Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Apple Trades Below 500. Sky Falls.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Celebrating the Birth of an iCon: How Steve Inspired a Techgeek
Today would have been the 57th birthday of one of the greatest innovators the world has ever known. I like many others, never had the opportunity to meet Steve but his vision had a major effect on my life. Like many people my age I was first fascinated by the products before I was fascinated by Steve.
The first Apple products I encountered were the Macs used in my elementary school’s Macs in the early to mid 90’s. They were probably Quadras that were eventually replaced by Performas, I cannot remember at this time, and let’s be honest they weren’t memorable products. In that time there were so many Macs with different model numbers and their product lines were a total mess. Even still, I think there was a bit of Steve’s touch to these devices in that they looked better than the Windows boxes of the day. Take for instance the Quadra 605, it looked pretty good for it’s time. I cannot attest to the reliability of such devices, but they never felt laggy.
Around this time my family bought their first computer, an IBM Aptiva with Windows 95 (my research shows it may have been an Aptiva 2168-M40, because of processor speed). It had a then top of the line 75Mhz processor, or at least it was the fastest IBM PC in the store, and was far above anything in the Mac section. Besides, Windows 95 was the future. It had major success right out of the gate and dwarfed Apple’s Mac marketshare almost instantly. All the best programs (my dad was going back to college at the time) and games (my brother and I were 8 and 13 years old at the time) were going to come out for Windows, there was no advantage to getting the Mac. We get home, not knowing a thing about computers other than that we just bought the best (and most expensive) one at the store, and quickly got to connecting everything and trying to get everything to install. It wasn’t a difficult process but it took long. The sound the processor made when doing just simple tasks like opening a document folder, was really loud. Opening a folder wasn’t just loud though, it was slow. The “hourglass” was visible more often than the arrow, and we seemed to try to convince ourselves that it was a good decision. “Oh it’s really fast” we’d say when simple things like hitting the Start button worked like they were supposed to. And when installing a program like a simple children’s game took long we comforted ourselves by saying “well at least we didn’t get a cheaper computer it would have take even longer!” And this was pretty much our life with Windows from then on.
We got that Aptiva on a weekend, and the following Monday going back to school, I bragged in my journal about the computer we had just gotten. The teacher wrote in a comment “I’m so jealous!” Sometime that week we had computer class (essentially Mario Teaches Typing). The Macs in that classroom were inferior to my Aptiva, but they never felt as slow. 8 year old me knew something was up but didn’t know what. Later that year the computer teacher told us that we were going to upgrade our computers. Although I was a total nerd, I was never the best in computer class, and was pretty nervous of what “upgrading” entailed. Although I bragged about the IBM, I never touched it. It was too fickle. It made noise and froze often. the teachers first warning to us was to follow the instruction he gave, and that the instructions weren’t hard but starting over would be difficult because there would be nothing on the computer after turning it off. Anyway. Upgrading apparently entailed screens with a 2-D man asking questions and us hitting “Yes” or “No”. Before we knew it we were done, and everything looked, well, like normal. It took less than the 45 minutes between bells and felt like we did nothing at all. Only until recently did I realize what me and a class full of 8 year olds (many with no computer at home) had done: we installed System 7.5 from scratch.
Flash forward to 2000. My dad got me an iMac DV+ (with a matching printer!) for reasons that remain a mystery to me to this day. I never really wanted a Mac. If I wanted anything, it was a Windows PC so I could play games on it. The iMac was relegated to homework duty and the occasional game of Nanosaur and Bugdom. The Windows PC (by then it was an updated IBM Aptiva running Windows 98 that wasn’t as finicky) did everything though: homework, spreadsheets, gaming, web browsing and IM. Perhaps because it did everything it also caught everything: viruses, trojans, malware, blue screens you name it, it got it. The custom build that replaced, was faster and would go on to run Windows XP but eventually succumbed to similar problems and poor drivers to boot. The iMac was rock solid and we could browse the web without worry. Slowly but surely I was falling in love. I put up a last stand in 2004, I got a Windows laptop (Sony Vaio TR3A, an awesome laptop) and while it wasn’t bad it lacked the perfection of my iMac. It too got malware occasionally, and the build quality just wasn’t quite there. Installing free apps, even from CNET at times proved perilous. A few months later I would get my first iPod, an iPod Photo. That is when I decided I could not deny it. I wanted to go Mac.
In the summer of 2005, I was entering university and attended my first orientation. During that orientation we read the text to Steve Job’s Stanford Commencement speech given just a month and a half earlier, and were asked to write our thoughts on it. I have no idea what my written response was and didn’t think much of the speech even knowing Jobs was CEO of Apple, a company I was slowly falling for. Later in life I would come to obsessively watch his keynotes and product introductions. Watching keynotes for products that were several years old and yet you could still feel their magic.
