Airfoil For Windows, our tool for sending any audio to Apple's AirPort Express has just reached version 2.0, gaining several major new features.

Airfoil for Windows 2 now sends audio to multiple AirPort Express units, in sync. Audio can also be played back locally in sync with remote units. And if you're looking to adjust the audio you're transmitting, you'll love Airfoil for Window's new 10-band equalizer along with the bass, treble, and balance controls.

Airfoil for Windows 2.0 is a free update for all registered users, so if you're using Airfoil For Windows already you should update to 2.0. If you're not using it yet, get more information now.

You wanted a third party mail client? Well now you've got it, with 3D Mailbox.

Check the video out (slightly NSFW, with random virtual nudity inter-spliced), and you're likely to agree with Richard Bartle, who says "When I first saw the trailer, I thought it was a parody." Instead, it's perhaps the craziest, worst idea for a mail client ever. Fortunately, it's Windows-only.

Airfoil hit version 2.0.8 today, with several minor updates. Users of Airfoil on the Mac should grab this free update now.

If you've never used it, click to learn about Airfoil. With Airfoil for Mac and Airfoil for Windows, you can send any audio to your AirPort Express, not just iTunes!

Chuck Joiner over at MacVoices has created a panel of tech geeks who own Apple's new iPhone, and I was honored to be included. The first two episodes are available now, including reports from the store lines, as well as our first impressions. If you haven't heard enough about the iPhone yet, here's your chance for more.

Mark Johns: "Cursorcerer: Hide Your Cursor at Will"

It seems the Derik DeLong over at MacUser ran with my off-the-cuff comment about MailKit before I even got to post Restarting Innovation. Derik, at 5:23 AM, you should be asleep, not blogging.

Ultimately, I don't care specifically about "MailKit". What I think is important is the idea of Apple providing more backend engines, upon which front-ends can be built. MailKit is a great example of that, but a FinderKit (for replacing the Finder), a MediaKit (for audio), and so on, could also be quite useful.

On Restarting Innovation

Michael Tsai has an in-depth response posted on his blog. To be honest, even I'm not sure frameworks are the solution. It does seem that there are problem spaces like mail and the web, however, where the core problem can be addressed once. Currently, we get multiple developers spending months re-inventing the wheel, or no developers working on the problem at all.

On Competing With Mail

Matt Ronge has been working on MailCore, the heart of Kiwi. The idea here is similar to the MailKit concept I mentioned. It's coming from a third party, however, which means it lacks Apple's resources, and it also doesn't seem to do POP. Nonetheless, it's certainly an interesting start. Matt has some comments on email. 

As far as a commercial email client goes, I don't believe selling one to be impossible, though I do think it's a tough road. However, believing a market exists for a "Mail Pro" isn't the same as such a market actually existing.

Competing with free and bundled Mail is only part of the problem. Perhaps more importantly, there's a history of failed/no-longer-active third-party commercial mail clients. Taking a look at the current landscape, I have to ask one question: If there's no viable commercial email client now, what's going to change in the future to make it possible?

For a long time, there's been debate about just how much functionality the operating system should encompass. As I noted in The Rise Of The OS, the operating system has gradually been acquiring more and more functionality that was once the domain of third-party software. In many cases, this is a necessary step to advance general computing, but it can be unfortunate for those developers who pioneered new markets.

This issue has come up many times in the Mac community, when Apple has taken over a market. iTunes and Mail have put a hurt on the MP3 and mail markets, respectively. In some cases, such as Sherlock 3 or Dashboard Widgets, Apple's effectively recreated existing third-party software and included it in the OS, sparking debate on what constitutes a rip-off.¹

Today, I'm not interested in debating what Apple has or has not ripped off from third party developers. The simple fact of the matter is that when Apple releases a major new application and bundles it free with the OS, it has the potential to be a game changer.

Indeed, when Apple² absorbs a market into the OS, several major events occur. Most obvious, the functionality in question generally becomes much more widespread. By virtue of receiving Apple's blessing, this functionality is suddenly mainstream. Good for users, who gain new functionality. However, there are also two different parties who wind up losing out when a market closes down.

Group 1: Developers

Most obvious, the developers who first settled that market generally get forced out. Competing with a free and bundled application, as a third-party developer, is incredibly tough.

But while we certainly have a self-interest in developer relations, the developers who get locked out are a very small group, and tend to land on their feet. I don't have a broad solution for this problem, besides advising third parties to stay nimble and adapt fast.

Group 2: Users

The far larger group losing out when Apple absorbs a market is the end users of the OS . How can that be, when Apple has provided an Apple-branded solution for a given need? The problem arises from the fact that Apple is not married to any particular new market. As such, the provided solutions are seldom deep. They do the job for many, perhaps even most users, but as with all software, they're seldom complete.

