My wife's hard drive is nearly full as I wrote in an earlier blog. Therefore I decided to move her music into iCloud.
But for some reason I could not access iCloud through Lion. I could however through Safari.
ICloud will cost by the way money, when you need more than 5 GB and it is not cheap.
The first 5 GB of storage on the service are free. An additional 10 GB will cost $20, 20 GB will cost $40 and 5 0GB will retail for $100. It’s more expensive than Amazon Cloud Drive, which gives 20 GB of space for $20 and lets users store an unlimited amount of music for free.
I decided to move her music to an external hard drive in our network, because iCloud was right now no option (even if I have a developer account and iCloud beta should work). Having the data external accessible over wifi makes this a private cloud. This is cool.
But I did something really bad, I copied the music and changed the music folder in iTunes to new location. However the library still recognized the songs in original folder. I renamed the original folder, I moved the folder to another local location. Nothing helped, when opening iTunes the app recognized the old folder regardless of name or location.
I then renamed the library XML file to .old and reopened iTunes. This worked but of course no songs in iTunes and then I imported the songs to iTunes. The whole process took two hours and a unhappy wife. Doing this did a lot what I did want to avoid. She lost all her ratings and her playlists. The correct approach would have been to use Apple instructions, but I did bing for it when I was too late.
At least we have now for her a private cloud which is much cheaper than $50 a year for Apple's iCloud.
Apple's recommendation:
1. Open iTunes.
2.From the iTunes menu, choose Preferences.
3. Click the Advanced button in the Preferences window.
4. Click the Change button in the iTunes Media folder location pane.
5. In the Change Media Folder Location window that appears, navigate to the location where you would like your new iTunes Media folder to be created.
Note: By default, your iTunes Media folder is a folder named "iTunes Media" in ~/Music/iTunes/ where the tilde "~" represents your home directory.
6. Click the New Folder button in the Change Media Folder Location window.
In the New Folder window that appears, enter the name of the new iTunes Media folder.
7. Click Create.
8. Click Choose in the Change Media Folder Location window.
9. Click OK in the Advanced window.
10. From the File menu, choose Library and then Organize Library if using iTunes 9 or later. If you're using iTunes 7 or iTunes 8 for Mac, choose File > Library and then Consolidate Library.
11. In the Organize Library (or Consolidate Library) window, select Consolidate files.
12. Click OK. Important: This action copies all of your music and media files to the new location. There must be enough hard disk space available to copy all of your music and media files.
13. After the folder has been copied, locate your original iTunes Media folder, and drag it to the Trash. Important: Don't remove the iTunes Library files that may be in the same location as the iTunes Media folder. For more information about the iTunes Library files, see this article.
14. Quit iTunes and then open iTunes once more.
If you receive the alert "The folder containing "iTunes Library" cannot be found, and is required. Please choose or create a new iTunes library," you most likely moved the iTunes Library files. If this is the case, move them out of the Trash and back to where they were.
If you can open and close iTunes without encountering the above alert, empty the Trash.
After all was done I deleted the old local music folder and emptied trash however the computer still believed there is only 1GB space left. I almost got crazy and then remembered that my backup hard drive on my iMac showed (since I moved to Lion) that all backup files are together 16 Terra Byte, but my hard drive is really only 3 TB.
When I rebooted the iMac the folder size was shown correct as 1.4 Terra byte. I rebooted my wife's computer and got a message that the hard drive is almost full. The reboot took 3 minutes but then all was fine, we had again 39 GB available. Which was weird because we deleted only 29 GB.
Playing around with Lion, it seems that Lion is building up a lot of virtual memory to keep track on open apps and documents etc. I might be mistaken, but when I played around I could actually see the disc space going down, but maybe it is just a display issue (maybe this is the reason that Apple did hide the folder and file sizes in Lion). However when rebooting Lion most of the memory is coming back even if Lion is rebooting your computer with all apps ope as you had when you rebooted.
I binged around and did not find any related issues in the internet, yet. But I have the issue on two computers that I believe there is some truth in my discovery.
My iMac had 500GB free memory which did went down to 400GB but stayed steady there. A reboot did give me the 500GB back. Again I don't know if it is only a display issue. Same with my wife notebook. Disc space seemed to be full and we got even a warning but we did not see any performance issues which we should have when the disc space is so low.
Anyway I will keep an eye on it. I love Lion but somehow I don't have full trust in this OS so far.
This is again an example that Apple is not ready for not computer savvy users (which I guess I now belong too, because I did not know how to do the iTunes thing right).
I am sure Apple's Genuis bars will be very busy the next few months.
- Posted using BlogPress, please follow me on twitter @schlotz69
Showing posts with label iTunes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iTunes. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Apple must get better, sometimes good is not good enough
After all innovations, Apple is pretty bad with file management. My wife has a MacBook Pro with a 120GB hard drive. I know this does not sound big, but for her usage it should be enough. She has around 12 GB of music, a few office applications and some movies. All together should not be more than 60GB, however her hard drive is full. I told her to use our server for her music but she does not trust it. I was in charge to make her notebook faster and free of disc space, because she had only 1 GB left and I needed at least 5 to install Lion. First I looked in her trash and she really never empties her trash. There were deleted files from over one year and at least 300 iPhone apps which got deleted when she did sync and a new update was available. Empty the trash gave me 2 GB. I could not believe.
Then I deleted her download folder, there were another 6 GB. I deleted as well some files, I knew she would not use anymore. After one hour I had 11 GB left. Enough to install Lion. After Lion install we had actually 13 GB left because some software got deleted because they don't run under Lion.
Today she decided to update the OS of her iPhone. But it crashed during upgrade. She went to restore and tried it again, it crashed again. And she tried again and so on. After 8 attempts the restore did mot work anymore, because her HD had only 64 MB left. What happened?
Itunes makes a backup, every time when you try to make a restore. She had at the end 12 backups.
The backups made her HD full each backup was between 1 and 2 GB. Apple does compress the data really well but still, it is a lot.
Deleting the backup gave her a lot of disc space back. Then I looked how many apps she has in iTunes. I could not believe what is saw, she had over 200 apps. No wonder the HD was full. Imagine an app is between 20MB to a few hundred like Pages.
All apps together are, in her case, over 10 GB. Some games are really big.
we deleted the apps from iTunes, but when she synced most of the apps came back. We had first to deselect them from iTunes, sync the phone to get them from the phone deleted and then we could delete them from iTunes.
Now we have enough disc space available but I think I end up to buy her a 250 GB hard rive, which costs just $50 at Macsales.com.
Apple is not anymore just for geeks, it is mainstream, but I feel the file management is too bad for users like my wife who is a typical end user. Especially now where the new Macs are coming with SSD drive which are as low 64GB. I understand that the new iOS 5 will allow update over the air and maybe the backup is stored in the cloud, but if not, a lot of people will be in trouble.
If Apple wants to get number one computer and OS company then they need to change a lot. They should take an example from the automobile industry. When we buy a car, we don't need to know when and how to change oil. The car is telling us we need an oil change and then we just go around the corner and get it done for a few bugs.
Apple PCs should work the same. It should tell us to empty the trash, or warn us to delete some backups or apps which we don't use. Windows is not perfect but at least it asks us every so often if we want delete certain apps we did not use of a year.
All the time when she downloads something from a website, even of it is just a pfd, will be saved in a download folder. Why is Apple not asking us to empty the download folder once a while. Why does a PDF need to be saved on the computer? Windows asks us at least if we want to save or not. Her safari does download the file and open It.
Apple could easily have in default settings that 3 GB of storage must be free or the user will be warned. Something like this.
Let us compare the MacBook Air and iPad. Both can have 64 GB of memory. The iPad as maximum and the MacBook Air as minimum. For the iPad it is plenty, because I can sync with my iMac. Therefore I don't need to have all my music or video on the iPad. And I can delete apps I don't need and have them still on my big computer. And the biggest apps, I did find so far were only pages, numbers and keynote each of them multiple hundred MB.
The MacBook Air, the most beautiful notebook starts for $999 with 64 GB. This sounds enough, if we consider that 3 years ago 40GB was common in a notebook.
But I believe it is not. People who are buying MacBook Airs don't have usually an iMac or a server at home. But they might have an iPad, learned that they need more and ended up to get the MacBook Air (like my wife wants). Most apps for OS X are much bigger than for iOs and we still will sync out iPad and iPhone with the MacBook Air. 64 GB are just as fast full as we needed to decide if we get 64 GB or 128 GB. Another problem is the build in autosave. Lion and certain Apple apps are cool. You open pages and it opens the last document you worked on. You even never need to save a document. Apple does it for you. Not only this, Apple has build in version control. Which is very awesome. However all this is eating HD space.
I am starting to wonder in which category the MacBook Air is going to be. Is it a notebook replacement or an iPad replacement? Does Apple expect iPad users will move to McBook Air and then to MacBook Pro? Or are they aware of the bad file management and are working on the perfect cloud? To keep most of the data in the cloud and only sync what is necessary?
Everybody who has a full HD should do what i did.
1. Empty trash at least once a week. Every sync with iPhone or iPad will pit a lot apps into trash.
2. Delete through iTunes iPhone and iPad backups which you don't need.
3. Clean your iPhone, ipad and ipod touch apps from you device and then delete them from your computer.
4. Empty once a month your download folder.
5. Don't buy a MacBook Air with 64GB. If you really want, then buy as well a time capsule or an mac mini for your music, movies and other files. Use either of them as a file server. This will help you a lot in the long run.
- Posted using BlogPress, please follow me on twitter @schlotz69
Then I deleted her download folder, there were another 6 GB. I deleted as well some files, I knew she would not use anymore. After one hour I had 11 GB left. Enough to install Lion. After Lion install we had actually 13 GB left because some software got deleted because they don't run under Lion.
Today she decided to update the OS of her iPhone. But it crashed during upgrade. She went to restore and tried it again, it crashed again. And she tried again and so on. After 8 attempts the restore did mot work anymore, because her HD had only 64 MB left. What happened?
Itunes makes a backup, every time when you try to make a restore. She had at the end 12 backups.
The backups made her HD full each backup was between 1 and 2 GB. Apple does compress the data really well but still, it is a lot.
Deleting the backup gave her a lot of disc space back. Then I looked how many apps she has in iTunes. I could not believe what is saw, she had over 200 apps. No wonder the HD was full. Imagine an app is between 20MB to a few hundred like Pages.
All apps together are, in her case, over 10 GB. Some games are really big.
we deleted the apps from iTunes, but when she synced most of the apps came back. We had first to deselect them from iTunes, sync the phone to get them from the phone deleted and then we could delete them from iTunes.
Now we have enough disc space available but I think I end up to buy her a 250 GB hard rive, which costs just $50 at Macsales.com.
Apple is not anymore just for geeks, it is mainstream, but I feel the file management is too bad for users like my wife who is a typical end user. Especially now where the new Macs are coming with SSD drive which are as low 64GB. I understand that the new iOS 5 will allow update over the air and maybe the backup is stored in the cloud, but if not, a lot of people will be in trouble.
If Apple wants to get number one computer and OS company then they need to change a lot. They should take an example from the automobile industry. When we buy a car, we don't need to know when and how to change oil. The car is telling us we need an oil change and then we just go around the corner and get it done for a few bugs.
