The news over Steve’s health is taking its toll. Now former fake Steve Jobs, Dan Lyons a technology columnist at Newsweek is apparently banned from CNBC for criticizing a CNBC reporter on air. While he might not have acted properly, I think he had a point.
Apparenlty CNBC reporter Jim Goldman kept repeating what Apple PR was saying to him, i.e. that there was nothing wrong with Steve’s health. But here’s the catch, he allegedly knew about Steve’s declining health for a week but failed to report on it. It does not make sense and Lyons said that CNBC might as well repeat Apple’s press releases. The PR spokeperson at Apple’s is apparently a former CNBC employee, adding to the drama. This is beginning to sound like a genuine saga. Only in America.
As I said earlier, the biggest announcement as far as I am concerned for Apple at MacWorld 2009, was the removal of Digital Rights Management for iTunes, commonly known as DRM. Apple had hinted at that in February 2007 by publishing a letter to the Apple community.
The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat.
Well consider this a done deal with the big four major labels: Sony BMG, EMI, Universal and Warner.
Apple says that songs can now be downloaded onto the iPhone over 3G without surcharge (and saving steps along the way). They also announced three price points— 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29 for songs based on future Apple cost. You can upgrade your current library of purchased songs to the higher quality DRM-free iTunes Plus format for 30 cents per song.
Finally, I’ve caught up with my PC friends who have been using Picasa for years to share pictures online. Google just announced a Mac Beta version. It’s obviously intended for those who don’t already have a mobileme account, formerly a “dot” Mac account. It integrates well with iPhoto. A must have in the digital age. You can obtain Picasa 3 here.
I have to admit I am pretty impressed by the features that are packed in Picasa. It searched my hard drive in seconds to find my pictures. It automatically preserves the iPhoto library. It allows you to find duplicates across the drive. It has a simple to use, one button upload to the Web. It can export and resize pictures on the fly. It can email pictures at the click of a button. It can post pictures into your Blogger account. It can do a lot more, not bad for a famous Google “Beta”.
What will future digital archeologists do with the millions of pictures taken everywhere in the world at every instant? They will share their findings in Picasa no doubt.
Once in a while, for entertainment (we hope) and tongue-in-cheek humor, we will reproduce excerpts of our technology motivated conversations as they unfold in iChat, almost live. Today we upgraded to WordPress 2.7 and changed our style sheet to improve on readability and just because we like to stay current.
Interesting video produced by Apple on the new breakthrough battery designed to last longer (3X the industry standard lifetime) with up to a 1,000 recharge cycles for an 8 hour operation. Apple contrary to other manufacturers, is directly involved in the design of the battery. They aspire for the battery to be the thinnest possible, to last the longest (environment-friendly) and to sustain a full work day of operation. Mission accomplished. Now can you work on pricing? 
I just tried out the iWork 09 30-day FREE trial version available here. I did not give it an extensive workout but from what I have seen, consider this one an Apple donation if you plan to upgrade. I will in resignation and support for an alternative and because of Keynote. Other than that feel free to sit this one out.
I don’t think there are any new groundbreaking features in the Keynote, Pages and Numbers applications. They all have this share on iWork.com link in the menu to enable online sharing and commenting but you could probably obtain the same results with a good old PDF that they all create on the fly. Adobe has made document revision available in the free Reader (provided that the issued document was created in Acrobat, Standard version is at $299). This feature does not compete with Microsoft’s track changes and a corporate SFTP site. You need a MAC account to use it.
I seldom use Pages and Numbers because I find them to funny to take seriously. Excel and Word are tough customers to beat and— ubiquitous. As I said before, they almost pack too many features. However, after years in Lotus and Excel, I am still learning new tricks.
Keynote has a definite edge over PowerPoint but its small market share makes it hard to recommend. Others have died before, competing in the business presentation field (Adobe Persuasion, Harvard Graphics (still barely breathing), General Parametrics Videoshow, Corel, LMSoft and others). Still Keynote is my favourite business presentation software and Apple only needed to add one transition effect to incite me to upgrade. And they did.
Well, the sentiment is that this year’s MacWorld was flat. Everyone was expecting hardware news but, aside from a new 17″ MacBook Pro equipped with a non-removable battery, Apple announced mostly software upgrades. So, in a manner of speaking, they went soft on the Apple community. You will find everything here. iLife and iWork got major new features. iWork will offer online collaborative services à la Google docs. iMovie has face recognition. Garage Band has stars like Sting teaching you music (Artist Lessons, sold seperately, batteries not included ). And the biggest news as far as I am concerned is the removal of DRM on all iTunes songs starting now. It’s about time.
Allright Steve Jobs, just released a “personal” letter to the Apple community saying that his weight loss was due to an hormone, eating away his body’s proteins. So the rumors were partly wrong. At least they were over dramatic as he should be okay by Spring 2009. Good for innovation.
Always trust MacRumors to bring forward the most exciting Apple rumors. According to them, Apple would showcase Snow Leopard (a new version of Mac OS X) at Macworld to be held January 5-9 in 2009. In terms of other rumors, apparently Steve is rumored to be sick, hasn’t been seen in public recently and won’t attend Macworld, a traditional venue of his popular keynotes. Apparently, analysts estimate that he represents 20 Billion dollars of Apple’s market capitalization. Board room rumors (over the Internet) and heresays have him transitioned and replaced soon… If that’s the truth, it’s bad news for innovation.
Very interesting product for conducting online collaborative meetings: dimdim. A market dominated by webex for years and bought by Cisco. Dimdim in its free version allows up to 3 simultaneous connections. There’s a pro version for those who need it. You can share a presentation, see and here the presenter. You have a whiteboard and you can share your desktop with others. All you need to save on traveling expenses.
