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I've come late to the iPad party, a principle to do with its lack of Flash support, but work is work, times must, and I wanted to jot down my impressions as I enter into... iPad world.
Continue reading "iPad 2 - First Impressions" »
If like me you are suffering from iTunes mess (nay.. hell), yesterday's iCloud announcement from Apple promises to clean up your mess and confusion. It might even make you like iTunes again.
If like me you've bought tracks from Apple's music store on multiple devices, you almost certainly have those tracks and apps spread haphazardly across your devices. Buy a new Mac or iPhone and your problems worsen. You end up with music on your old laptop or iPod, and it's infuriatingly complicated to get it on the new one. I'm a complete Mac geek and I am totally confused by it.
In my collection (spread across several devices) I know I have a mix of paid tracks which I feel good about, and a bunch of MP3's which I don't. The MP3's are mis-labeled and dis-organized, don't have artwork images for them and are quite annoying.
Trying to sync them all together, or sort them out IS ACTUALLY ROCKET SCIENCE.
The truth is, iTunes is terribly un-Mac like and bloody awful software. It just doesn't work the way you want it to, or think it should, and it has completely floundered in an era of multiple devices and any desire (gee whiz!) to consolidate.
With iCloud, for the first time you will be able to log into your Apple account from any Apple device, see a list of every track you've ever purchased, re-download the entire collection if needed, and do the same on all your Apple devices. You can even choose to download just the songs you don't already have on that device.
Nice.
Where things gets really clever is that for $25 per year, iCloud will scan your collection of non-Apple purchased tracks (read... pirated MP3's) and for no extra cost, download and replace those dodgy tracks with fresh perfect Apple ones - complete with professional artwork, proper labeling, consistent genre tagging and a high quality audio upgrade too.
This is actually revolutionary and Apple have paid big for the privilege.
The devil of course will be in some of the details... Can you for example merge the music from two people's accounts? What happens if a device doesn't have as much storage space as the others?
Apple are also increasing the 5 device limit per Apple account to 10 devices. This is clear acknowledgment that many people are already hitting their 5 device limit as the number of iPod's, iPhones and iPads proliferate in people's households.
iCloud comes to Apple users later this year... I can't wait.
Apple and Steve Jobs really missed the element of surprise with the launch of the iPad. The biggest surprise was that more people didn't figure out what the name would be... iSlate... iTablet... err nyet.
It made watching yesterday's Stevenote (once it had been finally uploaded many hours later) all very humdrum. At one point I was fidgety and... dare I say, bored? The most hyped product launch in all of Apple's history had become a bland exercise in telling us what we already knew or expected. That's not how Steve notes usually go.
My biggest disappointment was the virtual keyboard. It was here that I thought Apple would genuinely wow us. Clearly the ultimate virtual keyboard (for touch typists at least) would be one where you don't actually see the keys. Simply lay your fingers down on the screen in any position or orientation, and start typing. As you type, the keys you are typing appear like magic, with clever algorithms and phrase and spell checking figuring out what you are trying to type. Context and learning your own styles of phrase, size/positioning of your hand and style of writing can all contribute.
This to me was what I was hoping for, and short of that or the device actually levitating, flying over the audience and coming back to the Hand of Steve - the presentation was always going to be a disappointment.
The iBook store / interface was cool and the options for new gaming interactions will lead to genuine innovation and paradigm shift. Price point is good too - I wonder if they are taking a leaf out of the gaming console manufacturers and starting to think loss leader. With the Apps store they can.
Of course I will be buying one, like every other Apple fan boy. As Steve was forced to say in an almost embarrassed way due to lack of general applause (the first applause was 23 minutes in)... "it's much better when you have one in your hands".
I'm sure he's right, and I'll be back saying how amazing it is in future.
Apple is closing in on 1 billion app downloads and they're making it a public occasion by putting a counter on their website. They're offering a decent prize to the person who makes the 1 billionth download.
The prize includes a $10,000 iTunes gift card, a laptop, a time capsule and an iPod Touch. No doubt lots of people will be interested in this, this writer included, and many people will be trying to get the 1 billionth download.
Having dug under the hood of the counter I can tell you a bit of a secret that will put you at an advantage.
Continue reading "How to win Apple's 1 billionth app download" »