Apple PCs should work the same. It should tell us to empty the trash, or warn us to delete some backups or apps which we don't use. Windows is not perfect but at least it asks us every so often if we want delete certain apps we did not use of a year.
All the time when she downloads something from a website, even of it is just a pfd, will be saved in a download folder. Why is Apple not asking us to empty the download folder once a while. Why does a PDF need to be saved on the computer? Windows asks us at least if we want to save or not. Her safari does download the file and open It.
Apple could easily have in default settings that 3 GB of storage must be free or the user will be warned. Something like this.
Let us compare the MacBook Air and iPad. Both can have 64 GB of memory. The iPad as maximum and the MacBook Air as minimum. For the iPad it is plenty, because I can sync with my iMac. Therefore I don't need to have all my music or video on the iPad. And I can delete apps I don't need and have them still on my big computer. And the biggest apps, I did find so far were only pages, numbers and keynote each of them multiple hundred MB.
The MacBook Air, the most beautiful notebook starts for $999 with 64 GB. This sounds enough, if we consider that 3 years ago 40GB was common in a notebook.
But I believe it is not. People who are buying MacBook Airs don't have usually an iMac or a server at home. But they might have an iPad, learned that they need more and ended up to get the MacBook Air (like my wife wants). Most apps for OS X are much bigger than for iOs and we still will sync out iPad and iPhone with the MacBook Air. 64 GB are just as fast full as we needed to decide if we get 64 GB or 128 GB. Another problem is the build in autosave. Lion and certain Apple apps are cool. You open pages and it opens the last document you worked on. You even never need to save a document. Apple does it for you. Not only this, Apple has build in version control. Which is very awesome. However all this is eating HD space.
I am starting to wonder in which category the MacBook Air is going to be. Is it a notebook replacement or an iPad replacement? Does Apple expect iPad users will move to McBook Air and then to MacBook Pro? Or are they aware of the bad file management and are working on the perfect cloud? To keep most of the data in the cloud and only sync what is necessary?
Everybody who has a full HD should do what i did.
1. Empty trash at least once a week. Every sync with iPhone or iPad will pit a lot apps into trash.
2. Delete through iTunes iPhone and iPad backups which you don't need.
3. Clean your iPhone, ipad and ipod touch apps from you device and then delete them from your computer.
4. Empty once a month your download folder.
5. Don't buy a MacBook Air with 64GB. If you really want, then buy as well a time capsule or an mac mini for your music, movies and other files. Use either of them as a file server. This will help you a lot in the long run.
- Posted using BlogPress, please follow me on twitter @schlotz69
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Netflix almost doubles price in September
Netflix, Inc., (NASDAQ: NFLX) is an American provider of on-demand internet streaming video in the United States and Canada,[5] and flat rate DVD-by-mail in the United States.[6] The company was established in 1997 and is headquartered in Los Gatos, California. It started its subscription service in 1999[7] and by 2009 it was offering a collection of 100,000 titles on DVD, surpassing 10 million subscribers.[7] On February 25, 2007, Netflix announced the billionth DVD delivery.[8] In April 2011, Netflix announced 23.6 million subscribers.[9] In summer 2011, Netflix announced they will expand into the European market, starting in Spain by 2012.[10] (Wikipedia.org)
Netflix is going to increase the price for their service by 50%.
I have right now the cheapest plan for streaming and DVD delivering to my house. It is $9.99 which included one DVD at the time send to my house and unlimited video streaming and I use both a lot.
Starting in September I have to make the choice to stream only or to get DVDs only delivered to keep same price or even to be cheaper.
Just streaming does not help me because there a videos we like which are not available for streaming, mostly the new blockbusters or some exotic international videos.
Getting only DVD delivered is not the answer for us neither, because for the $10 I can have only 1 DVD at any given time. Which allows me to watch max 8 videos a month. It takes two days for Netflix to receive the video and two more days till I get a new video to my house.
Not that I am totally upset, the service is still much cheaper than Apple iTunes and has more selections than hulu or Amazon, but I might consider to sign up for amazon prime (which is needed to get unlimited free video streaming).
Prime costs only $79 a year and gives much more than unlimited movies streaming.
The only problem is that neither my AppleTV nor my xbox 360 can play amazon videos. Of course if I would have a PC (which I don't have, I have only Apple computers) then I could install the amazon unbox player on my PC and then connect the xbox to my PC.
The beauty on Netflix is that it works with all my devices. The AppleTV has Netflix, the xbox has it, i installed the Netflix apps on my iPhone and iPad and of course Netflix works on my Apple computer as well.
It was expected that Netflix will get more expensive, the costs for the rights are getting higher for Netflix in September, when the new contracts with the movie companies come in place. On the the other hand the long tail idea does not work as expected. Usually the idea behind long tail is that Netflix attracts customers with expensive blockbusters but then the consumer will watch most of the videos which are loyalty free or have very low fees for Netflix.
At the end of the first quarter of 2011 Netflix had 21,675,500 subscribers. This is a 59% increase over the first quarter of 2010.
But one of the big problems that the Netflix bears point out is that the average revenue per user has been declining. In the first quarter of 2006 the average revenue per user was $17.06. At the end of the first quarter of 2011 this number fell to $11.94.
At the same time the costs per customer did grow but 20%.
But the good mews is that the acquisition costs did fall extremely. The average costs per new customer is just a little more than the revenue per customer per month.
Above statistics are from seeking alpha.
Streaming is much cheaper for Netflix than sending DVDs. Of course streaming a lot of data is expensive but having distribution centers is neither cheap and less scalable. But do you know what the postage costs are for Netflix? $0.56 per DVD. In my case I have in average 6 DVD a month, this already $3.36 out of my $9.99 a month plus all other costs the margins are very low for Netflix (in my case).
Netflix will release in the next few weeks their annual numbers, we will see how healthy they are.
I am certain that Netflix wants to get more users to streaming only and eventual move totally from DVDs away.
But two things should happen. First of all Netflix needs to have all their movies as streaming available and second they have to come to a method that we can stream the specials to DVDs as well. The beauty of DVDs is the extra stuff on it, directors cut, interview etc. Apple is partly offering such extras. I bought as download Star Trek and got a bonus to it with interviews etc.
Having all videos as streaming might be very difficult, because international movies might have different streaming rights than sending a DVD. We will see.
I will wait till last second, if I stay with Netflix and choose just one service or if I move to other services. As an example my dish provider is offering more and more videos on demand and many series I watched at Netflix I get free at hulu.
An image from amazon about compatible devices - brands
- Posted using BlogPress, please follow me on twitter @schlotz69
Netflix is going to increase the price for their service by 50%.
I have right now the cheapest plan for streaming and DVD delivering to my house. It is $9.99 which included one DVD at the time send to my house and unlimited video streaming and I use both a lot.
Starting in September I have to make the choice to stream only or to get DVDs only delivered to keep same price or even to be cheaper.
Just streaming does not help me because there a videos we like which are not available for streaming, mostly the new blockbusters or some exotic international videos.
Getting only DVD delivered is not the answer for us neither, because for the $10 I can have only 1 DVD at any given time. Which allows me to watch max 8 videos a month. It takes two days for Netflix to receive the video and two more days till I get a new video to my house.
Not that I am totally upset, the service is still much cheaper than Apple iTunes and has more selections than hulu or Amazon, but I might consider to sign up for amazon prime (which is needed to get unlimited free video streaming).
Prime costs only $79 a year and gives much more than unlimited movies streaming.
The only problem is that neither my AppleTV nor my xbox 360 can play amazon videos. Of course if I would have a PC (which I don't have, I have only Apple computers) then I could install the amazon unbox player on my PC and then connect the xbox to my PC.
The beauty on Netflix is that it works with all my devices. The AppleTV has Netflix, the xbox has it, i installed the Netflix apps on my iPhone and iPad and of course Netflix works on my Apple computer as well.
It was expected that Netflix will get more expensive, the costs for the rights are getting higher for Netflix in September, when the new contracts with the movie companies come in place. On the the other hand the long tail idea does not work as expected. Usually the idea behind long tail is that Netflix attracts customers with expensive blockbusters but then the consumer will watch most of the videos which are loyalty free or have very low fees for Netflix.
At the end of the first quarter of 2011 Netflix had 21,675,500 subscribers. This is a 59% increase over the first quarter of 2010.
But one of the big problems that the Netflix bears point out is that the average revenue per user has been declining. In the first quarter of 2006 the average revenue per user was $17.06. At the end of the first quarter of 2011 this number fell to $11.94.
At the same time the costs per customer did grow but 20%.
But the good mews is that the acquisition costs did fall extremely. The average costs per new customer is just a little more than the revenue per customer per month.
Above statistics are from seeking alpha.
Streaming is much cheaper for Netflix than sending DVDs. Of course streaming a lot of data is expensive but having distribution centers is neither cheap and less scalable. But do you know what the postage costs are for Netflix? $0.56 per DVD. In my case I have in average 6 DVD a month, this already $3.36 out of my $9.99 a month plus all other costs the margins are very low for Netflix (in my case).
Netflix will release in the next few weeks their annual numbers, we will see how healthy they are.
I am certain that Netflix wants to get more users to streaming only and eventual move totally from DVDs away.
But two things should happen. First of all Netflix needs to have all their movies as streaming available and second they have to come to a method that we can stream the specials to DVDs as well. The beauty of DVDs is the extra stuff on it, directors cut, interview etc. Apple is partly offering such extras. I bought as download Star Trek and got a bonus to it with interviews etc.
Having all videos as streaming might be very difficult, because international movies might have different streaming rights than sending a DVD. We will see.
I will wait till last second, if I stay with Netflix and choose just one service or if I move to other services. As an example my dish provider is offering more and more videos on demand and many series I watched at Netflix I get free at hulu.
An image from amazon about compatible devices - brands
- Posted using BlogPress, please follow me on twitter @schlotz69
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
ICloud iDoubt
Steve Jobs did talk at the last developer conference about iCloud and since then iCloud is heavily promoted on the Apple Website. However iCloud is not yet fully rolled out but some features are already available on the iOS devices.
When you open iTunes on your iPhone or ipad you can see which music you did buy, but is not yet downloaded on your device.
As we learned, iCloud makes you to download the songs instead of just accessing them to play.
The listing is great, you see your total songs purchased and by artists or albums. But with this, the nice part stops. You can not download all songs with one click. You need select song by song. I was hoping I could select multiple by artist by just swiping the artist name etc.
Audible books and movies don't work with iCloud at all, which is more important for me than songs. I imagine, if we can sync our iPad over air, it might be not a big deal. Today it takes forever to get your selected movies on your iPad and half of the time it does not work. Same with books. I have to go to my computer, connect the cable, choose the movies and songs and hit sync. But then it tales forever because I need first to update from the phone to the computer to make sure all apps songs etc are in sync. To get just one movie to my iAd takes almost an hour, what a waste of time.
Apps are now in the cloud as well. As Steve said you buy once an app and then you can install it on every device.
But there are a few drawbacks.
First of all on the iPhone all apps are in one list, no way to group them by category etc. Over the past 3 years I downloaded over 400 apps, it would take forever to find which one I want to have on the other device. Plus there is no real indicator if the app is build for iPhone and iPad, there is no need for me to run iPhone native apps on the iPad. I don't like the magnifier function at all.
