AppleTalk Thursday #14

Hey everybody and welcome to another edition of AppleTalk Thursday, a blog about all things Apple, from Macs to iPhones to AppleTV, it is all here! So let’s get started!

Verizon iPhone Update

It has been six weeks since Verizon began selling the iPhone and already they have snared nearly 13% of the iPhone market...not to shabby. Additionally, more Verizon iPhone users are satisfied than AT&T iPhone users which does prove one thing to AT&T..it’s the network stupid! Which is why AT&T is buying up T-Mobile to better compete with the Verizon network going forward which is a very impressive network.

Apple reaches out to Japan Employees

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has reached out to Apple’s employees in Japan after the devastating earthquake to offer the employees time off and any supplies it needs. On a related note, Kevin Rose from Digg received an email from an employee of an Apple Store in Japan who tells of how the store became a gathering point for people to communicate with families and to see just what was going on. The email is very much a good read and I highly recommend to take the time and read it on Kevin’s blog.

NFC coming to iPhone 5 after all?

These stories seem to go back and forth on the next iPhone in terms of both NFC and LTE capability. Now it seems that NFC will be coming to the iPhone 5. As I have covered here previously, NFC is short for Near Field Communication and is seen as a way to create a digital wallet to basically use your iPhone to purchase things by waving it as a capture device for payment. If you go to Exxon for example you might be familiar with their SpeedPass system where a little peg on your keychain is tied to a credit card or debit card of your choice to swipe and pay for your gas. That is what this does although it does have more possibilities beyond digital payments. One day I will post a thorough breakdown on NFC and for that matter LTE (4G). Other speculation about the next iPhone is an aluminum backing and a bigger screen.

New York Times goes InApp Subscription based

Apple’s controversial InApp subscription model has scored a big customer in the New York Times which will be going to a subscription based model for its digital content both in website and iOS app content. But if you are expecting something similar to what The Daily charges, then you are in for a sticker shock.



That is a high price for me considering I am not a power reader of the Times. But they are offering free articles up to a certain number for users, however once you exceed that number, you have to pay up.

MobileMe rebirth in April?

With the launch of Apple’s North Carolina data center just around the corner, there is new reports that Apple will precent its new MobileMe service soon and what it will offer. The constant seems to be a digital locker to store your movies, music, and photos to and use from the cloud on devices with limited storage. I would personally love this as I can then not load my music on my iOS devices and just listen to them from the cloud when needed. That I would gladly pay $99 per year for.

iOS 4.3 Battery Issue on iPhone

You may have recalled over the weekend I wrote about how my iPhone battery drained faster than normal while I was out of town in New Orleans and Hattiesburg, MS. It seems there is an issue specific to iOS 4.3. Without getting much into the matter here you can read what I wrote about over the weekend here.

Apple sues Amazon over “App Store” name

What is it with all these tech companies suing each other recently. Now Apple is suing Amazon over them using the term “App Store” for their new Android-based store. Apple, your quickly becoming what I despise in Microsoft...stop that or I’m going Android...Ok maybe not, but still chill!

iMac’s with Sandy Bridge, Thunderbolt in May?

A rumor from a CNet reporter speculates that a revised iMac with Sandy Bridge processors and Thunderbolt technology maybe coming in May. So if you are in the market for an iMac, you may want to wait for now.

Steve Jobs: iPod classic not Going Anywhere

Rumors of its death are greatly exaggerated according to Steve Jobs who says the iPod classic will indeed be around for a while (unlike the Zune).

Apple to License AirPlay?

This is an interesting bit of news that hints that Apple may license AirPlay to TV manufacturers. This makes a lot of sense and reminds me of how Microsoft licensed its Sync feature to Ford in their cars (see I did say one nice thing about Microsoft here.) It will be interesting to see how this will come about and who will adopt it.

