In my opinion, the popularity of all Apple devices is due to a philosophical decision the company made a long time ago – and has stuck to. Apple, from Day 1, has built its products with the intent of offering a “full package” to users – hardware, operating system, and content. Of course, Apple ultimately decides what content you get – but losing that “freedom to compute” doesn’t seem to bother anyone. Just the opposite, in fact.

I’ve been with the “Apple family” since its now numerous progeny were in diapers. I started out with the infant Mac XL (if anyone remembers those) way back in the 80s, moved on to the teenager-ish Mac SE, Mac CX, and early iMacs, and eventually on to the current configuration of the family. In fact, I’m transgenerational in my Apple affiliation: I have a “big guy” (an iMac), a couple of “young bucks” (Mac Minis and Macbooks), “junior” (the iPad), and, of course, “baby” (the iPhone). So I guess that makes me as familiar as anyone with how the family is run.

It’s a well-run and tightly organized family – to the extent that some would call it dysfunctional, in some respects. One thing about iPhones and iPads that irks many people is the closed universe that Apple has built to manage the devices. The only place you can get official applications for iPads and iPhones is from the Apple App store; all applications used on these devices must be approved by Apple, the better to ensure the proper “customer experience,” says the company.

And that, it seems, is what distinguishes the Apple line from its competition. For in truth, Apple has been zealous to guard its “user experience” from the time it came out with its first Macs. The “closed environment,” which protects users from the “outside world” and is managed by the policymakers at Apple, was already greatly in evidence in the earliest versions of the Macintosh operating system. The Mac OS was (and is) even more closed than Windows, making it harder for programmers to “hook” into the operating system. Compare that system to Windows, with its wide-open Registry, where programmers were able to routinely integrate their applications – whether well-written or not – into the OS.

As a result of those differences – that philosophy – Windows and Mac users had significantly different user experiences over the years. One of the biggest complaints Mac users had back in the 80s and 90s, for example, was the lack of freeware and shareware for their computers, compared to the reams of freebies available to Windows users. As a dedicated Mac user back then, I remember combing the depths of download sites looking for free applications that did – whatever! It didn’t matter what they did, as long as they were free. And those finds were few and far between. It was like you were keeping “kosher” – you couldn’t load up the cheap stuff on your computer, and the applications that had “supervision” (ie, that were able to integrate into the Mac OS) cost more.

Even with the programs you had to pay for, the Mac versions were usually released much later, and were far more expensive. Note, however, that there was another side of the equation; by making it harder to break through the gates, Apple ensured that Macs were relatively free of bad programs – like viruses – as well.

How far we have traveled, in terms of content. There are well over 200,000 apps in the iPhone/iPad app store, many of them free. The “freemium” model – where users get a free limited version of an application, and pay to unlock more functions and features – seems to be the one most writers of cellphone applications have adopted. And most of the applications that do cost money, are quite cheap – most averaging just a couple of dollars in price.

So it would seem that Apple’s long-term philosophical bet – that keeping a tight lid on development, in order to ensure a superior user experience – has paid off. Ever since the iPhone first came out, developers have been falling over themselves to come up with apps for the device – while consumers have been falling over themselves to buy them. The same holds true for the iPad; after selling about 3 million of the things in barely three months, Apple expects some 30 million people around the world to have them by the end of next year. And while many of these untold millions may not be fully aware of the “Apple Way,” they are surely aware that their consumption of nearly all content – apps, music, videos, movies -will be tightly controlled by Apple. These people are entering into the deal voluntarily – they have no problem with Apple controlling what they can and can’t do with their devices.

And while it may be tempting to advocate for “freedom of choice,” you have to admit that Apple has a point; the reason iPhones and iPads are in such demand is because they just work. The UI is simple and elegant, the apps are available and work as promised, and the danger of getting hit with a virus is extremely low. In that sense, Apple users have traded in freedom for security, an apt comparison for our terrorized age.

As I mentioned, I, too, am “guilty” of allowing my “freedom to compute” to be compromised. I haven’t jailbroken any of my devices (ie reprogrammed them in order to install applications not carried in the App Store), meaning that I am relatively satisfied with the package I am getting with the Apple family – functionality, reliability, and safety. And that’s what the teeming millions are looking for, as well; despite all the talk about competing devices, whether phones or e-book readers, Apple has nothing to worry about. History has proven than when it comes to computers and devices, people don’t want freedom – they want to be led by a “benevolent despot,” a role Apple is more than willing to fulfill.

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Don’t the authorities know how we will react when we’re told we can’t have something? Of course they do – and it could be we’re the ones being played! By inciting a snowball effect of demand when they ban a product, they inadvertently set off a black market, where people smuggle in the product in question, often “smearing” the palms of officials in charge of customs. And when all is said and done and the product becomes “legal,” people have already become conditioned, and are ready to pay even twice what it’s worth.

Did I mention this is a column about the iPad – and why Israeli authorities are banning it?

Now don’t get me wrong – the above discussion was theoretical. Only the paranoid would say that politics (as in “we don’t want the people to have access to this product for some reason”) is the reason customs authorities have announced that anyone caught smuggling (a heavy but accurate description of what you have to do if you want an iPad in Israel these days) these devices into the country will have them confiscated. And certainly we wouldn’t go so far as to think that there’s some financial shenanigans going on here – that a certain interested party leaned on the government to ban the things in order to realize a financial windfall at some later date. You’d have to be a conspiracy theory nut to believe that!

Maybe we should just take the government – represented in this case by the Communications Ministry – at its word. According to the Ministry, iPads are out because of a “standards” issue – as in, Israel’s standards are higher than the ones Apple adopted for the iPad, and in order to avoid problems (security, health, or otherwise) resulting from its use, the iPad must not be used in Israel, at least in its present form, and/or until “further studies” of the thing can be made.

In the words of the Ministry, which released an official statement on the matter, “the iPad, sold today strictly in the United States, uses a wifi modem that is compatible with American standards. Israel’s standards are similar to those in use in Europe, which are different from American standards, which allows broadcasts at lower power levels. The broadcast levels of the device prevent approving its use in Israel,” the statement says. Maybe we should take this as the reason for the iPad ban. But we can’t – because it turns out that the chip that provides the “incompatible low power wifi” for the iPad is present in at least two other Apple products already being sold in Israel!

