Rate the Cooknote: pass or fail? (Verdict: pass, but just barely)

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By Jason D. O'Grady | October 5, 2011, 4:14pm PDT

Summary: Tuesday’s Cooknote was mostly a re-hash of WWDC with an evolutionary iPhone revision tossed in for good measure. Make no mistake about it, Siri saved the event from being a total bust.

Tim Cook took the stage for the first time as Apple CEO on Tuesday and the reviews are mixed, to put it kindly.

Everyone noticed that that Cook’s style is different that Steve’s, well duh. Many people seem put off by the affable Alabamian’s southern drawl (”he sounded like he was chatting to friends over mint juleps”) referring to his laid-back style as undramatic and even uninspiring.

To be fair, too many people expected Cook to be Jobs 2.0, but folks, it ain’t gonna happen. Comparisons to Jobs were inevitable, but I didn’t expect them to be scathing. I think that people took out their frustrations on the lack of an “iPhone 5? on Cook.

TechRadar called the Cooknote “a rather pedestrian run-through of Apple’s recent successes along with a smattering of new product news” — and in retrospect it’s hard to disagree. Cook followed the Jobs playbook to the letter, right down to the jeans, sneakers and black shirt. (To his credit, Cook wore a button down black shirt, because a mock turtleneck would have been downright creepy).

Cook also carried on another Jobs tradition: utilizing a parade of executives to demo the various wares. While Scott Forestall was a natural choice for the iOS stuff, I’m not sure that he should have delegated the big iPhone 4S reveal to Phil Schiller. I agree with BNet’s Erik Sherman, Jobs would never have done that. Cook should have announced the iPhone 4S, he’s the CEO.

Then there was the factual errors and misleading stats as noted by Sherman, including these gems:

Apple has a 23 percent personal computer market share as of August 2011 (closer to 6.5%)Apple has sold 250 million iOS devices (this includes the phone-less iPod touch and iPad)iOS is the largest mobile operating system, with 43 percent compared to Android’s 33 percent (did it include touches and iPads?)

Then there was that line about the Sony Walkman. Cook stated that ”it took Sony 30 years to sell 220,000 Walkman cassette players” when Sony has publicly stated that it sold 186 million of the cassette Walkman. And if you want to pad numbers Sony also sold 46 million of the CD Walkman and 4.6 million of the MD Walkman which my calculator tells me is a total of 236.6 million Walkmen — making Tim wrong by a factor of 1,075. Yes, it appears that Apple missed not one, but three decimal places.

Then there was the products, or lack thereof.

The iOS 5 and iCloud part of the presentation felt like a 45 minute of rehash of WWDC 2011 in June. Embarrassingly so. Apple should have either a) held stuff back from WWDC or b) demoed new use cases for some of the already well-known features.

But it wan’t that bad, was it?

Yes it was, according to Zach Epstein who concluded on BGR that Tuesday’s event was “Apple’s fall from grace.” But Epstein’s piece was so bad that Jonathan S. Geller had to backpedal and rush out a puff piece two hours later claiming that it was “Apple’s rise to greatness.” Which is it?

Tim cook should send the Siri team on a Hawaiian vacation because they saved the event from being a total bust. Speech recognition is major feature that I’ve been wanting for a while, and it finally puts iOS on an equal footing with Android. If Siri hadn’t been demonstrated I have a sinking feeling that angry Mac users would #OccupyCupertino and demand Cook’s head on a silver platter.

And what’s this business about Siri only being available on the iPhone 4S? I understand that it requires a lot of horsepower to do the processing but Apple offloads some of that to iCloud, so you can’t tell me that Apple couldn’t have made it work with the iPhone 4. The Siri Assistant app worked on a number of previous iPhones (if you grabbed it before Apple pulled the plug), as do Nuance’s Dragon Go and the Google Search apps.

This is planned obsolescence at its worst, Apple’s undoubtedly holding Siri back to sell more iPhone 4Ses.

Tuesday was mostly a re-hash of WWDC with an evolutionary iPhone revision and it was Siri that pushed the Cooknote over the line to pass — but just barely.

