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Jan 25
Don't get me wrong here, I am really excited that Apple has worked out a deal to allow us to rent movies. I have already used it and am pretty much pleased with it. I'll explain my disappointment in a little bit...
Renting movies from Apple is a real boon for me. I've tried Netflix and Blockbuster's DVD rental via snail-mail and have been nothing but angered with both. After less than a month with each service, I started getting movies that were on DVD's that looked like they had sandpaper rubbed on them. They were completely unreadable. I would return the DVD and let them know that the disc was destroyed. However, the next disc they would send was either just as bad or they had simply sent me the save DVD.
For the longest time, I have resorted to BitTorrent for a way to "rent" movies. I would watch them, then delete them off the computer. This worked pretty well for me, but takes a long time to download and there is an element of danger with using BitTorrent to "rent" movies.
I do buy movies and television shows on DVD. I own all 10 seasons of Stargate: SG1 and the first 3 seasons of Stargate Atlantis (we are currently on season 4). I own over 100 movie DVD's. I have even bought a few movies from Apple. I don't do this often though since you don't get any of the extra's that are on the DVD's when buying from Apple. If I don't care about any of the DVD extra's, I'll buy from iTunes.
Now that Apple is renting movies, I waited till the first movie I wanted to rent was available, The Simpson's Movie, and tagged it for rental. I was pleased to see it start downloading immediately. I was surprised to find that I couldn't move/copy the downloaded rented movie to a different Mac. I'll have to make sure that when I rent movies, that I use my MacBook so that it's on the computer that is attached to my home entertainment system. Otherwise, I won't be able to watch it in comfort.
My "disappointment" came when I was ready to start watching it. I wasn't able to use Front Row to watch the movie. I am able to watch movies I have purchased via Front Row, movies I have "rented" via BitTorrent via Front Row and Perian. Yet, I'm not able to watch rented movies via Front Row. Why is this Apple? What could possibly be done that would break your precious DRM with Front Row?
Also, when playing the movie I rented, I was rewarded with a full screen display that not only had black bars on top and bottom of the video, but on the left and right! For some reason, the full screen experience for the movie was "less" than full screen. Fortunately, my Sharp Aquos HD television has the ability to "zoom" a picture so that I didn't have any black bars. It clipped a few pixels around the image, but was fine for watching the movie. Doing so made the movie a bit pixelated, but I guess that's expected considering the "full screen" they chose to give me.
Oh, I know. They would be competing with TV! Really? TV is $229, a MacBook is $1099 and a MacMini is $599. How could that be competing with TV? Seriously Apple, let us use Front Row with Movie Rentals. Why else would you have opened up Front Row on all Macintosh computers in Leopard if not so that we can get the full multimedia experience with Front Row?
Another disappointment is the lack of ability to rent TV Shows. If I am going to pay over $30 for the ability to watch a season of a TV show, I'm going to just go out and buy the DVD box set. I want to be able to watch the series for a fairly minimal cost. Say $4-$5 for 4-5 episodes. Pretty much a DVD's worth of episodes. I hope they are just testing the waters with movie rentals and will be adding TV shows later.
Now, another possible disappointment is the lack of HD quality movies using iTunes instead of TV. Now, its possible that there just isn't any HD quality movies out yet since the TV software update isn't out yet. I do hope that this is the case. My MacBook is more than capable of displaying 1920x1080 interlaced (1080i), so why not allow me to watch HD content? Now the "Steve" told us that HD content is coming. So I can only hope that it's coming to all rentals and not just TV rentals.
Overall, I'm still pumped about the idea of renting movies via my Macintosh. I just wish they would do a better job of it. If they don't deal with some of these issues soon, I'll have to go back to the "best" way to do it. Via BitTorrent. It's slow, but it works and gives me true HD quality.
Jan 16
1.1.3 Update May Break Gmail (Nobody Wants A Styl.us): "Nobody Wants A Styl.us
Tips for using Apple's iPhone.
« HOW TO: Create WebClips Icons | Main1.1.3 Update May Break Gmail
I got a call this morning from my Dad.Him: Bad news.
Me: What?