What caught my attention in this story was that bit about “European” versus “American” standards.. Not that I’d call myself a world traveler, but I have gotten around enough to know that everyone – in the U.S., Europe, and even in Papua New Guinea – uses the same Wifi equipment. While the world is still divided along an electrical fault (110v vs. 220v), the standards used in computing, which are drawn up by committees – in this case, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 WLAN standards. The iPad, complying with these standards, utilizes for its wifi power the Broadcom BCM4329  Low-Power 802.11n with Bluetooth® 2.1 + EDR and FM (Tx and Rx) chip (we’ll just call it “the Broadcom chip” for short) – and that happens to be the same chip being used in the latest editions of the iPod Touch and iPhone 3GS!

So just what are these  “different standards” of broadcast?  A helpful reader of a blog post I put up on this subject pointed out that some countries regulate the transmitting power (apparently Israel does), and the upper broadcast limit for the U.S. is higher than that for Israel.  And indeed, the Broadcom chip is capable of broadcasting wifi in the 5 ghz band, which is out of range for Israel. But once again, the fact that Apple’s rep in Israel, iDigital, is happily selling iPod Touch and iPhone 3GS devices directly from the “mother ship” here in Israel put the kibosh on that theory – especially since we can assume that Apple is not making special editions of its devices for use in Israel, as opposed to most of Europe and the rest of the world (where, in fact, higher wifi broadcast ranges, according to the list quoted above, seem to be permissible).

And as far as I know, this is the first time a consumer wifi product has been officially banned from Israel for this reason; you see American-made and imported wifi routers and other devices all over the stores here. The only consumer product we hear (or rather, have in the past heard) about as causing havoc with Israeli airwaves are 900 mhz cordless phones. Other theories, like the range of Bluetooth broadcast, didn’t pan out either, at least on paper.

So, I decided to take the problem to its roots – the Apple Israel people, and the Communications Ministry itself. The former were no help at all, with the spokesperson telling me tersely that “iDigital policies are in line with those of Apple’s.” The Ministry, on the other hand, was a different story. I spoke to the (only) individual at the Ministry authorized to field iPad questions, and asked him about this chip discrepancy – how it was that the Broadcom chip was not harmful when used in iPad Touch devices and iPhone 3GS devices, but were dangerous enough to warrant confiscation at the airport when found in iPads.

His answer? “I don’t know.” What don’t you know, I asked – whether the Broadcom chip is in the other Apple devices, whether it’s configured differently in iPads, or whether there is some other “broadcast issue” that is problematic? Well, he did know that the only issue was with the Broadcom chip – but as far as what exactly the problem was, or why said chip was “kosher” in other devices, he couldn’t say. When would he “know?” When Ministry engineers do more research.

Thanks to the power of social networking, the iPad ban has made the Ministry very famous – or infamous, to be more accurate (the Ministry isn’t interested in headlines, the spokesperson told me). It’s possible the engineers are hard at work on figuring out why they don’t like the iPad, but do like the other Apple products, and perhaps by the time you read this, the ban will be rescinded.

But I highly doubt it. Assuming that the problem is not technical – again, there are plenty of devices already in Israel using the Broadcom chip – we can assume that there are interests other than science and public security at work. What interests? I’ll never tell, but I do suggest re-reading the first two paragraphs of this article for a hint. Regardless,  I have no doubt that the iPad will eventually become legal, but IMHO, it will only be when those with vested interests in banning the things will decide that it is now in the interest to allow them in.

Meanwhile, I think there is one solid lesson to be learned from this whole tragic affair, which is especially relevant around Yom Ha’atzmaut time. One of the ways Israel strives to protect its good name is via better Hasbara, explaining our position vis a vis the major issues facing the country. Note to Ministry spokesperson: “I don’t know” is not a the Hasbara-type answer we yearn to hear from the only person in the government authorized to speak about the iPad!

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I’m sorry to go all 60’s on you, but that was the feeling during the heady days of the Firefox rebellion, for lack of a better term. But like all revolutions, this one seems to have petered out, and the establishment – both MS and Apple – have been quietly making improvements, to the extent that many users are rediscovering their browser roots, using the built-in applications in their operating systems. That, combined with what has become a plethora of add-ons – many of which are totally unnecessary, but which you can’t help installing anyway – has made FF much harder to manage, at least for me. Is Firefox crashing (at least once every couple of days now) because I keep thirty or so tabs open during my sessions? But shouldn’t 4 GB of memory be enough for what, for me, is “normal use?”

I haven’t made the switch away from Firefox yet, and I may not; I have to say I’m hooked on some of FF’s add-ons that I haven’t seen yet in Internet Explorer 8. But after a recent spate of FF crashes, I decided to check out the alternative – and I was surprised by the advances made by Internet Explorer, now in its eighth iteration.

For example: IE8 now has accelerators, which lets you highlight text on a web page and then further explore information on that topic from a variety of web sources. You could highlight a name for example, and search for it on Linkedin, Facebook, and other social media services, click on a domain name and get information about Alexa, search for a product at Walmart or Amazon, etc. It mimics – actually surpasses – one of the features I find most useful in FF, where I have an add-on that lets me highlight and right-click on highlighted text, and search for it in Google. But with IE8 accelerators, I have many more search options than just Google. You know the tables have turned when you find a Firefox extension called IE8 Activities, which, according to the page, is “an implementation of IE8 Activities (now called Accelerators) for Firefox.”

Or: IE8 also comes with something called Web Slices, which allows you to check information on a page – just the information you’re interested in – from the toolbar. If a Web Slice is available on a page, a green Web Slices icon will appear in the Command Bar. Click on the icon to easily subscribe and add the Web Slices to the Favorites Bar so you can keep track of that “slice” of the web. Here, too, FF is playing catch-up; this site suggests installing a Firefox add-on called Webchunks to allow FF users to have access to IE8 slices. “All of the web slices available there work just great in Firefox,” the page says – but “keep in mind that some may look a little ugly, due in part to them being created for IE!” Note, by the way, that big bad corporate Microsoft has donated the specifications of Web Slices to the public domain under the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication.

Other very nice implementations of important features in IE 8 include Smartscreen, which warns you when you surf to dangerous pages (and which consistently gets top reviews in the anti-phishing  and anti-malware categories); tab isolation, which dumps a bad tab, instead of crashing the whole browser when something bad happens; and enhanced privacy capabilities, using InPrivate Browsing. You can get similar functionality for all these features using Firefox add-ons, by the way.

