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What do you do when Apple reports that two million iPads were sold in less than 60 days? You create the first-ever tablet task force, duh!

With the debut of iAd fast approaching on July 1, 2010, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has created the Tablet Task Force to help create an infrastructure that would help support a variety of rich new advertising opportunities for the inevitable emerging technologies of tablets and e-readers. In the short period of time the iPad has been on the market, developers have created over 5,000 apps that take advantage of all its features and not to mention more than 200,000 apps already in the App Store that were created for the iPhone or iPod touch. The objectives of the Tablet Task Force are to explore and define the best practices in the area, build a solid foundation for ongoing growth and provide guidance on the development of ad standards.

“The ad market is developing for tablets and e-readers as the excitement builds for those devices.” said Bob Carrigan, CEO, IDG Communications Inc., Co-Chair of the Tablet Task Force and a member of the Executive Committee of the IAB Board of Directors. “Their growth will create new revenue for media companies, agencies and technology companies and new experiences for users.”

Although, IAB was the first to create a tablet task force, they won’t be the last to create a support group that will help developers answer all their questions, especially with the current controversy and skepticism surrounding applications such as iAd. In just the last month, Apple has had a number of potential antitrust cases arise regarding its developers terms to exclude analytics companies from collecting data on users.

One thing’s for sure, we wouldn’t love Apple without a little bit of controversy along with a little bit of smoke and mirrors. Let’s just hope that the Tablet Task Force will help bring clarity to this rapidly growing market. In the mean time, let’s kick back with a bucket of popcorn and a coke and see what is in store for us in the next few months.

For more information on the Tablet Task Force, and to download “tabvertising—iPad and other tablets: the advertising and marketing opportunities,” please go to: www.iab.net/tabvertising

So, if you haven't yet read Steve Jobs official and lengthy dismissal of Flash as "the past", here are his Thoughts on Flash.

Since they have been dissected here and there by all kinds of tech pundits, many coming down on one side or the other, I won't bother with examining the individual points of the essay, or discussing who is "right" and who is "wrong".

I think it's more interesting to look at what one might be able to tell by reading between the lines.

#1 - Apple is prepared to dump Adobe

The first thing we can infer is that Apple is apparently not afraid of any repercussions by Adobe, and doesn't mind throwing whatever partnership was in place into possible jeopardy, including Adobe's development of software for the Mac.

What that says to me is that Apple believes it can (or will) replace all of that software, and/or that a lot of it will cease to be relevant within the next 18 months or maybe a bit longer. I say 18 months because that's generally Adobe's development cycle for their suites, and interestingly enough this announcement is timed just as the release of CS5, the latest (and first fully Cocoa-ported) version, is about to become available. This could be because Apple does in fact intend to replace the key components of what Adobe offers, or that they think the whole OS landscape will change enough to make software like Adobe's irrelevant, or that they just don't think it is that valuable compared to what other developers can offer - or a combination of all three.

Apple already has video editing covered, and Aperture covers a lot of the functionality of Photoshop. As I mentioned in an earlier article, I think there's a good chance we could see Apple produce an HTML5 authoring application, which would overlap with Flash and perhaps Dreamweaver as well. That would leave Apple with only Illustrator to replace.

Or, let's say Apple believes strongly enough that the world is going mobile and multi-touch that they are planning to shift their whole OS effort in that direction. Maybe they are in a position where all of Adobe's current software will then be obsolete if not rewritten by Adobe. And maybe Adobe has already made it clear they have no intention of porting to keep up with another Apple OS transition.

OR, let's say Apple has just looked around at the software landscape and would just as soon nurse some promising new software into dominance as continue to deal with Adobe - Pixelmator over Photoshop, Lineform over Illustrator, and Coda, Espresso or Flux over Dreamweaver. At some point it would seem that a full rewrite/rethink is in order by Adobe. Maybe in Steve Jobs' opinion, that point has been reached.

#2 - Apple wants Flash gone off more than just its own mobile platforms

The second thing we can take from the letter is that Apple apparently has a vested interest in undermining Flash, not just keeping it off their platforms. I don't remember Steve Jobs writing an open letter about why floppy discs were no good. Apple just decided to go without it and moved on. The open letter means Apple wants it gone, not just unsupported on their mobile platforms.

As I've mentioned before, I believe this is about control of the video marketplace, not about the OS, although ultimately video may be enough of a part of the OS experience that this is splitting hairs. If content publishers everywhere are streaming their video using Flash, then Apple, and others, will be forced to deal with Flash. There have been signs aplenty that Apple may have something big up its sleeve related to video (front and back cameras on iphone, giant server farm in North Carolina, etc), and I believe whatever it is will probably go off a lot smoother if Flash is not the defacto means of video consumption for consumers.

#3 - There's something we don't know

The third item we can assume based on the letter is that something has to have gone on behind the scenes here between Apple and Adobe that is not public knowledge at this point. It may be just that a combination of Apple treading on Adobe's feet with Aperture and Final Cut Pro finally got to Adobe, or that Apple asked Adobe to yet again make a change to whatever OS shift they have planned next and Adobe said no. It's very hard to believe that this shot was fired out of the blue, as Adobe would have us believe.