The iMac was starting to show it’s age. The more I loved my iPod the more music I crammed into its hard drive. The more I played with Mac OS the more applications I would install just to try out. I wasn’t completely a techy then but I was getting there. Eventually I would have to expand. I researched heavily what my options were and decided it would be most cost effective to get a hard drive and external enclosure (firewire, natch). Got a hard drive and screwed it into the enclosure, messed with iTunes settings and voila my storage problem was solved! The more I was able to play with it the more I came to appreciate Mac OS and Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive.. It all just seemed so genius. Soon that didn’t become enough things had to be a little more perfect and I gathered my courage and decided it was time to crack that iMac open and replace the drive. I did it using tutorials from iFixit. The internals were amazing, unlike anything I had seen until that point, everything so thought out. My iMac with that upgrade and my increased appreciation for its design, reached “perfection” in my eyes. That was my full blown communion in to the tech world. I’ve since given Powerbooks, iBooks and G4 Cubes new leases on life, and still have a desire to fix even more. And to this day I try to scratch that itch to tinker with things and make them ever closer to “perfect”.
When Steve passed I first heard by way of Twitter on an HTC Sensation running Android. I do have a bit of guilt in that sense because I didn’t learn of his passing through a device that he touched. Not directly at least, since without his influence the device I was using probably wouldn’t even exist. However there is one thing I don’t regret from that moment. My wife and I were preparing to bathe our newborn son, and I think to an extent it made the moment a bit deeper. Someone once said that new life makes losing life easier to understand, and I kind of agreed in that moment. It made it all the more profound: life, death, and technology and information in between. I’m sure Steve would have appreciated it.
The first Apple products I encountered were the Macs used in my elementary school’s Macs in the early to mid 90’s. They were probably Quadras that were eventually replaced by Performas, I cannot remember at this time, and let’s be honest they weren’t memorable products. In that time there were so many Macs with different model numbers and their product lines were a total mess. Even still, I think there was a bit of Steve’s touch to these devices in that they looked better than the Windows boxes of the day. Take for instance the Quadra 605, it looked pretty good for it’s time. I cannot attest to the reliability of such devices, but they never felt laggy.
Around this time my family bought their first computer, an IBM Aptiva with Windows 95 (my research shows it may have been an Aptiva 2168-M40, because of processor speed). It had a then top of the line 75Mhz processor, or at least it was the fastest IBM PC in the store, and was far above anything in the Mac section. Besides, Windows 95 was the future. It had major success right out of the gate and dwarfed Apple’s Mac marketshare almost instantly. All the best programs (my dad was going back to college at the time) and games (my brother and I were 8 and 13 years old at the time) were going to come out for Windows, there was no advantage to getting the Mac. We get home, not knowing a thing about computers other than that we just bought the best (and most expensive) one at the store, and quickly got to connecting everything and trying to get everything to install. It wasn’t a difficult process but it took long. The sound the processor made when doing just simple tasks like opening a document folder, was really loud. Opening a folder wasn’t just loud though, it was slow. The “hourglass” was visible more often than the arrow, and we seemed to try to convince ourselves that it was a good decision. “Oh it’s really fast” we’d say when simple things like hitting the Start button worked like they were supposed to. And when installing a program like a simple children’s game took long we comforted ourselves by saying “well at least we didn’t get a cheaper computer it would have take even longer!” And this was pretty much our life with Windows from then on.
We got that Aptiva on a weekend, and the following Monday going back to school, I bragged in my journal about the computer we had just gotten. The teacher wrote in a comment “I’m so jealous!” Sometime that week we had computer class (essentially Mario Teaches Typing). The Macs in that classroom were inferior to my Aptiva, but they never felt as slow. 8 year old me knew something was up but didn’t know what. Later that year the computer teacher told us that we were going to upgrade our computers. Although I was a total nerd, I was never the best in computer class, and was pretty nervous of what “upgrading” entailed. Although I bragged about the IBM, I never touched it. It was too fickle. It made noise and froze often. the teachers first warning to us was to follow the instruction he gave, and that the instructions weren’t hard but starting over would be difficult because there would be nothing on the computer after turning it off. Anyway. Upgrading apparently entailed screens with a 2-D man asking questions and us hitting “Yes” or “No”. Before we knew it we were done, and everything looked, well, like normal. It took less than the 45 minutes between bells and felt like we did nothing at all. Only until recently did I realize what me and a class full of 8 year olds (many with no computer at home) had done: we installed System 7.5 from scratch.
Flash forward to 2000. My dad got me an iMac DV+ (with a matching printer!) for reasons that remain a mystery to me to this day. I never really wanted a Mac. If I wanted anything, it was a Windows PC so I could play games on it. The iMac was relegated to homework duty and the occasional game of Nanosaur and Bugdom. The Windows PC (by then it was an updated IBM Aptiva running Windows 98 that wasn’t as finicky) did everything though: homework, spreadsheets, gaming, web browsing and IM. Perhaps because it did everything it also caught everything: viruses, trojans, malware, blue screens you name it, it got it. The custom build that replaced, was faster and would go on to run Windows XP but eventually succumbed to similar problems and poor drivers to boot. The iMac was rock solid and we could browse the web without worry. Slowly but surely I was falling in love. I put up a last stand in 2004, I got a Windows laptop (Sony Vaio TR3A, an awesome laptop) and while it wasn’t bad it lacked the perfection of my iMac. It too got malware occasionally, and the build quality just wasn’t quite there. Installing free apps, even from CNET at times proved perilous. A few months later I would get my first iPod, an iPod Photo. That is when I decided I could not deny it. I wanted to go Mac.