Which is exactly the point. Besides a revolutionary spirit, many people (including myself) moved to FF years ago because it just had a better feature set, because of the available add-ons. But, as many FF users have learned, add-ons have their price, in increased memory use and eventual instability, leading to crashes. IE8 has built many of their new features directly into the browser code, which should lead to more stability. One could assume that the people who developed the browser would ensure that whatever features were built into it would be compatible with other features, while a third-party writing an add-on might not be aware of all the secrets and bugs under the hood, even if the browser is open source. So you get the same (or better) functionality in IE8 – with better stability and fewer crashes.

If that’s sounds like an argument for corporatism – IE8 is certainly not open source – I would remind you that Firefox is now developed and marketed not by the Mozilla Foundation, but the Mozilla Corporation, and while we wouldn’t deign to compare Microsoft Inc’s corporate culture with Mozilla’s (you have to believe things are free-er and easier at Mozilla), one has to assume that any corporation is going to have benchmarks, managers, office politics, quarterly goals, and pink slips. Like The Who sang, “Meet the new boss – same as the old boss.” The browser revolution is truly over, it seems.

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The iPad, whatever one may think of it based on the short presentation offered by Steve Jobs last week is destined to be a game-changer. Personally, I wasn’t so wowed by it – it seems a bit too wide, and it looks like it would be too easy to scratch – but Apple hasn’t come out with a dog for years (the last one was the Newton, depending on whom you ask), so you can be sure that if they’ve decided to release this now, it’s going to sell like hotcakes. It will be available in the U.S. in a matter of weeks, and, said Jobs, and available internationally by May or June.

The iPad’s charm is that it will combine all personal entertainment into one, easy to use device; instead of various iPods for music and video use, and a Kindle for book-reading, and a laptop or iPhone for surfing the web or playing with apps, you get it all in one super iPad package (I suspect that future editions will sport a cellphone as well, after Apple “milks” whatever it can out of the iPhone). Users of the iPad will have access to movies, books, TV shows, music, and any other downloadable content you can imagine, courtesy of Apple, and whatever deals they work out with the content suppliers.

But once again, Israel will be left behind. Months (years) later, absolutely no progress has been made on working out content deals with the people who hold the music and movie rights in this country; the “sole importers” are clearly holding out for a bigger cut, and are holding their contracts over the heads of the foreign content providers, threatening to sue, sue, and sue some more, if they dare to try and do a digital runaround with books, music, or video. It reminds me of the situation here years ago, when an “upstart” book chain started importing English books from wholesalers in the U.S., selling them at far lower costs than the official importer was selling them for. Some interested party put a stop to that quite quickly, I assure you.

Israel isn’t the only country left out of the i-party; China doesn’t have a true iTunes store, and Amazon isn’t shipping Kindles there. The reason, it appears, is the (quite justified) fear that whatever is sent over to China will be knocked off within minutes, thus destroying any opportunity the companies hope to have to sell legal content there (and you know they are just salivating at the thought of a billion Chinese buying books from the Apple Bookstore). But Israelis, who are not known for knocking things off and are more than happy to pay double for the same stuff others get at regular prices, won’t be able to access any of the i-content any time soon.

Of course, all this can be solved if you are the possessor of a U.S.-issued credit card, with a billing address in the United States. Then, Apple and Amazon trust you with their digital content. Actually, I’m being unfair to Amazon, which will gladly accept your Israeli credit card which allows international use (the various gold or business credit cards) for almost anything they sell, including physical music discs and books. But not for the digital stuff.

And we haven’t even mentioned the issue of the iPad’s 3G connection, which will also not be solved overnight, if the iPhone saga offers any solution – it took quite awhile for Israel’s Apple rep, iDigital, to work out a deal with the Israeli cellphone companies. The company doesn’t expect to get the iPad anytime soon, either – in an email iDigital sent out in the midst of the hoopla of the product announcement, the company said that “Regarding [the iPad's] reaching Israel, it is still too early to determine [when, how and if that will happen]. We are acting in accordance with Apple policy, but we are working with the world [Apple] organization in regards to localization.” As if localization were the only problem!

I know many of the people reading this in Israel do have access to an American credit card, as do the people who live in the U.S. who are reading this online, so it may not seem like such a big deal. But it is – not because of the content itself, which is available at a thousand and one torrent download sites, but because this is a clear example of how legal obfuscation by “old tech” companies is preventing progress of “new tech.” I know that sounds ironic coming from someone who writes for a newspaper – what with the internet cutting into newspaper profits and all – but as we have seen over and over in the past few decades, artificially damming up the flow of progress only makes things worse for the defenders of old technology – and the businesses that think quickly and adjust to the situation are the ones that survive, and thrive (talk radio, which is bigger than rock n’ roll ever was on AM, is a good example).

Now that there’s competition to the Kindle, the Amazon people may be looking to expand their base; the iPad promises to be a formidable foe. Perhaps that will be an incentive for Amazon to lean a little harder on the content suppliers to work out a deal with the local importers. I know Israel is a small market (but there have got to be more English readers in Israel than in Mongolia, where you can buy Amazon books!), but during times of trying competition, companies need all the business they can get – and Israel is a content consumer ripe for the plucking.

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On paper, many of these devices really are better than the iPhone, feature for feature. The Samsung Omnia II/Jet (S8000) has a faster processor and a better screen than the iPhone, the Sony Ericsson C905 with a better (far better) camera than the iPhone could even dream of (ditto the LG Arena). And then there’s the Palm Pre, the first of the new generation of “killer” devices that are trying to wrest the title of coolest phone from Apple. The latest attempt to take the crown comes from Nokia, which recently released the N97, and its somewhat older little brother, the 5800 XpressMusic, which I recently acquired.

There’s a lot to be said for the Nokia phones (which I will say below). But before I am accused of shilling for the Finns, let me say it clearly: The N97 (which I spent some time with) and the 5800XM (which I use) are not iPhone killers, simply because they are not iPhones. The two cameras, the video recording capacity, the mini flip-out keyboard (on the N97), the extreme memory capacity on the N97 (32 GB built in, expandable to 48 GB), and so on, will never be enough, simply because they’re not made by Apple.

