Ars technica offers a tutorial on getting videos into your iPod.
Time magazine has a funny look on how the video-enabled iPod will help the obese children of America.
A PC magazine article reviews the top digital music players in the market. It's no surprise that Apple keeps coming out on top. So the article goes into the exciting race for second place. The review covers the best in the flash-based and harddrive-based players, who gives the best sound, and even the ones least likely to be recommended. Apple's Achilles heel, according to the article, is that about 9% of iPod owners had to return their units within 12 months of purchasing the unit.
Stephen Wildstrom says that it was love at first sight for the 5G iPod, and asks what makes Apple stay competitive in the digital media market. His answer: Apple's single overarching concern for delivering a great user experience. There has been other media devices that offered video playback but it's the pain of getting content into the device that prevented these devices from becoming widely accepted. Unlike when the first iPods came out, users of the 5G iPod didn't have to wait for quite some time before content became available. The 5G iPod came out together with offerings from Disney and ABC on iTMS, as well as the video podcasts that were already available even before the video-enabled iPod came out. User-friendliness and the focus on consumers makes Apple stay on top of its competitors.
TV Critic says that the latest iPod have the broadcast industry panicking over the thought that people will stop watching television. The TV Critic feels that convenience and portability aare enough to lure people away from their 30 plus inch TV screen and to the 2.5 inch screen of the 5G iPod. I don't think these broadcast bigwigs are even thinking of panicking. There are not that many who are interested in getting an iPod so just they can watch their favorite TV programs on-the-go.
So there's no need to panic, especially since Paul Thurrott likes the 5G iPod! It's true, he really likes it. He is impressed with two things: how good the video formats are the iPod uses and the show "Lost". In his on words:I'm suddenly hooked on the TV show "Lost." I purchased the show's premiere episode via iTunes to test the iPod, and now my wife and I are several episodes in and there's no turning back.
Scratches and scandals
Consumer Reports, after claiming 20% of Mac users have had virus in their systems, now says that the new iPods are indeed scratch-prone, and further claims that the screens are softer.
Here's one writer who feels the pain that these plaintiffs are undergoing. He plans to sue Saab and Rayban for the scratches after he used it several times.
Seriously, Macsimumnews asks the question of whether the scratchable iPod nano screen is worth the trouble of a lawsuit. The core of the lawsuit I think is that the lawyers are claiming Apple deliberately ignore the design flaw in the nano that make it scratch-prone. But the writer, who is a nano owner, says the after weeks of owning it, he has not seen any evidence that the nano is ended a scratch magnet.
APC Mag uncovers the scandal or scam that's going on in iTunes. It has something to do with some albums that may seem to be priced the same as other albums but when you look at the tracks, almost a third are actually just intros or commentatiries about the ablum or a song. Another scandal they have uncovered is that in case a person's PC with his iTunes songs in it are stolen, Apple will not allow people to re-download the songs they have downloaded before. It has something to do with right issues, an Apple executive says, and besides, music labels won't replace your collection if you get your CDs stolen. Good point. Oh, by the way, APC Mag is published by NineMSN. It figures.
Other iPod News
Sony's quarterly profit drops by almost a half. This is due to cheaper Asian rivals, getting on late in puttting out flat-panel TVs, and being really behind Apple when it comes to digital music player sales.
iPod and iTunes news
Apple News: iMac on MacWorld, SteveJack on FrontRow; Lemming on predictions; Hannibal asks why
The new iMac G5 serves as a digital entertainment hub, according to MacWorld, and it covers what's new under the hood of the slimmer, new iMac. The latest iMacs sport faster processors, new internal components, two new softwares, a built-in iSight, and an infrared remote control to use with one of the new software.
After the introduction, MacWorld then benchmarks this new PC and reveals that even though the newer iMacs have a slower processor than its predecessor, it does better in most benchmarking tests thanks to newer components like a faster memory and better performing graphics.
MacWorld will publish a review on the new iMacs soon.
SteveJack of MacDailyNews tested Apple's latest media software, FrontRow, for over a week and finds it as a deceptively simple application, and that's where FrontRow's strength lies: it's simplicity. What are Apple's plans for the future of the digital hub?
The Great Lemming tries to predict the future of Apple. Among his predictions are: a PDA-like iPod device; 19-inch 'books, multi-card readers and iPod docks on Macs, and 45-inch Appe displays. Ummmm... I don't think so.
Hannibal of Ars Technica asks why, with the new PowerPC chips available, did Apple ever made the switch to Intel? Hannibal thinks that it was impossibe for Apple not to have known the jaw dropping PowerPC chips from P.A. Semi (the developer of the chip). Ultimately, he surmises that Apple has decided that the Mac computers are no longer the foundation of Apple will build its future on.
Not-Apple news
Microsoft threatens South Korea that they will withdraw Windows if South Korea's fair trade commission forces them to remove Window's built-in instant messaging system and media player. Will the world see a significant jump in productivity in South Korea?
Get to know Steve Jobs
The Writers Block Live by, Mike Evangelist, will publish a book about what it was like to work for Steve Jobs and tries to shake off the myth of Jobs' reality distortion field and other things that is suppose to make Steve Jobs Steve Jobs.
Read an excerpt of the book entitled Jobs I've Known at Writers Block Live. Just a snippet:
He is extremely demanding of all those around him and has a very low tolerance for anything but excellence. Because he can be shockingly blunt in his dealings with others, he is often portrayed as abusive, but this is dead wrong. He simply demands/expects great things from everyone around him. I honestly believe he can’t understand why anyone would want to waste their time doing anything less than great.
The Independent onine edition talks to Steve Jobs and asks him what drives him, how he chooses a washing machine, and what that he bought recently has gotten him excited. Very interesting read. Heck, I'll just post it here.
Steve Jobs: The guru behind Apple
He's chief executive of two of the most powerful technology brands in the world: Apple and Pixar. But what motivates Steve Jobs? And how does he choose a new washing machine? Charles Arthur investigates
Published: 29 October 2005
Imagine the scenario: a billionaire walks into a mobile phone shop. The sales assistant says, "Can I help you?" but gets the reply "Just looking, thank you." The man tries a few phones, lifting his glasses to look at the detail of the display. He presses a couple of buttons. He shakes his head. He could buy any phone in the shop; in fact he could buy the shop, or even buy the chain. But he doesn't. He walks out, empty-handed.
It sounds like an urban myth but it could be a day in the life of Steve Jobs, who is chief executive of two technology companies that are admired both inside and outside their respective industries: Apple (which makes the iPod and a range of computers) and Pixar (which made the films Toy Story and The Incredibles). Apple made him a multi-millionaire, Pixar made him a billionaire, and the two mean that at the age of 50 he has cemented a unique position as a force in computing, consumer electronics (through the iPod), the music business (the iPod again) and Hollywood.
And despite all that, he still can't choose a mobile phone. (How nice to find you have something in common with such people.) His problem, he says, is that he can't find things that satisfy him. "I end up not buying a lot of things," he says, carefully, when I ask how he chooses what to buy from the myriad of gadgets and technologies in the shops. "Because I find them ridiculous."
