Bill: Apple

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:22:20 GMT

Resetting the keychain. You've changed your password multiple times, forgotten an important password, and now keychain locks you out? Time to reset.

By Christopher Breen. [Mac 911]

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:26:52 GMT

Sling Media debuts iPhone client, Mac HD; due in Q1. EchoStar's Sling Media on Tuesday announced it will demo a version of SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone at the Expo and will deliver a version of SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone to Apple for certification in Q1. Sling Media also unveiled a prototype of a new SlingPlayer for Mac HD which allows Slingbox PRO-HD users to stream HD to their Mac desktop or laptop computer. The new SlingPlayer for Mac HD is a...

[MacNN | The Macintosh News Network]

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 06:34:08 GMT

Google Calendar now supports Apple iCal. By David Besbris, Engineering Director

The Google Calendar team is proud to announce the public release of our support for the CalDAV protocol. You can now use Apple iCal with your Google Calendar, so you can work even when you're offline, sync almost instantly, respond to invitations from others and see the free/busy data of your friends and coworkers.

We launched CalDAV support to our developers last July for feedback, and since that time a few of us whipped up a nifty setup program for iCal. This tool makes it a breeze to get iCal working with your Google account. We've released this as open source and the program is available for download at our Google Code site.

By noreply@blogger.com (Scott Knaster). [Google Mac Blog]

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:54:44 GMT

Google ships Picasa for Mac, works with web albums. Google has released Picasa for the Mac, allowing Mac users to manage, edit and share photo collections. The new software works with Google's Picasa Web Albums and provides tools for photo editing, eliminating scratches, blemishes and fixing red-eye. It has automatic web sync, offers collage making and simple movie editing and, using Picasa's web albums, photos can be tagged with names for tracking...

[MacNN | The Macintosh News Network]

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:50:25 GMT

Truphone adds Skype, Twitter, MSN, Yahoo! services. Truphone (booth no. 3228) on Monday debuted the ability to make and receive Skype calls and instant messaging (IM) from its iPhone and iPod touch applications. Scheduled to be available to all customers during the week of January 12th, Truphone customers on both Apple devices can now reach their Skype friends via their Skype IDs. Separately, Truphone also announced today the availability of well-...

[MacNN | The Macintosh News Network]

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 13:12:48 GMT

25 Years of Mac: From Boxy Beige to Silver Sleek.

It's the 25th anniversary of the Apple Macintosh, but Steve Jobs' eyes are dry. At the company headquarters in Silicon Valley, where he was presenting a set of new laptops to the press last October, I mentioned the birthday to him. Jobs recoiled at any suggestion of nostalgia. "I don't think about that," he said. "When I got back here in 1997, I was looking for more room, and I found an archive of old Macs and other stuff. I said, 'Get it away!' and I shipped all that shit off to Stanford. If you look backward in this business, you'll be crushed. You have to look forward."

Here's what's amazing about the Mac as it turns 25, a number that in computer years is just about a googolplex: It can look forward. The Mac's original competition—the green-phosphorus-screened stuff made by RadioShack, DEC, and then-big kahuna IBM—now inhabit landfills, both physically and psychically. Yet the Macintosh is not only thriving, it's doing better than at any time in its history. Much of the attention directed at Apple over the past few years has focused on new products like the iPod and the iPhone. Click wheels and touchscreens have distracted us from the news that the Mac market share has quietly crept into double digits. That's up from barely 3 percent in 1997, just before the prodigal CEO returned to the fold after a 12-year exile. Any way you cut it, the Mac is on the rise while Windows is waning. Roll over, Methusela—the Macintosh is still peaking.

What's behind this autumnal upswing? Apple COO Tim Cook lists six factors: better computers, better software, seamless compatibility with Windows, marketing acumen, successful retail stores, and the belly flop of Microsoft Vista. (Redmond's lame new OS was merely the last straw; over the past two decades, millions have switched from PCs to Macs.) But the larger story of Apple's rebirth begins with the return of its cofounder. Jobs called the company he came back to a "beautiful Porsche speedster that had been sitting in a field. And it got really dirty, covered with mud." He slashed the product line, Picasso-ized the design, launched a wildly successful chain of retail stores, and turned the annual Apple keynote address into the high tech equivalent of a popcorn blockbuster. And yes, Apple did make better computers than its rivals.