Why? Can a brand name really trump features to such an extent? The only thing I can think of is that the 1984 Apple commercial introducing the Macintosh, with the jogger smashing the “Big Brother” screen controlling all the automatons, has really sunk deep into the Western psyche, forever branding Apple as the counter-culture, rebellious upstart that always knows better than its “elders” (As the owner of no fewer than five Macs – two Macbooks, two Mac Minis, and an iMac), I’m just as susceptible to this mind-melding (note that I didn’t say the Macs weren’t better than anything anyone else is offering – but as a “Machead” I am very familiar with this mindset. Is a $1,600 Macbook Air really so much better than a $400 netbook?). The only devices I see as having a chance of really “killing” the iPhone are perhaps the phones built on Google’s Android, because Google has that cool counterrevolutionary cachet as well.

But I digress. As much as I and you would like a “real” iPhone, we don’t want to shell out the huge sums they can be expected to cost here in Israel (even if they are offered at a subsidized price, you are going to end up paying a goodly – perhaps a princely – sum). With the arrival and the clamoring for the iPhone, however, prices on other wannabe killers have dropped somewhat (the N97 is too new, but a number of other touchscreen etc. devices were on sale at Orange when I paid them a recent visit). They may not be iPhone “killers,” but they are good enough to compete in the same space, allowing them to maybe beat up and “injure” the iPhone, at least on some features.

Always on the lookout for a bargain (or, always cheaping out, depending on how you look at it), I picked up a Nokia 5800XM at Orange recently for NIS 499, far less than the $299 I was prepared to spend on an unlocked version of the phone at Amazon. According to Nokia, some 7 million of the things have been shipped since it was introduced in late 2008, so I guess I was in good company.

I mentioned earlier that “perceived coolness” is one of the major reasons for the iPhone’s success, but there is also one thing the iPhone has over any other device sold by any other manufacturer – and that’s is the iPhone Appstore and the iTunes store for iPhones. Having perfected the touchscreen/accelerometer etc. device first, Apple was able to get many developers to write applications for the iPhone – and there are currently over 65,000 applications in the App Store’s bevy. By now, every phone maker has an app store for its platform – but according to this handy chart, the Apple version has far more – far, far more – applications than any other version.

If the App Store is the real secret behind the iPhone’s continued appeal, despite the its relative feature deprivation compared to the other “killers,” both Google and Nokia intend to remedy that situation. The Android Market (as the store is called) already has thousands of apps, and Nokia just recently opened its app store, Nokia Ovi (which is supposed to mean “door” in Finnish). The applications in the store are specifically for Nokia’s higher end N-series and touchscreen phones, with the major in app development and sales to come as Nokia moves more N97s. Fortunately for me, the N97 and the 5800XM share operating systems (Symbian OS 9.4 + S60 platform 5th Edition), so the majority of the upcoming N97 apps will work on the 5800XM as well.

Browsing the Ovi store, I came across a couple of great titles. JoikuSpot is a nice Symbian app that lets you share your phone’s 3G connection as a modem for a laptop when you’re away from a wifi hotspot. Even though the official Nokia internet radio application for the N97/5800XM is still under development, I found a great application called Tunin.FM, which lists hundreds of stations that can be accessed with my phone, including some of my favorites. And then there’s Fring, the be-all communication program that lets you use Skype (including Skypeout), Twitter, Facebook, MSN Messenger, ICQ, and a slew of others. And of course, there’s the built in GPS, location finder, voice-driven driving directions (in Hebrew or English!), etc.

My favorite app, though, is one of the few I actually opened up my wallet to purchase. Called Myphone, it lets you turn your Symbian device into an “iPhone,” at least in look and feel. From the “slide to unlock” to the little iPhone-like icons for your favorite applications, Myphone (from a site with the unlikely name MMMOOO.com), is enough iPhone for me – considering the 5800XM didn’t cost me the thousands a “real” iPhone would!

In an exclusive Yom Ha’atzmaut interview with the Jerusalem Post, Oron says he is decidedly optimistic about Israel’s hi-tech future. In fact, he says, “the consensus seems to be that by the beginning of 2010, companies will begin to see significant growth in revenues, that will be translated into financial performance several quarters later.” And that growth, says Oron, will be strong enough to “raise the boats,” fueling development in all facets of Israeli hi-tech – and not just in the hot areas of cell communication or Web 2.0 applications, but in “traditional” areas of IT development – bringing back in its wake the hi-tech jobs that were lost during the current downturn, and then some.

Oron has been working with Israeli hi-tech companies for decades. He was, among other things, President and CEO of Aryt Industries; Co-Founder, President and CEO of Reshef Technologies; Co-Founder and Chairman of Telegate Ltd; and former chairman of the Israel Venture Association (http://www.iva.co.il/). Among his fund’s recent successes was the acquisition of anti-fraud solutions provider Actimize (http://www.actimize.com/), since acquired by Nice; semiconductor maker Siliquent, acquired in 2005 by Broadcom (http://bit.ly/195gPF); and optical measurement solution provider Cognitens (http://www.cognitens.com/), acquired in 2007 by Hexagon. Plus, he’s brought many companies to market with successful IPOs. He’s seen companies come and go, and helped businesses thrive through good times and bad. And, Oron says, while there is what to worry about, the overall picture is better than most people realize.

“One needs to differentiate between the market for tech products and services, and the funding sources available to hi-tech developers,” Oron says. Echoing the sentiments of many economists and experts, Oron says the problem is more one of Wall Street than Main Street. “The large U.S. tech companies like Apple, Microsoft, and the cellphone producers and service providers are doing OK, with sales down at most 5% or 6% overall. Lower sales in the U.S. and Europe are being compensated for by steady demand in Asia. We have a similar situation in Israel; it’s not that demand for products has evaporated, it’s the financing for fledgling companies that is hard to come by.” While most of us are familiar with the credit crisis at the banks, VC and angel funding is extremely weak as well, Oron says – and the investment markets is basically treading water. “The financing food chain for startups is on the verge of collapse. One hopeful sign is that we have seen some activity in the mergers and acquisitions area recently, but overall, tech companies that have only their ideas and patents as assets are suffering,” Oron says.

