Friday, August 19, 2005
News
Giving Apples A New Shine
Local repair shops have found conditions of $50 laptops vary, as new owners seek upgrades.
Apple Addresses iMac G5 Issues With Repair Extension
Apple late Thursday quietly launched a new Repair Extension Program addressing video and power issue related to the iMac G5.
MP3 Users Hearing Damage Warning
iPod In Japan: Apple Plays Winning Tune In Sony's Back Yard
Apple's foray into Japan — which is the world's second biggest market for music in terms of album sales — has sparked talk of a rapid growth in the market in digital music downloads and of a bitter battle with Sony.
NPR's Podcast Strategy Leaked To iloveradio.org
National Public Radio will opt to podcast only "pieces" of its network programming, not full programs, according to a source.
I'm The iPod Girl (... But I'm Too Poor To Buy An iPod)
"I can't justify spending that much money when I have day-to-day stuff to pay for."
Ariz. High School Trades Books For Laptops
School officials believe the electronic materials will get students more engaged in learning.
Opinion
Apple Patch Fiasco Invites Trouble
The time that it takes Apple to release patches for some publicly disclosed vulnerabilities in open source components of their operating systems is nothing less than abysmal, and it's only a matter of time before continued evolution of their security practices can be preemptive, and not reactionary.
IB All Alike
Interface Builder often doesn't display enough of an item's name to be useful.
Interview With John Gruber
Let's say you're appointed as a Chief UI Designer at Apple. What would be your first five orders?
Let's Just Make Up Some Dollar Values And Print Them As Fact
Are people just making up stuff and publishing it as fact? Or is there some root source for this $10 amount that I'm missing and which nobody is bothering to cite?
Rent Vs. Own
Right now iTunes and the iPod are the better choice in digital music.
Sidetrack
Setting The Expectation — What Not To Do
I remember one story in one of Guy Kawasaki's book about two candy sellers. The first one, when asked for 1 kg of candy, will scoop out way more candy than required, put them on a scale, and proceed to remove candy until the scale reads 1 kg. The second candy seller will scoop out way less candy than required, put them on a scale, and proceed to add candy until the scale reads 1 kg. Both may be selling at exactly the same price, but guess who is more popular?
Both Microsoft and Creative made the same mistake recently: removing candy. Microsoft painted an ambitious picture of Longhorn initially, and was forced to drop features once they realised Apple is kicking their asses with more frequent feature updates to Mac OS X. Today, Microsoft seemed to have learnt their lesson: all they are saying about Vista now is just "better security" — which, in my opinion, is not a feature, but a basic requirement. Anything new? Well, we'll have to wait until Beta 2. All the marketing momentum that Microsoft had built up over the years in selling Longhorn? Flushed down the drain.
Creative, on the other hand, haven't realised they commited a marketing mistake when the CEO publicly announced they are going spent tons of money and achieve a 40% market share in the MP3-player market. Well, Creative still have a respectable share of the MP3 market — they have more market share in the MP3-player market than Apple has in the computer market — but everyone is looking at Creative as a failture today. (Sure, the latest quarter's loss didn't help either.) If Creative had just kept their mouth shut and just do it, maybe analysts will be kinder to them.
I'm not advocating companies be secretive about what they are doing, but the old saying still is true in today's world: under-promise, over-deliver.
You know what? One particular line in the lyrics of Do The Bartman has a whole different meaning after all these years...
If you can do the Bart, you're bad like Michael Jackson.
By the way, guess who penned the lyrics?
Bakkwa, or barbecued pork, is one of my favorite food. (And my wife's too.) When you are in Singapore, do remember to try some.
