Labels: Apple, iPad

Labels: Apple, iPhone OS 3.0, iPod Touch

I honestly feel that tomorrow is going to mirror the Macworld keynote. During that event Phil did an excellent job of introducing products that were, lets face it, boring. If Steve had been in full health I don't think he would've been able to make those announcements anymore exciting than Phil made them. Tomorrow's likely to be the same. Phil can introduce us to Snow Leopard and iPhone OS 3.0 without ever introducing a new piece of hardware. We've seen the iPhone OS and we've heard what's in Snow Leopard. I'm suspecting that this is what poor Phil is going to be stuck with tomorrow.

If I was in his position though I would ensure that I had one surprise, but what surprise could the Vice-President of Worldwide Marketing pull out of the bag that would get people talking? There are really two. The first would be a rehashed version of the iPhone hardware. Maybe it will have Video editing, larger memory and faster processor. It's Phil level exciting, I don't mean that as an offense to him of course I simply mean that due to the timing he's not going to get THE BIG announcement. He can announce that it will go on sale at the end of June.

His second announcement, and the real surprise, should involve Mr Jobs. Not his actual return at WWDC because it's not the right setting or timing. He needs to announce the next event. A "One More Thing." that is simply a date and a location on a black screen with the Apple logo above it. That will be Steve's return. That will be the new major hardware announcement, probably a totally new iPhone for Verizon and maybe just maybe the Tablet.

So don't expect too much tomorrow in the way of new products. Maybe a new iPhone but it'll be no more than a rehash of the current one. The big announcement is going to be the return of Steve at the end of the month. In that keynote we will expect something major. I must say though that personally it will be great to see Steve return and I'm really happy that if this is a sign that his health issues have been sorted out. The Tech industry is a much better place when Steve's around than when he isn't.

Labels: Apple, iPhone, Phil Schiller, Steve Jobs, WWDC 2009

The Wall Street Journal reported some great news for Apple fans, Steve Jobs is still making the big decisions.

Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook runs the day-to-day operations at Apple, these people say. But Mr. Jobs has continued to work on the company's most important strategies and products from home, they say. He regularly reviews products and product plans, and was particularly involved in the user interface of the new iPhone operating system that Apple unveiled last month, these people say.

This sounds like great news doesn’t it? Steve may not be well enough yet to return to the day-to-day operations of the company but he’s certainly well enough to stay involved. Even if he never returns to the day-to-day operations he can still take on a roll of Chairman with oversight of product, or something like that. This news story prepares us nicely in fact for such an announcement in a couple of months in WWDC.

As with every story though there is another way to look at this one. I got a feeling that a lot of the current good feeling towards Apple was extending from the fact that the company was managing to produce well rounded products without the need for input from Mr Jobs. If he could not return then Apple would be OK because the management team were proving that they could more than handle things on their own. Even the argument that the products being released now were conceived and developed in Mr Jobs’s time could be countered with the fact that the product had to be brought successfully to market by the rest of the team only.

That’s no longer the case. Apple were not being lead by their management team minus Mr Jobs. Steve was still in control of the company the whole time. The article even pointed out how involved he was in the new iPhone OS. If I was an Apple investor I’d be worried about Steve’s apparent lack of ability to let the others take credit. He should’ve left the situation as it was and then appear at WWDC and announce his return to Apple in a full time roll, even if it’s not as CEO. I feel that this was a mistake. I now don’t think we’ve any proof that Apple can grow post-Jobs anymore.

Labels: Apple, Steve Jobs

Labels: Apple, iPod, Microsoft, Zune, Zune HD

Microsoft have released their second ad and it’s another good one. Nice to see the Redmond guys starting to take good jabs at Apple at last.

Microsoft Ad 2

Labels: Apple, Giampaolo, Microsoft

Labels: Apple, Steve Jobs, Tim Cook

The following is taken from the Wall Street Journal:

Team,

I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal
with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health
continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else
at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my
health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.

In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to
allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have
decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for Apple’s day to day operations, and
I know he and the rest of the executive management team will do a great job. As
CEO, I plan to remain involved in major strategic decisions while I am out. Our
board of directors fully supports this plan.

I look forward to seeing all of you this summer.

Steve

Labels: Apple, Steve Jobs

The Wall Street Journal are carrying the story that Apple CEO is taking a medical leave of absence until June:

Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs, in email to employees, said his health issues are more complex than thought and is taking a medical leave until June.

Tim Cook is going to take over the day-to-day running of the company. Apple shares are currently down over 7% as of 22:06 GMT.

At this stage I’m not going to guess what’s wrong with Steve. All I’m going to say is that I truly hope he makes and full recovery from whatever is wrong and my thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family. We look forward to seeing him back on stage introducing us to new iPods in September.

Labels: Apple, Medical Leave, Steve Jobs

Apple fan: “I’ll buy anything if it’s shiny and made by Apple.”

“It remains to be seen whether the Macbook Wheel will catch on in the business world, where people use computers for actual work and not just dicking around.”

"...next generation Macbook Wheel which will be 4oz lighter due to it's lack of screen, hard drive or wheel."

