New iPod Shuffle…

I originally thought this was a joke from The Onion. But it turns out Apple has indeed updated the iPod shuffle. My favorite iPod ever (seriously!) is hideous and I don’t want my controls on the headphones, and also…who cares if it talks. If I wanted to hear that, I would listen to Steven Hawking talk all day. When I get home, I am ordering back ups of the previous generation in case my ever fails. I will either use it some day or have a mint iPod shuffle for use years down the road.

The Last Minute MacBook Pro?

Tuesday February 19th brought us a couple surprises. One of which was the $49 iPod Shuffle with a soon to be released 2GB version for $69. I have an iPod Video, an iPhone and a 1GB shuffle and I have always said, the shuffle is by far Apple’s best iPod, especially if you’re on the go. I wear mine to the gym all the time and you can barely tell you’re wearing it. It won very high marks for me when I ran it through the wash and once it dried and charged, worked perfectly. If it broke or I lost it, I wouldn’t hesitate to replace it immediately especially at twice the space for $69. The other release today was Xsan 2 which I know absolutely nothing about so I’m not going to pretend to be excited or disappointed about this.

What wasn’t a surprise today was the total lack of new MacBook Pros. It seems like our last chance for a soon release will be Next Tuesday February 26th…IF there is an event. An event is a more likely place to announce new MBP’s than a news feed. If it doesn’t happen next week…I have absolutely no idea or hope left for us until WWDC. There is some concern now, we won’t see an update until summer when Intel releases their Montevina processors. This is something I hypothesized about before with the Penryn only being a stop-gap until then if it ever does get released. 

So what’s another week, right? Well if it doesn’t happen are you going to wait? Are you going to even switch to PC….blasphemy I know. Towards the end of 2007, people began to wonder if 2008 would be the year Apple fans would turn on their beloved company. Pitchfork march on 1 Infinite Loop Cupertino anyone?

Another Tuesday, No MacBook Pro

The Apple store went down again yesterday, Tuesday February 5, 2008…but only in the US and Canada. Many people thought we might just get the new MacBook Pro but what we did get was a 16GB iPhone and a 32GB iPod Touch. Until the store goes down across the world, there will be no MacBook Pro update so keep your fingers crossed for a worldwide Internet inconvenience. So what does all this mean?

Well, with the iPhone SDK coming out this month, people will need more space for apps, although I think and hope the 4GB will continue to do its job. Most 3rd party apps now are rarely over 1MB. Either way, the whole ordeal is not greasing my gears. What’s confusing is, why this couldn’t have been announced 3 weeks ago at MacWorld. It’s such a small bump that it could have been a top headline in the keynote and wouldn’t have outshined the MacBook Air? Maybe it wasn’t ready? Neither was AppleTV Take 2, and it’s still not ready.

The status of the MacBook Pro leaves us with more confusion. The Penryn chips are available and being shipped for other notebooks from other companies so why not for Apple’s notebook lineup? Well according to Intel’s roadmap, the Montevina chips are due in Q2 which would put the release beginning in March but for Apple more around NAB or WWDC. Remember the iPhone was released at the VERY end of Q2 of ‘07. By then this would qualify for a total overhaul of the system, but the possibility does arise that Apple will release a Penryn MacBook Pro only as a stopgap until the Montevina, kinda how the Intel Core Duo was before the Intel Core 2 Duo. It simply made the transition happen sooner.

In the end, if Apple does release a Penryn model anytime soon without overhauling other areas, it will be quickly outdone by the Montevina. So if you see a Penryn MacBook Pro soon without any other changes, just wait until NAB or WWDC, if you can. I’ll give it my best shot. So far Apple has released updates every Tuesday of this year. Mac Pro, Macbook Air, pink iPod, application updates, and iPhone/iPod touch updates. Time will have to creep up on the MacBook Pro eventually if Apple keeps up this pace. Of course 10.5.2 will be out before then as well.

1.1.2 Broken Already?

For the iPod Touch perhaps. Even before it’s official release, TUAW is reporting firmware 1.1.2 has already been jailbroken perhaps with the iPhone coming soon. There is no mention of what the exploit to allow this is or if it’s a single step process or a length of steps as we first saw with 1.1.1. Assuming this is true and easy to do, this would pave the way for an easy upgrade to iTunes 7.5 and iPhone/iPod Touch firmware 1.1.2.

Stay tuned for more info but for now I recommend ignoring the update and just relaxing with your cool 3rd party apps. Stay tuned for more.

