[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q-MPZ_44VY]

“All these years, you’ve gone through the day without email like this in your pocket…
or stock updates like this in your pocket, or Internet like this in your pocket…

And you survived…

The question is…

how?”

CoasterDude2002 sent this in…looks great – I am sure it will hit Apple’s website in 3..2..
Edit: Apple has posted the new ads online:
http://www.apple.com/iphone/ads/ad9/
http://www.apple.com/iphone/ads/ad8/

Woops! It looks like you tried to access a page which you don’t have privileges to see.

Try going back or logging in as a privileged user.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to let us know!

We are not sure if systems admins will be able to ditch their desktop/laptops yet (the controls on this look a bit – shall we say- light) but this is certainly a step in the right direction.

We got this email from Media Temple this morning an couldn’t be more pleased to know that one more of our everyday-type tasks can be completed from the comfort of our iPhone.  

Bravo Media Temple!  The Revolution has begun!

Log in here if reading from an iPhone.

I never really understood corporate pricing for iPods anyway.  I guess they make good Christmas bonuses for cheap companies.  However today, I was tipped that corporate discounts for Video iPods has almost doubled.  A screen capture I found on the web.

Looks like it isn’t just Apple Corporate, but others getting into the act.

Yep, all of you angry commenters were right. That mockup we showed you awhile back? It isn’t the new hi-end iPod.  It is the new iPod Nano! It will be about two inches square and play video (so technically we were right about being the new video iPods). It is coming in 4GB and 8GB sizes and will likely keep the same pricing.

  These little square machines are also coming in a new set of colors for all of us sick of the five already out.  Those 320×240 videos you saw with the new iPod OS?  That was a Nano.

The big news, though, is that the iPod XXXX (can’t reveal name yet…but hint: HTC is gonna be bitter) is going to be a phoneless iPhone.  No other technical information (like WiFi?!?! )was given from our source in Asia but according to him, they are in boxes being shipped to the US now.  Would you pay $299 for this thing at the low end and $399 for the high end?   Apple thinks you will.

As for the shuffles?  No word yet but if everything is getting ‘shuffled’ down then  there may be perhaps tiny screens for the smallest iPod family member?  I guess they wouldn’t be shuffles any more would they?  What is smaller than a Nano and is saucy?

All of this is still on track for August release…still no event notification from Apple?

Edit: Yep Apple has sent out the press invites but no iPods?

reddit_url=’http://9to5mac.com/ipod-nano-video-ipod-touch-both-arriving-in-one-week-34563345′
reddit_title=’New iPod Stuff….Holy’

By limiting the device, you are forcing the technology laggards to catch up and embrace a technology whose time has come.  

Backward compatibility be damned!

That’s it. Just a thought. Discuss?

It seems like every time a new version of ColdFusion is released, a new company owns it. This time around Adobe is making with the release (8).  Nothing too significant jumps out of the “what’s new” page (like bigtime Flex integration?!) but a few things are there that weren’t before – like Exchange/.Net integration, a Server monitor, PDF and Ajax additions…yawn.

The unabridged list of changes is here and you can pick it up for US$1,299.

The official Apple retail presence in France is now in full swing with Apple-trained and Apple-paid employees manning the helm.

Using the store-within-a-store concept, Apple has teamed up with FNAC (think Best Buy plus Border’s) multi-media retail giant to open a half-dozen Apple Shops throughout France before the end of the year. The first two French shops opened in June. The Parisian opening one month ago, on the 28th of June, kicked off with a cocktail soir

Looks like all the shackles are coming off the “protected” iPhone one by one.  Today we learn that cre.ations.net (via O’Grady) has effectively done one of the holy grails of broadband mobile phone usage by enabling the iPhone to share its EDGE (why oh why not 3G Apple?!)connection with a host computer. What’s next hackers? If you are taking requests, turn my iPhone into a junxion box!

