Geek Swagger.
Posts tagged Apple
Apple’s Keynote at Macworld ’09
Jan 13th
This year's Apple keynote had a lot riding on it - firstly because Apple announced that it would be their last at a Macworld event, and secondly because Steve Jobs bowed out from doing the presentation which left Phil Schiller holding the bag. As always there have been a ton of rumors leading up to the event (including seemingly outlandish claims of an iPhone Nano, or a tablet computer of some sort), but I don't really want to spend much time on the speculation. I wrote a post a few weeks ago stating what I thought would go down and I have to say I'm pretty happy with my predictions.
The first thing Schiller announced was a new version of iLife. iLife '09 looks to be a solid follow-up to the famous Mac suite even though only a few applications were demonstrated. He started with iPhoto, which now lets you sort and categorize your images in a few new ways. The first is called Faces, and what it does is scan your iPhoto library for, believe it or not, people's faces. This is all done with face recognition software, and it lets you group photos by the people in them. For example if I had a bunch of images of my niece Lilly I could have a Lilly section of my iPhoto library. The second new categorization feature is called Places. Places lets you use geo-tagged images (or images tagged manually) to group photos by the place from which they were taken. If you recently took a trip to Dublin, Ireland for example, all of those images would be grouped in the Dublin section under Places. They also announced that you can now easily upload your photos to Facebook or Flickr, and your Facebook friends can even tag your images with the people that are in them, and that information will be synced back to your iPhoto library.
Next up was iMovie. iMovie now incorporates a lot of the features that many people were upset about it missing from iMovie '06. It uses the same interface, but it incorporates a timeline and lets you do some cool new things as well. First off, you can now drag and drop clips together without having to split each clip individually. For example, if I have one clip that I want to play in the middle of another, previously I'd have to split the second clip and put the first in between the two parts of the second. Now I can just drop the first right into the second without splitting anything, and iMovie does the work for me. It also lets you use just the audio from your clips, letting you mix bits and pieces of audio from your entire recording. Add to that my favorite feature, image stabilization (it will come in very handy with the Flip Mino HD) and iMovie '09 seems to be a very solid upgrade.
Garageband '09 was also shown, but I don't really use that application too much so I figure I'll just stick to what interested me for the sake of brevity.
Next up came iWork '09, and iWork.com. iWork.com is an online sharing service that lets you share your iWork projects with your friends or co-workers, and is platform independent. The interface looks just like the iWork app itself, and it enables discussions to be held on the status of the project, or comments to be added if there are changes to be made. As far as I know however, you can't actually edit the documents from iWork.com, just view them. Right now the service is in beta and is therefore free, but Apple is planning on charging for it down the road. I don't think that's a very smart decision because it seems to be the sort of feature which, if bundled with the purchase of iWork '09, could be the factor that persuades unsure users to go ahead and purchase a copy of the suite. As a separate charge it might end up being unsuccessful in the long term.
Obviously iWork.com is just the beginning. Each of the apps in the iWork suite (Pages, Keynote and Numbers) will see significant updates for the '09 release. Pages is getting a feature similar to WriteRoom's which lets you have full-screen text editing, as well as a new outline mode and more templates. Keynote has new transitions, and even does automatic animations with a feature called "Magic Move." With Magic Move you can have an object on one slide, and then the same (or more) object(s) on the next, and Keynote will automatically animate these images from slide to slide. Apple has also added a new app to the iPhone app store called Keynote Remote. This application lets you use your iPhone or iPod Touch as a remote for your keynote presentation, letting you switch between slides from the device as well as view presentation notes. It's odd to think that my favorite feature from the iWork '09 suite would be an iPhone app, but this is it. Finally, Numbers is getting more formulas, advance charts, and of course additional themes.
