Graeme Thickins on Tech

Reflections & analysis about innovation, technology, startups, investing, healthcare, and more .... with a focus on Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. Blogging continuously since 2005.

Tag: Apple (Page 3 of 7)

How to Watch High-Def TV on Your Mac – Cheap

November 17, 2008 / / 10 Comments

Got a cool new product to tell you about — the Pinnacle TV for Mac HD Mini Stick. (Pinnacle is a division of Avid.)  It's available now, and you can find it priced around $120 at various online stores.  I was lucky enough to get my hands on a review copy recently (thanks, Andy Marken, PR guru extraordinaire), and I have to say I'm impressed. PinnacleHD-ministick
I don't watch a whole lot of TV — mostly sports and news (of course)…and, oh, documentaries (great for helping one fall asleep).  But I gotta say I sure enjoy the TV experience much more watching in HD!  (I include some quick screenshots here that I snapped last evening of the awesome Sunday Night Football game between the Redskins and the Cowboys.)

Till now, I didn't even own an HD set — that's how little I care about watching TV.  So, this post is both a result of my being amazed at the quality of HD, and the fact that I can now easily watch TV on my MacBook.  And I can watch it in whatever window size I want, even fullscreen.

So what is it?  The heart of the system (as shown above) is a little USB 2.0 HDTV tuner stick.  It lets you watch HDTV for free on your Mac, based on whatever broadcast HDTV signals you can pick up in your location. It picks up these signals via a telescoping antenna that plugs into the tuner stick and has about a five-foot cord so you can position it for best reception. It even has a strong magnet on the base so you can mount it to a metal surface for better reception. (I attached it last night to the large hanging light fixture over my kitchen table, and got great reception. Note: be careful to keep that magnet away from your hard drive!) I was able to pick up about 15 HD channels over the air here in the suburban Twin Cities, and I expect that number will be increasing over time.

HD-ministick-components

You can get a ton more channels (in most locations, I suspect) if you have cable TV service in your home.  Just connect a coax cable to the HD stick (via an adaptor included) and connect that to a cable TV outlet in your home. They say that will get you all the HD channels your carrier provides, except for the premium channels. I expect that could be somewhere between 60 and 100 in my town, though I haven't tried it yet. But, wow, that Sunday Night Football game last evening (broadcast via our local NBC affiliate, KARE) sure was an excellent viewing experience.

So, again for you tech-spec freaks: the Pinnacle HD mini stick "supports both digital over-the-air TV (ATSC) and unencrypted digital cable TV (Clear QAM)."

Pinancle-Michaels+Madden

Time-Shifting, Anyone?
But, wait — that's not all, sports fans. Don't you dare stop reading. The HD mini stick comes with software that lets you record HDTV programs and play them back anytime. And you can record to either your hard drive or to DVD. The software is Elgato's EyeTV® Lite TV viewing and recording software. So now, for about $120,  you've turned your Mac not only into an HDTV set, but a TiVo as well! To schedule your recordings, the installation process signs you up (if you elect) to a free Internet-based electronic program guide.

Pinnacle-TonyRomo

Suddenly, that $120 add-on to your Mac is starting to look like even more of a bargain, no?  Talk about a fun, new toy….

What's also cool is it comes with a nifty little mini remote control, which worked flawlessly for me. It even had the battery already installed (just pull a little plastic tab thingy to activate it). And, to top off the contents in the small box — a really nicely designed package — you get a little flannel travel bag with a drawstring that nicely holds all the piece-parts, so you can easily take it along in your briefcase or suitcase.

Pinnacle-LiveRecording

I wonder how many geeks with laptops we're gonna see now in Starbucks or wherever watching TV instead of working? (Oh, you non-Mac people — poor souls — there's a version for you, too.  So don't go getting all pouty.)

The Installation and Setup Process

I must say that my experience with this product overall was excellent, from the time I opened the box. I don't know who at Pinnacle is in charge of "customer experience," but my hat's off to them.  This one was a pleasure — well-designed packaging, nice, easy-to-read instructions, and the entire setup and installation of the software went without a hitch all the way through. Great onscreen instructions and prompts, too — very simple and intuitive.  Everything as I would have wanted it. This experience was the closest I think I've seen to "the Apple experience."  And that is a very high bar.  So, I not only highly recommend this product, as working great and doing what it promises, but I recommend it as a very satisfying customer experience overall. I think you'll agree. 