In the summer of 2005, I was entering university and attended my first orientation. During that orientation we read the text to Steve Job’s Stanford Commencement speech given just a month and a half earlier, and were asked to write our thoughts on it. I have no idea what my written response was and didn’t think much of the speech even knowing Jobs was CEO of Apple, a company I was slowly falling for. Later in life I would come to obsessively watch his keynotes and product introductions. Watching keynotes for products that were several years old and yet you could still feel their magic.
The iMac was starting to show it’s age. The more I loved my iPod the more music I crammed into its hard drive. The more I played with Mac OS the more applications I would install just to try out. I wasn’t completely a techy then but I was getting there. Eventually I would have to expand. I researched heavily what my options were and decided it would be most cost effective to get a hard drive and external enclosure (firewire, natch). Got a hard drive and screwed it into the enclosure, messed with iTunes settings and voila my storage problem was solved! The more I was able to play with it the more I came to appreciate Mac OS and Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive.. It all just seemed so genius. Soon that didn’t become enough things had to be a little more perfect and I gathered my courage and decided it was time to crack that iMac open and replace the drive. I did it using tutorials from iFixit. The internals were amazing, unlike anything I had seen until that point, everything so thought out. My iMac with that upgrade and my increased appreciation for its design, reached “perfection” in my eyes. That was my full blown communion in to the tech world. I’ve since given Powerbooks, iBooks and G4 Cubes new leases on life, and still have a desire to fix even more. And to this day I try to scratch that itch to tinker with things and make them ever closer to “perfect”.
When Steve passed I first heard by way of Twitter on an HTC Sensation running Android. I do have a bit of guilt in that sense because I didn’t learn of his passing through a device that he touched. Not directly at least, since without his influence the device I was using probably wouldn’t even exist. However there is one thing I don’t regret from that moment. My wife and I were preparing to bathe our newborn son, and I think to an extent it made the moment a bit deeper. Someone once said that new life makes losing life easier to understand, and I kind of agreed in that moment. It made it all the more profound: life, death, and technology and information in between. I’m sure Steve would have appreciated it.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Steven P. Jobs 1955-2011
It's with profound sadness that our latest post here at PMB is announcement of Apple co-founder, Steven Paul Jobs' death. Mr. Jobs' contributions through his work at Apple have shaped the world we live in today and will undoubtedly affect the future of computing and technology. He was a visionary, he wasn't without his faults, he just was. Below is a gallery of the many that passed to pay their respects at the Apple Store in SoHo (NYC).
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Mid-July Apple line up refresh a no-go?
Remember back in mid-June when folks were reporting possible Mac Pro and Mac Mini refreshes for mid-July or August? And let's not forget about this gem from late June: MacBook Air to be refreshed in mid-July from the Washington Post; well I hate to break it to you but a source has advised us to not hold our collective breath.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, our source came forward and clearly put those rumors to bed, stating that rumored refresh was "a false alarm." In fact a lot of the buzz about new SKU's lend credence to what was actually going on this week: Apple's point-of-sale handhelds received a major upgrade last night.
Sure it doesn't sound nowhere near as sexy a refreshed Mac Pro or MacBook Air, but according to our source this update will probably make your next trip to the Apple Store a bit more pleasant. "It's a firmware update. Split credit cards, accept checks, receipt lookups etc," says our
source and since we're about halfway done with the day (7/14) I'm leaning towards this being the only change we can expect for now.
That said, on the retail side, Apple seems to be interested in keeping buyers moving on their sales floors versus having them stand in line to take care of most transactions. Keeping the faithful's gazes fixed on shiny new gear and making it easier than ever to accept various payments is probably a win-win for both consumer and retailer.
Sadly we weren't able to pin our source down with a date on when to expect new gear.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Teardown of 4th gen Time Capsule reveals not so server-grade HDD
Oh boy. That RDF must be getting weak around the Poormac because this just doesn't sound right at all. The new Apple Time Capsule was released with the promise of giving Apple customers a 2TB or 3TB "server-grade" backup option is, anything but. In fact a recent teardown of the latest gen Time Capsule revealed a very consumer-grade Western Digital WD Caviar Green HDD found sitting inside. 
I'm not going to knock Western Digital's ability to make decent hard drives but Apple is advertising "server-grade" internals and simply not delivering on that promise. This is quite an assholish move considering you're dropping quite a lot of coin for one of these. Ball is in your court Apple.