Don’t believe us?!?!  Roll the tape (after the jump)…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io11d0kFGio]

AT&T reported in its Q2 2007 results that it had sold 146,000 in the two days it was on sale in June (released at 6pm on the 29th. – so 30 total hours)

I am not sure if this is bad news or good news. The Street (AAPL down $4 on news) seems to think it is a bad sign as some analyst were pointing at first weekend sales to be anywhere from 400,000-700,000 units. It just goes to show you how much these guys really know – nada.   I wonder what their metrics were?  

More than likely however, this is just clearing out the irrational exuberance.  150,000 untested iPhones is a lot in two  days and who knows how many more were signed up for AT&T in the following days.  There are plenty of people waiting in the wings for a iPhone.  What are the waiting for?  

A few things:

1. Not everyone lives near an Apple Store or AT&T Outlet and some people didn’t want to be part of the herd if they did.  People who bought theirs online or over the phone had to wait for theirs to be sent and aren’t reflected in the AT&T tally. 
2. Waiting for current contract to end.  With contract buyouts costing as much as $200, it makes no sense not to wait a few extra months until the current contract to run out to change carriers to AT&T.
3. Some people are waiting for the initial rush to end so they don’t have to stand in lines or their store is out of stock.  That is largely over now but the initial AT&T numbers don’t reflect that.
4. Waiting for the kinks to get ironed out.  I hate to say it but as the owner of the original MacBook Pro, I can certainly attest: Apple’s first generation products are not as reliable as follow up versions.  This isn’t only Apple of course.  Some people are waiting for the second rev.
5. Waiting for the reviews to come in.  This is also largely over and the reviews are almost universally positive but not reflected in the first two day’s numbers.
6. Waiting for 3G.  Yeah, this is like 90% of the people I know that are waiting.  We’ll see – probably November for Christmas.  EDGE just doesn’t do it and is the single biggest limiting hardware feature – that is can’t be updated by software.
7. Christmas, Birthday, IT at work.  Sometimes you have to wait a bit for milestones to arrive.
8. Waiting for cost to come down.  Rumors of iPhone Nano or other low cost options are abound and $600 for a phone just doesn’t compute for some people.
9. Better software.  Some people can’t live without the IM functionality that iPhone lacks.  Others are waiting for better email functionality or perhaps some other killer app to emerge (Skype?).
10. Waiting to save up enough money.  There are more than a few people who didn’t know how absurdly cool this phone is.  They do now but haven’t budgeted the money that it will cost to afford this phone.  Add to that the cost of getting out of their current contract and it isn’t cheap.
11. If you are an Apple Employee (One of 25,000) you don’t get yours until the consumer run is over.
12. AT&T had significant activation problems during the first week.  Undoubtedly a great deal of iPhones went unactivated during day 1 and 2.  EDIT: We have a lot of commenters who mention that their phones that they bought were not activated until Sunday.  After the fiscal quarter ended.  Also, did AT&T tally the numbers activated on the weekend or were they all tallied on Monday?
13. Waiting for them to come to Europe.  That’s me.  Hurry up November!

So what are you waiting for?

Slightly different title than last time but pretty much the same story...

What IT staff can do if the CEO gets an iPhone?

http://www.macworld.com/2007/07/secrets/iphonetips2/index.php

Edit: Oh wow, it has legs, InfoWorld is running it too:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/07/24/What-to-do-if-the-CEO-gets-an-iPhone_1.html

Now that the hacking is done and the smoke has cleared, some upstart vendors are slanging the tools to get ringtones on your iPhone. iPhoneRingToneMaker – the aptly titled program from Efiko (who also do wallpapers for iPhone) does just that.  For 10 bucks.  

So if you want to leave the L33T hacking to the experts head over and try it out.  It is a 1.7 meg download for Windows users only.  If you see any, let them know.

No one is saying that the iPhone isn’t sliced bread – it most certainly is. But it does have some shortcomings. Below we are going to break those down and postulate what will come of them.

