So Apple has left its heart in San Francisco with Tony Bennett singing farewell to the Keynote crowd on Apple’s behalf this year at Macworld Expo 2009. So what’s on tap for next year? Who will do the keynote? Will there even be a keynote? What is IDG, Macworld Expo presenter, going to do? Think anchor. As in one for a mall and not one that sinks a ship… Next to Apple, what company in the South Hall has the money, brand recognition, and guts to take center stage in Apple’s place? Microsoft.
Imagine it. Steve Ballmer up on stage smacking out some of its own sales figures. You know, how it sales more office productivity applications than any other company in the world? How it is number one in sales for things like mice and stuff of that nature. Want big announcements? Maybe X-Box integration with the Mac? ‘Watch X-Box Live content on your Cinema display through your Mac,’ Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, could tell the crowd. Or how ’bout, ‘Today we’re announcing Office Live for the Mac. Do all you can on Windows on your Mac. Today. For free.’ Microsoft could pull it off.
Now granted, Microsoft isn’t well known for innovation as of late, look at the Zune for an example of copy-cat failure, but it is well known, period. Putting up Ballmer, of even Gates, to speak before a crowd of emotionally injured Mac faithful could turn the tide for the Redmond-based computer company. Just the fact of Microsoft stepping in for arch rival Apple would be enough to cause the media to stomp over each other in the West Hall to get good seats for the keynote. Mac fanboi’s may hold to their code of loyalty, but there would be a lot more curious showing up to see how it all plays out in their place. Think about it, Microsoft at the All Things Mac expo. The center of the Macintosh universe…and Microsoft is right there in the middle of it all! Without a doubt, a Microsoft anchor at the 2010 Macworld would cause a flurry in the industry and best of all, for Microsoft, piss off Steve Jobs to no end. Just watch Triumph of the Nerds for a Jobs reaction to when he’s burned by Microsoft. You know, Macworld 2010 has potential…
Apple took a leap into the enterprise market last Friday with the release of the iPhone firmware 2.0, a free downloadable upgrade for current first-generation users and pre-loaded on the 3G iPhone. The vault was the inclusion of full native support for Microsoft’s heavily used corporate email server, Exchange. Now, business men and women around the globe would be able to get their email on their iPhone in real-time. In other words, when new email appeared in their Inbox on their Mac or PC at the office, it would also be on the iPhone. This method is termed “push” as in pushing email to your phone rather than the phone checking for new email every 15, 30, or 60 minutes per user defined settings.
Push email has its advantages, like being constantly up to date with your email, but it also has some nasty cons. Users that see a large influx of email coming in throughout the day will find heavy battery usage due to the constant pushing of messages. Instead of holding off at a minimum of every 15 minutes to get your email, now your messages are filling up your iPhone every minute a new message is sent to you. If you receive 10 messages in 15 minutes, your iPhone will have 10 active sessions with your Exchange server within those 15 minutes. Multiple this by the hours in your day of heavy traffic and you’ll notice a red battery on your iPhones screen real fast. Add the 3G iPhone to the mix and it may be at 20% by the end of lunch. Not that this problem isn’t reserved just for Exchange users, but also Apple’s new MobileMe is effected by this issue as well. Anytime high traffic email is pushed to your iPhone, your phone will be draining its battery very quickly.
There are ways around this battery dump for your iPhone. In the Settings section, you will find the third icon labeled “Fetch New Data”. Tapping this brings up various settings. The first is “Push” which lets you turn it on or off. If you have more than one push account, say your Exchange server at work and your personal MobileMe, you can tap the “Advanced” selection on the bottom of the screen and then individually disable push for each account to allow you to retain, say your work email to be pushed and not your personal mail.
Push technology is not a new problem for batteries and it’s one Apple needs to actively find a solution to. Other manufactures such a Research In Motion (BlackBerry) have made great strives in keeping the battery juiced throughout the day while still receiving lots of email. If Apple wishes to overtake the millions of BlackBerrys in the enterprise, it needs to get this battery drain plugged.
