adamjonfuller [ Insider ]

Summery of today’s Apple ‘Let’s Rock’ keynote.

• iTunes is the #1 music software and is getting a update with version 8. There is now HD content (about time) in the store priced decently at $2.99. There is a new way to browse you content in iTunes, which makes it look a lot more like the other Apple software applications (aka iPhoto). Moreover, probably the most interesting improvement is the Genius function. It will make playlists from songs in your library that go together, as well as recommend music that you may like from the store.
• iPod classic reduced to only the thin model at $249 for 120GB (white or black, choose your pick). That is over 30,000 songs! What ever.
• iPod Nano, redesigned (see the rumor picture here) to make it the smallest iPod ever. The design includes curved aluminum, curved glass, enhanced user interface… They added an accelerometer, which enables some cool futures, like shack the Nano to shuffle to the next song! It is available in a “nano-chromatic” colors, and starts at $149 for the 8GB and $199 for the 16GB.
• Apple introduced new headphones the include inline controls and a microphone.
• iPod Touch has been redesigned as well. In now includes integrated volume controls as well as a built in speaker (it is about time). Both the iPod Nano and the Touch include the Genius Playlist creation. The new Touch is also Nike + iPod compatible (whatever). The price has dropped (still not cheap enough) to $229 for the 8GB, $299 for the 16GB and $399 for the 32GB (wow, solid state drives are expensive).
• Lastly 2.1 software update was introduced, which includes the famous Apple ‘bug fixes’!

Well there you have it, some of the rumors were true and some things we can keep wishing for, like the subscription music service. There is always next time Apple!

You may recall the rumors about a new iPod Nano a couple of weeks ago; well it looks like they may be true, at least in part. Tom Krazit of CNET has been invited to the rumored Apple event!

Apple has sent out invitations for a music-related event next week, and the smart money is on new iPods.

The invitation, titled “Let’s Rock,” went out Tuesday morning inviting media to the Yerba Buena Center for the Performing Arts in San Francisco next Tuesday at 10 a.m. PDT. Rumors have been building for weeks that Apple is set to introduce new iPods at what will be its fourth September iPod event in as many years…

Read the full post

While this does not mean that we will see a new iPod, it dose seem a little more likely! Go Apple! To read more from my post on the rumord iPod, click here.

This could be the next big thing for the iPod product family. I think that this could be a real photo, taking into account that Apple is moving into a more aerodynamic form factor. Just take the new iPhone or the Mac Book Air. Rumor also has it that the entire iPod line could be redesigned; in addition, they would drop the price of the whole product line to be more competitive with the reasonably priced iPhone at $199. Let’s look at the facts, Apple has confirmed that there will be a new product that will change everything. Apple has also stated to its investors that the next quarter could see a loss in profits. All of this points to the possibility of the price drop. Also in the rumor world is the release of a new major revamp of iTunes. I don’t know any details; however, it would be nice to see a subscription model introduced to the iTunes music store. All of this could prove to be true as soon as September 9th. One thing is for sure, regardless to if this picture is real or not, Apple is about to change the world again, and I can’t wait to see what is next!

Yet again, another ridicules app was been released on the iPhone. This time it was pulled as fast as it appeared. “Armin Heinrich – I Am Rich” which dose nothing other then display a red gemstone on your screen. The only purpose is to remind you and others that you have enough money to waste on this senseless app. Apple has to approve the apps that show up in the store, and I figure they were thinking, ‘we will get a nice percent of profit of this app’. The best part about this app is that is costs ONLY $999.99! If it were still in the app store, I would buy it in a heartbeat…NOT!

It seems like these days competitors to Google are coming out of the woodwork. Awhile back, I introduced PowerSet, who is now a property of Microsoft. PowerSet is bringing back the concept of synaptic search, while a new search engine, Viewzi is focusing on a new concept. Viewzi brings search to a new light with different views.

While PowerSet and Viewzi are good search alternatives to Google, so is Ask, Live search, Yahoo! and AltaVista… The one who I think may ultimately pose a threat to the Google giant is a new search called Cuil (pronounced cool). Cuil boasts a page index in the billions while Google is in the millions. This may just be hot air; however, Cuil searches by page contextual relevance. While PowerSet is a synaptic search, Cuil is searching the page content. What makes this so different from Google is page rank. Think of those days back in gym class, it was a popularity contest when it came to choosing teams. This is similar to how Google ranks its pages, the more links, the more popular, the higher in the search results.

Cuil has it easer than PowerSet. Synaptic search is a complicated task, while searching the contents of the page are much easer. The other Thing that makes Cuil a viable alternative to Google is who developed it, Tom Costello, a Stanford professor and Anna Patterson, Google’s search developer. The one think that I wonder about all of this, is why hasn’t anyone come up with this alternative sooner?

Give me a brake, I said that I was not going to write about the iPhone, but this is ridicules. There are some grate apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and then there are some down right awful ones. For example there is a flashlight app the simply turns the screen of the iPhone and iPod Touch completely white. This may be useful but I would not pay almost $1 for it! The one that really gets me hot around the collar is MyAccountsToGo… at $449.99 it costs more than the phone! MyAccountsToGo is an accounting and financing program for sales reps that allows them to view and sync their customers information, such as sales. This program has good potential for a sales rep; however, it dose not allow you to modify any of the information. Give me a brake, at $449.99 and without the ability to modify information, this app is not happening!