Apple to release mid-range, contract-free iPhone says Deutsche Bank analyst
Oh you number-crunching analyst. Always with speculating all kinds of iPhones to be announced, released, or introduced, however, considering that the it's an analyst from Duetshe Bank, a $350 unlocked iPhone specifically for the pre-paid market doesn't seem far fetched.
The speculated iPhone would be similar in dimensions to an iPod Touch (obviously maybe a little thicker due to the addition of a wireless antenna) and would be offered without a contract. After reviewing the numbers, at a 53% profit margin and entry into the global pre-paid market, it is totally possible for Apple to pursue such a device. That said, I'd highly doubt we'll see on Stateside in the near future.
via AppleInsider
Best Buy's MacBook Air out of stock; New MBA's coming soon?
Well by now the MacBook Air refresh is a stale rumor, but adding more fuel to the speculation fire is the above screen cap from BestBuy.com indicating that the current MBA is no longer shipping. Macrumors is reporting that Best Buy is focusing their stock in their brick and mortar stores but have not made mention when a new shipment will be available.
Honestly, I can't wait to see the refreshed line. Especially if it looks anything like this.
via Macrumors
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Apple now selling unlocked iPhones
Well I'll be. I never thought I'd see the day but sure enough, Apple is now officially selling unlocked iPhones online and in stores. But there's a catch.
No I'm not talking about the $650 for a 16GB model or the $750 for 32GB model (shown above); the problem is that it is unlocked but can only get 3G speeds on supported networks. In the US that means AT&T's network. So if you plan on using this with T-Mobile or a regional GSM carrier you're pretty much stuck with EDGE. On the flip side of that argument, if you travel internationally, you may be better off paying for the unlocked model and avoid paying hefty international roaming data charges.
We here at the Poor Mac know you value your hard earned cash and ultimately you want to know, is it worth it? Honestly I'm not entirely sure. I've been using a Motorola Defy on T-Mobile for close to a year now and I miss having iOS. Battery life is abysmal, Google Maps just doesn't work, Android 2.2 was not available on the phone while everyone was getting 2.3 updates, and if you want to sync on your home computer, there's really no clean way of doing it on a Mac- everything is drag and drop. (There are third party apps to help you do this but that's like a car and being told the steering wheel is optional.) However, my fiance's Galaxy S works a lot better than the Defy, has fewer issues with getting updates but she's quite happy using iTunes for syncing her phone, buying music, and arranging playlists. For her an unlocked iPhone is a dream come true and worth every cent.
I don't think I'll be willing to drop $750, especially not for half the features, however $650 (the average unsubsidized smartphone goes for about $500-$550) and being able to choose your carrier does have its benefits.
Monday, June 6, 2011
WWDC 2011 Semi-Live Blog
Engadget, Gizmodo, BoingBoing, NY Times too mainstream for you? Keep up with WWDC with us at the Poor Mac Blog where we ask the important questions: "Can we afford it?" and "Is it worth buying?"
1:00PM EDT/ 10:00AM PDT And we're off!
1:03 Standing ovation for Steve! We love you Steve!!!!
1:03 Gonna talk Mac OS X, iOS, cloud
1:06 Schiller talking Mac OS X growth. Lion demos to come?
1:09 Scrolling gestures. Look familiar
1:10 A gesture for making an app go full screen
1:13 Wish there were video of the gestures in action...
1:14 Full screen really seems to mean full screen. Apps take up all screen real estate, desktop fades away. Interesting concept.
1:15 Face detection for PhotoBooth, 3-D birds.
1:17 Full screen, Mission Control, seems really novel if you're managing lots of Apps, windows and Spaces.
1:20 Mac App Store, built into Lion, to have in-app purchasing and sandboxing.
1:24 Auto-save for the times you forget to save
1:28 Versions: have different versions of your documents. Great if you're meticulous or writing your thesis.
1:29 Next up: AirDrop.
1:31 AirDrop is essentially easy file sharing between AirDrop Users
1:32 Peer to Peer via WiFi
1:32 Next up: Mail
1:33 Mail: Improved searching, and search rule creation. Conversation view. Cue the "Google did it first" camp
1:36 That makes for 10 previewed features of Lion. Sorry think I fell asleep at the wheel there at the beginning. Apologies.
Full screen, AutoSave, Gesture tracking, Sandboxing, Momentum Scrolling, Versions, Mail, LaunchPad, MissionControl.
1:37 4GB download. Only available on the Mac App Store (sigh) Price: $29.99. Available July.
1:38 Scott Forstall will now talk about iOS 5
1:40 iOS has 44% mobile installed market share. 25 Million iPads sold in 14 months.
1:43 $2.5 Billion paid to devs. Android users still pirating apps.
1:48 Improved, less obtrusive notifications. Notifications also on the lock screen.
1:50 Newsstand.
1:51 Sorry got distracted by a picture of Rachel McAdams. Anyway, you get all your magazine, newspaper subscriptions in one place.
1:52 Twitter is a feature now. I am sold.
