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Apple has aired two new iPhone ads: “Share” and “Travel.” The two commercials are in the familiar “There’s an app for that” format, featuring iPhone apps for file sharing and navigation. Videos and our take after the break! Read more »
Posted in Advertising, App Store, Apple, Mac, Marketing, iPhone, iPod Touch, iTunes
Earlier in May, word got out that Apple is planning to invest $1 billion in a server farm. The facility, to be located in the State of North Carolina, will follow a similar (albeit smaller) $600 million undertaking by Google. As could be expected, analysts, bloggers, and the Twitterverse the world over speculated about the possible uses for the investment, but I don’t think anyone hit the nail squarely on the head. I think Apple will use its new server farm to completely cut the cord between its iPhone product line and the desktop. And it will do so in a big way. Read more »
Posted in Apple, Cloud Computing, Featured, Mac, MobileMe, Speculation, Synchronization, iPhone, iTunes
Do you use iTunes to listen to audiobooks? There was a bug in iTunes that made all files manually marked as an audiobook disappear from the iTunes library. This video shows you how to retrieve them.
Posted in TNR tip, iTunes
Now that at least one iPhone model (the 3G S) does video recording at a decent clip, we have two things to look forward to:
Okay, maybe it’s not really that long of a wait, but as I’m sitting here, typing this post, ready to walk out the door for by birthday trip with Lizette Gagné to Disney World, my iPhone has been syncing for the last half hour. And I’m not kidding – it’s been exactly 28 minutes, 40 seconds since iTunes let me know that it’s backing up my iPhone. And the bar still has a quarter of the way to go before it’s done!
Look, don’t get me wrong, I love my 3G S. One of my favorite features is its ability to capture video. I’m just asking for a little button in iTunes that would give me the option to bypass recorded video during the iPhone backup process to iTunes. This way, I can sync up my music, unplug, and get out the door – iPhone in hand. Can we give Apple a heads-up on this for the next update to iTunes?
Posted in Apple, Feedback, Fix me!, User experience, iPhone, iTunes
It seems not long ago Blu-ray won the HD disc battle and became the one and only high-def physical format for consuming movies. But even as that happened, the “tech bubble crowd” (if you tweet about the fail-whale, you’re in it) wondered whether it really mattered: how would a physical medium hold up in light of digital downloads and instant streaming? It looks like concerns about the viability of a physical medium are highly overblown by the tech bubble crowd. Physical media is still preferred, according to NPD Group research.
As F.Y.E., Virgin Megastores, and other brick-and-mortar chains are shutting down, more people are buying DVDs than streaming and downloading content. In fact, when asked about their home entertainment purchases over the past three months, 48% of respondents said they bought a DVD or Blu-ray Disc – according to the NPD survey. If that doesn’t elicit a scratching-of-the-head response, get this: only 2% of respondents said they downloaded a movie or TV episode, and 2% said they digitally rented a movie or TV show. These numbers and the fact that physical media is becoming more difficult to find (as evidenced by the closure of many brick-and-mortar stores), actually make sense: the retail space for physical media is consolidating, especially in the current economy. But what about streaming content?
Sadly, it looks like sites such as Hulu.com and ABC.com, about which I expressed some dissatisfaction yesterday, didn’t make the cut into the NPD study. And that’s a shame: the beauty of web-based distribution is not in downloading, but in streaming. Downloading – if renting or buying – is the wrong way to do it. All downloads I know of (iTunes, anyone) are encumbered by some form of DRM and actually need to work some “expiration magic” if the rented content is set to expire upon a particular time period or amount of playing. Streaming, on the other hand, is the correct format for digital delivery of online video content: it’s quick (get in by going to hulu.com, get out by closing the browser window) and convenient (it isn’t locked to your iTunes collection on your desktop PC). It can be streamed to a netbook, to a laptop, to a desktop, or to a set-top box (of course, if Boxee brought hulu back). And looking into the future (if I may), streaming content will be widely available on mobile devices like the iPhone and the Palm Pre – when the former gets Adobe Flash support, that is.
Physical formats like Blu-ray are simply no longer necessary: having a physical disk is no longer a convenience, but a hassle. You either have it with you or you don’t. And if you don’t, your SOL. Plus these things are subject to scratches, breaks, and other forms of damage. Oh, and did I mention they need a $250+ investment in the form of a big, bulky, and power-hungry Blu-ray player? And while Netfilx expects that “DVD mail shipments overall should grow over the next five to 10 years,” they are also in the streaming game with the Netflix Rolu player. I wonder why that is (hint: because they know that the days of physical media are numbered). As for me, I’ll stick to streaming. I recommend you do as well.
Posted in ABC, Apple TV, Blu-ray, Entertainment, Hulu, Marketing, Netflix, iPhone, iTunes
TNR Tip: My audiobook disappeared from iTunes; help! from Alex Luft on Vimeo.
Audiobooks are awesome, especially when they reside on your MP3 player of choice. Forget audiobooks on cassettes – those times are long gone; embrace the day in which everything is digital. At least that is the mantra of many online audiobook retailers. But what if you still have some audiobooks on tapes laying around the house? Well, luckily for you – today’s mainstream technology is able to help you out and digitize those cassettes – bring them to your computer, that is. Actually, a very important tool I used to accomplish just this task is a plain-vanilla 3.5mm male-male cord – which I made my pick of the week on Saturday’s TNR podcast. So what’s the tip, then? Well, I ran into a bit of a predicament after bringing my cassettes over to iTunes: the audiobook files disappeared.
Let me take a step back and explain what transpired from the beginning: I recorded the cassette (both sides) and then joined the two (sides A and B) in GarageBand. I then exported the two sides as a single MP3 file and sent it to iTunes. From iTunes, I navigated to the Get Info pane and then to the Options tab, where I marked the file – as it properly should be marked – as Audiobook (under Media Kind). And then… poof! The file disappeared from iTunes entirely! It wasn’t to be found – either by performing a search or by organizing the files by Most recently added. It was gone. Read more »
Posted in Apple, Solution, TNR tip, iTunes
Despite certain areas ripe for improvement, the iPhone is awesome. This “awesomeness” is due in large part to the magnificent interface that is extremely intuitive and beautiful at the same time. But one of the biggest things that “suck” on the device is the act of relocating applications; you know, changing the position of the app icons on the home screens. Read on to find out how Apple can fix this. Read more »
Posted in Apple, Software, iPhone, iTunes