After a long and drawn-out battle by many a tech enthusiast and digital rights management opponent, the utopia that is DRM-free music has finally arrived. Proponents of a DRM-free music world finally sighed a breath of relief when Apple announced early in January that the entire iTunes music catalog will be void of the restricting and inconvenient technology. But what about DRM-free video? It looks like that’s an entirely different bowl of spaghetti: consumers aren’t interested in downloading video as much as they are in consuming it via streaming. Here’s the lowdown. Read more »
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‘Tis the time again. WWDC is coming in less than 12 hours (that’s half a day!), and the Apple fan club here at TechNest Report and around the world is waiting… waiting what shiny new gadgets uncle Steve will give us the opportunity to buy. What useful, sexy, and Apple-branded products will we learn of tomorrow? Here is Alex’s prediction run-up so far:
iPhone/iPod Touch:
- iPhone take 2.
- New, slimmer form factor with colored back-covers.
- 3G HSDPA/UMTS, built-in GPS, 16-32GB of storage space.
- Subsidized through ATT and world-wide partner carriers: $200 (with a contract). Price unlocked directly from Apple:$400+.
- Copy and paste, App Store (obviously), and a non-recessed head-phone jack.
- A2DP Bluetooth goodness for listening to music with a wireless headset (I’m surprised the current iPhone still doesn’t have it).
- iPhone take 1 and iPod Touch gets the 2.0 firmware and all the features that come with that.
- Plethora of 3rd party iPhone/iPod Touch software.
- Rebranded and re-written .Mac service
- New name: .Me.
- Over-the-air (OTA) sync of calendars, address book, bookmarks, pictures, documents.
- Push email
- Here’s the punchline: avaialble API. Developers can write their own plugins for the new .Me. For example: AWS, developers of the great 1Password application will give me an app that will sync my 1Password keychain from my iBook to .Me and to my iPhone, and the other way as well. What this will do is directly compete with Microsoft’s new Mesh service, which is striving to accomplish the same thing also with an open programming architecture. By the way, .Me is now also available for Windows.
- Pricing for the .Me is going to determine its success. Purchased with an iPhone, .Me is free for a year, discounted yearly rate thereafter. Purchased separately from an iPhone (with an iPod Touch, for example), users pay a monthly or a yearly fee, one that is less than the current $100 per year (one can only hope that’s the case). Storage plans for current features of .Mac, such as website hosting and back-up are to increase while keeping plan prices the same as they are today. For example, Apple will charge $4 a month, $40 a year for .Me when purchased separately from an iPhone. This basic plan will have 10GB of storage space on .Mac and thus 10GB of bandwidth to sync between devices. For $6 a moth, $65 a year, users will get 30GB of storage and bandwidth space. And so on.
- Another feature of the new .Me: the ability to pipe through to your Time Capsule and any Mac/PC on the network. This way, users can retrieve any file from a home Mac or PC, as well as browse and listen to streaming music/video from an external drive attached to the Time Capsule.
Mac
- Preview of next version of OS X.
- Intel only.
- Not as many new features and changes as Leopard. The focus of this release is code optimization and efficiency.
- One of the new prominent features: ZFS.
- Improved Spaces functionality with the ability to assign a desktop to each space.
- New MacBook. This relaunches the MacBook and the MacBook Pro lines.
- 13, 15, and 17″ models.
- Aluminum and glass.
- GPS, WWAN, Wireless USB, WiMax built-in.
- Price is no longer directly tied to screen size as it is now.
- Prices start at $999, $1099, and $1199, for the respective screen sizes.
- Each notebook size is configurable exactly to the liking of the customer. The Pro versions will have top-of-the-line hardware and will be differentiated by being all black. This means that I will be able to get a MacBook Pro 13″ with a real GPU – like a GT8800 for ~$1600, and I will be able to configure a 15″ or 17″ MacBook without a GPU for ~$1099 and ~$1199, respectively.
- There is a enough demand for both of these examples and will introduce the Mac to markets that have been looking at the product but discouraged by the $2000 price tag of the current 15″ MacBook Pro. The attractiveness of the lower price point of Mac notebooks will far outweigh the lowered margins. And here is a plea from myself: please don’t charge $2000 for the same hardware that Dell charges $1500 for. It’s a blatant rip off. (MacBook Pro 15″ vs. Dell XPS 1530 come to mind).
- Mac Tablet.
- iPod touch, but bigger.
- More than 2-finger gestures.
- Unlikely for today’s event.
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Like many, I was disappointed to not see a SDK for the iPhone. Not because I’m a developer (I can’t – yet – develop my way out of a room if my life depended on it), but because I want to see native apps on the iPhone and a lack of them might make the iPhone experience not a very pleasant one – at least for power users.
