We generally don’t write about Apple’s patent trail but this jot covers an interesting patent related to the world of 3D. AppleInsider uncovered a patent from Apple that describes a Microsoft Xbox Kinect-like interface technology that is sans physical controller. Instead users use their hands to move items in the UI.

Entitled “Three-Dimensional Imaging and Display System” the Apple patent (application #20110298798) attributed to Christopher Krah of Apple. In a nutshell, the Apple patent describes a method that allows the control of a 3D computer interface via a 3-dimensional imaging and display apparatus that scans and detects physical movement within a volume of space. With the system, a user could perform gestures with their hands within a given volume of space in order to control the user-interface of their Mac computer. To learn more read here.

Ad Agency Walter Isaacson uses modo

For the recent holidays Walter Isaacson was hired by Philips Norelco to produce a new TV commercial for their new SensoTouch 3D rechargeable razor. They decided to re-imagine one of Norelco’s most popular holiday ads of all time, which was a stop-motion ad featuring Santa sledding through the snow atop one of their products.

For this new ad Isaacson turned to computer graphics studio re:think studios, of Chicago. re:think studios is a big-time Luxology modo user and turned to modo to produce the ad. “mod is blazing fast!” said Brian Bulock, director of CGI and partner at re:think studios. “And with the deadline we had on this spot, we needed every minute. I vote we put modo on the nice list.” You can watch the spot here at Vimeo.

Adobe to update Critical 3D Bugs in Acrobat

Adobe is slated to update critical 3D vulnerabilities in its Acrobat and Reader applications across platforms today. The bugs were discovered in December where the 3d file format .u3d contained memory corruption issues that could lead to code attacks. These were limited in practice to the Windows platform, says Adobe. To learn more visit this eWeek news report.

LumenRT Customer Story

Vue software maker e-on software has had a new product out for awhile now called LumenRT, a plugin product for SketchUp. The photorealistic rendering plugin has received good reviews in the industry.

You can learn a little bit about this product by watching and reading the customer profile of Matthew Stone, a landscape design professional in Australia, who switched from Autodesk 3D Studio Max to SketchUp with LumenRT for its rendering platform. Read the interview here.

Under communist law, it was actually illegal to own a personal computer, according to Gabor Bojar, the company’s founder, who remarked: “A real entrepreneur is never afraid to take a risk.” Gabor risked a prison sentence by taking a strictly embargoed product (the Mac) onboard a plane from the West to Budapest, so that six months later they could unveil ArchiCAD for the Mac.

Gabor’s remarks during the unveiling are partly included in the blog post here. They are a wonderful testament (to Jobs and Graphisoft itself) and an illuminating story for people of the West in particular to read.

Read the blog post here.

A webpage dedicated to the planned event states: “Graphisoft considers Steve Jobs the greatest hero of the information age. We believe such superlatives are warranted: indeed, we cannot be entirely objective with respect to Steve Jobs, because to a large extent, Graphisoft ArchiCAD owes its global success to him. In 1984, Apple was willing to give Graphisoft a chance.”

BIM Begins on Apple Lisa

ArchiCAD is largely considered the very first true BIM (Building Information Modeling) software program, inventing and coining the term “virtual building” in the process of developing 3D CAD for architects which enabled them to literally build the building, completely, in 3D on the computer. “The first version of ArchiCAD ran on a Lisa computer, the immediate predecessor to the Macintosh,” reports the company. “We exhibited this program at the 1984 CEBIT in Hannover, where Steve Jobs saw it and decided to give Apple’s full support to its development and distribution. Apple gave us cash and computers at a time when Graphisoft was a young company with very limited resources; the technology represented by those computers was not even available in our part of the world.”

01 - Ark-Coca-Cola skyscraper wins fifth design excellence award. The project is a BIM achievement in Australia and was designed using Graphisoft ArchiCAD.

ArchiCAD quickly became available on the Mac and remained an exclusive on the Mac well into the 1990’s. Apple introduced the young Hungarian company to its global distribution network, which the company relies on to this day, helping sell and represent ArchiCAD in countries around the world.

“In 1985, after Steve Jobs left Apple, the company lost its soul,” states Graphisoft on this webpage. “At the time, many of our partners said that Graphisoft was the guardian of Apple’s spirit and soul. Some even said that we were the ‘real Apple’ at that time. When Steve Jobs returned to Apple 12 years later, the company again began to create miracles.”

“The working environment at Graphisoft Park embodies the spirit of Steve Jobs, which strives for excellence in every detail. Our built environment aims to inspire and promote this passion for quality in the talented people who work here. Graphisoft Park is indeed a fitting location for a statue commemorating Steve Jobs and his legacy.”

