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.

Related articles by Zemanta

• iPhone, iPad, Mac: The Latest Numbers (npr.org)
• I confess: I bought an iPad (and so far I love it) (zdnet.com)
• Why Apple’s Moral Censorship is Doomed (sitepoint.com)
• Can Apple Sustain Their Impressive Growth? (macstories.net)
• Analysis: Apple’s earnings point to bigger things to come (macworld.com)
• Best Mac Quarter Ever, Dan Knight, Mac Musings (lowendmac.com)

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!

Related articles by Zemanta

• The iPad Ban in Israel: Is it Really About ‘Standards?’ (israeltech.net)
• Israel says U.S. iPads not welcome for now (news.cnet.com)
• Israel Bans Imports of Apple iPad (time.com)

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.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Is the iPad a big iPod or is it the new Newton? (cloudave.com)
• Who will buy the iPad? (news.cnet.com)

Why that doesn’t appear to be the case when it comes to the new crop of electronic book readers, then, is a mystery – especially since one of these newly announced products was at least partially developed in Israel! (I’m sworn to secrecy, so don’t ask). But regardless, the rest of the world is on the verge of a revolution in the way it reads books – while we are, at least for the time being, left behind.

And I mean “the rest of the world” literally; Amazon’s new Kindle 2, which goes on sale next week, will be available in over 100 countries all over the world. Not in Israel, though. After the Kindle 2 announcement, American book giant Barnes and Noble announced its own e-book reader, the Nook. Not here, though; you can’t buy a Nook in Israel, either.

It’s not, I’m sure, because they don’t like us; there are plenty of English language readers here in Israel who would be more than happy to plunk down the ten dollars or so Amazon and Barnes and Noble charge for e-book versions of bestsellers available for download. The Nook is a brand new product, and isn’t available outside the U.S. anyway – so we can’t fume over being left out of Barnes and Noble’s e-book party, at least just yet; every non-American is being excluded as well. But the Kindle 2 is another story; If it’s good enough for the residents of Andorra, Belarus and Papua New Guinea, it should be good enough for us, no?

Apparently not, and it’s instructional to take a peek at the Kindle 2 homepage and try to figure out why Mongolians are eligible to buy a Kindle, but Israelis aren’t. The Arab world is out (fear of possible fatwas for immodest content?), as is China (well-founded fears of copyright infringement), and some poor countries in Africa (although many, like Kenya, Madagascar, and even economic basket-case Zimbabwe. are in).

It’s not clear what problem Amazon has with Israel, but I suspect that it has to do with import licensing rights for physical books, and the desire of large importers of print books into Israel for a piece of the e-action (this Hebrew site provides a good summary of the legal issues in Israel regarding “hard” and “electronic” copies of licensed works). It’s similar to the issues surrounding MP3 downloads. vs. physical CDs; the current licensee (or licensed importer) has first crack at making a deal for the same work in electronic form. And judging from the way the Israeli rights issue is being handled at the iTunes store (you can buy an iPhone for hundreds of dollars here, but not a 99 cent song), we’ll probably be waiting awhile for Amazon to iron things out with the publishers and importers.

Proof? Amazon is happy to sell you anything on the site to customers with an Israeli credit card, and although it won’t necessarily ship everything here, it will ship physical books and CDs. But try downloading a free e-book or MP3 at Amazon, much less buying one, and the site will turn all apologetic about how it cannot serve people in your geographical area.

So what are the alternatives? Well, of course there’s that old standby, the book – but you haven’t read this far just to hear that there’s no hope for e-reading here. Actually, there is an e-reader that you can buy, right here in Israel, at http://www.ebookshop.co.il, one of several Israeli sites that sell Hebrew language e-books. The site sells the Foxit eSlick, which lets you read PDF format e-books (note that the Hebrew site charges NIS 1,499, close to $400, for the eSlick, while it’s listed at the Foxit site for $259. Are import duties really that high?).

So, right there you have an e-reader alternative that’s “kosher” for Israelis, and it certainly looks like a nice device. But there is a trade-off; you’ll be investing in a device that is definitely outclassed by the “big boys,” Kindle and Nook, which are state of the art – including wifi connections to download books anywhere, and a touchscreen, also a feature of Sony’s PRS-600 reader. The Sony device is sold independent of content, unlike the Kindle and Nook (ie you are not expected to purchase books directly from the Sony site, although there is a bookstore you can access). The eSlick doesn’t have any of those things – you connect the device to your computer and manually upload books.