Wife says no, Apple says yes to iPad 2

Finally, a lighthearted piece of news as Apple reportedly send a customer a FREE iPad 2 after his wife made him return the one he bought back to the Apple Store where he put on a sticky note “Wife said no”. The customer received the iPad from Apple with a sticky that read “Apple says Yes”. That is just awesome and is a reason that despite Apple’s ego, they are still a company dear to my heart.

iOS App Reviews

Boxcar (FREE) - First off I need to credit this find to Erik J. Fisher of GSPN’s Social Media Serenity. What this app does is unify all your notifications from Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, Foursquare, Google Voice, Gowalla and many others, in one place! It works like a charm and they also offer an iPad version as well.

Osfoora ($2.99) - I have heard Cliff Ravenscraft mention how much he loves Osfoora so I decided to finally give it a try and I must say I am impressed! The home screen offers a robust set of features for Twitter. You can see who is tweeting nearby, what the trends are like, your favorite tweets, and lists. The only thing it doesn’t have is push notifications when someone mentions you which lead me to Boxcar. Again there is an iPad version as well for $3.99. From the compose window you have the option of attaching your location, a song you are listening to, photo and video share, and of course hash tag support. What does that mean? Well if you are using a hash tag frequently, it will save the hash tag so when you compose a message, you press the hash tag button and select the tag and it will auto insert it at the end of your post. Pretty cool!

iTalk Recorder (FREE) - A nice little audio recording app is iTalk by Griffin Technology. It will record your audio into different variations of AIFF which you can then email or place in your Drop box account. It works pretty well if you can’t afford a digital audio recorder like an Edirol or Zoom H2. The only downside is it only encodes in AIFF so no support for WAV or MP3 and you will need an application like GarageBand or Audacity to convert to those formats and compress to a more reasonable size to use in a podcast. In addition they have a $2 version if you don’t like ads.

Well, that is going to do it for this edition of AppleTalk Thursday. See you all next week for another installment and thanks for reading.

Tuesday Tech Talk #84

Hello folks and welcome to another edition of Tuesday Tech Talk. Was a light week last week but over the weekend we got some big news that you may have heard about. Let’s see what is going on.

AT&T buying T-Mobile USA

Of course this is the big news announced on Sunday. AT&T is buying T-Mobile for $39 Billion and the deal if approved by regulators, should close in about a year. T-Mobile has posted a webpage that addresses customers most popular questions about the merger. The heart of this merger seems to be about one thing, matching Verizon on a nationwide 4G, or LTE network as it is also known. Time will tell if this is a positive or negative merger.

AT&T brings COW’s to SXSW

I know Texas has a lot of cows but at South By Southwest this year, AT&T brought out their own version of COW’s (Cellular On Wheels). Basically mini cell towers on trucks to create great voice and data connectivity at SXSW. You may recall a few years ago AT&T hit a low with SXSW attendees when their network choked on the demand from users.




AT&T Capping Broadband

Well, the trend in capping in the ISP industry is about to pick up speed once again. AT&T has announced it will cap its DSL customers at 150GB per month and its U-Verse customers at 250GB (same as Comcast). Personally I think this sucks! I pay a handsome sum to my ISP (Comcast) and for my expense I am told I am capped? How about this Comcast, AT&T, Time Warner, etc. How about you take some of that money your customers give you each month and build out your network so it can handle the bandwidth use!

More People read News on Web than Newspaper in 2010

2010 set a new record as it was the first year that more people turned to the web for their news than they do the newspaper according to the Pew Research Firm. I’m actually surprised this hasn’t happened sooner as I have been reading our local paper for years online.

Facebook taking on Groupon

Facebook will begin testing a new Groupon-style service to its customers via its existing Deals service. Test markets will include San Francisco, San Diego, Atlanta, Dallas, and Austin.

FastMac U-Socket

I remember seeing something about this AC outlet several months ago, but it ran into delays. Now it appears the FastMac AC and USB outlet is ready for business. As you can see, it offers 2 USB ports to the side of the standard AC plugs. It is probably more ideal for a new construction than an upgrade install, but I can see this taking off in new hotel construction.





