Category: Journalism

Apple spells out keynote for WWDC: Lion, iOS 5, ‘iCloud’

May 31, 2011 /

Apple made the unusual move of spelling out the topics for its WWDC Keynote next week:

Apple CEO Steve Jobs and a team of Apple executives will kick off the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) with a keynote address on Monday, June 6 at 10:00 a.m. At the keynote, Apple will unveil its next generation software – Lion, the eighth major release of Mac OS X; iOS 5, the next version of Apple’s advanced mobile operating system which powers the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch; and iCloud, Apple’s upcoming cloud services offering.

Apple rarely — very rarely — tips its hand about keynotes and is generally even more tight-lipped about upcoming products and services. The only time I can recall them doing so is when they feel the need to manage rumors and keep a handle on expectations, which I think is what’s going on here. They want to emphasize that there will be no hardware announcements (read: no iPhone 5 or “4GS”).

This is why people don’t trust marketers

May 25, 2011 /

More on Dell’s new laptop from The Guardian:

Noted in passing: advert for the Dell XPS-15, containing the phrase

Finally, the power you crave in the thinnest 15″ PC on the planet*.

Wow, the thinnest? But wait, what’s the asterisk?

Small print time: “Based on Dell internal analysis as at February 2011. Based on a thickness comparison (front and rear measurements) of other 15″ laptop PCs manufactured by HP, Acer, Toshiba, Asus, Lenovo, Samsung, Sony, MSI. No comparison made with Apple or other manufacturers not listed.”

In other words, “we’re going to lie in the big type, then explain that we’re lying in teeny tiny type that we hope no one will actually read.”

Appalling. (Charles Arthur via Glenn Fleishman.)

Shameless

May 25, 2011 /

Photo courtesy of Engadget. Click to view the full article.

The phenomenon of other brands’ products “coincidentally” beginning to look like Apple products is nothing new, (think about cellphones before and after the iPhone or tablets after the iPad, for instance) so it’s not surprising to see that Dell’s new XPS 15z laptop bears a striking resemblance to the MacBook Pro. They’ve even copied Apple’s packaging, which includes a downright Freudian admission in the arrangement of photos of the laptop in an arrangement that practically screams “Mac OS X.”

But what’s particularly embarrassing is the pretense that it’s not happening. Dell described their new laptop as having an “innovative new form factor” for crying out loud.

I wonder if the PR flack who wrote that was even able to keep a straight face.

Absolutely embarrassing. (via Engadget.)

On the Apple’s 10th anniversary in retail, a look back at NJ’s first store

May 19, 2011 /

With today marking the 10th anniversary of Apple’s first brick-and-mortar store, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back at how we covered the company’s first location in the Garden State, which opened in Tice’s Corner in 2001. Back then, of course, there were only five retail outlets, and the company had an ambitious goal of opening a total of 25 by the year’s end (there are over 300 now), and store openings were a big deal, not just among the Mac press, but the mainstream news outlets as well. Apple’s newest product, the “iPod,” wouldn’t even be available for another week after the opening.

RandomMaccess was given exclusive access to the store the night before the special pre-opening “press event.” Here’s how we reported our first look at Apple’s foray into retailing.

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Read the EULA; you told Apple (and others) they could track you.

April 21, 2011 /

I’m finding it hard to get riled up about the latest brouhaha regarding the discovery of a file on iPhones that contains time-stamped location information about places your phone (and presumably you) have been. First, there’s no evidence so far that this information is being sent anywhere. Second, if you use foursquare, Facebook Places, Gowalla or even Twitter for that matter, it’s highly likely you’re already sending much more detailed information to much more public places. Third, you agreed to let your phone gather information about where you’ve been.

Wait, what?

Really. Remember those End User License Agreements (EULAs)? You know, the pages and pages of text that open whenever you launch an application or device for the first time. The window that you scroll to the bottom of as quickly as possible to click “Agree” or “I Understand” or whatever so you can get on with using the device? The ones that no one ever actually reads?

