Opinions - page 13

The Dictionary.com site defines an “aristocracy” in part as “a class of persons holding exceptional rank and privileges.”

Scanning the news recently, I got to wondering: Is Apple creating a new aristocracy?

The #BoycottApple hashtag was trending hard on Google+ last week.

No, I’m not talking about the boycott-Apple-to-save-Chinese-workers, the boycott-Apple-because-they-discriminate-against-Iranians or even the boycott-Apple-because-they-support-gay-marriage movements.

I’m talking about the boycott-Apple-because-they’re-using-the-courts-to-compete-against-Android-devices movement.

Specifically, the call to boycott is based on anger over Apple’s successful attempt to ban both the Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone and the Galaxy 10.1 tablet. An appeals court temporarily lifted the ban on the phone yesterday, but upheld the tablet ban.

Here’s why the call for a boycott is misguided and futile. 

There’s only one important fact to know about Phoenix, Arizona: it’s hot as hell.

I don’t mean that figuratively, either. I mean, if there really is a mystical place with fire, brimstone, and goblin monsters with big horns, then in all likelihood it was modeled after Phoenix. Days that only hit 100°F are cause for celebration, because 115°F is probably coming right around the corner like a stampede of raging, wild bulls hopped up on Adderall.

What makes things even worse about Phoenix is that we don’t have beaches or the ocean. We don’t even have a really good waterpark. But we do have a filthy river just outside the city. So when things get hot, people start doing silly things like grabbing a bunch of inner tubes, beer, a stereo, and snacks and float down the river for hours.

While everyone else on the river is getting drunk or stoned as they throw monster-sized marshmallows at each other, my friends and I take a different tack. We grab our goggles and dive down to the bottom of the river to find all the stuff everyone loses. We find some pretty funny items, like 80s-styled boom boxes, marijuana pipes, bras, Miley Cyrus beach towels, you name it. People suck at holding on to their crap when they’re drunk. It’s a scientific fact.

I was the biggest Siri fanboy ever both before Apple launched the iPhone 4S with Siri integration, and immediately after.

For example, I wrote this in September and this in October. I was certain that Siri was going to change everything.

But since then, it’s slowly dawning on me that Siri isn’t what I thought it would be, at least not yet. Worse, I’ve been confused by events and facts related to Siri that have emerged since the iPhone 4S launched.

So here’s what I would like to ask Siri.

Apple quietly released an app called Podcasts this week. The app enables the discovery, organization and playing of podcasts on an iPhone.

In the past, users listened to podcasts in the Music app by default. The next version of iOS will apparently come with a Music app that doesn’t support podcasts.

Podcasts are currently monetized using the advertising model. Nearly all podcasts are free, but those podcasts that make money do so through advertising.

Here’s a typical podcast app spoken during the show: “This podcast is brought to you buy Audible.com! For a free audio book of your choice, including audio books by David Sedaris, Sarah Vowell, John Hodgeman, go to Audible.com/american.”)

Under the current system, a podcast content creator can make money from ads, but Apple gets nothing, even when it’s downloaded via the iTunes store.

Providing a platform for other companies to make money while Apple makes nothing really isn’t Apple’s thing.

Apple’s new Podcasts app contains two surprising but telling features.

First, Podcasts contains a skip-forward-30-seconds button. The most obvious use for this button is to skip advertising in podcasts, even the kind spoken by the host of the show. (“This podcast brought to you by [skip forward 30 seconds].”)

Second, the Podcasts app has a mysterious “Redeem” button— but only when you run it on the upcoming iOS 6 version.

It’s not clear what exactly the “Redeem” button will do, but it has something to do with a new way for podcasters to charge money.

So let’s put these two new features together: One makes listening to ads optional; the other creates a way to sell podcasts via iTunes using Apple’s agency model.

It’s a carrot and a stick to podcasters: We’re going to reduce the value of your advertising by letting people skip them; but don’t worry, you can monetize by moving to a paid model.

I think this is the direction Apple intends to move all content available on iTunes.

Go here to read the whole story.

Maybe you were exploring the nether reaches of a Venezuelan jungle yesterday and missed the news that Microsoft announced that they’re making a cool looking tablet called the Microsoft Surface for Windows RT.

Despite some huge holes in the announcement, some people like Gizmodo’s Jesus Diaz have gone on to claim that Microsoft’s Surface just made the iPad and MacBook Air obsolete.

We’re actually kind of excited about the Surface and think it looks like an intriguing product, but saying that it’s better than the iPad and MacBook Air at this point is absolutely absurd.

The annual Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is an invite-only event that centers on the video gaming industry. Held across two massive halls of the Los Angeles Convention Center, it is a draw for any journalist interested in games and gaming, and a source of endless news stories during the week in June it’s typically held.

No matter where I looked at the Expo this year, I saw mobile games and mobile devices. With a few notable exceptions (Nyko had a huge booth full of Tegra-enabled tablets to show off their gaming controllers for Android), most of the devices I came into contact with were decidedly of the iOS persuasion. I’m fairly sure that Apple is winning this round.

