Marco Arment:
In the past, I’ve always recommended the Kindle over other e-ink readers, and buying Kindle books instead of iBooks on iOS, because Amazon had the biggest library of relevant titles and strongest content ecosystem.But Amazon’s advantage is no longer as clear in my casual searching.
I just buy from iTunes. Apps, music, books, movies, videos, TV shows. Everything. Convenience rules.
Bill Gates on being a billionaire:
“I can understand wanting to have millions of dollars, there’s a certain freedom, meaningful freedom, that comes with that. But once you get much beyond that, I have to tell you, it’s the same hamburger. Dick’s has not raised their prices enough,” he said, referring to the Seattle-area fast-food chain. “But being ambitious is good. You just have to pick what you enjoy doing.”
Anytime you want to throw a few billion my way Bill…
Purdue University has continued to see a decline in BlackBerry devices using its BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) since Jan. 1, 2011, and, after Dec. 31, 2012, will no longer support Exchange synchronization with BlackBerry devices.The combination of a 33-percent decrease in BES use, a subsequent increase in per-unit cost and a proliferation of the use of non-BlackBerry devices influenced the decision.“Allowing a full two-year cycle prior to discontinuation offers the maximum opportunity for personal BlackBerry users to replace their devices through individual cellular service providers,” says Mike Rubesch, ITaP executive director of systems and operations.If a faculty or staff member currently uses a University-provided BlackBerry for campus business, the University will replace the device with a non-BlackBerry device as it comes up for renewal.All users currently reading email on and synchronizing Exchange calendar and contacts information to a BlackBerry device will not be affected until Dec. 31, 2012. After that date, faculty and staff using personal BlackBerrys will only be able to connect to Exchange email through BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) — the same service allowing connection to personal email. However, BIS will not support calendar or contacts synchronization with Exchange.ActiveSync-capable smart phones — such as iPhone, Android or Windows devices — support full Exchange synchronization without requiring additional hardware, software or licensing costs. More than 8,000 such devices currently synchronize with Purdue’s Exchange, compared to 284 BlackBerry devices, down by more than 300 since January 1, 2011.
In other words, RIM sucks and the iPhone is kicking ass. We’ll support the iPhone and every other device in the world.
So, instead of having one PlayBook that can’t send email, you can have three. I could not make this stuff up if I tried. Here’s the deal.
Air Users Blog:
So, whilst some users were hoping for a price cut, it is sobering to think that some very good people have lost their job, some of whom are people I know personally. One in particular is a hero who has helped tens of thousands of the people in the Pro Tools community over the years, often taking the bullets from us guys over Avid management decisions. You will be missed.
I hate seeing people lose their job.
It’s free to download for iPhone and iPad.
Everyone with bejeweled jeans will definitely have one of these.
Gary Ng:
After you’ve added the Emoji keyboard, or any other keyboard, you’ll notice Siri’s dictate key beside the spacebar changes from dark to light grey. What’s up with this change in colour?
I would never have found this.
Jon Fingas:
Motorola Mobility pained a dark picture for its tablet strategy with its results on Thursday. The company shipped just 100,000 Xoom tablets in the summer, or less than a quarter of the 440,000 from the spring and less still than the 250,000 from the winter launch. Motorola gave no explanation for the drop.
A possible explanation is that they suck balls.
HP today announced that it has completed its evaluation of strategic alternatives for its Personal Systems Group (PSG) and has decided the unit will remain part of the company.
As John Gruber said, HP might want to buy Netflix or not. You might even want to throw RIM in there.
Michael DeGusta:
I went back and found every Android phone shipped in the United States up through the middle of last year. I then tracked down every update that was released for each device – be it a major OS upgrade or a minor support patch – as well as prices and release & discontinuation dates. I compared these dates & versions to the currently shipping version of Android at the time. The resulting picture isn’t pretty – well, not for Android users:
Wow. That’s all I got for that one.
An excerpt from John Buck’s book “Timeline”:
Jobs approached Adobe Systems, and asked them to create a consumer version of Premiere that Apple could bundle with the unreleased Mac code-named Kihei. With Apple’s future still uncertain, and Premiere sales growing on the Wintel platform, Adobe said no.
Like so many other things, Jobs was driven by a belief that he was right. When Adobe said no, Jobs created the applications division at Apple that gave us so many great apps over the years.