I'm in an anonymous underground room in Paris with Jobs and a large group of journalists, in a floor below a conference centre where people are flocking to a showcase of Apple products and services, a cacophony of promotional videos and software demonstrations with amplified voice accompaniment by eager geeks. But here, it's quiet. Jobs is dressed in his trademark black turtleneck sweater and blue jeans, and trainers. The only gadgetry here is an iPod nano, the credit card-sized player he has just launched.
Despite his rock-star approach to unveiling new gizmos, Jobs has no great love of the media, which has from time to time exposed details about his private life that he would rather keep to himself. Thus he is a prickly interviewee, disliking personal questions, always aiming to turn the conversation back to his companies and their output. Though outwardly friendly, with an easy smile, in time he betrays his impatience through his hands and shoulders.
Suggest something he disagrees with - such as that there might be demand for an FM tuner in the iPod - and he'll respond with the unprovable "People don't want that." Questions he deems foolish are themselves rebuffed with a brusque question, such as "Oh yeah? Who?"
A friend who once worked at Apple suggested to me that "Steve basically thinks of the press as insects." Certainly, he is hard to engage at a personal level. And journalists are always at a disadvantage to Jobs, which may be just how he likes it. He has the insider knowledge of which way the technological river is flowing. When I questioned him, Apple had not launched its video-enabled iPod, nor begun selling videos from its online music store. But to me it seemed obvious that would happen, and soon. Isn't it a logical next step, I asked?
"Whether people will buy a device just to watch video - it's not clear," Jobs replied easily. "So far the answer's been no, because there are several devices out which play video and none of them has been successful yet. So, um - so far, nobody's figured out the right formula."
What's missing from the other devices already on sale, then?
"Well, uh, if we knew then I probably shouldn't talk about it," Jobs beamed. Three weeks later, he did talk about it, holding aloft the video iPod he had known then was ready: "Never before has it been done where you can buy hit, network, prime-time shows online the day after they air on TV and watch them on your computer and iPod." Whether it's the right formula remains to be seen, of course.
So, looking forward, what does he see? For example, will TVs and computers merge? "Our personal belief is that while there's an opportunity to apply software to the living room, the merging of the computer and the TV isn't going to happen. They're really different things. So yes, you want to share some information [between the two], but people who are planning to put computers into the living room, like they are today, I'm not sure they're going to have a big success." That's a no, then.
He is disparaging about approaching development backwards. Home networking wirelessly whizzing music and video around the house? "I think in the future you'll see some of that, but you've got to be sure it's not a technology in search of a problem." Wireless headphones for your iPod? "It means you not only have to recharge the iPod, you have to recharge the headphones, and people don't want to do that - so again, I think it's like so much f you see: a technology in search of a problem."
But when he's got a problem that needs some technology to solve it, he can be as painstaking as he is about his computer company's output. He once described how he and his family chose a new washing machine. Not for them a cursory study of the spin speed and price tag; instead they discussed European versus American design, relative water use, detergent demands, everything. When I remind him of this, he smiles slowly, and says, "Yeah, but you have to have a washing machine, right?" It's all the other things that frustrate him. So how does he choose things? "Same as you," he says slowly. "We're both busy and we both don't have a lot of time to learn how to use a washing machine or to use a phone - you get one of the phones now and you're never going to learn more than 5 per cent of the features." He's talking much faster now, accelerating in frustration. "You're never going to use more than 5 per cent, and, uh, it's very complicated. So you end up using just 5 per cent. It's insane: we all have busy lives, we have jobs and we have interests and some of us have children, everyone's lives are just getting busier, not less busy, in this busy society. You just don't have time to learn this stuff, and everything's getting more complicated."
That frustration is characteristic of the man. Jobs, 50 last February, is notoriously finicky about the tiniest details of the products that Apple produces. (He gets less involved in Pixar's output.) The iPod's success largely derives from its ease of use, which derives from his insistence, when shown prototypes, that one should be able to pick any piece of music within three button presses from turning it on.
It's remarkable that Jobs is still about. By rights, he should have disappeared decades ago, after being kicked out of Apple in 1985 and starting up another computer company that couldn't make a profit, and buying an animation company that almost bled him dry (and which he tried to sell several times).
Yet NeXT Computer was bought by Apple, throwing him a lifeline which let him take charge again of his creation. And Pixar Animation, which Jobs co-founded in 1986, came up trumps with the first totally computer-generated feature film, Toy Story, giving him leverage over the all-powerful Disney and making him a billionaire in its stock-market floatation.
Still, Apple was just chugging along before the iPod relaunched it in October 2001. The ubiquitous small white machines now generate just under half of its $14bn revenues, and are still growing.
It sounds easy enough. But Jobs has rarely been offered, and rarely taken, the simple path. The son of a college student and a political science professor, he was adopted by a family led by a machinist at a laser manufacturer. Although his birth mother had made it a condition of his adoption that his new parents get him to attend university, he dropped out of Reed College in Portland, Oregon, after just six months. But then he became a "drop-in" back at Reed, attending only the courses, such as calligraphy, that interested him, while scratching an existence earning a few cents recycling cans and eating for free each week at the local Hare Krishna temple.
He got a job with the games company Atari, then left to travel in India. On his return, he worked for Hewlett-Packard before setting up Apple Computer in 1976 in the Jobs family garage with former school friend and computer hacker Steve Wozniak.
Apple grew and prospered, and so did Jobs; the Macintosh introduced the idea of "windows" and "mice" to the wider world. Microsoft adopted the idea and made it famous, continuing a long rivalry between Jobs and Bill Gates that stretches forwards and back in computing history. While Jobs obsessed over details, Microsoft steamrollered its way into companies and took over the world.
What's peculiar is that Gates has frequently been wrong about the overall direction of technology. His 1995 book The Road Ahead is full of clunkers about how life would develop; Microsoft barely realised that the internet was coming along.
By contrast, you'd be unwise to bet against Jobs. In 1996, when NeXT Computer had already failed in its attempts to sell hardware (and so was having to concentrate on software), he gave a long interview to Wired magazine. In it he forecast that Microsoft wouldn't find out a way to own the Web, that nobody would make money from web browsers, that the Web would be a huge hit for commerce (at a time when Amazon was barely six months old), and that the internet would revolutionise the supply of manufactured goods, by letting consumers specify fine detail of their desired product which could be relayed back to factories. Dell Computer, for example, works on precisely that basis. And Dell is by far the most profitable of the computer manufacturers. Jobs tends to be right about the direction of technology.
He has been wrong a few times, though. At NeXT, he thought people would pay a huge premium for an overdesigned cube-shaped computer (it had a laser-cut magnesium case; most manufacturers just used injection-moulded plastic). Only 50,000 were sold over eight years. At Apple, he thought people would pay a premium for a cube-shaped computer, the Cube; they didn't. In the same year, 2000, he thought people would prefer to watch DVDs on their computers, rather than making their own music compilations by "burning" CDs. They didn't. But he learnt from the latter mistake: Apple immediately bought in a music-playing program called SoundJam and its developer, Jeff Robbin. SoundJam became iTunes, the program that feeds the iPod, and Robbin leads its software side.
