Category Archives: Apple

iTuning Out DRM

iTunesA bit of back-of-the-envelope math shows that it’ll cost me something like US$60 to upgrade all of my iTunes music purchases to the DRM-free iTunes Plus format. I know, I know. A lot of folks out there will wag a finger and say I should’ve stayed away from buying rights-crippled songs in the first place.

In my defense, I was always skeptical of the iTunes Store and, like the old fogey I am, tried to buy physical compact discs whenever I could. But there was a period of two or three years there when well-meaning people in my life kept giving me iTunes Store gift cards. Of course, as we’re all learning even if we hadn’t realized it before, gift cards are a kind of trap, so it was unavoidable that I eventually accrued a stash of the iTunes Store’s hobbled tracks, in spite of my efforts.

Somewhat understandably then, the upgrade fee burns me a bit. This is mostly because of the way songs from the iTunes Store are limited — in an additive method, not a subtractive method. I pejoratively regard DRM’d goods as broken, but not in that the goods are missing anything. The core of what I need is there; it’s just that there’s an extra layer of restrictions added. All Apple has to do is help me remove the offending code, rather than trade the tracks back in for new ones. As various pirate projects have proven in the past, this is entirely doable so long as DRM cops don’t stand in the way.

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Whatcha-Mac-allit

imageHere’s what it’s like trying to describe what the Apple TV is to someone who has no idea. Starting first with one simple, brief sentence: It’s a set-top box that hooks up to your television and lets you play all kinds of Internet video as well as stuff from your computer.

The problem is, most people don’t know exactly what you mean when you say “Internet video.” So they always have to ask: You mean YouTube? Yes, definitely. How about stuff from sites like Hulu? Um, no, not easily. Well how about movies and TV shows you can rent from iTunes? Yes, not only that but BitTorrent video, too. What’s BitTorrent? Um, stuff you stole, basically. It also displays your digital photos, too, straight from your iPhoto library. And it features music-sharing via AirTunes, which lets you hear music from your iTunes music library on your home theater setup. Oh so it’s probably a digital video recorder too, right? Um, no, it’s not. Well, it kinda sorta sounds like a media PC, so can I play a DVD or Blu-Ray discs? Sorry, no, not that either.

So basically, in spite of its elegant, compact industrial design (the Apple TV has the look of something extremely elegant and succinct) this product is a freakin’ mystery to most people. But, having owned one now for about three months, let me tell you: it’s a winner. I had little idea what I was really getting into when I bought it, but now I’m a huge, huge fan of my Apple TV. In one respect or another, it’s in constant use in my home.

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Crash Test Dummies

I certainly don’t bemoan the fact that the iPhone now has a robust, creative and genuinely delightful market for sanctioned, third-party applications, but jeebus does my iPhone crash a lot. To me it’s proof positive that, in dividing its attention between this device, Mac OS X, Macintosh hardware, iPods and half-assed Web applications and services, Apple’s previously sterling quality levels have slipped notably. Just try using my post-2.0 update iPhone — or similar iPhones owned by many of my friends — without freezes or crashes. I bet you can’t.

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Woe Is MobileMe

MobileMeOver the course of several days last week, I spent a pretty sizable chunk of time trying to work out the kinks in Apple’s disappointingly buggy MobileMe service, the new incarnation of their equally error-prone .Mac. By the end of this first prolonged exposure to the service, I’ve decided that I feel exactly the same way about MobileMe as I did about its predecessor: ideally I’d like it to do much more, but at the very least I wish the stuff it does would work a lot better than it does. And when it doesn’t work, which is far more often than I’d like, it is in my view one of the most frustrating experiences that Apple has ever produced.

Like me, lots of folks are dependent on the features that MobileMe provides, so simply voting with our wallets, i.e., canceling our accounts in protest, isn’t as straightforward an option as some would argue. For me, over-the-air synchronization for my iPhone is something I’ve needed since the first day I bought it. Right now, MobileMe is the only viable option.

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A Word for .Mac

Apple’s new MobileMe service is due out before too long, and I’m pretty excited about it. In particular, I’m looking forward to what I hope will be a wholesale remedying of the many irritating shortcomings of its predecessor, the useful but error-prone .Mac service.

I know that I’ve said it before, but I’m really inclined to repeat it until a solution for its many problems is actually in place (and not just marketed) — .Mac is a very poor service. In my estimation, it falls far short of the high bar for excellence that Apple has consistently set for itself and met over the past decade.

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Investing Strategies for iPhone Customers

iPhone 3GHurray for the iPhone 3G! Really, I’m not mad. I’m kind of excited that 3G is finally coming to the iPhone, and I harbor sufficiently little ill will against Apple for so dramatically lowering the cost of entry to their iPhone platform that I may even go ahead and buy one for myself when it’s released next month.

Looking back at the original iPhone and how that’s worked out, I realize that if there’s anyone that I should be mad at, it’s me. It’s no secret that the value of digital hardware drops precipitously. I guess what’s so surprising — or galling, to many — is just how precipitously the value of an original iPhone, bought in June of last year, has dropped in just twelve months. Take a look at this chart I cooked up.

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Notes on Note-keeping Software

YojimboSomehow, I’ve noticed, when someone brings up the subject of note-keeping software, it often turns into a much more extensive discussion than originally intended. Last Thursday I wrote about my search for the right all-purpose repository for recording details that would otherwise escape me, followed it up yesterday with some ruminations on the philosophical questions that search raises about online versus offline software, and now here I am again already, writing a third installment.

People come out of the woodwork with suggestions and opinions when it comes to this particular software niche. It’s been really helpful, so I felt it was my duty to report back on what I heard and what path I’ve decided to take.

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Four for iPhone

iPhone AppsLet’s face it, I’ll probably never create an iPhone application of my own. I don’t have the time, for one, and even if I did, I haven’t got the programming talent. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t have some ideas for some applications. And because I’m one of the lucky few who have a blog, I’m not just going to let these ideas go to waste — no, I’m posting them right here instead. To be sure, none of them are game changers, but all of them would find a place on my iPhone’s home screen if someone out there makes them.

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Blue in the Interface

This comes as a surprise to me, but a look at most all of the icons on my computer reveals that the vast majority of them are blue. There’s only a very small handful — Adium, Address Book, iCal, Transmit, some others — that aren’t. Blue, blue, blue — everywhere I look all over my hard drive, blue.

Maybe this is old news to you — it’s hardly novel for any Westerner to realize that, if there’s a default color that signals acceptability and inoffensiveness, it᾿s blue. But if you don’t believe me, have a look at these thirty icons I collected from my hard drive (please, no potshots about how out of date some of them are. I’m too busy to upgrade) and how shockingly uniform they are in color.

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