Opinions - page 14

What do Dr. Seuss, William Faulkner, J.K. Rowling, George Orwell, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Stephen King have in common? All six were repeatedly rejected when trying to publish their first famous novel. With the announcement of iBooks 2 and iBooks Author, Apple isn’t just giving the education system a much needed boost: they’re attempting to resurrect the dying art of the written word by taking absolute power out of the hands of publishers and putting it in the hands of aspiring writers. We’re on the cusp of a renaissance.

I’m with Shawn Blanc. I miss “Save As” too.

The guys over at Macminicolo just celebrated their seventh birthday (Happy Birthday!), and took a look at some numbers. During those years, the humble Mac mini’s benchmarks have increased by some 1429%.

We’re only about two or three months away from the iPad 3 dropping and blowing our socks off. Right now, we can tell you a lot about what the iPad 3 will probably be like. It’ll feature Apple’s new, quad-core A6 CPU. It’ll feature a 2048 x 1536 resolution Retina Display. It may — but probably won’t — be the first iOS device to ship with LTE support.

But what about Siri, Apple’s amazing new voice control technology prominently featured in the iPhone 4S? Surely, that’s a lock for all future Apple devices starting with the iPad 3, right?

Well, hold on. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.

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?

This week’s topic is one personal to both iOS and Android fans alike: is Samsung really copying Apple’s designs for its Galaxy series of Android smartphones and tablets? Samsung and Apple are brawling it out on pretty much every continent on Earth trying to get to the bottom of this issue, so it’s only fitting that we try to settle this one in the ring too.

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.

In September of 2010, I wrote a column in this space deflating the idea that Apple would ever make and sell a wristwatch.

I still think my reasoning was sound. But I didn’t know then what I know now. Specifically, two Apple technologies have become central to Apple’s long-term strategy. These two products — Siri and iCloud — change everything.

And because of this new information, plus a few new things we’ve learned about Apple in the past year, I’m completely reversing my opinion. I now believe the current rumors that Apple is getting into the wristwatch business.

I even think we can accurately imagine what Apple is likely to do in the wristwatch department.

 A decade ago Apple introduced the iPod, and with it a new method for controlling music playback: a scroll wheel with buttons around the perimeter. The interface was novel for a portable music player, which usually used more traditional buttons in a linear or grid layout.

The scroll wheel was the brainchild of Phil Schiller, Apple’s Director of Marketing. He realized that users would have to navigate large lists of songs, and that a wheel offered an intuitive, dynamic solution.

We’ve seen the first rash of iPhone 4 reviews coming in, and they all agree on one thing: Siri is very impressive.

It works because it does several things all at once. It understands what you’re saying, irrespective of your accent, and without a lot of initial training. And it understands what you mean, because it has the built-in smarts to know that if you say “Tell my wife I’m running late,” you mean “Send a text message to this particular contact with text that says I’m running late.”

But this is just the start for Siri (which Apple’s acknowledged by calling it a beta). The iPhone 4S is the first Apple device that supports it – it certainly won’t be the last. Where might Siri go next?

That picture pretty much says it all. During the “Let’s Talk iPhone” event on Tuesday, I kept noticing that seat. “Reserved.” It was weird that the camera kept panning to that shot of the front row in Town Hall.

The room was packed tight with journalists, but there was that one seat left empty in the front row next to all of the other Apple executives. Steve’s seat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rwsuXHA7RA

Before I get any further, I readily admit that what follows is going to be indulgent. I can’t call it self-indulgent, because my hope is that it will be far more about my hero Steve Jobs and the millions upon millions he inspired than it is about me. Consider this one Machead’s experience, nothing more. And though I knew this day couldn’t be too far into the future, I also never expected I would be forced to reflect on his life, past tense, so soon. This has been a difficult hour. My thoughts and prayers are with his family and those who had the privilege to know him well.

Don’t be fooled by the fact that the iPhone 4S looks identical to the iPhone 4. Deciding which iPhone to buy this year is more complicated than it ever has been, and there’s a lot more variable to consider now than there ever have been in the past.

