Kyle LeBoeuf

I was checking out some stuff on Apple’s website this evening and noticed that they made some interesting tweaks to the “Why Mac?” page. Scroll down on the page and hover your mouse on the reasons to get a Mac. Slick.

[Link]

I managed to catch most of the keynote from Apple’s Press Event today thanks to live stream. I jotted down a few notes from the event. Below my notes are some thoughts on the announcements.

iLife ’11: Looks sweet. Major update to iPhoto. Tweaks to iMovie and GarageBand.
- iPhoto: Fullscreen mode is a very nice addition. Deeper integration with Facebook. Favorite feature is the new e-mail integration. E-mail photos from within the iPhoto app. Nice.
- iMovie: Includes a new tool to build trailers from movie footage. Editing tools have become more robust. Apple’s Video app team is beginning to blur the lines between iMovie and it’s Final Cut family of video editing products. Also includes an interesting feature called “People Finder” to help you find faces in your film. Other tweaks galore, check the product page.
- GarageBand: Biggest additions are two new tools called “Flex Time” and “Groove Matching”. Helps with tweaking rhythm and timing in your GarageBand tracks. Again, Apple seems to be bluring the line between its consumer (GarageBand) and professional (Logic) products.

Mac OS X Lion: Holy cow. Apple dropped a giant bomb with this one. Essentially, Apple is taking some of the major concepts of iOS and integrating it into OS X. Some of the highlights:
- Mac App Store: Apple is bringing it’s wildly popular App Store concept to the Mac.  Works just like it’s iOS counterparts. Browse and download apps in the store, Store application automatically installs apps and alerts you about app updates. This is huge. Will be available for Snow Leopard within 90 days. More thoughts below.
-  Launchpad: Essentially brings the iOS home screen to the OS X desktop. Swipe through pages of apps. Also includes Folders, just like in iOS. Also huge.
- Full-screen apps: The green button at the upper left hand corner of windows in OS X will soon cause your apps to go full-screen. Interesting feature.
- Mission Control: Probably the biggest change to the OS X interface since Leopard, Mission control combines Spaces, Expose, and Dashboard to bring you a summary of everything going on in your system. Multiple windows of a single app are grouped together. Will enchance productivity in a big way for a ton of people.
- Availability: As of right now, Summer of 2011

FaceTime for Mac: Another big iOS feature comes to OS X. Mac users with Snow Leopard can now chat with other customers running FaceTime either on their Mac or their iOS device. Awesome. Beta is now available on Apple’s FaceTime for Mac page

MacBook Air:  They took one of the thinnest computers on the market and made it even thinner. They also made it faster. Includes SSD that is integrated into the motherboard, unlike traditional SSD implementations which involve putting the flash chips into a housing that is shaped like a standard drive. This thing is absolutely ridiculous. Available in 13-inch and 11-inch. 11-inch starts at $999. Apple is clearly targeting the NetBook market with this one, but with a different approach. Maintains the tiny profile without sacrificing the keyboard.

A thought:

The most interesting thing about the announcements today has to do with OS X Lion. One of things that’s commonly discussed in business circles is Apple’s ability to use one class of their products to convince consumers to buy into another class of product. For example, the original idea behind the iPod was to get consumers familiar with the Apple brand and to hopefully get them to consider a Mac when they make their next purchase. Apple hoped that consumers would be pleased with the iPod and therefore expect the Mac to be similarly pleasing.

I think Apple’s strategy with OS X Lion is similar. By adding popular elements found on iOS devices, like apps, the app store, FaceTime, and the “Launchpad” (home screen on iOS), Apple is hoping that OS X will appeal to customers when they make their future computer purchases.

Adding apps to OS X makes sense, as it unifies Apple’s two biggest product lines (iOS and OS X) and will decrease customer confusion when it comes down to how to the two product lines relate to one another.

I’m looking forward to Apple’s future, both in OS X and in iOS. Will be an interesting one, and it starts with Lion.

