Yes, according to Kevin Turner, Microsoft’s chief operating officer speaking at the Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans. During his speech he recounted a call he claimed to be from Apple Legal. According to the transcript:
And you know why I know they’re working? Because two weeks ago we got a call from the Apple legal department saying, hey — this is a true story — saying, “Hey, you need to stop running those ads, we lowered our prices.” They took like $100 off or something.
Is Turner telling the truth about this? I can’t say for sure, but it’s instructive to note that in the same transcript he says this about the Laptop Hunter ads (emphasis mine)… Read the rest of this entry »
The latest release of iTunes (8.2.1) puts an end to the Palm Pre’s syncing with iTunes. Some have expressed surprise, but it was an obvious and proper move on Apple’s part.
I wrote about this issue on two separate occasions, and believed it was clear that Apple needed to address the exposure Palm was taking advantage of.
In the first article I pointed out that:
it has everything to do with denying Palm a seat at the table to which they’re not entitled. Let the Pre use the old iTunes API, if possible, as others have, but not appear as an iPod. I don’t see why Apple should stand idly by while a third party walks in and acts as an equal member of the iPod/iTunes system… Read the rest of this entry »
[UPDATE:] See how my daughter also got on the ColorSplash bandwagon, using an original first-generation iPhone, here.
I’ve been playing a bit with this app on the iPhone, and think it’s simple, easy, fun, and makes the iPhone pictures look better.
While the iPhone’s camera is pretty good as these things go, its pictures can be made more dramatic via this app. I tend to think of its colorization as the equivalent of using bold or italics in text. It draws the user’s eyes to what you want to emphasize: Read the rest of this entry »
Lots of stories making the rounds that the JavaScript speed of the new iPhone 3GS is even faster than Apple had claimed. Most of the stories originate from this one from Medialets, but it’s simply not true the performance is faster than Apple claimed.
JavaScript speed is very impressive. However, if you compare Medialets’ results with those Apple presented during the WWDC keynote, you’ll see they’re essentially the same. Let’s take a look: Read the rest of this entry »
I came out to the local Apple store to get a case for the new iPhone since the one for the original model feels loose.
I get there, and am stopped at the door. I have to wait in the line even though I don’t want an iPhone. Bummer.
The line was maybe only 10 people, but I don’t know how fast it was moving, and it just didn’t seem worth it for a case. So instead of a nice leather case I got a cheap vinyl one from one of the mall’s “sidewalk vendors”. It’ll do for now.
Mission accomplished, I’m sitting with a cup of Go Juice and posting this via the WordPress iPhone app.
AT&T delivered my new iphone 3G S on June 19th as promised. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how to activate it (should I swap the SIM card from the old phone?) and it didn’t come with any documentation to that effect. Ultimately, since there was a sticker on the box with my phone number, I assumed AT&T did what they needed to do, so SIM-swapping was unnecessary.
I plugged it into iTunes, and saw the (common) message that it needed activation and that could take a while. I’d read this could take up to two days, so I kind of expecetd it. No biggie, since I could still sync it, put it on WiFI, etc.
I took the option to restore it from the latest backup (of my current iPhone). This worked great, with all my apps brought over, including all my settings and their positions on the various home screens. Connecting it to my home WiFi network, my Microsoft Exchange account asked for a password, and it was all set. MobileMe did as well, but it claimed it could not get a secure connection to the server. The Inbox worked, but I could not see or interact with any other folders in my account. Read the rest of this entry »
Robert Scoble is apparently drooling all over a new… (wait for it) Dell! It’s called the Z, and he’s very excited:
this is the first Dell that has me slobbering in a very long time.
And with that ringing endorsement he also says he’ll be “dumping” his Mac. OK.
From the photo it seems like a nice looking machine, in that black MacBook sort of way (which is a nice looking machine).
But isn’t that kind of a “been there, done that” design? And it still runs Windows, right? I couldn’t help but notice it has the requisite PC stickers on it. Further, was Scoble only interested in Macs for their hardware/design? The Mac OS meant nothing?
You can see more about the new Latitude Z here. Meanwhile, don’t dump your Mac, Robert, sell it. Or send it to me.
Nice review of the iPhone 3G S by David Pogue at the NYT. It’s a good review, and I was struck by a statement he made in his conclusion:
At this point, the usual list of 10 rational objections to the iPhone have been whittled down to about three: no physical keyboard, no way to swap the battery yourself and no way to avoid using AT&T as your cell company.
Here are my comments on the three remaining reason he gives:
No physical keyboard. I’ve written about the difference between software and hardware keyboards elsewhere. I believe the universal landscape keyboard in iPhone OS 3.0 addresses some of the complaints people had re: needing a hardware keyboard in terms of two-handed typing.
No swappable battery. This is a non-starter in my opinion. Some people still think the iPod needs one. In any case, the new iPhone has increased battery life pretty significantly; the more battery life, the less need to swap it.
AT&T only. Valid, but valid for anyone no matter what. In other words, if you don’t live in an area with AT&T service than you can’t consider the iPhone. Besides, without that exclusivity we wouldn’t have the iPhone as we know it.
To me, unless you’re outside AT&T coverage it’s really come down to people who will always find a reason to ding the iPhone.
Jason Kelly at Seeking Alpha writes a great article about the Apple retail experience that accompanied his switch to the Mac after 20+ years as a PC user.
Just a couple of highlights from the article:
Such a store shows a great deal of confidence in the products, which gives me confidence as a buyer. I’m not being rushed out the door with a flimsy piece of paper saying I have tech support for a year if I need it — just call this number in India, but don’t under any circumstances bother us here — but am instead given all the time and freedom to arrive at about the only conclusion anybody can: I want one.
When my tally was finished, he added up the retail prices and then reduced each of them in front of me to get me a greater than 10% discount. Mind you, this was after I’d agreed to buy, so it was just a smart form of customer service. What a way to leave me even happier. They didn’t entice me with lowball prices. They sold me on quality products, and then offered me savings as a form of thanks for the business. Very classy.
You really should read the whole thing. It’s an excellent example of Apple excelling in something that can’t be just chalked up to great marketing or alleged “fanbois” buying anything with the Apple logo. If nothing else, perhaps it shows how these so-called fanbois are created in the first place.
I’ve been running the release version of Safari 4 on Mac OS and Windows XP for a few days. There are a lot of good features with Safari 4 — and I have no desire to go back to version 3 — but I do miss the beta sometimes…
Apple put out a press release that Safari 4 has been downloaded 11 million times since it was released last Monday.
Naturally, eagle-eyed cub scout reporter Jimmy Ols–, er, Paul Thurrott is there to give us the real story by quoting PC World’s Robert Strohmeyer:
As someone with three Macs at home, I couldn’t help but notice that Apple pushed Safari 4 out as an automatic update to all of its users this week. Yesterday, all three of the Macs in my household received the update, and we don’t even use Safari.
Let’s set aside that — unlike Microsoft’s default settings — Apple’s software gets your permission before installing upgrades. What I find more comical are the following:
A PC World writer and Paul Thurrott have no idea how to tell Apple’s upgrader “no thanks” for Safari, and make it permanent. I bet they know how to do this for Windows.
Both these guys are surprised that Apple would count downloads that took place via the upgrader. My question is: Why the heck wouldn’t they?
Perhaps they’re just shocked because Microsoft would certainly never push their browser via software upgrade… er, wait, yes, they do. Well, I’m sure that Microsoft at least carefully filters out any data about IE users by subtracting the number downloaded from their automated updates. Um, no.
And so, in the end we wind up where we began: with the fact that Safari 4 has been downloaded 11 million times since it was released last Monday.
There is already a lot of noise over this all around the ‘net. Owners of the iPhone 3G saying they’re getting ripped off, or not being treated like “loyal customers,” because they’re not being offered the fully subsidized price for the new iPhone 3G S. In reality the AT&T upgrade pricing is pretty much like all phone subsidies in the U.S. (and, for that matter, many other parts of the world). Actually, it’s a little better…
I’ve defended AT&T on occasion regarding the iPhone, but its latest moves (or non-moves) make it hard to do so.
To recap its defense, I’ve praised AT&T for the following:
Without AT&T we don’t even have the iPhone as we know it. You think Verizon was gonna allow it? Heck, it’s been two years, and there’s still no Wi-Fi on Verizon’s phones.
At the initial iPhone launch, the unlimited data at $20/month was better than most, and in-home activation was also new. (For 3G, the company raised the data rate to $30, but that was what it charged for other 3G phones, so it’s not as egregious as some think.)
It leveraged its Wi-Fi hotspot service and made it free to iPhone (and other smartphone) users. This is huge, and something I use daily.
Yet, for all the good, AT&T lately is acting like a tanker that takes forever to turn. Apple’s comments about AT&T in the WWDC keynote on June 8 seemed tinged with dissatisfaction…
After years of touting that Mac OS X “just works”, I guess Microsoft finally decided to hang along for the ride. A reader sent in a page scan from marketing materials in their Microsoft Action Pack subscription, and look what we have here:
After years of touting that Apple’s products are “Designed by Apple in California”, I guess Palm decided to go along for the ride. According to jkOnTheRun, the new Palm Pre packaging has “a clear plastic card with the manual that says “inspired by and designed in California””.
Oh well. If you’re gonna copy, copy from the best.
Dave Winer published a piece explaining his views on netbooks, and he brings up Apple because a) he uses Macs and b) Apple has publicly stated its disinterest in getting in the netbook game. (I’m setting aside whether Apple really isn’t getting in the game.)
He also mentions there’s “more sniffing from people who love Macs about how inadequate the current crop are.”…
Another WWDC is upon us, and amidst all the speculation of possible new iPhones — and even wilder speculation about Mac tablets — there’s something we should not forget: Software demos.
Yes, it’s a developer conference and that’s the place for them, so prepare for some “down” time during the keynote as the latest iPhone apps are demoed on stage for your enjoyment. All you can do is pray the presenters have an actual personality, and applaud politely as you mutter all the while something like “Yeah, that’s great, where’s the #$%^! hardware!”
Palm’s been working hard to mastermind the Pre launch this Saturday, but I think they’re getting it all wrong. Now Sprint has joined in. It’s reached the point where they look like a couple of companies seriously in need of some business acumen.
Early reviews of the Pre are promising, yet I wonder if the bumbling, stumbling, Three Stooges approach Palm and its partners have used from the Pre’s introduction to its launch aren’t enough to ruin it anyway…
Further details came out during an interview at the All Things Digital conference that indicate only non-DRM music and photos can be synced. It’s unclear whether non-DRM videos sync, or whether it syncs other iTunes data (bookmarks, contacts, podcasts, etc.).