Never understood why text is not scalable and get blur when double the size. Text is not graphic it is usually vector and should scale easily.
On the iPad you can at least sort by date or name, but if I don't know the name then it is useless. To see if the app is a cross over you need to click on the icon to get to the app page. To install the app you need to click on the cloud. App by App.
Under settings you can decide to make apps, books or song instantly available when purchased on other device, but I would not recommend.
ICloud does not work as i would expect, it seems as faulty like mobile.me. As an example if you download a game like Angry Birds on your iPad which was prior purchased on the iPhone, I would have expected it recognized your latest score from the iPhone, because the game is a part of the game center. In my case, on the iPad, I had to start from the beginning again even if game center greeted me with Welcome back. Maybe it is a game developer issue and not Apple but on the other hand Apple should solve this without even bothering the developers.
And then comes the old problem we all had with mobile.me. syncing of contacts and appointments etc never worked well that we had suddenly duplicates. ICloud with apps seem to be buggy too. When I now download updates of apps I get every time per app a popup window that i downloaded and purchased the app before. This is extremely annoying.
I tested to download 80 songs and 17 apps updates at the same time via 3G. My phone basically did freeze, could not do anything and I reached after a short time even my download limit. There was no warning that 3G will slow the iPhone and that downloading will exceed your monthly data limit. With Wifi it went pretty fast however for some reason it could not download multiple files at the same time like good download software on the Mac does. This means the iPad did download first the 80 songs, song by song and then the apps. The downloads even stopped when I got a call, which is weird hence the call was over voice and not wifi.
I hope that a lot of things will be better when iCloud finally get released. Otherwise is will be a joke like mobile.me just more fancy.
- Posted using BlogPress, please follow me on twitter @schlotz69
When you open iTunes on your iPhone or ipad you can see which music you did buy, but is not yet downloaded on your device.
As we learned, iCloud makes you to download the songs instead of just accessing them to play.
The listing is great, you see your total songs purchased and by artists or albums. But with this, the nice part stops. You can not download all songs with one click. You need select song by song. I was hoping I could select multiple by artist by just swiping the artist name etc.
Audible books and movies don't work with iCloud at all, which is more important for me than songs. I imagine, if we can sync our iPad over air, it might be not a big deal. Today it takes forever to get your selected movies on your iPad and half of the time it does not work. Same with books. I have to go to my computer, connect the cable, choose the movies and songs and hit sync. But then it tales forever because I need first to update from the phone to the computer to make sure all apps songs etc are in sync. To get just one movie to my iAd takes almost an hour, what a waste of time.
Apps are now in the cloud as well. As Steve said you buy once an app and then you can install it on every device.
But there are a few drawbacks.
First of all on the iPhone all apps are in one list, no way to group them by category etc. Over the past 3 years I downloaded over 400 apps, it would take forever to find which one I want to have on the other device. Plus there is no real indicator if the app is build for iPhone and iPad, there is no need for me to run iPhone native apps on the iPad. I don't like the magnifier function at all.
Never understood why text is not scalable and get blur when double the size. Text is not graphic it is usually vector and should scale easily.
On the iPad you can at least sort by date or name, but if I don't know the name then it is useless. To see if the app is a cross over you need to click on the icon to get to the app page. To install the app you need to click on the cloud. App by App.
Under settings you can decide to make apps, books or song instantly available when purchased on other device, but I would not recommend.
ICloud does not work as i would expect, it seems as faulty like mobile.me. As an example if you download a game like Angry Birds on your iPad which was prior purchased on the iPhone, I would have expected it recognized your latest score from the iPhone, because the game is a part of the game center. In my case, on the iPad, I had to start from the beginning again even if game center greeted me with Welcome back. Maybe it is a game developer issue and not Apple but on the other hand Apple should solve this without even bothering the developers.
And then comes the old problem we all had with mobile.me. syncing of contacts and appointments etc never worked well that we had suddenly duplicates. ICloud with apps seem to be buggy too. When I now download updates of apps I get every time per app a popup window that i downloaded and purchased the app before. This is extremely annoying.
I tested to download 80 songs and 17 apps updates at the same time via 3G. My phone basically did freeze, could not do anything and I reached after a short time even my download limit. There was no warning that 3G will slow the iPhone and that downloading will exceed your monthly data limit. With Wifi it went pretty fast however for some reason it could not download multiple files at the same time like good download software on the Mac does. This means the iPad did download first the 80 songs, song by song and then the apps. The downloads even stopped when I got a call, which is weird hence the call was over voice and not wifi.
I hope that a lot of things will be better when iCloud finally get released. Otherwise is will be a joke like mobile.me just more fancy.
- Posted using BlogPress, please follow me on twitter @schlotz69
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
The Apple iCloud is already here - partly
I don't know if anybody did notice, but all your iOS devices have a new function. When you go to settings and then click on store Icon you have three options.
The interesting part is that this function addition seems to be done over air not with an update of the iOS through iTunes. At least I did never saw it before June 3rd.
When you switch music, apps and books on then a nice thing happens, your device will get new app installed even if you bought it on another device.
I recently bought Atari games for my iPad. And when I came home the app was already installed on my iPhone.
Steve Jobs talked about this feature being a part of iOS 5. This means you don't need to buy an app anymore for multiple devices. The Atari app has in app buying function and even this worked. I bought with the iPad games within the app and when I started the iPhone app it asked me if I want to restore these games for no extra charge.
You can see all purchased apps which are not yet on your device, when you go into your app store on your iOS device.
My iPad has 64GB and my iPhone only 16GB, therefore I have to be careful which app I want to have on the iPhone. For this I switched automatic download for apps on the iPhone off. Instead I go to my app store and choose the app I want to have on the iPhone.
Interesting is the feature for apps like NYTimes. They charge you for each device extra (in app purchase). Unfortunately with NYTimes you have still to pay extra, but maybe not for long anymore because this is against Apple's agreement.
Unfortunately the automatic download does not work yet with the app store on MacOsX, these apps are still separated from the iOS apps.
It might be that this function is a long time available, but all friends I asked did bot know about it.
I don't know if Apple is just testing this function or if they introduce us to iCloud step by step like the recent update for iTunes. Either way I like it. This will save us money. Why to pay for an app three times only because I have two iPhones and an iPad.
- Posted using BlogPress, please follow me on twitter @schlotz69
The interesting part is that this function addition seems to be done over air not with an update of the iOS through iTunes. At least I did never saw it before June 3rd.
When you switch music, apps and books on then a nice thing happens, your device will get new app installed even if you bought it on another device.
I recently bought Atari games for my iPad. And when I came home the app was already installed on my iPhone.
Steve Jobs talked about this feature being a part of iOS 5. This means you don't need to buy an app anymore for multiple devices. The Atari app has in app buying function and even this worked. I bought with the iPad games within the app and when I started the iPhone app it asked me if I want to restore these games for no extra charge.
You can see all purchased apps which are not yet on your device, when you go into your app store on your iOS device.
My iPad has 64GB and my iPhone only 16GB, therefore I have to be careful which app I want to have on the iPhone. For this I switched automatic download for apps on the iPhone off. Instead I go to my app store and choose the app I want to have on the iPhone.
Interesting is the feature for apps like NYTimes. They charge you for each device extra (in app purchase). Unfortunately with NYTimes you have still to pay extra, but maybe not for long anymore because this is against Apple's agreement.
Unfortunately the automatic download does not work yet with the app store on MacOsX, these apps are still separated from the iOS apps.
It might be that this function is a long time available, but all friends I asked did bot know about it.
I don't know if Apple is just testing this function or if they introduce us to iCloud step by step like the recent update for iTunes. Either way I like it. This will save us money. Why to pay for an app three times only because I have two iPhones and an iPad.
- Posted using BlogPress, please follow me on twitter @schlotz69
iTunes upgraded to 10.3
Apple released yesterday itunes 10.3.
The first step to iCloud is on the way. You can now download all your purchased iTunes song to all of your Apple devices.
What's new in iTunes 10.3
Introducing iTunes in the Cloud beta. The music you purchase in iTunes appears automatically on all your devices. You can also download your past iTunes purchases. Where you want, when you want.
• Automatic Downloads. Purchase music from any device or computer and automatically download a copy to your Mac and iOS devices.
• Download Previous Purchases. Download your past music purchases again at no additional cost. Your purchases are available in the iTunes Store on your Mac or in the iTunes app on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Previous purchases may be unavailable if they are no longer on the iTunes Store.
iTunes 10.3 also adds Books to the iTunes Store, where you can discover and buy your favorite books on your computer and automatically download them to iBooks on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. This version also allows you to use Automatic Downloads with apps and books or download previously purchased apps and books from your computer or iOS device.
For information on the security content of this update, please visit:support.apple.com/kb/HT1222
- Posted using BlogPress, please follow me on twitter @schlotz69
The first step to iCloud is on the way. You can now download all your purchased iTunes song to all of your Apple devices.
What's new in iTunes 10.3
Introducing iTunes in the Cloud beta. The music you purchase in iTunes appears automatically on all your devices. You can also download your past iTunes purchases. Where you want, when you want.
• Automatic Downloads. Purchase music from any device or computer and automatically download a copy to your Mac and iOS devices.
• Download Previous Purchases. Download your past music purchases again at no additional cost. Your purchases are available in the iTunes Store on your Mac or in the iTunes app on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Previous purchases may be unavailable if they are no longer on the iTunes Store.
iTunes 10.3 also adds Books to the iTunes Store, where you can discover and buy your favorite books on your computer and automatically download them to iBooks on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. This version also allows you to use Automatic Downloads with apps and books or download previously purchased apps and books from your computer or iOS device.
For information on the security content of this update, please visit:support.apple.com/kb/HT1222
- Posted using BlogPress, please follow me on twitter @schlotz69
Saturday, April 9, 2011
How iTunes (Apple) changed my life
The first time my life changed when I bought my Commodore 64 in 1983.
I went to our super market similar like Walmart to buy this $600 expensive computer with no hard drive or floppy disk. I went home and wrote my first program. A Zip Code translator. I could input a Zip Code and got the city back and vice versa. Of course it was only for West Germany. I wrote the program in basic and had to leave my computer on otherwise I would lose the data. Unfortunately after two weeks my mom needed to vacuum my room. She unplugged the computer and I lost everything. I had to buy me a floppy disk and an Epson FX 80 printer. I did spend all my savings for this. I think it was over $1500 for printer and floppy.
The monitor I used was my 15 inch TV.
I had fun and learned a lot in this time. From this time one I had always a computer and used it every day. From Commodore I went to Atari and from Atari to Apple. I never had a Windows computer at this time. Till I started at the university in 1990. I had to buy a PC, because the software I needed was not available for Apple in the time back, and all my student friends had PCs and word for DOS. It was the only way for me to share and exchange documents. There was no Facebook or real Internet yet.
But we used since the mid 80 our acoustic coupler to connect to other computers to download data or to chat and later in the early 90 we used AOL.
From 1990 on I started to love PCs and Windows. Windows 3.1 was awesome (I thought).
