Filed under: Odds and ends, iPhone

If you've been watching TV over the last few days (and who hasn't, with that USA / Canada hockey game and the tsunami coverage), you may have seen the latest in the series of iPhone ads.

The ad, titled "Family Travel," features a voice-over by a Mom who gushes that "It's unbelievable how much better family trips have gotten..." as she demonstrates using the Southwest Airlines app to check in on a flight from Denver to LA, finds a restaurant for the family (Heidi's Brooklyn Deli) in the C concourse at Denver International Airport with Gate Guru, makes sure that she has entertainment for her kids in the form of "Finding Nemo" loaded in the iPod app, and then turns off the living room lights at home with the Schlage Link app.

For those of you who are sticklers for advertising accuracy, note that Southwest flight 1403 is not an actual SWA flight between DEN and LAX and that the restaurant list for Concourse C at Denver International Airport is actually a mashup of restaurants located throughout Denver International Airport. All of the apps are free, although Schlage Link does require a monthly subscription and appropriate Z-Link hardware on the home front (similar to the Christmas tree ad from the holidays).

TUAWNew iPhone ad: Family Travel originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Cult of Mac, Apple

With TUAW's Your First Apple series, we let you get a glimpse of our own histories with the Mac. My own history with Apple's computers has been a bit convoluted. The first Apple computer, in fact the first computer of any kind I remember using, was an Apple II+. I was in kindergarten in Saudi Arabia at the time, so I don't really remember much about those early experiences. Like many people of my generation, when I returned to the US I went to schools that had computer labs crammed full of Apple IIe computers. Of course, the only programs that were ever run on my elementary school's Apples were marginally "educational" games like Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, Odell Lake, and the massively popular Oregon Trail. Meanwhile, my family had a KayPro PC at home, which meant my dad had to teach an eight-year-old kid how to navigate through the amber-lettered jungles of DOS -- something I'm glad I'll never have to do with my own kids.

The Apple IIe was the only computer I used in school through 1990. I spent most of seventh grade cooking up little text-based adventure games in BASIC, and I even learned some rudimentary drawing and audio programming, all of which I forgot long ago. In mid-1990, the school revamped our computer lab with brand-new Macintosh Classics: the first Mac I ever used, the first machine I used that had a hard drive, and the first time I ever used a GUI to interact with a computer. Oddly enough, despite the huge leap in capabilities the Mac Classic had over the Apple IIe, we spent half of eighth grade using the Mac to learn how to type. I guess I should be thankful I learned to touch-type way back then, but spending several months on typing tutor software was a hard sell after spending the previous year doing actual programming.

After that first year with the Mac, my experiences with Apple's computers went through some rollercoaster-like ups and downs. Click "read more" to find out why.

Some time in the early 90's, my dad dumped his KayPro for a custom-built, unbranded, 386-based PC running Windows 3.11, which I inherited from him after he upgraded yet again. It was the first computer I had all to myself. After learning my way around the Mac's interface, learning Windows 3.11 took all of five minutes. The PC also had color graphics, which was a definite improvement over the black-and-white Mac Classics at school. I didn't get much actual work done on the PC, though, because nothing I produced on it was compatible with my high school's Macs; I mostly used the PC for games.

My high school actually had two computer labs: one full of state-of-the-art Macs for basic computer training and programming, and one full of ancient, DOS-running IBM PCs used for business-related classes. I spent ninth and tenth grade learning how to program in HyperCard, which I used to create a couple of graphic adventure games complete with an X-Y navigation system that took quite a while to code properly. One program I developed in tenth grade on the Mac LC III was an Aliens vs. Predator adventure game, with graphics taken straight from the Dark Horse comic series and audio from both the Aliens and Predator films. I also created a HyperCard-based trojan to mess with the other kids in the lab. It was basically just a HyperCard stack that, once launched, would auto-generate new cards until the RAM filled up and the Mac crashed. High school was a high point in my experiences with Macs, but for the rest of the 90s and the first few years of the 2000s, it was all downhill.