In the comments for The Rise Of The OS, Rory Prior of ThinkMac notes:

"You end up in a situation where the bundled apps aren't necessarily that great but the environment has been starved of enough oxygen that a healthy ecosystem of 3rd party alternatives can't really survive. It would be nice to see Apple recognising this and working more with the wider developer community instead of trying to go it alone so much."

How About Frameworks?

It seems to me that there is a solution and it's one we've seen before, from Apple even - frameworks. Apple released the WebKit framework back in 2005, and it's now in use in dozens of applications, from browsers to RSS readers to other seemingly unrelated apps. WebKit has been a boon for OS X, making it a richer platform.

So perhaps a MailKit framework is in order, and maybe others as well. Just as they've done with rendering the web, Apple's already done the heavy lifting on email. Mail.app has the POP, IMAP, and SMTP backend that's required for every modern email client, but currently only Mail has access to the code. Rewriting this from scratch would take months, and when it was all done, you'd be effectively at square one. Only with this backend in place can you really begin to build new features on top of an email client.

If Apple decides to release such frameworks, developers will still be in a tough spot. A framework wouldn't change the reality of competing with a free and bundled first party solution. It would, however, lower the barrier to entry. With MailKit, and other similar frameworks, innovation could be restarted in previously stagnant areas. Adventurous developers could take a chance on both freeware and commercial applications, with less investment required. When that happens, everyone wins.

Footnotes:
1. To be sure, not all claims of appropriated IP have equal merit.↩

2. This applies to any OS vendor, of course, but current reality means that's just Apple and Microsoft. As a Mac company, we're focused on Apple.↩

Brent has a good post about Mail clients and OS X, which you should read. When I was in Seattle last week, Gus and I discussed email clients with him over beers. We also tried to talk him out of actually developing a mail client. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Brent could do a fantastic job - I just think it's a terrible market. Thankfully, Brent knows this.

In his post, he said one thing that strikes me as particularly insightful:

"The thing is, there is little economic incentive to create an email app when one comes free with the system and that free one is good. For most people it s easily good enough, if not great...But if there is little incentive for other folks to create an email client, that means that the needs of keyboard adepts will go wanting, since Apple (rightly) concentrates on other things."

This echoes the first two laws of Rogue Amoeba, Don't compete with free and Don't compete with Apple.

We established these rules after working on a string of MP3 players for much too long after iTunes came out. Really, we never had a chance, and neither did anyone else.

Since its rather meek 1.0 release back in January of 2001, iTunes has turned into a juggernaut. To beat it you'd either need to replicate all of its functionality and then add more features, or go the other way and create a very simple player. That first option just isn't tenable. You'll never have your own music and movie store and you'll spend all your time playing catch-up on support for the latest iPod. And AirPort Express. Oh, and Apple TV. But, uh, good luck to you Songbird.

That leaves the "beautiful simplicity" route, and while there's something of a user base there, there's no market. You might argue that simplicity sells; the iPod, which lacks plenty of the features found tacked on to other players, such as FM radios, wireless communication, and more, not only sells, it dominates. But the iPod doesn't sell based on austerity or simplicity of design, it sells based on simplicity of use. You just can't sell simplicity when it really means "a lack of desired features". A free competitor to iTunes could quickly gain users, as there's almost no barrier to switching between audio players. But when there's no money to be made, there's no market.

Safari, on the other hand, really hasn't slowed browser development. There are a wide variety of browsers on OS X - Camino is widely used and Firefox is also popular. Omniweb and Opera are still kicking, and there are even new browsers, like Shiira and Flock. One key difference here is the use of open source (shared) code, which makes development easier. More important to note is that the paid browser market, which never had much of a footing, does seem to be pretty well dead.

So, web browsing, music playback, and email, three of the most important and widely used operations on a current computer. Apple offers built-in solutions for all of these tasks. To be sure, quality solutions need to be available right out of the box, or the Mac would appear incomplete. By providing these solutions, however, Apple has made it impossible to sell software in these markets, and in some cases slowed innovation. This isn't just Apple either, as Microsoft offers the same free functionality in Windows, via Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, and Windows Mail.

Put simply, the OS is taking over. Third-party (or paid first-party) software used to be a requirement to get your computer to do much of anything, and the OS was little more than a GUI on top of a file system. The balance has been inexorably shifting, however, and now tasks that were once the realm of third-party software are considered basic features. By including these features as part of the OS, mainstream computing advances, and that's a very good thing. However, putting more in the box also causes third-party development to be, well, boxed out. That's certain to leave out more than a few users like Brent, who desire more niche solutions.

Gus Mueller over at Flying Meat has just released FlyGesture as freeware. You can use FlyGesture to invoke gestures on your machine that will perform actions.

Get it while it's hot, then check out the other great applications from Flying Meat.

Yesterday (late last night, really) I posted a timeline of my iPhone purchase. As noted, I had the iPhone in 7 minutes, but activation was taking hours. This morning when I woke up and discovered the iPhone was still an iBrick, I decided to stop waiting and do something active. An hour later, I'm up and running.