Even with those restrictions, the ability to plug in and use iTunes to sync music is a pretty big deal. How can Palm do this? Why did they do this? What, if anything, should Apple do?…
You’ve got to give Microsoft credit. Having failed at making the Zune an “iPod killer,” they’ve given up and are trying to make it an “iPod touch killer.” Why go after big brother when little brother has kicked your butt for two years? Beats me; you’d have to ask Microsoft. All I can do is look at the Zune HD and see what it’s about…
Recently, twoarticles appeared on TechRadar documenting various command line tweaks for various apps and functions of Mac OS X. While I didn’t find anything new there, it’s nice to have two articles that summarize a bunch instead of tracking them down one by one across countless bookmarks…
Another Laptop Hunter ad is upon us, and with five of these babies under our belt it’s time to step back and see what, if anything, works, and what doesn’t.
It’s not hard to see the predicament Microsoft is in. It wants to push Windows machines yet is hamstrung by the following…
The good news is that Time Warner has “backed away from its controversial efforts to price broadband based on consumption” in the cities where the trials were implemented. The bad news is that it’s clearly not an admission of failure on their part…
So I’ve been unwinding in Vegas the last week (yeah, I know, “unwinding” and “Vegas” do not belong in the same sentence). Now I’m back catching up on my news feeds only to see that Microsoft has attempted a return to the good ol’ days.
The Way They Were
Back in those good ol’ days, Microsoft pretty much ruled the tech press and resulting message. They pre-announced products to kill or freeze competition, and sold Bill Gates’ vision as the path to the future. We know now, of course, that the path Mr. Gates saw was one no one ever traveled. Truth is, Microsoft’s last real innovation was when they bundled a suite of apps all designed to work together and called it Office…
Have you seen the ad yet? Lauren only has to find a laptop computer with a 17-inch screen for under a grand and she gets to keep it.
Lauren is a redhead. Long, thick, curly, lovely red hair. Did I mention redheads rule? Well, they do. Curse you, Microsoft, for using Lauren in this ad. Her engaging personality and infectious enthusiasm blinded me, and I eagerly sought the HP web site to pick up that great 17-inch laptop. After all, if it’s good enough for Lauren…
I’ve had my new iPod shuffle for two days and thought I’d post my thoughts on it. We’ve already covered the out-of-the-box and setup experience elsewhere, so I won’t repeat them here…
The blogosphere will be “all OS 3.0, all the time” for a while. I wanted to wait a little bit and see some reaction to the update.
Predictably, Paul Thurrott didn’t approve. He cherry-picked a few things and claimed they should have been there from the start. He conveniently ignored the new APIs and other enhancements, and then just griped about there being no hardware announcements. At a software event. The man gets less relevant about Apple every day.
To me, the biggest surprise came from another GigaOM network site, jkOnTheRun. In an article there, 40 percent of the readers polled were “underwhelmed” with the update. A few even saying that the announcement “pushed” them to the Palm Pre…
So Apple announced their push facility for iPhone OS 3.0 today. I think that’s great. Unfortunately, it’s only half a solution, and the other half is pretty important, too. At least it is to me. Let me explain…
There’s a story going around that some of what Apple may announce today for the iPhone 3.0 OS will be to counter Palm’s Pre. Kevin Rose mentioned this, and it’s covered in a few places, including right here.
Personally, I think such discussion is Pre-mature…
I bought it online since shipping and engraving are free. I lose the instant gratification of the Apple Store, but I gain the personalization of engraving. (Though I admit it was challenging to come up with an engraving because there’s a small limit on letters.) Shortly after ordering, I got a confirmation email saying it would ship in three to five business days. So far, so good, now all I can do is wait.
Yes, the headline is an exaggeration, but as I read more and more about the reaction to this thing I’m really struck by some of it.
“If I lose my headphones then I can’t use the device!” Well, if you lose your headphones now what do you do? Hold the thing up to your ear and crank the volume? You need to get headphones in either case. And third parties will provide more options.
The interface gets lots of flack. Apparently the click, double-click and triple-click is just too much. No one can use it. Grandma will be helpless…
Apple released the 3G iPod shuffle today. That’s “3G” as in third generation, not 3G as in the communications protocol used by the iPhone 3G. See? It’s as clear as the dirt on the floor. But I digress…
Naturally, Digg Nation has weighed in on Apple’s latest move. Since we all know every tech reader on Digg is a would-be genius — and as a group they clearly have their pulse on the market. Their approval and support of the new device is critical to the success of— oh, forget it. Who am I kidding?
Truth is, it’s more like comic relief to read Digg comments, especially about all things Apple…
The Safari 4 beta was released a mere two weeks ago, and I sometimes feel as if the battle over title-bar tabs may already be over. The heavy hitters have weighed in, and it’s not looking good…
So Verizon is finally acting like they “get it,” specifically asking people who leave their service if “the iPhone” has anything to do with it.
The problem with this is that by saying “the iPhone” they imply having the device just like it exists on AT&T’s network. But knowing Verizon there’s a good chance that wouldn’t be the case.
So I’ve fixed the survey, and offer it to Verizon free of charge so that they may get an accurate picture of whether people would stay on their network for “the iPhone”…
Even the Mac mini updates included the above. These were obvious and well-known. Where Apple departed from the Mac mini updates, however, was in the rest of the package…
Seems nearly everybody believes therumored Mac Miniis fake. At least, that’s what I see in most of the comments to the published rumors.
Predicting what Apple will do next is nearly impossible, and I usually don’t bother going there. But today, what the heck. I think these rumors are valid. My issue with a lot of the comments saying “Fake!” are that they don’t pass any reasonable test I apply to them…
In General on Wednesday, 25 February 2009 at 16:16
Paul Thurrott has weighed in with his opinion of the new Safari 4 update, and he’s not impressed. While no surprise, it’s the manner in which he blasts the product (and, of course, Apple’s users) that was especially interesting.
I was wondering how Thurrott was going to counter the incredible speed of the browser engine. Apple’s own marketing aside, others have tested it and confirmed it to be the fastest web browser available. I assumed he’d blast the test methodology, or claim that IE 8 would be better (though IE 8 was in the tests), etc. But no, he took a different tack altogether. He simply acknowledged the browser engine is good, and then blasted the UI because he’s apparently a manly man who doesn’t need no steenking graphics.
I’ve seen a few articles lately on the file incompatibility between iWork ‘08 and files saved in iWork ‘09.
Macnn and other sites have discussed it. As usual, there are the silly comments regarding Apple not having tested this, it’s worthy of Microsoft, blah, blah, blah. Many comments tended to be more rational, though, pointing out that new versions of software frequently “convert” older files and then are not compatible with the older version. This isn’t really that unusual.
I think Apple could have made this easier if they had explained in the tech note a primaryreason for the incompatibility. It’s the old standard support line: It’s a feature, not a bug…
In General on Wednesday, 18 February 2009 at 15:47
Much is being made lately of Microsoft Windows 7 and it’s new taskbar. I’ve been running the beta myself and consider it a nice improvement over Vista. One of the improvements is in the area of window management. The new taskbar shows previews of all the open windows in an app when you hover the mouse over it, and will switch to that window if you click it.
While the above is nice, I’ve seen a few comparisons of this windows management to that of Apple’s Dock. The problem there is that OS X’s windows management is not handled by the Dock. About the only “window management” you get from the dock is that if you right-click an icon the popup menu will list open windows. Big deal.
If you want to compare Windows 7’s windows management to that of OS X, then you have to compare the new taskbar features to that of Apple’s Expose and Spaces. In this comparison, in my opinion, Windows 7 falls far short…
One of the things demoed by Phil Schiller when MobileMe was introduced was the ability to easily share files on your iDisk with others. The idea was that you’d select a file on the iDisk, choose to share it, and you’d have a couple of options:
Password protection
An expiration date for the link
Then you key in the email address(es) of those you want to share the file with, and they’d get an email with a download link.
It all looked pretty slick, but there was just one little thing wrong: When MobileMe went live, this feature was MIA.
I think they’re both right (yes, life is good sitting on top of this fence).
I don’t disagree with Charles’ friend that width is a big factor, and here the new MacBook is much bigger than the 12.” However, I would suggest that depth is the more critical (for use on a table, airline tray table, etc.) and here the new model is only slightly bigger. Further, weight is a big factor and the two are pretty much identical.
So you need to consider just what you’re getting for those extra couple inches of width…
I wrote about the patent Apple received for this, but I’d like to comment further in light of all the discussion going on about the relative usefulness of this patent.
A lot of the discussion seems to stem from these sources:
A Gizmodo article using a “professor of patents law” as a source.
An analyst report that claims Apple going after Palm could cause more harm than good.
I do not dispute these are valid opinions, but so are the opposite…
So Apple is finally awarded their multi-touch patent, and the hue and cry from the Apple Bashers is pretty loud. But not only Apple Bashers are worried, Daring Fireball had this to say:
Very broad language – taken at face value, Apple effectively owns the IP rights to multi-touch in the U.S. This sucks.
DF’s major beef is with the patent office awarding the patent in the first place due to its broad language. However, what other type of language does one use for the concept being patented? We’re talking a whole new UI here. The implication seems to be that the patent is short on specifics, yet it’s 358 pages! When you’re patenting a new UI, I’m thinking you’re going to have to brush with broad strokes lest you forget a corner of the canvas that a competitor uses to white out your picture.
In promoting his upcoming film, Objectified, a documentary maker published a photo (above) of Jony Ive from “inside Apple’s design facilities.”
Naturally, tech bloggers the world over will examine the photo in detail in the hope that Apple slipped up and left something in the photograph that reveals their next “sooper seekrit” product. Rumors and speculation will run rampant. After all, if every Chinese newspaper or two-bit tech pundit or analyst publishing nonsensical information becomes grist for the rumor mill, then certainly an actual photograph of “mad scientist” Ive’s lair should give us material for months.
I’m getting ahead of the curve to reveal that, after close inspection of the photograph, I can report on Apple’s latest cool new device…
For quite a while (heck, pretty much forever), the knock on Apple has been that it’s overpriced, that the same thing can be had for much less elsewhere.
A much more recent complaint is that somehow Apple never gets any critical reviews, it’s all just shoddy reporting. A couple of big hitters on the other side have jumped on this latest argument. I’ll leave it for others to attack the attackers, so to speak, but I believe it gives the topic more credibility than it deserves, and leads down a path that neither side can possibly “win” anyway.