Well, that is going to do it for this week’s Tuesday Tech Talk. Apologies for the AT&T heavy posts this week, but they are becoming very much integrated in tech with all their service offerings. See you all next week for another edition.

AppleTalk Thursday #10

Hello folks and welcome to another edition of AppleTalk Thursday. Got quite a bit of Apple news so let’s dive right into things.

iPad 2 coming next Wednesday

Apple has scheduled a press event for next Wednesday in San Francisco where it will announce the iPad 2. This has been a rumored date for the past week but it is now official. So based on what has been said about it the expectations are we will see a second generation iPad with a front and rear facing camera and a more anti-reflective screen to make it easier to read for long periods of time. One thing that will not be in the second gen. is a retina display but that is rumored for the iPad 3 which Apple may announce in the Fall. I also expect the new iPad to be sold at both AT&T and Verizon locations as well as the usual Best Buy and Apple Store locations.

A MobileMe Makeover

According to a report in Cult of Mac, Apple is about to totally rebuild MobileMe into a combination of Facebook, uStream, and FourSquare. Basically allowing you to have a dynamic website that is live. If they make good on only half of what is in the article it is totally worth the $99 I just paid again for it this year. Apple stated yesterday that their new massive Data Center in North Carolina will support iTunes and MobileMe when it goes live in the Spring.

Sony backtracks on iTunes Crazy Talk

A Sony executive stated that it has no intention of pulling their music content from iTunes. Glad you bozo’s got your story straight! Any label pulling its music content from iTunes would be like a TV network pulling its shows from say DirecTV...it would only hurt their sales in the long run. Like it or not iTunes is the standard for digital music distribution, if someone can do it better then people will flock to that service in large numbers, but it hasn’t happened yet. Certainly Amazon does a good job with their music content but it is still not as simple as iTunes IMHO.

Apple Looking at Offering a Cheaper iPhone

Apple is said to be looking at developing a cheaper iPhone, one that can better compete with Android offerings. Presumably this lower cost iPhone could be free if signed with a 2 year contract with a carrier. Of course you can get the iPhone 3GS right now for $49 but only through AT&T. Another story floating around is that this cheaper iPhone would be more of a streaming device with content coming from a digital locker in the new MobileMe revamp as mentioned above.

AT&T Allowing Mobile Hotspot for 4.3 Users

Here is an interesting piece about how developers using iOS 4.3 are being allowed access to AT&T’s new Mobile Hotspot service. I hope this will be the case when iOS 4.3 goes live to the general public and that AT&T will allow an iPad for example to be a part of the hotspot. Why pay AT&T $25 for 3G access on the iPad when I can just use it as a device with a hotspot service?

Apple adopting Thunderbolt (Light Peak)?

Perhaps this will explain Apple’s reluctance to adopt USB 3.0. They appear to be adopting Intel’s Light Peak or High-Speed Connection Technology which offers a connection speed of 10Gbps (USB 2.0 is 480Mbps and USB 3.0 is 5Gbps). Apple would rebrand it as Thunderbolt, think for example how they renamed iLink (IEEE 1394) as FireWire.

Readability app Rejected and Resubmitted

Readability which is an application that strips away a lot of advertising junk from stuff you want to read as rejected earlier this week by Apple over the lack of in-app subscription, but the issue seems to have been resolved as it has been resubmitted. Readability is more of a Software as a Service app than say a subscription content something Steve Jobs stated in an email to a developer. Apple’s new in-app subscription policy has caught the eye of the FTC which is investigating the policy. From Apple’s standpoint I can see where they want to make it easier for the consumer to purchase content from within the app, but from a developer perspective it is more of a twisting of the arm to get to play in Apple’s App Store club and giving Apple a 30% cut of the in-app purchase on top of that. I think Apple should be more flexible on that percentage offer as Google’s new service simply takes 10%. I don’t have a lot of big beefs with Apple but this would be one of them.

24-bit Music coming to iTunes?

Apple is in discussions with music labels on offering 24-bit music in its iTunes music store. Currently it is only available in 16-bit format where 24-bit is a HiFi format.

