512 Pixels

Forbes.com:

Walk into the local Apple store at 10:35 on a Friday morning and you’ll notice something different: normal people.

These are not the mutants you’ll find trolling Fry’s for a new motherboard, a liter of Mountain Dew and packets of beef jerky. These are not the middle-aged pot-bellied dudes you’ll find eyeing the latest big screen television at Best Buy.

These are people like your mom. Among the 20 customers at the store Friday were several older women. One was getting a quick tutorial on how to download digital movies.

What’s up with that? I asked my mother-in-law. “There’s always someone there to answer your questions,” she said of Apple’s stores. “I like that.”

Walter Cronkite passed away this evening at the age of 92. Time has a photo essay up of his life’s work — bringing the news to millions of American families, night after night. He will be missed.

Wired:

Vic Gundotra, Google’s engineering vice president and developer evangelist, said on Friday at the Mobilebeat conference in San Francisco that the future of the mobile industry lies in web-based applications, rather than native software coded to run on specific smartphone operating systems.

“Many, many applications can be delivered through the browser and what that does for our costs is stunning,” Gundotra was quoted in a Financial Times report. “We believe the web has won and over the next several years, the browser, for economic reasons almost, will become the platform that matters and certainly that’s where Google is investing.”

Google is hell-bent on this “the web is the OS” idea, and it’s starting to sound sillier and sillier. I mean, with 1.5 billion apps downloaded, Apple’s App Store is doing just fine. Not to mention the web simply can’t replicate what well-written, powerful native apps can do.

Think back to 2005. All of us were running around with fresh installs of OS X 10.4 on our PowerBooks and iMac G4s and G5s while anticipating the company’s move to Intel-based processors.

In September 2005, Apple announced the iPod nano and their alliance with Cingular Wireless and Motorola, which produced the ROKR E1. The ROKR E1 was the first phone that was supported by iTunes — users could copy 100 tracks from their computers to the device, just like an iPod. The weird thing? Apple announced it on the same day that announced the iPod nano. While the iPod news made the headlines, the ROKR E1 grabbed a fair share of attention.

Engadget had the specs:

It’s going to sell for $249.99 with two-year service agreement. It’s tri-band GSM/GPRS (850/1800/1900 MHz), it has a 176 x 220 pixel, 262,000 color display, weighs 3.77 ounces, is  4.25 x 1.81 x .80-inches in size, has a talk time of 9 hours, a VGA camera, and Bluetooth.

It was set to be a halfway decent phone, but users were turned off by the non-iPod nature and hardware limitations of the ROKR E1.

Here’s a snippet from CNET’s review of the device:

The Motorola ROKR E1 takes a step toward integrating a usable audio jukebox into a functional cell phone, but the 100-song limit and the slow processor performance will disappoint iPod users looking to carry a single do-it-all device.

Mobiledia’s review wasn’t much kinder:

Featuring basic functionality, a sub-standard camera, and a typical set of applications, the ROKR’s features are mediocre. Even the focus of the phone, the iTunes software, was crippled; limiting the ROKR to only 100 songs. A byproduct of corporate negotiating, Apple didn’t want the ROKR to take away profits from its iPod portfolio.

MobileTracker wasn’t impressed either:

The biggest thing the Motorola ROKR E1 has going for it is the carrier deal with Cingular. Feature wise it just doesn’t innovate. Overall the device isn’t polished, from a USB 1 connection to extremely slow performance. Using the ROKR made me appreciate my iPod more than I did before, it is a thought out device that not only innovates but executes. There is no compelling reason to use the ROKR E1 over a good [regular] phone and a separate music player unless you really cannot stand using multiple devices. You can get a RAZR from Amazon.com for free and snag a 512MB iPod Shuffle for $99 (or the new nano for $249 and have oodles of space). In fact, even if I bought a ROKR, I would still use an iPod to play music because it simply gives a superior music playing experience.