Labels: Apple, Macbook Wheel, The Onion

Apple announced this week that the keynote at this years Macworld Expo will not be delivered by Steve Jobs. There’s no doubting that this is a disappointment and has killed a lot of interest in the conference but to be honest it is probably one of the most intelligent moves Apple have made in a while.

The media is full of talk of Steve being too ill to deliver the address this year but I don’t believe this for a second. I think there are probably four reasons why Apple are toning down their participation Macworld 2009, their final Macworld. The first reason is pride. You have to remember that large companies such as Adobe have already pulled out of the event. Steve Jobs does not take part in second rate shows and I’m afraid after watching others withdraw that’s probably how it was beginning to look. This years show will probably be pure sales figures and some marketing but not much else.

The second reason is Bill Gates, or more accurately no more Bill Gates. The Jobs keynote always competed with the Bill G keynote at CES for media time and Jobs had to have a certain amount of satisfaction watching Macworld get so much hype. With Gates now gone however Jobs is free to pull out knowing that the competition on that front is over.

The third reason is a possible lack of any major announcements. Since Steve’s last two event’s of 2008 have produced little to no surprises he probably has no intention of walking out on stage and basically delivering a state of the company address to people who have paid a lot of money to hear an, “and finally…”. Steve doesn’t do disappointment.

The forth reason is the most important reason of them all, the element of surprise. With Apple being forced to show new products in the first week of January each year people would begin to start searching for product information in December. Removing these sort of shows from the calendar allow the Cupertino company to deliver products at any time of the year with very little notice. Bringing back the element of surprise will bring back one of the strengths that Apple lost recently.

image from atsuki.net

Anyway you look at it there are plenty of good business reasons for Apple to pull out of Macworld before you look anywhere near Steve’s health.

Labels: Apple, Macworld 2009, Steve Jobs

After reading an article in PC Pro about Microsoft’s upcoming doom I had an interesting thought. You see the article talked about Linux being installed on netbooks from Asus and how this would leave Microsoft having to retreat to the corporate world as Linux becomes the major consumer OS. I don’t think that’s going to happen. Microsoft will, most likely, produce a version of Windows 7 that is trimmed down and perfectly suited to the netbook world. There is one company however that should be concerned with the tiny tiny tiny rise of Linux.

Apple have no competitor to the Asus netbooks. They have nothing to offer to Asus in the way Microsoft can offer up Windows XP and their cheapest notebook is $999. In the current economy are people going to choose to buy the Apple laptop that still has the difficulties of switching associated with it in the public consciousness or will they go the the cheaper notebooks offering old reliable, Windows XP. You see Vista may be perceived as unpopular but I’ve yet to hear anyone talk about the fact that these people, in choosing XP, are still handing money to the folks from Redmond. Microsoft will happily maintain their dominant market position even if everyone who buys a new laptop decides to downgrade to XP.

I don’t honestly believe that Linux is going to threaten either Windows or OSX but if it does then it’s the 8% Apple have in the American market that’s going to be under the most threat and when your share is that small any loss can do a lot of damage.

Is it time for Apple to license OSX? Or produce some sort of MultiTouch netbook? What do you think?

Labels: Apple, ASUS, Microsoft, Windows

Labels: Apple, Apple TV, iMac, iPhone, iPod Touch, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sega

Labels: Apple, Macbook, MacBook Air, Macbook Pro

Labels: Apple, Microsoft, Nasdaq, Yahoo

Labels: "The Brick", Apple, Macbook, Microsoft, N96, Nokia, Nokia 5800

Well Apple have confirmed that they are holding an event in San Francisco this Tuesday, September 9th. So what are we in store for at this event? Well I'm going to outline my predictions now and I'd be interested to know what you guys think.

1. New Generation of iPods. This one is pretty much a given. Since the new terms have started and the laptops for schools and universities have been bought by now this show is most likely going to introduce products for Christmas. New iPods are the most obvious new product for Christmas. Cult of Mac are even carrying the image to the left that claims to be the new Nano.

2. iPod Touch Improvements. With the iPhone getting it's improvements I have to believe that the Touch is about to get some improvements. I would

love to see the ability to tether the Touch to a phone added but that's just hopeful thinking. The best case scenario would be a new Touch that acts like an Internet tablet. Like an iPhone but without the ability to make phone calls. I can't see this hurting the iPhone because, let's face it, your phone needs to make calls but it would act as a fantastic entry level to the iPhone family. I also suspect that the current family of Touch will get a price cut.

3. iTunes 8. Kevin Rose of Digg has already talked about some of the features that he expects to be announced in iTunes 8. These include a Genius feature.

A new source comes forward w/this info:  (this is consistent w/everything I've heard)

What's new in iTunes 8
iTunes 8 includes Genius, which makes playlists from songs in your library that go great together. Genius also includes Genius sidebar, which recommends music from the iTunes Store that you don't already have.
With iTunes 8, browse your artists and albums visually with the new Grid view; download your favorite TV shows in HD quality from the iTunes Store; sync your media with iPod nano (4th generation), iPod classic (2nd generation), and iPod touch (2nd generation); and enjoy a stunning new music visualizer.

