CNET has a great article up that details the secrets of Apple’s customer service. Erica Ogg highlights the recent findings of the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index, a sort of Michelin guide for customer service and appreciation. Apple not only earned its highest score to date in this survey, it established a monster lead over other PC makers.
The real story is how much further ahead of its peers Apple is in this [survey]. The Mac maker’s nine-point lead is now the largest lead any company has over its competition in any of the 45 categories that the ACSI study surveys–including home appliances, gas stations, autos, e-commerce, airlines, and more.
The real secret to Apple’s success is that there are no secrets.
3D is all the rage this year — seems like every electronics outfit in existence had a new 3D TV on display at this year’s CES — and now practically anyone can shoot their own 3D photos (to display on the aforementioned 3D TVs).
The $250 stereo-imaging H-FT012 lens is part of Panasonic’s micro four-thirds lineup, and is meant for bodies like Panasonic’s $900 (for the body only) LUMIX DMC-GH2, a touch-screen hybrid (still + video) camera that shoots full HD at 60 fps, also released today. Note to James Cameron wannabes, though: The H-FT012 doesn’t do video.
Focal length is fixed at a narrowish-but-useable 65mm, and at F12, the lens is daylight-use only; still, this is probably the most practical 3D-image kit currently out on the market.
In general, US consumers are happier than they’ve ever been with their computers. The ASCI score for personal computers totaled 78 out of 100 for the last year — higher than it has ever been since the 1994 baseline score.
Apple owners, however, are especially satisfied. The Cupertino company scored highest for the seventh year in a row, earning 86 out of a total 100 points. That score is two points over last year’s survey and Apple’s highest score to date.
“The company now has a 9-point lead over its nearest competitor. No other company in the ACSI has as formidable a lead within its own industry,” comments Professor Claes Fornell, a professor at the university and head of the ACSI. “Innovation and product diversification, along with strong customer service, have long been at the center of Apple’s success.”
Apple wasn’t always leading the pack: scores from the early 2000s show Apple lagging behind Acer and Dell. In 2004, the year the iMac G5 launched, saw an uptick in consumer ratings.
Despite a few snafus — real or imagined — with the launch of the iPhone 4 and the arrival of the iPad, Fornell doesn’t predict that either will have any impact on Apple’s bottom line.
“At the same time, sales of Mac computers set an all-time quarterly high, which suggests that the popularity of the iPad has not impacted Apple’s desktop computer business. The company’s net income rose 78% in the second quarter and stock price, despite recent volatility, was up about 50% compared with one year ago.”
The puppet version of Walt Mossberg shows you how to make an iPad stylus from a pen, scissors, tape and the wrapper from a protein bar in this video resulting in the stylus pictured above.
Not a bad idea — if you’re tired of cleaning up sticky finger marks from your magical device. Skip the corny jokes and head to about 1:42 for the details on how to make the stylus.
Not a puppet person? You can probably figure it out with the sound off, too.
We start off with a version of a word game for Pirates: “Words with Pirates,” just one of the free iPhone apps listed today. Next up is a 2.4 GHz MacBook for $850. (There are also several MacBook Pros in this issue.) We wrap up the day’s highlighted deals with a silver stylus pen for the iPad.
Along the way, we’ll also check out a clip-on stand for the iPad, a deal on an 8GB (and 16GB) iPhone, as well as a refurbished AirPort Extreme 802.11n router for just $80. As always, details on these and many other items can be found on CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.
Massively multiplayer online games, or MMOs, pander to the obsessive. There’s always another dungeon to explore, another raid to launch, another auction to cash out. Unfortunately, it’s that very addictive quality of MMOs doesn’t mesh well with a mobile, connected lifestyle… given that so much of an MMO’s gameplay is unsuitable for mobile devices, how do you let obsessive players feel connected with their in-game avatars from their iPhone or iPad?
