Tag Archives | Apple

An Airier MacBook Air?

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 24, 2010 at 5:54 pm

When Steve Jobs brandished the MacBook Air onstage at MacWorld Expo 2008, it looked amazing (at least I was amazed as I snapped the photo above). After almost three years, though, it’s just another nicely-designed Mac–and a pricey one. (Toshiba’s Portege R700 may not feel as luxe, but its starting price is $600 less and it manages to pack a DVD burner into a case that matches the Air’s three-pound weight.)

But if the rumors are right (NOT A GIVEN! NOT A GIVEN!) Apple is readying an Air that replaces the current model’s 13.3″ display with an 11.6″ one, and shaves about ten percent of the weight off. Normally, I’d be skeptical about rumors of the company making a product cooler through significant downsizing of the display–but given the new iPod Nano, the idea of a sort of MacBook Air Nano is plausible.

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Oh, Ashok…

Posted by Ed Oswald on September 20, 2010 at 11:09 pm

I was about to make some pithy comments about the latest rumor du jour surrounding the next generation iPad — which now apparently is a 7-inch model with a camera — and its source, the attention-crazy Rodman & Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar — but Daring Fireball’s John Gruber beat me to it . Let’s face it, Kumar’s track record in predicting anything about Apple sucks, and that’s putting it nicely.

As just a recap of what this guy has predicted or said, and gotten wrong, in no particular order: Verizon and Apple teaming up on a tablet; Qualcomm’s chips were to power the iPad; the iPhone was a dud; ah well, I think you get the point.

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Napster is (Allegedly) Available for iPhone

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 20, 2010 at 5:29 pm

The original Napster was a scandalously easy way to get music for free. I’ve just been trying to use the new iPhone app from the latter-day, not-free service that carries the Napster name–and so far, it’s proven to be an annoyingly difficult way to pay for music.

Actually, I haven’t gotten it to accept my money at all. I began by downloading the iPhone app from the App Store and trying to upgrade my existing Napster event to the $10/month plan needed to stream and cache unlimited music on an iOS device. The app sent me to Safari to do the upgrade–and when I got there, I was greeted by an error message.

I tried doing the upgrade on a PC. Same error. Figuring that something might be wrong with my aged Napster account, I started to sign up for a new one, and didn’t see the $10 iOS plan among my options.

Then I noticed that there was no mention of iPhone compatibility on the Napster site. Scratch that–there is a reference to it…one that says that full-blown Napster doesn’t work with Apple devices.

I see no reference to an iPhone app on the Napster blog or in its press releases, so I wonder if the software wandered onto the App Store a bit ahead of schedule.

Maybe some of the dozens of folks who wrote about Napster for iOs today were able to get it up and running, but I’m giving up. With MOG, Rhapsody, Rdio, and Thumbplay already offering worthy on-demand music services for iOS, Napster is pretty darn late to the iPhone game. (Me, I’m currently partial to Rdio.)

If you’re able to make Napster work on an iOS device, lemme know what you think…

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The “Facebook Phone” I Want is a Facebook iPhone

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 20, 2010 at 1:24 pm

The weekend’s big tech rumor was the possibility that Facebook was working on a Facebook-branded phone of some sort, presumably one with super-tight integration with the social network’s online services. Seems utterly plausible–the scuttlebutt came from decent sources such as TechCrunch and Cnet, and Facebook’s denial was artful rather than comprehensive. Could be cool, too: Joe Hewitt, who’s supposedly working on it, was responsible for the excellent Facebook app for iPhone until he quit that project in disgust over Apple’s App Store policies.

Thinking about Hewitt, though, made me ponder the current state and future of the Facebook iPhone app. It’s seen some tweaks since he left for less restrictive pastures, but nothing radical. And there’s just a ton of undone stuff left that could make Facebook better on an iPhone.

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Hallelujah! Google Voice Returns to the iPhone App Store

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 17, 2010 at 7:28 pm

The saints be praised. After loosening and clarifying its App Store policies last week, Apple is proving that things–some of them, at least–have changed. A third-party Google Voice app called GV Connect is in the App Store, almost fourteen months after Apple removed all third-party Google Voice apps and refused to approve Google’s own one. Sean Kovacs, developer of GV Mobile, one of the programs bounced last year, says that Apple has told him his app will return tomorrow.

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Most Android Users Still Don't Have Froyo

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 17, 2010 at 1:11 pm

For owners of iPhones and iPod Touches, the latest major upgrade to the OS is version 4. For Android users, it’s 2.2 “Froyo.” Every iOS user with a compatible device can upgrade to 4.x at will, but Android types must wait until the wireless carrier they bought their phone from releases the Froyo update. And while every new iPhone and iPod Touch ships with iOS 4, there are still new Android devices arriving–such as Dell’s Streak–that run old versions of the software.

So how does that translate into percentages of users who get to enjoy the benefits of a current mobile operating system versus. those who are stuck on something at least slightly stale? Online advertising network Chitika, which publishes stats based on aggregate data about visitors to sites on its network, shared some relevant numbers with me.

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Mossberg on iPad E-Reading

Posted by Harry McCracken on September 16, 2010 at 8:55 am

The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg prefers to do his e-reading on an iPad. (So do I, most of the time.) And he’s reviewed iPad e-readers: Apples iBooks, Amazon’s Kindle, and Barnes & Noble’s Nook.

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