I never leave my house. If I did become someone who ever leaves the house, I would totally get an iPod. I keep my music going as if it were my pacemaker. I also am all about some customization. That's why if I ever left the house and got an iPod I'd most definitely pick up some of these Shufflesome stickers for it.
Forget bulky rubber, silicone or rubber protective sleeves and cases - they're ugly, and who needs that? Besides, how much protection do you really need for your Shuffle? These cast vinyl stickers should protect your musical friend from scratching just fine, I imagine. And Dear Lord are they lovely. They should start making these for cellphones.
Ok, maybe not yet but both Microsoft and Apple clearly see multi-touch input devices as the (dare I say near?) future of computer interfacing, with MS announcing that Windows 7 will be optimized for Microsoft Surface-like touch interfaces and Apple having many patents for similar multi-touch systems.
On this day in 1984 the first Mac was introduced to the world. Newsweek awed readers with the drawing shown below which depicted the inner workings of the Macintosh 128K. For $2500 you got 128 KB of RAM, a 3.5" floppy drive, 2 serial ports, a 9-inch black and white monitor, and the Mac OS 1.0. The Macintosh was the first to have tools for desktop publishing and in 3 months 50,000 were sold. This is not as many units as the iPod but was enough to push Apple into the big-time.
On this day, Superbowl '84 introduced the Macintosh personal computer with the famous 1984 commercial. We talked about this commercial back on December 15th. This was one of 2 times the commercial was aired, but the only airing to a national audience.
"On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984."
CES is here, and we'll be bringing you highlights from the conference whether you like it or not. Why? Because that's all anyone is blogging about, so take it and like it! Seriously though, we have some great articles for you from CES and even mixed things up a bit from a few that (dare I say) are not from CES!
On this day in 1977 Apple was born. 31 years of innovation has brought us the Macintosh, OS X, iTunes, iPod, iMac, iPhone and the Mac Mini. Many people give Apple credit for popularizing the personal computer with Lisa, which sported the first mouse. We aren't Apple fanboys over here but we do love our green iPod Nano.
Many think the that the famous "1984" commercial from Apple was only aired once during the Super Bowl of 1984. However, on this day in 1983 the ad was shown late at night on a small TV station in Twin Falls, Idaho so that it would qualify for the 1983 advertising awards.
The web is abuzz with talk of Google's new mobile OS, Android. What I find interesting is the stark contrast between Apple's tyrannical stance against people developing their own apps for the iPhone, and Google's stance that outside apps can only lead to the melioration of their product. Apple has blocked users from developing apps for the iPhone, going as far as causing all outside apps that were developed for the iPhone to be bricked. Google has done quite the opposite. Their new Android mobile operating system not only is designed specifically to allow programmers to produce apps for it easily and is not tied to any specific phone or carrier, but the entire operating system will be made open-source sometime next year!
For those of you guys that missed it, Google today announced that they are in fact not making a cellphone or mobile device, but instead were actually developing an open-source operating system for cellphones and mobile devices. The software is known as Android. C'mon, are you really surprised that a software company developed software and not a device? Here's the scoop on Android:
The OS is free for mobile providers (or anyone else) to put it on their phones. Google plans to make their money off ads displayed to the users of the phone (not sure if it's on the phone itself or simply when browsing Google's pages.)
The OS itself will go open-source sometime next year.
It has been suggested that the design of the phones may be similar to the iPhone (with touch screens and what-not) but I'm guessing the OS's interface will not be tied to one particular navigation or input system.
Google will continue developing mobile versions of its web-based applications such as Google Maps and GMail for those of us with non-Android phones to continue to use.
Google has also announced the Open Handset Alliance: A group of developers, manufacturers and providers to "commercially deploy handsets and services using the Android Platform."
Android-powered phones are not expected to be available until the second half of 2008.
Again, all of this is such a contrast to how Apple has handled outside development on their iPhone. Jobs was quoted as saying, "These are devices that need to work, and you can't do that if you load any software on them." And that, "'Cingular doesn't want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up." People figured out a way to get their own apps on their (own) iPhones, but instead of voiding their warranty (or thanking them for making the iPhone waaaay better), Apple blocked their apps with their latest patch. It has taken a huge public outcry and several lawsuits to get Apple to finally open the iPhone a bit. They've now announced that they'll be releasing a developer kit this February.
As you can see, I'm a little pissed at Apple for locking down the iPhone. It would be a glorious device to develop on, but right now isn't worth the risk of Apple killing any apps one would develop on it. As for me, I'm not holding my breath for iPhone's developer kit release, either. As a developer, why should I settle for semi-open-source when the real thing is right around the corner?