The upcoming MMO Guild Wars 2 by ArenaNet has an answer for that… and it’s an app. Their application will let players stay connected to in-game chat even when on the road, while also allowing them to help out their fellow Guild Wars 2 buddies by guiding them towards quest destinations, cities and towns.
It seems like a great step to connecting MMOs to devices that aren’t quite powerful enough to run them… yet. Of course, an approach like this is probably going to be irrelevant in a few years, when someone finally makes a mobile MMO that challenges World of Warcraft’s numbers. Until then, ArenaNet’s approach to bringing the iPhone into the MMO experience is refreshingly useful.
iOS 4’s introduction of app folders is a welcome addition to the operating system in that it’s a fantastic tool to use to wrangle a large app library, but it only takes a few minutes of playing around with the functionality to discover its sad limitations… which in my case rests mostly with the folder systems’ inability to support multiple pages in folders, or folders nested matrioshka-like inside one another.
That’s why I’m so excited about FolderEnhancer, a Cydia tweak for jailbroken iOS 4.1 devices that adds a host of new tweaks to the default foldering system, including sub-folder hierarchies, pages and moving multiple icons at a time.
Sure, this isn’t for everyone, but I’m envisioning a happy future in which my multiple overflowing games folders are united and subdivided into meticulously delineated genres. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed for free: all of the best Cydia tweaks lately have had price tags attached.
Is your MacBook’s 250GB hard drive just not cutting it? SeaGate has just unveiled their newly updated FreeAgent GoFlex external hard drive, boasting two huge features that make it easy to recommend to on-the-go Mac owners with large media libraries, or those looking for a beefy and portable Time Machine repository.
First of all, there’s the size: the new FreeAgent GoFlex is the world first 1.5TB portable drive. Better, it’s entirely bus-powered, which means no power cable or dual-USB cable.
Even better, though, is that Seagate’s new drive comes standard with the company’s USB 3.0 adapter… a standard which no Macs support now, but definitely will sooner rather than later. In the meantime, the GoFlex is backwards compatible with both USB 2.0 and — if you snap on an adapter — even FireWire.
The SeaGate FreeAgent GoFlex comes formatted for Windows’ NTFS file system by default, but you can either reformat it with Disk Utility or avail yourself of the included NTFS driver for Mac. The price is quite reasonable too: it’s available now for just $229.99, which is $20 less than the MSRP.
Starting in November when iOS 4.2 drops, we’ll finally be able to print directly from the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad through AirPrint. At the beginning, AirPrint will mostly only work with printers shared on your network, but eventually, AirPrint-certified printers will appear that can sense nearby iOS devices out-of-the-book.
In the meantime, though, we’re going to have to settle for some printers kludging iOS printing… namely by assigning each printer an e-mail address to which documents can be sent for printing through your iPhone or iPad’s built-in Mail.app.
HP’s just announced three such printers: the HP Envy e-All-In-One, which will cost $249 and do the whole smorgasbord of home printing duties including printing, copying and scanning; the HP OfficeJet Pro 8500A Plus, an all-in-one office inkjet with wireless connectivity; and the HP PhotoSmart eStation, which costs $499 and is capable of printing photos of up to 9600×2400 dpi, and comes with an optional (blargh) Android tablet.
They’re all attractive printers, and they are all technically “AirPrint-compatible” in that when AirPrint rolls down the software update pipeline, they’ll at least be shareable from your Mac. If you want a truly AirPrint compatible printer, though, best wait for a spell longer.
While this Etch-A-Sketch case for the iPad brings back all sorts of fuzzy memories of early-80s morning spent meticulously squiggling drawings of Optimus Prime in sharp ninety degree angles on the first tablet I ever owned, I can’t help but be disappointed by the vestigial nature of the knobs.