While maximizing native iPad capabilities like multi-touch and page swiping, SoundCloud’s app takes full advantage of the iPad interface to allow users to touch the newly designed waveform of the sound captured, allowing for a more social experience, which also includes more space for scrolling comments. In addition, users can now record private messages and send them directly to other people on SoundCloud.
I really like what SoundCloud has been doing lately. First the integration with Pro Tools, and now a new iPad app. It’s putting SoundCloud everywhere I am and giving me the ability to use the service without having to think about it. Never underestimate convenience.
Philip Elmer-Dewitt:
“It’s time to repeal prohibition and take decisive action,” writes David Johnson in a new report made available to Fortune (and available for sale here). “Mac users are your HEROes and you should enable them not hinder them.”“HERO,” it turns out, is a Forrester acronym for Highly Empowered and Resourceful Operatives — “the 17% of information workers who use new technologies and find innovative ways to be more productive and serve customers more effectively.”
It makes sense. Users around the world have embraced the iPhone, iPad and Macs, so it’s about time IT departments do the same.
It’s on the Mac App Store now and it’s a great update.
Matthew Panzarino for TNW:
Apple today filed its Form 10-K with the SEC that discloses information to stockholders and the commission. In an amongst the normal legal statements there were a few interesting facts. Among those were that Apple currently has $81,570,000,000 in cash, marketable securities and cash equivalents.
The filing also noted Apple now has 60 thousand employees.
Josh Lowensohn for CNET:
The metric follows an extended outage of Research In Motion’s e-mail and BlackBerry messaging services, which left users unable to communicate with one another or send and receive e-mails globally. To placate angry users, RIM offered users $100 in free “premium” applications. The spike also coincided with the release of Apple’s new iPhone 4S.
And the bad news just keeps coming for RIM.
Winners were announced in Taipei.
“Take Control of iCloud” covers every platform that iCloud supports, which includes Mac OS X 10.7.2 Lion, iOS 5, Windows Vista and Windows 7, and even the second-generation Apple TV. If your computers and devices aren’t running — or can’t run — those operating systems, they won’t be able to participate in iCloud, but the ebook offers some workarounds.
A book written by Joe Kissell and offered by TidBITS founders Adam and Tonya Engst. In other words, it’s really good.
BGR.com:
It specifically focuses on “RIM’s failure to take action to either directly compensate BlackBerry users or to indirectly compensate BlackBerry users by arranging for wireless service providers to refunds their customers and to take full responsibility for these damages.”
You knew it was coming, right?
ITWire:
Amongst other tales around his time at Apple, we couldn’t resist asking if Callas knew anything about the number plate saga. Of course he did – and here it is.
The stories about Steve’s license plate-free Mercedes are legendary, and people have wondered how he got away with it – did he pay off the cops? Did he have a special permit? Or did he just not care?
I won’t ruin it for you, but the answer is actually really simple. Worth clicking the link to find out more.
Neil Hughes:
Cards is a free application available on the App Store, and it works as promised. I tried building a card with the software while on the go, over a 3G connection on an iPhone 4. The process is simple and easy — and at a cost of just $2.99 with shipping in the U.S. ($4.99 to anywhere in the world), the price is right, too.
Best review I’ve seen on Apple’s new Cards app.
Image editing tool Pixelmator 2.0 will be released on Thursday with many new features. I’m going to post a few screenshots of the new app along with a short description of what you can expect from some of the new features.
Tool Options: A new bar at the top of each window shows the settings of the currently selected tool.
Info Bar: Provides information about the photo on the top of each window.
Drawing and Shape tools: Used to create and edit vector shapes. It also includes a Rectangle, Rounded Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon, Star, Line shape tool.
Smudge, Sponge, Burn and Dodge Tools: I’m sure you know what all of these tools do.
Auto Save and Versions: Taking advantage of OS X Lion, Pixelmator now auto saves documents for you, so you’ll never lose anything. You can also browse through changes you made using Lion’s Versions capabilities.
That’s just a quick look at a few of the new features. There are so many cool new things like a Content Aware Healing Tool.
Not a big surprise to see Apple, Mercedes and Nike in there.
Katie Marsal for AppleInsider:
When checking out from Apple’s online store, a new “Pick up” option is available, from which users can select a store in San Francisco, Calif. It also states that the in-store pickup option is “coming soon to a U.S. Apple Store near you.”
Just another example of Apple’s commitment to serving its customers in the best way possible.
In an apparent effort to make sure I had something to write about today, RIM announced that it has delayed the release of its PlayBook OS 2.0 software until February 2012.