What has helped Jobs back from his errors is his ability with people. From a point of minimal leverage he has bettered both the Disney corporation and the record labels, two of the toughest (legal) negotiators on earth. Disney gave Pixar a favourable deal; the record companies licensed the iTunes Music Store, which has more than 75 per cent of the entire legal music download market.
Alan Deutschmann, a journalist who researched Jobs's middle years for a biography called The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, believes he displays two personalities in his dealings with people: Good Steve and Bad Steve. The Good side is charming, and can make people believe almost anything; that's the side on public view at the rock-star product launches. He's been said to have a "reality distortion field" - by a mixture of charm and exaggeration, he can make you believe pretty much anything. But once he's walked away, you're sometimes left thinking "Huh?" Or as Bud Tribble, another of the early Macintosh employees, described it: "In his presence, reality is malleable. He can convince anyone of practically anything." But, he added, "It wears off when he's not around." (Tribble, too, still works at Apple.)
When the Good Steve system hasn't worked, or isn't needed, there's Bad Steve. He can get furiously angry, an emotion reserved for private moments with staff or those he thinks have been disloyal or useless. And his relationship with the media has its ups and downs, too. While he loves hobnobbing with celebrities, he hates being treated like one, and Apple's relationship with the press reflects that.
"Apple manipulates several narratives to continue to make its products interesting fodder for journalists," comments Jack Shafer, editor-at-large of the webzine Slate. "One is the never-ending story of mad genius Steve Jobs, who would be great copy even if he were only the night manager of a Domino's pizza joint."
He probably wouldn't stay night manager for long, if he were. Jobs is a fiendishly good negotiator, a skill honed in the 1970s, when he charmed every supplier in Silicon Valley into providing parts for the first Apple computers. It's this ability that makes him valuable to Pixar, where Jobs isn't so involved in the production side (that is handled by John Lasseter). Jobs's role was to write the cheques (which nearly bankrupted him, until the company was floated) and barter with film studios. Which he did with accomplishment: Disney gave in to Pixar, and is presently trying to woo it back to a new distribution deal - a deal that Jobs is making Disney give up all sorts of favours for, like providing content in the form of TV shows for his Apple iTunes store. The giant Disney, kowtowing to the tiny Apple? A bizarre reversal.
Viewing his life, one feels that Jobs, a Buddhist, came into some serious karma in his previous existences. Not only is he a billionaire but last year he fought off pancreatic cancer, usually a quick and efficient killer. He had a scan and was told it was a tumour that would almost certainly be fatal. He was told to go home and "get his affairs in order" - "which is doctors' code for 'prepare to die'. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means ... to say your goodbyes."
That evening he had a biopsy: it turned out to be a rare form of pancreatic cancer that makes up just 1 per cent of cases and, crucially, is curable with surgery. Talk about your karma payoff. And yet with all that karma accumulated and dissipated, Jobs doesn't believe that technology is going to change the world. "This stuff doesn't change the world. It really doesn't ... Technologies can make it easier, can let us touch people we might not otherwise. But it's a disservice to constantly put things in a radical new light - that it's going to change everything. Things don't have to change the world to be important."
So then finally, what is the last piece of technology that he acquired - not made by Apple - that really delighted him? He pauses for long seconds, looks down, puts his hands on his knees, looks away. "I actually bought a bicycle recently. It's just ... wonderful."
And how did he choose it? What sort of bike? What's so great about it?
He holds a hand up. "That's as far into my private life as I want to go," he says. And with that, Steve Jobs moves on again.
The Apple story
1976 Apple Computer founded with Steve Wozniak in Jobs's parents' garage. Apple I computer introduced.
1977 Apple II computer launched, the first mass-market personal computer with colour graphics. (IBM's monochrome PC was still four years away.)
1983 The Lisa computer, the forerunner to the Macintosh, launched. It uses "windows" and a "mouse".
1984 The Apple Macintosh, the first general-purpose computer to use windows and mouse, launched.
1985 Jobs fired from Apple. He founds NeXT Computer.
1986 Jobs co-founds Pixar Animation around the remnants of George Lucas's computer graphics division, which he buys for $10m.
1989 The NeXT Computer - an expensive black cube - introduced.
1993 NeXT ceases making computers, having sold just 50,000 in four years, and concentrates on selling its software.
1995 Pixar releases Toy Story, the first feature-length film that is completely computer-generated.
1996 Deep in financial trouble, Apple Computer, led by Gil Amelio, buys NeXT for $402m, bringing Jobs back into the fold. He insists he is not trying to take over the company.
1997 Jobs replaces Amelio as "interim chief executive".
1997 Apple introduces its first iMac.
2001 Apple introduces the first iPod. It is a slow-burning hit. In the first year it sells about 400,000. To date more than 21 million have been sold.
2005 Jobs unveils the tiny iPod nano and a new iPod capable of playing video.
Imagine the scenario: a billionaire walks into a mobile phone shop. The sales assistant says, "Can I help you?" but gets the reply "Just looking, thank you." The man tries a few phones, lifting his glasses to look at the detail of the display. He presses a couple of buttons. He shakes his head. He could buy any phone in the shop; in fact he could buy the shop, or even buy the chain. But he doesn't. He walks out, empty-handed.
It sounds like an urban myth but it could be a day in the life of Steve Jobs, who is chief executive of two technology companies that are admired both inside and outside their respective industries: Apple (which makes the iPod and a range of computers) and Pixar (which made the films Toy Story and The Incredibles). Apple made him a multi-millionaire, Pixar made him a billionaire, and the two mean that at the age of 50 he has cemented a unique position as a force in computing, consumer electronics (through the iPod), the music business (the iPod again) and Hollywood.
And despite all that, he still can't choose a mobile phone. (How nice to find you have something in common with such people.) His problem, he says, is that he can't find things that satisfy him. "I end up not buying a lot of things," he says, carefully, when I ask how he chooses what to buy from the myriad of gadgets and technologies in the shops. "Because I find them ridiculous."
I'm in an anonymous underground room in Paris with Jobs and a large group of journalists, in a floor below a conference centre where people are flocking to a showcase of Apple products and services, a cacophony of promotional videos and software demonstrations with amplified voice accompaniment by eager geeks. But here, it's quiet. Jobs is dressed in his trademark black turtleneck sweater and blue jeans, and trainers. The only gadgetry here is an iPod nano, the credit card-sized player he has just launched.
Despite his rock-star approach to unveiling new gizmos, Jobs has no great love of the media, which has from time to time exposed details about his private life that he would rather keep to himself. Thus he is a prickly interviewee, disliking personal questions, always aiming to turn the conversation back to his companies and their output. Though outwardly friendly, with an easy smile, in time he betrays his impatience through his hands and shoulders.
Suggest something he disagrees with - such as that there might be demand for an FM tuner in the iPod - and he'll respond with the unprovable "People don't want that." Questions he deems foolish are themselves rebuffed with a brusque question, such as "Oh yeah? Who?"