1:55 Safari now has Reader on mobile. One of the best features of the desktop version, maybe even more useful on mobile.
1:56 Also, Reading List and tabbed browsing.
1:57 Demo of Reader: 20 pg DSLR review from dpreview.com into a single view. Amazing!
1:58 Reminders.
1:59 Reminders can store lists of things, assign reminders to dates and assign location for reminders. Niceness.
2:00 Reminders sync across devices and even with iCal. Cool beans.
2:01 Camera features. Camera button on lock screen. That's gonna be one busy lock screen.
2:02 Volume-up button as camera button. Useful.
2:03 Pinch to zoom on camera app. Also, on-board photo editing, right from the camera app.
2:04 Mail
2:05 Mail: Rich text formatting. Indentation control.
2:06 Mail: Draggable addresses. Search entire message. Flag message. S/MIME.
2:07 Built in dictionary across iOS
2:08 PC Free
2:08 Lots of people care about that apparently. Personally I actually like cables.
2:09 Software updates are OTA. Hopefully not dictated by carriers.
2:10 Calendars creatable and deletable from iOS, as well as Mailboxes.
2:11 50 million Game Center users in 9 months.
2:13 iMessage to compete with BBM. If only BBM actually mattered.
2:17 iMessage integrates well with other iOS apps like the photo album. Works between iOS devices.
2:20 iOS coming out this Fall. Maybe iPhone release around that time?
2:21 iCloud. What is it? Steve is gonna tell us.
2:22 Wish you could hear Steve right now. He explains the rationale of why we need the products they're selling.
2:23 PCs and Macs just devices. iPhone, iPad, PCs, Macs can send/access information to the cloud.
2:24 "iCloud stores your content, and wirelessly pushes it to all your devices"
2:26 Calendars can be shared. Sounds like MobileMe, hate to say...
2:27 Mail account at me.com. No ads.
2:28 Forgot to mention syncing Contacts to the cloud.
2:29 iCloud will be free.
2:30 Apps purchased on one device, automatically sync to other devices.
2:30 Same goes for iBooks. Sync your books and their bookmarks.
2:31 Cloud based backups. Interesting. Done once a day over Wi-fi. Purchased music, apps, books and device settings, and camera roll
2:33 Documents in the Cloud. iCloud for Keynote stores your presentations and makes them available to all your devices.
2:37 Apps can store documents in iCloud. iCloud pushes docs to user's devices automagically. Documents update on all devices.
2:39 Photo Stream. Take photos on iPad. Camera automatically sends camera roll to iCloud, accessible to all other devices.
2:40 On PC uses Pictures folder. Photo Stream also plays nice with Apple TV.
2:44 Photo taken with iPhone automatically shows up on iPad. Just like that. Nice
2:45 iTunes in the Cloud. If you purchased it, you can download it on another device. Nice.
2:50 iTunes Match $25 a year to load up music you own to iTunes.
1:00PM EDT/ 10:00AM PDT And we're off!
1:03 Standing ovation for Steve! We love you Steve!!!!
1:03 Gonna talk Mac OS X, iOS, cloud
1:06 Schiller talking Mac OS X growth. Lion demos to come?
1:09 Scrolling gestures. Look familiar
1:10 A gesture for making an app go full screen
1:13 Wish there were video of the gestures in action...
1:14 Full screen really seems to mean full screen. Apps take up all screen real estate, desktop fades away. Interesting concept.
1:15 Face detection for PhotoBooth, 3-D birds.
1:17 Full screen, Mission Control, seems really novel if you're managing lots of Apps, windows and Spaces.
1:20 Mac App Store, built into Lion, to have in-app purchasing and sandboxing.
1:24 Auto-save for the times you forget to save
1:28 Versions: have different versions of your documents. Great if you're meticulous or writing your thesis.
1:29 Next up: AirDrop.
1:31 AirDrop is essentially easy file sharing between AirDrop Users
1:32 Peer to Peer via WiFi
1:32 Next up: Mail
1:33 Mail: Improved searching, and search rule creation. Conversation view. Cue the "Google did it first" camp
1:36 That makes for 10 previewed features of Lion. Sorry think I fell asleep at the wheel there at the beginning. Apologies.
Full screen, AutoSave, Gesture tracking, Sandboxing, Momentum Scrolling, Versions, Mail, LaunchPad, MissionControl.
1:37 4GB download. Only available on the Mac App Store (sigh) Price: $29.99. Available July.
1:38 Scott Forstall will now talk about iOS 5
1:40 iOS has 44% mobile installed market share. 25 Million iPads sold in 14 months.
1:43 $2.5 Billion paid to devs. Android users still pirating apps.
1:48 Improved, less obtrusive notifications. Notifications also on the lock screen.
1:50 Newsstand.
1:51 Sorry got distracted by a picture of Rachel McAdams. Anyway, you get all your magazine, newspaper subscriptions in one place.
1:52 Twitter is a feature now. I am sold.