What’s your grade? Pass or Fail?

Jason O'Grady+ is a journalist and author specializing in mobile technology. He has published six books on Apple and mobile gadgets and his PowerPage blog has been publishing for over 15 years.

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Creating highly-redundant, low-cost Mac servers with Lion Server and Mac minis

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@Goldie07

Yeah, but I couldn't count on them to run for 8 years.

Nor could I expect one built in 2005 to have a power consumption of 15-30 watts, depending on load. And know that if/when I replace it then the power consumption will be even lower.

Yeah I can waste my time cobbling something together, but why not use a well built and efficient machine, rather than trying to pinch intellectual property to save a short term buck, whilst throwing many more bucks at your power utility?

I am currently looking at power use here, to that end I have a power meter on my Mac Mini as I thought it might account for a slab of our base load, as I have found out it is using next to none of it.

I had previously retired 2 Mac G4 towers from around 2000, purely to reduce baseload, as they were running perfectly. I sold one as a working unit, and the other has replaced a friend's Core Duo PC, the 450MHz G4 tower works better.

So why anyone would bother with lower quality hardware running an OS they have stolen is beyond me. Yes STOLEN!!!

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Will Apple's AMD Trinity-based MacBook Air see the light of day?

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By Jason D. O'Grady | November 21, 2011, 12:01am PST

Summary: An attack of the MacBook Air clones in underway, funded largely by Intel’s $300M Ultrabook Fund. Will it push Apple to jump ship for AMD? We’ll have to wait until next year to find out.

Last week Partially Accurate’s Charlie Demerjian declared that a MacBook Air with AMD processor was dead. (MacRumors picked up on the storyline that Apple had late-stage prototypes of an AMD Fusion-based MacBook Air). Demerjian claims that an AMD Llamo-based MacBook Air was really, really close to production but that it never saw the light of day because AMD dropped the ball.

The problem is that Demerjian’s posts creates more questions than answers.

For starters, Apple’s going back to Intel’s $300 million dollar Ultrabook dinner table (a.k.a. “plan B”) doesn’t explain why Intel has passionately executed its Ultrabook initiative — which is squarely aimed at the MacBook Air. Why is Intel attacking the product line of one of its exclusive partners?

When Dell was the king of the hill, Intel paid it $6 billion not to use AMD processors, so it makes no sense that Intel would attack Apple with MacBook Air clones. Logic would dictate that Intel would want to keep preserve it’s relationship and exclusivity with Apple — at all costs.

Just a week earlier I raised questions about Intel’s intentions with Ultrabooks and the prospect of a closer relationship between AMD and Apple. This leads me to think that Demerjian’s information is coming from either Intel or Apple.

The post comes across like a decoy because it mentions the AMD Llano rather than Trinity. Llano is AMD’s first generation fusion processor, Trinity is the second generation (see table above). Nobody actually thought Apple would use Llano. Analysts were long ago saying that AMD’s Trinity and Krishna processors would make more sense.

Why was this post about Llano rather than Trinity? Could it be a clever decoy staged by Apple to help keep their plans secret?  (Especially after my piece may have blown the lid off their plans?) Could it be retribution by Intel for Apple testing Trinity in the MacBook Air?

If the FTC gets enough evidence that Intel is, in fact, punishing or threatening/bribing Apple despite their Consent Decree, Otellini himself could go to jail - assuming that the U.S. Department of Justice has any teeth.

At the end of the day, it’s out of character for Intel to pull a “we are going to copy you” stunt on a precious, exclusive, premium manufacturer like Apple. If Intel was willing to pay Dell $6 billion, then I’m pretty sure that it wouldn’t pull the Ultrabooks stunt on Apple without a compelling reason.

What’s more likely the case is that Apple did consider the Llano processor but that it didn’t like it. Apple probably wanted to look at Trinity instead. Intel probably didn’t pay Apple enough to keep it exclusive and Steve Jobs was never the type of CEO to be Intel’s lap dog.

Apple is either still considering using Trinity, or has already decided to use it.