Country Bumpkins, P2P, and the RIAA + Students

On October 30, 2007 Ohio University’s Office of Information Technology hosted a P2P forums for students with a panel comprised of industry professionals, faculty, and student senate. The forum lasted 2.5 hours including speeches followed by questions from the audience and online submission. The forum was comprised of:

Eddie Ashworth – Ohio University Telecommunications Professor, Engineer of albums by Sublime, Pennywise and Great White
Jonathan Lamy – Director of Communications, RIAA, six years of experience on Capitol Hill, former Press Secretary for Bread for the World, and OU Alumnus
Jorma Kaukonen – Founding Member of Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna, 1996 Inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Owner and operator of the Fur Peace Ranch Guitar Camp. Vanessa Kaukonen – Owner and chief executive officer of the Fur Peace Ranch guitar camp.
Bob Regan – Legislative Chair, NSAI, was instrumental in NSAI’s introduction and passage of the Songwriters Capital Gains Tax Equity Act
Timothy Vonville – OHIO University Student Senate President Vijay Raghavan, Director – Digital Freedom University and Digital Freedom Campaign Stewart Harris – Composer, songwriter, producer, publisher, and president of Edisto Sound

Eddie Ashworth was the first to talk, flat out saying music piracy may only account for 5% of a drop in record sales. The record industry has gone through ups and downs before and in today’s day and age, money is being spent on movies, video games and other forms of media as well. Something has to give a little, right? Well no one apparently took what Mr. Ashworth said to heart.

Up next was the RIAA hack, Jonathan Lamy. Completely disregarding the previously stated statistical facts by saying piracy has generated a 33% loss in industry revenue. He also went on a political rant about how the RIAA first tried education and other methods before suing children and coercing universities for student information, but they had failed or not brought about the results demanded.

I’ll skip ahead for a minute to Vijay Raghavan who took on the role of pointing out the ridiculous nature of the music industry and the RIAA. Vijay spoke what we have been saying for years. The music industry would not adopt digital distribution when it came on the scene and began alienating its user base when they were ready to move ahead. Mr. Lamy explained that you can’t just flip a switch, but he failed to acknowledge how the industry refused to do anything and further claimed Apple was partially to blame for not licensing its DRM to other companies. DRM is a company secret, not a product. When something is licensed the secret is out. Vijay was also quick to point out DRM is ridiculous in the first place for digital downloads because CD’s do NOT have DRM. It’s ineffective.

The rest of the panel was a group of country music songwriters and CEO of the Fur Peace Ranch guitar camp. Along with them was the founder of Jefferson airplane, Jorma Kaukonen. Vanessa Kaukonen was the most unintelligible of the bunch almost seeming afraid to make statement in that she me piss off the RIAA and find herself in a world of hurt. As far as her husband goes, Jorma Kaukonen, I’m sorry but no one cares about Jefferson Airplane anymore and anyone that still does or is interested in his solo career are probably not pirating music. There’s a bit of a generational gap there. Bob Regan was by far the most entertaining of the bunch aside from Stewart Harris’ brick analogy. What was that? Sorry Stewart, but when a CD sucks, it’s a coaster, not a brick. Did you know Mr. Regan only makes $22,000 if he writes a song on a platinum selling album, only $22 grand?!

Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and say he writes two hit songs on a platinum selling album out of 10 songs. That’s a high percentage, but that also means the other 8 songs he wrote or his co-writers wrote are crap. This doesn’t count the dozens of other songs he writes that never even make it on an album. I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure I’d still have a job if 80% of my work was deemed crap. I’m sure writers are losing their jobs left and right, but that’s just more of an incentive to do a better job. Piracy isn’t to blame. It’s disgusting to think we should pay $20 for a CD that has two good songs. That’s why things like the iTunes store is so successful; we pay a price to get exactly what we want and all the other garbage out there gets brushed aside. Welcome to economics.

This panel was seriously lacking in artists who support the consumer, not in a pro-piracy manner but in their role as part of the industry. Spearheaded by Mr. Regan was the attitude of “me me me.” Calling BS on the users’ claim that artists are alienating their fans. Assuming Mr. Regan had any fans in the audience, I bet they will think twice before buying any music he writes. Where were the people from bands like Radiohead? Where were the Trent Reznors? Where were They Might Be Giants? Where were the Myspace bands that launched due to users distributing their music? Record labels can spend as much money as they want on promotions and Pepsi deals, but their ultimate source of advertising, and its FREE advertising, is the consumer. “Hey, check out this band.”