Labels: Apple, iPod Touch

Steve Jobs has admitted in an email to the company that Apple made mistakes with the launch of MobileMe. The email makes a few very fair points and shows the Apple is willing to at least admit their mistakes. We'll see soon if they're learning from them too. The email was published in it's entirety on Ars Technica and I've copied it below:

Team,
The launch of MobileMe was not our finest hour.  There are several things we could have done better:
– MobileMe was simply not up to Apple's standards – it clearly needed more time and testing.
– Rather than launch MobileMe as a monolithic service, we could have launched over-the-air syncing with iPhone to begin with, followed by the web applications one by one – Mail first, followed 30 days later (if things went well with Mail) by Calendar, then 30 days later by Contacts.
– It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store.  We all had more than enough to do, and MobileMe could have been delayed without consequence.
We are taking many steps to learn from this experience so that we can grow MobileMe into a service that our customers will love.  One step that I can share with you today is that the MobileMe team will now report to Eddy Cue, who will lead all of our internet services – iTunes, the App Store and, starting today, MobileMe.  Eddy's new title will be Vice President, Internet Services and he will now report directly to me.
The MobileMe launch clearly demonstrates that we have more to learn about Internet services.  And learn we will.  The vision of MobileMe is both exciting and ambitious, and we will press on to make it a service we are all proud of by the end of this year.
Steve

Image from Ars Technica too.

Labels: Apple, Mobile Me, Steve Jobs

Labels: Apple, Enterprise, Microsoft, Steve Jobs

Labels: Apple, Steve Jobs

Syncing contacts is the first major issue. If I sync with Windows Contacts then everything works perfectly and the contacts appear. If I use Outlook however OutlookSyncDevice crashes every single time. I'm going to hook in and debug it but I suspect it's linked to Outlook Connector and MobileMe not playing nice. I've no intention of turning off Outlook Connector so that could mean bye bye MobileMe.

Before I jump however lets look at the calendar. Well it's awful. I've tested multiple scenarios with it and so far I'm having no joy with Outlook. In this case I can't even test it with Windows Calendar because for some reason Apple won't support it. I'm now looking at Windows Live Calendar and the cost of using it seems to be perfectly justifiable compared with the cost of using a badly substandard MobileMe.

On a quick note what about the online applications? Well I first used them on OSX and found them pretty useful and responsive. There's nothing really new in what they offer but they are simple enough to use. Move over to Windows and again there's issues. The service doesn't work properly with IE7, I'm very interested to test it with IE8 to see how well it works. You even get an arrogant warning that blames this on IE7 but remember that if Google can develop for IE then you would expect Apple to be able to. So what are the services like on Firefox? Well they work but they're slow and if you're a Firefox user then I'm afraid you can't get your bookmarks synced even though it's one of the support Windows browsers. Weird? Well not really because there's a browser that happens to display the services and let you sync the bookmarks, guess which one? That's right the downright hideous Safari. MobileMe is not a good reason to use Safari, nothing is a good reason to use it in fact. So the online services aren't sitting well for Windows either even though they are meant to be platform independent, kinda the point of the "cloud" concept I would've thought.

The final scenario and the realisation I had was that if I wanted MobileMe to work even a little on the Windows side then I would probably have to abandon my current email accounts and make sure that Outlook is only hooked up MobileMe. I'm not doing it. I've no interest in doing it. I'm sticking with my Windows Live address and services so I'm guessing it's going to have to be goodbye to MobileMe. Let's face it Live Mesh offers a great online storage option along with Office Live Workspace and SkyDrive. There's nothing at all wrong with Live Mail and if I ever decide to sign up to MSN Premium account I'll get calendar sync but lets face it, is it really that important? What about push? Well since it's on a 15 minute delay I can get my Live Mail forwarded to my GMail account and get my N95 to sync every 15 minutes for free. That's a Microsoft flaw however. I shouldn't have to. Live Mail needs IMAP or POP asap.

So what's the lesson from all this? Well I think it's pretty obvious. Computers are still not even close to being user friendly. There's so much infighting and "nerdy" arguments between Microsoft and Apple users, to name but two, that we can't simply get an integrated system that is user friendly. Users don't want to have to understand all the stuff that's going on under the hood. They simply want to be able to sign up to their email, select what they want to sync with and when they look at their Nokia phone they want the same contact list as their email account has and at the moment that is not being offered. It's not just Apple, Google and Microsoft that are to blame for this but they have a lot to answer for. There's room for more than one company in the technology world but only when the systems easily integrate. There's plenty of car companies making money why can't the same be true for IT? Imagine a world were there was a different driving test for each make of car. Then one company would dominate simply due to people not wanting the hassle. I want to see real system integration between the major companies because one will never win out over the rest and the bitter cat fighting is just hurting the consumer. Also lets face it people are sticking to Microsoft because it's familiar and that's a hard habit to break. It's no coincidence that Apple released Boot Camp and Apple hardware sales really started to rise. MobileMe was in the position to really breakdown a few barriers and show that Apple can develop quality software for a different platform in the same way as Microsoft have built Office and Messenger for Mac. I'm not sure they actually can. iTunes is weak as is MobileMe. Lets see something better guys because I'm getting fed up waiting around for you.

