Apple introduces laptop with clickwheel instead of keyboard

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

Can't wait for Macworld tomorrow!

Re: Steve Jobs' health

Why has Dear Leader been looking so gaunt? Really, is it any of our business? He's the CEO of a company for crying out loud. If Phil Knight, Steve Forbes, or even the famed Richard Branson appeared to have health problems would their stock tumble and the very future of the thriving companies they founded be brought into question? I think not.

The fact that Steve Jobs had to write a public letter explaining his health status (obviously a very personal thing) is a shame.

Wait. No it isn't.

Apple has created the perception that one person responsible for an entire brand, product line, company and a cultural phenomenon. I understand the fact that Mr. Jobs doesn't want to discuss his health ("So now I’ve said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this") and any other CEO probably wouldn't have to.

But guess what Steve? You brought this on yourself by making (and promoting) yourself as more than a CEO: you brand yourself as The Heart, Soul, and Mind of Apple. You are irreplaceable. You are responsible for its success. You are the foundation upon which Apple is built.

There's nothing wrong with people who have invested in Apple inquiring about (possible) cracks in the foundation.

Image courtesy of Engadget.

FINALLY! A note synchronization app for the iPhone: Note*spark

I've griped about this a number of times to just about anyone who would listen: "Why the #!$& can the iPhone locate my position using a combination of wifi hotspots, cell phone tower triangulation and global positioning satellites, but it can't get notes from my phone to my computer??!"

This morning I checked my RSS feed that shows me each and every iPhone app that's been approved for the App Store and, amidst the dross of apps like iFart and iLuvBling...there it was. Note*spark. Notes. Over the air synchronization. Doesn't require a constant data connection. Web-based app for desktop integration. No Comic Sans font.

Upon reading the description, I couldn't contain myself: "MY DAY HAS COME!" I shouted in my best faux-Sean Conner accent. Two bucks? Not a problem. I'm sure my wife would gladly give me fifty dollars if I'd just shut up about the lack of notes synchronization on my phone. So I signed up for a free account online and downloaded the app and it works perfectly.

Eventually, I'm sure Apple will create to-do and notes syncing with Mail. However,  you'll probably need a MobileMe account to do so ($99/year) and I'm guessing it won't sync online - just to your Mail app. Remember The Milk and Note*spark work perfectly now.

Enough. Go download it and enjoy seamless notes synchronization. Click here to download the app (iTunes link).

Simpsons makes fun of Apple

Enjoy.

Mapple - The Simpsons
by aarplane

C...V...B...N...M...

I wonder what happens when you hit the "N" key.

Courtesy of Engadget.

Apple on fire - literally

 Oh, snap! Apple's R&D department went up in flames late last night, triggering a three alarm fire. Heads are gonna roll. Rumor has it that Macworld, which is normally held in January, will be pushed off until July 2011. Also, reports are coming in that Steve Ballmer, or someone who greatly resembled him, was seen fleeing from the scene, laughing manically.

Either that, or Apple got a taste of its own medicine with regard to its laptops.

How does Steve Jobs get his strength?

A hilarious description, courtesy of Engadget.

"Steve Jobs, presumably speaking from a hyperbaric chamber where he's being nourished with an infusion of liquified developers-souls before his next public appearance, had a few interesting tidbits about the AppStore for the Wall Street Journal this morning."

Attention world: the touch screen isn't what makes the iPhone cool

LG Voyager, Samsung Glide, Samsung Instinct, LG Dare and all you other handsets and handset manufacturers out there trying to play catch-up to the iPhone, here's a tip for you:

Simply making a touch screen handset with movable icons isn't going to cut it. It makes you look like you're trying to rip-off the iPhone, which, let's be honest, you are. And at first glance that's an understandable thing to do: there's a radically different phone that is getting everyone excited so, naturally, you want to do the same thing.

By trying to mimick the iPhone, you aren't creating something different. You're creating something like the iPhone, which means you're always going to be in a second place, "me-too" position. Instead, focus on creating something innovative of your own.

You can react to trends or you can start them. The same thing goes for advertising and any number of other industries. So how do you start a trend?

"If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster horse.'"- Henry Ford as quoted by Steve Jobs.

Know what people want before they do. Much easier said than done. However, with the resources of these huge, multi-billion dollar companies you'd think they'd step back and do something original and innovative. It worked wonderfully for Motorola with the RAZR (until they got lazy). So why don't more companies try to do it? Are they too focused on immediate, quarterly results to invest in something lasting? Or do they try and they just can't quite swing it? What are your thoughts?

Image courtesy of CrunchGear.

Giving credit where it's due

According to TUAW:

"As Mark Siegel from AT&T explained to me yesterday, "AT&T wants to be as fair as possible to customers who very recently purchased an iPhone." Thus, if you purchased an iPhone from an AT&T store AFTER May 27, 2008, you have the option of returning the phone to an AT&T store between July 11, 2008 and August 1, 2008 for the new iPhone 3G. Those customers will also be refunded the difference between the price paid for the 2G iPhone and the iPhone 3G."

I must say I'm impressed. Especially because they're refunding the difference in the two phones. Well played AT&T, well played.