As mentioned, the problem for Amazon and B&N is connected to content downloads. The Kindle is more or less tied to the proprietary format e-books you get from Amazon, so there’s little point in their selling a device you can’t buy books on yet. The Nook is a little more loose, in that it allows you to read books in a variety of formats (more on that below), but B&N is of course interested in selling its content, so again there’s little point in selling an e-reader we can’t buy books for.

Another drawback for the Foxit device is that it only handles PDFs. There are many e-books available in PDF format, but there are just as many, if not more, in ePub (aka open e-book) format, the format read by many e-book computer readers, and used on a host of devices, including the Nook and iPhone (but not the Kindle). Most commercial bestsellers will be available in multiple formats (ie PDF and ePub), but some more esoteric works may not be, so if your device doesn’t handle both, you’re missing out. A battle royale may be shaping up between Amazon and the rest of the e-book world; Amazon sells its e-books in its own proprietary azw format, while B&N, Adobe, Sony, and most everyone else has committed to ePub and other open formats. Amazon, of course, doesn’t have to worry about anyone else, but not all the players (like Google?) have weighed in on the format issue yet.

If you’ve got a cellphone with a decent sized screen, I would suggest using that as an e-book reader for now, until one of the more advanced devices “makes aliyah.” Granted, a cellphone screen is not an e-book reader, but some of the newer phones have screens big enough to make reading less of a hassle. There are ePub readers for nearly all smart phone platforms (except Symbian – sorry, Nokia fans), but I’d suggest sticking with Adobe PDF Reader LE (mobile) edition, which, if your phone doesn’t have it already, will cost you $15, far less than a dedicated PDF e-book reader. What about content? Besides the hundreds of free places to download PDFs from (they’re all over the place), I found a site that has thousands of best-sellers in e-book format (PDF, ePub, and others) that doesn’t seem to have a problem – but don’t tell a certain book importer that you did!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Video: Nook, Barnes & Noble’s Answer to Kindle (casesblog.blogspot.com)
• Rumor: B&N Nook to run Android Apps? (mobilecrunch.com)
• Kindle Everywhere: Amazon Launches Windows Application (readwriteweb.com)
• Amazon’s Kindle to launch in UK (news.bbc.co.uk)

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!

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.’

What if you don’t want to spend all that airfare just for a shopping experience? Well, pretty soon you won’t have to: Israel is set to get its own Apple Store around the beginning of September, according to an Apple rep I spoke to this week. But like so many things here, the local version is just different enough from the “real thing” to be – well, different.

According to Michal, who represented iDigital, Apple’s local licensee in Israel, in our conversation, the Apple Store Israel “will give customers the full Apple Store experience,” although the store will not be operated by Apple, as Apple Stores elsewhere are. The store will feature a genius bar – where you can pick the brains of an expert on Apple products or software. The store, to be located at the Ramat Aviv Mall, will have a layout and product display similar to Apple Stores around the world. But the Apple Store Israel is a project of iDigital.

Not that that’s a bad thing; iDigital has been getting a lot of good buzz in the local Mac community for its standards of service and its willingness to serve the customer (unlike those “other guys” who used to run the local Apple shop). And, according to Michal, many of the services to be offered by Apple Store Israel – such as training, product demonstrations, etc., will be directed and authorized by Apple. By the way: If you’re a “MacHead” or i-gadget whiz, the Apple Store Israel wants you! iDigital is on a hiring campaign, looking for the right people to work its Genius Bar and other customer interfaces. If you’re up to the challenge, just surf to iDigital’s site and drop them a line.

Note that Israel is actually going to be ahead of the Apple Store game than most of Europe is, come September. True, our Apple Store won’t be one of those bona-fide Apple Stores, but other than the the UK, there currently aren’t too many of those Apple Stores outside the U.S. and the UK, although a number are opening later this year, in Switzerland, Germany, and other locations.

One thing they won’t have at the new Apple Store Israel is an iPhone waiting line – because iPhones still won’t be available. According to Michal, iDigital is doing everything in its power to persuade Apple to work out a deal with a local cell phone service provider. For various technical reasons, such an arrangement has not been made yet, but she’s “hopeful.”