A friend who once worked at Apple suggested to me that "Steve basically thinks of the press as insects." Certainly, he is hard to engage at a personal level. And journalists are always at a disadvantage to Jobs, which may be just how he likes it. He has the insider knowledge of which way the technological river is flowing. When I questioned him, Apple had not launched its video-enabled iPod, nor begun selling videos from its online music store. But to me it seemed obvious that would happen, and soon. Isn't it a logical next step, I asked?
"Whether people will buy a device just to watch video - it's not clear," Jobs replied easily. "So far the answer's been no, because there are several devices out which play video and none of them has been successful yet. So, um - so far, nobody's figured out the right formula."
What's missing from the other devices already on sale, then?
"Well, uh, if we knew then I probably shouldn't talk about it," Jobs beamed. Three weeks later, he did talk about it, holding aloft the video iPod he had known then was ready: "Never before has it been done where you can buy hit, network, prime-time shows online the day after they air on TV and watch them on your computer and iPod." Whether it's the right formula remains to be seen, of course.
So, looking forward, what does he see? For example, will TVs and computers merge? "Our personal belief is that while there's an opportunity to apply software to the living room, the merging of the computer and the TV isn't going to happen. They're really different things. So yes, you want to share some information [between the two], but people who are planning to put computers into the living room, like they are today, I'm not sure they're going to have a big success." That's a no, then.
He is disparaging about approaching development backwards. Home networking wirelessly whizzing music and video around the house? "I think in the future you'll see some of that, but you've got to be sure it's not a technology in search of a problem." Wireless headphones for your iPod? "It means you not only have to recharge the iPod, you have to recharge the headphones, and people don't want to do that - so again, I think it's like so much f you see: a technology in search of a problem."
But when he's got a problem that needs some technology to solve it, he can be as painstaking as he is about his computer company's output. He once described how he and his family chose a new washing machine. Not for them a cursory study of the spin speed and price tag; instead they discussed European versus American design, relative water use, detergent demands, everything. When I remind him of this, he smiles slowly, and says, "Yeah, but you have to have a washing machine, right?" It's all the other things that frustrate him. So how does he choose things? "Same as you," he says slowly. "We're both busy and we both don't have a lot of time to learn how to use a washing machine or to use a phone - you get one of the phones now and you're never going to learn more than 5 per cent of the features." He's talking much faster now, accelerating in frustration. "You're never going to use more than 5 per cent, and, uh, it's very complicated. So you end up using just 5 per cent. It's insane: we all have busy lives, we have jobs and we have interests and some of us have children, everyone's lives are just getting busier, not less busy, in this busy society. You just don't have time to learn this stuff, and everything's getting more complicated."
That frustration is characteristic of the man. Jobs, 50 last February, is notoriously finicky about the tiniest details of the products that Apple produces. (He gets less involved in Pixar's output.) The iPod's success largely derives from its ease of use, which derives from his insistence, when shown prototypes, that one should be able to pick any piece of music within three button presses from turning it on.
It's remarkable that Jobs is still about. By rights, he should have disappeared decades ago, after being kicked out of Apple in 1985 and starting up another computer company that couldn't make a profit, and buying an animation company that almost bled him dry (and which he tried to sell several times).
Yet NeXT Computer was bought by Apple, throwing him a lifeline which let him take charge again of his creation. And Pixar Animation, which Jobs co-founded in 1986, came up trumps with the first totally computer-generated feature film, Toy Story, giving him leverage over the all-powerful Disney and making him a billionaire in its stock-market floatation.
Still, Apple was just chugging along before the iPod relaunched it in October 2001. The ubiquitous small white machines now generate just under half of its $14bn revenues, and are still growing.
It sounds easy enough. But Jobs has rarely been offered, and rarely taken, the simple path. The son of a college student and a political science professor, he was adopted by a family led by a machinist at a laser manufacturer. Although his birth mother had made it a condition of his adoption that his new parents get him to attend university, he dropped out of Reed College in Portland, Oregon, after just six months. But then he became a "drop-in" back at Reed, attending only the courses, such as calligraphy, that interested him, while scratching an existence earning a few cents recycling cans and eating for free each week at the local Hare Krishna temple.
He got a job with the games company Atari, then left to travel in India. On his return, he worked for Hewlett-Packard before setting up Apple Computer in 1976 in the Jobs family garage with former school friend and computer hacker Steve Wozniak.
Apple grew and prospered, and so did Jobs; the Macintosh introduced the idea of "windows" and "mice" to the wider world. Microsoft adopted the idea and made it famous, continuing a long rivalry between Jobs and Bill Gates that stretches forwards and back in computing history. While Jobs obsessed over details, Microsoft steamrollered its way into companies and took over the world.
What's peculiar is that Gates has frequently been wrong about the overall direction of technology. His 1995 book The Road Ahead is full of clunkers about how life would develop; Microsoft barely realised that the internet was coming along.
By contrast, you'd be unwise to bet against Jobs. In 1996, when NeXT Computer had already failed in its attempts to sell hardware (and so was having to concentrate on software), he gave a long interview to Wired magazine. In it he forecast that Microsoft wouldn't find out a way to own the Web, that nobody would make money from web browsers, that the Web would be a huge hit for commerce (at a time when Amazon was barely six months old), and that the internet would revolutionise the supply of manufactured goods, by letting consumers specify fine detail of their desired product which could be relayed back to factories. Dell Computer, for example, works on precisely that basis. And Dell is by far the most profitable of the computer manufacturers. Jobs tends to be right about the direction of technology.
He has been wrong a few times, though. At NeXT, he thought people would pay a huge premium for an overdesigned cube-shaped computer (it had a laser-cut magnesium case; most manufacturers just used injection-moulded plastic). Only 50,000 were sold over eight years. At Apple, he thought people would pay a premium for a cube-shaped computer, the Cube; they didn't. In the same year, 2000, he thought people would prefer to watch DVDs on their computers, rather than making their own music compilations by "burning" CDs. They didn't. But he learnt from the latter mistake: Apple immediately bought in a music-playing program called SoundJam and its developer, Jeff Robbin. SoundJam became iTunes, the program that feeds the iPod, and Robbin leads its software side.
What has helped Jobs back from his errors is his ability with people. From a point of minimal leverage he has bettered both the Disney corporation and the record labels, two of the toughest (legal) negotiators on earth. Disney gave Pixar a favourable deal; the record companies licensed the iTunes Music Store, which has more than 75 per cent of the entire legal music download market.
Alan Deutschmann, a journalist who researched Jobs's middle years for a biography called The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, believes he displays two personalities in his dealings with people: Good Steve and Bad Steve. The Good side is charming, and can make people believe almost anything; that's the side on public view at the rock-star product launches. He's been said to have a "reality distortion field" - by a mixture of charm and exaggeration, he can make you believe pretty much anything. But once he's walked away, you're sometimes left thinking "Huh?" Or as Bud Tribble, another of the early Macintosh employees, described it: "In his presence, reality is malleable. He can convince anyone of practically anything." But, he added, "It wears off when he's not around." (Tribble, too, still works at Apple.)