I can hear the sound of cash registers right now ringing up lots of holiday sales for this one…

UPDATE (11/17/08): I just realized I wrote this review without saying a single negative thing about the product. Well, I've been trying to think of one, but I really can't. Oh, I guess the cord from the antenna base to the USB stick could be a little longer — like maybe 8 feet. And I noticed the USB stick can get kinda hot, but I'm not sure if that's an issue, since my viewing was not affected. Those are about the only things remotely approaching a downside that I can think of.

Pinnacle-HelpMenu

Rejected iPhone Developers: Read the Agreement

September 14, 2008 / / 1 Comment

We were just talking about this yesterday on the latest Minnov8 Gang podcast — the whining we’re starting to hear from some developers whose iPhone apps are being rejected by Apple.  Now today we’re seeing stories pop up on the topic: Of Course You’ll Keep Developing For The iPhone (TechCrunch) and Blockage on iPhone Apps Begins to Properly Annoy Developers (The Guardian), to name two. Appstoreicon

I would only say what I said yesterday: read Apple’s iPhone Developer Agreement. How many developer’s really do, I wonder? I’ve read it, and it’s not that hard to get through — though it is long (around 30 pages, as I recall). It’s written in very clear, simple English — not so much in "legalese," as you might expect. I can’t imagine there isn’t something in there that says Apple can reject apps that could be deemed competitive to them or damaging in some other way to their business. There is language in the agreement, as I recall, that Apple can reject apps for certain stated reasons — and, I suspect they also say somewhere it can reject them for no reason at all, at its sole discretion. That’s the kind of agreements lawyers write, and Apple has a very good legal department.

So, to all those who aspire to develop for this platform, and don’t wish to have their apps rejected — read the agreement and, if you don’t understand it, get legal help.  Knowing what you’re getting into up front is always a good idea. If you don’t like what you read, then don’t do it.  It could save you a lot of whining later.

 

 

Ranting on Apple: Not All Developers Are Happy

August 9, 2008 / / 4 Comments

UPDATE 8/10/08:  Check out Apple’s Rotten Decision (via eWeek). It’s a report from the Black Hat Conference, where the writer says "Apple’s image was pilloried on the show floor."

A smart friend of mine, who’s the founder of a startup with a successful online application/platform — and a longtime Apple user and developer — told me recently he’s really unhappy with Apple of late. I must say I was taken aback!  Rant
What, with all the hoopla about Apple’s latest consumer hits: the iPhone 3G and the wildly successful iTunes App Store (which I’m sure is up to 50 million downloads by now)?  Can Apple actually do wrong?  (Okay, with the obvious exception being the recent MobileMe launch, which they’ve already admitted they flubbed, and I have no doubt will be fixed soon — Steve will make sure of that.)

So, this was a real surprise to me — that such a longtime Apple believer and supporter could say something like this. I had to probe: "What on earth do you mean?"  I wanted to get at what could possibly be behind his newfound negative feelings toward Apple. 

Well, it turns out my friend has some very real concerns, and he makes a lot of sense — particularly because he speaks as someone who really understands the SaaS (software-as-a-service) business. So, here — unedited, in the raw — is his response to me:

BEGINNING OF APPLE RANT:

Graeme, I think part of the issue is that Apple’s culture is now at a mismatch with the SaaS and developer worlds. There certainly is a pattern here: arrogance and secrecy. Namely, SaaS and developer communities require transparency; Apple is more secretive than the CIA.

Ringtones
Apple tried damn hard to prevent people from making Ringtones of music they legitimately own. And you still have no mechanism for making Ringtones out of DRM’ed iTMS purchases without paying again for the song. And it is hard.

iPhone 3G Activation
In my opinion, the downfall of Apple (no, I am not really about to add myself to the legion of idiots predicting Apple’s doom over the years!) began with acquiescing to AT&T on the activation issue. I understand the legitimate business concerns involved, but the reality is that Apple re-invented the way a cell phone works with the original iPhone, and they gave away one of the coolest things about it with the iPhone 3G (the activation process). You can’t buy iPhones as presents any more!

But that was a nuisance.

