Monday, December 21, 2009

It's more than just some bloggers

In the summer of 2007 when the iPhone was released; there was no wrong that could be done by Apple and by virtue of association, neither could AT&T. Like most marriages that were based on lust, the honeymoon was quickly over.

Although Apple's halo effect brought a steady stream of new subscribers to AT&T, AT&T was unable to quench their new users' thirst for more and more data.

AT&T's perceived inability to provide adequate service to their most prized subscribers was directly and unapologetically by Fake Steve Jobs aka Dan Lyons. This lead to the satire laden "Operation Chokehold" which FSJ asked his readers to bombard AT&T's network with bandwidth hungry apps this past Friday.

No word out on how many people participated but the damage has been done to AT&T and (again) by 'virtue' of association - Apple. When Saturday Night Live mocks your service (AT&T) and highly visible product (Apple); you have a huge PR problem on your hands.

The truth is both companies can't come out of this as heros together. One will have to be the villain in order for the other to come out and salvage their image. AT&T blames iPhone users for irresponsible usage; Apple has been mum on the subject. The honeymoon is over but this marriage was doomed from the start.

Full disclosure: I'm heavily biased towards Apple products. I hated iPhone on AT&T but understood why it happened; AT&T was the only carrier that allowed Apple full control over the handset they were creating. Well now the phone's out in the wild, people can no longer live without it, and AT&T wants to punish users instead of upgrading their gimped network. It's time Apple and AT&T parted ways. People care about the iPhone but would go to ANY carrier that carried it.

What Operation Chokehold, SNL, Gizmodo, FSJ, and every other blog has been trying to say is: people want choice in the carrier that provides the best user experience and they'd like to use whatever phone they want. How's about you take control of your own destiny Apple and part ways and give the people what they want. Bokay?

Friday, December 4, 2009

Apple Buys Lala

Well it's official; the New York Times reports that Apple's acquisition of digital music service Lala is now official. It's a done deal! This could very well change the way we all consume music going forward.

A little background; Lala is a music service that allows users to create personal online "stations" and access them via internet. What sets Lala apart is the ability to upload YOUR music onto their cloud and stream to any web enabled device.

Now as the Times made clear; Apple did not buy label licenses to stream music online- the rights to stream were nontransferable, instead it's a near certainty that Apple bought the technology (servers) and talent (engineers) that make it all work. This could only mean that Apple hopes to incorporate the cloud model to future versions of the iTunes service.

The possibility of seeing an Apple approve method of backing up your iTunes purchases onto their cloud has arrived. What's worse than losing your music? Losing gigabytes worth that you've invested real money on - something we do NOT approve of at The Poor Mac's Blog.

We'll keep you posted.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Free Mac App Bundle from MacHeist


Mac on a budget? Recession keeping you weary of paying for Twitterific? Well worry no more; MacHeist is giving away 6 apps for you Mac including Twitterific, WriteRoom, ShoveBox, TinyGrab, MarinerWriter, and Hordes of Orcs.

Full review later today on each, but check them out for yourselves and save over $150 for doing so.

PS it's only free for the first 500,000 participants and they're HALF WAY THERE!

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Rumor: iPhone on Verizon in 2010


So first, let's file this one under cloudy with a chance of pandering. AppleInsider reports a smaller bodied iPhone may be released by Verizon as early as Q3 2010.

The new Verizon iPhone is rumored to use a UMTS/CDMA hybrid radio that will allow it to run on Verizon's CDMA network AND still be able to use UMTS 3G networks - like AT&T. There is, as pictured, a rumored reduction in screen size from a 3.2" display to a smaller 2.8" display.

All this info comes from an overseas analyst, OTR Global, that is providing this info to AppleInsider; so I wouldn't get my hopes up just yet. Some of the possible bits of recent information that may lend some credibility to these rumors are the new early termination fees that are being imposed by Verizon for "advanced devices".

We'll keep an eye on this one nonetheless.

via AppleInsider

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Site to See: Photoshop.com

Hey Guys! John Mayer here.

Just wanted to let you guys know all about Photoshop.com. It’s a rock solid and essential site if you’re into photo-sharing or are starting up a blog of your very own. Photoshop.com provides you with not only storage for all your images but easy to use basic photo editing tools.

Sure you probably already have a Flickr, Picasa, or Photobucket account but what really makes Photoshop.com stand out is the quality of the photo editing tools available to you. Photoshop lets you make simple changes to your images like crops and resizes but it also offers some of its basic software features like color correction and effects all online and all for free.

