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Apple CEO Steve Jobs had a lot of interesting things to say tonight at the D8 Conference. But to me, one of the most interesting topics he talked about was only brought up by a question from the audience: Apple TV. We all know that Apple considers the device a “hobby,” and tonight Jobs explained why. But he also may have tilted his hand a little bit when it comes to his thinking about this going forward.

Jobs said that the Apple TV is still a hobby because there is a bad “go-to-market” strategy for such devices. In other words, this is basically what I wrote about a month ago: Apple TV will remain a hobby until Apple figures out a way to make money off of it. In the current ecosystem where subsidized cable boxes dominate, that will be very, very hard (just ask TiVo). And Jobs knows it.

But in his answer, Jobs may have also made a little mistake. He clumped in Google with the other device makers who had attempted (and failed) to make a successful set top box. The recently announced Google TV is actually not a set top box — it’s a platform. Yes, one Google TV device (made by Logitech) will be a set top box, but Google TV will also be built in to Sony TVs and Blu-ray players starting this Fall. And that may be just the thing Apple needs.

“I’m sure smarter people than us will figure this out,” is the way Jobs ended his answer. Those people may be Google. You see, by creating a system that is a platform which is built into TVs and resides on top of your current content, Google may have the perfect hybrid model to shake up the broken industry Jobs is referring to.

Jobs thinks someone will have to “tear up the set top box” (amen) to make a viable product, but if Google TV proves to be something consumers want (far from a sure bet at this point), they will have done so without doing that. But at the same time, they’ll be raising peoples’ expectations for what to expect from a television experience — and this could allow Apple to come in and do the tearing up of the box.

Recent rumors had Apple hard at work on the next generation Apple TV. The current thought is that this would be a cheaper ($99) device, that relies heavily on cloud-based service. As I wrote last week, the price confuses me because it doesn’t seem to go along with the high-margin products Apple makes all their money selling. So either they’re able to produce these for a really low price (which doesn’t seem too likely) — or they’d do this cheap box to get consumers hooked on their better experience and content, and then shift to more expensive boxes.

Given Jobs comments tonight, the latter could well be an option. He’s clearly thought about this a lot (he mentioned they thought about doing a TV product instead of the iPhone — and then instead of the tablet, but there was no good market strategy), and seems frustrated by the current stalemate.

But Jobs may have another option.

The entire time Jobs was expressing his thoughts about this topic, I kept thinking back to the long-standing rumors that Apple may one day make their own television set. Again, not a box, an actual display.

This would eliminate Jobs’ concern about there being too many boxes in the living room. And it would allow him to bypass the cable boxes (which would have to hook in to his unit — which he would undoubtedly control). The main problem with this is that the television hardware business is generally a low-margin one. But then again, so is much of the PC market, and Apple does just fine there. If Apple could come up with some sort of premium television set, people would buy it.

Undoubtedly, this Apple television would be slow-going at first as Apple would restrict what types of cable boxes (if any) and/or cable companies you could use with it. But eventually, it could force the industry to conform to its new standard of television much in the way that the mobile industry has been shifting the past few years for the iPhone/App Store. And again, Google TV may be a catalyst to set this all in motion.

“No one is willing to buy a set top box,” Jobs said tonight. With a true Apple Television, no one would have to. I can almost hear Jobs now: Apple Television: it’s the best television out there. But it’s also the best web surfing experience from your couch, the best app console in your living room, and the best connected media player in your house.

At some point or another every kid has dreamt of living in something like the Swiss Family Robinson’s tree house; even fictional children like Bart Simpson. I think I could have settled for going to school there. And—fantastical as it seems—that’s exactly what the Green School in Bali feels like.

A few weeks ago I wrote about Web and mobile technology remaking education, but in the middle of the jungle – within a cluster of bamboo buildings nominated for various architectural awards and furnished with hip, mondernist bamboo furniture – I found a place where cleantech was remaking the very concept of a school.

The toilets are almost all very comfortable compost toilets, the trash is all recycled with the organic matter going to a school pig slop where Balinese black sows make sure nothing goes to waste. Each grade has a garden that supplies organic food for lunches— including organic cacao in the summer months so the kids can make their own chocolate. The school is even experimenting with different methods of renewable energy including methane-extraction from the compost-toilets and a large water vortex that creates hydro-electric power without the environmental devastation that comes with building a dam.

There’s an inflatable classroom with a canvas roof and hip oval-shaped desks for when the weather gets too unbearable, and – why not?—a state of the art mud wrestling pit. As I wait for a Balinese latte at the coffee stand, a mother hen and her chicks peck across the soccer field like something out of a fairy tale. The third-grade’s pizza garden isn’t too far off in the distance, and even farther down the path last year’s tweens learned real-world math by building their own thatched bamboo clubhouse. And, of course, there’s school-wide wifi.

Of course all of this green stuff is just be a gimmick if it’s not backed up by high academic standards. To that end, the school runs according to the Cambridge international school standards, combining the benefits of an international school education, with the unique advantages the Green School’s environment offers.