Him: Your mother’s Gmail isn’t working on her iPhone.
Me: Oh no!
Him: Yes. Houston, we have a problem.
This basically ground my parent’s house to a halt this morning.
It turns out both of their Gmail accounts weren’t working, but they don’t appear to be alone in this. The specific error message is that imap.gmail.com isn’t available, and it just keeps checking for email. Outbound mail does go out, but there’s no verification that it goes.
I don’t really know what’s going wrong here, but if you recreate the Gmail account fresh on the iPhone, everything seems to work right again.
(Fortunately, the Gmail setup is pretty easy.)
(Via Nobody Wants A Styl.us.)
This is interesting. I have read a couple of blogs now that have mentioned that Gmail was messing up on their iPhones.
This seems odd to me. I haven't seen any issues at all with Gmail on my iPhone. Now, I know that problems can crop up for some people and not others, but it just seems odd.
Now I have had problems with IMAP Gmail not working correctly with Mail.app. It works really nicely with Thunderbird, but I had some strange problems when sending email's via Mail.app. They may have been fixed by now. I haven't spent the time to try it since the first time I tried.
I guess I should be glad that I am not seeing these problems. I use Gmail as my main email account and all my other email accounts forward messages they receive to my Gmail account so that I can have access to all my mail all the time.
Jan 16
I don't usually write about new products from Apple, but the new Time Capsule just really impresses me.
The idea of having a wireless router that has up to a 1TB HDD in it for backups is just really great. I have a bunch of computers on my home network and have separate external HDD's for backing them up. Plus, noting for our notebooks. Having a wireless device that will allow me to backup devices without having to plug in an external drive is just great.
Now, I know there are other options out there, but I haven't seen one for the price points that Apple is selling Time Capsule for. $499 for 1TB's of HDD space is great. That's how much I spent for an external HDD I have connected to my Mac Pro now and that is just an external HDD
This was one of the biggest new items that came out of Steve Jobs' Keynote speech at Macworld yesterday. The other thing that really made me happy was movie rentals including HD movie rental! When the TV first came out, the idea of hooking the thing up to an HD television and not having any kind of HD content to use with it was just ridiculous! Finally, the TV has HD content that it can display from iTunes via rental. This is going to make the TV a device worth considering!
Jan 16
Twitter / tomit:
"I just noticed, no memory upgrades for the AIR as well. about 2 hours ago from imSeems like the MacBook AIR is a great accessory for a larger Mac. I need to get a new PRIMARY MAC first! about 3 hours ago from web
Glad they are just doing the Apple TV update! I can't wait!!! about 4 hours ago from im
Just some issues with the AIR... Mono speaker, video mirroring only, 1USB, no switchable battery, and no apple remote for frontrow!?!? about 4 hours ago from im
Did you know the MacBook AIR only has a 'Built-in mono speaker' for audio??? about 5 hours ago from im "
(Via Tomit's Twitter page.)
Seriously, what in the world do you people want! A computer the size of the iPhone with a full size keyboard/screen 4GB's of RAM expandable to 16GB's, 160GB HDD expandable to 2TB's, super awesome CD/DVD reader/writer, video capabilities capable of playing Crysis at 1920x1600 and capable of driving 2 30" wide screen displays, surround sound speakers builtin, weighing 2lbs and costing $500!?!?!
The MacBook Air is incredibly thin, weighing it at 3lb's, great internals and fits inside a manila folder! Sure it's expensive, what do you expect for a sub-notebook.
Sheesh people, what does it take to impress you guys!
Jan 14
Another Get a Mac ad: are they even trying anymore?: "The tone of the commercial also makes Time Machine seem a bit like you will never lose anything again, when in actuality if you create a document and delete it in the same hour Time Machine wont save you, no matter how many cables Mac has coming out of him."
(Via Ars Technica: Infinite Loop.)