My oldest friend was still on Atari but only because Apple was so expensive otherwise he would have had Apple. Later on we both started an agency in 1994 to build websites, catalogs and print ads. We chose Atari because of Calamus a desktop publishing software. And then we went to Apple and Quark Express and photoshop. But in my heart I was still a PC fan.
I actually had till 2004 always discussion with my friend about which system is better.
In 2004 I moved to America and decided to buy an iPod. From this time on Apple changed my life. Apple did convert me with a simple product. The iPod was great but I needed iTunes and iTunes was just released for Windows and did not work well on my old computer. I needed a new one and decided to go with the iMac.
I gave the iMac a chance and it was a great. Finally an all in one computer which was good priced and pretty fast and stable.
I had this computer till January 2010 when I bought me the new iMac. During these 6 years I bought a MacBook Pro, multiple iPods, Apple TVs (first and second generation), each iPhone version and both iPads, airport extreme and time machine. My friend even skipped some iPhones and has no iPad. He, the big Apple fan, has now less Apple gadgets than me.
Everything I have in private is build around iTunes. iTunes is just a music program but the epic center of my devices.
One of the smartest moves Apple ever did. With iTunes they were able to bind their customers. Which today would make it harder for me to switch because of iTunes.
But Apple changed my life again. Just 12 months ago with the iPad. Before I believed in surfing the web to get my information. I believed everything will be based around web browsers. Like many companies I believed the future is in web application accessible through browsers.
But Apple changed it and my thinking. Today I use the web browser only for searching specific things or if there is not an app available for the iPad. Otherwise i use apps on the iPad.
Apple understood that browsers are taking a lot of usability away because what ever we want to build as web application must work on many different OS, screen size and browsers.
Therefore they came up with the app concept. Why not building apps which are optimized to screen and hardware. And have the apps simple enough to sell them mostly under $10. Today we have over 300k applications for the iPhone and over 60k for the iPad available.
I even don't like to use a browser anymore and only use Safari if I really need to, and get frustrated that the web pages are not optimized for the iPad.
I believe now, that the future is a retro of the 90es when we had a lot of enterprise applications as client server apps and not running in a web browser.
We will again have server client applications. The data might be in the cloud but users will have an app on their tablet.
Take as an example CRMs like salesforce. It is in the cloud and has a web interface. It is great for an user, you never need to care if you have the latest version. But SF has as well a mobile access and most of the sales people are on the road and not always on their notebook. Sales people are the perfect fit for tablets like iPads. They don't need a heavy powerful notebook. They mostly using email, word, PowerPoint, a little Excel and a CRM. The iPad can do all this. I can see many companies to switch to tablets for their sales people. They are lighter ad cheaper.
Right now SF has only chatter available as iPad app. But I am pretty sure there will be soon a full SF version as iPad app. You might ask, why not using the web browser? You think the screen is big enough to use a browser.
True. But apps are optimized for the device and have many times much better UI. Even chatter looks ten times better on iPad then in the web browsed.
And then we might forget why an app is so much more convenient. The app sits as icon in front of you (website short cut could too) and the app can store basic settings and information which the browser does not. It is so easier to log into an application instead into a website login. Even if you save your login in browser, depending on the firewall or your computer settings, you have still to login.
I have now so many user names and passwords that I always forget the access when I need it.
I could use 1password app, but companies are always changing their login page that 1password for log in not always work.
Yes Apple changed my life, that I almost only use Apple (I use Windows work related). And Apple changed my life that I like to have apps instead using web browsers.
Tablets are the future. It does not matter if Androids, Windows or iOS, all of them will replace notebooks. Power users will have desktops and tablets in 2015 and all others smart phones or tablets which are connected to big screens and external keyboards. There will be no CD or DVD drives anymore, because we download apps we need.
And we will use the browser only, if we there is no app for what we want to do. Browser will not die but not play such big role in 2015. Every e-commerce site will have their own app. And then there will be an app for all big e-commerce sites that we don't need to have too many apps on our device.
We are in the year of the cloud. The tablets apps will be in the future much smaller in size, because we only store minimum information on our device and the rest is in the cloud. The apps will be stupid shells with perfect UI. This will allow us to have hundreds of apps on our device.
Today I have on the iPad 92 applications. I never scroll the screen to find them. I use the search and type what I am looking for. It is so convenient that I almost forget how it used to be just 18 months ago.
Btw
Commodore is back, 28 years after I bought my first C64. The guy who bought commodore is producing the C64 again. Same look with new technology. The computer comes with Linux and a 64 emulator.
Maybe you might want to buy one.
- Posted using BlogPress, please follow me on twitter @schlotz69
I went to our super market similar like Walmart to buy this $600 expensive computer with no hard drive or floppy disk. I went home and wrote my first program. A Zip Code translator. I could input a Zip Code and got the city back and vice versa. Of course it was only for West Germany. I wrote the program in basic and had to leave my computer on otherwise I would lose the data. Unfortunately after two weeks my mom needed to vacuum my room. She unplugged the computer and I lost everything. I had to buy me a floppy disk and an Epson FX 80 printer. I did spend all my savings for this. I think it was over $1500 for printer and floppy.
The monitor I used was my 15 inch TV.
I had fun and learned a lot in this time. From this time one I had always a computer and used it every day. From Commodore I went to Atari and from Atari to Apple. I never had a Windows computer at this time. Till I started at the university in 1990. I had to buy a PC, because the software I needed was not available for Apple in the time back, and all my student friends had PCs and word for DOS. It was the only way for me to share and exchange documents. There was no Facebook or real Internet yet.
But we used since the mid 80 our acoustic coupler to connect to other computers to download data or to chat and later in the early 90 we used AOL.
From 1990 on I started to love PCs and Windows. Windows 3.1 was awesome (I thought).
My oldest friend was still on Atari but only because Apple was so expensive otherwise he would have had Apple. Later on we both started an agency in 1994 to build websites, catalogs and print ads. We chose Atari because of Calamus a desktop publishing software. And then we went to Apple and Quark Express and photoshop. But in my heart I was still a PC fan.
I actually had till 2004 always discussion with my friend about which system is better.
In 2004 I moved to America and decided to buy an iPod. From this time on Apple changed my life. Apple did convert me with a simple product. The iPod was great but I needed iTunes and iTunes was just released for Windows and did not work well on my old computer. I needed a new one and decided to go with the iMac.
I gave the iMac a chance and it was a great. Finally an all in one computer which was good priced and pretty fast and stable.
I had this computer till January 2010 when I bought me the new iMac. During these 6 years I bought a MacBook Pro, multiple iPods, Apple TVs (first and second generation), each iPhone version and both iPads, airport extreme and time machine. My friend even skipped some iPhones and has no iPad. He, the big Apple fan, has now less Apple gadgets than me.
Everything I have in private is build around iTunes. iTunes is just a music program but the epic center of my devices.
One of the smartest moves Apple ever did. With iTunes they were able to bind their customers. Which today would make it harder for me to switch because of iTunes.
But Apple changed my life again. Just 12 months ago with the iPad. Before I believed in surfing the web to get my information. I believed everything will be based around web browsers. Like many companies I believed the future is in web application accessible through browsers.
But Apple changed it and my thinking. Today I use the web browser only for searching specific things or if there is not an app available for the iPad. Otherwise i use apps on the iPad.
Apple understood that browsers are taking a lot of usability away because what ever we want to build as web application must work on many different OS, screen size and browsers.
Therefore they came up with the app concept. Why not building apps which are optimized to screen and hardware. And have the apps simple enough to sell them mostly under $10. Today we have over 300k applications for the iPhone and over 60k for the iPad available.
I even don't like to use a browser anymore and only use Safari if I really need to, and get frustrated that the web pages are not optimized for the iPad.
I believe now, that the future is a retro of the 90es when we had a lot of enterprise applications as client server apps and not running in a web browser.
We will again have server client applications. The data might be in the cloud but users will have an app on their tablet.
Take as an example CRMs like salesforce. It is in the cloud and has a web interface. It is great for an user, you never need to care if you have the latest version. But SF has as well a mobile access and most of the sales people are on the road and not always on their notebook. Sales people are the perfect fit for tablets like iPads. They don't need a heavy powerful notebook. They mostly using email, word, PowerPoint, a little Excel and a CRM. The iPad can do all this. I can see many companies to switch to tablets for their sales people. They are lighter ad cheaper.
Right now SF has only chatter available as iPad app. But I am pretty sure there will be soon a full SF version as iPad app. You might ask, why not using the web browser? You think the screen is big enough to use a browser.
True. But apps are optimized for the device and have many times much better UI. Even chatter looks ten times better on iPad then in the web browsed.
And then we might forget why an app is so much more convenient. The app sits as icon in front of you (website short cut could too) and the app can store basic settings and information which the browser does not. It is so easier to log into an application instead into a website login. Even if you save your login in browser, depending on the firewall or your computer settings, you have still to login.
I have now so many user names and passwords that I always forget the access when I need it.
I could use 1password app, but companies are always changing their login page that 1password for log in not always work.
Yes Apple changed my life, that I almost only use Apple (I use Windows work related). And Apple changed my life that I like to have apps instead using web browsers.
Tablets are the future. It does not matter if Androids, Windows or iOS, all of them will replace notebooks. Power users will have desktops and tablets in 2015 and all others smart phones or tablets which are connected to big screens and external keyboards. There will be no CD or DVD drives anymore, because we download apps we need.
And we will use the browser only, if we there is no app for what we want to do. Browser will not die but not play such big role in 2015. Every e-commerce site will have their own app. And then there will be an app for all big e-commerce sites that we don't need to have too many apps on our device.
We are in the year of the cloud. The tablets apps will be in the future much smaller in size, because we only store minimum information on our device and the rest is in the cloud. The apps will be stupid shells with perfect UI. This will allow us to have hundreds of apps on our device.
Today I have on the iPad 92 applications. I never scroll the screen to find them. I use the search and type what I am looking for. It is so convenient that I almost forget how it used to be just 18 months ago.
Btw
Commodore is back, 28 years after I bought my first C64. The guy who bought commodore is producing the C64 again. Same look with new technology. The computer comes with Linux and a 64 emulator.
Maybe you might want to buy one.
- Posted using BlogPress, please follow me on twitter @schlotz69
Friday, September 3, 2010
Apple Ping if you can
Wednesday i started to play with ping. Last night I did want to test the facebook function in iTunes Ping, but it was not available anymore.
Looking through Apple forums, i found a lot of complains about this, with an interesting answer.
Missed facebook on Ping
Posted: Sep 2, 2010 2:30 PM
Where is the facebook connection on Ping? It's impossible to think that I have to search one by one all of my friend.. How can you (Apple big mama) think that Ping will be used, with no sharing contact with twitter or youtube or facebook or hotmail, even ichat contacts!!!
Ping is useless as it now.
iMac Mac OS X (10.6.4)
Dave Sawyer
Posts: 36,391
From: Warehouse 13
Registered: Jul 31, 2000
Re: Missed facebook on Ping
Posted: Sep 2, 2010 2:33 PM
It's been removed due to a disagreement between Apple and Facebook. If and when it will reappear no one here knows.
And just FYI, we're all just your fellow users here. If you want Apple to see your comments, the best approach is to use their feedback pages:
http://www.apple.com/feedback
Regards.
----------------------------------------
This was not enough answer for me, so I looked around and found this article at NY times.