There is little doubt that downloading and distributing music that you didn’t pay for is illegal. I can’t argue that and everyone on the panel would agree, but it’s hard to stand behind the current industry model when 20 years later, CD’s are still $20+. We don’t own our music anymore; we get to install it on 5 computers. We’re in the age of renting the things we pay for. $15 a month for unlimited downloads on Napster to only have them taken away once you cancel your account or only work on certain devices? The model and the laws need to change. Old theory doesn’t apply in the digital age. The music industry has done nothing to better serve its customers. I’m NOT an advocate of piracy because I feel like if you really like something, go out and buy their music, and definitely go see their shows.

It’s time for people like Bob Regan and Stewart Harris to realize their golden era is up in the industry. While there will always be respect for their contributions to music and people will seek them our for material, the genre and the consumers have left them behind. Instead of wagging the finger, accept that at least for now, you’re not the hot commodity you once were.

The RIAA can continue to persecute people for downloading music. In some instances it will work, but it’s the artists and the labels that need to make their product more appealing to an audience. The audience is ready; they want to consume your music and carry it wherever they go. You just need to keep up with them.

Jail Buhroken! What a Beautiful Clutter

By now, you must have hear iPhone firmware 1.1.1 has officially been jailbroken, by AppSnapp. It can now be done with a single, and incredibly easy install without all the backdoor methods we have seen over the previous weeks. The second jailbreak by the iPhone goes on to prove that it’s more than an iPod, a phone, and an Internet communications device. It’s also a handheld game device, a movie player, an instant messenger and by god something you can use your own ringtones on.

In the free market, ingenuity is driven by competition. When the iPhone came "locked" to 3rd party developers the original break-in was found and people were free to intensify their own user experience. With firmware 1.1.1, those who were sucker enough to "upgrade" found themselves temporarily in the dark until a new solution was created. Feeling the pressure, Apple caved and announced an SDK for the iPhone due out in February with the first applications not due for another couple months and primarily adopted through the iTunes store. "Why wait?" thought the hackers and the new installer.app was released. Apple bred its own competition or what I so lovingly call its actual user base. Those that saw the immediate promise of the iPhone and all the power and glory held within.

So what makes the iPhone so perfect for this development aside from 4-8GB of storage. It’s the nihilism of the device: one button.  The hardware is set for years, all functionality changes from within. Developers can make the screen do and show whatever they want to. Why should users be relegated to the icons given by Apple and a standard order to them? My device is primarily used as a phone so why shouldn’t all phone functions be at the bottom dock? Why shouldn’t all the iPod functions be made readily available from the home screen for those who primarily use it as a music device ? Why do we always have to return to the home screen just to get to another app?

 

Who knows what will happen when the iPhone SDK is released and programs begin to role out through iTunes? Through Apple’s own doing, it is facing its toughest competition through its own partners, the developers. Apple will be the first to admit, its greatest resource is the developers who also make a great percentage of its users. Telecommunications researches are all seeking the unified theory of communications, the Holy Grail that just explains everything. Shouldn’t we seek the same in our devices? If the capability is there, should we not use it?

It’s now Apple’s turn. The developers answered the call for competition and now Apple needs to see what it can do to satisfy users. It’s time for Apple to unleash the greatest multimedia device applications ever. Locking the users out is not the answer.

People are a Talkin’

I’m basing this on one post, but it’s looking like people who pre-ordered Leopard WILL receive it on October 26th (please spare me the hate mail if I’m wrong because since I pre-ordered it, I will be equally as pissed). It looks as if that order is going to Hong Kong which explains why it shipped 3 days in advance and mine has “yet to be shipped” as its status. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. UPDATE: My status has been updated to “Prepared for Shipment.”

UPDATE 2: My shipping method has been updated to “Priority Overnite.” Glad I didn’t pay for next day shipping.

Early reviews are beginning to trickle in from developers and from an apparent Internet copy making its way around. The build being 9a581, although we’ll see what the version we get is. So what are we hearing? FAST!! Insanely fast in all areas. Programs are opening up in no time including mail. Time machine works instantly auto-detecting hard drives. Although what leads me to believe that this isn’t the final build is a comment about Finder hanging at first load. Although this could be related to hardware or fixed with a simple 10.5.1 update, I think it could be part of a bad setup file or it not being the final build of Leopard.