1. Battery. Not replaceable. Waaa!
   Why? Form over function. Apple being Apple here. Are any iPod’s batteries replaceable? Nope. Hurt sales? Probably not much.  But, “this is a phone” you say.  Have you seen how beautiful the iPhone is?  Yeah, sorry Apple isn’t going to give you a replaceable battery unless by replaceable you mean sending it in for repair, charging you $80 and risking data loss.
   What to do?  Grin and bear it.  One less thing to lose/flap to fall off.  The battery is pretty impressive if you consider you are looking at by far the best looking mobile screen ever.  IF you really need the extra power, buy some of the long play iPod external batteries, an extra USB charger and a car charger why not?  For the super paranoid there is even a solar charger you can build.  Scandinavia in winter?   bummer.
2. No iChat.  OUCH.  Sidekick users are scratching their heads right now saying that 90% of their day is spent on AIM with their buddies and shooting off quick group sms’s, how on earth does this not exist on the best phone that ever existed in the univese?  No one knows for sure why this wasn’t included in the initial iPhone software release.  The application may not have been ready for the launch.  Also there is speculation that Apple is making money not just off every iPhone sold, but also every sms message sent.  An iChat application would cannabalize some of this revenue.  What to do?  Use any one of the WebChat apps temporarily.  They work but are extremely rudimentary – especially if you are used to rich mobile chat applications.  Apple will release a chat application soon.  They’d better.
3. Screen Keyboard – no tactile feedback, #%@$ for sausage fingerers.  This is an issue that iPhone users and Apple can probably come to a happy compromise on.  It is true that you do get better with the keyboard if you learn to trust it – but it will never be as good as a real thumb board.  That being said, it would be nice to have the landscape keyboard available to use outside of just the web browser (you’ve spoiled us!)   Look for an update in the next few months which will allow you to do any of your typing from the landscape keyboard – across all applications, not just Safari.
4. AT&T.  This is the monster Elephant in the corner of the room.  But it is so big that you are in the other corner and your head is still up its arse.
   There is not enough room to write all of the bad things that AT&T deserves to get, where to start?  Net Neutrality opponent.  Monopolizer.  Crappy phone support.  Horrible signal strength.  Gouging for international data.  Confusing bill.  Salespeople are poor/untrained/unhelpful/powerless to do anything effective/upsell parts….I could go on for paragraphs.  I am not saying that the other carriers are much better.  The real problem here is that there isn’t any competition.  I am sure Apple has some performance metrics built into the contract  with AT&T but frankly I don’t expect the AT&T side of the equation to be any good.  What to do?  Grab your ankles iPhone lovers!  AT&T and Apple are married for 5 years.  A couple of ways out:
   • deal with not having the phone portion of the device.  A real downer – especially without iChat.  
   • Get one in Europe – expensive and you have to wait until November but more options abound.
   • Hope that Wimax comes out sooner than planned, Apple shoves a Wimax chip into the iPhone and has a softphone application.  They could probably back out of the AT&T agreement that way
   • Um.  That’s pretty much it.  Sad.  I hate giving money to companies I despise.
5. Crippled Bluetooth – again, Apple being Apple.  Keep it simple.  Thing is, I want stereo sound for my iTunes.  I want to use my iPhone as a modem for my other devices.  Look for Apple or someone else to do something really tricky like turning the iPhone into a Junxion box type of device.  Yes, it would sap your power but it makes more sense than DUN any day.  Also, expect Stereo Bluetooth (A2DP) via upgrade in the near future.
6. EDGE – This isn’t as big a deal as it should be without Bluetooth DUN.  Apple has made some concessions – like crappy Youtube while on EDGE as well as having a solid web browser that omits flash content and auto-compresses images (not sure about htis one – I know AT&T does this).  The big problem with mobile phone TCP/IP is the latency which doesn’t improve with HSDPA.  Still, Jobsy would have had to have a good reason not to throw in 3G.  Price?  Naw there is plent of room left in the iSuppli numbers.  Here’s a new one: Maybe he’s actually telling the truth.  Maybe it drains the battery.  My Nokia N95 dies in about an hour of using 3G and it doesn’t have a 3 inch screen to feed.  Or maybe AT&T doesn’t want a million Apple fanboys watching Harry Potter on You Tube over 3G on their network.  Unlimited data gets a lot more unlimited with 3G.  Well played Apple.
7. Email – No email program is going to please all of the people all of the time, however, here are a great many problems with the mail client.  Surprisingly(for Apple) a lot of them are aesthetic.  The menus for having more than one account are so redundant.   Also, why no calendar invite support?  Landscape keyboard?  Long story short, all of these will be upgrades.  Patience.  Who are we talking about here?  Are they going to let overcomplicated software exist in their products?  Not likely.

