Gym Bans iPod Nano

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TwinCities.com:

Compact camera-equipped devices, such as cell phones, have been gadgets non grata at health clubs for years. The Life Time chain, for instance, has long forbidden their use in locker rooms because of the potential for compromising photos or video footage to be distributed online.

And with the new Nano fitting this category, its use in locker rooms for any reason is forbidden, said spokesman Jason Thunstrom. Discerning whether someone is taking video or just queuing up a music mix can be difficult.

The new Nano’s use for music listening would be tolerated in workout areas, Thunstrom added, but shooting videos with it while exercising is a no-no.

This was an issue a couple of years ago, as well, when Apple added the iSight camera to all of their notebooks and the iMacs.

More on the Macintosh Portable

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Technologizer:

On September 20th, 1989, Apple released the Macintosh Portable, the first true mobile Mac and a much-maligned machine. It didn’t sell well and is very rare today–not due to any particular design failure, but because the original price was a whopping $6,500-$7,300 ($11,288 to $12,677 in 2009 dollars). It wasn’t the only Mac to cost that much, but others in that price range offered top-of-the-line performance. The Portable was both too expensive and too underpowered to catch on. Its large size didn’t help, either.

Hit that link for some take-apart photos.

FCC Promoting Net Neutrality

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Wired:

FCC chairman Julius Genachowski delivered Monday on President Obama’s promise to back “net neutrality.” But he went much further than merely seeking to expand rules that prohibit ISPs from filtering or blocking net traffic — he proposed that they cover all broadband connections, including data connections for smartphones.

It’s encouraging to see the Obama administration taking this on — a tiered Internet would be a huge detriment to the United States, which is already behind other nations when it comes to not only high-speed usage, but education — which is becoming more and more dependent on the Internet.

Apple Portables Turn 20 Today

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The Apple Blog:

The Mac Portable development project was launched in 1986, not long before Steve Jobs’ departure from Apple, and the product was first released for sale on September 20, 1989. It was featured on the cover of the November 1989 edition of MacUser magazine, which called it “by far the most complex piece of machinery devised by sale by Apple computer.”

While it incorporated a laptop-style foldable form factor with a front-mounted carry handle/lockdown lever, the Mac Portable weighed only about a pound less than contemporaneous Mac Compact desktops — a hefty 16 pounds, due partly to it having a robust lead-acid battery. It wasn’t cheap either, selling for a likewise heavyweight $6,500 — or $7,300 with an optional hard drive.

Internally, the Mac Portable had a 16MHz Motorola 68HC000 processor chip, an internal 1.4MB 3.5-inch floppy drive, a 40MB 3.5″ hard drive, and a whopping 1MB of RAM, expandable to 9MB but unfortunately in an oddball 30ns SRAM card (one slot) module format. The monitor screen was a crisp 9.8″ 1-bit active matrix, 640×400, LCD — initially without backlighting — and there was also a video output port for driving an external monitor. The upside of that heavy lead-acid battery was a very respectable five-to–10 hour charge life.

They’ve come a long way, haven’t they?

App Store Taking Central Stage?

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iPodNN:

The App Store is believed to be the current center of Apple’s attention, as iPod sales are flattening after years of growth. The problem, says BusinessWeek, is that record labels are now more dependent than ever on Apple, as some 90 percent of US digital music sales are handled through the iTunes Store, and approximately 75 percent of all media players sold are iPods. CD sales are continuing to fall, which means that without Apple’s help, the record industry will further shrink.

“Our biggest concern would be if they started resting on their laurels,” says an unidentified senior label executive. “We need them to continue innovating.”

‘There’s AT&T’

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From iLounge’s review of the original iPhone:

There are some issues. First, there’s AT&T. If you’ve ever had doubts about the company, they’re not going to go away with iPhone: we’ve experienced very significant problems activating two of our iPhones, attributable not to iTunes but rather to AT&T, and its customer service has been atrocious. To say that they are making a bad first (or tenth) impression would be an understatement, and the shocking part is that in each of our situations (and others we’ve been following), the company can’t seem to do the right thing by people who are all but waving $1,500+ in fees in their faces. One wonders how bad the experiences need to be before Apple can hold them in breach of contract and work with other carriers instead.