Labels: Apple, iPhone, iPod Touch, iTunes, Live Mesh, Mac OS X, Microsoft, Mobile Me, N95, Nokia, Office Live, Windows Live, Windows Vista

An article in Arstechnica highlights how slow Apple can be when patching security flaws.

Although Apple didn't make a big deal about it, one of the security fixes included in the recent iPhone/iPod touch 2.0 firmware is a fix for a fairly high-profile WebKit bug that was used to hack a MacBook Air back in March. People immediately began asking why the bug took so long to fix on the iPhone. Now, the researcher who discovered it, Charlie Miller, has called Apple out over its iPhone patching practices in a recent Computerworld piece, saying that the company "messed up."

When the bug was originally disclosed to Apple, the company asked Miller if Mobile Safari was also affected, and he suggested that it probably was. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to confirm his assertion at the time, and left it up to Apple (which had all of the details) to test the exploit on the iPhone itself. It turned out that the exploit code needed to be tweaked slightly to do anything malicious on an iPhone, but Apple apparently closed the case after the OS X exploit failed to do anything nasty.

Further research revealed that if the actual JavaScript regular expression exploit code was run, bad things would still happen. Apple seemed to have corrected the bug pretty quickly after that. However, the mere fact that it took Apple so long to patch an iPhone WebKit bug has brought up the question: how well will Apple be able to manage two OS versions? Miller has pointed out that most WebKit bugs found on OS X will also occur on the iPhone and iPod touch, so Apple could theoretically patch both at the same time. Whether that will ever actually happen remains to be seen.

Labels: Apple, iPhone, iPod Touch

Labels: Apple, iPhone, Microsoft, Paul Thurrott

I've been quite complimentary to Apple over the last few days and I was fully ready to accept that perhaps they had their game together. Today however has been an absolute nightmare for me in terms of Apple software. I signed up to Mobile Me when I got my first opportunity and got it setup on the Mac with virtually no problems. Everything seemed to sync and play ball. Then I discovered that the web apps were down. Well no big deal it's the first day and they're probably being pounded so I'm happy to wait and decided to get my PC setup. This is where the trouble started.

Trying to sync Outlook 2007, a supported application, with Mobile Me was a horrible experience. The Outlook Sync Client kept crashing and therefore failing to sync correctly. After some investigation I discovered that this was down to an issue with my contacts. So I wiped my Outlook, and therefore Windows Live, contact list under the impression that I could sync again from Mobile Me. After all it did have the most up-to-date version of the contact list. That didn't happen. Instead the contacts did not sync back. Neither did the calendar for that matter. I was left with the task of recovering my contact list from my Windows Contacts. Thankfully the nice people in Redmond have made this task easy with the Windows Live Contacts importer tools. Maybe they foresaw the disaster Apple would have trying to play with the big boys and knew we'd coming running back to them.

Anyway back to the issues. With a newly repaired contact list I switched the Macbook back on to see if the iPod Touch update is out yet, it's not by the way and it's getting frustrating. The Macbook then chirped up with it's list of syncs that had to be done and most of them were blanks! They seemed to be failures from the feeble attempts to sync with Outlook and they remained in the sync log waiting to be written to somewhere. Anyway I'll clear them in a bit and then I have to give some real consideration to the idea of abandoning Mobile Me until the issues are sorted.

I don't want to come across completely negative though so I will say that some of the stuff that has been done with Mobile Me so far is excellent. The Web Apps look fantastic now they are up and running and really are a pleasure to use. The push functionality is something I look forward to testing on the iPod Touch when it gets it's new update, hopefully tomorrow and there are some great looking apps in the app store. It's extremely unfortunate that the teething problems of today have overshadowed an extremely promising service but for £60+ I want something that will operate when I need it and today it didn't.

Now how do I actually go about uninstalling Mobile Me from Vista anyway??

Labels: Apple, Live Mesh, Macbook, Microsoft, Microsoft Office 2007, Mobile Me, Windows Vista

Labels: Apple, Microsoft, Mobile Me, Vista, Windows Home Server, Windows XP

Labels: Apple, Google, Mac, Microsoft, Mobile Me, Orkut, Windows, Windows Live, Windows Live Spaces

I love the idea of Windows 7 having touch capabilities built in. A widescreen touch capable TV with a Windows 7 PC hooked up to it means no mouse, no keyboard but total control. Build similar technology into the next XBox, not for actually controlling games obviously, and you could have control of all living room media without the need for multiple controls. All you need to add is a touch sensitive media remote that displays the menu's that appear on the screen so selection is as easy as possible and you have a fantastic touch driven media suite all from Microsoft. Add the next generation of Windows Home Server, which I imagine will have full media server capabilities built in, and Microsoft can easily beat Apple and Sony to the living room and have it sewn up before anyone realises what's happened.

Labels: Apple, Bill Gates, iMac, Multi-touch, Steve Ballmer, Windows 7, Windows Home Server, XBox

With only 19 days to go until the Steve Jobs Keynote at WWDC I thought it would be fun to post video from YouTube covering some bloopers from past keynotes. Bill Gates, enjoy :)

Labels: Apple, Bloopers, Keynote, Steve Jobs

Mace, a onetime Apple executive, parses the company’s most recent earnings report to point out that iPod unit growth has essentially ground to a halt–up only 1% from the same quarter the prior year. (Mac unit growth was 51%.) He adds that it’s risky for Apple to rely on the relatively mature PC market for such a big part of its growth.