Next up came the 17" Macbook Pro unibody. This announcement came as a surprise to no one. Much like the other Macbook updates, the Macbook Pro 17" will finally get that nice aluminum and black bezel design. It also comes with either a glossy or matte screen, and it packs a whopping 8 hours of battery life. The only downside is that the battery can't be removed, a major gotcha for a lot of folks out there. There isn't much else to be said about the 17" Macbook Pro, except that it's $3,000 so I'll never be able to afford one. =)
Lastly and, in my opinion anyways, most importantly, was the announcement that iTunes is finally going DRM-free. As of the keynote there were 8 million songs switched to DRM-free, with the promise that the entire iTunes library would also be by the end of the year. The only problem is that Apple seems to have buckled to the record labels in order to get this deal done as now their music will have variable pricing. Some tracks will cost as much as $1.29, while others will be as cheap as $0.69. Phil Schiller assured the crowd that there would be many more 69 cent songs than dollar 29 ones, but only time will tell if he was being truthful. In the meantime I'm going to scope out some of the albums I've been meaning to purchase to see if I an get a DRM-free deal on them!
I don’t think Apple will release a netbook
Dec 26th
...and if they do, I don't think it'll fare well at all. Sure it'll make a decent amount of Apple fans who've been asking for one happy, but in our current financial situation is it a smart product to release? To me netbooks are the opitomy of a discretionary income purchase. They're not powerful enough to do a lot of things that most people want from a Mac (things like video editing) and yet they're not small or cheap enough to compete with a smartphone. So who will purchase an Apple netbook? One would probably assume a business user, someone who's on the road frequently and doesn't need a powerful machine - this person would favor portability over processing power. Does it sound like I'm describing an existing Apple product? Ohhh that's right, the Macbook Air!
So aside from the fact that the product doesn't fit easily into their product line, are there any other reasons why I might think it won't happen? Well, if I were a betting man I'd put my life savings on it not being at Macworld. A netbook is a big product addition, one that I'm sure Steve Jobs would want to demo for the community. We all know that Jobs isn't doing the keynote at Macworld this year as Apple moves away from the trade show, so I'm assuming there won't be any earth-shattering announcements, nor should there be. Based on the latest reports of how retailers fared during the holiday season, it would seem that we consumers aren't too happy to part with our dollar in this time of economic turmoil (or, in many cases, we don't have a dollar to part with in the first place). So you're telling me that Apple's going to release a product meant to snap up discretionary income in a time when there's very little to be had, especially considering the solidity of their current hardware lineup? It just doesn't make sense to me.
If anything I wouldn't be surprised if Apple killed a product or two. The Mac Mini has been in its death throws for a while, perhaps they'll do away with it now. I'd expect Apple to focus on their strengths by making those strong products even better, as was showcased with their notebook refresh not too long ago. I wouldn't be surprised if at Macworld we saw some significant software enhancements. Whether iLife gets a new, fresh coat of paint or iWork is revamped, software makes sense. Software is the perfect way to refresh your product without having a large financial investment in hardware, and it's a relatively cheap product to sell to the consumers. Expect Phil Schiller to spend some time talking about Snow Leopard, the latest version of OS X.
I'd also like to see an iPhone refresh, but that's just because I'm going to be in the market for an iPhone pretty soon. With my luck Apple will probably put out a new model just after I purchase the current 3G. Anyways, leave a comment and let me know if you think I'm way off-base here. Does the Apple netbook make sense to you? Why? Leave a comment!
Now Playing:
Young Dubliners - McAlpine's Fusiliers
Too many games....
Apple’s Notebook Event – 10/14/2008
Oct 18th
Alrighty so let me first apologize for not getting a post up on Thursday. I was kinda busy this past week so I never got around to it. Instead, I've decide to record a video of what I would have written about on Thursday, which as you might guess was Apple's notebook event from this past Tuesday. Here you go, she's a two-parter:
Apple Notebook Event - 10/14/2008 (Part I)
Apple Notebook Event - 10/14/2008 (Part II)
Now Playing:
, (multiplayer beta)
The app store gold rush
Sep 30th
This isn't exactly a new story, but since I don't have anything else to write about and this story makes me pretty happy (as opposed to the going on right now), I figured I'd write about it. Last week the developer of my favorite App Store application was featured in a news story discussing his incredible success based on app store sales in the few months since his application launched. The application of course is the game Trism, a puzzle game which I did a video review of not too far back.
