Apple - page 71

There’s talk over at ThinkSecret that the next video iPod may feature a big screen covering the entire front of the device. The screen will be touch-sensitive, allowing the iPod to be controlled by a virtual click wheel that will appear when a finger brushes the screen.

Apple was recently granted several touch-screen patents. The filings (here, here and here) include illustrations of a hand making circular motions as if it were using an iPod clickwheel.

But the patents may also refer to a tablet PC. They mention rotating and centering pages, zooming in and out of documents — and recognizing complex gestures from multiple touch points on the screen — all of which sounds like a multipoint gesture interface developed at NYU.

In New York, researchers have created a working prototype of an amazing touch-screen interface for a computer that, unlike most touch screens, supports multiple touch points — or multiple people.

Running on OS X, the interface is reminiscent of Steven Spielberg’s fictional, gesture-based UI in Minority Report — but much cooler.

In a demonstration video (You Tube link), a user can be seen rearranging digital pictures scattered across a virtual desktop, and resizing them by squeezing their fingers together or splaying them apart. The user also creates some digital art, zooms in on a map and scoots around, and types rapidly on a virtual keyboard.

I’m not a tablet expert, but all the tablet PCs I’ve seen present a standard UI with some gesture controls, substituting the mouse cursor for a greasy finger.

The NYU research seems like a radical rethink — a real haptic interface, appropriate to hand control.

There’s been lots of rumors of an Apple tablet lately. If it has this kind of interface — it’d be a killer.

(Via Robot Wisdom)

Picture courtesy of Geek Culture.

There’s a couple of data points about today’s Cult of Mac column on Wired News that didn’t make the cut because of length, so I’ll post them here.

The column concludes with an anecdote about the opposing design philosophies of Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. While Woz advocated open, commodity hardware, Jobs pursued closed, proprietary designs. And this of course, is the story of the PC industry. While Intel-compatible PC makers developed a standard, open hardware platform, Apple plowed a closed, proprietary route.

Apple has always been criticized for this, of course, but Woz eventually came to sympathize with Jobs’ approach. As he told Macworld in an interview:

“… I see two things that make Apple successful now where others aren’t. They are really a tight monopoly. They’re a hardware monopoly, and there’s no hardware monopoly on the other side. So that gives them some advantages in control and in pricing to have profits. A company isn’t going to be a good company and really develop better and better things if it can barely squeak by and doesn’t have good profits. Apple can have the profits that it needs to make these great, exciting products that are steps forward, instead of just kind of sitting in the competitive consumer throwaway product category everyone else is.”

The other thing I’d like to have included in the column is the delightful story Gary Wolf tells at the end of his insightful Wired magazine profile of Woz from 1998. The tale is the most appropriate I’ve read about the man:

“Among his other activities, Woz collects phone numbers, and his longtime goal has been to acquire a number with seven matching digits… after more months of scheming and waiting, he had it: 888-8888. This was his new cell-phone number, and his greatest philonumerical triumph.

The number proved unusable. It received more than a hundred wrong numbers a day. Given that the number is virtually impossible to misdial, this traffic was baffling. More strange still, there was never anybody talking on the other end of the line. Just silence. Or, not silence really, but dead air, sometimes with the sound of a television in the background, or somebody talking softly in English or Spanish, or bizarre gurgling noises. Woz listened intently.

Then, one day, with the phone pressed to his ear, Woz heard a woman say, at a distance, “Hey, what are you doing with that?” The receiver was snatched up and slammed down.

Suddenly, it all made sense: the hundreds of calls, the dead air, the gurgling sounds. Babies. They were picking up the receiver and pressing a button at the bottom of the handset. Again and again. It made a noise: “Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep.”

The children of America were making their first prank call.

And the person who answered the phone was Woz.”

Worth noting quickly: The Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights” video is number one on the iTunes Music Store.

Says Bryan Chaffin at MacObserver:

Postal Service may be unhappy with Apple about the shot-for-shot creation of their video made for Apple’s Intel Mac commercial, but the resulting attention has led to that video, originally released in 2003, being the #1 download on Apple’s iTunes Music Store.

Image by Alan Rhodes via Mike Davidson’s Design a Steve Jobs Movie Poster

I’ve started writing a biweekly column for Wired News and calculatingly chose a controversial subject that’s been on my mind for a while: whether Steve Jobs is worthy of our slavish devotion?

The column was tricky to write and looking at it now, I don’t think I quite pulled it off. Based on the feedback, there seems to be some confusion about what I was trying to say.

The column was not a critique of Jobs’ achievements, which are monumental and undeniable — he’s been a driving force of the PC industry for 30 years — but with the way the press and public project a progressive image onto him, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary.