With that, Oron says he has become much more hopeful in recent weeks – after speaking to high officials in the Finance Ministry regarding the government’s business bailout plan, announced last week. “The message is very clear that the people currently running the Treasury ‘get it,’ and their plan should help ease access to money for many startups. In addition, the government plans to significantly increase – perhaps double – the Chief Scientist’s development budget, meaning that many more companies will have access to development funds.” It’s the first comprehensive government response to the crisis, and it’s a good one, he says. “It’s a serious plan that should accomplish what it is setting out to do.”

And what projects, in his opinion, should the Chief Scientist be funding? Where are the strong growth areas going to be when things do bounce back? “Everything,” says Oron. “There is going to be huge demand for everything Israel specializes in, from broadband backbone to audio technology to last mile wired to wireless. Those who say that there is no need for many of the traditional technologies Israel has specialized in are just not aware of what is going on out there. Already there is a huge demand for technologies that can handle the heavy bandwidth necessary for the heavy internet traffic generated by online video. This market, along with many others, will continue to show strong growth, and it is in these traditional IT areas that Israel has a strong presence.”

Israel’s medical technology providers will also see strong growth, Oron says, while cleantech/greentech is likely to have less of an impact on local growth than many expect. “Much of the IT work being done by private companies trickles down from research and work being done for the IDF,” Oron says, “so we have a built-in market to produce for – something that doesn’t necessarily exist for cleantech applications.” That’s not to say there won’t be growth in that area as well, says Oron – but the areas that Israel has excelled in for years will continue to be just as important, if not more so, for local companies.

And despite rumors to the contrary, Israel’s technology base and innovative drive is as strong as ever. Commenting on the latest doom and gloom rumor – that China is somehow supplanting Israel as a world center of innovation – Oron says that nothing could be further from the truth. “I have been in this business for many years, and every little while someone comes up with a similar idea, that Israel is losing its edge. Everyone we speak to – world class investors, people from Silicon Valley, the elite of IT – who looks at the business plans, technologies, and business models of Israeli companies comes away highly impressed. I won’t say we don’t have some weaknesses when compared to China or India, but losing our innovative edge is definitely not one of them.”

And with all that expected growth, says Oron, those who were laid off this year have a good chance of getting a job – perhaps even their old job – next year. “The layoffs have not been uniform – we’ve been seeing two kinds of layoffs in recent months,” Oron says. “While everyone is cutting back, those working for local branches of multinationals are being more badly affected, since the multinational tends to protect workers in their home country, preferring to sacrifice their foreign satellites. But that’s this year; soon, hopefully by next year, the tech sector will be perhaps the world’s fastest growing sector. Based on the amount of data being generated and the services currently available to fulfill those needs, it’s quite clear that the market demand will be strong. And when the financial markets come back and funding is available, growth will be as strong – and probably stronger – than it has been in recent years.” It’s an optimistic forecast – but as someone in a position to know, Oron’s optimism can give all of us hope that next Yom Ha’atzmaut will be a lot happier for many more Israelis!

Where do new hi-tech innovations come from? From the minds of hi-tech innovators, of course. Okay, but where do those innovators do their innovating? Usually, in the basement or spare room of the innovator’s house, or in cheap digs in some industrial zone, where a couple of college buddies get together to come up with the Next Big Thing. They certainly don’t come from large corporations that have a business model, and a strict, rigorous hierarchy, where workers are busy meeting performance goals, dotting their i’s and crossing their t’s on the voluminous paperwork required by the various layers of management.

Forget that stereotype, says Tal Givoly, Chief Scientist of Amdocs, which operates around the world and has a large center in Raanana; large corporations are just as capable of coming up with breakthrough technologies as bootstrap startups are – and maybe, in the current economic climate, a little more capable. “Sooner or later the economy will turn – and the companies that used their time wisely, investing in innovation will be the ones that reap the benefits when things turn around. As a large company, Amdocs has the financial wherewithal to withstand the storm – and we expect to emerge stronger than ever when the economy bounces back.”

But hold on a minute – Amdocs as a hi-tech innovator? Absolutely, says Givoly – as Chief Scientist, a position usually identified with technological innovation on a national basis, it’s his job to identify needs and recognize trends, and discover and promote ideas that answer those needs and trends. “Once you know where the market is going, you can come out with products and services that provide your customers, in our case, the world’s largest service providers, what they’re looking for,” he says.

But – Amdocs?! Yes, and yes again, Givoly says. “We’ve been unfairly typecast as a firm that deals chiefly with billing solutions – but we actually offer more than 100 products and services, many of which have absolutely nothing to do with billing.” Besides billing, Amdocs produces systems to manage contact center systems, customer self-service, mobile portals, operations support systems, and commerce systems for multimedia content, to name a few. For example, says Givoly, “we serve content on 60% of all cell phones in the U.S.” Indeed, the fact that he works at the job he does is a sure sign of the innovative, start-up spirit of Amdocs, Givoly says. “Not every large company has a Chief Scientist, and the fact that my job is to identify and act on future needs and trends should make it clear that far from being a ‘corporate dinosaur’ interested in perpetuating its business model at all costs, Amdocs is an innovator that seeks to meet future challenges, and provide the products and services tomorrow’s customers will be looking for.”

To that end, Amdocs recently hosted an “innovation camp,” where managers and employees from Amdocs locations around the world – along with well-known internet innovators, like Yossi Vardi and Jeff Pulver – got together to exchange ideas and concepts, seeking to figure out where the world of media and communications is headed. The gathering was as freeform as you could get – “there was no set agenda, as there are at retreats of this type sponsored by many large corporations,” Givoly says. In fact, some of the biggest ‘innovations’ weren’t even tech-based, but involved demonstrations of the talents of participants – with demonstrations of swordplay, how to make a “potato rocket,” and a musical band where every instrument was based on an iPhone! All with the idea of getting the creative juices of participants flowing. And there was a method to the madness Givoly says – by the end of the camp, participants had come up with a list of top-ten “hot” issues or ideas, which Amdocs will now consider in detail how to address and pre-empt upcoming needs.

Givoly wouldn’t give me the specifics of those trends (like a good journalist, I asked), but he did tell me in what direction he believed the internet/communications market was heading. “There’s been a clear trend on the part of telephone and communications companies to increase their value added by offering not just technology or methodology, but content as well.” As recently as just ten years ago, says Givoly, a hardware manufacturer would produce a device – computer, cellphone, PDA – and sell it, with the content for use on those devices supplied by others. “The Apple App Store is a good example of the change, and many service providers, including our customers, are working on ideas to sell applications in the same manner on cellphones and devices other than Apple’s that will enhance the digital lifestyle. In fact, we have recently launched an offer to help them do just that,” he says. Add to that innovations in instant messaging, massive multiplayer on-line games, social networking, and the way kids use media on their devices, and picture of a digital future shapes up – one that Amdocs is plugged into, and intends to capitalize on, Givoly says.

