December 11, 2012
There is an ongoing debate about whether Apple will release a physical television or an enhanced box similar to what we have now. People on both sides of the debate square off every few weeks and rehash the same arguments. Ultimately, we get nowhere, but I think that’s because nobody is asking the right question.
There is no doubt that Apple is interested in the television market. While it is a hobby, they have kept it around for quite a while. That says to me that they see something in the future, we just don’t know what that something is.
Tim Cook has already said that Apple has an intense interest in the market, but while everyone is arguing about what size Apple’s television will be, I can’t help thinking what problem Apple will solve. For me, that is the key question.
Apple has transformed itself into a problem solving company. They did it with the iPhone, iPod and iPad and I think that’s what they will do when they enter the television market in a serious way.
Here’s the thing. Apple will not enter a market unless it feels it can make a significant impact on the current state of the industry. They will want to provide something different than what’s currently available, something that nobody else can do. Apple has the power to do that because they think about how to solve problems first and making money second.
Some have speculated that an Apple product will have Siri integration or maybe television channels as apps. You could argue that both of those ideas have some value.
There are significant problems to overcome in the television industry, but one of them is not what size TV will be released. Having content available for the consumer whenever they want it is a problem we would all like to see solved.
But that’s just one problem — there are many others.
The impact of Apple entering the television market will not be whether they release a physical television or a box — those are only the vehicles1 that will deliver the innovation that Apple will bring to the industry.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
It’s always the company that steals shit that thinks everyone should share.
And what the hell is this answer from Page:
I mean, obviously we talk to Apple. We have a big search relationship with Apple, and so on, and we talk to them and so on.
He sounds like Miss South Carolina Teen USA Caitlin Upton talking about “the Iraq.”
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Under the whistleblower law, the government can intervene in Mr. Landis’s suit, essentially pursuing the case on its own behalf. According to people with knowledge of the case, the Postal Service’s Office of the Inspector General and the U.S. Department of Justice have been investigating Mr. Landis’s allegations and continue to weigh whether to join the case.
It’s been a tough year for Lance.
December 10, 2012
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Richard Chirgwin at The Register:
To be blunt, there is a place called Mildura whose location is given as exactly where Apple put it – at least, there is in an authoritative source for such a location.
[…]
In this case, the Australian Gazetteer – the authoritative list of 300,000-plus placenames, complete with coordinates – includes two Milduras. One is the “real” town, the other is an entry for “Mildura Rural City”, coordinates -34.79724 141.76108.
This just keeps getting crazier.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Charles Arthur for The Guardian:
Apple has updated its new maps system after police in Mildura, Australia, said a number of people trying to find the town of 30,000 people became hopelessly lost in the bush in scorching temperatures.
Great that this problem was fixed because it was so serious. I hate to think how many others are still out there.
Written by Shawn King
NPR:
It may have something to do with all those Brontosaurus burgers everyone’s favorite modern stone-age family ate, but when you think of a giant dinosaur with a tiny head and long, swooping tail, the Brontosaurus is probably what you’re seeing in your mind.Well hold on: Scientifically speaking, there’s no such thing as a Brontosaurus.
Why can’t these damn scientists leave our childhoods alone!? Columbus didn’t discover America, Pluto isn’t a planet and now this!
Written by Jim Dalrymple
China Unicom is one of two mobile carriers in the country that will be selling the device, and has about 232 million mobile subscribers.
This is a huge opportunity for Apple.
Update: When I said it was huge, I meant a huge opportunity for Apple in the Chinese market.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
This is exactly why Peter, Shawn and I do our best to bring fresh links and articles. We aren’t focused on pageviews, but rather posting things that interest us. Of course, the hope is that they’ll interest you as well.
My thought is that if we continue to provide articles worth reading, you will come back. So far, that has proven to be true.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
The latest version of the Android operating system has been called one of the most bug-ridden releases since Honeycomb, although it has also been recognized as the safest version yet.
[…]
Google’s app verification service was found to identify malicious apps only 15.32% of the time, compared to various anti-virus programs that varied from 51% to 100% accuracy.