MobileMe
So many things. One, the fiasco illustrates that Apple does not know a damn thing about web-based application hosting. They have iTunes working (more or less) right because it is so narrow in focus and so tightly controlled. But the MobileMe fiasco should not happen with any SaaS based system, ever.

And then their silence. They were silent for so long. When we finally heard from Apple, it was really just a note saying how Steve was forcing some dude who would give only his first name to blog about it every day or so. Contrast that with Amazon’s recent S3 fiasco. Amazon had updates every half hour for the duration of the outage, even if only to say we still don’t know any more than we did a half hour ago. For our online platform, we have a Twitter feed dedicated to system status so that our customers have ready access to what we know is wrong.

Every day or so? And saying nothing at all really in those communications. Inexcusable. The technical issues were about hard problems. The communication issues were easily fixed and never should happen in any scenario.

DNS Vulnerability
So, Apple knows about this vulnerability long before the rest of the world. The work of patching it is done for them. All of the major vendors of the world coordinate the announcement of the vulnerability and sending out patches.

Apple does nothing.

Weeks go by. Apple does nothing.

Exploits appear in the wild. Apple does nothing.

Eventually, Apple sends out a patch with the version of bind that is supposed to have the vulnerability patch. Somehow or another, it does not actually include port randomization features that protect against the vulnerability.

Apple does not send out the patch to non-server versions of OS X.

Apple never bothers to explain what it is up to or why it is failing to deliver timely patches.

I move my DNS off OS X for good. This was the final straw in the back that breaks OS X Server for me. I have been learning slowly over time that Apple is way too untrustworthy as a vendor of business services. This proved it.

In the meantime, Apple still has the vulnerability out there.

The App Store
Apple has proven the App Store concept is screwed up beyond belief. No ability to reasonably allow for trial use. No ability to reasonably have beta programs (the ad hoc deployment stuff is a fiasco in itself). But those are just feature complaints.

No one company should ever control what you can put on a device you own. If I want to pay $1,000 for "I am Rich", that’s my own damn prerogative. But even if we grant that right, the idea that they can remove apps from the store and tell no one anything about why it was removed? And what about if Apple corrupts my iTunes library and I need to re-install an app that I bought, but Apple later determined is not appropriate for their store? This is unacceptable.

———

END OF APPLE RANT.  What do you think?  Please speak your piece in the comments below.

USA Today writes ‘Static continues for Apple’s iPhone debut’ – and Rob Enderle Gets the ‘Stupid Quote of the Year’ Award!

July 28, 2008 / / 2 Comments

Seen the story?  Unbelievable!  Rob Enderle tries to compare the wild-ass consumer success of the iPhone, and the growing pains that come from such a rush, to — get this — Microsoft’s Vista bomb!!  ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME??? 

Hey, USA Today — I seriously believe you need to update your list of quote sources!  That is the extremely most *LAME* comment on the situation that anyone could ever imagine….

read more | digg story

Whatever Happened to Apple’s ‘Push’ iPhone 2.0 Update?

July 13, 2008 / / 1 Comment

I’m kinda pissed at Apple. (And I guess at AT&T, too — but then I’m always pissed at them.)  I mean, being a longtime Apple customer and a loyal iPhone user and all, not to speak of being an AT&T wireless customer since the beginning of time (I have the whole freaking iPhone package, including unlimited text messages).  So the point being, I bought into the whole deal here — okay, Apple?  You and your buddies at AT&T should really like me. Manpushingcar_3

But I just think they treated their existing customers shabbily this time around.  First of all, they never really communicated directly to me (neither firm) about what to expect regarding the upgrade to version 2.0 of the iPhone software, in the week approaching The Big Day.  I had to rely on what was being reported — and it wasn’t all that obvious, actually.  But I did read in a couple of places (can’t remember just where) that the upgrade would be handled by Apple doing a "push" of the v2.0 update to all existing iPhone customers (only those who were "official," of course, meaning signed up with AT&T here in the U.S.). Well, it never happened — still hasn’t. Not a word, and it’s now Sunday morning.

I finally got tired of waiting yesterday. About 11:00 Central Saturday morning, I was chatting with a buddy who told me how he got the update, and it had gone without a hitch for him. So, I went ahead and tried his approach. I hadn’t even tried to go "pull" it down — I was waiting for this "push" that had been promised!

