Leigh McMullen leads the Advisory Services & Strategy practices for the professional services arm of one of the Big-Five firms. He has written several books that would cure any insomnia you might have, and is an avid Mac junkie.
It’s iPhone upgrade season. With the deluge of iPhone 3G rumors convincing just about everyone that now might be a good time to dump the old phone, in anticipation of getting one of the new models, here’s a tutorial to help you sell your iPhone safely, and get the best price.
Filed under: probably wishful thinking
It’s WWDC time, only this year something is different. Where’s the wild speculation? If patent applications are any evidence, there are many cool things brewing in Apple’s lab —but all is quiet. Where’s the hype that precedes any Stevenote? Oh sure people are talking, but only about one thing: iPhone v.2.0.
Personally, I think this whole 3G iPhone business is a red herring. Sure, it’ll be announced, and people will love it. But the leaks abound so much. I find myself hoping that it’s part of a disinformation campaign; to keep us distracted so we don’t guess to closely at what new cool products Apple might unveil, and that there will be a terrific surprise for all of us at WWDC.
It’s been nearly a year and a half since the “Jesus-Phone” was announced at last year’s Macworld and since then it’s been: all iPhone, all the time, everywhere. I don’t want to seem to hate on the device; the defense will even go so far as to stipulate, your honor, that the iPhone might be best thing that’s ever been invented. But c’mon! Eighteen months after Prometheus descended from the heavens, I’m pretty sure folks were like: “Uh… yeah… fire… great…”
There is definitely more to talk about. There have been some great things come out of Cupertino this year, heck, there is a MacBook Pro that you can literally give the finger to, and it will respond accordingly. Yet it’s relegated to a footnote in technological history.
Now virtually everyone, including those villagers recently discovered in the Amazon, who have had no previous contact with the modern world, knows that the new iPhone 3G is coming out at WWDC this year. Yet, Steve rarely (if ever) uses the “Just one more thing…” part of the Stevenote to unveil a simple product update especially one so obvious (I know that a 3G iPhone, with GPS, and built in margarita machine is probably considered by some to be more than an update).
So what do you think? Other than a iPhone update, what else do you think Steve will unveil in his Stevenote? I know what I’m hoping for, but like the time I got up the nerve to ask out Sarah Andrews in 10th grade, I’m also steeled for disappointment.
A few months back we reported many Mac users were experiencing problems with WiFi maintaining connections. These connection drops seemed to be mysteriously tied to large file transfers. The issue became so bad that the NYC school system stopped all orders for new Macs until the issue was fixed.
I’m happy to report that for at least this user the issues seem to be resolved. For the past three days I’ve been seeding and leeching “The Cult of Mac” and “The Cult of iPod” by our own Leander Kahney with no interruptions in WiFi service. I’d love to hear if anyone else is still having problems.
Update: reader Michael Pantoja shares his experience with aTV Flash in the comments, worth a read.
The AppleTV is great for playing video from iTunes, but can’t play video from alternative sources like file-sharing networks. Now, a software update from Apple Core, called aTV Flash promises to unlock tons of great functionality for the Apple TV.
aTV Flash is essentially a bundling of open source hacks for AppleTV originally published at awkwardtv.org into a convenient flash based package that promises to take the guesswork out of applying the updates. aTV ships as a flash drive, that automatically updates your AppleTV as soon as it’s plugged in. The package claims a plug-n-play installation with 1 year of free updates.
Features include:
– Play most video formats (DivX, Xvid, AVI, WMV, RMVB + more)
– Play DVD files WITHOUT converting them
– Sync, organize and watch non-iTunes video files
– Browse the web with a Safari based web browser
– Rent & watch Hi-Def movies from Jaman.com
– Stream media from UPnP(v1) media servers
– View local weather forecasts
– View RSS Feeds
– Enable SSH access
As well as supporting just about all popular CODECs, the $60.00 flash update could greatly enhance your AppleTV experience.