The Disneyland Resort (NYSE:DIS) today announced a five-year alliance with Microsoft, HP, Life/ware and home builder Taylor Morrison to showcase integrated digital technologies for the home in the immersive, story-telling experiences for which Disney is known. The alliance includes the design and development of the new Innoventions Dream Home attraction, a 5,000+ sq. ft. home belonging to the fictional Elias family, scheduled to open in May in Tomorrowland at the Disneyland Resort.
Keeping with Walt’s vision of bringing cutting-edge and inspiring ideas to Tomorrowland, the Innoventions Dream Home will introduce Disneyland guests to newly available technology from the participating companies that will enhance their lives today, while providing them a glimpse of the emerging digital advances they may find in their homes in the future. The attraction will provide guests with a “high-tech, high-touch” opportunity to experience technology in an entertaining, low-risk environment showing them how the power of technology can connect them to the people and things they care most about.
“We’re thrilled that Disney has chosen Microsoft to bring digital entertainment to life at Disneyland,” said Joe Belfiore, Corporate Vice President, Entertainment and Devices eHome Division at Microsoft. “Together, we’re showcasing innovative technology that is both attainable and inspiring, offering park guests the opportunity to see, touch and feel digital home experiences in a simple, fun and interactive environment.”
“This exciting alliance gives each of our partners a forum to inspire our guests’ imaginations and motivate them to incorporate and enjoy the new technologies that are available today,” said Ed Grier, president of Disneyland Resort. “Consistent with the Disney heritage of growth through innovation, the Innoventions Dream Home is just another example of how we are committed to investing in and developing exciting projects that keep our guests returning again.”
The technology companies will showcase a wide range of technologies and products in the exhibit, including the latest in mobile phones, PCs, digital music and gaming. The Innoventions Dream Home demonstrates how home technology can be simple, intuitive and fun while helping guests understand how to seamlessly interconnect their home, the surrounding community and the world, helping consumers stay closer to the people, places and entertainment that are most important to them. The alliances also help ensure that the Innoventions Dream Home remains on the forefront of technology with the newest devices and products as part of the exhibit.
Guests will actively engage in this experience as they help members of the fictional Elias family prepare for a trip to World Soccer Championships in China, where their son is competing. Elias family members rotate throughout the house, randomly interacting with guests in the various rooms. Upon exiting the house, guests can learn more about the companies that collaborated to create the Innoventions Dream House, exploring the technologies for themselves first-hand.
The notion of a Dream Home has deep roots at the Disneyland Resort. Walt Disney was fascinated with the concept of a futuristic home and he introduced concepts at World’s Fairs that led to the first “House of Tomorrow” exhibit in Disneyland (1967). Those early versions featured modern conveniences for housewives, but the story line always focused on progress that led to a better way of living. In 1998, Disneyland opened Innoventions, an interactive pavilion featuring what was then considered breakthrough technology: voice-activated computers, high-definition TVs, smart-cars and satellite broadcasting.
The intent was not to predict the future, but to let people play with emerging technologies and imagine how those technologies might enhance everyday life. The precursors to the Dream Home enabled people of all ages to experiment with interactive devices, games and exhibits, demonstrating both the fun and the significance of modern innovations.
Now comes the Dream Home, a convergence of five companies and their fascination with technology. The combination of Disney’s strong storytelling heritage, cutting-edge technology expertise from Microsoft, HP and Life/ware, and Taylor Morrison’s talent for building an environment that will bring it to life, will inspire Disneyland guests’ imaginations for years to come.
Microsoft has released a new version of their Zune MP3 player. We welcome the Zune 2nd Generation. The new Zune Pad appears on these refreshed versions, boasting an innovative touch-sensitive button for navigating the device, as well as wireless sync, Windows Media Centre TV on the go, and new codec support. Pretty useful device, hey?
Proporta’s Alu-Leather Case (Microsoft 2G Zune 4GB and 8GB) is definitely a must have for protecting your MP3 player against the all-harming day to day impacts they encounter.
