Pull My Finger, Seinfeld, and Gates
By Robert Lachman
After cruising the internet and making a stop at Your Mac Life and I noticed Shawn’s note how Apple is getting a little picky about which applications they’ll allow onto to the iTunes Apples store. Some they deem, are not appropiate. I guess Apple will make all decisions on what is appropriate for us to have on our iPhones and iPod Touch. According to the CNET post by Tom Krazit, “Apple apparently doesn't think fart jokes are very funny.”
“The developer of Pull My Finger, an iPhone application, told MacRumors that Apple decided to reject his application from the iTunes Store because it was ‘of limited utility to the broad iPhone and iPod touch user community.’ Pull My Finger does pretty much what you would expect it to do, generating about five or six different sounds of flatulence from your iPhone depending on your preference.”
Bill meet Jerry
I thought Bill Gates retired. I guess he didn’t spend his time off taking acting lessons. Gates has paired up with comedian, Jerry
Seinfeld to star in the new Microsoft commercial. It’s supposed to be warm, fuzzy and hilarious Microsoft. One thing for sure, it doesn’t work for me. It is just awkward and stupid. I would never picture Bill and Jerry hanging out the mall. It’s not warm, in fact it’s all wet, it ain’t fuzzy and it ain’t funny. Nice try. People buy microsoft products for business, they have the market cornered with the software and networking, and because their laptops and desktop computers are cheaper. I don’t know, I have a hard time believing Bill Gates is a platinum Clown Club card carrying member at Shoe Circus. The only real question for me, did they use a stunt double for Gates when he gave Seinfeld, “The Signal,” by adjusting his shorts while walking away in the parking lot? Oh yeah, I can picture Bill and Jerry walking away chatting, carrying their shopping bags in a parking lot. What’s the problem, were their chauffeur driven limos unable to pick them up?No one is going to buy a new laptop based on seeing a commercial of Bill Gates buying shoes at the make believe Shoe Circus.
Other references to the story can be found at:
Los Angeles Times
Wall Street Journal
iPhone 3G Bonus Burp Included
By Robert Lachman
Since I write about Photography and the Mac, it seems like I should be at the Apple store when the first 3G iPhones go on sale at 8:00 am Friday morning. It's a camera and it's a Mac. I work tonight so it might be tough. Sleep in or check out the new 3G iPhone, that is the question.
You know you're important when Apple sends you
the phone early to review. It's a very short list. David Pogue from the New York Times is an Apple V.I.P. Check out Pogue's funny video about the 3G iPhone. He pokes fun at the new 3G iPhone's lack of new features and actually higher cost in the long run.
He didn't mention anything about iBeer, a new application from Hottrix available from the iTunes store which lets you drink a pixel beer. Talk about light beer.
The application description from Hottrix software:
Brew and drink beer on your iPhone and iPod touch. This hilarious sight-gag is fully interactive and behaves like a real grass of beer thanks to the iPho
nes sensors and our spare time.
FEATURES
Brew
Drink
Shake
Burp
Tilt to sip, shake for foam, even pour iBeer from iPhone to iPhone.
Now it can be yours!
Bonus Burp included
Get it today and stop those hangovers forever!
Not to mention video tutorials and 24/7 support.
I can't imagine how many of these will be sold?
Looking to get that iPhone updated to 2.0 one day, early check out the Mac Rumors site. They have the links to get it done. Many on my Twitter list have done it, but proceed at your own risk. You can be the first to have Super Monkey Ball or MsPAC-Man up and running. I'm getting caught up in this but I can wait until tomorrow. It will be much simpler then.
What's the big difference between my site and Scott Kelby's Photoshop insider website. Ok, besides about 8 million hits. Scott's giving away a $1000 Westcott TD-5 Spiderlite “Scott Kelby Studio Kit” to some lucky winner who answers a trivia question he poses on the Photoshop User TV. I give away a dusty old $5 Brownie. I guess you appreciate things when you start from the bottom and work your way up.
It's amazing what drives comments on a photo website, the Strobist had 61 comments so far about the Canon G9. I had to chime in. I still have a 4MP Canon G3, one of the forerunner in the series. Kelby had some of the longest comments I've ever read on a blog from a post by his Wednesday guest, nature photographer Stephen Johnson. It was just a bunch of esoteric BS over people spending too much time on Photoshop versus shooting.