Caveat
Applecore’s website asserts that when applying these patches you’re not voiding your warranty, that said you are hacking the OS of your AppleTV, and preventing it from updating itself in the future. While we researched the manual patching process at awkwardtv.org and it does seem to be reversible we do believe that one should enter into such endeavors eye’s wide open.
Original Photo: Brian Smith/Corbis Outline, Modifications: Leigh McMullen
UPDATE: I certainly got my facts messed up on this one. CP+B was not behind the “Get a Mac” commercials. There was a paragraph in the middle of page one referencing them in the Fast Company article, and I mistakenly interpreted this as an attribution to CP+B.
So to Alex and everyone at CP+B sorry for the mis-characterization.
To our faithful readers: Sorry for not checking facts more closely.
Alex Bogusky, the creative genius behind Apple’s “Get a Mac” campaign, has switched sides in the brand war between Apple and Microsoft.
According to a Junecover story in Fast Company, Bogusky is going to work for Microsoft.
His marketing firm, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, once credited the power of Macintosh computers to it’s ability to compete against bigger companies.
Newly relocated to Boulder, Co., Bogusky sat with FC’s reporter to discuss how CP+B intends to instill some “cool” in the Borg.
While The Cult can certainly appreciate the allure of the intellectual and creative challenge this endeavor presents to Bogusky and his firm, we have to wonder if CP+B isn’t also trying to corporatize it’s own image a bid to collect more blue-chip clients.
Leaving us to wonder: is $300 million of Bill’s dollars worth your soul, Alex?
You can read all about it in Fast Company on newsstands this month, or online here.
Okay so I’m breaking my own rule about not writing about the iPhone…
John Gruber’s article here, where he details the relative power of the iPhone as a computing platform, got me wondering how the god-phone’s specs lined up against my favorite portable device of all time, the Sony PlayStation Portable. Right now, the PSP is the premier portable gaming and entertainment platform, but once you check the specs of the two devices, it’s pretty clear that this is likely to change.
From a pure specs perspective, the iPhone just slams the PSP. Of course, there is no telling how games will actually play, as they will have to compete for resources with all of the other things the iPhone does (like being a phone), but all in all it ought to be pretty respectable, and this is just iPhone v1. Expect the next generation of iPhone to have even more impressive specifications.
What, no er… uh… buttons you say?
Uh… yeah. That will tend to impact our ability to play any kind of action games on it. But that’s not a hard problem to overcome, one need only look towards the Wii, and all the innovative ways they’ve used motion on that platform, to get a glimpse at how a creative bunch of developers might use multi-touch. Additionally, a gaming controller that the iPhone just snaps into and connects via iPod dock or Bluetooth, would be so easy to engineer, that someone has probably designed one in the time it took you to read this sentence.
Being the last guy on the planet not to own one of these, I’m actually pretty excited about the possibilities. I live by one simple rule when it comes to gaming platforms, if you can play GTA on it, I’ll buy it. Are you listening, Rockstar?
Friends don’t let friends use Microsoft Office
In doing some research (gasp! Say it ain’t so –ed) to substantiate what was apparently one of my more blasphemous remarks below, I did a quick search of the Kaspersky virus database and uncovered the following:
- Macro.Word97.Mdma
- Virus.MSExcel.Extras.a
- Virus.MSWord.Plain
- Virus.Multi.Esperanto.4733
- Virus.MSWord.Archfiend
- Virus.MSWord.Mdma
As I count them there are apparently 6 viruses in the Wild for OS X, and FIVE OF THEM use exploits found in Microsoft Office code (mostly macro-based). It is also interesting that the one NON-MS Office virus in the database was a cross platform virus that has uncertain attack vectors for the Macintosh. In full disclosure, it should be noted that these viruses seem to have been written for the previous version of Office, and I don’t know if they will affect Office 2008 or not. But since they are macro-based, they provide a great reminder to always, always, always disable macros in MS Office documents.
This seems to me to be the best advertisement for iWork you can get.
