So I recently took a wonderful eleven day vacation to Japan. It was great. I found some new things about apple in Japan though.
Turns out that in Japan, what you would call “Airport” is called “AirMac”. I thought this was a spoof until I looked online at the japanese apple site.
I happened to also come across one of those certified apple resellers that isn’t really an apple store but sells al appe products. And a look behind the counter made me LAUGH!
SEE IT?!
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Unless of course you live under a rock, you have heard about the terrible antenna problems the iPhone 4 has been having. Basically, if you put your hand over the left black line, all of your signal drops. Apple was having a PR disaster, but today Apple held a press conference and it seems that the truths were revealed.
But I must say, Apple wasn’t playing fair here.
First, Steve Jobs ponts out how all of the smartphones antennagate. He showed test videos of many popular phones including the BlackBerry Bold. This is simply putting down the competition and saying “we can’t go against the laws of physics… yet.” [Steve Jobs]. Fine.
So I got curious and asked I wonder if my phone does this…
Well, I gutters its back to making fun of microsoft…
I used to dub apple as the greatest of all. But my view is changing as apple begins to turn into the evil empire.
If you look at some of the press you will see how apple us taking a very bad response to this iphone for antenna problem. They have been saying nothing to the press and they are not anything their problem. This is kind if odd for a company so focused on its reputation and good press.
So here what I now say: apple has some of the best computers and electronics and design basi (plural of basis?) But as a company are entirely evil.
On the good side is google, but o don’t really dub apple and google in the same field other than mobile operating system (where I dub android better, more on that later) so I cant really call them head on competitors. But I praise google for being so open. I mean I even have a google socket on the back of my macbook and iPad.
So I guess I like them both.
As far as pcs go, I’m less crazy about mac. I man, people have their reasons, but overall I still dub apple as the best overall computer creator.
I am currently in Japan, and in the Hotel we have no wireless in our room. We do have a wired connection, but we have iPads that need WiFi. Here’s how to take your mac and turn it into a WiFi network in a few steps.
1. Plug in ethernet
into your Mac. Make sure the internet connection is working by visiting a few sites. Many hotels have pages where you have to agree to terms. Make sure you agree and/or pay before proceeding.
2. Turn on internet sharing
Open up System Preferences and click on Sharing. In the list, click on Internet Sharing, but don’t click the checkbox. Configure it so it looks like this:
Then, click on AirPort options in the bottom right. Here you can put in the name of your Wifi network and a password if desired.
Click OK, and now you can click the checkbox next to internet sharing.
3. Connect your devices
On your WiFi enabled devices you should be able to see a WiFi network with the name you put in under Airport Options in step 2. Connect to it and enter a password if you configured one.
Tada! Now your devices should be able to browse the internet. Cool! Be aware that you can’t be on a WiFi network on your Mac while sharing your internet.
Use it wisely!
Some people have said some hurtful but understandable things about me, as said in the title of the post.
Well, allow me to say, that I’m not switching over to chrome OS. I’m not switching to windows either, I’m just switching over to android.
What’s the big difference between Mac OS X and iOS? Well, I mean other than one is a mobile operating system. Mac OS X allows development to run in the background. Mac OS X also allows applications to manipulate the core of the operating system (although not preferred).
iOS is completely shut off. For example, people can’t even use their own APIs! It is a closed off system and it is completely CLOSED source.
Android on the other hand seems more like Mac OS X. It is open source, so people can use their own APIs to do whatever they want. Apps still need to be accepted into Android Market, but there is an option to allow other applications that weren’t approved by the app store to be installed. And that’s what makes the difference.
So I’m not exactly a traitor, I’m just supporting what I believe in and personally is best for me. I’m sure I’m not the only one…. Anyone?…….. Comments welcome.
As we all know, Apple has been boasting about their 200,000 apps in the app store.
This is cool, but a little too many.
Actually, no. Ironically, I feel that too many apps are being accepted into the app store.
My theory: An app should only be accepted if it either:
So we don’t get copycats cluttering the store.
With all of these copycats, the store is harder to search. When you want something, you usually have to turn to a third party to figure out which one is best.
Also, what’s up with these lite applications? They are like trials but they are completely different applications. I think that there should be a trial link in the full application description page. Because after all, the lite version is just a disabled version of the full one, and it doesn’t deserve to have a completely separate entry into the app store.
Do you agree?
Comments welcome.
While Steve Jobs took the stage to announce the new iPhone, something else was happening on the apple website. It wasn’t on the front page, nobody had any idea whatsoever. Except for my friend Spencer Schoeben (CEO of Teens In Tech Networks, he ROCKS!) who tweeted that he was stickin to Safari 5 for now. I looked at is and said to myself “Wait a second… safari 5?” And here’s what’s new:
Speed
In many tests, it beat Chrome or was equivalent for speed. This is one of the main reasons to switch!
HTML5 Compatability
The new safari has a lot more support for HTML5, still expanding Apple’s belief in no flash. Of course Safari still has flash, because if it didn’t we would have… well… a small issue. And a mob in front of Apple headquarters…
Safari Reader
Safari Reader makes it easier to read posts and stories on the web. It isolates the content of a page and displays it in a clean, maginifiable interface. Just go to an article and click Reader in the URL bar.
A little more eyecandy
The Top Sites page got a facelift, and now features an easy link to get to your history in cover flow view. Also, there’s that blue loading bar in the top again, just like good ‘ol safari 3.
Improved URL bar
You can now enter the name of a webpage you’ve visited in the past and it will automatically find the URL from your history. Cool, but I still like the omnibar approach of Google Chrome.