Adobe at one point was surprisingly forthright with sharing a vision of the future in which Flash ran on every device and made the OS irrelevant. The mobile market was key to this strategy. With Microsoft also recently coming down on Apple's side, it seems perhaps both major OS makers have finally decided to cut Flash off at the knees. While I think Adobe will and should fight against this, I hope they don't completely bet the farm on Flash at this point. Adobe should have a strong future with or without Flash - hopefully they are not so hell-bent on world domination via Flash that they let their core strength of making tools for designers and other content creators wither. Regardless of what is going on with Apple, I think Adobe is at an inflection point where they may need to choose which is more important - Adobe's future as an OS challenger and enterprise software provider (embodied in initiatives like Flash as a platform, Acrobat and Omniture), or its future as the pre-eminent maker of design tools.

Follow Michael Tuminello, Director of Product for Unicast on Twitter @mtumi

Now that Adobe has officially retired from trying to make Flash an authoring application for iPhone apps, many may be thinking the scuffle is over. However, I'd say it's FAR from over, and in fact I think there is a good chance that this is just the opening salvo by Apple, who plans to carve out yet another piece of Adobe's space in the marketplace for creative content authoring, as it has already done with Final Cut Pro and Aperture. This time it will be web design, and will be more akin to Flash than Dreamweaver.

Here's why I think there's a good chance we could see an app from Apple to author HTML5 content that ends up being competitive with Flash.

1. They own enough of the necessary technology pieces to make this happen. They have Motion, Dashcode, iWeb, and iDVD, which all intersect with Flash in some sense and the pieces could be put together to make a pretty nice HTML5 authoring tool for building ads and certain kinds of websites. They're not going to actually smush all these apps together, but they can take what they know from having developed or worked on each of these and leverage it to make a professional tool that includes the necessary functionality.

2. There is a pro version of all of the iLife apps now EXCEPT iWeb. iPhoto has Aperture, iMovie has Final Cut Pro, and Garageband has Logic. iDVD also has nothing, but iDVD is no longer featured prominently on the iLife page, no doubt because in a few years iDVD may as well be i8TrackTape for all the relevance it will have to the marketplace. Having a professional web tool will round out their suite of professional apps for content creation, and provide a path from consumer to prosumer and beyond with each one of the iLife applications.

3. There are no tools (that I know of at least) to author equivalent experiences to Flash using HTML5. Whatever Apple's reasons to focus on expunging Flash from their platforms, the movement will not happen without at least one serious creative tool that allows users to create similar experiences. (Why they want Flash to go away is a story for another post, and there have been a lot - the most credible posts IMO are linked to at the bottom of this article.)

4. Apple has said that they will initially handle all ad production for iAd, and then open it up. What will drive this switchover to agencies producing the kind of "engaging and emotive" content Steve Job deems worthy of advertising on the iPhone and iPad? A burning interest in learning to code HTML5 amongst the international art director set? I think not - probably a tool provided by Apple.

4 1/2. This is half a reason because I'm unconvinced that Apple cares about the format at all, but if the iTunes LP is to live on, it desperately needs an authoring tool.(Speculation has been that it was a bone thrown to labels worried about single sales replacing album sales, and the fact that it does not seem to work at all on the iPad certainly lends some credence to it not being the apple of Apple's eye.)

5. For a company that wants to own the creative professional market, as Apple seems to want to, they can only leave out the web for so long. For professional photographers, filmmakers and music producers (and those who aspire to be these people), the web is more and more the key means to present their work, and an export to iWeb will not cut it - not to mention all the web designers and interactive designers making brand new creative content for the web.

There are probably a few other reasons people could come up with. The market is hardly unassailable. There are a few monolithic web development applications that are growing long in the tooth, and a number of promising smaller applications that handle some aspect of web development well, and have a long list of additions forthcoming, with limited resources to get there. None of them are likely to have full support for HTML5 at the top of the list, and Adobe, the most likely contender to be able to build something substantial, has a vested interest in not doing so, for fear of helping to upset the Flash egg-cart.

So, I would not be at all surprised to see Apple introducing a new creative tool by the end of the year, outputting HTML5 and JS, including support for animation, vector graphics using the canvas tag, and certainly video. They will build it just in time to start to transition out of the ad building business themselves (which could be a beta period for the tool) and provide agencies with the means to stop building content for Flash, to follow up on the reasons for doing so they have already begun to circulate.

After all, if they're not going to build it, I'm not sure who is, and if no one builds it then Flash isn't going anywhere.

PS: Addendum - the two reasons I think are the most likely behind Apple's Flash-hating: preventing Adobe from owning the video market, and preventing Adobe from locking down their iPhone/iPad platform by generating too large a percentage of the content . There are also some merits to the it-performs-badly-on-Mac argument about the Flash player, but I think Apple has been too vehement for that to be the only issue.

PPS: I'm sure they will give it a better name than iWeb Pro.