The current recession is also going to have a big impact on the way people do business; for example, electronic communication is already becoming far more important to many organizations. “Businesses that need to cut their expenses will be looking to lowering costs wherever they can. Video conferencing technology today is good enough to allow multiple groups to get together in cyberspace, but as dependence on teleconferencing grows, there’s a greater demand for quality control, ensuring that everything runs smoothly.” That, Givoly says, is a good example of how technology evolves even during bad economic times. When things improve, chances are that video communication technology will remain popular in the business world, and any product Amdocs develops now to help keep conferences running smoothly will pay off for the company now, and in the long run. “We have other ideas and offerings we are working on in response to the global economic downturn, with these, we’ll help our customers emerge stronger when things improve.”

Recognizing the importance of innovation, Amdocs has a number of programs in place designed to discover new technologies, Givoly says – such as Amdocs’ Open Innovations programs, sort of like “free agents” week in baseball, where the company checks out hi-tech startups and matches what they have to offer with the needs of Amdocs customers; some of the companies are invited to work with Amdocs and build a product that the company will market (last year, Amdocs reviewed about 200 companies). “It’s a win-win idea all around, because our customers get exposed to great new technologies that can help them, and smaller start-ups get access to an audience of large organizations they probably would not have been able to reach otherwise,” he says. In addition, Amdocs actively promotes innovation within the organization, serving up immediate investment to employees who come up with innovative ideas that show promise. “We have over 17,000 brilliant people at Amdocs, and despite the turndown, we’re investing in them, and in the future, harnessing the company’s collective genius and developing the winning ideas our customers need and want.”

Recession or no, Givoly says, Amdocs will continue to invest and innovate. “Companies have a choice – if they innovate now, they can emerge much stronger when things improve, but those that don’t are likely to see their business erode. Cutting research and development now looks good on paper, but is a possible sign of the coming demise of an organization”, Givoly summarizes it simply: “Innovation is not mandatory. Survival is optional. We shouldn’t assume survival is a given – it’s a choice.” Obviously, Amdocs has clearly understood this and is acting upon it – with ‘due diligence.’

Last time, I wrote about reasons not to buy a Mac (even though I didn’t follow my own advice). This time I’d like to give you a good reason to buy one: iWeb. Note, however, that it wasn’t the Mac I had a problem with – it was the service (more on that below). I’m very happy with my new “Aluminum Macbook,” so far.

But as several readers not enamored of the Mac pointed out to me, there are plenty of laptops out there that can compete favorably with the Macbook on features – many models have built in webcams or backlit keyboards – as well as on processor speed, disk size, etc.

There’s a certain segment of the population that gets antsy when it see such comparisons being made (are they Apple stockholders?). But a computer is just a tool, isn’t it? You use it to get what you need done and you move on. So, the tool that does the job you need to get done in the best possible manner is the tool you should be using, regardless of the nameplate or operating system. There are good cases to be made for any computer/operating system, depending on whom you ask, like at this site (http://tinyurl.com/art68z) that compares Linux vs. Mac OS X vs. Windows Vista vs. Windows XP. They’ve all got their plusses and minuses; what’s “best” depends on what tools you need to do whatever it is you’re trying to get done.

But the Mac has one big advantage over any other system, and that’s the iLife package you get when you buy your computer (http://www.apple.com/ilife/). The package includes five applications – iPhoto (photo organizer), iMovie (movie/video production), iDVD (DVD authoring), GarageBand (music/podcast authoring), and iWeb (web site authoring). iLife (which only works on Macs) comes pre-installed on your computer out of the box (you can upgrade to the latest version for $79, a bargain in itself for a set of programs that provides so much.

From my experience, having used them and their PC equivalents, I can tell you there are acceptable Windows substitutes for iMovie, iDVD, and iPhoto. Like many Mac users, I’ve never really tried GarageBand, but it’s got a lot of fans among those who make music or produce podcasts.

Website authoring, though, is something I know – and there is no program on any platform that compares to iWeb in giving non-technical users the ability to create beautiful web sites. And even though it’s marketed as a program for the casual, home user, there are plenty of people who have used it to produce very professional looking sites to promote their businesses, books, or other commercial ventures.

With iWeb, you don’t have to know, or learn, any web markup languages in order to create a site. The whole site construction process is drag and drop, with all the commands located in a central Inspector toolbox that gives you quick access to everything you need – for text, graphics, video, audio, etc. iWeb ‘09, the latest iteration, includes several improvements over previous versions, such as allowing drag and drop widgets for Youtube videos, Google Maps and Adsense, and other add-ons that required some technical knowledge to add in the past.

Don’t get me wrong; iWeb is no Dreamweaver, but if you’re not a professional web site designer – but you do want a professional-looking web site – you’re not going to find a better deal than iWeb. There are, of course, plenty of online sites where you can mark up a web page, some of them producing very nice looking pages – such as the ones made by Google Sites (http://sites.google.com/). But they don’t give you the flexibility you get with iWeb.

There has been plenty of criticism of iWeb over the years; the HTML it produces isn’t “neat” (true), it doesn’t produce sites that can be easily read by Google web crawlers (also true), you can’t use it unless you fork over $99 a year to Apple for hosting (not true; you can host iWeb sites anywhere), the sites take too long to load (could be a problem for any site production program), you can’t easily edit a site once it’s finished (no longer the case in iWeb ‘09), and others. But there are performance/usage issues with all programs. There are solutions for all of these iWeb issues, and serious users of the program quickly learn a lot about all sorts of web authoring and hosting issues, as they work around the program’s limitations to produce a site that looks and acts the way they want.

I know that sounds like a strange idea – “working around the program’s limitations.” Why put up with any limitations – why not just use a “better” program? That, to me, is the beauty of iWeb; it lets casual users build very nice looking sites for blogs, family photo albums, etc., with little effort, but also lets more sophisticated users tweak their sites, making them look and act more “professional.” Take me, for example – a busy person who wants a nice looking web site, but doesn’t have the time or inclination to learn “deep” html, javascript, PHP, etc. Unable or unwilling to invest time in learning web authoring, I have two choices – either to use a “canned” online service that limits the way I can make my site look and the way I can use it, or to pay a professional to produce a professional site.