What’s especially funny is that the day after Paul Thurrot’s screed he published a two-part review of Microsoft’s Windows Live Essentials proclaiming it to be “awesome” and “excellent.” These are just the mail, chat, etc. apps recently unbundled from Windows. I’ve been running them for a few months now. They’re OK, but there’s nothing particularly special here. If they’re “awesome,” then their Mac equivalents must be super duper, fantastic, magical, and other-worldly. It’s funny how Paul railed against “bad reporting” and a company having “too many friends in the media,” yet then provided examples of both in a review that gave four stars to what’s essentially the old Outlook Express app with a facelift and botox. Bad reporting, indeed.
Like many users, I’m pleased that the labels are finally allowing Apple to sell music free of DRM copy protection. Given that the labels have allowed this for many other vendors (Amazon, Wal-Mart, Zune Store, etc.) I think they’ve been flirting with collusion on the iTunes store for a while anyway.
What I’m happiest about is the higher quality — which I don’t think Apple would have needed permission for – since Apple’s FairPlay DRM was pretty transparent anyway. Of my nearly 8,000 songs, about 200 of them are iTunes, most belonging to my daughter. The DRM has simply never been an issue since they play on every Mac and iPod device we have. I’m not even sure I’ll upgrade them, but a lot of that has to do with price, as we’ll see.
What I’m most curious about are the details and consequences of this deal as it pertains not just to Apple, but also the competion. Here are some questions I have…
Today the 17 inch MacBook Pro joined its younger siblings with a unibody construction. While many of the improvements were expected — based on the existing unibody models — and there are some worthwhile performance enhancements, Apple also had a couple of nice surprises in store. Let’s take a look…
The good news is that with the keynote almost upon us, the Mac community has switched primarily from crying about Jobs not giving the keynote to instead focusing on the usual rumors and speculation. This is as it should be.
In a previous article I discussed Apple’s approach to cloning and how far they should go in shutting down that business. This led to the question “why can’t I just buy Mac OS X and install it on any hardware I want?”, which led to a pretty typical answer that the boxed OS X is sold as an upgrade, not a new (or full) license. This answer is sometimes challenged, and brings up the idea of what an “upgrade” is in the Mac world as opposed to Microsoft.
This is not an Apple vs. Microsoft argument. It simply attempts to outline the difference in each one’s approach to OS sales, and why each uses the sales model it does. Rather than claim one is “right”, I believe each is right for the business model it supports.
‘Twas the night before Macworld, when all through the blogs
Every pundit was asking “Where is Steve Jobs?”
His stockings were hung at Mascone with care,
But it seems his last keynote was for MacBook Air.
The attendees were not yet settled into bed;
All concerned that we only get Schiller instead.
Will there be dazzling products? What can we expect?
And will somebody get Phil a black turtleneck?
Then inside the hall there arose such a clatter
I pushed through the line to see what was the matter.
I flew like a flash on my way to the stage
As the keynote began, and the crowd was engaged.
In General on Wednesday, 17 December 2008 at 14:12
With all the hoopla surrounding Psystar these days, a few other companies have jumped on board the Mac clone bandwagon. In some cases they’re using somewhat, shall we say, unique, methods. Still, the intent is clear: skirt Apple’s EULA and sell a solution that allows Mac OS X to run on generic PC hardware. In other words, swipe Apple’s IP.
Apple’s documentation for changes in the recent 10.5.6 system update includes a line of interest to MobileMe users on the Mac:
Contacts, calendars, and bookmarks on a Mac automatically sync within a minute of the change being made on the computer, another device, or the web at me.com.
So we now have “push” for those items on the desktop, as we’ve always had on the Web and the iPhone. That’s good news.
However, the MobileMe changes go deeper than that. Apple didn’t just change Contacts, Calendars and Bookmarks to “push” distribution (for Macs only), they changed the sync times for all items in the MobileMe control panel, and also made changes to the MobileMe service itself. Let’s take a look…
Seems everyone’s talking about netbooks these days. So I will, too since I’ve seen so much punditry of late that says Apple can’t charge their usual prices anymore, the economy is in the dumps, netbooks rule, Apple can’t ignore the market, etc.
This past Friday, Apple advertised iPhone apps in the New York Times and also mentioned that there have been 300 million app downloads. While most people realize this is pretty amazing, there are some comments quickly rushing to pour water on the app store’s fire…
Now that recent rumors of a $99 iPhone seem to have been settled — Wal-Mart will sell the 8GB model for $197 — we can get back to the broader discussion of just what an eventual $99 iPhone could mean to Apple.
I believe the answer to the question depends on just what a $99 iPhone is. Prior to the latest rumors, it was usually discussed as some sort of “iPhone nano.” Maybe a flip phone, and generally acknowledged to be much more limited than the current iPhone. I’m sure these rumors will creep up again soon.
There have been a lot of reviews lately regarding the new Blackberry Storm. I summarized a few myself, but things haven’t improved much. While there are some bright spots, the overall tone of the reviews is that the Storm is a disappointment.
Still, as a Blackberry on the Verizon network I suspect it’ll do fine regardless. Instead of dwelling on the reviews, I want to disagree with comments I’ve read that say RIM should be cut some slack because it’s a 1.0 product, which makes it the same as the iPhone’s initial release.
In General on Wednesday, 19 November 2008 at 18:32
Recently MacLife magazine reviewed Apple’s MobileMe service. My problem with the review is that it lists something as a negative that continues to spread misinformation:
Doesn’t “push” your email instantly, rather every 15 minutes.
This is wrong. In this article I’ll touch on what gets synced with MobileMe, when it occurs, and why I’m happy with it.
“I’m not looking for the best players, I’m looking for the right ones.”
The above line, from the Disney movie Miracle, is delivered by the coach of the USA hockey team when an assistant coach questions some of his choices for the final roster. It seems very apt when looking at Apple’s hire of Mark Papermaster.
Sometimes I’m surprised at the what the Apple blogging community considers newsworthy. Maybe “slow news days” really do exist, because it’s otherwise hard to understand whyanythingwould bemade of the fact that Mark Papermaster was not initially Apple’s “first choice” when looking for Tony Fadell’s replacement.
Ars Technica wrote an article about Macs and Blu-ray drives. That’s fine, but they did so under a misguided premise:
In the third quarter earnings call in July, Apple warned investors about an upcoming product transition that would eat away at the company’s cushy margins. However, in the intermediate, no new or updated products have surfaced that look like they could be responsible for significantly reduced margins.
The article then dismisses the new “unibodies” for the MacBook and MacBook Pros, instead suggesting a “mystery margin-reducing product or feature” must have been intended. It goes on to postulate that Blu-ray was supposed to be that mystery feature, but that Apple decided against it.
One of the more innovative items coming out of Apple’s new laptop announcements last week was their development of a new trackpad for these portables. This new trackpad has several interesting features:
Made out of glass
No visible button or button area
Multi-touch for numerous gestures
While the multi-touch capability was introduced in the MacBook Air (and, later, in revisions to the Pro models), some new ones have been added with the new laptops. The first two items are completely new.
In utilizing the new trackpad, there are some observations I’d like to make that may interest those who have yet to try it.
Or words to that affect. That’s what I’m seeing on blogs and in a boatload of forum comments. Geez, people. Why is it every time Apple makes a move there’s a pile of people to step in and claim how stupid Apple is, or how they don’t care about their customers, etc.? As if Apple’s not nailing almost all of their decisions lately (and by “lately” I mean over the last 10 years).
Based on reported preliminary figures from Gartner, Apple is set to show incredible PC growth in the US compared to the industry.
I’m not so concerned with the figures themselves so much as my belief that to properly calculate Apple’s growth compared to the industry you must remove their figures from the industry totals and then compare the growth rates side by side.
When I wrote about the MacBook earlier, I mentioned that Apple’s strategy to make it more of a MacBook Pro “lite” was rather amazing.
Rather than bring down their laptop’s entry level, as everyone insisted and expected it would do, Apple chose to dramatically bring down the laptop’s “pro” level instead. The smaller screen (actually an advantage in terms of size and weight), lack of FireWire, and less powerful (but still greatly improved) graphics are the main differentiators. Well, except for that $700 price difference!
Along with the new MacBook today, Apple has a new promotional video. They used to make these all the time in the early decade (my two favorites are those for the PowerBook G4 and iPod).
I suspect they took a lot of time, effort, and expense to produce, and Apple hasn’t done them in a while. But we got one today (also seen here).
I’m not going to dwell on the base MacBook that’s now $999. It was a fine machine yesterday, and for $100 less it still is. The lower price may also appeal especially to schools, etc. that may be buying in bulk.
No, the real action today is in the rest of the MacBooks and of course the new 15″ MacBook Pro as well. When comparing these models, it’s clear that the new MacBook is a huge improvement over the older model, but that the MacBook Pro is not as significant a change. Let’s take a quick look…
New rumors keep cropping up about Apple’s event tomorrow.
First, some new pictures have surfaced on Engadget of a supposed new 15″ MacBook Pro. A few other sites have picked these up, but AppleInsider has taken it further with information about a possible new display that resemlbes an aluminum iMac but without the “chin”. They go on:
Many analysts and tech pundits spend a lot of time wailing and gnashing their teeth over the supposed demise of Apple, should something happen to Steve Jobs. I find it especially amusing that many of them seem to be the same ones who give Jobs little credit for Apple’s success (it’s all Jon Ive, or marketing, or the Apple faithful, or blah, blah, blah), but still claim Apple would be lost without him. I wish they’d make up their minds.
An article today mentions that RIM’s new Blackberry will begin the use of a RIM-hosted app market, and attempt to outline the three recent models for selling mobile apps:
iPhone – Apple is controlling what Apps can and can’t come through their store…
Blackberry Storm – RIM is starting up an App Center that they’re handing control of over to the carriers…
Android – Google’s App Store claims to be completely “open” but we’re already hearing that they may not allow applications that tether the phone to a laptop…
The article then goes on to ask:
Which model do you like better, and why? Or better yet – do you like ANY of them?
I wrote an in-depth review of Stanza last July. I didn’t know how seriously the iPhone would be taken as an eBook reader, but it sure had me convinced. I still love this app, and it’s been improved since that review.
…the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software.
Sure, it only applies to released items, but having unreleased apps/features under NDA is not at all unusual.
Bottom line is the primary NDA complaint was that even released apps/features were covered, which prevented the publication or use of books, tutorials, presentations, classes, discussions groups, etc. that could help spread the word. It’s that restriction that’s been lifted. This is very good news, indeed.
In General on Wednesday, 10 September 2008 at 14:07
OK, with all the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the likes of Thurrott, Enderle, and analyst Shaw Wu about yesterday’s Apple announcements (I think these guys are wrong), I thought I’d lighten things up a bit with something that struck me about the new nano design.
