I inadvertently click on a mailto: link, though, as Windows launches a bloated instance of Outlook.

I can change this, of course, but to do so I need to install Yahoo Messenger; a more elegant solution would be welcome. (Internet Explorer 7, which I used after putting up with Firefox 2's memory-hogging ways for a month, conveniently offers prebuilt access to Windows Live Mail, but not Gmail or Yahoo Mail).

Firefox 3 looked set to solve my problem, as it gives users more control over mailto: links. It also fixes most of the memory problems, adds some cool new features like site-specific options, and generally works great (see our first look at beta 3). But what the current beta doesn't do is fix my Yahoo Mail woes.

In fact, it won't even load Yahoo Mail correctly, instead throwing up obscure errors. A look at the "known issues" in the release shows that beta 3 also doesn't work with Windows Live Mail, and it has problems with Gmail as well.

That's a serious drawback to browser adoption, made even more serious by the fact that it's not Firefox's fault; the browser maker needs to rely on others for fixes. Looking at the Yahoo Mail bug tracker, we can see that the issue is on Yahoo's end, but what's encouraging is that Yahoo makes fixing it a priority. Yahoo Mail managers show up repeatedly in the bug discussion to let people know that it is being worked on and has now been fixed (though not yet rolled out onto the production servers, which should happen soon).

It's a sign of Firefox's clout that companies like Yahoo make such bug fixes a priority, though it is a bit disappointing that beta 3 of a major new Firefox could roll out and still not work with major webmail services. Such problems could leave a bad taste in the mouth of testers. It's also a reminder that web companies are, by definition, interested in making their products work on a variety of web browsers in a way that companies like Microsoft historically have not been. (Yahoo has also fixed problems with its Yahoo Mail in Safari 3.)

In any event, I'm excited about the possibility of switching from IE7 to Firefox 3 if the webmail problems are cleaned up, but that invites another question: if Microsoft is serious about its Yahoo bid, how much longer can Yahoo Mail remain its own and not be rolled into Windows Live Yahoo Hotmail Spaces?

This Yahoo/Microsoft thing presents another case of the Cynic's Dilemma¹. The classic example is the leader of a wacko religious cult. Either he's a brilliant student of the human psyche, consciously manipulating people for his own benefit, or he's a true believer. Which scenario is more scary? Which is more evil? Which is more likely? Which would make you feel better about the world? Maybe it's a little of both?

On to Microsoft and Yahoo. The conventional wisdom is that this will be bad for Yahoo—that Microsoft will make Yahoo worse. Smart employees will leave. Existing technologies will be replaced with Microsoft equivalents at great cost and little or no gain. The corporate culture will suffer, making it difficult to hire good people. And everyone will be distracted for years by internal restructuring.

This is just a special case of the more general belief that any company purchased by Microsoft will be hurt by the new ownership. That, in turn, may seem like an example of the even more broad belief that things are lost when any big corporation swallows up a smaller one, but it's much worse than that. Yes, people are always wary of Big Corporate Ownership, but there are equally common expectations for improvement (big as corporation savior instead of villain). None of those expectations seem to exist for any acquisition that involves Microsoft.

And that brings us to the dilemma. Does Microsoft really believe that a combined Microsoft and Yahoo is greater than the sum of its parts? Does it believe that it can improve Yahoo by sharing its technology and setting a new strategic direction? This is the "true believer" case.

The other side of the coin, "the savvy huckster" scenario, says that Microsoft's acquisition of Yahoo is simply a means to eliminate it as a competitor. Microsoft will pillage Yahoo, taking as many of its customers and high-traffic properties as possible, and selling off anything it doesn't need. Yahoo is just another refueling stop on Microsoft's path to do battle with Google.

So, which is worse? Is it more depressing to think that Microsoft, seemingly alone among industry observers, truly believes that there's some legitimate "synergy" (ugh) here, or that it is consciously leveraging its bank account to crush a competitor? In one case, Microsoft looks hopelessly out of touch, or perhaps just so desperate that denial has set in. The other evokes the "evil" Microsoft from the bad-old days of the 1990s.

If I were Microsoft, I'd rather be thought of as an evil genius than a deluded geezer. From what I've read, opinions seem pretty evenly split. The most concise and poetic summary of the "true believer" case comes from Andy Baio (linked by John Gruber) who said this about the potential deal: "It's like tying the Titanic to the iceberg. It'll keep you from sinking just long enough to freeze to death."

The analogy betrays the common belief that both companies are not looking so hot these days, with Yahoo sinking fast and Microsoft merely melting slowly (held afloat, for now, by the mountain of cold Windows and Office cash hidden below the surface). But that inevitably leads to the conclusion that Microsoft can't possibly really believe that it can cure what ails Yahoo. Yahoo may be floundering, but its products and services in the web space have a track record that's a hell of a lot better than Microsoft's. And so we're back to "Microsoft as nefarious mastermind" again.

Fake Fake Steve Jobs (that is, Daniel Lyons writing for his Fake Steve Jobs blog, but sounding a lot more like Daniel Lyons than Fake Steve) starts off solidly in the "consciously evil" camp. Commenting on Ballmer's state of mind regarding the deal, he writes, "But here's the really dark part of all this. He knows it won't work."

But then Lyons throws one of Ballmer's own analogies back at him: "It's like taking the two guys who finished second and third in a 100-yard dash and tying their legs together and asking for a rematch, believing that now they'll run faster." In the end, he ends up irresistibly attracted to the idea of a sad, desperate, Microsoft.

And round and round we go. Can it really be a little of both? Can a corporation as a whole be so bipolar, on the one hand believing its own press releases, while on the other hand cooly executing what it believes to be the most expedient plan to dispatch an enemy, despite the possibly enormous cost to itself? Can Microsoft really be of two minds on a single deal?