The first choice is clearly a non-starter – and so is the second. Not so much because of the money, but because I would want to be constantly tweaking things, improving the site incrementally. You have to work according to the web site author’s schedule, nudging, pleading, and threatening in turn, in order to get their attention. But iWeb gives me the power to produce what I want, make it look the way I want, and do with it what I want – right away, without having to delve into the esoterica of web markup languages. And the limitations in iWeb were what prompted me to break down and learn the web authoring technologies I needed in order to get what I wanted done – which I would not have even attempted without iWeb. So, it’s not just a web authoring program – iWeb is a teaching tool, too!

And as a result, I have two nice sites (http://digital.newzgeek.com and http://www.newzgeek.com) that contain an archive of articles I’ve written for the Post, that I can proudly show people who want to see what I’ve written. I wouldn’t recommend iWeb for a high-traffic commercial site that needs all the bells and whistles, but if you have a small business or project (or maybe something even bigger) and you want a web site – and you are paying a designer to build one – you can have your site, and a Mac, for almost the same money!

Regading iDigital: Here is the response to the article I wrote about my dissatisfaction with Apple service in Israel by a company spokesperson. “iDigital is the sole authorized Apple dealer in Israel, and goes out of its way to give customers superior service on all Apple products and accessories. Since the beginning of iDigital’s operations in Israel a year and a half ago, the number of users of Apple products – and especially of Macs – has grown considerably, and we attribute this increase to the efforts of iDigital, especially in the area of service. In order to ensure even better service, we have just opened a new service center in Petach Tikvah, staffed by top professionals who have been trained by Apple’s worldwide training staff.

“Customers at iDigital’s flagship store in the Ramat Aviv Mall are invited to speak to experts at the Guru Bar – our version of the Genius Bar that can be found in Apple Stores around the world. Hundreds of satisfied customers make use of the Genius Bar’s services on a daily basis. In addition, the iDigital Store sponsors daily training programs for both Mac and PC users on making the most of Apple’s “digital lifestyle,” enabling users to use their equipment to create music, movies, photos and web sites using Apple and Mac tools. In addition, we advise PC users on how to make the switch to Macs.

“Over the past year iDigital has engineered a true revolution when it comes to acquainting the Israeli public with Apple products, with an emphasis on high quality service for out customers. Today, Israelis interested in Apple products have a true home at iDigital, enabling them to adopt Apple’s “digital lifestyle” technology.

“Regarding the writer’s experience in attempting to get his Macbook repaired: We wish to make clear that we are bound by the specific procedures set in place by Apple Worldwide when users seek to service products they purchased abroad under the one-year standard, or three year extended Apple warranties. Apple Worldwide requires us to clear all requests for service with Apple Worldwide, and we are permitted to begin the repair process only upon that approval. iDigital has no say in the length of time required for this process, and we are not permitted to perform any repairs without the relevant permission. With that, iDigital works hard to prioritize service for customers once Apple Worldwide gives its authorization.”

But I can’t help it. I’m a rebel. So I went out and bought another Macbook.

When I say “signs,” I mean it. Macbook number one, after a bit more than two years, is on its last legs. The “white stallion” that swept me off my feet in ‘07 developed a bad case of overheating, and some kind of fan allergy – very noisy and slow. The fan slowed down, the processor temperature shot up, and when it hit 85 degrees or so – shutdown!

Of course, the thing to do would be to get it serviced (after all, I had the extended warranty). But iDigital, the local Apple dealer really makes you jump through some hoops in order to get the service you paid for. You can’t just bring your computer to the Genius Bar like you can in the States (there are no Genius Bars in Israel). If you want to have your computer serviced, you have to call up Apple in the U.S. (at your own expense, of course), and request a “case number,” which you then bring to the local Apple dealer, who then checks out the case number to make sure you opened up the file. Only when that case number is authorized do they consider working on your machine. You can expect to wait about two weeks (“five business days”) before you get your computer back. And don’t dare bring it in on a Sunday or Thursday – you lose out on an extra couple of days because of the weekend. Clearly, not a user-friendly operation. Of course, the hassle can all be avoided if you buy your computer here, and pay the “Israeli price” – but that’s for rich Israelis, who can afford to pay 50% more than what the thing costs in the States. And other than iDigital, there are few (I know of just one) other organizations that can service your Mac.

I don’t mean to put down the iDigital people, who now operate the Apple concession in Israel, because they’re at least more polite than the old Yeda crowd, which used to run the authorized dealership here. And iDigital will, if you ask them, very politely point out the reasons why they “have to” run their shop the way they do, whether it’s repair policies or prices. My point is that you really have to like Macs to want to buy one for use in Israel. I guess I’m one to talk, though, because I now have in my home five Macs – 2 Macbooks, 1 iMac, and 2 Mac Minis (for those inclined to do so, please reread that sentence before you drop me a nasty e-mail about my anti-Mac feelings). But in terms of convenience, etc., it’s just much easier to go with a PC.

And if you’re in the market for a PC laptop, now’s a great time to go shopping. Netbooks, those mini-laptops that started out as half-pint notebooks designed for web surfing have undergone some “feature creep,” and many of them have robust hard drives and enough memory to qualify as a “real” laptop. And the prices can’t be beat – around $500 or so in the U.S. (order it here, and with the shipping and VAT, the price is still great).

And yet, and yet. Many of the bargain laptops/netbooks still come with Windows XP, which fits like an old glove. Windows 7, a much nicer OS, is still in beta, and the computers you can get for less than $1,000 aren’t powerful enough to run it anyway. With the better machines, you get a version of Vista, which, if you’re used to the simplicity of OS X or even the unclutteredness of XP, can be a shocker. And indeed, all the laptops I could have considered to replace Macbook I would have required my adapting to Vista. Which I could do, if I had to, just like I could install a Linux distro (which, if you know how to work with it, would be a refreshing choice instead of Vista).

Or, I could spend a little more and get another Macbook. As so many have pointed out so many times, the Mac in general comes with stuff you would have to add if you were buying a PC – like the iLife software or its equivalent, the built-in video camera, etc. Price was never the issue, though – as mentioned, it was reliability, and the ability to get the machine serviced, if necessary.