Once I got out of high school, my long relationship with the Mac went on an extended hiatus. After joining the Navy in 1995 I hardly used computers of any kind for several years, to say nothing of Macs or the Internet. For almost four years I barely touched a PC for anything other than playing video games. Macs didn't register on my radar at all, and the few times I came across one, I had the same reaction that a lot of today's Mac haters still have: "For as much as they're charging, I can't even get any decent games for this thing?"

In late 1999 I finally started using the internet on a regular basis via a 56k dialup connection through my roommate's ancient and thoroughly crappy Performa. I don't know which model Performa it was or even what OS it was using -- it was either OS 8 or System 7 -- but I was not impressed with that machine at all. When my roommate offered to give me that Mac in exchange for me paying his part of the rent for a couple months, I turned him down, because I hated almost everything about that Performa. When I moved in with my girlfriend of the time, she had two computers: some anonymous box from HP running Windows 98, and an iMac with OS 9. Since the iMac didn't have any games for it, wasn't compatible with our cable modem, and had that horrible piece of garbage hockey puck mouse, I wouldn't go near the thing. I preferentially veered toward the HP machine for everything I did.

From mid-2000 to early 2003 I once again barely even saw or used a Mac except for the handful of times I visited a Mac zealot friend of mine who lived in Seattle. I inherited yet another ancient computer from another friend of mine for my home use, one even older and less capable than the Performa: some Gateway box running Windows 95. Unable to even hook that machine up to the internet or run 3D games of any kind, the Gateway saw little use for the two years I had it.

After almost ten years of using computers solely for internet access and the occasional bit of gaming, I'd become sort of a luddite. Beyond basic word processing and web browsing, I really had no clue how to use a computer anymore. I ended up becoming a Mac switcher in early 2003, completely against my will, when I moved in with my wife. She had a dual 1GHz G4 Power Mac running OS X, and for the first couple of months using it, I had no idea what I was doing. I think my ignorance showed through enough that my wife got paranoid of letting me use her Mac at all. I eventually got the hang of it, but it was a painful process; I insisted on using Internet Explorer, stayed well clear of OS updates, and didn't even attempt to do anything out of the ordinary with her Mac.

It was only after buying a used PowerBook G3 off of eBay for $200 that I really started figuring the Mac out. In the process of upgrading the processor to a G4, upping the RAM, swapping out the hard drive, and hacking the thing to run OS X Panther and Tiger (the model of PowerBook I bought was supposed to max out at Jaguar), I quickly gained an appreciation for the ins and outs of OS X. In the process, I reached the point where I flat-out refused to use Windows unless I absolutely had to for some reason. Within the space of a year, I also went from being completely ignorant about computers to being free tech support for all my friends; and for the few of them still using Windows, my first bit of tech advice is almost always to stop using Windows. OS X may or may not be inherently "better" than Windows, but over the past several years I've figured out that I only get the urge to throw my Mac out the window once or twice a month versus once every five minutes with the average Windows box.

My wife upgraded to a MacBook in 2007, so I inherited her Power Mac -- just in time, as it turned out, because even after all its upgrades, my PowerBook was definitely showing its age, particularly in the way it liked to chew through hard drives. In February of 2008 I bought the 17" MacBook Pro I'm still using today -- the first brand-new computer I've ever owned.

It's been a long, weird ride -- BASIC programming, typing tutors, HyperCard programming, then close to ten years of neo-Ludditism -- to where I am now, in a house full of Apple-branded gadgets, most of which would have sounded like science fiction when I sat down in front of a Mac Classic for the first time twenty years ago.