Richard Branson was here to check out Green School last week, and before him famous guests included Ben of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, Donna Karen of DKNY and David Copperfield. You can understand why the Vegas illusionist would like a school that seems to have sprung up from nowhere in the middle of the jungle.

The everyday students range from poor Balinese kids on a scholarship to the considerably-more-well off kids of a guy like Allard Luchsinger —a multi-time European Internet entrepreneur who decided to take a year off with his family in Bali. Unlike transitions to Los Angeles and San Francisco, his kids were instantly happy here, Luchsinger says. It’s not hard to see why.

This seems a school that only a wild-eyed, half-hippy entrepreneur could dream up so I’m not surprised to hear there’s not one, but two, behind it. John Hardy moved to Bali in the mid-1970s and his wife Cynthia moved in the early 1980s. Together, they started a local jewelry business called John Hardy Jewelry that caught on, selling its pieces in high-end chains like Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Neiman Marcus. In 2007, the company sold for undisclosed millions of dollars that go a lot farther when they are converted to Indonesian Rupiahs. (It takes just $100 to be a Rupiah-millionaire.)

Spurred by a desire to give back to the island that created their jewelry empire, the couple began dreaming about Green School. They put $5 million of their own money into the school, it opened in September 2008 and today it’s still largely reliant on donors and the Hardys themselves to keep the doors open. (Branson’s check is reportedly in the mail.) Meanwhile, the two have also opened a for-profit venture called PT Bamboo that makes the stunning sustainable bamboo architecture and furniture the showcased at the school.

Why should you care about a school in the middle of the jungle? Because that jungle shares the planet with us and Bali hasn’t always had the best track-record of environmental stewardship, having destroyed a good deal of coral with dynamite fishing in years past. Now, Green School is teaching locals a new way to think, plant and build, and is pushing the boundaries of clean-tech innovation that’s also beautiful, functional and comfortable. So frequently, we hear about emerging markets causing environmental problems, but Green School is another example of where an emerging market is creating the solution.

More pictures below…

Tonight at the D8 Conference outside of Los Angeles, Apple CEO Steve Jobs addressed the iPhone’s exclusivity with AT&T in the U.S. This has been the subject of debate for three years now, and it’s getting more heated as the iPhone continues to grow in popularity. For his part, Jobs seemed fairly all over the place when talking about Apple’s relationship with AT&T. He would gush about them one second, and then take a jab at them the next.

When Walt Mossberg asked Jobs how AT&T was doing on the network side of things, Jobs at first said AT&T was doing “pretty good.” But then quickly noted that “they have some issues.” But Jobs said that the other carriers would have likely had the same issues had you put the iPhone on any one of their networks (which is a great argument for why it should be on more than one network).

Jobs then noted that AT&T was making improvements to the network, but then said he wish they were improving faster.

When asked if there would be an advantage putting the iPhone on two carriers, Jobs acknowledged that “there might be.” Asked if that would happen in the near future, Jobs said he couldn’t comment on that. But earlier Jobs noted that they meet with AT&T once a quarter, so the fact that this wasn’t a firm “no” or something implying that, is interesting — or maybe that’s just my wishful thinking.

“AT&T took a big leap for us,” Jobs said in mentioning that they weren’t sure if they’d be able to break into the phone market at all when they first set out. The big question remains: was it a big enough leap to justify another year of exclusivity?

The subject of AT&T came up again later in the Q&A session. One person asked what Apple is doing to ensure you can actually make a call on their phone on AT&T’s network. Jobs said Apple was talking about it with AT&T and gave a fairly technical answer for what they’re attempting to do (involving increasing the backhaul).

Interestingly, Jobs noted that, “things get worse before they get better.” He then continued, “If you believe that, things should be getting a lot better soon!” To which the audience burst into laughter.

Jobs came back to say that he’s been told a lot of places are supposed to get better by the end of the Summer. When asked what happens if they don’t, Jobs cryptically replied, “then they won’t.”

[photo: Engadget]

Today at AllThingsD’s D8 conference, Apple CEO Steve Jobs is the guest of honor, where he has taken the stage for an extended interview with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. One of the topics touched on was Google’s Android, and how Jobs felt about Apple’s long-time partner making products that directly compete with the iPhone and iPad.

In one exchange, Mossberg asked Jobs whether he felt betrayed by Eric Schmidt and Google. Jobs’ non-sequitur response: “My sex life is pretty good”. Obviously it’s a sore subject (or at least one without a good PR-friendly response).

When Mossberg asked about the competition, Jobs noted that it was Google that decided to compete with Apple — Apple didn’t decide it was moving into the search business (he reportedly made similar statements at an internal all-hands meeting earlier this year).

Regarding ChromeOS, Jobs pointed out that Google was building off of the open-source WebKit engine, which Apple created.

Asked if Apple would be removing Google from the iPhone, Jobs responded that it wouldn’t.