Update 9:05 p.m. Added Facebook’s Developer Principles
If it is true that the enemy of your enemy is your friend, then Apple and Facebook ought to be friends. Their common enemy, of course, is Google.
But Apple’s entry into social networking with the iTunes music social network Ping on Wednesday, has made them frenemies (or friend-enemies). And like with all frenemies, issues need to be worked out.
After introducing Ping on Wednesday, Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, was asked why Apple built its own social network, rather than, say, build services on top of Facebook, as other music sites have done. Mr. Jobs, who was strolling around a demo room where reporters could try Apple’s new products, said that Apple considered that and held discussions with Facebook, but that the social networking company’s terms were “onerous.”
Still, Apple used some of Facebook open programming interfaces to allow users to find their Facebook friends on Ping. But that stopped working on Thursday.
Why? Facebook blocked Apple from that because Ping had the potential to send so much traffic Facebook’s way and cause “site stability” and “infrastructure” problems, according to people familiar with the situation, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity because they did not want the friction between the companies to escalate. Facebook insists that businesses that send a lot of traffic to its servers first work with the company to make sure those problems can be handled smoothly, these people said.
In a statement, Facebook said: “We’re working with Apple to resolve this issue. We’ve worked together successfully in the past, and we look forward to doing so in the future.” Facebook did not specify what the “issue” was.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
ITunes has 160 million users, according to Apple. But since only a small fraction of those users have enrolled in Ping, it is not clear how Apple could have exceeded Facebook’s limits for traffic. In its Developer Principles, Facebook says that developers who exceed 100 million calls every day must contact the company because they may be subject to additional contract terms.
It is also not clear why Facebook did not call Apple to resolve the issue before it pulled the plug on Ping connections.
In the meantime, Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has been testing Apple’s social network, opening his own account on Ping. So has another Mark Zuckerberg, whose profile says “It’s true, I invented Facebook.” One of them is fake. From the looks of it, the one that doesn’t have a picture and doesn’t boast of having invented Facebook is the real one, as that user is connected to at least one other Facebook executive, Bret Taylor. Mr. “I invented Facebook” appears to have no connections to other Facebook execs.
It seems as if Apple has some issues of its own to work out with Ping.
- Posted using My iPad
Looking through Apple forums, i found a lot of complains about this, with an interesting answer.
Missed facebook on Ping
Posted: Sep 2, 2010 2:30 PM
Where is the facebook connection on Ping? It's impossible to think that I have to search one by one all of my friend.. How can you (Apple big mama) think that Ping will be used, with no sharing contact with twitter or youtube or facebook or hotmail, even ichat contacts!!!
Ping is useless as it now.
iMac Mac OS X (10.6.4)
Dave Sawyer
Posts: 36,391
From: Warehouse 13
Registered: Jul 31, 2000
Re: Missed facebook on Ping
Posted: Sep 2, 2010 2:33 PM
It's been removed due to a disagreement between Apple and Facebook. If and when it will reappear no one here knows.
And just FYI, we're all just your fellow users here. If you want Apple to see your comments, the best approach is to use their feedback pages:
http://www.apple.com/feedback
Regards.
----------------------------------------
This was not enough answer for me, so I looked around and found this article at NY times.
Update 9:05 p.m. Added Facebook’s Developer Principles
If it is true that the enemy of your enemy is your friend, then Apple and Facebook ought to be friends. Their common enemy, of course, is Google.
But Apple’s entry into social networking with the iTunes music social network Ping on Wednesday, has made them frenemies (or friend-enemies). And like with all frenemies, issues need to be worked out.
After introducing Ping on Wednesday, Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, was asked why Apple built its own social network, rather than, say, build services on top of Facebook, as other music sites have done. Mr. Jobs, who was strolling around a demo room where reporters could try Apple’s new products, said that Apple considered that and held discussions with Facebook, but that the social networking company’s terms were “onerous.”
Still, Apple used some of Facebook open programming interfaces to allow users to find their Facebook friends on Ping. But that stopped working on Thursday.
Why? Facebook blocked Apple from that because Ping had the potential to send so much traffic Facebook’s way and cause “site stability” and “infrastructure” problems, according to people familiar with the situation, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity because they did not want the friction between the companies to escalate. Facebook insists that businesses that send a lot of traffic to its servers first work with the company to make sure those problems can be handled smoothly, these people said.
In a statement, Facebook said: “We’re working with Apple to resolve this issue. We’ve worked together successfully in the past, and we look forward to doing so in the future.” Facebook did not specify what the “issue” was.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
ITunes has 160 million users, according to Apple. But since only a small fraction of those users have enrolled in Ping, it is not clear how Apple could have exceeded Facebook’s limits for traffic. In its Developer Principles, Facebook says that developers who exceed 100 million calls every day must contact the company because they may be subject to additional contract terms.
It is also not clear why Facebook did not call Apple to resolve the issue before it pulled the plug on Ping connections.
In the meantime, Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has been testing Apple’s social network, opening his own account on Ping. So has another Mark Zuckerberg, whose profile says “It’s true, I invented Facebook.” One of them is fake. From the looks of it, the one that doesn’t have a picture and doesn’t boast of having invented Facebook is the real one, as that user is connected to at least one other Facebook executive, Bret Taylor. Mr. “I invented Facebook” appears to have no connections to other Facebook execs.
It seems as if Apple has some issues of its own to work out with Ping.
- Posted using My iPad
Location:Tampa Airport
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Apple September 1st event
How exciting it was today. As a lucky owner of the iPhone 4, I was able to follow the Apple event via live stream (sorry Microsoft, it worked only on Safari and Apple devices).
Apple streamed in HD and it was a pleasure again to listen to Steve Jobs. Because of so many users streaming the event, the video dropped many times, but sound was always there. There are rumors that over 10 million people world wide did stream the keynote.
Twitter was always down during the event when a new product got released from Steve Jobs.
The guys at Twitter need really to get their stuff right, at the moment it feels Twitter is more down than up.
Here some of the news from the keynote:
• Apple TV. The device for streaming movies and television shows over the Internet and into the living room is now smaller and cheaper. People can only rent, not buy, content. Price: $99, down from $229. However the Apple TV will be only 720p I was hoping to see 1080i. The new Apple TV will not have a hard drive. It can only stream videos, photos or music. I have two of the old Apple TVs and almost never sync movies, I always stream them from my main computer.
• TV episode rentals. Apple is now offering rentals of high-definition TV shows for 99 cents on Apple TV and iTunes. People can also rent first-run, high-definition movies for $4.99.
• iTunes 10. Apple's free media management software is getting a social update. The new feature, Ping, helps people learn what friends are listening to — and gives them an option to buy.
iTunes will get as well airwaves which allows users to stream a video on any device in their private network and then to finish the video on another device within same network.
• iPod Nano. The new Nano has no buttons or wheel anymore which was the part which made the iPod famous, the music controls are on the touch screen instead. Price: $149 for the 8 gigabyte version and $179 for 16 gigabytes.
• iPod Touch. The new iPod Touch gets video-chat features similar to the iPhone 4. It has a front-facing camera for FaceTime chats, and a backside camera for taking snapshots and recording video. Price: $229 for the 8 gigabyte version, $299 for the 32 gigabyte version and $399 for 64 gigabytes.
• iPod Shuffle. The smallest music player in Apple's iPod line brings back the square shape and buttons of Apple's second-generation Shuffle. Price: $49 for the 2 gigabyte gadget.
• iOS 4.1 and 4.2. Apple is updating the free software that runs iPhones, the iPod Touch and the iPad. Users of the iPhone and iPod Touch will get the ability to upload high-definition video over Wi-Fi and take better-quality photos.
The iPad will get many of the features its siblings already have in November (like grouping of apps) plus wireless printing.
Overall I was surprised how all prediction and assumption I read internet last week came true.
Wondering if Apple is leaking a lot info outside because they have now so many employees which are working at Apple because it is a job and not because it is Apple.
Or Apple is getting too predictable for everybody. I want to see one keynote where I can say a surprised wow again.
- Posted using My iPad
Apple streamed in HD and it was a pleasure again to listen to Steve Jobs. Because of so many users streaming the event, the video dropped many times, but sound was always there. There are rumors that over 10 million people world wide did stream the keynote.
Twitter was always down during the event when a new product got released from Steve Jobs.
The guys at Twitter need really to get their stuff right, at the moment it feels Twitter is more down than up.
Here some of the news from the keynote:
• Apple TV. The device for streaming movies and television shows over the Internet and into the living room is now smaller and cheaper. People can only rent, not buy, content. Price: $99, down from $229. However the Apple TV will be only 720p I was hoping to see 1080i. The new Apple TV will not have a hard drive. It can only stream videos, photos or music. I have two of the old Apple TVs and almost never sync movies, I always stream them from my main computer.
• TV episode rentals. Apple is now offering rentals of high-definition TV shows for 99 cents on Apple TV and iTunes. People can also rent first-run, high-definition movies for $4.99.
• iTunes 10. Apple's free media management software is getting a social update. The new feature, Ping, helps people learn what friends are listening to — and gives them an option to buy.
iTunes will get as well airwaves which allows users to stream a video on any device in their private network and then to finish the video on another device within same network.
• iPod Nano. The new Nano has no buttons or wheel anymore which was the part which made the iPod famous, the music controls are on the touch screen instead. Price: $149 for the 8 gigabyte version and $179 for 16 gigabytes.
• iPod Touch. The new iPod Touch gets video-chat features similar to the iPhone 4. It has a front-facing camera for FaceTime chats, and a backside camera for taking snapshots and recording video. Price: $229 for the 8 gigabyte version, $299 for the 32 gigabyte version and $399 for 64 gigabytes.
• iPod Shuffle. The smallest music player in Apple's iPod line brings back the square shape and buttons of Apple's second-generation Shuffle. Price: $49 for the 2 gigabyte gadget.
• iOS 4.1 and 4.2. Apple is updating the free software that runs iPhones, the iPod Touch and the iPad. Users of the iPhone and iPod Touch will get the ability to upload high-definition video over Wi-Fi and take better-quality photos.
The iPad will get many of the features its siblings already have in November (like grouping of apps) plus wireless printing.
Overall I was surprised how all prediction and assumption I read internet last week came true.
Wondering if Apple is leaking a lot info outside because they have now so many employees which are working at Apple because it is a job and not because it is Apple.
Or Apple is getting too predictable for everybody. I want to see one keynote where I can say a surprised wow again.
- Posted using My iPad
Thursday, August 26, 2010
September 1st announcement
Apple is holding on September 1st an another announcement and again the invitation does not tell anything. It is a picture of a guitar with the Apple logo not more or less.
Everybody is speculating what Apple is releasing in this conference. It goes from an new iTV over finally having Beatles in the iTunes store over moving iTunes in the cloud that users can stream music like pandora.
However the strongest rumor is about an iPod with front facing camera to allow face time. I am wondering how Apple would handle this, because face time is right now utilizing for voice the normal phone line only video goes over wifi to ensure good sound quality and this is the reason you can call only phone numbers for face time. The iPod has no phone function. So how could I call an iPod or how could an iPod user can reach iPhone users?
If Apple will have face time on iPod then it will be different technology and this would mean face time would need to be changed on iPhone. I don't think they would offer face time where only iPod user to iPod user can make calls.