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire?

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The FCC has posted Google’s responses to the government’s inquiry into the Google Voice app being banned from the App Store.

From reading through it, it seems that Apple did indeed reject the application, contrary to what Apple’s Phil Schiller stated a few weeks ago.

One Device to Replace Them All

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Kottke:

Once someone has an iPhone, it is going to be tough to persuade them that they also need to spend money on and carry around a dedicated GPS device, point-and-shoot camera, or tape recorder unless they have an unusual need. But the real problem for other device manufacturers is that all of these iPhone features — particularly the always-on internet connectivity; the email, HTTP, and SMS capabilities; and the GPS/location features — can work in concert with each other to actually make better versions of the devices listed above. Like a GPS that automatically takes photos of where you are and posts them to a Flickr gallery or a video camera that’ll email videos to your mom or a portable gaming machine with access to thousands of free games over your mobile’s phone network.

A History Lesson on iTunes

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Mac|Life:

About 10 months later, at Macworld San Francisco in 2001, Apple debuted iTunes alongside iDVD and the CD-RW-enabled Power Macs. While it wasn’t exactly a show-stopper (though 275,000 copies were downloaded in the first week), the “world’s best and easiest to use ‘jukebox’ software” definitely raised the bar for music players on the Mac, which were relatively sparse and rather pricey (SoundJam cost $40). By offering iTunes as a free download and installing it on every new Mac, Apple essentially cut down the competition at the pass–or at least put a good scare into them. “Apple has done what Apple does best–make complex applications easy, and make them even more powerful in the process,” said Steve Jobs at the time. “iTunes is miles ahead of every other jukebox application, and we hope its dramatically simpler user interface will bring even more people into the digital music revolution.”

For many Mac users, iTunes was an introduction to digital music, and Apple strived to create a straightforward jukebox that needed little or no instruction to get started. Popping a music CD into your Mac automatically launched iTunes, which loaded the disc, collected track data from Gracenote and added them to your library. A clean interface split into boxes kept everything neat and always within reach of a mouse click.

It’s come a long way in 8 years.

I was also reminded as I clicked through this article how many times iTunes has been used to refine a new UI before it was used in bigger apps, like Finder. Brushed metal, ugly scrollbars and Leopard’s unified theme all showed up in iTunes before creeping into other parts of Mac OS X.

WSJ to Charge for Mobile Content

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Oh boy:

Beginning Oct. 24, the WSJ Mobile Reader application, currently available on BlackBerry smartphones and Apple iPhone and iPod touch devices, will require a separate mobile subscription for full access to Journal subscription content. The application itself will remain free to download and contain both free and subscription content, emulating the experience found on WSJ.com.

WSJ, you’re doing this all wrong.

Why Does Verizon Have Lame Phones?

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Wired:

As for Verizon? The company has the popular but critically panned BlackBerry Storm and the rather staid and Wi-Fi–less BlackBerry Tour. The carrier known for the best network now has the least attractive lineup of smart phones.

It’s a puzzling situation for Verizon. The wireless carrier has had the most customers of any cellular operator in the country since its 2008 acquisition of Alltel, and it’s widely regarded as having the largest network coverage area. So the fact that it can’t offer its customers better smartphones is a bit of a mystery.

Verizon’s extremely conservative approach to new handsets, the company’s long and rigorous testing procedures, and its emphasis on the network rather than the phone have created a portfolio that’s a complete buzzkill, say experts.

[…]

Not surprisingly, Verizon spokesperson Brenda Raney says the carrier would rather focus on its network than on the gadgets that use it.

“Keep in mind that for Verizon Wireless, it isn’t so much about the device as it is about the delivery,” she says. “We have the nation’s largest 3G network so when we offer devices on our network, customers can be assured that they will deliver as promised.”