Silver is the new white: With the new iPod classic coming in Black and Silver, it looks like the only remaining iconic white product in Apple’s lineup is the MacBook (unless you count accessories like the AirPort Express or Extreme).
Is there anything more ridiculous than the early iPhone adopters whining about how Apple is being disloyal to them with the $200 price cut? What is this, high school? Was Apple supposed to not cut their prices, to show how much they care? What do they think all this whining is going to get them, anyway?
Oh, OK. Huh. Hey, Beelzebub, send me up another iced tea, please. (I wonder if that will work elsewhere. “Hey, Mr. Honda, I bought this Accord a couple months ago, and now you’ve knocked $5000 off the price? I want my five large back!”)
- As a longtime Verizon Wireless customer, the iPod touch has just about exactly solved my next electronic device purchasing dilemma. Now (a) I don’t have to switch carriers, and (b) I can stop carrying a Palm PDA with me, as the iPod touch will do everything I need the Palm for, except doing crossword puzzles and letting my daughter play Bejeweled — and since the iPod touch presumably runs the same OS X that the iPhone does, those are just a matter of time. Bye, Palm; it was fun, but I’m getting off here. Have a nice journey into irrelevance.
Thoughts on the new iPod lineup
September 7th, 2007Rampage of Headlines Containing “iPhone” Continues Unabated
August 16th, 2007So here we have what appears at first glance to be another entry in the “put iPhone in the headline and get unwarranted attention” sweepstakes:
iPhone Users Find Texting is 2x Slower Than on QWERTY Phones
but which turns out in fact to be more like the “write an egregiously misleading headline and get attention” technique.
Clicking through to the actual release reveals that if you take some frequent text messagers accustomed to physical numeric or QWERTY keypads and have them send six — six! — text messages on the iPhone — well, gosh, it takes them twice as long to do that as on their own phones … which they’re already used to.
(Apparently rubbing the iPhone on your head doesn’t cure baldness in half an hour, either.)
To their credit, they acknowledge this issue, sort of:
We were aware that participants’ prior familiarity with their own phones meant that there would likely be a learning curve associated with text messaging on the iPhone … Although participants were given one minute to familiarize themselves with the iPhone’s touch keyboard, their texting abilities on the iPhone were still at the novice level. [Emphasis supplied.]
So, apparently, they didn’t give the users any kind of advice on how to adapt themselves to the iPhone — the sort of thing any reasonably intelligent new user might do. Such as, oh, I don’t know, watch a video showing how it works?
Nor did they do the obvious followup and see how the users did after a couple of days using the iPhone — since it’s been widely reported that performance improves once the user adapts to the iPhone’s predictive key entry. Wouldn’t a usability research firm be interested in that information as well? Or would it just be satisfied to get a quick result likely to draw attention to itself, and send out a press release?
No, it couldn’t be that. What was I thinking?
Bandwagon and DreamHost
July 22nd, 2007So now Bandwagon and DreamHost are co-operating on a promotion: DreamHost members get a year of Bandwagon, and vice versa.
Well, I haven’t had a chance to set up my Bandwagon account yet — and, as has been pointed out, it may not be an optimal solution for large iTunes collections — but I’m a DreamHost subscriber, and my renewal date is coming up in a couple of months, so here goes. Now all three of you who read my blog will have something to chew on for another five months. (Hey, I couldn’t keep up with the blog when I wasn’t working full-time — what makes you think I’ll do any better now?)
Ride the Bandwagon
February 21st, 2007
Bandwagon launches tomorrow; it purports to back up your entire iTunes library over the Internet to their servers (or alternatively to your Amazon S3 box) for a flat rate. Updates occur automatically in the background. Sounds like a good idea, if they can pull it off. (Mac only at the moment, apparently.)
Disclaimer: This post is earning me, like others, a free one-year subscription.
What We’ve Lost
September 16th, 2006Everyone should read this piece at Andrew Sullivan’s blog titled What We’ve Lost. In summary, a reserve soldier who served in Iraq during the invasion writes of Iraqi soldiers surrendering to the American because they knew the Americans would treat them fairly. (But don’t take my summary at face value; read the piece.)
But now that’s gone:
I can’t get past that image of the Iraqi, in the hood with the wires and I’m not what you’d call a sensitive type. You know the picture. And now we have a total bust-out in the White House, and a bunch of rubber-stamps in the House, trying to make it so that half-drowning people isn’t torture. That hypothermia isn’t torture. That degradation isn’t torture. We don’t have that reputation for fairness anymore. Just the opposite, I think. And the next real enemy we face will fight like only the cornered and desperate fight. How many Marines’ lives will be lost in the war ahead just because of this asshole who never once risked anything for this country?
To which Andrew replies:
This president must never be forgiven for what he has done to the reputation of this country.
Amen. And not just the reputation but the security of this country. Every candidate for president in 2008 — Democrat or Republican — should be made to address this issue.
Arrrh! September 19th be Talk Like a Pirate Day!
September 14th, 2006This be yer only reminder, ye scurvy knave! Now get yer pirate name and get to work — th’ decks don’t swab themselves! ARRRH!
— Mad Russ Graybeard
[Be ye never heerd o’ Talk Like a Pirate Day? Then get clicking!]
Update: Arrrh! There be two sites!
Just Imagine… Stan Lee’s Watchmen
September 6th, 2006[Dr. Manhattan:] As an alienated Syn-Man who was created by gamma rays, I find myself confused by mankind.
[The Comedian:] Ha! What’s so confusing about kicking the Commies back to Red China where they belong, Blue Boy?
Just for people like me that spent more time in the eighties reading comic books than he’d like to admit: Stan Lee’s bold reimagining of Watchmen.
[Caption:] You’ve always heard that TV was bad for you, but can it be bad for the entire world? Find out in 30 when “Savage” Stan Lee and “Dashing” Dave Gibbons bring you an issue that had to be called… THIS MAN… THIS WATCHMAN!
Too rich. (Via BoingBoing.)