Will OS X 10.7 Lion bring new UI?

Another bit of information here is will the upcoming Mac OS update of 10.7 Lion bring an updated user interface? Maybe something more iOS like? Will be interesting to see what Apple has up their sleeves for it.

Well, that is going to do it for this edition of AppleTalk Thursday. See you all next week where we will have a good breakdown of the iPad 2 announcement. See you then!

Tuesday Tech Talk #81

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Tuesday Tech Talk. Let’s see what is going on this week.

AT&T CEO: App Stores are Bad

So according to the AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, app stores like the iTunes App Store and Android Marketplace are bad because they are platform specific. Uh Ok, well if that were the case then why have 10 billion apps been downloaded just on the iOS platform? What is his solution? Web-based apps, you know like the first gen. iPhone had. Remember how boring those were? I sure do. Mr. Stephenson is completely out of touch with the reality of what the customer wants.

Apple vs Google vs Amazon on Subscription Plan

AppleInsider has a rather in-depth article on the subscription plans offered by Apple, Google, and Amazon Kindle. It is worth the read if one has quite the time to read as it is about 3 pages of reading. Here is a quick breakdown chart found in the article though.



Motorola Atrix 4G Rooted already

The thing is not even out yet and someone has already managed to root it. I have to admit, this is a nice looking phone and might be the first Android device to make me want to cheat on my iPhone...why do I feel so dirty all of the sudden?



Well, that is all I have this week. Kind of a slow week for general technology. Come back later this week for AppleTalk Thursday where I will have some choice words for Apple and their new subscription policy. See you next week for another Tuesday Tech Talk.

Tuesday Tech Talk #80

Hello all and welcome to another edition of Tuesday Tech Talk. Can’t believe this is #80, only 20 more to go to numero 100! Let’s see what is going on this week!

Microsoft paying Nokia Billions to adopt OS

Wow, Microsoft, it has come to this, you have to pay people to be your friends? Generally speaking when you license out your OS to a hardware maker then you are the one getting paid...not the other way around. Oh Microsoft, just call it a day and just make X-Boxes, that is one thing you have excelled at.

Pandora going Public

Pandora announced on Friday it will be going public but did not specify as to when. They hope to raise $100 million in an IPO. This may be a great buy actually and I may add it to my portfolio, will probably fare better than my SiriusXM stock.

AT&T Rolls out Unlimited Calling to Any Mobile Carrier

Last week AT&T announced it will now offer its cell customers the ability to call any mobile phone no matter the carrier, for free, but there is one catch, you have to change your texting plan to an unlimited one. Haven’t decided if I will do it or not as most of my cell contacts are already AT&T users. Also if you send them a text message they will apply 1000 minutes to your plan if you happen to be an iPhone owner.

Kindle Getting Real Page Numbers

Kindle will be rolling out a software update to its devices as well as third party apps over the next few months that will add the actual page # on the page you are reading. Currently it just shows you the percentage of book you have read.

HP bringing WebOS to its PC’s

Wow, another hit to Microsoft possibly as HP is looking to deploy its in-house OS when it purchased Palm, into its PC’s. Join the club HP, it has worked for Apple for years!

Verizon Shows Off Voice-Over-LTE

Verizon this week is showing off the ability it will have to use voice and data at the same time when it makes the jump to LTE from CDMA, currently on the CDMA network you cannot do both, something AT&T has used against them in marketing. Can we say LTE iPhone 5?

Well, that is going to do it for this edition of Tuesday Tech Talk. See you all next week for more talk about things in the tech world!

AppleTalk Thursday #8

Hey everybody and welcome to the AppleTalk Thursday late late edition! We had another slow storm come through here that disrupted my blogging pattern and schedule. There is a lot of Apple related news so let’s see what is going on!