There was something else at work, too. Unlike almost anything else dating from the era of Culture Club and The Cosby Show, the Mac has retained its vitality and cachet without ever becoming retro or kitsch. A sense of a cultural divide was there from the very beginning and persists to this day. The skunkworkers behind the Mac were self-styled corporate outcasts who flew a pirate flag and talked trash about the competition. ("We've made almost every computer that's ever been made look completely absurd," Mac teamer vgbfvrn told me back in 1983.) On the very first day I spent with the Mac team members, working on a Rolling Stone story two months before the January 1984 launch, they made it clear that they saw themselves as a new kind of digital hipster—silicon artists determined to take down the faceless giants dominating the industry. They weren't building a computer for some wonks behind a desk; they were building it for themselves. Jobs made the case when we went out for pizza that night (he was lobbying for the Rolling Stone cover). "What if you did a story about what a group of really neat people are doing in the 1980s?" he prodded. "They aren't in the garage with a set of drums and a few guitars. At two in the morning they're in the lab, writing software." (Jobs no longer begs for covers; now he manages the press so well that we beg him.)

25 Years of Mac.
Click on the image to see the full-sized timeline of Apple products.

Those original Mac rebels (including their leader) are now in their fifties, but the Mac itself has managed to avoid middle-age wrinkles and creaky joints. Forever young, it's associated more with Millennials than geezers, even though many Millennials weren't even born when that famous first commercial—Ridley Scott's "1984" spot—ran during Super Bowl XVIII. The Mac is Obama, Microsoft is McCain. Computer scientist Paul Graham summed it up in a famous online essay in 2007: "Windows," he wrote, "is for grandmas."

That generational perception is why Apple's long-running PC-versus-Mac ad campaign, with the nebbishy John Hodgman portraying the PC, has deeply unhinged Microsoft despite the company's dominant market share. When I mentioned the ads to Bill Gates at the January 2007 Vista launch, he went Vesuvius on me. "I don't know why they're acting superior," he said. "I don't even get it. I mean, do you get it? What are they trying to say? There's not even the slightest shred of truth to it!" But that's not what the public thinks, and the sales figures prove it. Microsoft is now so rattled by Apple's advertising that it's running a $300 million counterpunch. The whole point of the "I'm a PC" campaign is to assure customers that they aren't pathetic losers.

Generally, when products go mass market, they lose their edge. So it's remarkable that with 30 million users, being a Mac person is still a statement. If the Mac share keeps growing, will that stay true? If 50 million people are using Macs, does that mean they're still "thinking different"? How about 100 million?

We may just find out.

Senior writer Steven Levy (steven_levy@wired.com), who wrote about Microsoft's Ray Ozzie in issue 16.12, still has his first Mac, seen in the photo above.

[Wired Top Stories]

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 01:05:09 GMT

Apple sees profits beat forecast. US technology giant Apple sees profits beat forecasts, but its shares fall as it warns of slower earnings ahead. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition]

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:23:04 GMT

Apple offers MobileMe update, services still down. While portions of Apple's MobileMe service continue to be down, Apple has posted The Mac OS X Update For MobileMe v1.1, which it says is recommended for users running Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.4 and includes general system fixes that enhance your Mac for MobileMe. The 8.3MB download is available via the Mac OS X Software Update. Readers also report rec... [MacNN | The Macintosh News Network]

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:21:42 GMT

Apple hits activation snags with some new iPhones (Reuters).

Reuters - Activation problems marred the U.S. launch of Apple Inc's new iPhone on Friday, with many eager buyers leaving stores frustrated that they could not use the hotly anticipated gadget after waiting in line for hours.

[Yahoo! News: Apple/Macintosh News]

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 06:44:26 GMT

iPhone praise, concerns: WSJ, NYT, USA Today. The iPhone 3G's official launch on June 11th is just over two days away, and several industry heavyweights have already offered their opinions on Apple's next generation device, offering mostly praise, peppered with a few criticisms. Among the acclaimed technologists were Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal, David Pogue of the New York Times, ... [MacNN | The Macintosh News Network]

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:31:35 GMT

Apple's iPhone could find Asia tough to crack (AFP).

AFP - The iPhone 3G, which Apple is billing as twice as fast and half as expensive as the debut model, will roll out in cities from Tokyo to Sydney on Friday -- but it could face challenges in Asia it will not have elsewhere.