3G iPhone Friday coming soon!
It's Here! Well, Not Exactly
It's 11:00 pm PST and I'm still getting Twitter tweets regarding Apple CEO Steve Jobs' keynote speech about the release of new products and software at the Worldwide Developers Conference 2008. Jobs, the king of PR, has the high-tech media waiting for every word and nuance. Nobody does it better. It's a standing room only at Moscone West in San Francisco for the multimedia-advertising spiel. With most of the news leaked out, there's no real surprises. My prediction came true. I'm going to owe Apple a fee ($9.99) for the new iPhone 2.0 update for my iPod Touch. Tonight I went to the Apple Store in Costa Mesa to check out the new 3G iPhone. Not sure what I was thinking. I must have been hypnotized by Steve Jobs. The Apple store clerks assured me the new phone will arrive on July 11. There will be another line outside the store soon, more media, Jobs is a genius. Ok, back to the keynote speech. The build up is out of control. It's time for the big show. Actually I'm more interested to see if Tweeter stays up. There are going to be so many tweets (short 140-character instant message style posts) in such a short time. Odds are low Tweeter that will stand up to the onslaught of posts. It's 10 am in San Francisco, bloggers are going crazy, were are going to get a blow-by-blow analysis of the event. It's going to be a tough decision. Where am I going to get all my news? I will check Tweeter first. Then I went
with The Typical Mac User Podcast with Victor Cajiao. Definitely a good place to start. Victor had a few callers on line and lots of people sending message on USTREAM.TV.He mentioned Leo Laporte. That's bad, I'm starting to lose focus. Too many windows open, I'm starting to get feedback. This is horrible Steve Jobs should be coming through great, in high definition quality video with great sound. I'm losing Twitter. I knew this was going to happen. Now I am going to be out of touch. Can't Steve Jobs snap his fingers or wiggle his nose and make this all work.
I'm watching video on a little 3-inch-screen. I tried checking the CNET running blog. Too much information. Maybe I should be more worried about how the Lakers are going to play against the Celtics on Tuesday night in Los Angeles. They're down 2 games. I losing more focus. Is there anyway Jobs could help the Lakers? Coach Phil Jackson and the Lakers need to stay focused. Maybe they're more interested in 3G technology than basketball. It looked like it on the parquet basketball court in Boston. It's all so confusing.
My ADD is starting to kick in. Jobs has been droning for an hour. I'm bored. Where my 3G iPhone? What the hell is 3G? I really only know stuff about Photoshop.
I am looking for more information. I went to check on Cali Lewis on USTREAM.TV after seeing
her Twitter post. Very high tech with the official Apple color logo with WWDC lettering. Also very cute, it all seems to work. The audio quality isn't perfect.There must be a better answer, " TWIT LIVE" with super Leo. It looks like Leo has a live feed of Steve Jobs and WWDC on split screen. Leo Laporte has all the high-tech stuff. Problems. The split-screen view is about one-inch square and looks like it was shot from the back of the room. I think I see Steve Jobs. He's very small, I'm not sure it's him.
Now I'm looking at a one-inch square view of WWDC on my duo core computer with some of the worst sound quality ever. That reminds me, at home growing up 50 years ago we watched color TV on a 20 inch screen. And, it came to us WIRELESS. Now I'm watching miniature screen via the Time Warner Cable. Ain't technology great?
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Don't Trash Talk the Disposable Camera
By Robert Lachman
With the new 3G technology iPhone rumored to be out soon and the appications store soon to be open, history shows that it really doesn't pay to trash talk Steve Jobs and Apple.
Talking about how the the iPhone is second-rate to the Blackberry for businesses, Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO of the BlackBerry, (RIM) Research In Motion, said during an interview for MacWorld UK, "You wouldn't walk up to a professional photographer and ask him to do his job with a throwaway camera."
I'm guessing he didn't remember or didn't research Michael Dells' comments about what he would do with troubled Apple in October of 1997, "What would I do? I'd shut it down (referring to Apple) and give the money back to the shareholders."
Steve Jobs answered, "We're coming after you, you're in our sights." Now, the market value of Apple has climbed over 2 times that of Dell computer. ______________________________________________________________________