Task: post Merlin photo

Context: late night at home computer
Project: blog



More on Merlin.

The AGONY transfers

The agony persists

Something to beat off to

The agony

No add calendar event feature on the iPod touch doesn't seem so bad...

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=3611647

Apple is letting me down

A few reasons why I'm troubled by Apple of late:

• They miscalculated the iPhone's pricing strategy. While I think the drop to $399 was a great idea and the right thing to do, it clearly wasn't part of their master plan from the start. It's good to see a company that can make major adjustments to its strategy in mid-stream, but it's also troubling to see how significantly Apple miffed the pricing strategy of its biggest product for 2007 and its biggest strategic product in probably a decade or more.
• This price cut undermines future Apple product introductions in the way that America's intelligence failures with regard to Iraq undermine our assertions about other countries' threats. From now on, "give 'em a few months and they'll knock a few hundred bucks off the price" will be a common refrain held by people upon new Apple product launches, just like eye-rolling is common upon US assertions of, say, Iran's nuclear weapons capabilities.
• Apple's ringtone policy is anti-consumer in a pretty serious way, unlike anything else they've done with DRM to date. Jon Gruber nails this on Daring Fireball and this episode of The Talk Show podcast. Nails it.
• The new interface on the new iPod nano and iPod classic is being reviewed as sluggish and too sweet for its own good with regard to eye candy.
• The iPod touch is crippled in some surprisingly blatant ways feature-wise compared to the iPhone- its lack of "add event" capability in the calendar is the most petty of the artificial omissions, but its lack of the Mail program is actually worse (though not as petty).
  
• The iPod lineup is now more complex than it's ever been- there's no clear "top of the line" device anymore.

These are just a few of the things that have been weighing on my Apple fanboy mind lately. Many of them (particularly the ringtone issue and iPod touch limitations) remind me more of Microsoft than of Apple- and that's no good.

Hopefully this stuff will straighten itself out soon. Hopefully the new iPhone software update will pop up shortly, and sometime after that perhaps Apple will add to the iTunes Wi-Fi store the ability to automatically download new subscribed podcast episodes wirelessly, and maybe, just maybe, that will distract me enough from my concerns to breath easy for a few days.

;)

Holy *#@' the iPod touch is THIN!

Everyone's been talking about how amazingly thin the new iPod nano is- and it is- but man oh man, the iPod touch feels excruciatingly thin to this iPhone user.

An almost-funny Zune phone parody

Not a classic, but worth seeing:

Sponsored posts

Yo. I've been approached by a web marketer about placing context-sensitive ads within the body of certain posts on this site. I've decided to give this a shot (here's an example). All sponsored posts will be formatted like that example- an introductory sentence that explains that the post has been sponsored, followed by the sponsor's message, all in red text.

I think that's pretty clear and straightforward. If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions, please comment. Thanks.

Today's Apple event- HOLY CRAP!

I just finished reading Engadget's liveblog of today's Apple event, and I'm still digesting everything. But man, this was a big one- actually bigger than I think most people would have predicted. My initial thoughts:

• 99 cent ringtones for the iPhone: looks like the feature's implemented nicely, bummer you have to pay extra to take a song you already own and use it as a ringtone- but, like cell contracts, this one's probably a legal mess and dictated by the music industry.
  
• new iPod shuffle colors- okay.
• new iPod nano- this I have to see in person to really get a feel for.  Video playback and a new interface seem cool, but the size looks odd.  If the new form factor indeed remains "nano-esque", then this seems like a major upgrade.
• iPod classic- nice.  Flash-based iPods definitely seem the wave of the future, but they won't be able to touch the iPod classic's 160GB capacity for a while- so it's nice Apple decided to keep the trustworthy classic design in its lineup to provide fodder for those who need the space.
• iPod touch- great.  This is what everybody's been waiting for, thank God it's got WiFi.  This device has huge potential to evolve.
• 8GB iPhone down to $399- awesome.  This is where it needs to be price-wise- but it's going to piss off a LOT of people who spent $599 two months ago (myself included).  And, Apple doesn't really have an excuse here, besides the plain truth that they were gouging the early adopters early on.
• WiFi iTunes Store: awesome.

A few additional thoughts:

• The iPod lineup is now more complex than it's ever been (shuffle, nano, classic, touch, iPhone).  I wonder how this growing complexity is going to play out in the marketplace.
• With so many new iPods, Apple's future iPhone roadmap now seems harder to predict- particularly since the touch has WiFi support.  Will they add phone support to existing products (such as the nano), or will the phone options only be on the high(er) end models?
• When will Apple release a 16GB iPhone?

Anyway, lots of stuff to think about.