MacNinja

Rumors are circulating that Steve Jobs is really a ninja. Caught with shurikens while trying to board a plane might have been his unwanted unveiling. Of course, Apple claims that none of it is true, but isn't that what all ninjas would claim? I think Apple is just a gigantic front for the world's largest group of ninjas. Prove me wrong!

The SNL skit is coming true...

Apple just announced the 3rd iteration of their iPod Shuffle. The thing is so small, it can't even fit the control buttons.

Maybe that cellphone from Zoolander wasn't really a joke.

The Cult of Apple...

My Blackberry Pearl is on its last legs.  The speaker is giving me garbled up sound, the battery cover is falling off, and the memory is maxed out to the point that I can't even hang up on a call most of the time unless I pull the battery out.  If you know anyone who's owned a Blackberry, they're kind of addicting and it's no surprise that a Crackberry cult exists.  Even Barack Obama is trying to figure out how he can still keep his Blackberry when he is sworn in as President.  Of course, like anyone who's seen an iPhone, I've always had a bit of envy, and now I'm thinking about changing my allegiance to the iPhone cult.  My only concern is that I'll become one of these Mapple followers from a recent episode of The Simpsons.  Scary:

Maybe I should actually spend my lunch hour eating lunch...

I feel like a bit of nerd--I'm spending my lunch hour following the live updates of the Wordwide Developer Conference keynote address being given by Steve Jobs right now in hopes of finding out exactly what the new iPhone is going to look like.

Anywho, in other more entertaining news, check out the new TV trailer for The Incredible Hulk. YouTube disabled the embed function, so you'll have to go directly over to their site to watch it. If you liked Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, let's just say you'll love this trailer.

I could almost floss my teeth with that thing...

In response to Wild Willie's comment on my Macworld Keynote Speech reminder yesterday, THAT IS THIN!  Sweeeeeeeet, indeed!

Not exactly the Earth shattering news that the introduction of the iPhone was last year, but this new MacBook Air is still pretty jaw-droppingly skinny. 

I'm curious to see how movie rentals on iTunes works out.  I've kind of gotten used to the low-pressure Netflix system where I can have a DVD sitting around for months, and not feel any rush to watch it.  And considering the sloooooooooow DSL connection in my current residence right now, it just isn't practical for me to take advantage of this new Apple service.  

I don't know--I still haven't gotten into this whole online music/movie store thing.  The wife and I spent many a date night heading over to the local video store and perusing the aisles for some obscure movie we'd never heard of, but sounded good based on the descriptions on the box.  I think there's a romance to that sort of thing that gets lost if you're sitting on your couch, flipping through iTunes on your Apple TV, and picking a flick.  Same goes for music.  Something about heading to a great independent music store like Waterloo Records in Austin or Ear X-tacy in Louisville, perusing through the listening stations and getting that warm fuzzy feeling when you discover a new artist you'd never heard about before?  All lost when you try and do the same thing online.  CD's seem to be slowly going the way of the record LP and the cassette tape.  And even though the battle for high definition video may be won by Blu-Ray in the next year or so, it might be a moot point as the world moves to downloaded content instead.  

I love the innovations that Apple has made for us in the past few years, but at times, I miss the world before them.

And it ain't just the aroma of my farts...

A quick reminder to the converted: Steve Jobs makes his annual keynote address at Macworld tomorrow!

If only they had a martini bar to complement their Genius Bar, the Apple Store would be perfect...

Apple stock has been on a steady climb all year, and finally surpassed the $200/share barrier yesterday. It isn't rocket science to understand why they're doing so well, but it is bewildering why no one else ever quite got the combination of easy usability, stylish ergonomics, cutting-edge technology, and friendly service right until Steve Jobs came along. Try throwing those words in for Microsoft or Dell--kind of hard to do. The success of the Apple Store epitomizes why this company remains profitable. Unlike most stores, Apple encourages you to relax and linger in their stores, whether you're going to buy something or not, as this story from The New York Times shows:

The policy has given some stores, especially those in urban neighborhoods, the feel of a community center. Two years ago, Isobella Jade was down on her luck, living on a friend’s couch and struggling to make it as a fashion model when she had the idea of writing a book about her experience as a short woman trying to break into the modeling business.

Unable to afford a computer, Ms. Jade, 25, began cadging time on a laptop at the Apple store in the SoHo section of Manhattan. Ms. Jade spent hours at a stretch standing in a discreet corner of the store, typing. Within a few months, she had written nearly 300 pages.

Not only did store employees not mind, but at closing time they often made certain to shut Ms. Jade’s computer down last, to give her a little extra time. A few months later, the store invited her to give an in-store reading from her manuscript.

“Everyone is free to use the Internet and do anything they want — within reason,” said Paul Fradin, the general manager of the SoHo and 14th Street stores. Visitors spotted surfing pornographic Web sites are quietly asked to leave, and are escorted out.

Visitors can bring almost anything they like. Ms. Jade showed up nearly every day with her full set of notes, and enough food to see her through a few hours of writing.

I went to the Sony Style store once, and kept getting stared down by a security guard. I can't imagine what would have happened if I had pulled out some food, let alone sat down for more than half an hour and made myself at home.

