C64 on the iPhone??!!

Oh yeah - C64 plays just a few games right now, but more are coming. I'm crossing my fingers for Beach Head II, one of my favs on the C64. Good times. Pick it up today.

iPhone Sex

Yeah baby....

NPR iPhone App

Even though it's a liberal media outlet, I still like NPR. They do have some good stuff from time to time. Today they released their first dedicated iPhone/iPod Touch app. Looks like a good one with the standard fair you find from media outlets. I'll play around with it and if I find anything cool or otherwise, I'll let you know.

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Apple is Bigger than Dell and HP COMBINED

Market Capitalization:

Apple: $143 billion
HP: $100 billion
Dell: $27 billion

Who should be shutting down and giving money back to shareholders now Michael Dell?

Porn Finds the iPhone

Yep, you read that right. With the new parental controls in iPhone firmware 3.0, the first application with nudity is now available in the iTunes App store. Hottest Girls, for a mere $1.99, will gain you access to over 2200 photos of women dressed from scantily to nothing at all. It will be interesting to see if this was something that Apple knowingly allowed or merely let slip through its infamous erratic and inconsistent application approval process. But get it now while you can.

Update: As suspected, Apple has pulled the app.

WWDC - "Meh"

So like the Apple Fanboy I am, I was diligently refreshing the live blog feed from MacRumors and watching the 2 hour keynote via QuickTime last night.

The Good:
Snow Leopard. The biggest news is that existing users can upgrade for only $29. That's incredible. Take that Microsuck! From an everyday user's perspective, there's not a lot of wizbang new features. This release is all about speed and stability. In addition to freeing up 6GB of space on your hard drive, Snow Leopard should be significantly faster on your existing Mac with it's rebuilt Finder, QuickTime, and more.

iPhone 3.0. As an iPhone Developer (Shines Brighter Software), I've been running the 3.0 software for a while. It's noticeably faster and has a lot of great new features. The two best by far are the Spotlight search and landscape mail (and other apps). Spotlight is awesome because you no longer need to hunt and peck for stuff on your phone. If you need to find anything - ANYTHING, swipe to the left of the main home screen and start typing. Spot light begins to find stuff right away - applications, emails, text messages - anything on your phone. Sweet. Landscape is long overdue and just makes reading emails and others better. The copy & paste feature is well done (shake to undo), but in all my years of using mobile devices, I can think of 2, maybe 3 times I needed to use copy/paste. I personally never saw what all the fuss was about. But since I've said it, I'll probably have 32 copy/paste needs in the next 10 minutes.

iPhone 3Gs. Faster phone, digital compass, 3.2 megapixel auto focus camera with video, voice control. While Apple is pushing the video thing most, to me the feature with the most potential is voice control. Call anyone, dial by voice, control the iPod by voice, etc. Sweet. The autofocus camera with video is a nice upgrade and the ability to edit videos is cool.

The Bad.
Where to begin. Well, I'm disappointed with the new iPhone in that I was hoping for a bit of a design change. Not a lot, but just something. The rumor photos had a matte finish which would have been a LOT better than the slippery (and scratch-prone) plastic back of today. I'll get over it though. Update: The new iPhone 3Gs have a fingerprint-resistant oleophobic screen. Whatever the hell that means.

AT&T. Wow, they really dropped the ball here. Two significant new features of the iPhone OS 3 are rendered useless until "sometime this summer". MMS (multimedia messages) gives users the ability to send and receive videos, photos and more via SMS. AT&T is apparently not ready. Tethering allows you to use the iPhone's internet connection. AT&T is not ready for that either. Lastly, existing iPhone 3G users have to wait until they're 1.5 years into their contracts to be eligible for the subsidized pricing. While I can understand and appreciate that they need to recoup what they've invested into the phone, I believe they're missing an opportunity here. I don't know a single iPhone user (and I know a lot of them) that are happy with AT&T. We're all counting down the days to be able to jump ship. Letting current iPhone 3G users upgrade at the subsidized pricing would lock them into another 2 years of painful service. If I've got to wait 6 months for the phone, I might as well wait another 6 months to (god willing) get the new iPhone 3Gs on another carrier. Apple, if you're listening to your users, you WILL NOT renew AT&T's exclusivity another year. Ugh. Update: Gizmodo has told me to quit whining. And they've got a point. I'll shut up now.

Quicktime. Well, the new QuickTime interface looks great, but the new icon is a purple abomination. That's all I've got to say about that.

