Sandy McMurray writes about technology in plain language.
His work has appeared in Time,
the Globe & Mail, the Toronto
Sun, Report on Business, Profit,
and Here's How magazine.
more about Sandy...
Sandy lives in west Toronto with his wife and four children.
So here's to the crazy ones.
You can disagree with them or praise them, glorify or vilify them, but you can't ignore them.
Why not write about them?
Recognizing that the iPod is more than a music player, HP has equipped its new mobile photo printer to recognize the iPod as storage device.
Translation: you can print the photos stored on your iPod hard drive without a computer. Just connect the iPod to the printer, select the picture you want, and print.
The first iPods from a company other than Apple will ship on September 15. You can order one now from hp.com/music.
Eschewing the name Hpod, the new iPod players from HP are called Apple iPod from HP. For marketing purposes, HP will use the logo above.
Also announced today: HP will put its mark on the iPod -- literally -- with an invention called HP Printable Tattoos. These will be protective wrappers stamped with album art. You will be able to print your own photos or art on a Printable Tattoo -- using an HP printer, of course.
The Apple iPod from HP will be the current iPod (fourth-generation) in two versions: 20 GB storage for $299, and 40 GB storage for $399.
You can order one now from hpshopping.com.
The Rolling Stone article Microsoft to Debut Store makes several predictions about Microsoft's music store:
- available September 2
- up to 700,000 songs available
- not compatible with iPod
- to be integrated with Windows
- may offer Beatles catalog
Nothing earth-shattering there. However, there's an interesting tidbit in the quote from EMI's Ted Cohen. He says the Microsoft store is "a better mousetrap" because it integrates the company's search and instant-messaging technologies.
The iTunes store has a good search function, but the link to IM is interesting. It could be used to highlight and share playlists among store users.
Plays For Sure means what?
elusory fraps - of course it's secure!
loafers' syrup - the lazy man's solution
prayerful sos - Microsoft distress signal
prosy earfuls - dull music
prosy refusal - that will not play on iPods
pylorus fares - you must pay the gatekeeper
pylorus fears - the gatekeeper is nervous
raps yourself - buy this for self-punishment
soapy furlers - we secure it, you give us money
sprays fouler - a bigger threat than Real
Rant of the day: much of the rah-rah coverage of Real's Free-the-iPod campaign has accused Apple of using a "proprietary" file format in iTunes.
Many writers covering this story seem to be unaware of two important facts:
Continue reading "Who's proprietary?"
Forbes columnist Arik Hesseldahl on Glaser vs. Jobs
Real may be correct in principle, but that doesn't trump Apple's right to tell Glazer, Real and all Harmony users to go jump in the lake. Jobs is right to zealously defend the iTunes-plus-iPod business model until such time that it makes sense to change it. And if that means locking Harmony users out of the iPod, that's neither wrong, nor anti-competitive nor anti-consumer. It's just business.
Here's another reason Apple should not drop prices to compete directly with cheaper Windows-based computers: the general trend towards the PC as a commodity.
Windows-based PCs already have many of the typical traits of a commodity. To the average consumer, most home computers are indistinguishable from each other based on their features. This is a problem. If consumers base their purchase decisions on price, you must drop prices (and drop margins) to keep up.
This article predicts bad times ahead for PC makers who do not escape the commodity trap. The author highlights the stiff competition Dell already faces in Asia from less expensive mass-market PCs.
What's the solution? To escape or avoid this trap, you must change perceptions. If a $199 beige box is perceived as a viable alternative to your company's $999 (or $1,999) offering, you're cooked.
Continue reading "PC as commodity"
Big news of the day: PocketMac BlackBerry Edition - $29.95.
from the PocketMac site: "PocketMac BlackBerry Edition takes care of everything for you. Install the software on your Mac in 3 minutes, configure which options you want enabled (Entourage Calendar, iCal, Tasks, etc.), connect your BlackBerry to your Mac via USB or Serial Cable, and start the sync. That's all that's required. That's literally it."The program works with the RIM 957 and BlackBerry 5810, 6210, 6230, 6280, 6510, 6710, 6750, 7210, 7230, 7280, 7510, 7730, 7750 and 7780.
Most of the tech writers and analysts calling for Apple to license its FairPlay DRM seem to have forgotten about Apple's strategic alliance with HP -- perhaps because we haven't heard much about it recently.
I'm told HP's version of the iPod, which was expected "this summer" is coming to the U.S. in September. (The worldwide launch date isn't set, and will probably depend on U.S. demand.)
This simple fact undermines some of the charges leveled against Apple by Real's Rob Glaser and others. FairPlay is available to business partners selected by Apple; just not to RealNetworks.
Bonus link: John Gruber's take on Harmony.
I've been thinking about this question (again) since reading Alex Salkever's Six-Step Plan for Apple.
Salkever suggests that lower prices are the key to increasing Apple's market share. He says Apple can conquer the world by making Mac computers that are stylish and cheap.
That sounds good, but it won't happen.
RealNetworks describes its new software that "unlocks" the iPod:
Before RealPlayer with Harmony, consumers buying digital music were forced to buy music that only worked on a particular brand of portable device, meaning that they could easily get "locked in" to that device, often without even knowing it.Real's amazing claim is that iPod users are trapped because they can't download music that's locked with copy protection schemes other than Apple's own. Trapped!
Meanwhile, Real's "solution" -- RealPlayer with Harmony -- is itself a software lock-in. (It's hypocrisy and chutzpah in one tidy package!)
Once you switch from iTunes, you can't go back or you risk losing access to all the music you buy from the Real music store to an iPod software update. Meanwhile, you can't put music purchases from the iTunes store on your iPod, because it's no longer safe to use iTunes, in case Apple tries to update the iPod to block the RealPlayer hack.
Continue reading "Real freedom?"
Forgive me readers. It's been several weeks more than a month(!) since my last post.
During that time, four members of my family moved, three of my children had to be driven back and forth to four camps, and I wrote several thousand words on a short deadline for a giant corporation that would not take no (or "it's not ready yet") for an answer.
I've been meaning to comment on recent Apple-related happenings, but after you've wrestled with the beta for SP2, written items for your own weblog, and played your finally-registered version of Lux for a couple of hours, there's not much energy left to speculate about Apple's strategic planning.
Mea culpa. I'm back.
What happens when the copy-protection on a commercial CD makes it incompatible with Apple's best-selling digital music player? People complain and ask for changes, that's what. (Ah, the advantages of being a market leader..).
"If you look at the 500 or 600 customer service comments we've gotten, you see that 80 percent of them have to do with iPod compatibility," said SunnComm International Chief Executive Officer Peter Jacobs, whose technology was loaded on last month's chart-topping Velvet Revolver disc. "The rest are, 'Why can't I do what I want with my music.' And a lot of those are really iPod questions too."Read the rest here.
Mac OS X users tend to believe that their platform is better than Windows. But why? James Davidson answers the question here.
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