To learn more about Graphisoft’s thoughts on Steve Jobs and its view on Apple and the Graphisoft connection, click here. The event takes place in front of the Graphisoft building, 1031 Budapest, Zahony u, 7, G Building, at 3:00PM CET.

Those who wish to attend can RSVP by contacting Julianna Gulden, Graphisoft PR at: jgulden@graphisoft.com

Earlier this month Strata announced that its award-winning Strata 3D software was placed in the Apple Mac App Store, marking the first time the company has made their 3D software available through this channel. “We’re very proud to be at the forefront of the companies offering this level of software through the Mac App Store,” said Ken Bringhurst, Strata President. “Strata started as a Mac developer in 1984 when the Mac first launched. We’ve been committed to easy-to-use professional level 3D software for the Mac ever since.

The company created a special version of their top-of-the-line 3D software specifically for the Mac App Store. Strata Design 3D CXi is 499.99.USD in the App Store. Visit the Mac App Store to learn more and get it.

01 - Strata 3D CXi is available specifically for and in the Mac App store.

CAD Market Growth in 2011?

James E. Heppelmann, CEO of PTC, stated to analysts at a recent earnings call that their company has seen growth in the CAD market in 2010 and especially in 2011. Speaking about Creo and PTC’s growth opportunities, Heppelmann noted that the company has gained share in the automotive sector with wins at Volvo Truck and Hyundai. Hyundai recently switched from Dassault to PTC passing over Siemens.

Noting CAD growth in 2011 is interesting as the overall economy may not reflect this.

Apple Acquires 3D Mapping Company C3 Technologies

We have written about C3 before, a Saab aerospace spin-off 3D mapping technology company. In August Apple acquired the Swedish mapping company and many are thinking this new 3D mapping technology will be coming to the iPad, iOS and even the Mac.

C3 technology uses missile guidance system level technology developed by the Swedish military that is now declassified. A combination of this astoundingly precise 3D mapping tech with Apple’s new Siri could seriously change the mapping market landscape. To read a report go here.

New features in OpenCL 1.2 include seamless sharing of media and surfaces with DirectX 9 and 11, enhanced image support, custom devices and kernels, device partitioning and separate compilation and linking of objects. The OpenCL 1.2 specifications, online reference pages and reference cards are all available at www.khronos.org/opencl/.

In the past Chris has spoken to Architosh about the detailed relationship between Apple hardware engineering and AMD/ATi, and the various details that shape the decision-making process in hardware design and the resultant performance realities for users. Our “state of the union” style series wouldn’t be complete without a serious fireside chat with Chris Bentley. He has been on the extreme inside tract of Apple’s Mac hardware engineering like no other outside Apple for many years.

So let’s get in real close and talk about Mac graphics!

AFR: (Anthony Frausto-Robledo): In your role you are on the inside track of hardware development. Can you describe to me briefly the importance AMD/ATi plays in supporting Apple’s Mac graphics hardware advances? To what degree is AMD/ATi an influence on Apple’s decisions?

CB: (Chris Bentley): Apple is relentlessly innovative both in software and hardware, and especially in the combination of the two.  I looked back over the interview we did in January 2007;  apart from being a good read, I am struck by the fact that it came out just on the cusp of Apple introducing the first iPhone.  Since then Apple has shipped multiple generations of the iPhone, the iPod Touch, the iPad, the iPad 2, the MacBook Air, and numerous laptop and desktop systems.  All of these devices are powered by OpenGL or OpenGL ES graphics.  I think it’s fairly well accepted that Apple has shipped more OpenGL accelerated devices than any one else on the planet.

AMD works closely with Apple on both the software and hardware sides.  The software we write for Apple is entirely customized for Mac OS X.  Since 2007 we have added support for the Radeon HD 2xxx, 3xxx, 4xxx, 5xxx, 6xxx chip families, and added support for OpenGL 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, encompassing over 30 new features and extensions, as well as OpenCL 1.0, 1.1, and hardware accelerated H.264 decode support in Lion.  Delivering OpenGL 3.2 and the other features in Lion required Apple and AMD engineers to work hand-in-glove for months.  On the hardware side, Apple receives regular presentations on our hardware roadmap, and for every Apple program using AMD GPUs, our hardware engineers work closely with Apple throughout the bringup and production phases.

So, I would say that we are deeply invested in supporting Apple’s innovation in graphics software and hardware.  I think the relationship is more about working together, and less about our influencing them.