Netflix getting more user traffic on AppleTV than iPad

To me this is not a big story, I mean if you are watching video content you are more likely to want to view it on a bigger screen. Being that I own an iPhone, an iPad, and an AppleTV, I opt for the AppleTV every-time. I have Netflix on my iPhone but that is more to just add content to my queue while on the fly. Furthermore this should really inspire Apple and Hulu to get a deal done already to bring it to the AppleTV.

iPhone strikes again at BlackBerry in the Corporate World

Another blow to RIM in the corporate world as the iPhone continues to make strides in the Enterprise market. Deutsche Bank Equity Research announced it is switching to the iPhone and dumping their BB’s.

iPad 2 Rumor Rundown

Some of the latest information regarding the 2nd generation forthcoming iPad. One analyst with Concord Securities claims it will have a more anti-reflective screen providing a better reading experience, also the front and rear camera quality would be similar to that of the iPod touch instead of the iPhone 4. Meanwhile the Wall Street Journal is reporting they are in production and will be offered through both AT&T and Verizon. Both articles seem to hint that it will not have the retina display found on the iPhone 4.

Verizon iPhone 4 Followup News

Of course last week existing Verizon users got to pre-order the iPhone 4 and this week converts got their chance. A review from WIred of the Verizon iPhone even suggested it is an actual phone now...OUCH! My personal experience with my AT&T-based iPhone is a positive one. Granted it took them a long time to deploy 3G in the Tupelo area, but now they have gotten more aggressive with 3G rollout in the rest of Northeast Mississippi. So much so that even my parents little town as 3G now, something I never saw coming. Verizon stated it sold more iPhone 4’s on pre-orders in the first 2 hours than they have on any previous product launch in one day...yes that includes Androids! Another benefit of the Apple-Verizon partnership is that the iPhone is arriving in new areas that previously it could not. A recent survey found that 54% of Verizon’s BlackBerry and Android users are somewhat likely to switch to the iPhone as well which further hammers home Verizon’s thought that iPhone users are more loyal when compared to BB and Android users. I would tend to agree.

Apple sets 3/31 Deadline for in-app Purchasing for Periodicals

To follow up on last week’s Apple rejection of the Sony e-reader app, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple has set a March 31st deadline for periodical apps to offer an in-app purchase option for content. To me I like this idea as I hate leaving an app to purchase say an e-Book from Amazon via the Safari browser. One thing about iBooks is you don’t have to leave the app but the content is not as great as Amazon. I don’t really like the take it or leave it attitude Apple is giving the developers of such apps. But I think in-app is something a lot of customers will enjoy but from a developer perspective I can see where this would be an issue when it comes to revenue splits which is really the bottom-line of the story here.

iPhone and iPad Shifting Reading Habits

An interesting study here pointing to the ways iPhone and iPad users reading preferences have changed. I would tend to follow into this ground. I rarely read on my MacBook anymore and tend to prefer my iPad for that. My MacBook is pretty much for creating content such as blogging, but when it comes down to say reading others blogs, I grab the iPad and fire up River of News.

The Confession App

Ok so there has been a lot of news about a Confession app that is available for both the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Being that I am both a Mac geek and a practicing Catholic, I thought I would share my thoughts on it. First and foremost, this is NOT a replacement for confessing your sins to a priest and receiving the proper penance. It is instead a guide to helping you make a good confession and a handy thing to take with you into the confessional. It is an aide when examining your conscience prior to going to confession at your local parish. I have it myself and will use it at my next confession next month (I go monthly). For another take on the Confession app check out what the good folks at Southern Fried Catholicism over in Oxford, MS say about it.

Reagan Library adds iPod touch to Exhibits

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library now offers 250 iPod touch units as part of the museum tour. Pretty nifty and tech savvy to utilize.

Finally I wan to share an entertaining graphic on the different type of iPhone users. It is pretty interesting, I think I know which one I fall under. See you all next week for another edition of AppleTalk Thursday.

Tuesday Tech Talk #75

Greetings and Happy New Year everyone! It’s the first Tuesday Tech Talk of 2011 and after taking last week off, there is a lot to catch up on so let’s get right into things!