The latter is something no one, other than the people in charge of the local Apple operation, can do anything about. If enough of us complain, I suppose they might take these issues more seriously. But what about reliability? Was I ready to take a chance on another weak-fanned hot-running first-generation experiment?

Absolutely not – but the Macbooks are now in at least their third generation, and from what I gather, Apple has learned something about heat control and fans (and processors) that help these computers. And what a generation it is! I got the $1200 Aluminum 2.0 gHz Macbook, immediately upgraded to 4 GB of RAM (it can supposedly take up to 8 GB), so I could run XP on VMWare (so you really get two machines for the price of one). The aluminum shell (crafted out of a single piece of the material) is just beautiful, and although the processor on this machine is nominally slower than the processor on the original Macbook, a faster bus and faster and more efficient memory actually makes the machine faster. The graphics are great (LED screen, nVidia GeForce 9400 graphics chip), and despite the misgivings some have, I personally love the glossy display (the matte one on the Macbook now seems much duller). It just feels like a solid machine, It was enough to sell me – hopefully, I’ll be able to void the repair bench altogether. So, despite the signs, I went with a Macbook – again. And I’m very glad I did.

As you’ve no doubt heard, the Israeli version of an Apple Store is up and running, in a 300 square meter space in the Ramat Aviv mall – very classy digs, with a nice layout. The store looks like other Apple Stores around the world, only smaller. It has a Genius Bar, where you can go in and check out equipment or pick the brain of an expert on hardware or software. And, there are displays of not only computers and laptops, but of peripherals – equipment that is sometimes hard to find.

But the store is just one aspect – albeit the major one – of iDigital’s efforts to make Macs for popular here. As Mac sales have taken out throughout the world, Israel has remained woefully behind the pack. Israelis are said to be “afraid” of Macs, having been intimidated into believing that they’ll be paying more money for a “toy” (I can’t tell you how many people I’ve heard this from). The iDigital store (not an official Apple Store, but close enough) is apparently intended to be a center for “missionizing the masses,” trying to educate Israelis about the benefits of using Macs.

The iDigital website has been refurbished to look more like official Apple websites around the world. That, too, is part of the effort to popularize Macs, whether or not that was the intent of iDigital in putting together such a site; by standardizing the local persona of the products to match those in the rest of the world, Israelis can feel more connected to the international Mac community, and not have to feel that they’re doing something “crazy” by buying an Apple.

The company has gone a long way towards reaching out towards Israelis. Several weeks ago, iDigital released the first Hebrew localization package for Leopard (OS X 10.5.4 minimum). The package converts all Apple system menus and applications (like Safari) into Hebrew – although, of course, you can write your documents in English (or any language). The localization package is free to download from the iDigital site, http://www/idigital.co.il. And you can also download a helpful guide to Leopard – in Hebrew – from the site as well, also for free. iDigital is also offering classes on various aspects of the Mac experience – how to use Leopard, making movies with iMovie, etc. – free for customers, and NIS 70 or so for people who bought their Macs abroad.

They’ve also opened a new service center in Haifa – making it more convenient for people up north to get their products service without having to to run down to the service center in Rosh Ha’ayin. iDigital is even offering a local version of AppleCare- the extended warranty package Mac owners can buy to extend their worldwide warranty.

So, even though iDigital is “only” an independent Apple distributor, the company has gone a long way into emulating the total, authentic Apple experience here in Israel. Now, of course, comes the several thousand shekel question: Should you actually buy an Apple product from iDigital? Prices have even come down at iDigital – as much as 33% on some items – although they are still extremely high, relative to almost everywhere else. For example, a 20 inch iMac with 1 GB of memory and a 250 GB hard drive sells for NIS 6,199, instead of the previous price of NIS 7,699. At NIS 3.50/dollar, the new price works out to $1,771.

The only problem is that the same iMac sells for $1,199 at the Apple USA web site, making the iMac $572 more expensive here. The Apple site price does not include sales tax – which you wouldn’t have to pay anyway if you were having your computer shipped. If one were to buy the iMac at the popular J & R Music World in Manhattan, they would pay 8.375% sales tax – making the total cost $1,288.58, with $99.58 sales tax added to J & R’s price of $1,189 for the iMac. That makes the retail iMac $482 cheaper than the iDigital version.

In a recent interview with someone from iDigital, I was told that one of the reasons Apple products are more expensive here is because Israel orders its products European distribution channels, which are more expensive. Note, however, that the price for the iMac at Apple’s UK site is 799 pounds, VAT included – which translates into NIS 5029.89, or $334 more. That’s less of a differential than the US price, but still significant. The 2.4 ghz/2GB/160 gb HD Macbook costs NIS 6,699 – or $1,914 – $1,299 at the US Apple site, or 829 pounds (NIS 5,218) at the UK Apple store.

The last time I wrote about this phenomenon, I suggested that you might consider pickup up a Mac if you were traveling anyway during your summer vacation. Now that the prices at iDigital have been reduced (about as far as they are going to go, I guess), we still see a stark differential in prices (the higher end the product, the bigger the gap). You get the same exact one year worldwide warranty (three years, if you buy AppleCare), with the same service provided by iDigital as they would provide to their own customers no matter where you buy your Mac. You can’t really blame anyone for deciding that it makes more sense to fly abroad if they need to buy a couple of Apple computers (a Macbook and an iMac, say). It would be like getting a free trip to New York!

But maybe it’s not a such a great idea to run off to New York or London to buy a computer. Travel is a hassle nowadays, as everyone knows – and more importantly for our purposes, it’s expensive. Let’s face it: There’s no way you’re going to get off the plane at JFK, take the train to the city and go to the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue, and then go back home the same day. Any savings on the computer would be wiped out by your hotel bill! If you have friends in New York, you can save money by not going to a hotel, but of course you have to bring them a gift. That’s more money spent! And how could you avoid the “landmarks,” which for Israelis in Manhattan entails lots of shopping. You do pay more at iDigital – but at least you know what the computer is costing you. Macs here in Israel may be more expensive, but if you’re the type that can’t resist a bargain (New York is full of ‘em), you might find it cheaper to pay more money for the same product here in Israel. It’s a paradox, really – one of the miracles of the Holy Land!