I was also questioning my own reverence for the man. He’s quite magnetic, but should I really admire him that much? My heroes — most of them British punk singers from the seventies — hated capitalists like Jobs. And in public at least, there’s no sign he’s anything but a captain of industry.

The same could be said for Bill Gates, of course. I used to revile Gates, but his philanthropy, which seems earnest, is beginning to redeem him. Even though he earned his fortune in reprehensible ways, there’s salvation in the ambition to give it all away before he dies.

What do you think? Wired News’ comment system is temporarily down, so please contribute your thoughts here.

Several people sent me email that made good points I’d like to share. Here’s a couple:

Andrew Mayne said:

“You also make the classic mistake of equating net worth with liquidity. The vast majority of Jobs wealth is in stock. His salary from Pixar is $52 a year and $1 from Apple. His billions are in Pixar stock and options in Apple (to a much lesser degree). So far he has liquidated very little of his stock from either. He lives far from an ostentatious lifestyle compared to others of his own net worth.”

And John Kwo wrote:

“… while I certainly agree that Elvis Presley was never the outspoken activist that John Lennon was, Presley was incredibly generous in private. The following is from the official Elvis Presley website: … ‘Most of Elvis’ philanthropic endeavors received no publicity at all. Throughout his adult life, for friends, for family, and for total strangers, he quietly paid hospital bills, bought homes, supported families, paid off debts, and much more.’

Uh oh. Looks like there may be trouble brewing in the spat between Apple and The Postal Service.

In “a note from Ben” on the The Postal Service’s website, singer Ben Gibbard chastises Apple for the shot-for shot remake of the band’s cleanroom music video.

It has recently come to our attention that Apple Computers’ new television commercial for the Intel chip features a shot-for-shot recreation of our video for ‘Such Great Heights’ made by the same filmmakers responsible for the original. We did not approve this commercialization and are extremely disappointed with both parties that this was executed without our consultation or consent.

– Ben Gibbard, The Postal Service

Wow. What a knockout quarter Apple had — posting income of $5.75 billion, it’s best ever. Most of the cash came from 14 million iPod sales — three times what it sold this time last year. But the company also saw 20 percent growth in Mac sales, shifting 1.25 million Macs. What surprises me is these were lame duck machines — soon to be made obsolete by new Intel boxes.

Wall Street’s a little bit worried though about the current quarter, which Apple said will be lower than projections due to “a pause” in Mac sales as the product lineup switches to Intel, according to the Wall Street Journal.

There was also “a pause” in sales the previous quarter, Reuters reports. If that’s true, what will sales of Intel Macs be like when the lineup is filled out this year? A quick skim of the earnings call reports doesn’t mention any guidance about supplies — but my gut is it’ll go gangbusters, but supplies will be constrained and Apple won’t be able to keep up. I think Apple’s going to have an unbelievable year, and this is just the beginning.

There’s a simple explantion why Apple’s new cleanroom ad looks just like a music video for The Postal Service: they were both made by the same people.

Sarah Moody of Sub Pop Records, The Postal Service’s Seattle record company, writes:

“… the Apple commercial is indeed very similar, it wasn’t licensed in any form, and was made by the same directors as the Postal Service video. We weren’t alerted to the fact that it existed until the day it came out.”

Moody didn’t say, but The PS’s Such Great Heights video was made by directing duo Josh Melnick and Xander Charity, whose working name is Josh & Xander.

Apple’s ad agency, TBWA\Chiat\Day, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

After my story last week about pilgrimages to Apple’s HQ, Mac loyalist Jonas Hallen wrote to tell of his all-too-common experience of visiting the mothership.

He writes:

“In March 2002 Alexander Ruas (Sweden), Jesse McBride (U.S) and I (Sweden) did our Haij to Infinite Loop 1. We took our picture and seconds later a security guard sent us off the premises. We didn’t feel too bad about it, though. Apple has never been ‘service-minded’ in the common sense, and a part of being a Mac Geek is living through the company’s lack of commitment, disinterest and sheer abuse of it’s most loyal fan base.”

He added:

If Apple decided to open Infinite Loop to visitors or even arrange for a museum, it would be a flagrant breach of tradition and I would then feel obliged to follow the wise words of Groucho Marx:

‘I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.'”

Programmer Paul Guyot has demonstrated his “Einstein” Newton emulator running on a Sharp Zaurus — and a beta of the software is available as a free download.

“… We’re one step closer to having a Newton running on non-Apple hardware,” wrote long-time Newton devotee Adam Tow, who reported the news.