Sure, why not? Individual people are full of such contradictions, and collections of people are further encumbered by groupthink and other ills. But either way, the rah-rah public posturing by Microsoft about the deal certainly leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Perhaps the saddest thing about of the whole situation is that Yahoo, for all its problems, is just one good CEO and a few years away from a reemergence as the strongest real competitor to Google. A takeover by anyone—but especially Microsoft—makes the hopes of such a recovery quite dim. And Microsoft, for its part, just can't seem to catch a break lately. Its recent investment in Facebook was an early sign of desperation—another move that everyone else in the industry saw as ill-considered, if not downright comical in terms of the numbers.

Business analysts, especially those not deeply involved in the technology sector, view all of this as a natural, necessary phenomenon: consolidation in a maturing industry. But that's cold comfort for the poor souls stuck in limbo as these two giants collide. And pity the rest of the industry that must deal with the unruly evil of a wildly flailing Microsoft with deep pockets and a damaged psyche. Yep, if this deal goes through, it's hard to escape the thought that it'll spell one thing for everyone involved: ...well, you know.

1. A cynical person might think I just made that up. ↩

(Warning: This staff journal post is based entirely on anecdotes. If you aren't into that, you have no one to blame but yourself if you keep reading!)

Living in Chicago, I see a lot of people when I leave the house. People on the street, people at the gym, and especially people on public transportation. The train or bus provides the perfect opportunity to people-watch (if you're into that sort of thing)—for everyone else, it's time to tune out the world and listen to your iPod.

I say "iPod" because it seems to be the chosen music player of about 98 percent of the city of Chicago. White earbuds are everywhere, and you can spot people fiddling with every type of iPod imaginable. I've seen people at the gym with oldschool, first-gen iPods from 2001. I've spotted iPod minis of every color on the bus. 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, and 6G (the "classic" model) iPods on the train. Women tend to prefer the first and second-gen iPod nanos. Guys like black iPods—even those ugly U2 iPods. I've even seen cyclists fiddling with their iPod touches (is it just me, or is that just about the worst iPod to choose if you're going to use it while navigating the streets on a bike?). And iPhones—well, let's not even talk about those. It seems like you can't even turn around without bumping into at least four at a time.

If you're a part of the remaining two percent, you own something else, most often something from Creative. Or sometimes I see people plugged into a music-playing flip-phone. You don't really see Zunes that often, or ever really. Which honestly seems bizarre, since Microsoft has sold millions of them by now. They have to be going somewhere, right? In all my time watching people in this great city, I have only seen two Zunes: one strapped to the arm of a jogger on the street, and one at the airport. (One was brown, in case you all were curious.)

But while I can already feel you guys firing up your e-mail clients to tell me how much of an Apple shill I am, take a deep breath. (I'm not, by the way. In fact, I get more e-mail accusing me of being a Microsoft shill than that accusing me of being an Apple shill.) If there's a single type of iPod that I have seen less than Zunes, it is the third-generation iPod nano—also known as the "fat nano" or "iPod nano, fatty style." 

When I reviewed the newest iteration of Apple's most popular iPod, I noted that its new form factor wasn't as comfortable in the hand as the previous model. Not only that, but it just looks wide, blunt, and frankly, a little ugly in comparison to previous iterations of the nano. Sure, it gained video capabilities, but was it worth it? I was optimistic... for other people, not myself. I ended up returning that nano and going back to my red 2G iPod nano that I held so dear. 

Well, perhaps other people felt the same way after all. Four months later, I have only spotted a single 3G iPod nano (for those curious, it was at the gym, and a woman had it). In a world where I probably see between 50 and 100 music-playing devices (or more) in a day, and almost all of them are iPods of some sort, only a single 3G iPod nano seems... abnormal. Statistically speaking, I should see more of them than Zunes, but I haven't yet. Even eliminating all of the older iPods that I see, I see plenty of other newer models regularly. But not the 3G nano.

Unfortunately, we'll never know the truth about whether the 3G iPod nano is selling well or not, since Apple doesn't provide broken-down sales numbers between iPods. But based on my totally anecdotal, completely meaningless personal observation, people just aren't into the 3G nano as they are other iPod models. Or the Zune, for that matter. 

We've got some exciting changes planned for Ars in 2008, and we're pleased to announce one of them now: Ars Media Reviews. Over the years, we've occasionally reviewed books and movies, but in 2008, we'll start doing it in a systematic way—and we'd like your help.

Once each month, we'll cover a title of interest to the tech community in the patented Ars style: in-depth, with plenty of analysis and context. We'll go beyond the standard review format by including an interview with the author/creator, too, along with reactions from our readers. From there, we'll turn it over to the community to hash out the issues raised by the piece in the discussion forum. We'll be announcing each month's title in advance, a process that should lead to plenty of intelligent discussion.

Our first book will be The Very Best of Technology Writing 2007. It's a fitting title to launch our review series since it lends itself perfectly to discussing the practice and process of writing about technology, something that obviously concerns us (as writers) and you (as readers). I'll be talking with book editor Steven Levy, who is also a senior editor at Newsweek, for the review.

Here's what we need from you to make this project even better:

1) Suggestions for book and film titles. We want to cover what's interesting to you; while the Ars editorial staff has already started drawing up our list for this year, we'd love community input. Leave ideas in the comments or email me directly. Titles need be worth extended discussion, so collections of tips (for instance) would probably be out of bounds. Documentaries on people who play competitive Donkey Kong? Fair game.

2) Reactions to the book. We'll be running the first review in mid-February. If you read the book before then, feel free to drop me a one-paragraph comment, question, or concern about any issue raised by the book; we'll include the best ones in the review itself, and any good questions I'll make sure to ask of Levy.

Thanks for reading.