Posts tagged apple
iTunes Match Rocks. Though I wouldn’t call it a flawless service, I think it totally embodies the future of music purchasing and streaming. For those who are new to iTunes Match, it is a new service built into iOS 5 and iTunes 10 that uploads your music to the iTunes cloud. If you bought tracks through iTunes those will be instantly available to stream, iTunes then scans the rest of your library and matches your low quality rubbish music downloaded in the 5th grade with high quality iTunes rips that are instantly available in the cloud too. The rest of your library that hasn’t been matched will be uploaded to your iCloud storage.
The magic is that you can delete all of your tracks off your computer and they will still always be available through iTunes Match. Forget to sync a song on your iPhone? iCloud instantly has it. Have limited iPod touch storage? iTunes match does streaming and will show your whole library to boot. Make changes on a playlist from your iPhone and the changes show up on your MacBook. It’s really quick and feels really futuristic.
The only problems I have had so far:
- Some music formats will not upload.
- Cover artwork doesn’t show often.
- iOS devices remove iTunes syncing, making the only way to sync music on your device available through online syncing. This is a problem to me because I have a lot of music that I would like to store on my iPad 2 64GB!
- iPad 2’s new crap music player has track skipping issues with iTunes Match.
Haha my glitch list ended up being a little long, but don’t mistake it for me not liking the service. I absolutely love it and it totally changed my view on online streaming of music. iTunes Match costs $25 per year.
BAD SAMSUNG!
Though this case wasn’t made by Samsung themselves, the case was made by a high end case maker whom is featured in all of Samsung’s flagship stores. I really want Samsung to find their own image, their own feel. Just approving this design in their stores (which Apple is already taking legal action against) is a poor mark on Sammy’s record.
My Top 5 favorite things about iOS 5.
1. Notification Center: Seriously a godsend. Now you can watch a movie and not have it stop every time your obsessive friend texts you. It also offers widget support, currently having Stocks and Weather widgets (which can be turned of in settings). It works just like Android’s tray, but looks a whole lot better imo.
2. Twitter Integration: Twitter is everywhere! You can tweet videos from YouTube, photos from Camera & Photos, your location from Maps, and links from Safari. Supports 3rd party apps as well. It works very smoothly, has a very eye catching ui and gives you a twitter bird chirp notification once your message has been sent. Hopefully this idea of social integration transcends with Facebook integration soon.
3. Reminders: Poor To-Do list App Store apps… I’m sorry, Reminders is hands down the best GTD app available. Location based reminders are so simple to set up, they work much more naturally than a time based reminder. The less fidgeting the better.
4. iCloud Support: This is nothing new to me, already having used MobileMe for the last 2 years. iCloud still doesn’t feel fully baked but it looks like it is headed for bigger and better things. For one, iCloud handles notifications now, check an iMessage on one device and the badged alert will be gone on the other. Photostream is also pretty nice except for it has its limitations too.. (Can’t delete photos from the stream, photos delete once they become 30 days old, can only hold 1000 photos). In the end, it is nice Apple is bringing the exchangesque features to the masses but I hope this doesn’t become the next Twitter whale.
5. Text Tones, Tones Shop: Custom text tones are now a reality. Apple even has a slew of offerings from Star Wars sound effects to voices from Clueless. Though I haven’t really customized mine thoroughly yet, it’s nice that Apple is finally offering this level of customization. The gap between normal phone functionality and iPhone functionality feels smaller.
Apple iPhone 4S Siri Demo
Incredibles had hands-on iPad 2 in it. FaceTime!
Geeky Ways You Can Donate to Japan
A. Text REDCROSS to 909-99 to donate $10. Probably the most simple way you can help.
B. Donate through iTunes. Just click the large banner through the iTunes Store. You can donate $5-$200.
C. Buying Apps! Capcom and Sega have temporarily dropped the price on amazing iPhone games such as Street Fighter 4 to $1, all the proceeds of these sales go straight to Japan! Buy Street Fighter 4 here.
D. Get this amazing “We Pray for Japan” bracelet by Lady GaGa. I think it looks way cool and it’s only $5. Buy it here.
Lady Gaga + Apple
So many monsters, so many opportunities to manipulate them to use our software hehehehe.
All New Gestures in Mac OSX Lion. Finally merging the gap between the iOS touch interface elements and the current multitouch trackpad.
Awww One big happy Verizon AT&T iPhone Family!
Apple Keynote Success or Fail?
I’d call another one of my whaaaa? cards that I have been pulling on a lot of these keynotes lately.
iLife ‘11 ($50 Upgrade)
iLife is easily one of my favorite things about my Mac but I didn’t really care for the updates. The features they are touting heavily are ways for you to show off your talents which should be a good thing but I don’t care about new transitions, trailers and audio transition effects that will never be used on my mac. Garageband’s tempo fixer looks promising though. I loved making little tunes on garageband but could never get anything started because the interface doesn’t work with timing very well in my opinion. The price is finally down. I’m sorry but $100 for something that comes on every other mac but your old machine blows.
OSX Lion
They obviously were not able to show us much but what they showed us was pretty great. Whenever I use my iPad I always wonder why the Mac platform has to be so difficult to use sometimes. Well all the good things about navigation on the iPad came to Mac with Lion in a less beautiful but very functional way. Homescreens application launcher with iOS folders, Fullscreen apps and quick save were the announced features that seem like game changers but could easily be recognized as something we actually did not need once we get our hands on the new OS. I hope these features come in handy because if this is all were getting plus a few bug fixes I am not happy. Some new features such as FaceTime and the AppStore are coming soon for Snow Leopard which just happened to be what I was excited for more than the other features. Elasticity while scrolling as well as inertia are here!
Macbook Air Generation 2 (Base Model $999 11’, $1300 13’) (Upgraded $1200 11”, $1600 13”
Steve insisted that the iPad and the Macbook should, well hook up and that’s what they did. I will give Apple credit on the concepts. We are very ready for flash based computers, the app store on the mac is fueling a cd less future. The design has been upgraded to typical timeless mac sexy, despite its growing age. The battery seems stellar too doing heavy battery test on the internet and keeping up to 7 hours on the bigger version.
So what don’t I like? Well no new design to start with, I’m getting anxious to see what Jonny Ives will do with his Aluminium (purposefully misspelled) next. I also hate the concept of the Macbook air more due to it’s pricing. This is essentially a high quality netbook that can not compete with the lower priced macbook. It has a retina display pretty much but that is it. I hoped apple would kill the Macbook air and redesign the Macbook’s concept and keep the Macbook pros concept the same but well apple loves throwing a curve ball.
I need to try them out before I can make any more of my judgements but honestly I don’t see this laptop becoming a trend anywhere. The iPad has become a trend at college because of its weight and its speed.
Overall the keynote dragged but we did see a few clever moves. Well done Apple.