My favorite is the announcement of a new Apple TV, but many times we all have be wrong, therefore I wait and will be surprised what they present.
- Posted using My iPad
However the strongest rumor is about an iPod with front facing camera to allow face time. I am wondering how Apple would handle this, because face time is right now utilizing for voice the normal phone line only video goes over wifi to ensure good sound quality and this is the reason you can call only phone numbers for face time. The iPod has no phone function. So how could I call an iPod or how could an iPod user can reach iPhone users?
If Apple will have face time on iPod then it will be different technology and this would mean face time would need to be changed on iPhone. I don't think they would offer face time where only iPod user to iPod user can make calls.
My favorite is the announcement of a new Apple TV, but many times we all have be wrong, therefore I wait and will be surprised what they present.
- Posted using My iPad
Location:Park Ave,New York,United States
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
New Apple TV coming soon
More and more rumors are pointing to a new Apple TV sooner than I expected. In the mean time Apple is talking with TV companies to get a better deal on shows. Rather than a consumer is buying an episode for $1.99 to $2.99, Apple wants to have the price around $0.99 to rent an episode.
The new Apple TV is rumored to have iOS. Hopefully we can upgrade the older Apple TVs.
We have in our household two Apple TVs, but we seldom use them. Main reason is that we don't watch so much TV.
Another reason is the pricing model and that we have a DVR with our Dish Network. If i watch TV it is either a documentary or a serial like True Blood or Warehouse 13.
I record them with my DVR to avoid advertising. I use my Apple mostly to watch DVDs i had moved into iTunes.
Netflix is right now my favorite, i get the movie I want within 2 days and can stream some movies even instantly through my Wii.
Painful at Netflix are shows which have per DVD only 3 or 4 episodes. With my netflix account I can have only one DVD at time, it takes weeks till I have all episodes through netflix.
And i think this the reason Apple is trying to get shows cheaper into iTunes. With movies it is hard for Apple to compete with Netflix, they have much more movies available but shows might work.
Steve Jobs called once the Apple TV a hobby, and he is right, as long TV producers don't change their model, no set up box can compete with TV. I have right now 250 channels and a DVR, i can basically watch anything i want any time.
On the other hand Internet and set up boxes are putting pressure on the TV, as soon people can get almost the same amount of information and shows through set up boxes like Apple TV, then they might switch instead of paying a $100 something bill each month.
Advertising will and need to change for TV. It will be much more product placements than commercials. New technology allows to render any product via computer into movie or show.
Producers will get smarter in shooting shows to allow to change a product placement on the flow to be more time sensitive. I actually see a big market for start ups in this sector.
In a few years from now, we might not have classic commercials anymore, but commercials as a part of the show, totally integrated. When an user sees an item they like, they can click on it (with mouse or remote control). The TV goes then into split screen, the show stops and user can read more about the product or see a complete 60 second commercial with the ability to buy instantly the product. TV will not anymore just stream, the user can send information back, it gets much more interactive. Basically TV will be the internet of tomorrow. The only difference is that this Internet will be motions rather than flat text. The Internet will be a big movie. The speed will be there and the need is already here.
- Posted using My iPad
The new Apple TV is rumored to have iOS. Hopefully we can upgrade the older Apple TVs.
We have in our household two Apple TVs, but we seldom use them. Main reason is that we don't watch so much TV.
Another reason is the pricing model and that we have a DVR with our Dish Network. If i watch TV it is either a documentary or a serial like True Blood or Warehouse 13.
I record them with my DVR to avoid advertising. I use my Apple mostly to watch DVDs i had moved into iTunes.
Netflix is right now my favorite, i get the movie I want within 2 days and can stream some movies even instantly through my Wii.
Painful at Netflix are shows which have per DVD only 3 or 4 episodes. With my netflix account I can have only one DVD at time, it takes weeks till I have all episodes through netflix.
And i think this the reason Apple is trying to get shows cheaper into iTunes. With movies it is hard for Apple to compete with Netflix, they have much more movies available but shows might work.
Steve Jobs called once the Apple TV a hobby, and he is right, as long TV producers don't change their model, no set up box can compete with TV. I have right now 250 channels and a DVR, i can basically watch anything i want any time.
On the other hand Internet and set up boxes are putting pressure on the TV, as soon people can get almost the same amount of information and shows through set up boxes like Apple TV, then they might switch instead of paying a $100 something bill each month.
Advertising will and need to change for TV. It will be much more product placements than commercials. New technology allows to render any product via computer into movie or show.
Producers will get smarter in shooting shows to allow to change a product placement on the flow to be more time sensitive. I actually see a big market for start ups in this sector.
In a few years from now, we might not have classic commercials anymore, but commercials as a part of the show, totally integrated. When an user sees an item they like, they can click on it (with mouse or remote control). The TV goes then into split screen, the show stops and user can read more about the product or see a complete 60 second commercial with the ability to buy instantly the product. TV will not anymore just stream, the user can send information back, it gets much more interactive. Basically TV will be the internet of tomorrow. The only difference is that this Internet will be motions rather than flat text. The Internet will be a big movie. The speed will be there and the need is already here.
- Posted using My iPad
Friday, August 20, 2010
Android or iPhone?
You might ask what question this might be. One is a OS the other is hardware.
This is right, but the iPhone has an OS too, therefore my question should be. Android phone or iPhone?
There are now over 23 android phones and till the end of the year even 40 but only 4 different iPhones. The Evo, the Dell Streak, the Droid 2 are all pretty cool phones, partly by spec better than every iPhone version.
The decision what phone is right one is hard, but I will try to give you some ideas to help you to to make a decision.
11:30am Fedex is delivering to an office two packages, one from Apple to person A and one from HTC to person B.
Person A:
11:35am
The package in open a nice new device is in front of A, the eyes are big. He is swiping his hand over screen. The iPhone has a message that it needs to be activated. The person A does connect the phone to his computer. Damn iTunes is missing, no problem download and install. iTunes asks for person name. Set. Phone is activated. Need company email on it. No problem, an IT guy is coming over set it up using build in exchange, contacts, calendar and email settings. Done.
First call is coming in. After the call person A starts the app store application, he has to make the decision to use his existing apple account or a new one. He has none, he decides to create one, and put his credit card information in. Bang 240,000 applications to choose from. He does not install any yet, he has already a native camera app to make pictures or movies, he can already make video calls and browse the internet. Ipod is preinstalled, he could already sync his music, but unfortunately itunes is still empty. He decides to call his friend, he knows this friend has as well an iphone 4. Friend is answering and they switch with one button click to video call. How cool. The manual is just 3 pages, he understands how the iPhone works without reading anything. He can't change a lot, maybe change the background image, moves the apps around or create folders.
He decides to download an ebook reader. Easy done through the app store.
11:45
Person A is done, ready to do everything, ready to download other apps. Person a goes to the break-room to get a cup of coffee. A fellow co-worker asks how he likes the iPhone. "Great, so bright screen, so clear great camera quality and so easy to use, can't wait to find cool apps". Back the office, he has a problem to understand the VPN setting. He is calling the Apple hotline, and after 5 minutes the problem is solved.
Person B:
11:35am
The package is open, a nice new device is in front of B, the eyes are big. Battery is only quarter charged, but enough to start. He is asking an IT guy how to sync the phone with Exchange. Unfortunately he has to download an 3rd party app, the IT guys explains that the pre installed app does not work with the office Exchange. No problem, but before installing this app, Person B has to install the latest android OS which works on the phone and with Exchange. Great almost done with installing the battery is drained. Person B is plugging the phone into charger. User has a lot of music on his computer but uses iTunes for the music. The phone does not sync with iTunes, he has to copy the files and redo his play lists. Not a big deal, he never liked iTunes anyway.
The phone is cool, it has already facebook and Twitter included. Person B is reading the manual to find out how he can change the look and feel, he has so many options, there will be for sure something cool.
12:30pm
Finally person B could decide which theme and layout, he was able to arrange the screen to his desire and got Facebook showing all the time. He wants to make a video call but needs to download an app for this. Done! Good that Android has an app store with over 60,000 apps. But be does not know who to call, because he does not know who has the same video call app installed.
12:45pm
Person B decides to get a coffee. In the break-room, somebody asks him how he likes his Android. "The phone is awesome, but i still need to make some configurations, you can do so many things.", "which OS version do you have?" asks the fellow co-worker. "not sure, let me look. Ah it is 2.1" is the answer. The co-worker explains him that there is a 2.3 beta out which is so much cooler than 2.1. Person B goes back to his desk and installs the latest Beta, Exchange sync is broken. Damn. He searches the Internet, finds many people with same problem but no answer and HTC can't help and google gas no hotline. He decides to do a complete reinstall again.
Conclusion:
Android is an open source OS with great features and many versions, if you are technical savvy it is great to customize. If you never had an iPod or never used iTunes, and you are not afraid to try and error, then these are great devices with more functions an iPhone can have.
If you want to have a phone which is perfectly integrated in your existing iTunes and you used before and iPod, and you don't care if you can change the theme (for people who don't jailbreak the iPhone) then you are better with the iPhone.
It is just ready to use, easy to sync with your existing iTunes environment and extreme stable. It does not let you choose which is the best OS version, it has always the latest and if not, the upgrade is easy to install and seldom that an app will not work anymore after upgrade, as long the upgrade is a minor upgrade within same release like 4.0 to 4.1 etc.
If you want to use a phone as a business phone but you don't want a Blackberry, than the iPhone is the next best choice if you don't want to spend hours in trouble shooting and need a hotline to help.
- Posted using My iPad
This is right, but the iPhone has an OS too, therefore my question should be. Android phone or iPhone?
There are now over 23 android phones and till the end of the year even 40 but only 4 different iPhones. The Evo, the Dell Streak, the Droid 2 are all pretty cool phones, partly by spec better than every iPhone version.
The decision what phone is right one is hard, but I will try to give you some ideas to help you to to make a decision.
11:30am Fedex is delivering to an office two packages, one from Apple to person A and one from HTC to person B.
Person A:
11:35am
The package in open a nice new device is in front of A, the eyes are big. He is swiping his hand over screen. The iPhone has a message that it needs to be activated. The person A does connect the phone to his computer. Damn iTunes is missing, no problem download and install. iTunes asks for person name. Set. Phone is activated. Need company email on it. No problem, an IT guy is coming over set it up using build in exchange, contacts, calendar and email settings. Done.
First call is coming in. After the call person A starts the app store application, he has to make the decision to use his existing apple account or a new one. He has none, he decides to create one, and put his credit card information in. Bang 240,000 applications to choose from. He does not install any yet, he has already a native camera app to make pictures or movies, he can already make video calls and browse the internet. Ipod is preinstalled, he could already sync his music, but unfortunately itunes is still empty. He decides to call his friend, he knows this friend has as well an iphone 4. Friend is answering and they switch with one button click to video call. How cool. The manual is just 3 pages, he understands how the iPhone works without reading anything. He can't change a lot, maybe change the background image, moves the apps around or create folders.
He decides to download an ebook reader. Easy done through the app store.