I haven’t had time to parse everything, and I’ll play with iTunes and give my thoughts on it later, but here are a few things that struck me — in no particular order — from today’s announcement:
Paul Thurrott’s Supersite Blog apparently firmly believes at least two things:
Apple is “bad”.
Newsweek is a credible source for Apple commentary.
The former is nothing less than Paul has always thought, despite his claims of being unbiased, etc., even as he calls those who support Apple names every chance he gets. The latter, however, is especially telling, since of course Newsweek was little more than an Apple tool until now.
One annoying issue with MobileMe is that it does not sync subscription calendars to your iPhone or the web app.
Like many people, I subscribe to a holidays calendar and, perhaps not like many people, a moon phases calendar. I wanted these back on my iPhone, and on the new Calendar web app as well.
Doing this is actually easy, it consists of bringing the calendar in as local instead of subscription:
It seems you can’t swing a dead cat on the Internet without running into an article about this latest proof of the Pure Evil that is Apple, Inc. (As usual, the headlines end with a question mark, which should be your first clue not to click the link.)
Oh, brother.
Meanwhile, the original discoverer of the URL in question, to his credit, is much more rational about the whole thing (see his 8/7 post):
Apple’s iPhone Remote application is great. It’s so convenient to control an entire iTunes library — and any AirTunes speakers — from any iPhone or iPod touch.
But instead of telling you how great it is I’d rather take the time to request that Apple add the Remote app’s interface improvements to the iPhone’s native iPod interface. In my opinion, the native iPod interface on the iPhone/iPod touch no longer makes it the best iPod ever. The Remote app’s interface supersedes it. Let’s take a look…
This was a good idea, and they seem to be “coming clean” with some details of the extent of the damage caused so far. For example, in referring to the infamous 1% of users with no email access:
As of today a team was able to restore limited web access to those accounts so the affected members can use their browsers to read mail that has arrived since last Friday (though not before) as well as send and receive new mail. The team has already begun rolling out restoration of full access for all the accounts and expect to finish by the end of next week. We particularly regret to report the loss in the affected accounts of approximately 10% of the messages received between July 16 and July 18.
Not the best of news, but better than Apple’s communicated so far. Another interesting tidbit is this:
We’ve since added server capacity and tuned our software to scale better — i.e. behave more gracefully when traffic spikes. The team has also fixed over 70 bugs…
They’ve already added server capacity? They only launched two weeks ago, yet they had servers sitting around available for adding? Either they got those servers in place very fast — and clearly miscalculated what was needed at launch — or they launched without all the servers online.
I’ve subscribed to the feed and am anxious to see what updates we get in the coming days.
Compared to the 1% above my problems are minor (but quite annoying), and in total they harm the MobileMe experience. Further, it’s hard to be comfortable with this system knowing that some people are getting rocked by it. Until the system truly settles down, there’s no particular reason to think any subscribed account couldn’t be next.
I’ve written about MobileMe’s horrid rollout on two separate occasions (more, if you consider the updates and comments of those posts). I’m happy to see some heavy hitters are now calling Apple on it as well.
Walt Mossberg and David Pogue both blasted Apple on this today. Even the extremely pro-Apple MacDailyNews site had this to say in their “take” on Pogue’s article (emphasis theirs):
I doubt the folks making Amazon’s Kindle are scared, but I’m surprised at how much I’m reading books on the iPhone now that I have the 2.0 software and the Stanza application.
There are lots of books or readers for the iPhone, so why did I finally settle on Stanza? There are four reasons:
I’ve made no secret of the fact that the MobileMe rollout was a disaster. It isn’t over yet.
Apple’s apologies (one to all users, another to trial subscribers erroneously billed early) were the right thing to do, and I appreciate Apple for doing it. And of course their 30-day subscriber extensions (one each to the two groups above) are also a great gesture.
I wrote earlier about why I’m not upgrading to and iPhone 3G at this time, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t given some thought as to what will become of my beloved original 8GB model.
After working with the 2.0 software and App Store for the last few days on my iPhone and my daughter’s iPod touch, I think I know…
I am not upgrading to an iPhone 3G at this time. The reason for this is one I haven’t seen mentioned before, so I’ll mention it for others to consider if they haven’t already.
One thing I learned while determining how to share push calendars and contacts with one MobileMe account was that the iPhone will push, and the MobileMe web apps will push, but the Mac (and PC) does not push.
I have two iPhones and two Macs that were sharing the same Calendar and Contacts. Each Mac/phone had unique email, bookmarks, music, etc., but the calendars and contacts were identical.
I have one .Mac account and purchased an additional email account, so how did I do it?
See the end of this article (and the comments) for a couple of updates.
Soon I’ll write about how I put on the iPhone 2.0 software this morning, and have been running it all day. It went smoothly and works wonderfully.
I’ll write that Exchange sync works great (just email, I’m not using it for contacts or calendars).
I’ll write that the new MobileMe “push” services work great so far. Tried emails, contacts and calendars and it’s working just like it’s designed. That is, comparing the phone to my desktop apps I can see data entered in either place move back and forth.
I’ll write about the App store and how sweet it is, and that the new freebie Remote app is so cool.
But that will all come later, for now I just want to say to Apple that the MobileMe site was up early today, and then shut down (I didn’t try it then). Now it’s back up and, Apple, you should shut it down again. Quickly. Before you become the laughingstock of the industry.
S-L-O-W. Disgustingly and embarrassingly slow. Setting new world records in slowness. So slow that, for all practical purposes, it’s unusable. And that’s the good news, because at least when it’s slow it’s working. I have yet to get contacts to pull up on this thing. I get calendars — sometimes — but then get server crashes. Or Safari will tell me it can’t display the page. It’s a miserable experience
Apple, shut it down and fix it. Google and Microsoft are both laughing their asses off at your first real step into cloud computing. They may have been a little worried yesterday. Not now.
[UPDATE:] Not very long after I wrote this post the MobileMe site was shut down again. Good. Apple has stated that everything about MobileMe is working except the web aps, but the push features that worked for me all day today are no longer functioning, and other people are having issues as well. This is more than just the web apps.
Meanwhile, to keep informed about if MobileMe is up just check here.
[UPDATE #2:] As of noon on 7/11, things are no better with MobileMe than yesterday. Apple’s having a bad day today, what with their app store and activation servers getting barraged with requests. No surprise there, and I do not believe Apple should add hundreds of servers just to get over the peaks this weekend. All the issues related to activity will sort themselves out over time, and do not necessarily point to any bugs on Apple’s (or AT&T’s) part (though I think Apple should have staggered the 2.0 availability, i.e., roll out the iPhone 3G for a week and then make the 2.0 software available for the 2G unit).
However, the MobileMe fiasco does not fit into the above category of issues with the new iPhone, software, and App Store. This is not about server activity because only valid .Mac subscribers and trials would be accessing the servers. And yet Apple’s been at it now for over 40 hours!! There is a problem there. I don’t know what it is, but it’s big, and they can’t seem to find it.
There’s a new iMac competitor in town from Averatec. It’s name is incredibly bad if not descriptive: All-In-One PC.
Regarding other iMac wannabes, Gateway’s One was rather unimpressive in the specs department, but Dell’s One (yes, the same name as the Gateway) seemed to be a worthwhile machine. I wrote up the Dell here, but as you can see in that post’s subsequent updates it turned out to be a bit of a bust.
So let’s look at this latest entrant in the iMac ring…
Paul Thurrot’s occasional Fun With Headlines posts are usually pretty harmless. Sure, he uses them to get in one-sentence jabs at Apple now and then, but despite his claims to the contrary that’s his job, so no big deal.
Today, however, he must be unusually mad at Apple, so let’s see what his 4th of July Edition has to say:
Paul Thurrott posted an unusual piece on his Super Site for Windows, first published in an issue of Windows IT Pro UPDATE, which Thurrott calls “an email newsletter aimed at IT [read: Microsoft] Professionals.”
What makes it interesting is that Thurrott drops some pretenses he and other Microsoft fanatics have held dear. Does this mean Apple gets some well-deserved credit? No more than Thurrott ever gives. Does it mean Microsoft is being excoriated? Not really. Thurrott’s a Microsoft iShill and, as I’ve said before, knows — and in this piece admits — not only where his bread is buttered, but also where the dough is made and the loaves are baked.
If you read my last few posts you know that I have a nearly-new iMac now. (FYI, the new logic board “broke” my iTunes authorization and Time Machine backups, but that seems to be it).
So today I’ve been watching quite a number of videos, and when I turn them off I hear a sound. A blowing sound. Kind of like… a fan.
Is that coming from the iMac? Yes it is, it is coming from the iMac. Never heard that before, at least not like this. I better investigate…
Well, I’m home now, and writing this on my nearly-new iMac. Final parts replacement (all covered under warranty):
iMac:
Video Card
Logic Board
LCD Panel
Power Supply
MacBook:
Top Case w/ Keyboard
Regarding the iMac, it would seem the only thing they left alone was the hard drive.
I could not be more pleased with the service. They were fast (despite my comment about people in front of me only minutes before my 11:00 appointment, they called my name on time), efficient, and kept me in the loop at all times.
I had commented that it was a drag having both machines out of commission at the same time, so I especially appreciated their quick call to let me know the MacBook would be ready very soon and I might want to wait for it. That’s good service.
I was hoping for the MacBook by tonight, but thought I had no shot at the iMac today, let alone so soon.
I’ve seen numerous testimonials to excellent Apple service; consider this just another stellar review.
Tom just called to say the iMac is running diagnostics. It looks good, but they think the LCD might have experienced a little damage as well, so they’re going to go ahead and replace it. That will be another hour and he just wanted to let me know so that I could decide if I want to hang around or not.
Since I’m at the mall, I’m gonna grab lunch and a cup of go juice. Stay tuned…
OK, while I was posting my last blog entry I got a call from Tom, the Apple Genius I worked with (and with a name like Tom you know he’s gotta be good) to say they thought the MacBook would be ready in maybe 45 minutes so I might want to consider hanging around the mall for it. Since I was still in the store, that was kind of a no-brainer.
Thirty minutes later I get a call and the MacBook is ready. I go to pick it up and Tom asks me which machine I was called on. Turns out they will have both of them ready today! The iMac power supply did the trick, and the “dust” on the screen was smoke from the old power supply burning away. Ouch! They used some alcohol to clean it off. Tom went in the back to tell them to to package them both up since the iMac should be ready any minute.
Tom comes back out to tell me that one thing they had noticed is that they don’t feel the fans on the iMac are spinning as fast as they should be. As a precaution, they’re going to swap out the logic board and test it a bit more. He gave me the MacBook and said the iMac would be maybe another hour. What the heck, I’ll wait.
