When you think of technology companies that manage to turn a gimmick into gold, you usually would think Apple. Granted, those gimmicks are matched by a mostly smooth user interface so easy even your great-great-grandparents could use it, and they’re dead…but gimmicks they are. Touchscreens? Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch. Tablets? Apple’s iPad. There are more examples, but I don’t like to think about them: I, after all, am a non-iFanperson. Read more…
Hello Kitty has no mouth yet these kitty speakers can amp up your iPod: Available in white and pink each Hello Kitty Dock Speaker for iPod features two speakers and a remote control. Although the cool thing about this neko gizmo is that you can also control the sound caressing kitty’s ears to turn the volume up and down.
A while ago former Apple CEO John Sculley gave an interview in which he confessed to deeply regret his firing of Steve Jobs twenty five years ago. To many it seems obvious that Jobs should have been running the company just as Bill Gates did with Microsoft. However I think Sculley firing Steve Jobs was in fact the best thing that he could have ever done for Apple, and perhaps the entire computer industry. Read more…
David Blaine, eat your heart out. Today I stumbled across this awesome video, complete with subtitles, of a Japanese street magician playing with Apple’s iPad. Sure, he’s no Lance Burton, and it’s a pretty neat little presentation in terms of viral marketing. I also hate to say it, but aside from using it as a glorified ebook reader, this video has probably demonstrated the most practical use of an iPad I’ve seen to date. Kind of sad, huh? Read more…
Apple is turning the screws tighter on Adobe to kill Flash — with their latest update to the iPhone OS they’ve now gone as far as to put in their agreement with developers that they can’t use Flash. This got me thinking about the history of Apple: As old time fanboys remember when Steve Jobs returned to the company it wasn’t a happy time. We were all glad to have him back, but upon arrival he killed the Newton and put HyperCard out to pasture. In fact one of the reasons I first dismissed the iPod was that as an old Apple fanboy it was never going to be as cool as the Newton. Little did I know that it would evolve into the iPhone. Read more…
On one hand I’m very impressed that Marvel is going ahead and doing an IPad app — but the pricing of $2 per issue seems a bit high to me. My gut tells me that the way Marvel makes their money is by merchandising and films, so the more kids that can grow up with the Marvel universe characters the more money you’ll make over the long term. I get it that you can’t go from charging something to nothing (currently most books are $4 in print), but honestly most comic books are too short to make the two bucks worth while. Imagine if you will if the cost per eComic was $1 per issue like iTunes songs, or if you had an all you can eat subscription model for $20 a month. But in any case my bet is that we’ll see other comic book publishers follow Marvel shortly (that or new publishers will enter the field).
In this video Nathan Shedroff talks about the fact that other companies can’t quite “copy and paste” what Apple does well without hiring a Steve Jobs. Apparently Apple uses a “genius design” approach which allows them to produce trailblazing products. I’d say that Nathan is tapping into something larger: Frankly what makes Steve Jobs unique is that unlike so many CEOs he has a genuine respect for creativity and a true empathy for his audience. To me that places him in the same company as a Walt Disney or the head of a fashion or music label. The key ingredient isn’t so much an approach but an ability to cultivate the creativity of a company. So maybe it’s not so much the process itself, but rather having a new role model for CEOs.
In the wake of the Flash is doomed movement I’ve noticed quite a few Microsoft developers who are rooting for Silverlight. Silverlight has two amazing advantages going for it: Firstly Microsoft loves their developers more so than any other company that I’ve ever seen — and then add to that it will become a key tool for making apps for Windows mobile devices. But there’s one major catch to this which is that smart mobile is now dominated by Apple and Google, and that there’s a good chance that they won’t let Silverlight onto their platform. Read more…
While I haven’t played with it yet the screenshots I’m seeing of the Windows Phone 7 look great. I’m an Apple fanboy at heart but it’s a wonderful surprise to see that Microsoft didn’t just do an iPhone clone. This isn’t enough to make me switch from my iPhone, however it is enough to make me have second thoughts about switching to Android and it also convinces me now more than ever that Palm won’t live to see the end of the year. From what I’ve read the Windows team has been working on this for 18 months and they decided to focus on the app side of the phone which is their core strength: Read more…
Apple fanboys always love Jobs, however engineering fanboys will always love Woz. In this video Steve Wozniak recounts his creative process of bringing colors to personal computers. While I love the story what’s interesting to be as a videogame fanboy is hearing how he and Jobs were working on designing games at Atari. What’s fascinating is that Woz describes creating the games not as a software programming exercise but as a hardware project! Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 4, 2010 in Animation, Tech
It’s always the silly things that amuse me: In this case it’s an iPhone application that turns your icon set into a grinning Doraemon. Apparently this is a free set of applications from Yahoo! Japan — which include Doraemon manga as well! Here are screen shots and there are iTunes links on this Japanese page: Read more…
