Category: Apple

Apple

Steve Jobs’ Magic Kingdom

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date January 27, 2006

Businessweek’s cover story today is about the recent Pixar buy out by Disney. The article focuses on Jobs’ return to Apple and his subsequent return to the CEO position, implying that the same may be in store for Disney.

While there has been lots of speculation as to what all of this means, I think that at best this merger could really get the ball rolling for digital distribution (READ: internet) of film and television. With Job’s influence, Disney could become a leader in this brave new world.

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Beavis vs. Cartman on iTMS

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date January 26, 2006

The announcements keep coming from our friends over at iTunes. Here’s a short list of everything added to iTMS:

MTV – Beavis and Butthead, Jackass, Punk’d, Gauntlet 2, and more
Nickelodeon – Spongebob Squarepants, Dora the Explorer, Zoey 101
Comedy Central – South Park, Drawn Together, Best of Standup

Looks like Apple must have signed a deal with Viacom. Should we expect VH1, Spike, and BET to follow? And what about Comedy Central’s “news” shows, The Daily Show and Colbert Report? Looks like the encoding monkeys in Cupertino have their work cut out for them.

Apple Downloads iTunes Portable Entertainment

Oh, and one more thing…

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date January 24, 2006

Man, no sooner did this deal get done and an Disney’s newest large stockholder is already making some improvements on his investment. Wanna download some Disney shorts for your iPod? 10 new Disney shorts popped on iTMS this afternoon (maybe I should rename this blog iTMSWatch, I spend waaaay too much time there).

Gotta hand it to Stevie for having all his mice… err, ducks in a row.

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Apple General

Disney buys Pixar for 7.4bn

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date January 24, 2006

Looks like the Disney/Pixar deal is done. The New York Times (reg required) is reporting that the agreement was met this afternoon.

Oh, and sometimes, when I don’t have anything meaningful to say, I channel my inner 9 year old.

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Apple Downloads iTunes Portable Entertainment

Ebert and Roeper, Munsters join iTunes

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date January 24, 2006

Not the most exciting new additions to iTMS, but Apple is furthering their offerings this morning with “Ebert and Roeper” and “The Munsters”. What is interesting here is pricing. While the episodes remain at the oh-so-simple $1.99, the first season of “The Munsters” (38 episodes) will cost you a whopping $54.99 yet the last 20 episodes of E&R is priced at $9.99. So, Apple is placing a premium on less timely or “evergreen” content than on content that will most likely be viewed only once. Makes sense, but I wonder how Ebert and Roeper feel about it? Two thumbs up?

Ebert and Roeper

The Munsters

Apple Downloads iTunes

Apple mea culpa?

Looks like the Postal Service video that everyone has been talking about went up on iTMS today. An apology from Apple and the video’s directors for blatantly ripping off the band? Only Apple knows for sure.

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View Mac Intel Inside Ad

Apple Macworld

MacBook Pro hands on

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date January 10, 2006

I ran the new MacBook Pro (is it me, or is this a really bad name) through the paces today. My first reaction was that the machine was pretty snappy. I loaded up iPhoto which had about 6k pictures on it, rendered a couple of HD transitions in iMovie and then loaded up a demo in GarageBand and everything seemed to fly compared to my 1.5 Ghz G4 laptop. It wasn’t until I loaded up Photoshop that things began to slow down. Rosetta is pretty amazing, but Photoshop felt about the same speed on MacBook Pro as it did on mine. All things considered, once apps are rewritten for Intel Macs, they will run very quickly, but performance for non-optimzed apps was reasonable, if a little slow.

The big question that remains is battery life. Steve glossed over it with no real numbers attached to performance and the Apple rep that was there said that they are still tweaking it in the lab, but battery life will be “competitive.”

I put my order in this morning, so I’ll let you know when I get it. It’s about time Apple got back into making kick ass laptops.

Apple Macworld

Macworld gallery posted

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date January 10, 2006

A few pictures from the Expo today. Enjoy. I’ll be posting some hands on reviews of the MacBookPro and the iApps later this evening.