1:55 Safari now has Reader on mobile. One of the best features of the desktop version, maybe even more useful on mobile.
1:56 Also, Reading List and tabbed browsing.
1:57 Demo of Reader: 20 pg DSLR review from dpreview.com into a single view. Amazing!
1:58 Reminders.
1:59 Reminders can store lists of things, assign reminders to dates and assign location for reminders. Niceness.
2:00 Reminders sync across devices and even with iCal. Cool beans.
2:01 Camera features. Camera button on lock screen. That's gonna be one busy lock screen.
2:02 Volume-up button as camera button. Useful.
2:03 Pinch to zoom on camera app. Also, on-board photo editing, right from the camera app.
2:04 Mail
2:05 Mail: Rich text formatting. Indentation control.
2:06 Mail: Draggable addresses. Search entire message. Flag message. S/MIME.
2:07 Built in dictionary across iOS
2:08 PC Free
2:08 Lots of people care about that apparently. Personally I actually like cables.
2:09 Software updates are OTA. Hopefully not dictated by carriers.
2:10 Calendars creatable and deletable from iOS, as well as Mailboxes.
2:11 50 million Game Center users in 9 months.
2:13 iMessage to compete with BBM. If only BBM actually mattered.
2:17 iMessage integrates well with other iOS apps like the photo album. Works between iOS devices.
2:20 iOS coming out this Fall. Maybe iPhone release around that time?
2:21 iCloud. What is it? Steve is gonna tell us.
2:22 Wish you could hear Steve right now. He explains the rationale of why we need the products they're selling.
2:23 PCs and Macs just devices. iPhone, iPad, PCs, Macs can send/access information to the cloud.
2:24 "iCloud stores your content, and wirelessly pushes it to all your devices"
2:26 Calendars can be shared. Sounds like MobileMe, hate to say...
2:27 Mail account at me.com. No ads.
2:28 Forgot to mention syncing Contacts to the cloud.
2:29 iCloud will be free.
2:30 Apps purchased on one device, automatically sync to other devices.
2:30 Same goes for iBooks. Sync your books and their bookmarks.
2:31 Cloud based backups. Interesting. Done once a day over Wi-fi. Purchased music, apps, books and device settings, and camera roll
2:33 Documents in the Cloud. iCloud for Keynote stores your presentations and makes them available to all your devices.
2:37 Apps can store documents in iCloud. iCloud pushes docs to user's devices automagically. Documents update on all devices.
2:39 Photo Stream. Take photos on iPad. Camera automatically sends camera roll to iCloud, accessible to all other devices.
2:40 On PC uses Pictures folder. Photo Stream also plays nice with Apple TV.
2:44 Photo taken with iPhone automatically shows up on iPad. Just like that. Nice
2:45 iTunes in the Cloud. If you purchased it, you can download it on another device. Nice.
2:50 iTunes Match $25 a year to load up music you own to iTunes.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
iCloud to be Announced at WWDC
Well here's today's Apple (non) News: El Jobso himself will be on hand to reveal Apple's latest foray into cloud computing - iCloud. No, really that's what it's called.
As far as tech news is concerned, this has the biggest underwhelming "secret" since Sony announced it's NGP aka PSP2. But for all two of you out there that would like to hear (again) what to expect, iCloud will most likely be bundled as a subscription based music service. The reported licensing agreements that Apple has already signed with major lables EMI, Warner and Sony, suggests that unlike "music locker" services like Amazon's or Google Music, this may be a true service that will allow you to take all your music with you and discover new music where ever your travels take you. (See HuffPo for more rumor mongering, I mean rumored information.)
So as far as what will be announced at next week's WWDC keynote (June 6th) it's pretty much more non-news: expect to hear about the new iOS5, OSX 10.7 "Lion", iCloud, and more goodies for the developers. In fact here's the press release:
Apple to Unveil Next Generation Software at Keynote Address...CUPERTINO, California—May 31, 2011—Apple® CEO Steve Jobs and a team of Apple executives will kick off the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) with a keynote address on Monday, June 6 at 10:00 a.m. At the keynote, Apple will unveil its next generation software - Lion, the eighth major release of Mac OS® X; iOS 5, the next version of Apple’s advanced mobile operating system which powers the iPad®, iPhone® and iPod touch®; and iCloud®, Apple’s upcoming cloud services offering.
WWDC will feature more than 100 technical sessions presented by Apple engineers. Mac® developers will see and learn how to develop world-class Mac OS X Lion applications using its latest technologies and capabilities. Mobile developers will be able to explore the latest innovations and capabilities of iOS and learn how to greatly enhance the functionality, performance and design of their apps. All developers can bring their code to the labs and work with Apple engineers.
For more details, visit the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2011 website at developer.apple.com/wwdc.
Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Are Unicorns Real? The White iPhone on Sale 4/27?
According to 9to5 Mac, Best Buy will begin selling the coveted white iPhone 4 today. Now I'm sure we're all tired of being teased but we're officially on white iPhone watch and will be sure to keep hitting refresh on Best Buy's page to be sure we don't miss it.