11:45
Person A is done, ready to do everything, ready to download other apps. Person a goes to the break-room to get a cup of coffee. A fellow co-worker asks how he likes the iPhone. "Great, so bright screen, so clear great camera quality and so easy to use, can't wait to find cool apps". Back the office, he has a problem to understand the VPN setting. He is calling the Apple hotline, and after 5 minutes the problem is solved.
Person B:
11:35am
The package is open, a nice new device is in front of B, the eyes are big. Battery is only quarter charged, but enough to start. He is asking an IT guy how to sync the phone with Exchange. Unfortunately he has to download an 3rd party app, the IT guys explains that the pre installed app does not work with the office Exchange. No problem, but before installing this app, Person B has to install the latest android OS which works on the phone and with Exchange. Great almost done with installing the battery is drained. Person B is plugging the phone into charger. User has a lot of music on his computer but uses iTunes for the music. The phone does not sync with iTunes, he has to copy the files and redo his play lists. Not a big deal, he never liked iTunes anyway.
The phone is cool, it has already facebook and Twitter included. Person B is reading the manual to find out how he can change the look and feel, he has so many options, there will be for sure something cool.
12:30pm
Finally person B could decide which theme and layout, he was able to arrange the screen to his desire and got Facebook showing all the time. He wants to make a video call but needs to download an app for this. Done! Good that Android has an app store with over 60,000 apps. But be does not know who to call, because he does not know who has the same video call app installed.
12:45pm
Person B decides to get a coffee. In the break-room, somebody asks him how he likes his Android. "The phone is awesome, but i still need to make some configurations, you can do so many things.", "which OS version do you have?" asks the fellow co-worker. "not sure, let me look. Ah it is 2.1" is the answer. The co-worker explains him that there is a 2.3 beta out which is so much cooler than 2.1. Person B goes back to his desk and installs the latest Beta, Exchange sync is broken. Damn. He searches the Internet, finds many people with same problem but no answer and HTC can't help and google gas no hotline. He decides to do a complete reinstall again.
Conclusion:
Android is an open source OS with great features and many versions, if you are technical savvy it is great to customize. If you never had an iPod or never used iTunes, and you are not afraid to try and error, then these are great devices with more functions an iPhone can have.
If you want to have a phone which is perfectly integrated in your existing iTunes and you used before and iPod, and you don't care if you can change the theme (for people who don't jailbreak the iPhone) then you are better with the iPhone.
It is just ready to use, easy to sync with your existing iTunes environment and extreme stable. It does not let you choose which is the best OS version, it has always the latest and if not, the upgrade is easy to install and seldom that an app will not work anymore after upgrade, as long the upgrade is a minor upgrade within same release like 4.0 to 4.1 etc.
If you want to use a phone as a business phone but you don't want a Blackberry, than the iPhone is the next best choice if you don't want to spend hours in trouble shooting and need a hotline to help.
- Posted using My iPad
Location:W Laurel St,Tampa,United States
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Why spending more money to ATT as necessary
Originally I did want to talk about the possibility to buy an iPad with Wifi only and then to buy a 3G/4G router from another provider. The idea came to me when a good old friend told me about his 3G router he bought in England and chose a cheap provider for 3G. Unfortunately here in the States are only a few providers who are offering data plans besides ATT and they are all similar. The best choice is T-Mobile. 500 minutes with unlimited Data transfer is $59.99 a month.
All other big providers have a limit to 5GB a month, which are just 3 movies in HD. But with T-mobile you need to get an unlocked 3G router. The only router right now available is the HUAWEI E5830 WiFi USB ROUTER/MODEM/DONGLE for around $120.
Huawei E5830 image:
Sprint and Verizon offer the Mifi 2200 (see description below), which costs $200 but user gets a $200 instant savings. Then there is the ultimative Sprint Overdrive 3G/4G which costs $99.99 after instant savings and for $40 you can buy a iPad cover which holds the overdrive.
The problem with all these extra devices is, that their battery life is shorter than the iPad battery life and they take between 15 and 45 seconds to boot. You will lose a lot of convenience.
I would have written more about this, but I changed my mind after I read (and posted the article yesterday) that the federal ruling allows to jailbreak the iPhone. This is awesome, if you don’t care to lose your warranty, you should jailbreak, and the cool part is you are not violating any law.
Why is this good?
We don’t need any 3rd party router to avoid the 3G charging for our iPad. We only need to jailbreak our iPhone and download from Cydia small software to make our iPhone to a Wifi hotspot.
A jailbroken iPhone allows us as well to sync with iTunes without cable over Wifi.
Therefore no long story how and why to buy a 3G router. Just jailbreak your iPhone, I allow it and I feel good that I can say this official without getting trouble from Apple.
But for the people who want to go through the process NOT to jailbreak their iPhone and don’t want to give ATT more money, then I recommend to get the Mifi 2200 as the only official 3G router in pocket size here in the US (besides the Overdrive 3G/4G) .
Here some facts about the Mifi 2200
Form Factors: Self contained router with embedded mobile broadband radio/module (essentially an aircard and router in one unit).
Wireless Range: Operates on Wireless "G". Range is approximately 30 feet, depending upon factors such as interference from other electronics and physical interference such as thick walls. Range CANNOT be improved (no port for WiFi antenna). Limited to FIVE connected computers/devices.
Ethernet Ports: None but you can tether one Mac/Windows computer via USB port
Load Balancing: NO
Portability: This router is tinier than anything you want to provide internet connectivity to. Very compact and light - smallest 3G router available; cigarette lighter adapter available soon.
Manufacturer Support: Novatel makes the MiFi, and we have a great relationship with them. The MiFi is the first product of its kind, so the jury is still out on how well it will be supported/maintained.
PROs: Most portable 3G router. When bought with 2yr contract, it is also the most affordable way to share connectivity with up to five computers or wifi enabled devices.
CONs: Locked to ONE carrier. Cannot be used with any other carrier. NO cellular antenna jack! Wireless G radio with no option to add a WiFi antenna, signal strength can be seen only via web admin.
All other big providers have a limit to 5GB a month, which are just 3 movies in HD. But with T-mobile you need to get an unlocked 3G router. The only router right now available is the HUAWEI E5830 WiFi USB ROUTER/MODEM/DONGLE for around $120.
Huawei E5830 image:
The problem with all these extra devices is, that their battery life is shorter than the iPad battery life and they take between 15 and 45 seconds to boot. You will lose a lot of convenience.
I would have written more about this, but I changed my mind after I read (and posted the article yesterday) that the federal ruling allows to jailbreak the iPhone. This is awesome, if you don’t care to lose your warranty, you should jailbreak, and the cool part is you are not violating any law.
Why is this good?
We don’t need any 3rd party router to avoid the 3G charging for our iPad. We only need to jailbreak our iPhone and download from Cydia small software to make our iPhone to a Wifi hotspot.
A jailbroken iPhone allows us as well to sync with iTunes without cable over Wifi.
Therefore no long story how and why to buy a 3G router. Just jailbreak your iPhone, I allow it and I feel good that I can say this official without getting trouble from Apple.
But for the people who want to go through the process NOT to jailbreak their iPhone and don’t want to give ATT more money, then I recommend to get the Mifi 2200 as the only official 3G router in pocket size here in the US (besides the Overdrive 3G/4G) .
Here some facts about the Mifi 2200
Form Factors: Self contained router with embedded mobile broadband radio/module (essentially an aircard and router in one unit).
Wireless Range: Operates on Wireless "G". Range is approximately 30 feet, depending upon factors such as interference from other electronics and physical interference such as thick walls. Range CANNOT be improved (no port for WiFi antenna). Limited to FIVE connected computers/devices.
Ethernet Ports: None but you can tether one Mac/Windows computer via USB port
Load Balancing: NO
Portability: This router is tinier than anything you want to provide internet connectivity to. Very compact and light - smallest 3G router available; cigarette lighter adapter available soon.
Manufacturer Support: Novatel makes the MiFi, and we have a great relationship with them. The MiFi is the first product of its kind, so the jury is still out on how well it will be supported/maintained.
PROs: Most portable 3G router. When bought with 2yr contract, it is also the most affordable way to share connectivity with up to five computers or wifi enabled devices.
CONs: Locked to ONE carrier. Cannot be used with any other carrier. NO cellular antenna jack! Wireless G radio with no option to add a WiFi antenna, signal strength can be seen only via web admin.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Apple's numbers are strong and what comes next?
Apple Inc.'s quarterly profit surged 78%, as the company booked strong initial sales of its iPad tablet computer and the latest version of its smartphone, the iPhone 4.
The company also issued a strong forecast for the current quarter, allaying immediate concerns that the iPhone 4's high-profile antenna problems might slow Apple's sales. Apple's revenue in the quarter ended June 26 rose 61% to $15.7 billion.
Apple's quarterly profit jumped 78%, thanks to continued strong demand for its gadgets. It sold 3.3 million iPads and 8.4 million iPhones in the quarter. Sameer Bhatia and Rex Crum analyze the numbers with Simon Constable & Lauren Goode.
Full article here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703724104575379473713612064.html?ru=yahoo#mod=yahoo_hs
But more important than this info that Steve jobs and Tim Cook are saying that one more new product is coming this year.
Quote:.... "amazing new products still to come this year."
Another article which mentioned the same quote http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/technology/21apple.html?_r=2&partner=yahoofinance
I am right now taking bets. I already mentioned that Apple might reinvent their Apple TV, but maybe not.
Steve said that at the end of year will be more than 100 million devices running facetime. And we did hear that a lot of companies like Google are working on Internet TV boxes. As I posted earlier I believe Social TV could be the next thing.
if Apple is redoing their Apple TV with iOS 4 it will have a camera, but would it make sense, my Apple TV is in a cabinet, away from the the TV.
Maybe Apple is working on a TV with iOS 4 , build in camera and perfect 3D. We should not forget that Steve did own and founded Pixar. Plus he is still on the board of Disney. Perfect to develop cool TV experience (maybe new UI) and good connection to tons of movies. And Apple has already their cinema displays. My iMac has 27 inch which is pretty decent.
But TVs are different than phones or computers, Apple needs to have too many sizes to offer. You can't just have one or two versions.
I think Apple can, Apple will be able to sell to the public only three sizes of TV, from 32 inch to 52 inch.
But this again would be too easy. The TV market is pretty extreme busy with Sony, Samsung, LG, Panasonic etc.
My best bet is that the next big thing from Apple will be something like a new version of Apple TV and something like a TV. Something which exists since many years but is not really used in normal households, only seen in offices and home cinema rooms.
Apple will reinvent the screen projector. Something which does not need a special screen to get best quality. A projector running iOS 4 which can be in any ankle to the wall and still delivers a trapeze free picture.
Something which comes with a free wireless iSight camera which can be positioned anywhere we want and follows our eyes.
Ok i admit, having an extra camera is not really Apple worlds. They want to sell products, which you unwrap, plug into the wall and works.
If it is not a projector then it is maybe a TV, an all in one TV with build camera (why is there no TV with build camera anyway?) and the input device/remote is either your apple remote, your iPhone or iphone touch and of course your wireless apple bluetooth keyboard.
To round the whole idea up, the ipad will be able to stream movies which are bought through the new Apple real TV or projector.
I think whatever Apple will bring out, will be one device which does not need another device to work, no screen, no computer, no external camera.