Note to “Enterprise” users: I know we’ve been suckered into using MS Office because of a need to remain “Compatible”. I’ve found that I actually prefer working in iWork. I use it more when I’m the creator of a document, and often even if I’m editing someone else’s work. On compatibility I also have yet to come across a document that iWork wouldn’t open, or that MS Office couldn’t use after being exported from iWork.
So I’m going to try an experiment, 30 Days without Office, and see how it shakes out. I’ll report back in a month.
Now if someone could just figure out a credible alternative to Entourage for exchange mail and scheduling, I’d be home free.
Pete’s post below got me thinking. Apple’s star is rising, and they absolutely are eroding the market-share of Windows. Every quarter this thing of ours becomes more and more mainstream, and it’s not impossible to imagine a time when the Mac will at least have a significant degree of parity with Windows. This raises a bigger question: would we ever want Apple to eclipse Microsoft?
The first thing they teach you in strategic planning is to perform the following assessment:
“What are the benefits of a course of action, versus, what are the negatives of following the same. What are the possible unintended consequences”.
Now certainly we are all excited about Apple’s continued rise, but there may also be come cause for concern. In the rest of this article we’re going to play the “Unintended Consequences Game”.
While it’s taken as writ that we cultists tend to be creative types, a recent study from the Fuqua school of business at Duke University seems to indicate that simply seeing an Apple logo makes you more creative.
The researchers conducted a number of experiments, one of which was showing the logos for fractions of a second to create a subliminal impression, and in all cases those who’d seen the Apple logo scored higher on standardized creativity tests than those who’d seen the IBM logo or no logos at all.
Keith Sawyer in his Creativity and Innovation blog has got a great write up on the paper if you don’t feel like sorting through all the academic stuff in the published paper (I managed to get through 5 whole pages before turning to Keith’s excellent article).
Okay I know it’s an oxymoron, but work with me here.
Mac|Life reports that a OQO user has managed to get Leopard up and running on his hand-held, complete with a pretty impressive video on YouTube. Ordinarily, I could give to shakes for some beige box running OS X, but the OQO device is actually cool enough that I’d actually buy one if we can get OS X on it stable.
Whats notable from the video is that OS X Boots Sloooooooow, and runs Slooooooow on the device. But I’m pretty sure there are some clever folks out there who work out a way to speed it up. And besides, OQO was founded by ex-Apple folks, so the design is pretty slick, too.
So the utter blasphemy of a Hackintosh aside, this really reinfoces the fact that consumers want something more than an iPhone, but less than a full-on Mac.
What do you think? If someone offered this thing commercially (Hopefully Apple) would you buy one?
The MacUpdate promo has unlocked both Parallels and BannerZest (as well as Sound Studio), reversing my prior concerns, and making the bundle one heck of a good deal. Parallels alone (which I have used the heck out of), is worth the $64.99 price of entry, getting BannerZest tossed in is just icing. As per my previous review, Art-Text and DVDRemaster pro also seem to be pretty handy utilities, adding value to the bundle. But the unlocking of parallels is what really tips it over the edge for me.
Only three days left, folks.
Pitting two great software bundles head-to-head in CultofMac cage match? What the heck, we have to do something to amuse ourselves until WWDC
Mac users this week are presented with two choices for bundles of shareware. The MacHiest bundle that includes 12 titles, bundled together for $49, and the MacUpdate promo that includes 10 titles for $64.99 (albeit 3 of them are locked until they reach specific sales numbers).
We get under the covers of these bundles to see which are worth your hard-earned duckets.
Filed under: Still Speculating, just not wildly.
My inept Photoshop skills aside, Leander’s post below and the prevalence of the OSX86 project and similar efforts really speak to a single problem within the Macintosh lineup: The Tweener. That is, the Mac that is in between the Mac Mini and the MacPro. Apparently there are a WHOLE lot of folks who are desperate for this machine. Why it doesn’t exist is a mystery. Not only is there apparently a huge market for this kind of machine, there is an even larger market for “Certified Mac” after-market parts.
It’s a wonder that being the “Salesy” part of a duo that built their first computer in a garage, Steve doesn’t seem to get that enthusiasts want a computer they can “tinker” with.