This is actually a good point made by Charles Jade (Wasn't he a private-eye from Alpha-verse?). If a user creates a document minutes after Leopard's Time Machine finishes it's backup, then 45 minutes later, he accidently deletes the file and want's to get the file back. He's S.O.L. I guess that's one thing that Microsoft Windows Vista has over Leopard. Vista uses a file versioning system similar to CVS or SubVersion where every time the file is changed, a record of the changes made to the file is recorded. This way, Even if the file was created, then deleted by accident immediately afterward, you would be able to recover the file. Of course you have to have Vista Business or greater in order to take advantage of this feature. Vista Home Premium doesn't have a way of recovering the file. (What were they thinking!)
Even with the above mentioned flaw in Leopard's Time Machine, it's nice that there is a backup system that is basically invisible to the user. Just plug in an external Hard Drive and tell Leopard that it's a Time Machine drive and your finished.
My concern is mostly things like iTunes and iPhoto getting it's data files corrupted. I used to do a daily backup that would overwrite the backup everyday. So if I didn't notice the corruption quick enough, I would loose the files. With Time Machine, I can go back to just before the file was corrupted to recover the file and I'll be good to go.
Jan 13
Gizmoron Runs Amok At CES | ripten: "According to Webware, the CEA (which runs CES) had this to say about the situation:
‘We have been informed of inappropriate behavior on the show floor by a credentialed media attendee from the Web site Gizmodo, owned by Gawker Media. Specifically, the Gizmodo staffer interfered with the exhibitor booth operations of numerous companies, including disrupting at least one press event. The Gizmodo staffer violated the terms of CES media credentials and caused harm to CES exhibitors. This Gizmodo staffer has been identified and will be barred from attending any future CES events. Additional sanctions against Gizmodo and Gawker Media are under discussion.’
So it looks like the guy is banned for life. A fitting punishment, if you ask me."
Wow, what in the hell is up with Gizmodo? I knew I didn't like the site a long time ago (before the Apple stock debacle), but now, I have to wonder if there isn't legal actions that Motorola or CEA can't pursue.
What was going through the Gizmodo staffer's mind when he was pulling this stunt? Was he thinking that they would get a bunch of publicity for what he did?
Banning Gizmodo is one action, but I really think that they should be banned from all shows and any company still advertising with Gizmodo should be boycotted. We need to send a very strong message here that this kind of behavior from a blog is simply not to be taken.
Jan 13
Austin Heller: Promoters: "Austin Heller: Promoters
In December of 2006, John Gruber wrote a lengthy post last year questioning the ethics of the first MacHeist bundle, called The Iniquities of the Selfish. […] So, it does seem odd to see MacHeist advertising running on [Daring Fireball] - which makes me think the deal for the supporting developers might finally be fair.
John Gruber doesn’t seem like one to disregard his beliefs for sponsors, so I imagine they exchanged some emails about the treatment of developers with MacHeist II.
Edit: Gruber writes about his advertisers and sponsors:
Advertisements aren’t endorsements. They’re promotional messages from the sponsor, not me. In short, an ad is an ad, and what I write is what I write.
He goes on to day that the MacHeist is a good bundle for consumers, but not such a great deal for developers, although he has no information about this year’s MacHeist bundle.
(Via cameron i/o.)
To Cameron and others...
John Gruber is not God. He's just this guy, you know... (Sorry, couldn't resist the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy line)
He likes to post his opinion so that he can make money off his website. However, his posts are just "his opinion" and not fact.
MacHeist is a great way for developers to get their programs into users hands. Not to mention the fact that since the bundles probably have programs that the purchaser already owns, there is a good chance that the purchaser will give away the duplicate licenses to friends and family. I say this since I just purchased the MacHeist II bundle and I own just about half the software in the bundle. So I'll be giving the MacHeist bundle software I already own to friends and relatives.
If I truly use the software I have just purchased, I'll be upgrading the software when the next version comes out. That means more money for the developer. Plus there is the word of mouth thing. I'll be singing the praises of the software to others and giving the developers free advertising. Not to mention the advertising they are receiving by just being involved in the latest MacHeist.
Why John Gruber thinks this is bad for developers, I don't know. Maybe he was slighted by a bundle in the past or something. I can't say. All I can say is that, in "my humble opinion" he's completely wrong about these software bundles and folks reading his blog posts should not pay attention to such ramblings.
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