You have to love progress at Google.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Silverlight.net now redirects to a page on MSDN. Some but not all of the content has been migrated to MSDN, but Microsoft has not bothered to redirect the URLs, so most of the links out there to resources and discussions on Silverlight will dump you to the aforementioned generic page.
That’s one way to end a technology.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
She helped Microsoft plug Windows Phone 8 when it was released just over a month ago. She must have dumped that thing like a hot potato as soon as she got off the stage.
Update: Chris Millar pointed out that the photo of Alba was taken in August, but posted by People today.
Corey Tamas, my brother from another mother and long time friend of The Loop, is raising money to get his band Dragonfly’s album Amplification off the ground. It’s an original work – fourteen songs that combine rock, jazz, blues and electronica into a pretty awesome and interesting mix.
If you follow the links you can watch a 20-minute video documenting the making of it so far, to hear a taste of what the music will sound like once it’s done.
This is the second round of Indiegogo funding Dragonfly has sought out. The first successful round got Dragonfly into the studio to record; now they just need a bit more to get some additional musicians involved and secure some more studio time to finish the project.
If you can pitch in, great. Perks for helping out range from download codes to Corey personally coming out and shooting a video on the hood of your car in a billowy white dress like Tawny Kitaen in that Whitesnake video. (OK, that last part I made up, but I’m relatively certain Corey would agree to it for the right price.)
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Alex Saretzky took a shot at redesigning the Notification Center for Mac and iOS. I really like some of his ideas. Tip: Click on the iPhone to play the movie and click on the links to see animations of his ideas.
With each smartphone upgrade cycle from Apple and other manufacturers, tech bloggers spend countless hours writing countless words about whether this phone is better than that one, what operating system is best and which carrier is best.
To hell with all of it. I have removed myself from that rat race all together.
This past fall I got rid of my iPhone and replaced it with a “dumb” phone. It can make calls. It can, after a fashion, produce text messages. That’s it.
There are a lot of upsides.
For one thing, it’s incredibly cheap to operate. No data plan to manage, shared or otherwise. No long list of features I get nickled and dimed for by the carrier. No more concerns about whether I go with the carrier who has the best coverage, or the one that lets me make calls and use data at the same time.
I don’t have my face stuck in my phone wherever I go, social network or playing games or checking e-mail. I have better situational awareness. I’m more present. I don’t take pictures of my food before I eat it, or tweet about how delicious this skinny vanilla latte and pumpkin scone are.
I no longer blankly pull out my phone and start fiddling with it mid-conversation with friends. If you do that, by the way, stop. It’s really rude.
The phone needs to be recharged, on average, maybe once per week. Sometimes twice if I’ve used it a lot.
What I discovered is that I just don’t need the level of connectivity I used to assume was a now indispensable part of daily life. If people e-mail me, they have to wait until I check e-mail. If people need to get a hold of me, they can, but it better be damned important.
I just don’t want to be tethered to the giant, pulsating übermind of the Internet 24/7 anymore. It was making me dull and more than a bit stupid.
Sure, there are a few downsides. I’ve gotten lost a couple of times. Once I needed to know a store’s hours and had to actually call them using my voice, like a cave-dwelling neanderthal.
In fairness, it’s not like I’m Grizzly Adams living off the land, making fire by sparking rocks together and gathering berries and moss. In some cases, I’ve migrated tasks I used to do on my phone to my iPad, for example. I don’t take my iPad with me wherever I go, like I do with a phone, but if I know I’m going to be waiting around for a while, like, say, at a doctor’s office, I’ll bring the iPad with me to keep me distracted.
But for the most part, I’ve reverted back to the way life used to be for me before 2007, when the iPhone became part of it.
And I can’t say I’m in a big hurry to go back. I’m enjoying my freedom. I’m enjoying just a tiny bit more self-reliance. I’m certainly enjoying lower phone bills every month.
And the endless squawking about which smartphone is better has become a lot of chatter that has absolutely no relevance to the quality of my life. Watching people howl and wail about Android, iOS and Windows Phone 8 has become almost comical. You’d think they were talking about something that mattered.
Try it some time. You might find life without your smartphone is still manageable. Enjoyable, even. Take a walk. Breathe fresh air. Live life.
