Kam VedBrat : Apple

iTunes & Quicktime and Aero

KamVedBrat — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 22:40:00 GMT

I made a post about a year ago regarding how some applications have a side effect of disabling Aero. While it is still possible to create applications that have this side-effect (due to the underlying problem of applications accessing the primary display buffer directly), many of the applications that exhibited this behavior during the Beta process of Windows Vista have since been updated by their respective ISV's to no longer cause this.

The folks at Apple have done a great job specifically with updating iTunes and Quicktime prevent this problem, as well as several other Vista-specific issues that customers were hitting. If you grab the latest versions of these applications form Apple, you'll have a much better experience.

Finally! BillG comments on the “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ads

KamVedBrat — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 08:17:00 GMT

I saw this yesterday. BillG was interviewed for Newsweek and the topic of Apple's advertising came up. The whole interview is a great read, but here's my favorite comment:

"I don't even get it. What are they trying to say? Does honesty matter in these things, or if you're really cool, that means you get to be a lying person whenever you feel like it? There's not even the slightest shred of truth to it."

Stephen Colbert on CES & iPhone

KamVedBrat — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 09:37:00 GMT

This made me laugh out loud:

John Tokash’s 3 lies about iPhone

KamVedBrat — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 20:59:55 GMT

John makes some interesting comments about iPhone. I certainly believe that homebrew code will find its way on to the device, either through the MAKE: crowd or Linux or some other community channel. The hardware is hot enough that people will want to engage. It's still a terrible story from a development point of view.

I wonder if they will really sneak in 3G at the last minute like John suggests. The device has wifi, so it may be enough to just use a hotspot to get your content on there (or sync it from a mac). Certainly at home and work, the wifi will be available. That's been my experience with the T-Mobile Dash that I got recently. I was debating between the Dash, the Q, and the Blackjack. The Q & Blackjack were interesting because of EVDO and HSDPA respectively. At the end of the day I went with the Dash mostly because the total cost over 2 years would be much lower, and T-Mobile only required a 1 year contract and is really good about unlocking for international travel. I was concerned that the lack of 3G would be a problem but the truth is I just haven't hit it. Yes – I can't pull up streaming video using ORB while walking down the street. But even the bus in the Seattle area has wifi now, so I'm pretty well covered that way.

iPhone

KamVedBrat — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 09:56:26 GMT

Time Magazine has an interesting article on the genesis of the Apple iPhone. I read through the announcements on Engadget and I'm honestly disappointed. The phone itself is pretty hot. The hardware specifically is really impressive. But there are some fatal flaws in my opinion. No 3G radio, if you want 3G from Cingular, Windows Mobile is still your best option with the new Blackjack and 8525 phones. No extensibility beyond widgets – the fact that I can't install software on it seems pretty insane to me. And the worst offender of all IMO is the price-point. $499 and $599 is way too much money, given that you can get some really great Windows Mobile phones starting at $49 dollars in some cases. Heck – you can get an Xbox 360 for less money!

Hearsay on Exec briefings with Steve Jobs

KamVedBrat — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 02:11:36 GMT

Someone recently emailed me this article about an executive briefing some senior folks at NIH had with Steve Jobs some years ago. It goes into the reasoning behind why Apple never did a Tablet PC form-factor Mac, but also sheds some interesting light on the decision making process that they go through as a company.