AFR: For years many Mac pros have lamented the lack of GPU options and specific pro-level cards. But over the past several years Apple has done much better. What do you feel are some of the decisive factors affecting Apple’s decisions in what GPU cards to support? And how much better would you describe the situation today than say seven or ten years ago?

next page: Pro Apps and OpenGL Performance

Steve Jobs, who died on October 5, 2011, at the age of 56, was well versed in architecture and design and according to the article a very inspiring client. The article makes mention of Jobs’ connection to the architectural office of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson (BCJ). Jobs approached architect Peter Bohlin, FAIA, shortly after starting NeXT to commission him to design a small sales office in Pittsburgh. The Pennsylvania-based firm–which now has offices around the country–took that commission and later designed Pixar’s Emeryville headquarters in California.

The article makes mention of Bohlin’s first impression of Steve Jobs and later comments that Steve was “a great client. He drove us hard to get it right. He always knew when things weren’t good enough…”

Peter Bohlin talks about Jobs’ vision for the Apple stores and even mentions his new home–which sadly Bohlin notes will likely never be built. Apparently, Jobs wife, Laurene Powell Jobs and his family may not follow through on Steve’s many year quests to demolish a regarded George Washington Smith house and build a modest modern home in its stead.

01 - An image capture of the PDF files for Apple's Apple 2 Campus as filed with town of Cupertino. The complete set of drawings and renderings is available for view.

Lastly, the article makes mention of the revealed plans for Apple’s new headquarters in Cupertino, which Jobs pushed through the city council in June of this year. That building is not designed by Peter Bohlin’s firm and renderings of it have been viewed and harshly criticized by architectural critics. The Norman Foster designed structure looks like a giant spaceship slash donut. It is 2.8 million square feet and contains parking for 4,000 plus cars in its basement.

The master plan for the Apple 2 campus is interesting and concentrates building structure, thereby saving on open space. Research facilities and a very large parking structure adjoin the main structure. You can view PDF drawings on the Cupertino town website here. To read the full article on Record go here.

Their views also paint a specific picture for us about their companies–and sometimes products–how they may see things differently from others or the industry in general.

We’ll start this trek by looking at Apple’s growth, in general and in specific….to the Mac and the wave of key software CAD or 3D tools that have been released during the past decade. We were very excited to produce the key graphic of this article (see image 01 below). It was the first time we laid out a timeline image of such software releases. Superimposed over Apple’s revenue and Mac growth picture it clearly stimulates our imagination while providing a soothing sense of accomplishment.

In this article we’ll touch on the growth question which touches aspects such as what developers actually need on the tools side as well as market pressures and business opportunities. The next-generation is always important and Apple has been said to hold the zeitgeist for the young. We’ll briefly cover university changes as we head into the cloud, iOS and the Mac. This article–nor the series–would not be complete without some captured criticism. And we’ll have even more of that in the final articles of the series.

Where are the opportunities for Apple? Where is Apple trying to take the industry and how does it affect CAD and 3D markets? This is what we get into in this special feature, and as always we hope to hear from you below. We start with growth.

Gauging Growth: The Mac in CAD/3D Today

There are some pundits, bloggers and old-school journalists who still find it hard to believe this is all happening. Not only do they find the Mac’s still minority share a sign of its low importance but they struggle contemplating the popularity of Apple’s iOS devices in CAD and 3D industries as well.

01 - Apple's Annual Revenue in billions and Mac shipments in millions at each forth quarter of the year with key software arrivals on the Mac CAD or 3D markets. Apple's Mac shipments have essentially quadrupled from about 1 million per quarter to 4 million per quarter. The Mac market is four times larger now than ten years ago.

But things really have changed. The chart above is both revealing and subtle. Yes, Apple’s revenues have truly taken off (and largely due to iPod, iPhone and now iPad) but during this ten year period Apple has more than quadrupled Mac shipments. More importantly, it essentially did most of this growth during the years its revenue picture began to steeply rise. And it has never been steeper.

While the Mac may not yet be the dominant platform in many CAD and 3D segments, make no mistake about it, many segments have changed dramatically over the past decade. As Carl Bass, CEO of Autodesk explains, “It is highly desirable by a number of our customers, particularly in some specific segments, to want to work on Macs. One are architects, two are industrial designers and a third are creative digital artists.” (more Carl Bass views here)

“It is really driven by what our customers want,” says Bass, “and they have spoken pretty loudly. They want to work on Mac.”

The rise and interest in the Mac may be best validated by Autodesk’s CEO but some critics and competition could argue that such a view is doubly optimistic and reflective of the company’s recent investment into the platform. In fact, when speaking to two of the industry’s most respected company heads with longtime investments and support of the Mac in CAD, we found more moderate, but still positive, views.