Here’s his extended followup response, explaining that Jobs thinks that the market will dictate who wins (and will presumably choose Apple over Google), taken from Engadget’s live notes:

We want to make better products than them. What I love about the marketplace is that we do our products, we tell people about them, and if they like them, we get to come to work tomorrow. It’s not like that in enterprise… the people who make those decisions are sometimes confused….Just because we’re competing with someone doesn’t mean we have to be rude.

Image via Engadget

You may have thought you knew exactly what Steve Jobs thought about Adobe Flash considering he wrote a 1,700-word blog post on it back in April. But today at the D8 Conference outside of Los Angeles, he made himself a little bit more clear. He said that Flash is the latest in a string of technologies heading towards the end of its life.

Jobs said that many technologies live in cycles — they have a Summer, and then go to the grave. Apple likes to choose technologies that are just in their Spring time, Jobs noted. Of course, he’s implying that Flash is not one of those technologies. And that instead, it too will soon be in the grave.

And Jobs said that this removal of Flash was simply the latest in a series of moves Apple has always taken to stay ahead of the curve. They got rid of the 3.5″ floppy, for example, despite making it popular in the first place. They also got rid of serial and parallel ports before the rest of the industry in favor of USB. And then with the MacBook Air, they got rid of optical drives. “When we do this, sometimes people call us crazy,” Jobs noted.

“Sometimes you have to pick the right horses. Flash looks like it had its day but it’s waning. And HTML5 looks like it’s coming up,” Jobs said.

Jobs then reiterated that no mobile phones are yet shipping with Flash. When Walt Mossberg said that soon they would be, Jobs quipped that they’ve been hearing that same thing for two or three years.

When Mossberg brought up the “holes” in the Internet without Flash, Jobs said those were quickly being filled — and that most of those were just ads anyway. Jobs said that Adobe had a chance to get Flash on their devices, but came up short. So they’ve moved on.

Jobs did say that if the market tells them they’re making bad choices, they’ll change. But so far, that isn’t happening. “People seem to be liking the iPad,” Jobs said to laughs and applause. “We’ve sold one every three seconds since we launched it,” he added.

If you thought you could handle the iPad because there will be apps that truly customize the interface, I laugh in your general direction. No, wait, Steve Jobs does. I’m reminded of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, in which that lady keeps adding rules and pronouncements to the wall, hemming in the Hogwarts population bit by bit, and punishing transgressors with a magic quill. Apple doesn’t have a magic quill (yet… iPain?), but it does get to veto apps for a growing number of semi-obscure reasons, and the latest one is “apps that create their own desktops.”

Back in December 2008, when the App Store was still less than half a year old, I wrote a post about an application that has now become something of an iPhone staple: iFart. The app and similar ‘gross’ applications like it have gone on to become immensely popular, proving that the general public has an insatiable and somewhat disturbing appetite for recorded flatulence. Unfortunately (at least for fart-lovers), the application has hit a snag on its way to the iPad: iFart HD has been rejected on the grounds that it has “minimal user functionality”.  This, despite the fact that the app will literally shake your iPad when it emits a ‘bombardier’ or ‘brown mosquito’ (the iPad’s speakers vibrate a lot).

iFart isn’t the first application to be hit by this arbitrary rule — we’ve previously written about apps like QuackPhone, which made your iPhone sound like a duck, and was rejected on similar grounds. But iFart isn’t some unknown application. In fact, it sold 100,000 copies in its first 14 days (reaching #1 on the App Store), once ranked in the top twenty iPhone applications of all time, and has over 20,000 reviews to date.

Joel Comm, CEO of iFart’s developer InfoMedia, says that it took a month of waiting before he got ahold of an Apple representative, who told Comm that he’d have to add quite a lot of functionality to the application to have it approved for the iPad — sound boards, even well-known ones, don’t cut it.

Comm has been through this before. When the App Store first launched Apple was routinely blocking applications like iFart and Pull My Finger, until it finally opened the floodgates to these ‘joke’ applications in December 2008. This time though, the application isn’t being blocked on the grounds of profanity or crudeness. Rather, it’s a lack of functionality, which is harder to change. The only consolation is that Comm can add a landscape mode to the existing iPhone app, but it wouldn’t be a native HD version.

Comm points out the inconsistency of the App Store review process, noting that similarly themed apps like Farting Zombies have made it onto the iPad. Of course, such inconsistencies on the App Store are nothing new, but that doesn’t make them any less frustrating for developers. Comm also points out that InfoMedia isn’t just developing so-called ‘crapps’: its application GameDock was among the first multiplayer gaming platforms on the iPhone, and iVote has gained popularity as a polling app.

If nothing else, this makes it clear that Apple is looking to keep the bar higher for the iPad than it did for the iPhone. There’s no way to know if Apple intends to eventually lower it, but my hunch is that Apple wants the iPad to be viewed as a full-fledged computing platform rather than a device with big-screen joke apps. Comm shares a similar sentiment — he thinks that Apple is afraid that approving fart apps would lead to an influx of ‘novelty’ applications for the iPad.  So it may be awhile, if ever, before you get to experience iFart HD in its full glory (or lack thereof).