So I’m typing this post on the new keyboard on the MacBook as I sit outside the Apple store in the mall. One machine down, one to go…
Well, they verified the iMac was dead, and put in for just about every part in the book (I appreciate that so they can make sure it’s fixed): power supply, logic board, LCD screen and glass panel. Those last two are because I also mentioned a kind of “dust” appearing on the inside of the screen.
They said the best case is it’s ready today, and worst case it’s five days. They’ll call me.
Meanwhile, the MacBook is due for a keyboard replacement. They’ve taken it as well and said it will probably be ready today. Again, they’ll call me.
Geez, both Macs out of commission the same day. I’m posting this from the Apple store now. Well, there’s always the iPhone…
Used my iMac for an hour this morning, went out for coffee, and when I came back it was dead. Will not power up. Tried all the tricks in the book, but no go.
Bummer.
So I made an appointment at the nearest Apple Store and just checked in. I’m posting from there now. Appointment in 5 minutes, but there are seven people in front of me so I think it’ll be a little late.
I also brought my MacBook since the “y” key tends not to work half the time.
In a previous post, a comment from Rus at FIXYOURTHINKING.com stated that the iPhone was being subsidized by AT&T to get the price drop seen today. Since it seemed the device would be available at $199 anywhere in the U.S. — and according to Steve Jobs will be no more expensive than $199 (U.S.) in all other countries – it didn’t seem to me like a subsidy at all.
However, in wading through post-WWDC Keynote discussions, blog posts and news stories about pricing, plans, etc., the most important data bits come right from AT&T’s own press release (emphasis mine):
[UPDATE 6/10/08] I originally wrote this post based on preliminary information about the iPhone’s new price. Subsequent data made it clear the $199 price is based on a subsidy from AT&T. You can’t buy the iPhone online, but rather must buy it at an AT&T or Apple store and activate it in-house (there is no more at-home activation) in order to get the $199 price.
Therefore, the “true” price of an iPhone is still $499, and the value of the old generation and iPod touch are not impacted as badly as I had first thought.
The letter Microsoft’s Andy Lees sent to their hardware, carrier, and software partners is comical on many levels, not the least of which is that why would you want to emphasize the fact that you’ve got nothing to say?
It really is kind of a stupid letter, but it follows the classic Microsoft argument (indeed, the only one they’ve ever had): When you got nothin’, toss around big numbers.
With all the speculation about what the new iPhone will include, I’ve yet to see something mentioned that I think is critical, and what I’d probably like to see most.
First, keep in mind that a lot of the improvements people want in the iPhone (myself included) are software-based. Therefore, they do not require a new hardware generation. For that reason, features such as MMS reception, cut and paste, multiple email selection, etc. will not be covered here. I want them, but they could be delivered by Apple at any time.
From a strictly hardware standpoint, if you summarize the list of all the rumors the following are probably most commony specified:
OK, now that Microsoft has demoed Windows 7’s multi-touch interface (”Forget Vista, look, shiny object!”), let’s look closer at these two products with multi-touch interfaces.
The idea is to look at the facts and determine who can really be said to be in the multi-touch race. For purposes of this post (and any other article that claims to be making any sense), we’ll assume the ultimate goal is to have this technology in the hands of actual users while turning a profit.
So there’s this tour of the new Boston Apple Store on a local news channel. It’s a great piece, with the reporter in wild-eyed amazement at Apple’s cool tools.
In some quarters this is an occasion to mock, but I strongly disagree.
Three new ‘Get a Mac’ ads are available (I love Group and Sad Song). I love this campaign, but in various blog comments I see statements about how they’re not good enough, and that Apple should advertise the Mac like they do the iPhone. In fact, I’ve seen comments like this since Apple began advertising the iPhone.
This isn’t likely to happen because there’s no GUI advantage of the Mac over Windows that can easily be portrayed in a 30-second spot.
So Apple releases a firmware update for iMacs with ATI Radeon HD Graphics.
OK, I run Software Updater but it doesn’t register. No biggie, maybe they just haven’t rolled it to the auto-updater yet. I’ll check it out and download directly instead.
As I mentioned in my review of the Airport Express, I bought it solely for the purpose of using Airtunes to stream my upstairs computer with my downstairs living room stereo. It does so flawlessly.
However, since I knew I as going on vacation I mentioned that I would bring the AE along and see about using it as a wireless network in my hotel room. I did just that, and here are my thoughts on it.
There’s an article on Roughly Drafted about a pilot program at IBM “designed to study the possibility of moving significant numbers of employees to the Mac platform.”
The article is a worthwhile read, and includes comments from users in the program, and what IBM’s next steps will be.
What I’m writing about is not RD’s article, or even the program itself, but rather a comment made by a user in the program:
The title says it all. This is not in any way, shape, or form meant to be a review. These are just some observations I gathered watching Blackberry usage last week.
On vacation I saw lots of iPhones and BBs (FYI, I don’t recall seeing a single Palm). On three occasions I sat right next to a BB user (once on a plane and twice in the airport), and it was very interesting to watch their interactions with the device. Certain things struck me:
That last part is important, because without Leopard it’s not a Mac anyway, and yet some articles quote the base price of $399 even though it doesn’t include the OS!
A week ago Thursday — just one day before leaving for a week-long vacation — I noticed my iPhone was not connected to my WiFi network. The other iPhone in the house was on it, as was the iPod Touch, iMac, and MacBook, so I knew the network was fine.
Trying to connect to the network was flaky. It took a while for Settings to even open, and then it either wouldn’t find the network, or if it did I could “join” for a split-second before it reverted back to EDGE.
Om Malik and John Gruber appear interested in what Apple’s pulling down from Google search referrals from Safari.
I’m not sure why this is; it’s not a lot of money for Apple’s bottom line, and I believe their primary goal with Safari is to help establish more web sites on open standards (e.g., not IE-specific).
Anyway, the reason I’m writing about this is I take exception to one thing Gruber mentions:
Bear with me a bit as I lead into what gives this article its title.
If you check my About page, you’ll see that since August of last year I’ve switched my household entirely to Apple. A 24-inch iMac Extreme, a 2.2 GHz MacBook, a Time Capsule 500GB, an Airport Express, and just last week an iPod touch.
In short, I spent a reasonable chunk of change, but it was time for new computers and I wanted to upgrade to “n” networking, etc. The time was right and I went back to Apple after many years of them, frankly, not making a computer I wanted.
Much has been made of the “news” that Amazon’s MP3 store is now the #2 online retailer in digital music. You can absorb some various thoughts on this in these articles:
USA today’s original article, citing no other data than the “Big 4″ labels’ word for it.
And then of course there are the myriad re-hashes of the USA Today article syndicated in papers everywhere, as well as other articles parroting the story as if iTunes is somehow being threatened.
Picked up an Airport Express today. This thing has intrigued me ever since it was introduced. Not because it’s a super small and convenient device for creating a high-speed WiFi network — complete with Internet and print sharing. And not because it can also serve as an inexpensive bridge for extending an existing wireless network.
No, what appealed to me about it was AirTunes: The ability to stream music. In other words, to plug into a powered stereo and make those speakers appear “remote” to a copy of iTunes on any Mac or PC on the same network.
Yesterday I stated my position on Apple’s use of their Windows Software Updater to “update” Safari on systems that don’t run it. Many other bloggers, analysts, etc. posted their positions as well.
There’s been a lot of debate about it, so today I thought I’d take a second look by reviewing some of the recent commentary on this topic…
The mid- to late-90s seemed to be the heyday of software vendors deciding that if you ran one of their products, you’d want a bunch more as well. In my opinion, it was not Microsoft, but Real, that typified this behavior and annoyed me greatly.
Even when all I wanted was their media player, it seemed I was stuck with their little message center and other crap. Turning it all OFF was a pain in the rectum, and in my opinion should never have been necessary. It made me hate Real, and I’ve yet to install any more than the minimum software of theirs needed.
Back when Apple announced the Safari web browser for Windows, Mozilla missed a great opportunity to plug their Firefox browser, choosing instead to whine like sniveling babies. I called them on that tack, and suggested what they should have done.
Now it appears that eMusic is following the same path. Showing zero confidence in their own offering, they’ve shriveled up at mere rumors of a possible iTunes subscription model and, avoiding the rush, got in line immediately with cries of Antitrust. Pathetic.
Today, Mudbutt, OK-based TinyTech sued Apple for pretty much everything. The lawsuit alleges Apple infringes on “some of our stuff” and calls for compensatory damages of “a bajillion” dollars.
In their press release today, TinyTech stated that they had to take legal action. “We were sitting around brain-storming our next great idea (OK, our first great idea), and then it hit us,” said Bjorn Loser, TinyTech’s President and CEO, “all these people suing Apple, and we’re not getting a piece of it.”
Personally, I’ve never been a fan of this model, though assuming it’s optional it finally has a shot to succeed now that the largest and most popular online music store (and second-largest music store) would be offering it for those who want it.
I’ve been running the betas of Safari on Windows ever since they came out. Overall I like Safari on Windows though it’s bit sluggish, which I attributed partially to being a beta.
So Microsoft licensed FlashLite from Adobe for use in their Windows Mobile software. Not sure when it will be available in a mobile release, likely later this year.
Some have speculated this was to buy time until their own Silverlight product is ready for mobile use (with a few sites actually using it).
In Uncategorized on Tuesday, 11 March 2008 at 22:10
I’m sure the Apple-bashers will be all over this one.
Starting in April you can get music tracks OTA on your BlackBerry. And they’re DRM-free. And you can transfer them to your computer. And all is right with the world. And iTunes is going out of business. And the iPhone is dead in the water.
I call this a mini-review not due to length, but because I’m documenting my experiences with the TC in implementing it at home.
I did not set it up in multiple ways, or perform extensive benchmarking, etc. I bought it to create a new wireless network in my home, and I’m reviewing it based on my experience in doing just that.
CNET did a review of the X300 and gave it an Excellent rating (8.5 out of 10).
The ThinkPad X300 breaks new ground by packing a broad display, full-size keyboard, and nearly every feature a mobile user needs into a sleek, lightweight case.
It seems the minute Time Capsule began shipping some were quick to find fault with a claim made for the device. I guess when Steve Jobs used a fairly vague description like “server-grade” to describe the hard drive, such fault can always be found.
The problem for doubters is that the vagueness works both ways. Establishing a definition for “server-grade” based on a Google search, and then claiming Apple didn’t meet it, is easy but hardly conclusive.
