iTunes 9.0 A big upgrade

I would have to say that after downloading iTunes 9.0 that it is a serious upgrade. My favorite new feature is the new layout of the iTunes Store. It is much easier to navigate. And it has a more modern look to it. One area I would like to see an improvement is the rating system. I believe the rating system is overly inflated by teenagers or young college students. Almost everything has a 4 or 5 star rating. Too many times the review say that "the video is the best of all time". Everything cannot be the best of all time. One rating system I found that worked well was on the Fandango.com web site. This is the movie theatre web site for tickets, previews and showtimes. It lets you filter the ratings by different criteria of the rater. Such as by age group, if you have kids, and others. It is interesting how the reviews change with the filtering.

Maybe Apple could put a rater on hold for a while if they give too many high ratings. The other extreme is the one star of death rating where people are irritated about something with the iTunes store or Apple and they use the review as a complaint forum.

Anyways, back to iTunes9. The home sharing feature is good if you have a bunch of libraries as in teens in the same household. I wish they made backup of the system a bit better. Where everything is stored and not breaking the setup is too complex. Having an auto backup feature built into iTunes and archiving to another network hard drive would be the best. iTunes is so big now that a hard drive crash can wipe out a significant investment. Auto backup should be a key feature of iTunes. I know Time machine does this, but this is not available on Windows and older Macs. Plus I don't really want access to every version of every file I have ever created on my computer. I found a program written by a computer science student that lets you auto archive selected directories in the same tree structure as it is on your main drive. Simple, automatic, no compression, encryption, it just works. Should be part of iTunes too.

Another requested feature would be to have different user settings for the same library. It would be like multiple accounts on the same computer. The library is the same but each users settings are stored in their seperate area. Each person could do their own customization. I know Christina does not like a bunch of the songs on my library and we share libraries for easy backup. My worst iTunes experience was trying to merge two libraries which had some duplicate songs and some unique songs. I had to go by hand and find all of the duplicates. iTunes will list them. But you need to delete them one by one clicking visually. Sad.
iTunes is getting better each time but I wish Apple would allow for user input for requested features. Maybe they don't because of potential lawsuits if they use your idea.

What do you think about the new Nano?

Any thoughts about the new Nano? It seems that Apple needed to do some major feature enhancement to keep the Nano a tempting option in the MP3 player market. Especially with all the new features of the iTouch. This gives people with a smaller budget a reason to buy the Nano. The demographics is probably younger teens or people who want a device to exercise with that is very small but still has a screen.

I read some reviews of the new Nano and many of them gloss over the ability to pause live radio. After owning a DVR for so long and getting used to being able to pause or rewind video, I find myself assuming I have this ability in my car radio. If you miss something that is said, you assume you can just rewind it and hear it again. Yes I am conditioned. I guess for radio it is not as big of a deal unless you are listening to a talk show or something like that. Rewinding a song to hear again may not be that great. I wonder how long the recording goes for and if it is still there next time you power up. The key marketing feature with this is the iTunes taging which allows you to tag you hear on the radio for iTunes. Then when you sync with iTunes you can download the song from the iTunes Store. HD radio advertises having this feature too. It has been driven into my skull with the HD radio ads I hear 5 times a day.

The camera/video feature could be good if the pictures are better than the crappy cameras typically on cell phones. That lens looks pretty small. My cell phone touts a Megapixel camera but the pictures are almost always grainy and blurry unless under very bright sunlight.

I still think the "shake to shuffle" feature introduced in the last update is pure genious and will greatly appeal to the younger crowd. My son opted to get a PSP (Sony handheld gaming device) instead of an iPod Nano for about the same price. To him, games are more important than music right now. And the iTouch was quite a bit more expensive.

Problems with AppleTV

Stitch, this article seems like it was written by you!

Apple TV Problems

He makes an observation that the media companies are probably just not playing ball with Apple. THe result is that the AppleTV will be a crippled device for the foreseeable future.