Guyot demonstrated the emulator at the Worldwide Newton Conference this weekend in San Francisco, held on the tail of Macworld. The emulator runs on any Linux-based PDA with X11 support.

Here’s some background on Guyot and his project.

I know I’m harping on about this, but there’s been a lot of debate about whether or not Apple remade — or was even infuenced by — The Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights” video for its new 30-second TV ad for Intel-based Macs.

In comments here and at my other blog, some people insist the two videos simply use the same setting, a cleanroom, and that’s where the similarities end.

But now ChrisJM at Elite Productions has taken the Apple ad and spliced it with corresponding shots from the Postal Service video to make a side-by-side comparison.

I say it nails it (not that there was any doubt in my mind). The Apple ad is more or less a shot-for-shot remake.

It’s not that Apple’s ad is not artful. I actually think the ad works better than the video, which I found over long and boring. I just find it mystifying there’s any doubt about the source material.

I’ve made enquiries with both Sub Pop Records and Apple’s ad agency, TBWA/Chiat/Day, and will report any findings here next week.

Yeah, those “exploited children” over at Gizmodo are my progeny. My wife took them down to Macworld to promote my Cult of iPod book.

She dressed our three boys in cardboard iPod costumes, and our daughter as a silhouette iPod dancer.

I wasn’t exactly comfortable with the idea, but it achieved its objective. They got their pictures in the paper, which absolutely thrilled them (Exploited kid one; exploited kid two), and she handed a flyer to the scores of people who snapped their picture.

Plus, the kids had a blast. Look at all the free crap they got. This is just a portion of it. My daughter separated hers out and stashed it away.

They got eight pairs of gloves, a ton of flashing Belkin necklaces, half-a-ton of stickers and pins, Postit pads, spring-loaded jumping frogs, badge holders, a gazillion pens, rubber wristbands, iPod covers, some cellphone cleaner thingies, etc., etc.

What was the best stuff they got?

Lyle (the youngest): “Candy.”

Olin: “Candy.”

Milo: “The wristbands, and candy.”

Nadine (the oldest): “The Yoyo, a mini Sharpie, a fish screensaver, a helicopter spinner and a squeezy stress ball. And candy.”

Here’s more of the little angels.

There was something strange about Steve Jobs’ Macworld keynote on Tuesday. The pacing was off.

It started off high energy with reports of unbelievable iPod sales and record revenues, which got the crowd whooping. Then it went into a doldrums with an interminable demo of new features in iLife, which had everyone dying for the One More Thing… “Come on Steve,” we’re all thinking. “Cut the crap and get to the good stuff.”

So tonight I’m sitting in a bar when I run into an old friend, who is very highly placed in the Apple world. I hate to cite an anonymous source, but trust me, he knows.

And he tells me the keynote that Jobs gave was not the keynote he had planned. Some of the speech had been cut out. Key products were missing.

My source said there was some stuff, “some very, very cool stuff,” that Jobs couldn’t unveil because of “supply issues.”

“They can’t get enough Core Duo (chips),” said my source.

He also said that if he were me, he probably wouldn’t order one of the new MacBook Pros.

I asked if there would be MacBook replacements for the 17-inch and 12-inch PowerBooks, but he said, “Oh, it’s much cooler than that. Much cooler.”

Photo credit: Engadget.

Update: Duncan Rawlinson at the Last Minute Blog has created a much better comparison screenshot of the two videos, which I’ve nicked and posted above. Duncan has a slightly higher-resolution version on his site. Also, in the comments, it seems some people think I’m referring to similarities in the music, but it’s the visuals that are similar, if not identical. Plus it’s the whole idea: the concept, the setting, the narrative. Compare the corridor tracking shots, the movements of the wafer-making machines, the interaction between the male and female workers. The Apple ad is not just “influenced” by the Postal Service video, it’s a remake.

Apple is at it again — making TV ads that bear an uncanny resemblance to other people’s videos.

Apple’s latest TV advert, touting Intel chips inside its new Macs, is remarkably similar to a music video from The Postal Service for the song “Such Great Heights.”

Both are set in clean rooms, and feature bunnysuited workers making eyes at each other.

See for yourself. Here’s the Apple ad, and here’s The Postal Service video (Windows Media download).

Apple is currently being threatened legally by Lugz, which claims an apparently actionable similarity between Apple’s iPod ad featuring Eminem and a 2002 spot for Lugz footwear.

Of course, in the latest case, Apple may have an agreement with The Postal Service or its record company, or may have hired the same director, or licensed the work.

Developing…

Except for Intel-based hardware, the big thing here at Macworld seems to be syndicating photos over the net — or Photocasting.