In Uncategorized on Tuesday, 26 February 2008 at 20:11
Updated MacBooks were released today, and the premium for the black model now stands at $100. The middle model upgraded with the larger 250GB hard drive is $1,399, making the cost of black an extra C note.
Before the update, the “black tax” was $125, primarily because the delta in drive size was smaller.
Meanwhile, having just bought a white MacBook (the middle model) six weeks ago — didn’t think I’d see an update so soon after Halloween’s — I can recommend it even more highly than before. I think this is one sweet machine.
With the faster Penryn processor, extra GB of RAM, and larger hard drive it will only be more so.
In Uncategorized on Monday, 25 February 2008 at 23:03
[UPDATE:] The original headline was “John Dvorak Writing For Windows SuperSite?”. Reader Scott took me to task for using a headline and premise that substitutes John’s work for Paul’s. His comment struck me, and I realized he was right. My critique of Paul’s post is still 100% valid, but the over-the-top headline and two-sentence opening have been struck. Also, my apologies to both John Dvorak and Paul Thurrott for the mis-characterization.
There’s a new article post on Paul’s SuperSite Blog for Windows attempting to explain Mac fanatics. Since it’s the usual Dvorak drivel I won’t link to it.
Problem is, I don’t see John’s name anywhere on it. Yet it fits his M.O. to a tee, so maybe he’s ghostwriting for Paul Thurrott?
As expected from the Windows “SuperSite”, the spin is about how it’s actually a bad thing to get patches. The implication is that having to wait forever for any significant patch to, say, Vista must prove how good it is.
In the second half of 2007, Microsoft’s partners shold [sic] 14.3 million Windows Mobile phones. This compares to 4 million iPhones that Apple sold in the same time period.
Put another way, Windows Mobile outsold the iPhone by over 3 to 1.
Most would compare iPhone sales to other smartphone sales, but not Paul. Windows Mobile is on many phones no one would consider “smart”. So, put even another way, non-smartphones outsell smartphones in general.
Thanks for the newsflash, Paul. Got any updates on the Hindenburg?
One of the video podcasts I subscribe to Mr. Deity, now in its second season. In the latest episode, Mr. Deity claims ideology is the problem with fundamentalism. When asked if ideology is bad, he replies:
It’s the worst. Are you kidding me? Look at all the great evils they’re all ideologically driven. You got the crusades, the holocaust, communism, no third-party apps on the iPhone. Never, never surrender yourself to an idea my friend, never.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt rarely writes anything that makes much sense. He jabs at Apple, but his best shots are the kind Mohammed Ali would be throwing today.
Most of the time I just ignore the guy, shaking my head. Still, every now and then he exceeds a threshold and I feel like I should point it out.
In Uncategorized on Sunday, 3 February 2008 at 23:33
So Apple’s gone and hired an international head of movies and television. Great. With iTunes rentals just starting in the U.S., and Jobs stating he wants to take it international very soon, this is a positive sign. Still, their hire is a bit, well, surprising to me.
Carl Howe at the Blackfriars’ Marketing wrote a great piece on Wednesday refuting all the garbage about Apple having to slash prices and sell loss-leader products. It’s fitting the headline began “News flash to reporters and analysts”, because a few of them appear to have read it.
In Uncategorized on Wednesday, 30 January 2008 at 23:40
CUPERTINO, California—January 31, 2008—Apple® today released Release Notes Restrictor ® 1.1, a worthy upgrade to its powerful note-restriction software. Release Notes Restrictor 1.1 adds support for even shorter sentences, fewer nouns, more ambiguity, and in some cases does away with verbs completely.
In Uncategorized on Friday, 25 January 2008 at 13:30
So, reviews are pouring in on the device, and it’s enough to make you pull your hair out.
Why can’t anybody review this machine for the purpose it was intended? If I see one more tech pundit explain to me that this really needs to be a second Mac, not a primary machine, I’m gonna puke.
In Uncategorized on Thursday, 24 January 2008 at 11:40
Just as they did at the 90, 180, and 270-day mark, Microsoft has cherry-picked and juggled statistics to arrive at the conclusion that Vista is more secure than XP, Red Hat, Ubuntu, and Mac OS X. Oh please.
There’s been so much written about the MacBook Air since it was introduced that you can’t swing a dead cat on the Internet without running into some commentary on it.
A lot of what’s written is pretty silly. Seems like only now are some people getting a handle on its dimensions, etc. that should have been obvious from day 1.
In Uncategorized on Thursday, 17 January 2008 at 0:01
It’s no secret I’m not enamored with the new MacBook Air. In fact, I chose to purchase a MacBook instead. While I think it’s a beautiful design, I also think it’s less a sub-notebook than it claims to be given its footprint.
Paul Thurrott of Windows SuperSite was just fine with it the day it was announced, but is now blasting it to high heaven. Why the reversal? I’m assuming it takes a while for him to get his marching orders from Redmond.
In Uncategorized on Tuesday, 15 January 2008 at 14:47
In today’s Macworld keynote Steve Jobs announced that the iPod Touch will now be getting five applications from the iPhone that it previously did not have:
In Uncategorized on Tuesday, 15 January 2008 at 13:29
But not as light as air. Alas, I just can’t see going with the new MacBook air. The price is OK (for now), but it’s just too much compromise for me, and here’s why.
OK, fresh from all the keynote blog reading, I plugged in my iPhone and the 1.1.3 upgrade was available. Install went without a hitch and I’ve been playing with it a bit. Overall this is a nice upgrade, and there’s a guided tour video for it. I really like Apple’s guided tour videos and think they’re a nice touch.
No optical drive, but the included software, which lets it “borrow” the optical drive from any Mac or PC, is pretty cool and takes care of software installations. Other features:
In Uncategorized on Monday, 14 January 2008 at 20:11
Tomorrow is Steve Jobs’ Keynote for Macworld ‘08, and this one is going to be special for me for a reason I’ll get to in a minute.
But first, what will be offered? While there may be some very cool stuff announced (current and future), and I’m interested in it all, I’ll be especially watchful for laptop announcements. I recently wrote my views on this subject, but for this particular keynote I’m even more interested. Why? Well, for the same reason this whole keynote is special for me…
In Uncategorized on Monday, 14 January 2008 at 14:15
Paul Thurrott attempts to set the record strait on DRM-free music. And in Paul’s world, the move to DRM-free tunes had nothing to do with Apple or Steve Jobs. You see, Paul’s been re-writing Microsoft history for so long he’s not above trying to re-write Apple’s as well.
Let’s face it, next week we’ll all be discussing Macworld news, so I thought I’d review some tech headlines from the last few days and get them out of my system before the real fun begins next week…
Good article from Wired on the untold iPhone story. It’s not a hit-piece, or even a worship-piece, but rather an article that confirms — for those to blind to see it — just how the iPhone has shaken up the wireless industry in the US.
Well written, and with numerous details I had not yet heard. Recommended reading.
I don’t know what Paul Thurrott’s New Year’s resolutions were, but apparently being objective about reporting anything Apple was not one of them. On his Windows IT Pro site he’s posted an article on how Apple can fix the iPhone. Forget about the fact that as a huge success the iPhone can hardly be said to need “fixing”, when you look at his actual “fixes” you see this is a ridiculous article even by Paul’s standards.
In Uncategorized on Sunday, 30 December 2007 at 18:17
There’s a page in the Small Business section of Apple’s web site that posts a tip each week. Though ostensibly for “small business”, they’re mostly general-purpose tips and I was able to learn a couple of new things. You might want to check them out.
Numerous headlines call it a coup for Amazon, saying they beat Apple to the punch. And many are proclaiming it as a change of heart for Warner. It’s neither.
In Uncategorized on Friday, 28 December 2007 at 13:54
There is so much speculation about what form the next Apple “notebook” will take it makes for interesting reading. I think predicting Apple products (beyond product refreshes) is an effort in futility, so these aren’t predictions, they’re just my thoughts on the various forms being discussed and prognosticated.
In Uncategorized on Saturday, 24 November 2007 at 11:10
Apple and Burst.com have settled their lawsuit for $10M. After legal fees this leaves Burst with roughly $4.6M. Pretty much walking around money. While some speculation for possible damages foolishly ran into many hundreds of millions, certainly no one thought it would go or a lousy $10M.
In Uncategorized on Wednesday, 21 November 2007 at 13:12
I have to admit I was intrigued by the idea of the Kindle, and awaited details anxiously. Now that the details are well known, it’s hard for me to look on the device with any enthusiasm.
In Uncategorized on Monday, 19 November 2007 at 22:22
[UPDATE:]For all the reasons articulated below, I ultimately left iWeb/.Mac hosting and moved my blog to its new home here at WordPress.
Nearly three months ago I switched from using Blogger to iWeb and .Mac for my blog. Overall I’m happy with my experiences, but there are some gripes I’d like to point out here.
In Uncategorized on Friday, 16 November 2007 at 22:09
While technically not available until Monday, 11/19, you can actually pre-order Dell’s new XPS ONE PC now for shipping later this month. Gateway’s latest AIO machine is also called the One, so I wonder why Dell used the same name. Will Gateway sue? Can they? Would they even care? I didn’t write up Gateway’s machine because, frankly, it’s unimpressive. Only a 19” screen, weaker processors by iMac standards and too expensive for what you get.
In a ZDNet article, David Berlind ponders whether Apple is getting dragged into licensing Mac OS X. After describing the hacking of OS X to install on various PC platforms and the popularity of it even in the face of Apple’s official position (he also includes the hacking of the iPhone), Berlind wonders:
“Back to OS X, perhaps its time for Apple to reconsider its Apple-hardware-only policy and once again look into licensing OS X. Clearly, now that the switch to the Intel platform is well behind us, and given the the success that hackers are having at “porting” the OS, there are no technical barriers.”
In Uncategorized on Wednesday, 31 October 2007 at 20:29
Joe Wilcox at Microsoft Watch wrote a screed about why Leopard isn’t better than Vista. I subscribe to the Watch feed, so I was a bit surprised and disappointed in how weakly the article was argued. I left a comment on the site, reproduced here:
In Uncategorized on Monday, 29 October 2007 at 0:30
In case you hadn’t heard, the picture above represents the icon used by Apple to depict Windows shares on the network. A BSOD machine. Most people think this is humorous, as do I.
