Apple Grrl

Scott Finnie has been making a public switch from Microsoft to Apple lately, which you can read about over here.

More interesting is his article at ComputerWorld on why Microsoft should be afraid of Apple now more than ever. Read it here.

For the first time in its 23-year history, the Mac is finally able to move fluidly into and out of the world of Microsoft Windows and its applications — both in the workplace and at home. Microsoft’s own Office suite plays a big role in that. Microsoft’s commitment to Office 2008 for the Mac lends additional support.

Author: Leslie Poston, © 2007, All Rights Reserved

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On the feeds this week is the announcement from Volkswagon of their marketing campaign for the Volkswagon Golf. Currently being rolled out in Europe is the new campaign for the Golf, which they are now referring to a the iGolf. that’s right, they are touting their car as completely iPod intergrated, down to the name. so what does the iGolf console look like? Check it out:

One of the drawbacks, of course is the label on the car. With iGolf printed everywhere, everyone will know there is expensive equipment inside they could possibly steal. Other than that, it’s a groovy thing, baby, dig it. To read more about the campaign in Spain, go to the Spanish campaign website here.

Author: Leslie Poston, © 2007, All Rights Reserved

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It is possible that a release date of June 11 has been confirmed for the much anticipated iPhone. On CNET today a blog was posted that Cingular has confirmed the release date to CNET. If you contact Cingular directly, they do in fact, confirm the date of release, although they don’t have any further information. The date makes sense – it’s the opening day of Apple’s World Wide Developer’s Conference, so it fits.

Update: Or Not. According to suppliers of the components, the iPhone will not be ready in time for a June 11 release.

Author: Leslie Poston, © 2007, All Rights Reserved

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I have to admit the lawsuit broiling over Bluetooth technology was flying completely under my radar until Apple got added to the mix this week. I was as surprised as the next person – Bluetooth is everywhere now, even in cars. So who is suing who over this now-standard technology, and why?

It seems the Washington Research Foundation has their tail feathers up over the use of the technology. They started the lawsuit in December of 2006 against Matsuhita Electric Industrial Co. They then added Samsung and Nokia to the defendant list in the Seattle-based lawsuit. Now, months later, they have also added Apple, Sony, Dell, Logitech, Toshiba and Plantronics to the defendant list.

the lawsuit is a complex patent lawsuit in which WRF is trying to bar the manufacturers of products using Bluetooth Technologies from using a certain kind of Bluetooth chip in their products. This would affect many millions of products already on the market, and more in development. It is important to note that WRF did not invent Bluetooth technology – Eriksson did, along with a team from Intel and others.

The chips in question are made a company called CSR, who filed a counter suit against WRF. this case is one of many seemingly frivolous lawsuits being brought by technology makers against each other. With all of these legal issues being drug about, it’s a wonder technology advances as quickly as it does. Regardless, you can read the full article here. We’ll be following the lawsuit on Apple Reporter, so check back here for an update.

Author: Leslie Poston, © 2007, All Rights Reserved

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There is a cool little program out now called iAudioize. What this little gem does is create an MP3 file of your typewritten documents. You can then send this file to your iPod (or other MP3 player) and listen to it. This is a great tool if you are making audio books out of your ebooks or audio versions of your how-to files, among other things.

The neat thing about it is a choice of voice (several options come with the program, all as “natural” sounding as possible). You can make your files sound as much like you as you want, or if you write under a pen name, you can make them sound like someone else. This little program is a great time saver – no more hiring voice over talent (or trying to be voice over talent yourself) for each small project. Just put it into iAudioize and watch the magic happen.

Other handy features of iAudioize (made by Limerick Software) are its compression feature and its ability to integrate with iTunes. You can now send MP3s with confidence, as the program automatically compresses them to a file size much less than normal MP3 files. Not only that, you can view your audio files as a playlist in iTunes, which makes keeping track of them easy as 1-2-3.

You can get iAudioize from Limerick for under $40 USD by going to their web site.

Author: Leslie Poston, © 2007, All Rights Reserved

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Apple has been toying with the idea of crediting past double purchases on iTunes. A double purchase occurs when you purchase a single song, then come back months later and buy the whole album. Until now you’ve been charged both times for the song – a glitch in the way iTunes computes sales. Plans are in the works to offer consumers and option to get a credit for songs already purchased at the time of an album’s sale.

The New York Times article goes on to speculate that the album as a format is in decline, eventually to die out altogether. The idea is that with consumers able to make iMixes, playlists and listen to music a la carte, there is no need or desire for the song sets found on a CD. They could be right, but that is sad news for music aficionados who look to an album to hear the full range of an artist’s music, not just the snippet deemed “radio ready”.

