Apple's Rumored Home Automation Solution is Already in Most Homes

[Note: Sorry for the duplicate post, I really didn't like that first title.]

News broke (subscription required) over the holiday weekend that Apple is rumored to announce a home automation solution and/or platform at WWDC this year. Of course, rumors like this are to be taken with a grain of salt, but John Gruber's reply of "I’m pretty excited for next week." is classic Gruber-speak (albeit not a sure thing) for "this is happening."

So why does Apple have a shot at this working? How do they possibly expect to release a platform for the home when they're so notorious for closed ecosystems? Surely everyone can't afford to outfit their entire home in Apple products. This is only speculation, but here's how I think Apple can easily capitalize on this opportunity.

Framework is in Place

I've pointed this out before, but it is worth highlighting again. Apple is exceptionally good at putting a framework in place over the course of years without anyone giving it too much attention, then they drop a bomb of an announcement and suddenly everyone realizes the framework is in place already. Competitors have a hard time catching up because that framework takes years to build. Their iBeacon strategy is exactly that, though I don't think we've seen the bombshell of how it'll be utilized yet.

One big hurdle for home automation is cost. There is always a hub that must act as a brain for the whole thing, and that hub is usually quite expensive. Apple has this problem solved already with at least one iOS device in hundreds of millions of homes across the world. There is some concern for whether or not those devices stay within the home (or even need to) to keep the smart home products working, but that doesn't seem like a hard problem to solve with devices being connected so much of the time now.

With this infrastructure, Apple already has the app distribution system in place, the payment solution in place, the third party relationships in place, and the biggest monetary investment from the customer's perspective has already been made. It also doesn't hurt that Apple's solution here is supported by their vested interest in user privacy. Apple has already made their money from the customer, they don't need to sell user data; in fact they're highly motivated to keep that data as safe as possible to keep customers happy - this solves one of the major potential road blocks I highlighted in my piece "The Trouble with the Internet of Things."

Closed Yet Open 

Apple has very tight rules on how you can play in their ecosystem. They've also drawn some very controversial lines in the sand related to things like customization, inter-app data sharing, and plenty more. However, they're also smart. They know that they can't do everything themselves, they saw that when they announced the App Store, and surely they see it with a smart home solution. Apple makes a hell of  a platform for both users and developers.

Apple doesn't have to make any new hardware for this home automation solution. That's pretty insane if you think about it. It also gives them a massive head start (except against Google, more on that later). All they have to do is enable third parties to make products that adhere to the rules and use the APIs that Apple creates.

What better time to announce these new APIs than at WWDC? With some choice hardware partners they'll have a modest set of "solutions" available on the day that iOS 8 ships to the public this fall. All a user has to do is update their iPhone or iPad and buy a couple of accessories and their home is suddenly connected. We aren't too far from this right now with Lockitron and others, but I think by Apple taking on the infrastructure costs (servers, security, APIs, etc.) we can drive the third party prices down to more reasonable levels for a wider market.

Perfectly Apple

This sounds perfectly Apple to me. The hints have been there for years. The market is very large. The platform is already in place with the up-front costs largely already behind us. Third parties and customers both need a stable and universal platform to enable the "smart home" dream, and that's been really hard for any one company to provide. Apple is positioned perfectly, their reputation for respecting user privacy is in place, their reputation for stability and ease of use is strong. I'd be more surprised if this doesn't happen than if it does. 

As an aside, the connected home dream is largely why Google purchased Nest. I expect to see offerings from them very soon as well, much sooner if Apple announces theirs next week. It'll be interesting to see how the two approaches to solving this sell and grow.

Apple's Rumored Home Automation Solution is Already In Most Homes

[Update: Changed title to better reflect the article. Will re-post with new link, but keep this link active.]

News broke (subscription required) over the holiday weekend that Apple is rumored to announce a home automation solution and/or platform at WWDC this year. Of course, rumors like this are to be taken with a grain of salt, but John Gruber's reply of "I’m pretty excited for next week." is classic Gruber-speak (albeit not a sure thing) for "this is happening."