However, some people think it’s less so, and still others decided (incorrectly) it’s all about smugness. The post is ridiculous. For example, we get this:
Let’s face it, the big news for Apple is next week with their quarterly earning call on Monday and Leopard release on Friday. Still, there was a lot of interesting stuff this week to comment on…
In Uncategorized on Friday, 19 October 2007 at 21:04
InfoWorld published an article on Mac OS X Leopard, calling it “a beautiful upgrade.” What I really like about their take on Leopard is that it doesn’t just spend a few paragraphs re-hashing the “obvious” features, but rather dwells more on the overall operating system and its beauty-is-more-than-skin-deep quality:
In Uncategorized on Tuesday, 16 October 2007 at 20:54
Paul Thurrott weighed in with his thoughts about Leopard on his clearly unbiased (cough) Windows IT Pro site. As usual, Microso–, er, Paul, figures there’s no sense beating around the bush so it starts with blatant lying right off the bat:
TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld provides an indication of why Business 2.0 went under with a post on Apple that claims Apple is thinking like the phone company and Jobs should “think different.” For any writer to imply the iPhone is something the phone companies would ever have produced is reason enough to ignore the post completely.
In Uncategorized on Thursday, 27 September 2007 at 18:28
Apple released a slew of updates for the iLife apps yesterday. While iDVD, iPhoto, and GarageBand got mostly bug fixes and maybe new themes, iMovie got substantial and welcome improvements.
You’ve had nothing to do with the success Apple enjoys today. For that matter, you practically had to be dragged kicking and screaming from Hewlett-Packard to help start Apple in the first place. You thought the IIc might be the best machine Apple ever made, and were not particularly behind the Mac.
In General on Saturday, 15 September 2007 at 14:12
Daring Fireball’s John Gruber had a lot to say in his article about ringtones and what he calls the “ringtones racket”. However, I disagree with part of his premise, and ultimately his conclusions. For other views on this subject here’s a great post from Epple, and Roughly Drafted touches on the subject as well.
In Uncategorized on Thursday, 13 September 2007 at 14:00
Today Apple released the latest version of Logic in the form of Logic Studio. This is a huge update from Logic 7, and they’ve followed the “studio” concept of Final Cut Pro and bundled even more apps with it. They also cut the price in half, to $499.
Oh brother. I take a small trip to Vegas (the team I rooted for won the football game, thanks for asking) and look at all the stuff that goes down. I’ll just touch lightly on these because it’s all old news:
On his Internet Nexus site, Paul Thurrott takes Apple to task for dropping the price of the iPhone so much, and then baits current iPhone owners with a question about being ripped off.
“So Apple took the unprecedented step of lowering the price of the iPhone by $200 to $400… My God. It’s kind of insane”
In Uncategorized on Thursday, 6 September 2007 at 12:56
I sifted through the rumors yesterday and come up looking pretty good today now that we know what was actually announced. I’ll talk about all the iPod models here, but what I really like is how they handled their high-end models. We’ll get to that in a minute.
In Uncategorized on Tuesday, 4 September 2007 at 12:48
All this speculation and whatnot about the new iPods tomorrow. I’m on record about the 6G iPod here and here. As for the nano, the rumors I’ve seen (wider body, larger screen, video-capable, more capacity) don’t sound too crazy so they wouldn’t surprise me. I also think the Shuffle will gain an extra GB of memory for the same price.
In Uncategorized on Sunday, 2 September 2007 at 12:39
You know the saying “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt”? Well, NBC executives do not.
Today, NBC felt the need to counter Apple’s press release from yesterday, in which Apple claimed NBC wanted to more than double the cost of their TV shows, to $4.99. Apple’s claim was pretty strong; it would have been in NBC’s best interest to simply be “thought a fool” by most while leaving room for people to still have a doubt that Apple was coming clean. Instead, NBC decided to remove that doubt in a statement of their own.
“If you haven’t had a hard drive fail, you don’t own a computer. And most people don’t back up. And the formats change. Files get better. Do you really think we’re going to be listening to 128 kbps rips ten years from now? No, we’re going to BUY THE MUSIC ALL OVER AGAIN! Which means it behooves the rights holders to sell it NOW! And to make it so cheap that people don’t CARE that it’s disposable.”
“NBC/Universal is way out of its depth here. It thinks this is an inside job, akin to a battle between studios and agents. But, it’s not. It’s a battle between producers and viewers, and the studio DOESN’T EVEN KNOW IT! You’ve got to make your product available cheaply, in a usable form.”
As I mentioned in a previous post, the overall performance of the latest iMac is amazing given what was considered top of the line just two years ago. A MacNN article points out how the iMac 2.8 GHz Extreme falls just shy of a current Xserve Quad-Core Xeon 2.0GHz. Pretty impressive stuff. Further, the article states:
“the top-end Mid-2007 iMac is faster than the Power Mac G5 (Late 2005) with two dual-core G5 processors at 2.5 GHz”
As in my previous article, this thing is easily besting a Quad-Core 2.5GHz PowerMac from less than two years ago! Wow.
In the first installment of this review I imported video and discussed skimming, selecting clips, trimming clips to the desired length, and changing their order. I then reviewed my work. Now it’s time to polish the movie. The following four items are the most common elements used to polish a movie. They’re available at the far right of the toolbar. The leftmost image in the top picture above shows this section with the audio button (Music and Sound Effects) selected.
This review is lengthy, so I’m publishing it in two parts. In this first installment I’ll go through the initial description, video import, selection and trimming of the clips for a movie, then review the work so far. In the last installment I’ll polish the work with transitions, titles, sound effects, photos, and other tools, then provide my conclusions.
This is the first of what will be several posts about my experiences with moving from my Windows XP PC to my new iMac.
This first part discusses general setup for the “basics,” such as initial setup, registration, internet connection, and other items that get me ready to do more lengthy data import. Future posts will detail my experiences with iMusic media import, iPhoto import and usage, transferring other document types, and iMovie usage. There may be other posts as well, but the preceding are what I know I’ll be covering.
You can read the review for the superlatives, of which there are many, but the upshot is that it scored a 4.5 (out of 5) and received the magazine’s Editor’s Choice.
In Uncategorized on Tuesday, 14 August 2007 at 23:06
In their commentary about a story that postulates Adobe writing office apps, Mac Daily News suggests Apple should buy Adobe. The idea is that they would kill Photoshop on Windows and shake up the industry.
I vote no.
Personally, I think killing Photoshop on windows would deluge Apple with lawsuits, but that’s not my point. My point is that Apple should buy companies that fit into their overall goals, business pursuits, and corporate culture. Is that Adobe? Seems to me Apple and Adobe haven’t exactly been best buddies lately.
The article starts pretty typically, outlining the new iMac configurations and mentioning how they’re price competitive with PCs. Then we get this quote from IDC’s Richard Shim:
“”Apple isn’t necessarily selling on just hardware either,” Shim said. “They’re innovating on the experience that the customer has, and a lot of other vendors are disadvantaged because they haven’t done that.”"
I wrote earlier about the lower price of the new iMac, but didn’t discuss how I’m able to spend less money on software, and yet get more, as opposed to a PC.
To explain this I’ll recount the primary software on my current Windows PC and the new Mac.
The new iMac has arrived, as expected. It’s thinner and, in my opinion, much better looking.
I always felt the white frame around the screen was a bit of a distraction, but now the chassis is aluminum, and there’s a beautiful black border around the screen. This not only looks great but also hides the built-in camera and microphone for an even smoother, cleaner finish.
Well, I’m back from the “out of town” portion of my vacation. I still have a few days off and some projects planned at home, but I’ll get to blogging as well. For my first post since coming back I’ll highlight some of the stuff that went on while I was gone. This is stuff I may have written complete posts about had I been here.
On the Apple 2.0 site today there is an article that implies the class-action suit filed against Apple for the iPhone may possibly, in some slight way, maybe, just a little bit, have some actual merit. Um, no.
Just so there can be no question about it now, go to the iPhoneTech Specs page and you’ll see this: “Rechargeable batteries have a limited number of charge cycles and may eventually need to be replaced. See www.apple.com/batteries for more information.” This is similar to what the iPod Tech Specs page has said for a long time.
Since Apple just released their 3Q numbers, and we know they sold 9.81M iPods last quarter, the only sanity we should check is that of anyone asking if iPods are missing a beat.
““We’re thrilled to report the highest June quarter revenue and profit in Apple’s history, along with the highest quarterly Mac sales ever,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iPhone is off to a great start—we hope to sell our one-millionth iPhone by the end of its first full quarter of sales—and our new product pipeline is very strong.””
Many sites have published links to a video with the alleged new interface for the 6G video iPod (here is MacDailyNews’). The video doesn’t necessarily remind one of the iPhone, though clearly elements have been borrowed.
I’ve gone on record stating the 6G iPod would have the iPod interface from the iPhone, or something very close (for example, the iPod might add a virtual scroll wheel for games).
The majority of new PCs sold since the end of January have Vista on them, yet Computerworld seems genuinely excited that Vista’s browser use has increased rather rapidly:
In Uncategorized on Saturday, 21 July 2007 at 23:57
I disagreed with Paul Friday regarding his look at PC market share, primarily focusing on his blowing off Apple’s US performance. In the following day and a half I’ve learned a few things.
In the comments of my article Paul says his article “was a post, not an analysis.” I’m not sure what that means, but it seems to imply that criticism can be deflected because a “post” doesn’t count as much as an “analysis.” Personally, I don’t care what it’s called; I have a problem with it for reasons stated in my article, which I stand by.
Part of Paul’s job is apparently to give Apple little to no credit for anything, especially sales. Lately, he’s almost had to work when the quarterly IDC and Gartner data comes out because it shows Apple is rising rapidly in the US.
This time around, Paul decided to ignore the US altogether. Brilliant!
This isn’t a review of the iPhone. I love the device and feel like I always have a laptop computer on my hip now wherever I go. If you’re looking for a “conclusion” from me, I gave that in an interview on Fix Your Thinking when I stated this:
“I’ve had an iPhone for six days and am simply amazed by the device. Let the others too “cool” to be impressed downplay it or quibble about what it can’t do, perhaps in the interest of acting “fair” or unbiased. I’ve got a list of improvements I’d like to see myself, but what it can do, and how it does it, is amazing. I tell people it’s the best laptop I’ve ever had. It’s the PowerBook 170 all over again! Last night I was sitting with my feet on my desk listening to tunes and reading sites via Google Reader all on the iPhone, when my regular computer was right there! To me, that’s a pretty good testament to what a great little device this is. And it can only get better.”
InfoWorld posted a piece on the iPhone that claims it has more misses than hits. Even if you don’t like the iPhone, no person in their right mind who’s actually used the device would make this claim.
Tom Yager produced a list to show that indeed the cons exceeded the pros. Pretty easy to do when you list hardly any pros for a revolutionary and game-changing device. That Mr. Yager could only scrounge up nine pros is surprising to say the least (and bad reporting to say the most). I know that iPhone competitors are in denial over this device, but why is InfoWorld?