As many of you know, Bill Gates retired last Friday. I know that this email is old; however, I thought it would be nice to bring it back up… So long Bill, we barley knew you. Original Message sent by Bill Gates on Wednesday, January 15, 2003, to Jim Allchin.

Windows Usability Systematic Degradation Flame

I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don’t drive usability issues.

Let me give you my experience from yesterday.

I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack … so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.

The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up.

This site is so slow it is unusable.

It wasn’t in the top 5 so I expanded the other 45.

These 45 names are totally confusing. These names make stuff like: C:\Documents and Settings\billg\My Documents\My Pictures seem clear.

They are not filtered by the system … and so many of the things are strange.

I tried scoping to Media stuff. Still no moviemaker. I typed in movie. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing.

So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying – where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?

So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.

They told me to go to the main page search button and type movie maker (not moviemaker!).

I tried that. The site was pathetically slow but after 6 seconds of waiting up it came.

I thought for sure now I would see a button to just go do the download.

In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations.

This struck me as completely odd. Why should I have to go somewhere else and do a scan to download moviemaker?

So I went to Windows update. Windows Update decides I need to download a bunch of controls. (Not) just once but multiple times where I get to see weird dialog boxes.

Doesn’t Windows update know some key to talk to Windows?

Then I did the scan. This took quite some time and I was told it was critical for me to download 17megs of stuff.

This is after I was told we were doing delta patches to things but instead just to get 6 things that are labeled in the SCARIEST possible way I had to download 17meg.

So I did the download. That part was fast. Then it wanted to do an install. This took 6 minutes and the machine was so slow I couldn’t use it for anything else during this time.

What the heck is going on during those 6 minutes? That is crazy. This is after the download was finished.

Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night — why should I reboot at that time?

So I did the reboot because it INSISTED on it. Of course that meant completely getting rid of all my Outlook state.

So I got back up and running and went to Windows Update again. I forgot why I was in Windows Update at all since all I wanted was to get Moviemaker.

So I went back to Microsoft.com and looked at the instructions. I have to click on a folder called Windows XP. Why should I do that? Windows Update knows I am on Windows XP.

What does it mean to have to click on that folder? So I get a bunch of confusing stuff but sure enough one of them is Moviemaker.

So I do the download. The download is fast but the Install takes many minutes. Amazing how slow this thing is.

At some point I get told I need to go get Windows Media Series 9 to download.

So I decide I will go do that. This time I get dialogs saying things like “Open” or “Save”. No guidance in the instructions which to do. I have no clue which to do.

The download is fast and the install takes 7 minutes for this thing.

So now I think I am going to have Moviemaker. I go to my add/remove programs place to make sure it is there.

It is not there.

What is there? The following garbage is there. Microsoft Autoupdate Exclusive test package, Microsoft Autoupdate Reboot test package, Microsoft Autoupdate testpackage1. Microsoft Autoupdate testpackage2, Microsoft Autoupdate Test package3.

Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.

But that is just the start of the crap. Later I have listed things like Windows XP Hotfix see Q329048 for more information. What is Q329048? Why are these series of patches listed here? Some of the patches just things like Q810655 instead of saying see Q329048 for more information.

What an absolute mess.

Moviemaker is just not there at all.

So I give up on Moviemaker and decide to download the Digital Plus Package.

I get told I need to go enter a bunch of information about myself.

I enter it all in and because it decides I have mistyped something I have to try again. Of course it has cleared out most of what I typed.

I try (typing) the right stuff in 5 times and it just keeps clearing things out for me to type them in again.

So after more than an hour of craziness and making my programs list garbage and being scared and seeing that Microsoft.com is a terrible website I haven’t run Moviemaker and I haven’t got the plus package.

The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind. I thought we had reached a low with Windows Network places or the messages I get when I try to use 802.11. (don’t you just love that root certificate message?)

When I really get to use the stuff I am sure I will have more feedback.

With the failure of the Yahoo acquisition, Microsoft is at it again. This time they managed to by the search engine Powerset for $100 million. I introduced Powerset several weeks ago as a possible future competitor to Google (Is Google in trouble?). With the power of Microsoft backing them, Google may very well have a run for there money. Google on the other hand scuffed the idea of semantic search, saying that there was no future for it. I still believe that a natural language semantic search is the way of the future. Only the suture will tell.

This is going to be short because I could go on for a long time at how dumb this is. The RIAA is trying to charge the radio stations royalty fees for playing music from their record labels (or they will consider it pirating). The radio stations already are in money trouble, what could the RIAA be thinking? This is going to kill the already struggling radio market… end of story!

Back in March, Google completed its acquisition of DoubleClick. What dose this mean for us? I do not think this is good for consumers. The holy grail of the internet age is user-targeted ads, so why would this be bad you may ask? Simple, our privacy is out the window, not only will Google see what we are searching for, and what our interests are; they will also see pages we go to outside of Google. Many web sites have advertising that is provided by DoubleClick (Banner Ad’s). Google can see what users all over the world are going to on the web, even if you do not use them to search. If you ask me this is scary and dangerous behavior for one company to be doing! Monopoly!