Following up March 29th: Apple did in fact release this feature this week. They are calling it Complete My Album. It is designed to take into account the songs you have already downloaded and give you the option to complete the album at a lower cost, instead of double buying the song you already downloaded.

Author: Leslie Poston, © 2007, All Rights Reserved

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They will be together in 2008, if projections are true for the new melding of Nike and iPod into sports gear. According to Endgadget’s recent interview with Nike CEO Mark Parker, Nike will release all future running shoes to be compatible with the Nike iPod Sports Kit by 2008.

What is the Nike iPod Sports Kit? A slim, waterproof, virtually indestructible bluetooth transmitter fits inside a pocket in the Nike shoe. The other end of the transmitter fits into your iPod Nano. Your shoes then send the Nano information about your run (speed, distance, etc) that displays on the iPod screen while still playing your music. It’s a pretty slick way to integrate the iPod into a must have item for athletes. You can get the Nike iPod Sports Kit for under $30.

It’s great that Nike is expanding the compatibility of their running line to meet technology head on and embrace it, but what about those who aren’t Nike fans? If you prefer to run in another brand of shoe, never fear, hacks are here. If you want to hack your way into the new technology, you can. Of course, these hacks won’t help the running purist who doesn’t want to modify the shoe in the first place, but I think it’s pretty cool.

Author: Leslie Poston, © 2007, All Rights Reserved

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Sprint released an attack on the as yet unreleased iPhone this week, launching both a new phone and a new music service. The phone is called the UpStage. It is trying to compete directly with the iPhone in design and function, working as both a phone and music player. They are touting this phone as being more equally call friendly and music friendly. One side has a large screen and controls for music video, music and video playback. The other side has a camera, the normal style cell phone keypad and a smaller display. The camera included is 1.3 megapixel – a pretty decent size for a cell phone.

The music store half of the attack, Sprint Music Store is cutting prices on all wireless music downloads to 99 cents in direct competition with iTunes’ famously competitive prices. Sprint’s online store will also offer a second copy of the song downloaded for your home computer. Of course, with the iPhone you will just be able to sync your Apple products anytime you’d like without the hassle of having to download two copies, but it’s a valiant try on sprint’s part anyway.

The main competitive edge Sprint’s UpStage will have is price. At $149.00 USD it is much more cost effective than the iPhone’s introductory price is slated to be. Apple’s weakness has always been the cost of entry to the Mac world. I’d hate to see what looks like a fantastic and innovative product from Apple get broadsided by the lower price of a competitor, but that is exactly what might happen if they don’t adjust the price point on the iPhone.

Author: Leslie Poston, © 2007, All Rights Reserved

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Museum of Modern Art is now featuring a cool iPod gadget in its Museum store – iPods have finally arrived to the world of art. What’s the gadget? The Music Mug. It looks like an arty coffee mug, but it is really a speaker for your iPod, designed by Masato Tokuno. The MP3 player powers the Music Mug. It doesn’t seem like this would have much power and sound quality for your $42.00 USD, but I suppose sometimes art triumphs over technology.

If you want your very own Music Mug, you can order it online at the MoMA store for $42.00 USD (non-members). If you get one, let us know how it sounds.

Author: Leslie Poston, © 2007, All Rights Reserved

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News blurb: Apple just cut a deal with Sony to sell episodes of old television favorites of the 1970s on iTunes. Think Starsky and Hutch, Charlie’s Angels and more. Soon you could be reliving all of your old Dy-No-MITE favorites from your wasted youth. Full story.

Author: Leslie Poston, © 2007, All Rights Reserved

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Two new Apple rumors are making the rounds of the rumor mill, one about the upcoming Leopard OS release and one about the design of the iMac.

Leopard has been slated to be released in April 2007 for months now, but the current buzz is there will be a delay in the release. The new possible release date, if the rumors are true? October 2007! I’m not sure I want to wait that long to play with this new toy and all of its bells and whistles, but I guess if the rumors prove true we may have to. What’s the hold up? According to the rumor mill the hold up is the craptacular Vista. Apple apparently has decided to make BootCamp run Vista in native mode, for some reason, and would need the extra time to make that happen.

Update: March 26, 2005 – It is confirmed that Leopard is still on track for a Spring 2007 release.