As always I am gratuitously soliciting your comments as to what you’d like to see in this machine. My specs follow after the break
Filed under: Pure, Wild, Speculation
In my post regarding Apple’s apparent targeting of Adobe (if not them specifically then certainly their space) , there were such great, insightful comments that I decided to play a little game: What Would Steve Do? Taking a look at a potential Corel acquisition, how could we leverage the direct and indirect effects of that acquisition into an inferred Apple business strategy.
Now clearly, I’m not inside Steve’s head, that’s Leander’s niche, but these kinds of strategies are very much what I do for a living, so lets make some irresponsible, purely speculative, wild guesses, shall we? Of course gazing into the looking glass is no fun all by yourself, so lets make this an audience participation piece. I’ll lay out the basic framework after the break, and then we’ll pull from the comments for a follow-up piece.
Filed Under: FutureWatch
What I’m going to say will likely disturb some folks, particularly in light of the fact that iTunes just became the #1 music retailer in the world this month. But work with me a little.
The online music revolution has not occurred, yet.
That’s it. No wild speculation, or tin-foil hat accusations, (and yet your characteristic sensationalism remains –ed)
That is the whole of the thing. While other industries have seen often dramatic effects on their business as a result of the internet, the music business is much like it was when my dad had a music store 20 years ago. Consumers still shop, they buy records, or singles they’re interested in. In short, online music has not been changed by the internet (save for the piracy aspect), it remains the same “Buy and Consume” metaphor it has always been.
In the spirit of disrupting future software patents by publishing prior art, after the break we’ll discuss in detail exactly how Apple could change all that.
Leigh looks over at fellow consultant Pete M., “if this is true, buddy, we’re going to be RICH! RICH beyond our wildest dreams…”
Fake Steve, in a recent story, referred to an article by Dev Corvin, which was breaking news about the forthcoming Windows 7 (which has moved its ship date up to 2009 as a result of the spectacular results Vista has demonstrated in the market…). Found amid the usual Windows blah-blah-blah, which I suffer through so you don’t have to, was this tasty quote:
Windows 7 takes a different approach to the componentization and backwards compatibility issues; in short, it doesn’t think about them at all. Windows 7 will be a from-the-ground-up packaging of the Windows codebase; partially source, but not binary compatible with previous versions of Windows.
Now I didn’t just take FSJ and this Dev guy’s word for it, I employed minimalist “journalistic” research and went ahead and Googled “Windows 7” “Not Backwards Compatible”, which yeilded some 1.8 million hits.
This has me literally giddy with anticipation, see I am a consultant, which my mom thinks is code for being unemployed, and about 55% of my firm’s business world-wide is Microsoft-related. I have half a mind to switch practices from Strategy and Transformation to MS (though those practitioners do look hostilely at my Blackberry let alone my Macbook Pro).
In short, fixing all that broken .NET code out there in corporate America will be tantamount to the Y2K effort 10 years ago; a license to print money for consultants. From the bottom of my heart, Thank you Bill.
Now why should anybody who reads Cult of Mac care about this, other than some kind of surrogate pleasure to be gained from my anticipated financial success?
Because, friends, Microsoft’s lock on corporate IT has every everything to do with backwards compatibility. Should Redmond choose to proceed with this folly, our ranks (of Mac loyalists) are destined to swell such that I might have to consider something other than my MB Pro to make me cool and hip in the eyes of our college hires (as-if… might I suggest a really expensive (and thus exclusive) accessory, like a tablet. –ed)
Filed under: Pure, Wild Speculation.
John Gruber, writes today in Daring Fireball, an article about Adobe CS4 and the fact that while it will be 64bit on Windows it will only be 32Bit on the Mac. He writes (as usual) a simply wonderful analysis on the topic (well worth the full read), pointing out that lack of Carbon support in Leopard is making it difficult for Adobe (as well as some other cross platform vendors) to develop applications for both Windows and the Mac using the same code base.
… the degree to which Apple pulled the rug out from under Adobe’s feet at WWDC 2007 last June. When Leopard was first announced at WWDC 2006 nine months prior, it included full 64-bit support for both Carbon and Cocoa.64-bit.