Squash the serious AppleTV features upgrade

Stitch, check out the link:

No AppleTV Upgrade

I know that you can't always rely on analysts' reports, but it seems they met with the Apple CFO for their information. Now there may be an AppleTV refresh coming soon, but I don't think it will be tomorrow. I know I've heard in the past that Apple is working on it. Hopefully it will be soon enough for them to be competitive.

AppleTV needs a serious upgrade

I have noticed that there is starting to be a lot of competition developing on the AppleTV market. Netflix has Roxio which allows you to view a limited selection of their videos on demand as part of your regular subscription. The reviews have been good and the simple device starts at $50. Then there are more and more PVR's which are like Tivo. Where you can digitally record TV/cable/dish programming to a hard drive for later viewing. Tivo has sued most of the competitors out of the market so this is more the build it yourself market. If Apple can expand their movie database to be on par with Netflix and offer a PVR built in this would be a big advance. The killer app would be something like a cable/dish package which has a minimal fee and loads of ad supported TV. I think the pay per show model for TV is a bust and is only a nitch market.

Speaking of Heavy Handedness!

Stitch, here is another example: Apple didn't like one developer's "bubbles" in a chat application, saying it was too much like their own. Can a company patent something like that? Maybe Apple should be happy that their iPhone has an App that is almost the same as their refined "look and feel">

Bubbles!

Special Event Sept 9

Stitch, I'm sure you have already heard that there is a special event coming up. Speculation is rampant on some tablet idea, but I seriously doubt it. This is about music! That happens to be the same day the Beatles release all their albums in remastered form, and everyone thinks Apple will let customers download them from iTunes. Are you interested? Thinking about a new iPod? Word is they could have cameras!

Apple's arrogance revisited

I think you may have missed my point in the previous "Apple getting to arrogant" post. I added another comment.

Snow Leopard!

Well Stitch, I already ordered my copy. I know, I know - I'm an Apple nut who can't wait for anything. I admit it! I can't wait, and it's only $30 with free shipping. Not too shabby! Are you going to get the Snow Leopard? If you wait, I could give you a users perspective after I play with it!

Is Apple becoming too arrogant?

Steve Jobs has always had the "my way, or the highway" attitude when it comes to Apple and Apple products. When the second coming of Jobs occurred, he started with a mellower tone. He started to work well with others, yet still demand excellence. Of course he had a few, "I know best" moves which flopped, such as the Cube. But all and all, Jobs was more flexible.

Now come the iPhone, and it looks like Apple is back at the heavy handedness. Especially by not allowing competing products on the iPhone. The Apps store is both a cure and a curse. Sure you have a store of tons of Apps in the palm of your hand. But they had to filter through Apple. Now others are revolting. I read that there is a way to get Apps for the iPhone which is not the Apps store.

I always thought that if Apple was on top they would not have the heavy hand like Microsoft. But I hate to say it but they appear to have the same affliction.


Apple Arrogance

My AppleTV review (so far)

Well, I have had the AppleTV for about 2 months now. I am somewhat pleased and somewhat disappointed. First of all the downloading of movies and playing them is flawless. The price of a movie is pricey at $3.99 for DVD quality and $4.99 for HD quality. So I am sticking with Netflix for most movies. But is nice to have the "on demand" option available. It is true the selection choice is limited. I love streaming iTunes to the stereo and TV. It uses AirTunes feature and once again is seemless. I have a USB video recorder for my PC to record HD over the air TV. It plays well on the PC, but the format is unrecognized by AppleTV.
Then comes Boxee. A very good hack for the AppleTV which allows searching your own network for shared files and allowing playing of almost any format on the TV. One problem is that Boxee is not as efficient as the native AppleTV so your video is jittery. It is a work in progress and gets better with each update. My favorite feature of Boxee is Pandora.com. Boxee has applications modules which people write to access content online. The Pandora one is an online radio site which learns your tastes. You rate thumbs up or down and it learns. You can have many stations and the graphics are very professional. It also has access to Hulu.com video. But the feed is jerky and playback is unwatchable. At first I thought it was because of the slow AppleTV processor. But the downloaded movies from Apple work great with high resolution. Hulu is a joint venture of a bunch of TV networks, but they don't understand computers well enough. It is jumpy on my PC too.
Another application is Joost. It hasn't died yet. Their network is setup to get bits of the show from many different sources. This makes playback much better. But at times the resolution fades to keep smooth playback. Plus there is too much crap programming to wade through to find the good stuff. My son likes watching "Transformers" cartoons. They have almost the entire season in order. But there is no parental filters, so can be dangerous for kids.
Installing Boxee was a breeze. You create an image file by downloading a simple script file. Then transfer it to a thumb drive. Shutdown AppleTV. Plug thumbdrive in AppleTV USB port. Reboot. And now it is installed. It uses the AppleTV menu system too so it looks very clean. Updates are done from the AppleTV too.
One beef that I have is that Apple does not move the AppleTV software forward too fast. The Boxee people claim that Apple has been accepting of having Boxee on AppleTV and does not break it with updates. Just in case Boxee will block Apple updates so you have to request them yourself. The Apple updates are so rare anyway though.