Labels: Apple, Cloud Computing, Google, Microsoft, Wall Street Journal

Phishers have targeted users of Apple's iTunes music store with sophisticated identity theft attacks for the first time, a security company said Tuesday.

People began receiving spammed messages Monday telling them that they must correct a problem with their iTunes account, said Andrew Lochart, an executive with email security vendor Proofpoint.

A link in the spam leads to a site posing as an iTunes billing update page; that phony page asks for information including credit card number and security code, Social Security number and mother's maiden name.

The theft attempt is a new twist on the usual phishing attack, said Lochart. "We've gotten used to seeing the usual companies and brands attacked," he said, "like PayPal, eBay and Citibank. But we've never seen Apple as the target."

I received one of these emails myself on Monday. It arrived shortly after I placed an order on iTunes for a TV Show, House, and I initially thought it was legitimate. However a quick look at the url's in the email told me that this was a scam. For those interested I gave advice on spotting phishing scams in an article here.

Labels: Apple, iTunes, Phishing Scams

Labels: Apple, Mac OS X, Microsoft, Microsoft Office

I got a very interesting email from Carphone Warehouse today informing me that they had officially sold out of iPhones.

Thanks to the most phenomenal response to the promotion, The Carphone Warehouse is now out of stock on the Apple iPhone.

...

Carphone do not expect to receive any additional stock at this time.

It's not the sales that surprise me it's the expectation that no additional stock will be received. I wonder does this mean the 8Gb is disappearing and the 3G one is on the way. Time will tell I suppose.

Labels: Apple, Carphone Warehouse, iPhone

The Times of London is reporting that Apple has placed an order with it's suppliers for 200,000 of the new 3G iPhones by the end of May. According to reports the new iPhone will be different to the current device. The possibilities given are a flip version giving the user a larger screen and sliding version which would have a fully functioning QWERTY keyboard rather than a touchscreen keyboard.

The most likely outcome is that we will see all three versions of the device released. This would give the touchscreen version for users who want music and videos, the flip version for those who want Internet browsing on a larger screen and I would also say easier use of enterprise software and the slide for the average user and the Blackberry users who want a device similar to the one they are using.

The release of these three products could catapult Apple into a dominant position in the handheld market and bump RIM into second place. The timing should also guarantee an excellent quarter 2 for Apple. The image above shows the next Blackberry which RIM hope will be the iPhone killer, I doubt it though,

Labels: 3G iPhone, Apple, Blackberry, iPhone

The more times I visit the .com version of major US company's websites the more I feel that we are being shortchanged here in the UK. For example today on the Microsoft.com site there were links to downloads and deals for Vista owners, free help to setup a new business and ways to work with slower Internet connections. The Microsoft.co.uk site on the other hand had a pixilated looking set of Vista graphics with the headline "Introducing Windows Vista" and then links to a security updates and a trial for Office 2007. You can't seriously be telling me that the same amount of effort goes into the two sites. Windows Vista has been out for over a year! We don't need introduced to it yet again. Come on Microsoft give us the same level of effort at least on your site, it's bad enough that we have yet to see any sign of the Zune over here and those of  us who do own it can't get any help with problems. There's a reason I now own an iPod Touch and Shuffle.

This isn't limited to Microsoft however. There are other companies that have a difference between the US and UK version of the sites and the UK versions are nearly always lacking the information and quality of the .com site.

Looking beyond site differences and to prices and we saw from Apple's iTunes the overcharging that was going on at this side of the pond. The basic Macbook comes in at $1099 (£550 approximately) from the Apple.com store. The same Macbook on the Apple.com\uk store comes in at a surprising $1395 (£699 approximately).

It's difficult not to get fed up with uneven pricing, differing standards in websites and lack of assistance and I wonder just how many other people over here feel the same way as I do.

Labels: Apple, iPod, iTunes, Macbook, Microsoft, Vista, Zune

A browse through some recently released Apple patents has turned up an interesting new Apple idea. According to the patent the idea is:

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0012] In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, a lifestyle companion system can be provided for coordinating multiple corridors of a user's life. The lifestyle companion system can include devices and methods for providing a platform for conducting user interviews, suggesting activities and references based on interview responses, providing a platform for a user to schedule activities, collecting data about a user during performance of activities or throughout the user's day, and/or providing progress reports. The method also can include assigning user category levels (e.g., activity levels) based on interview responses. In some embodiments of the present invention, the lifestyle companion system can coordinate a user's fitness, nutrition, and medical experiences.
[0013] The lifestyle companion system can integrate user-selectable plug-in modules that are focused on specialized topics. For example, plug-in modules can be specialized for particular periods in a child's development, students, expectant parents, new parents, seniors, specific sports enthusiasts, food connoisseurs, geographical regions, health conditions, holidays, etc. Each module can have coordinating questionnaires, suggested activities, suggested references, instructions, logging tools, audiobooks, videos, podcasts and other types of activities or information tailored for the specialty of the module.