This is the first prime example of Apple's app store empowering average-Joe developers to get out there and make solid products. Apple facilitates all app store purchases, even free applications, by providing the infrastructure (hosting, sales, marketing) free of charge. Of course in the case of pay-for applications like Steve Demeter's Trism, Apple takes the 30% cut that I mentioned earlier. Still I'm sure Steve isn't complaining about that, after all he's on track to make $2 million by July 2009.
In the article Steve also goes on to denounce Google's Android platform. He says that he'll stick with Apple because (obviously) he's "doing just fine" with them. He then went on to mention that he thinks Google's approach of having multiple handsets for different carriers will be an annoyance for developers:
“Do I want to be spending 6 months to write the game, and another 6 months making it compatible? If I had Trism available for Android, and there are 50 Android devices and every time one of them crashes (the users) contact me, do I want that?â€
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His argument makes sense to me. It's pretty obvious that it's easier on a developer if they only have to worry about one platform (the iPhone/iPod Touch) rather than multiple. Support becomes easier, and coupled with Apple's hands-on approach to managing the app store everything runs more smoothly. Sure there have been plently of detractors lately saying that Apple is a little too strict with their certification process, but in the end it provides a much better-managed environment for both users and developers.
In the news story Steve Demeter, a solo developer, discusses how he went from working on Trism as a side project to making $250,000 in two months based on app store sales. The game went up in the middle of the summer for $4.99, and since then Steve has been able to rake in a ton of cash on a relatively simple application, and that's after Apple took their cut (30%) and his initial investment is figured into the equation. Not too bad, huh
iTunes 8.0 Gridview and Genius Playlists
Sep 13th
I wrote a post earlier this week in which I ran through some of the new features in iTunes 8.0, particularly Genius playlists, but I figured today I'd make a couple videos to show what I was talking about a little bit better. Â Without further ado:
iTunes 8.0 - Grid View
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iTunes 8.0 - Genius
Apple’s “Let’s Rock” iPod and iTunes Event
Sep 11th
I was very interested to see what sort of new products would be unveiled by Apple on Tuesday, and I have to say, there's some interesting news based on what they showed us. Â If you were following any speculation leading up to the event then there isn't much in the way of surprise, but what I'm most interested in is the way they're trying to market some of their products moving forward. Â Let's start with iTunes.
iTunes 8.0 was officially released Tuesday, as always a free download, and it brings some new functionality to the old standby application which the bulk of people turn to for their music management. Â Firstly, you get a new gridview for music that's very similar to the layout of the stacks gridview. Â Really this was sort of already implemented into iTunes with the App Store though. Â If you have downloaded any applications for your iPhone or iPod Touch you'll have noticed that the applications tab basically lists your installed mobile apps in a gridview. Â Take that feature and apply it to your music albums and you get the idea. Â They also brought NBC back to iTunes so if you're hankering for some new episodes of The Office this Fall you can get them from iTunes for $1.99 (standard definition) or $2.99 (high definition). Â Apple has also figured out how to make the high definition content viewable on your computer so if you don't have an Apple TV you won't be left out.
The most important feature added in iTunes 8.0 is Genius. Â Genius does its best to create playlists for you based on certain songs in your music collection, similar to how Pandora or Last.fm work. Â So for example, if I'm listening to a Deftones song and I would like to make a playlist of 25 songs that Genius thinks is similar to it, I click the Genius bar and bam - all of the songs that are similar to my Deftones track are ready to be played in succession. Â The only downside is that, since Genius is only limited to your iTunes library (despite making recommendations from the iTunes store) you won't get as many accurate matches as you do from Pandora or Last.fm (services which pull from their own, expansive libraries of music). Â Right now I'm listening to a Genius playlist based on the song by Deftones called "Anniversary of an Uninteresting Event," a relatively mellow song, and so Genius has pulled in 24 other songs it thinks are similar. Â Some matches are spot on like A Perfect Circle's "Vanishing" or Team Sleep's "Our Ride to the Rectory," while others are a little more questionable. Â For instance, how is DragonForce's much heavier "My Spirit Will Go On" or "Storming the Burning Fields" similar to "Anniversary of an Uninteresting Event?" Â Both are heavy power metal songs where as, like I said, "Anniversary of an Uninteresting Event" is a melodic and atmospheric piano piece for the most part. Â Intriguing to say the least.