When the Good Steve system hasn't worked, or isn't needed, there's Bad Steve. He can get furiously angry, an emotion reserved for private moments with staff or those he thinks have been disloyal or useless. And his relationship with the media has its ups and downs, too. While he loves hobnobbing with celebrities, he hates being treated like one, and Apple's relationship with the press reflects that.
"Apple manipulates several narratives to continue to make its products interesting fodder for journalists," comments Jack Shafer, editor-at-large of the webzine Slate. "One is the never-ending story of mad genius Steve Jobs, who would be great copy even if he were only the night manager of a Domino's pizza joint."
He probably wouldn't stay night manager for long, if he were. Jobs is a fiendishly good negotiator, a skill honed in the 1970s, when he charmed every supplier in Silicon Valley into providing parts for the first Apple computers. It's this ability that makes him valuable to Pixar, where Jobs isn't so involved in the production side (that is handled by John Lasseter). Jobs's role was to write the cheques (which nearly bankrupted him, until the company was floated) and barter with film studios. Which he did with accomplishment: Disney gave in to Pixar, and is presently trying to woo it back to a new distribution deal - a deal that Jobs is making Disney give up all sorts of favours for, like providing content in the form of TV shows for his Apple iTunes store. The giant Disney, kowtowing to the tiny Apple? A bizarre reversal.
Viewing his life, one feels that Jobs, a Buddhist, came into some serious karma in his previous existences. Not only is he a billionaire but last year he fought off pancreatic cancer, usually a quick and efficient killer. He had a scan and was told it was a tumour that would almost certainly be fatal. He was told to go home and "get his affairs in order" - "which is doctors' code for 'prepare to die'. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means ... to say your goodbyes."
That evening he had a biopsy: it turned out to be a rare form of pancreatic cancer that makes up just 1 per cent of cases and, crucially, is curable with surgery. Talk about your karma payoff. And yet with all that karma accumulated and dissipated, Jobs doesn't believe that technology is going to change the world. "This stuff doesn't change the world. It really doesn't ... Technologies can make it easier, can let us touch people we might not otherwise. But it's a disservice to constantly put things in a radical new light - that it's going to change everything. Things don't have to change the world to be important."
So then finally, what is the last piece of technology that he acquired - not made by Apple - that really delighted him? He pauses for long seconds, looks down, puts his hands on his knees, looks away. "I actually bought a bicycle recently. It's just ... wonderful."
And how did he choose it? What sort of bike? What's so great about it?
He holds a hand up. "That's as far into my private life as I want to go," he says. And with that, Steve Jobs moves on again.
The Apple story
1976 Apple Computer founded with Steve Wozniak in Jobs's parents' garage. Apple I computer introduced.
1977 Apple II computer launched, the first mass-market personal computer with colour graphics. (IBM's monochrome PC was still four years away.)
1983 The Lisa computer, the forerunner to the Macintosh, launched. It uses "windows" and a "mouse".
1984 The Apple Macintosh, the first general-purpose computer to use windows and mouse, launched.
1985 Jobs fired from Apple. He founds NeXT Computer.
1986 Jobs co-founds Pixar Animation around the remnants of George Lucas's computer graphics division, which he buys for $10m.
1989 The NeXT Computer - an expensive black cube - introduced.
1993 NeXT ceases making computers, having sold just 50,000 in four years, and concentrates on selling its software.
1995 Pixar releases Toy Story, the first feature-length film that is completely computer-generated.
1996 Deep in financial trouble, Apple Computer, led by Gil Amelio, buys NeXT for $402m, bringing Jobs back into the fold. He insists he is not trying to take over the company.
1997 Jobs replaces Amelio as "interim chief executive".
1997 Apple introduces its first iMac.
2001 Apple introduces the first iPod. It is a slow-burning hit. In the first year it sells about 400,000. To date more than 21 million have been sold.
2005 Jobs unveils the tiny iPod nano and a new iPod capable of playing video.
Cartoon for your iPod
Channel Frederator will send you a new cartoon for your iPod every week. The people behind Channel Frederator the same guys that made Fairly Oddparents, the only cartoon I enjoy watching these days.
So check them out. Perhaps I might just get the 60GB iPod with all these audio and video podcasts, and cartoons, not to mention my music. I got to ask how much the 60GB cost from Microwarehouse.
Hacks
Get your Mac mini (or any other Macs for that matter) to run Front Row.
Learn how to encode video for the 5G iPod without Quicktime Pro.
Update: November 1, 2005
An open source application, Handbrake, let's you convert DVD content to MPEG4 so it can play on your 5G iPod.
November 4, 2005
Another application, MoviesForMyPod, claims to make putting movies into your iPod easier.
November 21, 2005
Another tutorial for Handbrake entitled "Rip DVD's for your iPod Video [sic]" is now available. I've tried Handbrake before and it's pretty straightforward. All you have to remember are the settings that's best for the 5G iPod.
All about the Apple
Apple spends 200 million on iPod ads. Apple scores more with talent and innovation. Apple still continues to dominate with the iPod+iTunes seamless integration.
A tribute to Rosa Parks
Apple dedicates a webage to Rosa Parks, a black woman who lived during the era of racial segregation in the United States. Her defiance sparked the change in the country where only Caucasians were recognized as human beings. I wish for someone like Rosa Parks in a country where racism is an accepted norm, even if you are a racist against your own race.
Rosa Louise Parks, 1913-2005
Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They're not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They invent. They imagine. They heal.
They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that's never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
We make tools for these kinds of people.
While some see them as the crazy ones, We see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
- Apple Computer
Just stuff...
News is all around that the iPod nano scratches easily and it was just a matter of time before the sharks smell the blood. A lawsuit has already been filed buy one disgruntled nano owner after scratching his nano with a piece of tissue paper. But one writer thinks that the lawsuit will only benefit the attorneys.
An analyst warns that consumer electronics companies should fear Apple with its gently prodding of the masses towards the Mac platform. But Apple users also have something to fear. Because Apple is a closed system with its Mac OS and iPod digital music player, a time may come that Microsoft or Sony will gain the upper hand and wrest from the iPod and iTMS' dominance in the market. What will happen is millions of iPod owners left out in the cold.
While Apple is sneaking up unawares, a judge scolded Microsoft for proposing to make an exclusive Microsoft-music player.
Where is the iPod-killer? It's been about a year since Apple's competitors have been trumpting around for the "iPod-killer" and yet nothing has happened yet. If you want to get a glimpse of the *snicker* iPod-killer and a couple of laughs, click here.
Paul Thurrott calls the iPod as "the new standard by which all are measured", and highly recommends it. A Chicago Tribune writer in the meantime calls the iPod 5G as a showstopper, and what separates the 5G iPod from other video capable players is the ease of downloading video for the player.
A writer asks, "Why do you own a Mac?", and he says his justification for switching was because of a Mac was the best solution for integration with his newly bought digital camera.
Macs, the other meat.
Let's get right to it.
David Pogue thinks that the new iMac earns a place in the living room citing the style and the new entertainment capabilities of the new iMac as enticing enough to put it in the public area of your house for your visitors to gawk at.
A writer dumps his Dell and gets for himself an iMac. But he feels left out by not being able to use Ad-Aware (wtf???) and Google Maps. Still, the trade off was worth it with a computer that was a joy to use.