The In-Between.
The new MacBook Pros. They fall in the "in-between" category. The better battery life, better price, better storage, better RAM and better screen are welcome updates. However, I don't understand the move to rid the computer of the ExpressCard slot and replace it with SD. The only SD device in my home is the Wii. I see no practical use for an SD card reader. "Pro" users who have a camera probably use a DSLR and they use CF cards. While personally I have no need to swap batteries, I can appreciate the need for road warriors who are not always going to be near a charge. Although if you really get 7 hours on a charge, you would think even road warriors would find a charge within 7 hours. I wouldn't hesitate to upgrade to the new model though - for me it's perfect. Better price, larger drives, more RAM, etc. Everything I'd take advantage of. Except that stupid SD card slot.

Find My iPhone. Cool feature and could help a lot of people. The requirement to have the $99 MobileMe sucks.

$99 iPhone

AT&T has refurbished iPhones for $99 (8GB) and $199 (16GB) here.

Nationwide iPhone App

Seriously great iPhone App from insurer Nationwide. Maybe I should think about switching...

Congrats, Steve

Steve Jobs finally won approval to raze his 17,000+ square foot mansion purchased a long time ago and replace it with a smaller, more environmentally home. It's been a long road for Jobs, so congrats!

More Details

New Mac Ads

Apple posted a couple of new Mac ads overnight. One, Elimination, is taking a stab at the Microsoft Laptop Hunters campaign. The others, Customer Care and PC Choice Chat are fun....

Download An App, Win A Prize

Apple is about to hit 1 billion downloaded applications from the iTunes App Store. Download an application and automatically be entered into the contest. Win a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card, Time Capsule, MacBook Pro and an iPod Touch.

Might be a good time to purchase, oh, I don't know, maybe BeerSnap, Wine Journal, Driven or hmmm, WineSnap.

New Palm Pre Looks Intriguing

I must admit I'm intrigued by the new Palm Pre. See the video below. The one big advantage over the iPhone that I can see is the ability to run applications in the background. While I don't think it truly comes up often in real life, it would be handy on occasion. Apple claims running apps in the background significantly decreases battery life so it will be interesting to see how Palm fares. Maybe they've found a creative solution.

This is also the first multi-touch smartphone since the iPhone. Google Android and Blackberry Storm have so far stayed away from what is perceived to be an Apple patent. However, the patents Apple have don't cover multi-touch. It is said that Google did not include it at the request of Steve Jobs. Don't forget, Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt sits on Apple's board. Google also has a lot of incentive not to piss Apple off. Palm on the other hand, really has nothing to lose as it has seen it's market share tumble almost as fast as Motorola's.

This will be fun to watch.

Obama Gives Queen iPod

I may not like his politics, but I do love that he's a gadget freak. On Obama's recent visit to the UK, he presented Queen Elisabeth with an iPod. I'm not sure which model, but I would hope a Touch. Maybe the queen needs to keep track of her vast wine collection with Wine Journal. :-)

Happy Birthday Apple!

Apple is 33 years old today....

You Get What You Pay For

9 to 5 Mac shows you exactly what you get for the PC featured in Microsoft's new ads and it ain't pretty.

Thin is In

ZDNet has a great review of the thinnest, lightest laptop computers out there - Dell Adamo, Apple MacBook Air, Sony Vaio Z and Voodoo Envy. If you're in the market for the lightest, thinest and and most stylish laptop, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

Apple's got a new iPod shuffle. The thing is insanely small and TALKS to you. So if you forget the name or the band of the song playing you can use the controls built into the earbuds to hear the iPod talk to you. Pretty slick. No controls on the ipod itself. Apple confirmed that the use of third party headsets won't work-for now. But it's working with third parties on solutions.

Pretty cool.

App Me Out To The Ball Game

One of the first and best iPhone apps has been updated for 2009. MLB At Bat lets you see real time scoring, pitch-by-pitch, and even watch clips of game highlights. Essential for people like me living in Atlanta trying to keep up with my beloved Chicago Cubs.

Get MLB At Bat on the iTunes App Store.

New iMacs a Better Deal than HP and Dell

Not even taking into account the better operating system, included software (iLife), and overall better fit, finish and experience, iMacs are still $100-$250 cheaper than the comparable HP & Dell all-in-one systems. The only thing those products have that the iMacs don't is a TV Tuner which you really need can pick up for the Mac (not built-in though) for $40-$60.

via Fortune Apple 2.0

Doesn't Get Anymore Blatant Than This