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Apple Macworld

Intel ad posted

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date January 10, 2006

It’s good to see Apple reigniting the Mac vs. Windows wars, ugh.

Check it out.

Apple Macworld Portable Entertainment

Macworld Announcements

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date January 10, 2006

MacBookPro – same form factor as current, but 4-5x faster. No word on battery life, but this seems to be part of the focus, so we’ll see. Gosh, I wonder what they’ll call the new iBook?

iMac iNtel – didn’t expect this one at all. Not totally sure it makes sense, but it smells like the Apple of old (quadra – centris – powermac) replacing a product a couple of months after they’ve introduced one. Oy, glad I didn’t buy the iMac last fall.

iLife ’06 – this one was an easy one to call. Apple is the company that benefits the most from podcasting at this point and people were shoehorning their apps to do what they wanted for awhile, now they do it out of the box. New iApp – iWeb for website, podcast, vodcast

radio tuner/remote for iPod – cool implementation of a relatively unnecessary feature. Does anyone still listen to terrestrial radio anymore?

More details later. I’m off to go hands on.

Apple Macworld

Macworld Expo Today

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date January 10, 2006

I’ll be at Macworld Expo today following Steve’s exploits post keynote (I’ll be following MacRumor’s live coverage as it’s generally not easy to get into these things). I’ll report back later this evening about the day’s new products and hopefully give a good hand’s on report.

iLife ’06 and Intel Macs seem to be the consensus and most obvious and it makes the most sense to tweak iLife at least slightly towards people creating content for the iPod. .Mac is going down this morning during the keynote, so expectations are are high that it will also receive some tweaking, my guess, again, better enabling content creation for the iPod (podcasts, vodcasts, etc).

Here are other predictions out there –
MacRumors rumor round up Gizmodo Rumor Roundup Kevin Rose (digg.com)
Mac Plasmas?

Apple

Top 10 Macworld Predictions

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date January 4, 2006

Jason O’Grady, longtime Mac prognosticator and blogger, has posted his predictions for the upcoming Macworld Expo. I don’t really know how good Jason’s prediction track record is, but he’s been doing this for years.

His verdict – no OS X.5 or Intel Powerbook, but an Intel Mac Mini and iBook seem most likely.

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(Via diggdot.us.)

Apple Downloads iTunes Portable Entertainment

Battlestar Galactica Free on iTMS

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date December 22, 2005

Well, at least a summary of the first season and a half, but as far as I know, this is the first free video that Apple has posted. Seems like this might be a way to get folks hooked on BG and/or the concept of video downloads.

So, if you wanna catch up on Battlestar or just want some free content to show off your shiny new iPod, check it out.

Download page

Apple HTPCs Rumors

Rumor Mill – Mac Mini PVR?

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date November 29, 2005

Is it that time already? It looks like the speculation has already begun as to what will be announced at Macworld Expo in January. Apple announcement speculation has a special place in my heart. I like to kick back at the end of the year with my nerd kin and come up with what we want Santa Jobs to give us post-Christmas.

Think Secret is reporting that Macworld will deliver us an Intel based Mac Mini PVR. While in my nerdy heart of hearts I want this to be true, I think it’s too soon after the release of Front Row. For the record, I believe that Front Row will be bundled into whatever Apple has cooked up for iLife ’06.

(Via PVRblog.)

Apple HTPCs

New Macs reviewed

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date November 8, 2005

The PowerMac G5 dual core (2.0Ghz and 2.3Ghz, but alas no Quad) got a write up in Macworld yesterday. Looks like Apple’s claims of dual core processors equaling the dual processors were true if you believe the Speedmark numbers. It will be much more interesting to see the numbers on the Quad 2.5 to see if they truly double their processing power.

Verdict – Fast, but the Quad will be faster.
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Next up, our pals at Macintouch review the new iMac G5 (isight). The reviews focuses on Front Row and iSight integration which in general, they like. The new iMacs are also thinner and quieter than previous models.

Verdict – Not much faster, but cool new apps and thin profile make a cool package.
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