So I started to think: What would it take to get Flash on the iPad? Seeing that it’s a political situation the clear answer is that the CEO of Adobe needs to make nice with Steve. And then it hit me: Who the hell is the CEO of Adobe? Back in the day THE guy at Adobe was Warnock but that was eons ago — so who is running Adobe today? And much to my shock after doing a Google search I came across the page below and it tells you everything that’s wrong with this picture: There is no strong CEO at Adobe — the company is still in the shadow of Warnock. Read more…
During the CD-ROM era of the 90s the only real game in town was Macromind Director. The program first started life out as an animation program bit with the boom in multimedia Director gained a programming language called Lingo and had a loyal following. Then the damn web came along and ruined it all: There was a web version of Director called Shockwave, but due to the overhead of bitmap graphics another program called Flash started to build rapid momentum. Macromedia would acquire Flash and rumor has it that Director is still around but the notion of getting a Lingo gig is history. And now that it’s the year 2010 I’m seeing the same thing slowly start to happen to Flash all over again.Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 20, 2010 in Comic Books, Tech
The latest issue of Player vs. Player features the epic quest for the Apple iPhone. Being an Apple fanboy I love it when geeky tech things find their way into comic books, and Scott Kurtz has scored a hit in my nerd zone: Read more…
On paper it was a good week for Palm — they announced at CES that they’ve struck a deal with Verizon and the next day their stock price ticked up. However the whims of the stock market can be a poor predictor of how a company does in the long run and can miss the big picture. Frankly the company that owned this week was Google with the announcement of the Nexus One: And that spells the death knell of Palm. Read more…
A little bit over a year ago I purchased my iPhone — I was slightly late to the party so just a little bit after getting my first generation phone, Apple rolled out the next version. For the most part it was a speed bump so I didn’t resent AT&T for the two year contract lock in at that point. However by the end of 2009 still being stuck on the Edge network was wearing a bit thin for yours truly, but I still hadn’t entered “the hate club”. Read more…
I’ve been following the soap opera of all of those tech blogs think they know what Steve Jobs will produce next for his tablet device. However my gut feeling is that science fiction is always the best inspiration for Jobs, and in his case my gut tells me that his inner hippy will bring him back to the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Jobs stole the 3.5″ disk from Star Trek so Kubrick seems to be even better source material. So my prediction is that the tablet will function like the flat-screen tv sets that are seen in the Discovery. In addition to video and graphic displays for monitoring the vital signs of our world I also bet that we’ll see iPhone functionality with potential video conferencing: Read more…
This demo of iTimeLapse was shot in Japan — the software allows an iPhone user to make a timelapse film. You can purchase iTimeLapse Pro for about $3, although buying a fancy tripod could add to that price. Here’s a screenshot of the Japanese version of the software (which is also available in English): Read more…
Recently I’ve seen tech fanboys Jason Calacanis and Michael Arrington raging at Apple for having the nerve to not let Google put Google Voice into the Apple app store. Frankly not only should Apple have every right to do this — but they should be doing this. The reason? Not only is Google their direct competition, but the reality is that they’re the only company in this environment that you could call a true monopoly.Read more…
Like chocolate and peanut butter — the two tastes of iPhones and Pocky go great together! This ever so cute Pocky iPhone Cozy was designed by Yummy Pocket of Montreal, Canada. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 22, 2009 in Tech, Videogames
If you’re a retro computing fanboy like me on Saturday you were devastated to learn that Apple denied permission to the developer who created a Commodore 64 emulator for the iPhone. Now normally this news wouldn’t surprise me, but what broke my fanboy heart is that the developer jumped through all the right hoops: Not only did they get a license from the owners of Commodore but they even got positive signals early on from Apple. Read more…
From Spain comes this amazing hand made felt iPhone. This bit of craftwork seems to be a one-of-a-kind object, but as with most gems that you find on Etsy if you see something that’s sold out you can always ask if the artist might create a similar piece on commission. What makes this iPhone work so well to me is that the artist went the extra mile to sew together every little icon on the screen, I just love those geeky details: Read more…
I came across this commercial for the Xerox Publishing System from 1986 and it got me to thinking: It’s commonly accepted wisdom that Xerox did too little too late with the innovations that were generated at their PARC research facility (user interface, ethernet and laser printing) which is why Apple was able to have their breakthrough. Looking back on it that’s true, but I think the missing lesson is price point as much as speed to market. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 19, 2009 in Tech, Videogames
The latest Apple commercial featuring 20 hot games on the iPod Touch brought a smile to my eye as it represents Apple getting back their pre-Macintosh roots of the Apple ][. The hidden secret to the success of any operating system is games. Now these don’t have to be games aimed at hardcore gamers, in fact what will sell a platform are casual games that you can drop in and out of easily. Read more…
A while ago former Apple CEO John Sculley 