There’s an interesting piece on eWeek regarding the clash of cultures between iPhone supporters and more traditional IT departments. Some of it is FUD, some of it valid, and most of it we’ve heard before.
Still, occasionally some IT guy will spout something so inane that it almost makes you wonder how they got their job in the first place.
[NOTE: I originally posted this on 6/29 after I ordered from the Apple Store. But I removed the post a day later when I canceled the order to buy one locally and not wait 2-4 weeks. Turns out supply shriveled up and I had to wait a week anyway.]
Just sunk my money into a phone. Not just any phone, of course. An iPhone. I’ve been planning on getting a new Mac as soon as they get upgraded. Well, I just did. Sure, it’s a phone, but it’s a Mac, too. A hand-held, touchscreen Mac.
Bought it at a local mall last Saturday. Checked the Apple retail store availability and got there at 9am. There were probably 40-50 people there. They had 75 iPhones (all 8GB) and I got mine.
But what about all its “drawbacks,” you ask? Click the iPhone category on my site and you’ll see what I think of those. But here’s a rundown of the usual suspects, and how I apply these directly to me and my decision to purchase:
No, not the one to talk about the device itself, I mean the other one. You know, the one where you blast it for some ridiculous reason in order to get your name in the papers and have a few minutes of fame. That one.
There was a hearing on “wireless innovation and consumer protection.” Nobody would have known that, of course, so the Democrats decided to play the iPhone card in order to get some publicity:
In an earlier article I explained how Paul has gone off the deep end regarding the iPhone. He accused respected tech journalists of not doing their job and simply ‘furthering Apple’s brand.’ What prompted this tirade? They dared to review the iPhone positively. Of course, Paul knew better. He didn’t have an iPhone yet, mind you, and was probably a little more than bitter about that fact, but he felt he knew better nonetheless.
Then the day he got an iPod, he took the time to ignore his own advice from the previous article and started taking shots at the device.
Bottom line is that Paul will not give the iPhone a fair shake; he’s already made it clear he doesn’t like it. The device itself wasn’t helping him support those conclusions, but that didn’t stop him from sniping.
There are several stories surfacing (for example, here and here) about how to kill the AT&T service and just use the WiFi functionality of the iPhone along with the coolest iPod Apple’s ever made.
This is an interesting intellectual exercise, and its kind of fun to see what can be done and what you can get away with. Deep down perhaps all of us like to see how we can “cheat the system,” as it were.
It’s somewhat similar to their iPod policy, but the iPhone is not an iPod. My complaint is that the process takes three business days. Include time for shipping back and forth and you’re without the phone for five days!
First, here’s a summary of some publications’ iPhone reviews to show how professional reviewers feel about it. This provides context for what Thurott says below.
Second, here’s Paul’s tirade against professional tech journalists accusing them of not doing their job and working to “further Apple’s brand.” This shows Paul’s frame of mind, and makes it clear he’s already made up his mind on the iPhone.
Now that over 24 hours have passed since the official release of the iPhone (and official review samples are in more publications’ hands) many reviews are coming in for the device.
In this post I’ll concentrate on publications and avoid personal bloggers (no matter what their stature), though I may round them up in the next few days.
It appears that even at this late date there are a few revelations to be made about the iPhone. Well, maybe not revelations, but at least tantalizing tidbits that, if not as tasty as sugar-plums, are food for thought nonetheless.
For the last couple of weeks, most of the iPhone press from Apple has been targeted primarily at consumers. They’ve been pretty mum about what role, if any, the iPhone would play in the enterprise, and what services might be available for it. But today, a few things have come out. Not all of it is from Apple, and most of it is not in the form of a hard press release, but given the source it’s significant anyway.
Paul Thurrott has now thoroughly debased himself. His Microsoft meal ticket threatened, he spends a lot of time taking shots at Apple with little or no reason. You can click the THUD label on my blog to see some of this crap.
However, today Paul reached a new high in low. No longer content to ridicule bloggers or the Apple community, he’s taking shots at big names in technology journalism. It’s pathetic, and Paul ought to be ashamed, though it seems clear at this point he has no shame.
I like Apple 2.0, and have it linked right here on my blog, but this piece is a bit off. Not because of the few reasonable complaints about the iPhone it points out, but rather because of the number of unreasonable or even outright ridiculous complaints it discusses.
I’ve listed them in order, and in each case I place it into one of three categories:
When AT&T announced that there would be special plans for the iPhone, a lot of people thought that maybe this meant there would be some price gouging, but if anything the reality is otherwise.
There have been a lot of reasons explaining why the iPhone will be a hit or a miss. I wouldn’t try to count how many unique reasons have been postulated for the success or failure of the device, but the ones listed below are what I consider the ‘Top 5′ for each.
The lists are mine, and based solely on my own memory of what seems to be a common consensus of analyst and pundit comments in all the articles I’ve read.
There’s been a bucketful of negative iPhone articles lately, as usual. Want to read something more positive for a change? I’m linking to three articles that actually thought the subject through and have a realistic outlook. After all, why start the weekend on a down note?
I’m sure these articles won’t generate the number of page-hits the typical “The iPhone is insecure and has a touchscreen with fingerprints so it will destroy your life!” articles do, but you could help that by reading them.
As I’ve said before, the iPhone FUD circus is in town. If I tried to report on all the horrible articles with “reasons” to avoid the iPhone, or alleged “problems” it has (most of which effect any electronic device) I’d be glued to my keyboard for the next nine days until the iPhone launch.
The FUD campaign against the iPhone is really ramping up.
First, there’s the reported FUD campaign by ZDNet. Now, there’s a report by Gartner telling businesses to avoid the iPhone. But, get this, the report won’t be released until next week, so to get double the press and double the impact (and double the FUD) Computerworld Malaysia has a issued a report on the report!
I was going to write a piece on a Wall Street Journal article that decries the use of the iPhone for business, and the IT departments’ general resistance to the device even in the face of clear employee desires for it. So much so that they may even get one anyway.
I don’t mean everyone at your company should get an iPhone, but I do believe that if a smartphone of some kind is justified for the work you do, then why not get the one people are drooling over? There are numerous ways to route email to the device.
A recent article on The Red Ferret Journal seeks to warn us all of the 10 “serious problems” with touchscreens that we should know before June 29 (i.e., the date the iPhone is released). Remember, these are “serious problems.”
Well, let’s get started.
“1. Sunshine is not your friend. Don’t bother trying to dial from that sunny beach.”
Yes, this is not only “serious,” but since it’s well known that most iPhone users will be spending their time at the nearest beach, it will be a major issue. Of course, any other backlit screen will be washed out, too, so I suppose the legions of people bringing their other phones to the beach are in for a struggle as well.
In Uncategorized on Saturday, 16 June 2007 at 11:51
This is regarding John Lilly’s (COO of Mozilla) recent blog entry about something Steve Jobs said at Apple’s WWDC07. During the WWDC keynote, Jobs showed a slide that suggested Apple’s Safari would replace all web browsers expect Microsoft’s.
So the mobile market is getting together to “take on” Apple’s iPhone in relation to music. What’s wrong with their offering? Well, let’s see:
1) The iPhone uses songs you already own (ripped from CDs or bought online) and syncs them beautifully based on criteria you specify in iTunes. Their phones, well, not really. The music you own? Play that at home, pal, on the phone you use ours.
2) It’s a subscription model. Oh goody, we need another one of these. Well, at the very least I’m sure Alexander Wolfe at Information Week will be happy. Subscription models fail, and it’s not hard to see why. People want to use the music they already own, and they don’t want to have to keep paying to play it. They also don’t like the idea of losing all their music if they miss a payment. Oh, and here’s a hint for Omnifone: If you need to quote the price of your service per week, then it’s too expensive.
In Uncategorized on Wednesday, 13 June 2007 at 19:45
In a previous post I wrote about a horrendous article on ZDNet saying they believed Apple’s Leopard operating system looks like Vista. The article was filled with such misinformation and outright ridiculous statements that most who commented or blogged on the topic called the author on it, as you might expect.
In Uncategorized on Tuesday, 12 June 2007 at 14:19
It’s Mary Jo Foley on ZDNet, and this time she’s exceeded herself. How can any self-respecting Microsoft fan not cringe when reading this drivel? I’ve taken her to task before, but this one sets new records.
Mary, just because you’ve got “an unblinking eye on Microsoft” doesn’t mean you can’t, you know, at least glance at Apple now and then.
In Uncategorized on Tuesday, 12 June 2007 at 11:34
Jon Gruber’s Daring Fireball is an excellent site, and highly recommended. However, in an article yesterday he posted some thoughts on Steve Jobs’ WWDC Keynote, and I must say I do not agree with many of his comments.
I don’t understand why the only thing people seem to recognize as “big” are new hardware announcements. The fact is Safari on Windows is a very big deal.
This one takes the form of a German site supposedly getting the outline of Steve Jobs’ keynote. There is already much speculation over whether it’s legitimate or not.
It’s not.
First, a lot of this list has been talked about for months, so some of it will likely be correct. But anybody could put an outline together that’s partially correct. Big deal.
Second, it has every wish list item on it. New iMacs? Check. New ultra-portable? Check. Integrated iLife/iWork into Leopard and Google? Check. Revamped .Mac service? Check. Unified interface in OS X? Check. And on and on, right down the line. There is no way all of this is ready to be discussed tomorrow, even if it’s all being worked on (which itself is debatable).
Third, all of this is going to be presented (and demoed) in a 90-minute keynote? Please. The complete impossibility of that alone should lead any rational person to conclude the item is fake.
In Uncategorized on Saturday, 9 June 2007 at 14:24
Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference runs from 6/11-6/15 in San Francisco next week. Like many of Apple’s staged affairs, it will kickoff with a keynote speech by Steve Jobs. Will new products be announced? Will new products even be hinted at? What about new partnerships or services? An iPhone SDK? Will there be “one more thing”?
Oh, what’s the point in even listing anymore? There are as many rumors and predictions about this year’s WWDC as there have been days since last year’s WWDC.
As for me, I’ll be paying close attention to Steve Jobs’ keynote Monday at 10a PDT.
I believe that electronics consumers are savvier then they were 20 years ago, and are not as easily fooled by marketing statistics and checklists. They are a very “show me” bunch, wanting to see it before they believe it. If so, this bodes very well for Apple’s iPhone.
Yes, according to Kevin Turner, Microsoft’s chief operating officer speaking at the Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans. During his speech he recounted a call he claimed to be from Apple Legal. According to the transcript:
The latest release of iTunes (8.2.1) 
With the 
