Why Apple is more expensive than Amazon: “Buy what you like, where you like. But remember why things are the way they are. Apple is more expensive than Amazon because the labels want you listening to music on a Zune.”
Excellent analysis of the current state of the music industry.
This has got to be the biggest non-announcement ever.
Sigh. My guess is we’ll see lots of mainstream TV shows in iTunes’ Canadian store before we see iPhones for non-millionaires.
Accelerometer-based Cycling jacket wins design award: this very-cool idea will save more lives than bicycle helmets…
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My 5th generation iPod (30 GB) has given up the ghost. Sad iPod icon and everything. ‘Josiah’ at Apple tech support says it’s probably the hard drive, and that it’s not likely worth fixing; since it’s out of warranty, the repair cost is nearly as much as the replacement cost. Ah, disposable technology… Is there any other kind? 
As if Ireland getting the iPhone ahead of Canada wasn’t bad enough, now Austria has them. Austria!
Austrian iPhone Launch - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW): “the Austrian iPhone launch is due to kick off tomorrow”
Maybe if we had electricity in Canada, we could get iPhones, too. Or movies on iTunes. Or TV shows that weren’t aimed at the monster truck demographic.
Then again, Rogers will probably want $10 a byte for data, so maybe it doesn’t matter.
Twittering From My Newton on Flickr - Photo Sharing!: Grant Hutchinson out-geeks us all…
I really should fire up the old eMate again…
(Via John Moltz.)
Money quote:
You can run up to eight 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Displays at the same time with just one Mac Pro.
This image only shows 6, by the way.
See the search results for “iPhone” on Apple Canada’s Store:
Not only does the Canadian store still have the ca. 2002 web design (quite unlike Apple.com’s nice, new look), it has a conspicuous lack of iPhone. How quaint. How reminiscent of the Canadian iTunes Store’s lack of TV shows and movies…
Hey, Steve? We have electricity up here, and everything!
Before watching Tactiva’s QuickTime TactaPad demontration videos, it had never really occurred to me just how linear and sequential most GUI-based interactions with computers are.
TactaPad’s new paradigm blows that wide open and allows a much more natural process — one that could make the computer more transparent to the user. At first glance, it looks child-like in its simplicity, but it soon becomes apparent that there’s a lot of subtlety at work. This would make it easily and quickly acceptable to a broad range of users.
Their FAQ states that they’re not currently for sale as they’re looking for a manufacturing partner. Let’s hope they find one; I’d buy one immediately. If Wacom has any sense, they’ll snap this up immediately. And let’s hope Apple, Microsoft, Adobe/Macromedia and other developers add support for this device into their software.
This looks like a real winner. The potential gains in apps like Final Cut, Illustrator, Flash, PowerPoint, Keynote, Finder, etc., are mind-boggling. The future development of these apps could go off in exciting new directions once freed from sequential, linear thinking. I’d love to see what they could do in apps that aren’t oriented around object-manipulation, things like Word or Photoshop.
With third-party templates overlaid on the board, it could even act as a keyboard replacement, or have trackpad-like navigation areas reserved. The possibilities are endless.
This device could also be a great help for those with accessibility issues. From a motor-control perspective, an input device that acts as an alternative to mice, pens, and keyboards, and doesn’t require grasping could be tremendously beneficial.
I can’t wait to get my hands on one.
Apple recently announced a series of updates. The most widely-anticipated was the Motorola/Apple/Cingular iTunes phone. To call it hideous is an injustice to all self-respecting things hideous. Still, it’s a toe-hold in a new market, and it stakes out some small territory. More will follow. Enough about that.
QuickTime 7.0.2 was released, marking the first full release of QuickTime 7 for Windows, and the quashing of some QuickTime Player Pro bugs that were of particular interest to QuickTime VR authors like myself. Kudos to the QuickTime team.
iTunes 5 is also fun. John Gruber has a hilarious take on the app’s appearance, in which he correctly identifies himself as an Apple interface zealot. He’s not wrong, but he is amusing. Visit his site. Lather, rinse, repeat.
The new iPod nano looks brilliant. The black version is the one to get. The lanyard headphones option is very cool. It’s almost enough to make me wish I didn’t have a 20 GB click-wheel iPod. Almost.
Oh, and you can now buy all of Madonna’s music — on a song-by-song basis, no less — via iTunes. I’d make some snide remark about how no self-respecting Pink Floyd fan would ever listen to Madonna if it weren’t for the fact that I bought two of her tunes…
But where’s the iPod video? Either there’s going to be another announcement soon, or Robert Cringely’s predictions vis-a-vis an iTunes video store aren’t quite on the mark.
