Apple Stakes Web Claim - by Peter H. Lewis (online at http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/01/circuits/articles/27pete.html)
Get ready to be served in a big way by the companies that make personal computer operating system software. Apple Computer Inc. and the Microsoft Corporation have been making frequent references lately to services they will provide to their clients (that's you, if you use either Mac OS 9 or the forthcoming Windows 2000) via the Internet.
Apple unveiled the first four of its new Internet-based services, called iTools, this month on its redesigned Web site, www.apple.com. These inaugural iTools and their companion services, iCards and iReview, give a glimpse of the potential ways services will change the way people use personal computers.
Microsoft, which is preparing to release Windows 2000 next month, has been more restrained in talking about future services for its clients. And who can blame them? The Justice Department has its gimlet eye on Microsoft, watching for shenanigans that appear to take unfair advantage of the Windows monopoly.
But that's exactly what Apple says its services are all about: taking unfair advantage of the fact that Apple controls the client operating system at one end, the server system at the other, and the Internet portal where the two converge.
Apple's initial array of services, only for users who have OS 9, is displayed as folder tabs across the top of its Apple Web site, which also can be reached by typing www.mac.com -- the prime unreal estate of Apple's Internet strategy. These services include free e-mail accounts with a mac.com address, the best electronic greeting card service on the Internet, a human-based system for reviewing other Web sites, a new kind of safeguard to prevent access by kids to Internet pornography and other objectionable material, a simple set of tools for creating and posting personal home pages on the Web, and -- my favorite -- a personal data backup and storage service in the sky.
Yes, services like these already exist everywhere on the Internet. The key is that Apple, because it controls the software at both ends of the Internet connection, can do things that other software and Internet companies cannot do, like forge seamless links and bridges between Macs that may be on adjoining desks or on separate continents.
The Apple services are free, as long as you have access to a relatively current Macintosh with a PowerPC processor. If that means going out and buying a Mac, well, that is how Apple intends to justify these services.
In case anyone misses the point, Apple even states that its new services are for "members only." Windows users need not apply. And other Macintosh software developers need not apply, either. Apple will build and control its own iTools, said Steve Jobs, Apple's iCEO.
There is no reason, technically at least, why Microsoft cannot do the same thing with its forthcoming Windows 2000 services. Suddenly, it seems charming that the Justice Department was so upset with Microsoft for merely combining a personal computer operating system (exhibit A, Windows) with a piece of software known as a Web browser (exhibit B, Internet Explorer).
What Microsoft may be preparing to do, and what Apple Computer has already started to do with its iTools, is to create a technical country club in cyberspace where the food is superior, the golf courses are more manicured, the pool is Bondi blue, the best coaches work there, the parties are cooler, and there are no old junkers in the parking lot.
Although there are ways for others to sneak in, Apple's new iTools services are available to users of Apple's Mac OS 9 or, in about six months, Mac OS X (pronounced "ten"). Use of the services also requires a membership, which imparts a unique member name and password. The member name -- Steve, for example -- becomes the basis for the free e-mail account, as in, Steve@mac.com, which one assumes is already taken.
Using proprietary software to forge seamless Net links.
E-mail is already the most popular service on the Internet, but Apple's version has advantages over any of the other freemail services. For one thing, it is advertising-free, if you don't count the entire Apple computer and e-mail address as one giant advertisement. Apple Email can be retrieved and read with any e-mail program, and Apple makes it easy to automatically forward mac.com mail to another e-mail account.
The next service is iReview, which may become a guide for choosing among millions of Web sites. Apple has a team of editors -- it refuses to say how many, and for all we know it may be two Old Media guys chained in a dungeon in Cupertino -- who visit Web sites and assign them grades. Borrowing a trick from Amazon, it also encourages members to add their own ratings and reviews.
Electronic greeting cards are extremely popular on the Internet for reasons that elude me, but Apple's iCards service is quite clever. Anyway, if you enjoy sending people e-cards, you will adore iCards. There are no advertisements. And that brings us to iTools, a collection of services that will be expanded over time. There are currently four tools. Email is one; the others are KidSafe, HomePage and iDisk.
KidSafe is Apple's solution for protecting kids from the childish things that adults put on the Internet, like dirty pictures, nasty chat sessions and assorted fringe philosophies. Most current Internet filters come with a list of Web sites and words that children are not allowed to see. But new Web sites are created every day and the filters cannot keep up with all the bad ones. Also, blocking words like "sex" prevents students from seeing socially redeemable sites that include the word.
KidSafe is a reverse filter. It limits kids to sites that have been approved by a special panel of certified teachers and librarians, perhaps including the two guys in the dungeon at Apple. Apple says some 50,000 sites have been approved so far, and it plans to approve and add 10,000 new sites a month. As always, technology is a poor substitute for close parental involvement, but KidSafe is the next best thing.
HomePage is a collection of tools and templates that allow members to create personal Web pages on a free publishing area called homepage.mac.com. The most popular use will probably be posting job resumes and baby pictures. The tools are not very sophisticated, but they are easy to use.
The last and most important of the iTools is iDisk. With iDisk, Apple has at last atoned for the lack of a floppy disk drive on its iMac computers. The iDisk is a virtual hard disk, in effect a disk in the sky, where any iTools member can park up to 20 megabytes worth of files, free. (Apple will eventually allow people to rent more space for an additional fee, Mr. Jobs said).
The user's personal iDisk shows up on the computer screen just as if it were a physical drive on the computer. One can drag files and folders back and forth from the local drive to the iDisk drive, but the speed of the transfers depends on the speed of the user's Internet connection. It will almost always be slower than a native hard disk.
There are five permanent folders inside the iDisk, labeled Documents, Movies, Pictures, Sites and Public. The Public folder is especially intriguing. If the owner of the iDisk so chooses, he or she can publish documents, pictures, movies or Web pages in the Public folder and make them available to any other iTools members who want to see them. Who needs floppies?
A proud parent could drag an entire album of digital pictures, or even an iMovie, into the public file of the iDisk, send an iCard of one of the pictures to grandma@mac.com, and announce, "Hey, Grandma, go to the iDisk page, type in my iTools user name, and open my Public folder to see more pictures." The folder shows up on the screen of Grandma's iMac.
Many people will find iDisk useful for squirreling away backup copies of important files. If lightning strikes my office and turns my iMac into a puddle of molten goo, I can retrieve my important files from Apple's servers and install them on my new Mac, assuming, of course, that I am not a puddle of goo myself. While the Public folder is open to everyone, the other folders in the iDisk are protected.
Apple needs to do a better job persuading its "members" that their private information is indeed private and will not be exploited for Apple's commercial gain. After all, discretion is a hallmark of good service. But the idea that someday an Apple expert can fix my Mac remotely, upgrade my software and warn me when my hard drive is about to crash is compelling.
Bob Nunn - Director of Customer Service & Web Content ihomedecor.com - At These Prices Everyone is a Decorator President, Operator Headgap Systems President, AppleCore of Memphis, Inc. E-mail: headgap@headgap.com
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