Tag Archives | Apple

Funnest. iPod. Ever.

I get along pretty well with copy editors and other grammar experts, but I’m not a language snob myself–I enjoy using and abusing words, and making up my own ones when I don’t know of any existing ones that will suffice.

So I hereby officially approve of Apple’s tagline for the new, slimmer iPod Touch: “The funnest iPod ever.” Sure, “The Most Fun iPod Ever” is grammatically unassailable and means the same thing. But it’s nowhere near as…fun.

And I think that Apple’s probably in the clear given that Merriam-Webster does mention funnest as an acceptable (albeit unusual) inflection of fun.

If “The funnest iPod ever” proves to be unpopular with word pros, it’ll be the second time an Apple slogan has been linguistically controversial: “Think Different” provided lots of fodder for debate. It’s also as good a candidate as any for Apple’s most famous tagline ever–so I suspect that the company will weather any gripes that come their way concerning funnest. If it starts calling the new Nano “the most thin iPod ever,” we’ll know it’s just being difficult.

(Side note: Years ago, Wendy’s adopted the slogan “Ain’t no reason to go anyplace else,” and I remember lots of flack about the use of ain’t from teachers and others with a professional interest in proper grammar; Wendy ended up dropping it. I think America has gotten a lot more easy-going about language over the last few decades.)

The other thing that’s interesting–and yes, even fun–about “The funnest iPod ever” is its suggestion that Apple is going to be really serious about mobile gaming. At the moment, we think of the iPod Touch as a music player that also does video and applications; I wonder if Apple’s goal is to get folks thinking of it as a handheld gaming device first. Maybe even the handheld gamingest device ever.

And aw heck, let’s make a T-Poll out of this:

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iTunes 8 First Impressions: Pretty, Good

It’s really tough to review any application or service that relates to musical tastes: The kind of music you like is intensely personal, and it can have a huge impact on how pleased you are with a product. Please bear that in mind as you read my initial impressions of iTunes 8–and know that my music collection, while quite sizable, consists mostly of stuff from the 1950s and 1960s. (Offhand, I’m not sure if I have more than fifty songs on my hard drive recorded in this century.)

iTunes 8, which Steve Jobs announced today at the Apple event in San Francisco, has a few major new features..

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Remoteblogging the Apple iPod Event

For the first time in a while, I’m not at an Apple product-launch event–I’m at DEMO in San Francisco today, so I’ll miss “Let’s Rock” in San Francisco. (Which probably means it’ll be an especially good one…the last one I missed was the original iPhone launch at Macworld Expo 2007.)

The good news is that the Web will be full of live coverage, including liveblogs at Cnet, Macworld, Engadget, Gizmodo, and elsewhere. I’ll be reading ’em and chiming in here. Call it remoteblogging, if you will–and refresh this page for updates. It’ll be an interesting experiment, if nothing else.

11:05: Apple event is over! I had fun even though I wasn’t there. I’m going back to attending DEMO–more thoughts later.

11:02: Unrelated news which I may or may not write about at greater length later: PC World has announced that my friend and former boss Steve Fox, who has an ever longer history with PCW and IDG than me, is the new head of editorial. That’s amazing news, and he’ll do a great job.

11:02: More music from Jack Johnson.

11:01: Twitter is down. Possibly killed by Apple-related tweets.

11:00am: Jack Johnson speaking to crowd.

10:57: Johnson is apparently playing something with political overtones, or understones. I can’t tell from here.

10:53: Musical conclusion with Jack Johnson, #1 selling male artist on iTunes. Does Jobs ever announce anything after the music? Not that I can recall.

10:52: iPhone 2.1 software available today Friday, fixes lots of bugs.

10:50: My EVDO choked, so I’m playing catchup. Schiller showed soccer game and Need for Speed. Touch prices: 8GB, $229, 16GB for $299, and 32GB for $399. Available now. People at event see new ad.

10:41: Guy in front of me here at DEMO is reading Engadget’s liveblog of Apple event; Bet he’s not alone…

10:38: Steve invites Phil Schiller onstage, apparently to talk games. He’s demoing Spore, which just shipped.

10:37: Demo of Genius feature on the Touch. And watching Iron Man.

10:34: 100 million apps have been downloaded from the App Store. It’s available in 62 countries. 700 games available.

10:32: New Touch has built-in speakers, volume controls on side, built in Nike support, App Store, other software enhancements. Jobs is showing Genius feature again.

10:32: Is the fact that he announced the Nano first a hint that something REALLY interesting will be the “Just one more thing?” Maybe, maybe not.

10:31: Jobs is introducing new iPod Touch. It’s contoured, in a stainless steel case.

10:30: If I were at the event, I’d be watching a new Nano ad right now.

10:28: New Nanos in stores in next few days. Also introducing new $79 headphones with built-in microphone, woofer, and tweeter.

10:26: Announcing colors (blue, purple, orange, green, pink, yellow, red, violet, silver) and pricing:  $149 for 8GB, $199 for 16GB.