Carbon wasn’t promised to be coming “sometime”, like with, say, resolution independence. It was promised for 10.5.0. And it existed developer seeds of Leopard up through WWDC 2007 had in-progress 64-bit Carbon libraries, and Adobe engineers were developing against them. Several sources1 have confirmed to me that Adobe found out that Apple was dropping support for 64-bit Carbon at the same time everyone else outside Apple did: on the first day of WWDC 2007.
If Apple had shipped Leopard with the 64-bit Carbon support promised at WWDC 2006, Photoshop CS4 would run in 64-bit mode on the Mac.
I’m not rushing right out to get my tinfoil hat, but this coupled with the new Aperture plug-in framework, really starts to make me wonder. The only question which remains is how might Apple augment its current suite of products to more fully take on Adobe (remember, in the software space, Apple grows as much by acquisition, as by innovation).
My bet, they acquire Corel, but I’d love to hear your ideas.
Filed under, it’s never too soon.
This evening, without so much as a beating drum to alert the dogs of war, Apple fired a shot right across the bow of Adobe Photoshop’s dominion over photo editing.
Aperture is already my favorite photo organizing and fine-tuning software –it’s brilliant, and offers a seamless upgrade to the familiar iPhoto. What’s been frustrating however is the need to export to Photoshop to perform anything more than basic RAW adjustments to highlights, shadow, sharpness and re-touch.
Today, this all changed. Apple has released an example plug-in “Dodge and Burn”, and with it, demonstrated Aperture’s plug in architecture. Per this review, additional plug ins are in the works from Nik Software, PictureCode, and Digital Film Tools.
Sure we won’t be able to “paint” in it (and why would we), but if Aperture will shortly have access to the kind of plug-in library available to Photoshop, there may be virtually no need for Adobe in any professional photographer’s workflow. This is clearly one step further in Apple’s strategy to dominate their core “creative professionals” market. Remember when Avid/Adobe Premier owned film editing? Who is going to pick that over Final Cut now?
I’ve been playing with the version 2.1 now for a few hours and love the new functionality, but what’s got me more exited is the potential, I see a huge library of plug-ins on the horizon. So Aperture users, sound off, what plug-ins do you desire most? Me, top of the list, I want an HDR merge and tone-map plug-in, Right Now.
Take a trip with me to Fantasy Island”¦
The last Tuesday of the month is come and gone, and yet again my dreams of a Mac Tablet are dashed. I know it’s improper to lust after equipment this much, but perhaps that’s just where I am in life. I’ve reached a point (no matter how sad), that were I to see an attractive member of the opposite sex in a park with a Nikon D3 and Macbook Pro, I’m just as likely to think “Man, nice gear!” as any other potentially litigious thoughts. Now I know Apple doesn’t ask consumers about product design, but if they asked me about my oft-dreamed-of-tablet, here’s what I’d say:
#1. It’s an Accessory, not a Computer.
You could say the same thing about the MacBook Air, but the MBA isn’t priced like an accessory, it’s priced like a computer. The “Dream-Tablet” should be an $800 accessory to my existing collection of Macs.
#2 Because of #1, it doesn’t need to be powerful
We’ve already got “Back to My Mac,“ so if Apple beefed up this service a bit to run better over public networks, the Tablet simply becomes a “Cloud Computing” device; allowing me access back to my primary machine, whose power I can harness (alternatively, Apple if you’re listening: work with VMWare and make a “Mac Cloud” that these Tablets could tap into. You could do it if you wanted to, read Nick Carr if you want to know why you should).
Disconnected, if I’m on an airplane, or a cave in Bosnia, I should still be able to read a book, play music, drive iWork, Aperture or (Lord help me) Office. That said: I don’t need to be able to produce HDR images in CS3 un-tethered.
What I’m saying is: “Dream tablet” doesn’t need the latest lap scorching chipset from Intel.
#3 It doesn’t need a big hard drive.