Still, Apple promises that as more and more users use Genius it will become smarter over time (it makes records of everyone's iTunes libraries anonymously).  I still wish there was a way to approve or disapprove matches though.  In any case Apple's event on Tuesday wasn't all about iTunes - there was plenty of iPod news to go along.  First off, to no one's surprise, they showed off the new version of the iPod Nano.  Gone is the "iPod Phat" design from last year and now we get a nice tall, skinny version of the tiny player with a nice curved design and widescreen display.  The Nano even has some accelerometer functionality.  Steve Jobs showed how you could shake the Nano in order to initiate a shuffle of your music!  As cool as it sounds I think this feature might suffer from the Nintendo Wii complex; that is it sounds cool in theory but is anyone going to want to shake about their MP3 player in public?  The Nanos come in a plethora of new colors as well, ranging from professional-looking black and aluminum to  the more fun pink, orange and (my personal favorite) green variants.
Next up is the iPod Touch.  Now, I just got an iPod Touch not too long ago so I was sort of hoping in the back of my mind that the updates wouldn't be too significant.  Needless to say I'm a little disappointed.  Aside from getting a much-needed price drop the Touches were also graced with a bit of a hardware design and new hardware features that I'm envious of.  The most notable features are the new volume rocker and external speaker, two features that I'd honestly love to have on my 1st generation iPod Touch.  The physical volume rocker is kind of obvious - it would be nice to be able to change volume without having to even take the device out of my pocket - but the external speaker is a justified phenomena that you might not understand unless you have an iPod Touch or iPhone.
I'm not sure if the same is true for most iPod Touch users but I find myself carrying mine without headphones. Â There's so much you can do with the iPod Touch that doesn't require them that I find myself content to just browse the internet, check my email and use applications rather than listen to music or watch videos. Â Still, it's that one time when you'd like to have your headphones with you and you don't that makes you realize how important the external speaker is. Â For example, what if you want to watch a YouTube video? Â You don't really need great sound to watch a YouTube video, just something passable. Â However if you're like me and you tend to leave your headphones behind then you're kind of stuck. Â The external speaker is perfect for that. Â Basically what it does is make the iPod Touch more of a portable computer than just an iPod that also has computer-esque features.
I think one important thing to note about the new iPod Touch is how Apple has chosen to market it. Â It's no secret that the App Store is full of a bunch of different games, some of which are free and others that cost money. Â Because of this they dedicated an entire portion of their presentation to showing off some upcoming games for the iPod Touch, and have labeled the iPod Touch the "funnest iPod yet!" Â Sounds to me like they're going after some of the portable gaming market. Â Maybe they were inspired when John Carmack noted that Apple's mobile offerings are more powerful than either the Nintendo DS or Sony PSP? Â I think the fundamental difference between the iPod Touch and other portable gaming consoles is that Apple wants to sell hardware, not software. Â Sony and Nintendo are glad that you're purchasing their systems but where they really make money is on the games. Â Is the same true for Apple? Â A lot of the games, as I mentioned, are free or relatively cheap. Â I'm not sure how that will figure into their strategy but it may have an impact.
Apple made some other announcements of course, such as that of the iPhone and iPod Touch firmware 2.1 release this week, the iPod Classic moving to just one SKU, a 120GB model. Â Neither announcements are really that important I don't think (the update is mostly bug fixes/Genius integration, and the iPod Classic is probably product phase-out). Â So that's it really. Â No huge changes, just some expected news that was leaked by Kevin Rose and others well before the actual event in true Apple style. Â There is one last part of the keynote I wanted to share though, and that's Steve Jobs poking fun at some of the unrest about his health. Â After WWDC questions were flying as to whether Mr. Jobs had been stricken with cancer again, and to that he simply replied "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." Â Well said, I think.