Once you’ve made your edits and saved your picture Photoshop gives you the option of creating a public photo album to share with anyone, an embed code so you can copy and paste right onto your blog or site, and even a link to the picture to send to friends via email. Got a Myspace, Facebook account? Photoshop got your back with this too. Photoshop allows you upload directly to your favorite social networking site right from there. Visiting more than one site to get things done.

Photoshop’s basic offering -known to my adoring fans as their free offering - provides you with 2GBs of space. If that’s really not enough for you; they offer tiered pricing for more storage at a decent price. Now you too can get in on the photo sharing fun... just like your favorite Rock God!

Peace out, FJM.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

All Your Tweets Are Belong to Bing!

Not to be out done by Google, Microsoft's Bing has sealed a deal with Twitter and Facebook allowing them to search your tweets and status updates in real-time.

Here's how it works:
"The 'tweets' will be integrated universal-search style, ranked alongside the other [different types of] results, and you'll be able to click on those results and go to a page that shows only 'tweets' and real-time updates," said Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products and user experience, in an interview after her appearance on stage at the Web 2.0 Summit to announce the news. Users will also be able to restrict results to Twitter posts from the get-go using the engine's filtering controls."

I
t is worth mentioning there is no exclusivity to this deal and Google has also made an agreement with Twitter to search and offer them up to their searchers as well.

The War of the Search is here. Bing is definitely trying (really hard) to eat Google's lunch.

Bing Lands Deals with Twitter and Facebook via PC World
Blogged with the Flock Browser

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Windows 7 Alert

Hey guys! Guess what? Not saying that Win7 is crap - it isn't- but what's the message behind selling 3 PCs for the price of ONE Macbook Pro?

Sure we can argue the merits of a low price during a recession but that doesn't seem to rain on Apple's parade that keeps reporting crazy quarterly numbers. The pricing strategy makes sense if this was a pricing war; Apple clearly does not engage in any pricing wars with their hardware instead they focus portraying their products as high-end/high-quality, crafted devices.

You're buying 3 friggin' HP PCs (a desktop, laptop, & netbook) from Best Buy; nothing in this sentence evokes 'high-end', 'high-quality', 'crafted' or even 'easy' as adjectives.

In the 90's I think this would've been the equivalent of drilling a 10-yard field goal - a no brainer as it were - but the landscape has changed. Windows is no longer a requirement to computing. Viable OS options have opened up the market and consumers' eyes. The new consumers have become more aware of the things their gadgets can do; as a result the need to accommodate their digi-lifestyle becomes not just a matter of in-store price but what you can offer for the next 2 years.

Folks, especially Mac users that must use Win OS at any given point, try out Win7. It's good for what it is. You won't switch but it isn't a dreadful experience. People on the fence go for the deal if you think it will save you money - just remember that you'll be at Best Buy fighting off the People of Walmart AND some asshole teenager that swears you need a $300 Monster ethernet cable for your wireless home network.

via FakeSteve.Net

Net Neutrality - A Cheatsheet

It's gonna be a crazy week over at the FCC. October 22nd is the deadline for folks to voice their opinion to FCC and let them know why you'd like to keep the internet open for all. But with all the crazy talk on one particular cable network, it may not be clear what's at stake here.

First off: Net neutrality is NOT about restricting competition for your cable company, your phone company, satellite provider. Nope. Nah, not ever. How this net neutrality myth has gained steam lies really on the fact that this is a debate that's raged on longer than people considered the net to be cool.

Government regulation of the internet as Glenn "Asshat" Beck mentioned in his tirade is not about preventing a telecom from doing business; it's about making sure that said telecom continues to provide transparent services to their customers. Comcast regularly finds themselves (rightfully) as the target of many bloggers angst for their dubious regulatory practices in the name of protecting their business.

Clearly Beck must've not understand the concept of a "free market."

The proposed FCC regulations are designed to ensure that all ISPs - Comcast, Cablevision, Verizon, AT&T, et al will continue to provide internet service to their customers and provide clear, concise, no tiny print restrictions on their activities on said internet. Capping data downloads or uploads without expressly notifying their customers, restricting or crippling the use of specific websites would also be in violation of the proposed regulations.