AMD has repeatedly stated that it isn’t having production issues with Trinity, and that is probably the same thing they are saying to Apple every day. A silent begging war is going on between Intel and AMD for Apple’s affections. That’s why, in that recent interview about Ultrabooks, an Intel executive said that it’s “up to Apple” to decide whether the MacBook Air is officially an Ultrabook.

Was that a veiled threat?

Based on Intel’s history of coercive tactics, its Ultrabook Fund and worldwide release of Macbook Air clones begins to look like a simple bribe and threat strategy. Intel’s executive was simply telling Apple that it isn’t too late to dump Trinity.

Again, dumping Llano was old news. In fact, it never even seemed to be a possibility. Instead we should be asking who led Demerjian to focus on Llano, rather than the true candidate, Trinity?

It looks like we’ll have to wait until Apple’s planned overhaul of the MacBook Air in 2012 to find out if Intel was successful in keeping Apple from using AMD’s Trinity processors.

Related:

Jason O'Grady+ is a journalist and author specializing in mobile technology. He has published six books on Apple and mobile gadgets and his PowerPage blog has been publishing for over 15 years.

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The mother of all iPhone car mount: ProClip USA

By Jason D. O'Grady | October 21, 2011, 10: 30 am PDT

Summary: I struggled to find a half decent vehicle mounting solution for my iPhone in the past, but the iPhone 4 ProClip USA mount changed all that and definitely is the mother of all car mounts.

If you're like me, probably has an iPhone (or two) and you live by it. Not only to make phone calls and text messages, but for Internet access too. My iPhone is never far away from me, in fact I have a sinking feeling if I have lost my iPhone for more than a few minutes.

Although it is illegal to the driver to use an iPhone (in most of the United States of anyway) it is a very useful device in a car. Maps, GPS and navigation are the most obvious examples of practical uses of an iPhone in a car, but also depend on audio books, podcasts and music to make my trip more manageable. In fact, I do not know what would do without my iPhone in my car, probably go completely crazy to hear announcements.

That being said, I've struggled to find a half decent Setup for my iPhone in my car. I normally plug it and only bolster him in some place of my script. The problem here is obvious: as soon as taking a corner my iPhone goes flying on the ground, usually outside its scope.

I found the answer in a montage of car Clip Pro United States - the mother of all car mounts. I have used several years and normally abandoned because they do not work well or simply fell. ProClip USA mounts vehicle are robust, well built and are available for almost all vehicles in the market.

Can be mounted ProClips place your vehicle, as shown in this diagram:

You need two parts for mounting the device in your script. Together, these two parts create a mounting solution:

a montage of the vehicle - specific to the holder of the device vehiclea - specific to the device

I opted for the following settings for my Honda Pilot:

Honda Pilot-2009 2012 - ProClip Centre Mount (Item #: 854197)-$ 29. 99apple iPhone 4 used a case - support adjustable with tilt swivel and pass through the connector for the connection of the Cable (article no. 516165)-$ 79,99

This configuration suits my iPhone 4 and 4S in bumpers of Apple case impeccably and it can easily be rotated between horizontal and vertical orientation depending on the application. I opted for the owner of the device with the pass connector so that it could easily connect my iPhone to power without having to fish around a power cord.

ProClip Setup is very solid and of high quality. So much so that probably I will get one for my Droid Bionic, which I prefer on my iPhone for navigation in the vehicle. This thing is the mother of all vehicle mounts and well worth the price of admission, especially for travelers and people otherwise they spend too much time in their cars.

Jason or ' Grady + is a journalist and writer specializing in mobile technology. He has published six books on Apple and mobile devices and your blog PowerPage has been publishing for more than 15 years.

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R.I.P. Steve Jobs

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Jason D. O'Grady+ developed an affinity for Apple computers after using the original Lisa, and this affinity turned into a bona-fide obsession when he got the original 128 KB Macintosh in 1984.

He started writing one of the first Web sites about Apple (O'Grady's PowerPage) in 1995 and is considered to be one of the fathers of blogging. He has been a frequent speaker at the Macworld Expo conference and a member of the conference faculty. He also co-founded the first dedicated PowerBook User Group (PPUG) in the United States.