Mac sales are said to be increasing 45% every year. So the question is, can the resurgence of the Mac last?
A writer thinks that enable for Apple to win the OS coup, it should license out their Mac OS license. But some Mac users disagree. It's not just about the OS, but the user experience as well. If every Tom, Dick, and Harry started putting Tiger in every biege or blue or black boxes out there, then the Apple mystique goes away. But, hey, it's just me. I'm the same guy that takes photos of boxes.
More cheers and jeers, plus reviews and news
Let's take a look at all the things that has been said about the 5G iPod for the past week.
Boos and yahoos!
Apple will always have its share of supporters and naysayers. One example of the latter is the Great Lemming, saying that though a lot were excited with the release of the new iPod, more people were not.
But from one disenchanted lemming, there were more praises for the new 5G iPod. David Pogue of the New York Times calls it "an iPod worth keeping an eye on." He talks about the iPod and the most recent innovation of getting TV programs online to stuff your iPod with. The 'video iPod' is an ongoing experiment that is very much like the first iPod and iTunes, which in time would grow into something bigger than what it is today. Or maybe not.
David Colker of the LA Times says that with the short time he had with the new iPod, he got hooked on "Desperate Housewives." After watching for several minutes, the screen and the new toy disappeared. All he's experiencing is watching a TV show.
The Motley Fool thinks that the video-enabled iPod will save the TV industry pretty much what the first iPods did for the music industry. Even though there's just three companies that are providing content, evetually more will come. (Build it...)
Reviews
It wasn't before long that reviews will start cropping up. So far those who have come out with reviews are:iLounge, Ars Technica, and Playlist.com. It was only given a B+ by iLounge for current iPod owners and power users. They feel that the new iPod doesn't bring in anything new or worthy, that existing iPod owners should run out and get one. But they do give a "A-" rating for first time iPod buyers.
Ars Technica gives it an 8 out of 10, echoing the same sentiment as iLounge had that Clint Ecker didn't feel the need to go out and get a 30GB video enabled iPod in exchange for his current 40GB iPod. However, just like iLounge, first time buyers are getting a good buy with this one. They aso have posted the Top Ten Things Techies Wanted to Know About the 5G iPod.
Last but not the least, Playlistmag.com gives it a 4 out of 5, and cites cons such as no Firewire support, no included charger, makes some older peripherals obsolete, and Apple doesn't offer great solution for converting videos for the new iPod. But for those who only have USB 2.0 (which is most people) the 5G iPod is a compelling buy with its sleek design and its ease of use.
And more reviews...
Here's one for the Apple box fetish. Some guy named Matt got a 60GB 5G iPod on his borthday and took pictures while he opened the box and as he fondled his black 60GB 5G iPod. He also posted his first impressions.
CBS News echoes the same sentiment: if you got one already, you're not likely to rush out to get one. But for a first timer, it's a sweet, sweet experience. And with the new iPod, Apple will continue to dominate the digital media market.
USA Today columnist Edward Baig remarks that "even if you never watch a second of video... the world's foremost portable music players have gotten only better.
Connected Home Magazine calls the latest iPod new standard by which all portable media players are measured.
Not really a review, but BusinessWeek takes a look at
the innards of the 5G iPod and see what makes it tick.
PC Magazine gives a rating of 5 out of 5 stars and reminds eveyone:"Don't call it the Video iPod, the vPod, or anything that indicates that this is a video player. It's the new iPod, period."
Capeesh?
PC Magazine also thinks that Jobs may just have saved the portable media industry.
Unfortunately, David "Contrary" Coursey doesn't think too highly of the new iPod. No capeesh, yes?
Just News
Could rising iPodPod sales grows, this could eat up at the sales hurt Apple?, asks a writer for Reuters. Some analysts think that as i revenue from other products from Apple, like for instance, the Macs? You do still remember the Macs, right? At present, iPod sales make up 1/3 of the total sales, and since Apple is forced to lower the prices on iPods as components for each becomes cheaper, their profits will slowly decline. But why drop prices? This is to keep the competition at bay.
Stanford puts its content on iTMS.
'Nuff sed.
New Haw
Baby Boy Haw was born on October 20, 2005, 3:45PM, weighing at 7 pounds 30 ounces (4.026 kgs). Welcome to the world.
What the next "One more thing..."?; Media bias towards Apple?; just Say No to MS; The new iMac and 12 years before it
We have new iMacs, iPods, and iTunes. So what's next for Apple? Jobs hinted that Apple isn't done with mobile phones yet and as the new Apple remote shows, Apple's "goal is to stand at the intersection of technology and the humanities."
John C. Dvorak hint at a subtle media bias against Microsoft. This manifests times when Microsoft does have a good idea but still gets trashed. He adds that this is expected since 90% of mainstream writers are Mac users.
Tony Bove gives an equivalent of a "12-step method" in getting off Microsoft in his book Just Say No to Microsoft.
HardMac features their first comments about the new iMac. After reading the latest you can hop to LowEndMac to read the history of the first Mac with a remote.
5G in the hands of the people
AppleInsider shows photos of the 5G from a reader.
The iPod Garage introduces the latest iPod and mourns the loss of the remote port and Firewire sync capabilities. As they predicted with the release of the 5G iPod, the commentaries have started like this one from a MSNBC writer that after the initial hoopla, the excitement will die down. The Christian Science Monitor (???) calls the 5G's future as "fuzzy," and Australian IT doesn't think the success that Apple enjoyed in the online music download business won't necessary mean success with videos. Bill Maher asks Apple to stop releasing new iPods every month.
From the doom and gloom, let's move on to those who thinks the 5G's the in thing now. Forbes reports that the 5G iPod is an "evolutionary opportunity." The "video iPod" also may not be the first, but it's definitely the best, according to IT Enquirer and thinks that the 5G iPod will usher in the beginning of video internet and the surge in popularity of video podcasts.
It's not a "video iPod"
I guess it's wrong to call it "video iPod" but rather it should be referred to as "video-capable iPod". Semantics? Not really. Some Apple fans insists that the the iPod is first and foremost a digital music player. Apple just included video playback capability. This is perhaps why Apple didn't include movies in iTMS. Like some surmised, your head would probably explode if you tried to watch an entire movie on a 2.5" screen.
It will cost approximately 19,200 pesos. I don't know whether it'll be worth the 19K. I don't need it. I just want it.
I just found out that the internal mic of my Powerbook does a pretty good job in recording. I can actually do a podcast using this thing. Hmmm... Maybe soon. Besides I want to listen to some of the songs in the Podsafe network.
That's about it.
Time to face the music.
I Hate Mondays!
It's cliché but I really hate Mondays.
Switched two films, made two wrong readings. Signed. Saved.
Moral: PAY ATTENTION!
Should've given the balloon. Just blew up in my left ear.
Moral: Give when you can.
Shit.
Oh. 200th post.
5G news
Engadget tries to deduce what Apple really has in mind for the 5G iPod.
With the arrival of the video iPod, podcasters are preparing for the next, next generation in content.