How does this affect the regular guy/gal adventuring the interwebs? Well try to imagine an internet ran by AT&T (but you can just as easily insert your own ISP for the sake of fairness). In this internet, AT&T has an exclusive contractual agreement with Yahoo! for websearches; any AT&T customer that attempts to perform a search on Google or Bing will be (1) automatically re-directed to Yahoo! (2) be met with a 404 error (3) be in violation of their terms of service with AT&T and be subject to penalty.

Now imagine that your friend, coworker, client, family member is a Verizon customer with a Verizon email account. All emails sent from your AT&T account would be "lost" by Verizon in an effort to keep AT&T out of their "version" of the internet. You will not be amused to find out that you've lost a potential client because your ISP did not "approve" of their email address.

Clearly these are all doomsday scenarios but we must keep in mind that sometimes a little regulation is critical in maintaining order. Once upon a time there huge companies that owned raw materials, production, and finally point of sale. These were the "captains of industry," your blue-blood industrialists that brought forth the Industrial Age. They were also monopolizing giants that stifled innovation and oppressed their customers (and workers). And more importantly, needed regulation.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

AT&T vs. Net Neutrality

Well this didn't take long at all. Lately the FCC under Chairman Julius Genachowski has begun to look into and possibly enforce regulations that keep telecoms "honest." Under the Obama Administration's push for an open internet, net neutrality is getting some attention in regular news these days.

Not to have their interests buried amongst your - the people of the interwebs - cries of free, available to everyone internet; AT&T asshat lobbyist, Jim Cicconi sent out an email (republished here) to all AT&T employees urging them to comment on the FCC's OpenInternet.gov blog and let Genachowski know that he's a communist that's trying steal their mone... err... jobs.

Long story short, not only is the FCC trying to make you poor by ensuring that an ISP cannot play dirty games, control and monitor, or otherwise cap your usage of the internet in a non ISP approved way; they're letting Google head the death panel committee. The horror.

via Actuarial Outpost

Monday, October 12, 2009

Pink Kills the Sidekick

Though technically this isn't an Apple related post it's one hell of a story. It has all the elements of a great spy drama - a spy, a business catastrophe, and hundreds of people at least one person crying bloody murder.

For about a week now Sidekick users have found themselves without access to their precious data, contacts, and after Apple Insider published an alleged disgruntled Danger employee's take on it; folks now "know" that Microsoft seems to be the culprit.

Money quote from AppleInsider's spy
:
"What's worse is that apparently Microsoft has been lying to [T-Mobile] this whole time about the amount of resources that they've been putting behind Sidekick development and support (in reality, it was cut down to a handful of people in Palo Alto managing some contractors in Romania, Ukraine, etc.)."

Now keep in mind this has explicitly been filed as a RUMOR simply cuz there's no proof that Microsoft is sabotaging a division they paid a lot of money for but there seems to be enough folks out there that think this could be a possibility.

Why Killing the Sidekick is Believable:
Although there are many customers that are quite content with their Sidekicks (my teenage cousins for one), the platform requires maintenance, development for new devices, and above all resources. Microsoft picked up Danger for the purpose of working on Project Pink - a rumored MS branded phone; killing the Sidekick would be a natural step in consolidating resources and efforts on one project.

A system-wide failure of the Sidekick would create outrage from subscribers; everyone was going to blame T-Mobile. It sucks being the front office as customers know you and not necessarily all the moving parts. Purposely creating this kind of failure or even failing to address the issue within a couple of days would put a lot of pressure on a company to find an alternative product to use; a wholly Microsoft branded phone or even phones running a Microsoft branded OS not only fills this need but gives customers assurance of an already existing product.

So is the blogosphere grasping at straws here? Maybe, but sometimes an idea may be so crazy that it may just be right.





Saturday, October 10, 2009

Destroying Twitter... in a good way.


I will admit that I am new to this tweeting thing. I was never one for social networking. My Facebook page sits there collecting dust. The most I would do on it is update my status, simply just for the heck of it. With that in mind I decided to try Twitter since it is for the most part just the “status” aspect of social networking. Though I had been thinking of going Twitter for some time, what really brought me to tweeting was a good looking Twitter application: DestroyTwitter. More specifically this is DestroyTwitter 1.7.2Beta.