One Apple retail feature that is available right now is the iTunes store – except you can’t download any tunes from it! Here we come to the thorny problem of how to manage the digital rights of copyrighted works in international settings, a problem the most brilliant legal minds on the planet have been working tirelessly to come up with a solution for. But to no avail yet. So what can you do at the iTunes Store Israel? You can buy and download applications for your iPod Touch; technically, you can do so for your pirated “old school” iPhone, but you run the risk of having your device disabled by an iPhone software update (there are contradicting rumors on whether or not this is true; erring on the side of caution is probably wise). Note that here, too, Israel is not being singled out; Apple last month opened iTunes stores in over forty countries, most of which are selling apps and not music.

Which brings us back to the iPod Touch, the current top of the line advanced Apple handheld device we can get our hands on and actually use, at least currently. As it’s name implies, it’s got a touch screen, Wifi, a video player, and access to the the iPhone App Store, with dozens of free and cheap productivity programs, games, entertainment, etc. It’s got the Accelerometer, which keeps the picture on the screen “straight” no matter which way you turn the device. And it’s also got the ambient light sensor, which automatically adjusts screen brightness, depending on the light where you are. Many of the applications give the Touch a PDA-like usefulness, so if you’re looking for a replacement for your old Palm Pilot, the Touch is a great choice. Snap review from my teenage kids: It’s the coolest device they have ever seen. But it’s not an iPhone – which means that it can’t be your single, all around communication device, since you’ll have to shlep around a cellphone for conversations and messaging. So it’s a partial solution – sort of like the new local iTunes store, and apparently, the upcoming local Apple Store.

So what’s the first thing a good Jew yells when confronted with such a situation? Anti-Semitism! But hold on – it could be that, in this case at least, Apple is actually doing us a favor. True, we may be excluded from the new iPhone party (at least for now), but thanks to the 3G iPhone, the opportunity to get a iPhone device we can actually use – and afford – has never been better.

First, the details: The new iPhone is, according to Apple, “twice as fast and half the price.” The new version works with 3G networks, provides GPS style maps, lets you work with Microsoft Outlook Exchange servers, and allows users to access the “App Store,” the first Apple-sponsored centralized depot of free and for-pay iPhone applications. And, the new device has a 3G radio, allowing streaming radio as part of the built-in applications (courtesy of AOL). The biggest change, of course, is the price: Instead of the $399 it cost until now to buy a device, you can get a more advanced, 3G iPhone for just $199. It’s like “two for one” day at the supermarket!

Why We Can’t Buy One Here: After the worldwide success of the iPhone, with millions of the things being “unofficially” used around the world (the original iPhones were offered only in the U.S., and later some European countries), Apple got the hint, and has struck deals with cell phone service providers all over the world to sell iPhones and calling plans. It appears that Apple is selling in just about every country where it was able to strike a deal – how else to explain the wide diversity of countries on its list, which include hi-tech “giants” like Cameroon, Burundi, Jamaica, Equitorial Guinea, and Uruguay- as well as Jordan and Egypt? Like Israelis wouldn’t snap up many more iPhones than Egyptians, Jordanians and Burundians combined!

Israel isn’t the only country Apple is skipping: Notably absent from the list are several countries one would have expected see, like South Korea, China, and Thailand. Qatar is in, but Dubai and the UAE aren’t. And Russia’s not there either. Each country has its own story on why its citizens can’t get a 3G iPhone with local service, according to a number of Web sites I reviewed (in South Korea, for example, there seems to be a lot of pressure from local cellphone manufacturers Samsung and LG against Apple’s inroads among service providers). Israel, too, has a “story” when it comes to its exclusion from the club.

It actually doesn’t take much brainpower to figure out what the problem is. In much of the Middle East and Africa, the preferred service partner seems to be Orange, so I assume they have some kind of multi-country zone deal with Apple to provide service. After numerous attempts to speak to someone at iDigital, Apple’s local representative, I couldn’t find someone official willing to make a statement on why Orange Israel hasn’t adopted the iPhone, but a brief perusal of Orange’s website provides the likely answer. Orange, like other Israeli cellphone service providers, makes a good chunk of change on the devices it sells, not just the service. Orange currently sells phones that can be considered iPhone competitors – the Nokia n95 and the Blackberry Curve 8310 – for NIS 3,205 and NIS 4,294 respectively. How’s it gonna look for them to sell an iPhone for NIS 805 ($199 at the current exchange rate plus 15.5% VAT)? That’s cheaper than almost all of the “cheap” phones Orange sells! Like they say in Brooklyn, fuhgeddaboutit.

