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The Beatles

Earlier this week, Apple had the entire world waiting  on this big announcement and nobody knew what was  going to happen. There was even speculation of new  piece of hardware like a newer version of the iPod or  iPhone. However, none of this was the case. Instead we  found out that they added the Beatles to iTunes. Now, I  know I asked myself this, and you may have too. Why  should I care? Now all being said and done, the Beatles  were and, let’s be honest, are a great band. But are they  really worth an Apple release date? I don’t know. But I  do know that the Beatles were a revolutionary symbol to their generation, and everyone living at that time. If you think about the 1960’s or even early rock, everyone thinks about the Beatles. They have joined the ranks of Mozart and Beethoven when someone talks about music. Now you are asking yourself, well why does Apple care? There is a simple answer to that. Apple is to the electronics as the Beatles are to music. Apple is a major symbol of the electronic age, and I am almost willing to assume that in 50 years, people will still remember Apple, even if they go out of business long before then. So maybe I am reading too much into this. It can happen. But I don’t think Steve Jobs would have a “special announcement” just for the Beatles, if somewhere in his mind he didn’t think the very same thing. Also, as if that wasn’t enough, if you go to the AppleApple website at apple.com, and click on the links about the Beatles’ announcement, they give around a five page full biography on the life of the Beatles. By bringing in the example of the Beatles, Steve Jobs just showed us how he wants Apple to be in the future.


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Dump Your Bookmarks for Read it Later

Search doesn’t solve everything; even Google instant can’t ensure you’ll always be able to find that skateboarding dog, and when you visit that genius mac blog 15 times a day the act of dragging your finger away from the trackpad to type the letter ‘t’ is a time suck. ‘Cmd-D’ has always been the solution, but that just adds to the mess of bookmarks lost and forgotten in folders on my toolbar.

Read It Later has been around for a while, but I never realized its abilities beyond storing interesting blog posts for reading on your next trip to the loo. I finally gave it a try (once my Google reader badge was an intimidating 1000+) and installed the 3rd party browser extension Postponer. It enables you to name, tag, and store pages from a popup window within the address bar. The toolbar icon displays another popup window listing your recent articles where you can search, filter, and ‘mark as read’ your bookmarked sites — you can even read a plain text version of the site from right within the window.

Being able to add and name a bookmark without any right clicks, dragging and dropping, or keyboard shortcuts is good enough for me, but Read it Later provides much more. The tagging and instant search provide a perfect setup for creating shopping lists, managing project research, or grouping sites you visit consistently but not frequently enough to warrant a bookmark in your toolbar. When you stumble upon those new headphones you need to have, tag the URL ‘buy’, and then when you have time to do your online shopping, just search ‘buy’ and there’s your list. There’s a pro version with interesting analytics and auto-organizing features, and the mobile apps provide some sexy-interfaced reading functionality. If you want to get to your sites without digging through years of bookmarks, or if you want some more room in your browser window give it a try. Grab a browser extension here, if you have Chrome go for Postponer.

Similar tools like Instapaper exist; does anyone know how they measure up?

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When Will Everyone Have Apple TVs?

The strong competitors are finally joining the Internet set top box market and for such a new niche they’ve created some pretty impressive stuff with products like Boxee and Google TV. Their thorough (and sexy) aggregation of all that Internet content is their selling point, completely one-upping Apple TV’s feature set. This is one product where Apple has been surprisingly un-revolutionary. From its 2007 inception beside the iPhone there have been many, more reasonable alternatives with more features. Both the iPhone and Apple TV were App-less at that time, and three years later look at how much the App Store addition has affected the iPhone (while Apple TV turned iTV and got Netflix). Now that we’re all trained in the iOS ways it will take much less time to reach this point on the iTV – if it ever gets an App Store.

The iTV App Store would bring the amount of endless capability that has come to the iPhone and iPad to your TV, without the limitations of the small screen. Current App Store developers would develop for this interface and provide their Video, Music, Entertainment, Productivity, Game, and (maybe) even Cable content to the Apple TV because it gives them a huge audience and the power to be in control of the delivery of their content.

Adding a wireless keyboard and trackpad (or an iPad — basically the size of my macbook’s keyboard/trackpad) would give it the ability to replace the desktop — an OSX Lion App could simply handle all the tasks that the iOS Apps couldn’t. If Apple can stuff a bunch of memory and a fast processor into that tiny black box all you’d need is an external hard drive and you’re computer would not only fit in your pocket, but become one with your TV.

Sound good – or am I just fanaticizing about never having to see the Comcast On-Demand menu ever again?

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AirPlay, So Easy and Wireless!

What is AirPlay?  AirPlay allows the user to stream videos and music wirelessly through your iTouch, iPhone, iPod with the iTunes music player with iOS 4.2. iOS 4.2 is updated software that comes with many new features such as AirPlay. When you find that one incredible picture that you want to show to a party, you can stream it to your T.V. effortlessly. The whole party will be astonished at the picture and how easily you sent your picture to the T.V., no wires attached. All you need is an Apple T.V. and you will be wor7ry free. Technically of course because nothing is worry free. You can stream your videos easily to your T.V. Just think, you’re watching an amazing action scene on your iTouch. That little screen doesn’t give you enough emotion so instead you turn your T.V. on and click the AirPlay icon and there you go. The full action scene except on your T.V. that is easily bigger to see then on your iTouch.

The ease of use of the AirPlay is definitely recognizable. I always have those moments when I want to watch an action scene, but sadly I have to see it on my iTouch. Now that AirPlay has come out, I love the way that I can turn my T.V. on and easily play that action scene. Now that many movies have come out with major effects, it makes AirPlay that much more useful.

[Source]

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Weekly Apple Update 10/25/10