So there you have it.  The seven most severe iPhone shortcomings and what’s likely to become of them.  Can you think of anything else?

Perhaps Steve Jobs is right? He’s been right before…actually a few times come to think of it…

Steve Jobs told Apple employees before the introduction of the iPhone that they will get to tell their children and their children’s children that they worked (long and hard) on a device that will go down in history as one of the milestones in technology evolution – then he hooked them all up with an iPhone.

You have to admit, he might be right – as well as generous.  And this isn’t just pure fanboyism talking.  Although that makes it all the easier.   What has changed in less than a month since the iPhone has been released?  Everything.

Phones are no longer phones.  They are computers. Of course they were always mini computers but now they are thought of differently.  Some of these computers are better than others.  The iPhone, though it does have tons of well publicized shortcomings, is far and away the best phone/computer that has ever been made.  There is nothing in its league.

But was it even Apple’s choice to go out and develop this whole new platform? Was this a natural evolution from the computer business or was it something that required a swift turn of the captain’s wheel – one like Bill Gates is famous for making at Microsoft when it became obvious to him that the Internet was, well, everything. It is apparent that at some point, the Apple management team said, “This laptop/desktop paradigm isn’t going to be around forever, we need to be working on the next big thing.” Add to that the landscape of seeing the success of mobile devices like the Blackberry and Sidekick which were starting to take away some of the roles of computers. Then throw in the proliferation of high speed wireless networks that are only going to become cheaper, faster and cover more ground. Finally, products like Nokia’s and Microsoft’s Tablet then UMPC’s start littering the landscape. What you have there is a recipe for change.

That’s all for now – continued soon!

Another Computerworld article for y’all….

July 20, 2007 (Computerworld) With hundreds of thousands of iPhones flying off the shelves in the U.S. in the last three weeks — and numerous Apple stores reporting renewed shortages of the popular device — chances are good that IT staffers will be asked sooner or later to get an iPhone working on the corporate network. Given that Apple has a reputation for making consumer-focused products that — at least in the past — didn’t always play nice at work, most IT managers are likely skeptical of letting iPhones on their networks. Even without enterprise purchasing plans, a real keyboard and slow EDGE network speeds, the sheer form and function of this revolutionary piece of technology may soon have your management team pushing you to evaluate it for mass deployment.

Whether that new iPhone is company property or was bought by rogue employees, don’t panic. By following a few easy steps, IT staffers might find that iPhone can make their lives easier — and your colleagues (or boss) ecstatic.
Just follow these simple steps:

1. Lock down the iPhone. As your employees are going to be accessing corporate assets….

Read More at Computerworld!

Can these figures (also see bottom) be right? I mean yes it’s amazing Dell is tanking and where it is leaving the bargain basement PC market, HP is picking things up. Amazing is the wrong word. Boring is what I was looking for. 

The strange thing for me is that Apple is only at 5.6 percent.  Yes, Apple’s market share is increasing year over year at three times the industry average – which seems like very good news.  However, the 5.6% figure seems incredibly low considering my day to day observations.  I recently took a road trip from New York to Milwaukee with long stops in Cleveland and Chicago.  I saw Macintosh everywhere.  Even at rest stops along the highway.  A Cleveland Starbucks had three Macs for every PC and the AppleStore there was hopping (and this was pre-iPhone).  One of my parent’s friends had just got a Mac (and was of course asking for help with it).  In Chicago, the French Consulate had just rolled out Macs in the waiting area.  My wife’s family is like 95% Mac now where they had only PCs four years ago.  OK, I may have had something to do with that.  But Best Buy and what’s left of CompUSA are slanging Macintoshes like there is no tomorrow.