Tom Yager is calling this an “engineering achievement that dwarfs iPhone, iPod, Windows and Linux.” (I have an iPhone and it is definitely an engineering marvel, although the software needs to be hammered out). It also sounds like Mr. Yager is unable to fully disclose as much information as he would like until the official release, so he’s holding back. Yager has a great point when he compares the release and adoption of Vista as largely “incidental,” to being bundled with new computers whereas Leopard will see it’s primary adoption from OS X users going to the store or an online retailers seeking the upgrade, a level twice that of the release of Tiger and growing.

As I listen to MacBreak Weekly, the chaps are discussing what they are looking forward to the most. For me personally, there are things I look forward to to use all the time and a few things I am looking to try out. I will probably still never use iChat. I think AdiumX is the best out there even though it doesn’t have video chat which I don’t really need. Come my installation, I will finally begin using Apple Mail as my email client. (For anything I mention, check out the Apple site for more info, ot stayed tuned for my review in the coming days). Time Machine, oh lordy, Time Machine. I used system restore in Windows XP once and if it’s anywhere near the same in Vista, Apple has trounced the competitor. There is one thing I am eager to try, the new Automator.

Apple introduced Automator in Tiger. It is an application to make the system do chains of tasks automatically for you. I opened it a couple times, shrugged my shoulders and closed it. It’s difficult for me to tell a computer to do something the way a computer does it. With this new feature, you can turn Automator on, tell it to record, and it will follow what you’re doing until you tell it to stop such as opening a series of apps or working within an application like Photoshop or Pixelmator. I’ll be sure to let you know what I think of it. Of course, the worst part in all this would be if the install totally craps out, but I don’t expect that to happen.

iPhone Bug Thing…Maybe…iPod

I have yet to read anything else about this and I am definitely hoping it’s not just my iPhone or that it’s a twisted feature apple put into place to serve a purpose of god knows what. Follow these steps if you have an iPhone:

1. Plug your headphones into your iPhone

2. Go to your iPod in the iPhone and pick a track to listen to through the on-screen controls and pause the track.

3. Put the iPhone in your pocket and try to unpause the track by clicking once on the headphone trigger.

What happens for me is, by clicking on the trigger my playlist resets to the beginning. My list is set to random shuffle by the way, but one would think that by clicking the button, the track I selected from the iPhone touch screen should automatically begin playing instead of resetting the list. Let me know what you come up with.

This is perhaps a good time to talk a little about the iPhone. What we have all been following the most, is the unlocking of the 1.1.1 firmware. I like some of you feel prey to the upgrade. I still don’t know why I actually did it. I have a wireless iTunes store now that I will never use. You can’t even download podcasts from it. Are you looking forward to the crack or are you going to keep your iPhone pure? It should be every iPhone users’ right to add third party applications to the iPhone for a number of reasons.

One is we paid a shitload of money for this device; we own it and we pay another large amount of money to AT&T each month for their services. We don’t rent the device from AT&T or from Apple. It should be ours to do what we want with it. When the contract expires, we still have the phone. We don’t return it like a Time Warner cable box. AT&T is probably afraid we’ll install 3rd parts apps that will make calling free. Either way, they’re making their 70-100 a month anyways so why should they care? Apple was always thought to support 3rd party applications. Have you seen how many open source apps there are for OS X? Good lord!

The iPhone needs 3rd part applications. I never had the chance to play with any 3rd party applications on my iPhone simply because I wasn’t hip to the idea yet. I would have jumped all over the IM client because my last flip-phone had it and it worked pretty well. I am a firm believer that if you own something, it is your basic right as a consumer to do whatever you want to it. Like I said, it would be much different if you rented the iPhone, but you don’t.

What applications did/do you have on your iPhone and what ones would you like to have on your device?

This is a Melting Pot

Other than as a reader, I am extremely new to this whole tech-blogging thing. I’m going to give the writing part of it a shot of my own. I expect this to start off really poorly and hopefully get better as I pick up some methods for writing and refine my styles. So why am I writing this? I consume just about every type of media there is. I have two degrees in telecommunications and work for a local PBS station. My master’s degree is in media effects theory for video games. I’m going to say it once; Video Games do NOT cause kids to go ape-shit. I don’t want to hear it. Jack Thompson, Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman need to find better things to do with their time.

At home I have HDTV, lots of video game systems handheld and console, mp3 players, etc. After growing tired of building my own computer, I made the switch to mac and once Leopard is out I will be dual booting Mac OS and Windows. In summary, I consider myself relatively qualified to be making such a blog. Expect to find information from all areas including politics because what they hope to accomplish or refuse to educate themselves about has a direct influence on you. I’m hoping to differentiate myself a bit from all the rest. The last thing you need it regurgitated information from me.