iPhone Sells On June 11

TUAW reports the iPhone will go on sale June 11.

On the one hand I’d like to think this sounds about right. But, in the end who can really say except Apple. Right? But here’s the fanboy in me making it fit:

• WWDC07 begins that very day;
• It fulfills the “June” promise; and
• I’m beginning to like my W810i too much… I need the iPhone before I change my mind.

Speaking of the W801i. Cingular’s service has been awesome. I’m in L.A right now for a petroleum geology convention. I’ve only had one instance where the phone let me down. And, it’s not fair to blame it on the phone. I was in the small city of LAX… you know the one… with all the planes! Yeah, ok. I really needed to place a call and kept getting this irritatingly nice recorded lady telling I couldn’t get through. Seems like every other person was experiencing the same dilemma as there were lots of folks dialing, phone to ear, hanging up, rinse, repeat. So, let’s blame it on the network or infrastructure. Still… all in all… Apple’s going to have to pull a rabbit out of the hat to part me with this phone.

Here’s a rabbit I think might be a persuasive one for them to attempt. The W810i has an fm radio. No big deal I thought. I find I’m liking it (gasp). Somehow, and I can’t say this for sure but I think there must be an fm blanking interval because my phone’s radio knows call letters and song/artist. Hmm. Now, if they can do that couldn’t an enterprising Apple then make that song easily purchaseable from their fm enabled iPhone via iTunes? Seems like a great distribution channel and one the radio stations and labels would go for.

What am I missing here!?

24. I’m Becoming My Parents.

Remember weeknights when the family would hunker down in front of the tube? Maybe it was Dallas or Golden Girls or Dynasty or Mork. Whatever it was there was probably something that the house would sit down and watch. Well, our kids are 5 and under. So, if it’s not Thomas the Train or some animated Pixney story (Pixar + Disney = Pixney) then we don’t watch it. Except for my 24 habit. iTunes Store has a hook in me. Why? No commercials!

It’s not even that the story is all that compelling. But then either was Little House on the Prarie or The Waltons or Murder She Wrote. I know plenty of people who peeled off MANY an hour of their lives to step away from the yoke of the day and lose themselves in some story or other.

Right now we have Cox Cable and we don’t own ANY of that programming. We’ve watched it & it’s gone down the drain. Now, at least I have something for the money and time. I think I’m liking the hook Cupertino has in my jaw.

Mixed Tape 15 Online

Mercereds Benz has posted their Mixed Tape 15. Sorry I didn’t check a few days ago to let you know.

This one’s really good!

For those of you not in the know… Mercedes does this thing called “Mixed Tape” where every so often (getting more regular to the point it’s monthly) they post a collection of high quality FREE music of all genre’s: pop; reggae; urban; technica; and so on. I don’t think I recall any instrumentals or rap. But, then I only discovered Mixed Tape on series 7. I load em up in iTunes into this big playlist called Mixed Tape. Kinda sounds like a high end bookstore in my office when that playlist gets going.

iPod versus…?

There’s a lot of smack being talked about “the next iPod killer” whether that’s the Zune, the Sansa, the next thing from iRiver… Even collectively they’re not taking ANY marketshare AWAY from Apple. They’re simply making a bigger market and that’s happening for a variety of reasons. Face it. Very few people (I know only two) refuse to own anything Apple. They’re down on the company, brand, technology, kool-aid thing. One of the guy’s old and cranky and just plain off his rocker half the time. And, the other fellows closer to my age than he is to Cranky’s… and well, he just doesn’t like anything that isn’t built from components from Fry’s. Everyone else I know is at least open to owning at least an iPod (most already do).

So, what’s the real threat here? We know Apple’s not going to stand still. The iPod platform is a moving target. But one that’s getting bigger all the time. They’ve picked up a TON of new Apple customers (for iPods, MacBooks, etc)… The truth of it is – Microsoft is probably hemhorraging customers right now. But, and this is significant, Microsoft *HAS* entered the MP3 player market with a version 1.0 Zune. That just brought them one VERY significant step closer to threatening iPod. Ballmer’s not going to sit still either. He’s going to take the fight to iPod. His version 1.0 may not seem like much. But, do you remember version 1.0 of iPod? Compared to today’s experience… I wouldn’t have one. I’d have been very shocked if Microsoft had come out with a winning hand for version 1.0: They haven’t learned their lessons yet.

