Has Le come to the bright side?

With all of the amazing new computer models from Apple, I was wondering if Le has taken the plunge? If I had some spare cash right now, I would consider one of the new iMacs. You seem to get a lot of bang for the buck. I have been using the laptop, and having the freedom is nice for a while but mostly for surfing the net, which my current laptop is fully capable of. Now for some serious power.

3G iPhone in June?

Fellows, I have been hearing persistent rumors of a new iphone design by June. What have you guys heard? Any truth? I hear it would incorporate 3G networking and a somewhat revised design.

MacFan back online!

Hey guys - sorry for my absence. Always lots of stuff going on, but this last week or so more than usual! However, I am back!!

Opencomputer runs OSX

Have you heard about the computer called "OpenComputer" which has been tweaked to run OSX Leopard? They are cheaper than standard issue Macs. They claim that Apple has a monopoly and that they are perfectly legal to do this. A Wired magazine article said that legally, Apple may have a hard time going after them and stopping them, but Wired suggested that Apple could just kill it through technology upgrades which would force incompatability. But this would also become a nucense to the regular Mac owners. I think most people would not want to worry about compatability problems cropping up down the line if the cost difference is not too much.
This may put pressure on Apple to keep prices lower than they normally would, at least on the low end. The hardware design from Apple has been compelling but how much more expensive should this be. A low end hardware competitor keeps it interesting.

Steve Ballmer pictures

Where do they get these pictures of Steve Ballmer? I know that anyone in the public light can have bad pictures taken of them, but I almost (almost!) feel bad for Ballmer! He comes off looking like a bumbling fool!

Knockoff Parade

Gentlemen, the parade of iPhone knockoffs continues and is as pathetic as ever. Consider Nokia's description of its as of yet unreleased iPhone knockoff. It is so sad, but it's all good for Apple. Supposedly there will be a 3G second generation iPhone to be released this year. As Le pointed out, how do they get around the power hungry nature of 3G? I'm sure we'll find out soon - Apple will not stop the innovation train for the knockoffs to jump on! Apple will be relentless!

Nokia Knockoff

Counting people is very very difficult

Well it looks like we are back to pencil and paper when it comes to doing a census count. The Federal government had contracted to a Florida company (yes Florida) to come up with a system to take the census on portable electonic devices. For a bill of anywhere from $600 million to $2 billion dollars. But low and behold a electronic counting system can be too complex and cumbersome, and yes this one is too. So for the 2010 US census they will be ditching the electronic system for pencil and paper. Of course now it will require more people to take the census (Why is beyond me. Maybe one to hold the paper and the other to hold the pencil! ) and may cost up to $3 billion dollars.
I am conviced that Apple could have adapted the iPhone to do this task for no more than $200 million, complete with iPhone hardware and Filemaker Pro and it would actually work. What a great advertisement for the iPhone that would be. But in Washington you help your friends with contracts where delivering a working product is not really necessary. Pay up America.

P.S: At the very least couldn't the census takers just take a laptop with them for the census? Why develop a system from scratch? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.



News Link

Samsung Instinct ready to take down the iPhone?

Samsung has a new phone called the Instinct which looks like it may be the best iPhone competitor to date. One catch is the monthly subscription fee may run about $100 a month. Even so, this looks like at least an honest attempt at competition. At least others are trying to keep up with the iPhone.

Instinct

What Macs can't do.

Caution the following link may be disturbing and vulgar to Macnight readers. Click if you feel up to it.

Macs_can't_do


Even so, the in your face nature of the link is actually quite humorous.

The Le Séance !

Oh great spirits, we are attempting to contact one our missing followers of MacNight. His spiritual name is "Le". Please release him to the Macworld so that others may benefit from his great knowledge. Why he has been banished for so long has concerned the Mac faithful. Please give us a sign that he is well, and that he will be enriching us with his great wisdom sometime soon. <... beep, please deposit 25 cents ...> Sorry, I have to go now. I'm out of change. <... I'm sorry you call has been disconnected. ...> <... Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep ...>

Motorola is splitting in two....

Well, it looks like Motorola has decided to push it's recently unprofitable cell phone branch of the company out of the main company into a separate company. It seems Motorola hasn't been able to create a hit in the cell phone market since the Razor phones. Even that phone only looked cool, but had problems, in my opinion. Some of the reasons for their problems was increased competition, including Apple's new iPhone. Motorola probably looked at all of the innovation in the iPhone and figured that this phone was so far ahead of the competition that it may be too late to even try to catch the technologies in this phone.

iPod music bundling

Gentlemen, this is one of the most unique ideas I've ever heard. Check out the Ars Technica piece:

Unlimited Downloads!

If I understand correctly, an option for purchasing an iPod would include an additional charge which would allow the purchaser to download an unlimited number of songs as long as they owned the iPod.

Is this right? It almost sounds too good to be true. I also understand another music player has that feature - for an additional $80. You know, it almost seems like a good deal! And, you own the music!

Now the article says Apple wants to charge an additional $20, not $80. I know I may sound crazy, but $20 in addition to the iPod would be a steal. I would think $40 to $80 would make more sense for UNLIMITED downloads!

Am I reading this right? And if so, what do you guys think?

Ars Technica Opinion Piece

Check out this article from Ars Technica:

iPhone Development

It is fascinating and talks about how crazy developers are to make applications for the iPhone, but how some are questioning the role of Apple as the so called "gate keeper" and taking 30% of revenues generated from software sales. On the other hand, Apple also takes care of all the "overhead costs" such as taking care of credit card charges, distribution, maintenance of the App store for the iPhone.