However, I have been doing some reading on the interwebs and have dreamed up a possible scenario of what Apple might be thinking of doing in terms of providing a way to run apps on the iPhone. Before you read this, however, let me just say that I’m by no means a developer or an expert in any of these areas and what I describe below is me and my hope, so here goes:
Apple’s timid response to whether Flash will be included in the iPhone can be explained by their plans of not only including Flash, but also including Adobe Apollo (recently renamed Adobe AIR – pronounced “A.I.R.”) for release. They might be facing some hurdles – whatever they may be – bundling AIR with the iPhone and thus they are somewhat quiet on the issue. True or not, the inclusion of AIR in the iPhone (as well as any other connected mobile device) can have very appealing benefits.
For those who don’t know, Adobe AIR allows developers to create, using their “existing web skills, to build and deploy rich Internet applications to the desktop” (credit: Adobe). Basically, it allows users to use web applications as “web-originated” (my term) desktop applications. This technology is capable of synchronizing data between the web app and the “web-desktop” app. For a great demo of AIR’s abilities, see this demo or check out these existing AIR apps here. Quick note: AIR is in early beta and its potential has not been close to realized.
So what are these benefits I speak of? Let’s step into imagination land and see.
Say you’re working on a Google word processing document (or any other Google Doc) on the iPhone in Safari and have AIR installed. With a tap of a finger, you can turn that online document into a AIR stand-alone app with its own windows and interface. So now you can go offline (like into the metro or on the airplane) and continue working. When you get your connection back, AIR will auto-sync the changes you’ve made to Google Docs (synching is a feature of AIR). The same can be done for any other web apps (assuming it’s possible to run them through AIR, of-course):
- Google Calendar, documents, Google reader (now possible through Google Gears, by the way)
- Gmail or any other web-based email service
- Ebay service demonstrated in the Apollo video
- The possibilities are endless
I’m very hopeful that, even if this isn’t the reason that Apple is holding back Adobe Flash for iPhone (since from what I understand, they are related), this will be possible one day – on any device, be it on a PC or a mobile device. Adobe AIR, to the average power user (read: not a developer) is a dream come true that bridges online apps with desktop functionality. I can write a whole bunch of mumbo-jumbo and include some high-profile terms in here but I digress.
Before I forget: I hear that AIR is a big and heavy install, but it’s still in beta, thus it might not (yet) be suited for a mobile device. And one more, last time: I don’t know whether what is described above is technologically possible, but it sure would be hell-a useful and very cool, to use teen language and completely kill the buzz. -Alex
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Wish 9.5/10: WWAN built-in
Why is Apple always behind the schedule when it comes to adding simple features that already exist? They seem to have no problem re-inventing the cell phone or making dual-booting work. But they can’t update their processors on time (this I’ll save for later) nor can they include new features to stay competitive with their PC counterparts. Case and point: where is WWAN support for MacBooks? How about Santa-Rosa based MacBook Pros? Where? In the lab you say… I see.
Let’s make this quick and simple: mobile professionals need wireless internet wherever they go. HP, Dell, Sony, and most other PC manufacturers all have notebooks that at least offer built-in wireless internet as an option (either through Cingular – I mean AT&T – or Verizon Wireless). So, Apple, it’s time you at least offered this as an option.
Lastly, let’s tie this into the previous post about ExpressCard slots. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to use a Verizon/AT&T express card-based WWAN card with a MacBook. But I would with a Sony Vaio C.
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As promised and without any ado, here comes the first wish I have for Apple notebooks!
Wish 1 of 10: ExpressCard in all notebooks, no questions asked.
You know that little slot on the side of most Windows PC notebooks? If you purchased a notebook recently, chances are your notebook has one, and it’s called an ExpressCard (EC) slot. It can do wonders for you. Maybe not in the immediate present, but in the near future. What is it?
It’s a PCI express connection directly to the motherboard of the computer, which in simple terms means really really fast data transfer speeds. What’s it for and why should you care? Read on to find out and why it’s only in Apple’s best interests to install it in all of their notebook products.
Read more »
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Later today I will begin the count-down of my wish list for Apple’s line of portable computers. Apple is now a very mainstream company with the iPod, Apple TV, and soon the iPhone. The Mac is gaining market share. Consumer mindsets are changing – using Macs is not only OK anymore, it’s better than using a PC. Thus, this opens up new opportunities for Apple and new opportunities can turn into new customers.If I were asked to make a prediction about the Mac vs. PC market share on campus, I would say that 70% of students use Macs, and 30% use PCs. That’s because I see them very often (maybe owning a Mac prompts the owner to take it out more…Anyway, just wanted to give a heads up to my long-promised wish-list. There will be 10 total wishes and I will start from important.
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