Should you buy an iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 or iPhone 3GS? Should you get one in white or black? Should you get one with 8GB, 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of storage? Should you sign up with AT&T, Verizon or Sprint?

Those are big questions, and the answers will vary from person to person. Still, Cult of Mac has given this a lot of thought, and for most people, we recommend buying the 16GB Sprint iPhone 4S in White.

Below you’ll find our logic, but if you disagree, pipe up in the comments and explain why. We’re going to take the reader consensus and turn it into another post. We can’t wait to hear which iPhone the hive mind will choose.

As far too many people have pointed out already, Apple’s event this morning was a bit of a disappointment — as a spectacle. 16 months is a long time to wait for an incremental hardware improvement, which the iPhone 4S unquestionably is. But there was one announcement amid all the recap of iOS 5 and iCloud features that should have been tremendously exciting to anyone who cares about the future of interactions: Siri, the voice-activated assistant exclusive to the iPhone 4S.

As always happens when Apple rolls out a major technology (in this case, e-concierge services), critics are happy to point out that Cupertino is late to the party (can you believe that it took them 5+ years to respond to the Treo?!). Specifically, they’re calling Siri a catch-up effort to match Google Voice Actions technology that’s been available on Android for well over a year. Having used Voice Actions for awhile now, I can confirm that this is half-true. On a feature-by-feature basis, Siri looks me-too. But from an experience standpoint, it’s totally different. As usual, Google’s implementation is process-oriented. Apple’s, unsurprisingly, is human and friendly. And this is why Siri has the potential to be revolutionary.

I wish I never sold my original iPhone. Being seen around town using an iPhone with a brushed aluminum back would make others jealous of my uniqueness. The iPhone 4? Dude, that was so 2010. My original iPhone can’t even create folders or multitask, but no one else has one so it makes me like fifty times more awesome than anyone using an iPhone 3GS.

You’re probably snickering at this ridiculous idea that a unique design completely trumps functionality. I don’t blame you. However, a lot of Apple fans are falling into the trap of this same ideology that claims the looks of the new iPhone are more important than the functionality it will bring with it. Many claim that if Apple “only” releases an iPhone 4S it will be a huge disappointment to fans. “We’ve waited 16 months for a new iPhone and all they’re giving us is a minor spec bump? This is crap!”

What some Apple fanboys don’t understand is the iPhone 4S isn’t “just a spec bump.” The new iPhone, regardless of its physical appearance, will be a significant improvement to the greatest phone ever made.

Of course no one wants to be stuck with an ugly phone that looks five years behind the curve, but before rising up in revolt against the iPhone 4S, let’s consider the current state of technology and where the iPhone 4 currently ranks.

This morning, a report surfaced that the next iPhone would come with 64GB of storage for the first time ever. It’s looking pretty solid.

At the same time, rumors have been bubbling up for the last couple weeks that Apple would soon be discontinuing the venerable iPod Classic… and today’s move to axe the iPod Clickwheel Games section of the iTunes Store certainly seems to confirm as much.

That’s a bummer. Okay, sure, iTunes Match and iCloud take some of the hurt out… but what if you want to carry your whole music collection around with you without having to sign up for a data plan? For customers like that, the death of the only 120+ gigabyte iPod is a bitter pill to swallow.

Don’t worry. A new 128GB iPod touch is almost definitely coming.

On Twitter, one of Cult of Mac’s readers said calling the Kindle Fire competition to the iPad 2 was like calling a Kia competition to a Porsche.

It’s an interesting analogy. True, the Kindle Fire’s hardware is inferior to the iPad 2’s in almost every way. It boasts an 800MHz dual-core processor to the iPad 2’s 1.2GHz A5 dual-core powerhouse. The screen is smaller than the iPad 2’s, though it has better pixel density. It only has 8GB of storage, it has no 3G, no GPS, no camera. It only registers two points of multitouch to the iPad 2’s eleven, for god’s sake. So the analogy seems to fit, right?