[Yahoo! News: Apple/Macintosh News]

Fri, 30 May 2008 06:17:49 GMT

iPhone Earth - Coolest Things I saw at Where 2.0 2008.

Last week at the 2008 Where 2.0, there were a number of interesting technologies being shown in the exhibit hall. One of the most interesting exhibits I saw was by a Boulder, Colorado company called earthscape. They showed a number of interesting things (see below), but what really impressed me was when their CEO Tom Churchill pulled out his iPhone to show me how they're working on a 3D Earth application for the iPhone. Check out this video I made as he demonstrated it to me:

I was particularly impressed when I saw they had used the iPhone accelerometers to allow you to tilt and rotate your view by tilting the iPhone. They weren't downloading the imagery data over the net, it was all running local with just imagery for the San Francisco area. But, it was still very cool! The application is under development using the Apple iPhone SDK. So, assuming they finish the product, it should run under iPhone 2.0. You would definitely only want to run a real app like this if you had a WiFI connection or 3G - imagery and 3D takes a lot of bandwidth. But, this demo definitely makes me look forward to the possibility Google will maybe have a version of Google Earth running on our phones. NOTE: the beta sign-up on their home page is not for the iPhone Earth it's for their geobrowser (next paragraph).

When I first saw earthscape's booth, they were showing something that grabbed my eye. They have been developing their own Google Earth-like geobrowser. When I first saw it, the browser was showing a life-like 3D model of an airliner flying over 3D terrain. I spoke to their CEO Tom Churchill at the booth, and he described what was going on. They had developed an in-flight plane tracker for passengers using their 3D browser which showed the position of the aircraft in 3D relative to ground. Passengers can switch to the inside of the cockpit (also rendered in 3D), top-down, or oblique views. They also demonstrated geotagged photos. Tom said they had been working on their browser for 3 years, and they've obviously been able to look at other browsers (like GE) and innovate new UI techniques and data. I liked how they implemented the ability to switch to different base imagery showing older aerial photos. They mentioned a Javascript API to control the geobrowser. I've signed up for the beta on their web site.

And, if that's not enough - during the Where 2.0 sessions earthscape presented demonstrations of software they are developing showing augmented reality for police helicopter pilots. They showed video of the helicopter pilot looking at infrared night video cameras through his goggles. Their software automatically showed augmented information such as street names, addresses, and other useful information so the pilot could concentrate more on flying and keeping his target (usually a car trying to escape capture) in sight. At any moment the pilot can easily tell ground forces the location of the target. Very cool technology! Because of the relevancy to Google Earth, and just the way cool way their iPhone Earth worked, they get my vote for coolest tech shown at Where 2.0.

By Frank Taylor of Google Earth Blog. [Google Earth Blog]

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 09:19:04 GMT

Understanding Apple (Apple now the #1 Music retailer).

According to Apple, over January and February of this year they surpassed Wal-Mart as the largest music retailer in the U.S.

Here’s why this is amazing:

The itunes store is only 5 years old. FIVE YEARS.
According to Apple, they account for 70% of all digital music sales.
The ipod is the market leader with ~75% of all music player sales.
Apple was a late entrant: they did not invent the first digital music player, nor the first digital music store.

The most important but rarely told story is that Apple is no longer a niche brand. When else in history has a BMW, a Rolex, a Four Seasons, successfully transitioned into a Honda, a Timex, or a Holiday Inn? It’s rare. When high-end brands go mass market, they rarely get it right. But Apple made the transition in a handful of years without anyone even noticing.

And more interesting to students of innovation is how the story line around Apple is still about innovation despite the gaps in the stereotype. It’s rarely mentioned how they were late to the digital music game, how many of the technological breakthroughs were done out of house, or how many mistakes competitors made that accelerated the rise of the i-pod and i-tunes so fast.

It’s thrilling to see a company thrive on maintaining their standards, and entertaining to see the late followers respond. But the true innovation at work here, if it can really be called an innovation, is quality. The distinction of the Apple brand is superior aesthetic, functional and design quality, and Apple has succeeded in making quality the distinctive factor in tech purchasing decisions. Not price. Not features. But quality. And the irony is how competitors refuse to compete on this turf, retreating back to price and features.