First, on Thursday, I had downloaded iTunes 7.7  — which I’d read somewhere was required first, before I could use the iPhone 2.0 update. No sweat — that happened without any issues.  But I found it strange, come Friday morning (I had figured the 2.0 software wouldn’t be available till then), that I still had not seen the "push." So, I clicked on "Software Updates" in my Apple menu, and was surprised to see it tell me nothing was available — that I was all up to date. (Lies!)  But I figured, hey, they must be overwhelmed right now, or waiting to update existing customers till all new customers could be served (which is another customer service topic, but I won’t get started on that). Iphone20screen

So I thought, okay, apparently Apple did tell the press that this "push" was coming — so just be patient, I reasoned.  What’s the big hurry? I would never even THINK of going and standing in line for a new phone myself, just to be first.  So, why should I care when I actually get the 2.0 update to my current phone?  Except all the hype about the flood of new apps coming — which I couldn’t use without the new software update — was getting deafening. I was itching to get some on my damn phone and try ’em!

Like a dutiful little Apple fan-boy, then, here I was sitting and waiting for this "push" they were going to do to us — and I get super busy, putting in a 15-hour day on Friday. But, heck, I would have broken for a message from Apple!  So, here comes Saturday morning, and I find that the update IS in fact out there for us "old" iPhone users to "pull" down, and that other people already have it!  Shees, I’m a laggard. Apple has left me sitting here looking like an ass, waiting for their damn "push"! 

I had synced my iPhone earlier Saturday morning, expecting maybe to see when iTunes popped up on my Macbook that "You do not have the current iPhone software – do you wish to upgrade?" — or some such message.  Never happened. On the contrary, it said "your iPhone is up to date"!  Weird, I thought, maybe Apple’s servers were still screwed up from the barrage of the day before.  Then, I hear my buddy ask, "So, do you have the new iPhone software yet?  Some of these new apps are cool."  I ask him, "How the heck did you get it?"  He tells me, and it’s really strange.  Get this — even though the message on iTunes tells me I’m up to date, I have to click on a button there that says "Updates" and — lo and behold — I will THEN be able to get my blessed update.  WTF kind of usability is that?

So, natch, now that I become aware of this strange situation, I click.  In another blast of user unfriendlieness, there’s no feedback that anything at all is happening!  So, there I am, wondering WTF to do.  But it had warned me on the initial screen that "This will take a while" (mentioning it had to back up all my stuff first). So, I figured I’d better just leave it alone, that something was happening in the background — and that I should just leave my Macbook and tethered iPhone combo sitting there while I hit the shower.  Some twenty minutes or more later, I came back to find the process was successful, and the two apps I’d previously downloaded on my Macbook the day before (remember, I had iTunes 7.7 so I could do that), were right there on my third "home screen," just like they were supposed to be!  Typepadiphoneapp_2
Those apps were the free Typepad app — so (you guessed it) I can now enter posts from my phone to this blog! — and the free myLite Color Strobe and Flashlight, a "Utilities" app, so I can be the life of the party at my next rock concert. [Okay, I don’t go to many, but I definitely want to be ready… 🙂 ]  Myliteicon

Alas, what to make of this whole mess?  I don’t care about the snafu related to so many people not being able to activate their new iPhone 3Gs on Friday in the stores — I’m talking about the way the software update was handled for existing customers.  It sucked.  I agree with at least one other blogger who said it should have been offered by Apple FIRST to their current, loyal users, well ahead of the onslaught of the iPhone 3G debut on July 11. Instead, they treated us as not important — didn’t even communicate to us about it directly. And, if they’d have gotten that out of the way first, it would have greatly lessened the burden on the servers for the 3G activation process.

Don’t get me wrong — my 2.0 update process went smoothly.  I have my "new" iPhone, I love the apps I have so far, and I will be getting a lot more.  But, then, there are things I don’t like about the App Store process, either — the slowness of them getting new, approved apps up there (I know of several that aren’t there yet and should be), the way they handle consumer reviews, and more. But don’t get me started — that’s a topic for another post.

Maybe I’ll do that one from my iPhone (thank you, Typepad app!) — though it will understandably have to be a lot less keystrokes than this one…  🙂

UPDATE: Whoops, meant to include this link to Declan McCullagh’s post on a CNet blog from Saturday afternoon: Apple iPhone v2.0 software on Saturday: Still M.I.A.

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