Apple

Potpourri: Download Service Explosion, Miss South Carolina, iPhone Hacking

August 29, 2007 by Jim Connelly

I don’t have the juice to go in-depth about anything this week, so I thought that I’d take a few swipes at some things:

Download Service Explosion — With Nokia’s recent announcement announcement of their download service on the heels of CD Baby and Wal-Mart’s services, it looks like we are in another round of download service offerings. Add these to the DRM-free service that Universal announced last month, and the long-rumoured Amazon download stores, and consumers will have every type of choice.

Why Universal’s Dissing of iTunes Doesn’t Really Matter

August 15, 2007 by Jim Connelly

One of the biggest pieces of news about digital music last week was that Universal Music was going to deign to sell their music without DRM. This is, of course, a good thing for consumers, especially in a week where Google Video’s wholesale abandonment of their service showed just how fracked-up DRM schemes actually are.

The other big news in Universal’s announcement is, of course, that they aren’t going through iTunes to sell the DRM-free music, despite the reported success of EMI’s non-DRM’d tunes. This is widely seen as the latest dick-wave in an ongoing pissing contest between Universal and Ap–

Quick, name three Universal Music artists!!

My iPhone Crash

August 8, 2007 by Jim Connelly

My iPhone crashed yesterday. Just before lunch, I woke it up, but the unlock slider was acting all funky. When it finally unlocked, my phone was frozen. Dead. Solid.

There have been a couple of times before where it has acted weird — the most major one being Safari spontaneously shutting down and returning the phone to the home screen. In those cases, and in this case, I’ve done what we’ve done to computers since time immemorial: I reset it.

And that’s when I got The Yellow Triangle Of Death.

[Read more…] about My iPhone Crash

The Perfect iPod: An iPhone Without the Phone

July 12, 2007 by Kirk Biglione

Here’s a little known fact about the amazing iPhone phenomenon: In the days since its release, the iPhone has reportedly sold well over 500,000 units. Astonishingly, there have been over 500,000 blog posts on the iPhone as well. Yes, that’s right, one blog post for each iPhone sold! But that’s not the amazing part. The truly surprising thing about all of the iPhone hype is that so little of the commentary has focused on the fact that we’re finally getting a good look at the long awaited next-generation iPod.

The iPhone is clearly a glimpse of what the iPod will look like in the not to distant future. There’s a reason why Steve Jobs has been calling the iPhone “the best iPod ever“. The problem, of course, is that the iPhone costs a fortune and requires a long term contract with AT&T. For most music lovers looking for an updated iPod, the price and service requirements are a deal-breaker.

But what if Apple were to produce an iPhone without the phone? There’s reason to believe that’s exactly what the next iPod will be. The current iPod has not had a significant upgrade in a while. When Apple finally refreshes the iPod product line here are some reasonable assumptions of what we can expect:

Some Early Observations About The iPhone, Part 2

July 11, 2007 by Jim Connelly

As I pointed out yesterday, this is not a full-fledged scientific breakdown of the iPhone. It’s just some stuff I’ve noticed while using it in my everyday life. Yesterday, I took a look at some larger things about Apple’s iPhone — availability, ease of set-up, and AT&T’s EDGE network.

Today, I’m going to look at some of the other things that I’ve noticed about the iPhone while I’ve been using it for the last week or so.

Some Early Observations About The iPhone, Part 1

July 10, 2007 by Jim Connelly

The iPhone has been out for a little over a week, and I broke down and purchased one while I was on vacation. And while this is hardly a scientific breakdown of the iPhone — there are zillions of those out there — here are some things I’ve noticed about it in the first week or so of actual everyday use.

The widely anticipated shortage has not materialized. It looks like if you want an iPhone, you can get one. Check eBay, and you can tell how the people who thought that they would make a Playstation-like killing aren’t doing so hot. Nobody is biting at their “Buy it Now” prices of $900 and above.
This seems to indicate two things: the demand is not as intense as people though and/or Apple has done a pretty good job in keeping the pipeline open. It’s probably a combination of the two, as illustrated by the story of how I stumbled into purchasing mine in the first place . . .
[Read more…] about Some Early Observations About The iPhone, Part 1

Apple Launches iTunes Plus: Downloads Without DRM

May 30, 2007 by Jim Connelly

Several reports today that Apple has started its experiment with offering music that isn’t restricted by any Digital Rights Management. They are calling it iTunes Plus — I guess that the “Plus” is the freedom to do whatever you want with the songs you download.

Which, of course, shouldn’t really be a plus, but rather a default. But “iTunes Default” or “iTunes As It Shoulda Been In The First Place” probably wouldn’t have gone over too well with the marketing folks, so “iTunes Plus” it is.

Better Than The iPhone: The Lightning Phone!

May 24, 2007 by Jim Connelly

OK, sure, everybody is all anticipatory for Apple’s upcoming iPhone, which is set to conquer the world in a few short weeks. And why not? It’s essentially got everything: web, email, text, music, and it runs fracking OS X, to boot. And yet, it’s not even out yet and Nokia has gone and potentially trumped it.

Because Nokia is adding a true killer app to one of their upcoming phones: the Lightning Detector!

My Problem With The Pew High-Tech Survey

May 8, 2007 by Jim Connelly

A lot of hay was made yesterday about a wide-reaching survey released yesterday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. For example, one of the things that got serious play was that about half of the people out there still don’t live their lives around high-tech products.

Instead, I guess, they are living their lives around such mundane things as their jobs, their churches, their families and so forth. Then the survey broke down the actual users into sub-groups, and explained various things about the sub-groups. It was all very interesting and informative, and then I got to the very end . . .

Why an Amazon DRM-Free Music Store Would Be a Game-Changer

April 24, 2007 by Jim Connelly

There are stories everywhere about Amazon launching a music store, as soon as next month, that would feature unprotected downloadable music.

If true, and we should point out that the stories about Amazon launching a music download service have been around for over a year now, it would be the biggest thing in digital music since the iPod, and maybe even more important than iTunes. It would also make Kirk seem scarily prescient, as he predicted this exact thing back in January.