Proporta create this protection by using their trademark ‘screen saver system’ which uses a sheet of rigid, lightweight aircraft grade Aluminium to line the Case, perfectly saving it against crushing and impact shocks. Cut aways give access to ports and controls so that you can use your device in the case.
Another protective option is the Proporta Silicone Case (Microsoft 2G Zune 4GB and 8GB).
The Silicone Case gives your Zune 2G a tough, protective skin, allowing access to all ports and controls, whilst protecting it from scratching and impact damage. The Silicone case adds little more than a millimetre to your device enabling you to carry it around comfortably in your pocket.
And more news… keep an eye out for an Aluminium Case for the Zune 2G heading your way as well. More details to follow.
It is also imperative that the Zune 2G’s screen is kept protected from everyday scratches, scrapes and dust invasion. Proporta recommends their Advanced Screen Protector (Microsoft 2G Zune 4GB and 8GB Series). It incorporates an improved thickness, made from a new ultra high-clarity plastic, without impairing screen brightness and clarity. This screen protector reduces glare from sunlight or bright lighting and is fully washable and replaceable.
Show your Zune 2G the respect it deserves and visit www.proporta.com for full protection.
What’s with this cat? Apple had two years to make it happen as good as Tiger and yet, things all over the hard drive don’t spin like they should. While I’m not quite prepared to call this a Vista issue like some are, I am disappointed. Ironically, I’m more grieved with Apple’s update, 10.5.1, than the out-of-the-box version. As previously blogged, the update does more harm than good. Constant crashes, complaints of applications not responding to log outs, and permission issues, Apple’s update to fix its network copy bug is just horrible. I couldn’t believe that Apple’s very own iMovie 08 would not open for the life of me after installed last week. I never did get it to open under 10.5.1. Carbon Copy Cloner made a perfect copy of my not-so perfect install and I went back to 10.5.0. Things are better but still, minor issues are there.
Now Oliver Rist at PCMAG.COM has a whole different feeling on Leopard. He thinks Apple pulled a Vista. While his article has some valid points, I find it a bit comical to go that far. His first point is the “wait for the service pack” before you install it. Since I’ve already established the 10.5.1 is actually worse than 10.5.0, and since it only corrects the network copy bug with a few other minor fixes, this already is untrue. Granted, it kind of puts more credence into his statement, but only at face value. The truth is (and by the way, NEVER move files people, COPY and you’ll be just fine), Vista has been out just nearly a year now and there are still tons and tons of issues that the upcoming SP1 will supposedly to fix. The number one issue with Vista is hardware. No one can get even peripheral less than a year old to work in Vista. Ah, last I checked, this isn’t an issue in Leopard. Read the comments in Rist’s article and you’ll find one poster stating that he used his PowerBook (Apple stopped making these nearly three years ago) to upgrade to Leopard and then download drivers for his Vista machine!
Other complaints from Rist include “useless” visual effects. He thinks Apple’s translucent Finder menu bar is very much like Vista’s all-over-the-place translucent borders and title bars. I agree with Rist, Aero is horrible. I turn it off any Vista machine that I must work on. Apple’s single bar on the top is not that bad. Unlike Aero, it actually grows on you. Rist also poo-poos the Dock and I do agree, the dinky shinny star as a running application indicator is a poor choice for a company known for it’s expertise in user interfaces. The reflective Dock, though, ain’t that big of deal to complain about.
Other issues, such as networking (outside of my fluke first install, I’ve had zero issues with networking), and Rist’s whining of Time Machine as a poor bundled app, again, does not make this a Vista comparison.
In summary, I agree, Leopard has its issues and I am quite annoyed with Apple for allowing this to happen; however, Vista it ain’t. When a multi-billion corporation has nearly seven years to update it’s operating system, the mistakes should not be as great as it is with Vista. There is not a mass exodus of Mac users returning to Tiger as there are Vista users running back to eXPerience (remember that? 
) With major PC manufacturers going back to Windows XP as a pre-install choice and Vista installs with a “Go Back to Previous Version” options, I really can’t see how anyone could honestly call Leopard Apple’s Vista. No, Microsoft has earned its smelly fish of an operating system all by itself.