More gadget lust from the wizard in Cupertino...

About a month or so ago, I neglected my iPod and it took a suicidal dive into some Diet Dr. Pepper. It accidentally fell off my lap while I was lounging at the pool, and fell straight into a plastic cup full of soda on the ground. Now, I thought it was amazing that the cup mouth would be exactly wide enough to fit said iPod, and even more miraculous that the thing fell straight into the cup without knocking it over or hitting the cup rim first. Needless to say, it wasn't working after I fished it out only seconds later. I let it "dry out" for a day, but alas, it still was not functioning. In a last ditch effort, I even went and got a Torx wrench to open her up and pretend like I knew how to perform iPod surgery. Somewhere in the process of prying out the battery, however, I got a faint whiff of burning electronics and saw a puff of smoke reminiscent of a Mission: Impossible self destruct sequence arise from its innards. Not good.


I didn't find any remaining moisture in there, but after reassembling it, my iPod somehow came back to life, although severely handicapped with a quarter-functioning click wheel and a really messed up display.

Needless to say, combined with the mars and scratches I inflicted on the casing when prying her open and the fact that it just wouldn't work properly, this was playing major games with my OCD. I'm also worried it might just blow up in my pocket at any minute. Since then, I've been struggling to fight the urge retiring her and just buying a new one. Steve Jobs, however, will not hear of such consumer restraint, and today tantalizes me with not one, not two, but THREE new iPods with which to spend my as-yet-to-be-earned money. I don't know if Steve Jobs is a god or the devil himself.


Oddly, Apple stock closed 5% down today despite the news. Who knew not being able to buy episodes of The Office off of iTunes anymore would have such an impact?

I wouldn't be surprised if it slices, dices, peels, cuts, and wets a baby's bed, too...

Only a couple more days until the iPhone is released this Friday, and a couple of reviews have already come out.

One of my favorite technology reporters, David Pogue from The New York Times, gives a pretty thorough review complete with slideshows, video, and interactive graphics, in the end feeling that the iPhone lives up to most of the hype. Walter Mossberg from The Wall Street Journal also thinks this "raises the bar for all other smartphones."

Both, however, point out that the biggest flaw with the phone is its exclusivity with the AT&T cellular network and its use of much slower EDGE technology for data transmission. My Blackberry on the T-Mobile network uses EDGE, as well, and all I can say is that it's SLOOOOOOOOW. And that's just downloading manipulated pages designed specifically for smartphones. The iPhone will be downloading native web pages, so you can see them as you would on your laptop or desktop at home. In contrast, other carriers such as Verizon and Sprint have already upgraded to 3G technology that can have you zipping along on your smartphone at close to DSL speeds. With a Slingbox, you could watch a video from your TiVo while sitting on a train or in a car during a long road trip using 3G. Sounds like something perfect for an iPhone with its relatively huge screen. Alas, the exclusive contract AT&T brokered with Apple is rumoured to be a rather long relationship, and AT&T is only now just beginning to upgrade some of its networks. The iPhone's only saving grace in this department is that it also has Wi-Fi, and with the ubiquitousness of internet hotspots these days, it shouldn't be hard to find a place with fast web access.

Considering all it's features, I think the pricetag of $499 to $599 is reasonable. There's still PDAs that cost almost that much, and video iPods aren't all that cheaper, either. Oh, gadget lust.

This Sums Me Up

Swany will give you the lowdown, and I’ll give you my sum up. Although I confess to drooling over Mac desktops at the local Apple store while Christmas shopping for IPod accessories for Tellulah's IPod, which she uses like an emphysema patient uses those air tanks they wheel around with them, constantly and needfully, I do not plan on buying said Mac desktops until there is a more open gaming market for them, which will likely not happen now that Windows Vistas is being released aimed directly at PC Gamers and engineered almost in its entirety to make pc gaming better and faster and brighter and cooler, and advertising for the new OS centered around the updated gaming application up to and including Windows Vistas PC Gaming Kiosks along the line of the Xbox 360 demo stations coming to a store near you, but the IPhone? As Morrissey of The Smiths sang... Please, Please, Please Let Me, Let Me, Let Me Get What I Want This Time.

I ache in a vaguely naughty way to possess this holiest of grails.

I really do feel sorry, though, for the handful that purchased the Zune in an orgiastic fervor and belief in Microsoft understanding what consumers need and want in a handheld music player. Their understanding of these things, compared to Apple’s? Let’s say Microsoft is Insane Clown Posse, and we’ll say Apple is Fleetwood Mac. There is a distinct group of people who believe IPC is the end all of music, but they will eventually grow up and burn out on it, and end up listening to Fleetwood Mac when they realize that Fleetwood Mac really did have what they wanted all along but in a much more pleasant and user friendly package, and the IPC listeners will realize they were really just trying to be different and going through a phase.

But if Apple figures out how to get the gaming audience? They will truly be the lone rebel who brings down the mighty overlord, just like the '1984' inspired commercials for the Apple IIC so long ago. A prophecy fulfilled? By a company named after the fruit who was both mankinds downfall and and eviction notice from Eden? Maybe the touch screen is the easier, more seductive path that leads to the dark side. And if it is?

