All Things Digital

We’re posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May.

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

In the less contentious spirit of DEMOfall and TechCrunch50, two demo conferences taking place simultaneously this week, we’re happy to bring you all the demos we had onstage at D6.

First up is TransMedia’s Glide, an operating system that cuts across all operating systems.

There are two videos showing the whole demo below.

In the first one, TransMedia Chairman and CEO Donald Leka walks Walt and Kara through Glide on Mac OSX, Windows and the iPhone.

In the second, Leka demos the engaging kids’ version of Glide, shows how the OS runs in a browser on an iPhone and talks about the company’s business model.

When BoomTown was younger and much more impressionable in the 1990s, the television dramedy “Northern Exposure” had an unusually profound impact.

Set in the fictional town of Cicely, Alaska, the Emmy Award-winning show was a classic fish-out-of-water story about Joel Fleischman, a New York doctor (played by Rob Morrow) transplanted contractually to the Great White North and thus very grumpy about the whole thing, even as he fell ever more in love with the place and its odd citizens.

(Joel Fleischmanesque is the just how I felt coming to California to cover Silicon Valley, after a lifetime on the it-only-matters-here East Coast, but that’s another story altogether.)

In any case, although the show was shot just east of Seattle, the grand idea of Alaska always stuck with me.

And I am finally headed there to take a lovely vacation cruise with the family up the coast from Vancouver to Seward this week and part of next week.

Of course, Alaska is much, much more than a television show. So, with the recorded version of John Muir’s classic “Travels in Alaska” loaded into my iPhone–you didn’t think I would leave my many gadgets at home, did you?–I am looking forward to finding out all about it.

“To the lover of pure wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world,” wrote Muir.

To the woods (and glaciers and mountain peaks and sea), then–hopefully, with an Internet connection!

If you manage to finish my blogus opus on Facebook’s latest mini-crisis, which is of interest to precisely 16 people on University Avenue in Palo Alto, you can expect few more posts from me over the next week.

Even if Facebook goes public, even if Apple (AAPL) makes a touch-screen laptop, even if Microsoft (MSFT) finally gets some sense knocked into it and buys Yahoo (YHOO).

Especially if Microsoft buys Yahoo. So don’t call me, Frank.

For your information, though, the last two parts of the D6 interview I did with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg will still auto-publish on Wednesday and Thursday.

Until then, here is a video of the moose-is-loose opening credits of “Northern Exposure,” along with one of the ending of my favorite episode on the founding of the wonderful town of Cicely.

Someone get a dose of Ritalin stat to the noisy but deeply misguided critics who took news of the huge number of downloads of apps for the Apple (AAPL) iPhone and immediately concluded it was just not good enough.

Thus, as reported today in The Wall Street Journal, 60 million downloads in 30 days–mostly for free apps, but with about $30 million in revenue, and a runway of three million more new iPhones out there too–is a chance to talk about how it all is just so unexciting and how the apps market is officially saturated?

Am I missing something here? One would assume that were these pundits pioneers, they would get to Ohio and declare that the going farther west held very little promise, thank you very much!

Wrote TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld:

The question is how many apps can one person really manage before becoming overwhelmed. While the initial impulse is to download as many apps as possible to try them out, there is a limit to how many apps you can juggle on your iPhone. It is not much different than a PC. You have tons of apps, but how many do you actually use on a regular basis? For most people, that number is probably no more than ten apps, and on a daily basis, maybe three or four, tops.”

Yes, that personal computer thing has been such a disappointment for us all and a real failure in spurring the creation of a plethora of multi-billion-dollar software makers, hasn’t it?

In actuality, while there is obviously going to be an initial period of frantic trying-out of apps and a fall-off of regular usage, the entire point is that a useful and important platform is being developed here.

Stlll, GigaOm’s Om Malik talked to new iPhone analytics company Pinch Media and managed to find lemons in the lemonade:

Using the caveat that only a few app makers were using the Pinch Analytics library, [Pinch's Founder Greg Yardley] pointed out that as per their data, the ratio of free downloads to paid downloads is at least 10 to 1. He also said that the pace of downloads is slowing, which is expected because the early rush is behind us. According to data collected by Pinch Media, on average, less than 20 percent of an application’s overall unique users return to an application each day. Yardley also pointed out that people are using the apps for just under five minutes at a time, on average. The majority only use the applications once per day; the average number of uses per day is around 1.2.

Looks like I am not the only one who is getting bored with some of the more blah apps. Phew!”

Of course, Malik and others will not like each and every app, but that is not exactly a surprise; nor should it be the focus.

As Apple CEO Steve Jobs correctly noted to The Journal:

“Phone differentiation used to be about radios and antennas and things like that. We think, going forward, the phone of the future will be differentiated by software.”

Exactly. This is less about the iPhone, than it is about all mobile phones, going forward.