What’s being called this centuries Windows ME, Bill Gates will be happy to officially leave the company he co-founded with the award of “Top ten terrible tech products” by CNET. Keen to the fact that Microsoft took six years – SIX YEARS folks! — to develop this operating system upgrade it should have just been so much more than it turned out to be. From incompatibility hardware woes to constant warning boxes that must be acknowledged to the sell-out to Hollywood with DRM-everywhere, Vista is in CNET’s words, “terrible technology”. My favorite quote from the article:
Any operating system that quietly has a downgrade-to- previous-edition option introduced for PC makers deserves to be classed as terrible technology.
The funniest thing about this is I’ve had customers already perform this on their newly purchased laptops after “a day of hell with Vista”! Even funnier is the various versions you can buy of this horrendous release and just how much they all cost you.
Man, Microsoft, you REALLY missed the boat on this one. Six years!! HAHAHAHA. Put down the X-Box controller and start working!
I don’t get it, but I’ve had more headaches with Leopard since installing it than I did with Tiger the entire time it lived on my Mac Pro. From permission issues that neither Disk Utility from the DVD, Onyx, or Mac Pilot could resolve to crashing programs left and right to my iTunes now telling me it can not sync my Contacts because it is unable to merge my data (which gets a zero hit on Apple’s support site,) I’m starting to feel like I’m running Windows again. Shesh, this is the kind of pain I expect from Microsoft, not Apple.
When I first installed Leopard shortly after its release via Archive and Install, my NAS (Network Attached Storage) drive would not come up in the Shared section. I could ping it, I could access it via Safari, I just couldn’t get to it via SMB. When I called Apple Support, not even Tier 2 could help. I was then told that it would be “sent up” and I would get a call back in a day or two. Thank God I didn’t bank on that. Three weeks later, still no call back. Ugh. A Format and Install fixed that issue.
After that, then I couldn’t upgrade programs, access files, and on and on and on because of permission issues. Even when I took ownership of all the files and Applications, I still would receive errors. It was maddening! So I did a Carbon Copy Cloner of the system, redid the Format and Install and then opted for the migrate procedure. That resolved the permission issues.
Now I’m left with crashing applications and this new iTunes issue. Why it will not sync my Entourage data, I don’t know. It worked fine in the last two messed up Leopard installs. What changed here? Oh ya, iCal no longer shows my Entourage events but mysteriously, all the Birthdays do (which come from Entourage.) Go figure. Ugh.
So, after blowing away backup folders in the Library and reseting sync logs in .Mac, nothing seems to work. I’m stuck trying to figure this out on my own until I break down and call Apple again and see if this time, maybe, they can help.
You know, I’ve heard a lot of people having no issues with Leopard and I think for the most part it is a fine upgrade; however, with all the issues I’ve had, I’m holding off on my MacBook Pro, PowerBook, and Mac mini upgrades. One headache is all I need right now.
SvenOnTech has been told by a source at an Exchange ISV that Direct Push support will be on the iPhone in about “a month or two”. The feature set will include not only updating the Mail application upon arrival of new e-mail but will also support over-the-air syncing of contacts and calendar events exactly like it is done on current devices running Windows Mobile. New contacts added either from Entourage, Outlook, or from the iPhone itself will automatically be synchronized to the Exchange server and thus passing it off to all the clients attached to it. Calendar events will updated in the same fashion.
Support Microsoft Exchange will allow Apple’s iPhone to continue its success by allowing millions of enterprise workers to keep up-to-date with their corporate affairs through out the day.
The absence of Exchange support in the initial release of the iPhone is most likely due to the fact that the software was still in its testing phase and not ready for release.
I feel like I first have to preface this post with somewhat of a defense. Yes, I love my iPhone and yes I am relieved to be off of the Windows Mobile platform. Those two things are true, but I can’t help long for Microsoft’s ActiveSync. While it has it’s deficiencies, it sure syncs a lot faster than iTunes 7.3. How is it that every time I sync my iPhone, it takes forever to just get through my Calendar? Contacts takes a good amount of time, too. But when I use to “fresh” sync my Microsoft-based phone (docking the phone since a prior sync), ActiveSync never took as long as iTunes does to search for changes and sync them. I’m at a lost why iTunes takes as long as it does. Man, it’s unsettling!