CrackBerry.com reported the news last night. The full text of the announcement from David J. Smith, senior vice president of the BlackBerry PlayBook is available from the CrackBerry Web site.
However, there are a few choice comments that I would like to point out.
As much as we’d love to have it in your hands today, we’ve made the difficult decision to wait to launch BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 until we are confident we have fully met the expectations of our developers, enterprise customers and end-users.
It would have been great if RIM considered these things before releasing the PlayBook in the first place.
First off, we have decided to defer the inclusion of the BBM application to a subsequent BlackBerry PlayBook OS release.
One of the reasons people want a RIM product in the first place, so let’s not include it in the PlayBook.
In the meantime, BlackBerry smartphone users will be able to continue to use BlackBerry Bridge…
The same greats solution that allows Internet access for the PlayBook.
These betas will be rolled out over the course of this year and are an important next step to bringing our unmatched enterprise app deployment, device manageability, security and email integration capabilities to the tablet category.
Unmatched email integration? You don’t have email on the PlayBook.
We believe BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 will deliver a great experience for our customers, building on the powerful performance introduced with BlackBerry PlayBook tablet earlier this year.
Now you’re just messing with me.
The software update will add advanced integrated email, calendar and contact apps
By advanced, you mean “for the first time,” right?
For the enterprise, we’re addressing many barriers to tablet adoption, including device manageability and enterprise application deployment.
Wait a minute, you just said you had “unmatched enterprise app deployment.” Which is it?
Remember the original iSub, Harman Kardon’s subwoofer designed specifically for the iMac? That’s the inspiration behind Twelve South’s BassJump subwoofer, which works with Macs and is designed to complement their built-in speakers. Now Twelve South has improved the software included with the BassJump to improve compatibility and sound quality. A free upgrade for existing BassJump owners, BassJump has been rebranded as BassJump 2. It costs $69.99.
While it’s billed as BassJump 2, the hardware hasn’t changed from the original – what’s new is the software (which can be downloaded from the Web site, if you already have the BassJump). The new software expands compatibility with new models and provides an additional 8 dB.
The BassJump 2 setup is now compatible with the MacBook Pro, original MacBook, MacBook Air, iMac, Apple Cinema Display with built-in speakers or Apple Thunderbolt Display.
Macworld:
When it kicks off January 26, 2012, the long-running Mac conference and exposition will do so under a new name: Macworld|iWorld. The name change reflects the event’s focus expanding beyond the Mac to include iOS devices and software. Registration for the three-day event began on Tuesday.“The brand is evolving from Macworld [Expo] to Macworld|iWorld to illustrate that the show is about the whole ecosystem of Apple products,” said Paul Kent, the event’s vice president and general manager.
Exciting news for the long-running event – they want to transform Macworld Expo into a “dynamic culture experience” featuring more live music, film and other changes.
Some predicted the show’s demise after Apple pulled up stakes in 2009, but it’s clear that IDG World Expo, the company that manages the show, still believe strongly in an event where Apple fans convene annually to learn and have a good time together.
The Nest Learning Thermostat is making the round of tech blogs today. This pricey $249 thermostat – currently available for pre-order – replaces the ones in your house and helps you conserve energy by learning your schedule. What’s more, it’s remotely programmable using mobile and Web apps.
But that’s just the start. The Nest features Wi-Fi support, so it’ll connect to your home network. Using secure Web based software or an iOS or Android app, you can also remote-control the settings on your Nest thermostats from anywhere. The Nest also downloads weather data so it knows what the outside world is like.
The Nest is user-installable and comes with everything you need to put it in; Nest Labs also has a dealer network for users uncomfortable with working with the low-voltage wiring needed to hook up the device.
There’s an Apple connection beside the iOS software, by the way: Nest Labs is headed up by Tony Fadell, former senior vice president of Apple’s iPod division. Fadell left Apple in 2008, serving as an adviser to Steve Jobs for a time. He founded Nest Labs in 2010. Fadell’s co-founder, Matt Rogers, headed up an iPod engineering group within Apple.
Horace Dediu:
But more importantly the iPad and the Mac both outgrew the PC market. Taken as OS X vs. Windows, the growth rates were 27.7% vs. 2.5%. If iOS is included along OS X, Apple grew its “computer” shipments at a rate of 99%.
Apple has done so much right with its product line over the last decade. Companies think they can just come along and loosely copy an Apple design and ride their coattails to success, but there’s a lot more to it than that.