So, the bar’s been raised pretty high. Right? Well, yes and no. See… Apple’s learned a gob of lessons first-hand. They know and remember exactly how they came to be where they are now. They learned to grow up fast, iterate, grow more, iterate, etc. The only saving grace Apple has is no one else is really iterating a whole package across multiple platforms. The saving grace (and it’s not to be counted on really) is that Microsoft doesn’t seem to have iterative design in their DNA. They just don’t do things too very quickly. And, no one on the Windows side of life is going to seriously threaten Apple’s lock on the Mac platform. Unless… you see that little brown app pop up on a Mac some day. That will signal some serious throw down is coming.

Boycott UMG. Steal this Graphic!

I’m not much on boycotting anything. But since I apparently steal all my music I figure “Eff UMG!” You call me a thief!? I’ll call BS on you! I might make it a YEAR just for kicks! 🙂

And feel free to steal this graphic for your own. Please don’t link to it… you might bork my bandwidth 🙂

DVD Jon Fairplays Apple

GigaOM » DVD Jon Fairplays Apple

So, let me get this straight… Jon Lech Johansen (aka DVD Jon) has reverse engineered the FairPlay DRM and has now put some DRM of his own together that works okie dokie on the iPod. Uh huh.

And, how, exactly does this not get him sued?

Or, put more precisely. If Apple can shut the door behind them on DRM once… and with the quick generation of new devices how long do you think they’ll allow competing (if essentially same) DRMs to function on their gear?

Mixed Tape 14 Online Monday

Yep. It’s online finally The scroller at Mercedes Benz’ Mixed Tape site says 14 will be made available Monday, Sept 26. If you like really good free music… this is one you want to bookmark.

(Only posting this cause the hits on my Mixed Tape referrers went sky high last night)

Sample MP3

I’m going to upload an MP3 of a MUCH improved machine read text. I’ll be interested to see what everyone thinks.

The reason for this has some personal gratification and is a bit self serving. See, Grandpa’s eyesite was shot the last several years of his life. He loved his ham radio and all the print publications that went with his hobby. One thing that kept him sharp those last few hard years was the machine voice rendering of his favorite periodicals.

I gritted my teeth every time I heard that tinny sound. But, after each visit I knew it was good medicine for gramps. I think he’d LOVE where the technology is going.

QT 7.1.3 Flash Playback

So, I’m updating to iT7 yesterday and the iTS tells me it needs a QT update to 7.1.3. Okie dokie.

Well, as I’m double checking to see that it didn’t tromp on my QT Pro key I see that Flash playback is now a check box on the prefs pane. HUH!?

Turns out the iPod games are Flash based. Makes sense then that the iPod (a QuickTime device if there ever was one) would inherit the Flash goodness.

VERY slick!

REVIEW: iTunes 7 QT 7.1.3

Aside from iTunes Store probably getting the snot kicked out of it right now… I like it.

Trying to buy Hitchhikers Guide (Ian loves the robot) and it’s saying the Store’s having some problems. Must be fixed now… Single click purchase a second ago worked just fine. Pulling down 1.22 Gb so far. Also has a “pause all” button. And IT’S WIDESCREEN!!! Oh yeah, I’m liking it a LOT right about now. Except for the speed of the download. Why they didn’t do a Bittorrent style distributed download I’ll never know!?

Interface is tidied up. Furniture is still where we left it… just different icons now. Probably shades of Leopard.

Also, it now reminds you to back your purchased stuff up. That’s a nice touch seeing as how Time Machine is coming soon as a feature in Leopard.

QuickTime 7.1.3 appears to allow for Flash playback too in the preferences. Dont’ know if that’s only QT Pro or not (as I don’t have the non-pro version to test from). Wonder if that’s new?