For example, Sean Flaherty, CEO of Nemetschek Vectorworks, the longtime leader in CAD on the Mac platform, didn’t directly say they see continued growth but instead answered: “We’ve been the CAD leader on the Mac for 15 years so a boost in popularity for the Macintosh definitely propels Vectorworks sales forward.” Interestingly, he remarked that Apple’s Mac popularity has aided CAD and 3D developers by improving the development tools and graphics environment.

“Toolkit developers now more commonly develop Mac versions of their technology,” says Flaherty, “so we have a greater breadth of technology to choose from for integration into Vectorworks.” Flaherty made was some saw as a brilliant decision of choosing to integrate Parasolid, arguably the world’s most advanced modeling geometry kernel, into Vectorworks several years ago. His point about toolkit developers cannot be taken lightly. Like other types of developers, the pressure on toolkit developers to support Apple’s Mac OS X platform is another sign that software developers are in need to bring their software to the Mac platform.

Other newer Mac developers may have a hard time gauging interest in the overall CAD and 3D market for the Mac. Bob McNeel of McNeel and Associates, the makers of Rhino, remarked about the verticality of his company’s application. “Since we are only in the 3D design for fabrication world, we have a pretty narrow view of the whole 3D market,” he said. “In general,” McNeel notes, “it [3D to fabrication] is growing quickly because the cost of 3D fabrication tools is dropping quickly.”

While many segments within the design markets are growing or even exploding in interests–like the “makers market” for example–there is often an assumption that if you are going to develop for any kind of “creative” market you need to support Mac too. “The Mac has always been the platform of choice for the ‘creative’ designer,” says Bob McNeel, “but it seems like the Apple brand has been much enhanced by their mobile product offerings in many of our market segments.” McNeel is referring to the use of Apple laptops often running in Boot Camp to run Rhino and other “maker” tools and 3D prototyping software. “I don’t have any idea how many also boot in OS X.” he said.

The high-level view about the growth question requires a two-fold approach. Firstly, as the chart (see image 01) above shows there has been explosive growth and interest in Apple, generating immense focus on iOS and a steady four-fold expansion of the Mac market. However, and secondly, there are clearly challenges in recognizing what segments are growing, how to identify them, and sometimes technical challenges in counting or measuring them.

Dr. Chris Yessios of AutoDesSys explains that the same application can be installed on either platform. “The ‘renewed’ popularity of the Mac has definitely affected our sales,” he said, “even though we cannot really tell who buys for the Mac and who for the PC.”

next page: Academia: The Next Generation Wants Apple

The new products include: AutoCAD 2012 for Mac, AutoCAD LT 2012 for Mac, and AutoCAD WS for Mac. This marks the first time Autodesk has offered AutoCAD LT–it’s lighter weight version of AutoCAD–for the Mac platform as well as the first time AutoCAD WS as well.

“With AutoCAD 2012 for Mac, we’ve seen our productivity increase thanks to the stability of the Mac OS X operating system, and the fact that AutoCAD for Mac is a native application that doesn’t require switching back and forth between operating systems. One of my favorite Mac features is Exposé, which lets me see all the drawings I’m working on at once.” – Jim LaPier, lead designer at Chesapeake Design Group.

01 - Autodesk LT 2012 for Mac joins full version (also updated to 2012 version) and new Mac native AutoCAD WS for Mac.

The company also showcased these new products today on its AutoCAD Facebook page. That webcast will be available for those who have missed it later. Detailed notes from a private showing to the press will be published here on Architosh, stay tuned.

AutoCAD Expansions for Apple’s Mac Users

Autodesk has said that since the release of AutoCAD for the Mac customer feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. “Bringing AutoCAD LT and AutoCAD WS to the Mac shows our continued commitment to making design more accessible for an ever-greater number of people to shape the world around them,” said Amar Hanspal, senior vice president, Autodesk Platform Solutions and Emerging Business.

Autodesk has made the decision to bring AutoCAD LT to the Mac to help expand options for Mac users looking for quality CAD solutions. AutoCAD WS is the same application available for Windows but designed for the Mac’s key features and now on the platform for the first time.