Now Playing:
Using Boot Camp for gaming on an iMac
Aug 1st
Okay, so the video didn't end up being about Boot Camp so much as the games I've been playing on the iMac and some Games for Windows Live news. Â Ah well, can't blame me for trying! Â A video should be up tomorrow with my first review of an iPhone/iPod Touch game, so check back. =)
iMac “Review”
Jul 26th
So at this point I've had the iMac for a few days, and I figured I'd post some of my opinions. Â I went back to the video format for this post as well, you can find those after the text. Â Everything's going great so far, I haven't run into a single problem that I can think of. Â Leopard is awesome, boot camped Vista is awesome, basically everything's going well.
The second part of the video is more of an update on the iPod Touch. Â Since my first video I've applied the Invisible Shield and also toyed around with the App Store a bit. Â I go over both in more detail in the videos if that sort of thing interests you. =)
I'm thinking about making my Saturday posts videos from now on...I find doing the videos easier than writing and linking a post, and I figure I can just as easily talk into a camera about whatever subject matter the post would have contained. Â If you have any opinions one way or another feel free to leave a comment! Â Anyways, without further delay:
iMac "review"
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Part 2 - iPod Touch update
Now Playing:
Machine Head - Desire to Fire
Taking the plunge
Jul 24th
So I finally did it. Â It's finally done. Â That is to say it was done a few weeks ago when I ordered my new iMac. Â That's right, I've made the switch to the Mac platform. Â I suppose that's only half-true, I still use Windows on a daily basis, but it's true that both my primary desktop and laptop computers are Macs. Â Of course both run Windows, but the hardware at least is all Apple. Â I kind of feel like a shill typing this to be honest.
With the massive swell of people getting in line to bash Microsoft lately I've always tried to be the one person showing off their strengths and attempting to quell some of the misnomers going around. Â I still think Vista is a solid upgrade to XP, and when I'm stuck in XP there are features from Vista that I miss. Â If you asked me to sit behind one of two modern computers, one running Windows XP and the other running Windows Vista, I'd gladly use the Vista machine. Â I also love the Live services, I use Office as my primary desktop application suite, and my primary gaming platform is my Xbox 360. Â So then, why the change?
I'm not going to beat around the bush and try to come up with some deep-rooted philosophical reason for why macs are superior to PCs. Â The truth, and I'm not afraid to say it, is that macs are prettier. Â The hardware is prettier, the software (including third party apps in general) is prettier. Â I'm a sucker for a slick interface I suppose, and for that reason coupled with a refreshingly simple computer purchasing experience, I went mac. Â As I've said before, when I get a new machine it generally means I'm ordering a ton of different parts and then spending a day putting them all together and troubleshooting. Â I have to be up on specs, component speeds, what the best CPU for the price is and so on. Â With my iMac the hardest decision I had was deciding between a wired or wireless keyboard (I went wireless).
Enough of that though, I'm sounding like a switcher commercial! Â I guess the point is that I'm still interested in all platforms despite the fact that an Apple product is sitting in front of me right now. Â I still use the Microsoft software I mentioned above including Windows, I'm just doing it from a mac. Â So far everything has gone pretty smoothly, Â the 24" screen is beautiful and I couldn't be happier. Â I also picked up an iPod Touch along with my mac so I've spent some time playing with that as well. Â If you'd like to see more about that you can watch my first video from the iMac's iSight camera, a video that I took last night only a couple hours after it was delivered:
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Like I said in the video please leave some comments with software recommendation for both the mac and the touch! Â I might start doing these videos a little more frequently too, so look out for that in the future. Â I'll also do my best to refrain from posting about my mac too frequently. 
Now Playing:
iPhone 3G launch
Jul 11th
I literally just finished watching spectacular , and despite only catching the beginning and end I have to give him a ton of props for not only making it all the way through, but for keeping it interesting the whole time to boot. When I first heard that he was going to try and put out 24 hours of content based around one phone, which has to , I was pretty skeptical. To my surprise there was always something new to talk about, and it was the first glimpse of what I'm sure was Leo's original vision with TWiT Live - he had "in the field" reporters at tons of different Apple stores across the country feeding him info with live video streams from services like , and . Sure there were technical difficulties but this medium is still quite young. All-in-all it was surprising just how well it worked. Some of the notable participants who showed up while I was watching include , , , , and . Those are just the people who were on via video too! At around 4:00AM Leo's time, just when he was starting to fade about 18 hours into the broadcast, showed up in-studio only to be followed by a couple hours later. I have to admit It was kind of cool seeing the old salty dogs sticking it out in the end.