Truth is, because of the long sync times, I’ll most likely only sync once a day, which sucks for a business professional like myself in which a single day could demand many syncings to keep both the desktop and portable device up-to-date. (If over-the-air syncing, via Direct Push, was supported, this wouldn’t even be an issue.) But with such lengthy times to get the iPhone up-to-date, stale information is most likely what the phone will have through the day.
Now to be fair to iTunes, I do sync a full year of events which is a lot. But again, iTunes should make an index file to allow the iPhone to check it for changes and then only change the differential, not the entire year of events. It seems like the same thing is happening with my 362 Contacts as well. Apple, there is a better way of doing this, so let’s see it!
I was going to hold off on any details about my thoughts on the iPhone until I used it for a few more days, but Shane has gone out and told everyone that I did a review, so now I’m forced to give something.
Regular readers of SvenOnTech will know that at first, I was very let down by the lack of features such as 3G data network support, no Exchange Direct Push, and no true third-party developer support. As time drew closer to the release of the phone, I started to warm to the iPhone. Finally, the 29th of June came and I wanted one. I lined up at a Manteca AT&T store (still with its Cingular sign out front) and three hours later, I had one. I was stoked!
First, let me tell you what led me to change my mind on getting one. I have been a Windows Mobile user all the way back to Windows CE. Yes, when it was black-and-white and actually had a Start menu on it. I’ve seen it grow and I’ve seen it fail. Over and over again, fail. The stability of the pocket operating system has never been one to feel secure with. I guess that’s why a back up application was the first thing I installed with each device I purchased. But the nagging thing was the applications I use daily on the Pocket PC that I needed to have were absent in every way from the iPhone. I looked to get HTC’s latest device from AT&T and I was close to purchasing it. VERY close. But my current HTC device, the XV 6700 kept dying on me. I finally got so fed up with it, I realized an unreliable device with a ton of features was not better than one with less features that was very reliable. So I held out for the iPhone.
How do I know the iPhone is more reliable? I don’t. But based on historical evidence of Apple hardware, I’m fairly confident the iPhone in it’s premiere form is far more superior than Microsoft’s decade of trial. I have a Rev. A MacBook Pro and have no issues with it. I have had talked to others with first run Apple hardware and have heard the same. Since the iPhone is based on OS X, I know that’s stable enough in its five year run. I have more confidence in Apple than I ever have had in Microsoft.
Another issue I should bring up is the fact of service. I left Verizon for AT&T. I LOVE Verizon. It has the best signal I have seen. I have been everywhere from Chico, California to Tucson, Arizona and everywhere in-between. I never had a dead phone. Ever. Too bad Verizon passed on the iPhone as it would have been the perfect combo.
Lining up for the iPhone was great. Like the days of lining up for the Smashing Pumpkins or Summer Jam while in college. This time, I brought my family (my wife showed up just in time to get in the store with us) and we waited nearly three hours to be luck 19. I got it. Boy, was I excited! Even the kids where into it! What an event. (See my Flikr album for some pix.)
Okay, the phone. How is it? Well in a nutshell, this skeptic is impressed. I figured the Exchange mail would be the most bitter pill to swallow but guess what I found in the Mail settings of the phone? An Exchange button! While it’s not pure Exchange but rather an insecure IMAP connection, it does the job. In fact, it does the job better than my XV6700 did! One of the ongoing problems I had with it was the constant disabling of Direct Push by itself for some reason. When it was working and grabbing mail as it came, the XV6700 wouldn’t notify me of new mail. The iPhone can be set to automatically retrieve mail every 15 minutes and when there’s something new in my Inbox, the familiar Mail.app new mail sound chimes along with a quick vibrate of the iPhone. I was so not use to this feature working that I kept pulling out my iPhone all through church thinking I had a phone call! Read the rest of this entry »