Some sectors think that this huge leap in content is more like a baby step. An analyst calls it a step in the right direction but a restrained, cautious step. While other analysts laud and expressed optimism in Apple's media-centric products.
Businessweek cites Apple's new arsenals in the battle for multimedia on the road and in the home. Another artice mentions some potential problems for the video revolution in Apple. Piracy, slow internet connection, and big file sizes, to name a few.
Handheld CEO isn't impressed with the video iPod.
Apple tops Amazon's PC and digital music player sellers list
Apple's Mac PCs grabs the top four slots while the iPod line grabs the top eight in their respective categories
With this in mind, Mossberg recommends that every mainstream consumer should consider the Mac during the fall buying season.
A writer thinks that Apple has the upperhand by not licensing since this helps them to focus in on themselves rather than juggling around different 'partners' like what Microsoft is doing.
Hurrahs and boos for October 12
After the big announcement on October 12th let's take a look at the reactions around the industry and all over the internet.
Forrester Research attributes the transformation of music distribution to Apple and thinks that the company also transform how video will be distributed.
Everything's so hush-hush at Apple, even ABC's affiliates didn't know about the partnership until after the red curtains were drawn back. One of the major concerns about having TV shows on iTMS was how ABC's affiliates would react. Apparently, they weren't resentful about not being told ahead of time and that they were okay with the deal.
Motley Fool reports that Apple gets lost and desperate. The top two shows in the US, Desperate Housewives and Lost, are now available for download in iTMS. The article thinks that with this partnership with ABC, which is owned by Disney, Jobs and Eisner might be on the way to reconciliation and on to bigger things. But Cringely thinks that this 'partnership' might be an experiment. Definitely for Apple but more so for the different companies who are waiting to see if and when pirates copies of Lost or Desperate Housewives start appearing on bittorrent and other P2P networks.
The head of Microsoft's eHome division calls Front Row as "sad" since it lacks the clutter of their Media Center.
Slate, an MSN lackey, asks what the hubbub is all about. There are so many things wrong in the article like stating Apple's marketshare at 1.8%. Ironically, Slate proudly states that you can download their "iPod-compatible" podcasts in their website.
The piece de resistance of this whole thing is that David "the Whiner" Winer predicts the iPod is ultimately doomed to fail because it allows little participation from the outside world. What about podcasts, whiner? What do you call that? but he does admit that he's just rambling. A whining rambling *****.
Apple bloggers aren't so aren't so hot with the video iPod, either. Though they do like the new iMac.
MSN Tech and Gadgets gives the lowdown on the October 12 announcement.
Steve Jobs' three act play
This is a bit late and a little anticlimactic but I have been busy for the past few nights and haven't been able to update my blog.
On October 13, I woke up at 3:30AM to get the latest news from Apple's "One More Thing..." event. Do I sound obsessive? A fanatic? Not as a fanatic as some, like those who actually take pictures of their Apple's boxes. Uhhh... Moving on.
Act I:
The curtain opens with the unveiling of the new iMac. It's thinner, has more hard drive space, and Superdrive comes standard. Apple also has iSight built-in into the latest iMacs and includes the application Photo Booth to complement this latest add-on. Another new application from Apple is Front Row, which is something like a multimedia center for the Mac where photos, videos, movies, and songs can be accessed all in one place. The new iMacs come with an infrared remote control where you can access and control Front Row. Apple has made the needlessly complex into something simple. Oh, the Mighty Mouse is also included.
There are speculations that iSight will become standard in the new Powerbooks which are rumored to be released on October 19 unveiling 'Apple's latest pro innovations.'
The surprise of the lot is that after the slimming, the addition of more drive space, Superdrive, and iSight, and the two new apps, the new iMacs in 17" and 20" are priced the same.
Act II:
This is act opens with the iPod nano shipping about one million units in the five weeks since it was first introduced. Apple had taken 75% of the digital music player market. The iPod nano has proven to be really popular and the question now was, what wil happen to the original iPod? Will Apple nudged it into the closet and let it slide into obscurity? Not while Jobs is still around.
Steve Jobs called it a "bad user experience," and Adam Curry recalls the look in Jobs's face every time the topic was brought up. However, being the master storyteller that he is, Jobs is able to keep his audience at the edge of their seats and still manages to bowl them over. In Act II Adam Curry was dead wrong. Steve ate his words and gives the world the video iPod.
It has the same size at the previous generation of the iPod but is much thinner and sports a bigger screen. The bigger screen makes the iPod video or 5th generation iPod look much bigger. Battery life is supposed to have improved to 20 hours of continuous music playback or 3 hours of video playback.
The video iPod, just like the nano, can only sync songs thru USB 2.0. It would seem that Apple is slowing burying Firewire 400 into obscurity.
Act III:
The iPod isn't complete without iTunes and iTunes Music Store. After about a month of releasing iTunes 5.0 (problems and all), Apple comes out with iTunes 6.0. What's new? Playlist for the videos in your iTunes where you can browse through your collections. But wait, there's video in iTunes? Yes, there is. You have video podcasts or vidcasts, and some artists have included music videos when you buy whole albums in iTMS.
But this three act play is about the parts making up the whole. What's the use of a video iPod if you don't have the content for it. The content is readily available in the new iTune Music Store. You can download short films from Pixar, choose from more than 2000 music videos, or download the top 2 shows in the US, Desperate Housewives and Lost. The music videos and TV shows cost $1.99 to download.
The iTMS also has a new feature called "Just for you" where you are given recommendations based on your past purchases. I was pleasantly surprised as I browsed through my Just For You page and saw some songs that I like but forgot the titles to.
And last but not the least is the ability to send a song or video as a gift, as this was a feature that lots of users have been asking Apple to include in iTMS.
My thoughts.
Someone mentioned in one of the forums that it's going to be a very expensive Christmas and I have to agree. It will be a very expensive holiday season for some Apple afficionados. I just hope to be able to sell my shuffle and perhaps my mini in time to get the latest and the greatest. I probably won't get the nano until they upgrade it to more than 6GB.
I'm going to get the video iPod in about a month from now. I just have to decide which color to get. Black is the new cool but some people probably have it right. The color will accentuate the scratches on the iPod when compared to the white iPod. But I probably will keep the 20,000 pesos device in a case anyway so I might go get black.
With the help of the iPod family and iTunes, I believe podcasting will become really big. for some strange reason though, I don't see anybody saying anything about the new iMacs and what it can do to podcast's cousin, vidcasts. The iMac will probably help make video podcasting is mainstream and the video iPod will drive the demand for it. Some podcasts already have made there own video intros for their podcasts and I am thinking that video podcasts will become either a weekly or monthly feature for some podcasts. Adam Curry, the podfather, might just be thinking along those lines. So after more than two decades, Adam Curry will be in front of the camera again instead of just being behind the mic.
The video iPod and iMac will drive the next generation in content. The first revolution was the emancipation from the networks that forces people to listen to music and content that the networks want and not what people would like to hear. I believe that video podcasts will be the next step. The next evolution in the revolution. Expect more content and more choices.
Do $0.99 songs deter piracy? Apparently it does.