Apple Music and Tablets?

Stitch, check out the link:

Tablet Music

I think it is long overdue to bundle some goodies with online albums! It was a big loss when music began to go online - minimal album art, liner notes, lyrics, extras, etc. I think it's a great idea to take the album concept to the same level and beyond for online music! When I listen to music on the iPod Touch, I absolutely love to see the cool album cover, and I think additional materials you could leaf through on the Touch would be a kick butt idea! I hope they make it happen.

Speaking of awesome ideas done right, how about the much rumored Mac tablet idea? There have been a lot of patents surfacing about a possible tablet idea. I still remember that right before the iPhone was released, there were a lot of patents surfacing which hinted strongly at what was to come. I feel the same thing is happening now. Instead of a clunky, heavy half baked tablet idea from MS, how about a polished, well implemented Apple version! Think about the Macbook Air with only one side! If anyone can do it right, Apple can. Then watch the Microsofts jump on the bandwagon again!

Microsoft Stores

Stitch, what do you think of the Microsoft retail stores?

MStores

It just amazes me that MS for the most part has no innovative ideas. They truly just copy what Apple does. In this case, it is 8 or so years after the fact.

MS claims Apple called to ask them to stop their TV commercials

A Microsoft executive in a presentation said that he received a call from Apple attorneys asking MS to stop the MS ads which claim that MS PC's are a better value. Right. I'm sure that is what happened. On MacNN they had a pic of the executive who happens to be bald and very nerdy looking. Someone in the comments section asked, "Are all MS execs bald and stupid?". I had to laugh.

Apple still running strong

The Q2 earnings are out and Apple continues to grow even during a severe recession. iPhone sales were up 600% from last year! Some of that is because of the transition last year to 3G causing a temporary slump in sales. But still, WOW. I see Apple has said they predict iPod sales to continue to drop over time. But what really is an iPod anymore. Does an iTouch count as an iPod? Does an iPhone too? Not too shabby under the current economic climate we are in.