Surely if you’re going to go to all the trouble of licensing the coveted Etch-A-Sketch brand, you should go the whole hog, hook the knobs up to the dock connector and use them to interface with an official Etch-A-Sketch app. I’d easily spend twice as much as this case’s $40 asking price for that functionality, especially if I could finally save my aluminum powder masterpieces for future generations to admire.
It’s still a fitting fusion of brands, though. I’m hard pressed to identify the most magical tablet I ever owned, my iPad or my first Etch-A-Sketch… and come to think of it, they have more than that in common, since my delinquent (and now drunken) brother recently proved that just as he did with my Etch-A-Sketch so many years ago, he also enjoys bursting into the room when I’m playing with my iPad, ripping it from my hands and insanely shaking it above his head as he fills the air with his cruel, taunting laughter. Ah, memories.
There are currently hundreds of cases available for the iPad, in all sorts of shapes, colors, and sizes, but is the official Etch A Sketch case from Headcase not the coolest you’ve ever seen?
Based on the world’s favorite drawing toy from Ohio Art, the Etch A Sketch iPad case is made from impact resistant plastic that will help shield accidental drops, and features a felt backing to protect your device from scratches while it’s inside. It also boasts rubber feet, a retractable kickstand, and strategically placed windows that allow access to all of the iPad’s buttons and ports, including the ambient light sensor.
It’s impressively realistic, right down to the gold paint on the Etch A Sketch writing, and it should be for an officially licensed product. Although incredibly cool, it will set you back a nice $39 – slightly more than a real Etch A Sketch.
The Apple iPad appears to be spearheading an expected 296 percent jump in flash memory for 2011. Once known for producing iPods and iPhones with insatiable appetites for memory, the iPad (along with its rivals) tablet device means 1.7 billion Gigabytes of flash memory will ship next year – up from 428GB used this year, according to iSuppli.
The hardware analysts expect 8.8 billion GB of flash memory will ship by 2014. “Tablets have stolen some cache from netbooks,” declares senior memory and storage analyst Michael Yang. Part of the reason for the iPad’s popularity is its use of NAND flash storage, rather than traditional hard disk drives.
The role of iPods and earbuds as inner-cochleal deafening devices has been debated for years, with recent studies suggesting very strongly that hearing loss in children and teenagers is much higher than it should be thanks to the likes of Apple’s portable media player.
It might not be quite time to strike a new iPod off of your child’s Christmas list, though: a new study suggests that the prevalence of young people suffering from hearing loss thanks to loud music may be much lower than it has seemed.
According to a report done by the University of Minnesota’s Department of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences, the conventional hearing tests are producing false positives for hearing loss at a rate of about ten percent.
That’s not enough, obviously, to throw caution to the wind. Cramming ear buds down your aural holes, putting on some Iron Maiden and then wildly spinning your iPod’s volume wheel until brains start dripping from your tear ducts is still going to have some consequences.
That said, it seems that the threat iPods pose to the hearing of our nation’s youth is about the same as it ever was: as long as you listen to your iPod at a lower, more responsible volume, you’re fine
If you’ve ever wondered what killed off AT&T’s unlimited bandwidth plans, look no further than the App Store.
The study was performed by Finnish analytics company Zokem, which analyzed the mobile web usage of over 10,000 smartphone users across 6.5 million sessions in sixteen countries over the past year.
What Zokem found was that while a smartphone’s mobile browser — Safari, in the case of the iPhone — is still the biggest bandwidth hog on most smartphones, apps are now taking up 50% of mobile data volume. Predictably, the most popular apps across all smartphones are Facebook and Twitter.
Keep in mind that this study was not aimed at any particular platform, so iPhone users were lumped in with Android, Palm and Windows Mobile customers as well. Given how well-developed the iPhone’s App Store is compared to its competitors equivalent marketplaces, though, I wouldn’t be surprised if iOS device users use up an even larger percentage of mobile data through apps. At the end of the day, though, the disparity between app and browser usage is only going to get more profound as more media — and perhaps iTunes itself — enters the cloud.