TUAWMy on-again, off-again Apple relationship originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 28 Feb 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Apple Corporate, Apple Financial

Thursday, Briefings.com, CNBC and a passel of other market analysts predicted that a 4 for 1 stock split would be announced at the Apple Shareholder Meeting. This rumor moved the market, but there are conflicting opinions to why. First, for the uninitiated, a stock split is a zero sum game. One interpretation is that a firm considers its stock too highly priced for the average consumer and decides to split. For example, let's say that Apple is trading for $200 and you have one share. If a 4 for 1 stock split takes place, you will wind up 4 shares, instead of 1, but each share will be valued at $50. Did you gain or lose any money? No. It's all on paper. However, to those not familiar with the Buttonwood tree, and that's a lot of us, it sounds like 'quick buy Apple and you'll be getting 4 times as much'. The case for this sort of stupidity is well made by Barrons.

Stock splits are nothing new to AAPL. They've split 2 for 1 three time in the past, in June 1987, June 2000 and February 2005.

There are two general schools of thought on the reason behind stock splits, and they are total opposites. The first theory is that a company will split a stock if it is in trouble to allow lower dollar investors to buy their shares at half the price and thus incur less risk. The other school of thought is that a good company realizes their stock is just too expensive for the small trader who has some cash on the sidelines. It is meant to give the small guy an easier way to buy some stock without needing to commit the $200 for a share. Both sides have their points and, to an extent, both points are based on smoke and mirrors since they do not effect the worth of the company or the aggregate value of the stock by one penny.
Unless I read the word 'drop' wrong, it seems to me that the stock was down, and then the rumor came in and the stock shot up. There was no word of a split at the shareholder meeting, but as a long term AAPL watcher, I wouldn't count out a split happening in the near future. However that's just me.

Another story that seems to be gaining traction, for no good reason that I can surmise, is that Apple will declare a dividend of $33.00 per share, returning 16.66% to investors. Doing so would mean relinquishing 75% of its moneybags this year while taxes on dividends and passive income are low. It would also take Apple's walking around money from from $40 billion to $10 billion. I really wonder where this one got started since Apple hasn't declared a dividend since 1995, and playing Scrooge McDuck seems to keep Steve happy. Although Apple isn't known for buying a lot of companies scatter-shot, it's quite nice to be able to buy what you want when the right opportunity presents itself without worrying about nasty things like financing. And I haven't heard much, if any, grousing directed at Apple not forking over the dividends. Tell me if I'm wrong, but this seems like a non-story.

With all these stories whirling about, Apple went up $5.97 to close at $202.86 on Thursday. What do you make of this? Reading all the interpretations of Thurday's action makes my brain hurt.

The bottom line is: nothing happened.

Disclaimer: I own some Apple stock and all the opinions are my own.

TUAWNo Apple stock split...for now. originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 27 Feb 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Surveys and Polls, iPhone, iPad

The end of this week has brought a little flurry of information about the differences between iPhone and Android users. First up, Admob has released the results of a survey that says the iPhone is twice as popular as comparable smartphones in both young and old demographics. Unfortunately, we can only guess as to why (it would be a little more interesting if either age showed a preference for one phone over another), but it seems the iPhone has yet another remarkable trait: appealing to users of all ages. No wonder Apple is jumping in on the iPad -- they really do have a pre-release audience.

But they can't sit on their laurels for too long -- according to a report at Myxer's Boombox (via Fortune), the Android OS is picking up the pace, especially in what city folk call the "flyover states." Android use of the program has actually surpassed iPhone users in Montana, the Dakotas, and Arizona and New Mexico, and the numbers are close in the Midwest, including Kansas and Missouri. That's interesting -- that could have something to do with the distribution of Apple retail stores, or maybe just more urban center dwellers are drawn to the iPhone. DC seems to be the exception, as Virginia and Maryland are much more Android, but otherwise, if you're in a state with a big population center, odds are that you own an iPhone. Fascinating.