Will the iPhone soon be on T-Mobile and Verizon?

Something fishy is afoot. One thing I neglected to mention in my overview of the 3G iPhone is that the notorious revenue-sharing deal between AT&T and Apple is no more. (Up to this point, it was speculated that AT&T was giving Apple a monthly payment for each iPhone subscriber.)

So...why is AT&T still the exclusive provider of the iPhone? What's Apple's incentive to stay with them? Seems like a raw deal for Apple because they're still severely limited as to their potential market.

Don Reisinger over at CNET speculates the relationship between the two companies may be over in the relatively near future. He has some good points, so check out the article.

My speculation is that the (rumored) five-year contract isn't quite that long. In fact, I wonder if maybe the contract wasn't based on length of time, but quantity of phones sold. A wacky idea, I know. But it may explain a couple of things:

1. AT&T would be reassured in the beginning that they'd have a guaranteed number of new subscribers from this unprecedented arrangement.

2. AT&T says it will only gives kick-backs for the first year. Apple doesn't hit the 10 million mark in that time frame, so they lower the price and make it more difficult to unlock the phone so they can hit the target number and get out.

For what it's worth, I think T-Mobile may get the iPhone before Verizon (despite the larger Verizon customer base) simply because the hardware is ready to go. CDMA phones suck a lot more juice than their GSM counterparts, something Apple will have to address, especially if a CDMA phone is going to be using 3G and GPS.

Absurd? Possible? Likely? "You're a freak and should write about something else"? Sound off in the comments.

Reflections on WWDC keynote and the iPhone 3G

The Reality Distortion Field is strong with this one. I'm just finishing watching the keynote and in the 12 hours since it took place a lot of the shine has disappeared from Mobile Me and the iPhone 3G.

Because I know you're all very interested in this, I will elaborate.

Watching Phil Schiller present Mobile Me (logo look familiar?) was kind of embarrassing. He kept explaining its "new" functionality as if it were some revolutionary concept.

"And when you get an e-mail on your desktop, it automatically shows up on your iPhone too! It uses the cloud!"

Oooo..."the cloud". Try to work that buzzword into your presentation a few more times.

"Now watch carefully...you can drag and drop e-mail from your inbox to folders! You wouldn't expect to see that in a web application."

Actually, Yahoo and Hotmail have been doing that for quite some time. And they're free.

"Let's say my softball practice got moved back to Monday night. Using this web version of iCal, I can simply drag and drop that appointment from Tuesday to Monday. You wouldn't expect to see that in a web application."

Google Calendar does that. And it, too, is free.

I don't know, maybe Phil Schiller and the folks at Apple use a special, handicapped version of the Internet (see photo right).

Then there's the 3G iPhone. Or, as it is being called, the "iPhone 3G" (which is cumbersome to say). It's pretty much everything the rumors said it would be. Speaking of rumors, what's happened to Apple's penchant for secrecy? For the last year or every major announcement has been pegged beforehand. But I digress.

It's an iPhone. It's 3G. It's coming next month. The biggest news is that it's only $199. That's a big deal. There are much crappier phones out there being sold for a lot more. But there are a few things Uncle Steve forgot to mention during his keynote:

You HAVE to activate the iPhone at either an AT&T or Apple Store when you purchase it. There is no prepaid option. You can't activate it at home. You can't buy it online. Not only is this inconvenient and going to make its debut a nightmare for employees and customers alike, but from a logistical standpoint it makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to unlock. (Which, of course, is the whole point of doing it this way. But I just wish they'd come out and say it.)

Unlocking aside, AT&T customers (you have my sympathies), there are some additional costs you should be aware of.

1. You have to pay $10 more per month for that 3G speed.

2. Those text messages that were originally bundled with your iPhone plan are gone.

3. Your two-year contract will start over.

So, you're going to pay an extra $15 a month ($10 for 3G and $5 to replace your lost text messages) for 24 months which comes out to $360 plus the taxes and "fees" associated with those charges. So the REAL cost of your $199 iPhone works out to be more than $560 when all is said and done. (Note that that figure is just the extra costs associated with this particular phone and doesn't include the cost of the monthly plan.)

Oh, and while you're forking over that $560 over the course of your contract, there will be probably three or so upgrades to the iPhone. In fact, I'm willing to bet they have a capacity update (16 and 32 gig?) before Christmas.

Overall, Android is looking like a great alternative.

In other news, Snow Leopard, OS 10.6, is due out in about a year. Apple is pulling a Microsoft here and the new OS will just be stability, security and performance tweaks - no new features, just things that should have been included originally.

Basically, it's Service Pack 1.

While I want to believe Apple will make this a free/very inexpensive upgrade, I know better.


Images courtesy of here and here.

Apple announces SIM Card Ejector Tool

At long last! Rumors have flown and people have clamored for it for over a year. As one of the biggest gripes about the original iPhone, I know it kept me from purchasing one for a long time. Paying $600 for a cell phone (no subsidy) and having to sign your life away to AT&T for two years for slow data speeds, poor sound quality, dropped calls and crappy customer service were all tolerable and easily overlooked when compared to having to use a bent paperclip to get to the SIM card in the iPhone.