AutoCAD 2012 Solutions Made for Lion

These latest solutions by Autodesk take advantage of the very latest software features in Apple’s Mac OS X Lion platform. Here are just some of the major features tuned around the Mac:

• Full native Mac OS X GUI (latest user interface design features)
• Apple Mac Cover Flow
• Apple Multi-touch gestures support throughout the application
• Native Mac OS X Behaviors

“Autodesk has done an incredible job bringing their apps to the Mac,” said Ron Okamoto, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations. “AutoCAD for Mac has been a huge hit with Mac users and we’re thrilled to see Autodesk offer AutoCAD LT and AutoCAD WS as Mac App Store exclusives.”

AutoCAD LT for Mac brings high end professional apps to the Mac App Store.

To learn more read the full press release here.

Pixar is famous for its movies and its RenderMan software. Those in the know, have known for quite some time now that Pixar’s RenderMan is back on the Mac in a big way but the company continues to develop software (most of it for exclusive internal use) and some of it is for distribution.

Pixar Tractor

One such piece of software is Pixar’s Tractor. Tractor 1.0 is Pixar’s totally new, next-generation, distributed processing rendering solution. In other words, it is a network-intensive application for distributing software rendering tasks.

What makes Tractor special is that it is specifically engineered for extreme scalability and performance, ideal for multi-core networks with upwards of tens of thousands of processors–perhaps a hundred thousand processors or more.

Tractor is designed to replace Pixar’s Alfred and Alfserver, which are network rendering tools which are still in production. Both will be phased out over a term ending in June of 2012.

Tractor Parts

Tractor 1.0 has three parts. The Tractor-Engine maintains the central job queue and dispatch of tasks. Tractor-Blade is a Python based execution server running on each remote node. Finally, Tractor-Dashboard is a customizable web browser user interface providing centralized control of the Tractor-Engine.

Tractor 1.0 is based on a streamlined architecture designed for rapid deployment. The licensing model is simplified compared to Pixar’s Alfred products. Performance-wise it can deliver over 500 tasks per second to the queuing engine.

Tractor Details

Tractor is extendable to non-rendering applications, such as compositing or physics simulations. A single license of Tractor 1.0 comes with each single license (or seat) of RenderMan Studio. No licenses come with RenderMan Pro Server. With this initial release Tractor 1.0 is intended to appeal to mid-sized to large installations of RenderMan.

Both RenderMan Studio and RenderMan for Autodesk Maya have full support for Tractor 1.0. Tractor is of course a multi-threaded application coded in C++ and responds to HTTP transaction requests and maintains a database of spooled jobs as a shallow (flat) hiearchy of files on desk.

Tractor 1.0 today is planned for dispatching RenderMan Pro Server tasks, but because of its extensibility will support plugins in the future for integration with other CG applications.

System Compatibility

Pixar remains very committed to Apple’s UNIX-based Mac OS X platform and as such Tractor 1.0 today supports just 32-bit Linux and 64-bit Mac OS X. The Tractor-Blade and Dashboard are compatible with Mac, Linux and Windows in various flavors.

The Tractor-Engine will support Windows in the next major release. Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6 are supported today.

To learn more about Pixar’s Tractor 1.0 go here. https://renderman.pixar.com/

Back in 2010 Apple filed a patent labeled “Multi-Dimensional Desktop” with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

The filed patent shows a UI that is capable of allowing the user to put or file things behind other shortcuts or documents. Most importantly, the user would be able to “sprawl” across the new 3D interface’s surfaces. Another interesting aspect is that the new 3D UI would support the ability to handle more complex shapes than the simple  four-sided square or rectangles found in today’s operating systems. One design in the patent filing shows a tetrahedron-shaped environment with curved intersections between each face–indicating that the future OS would allow the user to customize the shapes and landscape of their computer’s interface.

To read more go to AppleInsider’s post here.

Why a Web App?

Anthony Frausto-Robledo (AFR):  Over the years Architosh, and its readers too, have been following the evolution of the AIA Documents application with much interest hoping for a native Mac version. Why a Web application versus a real desktop application for the Mac?

Young Chang (YC): Everything we do is always based on user feedback and sound research. Our research has been showing, year over year, continued interest in the Mac, as well as the potential of a web based application to increase the accessibility of AIA Contract Documents to our users. Such an online version simplifies its maintenance and enhances the usability of the documents. We determined that the web based alternative was best for all users.

AFR:  So why and how did the online version come about?

YC: The major reason is because users are asking for anywhere, anytime access to AIA Documents.

AFR: And it also solves your Mac user demand.

YC: Yes.

AFR:  Can you give me some examples?

YC: Yes. Users want to be able to access AIA Documents not just at job sites but at client locations like client offices or at hotels while traveling. Being able to get to your contracts and modify them while away from the main office is very beneficial.

A New Approach to Pricing

AFR:  What are some other benefits of the new online version of the AIA Contract Documents Software?