Some guy named Crupnick agrees with Steve Jobs that low priced songs help fight piracy. This is against what some record companies say that Apple's iTMS's pricing scheme doesn't do anything in fighting against piracy.
Wired magazine even thinks that the $0.99 is overpriced. This is after removing the cost of CD manufacturing, distribution and other expenses. The Long Tail is a very interesting read and would highly suggest it to anyone who is interested about online music distribution and why it makes more sense.
Splash. Smash. Trash. Dash.
Splashpower charges battery powered devices. unfortunately you need a coil in the device before you can start using this neat technology. Perhaps one day, all batteries will come with a coil. Comments.
Got money to burn? Or rather to smash? A website is asking for donations (read: money) to buy an iPod and then film it... while it's being smashed. The director/producer gets fan mails and he gets hate mails. He also is a Nazi.
VoodooPad (What no comment? I'm getting lazy - Jim)
Better wireless: 802.11n (Sorry. I'm really off today. I'll make it up tomorrow after the "One more thing..." event - Jim)
Mac's past and Apple's future
How was the Macintosh born? Andy Hertzfeld's book "Revolution in the Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made" looks into the people and events behind the creation of the first Mac and its subsequent siblings. The book is taken from Hertzfeld's website, folklore.org. Most of the contents of the book comes from the website but the author says that there are some stories that is only available in the printed copy. What would the Mac be without Steve Jobs? It the book, there are anecdotes and stories about Jobs like the ones on how he dealt with a boring interviewee and the 'emotionally handicapped' comment. But the book isn't all about Jobs. Instead, it covers the real people who toiled and spent countless hours designing and programming just to give the Mac to the world. I've read Hertzfeld's website and I can't wait to get my hands on a copy of the book. Maybe the Great Microsoft Lemming should get a copy.
From the past to the future. What will Apple be without Steve Jobs? I've thought about this several times during my periods of contemplation. What will indeed happen to Apple if Jobs's cancer was incurable or if his plane crashed while heading to an Apple expo?
Many times I wanted to write about this topic and also wondered how come no one ever thought about this scenario. Well, eventually someone did think about it. A Silicon.com article dicusses the Jobs and Apple symbiosis. It really doesn't talk about the post-Steve Jobs Apple but it gets the message across: without Jobs there's no Apple, but without Apple, there will be no Jobs.
"The vision needs to survive."
The scratchable nano, the revolting artists, and the reliable Apple
Walt Mossberg believes that contrary to what Apple claims the ipod Nano scratches easily. He compared his use of the nano with that of his Treo and noted that the nano was badly scratch after subjecting it to the same stresses as his Treo. Mossberg thinks that one reason why there have been many reports of nano scratches is because of the nano's small size that people carries it differently than other iPod models. Mossberg recommends that Apple should include a strong, thin case for the nano.
Steve Ulanoff thinks that reports of the easily scratchable nano screen might have been first planted by jealous competitors, then reporters were fed with more stories coming most likely from blogs. Ulanoff thinks that the issue with the scratched boils down to people's carelessness.
Sony, BMG, Victor, and Warner aren't making their artist's songs available on iTMS Japan but Japanese artists have decided to take matters into their own hands by signing up exclusive deals with iTunes.
According to the Guardian Unlimited, the magazine Which? lists Apple on the top as the brand most reliable.
What else?; Indies strike back; Fox
BBC talks about the nano and its future plus the 'Halo effect', does the nano attract new Mac users, and predicting Mac OS X years from now.
Sony BMG and EMI uses Microsoft's DRM for their latest CDs. Unfortunately, these CDs are not compatible with iTunes which leaves a lot of iPod owners out in the cold. So what did Sony BMG and EMI do? Well, tell people how to hack and beat the system. This makes you wonder why did they go with Microsoft's DRM in the first place?
So what do independent labels think about the furor over iTMS's pricing scheme? David Faiman, Odessa Mama Records' Managing Director, asks with so many fans who are happy with the pricing scheme, why rock the boat? Digital distribution of music would have gone ahead with or without Apple but Faiman admits that without iTMS, it would have taken a few more years for it to have gone mainstram. By then it would have been to late for some of the independent music companies.
Last but not the least, here's Fox's video on the iPod nano, Mighty Mouse, and ROKR.
Be iPod
First iPod users group in China will be launched on October according to Macsimum News. The Beijing Mac Users Group (BeiMac) will launch the Beijing iPod Users Group (BeiPod) on October 15. Will there be a People's Republic of iPod followed by a People's Repulic of Mac? It all depends on how Apple plays its cards.
One more thing...
Apple has been sending out invites that has the phrase "One more thing..." against a red curtain. This has made people speculate the meaning behind the red curtain. The curtain some suggests might mean that a product will be launched that has something to do with movies or videos. This has sparked a resurgence of rumors that Steve Jobs will be releasing a video iPod.
But some reports say that the October 12 event at Caifornia Theater San Jose will be all about Powerbooks and PowerMacs, no iPods. BusinessWeek's Burrows also sees Macs behind the curtain.
I guess we'll have to see.
More nano.
After being sat on, dropped, and ran over, it's time to wash the nano. After jonkee reviewed the nano, he decided that he wants a brand new clean iPod nano.
UBS forecasts that Apple will sell 10 million iPods the holiday quarter, and if Steve Jobs had his way, the iPod nano will make up a big chunk of that 10 million as he predicts it will be the best-selling model ever.
With the introduction of the nano, analysts predict that flash memory prices will fall. The price drop might be the key to the evolution of the digital music player. Samsung might start offering 16GB NAND flash memory beginning 2006. Expect this to go into the iPod in 2006.
Everyone knows that the nano uses Samsung's flash memories but what else makes up the nano? BusinessWeek unpeels the iPod nano to see Cypress and PortalPlayer inside.
Peter Griffin of the New Zealand Herald gives the nano 8 out of 10, saying that the design and ease of use makes it a winner.
New stuff from Apple?; Apple's squeeze
There's a rumor going around that this month, Apple will release new iPods, PowerMacs, and Powerbooks. This is after quietly upgrading the Mac mini.
Music managers are on an uproar over Apple's online royalty payments. They say that Apple is squeezing bands and solo artisits. On top of this controversy is the latest figures that digital music saleshave tripled and Apple iTMS is on top.
Of iPods and nanos
David Pogue comments that the iPods have always been easily scratchable. Still, 22 million iPods have been sold, and one writer thinks that Apple is no longer a company but has turned into a religion. And it is perhaps the mystique, the cultishness of Apple that has gotten some company to try to catch-up with Apple by trying beat Apple in style and design. Maybe they should clone Jobs while they're at it.
Scrumptious Mac mini; bang for the buck iBook; Jobs snookered
One kidn got a Mac mini and a Mac mini cake for his birthday.
MacDailyNews reports that the The Sydney Morning Herald gives the iBook 4.5 out of 5 stars and says that it gives "a lot more dash for your dollar."
Coming in empty handed into the cellphone game, Steve Jobs managed to make two big companies make him cellphone and sell it themselves, without even breaking a sweat. To top it off, he's got other cellphone companies sitting on the fence waiting for what he's going to do next.
