Pretty cool piece – from TechCrunch.
Jun 092009
May 252009
May 132009
I must be cranky, or Gruber must have been hit with the idiot stick.
For example, in this brief post, he says:
But it rings untrue to most ears to claim that Apple is doing a bad job with regard to security. The evidence suggests that Mac OS X has been and remains secure enough to be safe, and safety is what real people actually care about.
Now, I just read a blog post earlier today by Gruber’s arch-nemesis, Rixstep:
The point Rick summarizes most succinctly, that doesn’t seem to get much press:
As reported by members of the Rixstep/7 forum.
bash seems to be about two years old.
bzip2 is still at version 1.0.4 which is a year old.
rsync is still at version 2.6.x which is three years old.
Most rsync updates since 2006 were security updates.
X11 is still 2.1.6 although X.org released 2.3.3 three weeks ago.
History and numerous hacker contests have proven the best, easiest, fastest, and most reliable way to hack Mac OS X is to compare version numbers of open source modules, find one or more that are egregiously unconscionably out of date, and read the change logs at the source. From that point the hack’s child’s play.
This is why once a year the Macbook gets hacked and won in 5 minutes while it takes longer to get the Vista or XP machine. Gruber’s conclusion sounds like Microsoft ad copy: “safety is what real people people actually care about.” WTF?
Apple seems ignorant, or more likely arrogant when it comes to implementing timely security fixes for the open-source underpinnings of its operating system. “Ringing untrue to most ears” means absolutely nothing.
May 132009
Gruber reports on WWDC:
My gut feeling is that we’ve seen the last Steve Jobs keynote address. I don’t think he’s leaving the company — and his medical leave has been scheduled to run through the end of June — but I wonder if he’s done as the company’s spokesman.
I have to disagree. Given that the Stevenotes are one of his superpowers, and make full use of the reality distortion field, I think that Gruber is crazy to think he won’t do them anymore. Idiotic, in fact. What I do think is gone are the days when he will run them 75-100% by himself. I think he’ll do the main presentation, emcee as it were, and let the other members of the team take up the rest.
My prediction: Jobs will make a public appearance in July, having added weight since we last saw him, and he will at least introduce the new iPods come September/October.
Useful tip from Mac OS X Hints:
Some tradeoffs with the new iWork ’09 file format
They changed the file format from a package to a single file, complicating life for people that do online backups. But for local use, you can tell iWork in preferences to save documents as packages.
Feb 112009
MacRumors reports that it is likely QuickTime Pro will no longer be a paid upgrade, but be included in OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. It’s about time! I have felt for years that it should be free as part of the Mac OS, and a paid upgrade on Windows. Daring Fireball points out John Siracusa’s take on this, back around 10.4 Tiger’s launch. Criminally stupid, indeed.
Meanwhile, this should silence the people out in the wilderness who have been inexplicably calling for this to be a free upgrade. Seems resoundingly like an attempt to add value to justify a price point in an OS release that doesn’t necessarily contain a lot of flashy features.
Jan 272009
This link from PC Magazine is indicative of the reporting going on today. What no one seems to have picked up on is that Apple and IBM reached a compromise — he is starting two months from now, approximately 6 months after he left IBM for Apple, so it’s six months short of his 1-year non-compete clause, but still a far cry from Apple wanting him immediately.
Update: Shortly after I posted this people began to notice and several article mentioned the IBM side. IBM gets to review his contributions twice, too, before his year away from them expires. Something makes me think that IBM has some technology that would fit very nicely with Apple’s future plans.
Jan 122009
I disagree with Gruber, who says “I see no reason to doubt what Phil Schiller told David Pogue last week: January is just a bad month for Apple and they just don’t care about trade shows any more.”
I think trade shows still are good press for Apple, and I think Phil Schiller was trying to soften the blow to IDG. But the real issue is, how much does CES want Apple and Steve Jobs? They had Bill Gates doing not-great presentations for a long time. These presentations were frequently overshadowed by Jobs within a few days on either side–although I think usually earlier.
So, I think it is probable Apple will be going to CES but Apple won’t be footing the bill for their presence there.
Jan 082009
Sorry, I must be cranky tonight. But,
http://www.macworld.com/article/138002/2009/01/bos2009.html
Let’s put our list on a slowly loading slide show, because we don’t like scrolling down web pages. We really don’t like it. But we like horizontal scrolling. Yes, we like that fine, just so you have to click 10 times to RTFA.
Poor, I assume click-happy, design.
This is what print journalism committing suicide looks like.
Jan 082009
Speculation on Jobs’ health — I know, I know.
Anyway, a clinical endocrinologist, followed up by some people that seem to know what they’re talking about:
link
Second post of interest today, by poster TS Low:
link
It’s an attempt by Apple to circumvent the music industry labels. iTunes is a preferred gateway to new music for many consumers already. But in order to get that music Apple is still having to use the intermediaries who own the distribution rights to those tracks.
Now Apple is creating a comprehensive 3-way link between the fan, the artist and Apple. At some point the traditional distribution medium and corporate apparatus will become moot under this arrangement as the artists will less and less rely on a label and can have the ability to interact with fans at a truly individual and personal level.
This poses an interesting proposition, that was mentioned at the dawn of iTunes and the iTunes Music Store, that I haven’t heard voiced much lately. So it raises the question: Who will be the first artist to sign directly to iTunes? Those signed to labels would be lucky to get 10 cents, whereas the label gets to pocket the majority of the approx. 70 cents. Current labels would be reduced to selling back catalog.
How likely? Not sure.