Stitch, what do you think?

Speaking of Steve Ballmer...

Check out this article from eWeek by Mac evangelist turned reporter Guy Kawasaki's interview of Steve Ballmer. Interesting read:

Ballmer Interview

Time for the iPhone blastoff?

With the latest news from Apple with their "Enterprise" solutions and "SDK", is now time for the iPhone blastoff countdown? After seeing the video of Apple's announcement, I was in awe. The iPhone will now be a fully secure network which links directly to Microsoft Exchange server for push email, push calenders, and push whatever. VPN support (virtual private network) which would allow an encrypted connection for sensitive data transfers. And with the SDK (software development kit) any business can customize their services and software on the iPhone. The SDK looked like is an amazing tool for creating applications quickly.
Businesses could get data from their own servers quickly and securely to their workers in a very portable device. Taking a laptop everywhere is not always convienient. Sales people are perfect targets for these devices. Any job which could need information sent to a remote location.
In addition, Apple looks like they want the iPhone to become a mobile gaming platform. With the full 3 axis accelerometer in the device. Instead of using a mouse or joystick for control, you just tip the iphone in different orientations. So the interface goes from mouse and joystick driven, to finger pointing and tipping.
The repurcutions of this may not be felt until later this year but like the initial iPod introduction, has been ignored by investors as being anything significant.
The iPhone incompasses all of what makes Apple great. It has a rock solid OS based on OSX. A great software development tool in SDK. They even have an iPhone simulator which run on your computer to speed development. Simple access to the cool features of the iPhone, touch interface, video, accelerometer, etc should stimulate quick development of awesome apps. Plus the attention to cool design and simple interfaces. Apple is firing on all cylinders now. Like the Venture Capitalist said, "the iPhone should be bigger than the personal computer". I think he is right.

Proud new owner of an iPod Classic

Yes the time has come where I have gone ahead and made the iPod purchase. Yes I have owned a shuffle in the past. And Christina has an iPod nano before they widened it. But I feel that the number of features and price have reached a point which begs the question. "Why don't you buy one!" I got a black iPod classic with an 80GB hard drive. I like the fact that you can do video on it if you like. It has a wheel based Coverflow feature. And the large 80GB storage have sold me on this model. The iTouch is cool but still in it's infancy. I would expect that the flash memory prices will drop quickly and then make this the iPod of choice in a couple of years. But the original draw for the iPod and what drew me to the Classic is the huge storage where you have "everything in your pocket". I have already loaded a classic Stanley Cup Finals game from the 1970's on it, to call up one of the greatest players to ever play the game, Gilbert Perrault. He played like a Mazda MX6, "just like butter". Soon it will be filled with "Science Friday" podcasts, and loads of songs. And it will nice to be able to pull up anything in an instant. Apple magic at it's best.

Nike and Apple Again

Have you heard that Apple and Nike are teaming up again. This time to use the iPod nano to collect workout data from exercise equipment in Gym's. They are in negotiations with major exercise equipment manufacturers to add access ports for Nanos. It appears that the Nike website for tracking running data has grown into a very popular community. And Apple/Nike want to expand this to more workout types. People can find exercise partners to compete against on the Nike site. Who would have thought this would be so popular. I thought that this pedometer/ipod gadget would come and go. But it appears to have staying power.

MacBook Air in short supply

Gentlemen, the new Macbook Air is reportedly in short supply:

The Air

And indeed, it is the top selling Mac on the Apple Store website. Are we to conclude that the Air is a hit, or is this simply supply shortage with Apple failing to accurately predict demand? It would be surprising to me if the Air retained this position even ahead of the Macbook, given the Macbook's excellent value (in my humble opinion).

Apple to buy Yahoo?

There have been rumors, albiet weak rumors, that Apple may be considering buying Yahoo. One of these rumors teams up Newscorp with Apple in the purchase. Some of the reasons given for the reason for Apple to want Yahoo include the following. Apple could use Yahoo to expand the .Mac vision which Apple has yet to see take off. Apple would have an automatic inroad into China for marketing all of its products. And the idea that Apple feels it could fix the search engine business.

Personally, I don't give this idea any credence based on how Apple operates in the past. They are the new product dreamers. Yahoo seems to be a hodgepodge of almost good online products. It would take a super organizer to sort through the Yahoo mess and find what is of value and what is a wasted effort. Apple doesn't fix other peoples messes. They start from scratch and fix things from the ground up.

Now for the contrarian view. How would Apple benefit from having Yahoo? They have a large customer base, which may not be as big as Google but is still quite large. So if Apple did buy Yahoo, would they just rewrite how the company operates into the Apple way of doing business? Simplifying their core business to a handful of functions. This may be plausible, but can Apple even be in the running to buy Yahoo if the deep pockets of MS are there to easily outbid Apple. But buyouts are not just the highest bidder. Yahoo stockholders may feel that in the long run, Apple would generate more money for Yahoo than the initial jump if MS buys them. And what would this do to the relationship with Google?

It is an interesting proposition, which if Apple jumps into would change the type of company they are once again.

Blue Ray Triumphs!

Well, Stitch, my wish has come true - Blue Ray is the next generation DVD standard! It is exciting, but obviously one needs the high definition TV to go with it! Do you guys have one? I'm hoping that with Blue Ray victorious, it might spur more High Def Tv purchases and drive the price down more. What do you guys think?