Here's what I did:

1) As I only have cell service, I tried the new SIM in my old phone, which allowed me to place calls.

2) I then checked the AT&T forums for contact info. I called 1-877-800-3701, selected option 1, and then waited on hold.

3) For the next 45 minutes, I heard 30 seconds of bad music, followed by a pause during which I would experience that emotion once called "hope". I'd then get a standard "Your call is important to us" type message, followed by 30 seconds of more bad music, another pause, and so on. Lather, rinse, repeat.

4) When I got through, I explained my situation to the CS rep, who looked over my account, tweaked some things, and checked my IMEI and ICCID numbers (they're on the iPhone box). He then told me to swap my SIM back into the iPhone and wait just a couple minutes for a call-back.

5) A few minutes later, I had the long-awaited email, as well as a call-back from the CS rep on the iPhone. Everything finally worked. I asked what the issue was, and the CS rep said that the person who had activated the account had neglected to add one feature, and failed to click the all-important final "Activate" button. Oops.

Lest you think I'm an idiot, when he said "the person who activated the phone", he didn't mean me. It sounds like at least some activations must be processed manually, after the iTunes portion is performed by the customer. My phone number is in New Jersey, while my billing address is in Boston, so this may cause issues and require manual activation. That manual activation didn't go properly - my CS rep said they were "seeing a lot of problems with that".

As mentioned yesterday, I have no plans to pay an activation fee and at this time, none was on my account. If one is added, I'll be fighting it, as $36 to activate a phone myself, then wait over a day with not one but two bricked phones, is not my idea of a bargain.

I don't know what would have happened had I passively waited longer. It seems likely that this might have gone unnoticed for many more hours, perhaps even days. The best I can offer those waiting is to take action.

Saturday, June 30th

9:33 AM: Enter Apple Store.

9:37 AM: Say "8 gig, please". Specify that I do not, in fact, mean an 8 gig Nano. Come on now Mike.

9:40 AM: Leave Apple Store with custom iPhone bag that is both stylish and mugger-attracting.

9:49 AM: While driving home, chuckle about suckers who waited in line for hours yesterday. Get stared at by other drivers wondering what's so funny.

10:10 AM: Arrive home to set up iPhone. Quickly reach final screen informing me this will take some more time and that I should watch my email.

10:17 AM: Receive email from Apple stating "AT&T is now processing your activation. You will receive an email confirmation once your activation is complete." Or, to paraphrase: "Psyche!"

10:28 AM: Check email. Spam and an email from a friend who got his iPhone yesterday, and is emailing from the device. Set Mail to check every 5 minutes. Briefly consider the "Every 1 Minute" option, but shake it off.

10:31 AM: Notice my old AT&T (Cingular) phone is now dead. Feel mildly irked, but accept unavailability of phone service secure in the knowledge that the iPhone will be working shortly.

2:30 PM: Grumble about the iPhone not allowing you to do anything until activation.

2:31 PM: Stare alternately at Mail and iPhone for the next 4 hours. Realize I don't have a lot going on today.

6:10 PM: Fail to order pizza for dinner, as no phone service is available. Recall the good old days of landlines.

7:30 PM: Leave house to attend a party, in the hopes that an unwatched iPhone activates. Resolve to refuse to pay the bogus $36 activation fee.

Sunday, July 1st

12:18 AM: Return from party to find that an unwatched iPhone remains a useless iPhone.

12:26 AM: Notice email sent by "do_not_reply@att.com". Friendly! Tear it open (virtually) to find that AT&T is "currently processing [my] order" and that I "will receive an additional e-mail when [my] order is complete that will provide further instructions to activate your iPhone."

Paraphrased: "Psyche! Again!"

12:34 AM: Wonder how it can be so hard to move a number from one phone to another on the same network. Also, wonder if I'm actually even close to ever being able to use the freaking thing.

12:54 AM: Consider calling 9-1-1 with the iPhone's Emergency Mode, just to get it doing something. Reject idea out of hand as a criminal waste of resources.

1:01 AM: Recall Charlie Brown. Feel that I too got a rock. Both sit there doing nothing, but only one costs $600.

1:09 AM: Record the above-linked Charlie Brown audio with Audio Hijack Pro. Shamelessly self-promote. Use Fission to edit same. Continue to shamelessly self-promote.

1:14 AM: Write this post. Twiddle thumbs.

1:39 AM: Come to terms with the fact that there is likely to be little sympathy for this situation amongst the unwashed masses not in possession of an iPhone. Console self with beer, which requires no "activation" beyond a bottle opener.

1:53 AM: Apologize to Steve Jobs, the fates, and the aforementioned suckers for my hubris then, check email one last time. Zip, zilch, nada.

2:06 AM: Realize that calling 9-1-1 to report the apparent death of AT&T might actually be the right thing to do. Resolve to sleep on it.

Update (7/1/2007, 1 PM): Finally got it going. See iPhone No Longer iBrick for full details.