Not only did Steve Jobs showcase a new photocasting feature in iPhoto on Tuesday, on Monday ex-Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki introduced the Mac version of a new photocasting application called FilmLoop.

Photocasting isn’t new — several photoblogs offer syndicated snaps via RSS, as do photo-sharing websites like Flickr and Buzznet. But until now, few desktop applications made it easy to download pictures from a camera and push them automatically to friends’ and relatives’ machines.

In his keynote speech, Jobs demonstrated how photos and galleries in a new version of iPhoto can be pushed, or photocast, to subscribers’ computers.

“This is podcasting — for photos,” Jobs said.

Instead of publishing to the web, photos are delivered automatically to subscriber’s computers. In iPhoto, the user creates a photocast album. All the pictures added to, or deleted from, this album are automatically pushed to subscriber’s iPhoto libraries, where they show up in a gallery in the source list.

“It’s like magic,” Jobs said, with typical understatement. “You take away the machinery, and it’s just like magic. It’s amazing.”

Publishing a photocast requires the new version of iPhoto, which has been updated as part of Apple’s $80 iLife 06 suite, and a .Mac membership (TK a year) — but subscribers can be on any platform.

“Anyone can subscribe. You don’t even need a Mac,” Jobs said.

Meanwhile, Kawasaki’s FilmLoop combines iPhoto photocasting with Flickr-like photo groups.

Not only can FilmLoop users subscribe to each other’s galleries, or “loops,” they can add comments and even contribute their own snaps.

The FilmLoop network has public loops dedicated a wide range of topics, from news and sports to pictures of all the Corvettes for sale on eBay.

The FilmLoop system is free — but loops are sprinkled with ads.

Kawaski is a member of the company’s board and a backer through his firm, Garage Technology Ventures.

Beyond Macworld, several tinkerers have hacked together homebrew podcasting systems, including Chris Pirillo using a Sony PSP, and Philip Torrone with Flickr and some scripts.

MACWORLD — It’s 1997 all over again! Microsoft and Apple have renewed their marriage vows for another five years, Microsoft said on Tuesday.

Apple and Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit have signed a formal “commitment agreement” deeming Microsoft to continue developing Office for Mac for at least another five years, Microsoft said.

“We wanted to comfort our customers around the world that we are in this for the long term,” said Scott Erickson, the Mac BU’s director of product management and marketing. “It makes sense to really publicly show our commitment to the platform.”

The blissful marriage between the two companies looked rocky after Steve Jobs announced Apple will be switching to Intel chips, which may or may not also run Windows. Plus, Apple has been developing its own software to compete with applications traditionally developed for the Mac by Microsoft — Safari, Keynote, etc.

“We’ve been in the Mac software business for more than 20 years,” said Erickson. “And it’s been a great business for us.”

Erickson said the deal was signed in November 2005.

The “commitment agreement” is reminiscent of Macworld in 1997, when Bill Gates joined Steve Jobs’ keynote speech via a satellite linkup. Looming large and Big Brother-like, Gates said he was happy to invest $150 million in Apple, which was in trouble at the time, and sign a five-year commitment to continue developing Mac software.

In addition to renewing its vows, Microsoft said it will enhance Entourage in the spring. The Mac email, contact and calendar software will synchronize with iPods, among other devices.

It’s Macworld, which means it’s time for Mac haircuts.

Here’s Gabe McIntyre, who said he’s always getting his hair styled with one theme or another, usually Apple related.

Above is the haircut he had for Apple Expo Paris in 2004, and below are various haircuts honoring Apple’s operating system updates — Jaguar, Tiger, etc.

“I feel like while I still have hair, I might as well make art from it,” he said. “I feel like I’m doing performance art with my hair… Plus I am a diehard Apple geek.”

McIntyre is such an Apple geek, he said his students call him “Gabriel Macintosh” rather than McIntyre.

McIntyre is a 30-year-old film professor from Amsterdam, Holland, who also directs and edits films and commercials with his business partner Gabriel Bauer.

An American living in Holland, McIntyre teaches video podcasting at the College of Arts in Utrecht (HKU). His business site is Whisper Media; his video podcasts can be found at Gabe & Gabe’s World (personal videos) and Xolo.Tv (his video podcast news and review show).

His girlfriend styles his hair.

“(She) loves it and can’t wait for my hair to grow out so she can do another haircut,” he said “She used to be a PC user till she met me. Now she’s an Apple geek as well… My hair is a way to get her creativity out sometimes.”

Take a (virtual) walk along Infinite Loop — the road that loops around Apple’s campus, courtesy of Redbug Technologies, a company that makes virtual reality tours.