But, because of the iPhone’s trailblazing, they will be easier to use, because of apps and multi-touch and a much richer multimedia experience.

That market will thus require a lot of apps, some of which will work and some of which will flop.

As I wrote about the popularity of the third-party apps and Apple’s iTunes App Store:

That’s because Apple has built a platform for adults.

Like many, I have downloaded dozens of iPhone third-party apps over the last several days.

And, unlike what one can discover on the other hot apps platform–namely Facebook–they are uniformly superb, lovely, useful and fun in a really nonjuvenile way. …

I think you would not say so after looking over a lot of what is available at the App Store on iTunes.

Lots and lots of the apps there are games, of course, which are the most popular.

But what amazingly clever games, like MotionX Poker with the delightful rolling dice, or the humming swish of PhoneSaber (totally silly, but in a profound manner that Vampire-biting on Facebook will never achieve).

And the list of useful stuff–Pandora Radio, Starmap, WeatherBug, Evernote and WHERE–is long and growing longer, and these seem to enjoy as much prominence and popularity as the sillier stuff.

In addition, the ability to truly use other Web services in a mobile setting–from Photobucket to Yelp to AIM to the New York Times–makes the iPhone an even more useful device to me.

And for each of the apps I can also imagine various monetization schemes that now make a lot more sense since the iPhone platform enhances them with mobility and simplicity.”

Or, as the cliché goes: “The Plains are covered with the bodies of pioneers.”

But some of them, of course, made it to California.

The rest, as they also say, is history.

Speaking of which, here is a video of AllThingsD.com’s Co-Executive Editor Walt Mossberg discussing the iPhone’s significance at the Aspen Ideas Festival in July, in a short snippet from his talk there:

So, I have been standing by, trying to make sense of the debate that has swirled around Apple CEO, Co-Founder and font-of-all, Steve Jobs, with regard to his health or, more specifically, the lack thereof.

And after listening to all of the debate about it–mostly indignant declarations by the media, making their case mostly by wheedling milder indignant declarations from stock analysts and corporate tsk-tsk outfits–I have concluded that what is ailing Jobs is exactly no one’s business.

Even if his every breath is critical to the ongoing operations of Apple, the reason most use as their main argument for Jobs to tell all, it goes double.

Why?

Read more »

BoomTown is flatly fascinated by the rather incredible memo Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer penned to his troops yesterday, with news of the reorganization of its massive Platforms and Services Division and the departure of its president, Kevin Johnson.

In the memo, in a very rare public airing of its less-clean laundry, Ballmer actually casts Microsoft’s two major rivals, Apple and Google, in a somewhat positive light, while still vowing to best them.

It is not often that Ballmer or even Microsoft Founder Bill Gates mentions either company in public. More to the point, what neither typically does is acknowledge that they do anything right.

But Ballmer did so yesterday in the memo, perhaps a sign that Microsoft (MSFT) realizes it has trouble on its hands and needs to publicly declare tough enemies to pump itself up to fight.

Read more »

When Apple releases its third-quarter earnings after the close today, Wall Street will be looking hard for a solid performance from the company to help buoy a tech sector smacked silly by weak reports from industry leaders Microsoft and Google last week.

It’s a lot of weight to put on the slim shoulders of Apple (AAPL), even though the company has shifted in recent years–largely due to the iPod and now iPhone phenomena–from a maker of devices for the elite to a mass consumer icon and a major influencer of key technology trends.

And, as has been much written about, Apple’s iPhone has brought the vision of a touchscreen minicomputer-on-the-go to the kind of reality that seemed impossible only a few years ago.

But more important to me is what is happening with the plethora of third-party apps now available from the iTunes App Store–both free and paid (picture below)–for use on the iPhone platform.

That’s because Apple has built a platform for adults.

Read more »

On Friday, which was the debut day for the new 3G iPhone, BoomTown was at Apple’s flagship store on Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan bright and early to chronicle the marketing madness wrought by his iPhoniness Steve Jobs.

I even took my mother, who was incredulous at the lines of New York natives waiting for the trendiest of smartphones. “Crazy” was her exact phraseology.

So, after a lovely weekend at the shore, I went back late Sunday night (without Mom!) to the same store, assuming it had all calmed down.

Oh no, my friends.

Here’s a new video of the carrying-on that continues into the night, as well as my original video below it:

BoomTown landed at New York’s JFK Airport this morning and, of course, could not resist visiting the flagship Apple (AAPL) store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on iPhone 3G Day.

That’s right! JesusPhone 2.0 is nigh!

(Well, was nigh, I guess, and apparently unable to be activated due to system overload.)

In any case, I did a particularly jumpy video of the doings at one of Apple’s most famous stores, as legions of New Yorkers waited in line for their cheaper, faster, prettier iPhone.