Really, what kind of monsters work at Apple to think people want to deal with the hassle of destroying a perfectly good paperclip just to get to a SIM card most people never need to access?

I, for one, think this addition to the iPhone is welcome and long overdue.

Android is gonna rock

Come the end of the year, Android (Google's mobile phone platform) could be a fine replacement for the ol' iPhone. Seriously. Check out some of the apps those smart folks over at MIT have already come up with:

Loco
Loco is a mobile social network built on top an Android phone’s contact manager, so anyone in your contacts is already your friend, so to speak. You’ll be able to view and track where your friends are located using Google Maps and real-time geolocation. So, in essence, you can check out the scene at a few places before you commit to going all the way across town.

Locale
Locale is a dynamic settings manager. You set up different settings for your phone based on time and location. So when you’re at home, you can automatically have all your calls forwarded to your home phone line. When you’re at work, you can have your phone set to silent mode and have your phone’s background screen set to a constantly updating work chart.

GeoLife
GeoLife is basically your to-do list on top of Google Maps. When you get within a certain range of something you need to pick up, it alerts you.

It also works as a traditional to-do list for things that aren’t location-based. The team that put this together is also working on a route-creation system wherein you could pick a few important items from your list and then have a route plotted out for you to follow that day.

And that's just three of the seven apps reviewed at TechCrunch. No, I don't think paying an extra $20 a month for data is worth it for the iPhone. (Yeah, that could change when the iPhone SDK comes out.) But I'd be willing to shell out the extra cash to get access to those kinds of programs.

Seriously, I had this same idea. Kind of.

OK, so it wasn't exactly the same, but I thought to myself, "I'm pretty sure my Macbook would fit just fine in an intra-office envelope. And it costs $700 less than a Macbook Air." Well played Lenovo, well played.

Apple sued: lied about displays in iMacs

Apple told consumers that both the 20-inch and 24-inch iMacs displayed "millions of colors at all resolutions."

Apparently that's not the case.

"While Apple describes the display of both the 24-inch and 20-inch iMacs as though they were interchangeable, the monitors in each are of radically different technology. The 20-inch iMacs feature 6-bit twisted nematic film (TN) LCD screens, the least expensive of its type," according to the lawsuit.

What?? Apple produces overpriced hardware amidst hype of it being the greatest thing to ever be produced since the Ten Commandments? I find that hard to believe. But not really.

Full story here.

Android or iPhone? Discuss.

Knowing what we do about Android (see here for the SDK demo, if you can stay awake past Sergy's intro) and what Google has up its sleeve regarding national broadband via whitespace, would you rather have an Android-powered device or an iPhone with AT&T service?

The poll is on the right and the comments are open. Have at it.

I went and got me one of them iPhones

Yeah. So as I reported earlier in the year, my wife was kind enough to give me a 16 gig iPod Touch for Christmas. I returned it, and have now purchased an iPhone which I promptly unlocked using this very, very easy (and fast) program. Honestly, I set the iPhone on the dock, clicked "Free my iPhone" and two minutes later it was unlocked. I turned it off, put my T-Mobile sim card in and ta-da. An unlocked iPhone that works perfectly.

Yeah. It's pretty cool. No new activation fee. Same "low" monthly T-Mobile bill. No contract. It's a very nice arrangement.

So huge "thank you" to my generous wife who is far kinder and generous a person than I am afraid than I will ever be - and for many more reasons than this gift.

UPDATE: And a not-as-huge "thank you" to Danny for letting me use his Windows machine to do the unlocking.

Apple could take a note out of Microsoft's book

Apparently Microsoft announced special edition, red, 80 gig Zunes to be available just in time for Valentine's Day. (Who knew?) However, the players are more popular than expected and there have been some delays in shipping. Here's an abridged e-mail from Microsoft to those waiting on their oh-so-romantic Zunes:

We wanted to provide you with an update on your order status. Due to some issues in our fulfillment center there remains a chance we will miss getting your Zune to you by February 14th. We are working hard to get your order to you as quickly as possible...

Our goal is to provide a smooth customer experience for ordering, customization, and delivery. We sincerely apologize for not meeting that goal in this specific case. We will be refunding the entire amount of your order, which you should be able to see on your credit/debit card within 7-10 days. We hope you love your Zune and that you will accept our sincere apology.

Dang. An official apology, full refund and they get to keep the product? I didn't get that kind of love from Apple when my new iMac broke. In fact, I had to wait a month to get it back, without any updates, and in order to get any kind of reimbursement I had to write a letter to Stevie J. himself and work through their "executive customer service". Even then, my experience was nowhere as good as this.

Get the full story here.

Steve Jobs 90 minute keynote in 60 seconds

For those of you who want the skinny on what went down yesterday at the Macworld 2008 Stevenote, look no further.

Courtesy of Mahalo.

Still no iPhone

Turns out the iPhone I got which, according to the serial number, should have had the old 1.1.1 firmware didn't. It came with 1.1.2 out of the box which, as numerous pages on the interwebs declared, is unlockable.

*sigh*

So I'm out $40. Unless someone out there wants to buy an iPhone and not have to pay sales tax.