The next rumor is somewhat more interesting (and more likely) – the rumored overhaul of the iMac design. This design would make the iMac, currently a functional, if slim, design, into an eye catching new machine designed to lure more people over to the Apple kingdom (it is believed the Vista accommodation listed above has the same goal). They haven’t designed a desktop with this innovation in mind since the days of the colored iMacs, so I’m looking forward to seeing what the new design will bring. Something to keep in mind: the 17 inch iMac is not reportedly on the redesign list – only the larger screened iMacs are included. The 17 inch will likely remain functional, and remain in the line up for education, but will not undergo the overhaul and updates of its larger brothers.

Author: Leslie Poston, © 2007, All Rights Reserved

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Did you know that you can use the Dock on Mac OS X for more than just a launch point for your programs? You can also use it as a shortcut point for functions on your computer. One example is copying and pasting text. Did you know that instead of copying text to you the clipboard, you can highlight it and drag it to the application of your choice in the Dock.

Dragging your text to the Dock will open which ever application you drag it to, and start that process. Want to quote an article in an email? Highlight the text you want to quote and drag it to the Mail icon in your Dock. This will automatically open the Mail application and start your email, text inserted. Want to start a letter quoting an item or list from and email? Highlight the text you want, and drag it to the Pages application in the Dock. Voila! New document.

This is a pretty neat time saving feature. It will work in any of the applications that are based in Cocoa. You can read more tips like this one on the Apple site, here.

Author: Leslie Poston, © 2007, All Rights Reserved

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Macs are still fairly free of malware (hackers, viruses, spyware and other internet exploitative scripts), which continues to befuddle the experts. Of course it makes Mac users like myself happy, but you’d have to have a Mac to understand the clean and free feeling of not having to be as vigilant as a PC owner. In an article in VnuNet, it was pointed out that Apple remains fairly free of issues caused by internet malcontents:

“despite several years of availability, a significant market share, and even an entire month dedicated to pointing out its flaws. ”

“van Oers pointed out that many malware authors simply prefer to target the low-hanging fruit of a poorly maintained Windows system.”

For more on Apple’s carefree existence, read the full article here.

Author: Leslie Poston, © 2007, All Rights Reserved

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Yesterday GameTap announced the released of Myst Online: Uru Live for the Macintosh. They touted it as being for the MacBooks and iMacs running the Intel Core Duo processor. Not only am I a Mac junkie, I am a Myst junkie, so it was with great excitement I went over to their site to get started playing this new version of an old favorite. Alas, it was not to be. As pretty as it looks (as always with the Myst series), it is not compatible with the MacBook I just bought in December. For what it’s worth, if you have the newest graphics processor, you will be as impressed as ever with the beauty of the game. Feel free to play it and review it in the comments.

In a stunning blow against loyal Mac users, GameTap and Cyan decided not to support the graphics cards in the MacBooks, iMacs and Mac Minis released as late as December of 2006, when Apple was still running the GMA 950 graphics processor interface. So, unless you bought a MacBook, iMac, Mac Mini or MacBook Pro with the newest graphic interface, you’re sunk. I think that is terrible marketing on their part. Making a purchase of a Mac is a significant investment, and I think it stinks that people who committed their money to Mac before the end of 2006, or who couldn’t wuite afford the price tag on the MacBook Pro, are being ignored by the game makers.

Shame on you, GameTap and Cyan.

From the site: System requirements call for Mac OS X v10.4.8 or later, 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo processor or faster (Intel only), 512MB RAM, ATI or Nvidia graphics, 3GB hard disk space, broadband Internet connection. GameTap notes that Myst Online is not supported on Macs that use the GMA 950 graphics processor. That includes Mac minis, MacBooks and some low-end iMac configurations.

Hat tip to Pippa for contributing this link which discusses the issue from the angle of “Why did Apple even set it up this way?” and lists games that will work on your Mac running the 950 chip set.

Author: Leslie Poston, © 2007, All Rights Reserved

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OWC has announced today that it will make a RAM module for the MacBook that will pump it up to 3 GB RAM – more than the maximum 2 GB Apple ships it with. Great news for gamers and designers that use memory hog applications.

That concludes our mini product announcement, now back to your regularly scheduled surfing.

Side note here.

Author: Leslie Poston, © 2007, All Rights Reserved

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Senator Barack Obama, Democratic sleeper candidate for President in 2008, is trying to tap the power of Apple’s marketing machine. He’s created a “mashup” ad using a montage of images and themes from Apple’s popular and famous “1984″ ad campaign and posted it on YouTube, where it has taken off as a viral video success, exceeding 600,000 page views so far.