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Well Andrew Munchbach at Boy Genius Reports has read them. Not just the iPhone’s, but Google’s, Motorola’s, RIM’s, Windows’, HTC’s and others. They all disclose that their devices:

…transmit, collect, maintain, process and use your location data, including the real-time geographic location of your iPhone, and location search queries. The location data and queries…are collected in a form that does not personally identify you and may be used…to provide and improve location-based products and services.

The wording varies, but the message is the same.

It remains to be seen if anything nefarious is being done with this information by any of these companies, or if it’s merely used, as they say, to enhance the quality of location-based services. It also remains to be seen how binding any of these EULAs actually are.

But before you become outraged at the “theft” of your personal data, realize that no one is stealing anything. You’re giving it all away.

Read more of the things you’ve agreed to in Munchbach’s article. (via Ian Betteridge.)

Reuters: iPhone 5 coming in September

April 21, 2011 /

The next-generation iPhone will sport the same design as its predecessor, but will have a faster processor, according to a Reuters article. Nothing earth-shattering in that, but the story’s sources say the iPhone 5 will come in September, not July, which has become the traditional month for new iPhones.

Makes sense. Apple has already said its Worldwide Developers Conference would focus on software. What really sells it for me, though, is the idea that the September timeframe has usually been reserved for iPod announcements, and there hasn’t been much to say about them on their own lately. It’s not a stretch to see why Apple would want to roll iPod and iPhone announcements into one event. (via The Loop.)

‘AT&T blocks BlackBerry Bridge from PlayBook users’

April 19, 2011 /

This is priceless: RIM’s new PlayBook has no email client. No, that’s not the priceless part. (Well it is, but it’s not the most recent priceless part.) RIM’s “solution” to this is BlackBerry Bridge, an app that lets you tether your PlayBook to your BlackBerry, using it’s email capabilities. Here’s the priceless part: apparently no one at RIM told the folks at AT&T about this, because they’ve blocked the app from working on its network, presumably because the carrier charges extra for tethering—this according to a post on The Loop.

Two CEOs, three COOs and none of them thought to check with AT&T about this before they launched? You just can’t make this stuff up. (via The Loop.)

‘RIM CEO calls a halt to BBC Click interview’

April 14, 2011 /

Catch the video here.

The whole situation with RIM swings between laughable and pathetic. Multiple CEOs and COOs — no wonder the company doesn’t seem to have a cohesive strategy anymore. The fact that RIM’s Board of Directors hasn’t tossed Mike Lazaridis out on his ear yet is baffling.

I can’t wait until Jim Dalrymple over at The Loop gets a look at this.

[Update: He already did.]

David Pogue: The iPhone didn’t kill the Flip

April 14, 2011 /

I haven’t really studied the story behind Cisco’s axing of the beloved Flip video camera after buying the company that made it for $590 million just two years ago, so I don’t have a strong opinion on it, but I like David Pogue’s argument that the Flip wasn’t killed off simply because it got outflanked by the video recording capabilities of the iPhone.

First, app phones like the iPhone represent only a few percent of cellphone sales. You know who buys app phones? Affluent, East Coast/West Coast, educated, New York Times-reading, Gizmodo-writing Americans.

No, Pogue sees it as one of two things: Cisco simply didn’t know what to do with the device or they were more interested in Flip’s technology (for their own videoconferencing products) than with a consumer electronics device.

The whole piece is a great, thought-provoking read.

Amazon to offer ad-subsidized Kindles

April 11, 2011 /

From MarketWatch (via Daring Fireball):

Amazon.com Inc. said Monday afternoon that it will begin selling a cheaper version of its Kindle e-reader device that is supported with advertisements early next month.

The ad-supported Kindle will cost $114 — $25 less than the cheapest Kindle currently available — and will be available on May 3.

Daring Fireball’s John Gruber likes the idea, but says $25 off seems “nickel-and-dimey.” I agree. If they’re really going to make this an experiment, go to $99 and break that psychological hundred dollar barrier.