A proud? owner of an AppleTV

Yes I have kicked the satellite dish out of my home. I figured when more than half of the stations are either infomercial stations like QVC or digital music stations with really bad music. And then since we are on the west coast, many stations go off the air early and show infomercials. I'm done.
I am setting up an over the air DVR on my PC which will add the shows to iTunes to stream to the main TV with AppleTV. You got to love the interface with ATV. I like watching previews of movies by streaming them directly to ATV. But the prices are still too high, $3.99 for a non HD version. I still just use Netflix for DVD's. A better value, even if you have to wait a couple of days. For me, there is a lot of HD science content on the Podcasts. Sure beats the Science channel which actually have a show where a cowboy hunts down people in the woods. What this has to do with Science I have no idea. Its like Shark week on Discovery channel. At least that is less of a stretch.
I like the favorites for ATV. When you find a podcast you like you can add it to favorites. But these don't get backed up as far as I know. So if you reboot the ATV, then you might loose your favorites. I had a little trouble with iTunes not finding the ATV. It would work for a bit then disappear. I ended up having to wipe my ATV clean and start over. Now it seems to be working fine. Too PC like for me though, with the restart deal.
It is cool to have all your pictures streamed to ATV with Ken Burns effects and songs from you iTunes library. There are actually podcast HD shows which are 20 min long. The full program. I like the station Current. I think it is an up and coming network. They are also on cable and dish. I will update this review after I have ATV a while more.
I don't know why there isn't more advertising in Podcasts even from the big networks. I don't mind short ads if it generates revenue and better content. There are a couple that do and you can see that the quality of the broadcast is better than most. Hey they need a revenue source. I have not downloaded any TV shows yet. $1.99 an episode seems a bit much for something I would only watch once. Hey 50 cents a show, or add some short ads. Oh well. ATV has potential, the on demand stuff of the latest version is good. Blurry youtube videos are also available, but why?

iTouch as a Skype phone

I couldn't believe this when I saw it but their is a Skype app for the iTouch/iPhone which would allow you to make telephone calls over the internet using Skype. Skype is the famous voice over IP telephone service which allows you to call over the internet. You can call other Skype users anywhere in the world for free, plus call landlines and cell phones for only about $3 a month. With the increase in free WiFi access points could these give cell phones a run for the money. I hope so. Cell phones are overpriced in my opinion. $40-50 a month for the priveledge, which is $500-$600/year for phone service!. You could buy a new HDTV every year at these prices. And you are charged both ways, for incoming and outgoing minutes. Certainly their is need for an alternative. I would love having a WiFi Skype phone which also has the ability to call using prepaid minutes if needed. Quote me now cause I think this is the future.
If you were wondering how can you talk on an iTouch without a microphone. On the second generation iTouch's they have the ability to accept microphone inputs. It is an extra purchase but hey the calls are cheap.

Steve Jobs gets an iLiver

Well the truth finally comes out about Jobs. With his liver transplant, he was sicker than he had made it out to be. Their are even stock traders who are calling for restitution saying Apple deceived the public and the market from knowing key knowledge about a very influential CEO of a publicly traded company. Companies are required to issue statements about risks in their financial reports. And could be construed that a company is obligated to divulge health problems about a CEO who is intertwined with the company's success. Since it can have an impact on the company performanc. I say, hey this is too personal for stock statements. It will fade. Plus Steve has rebooted with a new iLiver. I wonder if it has WiFi?

Rubinstein is new Palm CEO

The transformation is complete - Jon Rubinstein is now Vader!

Rubinstein

I knew he had a big part of the Palm revival, but I didn't realize he was that high up!

WWDC 2009 a Success

Stitch, I would argue that WWDC was a qualified success. I believe a lot of naysayers feel that Apple didn't introduce whiz-bang products, but I would say Apple is laying an extremely solid foundation for the future. I still remember after Apple introduced the iPhone SDK and the App store, many were concerned. The App store had never been done before, and Apple keeps 30% of the revenue! Now a year later, the iPhone is arguably the hottest mobile development platform on the planet, and everyone else is scrambling to open their own app stores. What a dumb idea that everyone is copying!

With the introduction of the iPhone, Apple insisted that the virtual keyboard would be a game changer because it could be modified with software - it was not a static part of the phone. Fast forward, and here we are with gobs of multiple languages that any iphone used can jump right into, simply because the iPhone adjusts to whatever country it is in. And is anyone else jumping on board with a virtual keyboard?

With introduction of an API that allows developers to offer additional packages from within their app, the entire iphone app ecosystem is jacked up again to higher levels. Want a new game scenario? Have the gamer buy it right from within the app.

With the API allowing iPhone interaction with other hardware, developers can interface to the iPhone with their own hardware. The possibilities for that are endless.

Bottom line, it's about the software, and I believe Apple is hitting this one out of the park. The 'analysts' just don't get it, in my opinion. Just because it's not a new hardware product, they don't think there's anything worthwhile. I disagree!!