Not so fast. Sure, Apple’s hardware is great, but Apple has proven that hardware is only as good as its software. That’s why Apple’s products are so magical: they are a seamless amalgam of excellence in software and hardware design, intertwined.

It’s a philosophy towards design that Apple’s competitors have just never understood. And that’s why the Kindle Fire is going to be huge, the iPad’s first real competitor. The Kindle Fire is going to be a Kia that drives like a Porsche, and when Apple counters it — and I think they will — it’ll be going head-to-head with an iPad mini.

Wow. Kindle Fire is going to be huge.

Amazon, like Apple, has lots of pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, and has pulled them all together in the Fire.

AllThingsD says that Apple will announced the next iPhone on October 4th, next Thursday, at a small venue at its own Cupertino HQ. Since All Things D’s “source” is almost definitely Apple itself, that date and venue seems pretty solid.

It’s about the only report about the next iPhone that feels solid. What else do we know for sure about the next iPhone? Pretty much bupkis for sure. Apple has gone to unprecedented and incredible lengths to keep the exact details of the next iPhone secret. It’s the first time Apple journalists have truly felt left in the dark for a long time.

Hands up if you love iCal in Lion.

Anybody? Any hands up there at the back? No? Oh.

Michael Hart, founder of free ebooks repository Project Gutenberg, died this week. He was 64.

Over the past few months, not a day has gone by that our Twitter feed hasn’t been been bombarded by a consistent string of questions that millions of hungry Apple fans are just clamoring to have answered:

When will Apple announced the iPhone 5?

When will I be able to preorder the iPhone 5?

When is the iPhone 5 coming out?

We think we know. Here’s the complete release timeline of the iPhone 5 we think you can expect, starting from which day we think Apple will send out invitations and continuing to the iPhone 5’s October 7th release date.

There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that Apple intends to replace the whole cable TV industry with Internet-delivered subscription television. But the best predictor is the fact that replacing broken content consumption is just what Apple does.

Apple will kill cable TV. Here’s how.

Go here to read the story.

Oftentimes the most useful clues about the future come from the past. Few questions are as important to ask as, What happened last time?

When attempting to decipher the changes that Steve Jobs’ transition away from leading Apple will bring, it’s essential to examine a surprisingly analogous case: Pixar.

When I heard about Steve Jobs’ resignation as Apple’s CEO on Wednesday afternoon I mentioned casually to a friend my assessment that “he’s probably the most influential human being of the past one hundred years.”

My friend laughed and said, “no way, you really think so?”

Samsung’s in trouble. The Korean electronics giant is being sued by Apple in just about every market for copying Apple’s iOS, iPhone and iPad designs… and Apple’s winning. Worse, Samsung’s biggest mobile partner, Google, just bought out one of their main smartphone competitors, Motorola, for $12.5 billion. Now that Google has an Android hardware team in-house, how much longer will third-party smartphone makers like Samsung be given equal access to the Android operating system?

It’s a tight spot, and Samsung knows it’s in trouble. Samsung boss Lee Kun-Hee reacted to the news of Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobiity by telling top managers on Monday to “boost software prowess, patent pools and talent,” as well as seek out opportunities for mergers and acquisitions. Samsung — probably correctly — thinks this will be a quicker way to boost the prowess of their own in-house mobile OS, Bada.

Well, bada bing, bada boom, because a huge acquisition opportunity may have just presented itself. After a single round, HP just threw in the towel on webOS, a mobile operating system they purchased along with Palm back in 2010 for $1.2 billion.

We’re just spitballing here, but maybe Samsung should buy webOS and the Palm business out from under HP? Here’s why it could be a good move.

This morning, Google made a bold move and purchased Motorola’s mobile business for $12.5 billion. In doing so, Google brought the hardware design and manufacturing of Android devices in-house, just as Apple has always done with its products, starting with the original Macintosh and continuing all the way to the iPhones and iPads of today.

This is nothing short of a capitulation. By purchasing a smartphone maker, Google has all but admitted that it needs more than just a free operating system and loads of partners to compete with Apple: they need to duplicate Apple’s successes by totally controlling both the hardware and software of their devices.