YC:  One key benefit will be the new flexible licensing models. Right now there is just one way to get the AIA Documents package. Now we will have several packages, bundles and a pay-as-you-go model, which we think will be very popular.

01 - A preview view of the new AIA Contract Documents software web-based version online. The new online software as a service will bring great benefits to AIA members and customers of the AIA Contract Documents software, including the ability to work with the software from either Mac or Windows OS computers as well as new era devices like the Apple iPad.

In this tough economic environment having pricing flexibility is very key for our members and customers. Most architects are small firms, so we [the AIA] want to maintain and improve upon how we serve our members and customers with this new service. The online version of AIA Documents online will do that.

AFR:  What kind of packages are we talking about? Can you give me some examples?

Young Chang (YC): There are over 150 separate documents available. I doubt anyone uses all of them. If you are an architect you are going to use a certain set of documents over and over. If you are a general contractor you will use another common set. Therefore, we will have packages tailored to the needs of specific types of users of the AIA Documents software.

Next page: Apple, the iPad and Development Details

Access to Resources

By registering your details with IMAGINiT Technologies, you will gain access to archived webcasts of CAD and 3D training events and resources. This will include the latest industry news, industry white-papers and video archives from events.

Everyone who registers for updates from IMAGINiT Technologies will enter into the draw to win an Apple iPad 2, as well as other prizes including a Sony Playstation 3 and 3D Connexion Space Navigator 3d mouse.

To enter go here: http://www.imaginit.com.au/ipadcomp/

This context is only for Australians.

From the official blog, the company this week has announced that they will be bringing “layers” support to the mobile version of AutoCAD WS. Currently layers is supported in the web version only.

Now users will be able to tap the layers button and a scrollable list of layers will pop up. A light bulb indicator will inform you if a layer is visible or not. You can turn layers on or off as you like.

01 - AutoCAD WS for iOS and Android, gaining layers support.

Unified Releases for iOS and Android

In another tidbit of news, the blog says that the next release of AutoCAD WS will unify functionality across their mobile platforms (Apple iOS and Google Android). In the future all updates to AutoCAD WS will made available to both platforms at the same time.

This also means that the PDF support features that are on the web version now and on Android will come across on the iOS version too. Currently you can upload, view, annotate and share PDFs in AutoCAD WS just like DWG files. This means you can use AutoCAD WS as a unified DWG and PDF viewer on your iPad. For now the iOS version only allows viewing and sharing but soon will get all the above features when version 1.3 comes out.

iCloud

Now that we are all starting to use a plethora of digitally connected devices (many starting with the letter “i”…) it is becoming all too important for us to stay connected to our data, at all times, from any of these devices. And let’s admit it–syncing sucks!

When I face data syncing issues I think about Steve. He probably has less patience for that kind of problem than I do–and I have VERY little patience! So do I believe Jobs & Co. will be addressing this fundamental problem today? Yes.

I think the music deals are just a part of it. What Apple needs to do is  get in on the action that is happening all over out there with the Cloud. Cloud service providers are doing things that save people headaches and they are making money at it. Company’s like Dropbox, LiveDrive, Mozy, ElephantDrive, Amazon, Google, Nirvanix, Box.net, and a list of others including business-oriented providers like Mezeo, EMC Atmost Online, Amazon S3, Rackspace, Eucalptus and others.

iCloud may just start with music, movies, books and iLife suite stuff today. But even if it simply replicates MobileMe’s iDrive feature that will initiate a process towards data storage in the cloud for Apple. In about three more hours we will all know what iCloud really is!

The iPad of course!

Well…not precisely Apple’s popular tablet computer but the way in which developers and businesses are discovering that FileMaker’s database software tools offer them amazing ways to utilize the iPad (and the iPhone too) within industries with field-based services–particularly Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC).

FileMaker Number One in World

While many people know of database software companies like Oracle what few people realize is that Apple’s database software subsidiary, FileMaker, is a worldwide leader. FileMaker is the number one database software on the Mac OS X platform, the number one cross-platform (Mac/Windows) database software, and the number one database software on tablet computers worldwide. It is also the number two database software worldwide on the Windows platform, behind Microsoft’s own Access. The company actually sells more copies of FileMaker Pro on the Windows platform.

From this combined perspective FileMaker is number one in the world.

It has long been the case that FileMaker Pro has been a popular workgroup database tool within the AEC industry, particularly popular with architectural practices because the database tool offers programming simplicity, graphical presentation flexibility and excellence, and works seamlessly with both Windows and Mac computers.

