Entries tagged 'Apple'

Monday, June 9th, 2008

WWDC’s Big News Not 3G, but Fortune 500

At San Francisco’s Moscone Center today, the release of a 3G iPhone took the spotlight in Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ annual address at the Worldwide Developers Conference.

But the biggest news to come from WWDC this year came about 11 minutes into Jobs’ talk, when he revealed that 35 percent of Fortune 500 companies have participated in Apple’s iPhone enterprise beta program.

These 175 companies should make RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, very nervous.

Version 2.0 of the iPhone’s software is to be released on July 11 and finally adds support for Microsoft Exchange, which powers the e-mail of corporate America like a bad crack habit. From Apple’s demonstrations, using the iPhone to access corporate e-mail seems intuitive and tightly integrated into the phone’s function set.

Add on top of that easy-to-use mobile internet access (at fast 3G speeds) and a fully-featured video iPod and the Blackberry seems like a Chevy Nova in Latin America… an outdated relic.

CTOs are practically-minded geeks by nature. It’s hard not to like the iPhone and Apple just broken the last major technical damn keeping the device from being fully integrated across major corporations.

Let the flood begin.

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Friday, May 30th, 2008

Help Firefox Set a World Record

A few years ago, most of the world had written off the browser competition. Netscape had lost, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer had won (despite some underhanded tactics).

Today, there’s a thriving competition between IE, Apple’s Safari and the open-source cousin of Netscape, Mozilla Firefox. As part of the celebration around the release of the third version of Firefox, there’s an effort underway to beat establish the world record for the number of downloads in a single day.

They’re aiming for 5 million and have nearly 400,000 people signed up so far. No word yet on the exact day–the development team is keeping that quiet for now–but it’s rumored to be sometime in the middle of June.

Sign up today–not only to set a record, but to replace as many copies of the inferior, bug-ridden IE browser with the vastly better option of Firefox.

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Tuesday, May 27th, 2008

Books Are Delicious

The Monster has done it again… the tremendous independent Apple developer Delicious Monster, that is, who announced the release of the second version of their popular Delicious Library software.

When I first bought Delicious Library as part of the first MacHeist bundle some time ago, I never thought I’d actually find a use for a niche product that catalogs my media (books, DVDs, video games and music). The program’s easy-to-use interface and great eye candy, however, prompted me to scan my entire collection (via iSight) over a weekend, after which the program became useful at some surprising times.

When a friend wanted to borrow one of my books, I quickly added him as a “borrower” in the program and never forgot to reclaim the book. (I hope my father doesn’t realize the same thing with all of the DVDs I “borrow” every Christmas.) Given that my computer travels with me everywhere, I’ve also used the collection to look up and recommend books to others while I’m away from home.

Launching the program for the first time, I was amazed to see a window (left) that told me that the software may run slowly until I upgrade to OS X 10.5.3 — a version of Mac OS that is currently available only to developers. Why Delicious didn’t disable the warning I’m not sure (maybe Apple is late on delivering?), but it might have to do with the fact that there is evidently a large difference in the program’s performance due to some specialized graphics code available in 10.5.3. I’m hopeful; the software runs well, but certainly isn’t a speed demon right now.

For me, one of the biggest promises of this version was the ability to export my library to the Web and import my growing digital audio and video collection from iTunes. Despite having some difficulty getting the program to automatically upload the exported catalog via FTP, Delicious delivered on both counts. I can now keep a (relatively) current copy of my catalog online, allowing friends to browse and borrow easily. Delicious Library even creates an iPhone compatible version of the catalog’s HTML files.

That said, there are a few things I wish were easier:

• Ability to link to a specific catalog item - When I’m blogging about a book, video game or DVD, it’d be nice to link to the specific item, rather than the catalog’s general page.
• Automatic publishing of new books to catalog HTML pages - When I add a single book, it’d be great for the program to automatically upload it (with the image) to my FTP site, rather than forcing me to re-create and upload more than 160 pages (and more than 125 MB of images).
• Interactive comments and borrowing requests - Allowing those viewing my online catalog to comment on specific books (or the entire collection) and request to borrow a book directly from the site would be fantastic. The program doesn’t have to monitor these items regularly, a quick check (and update) whenever I start Delicious Library would be more than sufficient.

Regardless, Delicious Library 2 is a fun way to explore your media collection and a pretty good buy (particularly if you have DL1, which makes you eligible for a $20 upgrade price). Yummy.

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Wednesday, January 16th, 2008

Apple TV Almost Killed the Cable Star

So I finally got around to watching the keynote from this year’s Macworld Expo (I’m not going to wander around until Thursday). While I’m sure I’ll have more to say later about the MacBook Air and other fun stuff I run into at the expo, I wanted to touch on one announcement that has the potential to be earth-shattering–Apple TV Take 2.

The small box was first introduced about a year ago, but met with subpar success in the marketplace, primarily because it required a standalone computer to function. Apple finally eliminated this requirement to allow the Apple TV to stand on its own with the new version.

The keynote demo of the Apple TV looked tremendous. Combined with the announcement of movie rentals via iTunes, Apple may finally be able to knock the big-time cable companies back a bit in the rollout of on-demand services. All the major studios are on board and the technology appears exceedingly simple to use.

I’ve been contemplating picking up an Apple TV for some time, but was really waiting on the rental market to open up (if I’m going to purchase a movie, I really want a DVD). Meeting that requirement and coupled with a price cut to $229, I’m surprised I remain contemplative.

In thinking about the Apple TV, my concerns come down to two missing features:

1. DVD Player — I have enough equipment below my television. Apple is used to DVD players in its computer, but does not include one in the Apple TV. Not a huge problem, but something I’d put in the “it’d be nice” category.
2. TV Tuner — This is the big one. If the Apple TV included this, I’d have one already. I hate the interface on my Comcast DVR (and long after my old TiVo) and think combining Apple’s UI with the rest of the Apple TV package would be a truly disruptive technology. I’d even be willing to pay for it from a third-party (EyeTV, for example) if it was able to integrate with the Apple TV and DVR software.

Will I take the jump? Maybe, but if I do it will be under protest. Finally, a company I really respect (Apple) has an opportunity to obliterate a company I really hate (any cable company, currently Comcast). But they missed it, and Comcast lives to fight again.

I hope that Apple gets into some serious discussions with the TV studios and finds a solution that allows Take 3 to roll out a year or two from now with these critical features, freeing me from the tyranny of cable TV once and for all.

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