The Apple TV won’t be replacing my trusty Mac mini at any point in the near future, but it certainly is pretty cool. For $99 you get a tiny little black box that you would be hard pressed to say is anything but worth the money. There are certainly cheaper places to get a lot of the same content, but not a single other place to get as good of an experience and as quickly as you can with the Apple TV.
Category: Apple
The Mac Plus Turns 25
As Apple introduced newer models in the Mac line, the company continued to discount the Mac Plus, positioning it as the lowest-end Mac until the Macintosh Classic debuted in 1990. The venerable Mac Plus continued to see heavy use in the real world far beyond its astounding 4.5-year production lifespan. No other single Mac model has been produced for that length of time.
The Plus really was a great machine.
NoMoreiTunes
This is my new favorite Safari extension. It blocks links to apps (and more) from opening iTunes, halting the link at the browser.
On Voice and Data
As announced, the Verizon iPhone is based on CDMA. The current GSM-based iPhone allows for both Data and Voice simultaneously. CDMA, in its current state, cannot replicate this feature of GSM. This means that you cannot talk and be surfing the web at the same time.
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It’s not just that tethering and hotspot will not work. Absolutely NO data will work while on a phone call. No apps can be sending or receiving data while on a phone call. This means no Email, no Twitter, no Pandora and no tethering while on a phone call.
More on the Home Button
These gestures do mean that you don’t have to use the Home button. But there’s a serious discoverability problem with them. The physical Home button is impossible to miss. That it is the one and only button on the faces of these devices is a big part of why normal people are able to pick them up, start playing with them, and figure out how to get around with no help. How in the world would a normal person figure out or guess that they need to do a “five-finger pinch” to get back to the home screen?
iOS 4.3 Beta Adds Gesture Navigation to iPad [UPDATED]
Really, really impressive. Who needs the home button anymore?
Update 1: Hot damn.
Both Sides Now
Verizon’s Lowell McAdam, to BusinessWeek:
We probably worked six or nine months on the technical side of this and saw we could make this work. Then we did the commercial side. The commercial deal took us a day.
[via Mac Stories]
24 Hours With a Magic Trackpad
A guy I work with bought a Magic Trackpad a few weeks ago, and has been raving about it. Since I haven’t used one outside of a quick demo at the Apple Store — and don’t use the trackpad on my MacBook Pro much — I thought it would be interesting to use one for a solid 24 hours.
I’ll be updating this post throughout the day, into tomorrow morning. Be sure to stay tuned…
On Verizon-Installed Crapware
Apple’s Phil Schiller, via Ars Technica:
We want the experience to be the same for every iPhone user. So there are no special Verizon Apps preinstalled. AT&T offers customers some apps via the App Store. I’ll let Verizon comment if they are working on anything for that.
I told you Apple wasn’t going to take crap from the wireless carrier. Even the Mobile Hotspot is in the Settings app.
On Verizon, iPhones and Compromises
So the Verizon iPhone is going to use CDMA, like most other smartphones the carrier options. Sadly, CDMA has a major flaw — data and voice can’t co-exsist. If you’re on a call, you can’t surf. If you’re surfing, data gets interrupted, or the call goes to voicemail. I’ve seen both.
Of course, AT&T’s 3G doesn’t suffer from this flaw. AT&T is sure to make that point to consumers over and over from now on.
The Verizon iPhone
‘Life in the Slow Lane’
Jay Yarow at Business Insider:
After we wrote about Verizon’s plan to offer unlimited data plans, AT&T PR boss Larry Solomon reached out with a statement: “The iPhone is built for speed, but that’s not what you get with a CDMA phone. I’m not sure iPhone users are ready for life in the slow lane.”
He says AT&T’s GSM technology is faster than Verizon’s CDMA technology.
Stay classy, AT&T.