(Architosh conducted an AEC industry software use report in 2002 and found that FileMaker Pro was the dominant database used by all AEC firms in the study with 20 or more employees, capturing nearly 70 percent usage. All firms over 20 employees in the study used a database application. Click here to learn more.)

A Sweet Spot for AEC

While FileMaker is used by most AEC firms, the big news these days is that the company’s FileMaker Go, an Apple iOS application running on both iPad and iPhone, plays a unique story for mobile application development. And with the iPad device being heavily adopted by AEC professionals–particularly on the construction and facilities side–the merger of iPad and FileMaker and FileMaker Go is hitting a sweet spot for these field-based industries.

01 - FileMaker Go offers simple iOS development as an option, enabling rapid application development for mobile solutions on Apple's iPad and iPhone platforms. The quality of the interface capability is very high, as can be seen here.

Both architects and engineers are bringing iPads onto the construction site to tote their drawings and 3D models around with them. Contractors are using the iPad as a drawings and specifications storage device, as well as using it for field-conditions tracking and document markup. And now from the suppliers side of the equation AEC manufacturers are using iPads armed with mobile databases to solve particular data-heavy workflow needs in the field, better servicing the design-building delivery cycle.

Next page: Case Study – Looking at AEC Manufacturer Johnson Controls

The ARM Rationale

Architosh is not privy to any information that would lead us to believe this. It is just a matter of understanding Jobsian Logic. Such logic would inform you that Apple will take–when it has the reasonable opportunity–any path that allows it to gain unique advantages on their hardware and software fronts. Especially if this path enables them added control, first mover advantage or unique IP strengths.

This is the path it took with the iPad. When Architosh put together its final predictions on what the first iPad would hold we narrowed down on the fact that Apple had acquired PA Semi for a reason. We knew ARM was in the iPad…but what ARM chip?

“What would be really stunning today is if Apple has based the device on its own silicon design–namely that it has utilized its PA Semi group…”

(Read Architosh’s article that talked about an Apple touch device in the vertical markets...)

Control, First-Mover Advantage and IP Strengths

When Apple bought PA Semi it gained immediate intellectual property  (IP) strengths. Dan Dobberpuhl, who founded PA Semi was a lead designer for the well-regarded Alpha microprocessor as well as the StrongARM processor. Some speculated that Apple mainly wanted access to the PA Semi patents, not so much the 150 person strong PA Semi team.

As it turns out Dobberpuhl left Apple along with a small contingent of former PA Semi engineers and joined Amarjit Gill, a former principal at PA Semi who founded Silicon Valley start-up Agnilux. That company was since acquired by Google last year. And nobody knew exactly what Agnilux was actually doing, leaving a big mystery behind Google’s intentions.

The ARM processor was already highly involved in the smartphone market so adopting it wasn’t giving Apple any first-mover advantage. But it did come with some additional control since PA Semi had the highest level architectural license with ARM back in the UK. With it they could design their own modified ARM architectures. Apple’s A4 and A5 processors are unique ARM-based chips for Apple, thus the control issue and differentiation which many assumed Apple bought PA Semi for in the first place.

ARM the PCs

Going back to first-mover advantages, moving its personal computer business from Intel x86 over to ARM may or may not have any first-mover advantages for Apple. The Mac mainly competes with Windows. And Microsoft has already announced it is moving Windows to ARM processors. However, Microsoft’s moves are not entirely clear either. They appear to be moving over to ARM for Windows on slates.

Regardless, Apple can likely see the writing is on the wall when it comes to the future of ARM. ARM processors top Intel in the area of power consumption over performance. They are very efficient. ARM also has more momentum than Intel (see this chart over at this Cnet article).

(see this great Wikipedia article on the history of the ARM Architecture here.)

Even Nvidia has announced an ARM-based CPU for future supercomputing and high-end PCs. Nvidia announced at CES 2011 this year that they are taking aim at Intel with “Project Denver.”

And just this week IDC predicted ARM would capture 13 percent of the PC processor market by 2015. That assumes we can still “uniformly differentiate” the PC market from the MID market (mobile internet device market).

The Mac on ARM

So combined with what we know about ARM today, and what those like IDC are predicting about ARM tomorrow, and with a common sense approach to extrapolating Jobsian logic, it would appear more likely than not that Apple has already started the move to ARM for the Mac.

Iterative Design Professionals

The world of architecture is a world of iteration. It starts in architecture school, an indoctrination in the back and forth process of iteration, revision, refinement and finalization. This design process is not unique to architects but architects in today’s practice have particular challenges facing iteration in their field.

What are these challenges?