As important as Leo's broadcast was to the progression of video broadcasting via the interwebs (his cumulative viewer count was near 300,000, a steady 8,000 watching at any given time) I wanted to discuss the actual iPhone 3G launch too. I didn't expect it to be nearly as big as it was. In almost every location the geeky correspondent designated for that store said that they were seeing numbers larger than they saw at the first iPhone's launch a year ago. That's kind of a shocker because the queues of people lining up in advance (the night before) were significantly smaller than they were for iPhone G1. I suppose that makes sense. Most consumers probably thought "well hey, the iPhone is already out and this is just an upgrade so it's not that big of a deal." Then when hundreds of people started showing up a few hours before launch I'm sure they realized they had a significant wait ahead of them, and their troubles didn't end there.
Long lines are great for Apple and AT&T, but technical difficulties are not. During a launch in Denver I recall an Apple Store employee coming out to pump up the crowd while I watched the stream. It was kind of ridiculous now that I think about it, I mean here's this guy acting like he's just about to cure cancer when in fact he's whipping the crowd into a "frenzy" to go spend $200 on a phone with more expensive rates than its predecessor...well, I digress. After getting the crowd worked up the doors were opened at about 8:04AM Denver time and the first wave of 10 or so customers went in the store. Now if you hadn't been following the news about the iPhone 3G's launch one big area of skepticism was that, this time around, phones were required to be activated in-store after purchase. That was the plan anyways. As it turned out, 30 minutes after that first wave of customers went in, the same Apple store employee came out and proclaimed to the crowd that he had good news and bad news. "It's time for a lesson in technology!" he exclaimed. "First off let me say the iPhone 3G is AMAZING. The only problem is that the technology interface for activation, which is wholly unrelated to Apple, is having technical difficulties!" This wasn't a problem for Denver alone, reports poured in from tons of different Apple stores across the country that phones couldn't be activated in-store because AT&T's servers collapsed under the weight of all the new users.
Now if you recall the first iPhone's launch there was a similar situation. The only difference? Customers were able to activate their phones in the comfort of their own home from behind their computers using iTunes. Sure there were the "This is taking forever!" complaints at the time because the servers were getting hammered, but at least they didn't have to stand outside in a line for hours while their frustration mounted. Another video stream from an Apple store in San Francisco showed Liana Lehua interviewing the first man in line, a man who waited 36 hours dressed in a suit for his iPhone 3G, who was sent out to pack up his tent without even getting his hands on the phone because of activation problems. Thankfully that wasn't the case because most stores' employees started sending customers home with their phone to activate it over iTunes after all. If stores were unable to sell the phone at all it would have been an epic disaster for Apple. All the while you have to expect Steve Jobs is somewhere howling. As I write this post I'm sure there are still thousands of peoples lined up outside of Apple stores waiting to get their iPhone 3G. In fact, some might be leaving the lines at this point out of frustration. Of course this is all just first-day server shock and (hopefully for Apple and AT&T) these problems will have cleared up in a day or two, but you would think they'd have seen this coming?
So otherwise, how is the iPhone 3G? Is it worth all of that heartache? I can't comment on the full experience as I haven't seen one. What I did see was Leo Laporte demoing the new which looks awesome. The interface is sweet aside from some confusion about which button to actually click to download an app, and there's a surprising amount of software available for a first-day release. Apps range in price from free to $75 (the $75 app is aimed at pilots and is a definite outlier, most were $4.99 - $9.99). I'm excited to try it out personally, but for that I think I'm going to stick with an . More on that in the coming week(s). I'll be interested to see how all of these activation difficulties will play out over the next week. Will people be outraged, or will they simply forget it about it in a day or two? We shall see! Thanks again to Leo Laporte at for providing the coverage I used to write this post.
Now Playing:
(trying to make my way through again, this time without any kills or alerts)
