posts

While the idea of Apple owning Dropbox makes me nervous, Shawn’s right about this:

In its current state as “exchange for the rest of us” MobileMe seems neither exciting nor ambitious. As a web-app, me.com is beautiful and extremely functional. But I for one never use it. Instead I use the native OS X apps. And iDisk? Well, that is also collecting dust.

What would be exciting is an open service that bridged the gap for all the data which is shared between our Macs, iPhones, and iPads. What could be more ambitious than killing the USB cable?

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Steve Ballmer, to the WSJ about Windows Phone 7:

In a sense, you could say we missed a cycle. We had some execution issues from an R&D perspective. In the time frame since the last significant release certainly the industry has moved, the technology has moved, the hardware has moved.

We said, we’ve got to move forward, not shoot for yesterday. We’ve got to shoot ahead in a way that’s delightful to users, accessible to developers and prioritize everything else we do around those elements.

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Background

One weekend four years ago, my best friend from high school was in town, visiting from Nashville, where he went to college. We had breakfast before I had to go into work at the Apple Store.

Our Apple Store in Memphis is in an outdoor mall that consists mostly of clothing stores. Since we wrapped up early, we decided to meander around the mall chatting before my shift. We ended up in J. Crew killing some time. As we wandered around the store, we came across a rack of clothes on clearance. As I was looking for a new lightweight jacket, I decided to sift through the rack, when I came across a medium, long-sleeved, zippered Ringspun jersey cotton jacket. The price was right, and we each bought one.

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Ben Brooks:

The screen is amazing on this device, there is absolutely no glare, it has a very paper like quality to it. It doesn’t matter what kind of light you have it in, no reflections or glare. That though is a major problem because this device needs some light – well a lot of light. In the model that I am testing the backlight either is broken or eludes this testers ability to turn it on.

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Randall Stross for The New York Times:

Kevin Compton, who was a senior executive at Businessland during the Next years, described Mr. Jobs after returning to Apple: “He’s the same Steve in his passion for excellence, but a new Steve in his understanding of how to empower a large company to realize his vision.” Mr. Jobs had learned from Next not to try to do everything himself, Mr. Compton said.

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Douglas A. McIntyre:

People whose use of the iPad is not above 20 hours a week are probably people who are willing to use laptops, desktops, and netbooks. Apple may have been able to push its share of the sales in these markets, but the early adopter behavior may not keep the momentum there.

And, there is another piece of good news for Apple competitors–only 13 percent of iPad owners surveyed bought an iPad instead of a PC.

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Chris Breen nails it:

Also, set-top boxes are expanding to embrace streaming Internet content—Netflix, Hulu, Pandora, Amazon, CinemaNow, MLB.com, Rhapsody, Napster, and MOG. The incorporation of Netflix on the Apple TV is terrific, but it hardly overshadows the Apple TV’s focus on the iTunes Store. And that continued focus means that viewers remain subject to the whims of the movie and TV studios. For instance, on the new Apple TV you’ll find TV rentals from only three networks—Fox, ABC, and the BBC. I’m certain Apple would love to add every other network found on your cable or satellite box (including the premium cable channels), but Apple doesn’t have the power to make that so. At the same time, the company is reluctant to provide alternate paths to this content, as those paths don’t lead to media sales.

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Moleskine:

Moleskine introduces two new hybrid tools designed for making it easier the simultaneous use of paper, phone and internet utilities: a Smartphone Covercompatible with iPhone 3G and 3GS, and a Tablet Cover, iPad compatible. Both Covers are combined with blank notebook pages. They are conceived as analog-digital ultra-portable workstations for the contemporary nomads.

This is cool; Moleskine products are excellent. I keep a large ruled notebook in my bag at all times for quick notes, thoughts or doodles. I can’t wait to see one of these cases in the wild.

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See here and here.

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David Caolo, the latest interviewee in Shawn Blanc’s “Sweet Mac Setup” series:

My main computer is a well-worn, 2GHz Intel Core Duo MacBook Pro with a 15″ display. This machine has been in 5 US states and three countries; it’s missing three keys and the bottom is badly scratched. It’s also the most reliable workhorse I’ve ever owned. I’ll continue to use it until it dies or refuses to run essential software, whichever comes first.

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Ben Brooks:

What a joke Macworld has become over the past few years. When I can find Mac Developer websites with Google faster than I can by clicking a link in an the article talking about said developer, then I think as a publisher you should be damned ashamed of yourself.

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I’ve got a new wallpaper on my machines. It’s homemade with Mueso Slab and a stolen copy of the Rebel Alliance logo. You can download a 1440 × 900 version here. If you center it and choose “Tungsten” as the background color, it matches perfectly.

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