I’ve started this post at least 10 times over the last year. Every time a rumor creeps out about Verizon carrying the iPhone, the tech world explodes and everyone starts speculating about Big Red carrying the iPhone, but I resist, because a couple of days later the talk dies down as everyone realizes that we’ve been here before.

It’s sort of like the story of the boy who cried wolf. Many of us have heard this rumor one-too-many times to get worked up over it. But this time it seems like the story might actually be true.

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal published a story claiming that Apple is developing a new iPhone with CDMA technology. They later updated the story to say Verizon would carry this new CDMA iPhone here in the US and that it would release early next year. The Wall Street Journal usually doesn’t publish stuff on Apple unless they have concrete evidence (meaning legit leaks) and this probably signifies that there is some truth to the story.

Of course, the tech world went crazy, and many people are excited about the possibilities of a new iPhone carrier, and that’s a big deal. Apple will earn a lot of new customers this way, and many people that are on AT&T will switch over the Verizon to use their iPhones under that carrier. That’s all fine and dandy, but I have a theory:

I recently heard that the iPhone generates a ridiculous majority of the data traffic on AT&T’s network. AT&T has millions of iPhone subscribers, but 100s of millions of subscribers total. So a very, very small minority of subscribers on AT&T’s network generates the majority of the traffic.

That’s absolutely ridiculous. The iPhone’s problem is not AT&T. The iPhone’s problem is that it’s the iPhone! It’s the most popular phone in the world, and everyone wants one. This primarily is the reason why AT&T has so many issues. It’s impossible for them to keep up with the demand of the iPhone.

What makes everyone think that Verizon will be any different? It’s network is supposed to be more reliable, but right now, Verizon does not have the iPhone. Verizon does not cater to the most data-hungry set of phone users in the world. I have a theory: Verizon will carry the iPhone, millions of people will either get their first iPhone with Big Red or switch to Verizon from AT&T and the traffic will bring Verizon to it’s knees. Then Verizon will get some of the bad press for awhile before everyone realizes that the problem is simply the popularity of the phone, and not necessarily the fault of the networks.

And the rest of us with AT&T will enjoy better network performance thanks to the shifted load.

In summary, I’m not jumping on the Verizon iPhone bandwagon. They are headed to the same wreck that AT&T is in. Count on it.

Save a permalink to this post now, and come back in a couple of years and see if I’m right.

Now I’m just waiting for T-Mobile to get it, so I can make my girlfriend switch and prove to her how awesome it is.

Valve recently released it’s monthly hardware survey detailing various statistics on hardware in use by its vast Steam user base. The newest survey now includes data culled from its new OS X user base, and the effects that OS X has on the hardware survey is interesting.

Of the biggest note is OS Share. According to the survey, every version of Windows indicated in the survey saw a decrease in users (with Windows XP taking the biggest hit at 4.70%).

All told, OS X took 8.46% of the Steam user marketshare in May. It should be noted that Steam support for Mac officially began on May 12, so the numbers should see some increase in the June survey.

It will be interesting to see the effects of OS X on the Steam user base as time goes on and developers release more titles on the Mac through Steam.

Today, Apple let me into the MobileMe Mail beta, so I spent a little bit of time with it and now I have a few impressions.

First, let me say this: the interface is absolutely beautiful. Obviously inspired by the Mail interface on the iPad, the new Mail interface takes advantage of widescreen resolutions and displays everything in a neat, 3 column view. On the far left column is are your usual mail sections like Inbox, Sent, etc. In the center column is your mail, and it looks just like the Mail app on the iPhone and iPad. On the far right is a preview section for the email, again very similar to the (widescreen) email interface on the iPad.

In my experience so far, it’s very clean and its very snappy, loading most of my email with no problems and not really noticing any display issues with the email either.

I did notice some additional perks that make using the interface a little more pleasurable of an experience. For starts, email sent to an alias on your account now shows the account in bright green text next to the sender’s name, so you have an obvious visual indicator of which email was sent to what address. This is great for me, because I often find myself replying to email using the wrong alias/address.