If I had to pick on adjective for Apple’s upcoming iOS 6, it’d be “local” – Apple is integrating an immense range of local features and giving businesses amazing tools for attracting new customers. Regardless of whether you’re talking about a large chain like Starbucks or a family owned local business, Apple is offering virtually any customer-facing company an immense range of tools to attract and retain new customers.

The iTV. The Apple HDTV. SiriTV.

Whatever you want to call it, there’s a lot of talk out there about how Apple is going to revolutionize the living room experience by releasing their own proper television set.

There’s reason enough to be skeptical of these reports. From the industry’s notoriously low margins — Sony’s losing billions on their television business — to the fact that consumers simply don’t upgrade their TVs like they do their smartphones, does it even make sense that Apple would want to release their own television set?

Sure, Steve Jobs said he had “cracked” the TV problem before he died, but who’s to say that he wasn’t talking about Cupertino’s existing set-top box, the Apple TV, a $99 puck that anyone can afford and that slurps up streaming content from the web or the iPhones, iPads and (with Mountain Lion) Macs already in the home?

I’ll say it. The Apple TV is not enough, and Apple absolutely must release a revolutionary television set in the next two years.

Why? Because no matter how popular the Apple TV becomes, it will never be essential.

Speculating about future Apple products is really hard to do well. That doesn’t keep everyone from trying. Even grizzled Apple-watching veterans often fail catastrophically with each new Apple announcement.

The reason it’s difficult is that “evidence,” which would normally be the best tool for predicting things, doesn’t work in Apple’s case.

The best criteria are strategic and cultural analyses. But even these are not perfectly reliable.

If you’ve struggled to accurately guess in the past what Apple will announce, don’t feel bad. Even Apple executives themselves don’t know until often very late in the game.

Here’s why predicting Apple products is so hard.

For the last few years, each Worldwide Developer’s Conference has sold out in successively less and less time. Three years ago, WWDC sold out in a month. Two years ago, it sold out in a week. Last year, it took twelve hours.

Everyone knew WWDC 2012 would sell out even faster than last year’s when it was eventually announced, but it’s obvious even Apple didn’t anticipate how fast that would be: less than two hours to sell out 5,000 tickets.

The problem? Cupertino-based Apple announced WWDC ticket sales before its own time zone even rolled out of bed and brushed its teeth. The result is that West Coast based app devs — the kind who can just climb in their cars and drive to the Moscone Center — have been totally boned, and tickets to WWDC were gone before they even knew they were available for sale.

Like a lot of people, I greeted the news that Apple was on the verge of scheduling a press conference for the inevitable third-gen model by scouring the web to discover who would pay me the most for my gently used first-generation iPad.

After poking around a bit, I selected NextWorth, which had a good reputation on various sites (including ours) and was offering $170 for my WiFi 16GB iPad, a solid $30 higher than anyone else. I printed the prepaid UPS label and shipped it off, waiting for the deposit to my PayPal account on the other side.

So imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail two weeks later offering just $70 — effectively the value of the battery and internal electronics alone. Needless to say, I was pissed off. As it turns out, I had good reason to be. Quite ironically, I was getting shorted on my iPad because of a software glitch. As were many others like me.

Last week, I published an opinion piece proposing that Apple open a corporate museum. It was also published on Forbes.com. The story started trending by Sunday evening. Then somewhat amusingly, it got buried first thing Monday morning by the wall-to-wall coverage of Ashton Kutcher, who’s to play Steve Jobs in an upcoming indie film. To be honest, I really wasn’t all that amused.

When we broke the story on Friday about Girls Around Me — an iOS app by Russian-based app developer i-Free that allowed users to stalk women in thee neighborhood without those women’s knowledge, right down to their most personal details — Foursquare was quick to respond within hours, cutting off the API access that the app relied upon to function.

Foursquare’s swift response to the issue effectively killed Girls Around Me, and i-Free quickly yanked the app from the App Store in the aftermath until they could figure out a way to restore service. And for a lot of people, the story ended there. The app’s gone. Why keep talking about it?

That’s exactly the way Foursquare (and Facebook) wants things.

I live on the east coast, but I have been to Silicon Valley twice; visiting Apple’s mothership was a must-do for me.

Perhaps you feel the same way. It’s exciting for us fans, though all you can really do is park, take pictures out in front of the main 1 Infinite Loop building, and the Apple sign near the street, then visit The Company Store. It’s a special treat as they don’t sell Apple devices, they sell logoed items not found anywhere else. I don’t know if I would go so far as to call my visit a pilgrimage, but it was a top priority for me, if I was going to be anywhere near Silicon Valley.

Before Apple unveiled the new iPad on Wednesday, no one was quite positive what Apple would announce. It seemed pretty sure that the iPad 3 (as it was being called then) would have a Retina Display, but would it have an A5X processor or an A6 processor? 3G or LTE? 512MB of RAM or 1GB of RAM. Would it be thinner or thicker? And what would it be called: the iPad 3 or iPad HD? (Everyone got the name wrong: it’s just called the “new iPad” now.)

