Last week I told you it was the right time to take a step back and reconsider the way we use our mobile devices. The right time to re-think our setups, and free us from the need of installing new apps every day while missing the real point of iOS: the “built-in factor”. See, Apple always provided a great set of tools to get things done on a new OS without the need of going out there searching for software. With Mac OS X, most users can do stuff without ever opening Safari and browse to some developer website. With iOS it’s just the same, but the App Store and its flowing stream of new applications made us forget about the built-in factor. We often don’t remember that we can enjoy an iPhone as it comes out of the box. Read more
Posts in stories
You Are Not Your App
What If Steve Jobs Hadn’t Left Apple in 1985?
The New York Times has an interesting piece by Randall Stross today, where he argues about the consequences of Steve Jobs not leaving Apple, the company he co-founded, in 1985. Would Apple be in the same place it is today? Would Steve Jobs be the visionary leader he is today? Read more
Taking A Step Back
A friend of mine once asked me why he would ever need to install applications other than games on his iPhone, while he could do most of the things he needed by simply opening Mobile Safari. He’s not new to the iPhone platform: he bought an iPhone 3G in 2008 and finally switched to the iPhone 4 a few weeks ago. He reads blogs to stay updated about what’s new in iOS 4, the latest Apple news and games updates. Yet, he doesn’t install apps to “do stuff” on his iPhone, because he says Safari is such a good browser he doesn’t need to “spend money on additional apps”.
Maybe he’s missing out the best part of iOS, or maybe we, as geeks, need to take a step back and reconsider what we’ve done so far. Read more
Do We Really Need Tweetie 2 for Mac?
Last week I wrote that Tweetie 2 for Mac is alive, and should be released soon. Finally, I would say: after a quite embarrassing “MacHeist beta” delay and a series of announcements from Brichter himself and other personalities over at Twitter, we should definitely we able to get our hands on Tweetie 2 in a matter of a few months. And I repeat, we should. We don’t have any more information about this besides the fact that the app is alive and will be free under Atebits’ name.
My question is, though: do we really need Tweetie 2? Read more
Antennagate Is Alive, And It’s Helping Apple Sell More iPhones
Today I went to an Apple Store with my friends and girlfriend. I live in Viterbo, so we had to drive to Rome’s “Roma EST” Apple Store, which is a 90 minutes drive. I wanted to buy an Airport Express to use with AirPlay (and eventually came home with a KeepItClean MacBook cleaner spray, too), a friend wanted to get a 17-inch MacBook Pro. We had a great time, just like every time we go to that Apple Store. Customer experience quality is top-notch.
This is not the point, though. The last time I went to that Apple Store was in May, and the iPhone 4 wasn’t out yet. Today was the first visit after the iPhone 4 release and all the “Antennagate” media mess. Today’s visit made me realize Antennagate is still alive and kicking, but it’s actually helping Apple sell more iPhone 4s. Read more
Apple, The Next Step Is AirFiles
I installed iOS 4.2 beta on my iPad, but haven’t been able to check out the new AirPlay or AirPrint features yet: I don’t have an Apple Airport Express station to configure with my stereo, nor I have a compatible HP printer in the office. Still, I know these two new features pretty well: AirPlay is Apple’s take on how you should be able to consume digital content in the living room, AirPrint allows you to print documents from your iPad and iPhone with a few taps. Both of them are great features. I want to focus on AirPlay, though: as Seth Weintraub puts it, AirPlay is Apple’s “go to market” strategy - in a way that this single feature will let users easily hook their iPhones and iPads to the Apple TV to effortlessly share SD content, and eventually pay for HD versions using Apple’s TV own rental system. Any kind of video content can be streamed using AirPlay, as long as it uses a standard media controller and it’s encoded using the popular H.264 video format.
I haven’t tried it personally, but I already know AirPlay is going to be huge amongst iPad and iPhone owners once the new Apple TV will be available. This kind of one-tap streaming and sharing of content between devices has got me thinking, though: what if Apple shipped “AirFiles”, a built-in system to share any kind of documents across mobile devices and computers? Read more
An Interview with Shawn Blanc
Shawn Blanc runs one of my favorite weblogs, one of those you open for a quick 5 minutes read and you end up spending the whole afternoon on. With a good cup of coffee and some Mac nerdery state of mind.
Since we started working on MacStories 3.0 in April (true story), I knew that I wanted an interview with Shawn ready to publish by launch day. What happened is an interesting internet experiment: MacStories 3.0 took 6 months to complete, and our email interview turned into a conversation. A pretty long one. We started when the iPad wasn’t available, we wondered what Loren Brichter might be working on and we ended up talking about Flipboard. I think this conversation between me and Shawn is a great example of how fast things change on the internet in a matter of a few months. And, most of all, it’s a great example of how Apple rolls.
Long, unedited, real. Check it out below. And go grab some coffee. Read more
The iPod Stocking Stuffers: iPod nano vs. iPod touch
Not too many people have gone hands-on with the new iPods, but I think I can make a safe bet as to whether this year’s stocking stuffer is going to be the iPod nano or the iPod touch.
Ping: Apple’s Naive Social Demo
Last night I wrote about iTunes 10, and Apple’s problem with its flagship media management application becoming a bloat. Feature-creep, that is. The app wasn’t available yet, so I couldn’t give you my thoughts about Ping, Apple’s new attempt at social networking inside iTunes, although I already had some doubts about it. I installed iTunes 10 as it went live and immediately signed up to Ping.
Just like I expected, it’s useless.