The Night Before the Keynote

Twas the night before the keynote
and all through the land;
The bloggers were a frenzy
For what was at hand.
They boarded their planes
handling laptops with care.
In hopes that his Steveness
and Tablet would soon be there.

So for the next 24

we'll sacrifice our beds,

As images of iPad OS dance in our heads.

So with @MrHaroHaro prepping coffee

and me with MacBook in lap.

We eagerly await the REAL news,

and hope it ain't a trap.
What with today's McGraw-Hill leak
that sparked quite the chatter.

We all know by tomorrow
it just wouldn't matter...

This is my obligatory pre-Tablet/Unicorn Tears/Mythical unannounced "game changing," "print industry saving," "god-tablet" post. Tomorrow once there is real news to report we'll bring you the condensed version of tomorrow's Apple Keynote.

Thank you to all the men and women that have brought us all kinds of Tablet/Slate/whatever news and rumors. In specific thanks to Gizmodo.com, TUAW.com, and AppleInsider.com for all the great stories - check those out and see how they panned out after tomorrow's event.

Happy Birthday

It was 26 years ago today. Thank you Mr. Jobs

Nexus One... Now what?

Yesterday Google officially made the Nexus One aka the Google Phone official; now what? After all but promising that the Nexus One will cure cancer, Google announced the latest (and currently greatest) handset running the Android OS. The much hyped news bouncing around the interwebs was that Google will change the way people buy cellphones and "change the mobile industry." If that was their intention they fell short of doing so.

To mark the occasion Google created a new way to buy the phone - direct from Google. Once you make the appropriate button clicks you're ready to make your purchase of a brand new unlocked Nexus One for $530 or a T-Mobile subsidized handset for $180 with a 2-year agreement.

As I mentioned earlier, spec wise the phone is a beast. Aesthetically it IS the prettiest phone to come out of HTC - whatever that means I'll leave up to you; and pricing isn't horrible for an unlocked phone. But I repeat: This. Will. Not. Change. The. Mobile. Industry.

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?

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.

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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