Added bonus: it includes an appearance at the end by my unimpressed-with-Steve-Jobs-worshipping-geeks mother, who goes by the name of–I am not kidding–Lucky.

Here’s the video:

While Walt Mossberg’s review of Apple’s (AAPL) latest version of the 3G iPhone is getting all the buzz after it appeared last night, BoomTown is more riveted to the ad next to it showing my longtime partner in a very natty suit and tie (pictured below).

Oh, I have seen a suit on the typically more casually dressed Walt before–at my wedding and when Walt got a big award from Columbia University recently. But we really like the photo of him in what looks like a James Bondish Brioni in the ad for his debut this week on the Fox Business News.

He had previously appeared weekly on CNBC, which has a deal with The Wall Street Journal for appearances by reporters.

(Fox Business is owned by News Corp., which also owns The Journal and this site.)

Walt will be appearing now every Thursday at 11:30 a.m. ET on Fox Business, but will also appear tomorrow at the same time to talk about the newest iPhone.

In the review, Walt gave the new device a thumbs up, although with some caveats.

He wrote:

Bottom line: If you’ve been waiting to buy an iPhone until it dropped in price, or ran on faster cell networks, you might want to take the plunge, if you can live with the higher service costs and the weaker battery life. The same goes for those with existing iPhones who love the device but crave faster cellular data speeds. But if you already own an iPhone, and can usually use Wi-Fi for data, you probably should hold off and get the free software upgrade before deciding whether it’s worth getting the new hardware.”

Let’s be honest–the tech media this week will be all about Apple’s (AAPL) newest 3G iPhone, which is set to be released into the wild on Friday.

So let’s get an early start, shall we?

And what better way than re-posting BoomTown’s videos from the maiden launch of the JesusPhone, which took place just a tiny bit over a year ago.

As I wrote then:

The big question for me is: What will all the iPhonatics do after the much-hyped iPhone from Apple debuts this Friday to continue to feed their state of expectant euphoria?

iPhone 2.0!

But until then, we might as well wallow in it.”

Indeed! More wallowing is definitely in order then!

So, here is a trio of videos: the first taken at San Francisco’s Apple store last year; the second at Palo Alto’s; and the third that proves, well, that the first iPhone sure can blend!

The Giant iPhone of San Francisco:

iDay in Palo Alto

Will the iPhone Blend?

This 60-second video version of Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs’s keynote speech by Mahalo Daily earlier this week at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, mostly about the iPhone 3G, just cracks BoomTown up and is actually pretty informative.

Here’s the video:

With the drop in price of the iPhone in its new 3G mode to the low, low price of $199, Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs was signaling that he was pricing them to move.

Or, as the old retail cliche goes: Stack them high and watch them fly.

The bid to bring the groundbreaking smartphone to the masses is a good thing, of course, in order to move its influence well beyond the early-adopter crowd and generally elite market that it has been most popular in.

I was one of those customers, of course, buying an iPhone almost as soon as it was available.

But, from reports, even though the 2.0 version is obviously better (although I have yet to see one), I will not be doing that again when the new iPhone 3G (pictured here) comes out in a few weeks.

Why not?

No, it is not because AT&T’s (T) network is so weak–as it has been for me–because I am already locked into a two-year contract anyway from my first iPhone.

No, it is not because I am cheap either–I will buy any gadget that shows up on my doorstep.

No, it is not because I don’t admire the iPhone for many of its qualities, such as its spectacular touchscreen, Web and multimedia experience (although a better camera would be nice).

It’s actually because of the same rap everyone has made on the first iPhone–the virtual keyboard that I still find irksome to use, which makes my email and texting experience completely frustrating.

Add to that the continued lack of a cut-and-paste function–it makes the decision not to upgrade an easy one.

On the other hand, I will be first in line to decide on which of the next versions of the RIM (RIMM) BlackBerry I will happily overpay for.

That would either be the BlackBerry Bold (pictured here), a tasty-looking upgrade to the traditional one with better everything (screen, multimedia, connection).

This is an easy yes for me, because I have been a fan of the BlackBerry from its block-of-soap format to now, largely due to its huge usefulness as a communications device.

True story of my obsession: I was clicking away and sending updates, right up until the drugs kicked in as I was wheeled into the delivery room when I was having my son.

I know, I know! I am a freak.

But the thing is exceedingly useful to me and has been, as I often joke, one of the most reliable relationships of my life.

That’s why I am a bit wary of the second possible BlackBerry choice–its iPhone-copycat called the Thunder.

Despite my so-so-experience with the iPhone, I do love its touchscreen technology, a feature I miss with my standard-issue BlackBerry.

So, that will obviously be the most attractive part of the Thunder to me.

My great hope, of course, will be that it will have more than a virtual keyboard, but one with real keys to click.

