apple

I don’t want to add to the echo chamber of Apple blogs so just go read Horace Dediu at Asymco. That’s one smart man: Consider how HP and Apple faced the changes in the PC market almost exactly a decade ago. On September 3, 2001, HP announced that they would acquire Compaq. On October 23, 2001, Apple announced the iPod. The rest, as they say, is history.

Marco Arment, of Instapaper fame, has repeatedly stated that he is not worried about the new Safari Reading List. He’s not worried and may be a little hopeful for it’s success. I agree with his estimates. The new Safari feature will introduce an entirely new option for reading web pages to the mass market. Instapaper will benefit and, collectively, we will all be a little better off. You see, Marco makes a product that is for the nerds.

In anticipation of the iOS 5 announcement tomorrow: You know who could use voice commands and speech to text in their iOS devices? Anyone that works with gloves on all day. That includes laboratory scientists and hospital staff. I've heard a number of people suggest that iPads would work great in the lab for recording experiments. Not so. Any bench worker will tell you that removing your gloves every time you need to record a bit of data is a real deal breaker.

By now, it has become fairly obvious that the latest round of iPad competition has made little impact on the public mindshare that Apple occupies. One thing that I have heard repeatedly from Apple supporters is that Apple needs competition to push their products. I have generally taken this for granted, but I have now changed my opinion. Looking over the Apple product line, it is evident that they are only competing with themselves.

I’m surprised there has not been more buzz about this. There has been a lot of speculation that Apple will stream iTunes media some time in the future. The future is now on the AppleTV 2. Apple is already streaming podcasts for the AppleTV 2. If you setup some favorite pdocasts on your little black brick, Apple registers those favorites with your iTunes ID. Now any other AppleTV 2’s that are using the same iTunes ID have the same favorites available for browsing and streaming.

I've avoided much of the iPad 2 buzz this past week. Some of it was easy to avoid but I do read Asymco regularly and even Horace Dediu chimed in about the launch. I prefer not to add to the mindless chatter that has been taking place in the Apple blog echo chamber, but I would like to say a bit about what I saw. In Line not Out-Of-Line

I'd like to posit a thesis that I have rarely heard about Apple. Apple understands that their market potential lies in their consumer advocacy. Apple is often criticized by media producers for their self serving decisions that often hurt pre-established business models. It started with the music industry crying foul over Apple's insistence on $0.99 per track. Later, Apple was criticized about the lock down of the iOS platform and advertising system.

Hazel by Noodlesoft is a really fantastic little helper application. It's really what folder actions should have been. It's the rare example of how Apple missed the target and an independent developer really nailed it. I'm going to skip the Hazel tutorial and get right to the main show. I wanted a system for ripping DVD's of all kinds. Typically this is a manual process where I rip a disk image to my harddrive and then extract the video at the appropriate resolution.

I think a large number of folks have already established the Pinboard.in is an excellent bookmarking service. Now, comes the task of getting immediate and convenient access to those bookmarks. I have been happily using the app DBD Delicious Bookmark Discovery ($1.99 on the Apple app store) for that very purpose. While the name indicates that it is a tool for Delicious bookmarks, it is a top notch tool for accessing Pinboard bookmarks.

I've used Leopard all weekend and I am hooked. I expected it to be just a mediocre upgrade without those gotcha features. I've been proven totally wrong. Since top ten lists are all the rage with the internets, here's mine. Top ten reasons to embrace Leopard 10) I actually like the Dock now (I don't hide it in the basement between uses anymore) 9) Coverflow sucks less than I thought (It is actually handy for folders with images, but not much else)