What to Do If You Want an iPhone Anyway: While many Israelis who have gone abroad over the past year have brought back with them iPhones purchased on their journeys that they unlocked and used with their GSM Sim cards here, that may no longer be an option with the iPhone 3G. In the U.S., iPhones are available in two places – Apple Stores and AT&T service centers, which provides all the official calling plans for U.S. iPhones. The reason the new iPhone is half the price of the old one is because AT&T is subsidizing the price – which means that if you buy a 3G iPhone, you will be required to sign up for a two year calling plan (which, according to many sites, such as http://tinyurl.com/5k55nq, will make it more expensive than the $399 device with a calling plan!). That will also be the case in the Apple Store; until now you were able to buy a phone without signing up for an AT&T plan, but under the new system, you are obligated to join one within 30 days of purchase – and if you don’t, they’ll charge your credit card like you did anyway (it’s not clear if you will be able to pay a penalty to get a phone without joining a plan; I’m betting no, at least at the beginning).

Then there’s the issue of the cost – and benefit – of 3G service in Israel (the 3G Internet package for the Blackberry costs NIS 175 a month!). Do you really need 3G anyway? Probably not. If you’re looking for a cool replacement phone you can easily swap out your Sim card into, the “old” iPhone (which just two weeks ago was the height of cellphone technology!) will do just fine. And now you have an opportunity to get one at a bargain price! If you’re traveling in the U.S. this summer, check out an Apple Store and check out one of the now surplus iPhone models, which will probably be on sale beginning in mid-July – and for those who can’t make it to an Apple Store, you can be sure there will be a flood of “outdated” iPhones on sites like eBay available for a bargain price, as many current iPhone users with proper AT&T calling plans upgrade to the new model. For you and I, though, last month’s technology can become this year’s bargain cellphone buy!

While not exactly old hat, iPods have been around long enough to have come down in price significantly. There are a host of cheaper imitators that may be easier to handle (see below), but let’s face it: Zunes, Sansas, and no-name made in China MP4 players just don’t have the afikomen oomph of an iPod. If they don’t already have one, you could do worse than spending $39 on a refurbished iPod (http://tinyurl.com/65qfhr), on sale at Apple USA. If you’ve got someone to bring them in for you, iPods at those prices qualify as gifts for the under $50 no import duty rule. You may have to pay VAT if you have them shipped, although the shipping costs would be minimal, because they’re so small.

Modern generation iPods can play music and video, as can many other modern portable player clones. The difference is that the iPod is a platform, with many extra applications written or produced especially for it. Because the iPod is so popular, many developers have come up with tweaks and programs to help you get more out of it.

Sometimes, it seems, it pays to go with the name brand.

For example, you can download and install CantoPod (for Mac OSx or Windows), which lets you see the lyrics to the songs on your iPod (all except the Shuffle). The program’s database has the words to over 200,000 songs, including many of those that your kids are listening to that you know are they shouldn’t be, but can’t figure out why, because you can’t understand what the performers are saying. There is also a version for cell phones with music players. Check out the free CantoPod at http://www.staylazy.net/canto/.

The miniscule iPod is perfect for running around with, whether in the gym or on an outdoor running track. Many people who already exercise buy one to keep them company, while many others buy one as an incentive to get them to exercise. That’s where the free iPodGym program comes in handy (http://somatotype.net/iPod-Gym/). This site has dozens of instructional videos you can download to your iPod (properly formatted, of course) and watch. Even more ambitious (but costing $19.95) is iWorkout (http://www.helmesinnovations.com/iWorkout/) with 101 videos, nutritional charts, nutrition & dieting essentials, etc.

The iPod is great for exercising not only your body – but your mind as well! Any iPod that can display video or song lyrics can also display text and with iPod Notes (http://www.ipod-notes.com/) you can turn a text file on your computer, or even a Web page, into an e-book that you can display and read on your iPod. Also available is iPod eBook Creator (http://ebookhood.com/ipod-ebook-creator), which, in association with http://ebookhood.com/, lets you download hundreds of already converted e-books (including many classics, science fiction, etc.) all ready to go. And, if you like the idea of a “walking encyclopedia,” you can download the entire Wikidpedia for storage and display on your device. Or, if you need instant access to a dictionary, you can download the 2006 edition of the Merriam-Webster dictionary at http://tinyurl.com/qymfc/ (all programs are free except the dictionary, which is $9.95).