After winning a major legal battle with Apple in 2006, he set the precedent that independent journalists are entitled to the same protections under the First Amendment as members of the mainstream media.

O'Grady is the author of The Nexus One Pocket Guide, The Droid Pocket Guide, The Google Phone Pocket Guide, and The Garmin nuvi Pocket Guide (Peachpit Press), the author of Corporations That Changed the World: Apple Inc. (Greenwood Press), and a contributor to The Mac Bible (Peachpit Press). In addition, he has contributed to numerous Mac publications over the years, including MacWEEK, Macworld, and MacPower (Japan).

When he's not writing about Apple for ZDNet at The Apple Core, he enjoys spending time with his family in New Jersey.

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Siri = Eliza? (Update: she knows her)

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AppId is over the quota
Jason D. O'Grady+ developed an affinity for Apple computers after using the original Lisa, and this affinity turned into a bona-fide obsession when he got the original 128 KB Macintosh in 1984.

He started writing one of the first Web sites about Apple (O'Grady's PowerPage) in 1995 and is considered to be one of the fathers of blogging. He has been a frequent speaker at the Macworld Expo conference and a member of the conference faculty. He also co-founded the first dedicated PowerBook User Group (PPUG) in the United States.

After winning a major legal battle with Apple in 2006, he set the precedent that independent journalists are entitled to the same protections under the First Amendment as members of the mainstream media.

O'Grady is the author of The Nexus One Pocket Guide, The Droid Pocket Guide, The Google Phone Pocket Guide, and The Garmin nuvi Pocket Guide (Peachpit Press), the author of Corporations That Changed the World: Apple Inc. (Greenwood Press), and a contributor to The Mac Bible (Peachpit Press). In addition, he has contributed to numerous Mac publications over the years, including MacWEEK, Macworld, and MacPower (Japan).

When he's not writing about Apple for ZDNet at The Apple Core, he enjoys spending time with his family in New Jersey.

View the original article here

Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview foretells his return to Apple

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By Jason D. O'Grady | November 16, 2011, 9:27pm PST

Summary: PBS magically found the master tape from a Robert X. Cringley interview with Steve Jobs from 1995 and has released it as a 70-minute feature film.

I went to see Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview tonight at a theatre in downtown Philadelphia. The movie is the “entire tape” interview that Robert X. Cringley did with Jobs in 1995 for a PBS television special “Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires” that premiered in June 1996.

Here’s the official trailer for the film:

Only about 10 minutes of the interview made it into Triumph of the Nerds — which is available on YouTube — and the rest of the interview landed on the proverbial cutting room floor. The rest of the tape was feared lost, or so the story goes, until the original tape was recently discovered in the director’s garage.

The movie is playing for a limited two-day engagement (November 16 and 17) at 23 theaters across the U.S. Tickets and showtimes are on the official movie Web site.

The ’95 interview, about 70 minutes all told, captures a spunky and charismatic Jobs at the wise age of 40, speaking about Apple after a bitter power struggle with John Scully ended in his ouster. Jobs is about 10 years into his stint at NeXT and one point he asks Cringley “you don’t want to hear about NeXT, do you?” — almost as if he didn’t want to talk about it.

Although clearly not over his split with Scully — Jobs describes how Apple in 1995 was in a “glide slope” that “isn’t reversible” — it’s easy to detect a hint reverence in his voice when Jobs speaks about Apple.

Was Jobs making his big pitch for Apple to buy NeXT? Could be, because Apple indeed acquired NeXT (for $400 million) just 18 months after the interview was taped, and Jobs made his biggest triumph to date — returning and resurrecting Apple.

A couple of short clips from the movie:

My advice is to see the movie if you can. It’s definitely worth your time, especially if you’re, ahem, enlightened.

Jason O'Grady+ is a journalist and author specializing in mobile technology. He has published six books on Apple and mobile gadgets and his PowerPage blog has been publishing for over 15 years.

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