Follow Michael Tuminello, Director of Product for Unicast on Twitter @mtumi

Every few months a new app appears on the market, word spreads and before you know it, everyone is on the buzz. "Topsee" is one such app. A fun and simple way to find “a mixture of things to eat, drink, see, do and buy in central London”. Lastminute.com (the engineers behind "Topsee") has decided to eliminate the idea of "user search"… That’s right, no more searching!! They have released an iPhone app which shows the user all bars, clubs, restaurant within close proximity without the user having to search for them. As the online world is driven by this function, this is a remarkable turnaround on the concept. Users no longer decide what to look for but instead are given a selection.

We all rely on trawling through the pages of our preferred search engines to show us the freshest, newest and best places to go to, eat and explore, but now we can have others do this for us: Introducing the world of “no user search”.

So, the search options have been scrapped; does eliminating search really work??

For me the idea works as it provides places to go to almost instantly, eliminating the issue of finding and choosing new places on the fly which is great. The user interface helps push the concept further; rather than numerous lists, there are simple graphical images that show the user the distance from their current location to the specifically chosen venue. At any given time, there are only ever 9 images of possible options – chosen by top bloggers in and around central London. Thus, the user will not be overwhelmed with choices and an alternative selection to choose from can be bought up by simply shaking your handset. It is also proven “the more options available, the less chance of a user choosing” this app reduces the risk of the user becoming fed-up and giving up on finding a place, but enthuses the user with immediate options.

The engineers have not only thought about the single user, but have considered the media crazy society we live in. With mobile and social networking being the most popular tools for communication the creators of “Topsee” have incorporated this factor with communicative sharing tools for twitter, facebook & email users.

I am certain, if this app proves to be a success advertisers will begin to pay a fee in order for their venue to be on the top of the list of the first options users see, as they do on Google in the online world. However, I do believe expert bloggers will still have a major input as this is the integral concept of the app.

We've all been in the situation of last minute client visits or over running meetings that calls for post drinks or dinner and this app is great for looking savvy with the best places at the touch of a button.

Learn More about the Topsee App: http://www.lastminute.com/site/labs/topsee.html

Apple’s most recent acquisition of Quattro is a bit of a puzzler. While they can’t be discounted entirely, the only two explanations I have heard for it so far aren’t convincing.

Explanation #1: Apple is doing it to compete with Google (NY Times - "Aiming at Google, Apple Buys Quattro Wireless, an Ad Company")

Why not: Apple under Steve Jobs has not gotten to be the “company of the decade” by being reactionary.

While it makes sense to tap into advertising as an additional source of revenue, both to fund its own growth and to deprive its rival of income, it’s unlike Apple to enter a new product space as a me-too move. Apple has resisted building a competitor for Microsoft Office for some 20-odd years - iWork was developed because office software is an integral part of the average user’s computer experience, not to unseat MS Office. Apple needed to build it so Mac users would not have to suffer through an un-Mac-like experience with common computing tasks. They also sat out of the MP3 player market for years until they were able to leverage the integration between Apple hardware and software to drastically improve the user experience people had with MP3 players, and then did the same with the cell phone. For Apple, it’s all about the product.

Explanation #2: Apple is doing it to make more money from the iPhone platform (Business Insider - "Why Apple Bought Quattro Wireless And Is Getting Into Advertising")

Why not: Apple will make plenty of money from the iPhone already - they're not going to compromise the user experience just to make extra cash.

This article says that because free apps are downloaded 9 times more than paid apps, Apple "wants to think about ways it can make money off free apps". If that were the case, why not just make all free apps cost something? Sounds like a sure-fire solution to me. I don't know how much money Apple can expect to make off advertising, but considering it's usually fractions of a penny per impression, and many downloaded apps are rarely used, Apple could probably make more money charging less than 10 cents for each free app then they would by trying to monetize apps with advertising. Also, by promoting (or requiring) advertising in free apps, Apple would be actively undermining the user experience for their most downloaded apps. Sounds not at all like Apple to me.

To have a better guess at the answer, I think you have to assume that Apple is building a product where advertising is integral to what the product is delivering - meaning Apple is working on a product that could not achieve its required level of elegance without Apple having a direct hand in how advertising works on the device.

I can think of two industries where advertising is completely entrenched that would be appealing to Apple, and a third on the horizon that concerns Apple as well. The first is the magazine and newspaper publishing industry. The second is the network television industry. The third is the online application space, specifically online office software (Google Docs/Office 2010 Web Applications/etc).

Once the phone gets a little bigger, it becomes a good candidate to replace a magazine or newspaper, and when it gets bigger than that, it's a good candidate to replace your TV. The operating systems being developed for phones today stand a good chance of evolving into the next general purpose OS’s, leaving the computer as-we-know-it relegated to specialized tasks that require you to deal with the complexity of a desktop OS. A company that can stake a strong claim in the new methods of broadcasting and publishing that are being hashed out to reach the mobile marketplace has a good shot at the holy grail of living room media convergence that we've been hearing about for 10+ years: phone, TV, computer, gaming system, stereo, etc. Now THAT sounds like Apple, and that's the foothold Apple is fighting for here, not for the privilege of showing banner ads on a 480x320 screen.