For what it's worth, Vodafone customers in the UK and various customers in the Netherlands may already have the unicorn version of the Jesus phone - that means something right?
9 to 5 Mac via GeekSugar
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Hyperbole Thy Name Is CNN Money
So the latest big news to make its way around the web lately is Apple's recent round of intellectual property suits it filed against Samsung for the line of Galaxy devices. The screen capture above, comes not from Tom Dick Nobody's personal blog; nope that headline comes straight off of CNN Money's site. Let's face some facts here kiddies, Steve Jobs is the CEO of a public company with real shareholders and other interested parties. If his Board and sharholders felt his sister were infringing upon Apple Inc's intellectual property, damn right they're gonna sue. For all the warm and fuzzy ads that we see on TV where Apple is this great benevolent company, they are in the business of making money.
CNN running with the headline above is nothing more than link bait and just a lame attempt at getting a controversial quote. The actual law suit does seem to be at least plausibly viable; the claims of Samsung infringing upon trade dress has a lot more to do with UI than it does the devices' packaging. CNN did not really add to the discussion other than picking up a blogger's hyperbole laced quip to cover the fact they produced a short listicle.
For a thorough breakdown of Apple's lawsuit against Samsung, be sure to check out This Is My Next's Nilay Patel's article.
via CNNMoney
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Coming Soon: Final Cut Pro X
It’s been nearly 2 years since Final Cut Studio 3 came out, right before the release of Mac OS X Snow Leopard. As such the previous Final Cut, Final Cut Pro 7 was not built to support Grand Central Dispatch, which is found in Mac OS X 10.6, so expect that to be the minimum requirement. (Final Cut has been Intel only since Final Cut Studio 3, just to make it abundantly clear to you Poor Macs in PPC land.) From the screenshot it looks to be a bridge between the traditional Final Cut Pro interface with some elements found in iMovie. Curiously you could argue that because of the timeline, it actually looks like a combination of iMovie ’06 (arguably still the best iMovie version) and Final Cut, more so than a modern iMovie combined with Final Cut. Perhaps the interface is intended to be more user-friendly?
Also of note is the price-point. Final Cut Pro X will $300. Currently Final Cut Pro is not available as a standalone software. It comes packaged as part of Final Cut Studio 3, costing $999. Final Cut Express currently retails for $200, so there was no middle ground, you either went all in or got Express. Perhaps this means the end of Express and a focus on Pro exclusively. There may also be a Final Cut Studio, but it seems you’d be able to just get Pro if it’s all you need. A pretty smart move. Final Cut Pro X will be available in June.
Photo and info via MacRumors
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Living with Firefox 4: Two Weeks In
Firefox is a stalwart of the web 2.0 era. It was the first real competition to Internet Explorer in terms of browser-share and mindshare. It standardized the web for users of Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems and was probably the first time people heard of free open source software. Firefox was blazing the trail toward a unified web experience... and then 3.0 happened. At first it was cool to be part of that world record 8 million+ downloads back in ’08. But nearly three years later we were still on 3.x. The experience wasn’t as nimble as we had become accustomed to. The browser hung up on startup. Opening new tabs and loading web pages seemed to take forever. Many jumped ship to Chrome, the younger, slimmer and sexier web browser (I went back to Safari).
Most people know whether or not they like a web browser within the first few minutes. Upon using Firefox for the first time I remembered why we all loved Firefox in its heyday. Firefox 4 instantly felt faster, lighter and looked better than its predecessor. This is a weird way of putting it but here goes: going from Firefox 3 to Firefox 4 felt like going from IE 6 to Firefox way back in 2004. Personally, this Poor Mac doesn’t use many Firefox extensions: just AdBlock Plus and Easy Youtube Downloader. Both extensions have worked seamlessly from the beginning, as well they should considering Firefox 4 has been in beta for ages. Also if you’re in uni and need to use Blackboard or a similar portal, chances are it is optimized for IE and Firefox. For those on the Mac trying to get their college assignments in, it is nice to not have to experience the pain of using Firefox 3 and Blackboard.
While its still working like the old Firefox there are cool new features as well. For one the UI is entirely overhauled, the most noticeable difference being the tabs-on-top look. Where before Firefox looked and felt like the IE of the non-Windows world, it actually looks quite attractive now by default. Of course you can tweak the UI to your hearts content - put a button here, extend/contract the address/search bar - and skin it just as you always could. Also, you can now pin tabs that you use regularly much like you would in Chrome. The bookmark manager is one of the best I’ve seen for the default setup on a browser. There is a bookmark button on the window from which you can bookmark a page, view all your bookmarks. It may seem like a redundancy considering you could do that from the bookmark menu but it proves to be quite useful for whatever reason. I found this strange because the “Other Bookmarks” button on Chrome has always annoyed me because it takes the place of the “Bookmark Menu” found in most browsers but is less useful. Also, arguably the coolest feature is the ability to sink Firefox on your desktop to Firefox on your mobile.