The ROKR E1’s failure fueled speculation that Apple was building their own phone. Engadget, in their iPhone review back in 2007:

About ten months later, under the shadow of the best-selling iPod nano, that ballyhooed device debuted – the ROKR E1 – a bastard product that Apple never put any weight behind, and that Motorola was quick to forget. The relationship between Apple and Motorola soon dissolved, in turn feeding the tech rumor mill with visions of a “true iPhone” being built by Apple behind the scenes.

Of course, that ended up being true, but the ROKR E1 was an unusual fumble for Apple. In fact, in the aforementioned “Decade’s 25 Biggest Tech Flops Slideshow,” CNET included only one Apple-related product — the ROKR E1. Here’s what they said about it:

The ROKR E1 was a big deal when it launched back in September of 2005. Rumors of a Motorola/Apple phone that incorporated iTunes had been circulating for months and when the phone was finally released, expectations were very high. Unfortunately, the whole iTunes experience was sluggish and Apple seemed to distance itself from the E1 (Motorola CEO Ed) Zander accused Apple of not supporting it.

But Apple didn’t stop there. The SLVR L7 came out as a replacement of the poor selling ROKR E1, but it too failed to succeed. It was the last of a short-lived, poorly-executed partnership that probably should have never made it past the drawing board.

Every major tech site posts lists of the crappiest products released these from time to time, yet I never get tired of them. Here’s CNET’s most recent one.

Check out this video of Buzz Aldrin punching Bart Sibrel after he claims Buzz never went to the moon.

[via Gruber.]

NPR has a fascinating story about video footage shot on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission that was lost (possibly even destroyed) by NASA itself accidentally:

Lebar and others spent hours and hours in a vast government storage facility known as the Washington National Records Center, a place that Lebar compares to the giant warehouse at the end of the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The search team combed through “racks of documents, tapes, all kinds of things from NASA and other agencies,” says Nafzger.

The search wasn’t limited to that one place — the searchers went everywhere from storage businesses to private homes. They pored over logbooks, memos and all kinds of 40-year-old handwritten records.

The story also includes the original broadcasted video that has been re-mastered for a better picture, but the clearest images seem to have been lost forever.

ZDNet:

Microsoft is planning to open the first of its planned retail stores next to existing Apple stores this fall.

Kevin Turner, Microsoft’s Chief Operating Officer, told partners the news during his Worldwide Partner Conference keynote on July 15. A number of attendees tweeted Turner’s words immediately.

Microsoft officials announced in February that Microsoft was planning to open retail stores but have offered few details since that time as to what the stores would look like or when they’d open. I did hear from some Softies that the stores wouldn’t be clones of Apple’s, and that they’d be more showcases than actual retail outlets.

[…]

A Microsoft spokesperson provided the following statement, for what it’s worth:

“As we progress on our retail strategy there will be scenarios where we have stores in proximity to Apple.  We are on track to open stores in the Fall timeframe. Beyond that we have no additional details to share.”

So Microsoft is finally getting into retail.

There is a fundamental difference between Microsoft and Apple that will be exposed through this — Apple has lots of shiny hardware to show off and sell. Microsoft makes Zunes, peripherals and software. What computer hardware will Microsoft carry, if any? How will it be decided which brands get floor space and which brands don’t?

Pre Central:

It has begun.  With the release of iTunes 8.2.1 … Palm Pre syncing with iTunes is indeed kaput. At least on this Pre user’s Mac, iTunes sync isn’t working after the 8.2.1 update.

Not surprising, especially considering how vocal Palm was about this working in the first place.

I kinda like this one:

Of note, we see Clippy’s grave.

Macworld :

But back in the day, when monstrous thunder lizards roamed the earth and music came on vinyl disks and a CD was something you talked to your banker about, B-Sides were very much a part of the musical experience. In those hoary times, when you wanted the latest hit single, you bought a 45-rpm record. Side A contained the hit that was skyrocketing up the charts, while Side B contained a second song—sometimes a song of equal or greater value, occasionally another cut off the same album—that gave you another side of the recording artist.

Apple has decided to revive the era of the B-Side through the iTunes Store. The company has launched a Digital 45s section, which packages two songs from the same artist in one download.

I had conversation with an old music producer about this two weeks ago. It’s a great idea, and I’m excited to see Apple embrace it.