Overall I love the iPhone OS inspired design and features, plus a few perks here and there that round out the package into a solid update and worthy successor for MobileMe Mail.

I wonder if they will roll out some of these changes Mail on the Mac?

Thought I would take a moment and give a shout out to Mozilla’s “Open to Choice” movement, which a project from Mozilla that aims to educate users in Europe on the new “browser choice” situation that’s developed over there for Windows users.

You can find out more by clicking this banner here:

“The Failure of Empathy”

This guy gets it.

“…I was surprised by the reaction the iPad got the day it launched. Following along on Twitter I was seeing things like ‘underwhelming’, ‘meh’ , ’it’s not open’, ‘it’s just a big iPhone’, etc. And most of this stuff was coming from people who design and build interactive experiences. As designers, and technologists we’re very much aware that the interfaces we build are for people who are “not us,’ but we still haven’t made that leap about the concept of “computing.”

The people don’t want “tablet computers” with Ubuntu and OpenID (worst name ever for a product attempting broad acceptance). They could honestly give a shit whether it’s a closed or open system. And, let’s be really honest, they probably care as much about DRM as they do about baseball players juicing; by which I mean not very much at all. They want things to work most of the time, and be easy to fix when they don’t. And if the process by which it happens is “magic” they are totally cool with that.”

It’s not built for the people who are complaining about it (the techies). It’s built for my stepdad, who hates dealing with computers and just wants to look up something on the internet occasionaly and watch youtube without having to deal with the intricacies that come with a computer, or my stepmom who just wants to store and view photos, email, and read the occasional article about parenting.

So, pretty much everyone knows that something special is going on down in Cupertino, and the whole world is about to find out exactly what it is tomorrow during Apple’s media event.

Of course, we all figure that it’s some sort of tablet device but the public is very conflicted over what features the tablet will and won’t have. What will it look like? What operating system will it run? Will we be able to run our iPhone apps? What kind of connectivity will it have? If it does have some kind of wireless (as in mobile) data capability, which wireless data provider(s) will support it?

These are just a few of the questions that are posed by the public over this tablet. Here are some of mine:

1) Will I be able to use the tablet as a direct supplement to my Mac? (i.e. a portable external display or touch interface like a Wacom tablet)
Something that most of these other tablet-type devices lack is the ability to expand and enhance the functionality of the “primary computer”. Most of these devices are trying to be your secondary computer, but I think it would expand its market a little wider if it presented some advantage to existing Mac users (or PC, but I highly doubt that Apple would allow the tablet to enhance functionality on an inferior Operating System)

2) Will I have more control over its use (as opposed to the iPhone/iPod) or will Apple impose restrictions on the API and applications like the iPhone?
Something like a tablet can have more advanced use and functionality beyond that of the iPhone, so I wonder if Apple will be a little more lenient about the APIs and uses that applications built for this device will have.

3) Will I have to purchase one with data connectivity or will there be model that works on wifi only (similar to the iPhone/iPod relationship)?
If I would be interested in getting a tablet, I wouldn’t care for the 3G connectivity. It would be nice but I don’t really want to pay for a dedicated data service. I’d rather pay for tethering on my phone.

I have quite a few more questions about this upcoming tablet (Apple could even surprise us and not introduce a tablet at all) and you can be assured that I will be ready at my computer at noon tomorrow to scan the live blogs.

I’m not going to discuss the rumors in this space (update: with one exception, see the PS), as there are plenty of other websites out there that is beating that horse to death, but I will say that I am pretty excited about this.

I’ll be posting here with my thoughts within a few days of the announcement so stay tuned (if you care about this blog at all…haha).

PS: For what its worth, I do not think that Apple will announce the end to AT&T’s iPhone exclusivity contract. Too soon. I think some people are getting hopeful and jumping the gun on this one.