The global market, where Apple didn’t make the top five vendors and is probably sitting at 3%, is no different.  I work for an international governing body in Paris.  Sure, our office is mostly standardized on commodity PCs (yours truly, the Big Boss and one designer holdout notwithstanding).  However, more than a few employees including most of the management and IT staff use Macs at home and more frequently those machines are coming to work.

So what gives?

1. Perhaps Macs are more visible?  People put their Macs on display and flaunt them whereas they seem to hide their PCs in the basement or in the closets.  Design is a big factor here.  How many offices have flashy new iMacs at the front of the office or with the receptionist but are running commodity machines in the back?
2. Apple seems to have a much higher market share in the laptop market, where people tend to bring their computers with them and what other people tend to see more of.  I think Apple is at over 12 percent in the US, which is more than double its overall percentage.  Laptops are brought with people to lunches, airports, meetings, friends houses after school, college class, etc. etc. 
3. Apple is strong in Education.  There is a lot of mixing and mingling in the education world so there are a lot more eyeballs on Macs porportionately speaking.  Also high school and college kids are “out there” in the cafes, coffee shops and libraries.  Those kids are also the trend setters so what they do often get noticed more than your average Joe on the street.  As an example, my Master’s degree program was 90% Mac.  So much so that the people with PCs were sometimes embarrassed to be using them.
4. Hollywood has always been Mac-addicted – to the point that I do a doubletake whenever I see a PC on the screen.  This has been the case since Seinfeld had the Mac and bizarro Jerry had the PC.  So perhaps my brain is factoring all of these views into my calculation of real life figures.
5. Apple advertises like crazy.  Mostly iPods and iPhones obviously but still, seeing that Apple logo everywhere has to be messing with my mind.
6. Speaking of iPhones, do they count?  What about the new iPods?  They will all run OSX, right?  80GB of storage?  That’s a high end PC a few years ago.  Probably not.  But those things are everywhere! 
7. I am mostly in Apple’s strongholds.  Most of my time is spent in Paris – a city with an abnormally high priority on aesthetics and art.   The results of my
   super-informal study are limited to my immediate surroundings – typically IT savvy, urban,
   liberal, big city with the 20-35 year old crowd.  I have the same issue
   finding George Bush voters too – but that is for another website.
     

So I guess 5.6% of the US PC market is good.  Most likely Apple will soon be the #3 (#1 in my heart Apple – who loves ya?!) computer maker behind HP and Dell as they have almost surpassed Gateway and are on a upward trajectory.   The world is catching on too.  Apple Stores are opening all around the World and more and more people are being exposed to this ridiculously great alternative to Windows.  

Will Apple’s market share ever meet the shadow it casts over the industry?  Probably not, I guess it depends  who is counting.

Top 6 Vendors, United States PC Shipments*, Second Quarter 2007
(Preliminary)
(Units Shipments are in thousands)

The Mac Mojo Blog (otherwise known as the place where Microsoft Business Unit tells its Macintosh customers to wait just a bit longer) has made mention of an upcoming update.  The beta version of the Remote Desktop.app will be with us by the end of July according to poster CraigE.  

The current 1.03 version was released way back in 2004 – which was a pretty solid product (Remember it worked on Intel before Apple Remote Desktop :P).  What have they been doing during these last 3 years?  Big stuff!

“Like what,” you ask?  Well there is no mention of any new features but it will be a universal application so it will run a bit faster on Intel machines.

The first feature request that came to my mind was multiple sessions (like all other Remote Desktop clients).  Or how about VNC compatibility?  Or even better cutting and pasting between machines…I mean it has been 3 years right? I am not alone if you look at the comments section of the blog post.

In reality, this is just another example of Microsoft doing just enough to get by on the Mac platform but not enough to make their products as good as they are on the PC – which might make sense and be a good business model for Microsoft.  Will this change?  No.  Should you look elsewhere?  Yes.   

If you really want a good Windows remote desktop, try an open source project like CoRD

I think commenter Harvy Dent  said it best:

Tuesday, July 17, 2007 4:03 AM by Harvey Dent
# re: Coming soon