This is an extremely interesting idea and worth keeping an eye on.

Labels: Apple, Life Manager, Patent

Apple dropped me a line this morning to inform me that beta 3 of the iPhone SDK is now available for download. I'll be downloading it this morning and will post about it soon.

Labels: Apple, iPhone SDK

According to Gizmodo Apple have filed an opposition to NYC's GreeNYC logo. The reason Apple is giving is that the GreeNYC logo will "seriously injure the reputation with which [Apple] has established for its goods and services." Personally I don't think there's anyway people are going to confuse the two logos. Sure the Apple logo has no stalk for a start! As Gizmodo points out the GreeNYC logo looks like it's an Apple created from an Infinite Loop. I wonder are Apple just suing because they didn't think of it first?

Labels: Apple, GreeNYC

News has leaked out about a new interface for Windows 7, the next OS from Microsoft and it's massive. As we know Microsoft have been taking a lot of flack over the years regarding a perceived lack of innovation so they've gone out to do something about it. With Apple claiming touch and gesture technology, Microsoft is introducing thought technology. A Microsoft insider stated, "We've been working on this for a number of years now and since the public's perception of Vista was weak and Apple had cornered the touch market it was decided that this is the perfect moment to announce this new innovation."

When asked how the technology is used the insider would not go into too many specifics but he did state, "This works in the same way as a mouse cursor. You put on a specially designed Hat-Thought Interface and look at a particular part of the screen. The HTT picks up the location and the cursor moves there automatically. You then think 'click' 'click' and the interface interprets this as a double click and accesses the application. We see this as the next major step forward in computer human interaction. We also hope to one day make it possible for users to download information directly from the Internet into their brains through this same HTT."

This technology is set to be released as part of the Windows 7 OS and Microsoft hope that it will then be able to regain some of the market share that it lost to Linux and Apple because of the disastrous Vista.

Labels: Apple, Hat-Thought Interface, Linux, Microsoft, Windows 7

Charlie Miller is walking away from the CanSecWest Security Conference $10,000 and a Macbook Air richer after managing to hack into OS X running on the same notebook. A Sony Vaio, Fujitsu U810 and Macbook Air were up for grabs to the first person who could access the file system of the OS running on the laptop. The Sony laptop was running Ubuntu while the Fujitsu was running Windows Vista.

All three laptops survived the first day of the conference which consisted of attempting to access the file system over the network directly. On the second day the competitors were allowed to direct the organisers to view web sites and open emails which contained exploit code. Since the OS's only contained software that's installed out of the box the exploit must be either in or be accessible from the Safari browser.

I can't see this result being highlighted by two many Apple fans but it is very interesting to note that the Vista and Linux both survived two days of the competition and what is supposed to be the most secure OS fell early and quickly. Perhaps it's time Mac users started taking security seriously.

Labels: Apple, Leopard, Linux, Mac OS X, MacBook Air, Vista, Windows

Ed Bott pointed out on his blog today that Apple is actually breaking it's own EULA when it distributed Safari through it's Software Update tool to Windows users:

Apple tries to foist Safari browser onto Windows users using deceptive tactics. But someone forgot to read the license agreement first.

Labels: Apple, Safari

Paul Thurrott responds to Steven Vaughan-Nichols claims that Windows is being eaten alive by Linux and Mac.

I guess it's all in how you look at it. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols provides the following bit of time killer over on Desktop Linux, which I'm guessing is one of the lonelier Web destinations these days:

For the first time in ages, the sale of new PCs with Windows as a percentage of the PC market is declining sharply. The new winner is the Mac, but, while no one does a good job of tracking the still-new, pre-installed Linux desktop market, it's also clear that Linux is finally making impressive inroads into Windows' once unchallenged market share.

I see two strong trends here. On the high end, people are buying Macs instead of Windows PC. On the low end, Linux is eating Windows alive.

Windows finds itself being confined to the middle ground.

As proof, he cites the US-only, retail-only NPD numbers that made the rounds this week on all the Mac fanatic sites, and "empirical evidence makes it clear that Linux desktops are moving into customers' hands at a quick pace." I feel that neither of these is particularly relevant from a wider trend perspective, but I do like the concept of Windows being "caught between Mac and Linux." So much, in fact, that I graphed it with Excel, using actual, real-world market share figures from calendar year 2007. And when you do this, here's what you get, ladies and gentlemen. I present: Windows, caught between Mac and Linux:

Chicken Little, your time has come.

Labels: Apple, Linux, Paul Thurrott, Windows

Another Vista sucks ad is coming and this time Gizmodo is pointing out that Apple are playing with the facts:

You'll probably be seeing Apple's newest "Vista Sucks, OS X Rules Your Face" ad, starring hilarious John Hodgman and perpetually besmirked Justin Long, on Giz any day now. Basically, the banner keeps pulling up bad Vista quotes as Hodgman hammers the emergency banner refresh, but neither of them are from actual reviews of Vista—even though that's what Hodgman calls them.

CNET's blurb about Vista being one of tech's "biggest blunders" is actually from an op-ed that Microsoft should dump the OS entirely, while the PC Mag snippet is the title of a column from January that proffers ways for Microsoft to start-over.