Really. Solid state, instant-on OS is way better than storage for the sake of storage. If I had 16 Gigs to hold documents or photos that I needed to work on (or books I wanted to read) while contemplating the fate of the kid who keeps kicking the back of my seat, that would be plenty.
But lets make it expandable, here’s a novel idea: give me a slot, where I can “dock” my 160gig iPod classic. Just slide the whole sucker in there like some kind of removable drive, and we’re good to go; storage, music, movies whatever, making 2 accessories work together seamlessly, now that’s something uniquely Apple.
#4 Remember, it’s an Accessory.
Really, so when I’m back home, I don’t want to just put it on the shelf until my next trip (which is all too often). Lets make it into an active accessory I can use in my main computing environment. Watcom digitizing tablet anyone? Apple TV remote Control? Portable media hub? (I can totally see hooking this thing up to my TV and streaming video and audio), even just as an extra monitor, whatever, lets be flexible with it.
#5 It does not need to be:
An iPod, iPhone, iTypewriter, or a super-computer capable of composing a sountrack in Logic Pro and cutting a film short in Final Cut while waiting I’m for the First Class lavatory to become available. Nor does it need to use that goofy fake electronic paper stuff from Sony (which is cool for eBooks, but nothing else). None of that, just world-class “Back to my Mac”, and the ability to run regular OS X applications with a reasonable (say Mac Mini) level of performance. That and simply OUTSTANDING battery life.
Is that too much to ask?
Readers: what would YOU want out of a Mac Tablet?
Filed under pure, wild speculation”¦
Many Mac Pro’s since Leopard are experiencing interment signal drops with their Airport Extreme wireless cards. This issue was first brought to my attention only after I lugged my seventy-pound monster three blocks and hoisted it up on the counter of the Genius Bar.
“It’s a known issue with Leopard,” I was apprised and sent on my way, boat anchor in tow.
Not being content with a computer that’s price compatible with a mid-tier Hyundai, and similarly incapable of navigating the Internet with any reliability, I decided to dig into this a little bit deeper, what follows are my observations only.
#1. The problem seems to be especially active when Bittorrent clients are running.
With a BT client running I’m experiencing a drop at least every 15 minutes or so. I have segregated networks (a G only network, and a N only (5mhz) network) both are Airport networks. My Mac Pro and Macbook pro are the only two computers on the N network. When the Mac Pro drops connection the Macbook Pro does not.
The engineering answer to the problem of signal drop with a BT client active is that we’re pushing bits so hard and fast the silicon might be over heating, which causes signal loss on at the computer. I could believe this except:
#2. The problem doesn’t seem as active (with a BT client running) when the Network Preferences dialog is open.
Now this I discovered purely by accident. But If I leave my network preferences pane open (not minimized) on my second monitor, my signal doesn’t drop hardly at all. I have noticed a signal drop, but it is VERY infrequent. This suggests the problem lay in code, not in hardware.
Evil Speculation: Is there some connection intentional or otherwise between dropping wireless connections and the use of BT clients? Correlation does not equal causation but I have to wonder particularly in light of:
#3 I don’t seem to loose signal when we’re not running a Bittorrent Client.
I can’t go so far as to say that the signal drop problem doesn’t occur at all when my bittorrent client isn’t running, but after several days not running a BT client, I’ve yet to observe a signal drop. I also took steps to push bits as hard and fast as I could, downloading Linux distributions over HTTP, uploading thousands of photos over FTP. The signal seemed to stay rock solid.
So I’m back to Evil Speculation again: Is there something in code that is causing these drops to happen (at all or at least more frequently) when running Bittorrent clients?
I’d like to ask our fellow Cultists to run their own experiments. If you’re not having dropping problems fire up a bittorrent client (the problem happens with either BitRocket or Transmission) and download and seed a legal torrent (can I suggest Leander’s book?) and see if it starts happening. If you are experiencing the dropping problem: are you running a BT client in the background, does it go away when you stop?
If there are any bit-jockeys out there who can trace the actual code in memory, can we find a real connection, or is this just paranoid speculation?
