May 20, 2013 at 6:17am Pacific Time
by: Mark Reschke
0 Comments
Apple's former Senior VP of iOS, Scott Forstall has been missing in action ever since his abrupt ousting by CEO Tim Cook in October 2012. Forstall does has a Twitter page up, with an impressive 60,988 followers, but has yet to post a single tweet. Forstall is following one account, and it's Conan O'Brien. Ironic, since O'Brien was also treated with little respect upon being ushered out the door by NBC.
May 15, 2013 at 2:23pm Pacific Time
by: Mark Reschke
0 Comments
Google announced a slew of new services at its I/O developers conference today. Many of these services are new from Google, but they are not new to the market place. The company showed their continued march to integrating as much as possible into Google+, clearly taking aim at converting Facebook users to Google+ users. But the overall results of Google's announcements were very Microsoftian, being late to the table with little to differentiate their products from others already in the market with well established solutions. The show seemed more tailored towards Google fanboys, and the fact they should give up Pandora or Facebook simply because Google now offers their own also ran products.
May 14, 2013 at 8:56am Pacific Time
by: Karl Johnson
4 Comments
Adobe has been changing the way their customers can buy their software lately. During the past decade, users of Adobe's software were stretching out their upgrade cycles, choosing to forego every single update, as the costs didn't justify, and the new features were not that compelling. Many were upgrading only when a major OS or hardware change required them to do so. When Creative Suite 6 came out, Adobe told its customers that they would only be able to upgrade from one version back instead of 3 or 4. This meant users could not upgrade every other version, doubling the cost for many.
May 13, 2013 at 11:39am Pacific Time
by: Mark Reschke
1 Comment
Sony recently announced aggressive price points for its all-new XBR 55" and 65" 4K Ultra HDTVs. Sony will be launching the 55" base model for a seemingly jaw dropping $4,999, while its largest 84" set continues to drop jaws for the exactly opposite reason, coming in at $24,999.
Rumors continue to swirl about Apple entering the market with an all-in-one Apple TV plus HDTV device rumored to be called "iTV." Assuming Apple dives into the living room, a recent article by Mark Hibben sheds some light on why Apple would be wise to jump into the game with its own 4K set (displays with 4x more resolution than current 1920 x 1080 HDTVs).
May 04, 2013 at 10:02am Pacific Time
by: E. Werner Reschke
3 Comments
The two indisputable smart phone leaders are Apple and Samsung. Other players such as HTC, Nokia, Motorola and LG are just slivers on the market share pie chart. Marketing 101 stipulates that when in a two-horse race, if you are the leader you never mention the number two contender. If you are in second place, then you always compare yourself to the leader. After watching this ad, it is clear that Samsung thinks they are second in the pecking order.
April 24, 2013 at 2:16pm Pacific Time
by: Mark Reschke
0 Comments
By all media accounts, Apple's Maps app was an absolute disaster, at least at launch. Apple should have either announced the product as a beta solution, launched it later as a production level product, or never launched it at all. Truth be told, I've used it from day one, well over 100 times and it's never steered me wrong. But going far beyond the hysteria that Apple Maps was going to lead you into a dark cave of death instead of your intended destination, Apple achieved a major victory with the launch. Google was forced to pony up and deliver a quality iOS maps application. Apple would be wise to play the same card on Microsoft.
April 22, 2013 at 2:53pm Pacific Time
by: Mark Reschke
0 Comments
Apple's quarterly earnings announcement arrives tomorrow at 1PM Pacific, followed by a 2PM Pacific Conference Call that will be streamed live here. Breaking these facts and figures into numbers anyone can easily follow, look for the following consensus numbers (and Apple's guidance) to dictate how Apple's stock will move:
April 20, 2013 at 1:11am Pacific Time
by: E. Werner Reschke
0 Comments
Episode 97: Google, You’ve Been Forked. Mark, Karl and Werner unwind the myth that has driven Apple's stock below 400, decide whether Marissa Mayer has a clue, discuss what Google is going to do about their Android OS getting forked, the state of the PeeCee, a quick review of iSteve and what will happen at WWDC13. All this and much, much more in Episode 97: Google, You've Been Forked.
April 18, 2013 at 12:22am Pacific Time
by: Mark Reschke
1 Comment
Justin Long has some great comedic abilities. Ever since I first watched his character on the TV show Ed, I could tell there was a special quality in his acting. Did Long reach the zenith of his career during Apple’s “Hello, I'm a Mac and I'm a PC” ads, while running around with Bruce Willis in “Live Free or Die Hard?” Apparently so, because what I witnessed Justin Long trying to accomplish in the spoof movie ”iSteve“ (from the site Funny or Die), pushed me much closer to the latter.
If the goal of “iSteve” was to be funny, it was not. If it was to be a great parody, it was not. However, if the goal was to to produce a movie with a shoestring budget, use talented people, and put them into situations with horrible material, then it succeeded with flying 1980's Apple logo colors.
April 12, 2013 at 11:37am Pacific Time
by: Mark Reschke
1 Comment
The iPhone, iPod, iPad and iTunes, all seamlessly working in harmony with iCloud. But one main player has been left out in the cold -- the Mac. It's left users wondering whether iCloud is as useful as advertised for the heavy lifting file and folder world.
OS 10.8, Mountain Lion, promised to change the paradigm and bring the Mac into the fold of iCloud management. But outside the realm of entertainment, iCloud's power for the Mac is fuzzy math at best. Without the Mac and iOS devices having some form of built-in Finder or directory app, the methods of syncing files seamlessly between the Mac and mobile without third party solutions is dubious at best.
Justin Long has some great comedic abilities. Ever since I first watched his character on the TV show Ed, I could tell there was a special quality in his acting. Did Long reach the zenith of his career during Apple’s “Hello, I'm a Mac and I'm a PC” ads, while running around with Bruce Willis in “Live Free or Die Hard?” Apparently so, because what I witnessed Justin Long trying to accomplish in the spoof movie ”iSteve“ (
The iPhone, iPod, iPad and iTunes, all seamlessly working in harmony with iCloud. But one main player has been left out in the cold -- the Mac. It's left users wondering whether iCloud is as useful as advertised for the heavy lifting file and folder world.