It's not a mind-blowing factual error to say the quotes are from reviews, or even that disingenuous—attack ads usually involve a roll in the mud—but it's worth pointing out there's a difference between a position and an actual review. Not to say that the spots aren't amusing—John Hodgman is a riot. Oh, and we're certain its debut the same week as Vista SP1's is a total coinky-dink.

If Microsoft were playing the same games as Apple there would be outcry against them but in the case of Apple everyone still loves them and you daren't say a bad thing about them. It's wrong to love anything this much let alone a corporation who only really care about making money.

Labels: Apple

Labels: Apple, Leopard

From Greg Matter's blog:

THE WORLD NEEDS ONLY FIVE COMPUTERS

And, no, I'm not paraphrasing something that I bet Thomas J. Watson never uttered in 1943 anyway. But he should have because, ultimately, he might turn out to have been right.

Let's see, the Google grid is one. Microsoft's live.com is two. Yahoo!, Amazon.com, eBay, Salesforce.com are three, four, five and six. (Well, that's O(5) ;)) Of course there are many, many more service providers but they will almost all go the way of YouTube; they'll get eaten by one of the majors. And, I'm not placing any wagers that any of these six will be one of the Five Computers (nor that, per the above examples, they are all U.S. West Coast based --- I'll bet at least one, maybe the largest, will be the Great Computer of China).

I'm just saying that there will be, more or less, five hyperscale, pan-global broadband computing services giants. There will be lots of regional players, of course; mostly, they will exist to meet national needs. That is, the network computing services business will look a lot like the energy business: a half-dozen global giants, a few dozen national and/or regional concerns, followed by wildcatters and specialists.

Let me back up and explain what I mean by a Computer, and then why I think this is inevitable. I mean "Computer" as in the "The Network is the ...". These Computers will comprise millions of processing, storage and networking elements, globally distributed into critical-mass clusters (likely somewhere around 5,000 nodes each). My point in labeling them a Computer is that there will be some organization, a corporation or government, that will ultimately control the software run on and, important to my argument below, the capitalization and economics of the global system.

These Computers will be large for a number of reasons. It seems that the successful services are most definitely growing faster than Moore's Law. That is, in addition to upgrading to faster systems they are adding more of them and the compound growth is getting pretty spectacular in several cases. A company like Salesforce.com sees hypergrowth not in the form of some intrinsic demand on CRM (within an average company, definitely not growing close to Moore's Law --- Enterprise CRM is overserved by systems performance improvements), but rather the sum of consolidation of CRM systems across thousands and thousands of companies. Live.com is likely to fall into this camp, too. The growth seen by a Google or Yahoo!, on the other hand, is more directly a function of their pipe-filling roles: the greater the end-user bandwidth, the greater the demand on their infrastructure.

Moreover, there is most definitely an economy of scale in computing. To the extent that there is a scalable architectural pattern (cluster, pod, etc.), the per-unit engineering expense gets amortized over increasing capital volume. So, more and more engineering can be invested in driving higher and higher efficiencies at scale.

Our bet (meaning Sun's) is that, like the energy, transportation, telecommunications and power utility businesses, most of these companies will realize that they can become even more efficient if they rely upon a few, highly competitive and deeply technical infrastructure suppliers (think GE, Siemens, ABB for power systems, Boeing and Airbus for commercial aircraft, Ericsson, Nortel, Lucent/Alcatel, Nokia for telecom, etc.).

All this being said, a large enough enterprise (say, a big financial services firm) still have some pretty compelling reasons to build their own Computers. My only advice here is to approach the problem as one of latent scale. That is, think that you are building one of the world's five, but you just haven't quite grown into it yet! Same advice goes to start-ups: because either you will grow to become one of the big Computers, or you'll be acquired and be Borg-ed into one of them!

Naturally, we aim to be the premier infrastructure supplier to the world's Computers. Blackbox is just the beginning (More on Blackbox in a previous entry). Whatever its form (or color!) the emerging infrastructure will be far more efficient than what we think of for conventional enterprise computing. And, just as a reminder, that doesn't mean its piles and piles of cheap boxes, any more than you'd design a power plant with piles and piles of cheap portable generators. In the latter case, the little problems of noise, pollution, reliability and conversion efficiency are scaled into some really nasty ones.

Similarly, the cheapest computing is not necessarily obtained by lashing together racks and racks of the cheapest computers you can find. Engineering for scale matters. Really matters.

It's a very interesting read and he makes some very interesting points but I have to wonder if this is the world the consumer really wants though? I'm not sure if I want my whole desktop online and more importantly I don't want to lose the choice. I want the option to choose email provider, office application, media players and other services and not have them thrust upon me by an overpowering force. It's not what the net is about and I can see the EU fighting such an idea tooth and nail. Here's a question to consider though, where does Apple fit into the grand plan above? I can't see Steve Jobs surrendering any time soon.

Labels: Apple, Google, Greg Matters, Microsoft, Steve Jobs, Sun Microsystems, Yahoo

Labels: Amazon, Apple, Audible.com

Could the peace between Apple and Google be coming to an end. In this quote from an interview Steve Jobs gave, it looks as if he's making the first threat that the war is approaching.