More than 60 percent of current iPhone owners will remain with AT&T even when Verizon begins selling the Apple smartphone, according to a new survey. The findings contradict early fears about how the exclusive iPhone carrier could be hurt if Apple expands participating U.S. partners.
The survey by Credit Suisse found 63 percent of iPhone owners would remain with AT&T and just 23 percent (or 1.4 million) of 18 million iPhone users would jump to Verizon. Previous reports suggested AT&T could lose up to 40 percent of iPhone owners should Verizon get the nod. Verizon could begin selling a CDMA iPhone as early as January, 2011, some analysts believe. (Credit Suisse is betting on February 15,2011 for Apple to announce a Verizon iPhone. The analysis firm previously said there was a 75 percent chance AT&T would remain the exclusive iPhone provider through 2010.)
Knox Bronson – I’ve been thinking about my yesterdays
Maia Panos – Against The Wall
Marty Yawnick – Light And Fog
Robert-Paul Jansen – Sunlight Streaming On A Foggy Field
iPhontography is a revolutionary new art form of images inspired by, shot with, and edited on the iPhone. A series of exhibits, the result of a presentation made in August at the Artistic Photographers of America meeting in San Francisco, will bring together artists and their work at some of Apple’s larger retail stores around the country and the world starting later this month.
The work is curated from art submitted to Pixels at an Exhibition, a website created to showcase images submitted by iPhone users from across the globe. Show curator Knox Bronson and other iPhone artists will attend each exhibit and present information about the Pixels project and talk about techniques and apps used to create the images on display.
The exhibits begin September 27 at the flagship Apple retail store in downtown San Francisco at One Stockton Street, with a reception from 6:00 – 8:00pm.
Additional exhibits are thus far scheduled for Chicago on October 21, and at the New York City Soho Apple store on October 29 – in conjunction with the PhotoPlus International Photography Expo and Conference. Plans for shows in Los Angeles and London are also said to be in the works.
The blog AutoSpies.com captured pictures at the Paris Motor Show of BMW’s new replacement for the old-and-busted rear-seat DVD screens: Apple iPad cradles that rotate, and support both portrait and landscape orientations. No, this isn’t just some concept. It’s the new hotness.
The cradle debuted on the new BMW X3, but will be available for all other model series starting in the Spring.
Popular open-source media player VLC is now available for iPad, thanks to developer Applidium.
Offered gratis, VLC faces some competition from other universal media-playing apps already available for the iPad including paid apps OPlayer ($2.99) and CineXPlayer ($3.99).
VLC has long been my go-to app for video viewing (can’t remember the last time I even bothered to update Quicktime), nice to know it’s available now for the iPad, too.
Atelier Lole in Montreal with the iPad community station and social media wall.
Women’s activewear retailer Lole launched a new store design concept with 15 iPads they hope will connect customers and make the store more sticky.
The new concept store called Atelier Lole opened doors recently in one of Montreal’s main shopping drags, St. Denis Street. One of the main portions of the store is set aside for community, with tree stump stools and iPads on a low workbench opposite a wall featuring customer’s travelogue pics.
Described as kind of a “living Facebook,” through an app developed especially for the stores users can also “flip” through photos directly on the iPads located along the Atelier’s social wall.
Perhaps more than any App Store publisher, Gameloft is just the master of the quickly dashed off tie-in game: a huge chunk of their 123 game strong iTunes library are entries into popular gaming franchises like Splinter Cell, Rayman or Prince of Persia.
What’s awesome about Gameloft, though, is what happens when they can’t get the rights to a gaming franchise. For example, when Gameloft couldn’t get the rights to the Resident Evil series, they just released Zombie Infection, which looked and played exactly like Resident Evil 5. Their title Gangstar: West Coast Hustle is a similar knock-off on the Grand Theft Auto series.