Quite simply, buildings can be vastly complicated. Even today’s luxury-level custom homes can be remarkably technical and challenging–and architects do struggle to keep their design process rigorous and orderly. The orderly part is there to help them keep track of the myriad decisions, responses and inputs into the architectural design process itself. And Mac OS X Lion will help them do this better.

This Lion Can Walk Backwards

It is routine for architects to create multiple design iterations, as noted above. Once schematic level design settles down into production it is still common for remaining smaller design tasks to go through multiple stages of design change and evolution. And this says nothing about issues that spring up in the field and force architects to revisit previously concluded areas of a building’s design.

Keeping track of all these changes typically forces architects to save and store multiple versions of documents with elaborate file-naming conventions to keep them orderly and meaningful for future search. In comes Mac OS X Lion. The Lion to the rescue!

01 - Mac OS X Lion features Versions. This is a screen shot of Apple's Mac OS X Lion Preview web page. Versions will be very popular with design professionals who iterate highly in their normal course of creative work, saving them stress and time and file directories.

Mac OS X Lion will feature something called Versions at the file disk level. It is essentially Time Machine built into the end user’s experience. And architects are going to be some of the happiest users of this new feature. What Mac OS X Lion does is “record” the evolution of a document as you create it. This will relieve architects (and other similar creatives) from the burden of feeling like they need to track every single major or minor design iteration into a separate “save-as” version–cluttering up directories with files that are essentially only holding small deltas in design differences.

Versions

With “versioning” built in architects can actually change design elements freely and if they want to go back and capture that older design iteration they can use Lion’s Versions to do that. (see screen shot above, image 01). Versions shows you the current document (state of) next to a cascade of previous versions–in an interface similar to Time Machine. You can see how your design work looked at any given time, you can revert entirely back to it or quickly copy and paste work from a previous version into the current version.

Now that last ability with Lion’s Versions is going to be very useful. Say you are an architect and you designed the layout for a master bathroom in a home. Later you developed a more creative approach and moved forward with that layout instead, only to discover that the client seemed to be more interested in features of the design not present in the second design but the one you did earlier. Did you save it? Not likely–as you believed you had created a much better solution.

With Mac OS X Lion you can quickly go back to that previous version and copy and paste all or part of that earlier design into the current design. Walla! Time saved!

To learn more about Mac OS X Lion and other useful features to creatives working under intense time pressure (film, architecture, publishing, etc) daily, visit this page. Lion will also have a feature called Auto Save.

Learn more here: http://www.apple.com/macosx/lion/

One of those is that the author of the article, David Chadwick, goes through a little history of CAD on Apple computers starting from the very beginning, including such programs as Robo-CAD.

The article also mentions that Autodesk was merely responding to market dynamics when it made the decision to create a new version of AutoCAD for the Mac. Another interesting point is the mention that there are certain functions on AutoCAD for the Mac which are faster than the Windows version. Also, there is a mention that AutoCAD is rewritten from the ground-up every five years or so. That last comment is one which we feel should be truly verified.

Lastly, in talking to Mikka Arala of Autodesk about Apple, Chadwick mentions that the project got started early and in the process the company has been happy to discover another hit product from Apple–the iPad– which Autodesk currently has product on, in particular AutoCAD WS mobile for iOS.

To read the full article go here.

Think about that. Microsoft introduced the world to the Microsoft Windows Tablet PC back in 2001. In addition to Windows-based devices there have been several Linux varients, but for all these options and in so many years (9 to be exact) Apple outsold them all combined in just nine months!

That’s quite an accomplishment and shows you the tremendous, game-changer momentum Apple has generated with the first iPad.

Goodness Comes in Nines

The number nine seems to be meaningful to Apple and its iPad  product line. Not only has Apple outsold all others combined in nine months compared to their roughly nine years but the new iPad 2–very importantly for the engineering and CAD markets–is now nine times faster in graphics performance!

And the main CPU performance is twice as fast. All an all this is very important and good news for Apple’s leadership in this space. And it is good news for software developers who take advantage of this technical leadership, says Charles Edge, book author and director of technology for 318, Inc., an IT consulting and development firm specializing in integrating Apple in the enterprise.

“The added performance with the new processors and graphics is going to bring a lot of new possibilities,” said Edge. “That’s the main reason why Apple built the Garage Band and iMovie applications…to showcase how far you can push the envelope.”

But the nine times graphics performance is really going to benefit engineering and CAD software developers serving the enterprise space. “If a company like Autodesk releases tools–which they have–then they are going to de facto have portability to the desktop applications and a lot of adoption because of that,” said Edge.

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