Apple is my dark master now.

A historic achievement...

With all the bad news happening in my own life, I thought I'd talk about the new Apple iPhone to get my mind off things.

This truly does appear to be revolutionary. As Steve Jobs stated in his Macworld keynote address, many companies such as Palm, RIM Blackberry, and Nokia have tried to come up with the ultimate smartphone, but have yet to blend all the ingredients together into the perfect device. As feature packed as my Blackberry Pearl is, it still doesn't play music/video all that easily, the browser is limited and somewhat slow, and it takes a bit of learning curve to figure out how to navigate through the whole thing.

Time magazine has a feature about the development of the iPhone that started almost three years ago as an experiment into tablet PCs. It's a testament to Steve Jobs' intuition that he saw the emerging product could be so much more by essentially packing a minicomputer into a phone.

Some of the truly unique features of the iPhone that made me want to get up and applaud:

• The touchscreen interface: This maybe the first step into consumer interfaces like you'd see in movies like Minority Report. The iPhone only requires the use of any of your 10 fingers, and allows intuitive gestures of pinching or spreading two fingers to zoom in or out. They even came up with a new screen material so your greasy mitts don't dirty it up too much. When you think about it, Apple really has been behind some of the most revolutionary interfaces in recent history. The mouse and the first Macintosh, touchscreens using styluses with their short-lived Newton, the scroll wheel of the iPod...it's amazing that other companies with endless buckets of cash like Microsoft have never come up with similar ideas. Unlike them, Apple always seems to start with the interface on their devices, and makes the technological features run from there. Seems to be a great development model.
  
• OS X: A full featured operating system within a handheld device? I'm still trying to figure out how they fit that in this thing. Unlike other smartphones, the iPhone's inclusion of OS X allows it to run native applications and internet browsers. Who needs a tablet PC when you've got this? It even allows for the use of Cover Flow in iTunes on the device.
  
• Accelerometer and proximity sensor: Apple somehow incorporated an accelerometer into the phone which detects whether you've got it propped upright or sideways, and automatically adjusts pictures to display in portrait or landscape mode. And once you actually get a call, a sensor detects when it's close to your ear and turns off the screen both to save batteries and to make sure you don't inadvertently touch a virtual button with your face. Just another two examples of features that probably no one ever thought of, but makes life all that much easier.
• Virtual voice mail: Apple has earned some major respect, so much so that Cingular partnered up with them sight unseen, and allowed them to configure a new way to look at voice mail. Instead of having to listen to all of your messages in sequential order, you can now see what messages you have, and pick the ones you want to listen to individually. The way Apple was able to get Cingular to cater to their needs rather than the other way around may change the entire relationship between cell phone makers and service providers forever.
  
• Overall design: As typical of any Apple device, the iPhone is minimalistic and pretty. I've yet to understand why no other company seems to get this. Apple always pays attention to even the most minute details.
  

My only gripes:

• Their partnership with Cingular is a bit limited by the fact that they rely on an EDGE network for data transmission, which is far inferior in speed compared to the 3G networks of Verizon and Sprint. And considering the pace that new iPods seem to come out at, having to lock into a 2 year contract seems to put you at risk of being behind the curve when updates get released.
  
• 4GB and 8 GB are OK for music, but it doesn't look like the introductory models will carry enough storage to have a lot of TV shows or movies stored on them. That said, flash memory continues to grow by leaps and bounds, so its conceivable that a 30 GB+ models will some out in the future.
  

When you watch Steve Jobs run through a demo of this thing, it looks like the most easy and intuitive device I've ever seen. Every year, when a new smartphone or PDA comes out, I pull out my wish list for the ultimate handheld device and find the latest gadgets still lacking. This may be the first time I can't say that. I truly am giddy just thinking about the iPhone and can't wait to see one in the flesh when it's released in June.

Wow! I haven't thought about my personal woes for the entire time I was writing this. I love my blog.

Man, I should really be working, but this is SO exciting...

Sometimes I wonder if Bill Gates left his post at Microsoft not because he wanted to help save the world from poverty, hunger, and disease, but more to hide the fact that Steve Jobs was kicking his ass in the innovation department. I'm currently following live coverage of MacWorld 2007 where Steve Jobs just announced the iPhone during his keynote address. I'm pretty flabbergasted by what's packed into this little thing so far, and I'm sure I'll be posting more details about this breakthrough device soon. iPod, mobile phone, and internet browser in one with a full touchscreen that uses finger touches and gestures rather than a stylus. They even fit Bluetooth AND wi-fi into one small little package. This is like everything I dreamed about having in a device ever since I bought my first PDA from the now defunct Handspring company nine years ago. Makes me regret committing to a two year contract for my most recent Blackberry Pearl. Ugh.

To think Microsoft had such high hopes for the Zune. This thing makes the Zune look about as technologically behind the curve as my old Sony Walkman that played tapes. I think they should stick to software.



Update: HOLY COW!! The iPhone and demonstrations of all its features are now up on the Apple website. Hope everyone bought some Apple stock prior to this.