Because the lack of one is a nonstarter for me, which is exactly why my iPhone 1.0 has become a glorified and much more expensive iPod Touch for me.

(By the way, here’s a post on Walt Mossberg’s first impressions of the iPhone 3G and here’s a Voices piece by Dan Gillmor, who is also dubious about getting one.)

One hoped that the Apple iPhone 3G media Hypestar that descended on the tech news arena would have been able to drown out the irksome bickering that has seemingly become a daily occurrence between billionaire investor Carl Icahn and Yahoo (YHOO) via dueling public letters.

But no! And, unless Microsoft (MSFT) mercifully steps in and forks over $34 a share to rebid for all of Yahoo, it’s likely this playground-level of fighting will go on until Aug. 1.

Why? Because that’s when Yahoo will hold its annual meeting, which is where Icahn’s proxy fight against the company will presumably come to a head.

Thus, it’ll be a long, hot, tit-for-tat summer and I expect my 3-year-old son–who can break out into “Kung Fu Panda” hiii-yah dementia at any moment–will be behaving better than this pair in the three months ahead.

I can’t believe that BoomTown is saying this–given that we hoped and prayed for the day when Yahoo would finally emerge from its year-long cone of silence and start talking.

As it turns out, those were the days, my friend.

Because the back-and-forth between Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock and Icahn has all the annoyance of two cats howling at each other in the alley in the middle of the night and none of the suspense.

Let’s be clear: This is mostly Icahn’s poison-pen war, trying to whip up a big dish of shareholder ire, in order to increase his threat and, of course, the possibility of a big payday for himself.

Does BoomTown imagine Icahn cares one little bit about the employees of Yahoo or the best course of action for the company?

Not even one teeny-weeny little bit. And yet, he must drone on.

Like yesterday, when Icahn fired off another of his increasingly fanciful missives on the same basic theme: Yahoo is run by idiots.

Previously, he had focused on Yahoo’s botching of the Microsoft takeover fight, the evils of the generous severance plan Yahoo put in place and then on his intention to oust Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang.

Now, Icahn is moving onto a golden oldie with an accusation that Yahoo let Google (GOOG) clean its clock over the last few years.

What? You’re kidding! Actually, even the not-so-swift Jo from “The Facts of Life” would have caught onto that fact of tech life long, long ago.

Nonetheless, Icahn blusters: “I ask again what your great ‘plan’ has been over the last few years. … Why did you permit Google to leave you in the dust?”

Previously, he had meandered into spy-versus-spy territory with this gem: “Until now, I naively believed that self-destructive doomsday machines were fictional devices found only in James Bond movies. I never believed that anyone would actually create and activate one in real life. I guess I never knew about Yang and the Yahoo Board.”

Cue the 10-second countdown of the nuclear missile aimed at New York, as Yang strokes his white Persian cat malevolently!

Which is why it is perplexing that Yahoo chooses to so quickly engage with Icahn by answering such dopiness.

But Bostock did with the seriousness of a righteous preacher, when he stated primly last week: “Conspicuously absent from your letter is any credible plan for Yahoo other than a repetition of your insistence that the company should sell itself to Microsoft. Indeed, your stated view that ‘the only way to salvage Yahoo in the long if not short run is to merge with Microsoft’ demonstrates that you have no other plan and causes one to wonder what exactly would happen to our company if you and your nominees were to take control of Yahoo.”

Well, it is a good point, but hardly one that makes me cheer for the Yahoo side to win.

And then again yesterday, in a letter to shareholders about the upcoming annual meeting, Yahoo gave this limp defense for not backing Icahn, without including new ideas of why its incumbent board deserved a second chance:

“Given Microsoft’s stated position of not wanting to acquire Yahoo, the election of Mr. Icahn’s slate could result in substantial erosion of stockholder value.”

Apparently, there is one thing the pair do seem to agree on, and so do I: A substantial erosion of shareholder value seems inevitable as this caterwauling continues.

Here’s the classic stylings of Apple’s Steve Jobs, showing off the iPhone 3G, from the keynote today at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

Yes, those are actual oohs and ahs from the audience, which includes a massive passel of press, as if Jobs was showing them the secret to eternal happiness (which is, by the way, not a new iPhone, but a dozen tasty donuts).

Here’s the video from MarketWatch on WSJ.com:

John “Patches” Paczkowski live-blogged from Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference today in San Francisco, featuring yet another much-anticipated–are there any that are not?–keynote by the company’s leader, Steve Jobs.

Thus, BoomTown got our Digital Daily scribe’s take on the event, where new features and other pretty-shiny-things–mostly related to the new iPhone 3G–were unveiled by Jobs, in a video below shot at ATD HQ (and where our neighbors are doing entirely too much noisy construction).

Also, if you want to know more, Walt Mossberg Mossblogged his first impressions of the updated device here.

Here’s the video with John: