dezcoma

Ready from the launch

Apple events. It seems like that the brand is having one every five minutes, with more iPhones and iPads to show off, but no new iPod Classic to be seen around.

But when you've attended enough of these to get a feeling about what's really being said, and what's being hinted at through omission - there's always a hidden story to these Apple launches.

Liam could kill us all

Let's gloss over the fact that Apple's invented a robot - and even further, let's just skip over that it's called Liam with no reason for that moniker given.

It sounds like a system that's too good to be true, a machine that will suck up your old iPhone and pull it apart for its useful bits, making sure that your unwanted old handset isn't just clogging up space in a drawer but is actually working to help the environment.

The video showed a very efficient little robo-arm that could pull out the SIM tray, yoink off the display and pull out the battery with ease, saving the best parts and discarding the old.

But wait... What if Liam suddenly decides it's bored of iPhones? What if it looks to its human overlords and decides we're not using our organs well enough and begins harvesting the livers of those it doesn't think deserve them?

Could WE be recycled?*

*Probably not. We'd have to turn ourselves in at an Apple Store, for a start.

The new iPhone isn't THAT good

The new iPhone SE is much what we expected: the shape of an iPhone 5S, the price of an iPhone 5C and the brains of the iPhone 6S.

In a world that's been crying out for a smaller, more palm-friendly phone this could be the winner in an unloved space, the 'super-mid' tier that Sony's been going after for a while.

But there's one thing that's not been upgraded: the screen. It's got an 800:1 contrast ratio and 326ppi, which is identical to the phone which launched two and half years ago. Lest we forget - one of the lures of buying an iPhone is that it looks new, so the iPhone SE could struggle as a result, so sticking it in the same shell isn't much fun (unless two and half years old counts as retro now?)

Given we spend most of our day staring at that screen, it's a shame it's not sharper or higher on the contrast ratio scale to give more dazzling whites and rich blacks.

The iPad Pro 9.7 is a much better tablet

The new iPad Pro 9.7 is almost certainly the death knell of the iPad Air. It might limp along to the iPad Air 3, but the super thin slate wasn't selling well enough, and Apple needed to give it new features to jumpstart sales again.

A 9.7-inch screen is a good size for a more portable tablet, but the new version of the 'professional' iPad is actually better than the Pro that launched in 2015.

It's got a less reflective screen, a better camera, and the display can adapt to the lighting conditions to represent the color temperature of the world around you.

It's a shame the battery life isn't longer, but given there's a smaller power pack in there it kind of makes sense - but we all want longer time between charges.

The Apple Watch 2 is almost certainly on its way

If there's one thing that's certain, a price drop means one of three things: a product has failed and the company wants rid of it. There's a new version on the way and the company wants to clear space for the new model. The original product wasn't selling well enough, so the company has tried to make it more palatable to shift more units.

Apple has historically only ever dropped the price of anything when it's been replaced, or on rare occasions when it's got something new in the pipeline. If the Watch was a failure, there's no way Apple would even still be talking about it, let along publicizing a discount. It would have ushered it into a corner, put the loss in a column on a spreadsheet somewhere and been done with it.

And there's no way Apple would have mis-priced the Watch. For all the failings of the smartwatch world, people seem reasonably happy with the price Apple's shoved out its wrist-dweller at.

So the logical explanation is the Apple Watch 2 is nearly here - and we're expecting it in September, so a six month push to get more units off the shelves (and suitably far from Christmas so anyone that spent a huge wedge of cash buying one for their other half won't be frustrated) should see some uplift in sales before the new model appears.

CareKit was the most important announcement from Apple

Let's be honest here - you've spent your time reading about the latest incremental updates to the latest, expensive hardware from one of the world's richest companies. In the grand scheme of things, it's not life-changing.

However, the technology that's being offered has the capability to be, and the launch of CareKit could be the start of something big. Let's take Apple out of the equation here, as I'm talking about all brands starting something similar.

The apps that launch with CareKit - such as those that allow Parkinson's sufferers to test their motor skills before and after medication or exercise - aren't particularly ground-breaking, as they're something that could have been made by any developer.

But the framework provides a link between patient and physician, taking away a considerable barrier at a time when people are at their most vulnerable, and that's a fantastic thing.

Apple has the infrastructure to offer this the easiest simply because of the limited number of devices it offers and the ease of coding that brings, but there's no reason why other brands couldn't do the same thing and Android devices can join the connected caregiving revolution too.

As the curtain closed on Apple's iPhone SE (or is that iPad Pro 9.7?) event, I felt a pang of indifference at the lack of an updated 12-inch MacBook. I won't have been the only one.

In fact, except for a new iPod, I can't think of an Apple product refresh that would draw such a collective shrug from the cash-splashing masses.

It sounds like I'm bashing the 12-inch MacBook, but I'm not. It's a great little machine that serves its purpose well, and I would argue that it's now a more practical option than when it launched one year ago.

The truth is, everyone is waiting for updated MacBook Air and Pro models. The Air's outdated display is in desperate need of turning Retina, and the Pro's lack of a Skylake processor renders its name more ironic by the day.

Switching off

If you own a MacBook Air or a MacBook Pro, you're probably not interested in switching to the 12-inch MacBook, updated or not.

That's understandable: it's powered by an Intel Core M processor that in many cases will be weaker than the one in your current machine. Its keyboard travel is controversially shallow and the inconveniences of its single USB Type-C port are well documented.

Unless you're bored with what you currently have or seek something more portable, a switch to the 12-inch MacBook represents an unnecessary leap of faith.

So, what about existing 12-inch MacBook owners? I couldn't see them upgrading either, not least because Apple's svelte laptop still serves its intended purpose so well.

Despite not being the snappiest performer on the desktop, it's more than up to the task of surfing the web, editing video, staging online meetings and carrying out an assortment of other computing activities.

An upgrade to Intel's Core m3, m5 and m7 Skylake processors might help improve battery life, but it wouldn't turn the MacBook into a powerhouse overnight. It would make it better at carrying out certain tasks, but not to the point where you would rush out and buy one.

Thin tizzy

The 12-inch MacBook's size zero dimensions leave little or no fat to trim, so it's unlikely that a successor would be thinner. Upgrading its display to a higher resolution would offer little benefit versus the resulting drain in battery life, and it would be tricky to justify a keyboard with deeper travel if it meant adding chunk to its chassis.

So what's left? A second USB Type-C port? Undoubtedly useful. A microSD card slot? Handy, but not essential thanks to adapters. A better webcam? To be fair, the first gen's couldn't get any worse.

While welcome, such additions would be unlikely to trigger an exodus of MacBook owners looking to upgrade to a slightly more practical model. There's a chance that first-time MacBook buyers would've taken the plunge, at the very least. For Apple, that's simply not enough.

Without an audience, it makes sense for Apple to place the arrival of a refreshed 12-inch MacBook on hold. It will at least allow the company to debut a new machine alongside updated MacBook Air and Pro models in the summer, giving people the chance to compare and contrast while weighing up a purchase.

As the curtain closed on Apple's iPhone SE (or is that iPad Pro 9.7?) event, I felt a pang of indifference at the lack of an updated 12-inch MacBook. I won't have been the only one.

In fact, except for a new iPod, I can't think of an Apple product refresh that would draw such a collective shrug from the cash-splashing masses.

It sounds like I'm bashing the 12-inch MacBook, but I'm not. It's a great little machine that serves its purpose well, and I would argue that it's now a more practical option than when it launched one year ago.

The truth is, everyone is waiting for updated MacBook Air and Pro models. The Air's outdated display is in desperate need of turning Retina, and the Pro's lack of a Skylake processor renders its name more ironic by the day.

Switching off

If you own a MacBook Air or a MacBook Pro, you're probably not interested in switching to the 12-inch MacBook, updated or not.

That's understandable: it's powered by an Intel Core M processor that in many cases will be weaker than the one in your current machine. Its keyboard travel is controversially shallow and the inconveniences of its single USB Type-C port are well documented.

Unless you're bored with what you currently have or seek something more portable, a switch to the 12-inch MacBook represents an unnecessary leap of faith.

So, what about existing 12-inch MacBook owners? I couldn't see them upgrading either, not least because Apple's svelte laptop still serves its intended purpose so well.

Despite not being the snappiest performer on the desktop, it's more than up to the task of surfing the web, editing video, staging online meetings and carrying out an assortment of other computing activities.

An upgrade to Intel's Core m3, m5 and m7 Skylake processors might help improve battery life, but it wouldn't turn the MacBook into a powerhouse overnight. It would make it better at carrying out certain tasks, but not to the point where you would rush out and buy one.

Thin tizzy

The 12-inch MacBook's size zero dimensions leave little or no fat to trim, so it's unlikely that a successor would be thinner. Upgrading its display to a higher resolution would offer little benefit versus the resulting drain in battery life, and it would be tricky to justify a keyboard with deeper travel if it meant adding chunk to its chassis.

So what's left? A second USB Type-C port? Undoubtedly useful. A microSD card slot? Handy, but not essential thanks to adapters. A better webcam? To be fair, the first gen's couldn't get any worse.

While welcome, such additions would be unlikely to trigger an exodus of MacBook owners looking to upgrade to a slightly more practical model. There's a chance that first-time MacBook buyers would've taken the plunge, at the very least. For Apple, that's simply not enough.

Without an audience, it makes sense for Apple to place the arrival of a refreshed 12-inch MacBook on hold. It will at least allow the company to debut a new machine alongside updated MacBook Air and Pro models in the summer, giving people the chance to compare and contrast while weighing up a purchase.

Designed by the BBC as part of its Make it Digital initiative, the micro:bit is one of the world's smallest programmable computers. What's more, it's free to all UK year 7 students and aims to inspire the next generation of engineers and coders.

On first handling the micro:bit, it's instantly apparent that its target audience is different to that of the Arduino and Raspberry Pi. BBC's micro computer has simple contacts, built-in buttons, sensors and a set of LEDs that act as a display once powered up.

The large connectors on the board are known as PINS. They supply a large contact surface so crocodile clips can be easily attached for external electronics, which is ideal for a classroom environment and quick prototyping. The PINS include three inputs, a 3V and GND, and between each are further contacts for more advanced projects.

• BBC Micro Bit: 10 things you need to know

Once connected via USB to your computer, the board appears as a drive. Coding is handled through the microbit.co.uk website app, and this site can be used on and offline. At present the site offers several coding environments which are very much dependent on skill and include: JavaScript, Block Editor, Touch Develop and MicroPython.

Coding options

The Block Editor is designed for those new to programmable computers with the educational angle very apparent. Simple code blocks can be dragged and dropped from the selection of categories on the left and are clearly labeled and ready to go.

Even those new to code should be able to create a program in just a few minutes that will interact with the board and illuminate LEDs. At present one of the only issues with the Block Editor is the inability to undo, which can be frustrating if you accidentally delete a block section.

Completed programs can at any point be previewed before being compiled and downloaded. The downloaded file then needs to be manually copied from your computer to the micro:bit, as at present there is no automatic uploader.

Once you're familiar with the basics the block code can be converted into lines of code ready for the Touch Develop environment. This is more akin to standard coding environments but still guides the coder.

Easily connect external electronics

Coding is at the heart of the micro:bit but the board really comes alive once inputs and outputs such as sensors and servos are attached.

The micro:bit ships with a selection of crocodile clips which can be quickly clipped onto contacts and your choice of output. The control of any device attached can be interacted with through the code, and for simple inputs such as a switch or sensor there are plenty of drag-and-drop coding options available in the Block Editor.

As you get more advanced, further electronic components such as potentiometers, servos, LEDs and speakers can all be attached and controlled. There are plenty of simple projects available online to show you exactly how each line of code relates to the operation and control of the hardware through the small micro:bit computer.

Final verdict

For its size, the micro:bit is an incredible educational tool that will let teachers, parents and students have fun with code to create games, wearable tech and other devices as yet to be imagined.

Its small size and built-in sensors make it quick to code and entertaining to use, but it's really designed for education and is a springboard to bigger more complex platforms rather than a rival to the likes of Arduino and Raspberry Pi.

This review of the BBC Micro Bit first appeared in Linux Format. Click here to subscribe.

Introduction and strategic slant

Another day, another Microsoft open source announcement (or three). The company whose former CEO once compared open source licences like GPL to spreading tumours is now regularly open sourcing tools, components and even the occasional product, as well as coming out with more cross-platform products than ever – even for Linux.

Redmond is even joining the Eclipse foundation (which creates an IDE that competes with Visual Studio), partnering with (and donating to) the Linux Foundation to help security and running a free open source conference in May. But if you're paying attention, this is a carefully defined strategy, not a free-for-all.

Strategic slant

What's Microsoft doing with open source?

.NET, TypeScript, the Chakra JavaScript engine, R Tools for Visual Studio, Azure's Service Fabric, the VS Code IDE, Team Explorer Everywhere for Eclipse, the Productivity Power Tools for Visual Studio, the Power BI framework for building visualisations, the impressive Computational Network Toolkit for deep learning, the AIX tools you can use to build AI in Minecraft, and many more.

If you look at the list, so far, most of Microsoft's open source products have been developer tools, often bringing Microsoft technologies to an area where they haven't been available before. The main exception is the Live Writer blogging tool, which was handed over to a foundation of enthusiasts (including plugin developers).

None of these products have taken something users pay for on Windows and made it free on another platform (there's been a free version of Visual Studio on Windows for a long time). That suggests that the version of SQL Server Microsoft is bringing out for Linux (which will have the core components but probably not all the SQL Server features) probably won't be open source.

Having SQL Server on Linux will be useful for ASP.NET and .NET Core adoption there, but mostly it's something Microsoft says customers have been asking for, because they want SQL Server to run on Linux servers they already have. That's about supporting heterogeneous, cross-platform computing – something Microsoft has always done (remember IE on Mac, Solaris and HP-UX?), but has been doing more and more in the last few years.

Aiming at Oracle

But despite the fact Microsoft now partners with competitors like Salesforce and Oracle, the main target of SQL Server on Linux is very likely Oracle (especially as Microsoft is encouraging customers to migrate from Oracle to SQL Server 2016 on Windows Server with some free SQL Server licences, as long as they take out Software Assurance).

As Wes Miller, vice president at analyst group Directions on Microsoft points out: "Microsoft has opened up source code in several areas, but these areas are generally isolated, and not areas where Microsoft makes significant revenue today. As such, opening up source for these areas isn't as large of a shift as some may theorise.

"Much like Apple and Google, whose open source projects may be strategic to a degree of mindshare (but not revenue), the projects that Microsoft has chosen to open source are intended to help build community/collaboration and mindshare. The areas of the company that are still breadwinners are not open source, nor do I believe we should expect them to be anytime soon."

In other words, SQL Server will come to Linux, but it's not likely to be a free, open source version.

Cultural shift

Change in culture

Rather than changing the commercial basis of Microsoft's business, open source at Microsoft is about a change in culture, collaboration with the open source community – and the cloud.

As Brian Harry, who runs the Visual Studio Team Services developer cloud service, puts it: "We are broadly, as a company, changing to very open development and embracing the community to help us further extend the development of our technologies and tools. You're seeing a lot of that with .NET – we're getting the community to take small work units, branch the code and take it to new places."

Originally, the .NET team was expecting the open source work to concentrate on Linux, but once the community picked it up they quickly started porting it to OS X as well – far sooner than the .NET team had expected.

As Microsoft has opened up generally, to partnerships and cross-platform support and a more cross-division way of working internally, open source has spread internally – and that includes 'internal open source' where other Microsoft teams get access to source code that a product team would once have kept to themselves.

The Office team has been doing a lot of Android and iOS development on mobile apps recently. They took a copy of the VSTS build system and added the features they needed to handle things like code signing – and passed that code back to the VSTS team so they could make it part of the commercial service.

Opening up TypeScript

Some early open source projects at Microsoft have helped spread this open source approach, in particular the JavaScript tool TypeScript, which started out as an internal tool that Microsoft created to solve its own problems with large web projects like Office Online, turned into a technology it made available to developers and other projects, and has now moved to not just open source but also open design.

"For our first year we did a lot of our design in-house behind closed doors," the former head of the TypeScript team Jonathan Turner told techradar pro. "It was secretive but not in any nefarious way; it was just because that's generally how we in Microsoft had done design. We'd try to design something as best we can and then put it out into the world.