One thing few people had any doubt about was that Siri would be making her way to iPad this year… which is why Siri’s absence on the new iPad counted as probably the biggest disappointment of the entire event.

Why would Apple leave Siri out of the new iPad?

Another Apple announcement, another de-emphasis on the Mac brand. It seems that every time Apple opens its corporate pie-hole, the venerable Macintosh brand drops down a notch in importance, and the Mac’s future demise seems more likely.

I was on a recent episode of Leo Laporte’s MacBreak Weekly, and after an hour and 45 minutes on a show with “Mac” in the name, the M-word was scarcely mentioned.

No, the Mac brand isn’t going away soon. I’m sure they’ll be upgraded and improved and sold for years to come. And they’re not failing in the market.

But it’s clear that the Mac will die. Sort of. Here’s what I’m talking about. 

Laaaaaaaaaaadies and Gentlemen, welcome to Friday Night Fights, a new series of weekly deathmatches between two no-mercy brawlers who will fight to the death — or at least agree to disagree — about which is better: Apple or Google, iOS or Android?

After this week’s topic, someone’s going to be spitting teeth. Our question: What’s the better music-in-the-cloud service? Google Music or iTunes Match?

In one corner, we have the 900 pound gorilla, Cult of Mac; in the opposite corner, wearing the green trunks, we have the plucky upstart, Cult of Android!

Place your bets, gentlemen! This is going be a bloody one.

Apple has included a more subtle, yet very important, change in OS X Mountain Lion that points to the company’s focus moving forward. If you open the “About This Mac” window in the Mountain Lion developer preview, you’ll notice that “Mac” has been dropped for a simpler “OS X.” The prefix has also been dropped from promotional materials on Apple.com and the Mac App Store.

Why the change to just “OS X Mountain Lion?” Apple is continuing to blur the line between hardware and software. It’s about the unification of iOS and the desktop experience.

Laaaaaaaaaaadies and Gentlemen, welcome to Friday Night Fights, a new series of weekly deathmatches between two no-mercy brawlers who will fight to the death — or at least agree to disagree — about which is better: Apple or Google, iOS or Android?

After this week’s topic, someone’s going to be spitting teeth. Our question: What’s Better For App Stores, Walled Garden Or Open? Apple vets every app released on the iOS and Mac App Stores, but Google lets anything in, removing apps only if they violate their terms. Which is better for developers and consumers?

In one corner, we have the 900 pound gorilla, Cult of Mac; in the opposite corner, wearing the green trunks, we have the plucky upstart, Cult of Android!

Place your bets, gentlemen! This is going be a bloody one.

Laaaaaaaaaaadies and Gentlemen, welcome to Friday Night Fights, a new series of weekly deathmatches between two no-mercy brawlers who will fight to the death — or at least agree to disagree — about which is better: Apple or Google, iOS or Android?

After this week’s topic, someone’s going to be spitting teeth. Our question: Is Siri Really A Revolutionary Feature? Android’s had voice actions and voice recognition for years, so what does Siri really bring to the table that’s new? Is it all just hype?

In one corner, we have the 900 pound gorilla, Cult of Mac; in the opposite corner, wearing the green trunks, we have the plucky upstart, Cult of Android!

Place your bets, gentlemen! This is going be a bloody one.

Laaaaaaaaaaadies and Gentlemen, welcome to Friday Night Fights, a new series of weekly deathmatches between two no-mercy brawlers who will fight to the death — or at least agree to disagree — about which is better: Apple or Google, iOS or Android?

After this week’s topic, someone’s going to be spitting teeth. Our question: Should The iPhone Allow You To Easily Swap In And Out Batteries? A lot of Android phones let you swap in and out batteries if you’re low on power, but Apple’s never done so. Is this just another example of Apple hardware oppression, or do they have a good reason?

In one corner, we have the 900 pound gorilla, Cult of Mac; in the opposite corner, wearing the green trunks, we have the plucky upstart, Cult of Android!

Place your bets, gentlemen! This is going be a bloody one.

Laaaaaaaaaaadies and Gentlemen, welcome to Friday Night Fights, a new series of weekly deathmatches between two no-mercy brawlers who will fight to the death — or at least agree to disagree — about which is better: Apple or Google, iOS or Android?

After this week’s topic, someone’s going to be spitting teeth. Our question: Which is better? Android’s three virtual buttons or iOS’s physical home button?

In one corner, we have the 900 pound gorilla, Cult of Mac; in the opposite corner, wearing the green trunks, we have the plucky upstart, Cult of Android!

Place your bets, gentlemen! This is going be a bloody one.

There’s been a lot of fuss overnight about what exactly Apple is claiming ownership of in the Terms and Conditions associated with its new iBooks Author application for Mac. The fuss is understandable, because the wording of the license agreement gets a little bit muddy.