Tag: Apple

Apple brings networks to their knees

This afternoon around 1 p.m. iOS 7 went live (in our area at least).

Shortly there after our organization’s Internet came to a crawl (or so I hear – I was working from home).

I dropped a quick email to our network admin:

iOS 7 anyone? 😉

(I’m at home so don’t blame me)

Sure enough – later tonight I got an email confirming my suggestion. iTunes was using roughly 400MBits or more than 40% of our organization’s Internet connection.

I think @Saddington was right to be impressed that Apple’s network could handle the load of all those downloads.

To iPad or not, that is the question

iPad 2 with Facetime
iPad 2 with Facetime | Photo via Apple PR

So I’ve never been an Apple fan-boy like my friend Thomas. But I do use an iPhone 3G on an almost hourly basis these days.

And recently I’ve started considering purchasing an iPad2 as well… but I’m not sold on the idea as of yet.

You see my biggest complaint with the iPad is that its seems to be solely about media consumption — which is how it was seemingly pitched in the beginning.

But now as more and more apps flood the market, the tide seems to be changing. There are more and more options out there for creating as well as consuming content. And with that in mind, my mind is shifting as well.

Now I can see the iPad 2 doing many of the things I might use it for.
Continue reading To iPad or not, that is the question

15 reasons you should buy an iPhone instead of an Android phone

iP4
ip4 | Photo by The Juggler

A week ago, I flashed my G1 with the Cyanogenmod 6-RC2 Operating System for the 4th time in just a couple weeks.

It was starting to get a little annoying.

Thankfully, I finally decided to do a complete wipe and flash (essentially formatting the phone and reinstalling the OS from scratch) and I haven’t had any real issues since then.

However, I did tell Laurie (who’s a proud iPhone owner) that having to flash the phone several times made me know for sure that there were only a few people I’d recommend rooting and flashing their Android phone to.

So rather than recommending the process to you again — I thought I’d offer a change of pace — 15 reasons why you should buy an iPhone INSTEAD of an Android phone.
Continue reading 15 reasons you should buy an iPhone instead of an Android phone

Greed

EMI gave us several of Shawn McDonald’s Roots CD for the Something Beautiful podcast. We’ll be giving 2 away over the next couple episodes.

Really digging this album.

Listening to Greed (click to see a video) while laughing at all the hub-bub over Apple’s WWDC today.

Here are the words… good stuff….

Well take a look around and tell me what you see
We are consuming everything
And I must confess that I fall
Oh, Isn’t this the story of us all?

Falsely advertised
Into believing we need this stuff in our lives

‘Cause what we got is what we need
And everything else is only greed
It’s greener on the other side, Oh why can’t we be satisfied, oh

I’ve seen some with a little
And they seemed to be doing just fine to me
And I’ve seen some with alot
And they don’t seem like they ever want to stop

Falsely advertised
Into believing we need this stuff in our lives

‘Cause what we got is what we need
And everything else is only greed
It’s greener on the other side, Oh why can’t we be satisfied, oh

‘Cause what we got is what we need
And everything else is only greed
It’s greener on the other side, Oh why can’t we be satisfied, oh

Mac user punished for loyalty

From Wisebread:

I’m an unapologetic Mac-junkie. I’ve got an old, dead Mac laptop that I can’t bear to part with from 1996. Our iMac is still up and running, having recently been put out to pasture after a disk drive malfunction. I eagerly bought one of the early iPods, and still use it all the time. And I’m writing to you now from my G4 Cube, which was a gift from a friend years ago. I’ve watched other Mac lovers fall away from the True Faith, one-by-one, but I never thought it would happen to me. However, yesterday when we brought home the newest addition to our Mac family, an 80 Gb iPod Classic, it would be my turn to be disillusioned. After you pay the hefty $249 price tag, plus an extra $30 for a wall charger (they used to bundle those in for free), plus $55 for the composite AV cable for your TV, plus any other little extras you may need, there is a hidden cost that blows up in your face when you get it home.

In short, the new iPods are not compatible with any operating system before OS 10.4.8. There’s a good discussion of the problem here. Basically, if you don’t have a newer operating system, you have to buy it before you can use your iPod. If you can’t run the newest OS, Leopard, you need to call Apple tech support and they’ll graciously sell you the outdated and obsolete Tiger for $129. You can imagine what I said to this gracious offer, after plunking down $350 for the device.

What all of this comes down to, for me, is that I am tired of the platform wars. Enough is enough already. I’m tired of manufacturers trying to force me to buy equipment I don’t want and need, or pointless “upgrades” (I shudder to think of my old cube trying to run a bloated newer operating system), just so that I can listen to a song, or download TV shows from iTunes (which, by the way, I was planning to do extensively). I’m tired of trying to exchange text files with people who have some subtly different document format, and seeing all of my formatting turned into gibberish. I’m tired of declaring loyalty to one manufacturer or another just because I bought their product.

When I take my car in for repairs, the mechanic never tells me that my older model car is “no longer supported,” or that my new tires are incompatible with my older chassis. I am not forced to stop using my refrigerator because my new food is suddenly incompatible with it. And while I’m on the subject, I don’t understand why I need a desktop or a laptop computer at all to use my iPod or my other smart devices. Has no one ever thought of making an ethernet or wireless adapter so that we can download our tunes directly from the internet? Of course not! Because then people might decide they don’t need a $2000 laptop just so they can listen to music in the car. Slam dunk!

Laurie decided to make the switch back to PC and from what I understand she’s loving (most of) her new PC with Vista. I’m just wondering how much longer people will put up with proprietary equipment. No wonder Linux fans are such fanatics.