Category: Apple
Snow
The Newton-Powered US Navy
Two weeks ago, I was waiting for my rental car at the Alamo car lot at National Airport in DC. Also waiting for a car was a US Navy Rear Admiral (two stars). I was rather surprised to see that an Admiral had to wait for a car and jokingly asking him why the Pentagon didn’t send a one for him. As we were talking story, I pulled out my Newton to check my schedule. Upon seeing this, the admiral smiled and said “Is that a Newton? I haven’t seen one of those for years.” He went on to tell me that the Navy had a large program to evaluate the newton for use on ships and subs to facilitate communications and wireless access to the ships’ central computers from anywhere onboard. He apparently was in charge of a major part of this project. He told me that the Navy was very pleased with the Newt and made plans to issue 2100s to all shipboard personnel Petty Officer and above but canceled the deployment when Jobs canned the Newton. Now the Navy has issued Palms to most of their personnel but the Admiral told me they are not satisfied with the capabilities compared to the Newton.
Hold it ‘Naked’
I don’t use a case on my iPhone, and most probably never will. Apple made the thing to be a beautiful little block of glass. Precision engineered to be as slim and light as possible. It just feels perfect when you hold it. A case - any case - ruins that. If you have an iPhone and use a case, take it off for a second. Just hold it ‘naked’ for a second, and remember how it’s supposed to feel.
Eighty Percent of Mobile Video Views on iOS
FreeWheel reported that four-fifths of all mobile video views happen on Apple iOS devices. The iPhone and iPod touch each account for about 30 percent of all video views that happen on mobile devices, with the remaining 20 percent being attributed to Android devices, according to the report. Other devices account for less than one percent of all video views on mobile devices, according to FreeWheel.
Man, the lack of Flash is really holding Apple’s devices back.
Old Apple Startup and Crash Sounds
Be sure to check out the crash sound for the Power Macintosh 6100/60AV. It is my favorite, by far.
Notification Badge Anxiety Disorder
I have a problem. I get anxious anytime I see a notification badge on my iPhone.
Be it Mail, Reeder or something else, those little red circles really get under my skin. I check my email constantly, am always refreshing Twitter and love marking RSS feeds as read just to kill the little bastards.
I — like most of you — am addicted to input. It’s a terrible side effect of growing up in the 90s, I suppose. But it’s slowly eating away at me.
EFF: Apple Should Defend its Developers
Julie Samuels at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, on the Lodsys mess:
The law generally works to ensure that the party in the best position to address an issue bears the responsibility of handling that issue. In the copyright context, for example, the default assumption is that the copyright owners are best positioned to identify potential infringement. This is because, among other reasons, copyright owners know what content they own and which of their works have been licensed. Here, absent protection from Apple, developers hoping to avoid a legal dispute must investigate each of the technologies that Apple provides to make sure none of them is patent-infringing. For many small developers, this requirement, combined with a 30 percent fee to Apple, is an unacceptable cost. Even careful developers who hire lawyers to do full-scale patent searches on potential apps surely would not expect to investigate the technology that Apple provides. Instead, they would expect (with good reason) that Apple wouldn’t provide technologies in its App Store that open its developers up to liability – and/or would at least agree to defend them when a troll like Lodsys comes along.
Music Files and the Cloud
Shawn Blanc, comparing cloud music services like Rdio to Netflix:
However, I have a different attitude towards movies than I do towards music. I will maybe watch my favorite movies once or twice a year, at the most. A great album that I love I will listen to every day for months and months.
Movies are entertaining. Music is personal.
And so I don’t know if the paradigm that access is better than ownership has the same effect on our music library as it does for our DVD collection. The music we listen to, in many ways, is a definition and extension of who we are.
Shawn’s Next Mac
The 13-inch MacBook Air sure seems popular among people I read.
Apple Inching Towards iCloud?
Apple has signed a cloud-music licensing agreement with EMI Music and is very near to completing deals with Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, multiple music industry sources told CNET.
Warner Music Group already had a deal in place with Apple, CNET reported last month. The licensing agreements will enable Apple to launch a fully licensed cloud-music service to rival unlicensed offerings of rivals Amazon and Google.
Logo for Apple’s Forthcoming iTunes Cloud Service Leaks From Halls of Cupertino
<img src=“https://media.512pixels.net/wp-content/uploads/S3/apple-cloud-iphone4-angels-unicorn111.png” alt=“Apple, iCloud, iPhone 4, Angels and the Unicorn of Unrealized Dreams” border=“0” width=“540” height=“476” margin-bottom:“15px” style=“float:center;” />
I have very reliable sources.