Firefox 4 Beta 8

Mozilla released its beta version 8 of Firefox 4 a few days before Christmas. I decided to give it a try and wow it is FAST! It is pretty much as responsive as Google Chrome and Apple’s Safari browsers. Quite impressed and I can’t wait to see how the official release will be when it is rolled out this year.

AT&T Launches WiFi initiative in Problem spots

AT&T will be launching WiFi spots in urban areas where it has had trouble with coverage. The spots are NYC and San Francisco. Among the areas to be covered are Times Square, Rockefeller Center, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral which will make smartphone carrying Catholics like myself happy when visiting. Also later in 2011, they will launch WiFi at the Embarcadero Center in San Francisco.

RIM Playbook battery issues

Uh oh, it looks like Research In Motion may have stuck its foot in its mouth with all its iPad trash talking and playing up their Playbook tablet. Now comes word they are having a hard time matching the iPad’s battery life...can we say, “Marketing FAIL”? If you're going to trash talk your competition, it may help that your product can walk your talk! I still love you Canada though.

Paul Allen refiles patent suit against almost everybody

The world’s most insecure billionaire is at it again! After having his first suit tossed out by a judge, Paul Allen has refiled his patent suit against Apple, Google, eBay, Amazon, etc. Wonder how soon this one will get tossed? I will say it one more time, Paul your company ripped off the Apple GUI but you don’t see the 2 Steve’s suing you and Bill do you? You insecure jackass!

How to polish up your LinkedIn Profile

Read an interesting article on MacWorld about overused buzzwords in LinkedIn profiles and how to simplify your profile. Worth a read if you are maintaining a LinkedIn profile

Well, that is going to do it for this edition of Tuesday Tech Talk. We have the Consumer Electronics Show starting on Thursday so next week there will be a lot to talk about. See you next week!

Tuesday Tech Talk #19

Well it’s been 2 weeks since the last Triple T so lets jump right into things.

OS X 10.6.2 Update

Yesterday Apple rolled out the latest update to Snow Leopard. The biggest fix is plugging the Guest Account data loss bug. Also bad news for the Hackintosh community Atom support is disabled in the update. Not that I really care about that.

Magic Mouse Review

So I got the Magic Mouse for the iMac. For the longest time I had been putting up with the standard Apple wired mouse that came with it but was getting tired of the scroll not working so the MM came around at the right time for me. The iMac is used primarily by Kristen but I do use it on occasion for like when I want more screen real estate then my 13“ MacBook can do. Anyhow, after installing the software update to the iMac for the MM, I simply had to pair it with the iMac via Bluetooth and off to the races I went. Some slight changes in preferences and it is awesome! Love the scrolling ability. If you have an iPhone or iPod touch then this is going to be an easy transition and even if you don’t you will have the usability down in about less then 30 minutes. The clicking is very crisp and clear more so then the previous mouse. It does sit lower as compared to an average mouse but yet it is still a comfortable feel for the hand. The best part is when browsing iPhoto you simply swipe with 2 fingers left to right (or vice versa) to advance to the next picture. This also works well if your browsing your iTunes music collection via album view. It is a bit pricey at $69 but I am thinking of getting a second one for my MacBook for times when I have it on the desk. I would highly recommend this mouse, not only is it one great looking mouse but the performance is awesome. Kind of like a Toyota Camry is.

The AT&T vs Verizon fight

I’m really hoping all the jabs Verizon is throwing at AT&T on it’s weak 3G coverage really propels AT&T to step things up with their coverage. If your in a boxing match it’s kind of silly to complain at your opponent for throwing jabs at you better just start fighting back with jabs of your own. AT&T needs to find their jab (expanding 3G coverage quickly), btw wouldn’t mind if AT&T started with the 3G coverage here in Tupelo first which from rumors I am hearing now, won’t happen until early next year now.

Well that will do it for this weeks Tuesday Tech Talk. I think I might make the app review a bi-weekly feature as I am not downloading as many apps as I used to. Back to you Jeremy for Thursday’s Triple T (no pressure).