TUAWiPhone users come in all ages but probably live near a big city originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 27 Feb 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Accessories, ipod shuffle

I'm in Chicago right now visiting some of my friends. Yesterday we decided to go to my old workplace, the Art Institute of Chicago, which has one of the best collections of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art in the world. Imagine my surprise when I found myself staring at a first-generation iPod shuffle accessory.

Some of you may remember this accessory from back in the day when Apple made the first shuffle that looked like a white stick of Wrigley's gum. The accessory/piece of art is called iBelieve and is basically a T-shaped cap that turns your first-gen iPod shuffle into a Cross you can wear around you neck.

The plaque next to the artwork reads:

Scott Wilson
American, born 1969

iBelieve, 2006
iPod shuffle, plastic, and fabric
(including replacement cap)

Before relocating to Chicago in 2006 to set up his own studio, industrial designer Scott Wilson was a lead designer at Nike and IDEO. His innovative projects run the gamut from furniture to household products to high-performance sports equipment. iBelieve is part of a series of self-produced works and was inspired by the current popularity of the iPod. The conceptual design consists of a replacement cap, or what Wilson refers to as a "divine accessory," for the iPod shuffle. When snapped onto a shuffle, the attachment creates a cruciform shape, which enables consumers to profess their devotion to this omnipresent electronic device. Conceived as a tongue-in-cheek commentary on consumer culture, Wilson took advantage of viral marketing techniques and posted the design to a blog, which received 250,000 hits in one day as a result.

I've always known about the various online Apple museums, but who could have imagined that a cap for one of Apple's worst-designed iPods would some day be hanging in the same museum with the likes of Van Gogh's Bedroom in Arles and Edward Hopper's Nighthawks?

TUAWiPod accessory turns up in fine art museum originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 27 Feb 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: OS, Odds and ends, Internet, Leopard

Research released today indicates that in North America, Apple's Mac OS X is gaining traction, while the Windows share of the OS market is shrinking ever so slightly. That's the report from Quantcast, a company that measures and analyzes web traffic. They say that the market share for Mac OS X is up 7% from December to January. Microsoft held steady for the last 3 months of 2009 with the release of Windows 7, but started a slow decline again in January.

According to Quantcast, Apple has a 10.9% North American share as of January, while Windows has 86.8%. An interesting note is that the largest group of users is on Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6, while Windows XP dominates on the Microsoft side. Apple's relative share in North America is up 29.4 % in a year, while Windows share is down 3.8%.

These figures measure web consumption, so if you're not web connected your OS choice doesn't count. Quantcast measures ad supported sites, so huge traffic sites like Google, Facebook, Yahoo and others don't supply statistics.

TUAWQuantcast: Apple share of OS growing while Microsoft shrinks slightly originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 27 Feb 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Gaming, Software, Apple, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Good news for fans of good games: the terrific DS courtroom simulator (which, trust me, sounds much less fun than it actually is) Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney is coming to the iPhone, and Slide to Play has posted some hands-on video. The game takes the two DS screens and stacks them on top of each other rather than converting the game into a landscape version, so it's basically a straight port of the DS game. It'd be interesting to see a more iPhone-specific version of the game (maybe something that uses the camera or the accelerometer to show off evidence in the courtroom), but we'll take just the port, too -- if you haven't played any of the Phoenix Wright games but enjoy a good adventure yarn, you're in for a treat. The game should be out "soon."

Hexen II is on its way to the iPhone as well, and Touch Arcade has a few screens and video of that one. I was much more of a Quake fan, but Hexen, with its medieval setting and RPG elements placed in the same game engine, had its share of followers back in the day, too. Unfortunately, Vimov doesn't yet have the rights to Hexen II -- they're just working with an open-sourced version of the engine. To actually release the data on the App Store, they'll need to make a deal with Activision, so we'll have to wait and see if that can happen before you can start hacking and slashing through the world of the Serpent Riders again.

TUAWPhoenix Wright, Hexen II coming to the iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 27 Feb 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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