Perhaps the most important overlooked point lesson in all this success is how unexpected it was. I doubt any marketing projection for i-tunes or the i-pod had anything like the adoption curves seen above. I suspect they predicted they’d maintain their high-end brand with it’s resulting high-end marketshare, and were as surprised as the rest of the world with how quickly the i-pod became a phenomenon. For all their well deserved success, Apple still experiences the unexpected.

[scottberkun.com]

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 11:04:56 GMT

Apple patents 3D projection technology. In an unusual turn, Apple has patented a technology for simulated 3D projection, filings from the US Patent and Trademark Office show. Originally submitted in September of 2006, the patent revolves around a screen with an "angularly-responsive" reflective surface, working in tandem with a projector and a secondary device, described as a "3D imager... [MacNN | The Macintosh News Network]

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 11:24:33 GMT

Apple unveils super-thin "Air" laptop, Web movies. SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple on Tuesday launched an aluminum-clad laptop just three-quarters of an inch thick, seeking to bring a new computer to market with the same cachet as its iPod and iPhone devices. [Reuters: Technology]

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 13:13:13 GMT

Apple trades at $200 for first time (AP).

AP - Shares of Apple Inc. hit the $200 mark for the first time Wednesday, as investor confidence in the company continued rising near the end of what has been a strong year for the iPod and computer maker.

[Yahoo! News: Apple/Macintosh News]

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 10:48:29 GMT

DoCoMo chief meets Apple's Jobs amid iPhone rumours (AFP).

AFP - NTT DoCoMo said Wednesday that its president had met with Apple chief executive Steve Jobs amid reports that Japan's top mobile telephone operator is in talks to launch the iPhone here.

[Yahoo! News: Apple/Macintosh News]

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 10:46:24 GMT

Leopard Sets Operating System Sales Records For Apple (TechWeb). TechWeb - In the first full month of sales, Mac OS X 10.5 raked in 32.8% more money than its predecessor, according to The NPD Group. [Yahoo! News: Apple/Macintosh News]

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 23:55:08 GMT

Analysis: The many faces of Apple advertising (Macworld.com). Macworld.com - Among technology companies, Apple is often perceived to have something that the likes of rivals Dell, Microsoft, and Hewlett-Packard lack—that indefinable element of cool. Apple carefully cultivates a specific image for itself, and a cornerstone of those efforts is its advertising, especially the 30-second spots that air on television. [Yahoo! News: Apple/Macintosh News]

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 12:53:22 GMT

The Times *finally* gets the Leopard story. When Leopard came out Pogue gushed that it had so many features he couldn't hope to write about them all. The real news -- not approved by Apple of course -- to get Leopard to run, many users would have to do things that would make a Windows system administrator blush. This, from the computer that "works the way you do," according to their ads.

On the NY Times blog, today, Saul Hansell finally has the story.

[Scripting News]

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 07:26:07 GMT

Steve Jobs Anointed Fortune's Most Influential Exec (TechWeb). TechWeb - Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Mark Hurd also made the top-25 list. [Yahoo! News: Apple/Macintosh News]

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 00:41:59 GMT

Apple tops Dell in growth on Black Friday. Apple topped arch-rival Dell in growth on the busiest shopping day of the year -- Black Friday -- with a 111 percent increase in unique visitors over the prior year. That growth compares to a 29 percent increase for Dell, which brought the company 978,000 unique visitors on Black Friday and 1.26 million visitors on Cyber Monday. Of the estimated 32... [MacNN | The Macintosh News Network]

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 21:39:36 GMT

iPhone is launched in France at 749 euros (AFP).

AFP - The Apple iPhone handset, incorporating mobile phone, multimedia access and music functions, was to go on sale in France with a promotional blitz late on Wednesday, following European launches in Britain and Germany.

[Yahoo! News: Apple/Macintosh News]

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 22:56:10 GMT

Mac OS X Leopard: A perfect 10 (InfoWorld). InfoWorld - No one is unhappy with Mac OS X Version 10.4, known as Tiger. [Yahoo! News: Apple/Macintosh News]

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 21:47:16 GMT

iPhone, iPod marketing boss talks Apple. Apple's marketing man responsible for the company's iPod and iPhone, Greg Joswiak, has expressed his views on the company's progress as the holidays approach, offering insight and opinions about past as well as present progress. Apple marketing department works closely with product engineers to decide which features to create and what the product w... [MacNN | The Macintosh News Network]