The Apple Campus tour is the 3rd down on the left.

Redbug’s Andrew Hagenbuch writes: “Built with love by two Mac users. Kinda cool for those who haven’t been there. Mac love at its best!”

What a weird bunch of crap Disney is rolling out with its latest expanded TV offerings for iTunes.

ITunes will feature a couple of dozen shows, snippets and shorts from several Disney-owned outlets like ESPN, ABC Sports, Disney Channel and others.

Except for the sports, which I personally have zero interest in, the list includes gems like the 70s kids cartoon “Schoolhouse Rock,” SOAPnet’s biog show “Soapography,” and bits of “Good Morning America.”

Good grief America. The only thing I’d take the trouble to download is Ebert and Roeper, which I never catch when it’s broadcast on TV.

I know on-demand video is supposed to be all long tail and niche, that’s half the point, but where’s the HBO? Or Seinfeld? The Shield? Or anything worth watching?

The cleverly-named PyP-Bomb iPod/Guitar Amp is a battery-powered speaker and amp made from a section of PVC pipe.

Optimized for the iPod, the $150 PyP-Bomb generates 18 watts of sound and is “seriously loud,” according to ThinkGeek site, which sells them.

Can that be true? Is 18 watts a lot of sound? Sure looks distinctive.

An exhibition of video art is to be presented entirely on video iPods at the Fine Art in Space gallery in Long Island City, NY.

PodART will feature the work of several multimedia artists whose work has been reformatted for the iPod, including MTAA and Marisa Olson.

The show is “the first group exhibition of video art intended to be viewed and sold solely on the iPod. Apple, the computer of choice by much of the art world is the inspiration for our new exhibition,” a press release says.

The artwork will be sold at the show, pre-installed on an iPod. “Each video object is a limited edition and is sold in iPod format with the player,” the release says. No pricing is given.

The exhibition runs December 9, 2005, to January 17, 2006. The opening reception is December 9, 7pm to 9pm.

(Thanks Walt)

So I just woke up and see that Apple is offering about a dozen new TV shows for download from NBC, USA Network and the Sci Fi Channel. Sorry for being the last person on the Net to post this.

The new shows include:

NBC’s “Law & Order,” “The Office,” “Surface,” “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,”

the USA Network’s Emmy Award-winning “Monk”

Sci-Fi Channel’s “Battlestar Galactica”

classic TV shows including “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “Dragnet,” “Adam-12” and “Knight Rider.”

Pricing is a bit weird. Entire episodes of “Law & Order” cost $1.99, but so does a 10-minute clip of Conan O’Brien.

This is a big deal:

Britain’s independent music labels are about to make music available for podcasts, reports the BBC. Britain’s indie acts include Franz Ferdinand and The Prodigy.

Songs by acts signed to UK indie record labels are to be made available to podcasters on a trial basis.

The Association of Independent Music is selling six-month worldwide licence deals for its members’ music to be used on download radio programmes.

… “We believe there will be huge global demand for the AIM podcast licence,” (said an AIM spokeswoman)

As one of the BBC’s interviewees points out: “I see podcasting and subscription services as playing a big role in where the music consumer wants to go.”

Steve Wozniak:

My best computer prank involved counterfeiting twenty thousand brochures for a phony computer. I did it at the West Coast Computer Faire, where the Apple was introduced.

Bruce Damer’s ever-excellent Digibarn Computer Museum has a scan of Wozniak’s proudest prank.

What’s the most expensive Mac money can buy?

According to Gadget Madness, it’s a “2.5Ghz Quad-core PowerPC G5 with 16GB of RAM, 1 TB of storage, Quadro FX 4500 graphics card with 512MB of memory, 16X dual-layer Superdrive, and two 30″ Apple Cinema HD displays.”

Cost — a cool $24,000 — but shipping is free.

UK blogs Tech Digest and Shiny Shiny have named the iPod Shuffle as this year’s “Must Chav Gadget.”

A chav is slang for a member of Britain’s “peasant underclass” — a lowlife, in other words.

Says Tech digest:

The shuffle is perfect for chavs. It’s cheap. It’s by a cool brand, and you can let others know you have one as it is designed to be worn round your neck. As it is white it also accessorises well with those classy gold chains Chavs wear. The sad part is that the shuffle is the worst player in the Apple range — more like some dodgy back street knock-off than the excellent other iPods. The fact it has no screen so you can’t program it or choose a track — it chooses the music for you — also saves Chav brain cells for the much more important business of, ahem, pimping their rides.

Second prize went to the Motorla Razr — “standard fixture for every Tom Dick and Chav.”