Extensions
Exact same as Google Extensions. Developers can create toolbars and other goodies to work with Safari, just like chrome extensions. Cool, but a little behind, don’t you think?
Other than that, safari is the same browser you used to know.
Apple has been boasting about their iBooks app featuring the iBookstore. I’m soon going to be taking a trip to Japan, so i’d like some books to read on the way there. So instead of csarrying around books I’d love to just take my beautiful thin iPad.
But all of the books in the store are about $15 (varying on the book). I could just go down to my local library and get it for free and just give it back when I’m done.
So woultn’t it be great if there was an iLibrary instead? How about you can download the book for free, but just like rented movies it could only be on one device. How about you could send it to someone else if they want to read it? And how about there’s a due date, and you can renew it 2 times before it needs to be sent back to the library. And if you don’t want to send it back or you are saving it, you could just buy it?
Now as good as this sounds, I doubt that the publishers would be in much favor. After all, the iLibrary wouldn’t be paid for by taxes.
But how about the libraries offer books in ePub format, and you can rent them and sync them to your iPad? Apple would have to add support for rentals, but they wouldn’t have to deal with the publishers.
Sounds good eh?
Hopes and dreams…
AT&T has been having network problems for a long time.
But their solution to solving it is to make people stop using it…
Hence, AT&T is the data devil.
They will be removing the unlimited data option and replacing it with a 250mb a month for $15 and 2GB/mo. for $30. The new plans will take effect on Jun 7…
Wait isn’t that the same day as something else? Hmm… Let me think… Hmm… OH yah, the iPhone. So basically what this is saying is that SOMETHING on the iPhone will take a lot of data… like.. I dunno, TETHERING? Now I find this funny. For tethering you have to pay an extra $20/mo. on top of the data plan, and you are still restricted bandwidth-wise. Another thing is I don’t know, VIDEO CALLING? This takes up an average of about 84mb per minute, so after about 4 minutes of video calling your data plan will be up. *Edit: the video chatting requires WiFi, and if I have WiF i’d rather be chatting on my computer… just sayin… I dunno, but this seems kinda devilish…
Now currently on verizon I have an unlimited plan, and I’m guessing I use more than 2GB becasue of my tethering (which im not paying extra for). Also, I get coverage at my house, which might come in handy. So even if I switched over to AT&T and got the new iPhone, I don’t know if I would be able to cap my data at 2GB. I’d rather be free with verizon.
So basically, here we have a data hungry phone that AT&T has put on a diet (nice metaphor, eh?). I don’t know how this will go over, but I can’t wait to read all of the complaints becasue people go over their bandwidth limit.
Oh, AT&T…
Today, the iPhone 4 was released. Of course it’s exciting, but it’s much less exciting then the iPad.
Why?
Because compare this picture from Gizmodo from 2 months ago:
Gizmodo's iPhone, April 19th
To this one on the apple website.
Apple's iPhone, Jun 7th
I think they’re pretty similar.
And that’s why the news of it during WWDC was.. well… almost outdated. Everybody had already seen the fourth iPhone, just unofficially. So nobody was in for much of a surprise today.
But for the iPad, nobody had a clue. People were sure it would run Leopard, have a CD drive, USB ports, and they gave us this whole different idea. Not a tablet per se, but this thing that just made sense. And who knew!
But everybody knew about the iPhone. I didn’t walk home that day grinning because of excitement like I did during the iPad announcement. Because I had already seen the thing. And I’m pretty sure you all have as well.
I’ve had this happen a few times where suddenly for no reason it appears, my bluetoth magic mouse stops working. I go to my bluetooth icon to see if it is connected and it is greyed out with a squiggly on it. Clicking it shows this text:
Bluetooth: Not Available
Usually when this happens I end up wiping out my computer and reinstalling snow leopard. but instead, I tried a little harder this time.
By instinct, I just restart. I go up into the menu and hit restart. The sad truth about this is that it never shuts down the computer, it never stops running. (If it did, how would it know to boot back up again?)
However this didn’t work. So I thought that maybe something on startup was consuming the bluetooth card, making it unavailable for the little menubar to see. To fix this, I just went into System Preferences under Accounts, Login Items, and deleted every single item there. I then shut down, unplugged the power cord, took out the battery, put back in the battery, plugged in the power cord again, turned off bluetooth in every other device I had laying around, and turned it on again. Tada! I had bluetooth again. So here’s an easier guide:
- Open System Preferences.
- Click on Accounts
- Click on Login Items under your username
- Select the top item and click the – until there are none left in the box
- Go to in the menubar and click Shut Down…
- After it shuts down, remove the power cord
- Remove the battery (If possible)
- Reinsert the battery
- Reinsert the power cord
- Turn off bluetooth on all surrounding devices
Start back up and your bluetooth should be available again!
We all know that apple doesn’t tell anybody anything.
But you’d think theyd tell you SOMEWHERE (maybe on the web?) everything about a product that was already released, right?
Think again.
We all know that apple made an array of accessories for it’s new baby the iPad.
One of which happened to be the camera connection kit. This costs $29 and comes with two things: A little dongle that plugs into the bottom of your iPad with an SD card slot, then a similar one with a USB slot.
We all thought that the USB slot was for plugging in your camera. And it is! But…
So many people have told me that they can’t use any keyboard other than apple’s. WRONG! You can plug a keyboard into the USB slot!
You can also plg in USB headphones, microphones, headsets, and probably more. You can even connect your iPhone to get the photos off it, so you no longer have an excuse for no camera an the iPad! I mean, you took them on the go, and they are on your iPad, am I right?
But why didn’t apple tell any of us? Comments welcome.