10:25: New Nanos are highly recyclable.

10:24: New Nano has 24 hour battery life for audio, four hours for video.

10:23: As rumored, shake the Nano and it’ll shuffle your songs!

10:22: Rotate the Nano into landscape mode, and it automatically notices, adjusts the screen, and goes into Cover Flow mode.

10:20: New Nano is, as rumors had it, curved. And as last-moment rumors said, it has accelerometer from iPhone and iPod Touch.

10:19: New Nano is extremely thin–Jobs says we’ll be blown away. Thinnest iPod ever. Aluminum case, curved glass screen.

10:18: He’s announcing the new Nano. It’s the skinny model I was skeptical about, from all the spy shots. Wrong again!

0:16: Microsoft-bashing: Zune has 2.6 percent market share. Sandisk has 8.6 percent–actually kind of amazing for a memory company. iPod has 73.4 percent. Still dominant after all these years.

10:15: Remoteblogging is fun, but it just ain’t the same when you can’t hear Steve Jobs. Yes, it’s what creates the reality distortion field. But without Jobs, it’s all a lot more clinical.

10:14: He’s moving onto iPods and quoting impressive stats.

10:13: Jobs is demoing Genius by listening to Elvis and getting a playlist with Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison automatically.

10:11: Jobs is browsing songs by artist, genre, etc. You can browse albums by cover and look at albums by artist. Works for TVs and movies, too.

10:09: Genius sends info about your musical tastes to the cloud, but it’s anonymous. Also uses combined data of all iTunes users.

10:07: iTunes 8 has Genius feature that makes playlists of songs that go great together. Will also recommend songs you should buy from iTunes Store.

10:06am: NBC is returning to iTunes Store; HD TV Shows available on iTunes for $299; iTunes 8 is launching today.

10:03: Okay, he’s quoting stats about iTunes sales.

10:02: Actually, Steve is onstage. He says there’s some exciting stuff to come, and makes reference to Bloomberg’s premature obituary for him.

10:00: It’s 10. But these events usually start a few minutes late, and begin with some fairly standard stats on sales of iPods and iPhones, iTunes successes, etc. So I’m not overly anxious. Yet.

9:58: Engadget says that the Doors’ “Touch Me” is playing; sign of new touch-screen products? Who knows?

9:56am: If I were actually at the event, I’d be blogging about the crowds and music right about now; if I spotted Al Gore or Woz in the crowd, I’d mention that, too…

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An Intensely Selfish Apple Wishlist for Tomorrow’s Event

I’m telling you, I’ve given up trying to predict what Apple will announce at its press events, such as the one that’ll happen tomorrow in San Francisco. Safe predictions (“The event is called ‘Let’s Rock,’ so it’s likely that it will involve new iPods”) are boring, boring, boring. Out-there ones (“Apple will release a touch-screen Mac tablet”) are too random. And the most interesting things that happen at Apple events are usually so unpredictable that nobody predicted them.

That doesn’t mean I’m not curious, though, or that there aren’t things I’d like to see announced. So in lieu of a list of predictions, here’s a wish list, in rough order of its chances of actually being announced tomorrow (that doesn’t count as a prediction, does it?).
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An Absurdly Busy Week for Technology

I’m in San Diego for the DEMOFall conference, where more than seventy new products and services–mostly from startups–will debut over the next two days. You’d think that would be enough new stuff for one week in September, but DEMO is going head to head with TechCrunch 50 back in San Francisco, with 52 other debutantes, all of a Web 2.0 nature.

Did I mention that Apple is holding an event tomorrow in San Francisco at which it will unveil new iPods and possibly other items?

I’ll be blogging highlights from all three tech events here at Techologizer, and will cover even more news–albeit briefly–in my Twitter feed. Should be a fun, exhausting, and extremely newsy three days–join me, won’t you?

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Apple Monopolistic? Maybe. Control Freaks? Definitely!

Dan Lyons, who used to be best known as Fake Steve Jobs but who now writes for Newsweek under the name of…Dan Lyons, has written a piece called “One Bad Apple” for his new employer. It makes the case that Apple is a would-be monopolist that’s beginning to resemble the Microsoft of a decade or so–the one that wanted to dominate every market it could, and which left smaller companies with only crumbs off the table.

Lyons’ piece starts with an example that that’s not that compelling: Apple TV vs. the nifty movie box from a small company called Vudu. He correctly points out that Apple TV has added features that resemble some of those in Vudu, and that Apple cut Apple TV’s price. But Apple TV predates Vudu and sold for less than it in the first place; you can’t blame Apple for competing in a market when it was there first, and I don’t think you can criticize it for improving its product.

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Dell Joins the Mini-Laptop Movement

Remember when laptops were big, heavy, and cost two or three thousand dollars? Most of the action at the moment involves undersized cheapie models like the eee PC, HP Mini-Note…and Dell’s new Inspiron.
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