What first caught my eye is how simple and great DestroyTwitter looks. It reminds me of my current Adium setup, simple gray window with white text. The home screen shows tweets of the people you are following as well as your own tweets. Other menus such as Replies or Preferences open in the same window, so there aren’t a bunch of windows cluttering your desktop. Clicking “Home” sends you back to the Home screen, and it all works like its supposed to. Which reminds me. I found DestroyTwitter to be very newbie friendly. I am never sure how to add links to my status, whether it be Twitter or Facebook or some other form of status, they seem to handle things slightly differently. With DestroyTwitter you just copy and paste the link in a little field under the body of your message and it auto-magically adds it and shortens it to better fit your tweet-character limit. Since I linked my Tweets to my Facebook status (through the Twitter application on Facebook) I can just tweet and my status is up to date, without having to touch Facebook. Going back to the links, the shortened links created in DestroyTwitter make things look neater on the Facebook end as well, though not everyone may know what “http://tr.bibimbap” would be all about.

Another cool bit that reminds me of Adium, and is probably my favorite feature, is that you can customize the theme of your DestroyTwitter window. This can be done through the Theme Builder at the DestroyTwitter website (requires login using your Twitter account) or through the Themes page, where there are themes created by DestroyTwitter users. I played a bit with the Theme Builder and it is quite fun to create new color combinations and there are many great themes to choose from on the themes page. However I haven’t actually changed my theme because the default is just so flippin’ good looking. Kudos to the developer for making the application sexy out of the box.

There are a few cons, in my opinion, but these aren’t deal breakers. For one, I don’t know if I need a dedicated Twitter application on my Mac. I don’t think I tweet that much, so part of me wants to just use Twitter through Flock instead. But DestroyTwitter makes some actions as described above extremely convenient and newbie friendly. Also it requires Adobe AIR to be installed (but installation for both AIR and DestroyTwitter is quite painless). Sadly that means more of Adobe’s apps and plugins that you may only use sparingly taking up space in your hard drive. Also the Theme Builder on the site requires the latest version of Adobe Flash. Knowing Adobe the version you have now isn’t new enough. Update. Now. Most people have already installed these plugins at one point or another, so I don’t think it is that big of a deal. In exchange you get a solidly built, easy to use and great looking Twitter client.

There's tons more to look at, and playing with it for a week I've only begun to scratch the surface. I'm sure there are more snazzy features that I may have not mentioned. If you need a stand-alone Twitter client I can absolutely recommend DestroyTwitter.

Pick it up at: DestroyTwitter.com. The developer also has an interesting blog worth checking out.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Apple's for the Children

First let me just extend a big "THANK YOU" to Gizmodo.com for the picture. I don't think anything quite sums up this piece quite like The Breakfast Club holding up an iPhone.

Piper Jaffray & Co. released their annual survey of America's teens to get pulse of consumer spending habits; big surprise: the youngs love Apple!

Here's a basic run down of what the Office of No-Shit uncovered:
1. 15% of the teens surveyed own an iPhone. That's an increase from 8% last year.
2. 22% plan on buying an iPhone within the next 6 months.
3. 87% (up a whole percent from last year) already own iPods - all flavors.
4. Of the 40% of teens that legally download music; 93% of them use iTunes.

So in case you have trouble wrapping your head around what all this means - if you're planning on shopping for any youngin's in your life chances are you'll be swinging by the local Apple Store this holiday season.

via AppleInsider

Thursday, October 1, 2009

It's a Mac-O-Lantern!


This is by far the most awesome throw pillow I've ever seen.

Just in time for Halloween the awesome folks over at Throwboy put together this set of pillows so you can celebrate All Hallow's Eve and your love of Mac.

You can pick up one of four for $29US or the set for $100US. Act quick as they are handmade and take at least 3 weeks to deliver.

Steven would approve.

via Throwboy.com

Monday, September 28, 2009

MMS on iPhone

So now you've been using MMS on your iPhone for nearly a week (assuming you downloaded the update to your phone last Friday); so the question simply is how's it been treating you? Has it been smooth and without incident or have you found yourself two seconds away from thrashing the nearest AT&T customer service rep repeatedly for wasting your f*cking time?

Well as of yesterday there were still people were still all over the Apple Discussion Forums looking for help sending/receiving MMS on MMS enabled iPhones. Are you one of the unlucky that are considering throwing your hands in the air and wondering why you spent so much and got so little?

Fret not because the good folks at CNet put together a really great article on how to fix this issue. Here's the short version just in case you're done searching:
1. Connect your iPhone to your Mac/PC
2. Launch iTunes and go straight to the iPhone under the Devices label
3. In the iPhone summary screen hit Restore
This will reset ALL of your saved settings and use the most recent back-up as it's restore point. It takes a while so don't make any plans.
4. Once the Restore is complete your iPhone will reboot.
5. Send me a message.