"I actually think Google has achieved their goal without Android, and I now think Android hurts them more than it helps them. It's just going to divide them and people who want to be their partners."

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/the-passion-of-steve-jobs/index.html?ex=1358226000&en=dc35254b0fcd5490&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Would you regard Apple and Google as virtually partners at the moment because I would.

Labels: Android, Apple, Google, iPhone, Steve Jobs

Lotus Notes on the iPhone will allow the iPhone to compete directly with the Blackberry in the business market. Bringing these two major Microsoft competitors together could mean that we're looking at a full on assault on the business community. New XServer, Lotus Notes connectivity and Lotus Symphony does make a good foundation to build on.

IBM to add software for Apple devices

By BRIAN BERGSTEIN - AP Technology Writer

E-mail software from IBM Corp. will be available on Apple Inc. iPhones and iPod Touch devices under a new partnership that brings together two big rivals of Microsoft Corp.

IBM plans a formal announcement of the Lotus Notes e-mail package for Apple's portable devices at its Lotusphere conference in Orlando, Fla., next week. The software, which requires use of IBM's Domino e-mail server program, will be free for users who already have a Lotus Web-access license and start at $39 per year for new users.

IBM also plans to release Lotus Notes and the free Lotus Symphony "productivity" package - which includes documents, spreadsheets and other Microsoft Office-like software - for Apple's Macintosh computers.

http://www.thestate.com/technology-wire/story/285949.html

Labels: Apple, IBM, iPhone, Lotus Notes, Lotus Symphony, XServe

The worst kept secret in Apple is official, The MacBook Air. It's the world's thinnest notebook. Apple didn't want to compromise processor power, display size or keyboard size for weight. .76 inches at it's thickest and .16 inches at it's thinnest it fits into a manila envelope. It has a full sized display and full sized keyboard. Built in camera, 13.3 inch widescreen display which is LED backlit to save power and give a bright display, keyboard lights up with an Ambient light sensor and has a well shaped trackpad which will now respond to gestures. This sounds like a pretty amazing machine. The trackpad uses the same pinching gestures as the iPhone and iPod Touch do. It has an 80Gb HDD standard or an optional 64Gb SSD. Core 2 Duo Processors and 1.6GHz standard or 1.8GHz optional.

It comes with USB 2.0, micro DVI, 802.11n and Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR. The optical drive is a $99 accessory which is bus powered. The software can be installed without an optical drive, thank you Apple. 5 hour battery life with everything switched on and in full use. This really is a fantastic device even though I will feel like I could snap it in half just be sneezing. All for only $1799. I want one!

The HDD is the same one as used in the iPod:

Spec list:

Just like to say a quick thank you to SlashGear for covering the keynote so well.

Labels: Apple, Keynote, MacBook Air, Macworld 2008

Touchstone, Miramax, Lions Gate, Paramount, Universal, Song, Walt Disney, Fox, Warner Brothers and more have signed up to movie rentals on iTunes. Hope the UK is actually going get this major feature sooner rather than later. Launches today by free iTunes, iPhone and iPod update. $3.99 for new movies, launched 30 days after the DVD, and $2.99 for older titles. 30 days to watch a movie and 24 hours to finish it. That's not bad I suppose. I usually only watch films once and they cost £15 or so each.

This will lead to Apple TV2. In fact he's talking about it now. No computer needed anymore. Direct rental from your TV. Watch audio/video podcasts, view photos from Flickr or computer and You Tube. Basically all iTunes content is available for download. Full DVD and HD quality with surround sound. Completely new interface as well. You know this doesn't seem like the hobby he described it as last year. Maybe Microsoft 360 and PS3 in the living room has worried him.

Labels: Apple, Apple TV, iTunes, Keynote, Macworld 2008

SDK due in February and an update for iPhone coming today. Multiple person SMS, Customize Home Screen, Lyrics support, videos with chapters and subtitles, Webclips, iPhone knows where your location is and can give you location specific directions thru maps. All available today.

Add web pages to your home screen. Basically like favourites except it adds an iCon to your home screen that takes you to the site. A nice touch, pardon the pun, I suppose.

iPod Touch is getting Mail, Maps, Stocks, Notes, Customizable Home Screen, Webclips and Weather. At bloody last. However that update is actually $20. Why do I have to pay that while iPhone users get the same for free?

Labels: Apple, iPhone, iPod, Keynote, Macworld 2008

First news from the Keynote and it's the release of a new device called Time Capsule. Used for backing up computers. Server grade hard drive and 500Gb for only $299. A terabyte version released too. Seems like a baby version of Windows Home Server but I suppose it is wireless which is good.

Here's a picture from SlashGear:

Labels: Apple, Keynote, Macworld 2008, Steve Jobs

Here are my predictions for what is going to be announced in today's keynote.

1. Apple TV2

2. Movies on iTunes

3. iPhone SDK

4. Slimmer Notebooks/Tablets

5. Takeover of Adobe (hence the Air reference).

6. Best sales figures ever

7. Number of iTunes downloads/iPhone users/iPod users

8. Apple takeover by Google (probably not but live in hope)!

Labels: Apple, Google, iPhone, iPod, iTunes, Macworld 2008, Steve Jobs