Representatives from his political camp have denied that they have anything officially to do with the ad. In spite of repeated denials by the Obama camp, viewers remain unconvinced that the “Hillary 1984″ video mashup was not released by his political aides and campaign headquarters. I don’t have a problem with Obama and his camp being creative. My main problem comes from the fact that he is attacking Hillary Clinton in the ad. I get steamed when members of the same party (either party) mud sling against each other when they’d do better to address the issues and put their best face forward during a campaign. I can understand Obama’s frustration and why he feels a need to start the heavy hitting early (after all, for example, half of America thinks he is a Muslim solely because of his name, when he is in fact a staunch Christian), but still – someone needs to act like a grown up this election cycle. Preferably all of the someone’s from all of the parties.

Regardless of how you feel about Obama, Hillary or the use of Apple products in political ads or spoof clips (see our report earlier this week on the iRack parody), you can view the YouTube video here, and read more about the whole thing here and here.

You can also read me at HubPages today. I wrote an article there on Freeware for your Mac. Enjoy!

Author: Leslie Poston, © 2007, All Rights Reserved

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I hope so, because they are officially shipping tomorrow! For all of you who have pre-ordered Apple TVs, you got a shipping notice today that announced a ship date of March 20. Are you excited? How many of you ordered one of the first generation Apple TVs? How many of you are, like me, waiting it out a few months in case Apple adds features? What do you plan to use yours for? Talk to me! Tell me about it in the comments.

Author: Leslie Poston, © 2007, All Rights Reserved

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Two new programs I have downloaded onto my computer are endo and ecto, made by Adriaan Tijsseling of Kula Co., Ltd.. They are also the makers of Flickr desktop client 1001, the mood setter widget Whatever, Japanese vocabulary training aid Kotoba, NBA tracker Tip-Off and MLB tracker Ballpark. A lot of their software and scripts are freeware, although endo and ecto are not. What they are is well worth the money, though.

So what are endo and ecto, exactly? Endo is a smart aggregating feed reader, and is now the only feed reader I will use. It is comprehensive, easy to set up, impressively simple to put to use, and as far as I can tell is fairly idiot proof. Ecto is a desktop blog manager that will work with (and import from) nearly any blog platform on the market, including the free ones like Blogger and the pay-to-play ones like Movable Type.

With all of the blogs I write for, both programs have become invaluable, working flawlessly as a team on my MacBook. They interact well with FireFox and Safari, and they aren’t bandwidth hogs. You can open as many feeds as you need to, and start as many posts for as many blogs as you’d like with no strain on your system at all. Not only do they play well with others, they fit the Mac “look” as well, key to marketing to the Apple fanatic crowd.

Read the rest of my product review on endo and ecto here.

Author: Leslie Poston, © 2007, All Rights Reserved

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Intel/Flash suggest new features for Macs? Maybe. This goes along with another rumor of how Flash might be used in a new line of “mini notebooks” that would use Flash instead of the regular hard drive.

Apple filed an RFID patent recently. I can’t say I stand behind RFID technology in Macs, as RFID is so prone to security issues and so easily hacked – it doesn’t fit with the hack-free Mac environment.

Apple is well known for keeping on top of any and all security issues by releasing regular operating system patches and upgrades. They have a relatively secure OS for a reason. They release the latest this week, 10.4.9, and the rumor surrounding it say it may be the last upgrade for Tiger prior to the release of Leopard.

I’m not sure why people are having fire issues with their Mac laptop batteries – I installed the recommended firmware update the moment I unpacked my little darling, and my MacBook runs cool. Regardless, people are having trouble, as evidenced by all the fires being reported.

Don’t forget! Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference is coming up in June 2007!

Author: Leslie Poston, © 2007, All Rights Reserved

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Fortune names Apple “Best Retailer” and Forbes names Apple the 7th “Most Admired” company. Apple continues winning accolades like these for its outstanding service, quality products, unique retail experience and innovative design. It’s funky ad campaigns and unusual marketing strategies definitely serve to help keep it in the “most likely to succeed” and “most popular” spots in the technology yearbook.

For example, Apple encourages indirect marketing through spoofs like this parody from Mad TV:

Not many other companies are so comfortable with being the focus of a joke like this, but Apple is. Sure, like any company, they work diligently to protect their brand names and brand feeling, the recent skirmish over the iPhone trademark being a prime example. They also have very specific requirements for using their logo in a permanent place on your web site or blog, as they should. It’s refreshing to know that they have a sense of humor and political awareness that allows them to hang on to their cutting edge market vibe. It’s easier to have cutting edge products than it is to have a cutting edge image – Apple does both.

Author: Leslie Poston, © 2007, All Rights Reserved

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