Firefox 4 is a great browser. It finally closes the gap between itself and browsers like Chrome and Safari (and Opera, for all the Opera zealots out there). The only negative thing that can be said is that it does not work with PPC machines. So we’re pretty much at the very end of that era in terms of support from 3rd parties. Also, for many this may be too little too late. Many of us, myself included, have developed a workflow that no longer incorporates Firefox. Personally I use Safari as my default/“main” browser - I have my Google accounts linked there, my Twitter and other “real” email/Dropbox/misc. website accounts. There are probably many more of you who use Chrome as your “main” browser. My browser for social-networking sites has become Flock. My browser for “junk” browsing is still Camino. As much as I like it, I just got used to life without Firefox, as have many others. And that’s pretty unfortunate.
Friday, April 1, 2011
The TOTALLY Multi-Touch iPad
Have you been pining over the latest iPad as much as I have? Well clearly we're just no being creative enough or we would've fixed that problem a long time ago. No lines, no cues, just a lot of creativity and patience.
By the way, I love the game and the keyboard synth app. Almost beats Korg's synth. Almost.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
iPad 2 Lines Form at SoHo Apple Store
Wait what!? Didn't we do this about 3 weeks ago?
Apparently, demand for the latest magical iDevice is so high that up to today, March 29th, there are still lines forming in front of the SoHo Apple Store. AppleInsider posted the video below of at least a couple hundred folks braving the cold in hopes of dropping between $500-$800 for the latest iPad.
Seriously, this amazes me every time I see something like this. Sure if I had disposable income at the moment I'd pick one up but it's too damned cold in New York City to wait on line. Maybe someone should have let them know you can order it online.
via AppleInsider
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Can't Kill a Classic
It seems like nowadays everything is about the iPhone and the iPod Touch, but what about the device that started it all? Where's the love for the Classic?
For fans of the Classic it sure seems like it's the long forgotten step-child of the iPod product line; hell the last time they saw an update it was September 2009. In the tech world you might as well say it was nothing short of 1,000 years ago; this is nothing short of starving a product to death.
Well rest assured PMB fans, a MacRumors reader went to the trouble of emailing the big guy himself, asking if Apple had any plans to discontinue the Classic line and got a short (but sweet) "We have no plans to."
Granted, even MacRumors thinks this may be a hoax but we can hope right.
Goodbye Bertrand - Senior VP of Mac Software Engineering Leaves Apple
The man who has pretty much shaped your Mac OSX experience has announced that he is stepping down as VP of Mac Software Engineering. After 14 years working at Apple, Bertrand Serlet is stepping down and leaving Craig Federighi in charge of the day-to-day work. From the statement released by Apple, Serlet is going on to pursue other endeavors in the field of Science (Serlet has a doctorate in Computer Science). Also of note, Serlet does not see his absence creating any waves and all should be "seemless" for the upcoming release of OS X - Lion.
As a user I can appreciate all the work that went into OS X all the way up to Snow Leopard. So to that end, thank you Mr. Serlet.
You can read more about Bertrand Serlet here.
Full press release after the jump.
Bertrand Serlet to Leave Apple
CUPERTINO, California—March 23, 2011—Apple® today announced that Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Mac® Software Engineering, will be leaving the company. Craig Federighi, Apple’s vice president of Mac Software Engineering, will assume Serlet’s responsibilities and report to Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. Federighi is responsible for the development of Mac OS® X and has been managing the Mac OS software engineering group for the past two years.
“I’ve worked with Steve for 22 years and have had an incredible time developing products at both NeXT and Apple, but at this point, I want to focus less on products and more on science,” said Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “Craig has done a great job managing the Mac OS team for the past two years, Lion is a great release and the transition should be seamless.”
Federighi worked at NeXT, followed by Apple, and then spent a decade at Ariba where he held several roles including vice president of Internet Services and chief technology officer. He returned to Apple in 2009 to lead Mac OS X engineering. Federighi holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Science and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.
Serlet joined Apple in 1997, and has been involved in the definition, development and creation of Mac OS X, the world’s most advanced operating system. Before joining Apple, Serlet spent four years at Xerox PARC, then joined NeXT in 1989. Serlet holds a doctorate in Computer Science from the University of Orsay, France.
Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Gay Rights Petition Against iOS App Gaining Steam
The iOS App from Exodus International boasts that they have over 35 years of ministering teh gay away. Wait what?
Seriously Apple, clearly this would fall under the umbrella of objectionable content or hate speech. Change.org has been petitioning Apple to pull the "ex-gay therapy" app from their App Store and with good reason. To imply this group's pray the gay away method is based on any kind of scientific research is just offensive.
The bigger issue being if this can get through Apple's walled garden, what's keeping a KKK app from being approved? Listen Apple, get your shit together and do the right thing.
As of this post, Change.org has gathered approximately 130,000 signatures.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)