"As we learned to do open source better, we started doing things like moving to GitHub and then we took our design process open. Rather than me writing a ton of specs behind the scenes and hashing them out with the team here, we said 'no, everything becomes pull requests, everything becomes bug reports'. All the proposed new features become public knowledge and everyone in the community can come and comment on them."

That goes beyond people being able to read the design documentation to understand why TypeScript does something in a specific way, or what's in development. The design process is also open to the community, Turner explains. "If you have a suggestion, if you want a new feature in TypeScript, you can come and interact with the team and say 'here's my idea and here's why I think it's a good idea', and if the team says 'yes, it's a great idea' then you can send us a pull request."

That same open design process happens with .NET – it's a sign that Microsoft gets the value of open source.

Impact of Azure

The impact of Azure

Influential as TypeScript has been, none of this could happen without Azure.

System Center has managed Linux servers since 09. Ever since it came out with Hyper-V, Microsoft has had to deal with Linux virtual machines, which has meant contributing code to the Linux kernel to make that work well. As Jake Oshins from the Windows Server team pointed out in a blog post last year: "Microsoft has cared a lot about supporting Linux in a Hyper-V VM for a while now. We have an entire team of people dedicated to making that work better."

But he also admits that Linux wasn't always a priority when designing features. When he worked on support for devices in VMs, the security principles he'd adopted also "caused me to come up with a protocol that was perfectly tailored to what Windows needs as a guest OS. Anything that would have made it easier to accommodate Linux got left out as 'extra attack surface' or 'another potential failure path that needs to be handled'."

To be a credible public cloud provider, Microsoft couldn't afford that sort of accidental compromise when supporting Linux on Azure, and it now accounts for more than a quarter of all VMs on Azure (up from 20% six months ago). Because Azure is a subscription service, supporting Linux and other open source systems turns into a revenue stream for Microsoft – and that goes beyond the way Oshins says Azure is "constantly tuning to make that even better."

The better Microsoft can understand open source tools, the better it can make them work on Azure, which means more and more Microsoft engineers getting involved in external open source projects and seeing the advantages of open source.

At the same time, Azure has also embraced the Open Compute Project, not only taking advantage of open hardware designs but contributing its Open Cloud Server back to the community (like Facebook and unlike Amazon, for example).

Nothing's off the table

It's no surprise that it's Azure CTO Mark Russinovich, once best known as a Windows kernel expert, who's standing up on stage inviting open source experts to apply for jobs in Azure and saying that nothing is off the table in terms of open source.

As he recently pointed out: "Microsoft's open source journey began more than 10 years ago and we've been a significant and growing contributor to open source projects ever since – particularly on Microsoft Azure, where we support numerous open source programming models, libraries, and Linux distributions."

That doesn't mean that Azure itself is likely to switch from running on Windows Server to running on Linux though. For one thing Microsoft believes that the Windows kernel and hypervisor are both excellent. And for another, Microsoft wouldn't be investing so much time and money in building out container support in Windows Server 2016 and basing Azure Stack on it.

What Redmond is doing is using Linux strategically, for example by creating its own open source network switch software, SONic, to run on an open hardware switch that it can control through software, so it can automate all the network provisioning and management for Azure, right down to the chips inside the switch. Down the line, that can all be part of the systems Microsoft sells to enterprises as Azure Stack hybrid cloud.

Finding the balance between open source and commercial business isn't always easy – Sun's commitment to open source produced interesting developments but didn't help the bottom line enough to keep it from being sold to Oracle.

Playing it clever

Microsoft seems to be finding a good balance that brings the benefits of open source to Microsoft, to customers and to the open source communities it's working with. It's not the non-commercial philosophy that once drove some open source communities, but a large number of open source projects have a commercial arm.

Microsoft is obviously committed to open source – that's both a strategy its executives are driving and something developers and engineers are adopting with enthusiasm for the benefits it brings (which means they're contributing to the open source community rather than just building on it). But it's doing that in a very disciplined and strategic way that supports Microsoft's commercial business rather than undermining it.

• Azure isn't just Microsoft's cloud – it's the company's Cloud OS