So why does Apple have a shot at this working? How do they possibly expect to release a platform for the home when they're so notorious for closed ecosystems? Surely everyone can't afford to outfit their entire home in Apple products. This is only speculation, but here's how I think Apple can easily capitalize on this opportunity.

Framework is in Place

I've pointed this out before, but it is worth highlighting again. Apple is exceptionally good at putting a framework in place over the course of years without anyone giving it too much attention, then they drop a bomb of an announcement and suddenly everyone realizes the framework is in place already. Competitors have a hard time catching up because that framework takes years to build. Their iBeacon strategy is exactly that, though I don't think we've seen the bombshell of how it'll be utilized yet.

One big hurdle for home automation is cost. There is always a hub that must act as a brain for the whole thing, and that hub is usually quite expensive. Apple has this problem solved already with at least one iOS device in hundreds of millions of homes across the world. There is some concern for whether or not those devices stay within the home (or even need to) to keep the smart home products working, but that doesn't seem like a hard problem to solve with devices being connected so much of the time now.

With this infrastructure, Apple already has the app distribution system in place, the payment solution in place, the third party relationships in place, and the biggest monetary investment from the customer's perspective has already been made. It also doesn't hurt that Apple's solution here is supported by their vested interest in user privacy. Apple has already made their money from the customer, they don't need to sell user data; in fact they're highly motivated to keep that data as safe as possible to keep customers happy - this solves one of the major potential road blocks I highlighted in my piece "The Trouble with the Internet of Things."

Closed Yet Open 

Apple has very tight rules on how you can play in their ecosystem. They've also drawn some very controversial lines in the sand related to things like customization, inter-app data sharing, and plenty more. However, they're also smart. They know that they can't do everything themselves, they saw that when they announced the App Store, and surely they see it with a smart home solution. Apple makes a hell of  a platform for both users and developers.

Apple doesn't have to make any new hardware for this home automation solution. That's pretty insane if you think about it. It also gives them a massive head start (except against Google, more on that later). All they have to do is enable third parties to make products that adhere to the rules and use the APIs that Apple creates.

What better time to announce these new APIs than at WWDC? With some choice hardware partners they'll have a modest set of "solutions" available on the day that iOS 8 ships to the public this fall. All a user has to do is update their iPhone or iPad and buy a couple of accessories and their home is suddenly connected. We aren't too far from this right now with Lockitron and others, but I think by Apple taking on the infrastructure costs (servers, security, APIs, etc.) we can drive the third party prices down to more reasonable levels for a wider market.

Perfectly Apple

This sounds perfectly Apple to me. The hints have been there for years. The market is very large. The platform is already in place with the up-front costs largely already behind us. Third parties and customers both need a stable and universal platform to enable the "smart home" dream, and that's been really hard for any one company to provide. Apple is positioned perfectly, their reputation for respecting user privacy is in place, their reputation for stability and ease of use is strong. I'd be more surprised if this doesn't happen than if it does. 

As an aside, the connected home dream is largely why Google purchased Nest. I expect to see offerings from them very soon as well, much sooner if Apple announces theirs next week. It'll be interesting to see how the two approaches to solving this sell and grow.

Excluding Part of OS X Package from Backblaze and Time Machine Backups to Save Tens/Hundreds of GB

Time Machine and Backblaze team up to make a really robust backup configuration for any Mac user. They offer features to exclude particular directories from the backups, but what happens when those directories are inside of a "package" such as your iMovie or iPhoto library? If you use the UI to do this, you'll never be able to omit a subdirectory of a package, but luckily  there is a very easy solution.

The Problem

Working with iMovie lately I've realized that it tends to keep a lot of high quality render files around. There is no way to limit them, and they're totally safe to delete. In my case, I'm generating 50-75GB of these files per hour I edit video, that's a problem on my little 500GB SSD. I periodically delete them, but I've noticed that my Time Machine and Backblaze backups have been churning a lot lately, and these high quality renders are the reason.

The Solution

The solution is easy. We'll cover how to do this in Time Machine, it is done in Backblaze in the exact same way. This works for any package content, in this example we'll use the iMovie High Quality Media directory we've been covering.