BTW the projector or TV idea is not totally out of my mind. Samsung which got a big order from Apple to build the 9.7inch displays for the iPad, got another big order to build 5 million 42 inch LED displays, without telling who did place the order, it could be Apple.
On the other hand, Apple has 12 new granted patents which few of them could indicate importance for a new type of TV.
http://www.latestpatents.com/apple-patents-granted-on-20-july-2010/#more-9851
12 US patents granted on 20 July 2010 and assigned to Apple
1 D620,020 Graphical user interface for a display screen or portion thereof
2 D620,004 Electronic device
3 7,761,811 User interface for assisting in the installation of an asset
4 7,761,800 Unified interest layer for user interface
5 7,761,798 System and method for controlling the screen display appearance for a data processing system
6 7,761,488 File creation API
7 7,761,414 Asynchronous data synchronization amongst devices
8 7,761,118 Database programs for handheld devices
9 7,760,767 Wide area peer-to-peer synching in a decentralized environment
10 7,760,559 Integrated circuit with separate supply voltage for memory that is different from logic circuit supply voltage
11 7,760,528 Method and apparatus for providing high speed, low EMI switching circuits
12 7,760,187 Visual expander
1,5,7,10,11 and 12 can be useful for a very fast HD TV with 3D, where you might can plug in your iPad.
12 could indicate my dream since i have an iPhone. A 13inch screen and docking station for the iphone, where i plug my phone in and bang I have my personal computer with big screen and external keyboard. After the work day is over, I take the phone out of the docking station and go home.
Please let me your ideas know what device is coming next.
- Posted using My iPad
The company also issued a strong forecast for the current quarter, allaying immediate concerns that the iPhone 4's high-profile antenna problems might slow Apple's sales. Apple's revenue in the quarter ended June 26 rose 61% to $15.7 billion.
Apple's quarterly profit jumped 78%, thanks to continued strong demand for its gadgets. It sold 3.3 million iPads and 8.4 million iPhones in the quarter. Sameer Bhatia and Rex Crum analyze the numbers with Simon Constable & Lauren Goode.
Full article here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703724104575379473713612064.html?ru=yahoo#mod=yahoo_hs
But more important than this info that Steve jobs and Tim Cook are saying that one more new product is coming this year.
Quote:.... "amazing new products still to come this year."
Another article which mentioned the same quote http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/technology/21apple.html?_r=2&partner=yahoofinance
I am right now taking bets. I already mentioned that Apple might reinvent their Apple TV, but maybe not.
Steve said that at the end of year will be more than 100 million devices running facetime. And we did hear that a lot of companies like Google are working on Internet TV boxes. As I posted earlier I believe Social TV could be the next thing.
if Apple is redoing their Apple TV with iOS 4 it will have a camera, but would it make sense, my Apple TV is in a cabinet, away from the the TV.
Maybe Apple is working on a TV with iOS 4 , build in camera and perfect 3D. We should not forget that Steve did own and founded Pixar. Plus he is still on the board of Disney. Perfect to develop cool TV experience (maybe new UI) and good connection to tons of movies. And Apple has already their cinema displays. My iMac has 27 inch which is pretty decent.
But TVs are different than phones or computers, Apple needs to have too many sizes to offer. You can't just have one or two versions.
I think Apple can, Apple will be able to sell to the public only three sizes of TV, from 32 inch to 52 inch.
But this again would be too easy. The TV market is pretty extreme busy with Sony, Samsung, LG, Panasonic etc.
My best bet is that the next big thing from Apple will be something like a new version of Apple TV and something like a TV. Something which exists since many years but is not really used in normal households, only seen in offices and home cinema rooms.
Apple will reinvent the screen projector. Something which does not need a special screen to get best quality. A projector running iOS 4 which can be in any ankle to the wall and still delivers a trapeze free picture.
Something which comes with a free wireless iSight camera which can be positioned anywhere we want and follows our eyes.
Ok i admit, having an extra camera is not really Apple worlds. They want to sell products, which you unwrap, plug into the wall and works.
If it is not a projector then it is maybe a TV, an all in one TV with build camera (why is there no TV with build camera anyway?) and the input device/remote is either your apple remote, your iPhone or iphone touch and of course your wireless apple bluetooth keyboard.
To round the whole idea up, the ipad will be able to stream movies which are bought through the new Apple real TV or projector.
I think whatever Apple will bring out, will be one device which does not need another device to work, no screen, no computer, no external camera.
BTW the projector or TV idea is not totally out of my mind. Samsung which got a big order from Apple to build the 9.7inch displays for the iPad, got another big order to build 5 million 42 inch LED displays, without telling who did place the order, it could be Apple.
On the other hand, Apple has 12 new granted patents which few of them could indicate importance for a new type of TV.
http://www.latestpatents.com/apple-patents-granted-on-20-july-2010/#more-9851
12 US patents granted on 20 July 2010 and assigned to Apple
1 D620,020 Graphical user interface for a display screen or portion thereof
2 D620,004 Electronic device
3 7,761,811 User interface for assisting in the installation of an asset
4 7,761,800 Unified interest layer for user interface
5 7,761,798 System and method for controlling the screen display appearance for a data processing system
6 7,761,488 File creation API
7 7,761,414 Asynchronous data synchronization amongst devices
8 7,761,118 Database programs for handheld devices
9 7,760,767 Wide area peer-to-peer synching in a decentralized environment
10 7,760,559 Integrated circuit with separate supply voltage for memory that is different from logic circuit supply voltage
11 7,760,528 Method and apparatus for providing high speed, low EMI switching circuits
12 7,760,187 Visual expander
1,5,7,10,11 and 12 can be useful for a very fast HD TV with 3D, where you might can plug in your iPad.
12 could indicate my dream since i have an iPhone. A 13inch screen and docking station for the iphone, where i plug my phone in and bang I have my personal computer with big screen and external keyboard. After the work day is over, I take the phone out of the docking station and go home.
Please let me your ideas know what device is coming next.
- Posted using My iPad
Location:4,United States
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
What is next with Apple?
Reading a lot of blogs and posts, almost everybody is saying that a new ipod touch will come out with two cameras and facetime. Sure it will sometimes but this not a real invention and it would wonder me how facetime would work. Right now factime is suing voice carrier for call and wifi for video, which makes facetime so successful in terms of quality. If a new ipod touch has facetime, then the calling method would need to change. I doubt an ipod will have a simcard or if it has a simcard then with monthly fees around $25, which means somebody will jailbreak it and everybody is going to buy a cheaper ipod touch than an iphone.
Bottom line, I think ipod touch and iphone will always be enough different that consumers are not pressed in the situation to make a decision if iphone or ipod touch. The decision will be which phone or which music player.
Of course the future for me is not to have a phone at all, and only use wifi or data plans to make calls, instead having a voice plan and data plan. I believe this will be in 3 years, and then there is no iphone or ipod touch, both will be just one device.
Other people are saying (which I did as well) that in autumn a new apple TV is coming out or the existing Apple TV will get a new OS. True, I can see this, but I don’t think the Apple TV price will go as low as $99, this is not really Apple method to be low on price only because other streaming boxes are such low. More likely Apple will have a $199 and $299 price for a small and big version and will claim that they reinvented the way how we watch TV, basically coming up with a new device which will define its own category (like the iPad did for mobile computers). Maybe an Apple TV which is totally integrated with IOS 4 and allows developers to build apps for TV and run iAds. Maybe Apple makes a deal with Discovery Channel and others that certain shows or features are only viewable over new iView (yeah not Apple TV anymore, we will call it iView). Maybe the iView will have the only perfect 3D experience without the need to have goggles.
The question is when is Apple successful?
It seems for me, when there is a big diversity, Apple gets strong. Apple got successful with iMac because there were tons of different computers from tons of vendors all looking pretty dull. Then there came Apple, looked at all computers and decided to make them colorful and as all-in-one computers.
Later we had 100 of music players, Apple looked at them and made their own, learning from the others. To help to boost they took all confusion of music rights and music sharing and created their own library.
We have cell phones since years, again 100 of different phones. I had my first smart phone 5 years ago, the Sony SX1. But then came Apple, looked at all phones and made their own smart phone, again learned from other vendors, understood that the UI of the OS needs to change and that there was no app store and hard to install new apps on phones.
Same with the iPad; Amazon had a while their kindle, Sony their e-reader, B&N came out with the Nook, all big hardware companies had their netbook or tablet PC. Apple looked at them and learned.
Now which is the next mobile market where we have a big diversity and Apple is not a player at all but had some experience in 1994?
Correct, the Apple Quick Take camera.
Now it is time to reinvent the camera. A camera which will have a big touch screen and the ability to load photo apps on it, like Photoshop mobile, or video editing software etc. Build in Geo Tagging over GPS and Wifi, totally integrated with mobile me and iweb.
The 12MB pixel version of iClick with 8times analog zoom will be market for $299 and has a free mobile account for 12 months
Bottom line, I think ipod touch and iphone will always be enough different that consumers are not pressed in the situation to make a decision if iphone or ipod touch. The decision will be which phone or which music player.
Of course the future for me is not to have a phone at all, and only use wifi or data plans to make calls, instead having a voice plan and data plan. I believe this will be in 3 years, and then there is no iphone or ipod touch, both will be just one device.
Other people are saying (which I did as well) that in autumn a new apple TV is coming out or the existing Apple TV will get a new OS. True, I can see this, but I don’t think the Apple TV price will go as low as $99, this is not really Apple method to be low on price only because other streaming boxes are such low. More likely Apple will have a $199 and $299 price for a small and big version and will claim that they reinvented the way how we watch TV, basically coming up with a new device which will define its own category (like the iPad did for mobile computers). Maybe an Apple TV which is totally integrated with IOS 4 and allows developers to build apps for TV and run iAds. Maybe Apple makes a deal with Discovery Channel and others that certain shows or features are only viewable over new iView (yeah not Apple TV anymore, we will call it iView). Maybe the iView will have the only perfect 3D experience without the need to have goggles.
The question is when is Apple successful?
It seems for me, when there is a big diversity, Apple gets strong. Apple got successful with iMac because there were tons of different computers from tons of vendors all looking pretty dull. Then there came Apple, looked at all computers and decided to make them colorful and as all-in-one computers.
Later we had 100 of music players, Apple looked at them and made their own, learning from the others. To help to boost they took all confusion of music rights and music sharing and created their own library.
We have cell phones since years, again 100 of different phones. I had my first smart phone 5 years ago, the Sony SX1. But then came Apple, looked at all phones and made their own smart phone, again learned from other vendors, understood that the UI of the OS needs to change and that there was no app store and hard to install new apps on phones.
Same with the iPad; Amazon had a while their kindle, Sony their e-reader, B&N came out with the Nook, all big hardware companies had their netbook or tablet PC. Apple looked at them and learned.
Now which is the next mobile market where we have a big diversity and Apple is not a player at all but had some experience in 1994?
Correct, the Apple Quick Take camera.
Now it is time to reinvent the camera. A camera which will have a big touch screen and the ability to load photo apps on it, like Photoshop mobile, or video editing software etc. Build in Geo Tagging over GPS and Wifi, totally integrated with mobile me and iweb.
The 12MB pixel version of iClick with 8times analog zoom will be market for $299 and has a free mobile account for 12 months
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)