One of the most amazing programs for the iPod is Handbrake (http://handbrake.fr/). If you’ve never tried this all around (and free!) video converter for iPods, get it now before Apple people sue it out of existence. Handbrake will take any DVD (Video-TS folder, DVD image or real DVD) and output it to MP4 (Mpeg4, suitable for iPod display), MKV, AVI or OGM, with all the DVD features including subtitles, chapters, etc. Handbrake can even “do” encrypted videos (using third party components) and the program has a very active user forum with lots of good advice on the site’s community page. If you prefer “pre-canned” video in the form of clips you can download from Youtube, check out Ares Tube (http://www.benjaminstrahs.com/, for PC only), which can handle video from not only Youtube, but dozens of other video sites as well.

Not all is hunky dory in the world of iPod. The bane of many device users is having to coordinate what’s on the player with iTunes, which has its own peculiar (some would say rigid) way of doing things. Fortunately, you can divorce an iPod from its dependence on iTunes; download Floola (http://www.floola.com/), a cross platform iPod manager that does everything iTunes does, and then some, adding support for lyrics, album artwork, converting video files to MP4 format, and downloading Youtube files. It also lets you copy files to and from the iPod without “synchronizing” the whole thing with the computer’s music library, as well as, allowing you to connect more than one iPod to a computer – both features that seem beyond the abilities of iTunes to perform in a user friendly manner.

In fact, if you try to do either of these things with a Mac, expect to spend several hours at your computer trying to work things out! If you insist on using iTunes and you want to copy songs or video or your device onto the computer independent of the music library, check out Expod (http://expod.joynt.net/). After being the nice dad who got his kids a bunch of iPods and who wanted to transfer songs from one device to another without having to erase them each time (because of iTunes’ limitations), and after trying a bunch of tools that claimed to allow such copying, I found Expod to be the only program that actually worked, letting you run such a basic operation on an iTunes equipped Mac. In the case of multiple accounts and copying songs, the iPod could learn a trick or two from its Chinese no-name clone cousin!

That includes the shekel, which over the past year has lost a huge chunk of its exchange value versus the dollar. A year ago the exchange rate was about NIS 4.20 per dollar; today it is hovering around NIS 3.50 (actually, as I write this, it is NIS 3.39 per dollar).

International finance is a complicated subject – a lot more complicated than computers! Far be it for me to speculate on the reasons for the dollar’s doldrums, much less to predict on where it is headed. What concerns me is the very real issue of what my money – shekel or dollar – can buy.

As everyone who does business in Israel with dollars knows, a stronger shekel versus the dollar means a disadvantageous shekel exchange rate – i.e. fewer shekels for your dollars. If you sold your house for the shekel equivalent of $200,000 a year ago this week, you received NIS 840,000 for your property; today you’d only get NIS 700,000.

The converse is true, too – or should be; prices for products imported from the US (or from China, since they are usually denominated in dollar terms) should be sinking in shekel terms. An item that cost $1,000 a year ago – NIS 4,200 – should now cost only NIS 3,500.

I haven’t noticed a rash of price cutting for products imported from the US, or usually sold in dollars. At 4.2 versus 3.5, the dollar has lost about 20 percent of its value against the shekel; hence, we should see prices on a wide array of products being cut by 20%

But we have not. In many cases, prices on dollar-denominated goods quoted in shekel prices have actually risen. That means, in some cases, prices on these goods are as much as 25% higher in shekel terms than they were a year ago. The folks selling these goods – as diverse as computers, brand-name clothing and footwear, and industrial products – really have a nerve, if you ask me.

When things are moving in the other direction – that of a strong dollar – they don’t hesitate to raise the price of their goods in shekel terms, with the excuse that they have to pay the same dollar amount regardless of the shekel’s value. The same thing should apply when things swing the other way, and the shekel cost of the dollar-denominated goods goes down!