The trailer for their latest game, Dungeon Hunter 2, is obviously one of their latter genre of game knock-offs… this time of Blizzard’s Diablo series. That said, the first Dungeon Hunter is still one of the most competent hack-and-slash RPGs on the iOS platform, and now that Dungeon Hunter 2 is adding co-operative multiplayer into the mix… this is one of my most anticipated iOS games no matter how stupid “Gothicus: land of fear, land of destiny!” sounds when you actually think about it.
We start off another week with two hardware deals and one free application for your iPhone or iPod touch. First up is the Superleggera case for your iPhone. The Acase unit includes two screen protectors for $8. Next is Flip/Bubble, a messaging app from the iTunes App Store. Finally, there is a deal on Sony’s Speaker Dock and Clock Radio for the iPhone or iPod for $80. The unit comes with a 7-inch LCD screen, 16GB of memory and an iPod dock.
Along the way, we’ll also check out other gadgets for the iPhone, iPod and Mac. As always, details on these and many more items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page after the jump.
Samsung’s just pushed live their latest advertisement for the first of the prestige-band iPad competitors, the Samsung Galaxy Tab… and while you certainly shouldn’t expect device agnosticism from someone who has “Cult of Mac” written on his paychecks, I’ve got to say, I think they did a pretty good job enumerating the Tab’s relative advantages over the iPad.
In about two minutes, the commercial quickly and compelling puts ticks next to the boxes of all the iPad’s more niggling omissions — web cam and expandable storage being the most obvious — and even a few that no one really cared about, like the fact that you can’t also use the iPad as a big stupid looking phone, which you can with the Galaxy Tab.
Apple has reportedly acquired all shares of the Swedish face-recognition firm Polar Rose. The company develops three software applications able to recognize faces in images.
The Cupertino, Calif. based company appears to be interested in two Polar Rose applications, Face Cloud and FaceLib, according to a Norwegian Mac site Mac 1. Speculation is that the software could be rolled into web apps, such as MobileMe. Apple already offers face recogntion in iPhoto.
Whether Infinite Lives’ forthcoming Contra-inspired shooter Moral Decay gets pushed live on the App Store has a lot to do with how Apple’s reviewers decided to view the game’s central protagonist…. a bearded man in sandals and Messianic robes who can fly on a rainbow, shouts “Oh my father!” when he’s shot and spends most of the game using an AK-47 to transmutate a constabulary of sinners as multivariate as sumo wrestlers, extraterrestrials and Satan into big, spattering chunks of gelatinous gore.
Here’s the question: will Apple’s reviewers subscribe to Infinite Lives‘ pretense that their protagonist is, in fact, an unassuming dude by the name of Christ T? Or will they decide that Chris bears an uncanny resemblance to Jesus Christ of Nazareth and should therefore be censored based upon the sheer principle of the thing?
My guess is the latter, in which case I hope Infinite Lives quickly gets a Cydia release: as long as you like your gaming violent, full of chiptunes and almost panoffensive in its 8-bit religious sensibilities, this looks like a hella fun game.
Like all iPods before it, the new sixth-generation iPod nano comes with a handy diagnostic mode to allow Apple’s constabulary of technicians to dig into the underlying wetware of the device before the flouncy frills of the operating system have been slathered on top.
Unlike past iPods nanos, though, the new nano doesn’t have a clickwheel, which makes accessing its hidden iTerm Diagnostic Mode slightly different than before.
If you want to access the nano 6G’s diagnostic mode, here’s how you do it:
1. Reset your nano by holding down the sleep and volume down buttons until the Apple logo appears.
2. When you see the Apple logo, hold down all three buttons until “iTerm: iPod Display Console” flashes on screen.
3. (Other) You can reset your nano into Disk Mode by simply holding down the volume buttons when you see the Apple logo.
My favorite takeaway from the new nano’s diagnostic mode? The fact that the sixth-generation iPod nano is apparently codenamed “Snowfox” internally. That’s just adorable.