Every once in a while, someone creates an application or service that changes the landscape of the tech industry. This year, I think that distinction belongs to Dropbox.

I installed Dropbox on my laptop earlier this year without the intention of really making use out of it. I’m a tech enthusiast and I install all kinds of applications on my computer that usually never end up actually using. But Dropbox was different.

Dropbox is a web service that allows you to store specific data in the cloud and access it from anywhere. This is a very basic description of the service.

Basically, with Dropbox you can sync a folder (commonly called “My Dropbox” or “Dropbox”) with the Dropbox service. Any file or folder or you place in the Dropbox folder gets automatically uploaded to the Dropbox service. If you connect multiple devices (say, 2 or 3 computers) to the Dropbox service, it will push those files to your other devices automatically. Its amazing. You can also access your files on the Dropbox website, when you are not at a computer on which you have the Dropbox software installed.

This is the simplest way to describe the full services of Dropbox. Dropbox has a TON of real-life uses, and I learn more uses each day. Here are some of the uses I’ve had for Dropbox over the past year:

• File Transfer From Computer-Computer: I own two laptops: my trusty 13″ MacBook Pro and an old Dell ultra-mobile laptop on which I am running Windows 7. I also have an XP workstation at work. If I am working on one computer and I want my work to be easily accessible on the other computers, I just drop the necessary files into the Dropbox folder, and those files will be uploaded to the Dropbox service and redistributed to my other computers.
• File Transfer From iPhone-Computer: Dropbox does have an application for the iPhone, and this is not the first time I will reference this application for my favorite Dropbox uses. Lets say I took a picture with my iPhone, and I want a quick way to automatically transfer it to my computer without fooling with email. All I have to do is fire up the Dropbox app on my iPhone and upload the photo through the Dropbox app, and it is instantly synced to my computer(s).
• Syncing 1Password Keychains: I use Agile Web Solutions’ 1Password utility for secure data management (product licenses, passwords, etc.). If I need to be able to access this information from another computer, I can simply place my 1Password keychain data in my Dropbox folder on my Mac, and it’ll instantly get copied to my other computers. With 1Password Anywhere, I can access my keychain even when I’m on a PC. You can find out more about using 1Password with Dropbox here.
• Accessing School Documents from Anywhere: Lets say I need to print something for school that I’ve been working with on my computer. I can just save my work in the Dropbox folder and access the file on the Dropbox website from the school workstations. I can also access documents such as Word and Powerpoint files on the iPhone app (read-only purposes…perfect for studying when I don’t have my computer near me).
• Remote Torrents: I can simply add a Torrent file to my Dropbox folder and it can be picked up by another computer running a Torrent client set to watch a specific folder in my dropbox for new Torrents. You can find out more about Remote Torrents with Dropbox here.
• Sharing Files: Say I have a photo album I want to share with my friends, or an application, song, or any file that I need to send to others. I can simply place the file in my public Dropbox folder and give the people the link. I can also use the iPhone app to send a download link to a file that’s anywhere in my Dropbox, not just in my public folder.

You can find out more uses for Dropbox by visiting their website or check out the posts tagged with Dropbox on Lifehacker.

I was scanning some of my RSS feeds in Google Reader this afternoon when I stumbled on this article from MacRumors, reporting on some legal precedings in one of the many patent infringement suits in which Apple is a target.

“Silicon Alley Insider reports that Apple has been told to pay a $21.7 million patent infringement judgment to OPTi Inc., a former semiconductor company that abandoned its business to focus on pursuing patent claims against other companies.”

What? A business that actually abandoned ITS INDUSTRY to sue people? That’s insane. This is the perfect example of a patent troll. Can’t say I’ve ever heard of a company that turned it unto their primary source of income.

This is ridiculous. The article points out at Apple will probably appeal and attempt to defend itself, as it should.

What is the world coming to?

Apple Ordered to Pay Finalized $21.7 Million Patent Verdict, Hit With New Suit Over iPhone Camera [Via MacRumors]