In fact, the gap between what the price is in shekels and what it should be in dollar terms has blown wide open – which gave me an idea. What if you were to take a quick hop over to New York – say for just a couple of days – and go shopping? For one night, I guess you could get away with sleeping on the subway. But even if you wanted to stay for a week or so, you could find a reasonably priced motel (like for $50 or $60 a night) for the price of a train ride to the suburbs, and really have a nice time. And if you have relatives or friends to stay by, this would be a good excuse to visit.

Could you save enough money on the dollar/shekel price “spread” – the extra discount you get by buying things at the real dollar price, as opposed to the now-artificially hiked up shekel price – to make such a trip worthwhile? Such was the question I posed to myself, and here are my findings.

• A cursory examination prices for the same or very similar products here in Israel and at Amazon.com revealed some major price differences. At an Israeli auction site, for example (http://tinyurl.com/2pokzm), a Toshiba Satellite Core 2 Duo 1.5GHz 120GB laptop with 2 GB of RAM was going for NIS 4,568 (plus NIS 69 shipping and handling). At NIS 3.50/dollar, that comes out to $1,325. That doesn’t sound too bad, unless you consider that a better model (with a 200 GB HD) is available at Amazon.com (http://tinyurl.com/34rwwd) for $730. So, if you were buying a Toshiba Satellite laptop, you’d be $595 ahead if you bought it in the US.

• What about an HP laptop? This one (http://tinyurl.com/32yttf) at another site is being offered for NIS 5,999 – $1,714 at current rates. It’s got a Pentium duo-core processor, 2 GB RAM and a 250 GB hard drive. I couldn’t find the exact model and specs at Amazon, but this one (http://tinyurl.com/34jq5m), if you don’t mind an AMD duo-core processor, is pretty close – and it’s only $1,000. If, however, you must have an Intel processor, try this one (http://tinyurl.com/2v9ek3) – for $1,100. It’s got a 240 GB hard drive, Duo Core Intel Processor and a fingerprint reader to boot. Savings on this item – at least $614.

• Let’s move on to the Macbooks (you know you want one). The Israeli agent for Apple products, iDigital (http://tinyurl.com/386vzd), sells the basic 2.1 mhz white Macbook (1 GB RAM, 120 GB hard drive) for NIS 6,199 – or $1,771. Compare that to the price you can get it for at Amazon – $1,094 (http://tinyurl.com/3dvk93). They’re even offering a $75 rebate on this item, which would bring down the cost to $1,019. But we won’t count that. Savings on the Macbook – $677.

And if you’re in the market for the newest edition of Apple’s laptop, the Macbook Air, you’ll save even more – NIS 10,000, or $2,857 for the iDigital version (http://tinyurl.com/2vahb8), compared to $1,794 for the same one at Amazon (http://tinyurl.com/2wl9lq) – a full $1,063 less.

• What about an iPhone? Well, they don’t officially sell it in Israel yet. However, a friend of mine (who couldn’t get a visa to the US and decided he couldn’t wait) told me he spent NIS 3,500 on one – a cool $1,000 – for the same phone the Apple store sells in the US for $399. To be fair, however, if you do buy an iPhone in the US, you have to unlock it to use it with local cellphone networks – a process I’ve seen widely advertised for NIS 249, or $71. Still, for the $529 you save on the iPhone, you could get two of them for the price of one here.

If you were to use my modest shopping list as a purchase guide, then, you could buy two laptops – the HP and a plain white Macbook – and an iPhone (with the Israeli conversion fee factored in) for $2,663 in the US, compared to $4,485 in Israel. That means to make a trip to buy these three items worthwhile, you’d have to spend less than $1,822 in airfare and expenses. Can it be done?

I checked the Web sites of several airlines for prices on flights between today and tomorrow, returning in a week (you could return in as little as three days on all of them, actually). On Turkish Airlines, with a stop in Istanbul, a round-trip ticket this week is $1,032.26, and on Lufthansa it’s $1,033. Cheapest ticket: Olympic Airways, which will get you to New York and back for $987. I checked El Al, of course, but for some reason their Web site doesn’t let you price round-trip flights leaving from Israel.

If you take the Olympic flight, you’ve got $835 to spend for the vacation part of your trip. But of course, we haven’t factored in staying by relatives, buying other expensive stuff (maybe your friends will want to give you a list), frequent-flier miles toward your ticket, etc. Whatever is on your list, remember: the spread can be your friend!