If you use iMovie, click on your iMovie Library and select "Show Package Contents". Then navigate (per project) to <project>/Render Files/High Quality Media. 

Open your System Preferences, select Time Machine, select Options, click the plus sign to add a directory. Navigate to the location of your iMove Library and you'll notice that it is a package, not a directory (packages are really just special directories). It will look like this.

Open your Finder window just next to it, and drag and drop the "High Quality Media" directory into this exclude window; click "Save"/"Ok", that's it, you're done. You'll want to do the exact same thing for Backblaze. 

Hope this helps you as much as it has helped me!

Large Questions Loom on News of Apple's Acquisition of Beats

I wrote a piece yesterday after news broke that Apple is near closing on a deal that would make them owners of Beats for a bit of spare change, $3.2 billion. I highlighted a few reasons why this doesn't seem to add up, and those are still valid.

Reports seem to be hinting more and more strongly that this is legit, but it still isn't quite settling right for me. In one camp, you've got those that believe the headphones are the primary driver for the deal (Ben Thompson for one). In another (perhaps larger) camp, you've got those that think it is for the music streaming service.

Both of these are valid thoughts, but both have major hurdles. It would make sense that the purchase is likely to be for both products, if it is real at all, otherwise they'd spin off (or not sell) the other half I would think. Tough to say for sure.

Headphones

If the deal is primarily for the headphones, the biggest problem I see is the brand. The Beats brand is valuable as a brand. People know it, people love it, and people are willing to spend a lot of money on it despite the obviously inferior sound quality. They sound "good enough" (audiophiles disagree) and look good enough that people want them. They've become an icon. You don't have that without the Beats brand, and when was the last time Apple sold their own product with any hint of any other brand on it? There is just no way you will see something like this happening...

How valuable would Beats be without the brand? If they wanted headphone technology, why not purchase Sennheiser or someone like them?

Music Streaming

So what if this deal is for the music streaming? iTunes Radio isn't exactly sweeping the industry by storm like iTunes did, so that might make sense, right? Well, maybe. The biggest concern is that the content rights that Beats managed to get that Apple hasn't managed to obtain for themselves aren't transferable (most likely) in the event of an acquisition. Add to that the fact that Beats Music only has around 200,000 subscribers, and you've got a much harder time justifying a $3.2 billion deal.

Video Leak

This morning, a video was posted on Facebook by Dre himself that "confirmed the deal" was happening. That makes this all seem more like a joke than anything as Apple doesn't usually stand for that kind of thing. If the deal was happening, I'd think such a slip up could certainly jeopardize it.

Closing Thoughts

I stand by my prior conclusion, despite the fact that online news sources seem to be more convinced by the minute that this is imminent. If this deal is real, there's a major piece we're all missing. Otherwise, I just don't see the value in it for Apple.

Doesn't Add Up: Rumors of Apple Purchasing Beats

As reported by the Financial Times (subscription required; MacRumors link for those without) Apple is allegedly in talks to purchase Beats for $3.2 billion. Beats makes headphones and recently launched a music service to go head-to-head with Spotify.

Apple could use some help with iTunes Radio, though for those simply looking for radio it isn't too shabby; Apple certainly loves nice hardware and hardware design and it is no secret that Apple's EarPods, though improved, could stand to be improved upon. However, this still doesn't add up. It isn't the money, it's the principle. 

They don't need the design ability. They aren't going to pay $3.2 billion for the streaming music service side of it and shut down the headphone business, though I suppose they could sell it (or only buy the streaming music part to begin with). The headphones that Beats makes are good, but nowhere near great, and they're extremely expensive.

Something is missing from the equation.

Apple has plenty of engineering talent to make better sounding headphones. Apple has plenty of design talent to run circles around Beats. Apple has plenty of engineering talent, or could at least purchase it, to improve iTunes Radio to go legitimately compete with Spotify and Beats. Sure an acquisition could jump start any of these initiatives, but a smaller and lower profile purchase, or series of purchases, would do the job nicely.

There is either more to this than we're all seeing or imagining, which is often the case with Apple, or this is completely bogus. Both of these seem quite plausible, I guess only time will tell.