To be exact, AT&T throttled my so called “unlimited” data plan. This is nothing new as this type of thing has been happening for quite a while, but still! It’s natural in modern society to think things like “That will never happen to me,” or “Too bad for him. Glad it wasn’t me.” Well guess what?! It happened to me! I was driving on my way home from work one day, sun was shining, I was content, and I was streaming one of my favorite podcasts on my iPhone over 3G and I got this text:
What did I do next? I ignored it and went on my merry way. The next day I pulled out my iPhone while at the gym and began to stream another podcast and what happened? Something I like to call the “eternal buffer”. What is this phenomenon? Well it’s what happens when your bottlenecked bandwidth doesn’t allow you to stream things without letting it buffer for at least 5 minutes. I know, I know, these are first world problems so I should stop complaining, right? Well, it is kind of frustrating when you are paying for the unlimited plan but get throttled to speeds so slow that it is seems like a joke to call that data plan unlimited. Seriously, I couldn’t stream a simple podcast because of this. I could barely use Safari or Google Maps during this time either. My iPhone reverted into an old Nokia from 2002 that can do pretty much nothing but dial and accept calls. I even contemplated moving over to Sprint for its unlimited plan but I chose not to. As upsetting as this was, I am getting a fair price for my 3GB of data, at least, and stopped my mild abusing of the data network.
Lesson learned. Since then, I have made it a point to use more wifi when I can and limit my 3G usage. I also found out what the biggest data sapping offender for data usage on my phone was: Netflix. Word of caution, when using Netflix use it over wifi. It will help you in the long run.
Morning, friends. If any of you have been following Apple blogs over the last ten months or so, there has been a fair amount of hype/rumor/borderline panic about Apple’s push toward the dominance of mobile devices like the iPad and iPhone and therefore iOS, possibly at the expense of Mac OS and the desktop format as we know it. When columnist Dan Lyons first proposed the idea last June that the Mac brand was being euthanized, Steve Jobs wasn’t having it. Lyons published the following claim in Newsweek:
“Dear Macintosh,
I hate to tell you this, but my guess is you’ve probably been sensing it already. I don’t know any good way to say it so let me just be blunt: You’ve been dropped. Dumped. It’s over. The future of Apple is no longer centered around the Macintosh. You Mac guys just got kicked to the curb, relegated to the steaming dung heap of the past. I’m sorry, dear old Mac, but your ex-boyfriend Steve has moved on.”
To which Jobs replied via email, “Completely wrong. Just wait.”
Fast forward to 2012 when dozens of columnists and tech bloggers have commented on the discontinuation of the MacBook (Apple’s best-selling computer of all time), the number of iPad sales vs computer sales (Mac and PC) and, perhaps most telling, the dropping of the Mac name from the OS line. As of 10.8 there doesn’t look to be a Mac OS and an iOS. Just OS. So with Jobs’ push to get the whole world running on the iPad (or whatever looms on the horizon?) it’s easy to see why so many Mac addicts are feeling unsettled.
Last week KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has been known to have seemingly-inside info on the development of Apple’s production process, reported that the 17″ MacBook Pro will be discontinued as Apple launches OS 10.8 Mountain Lion and prepares for back to school demand for new machines. Not that it doesn’t make some sense that they would put a cork in their largest and heaviest portable as the mobile market grows exponentially, but it does seem like if they keep killing off computers as we know them, Lyons’ claim isn’t “completely wrong.” 2012 will be a telling year in that regard. Let’s take a quick look at the introduction of the 17″ MacBook Pro’s predecessor, the 17″ PowerBook G4:
So is the consumer market ready for a monumental shift in how we use a desktop OS system? Thirty years ago a lot of users didn’t want to give up the command line for GUI, either. The future may not be certain, but it should be exciting. Stay tuned.
Ever since AppleInsiderreported that Apple CEO Tim Cook visited Valve headquarters last week, the rumor mills were abuzz. The implications of a partnership between these two companies would be as big as it gets in the video game industry. Valve is mainly known as a video game developer and for its Steam network which serves as a video game platform which allows both PC and Mac users to download a vast library of games. To put it simply, Valve holds a lot of clout in the video game industry.
Valve has already been involved in recent rumors this year including one in particular that said Valve is currently developing a hardware video game console to rival the Xbox 360 and the PS3. When you bring Apple in the mix, things get crazy. Could Valve be working directly with Apple to develop a new console or even partner with Apple to help develop Apple’s new TV set with Steam bundled in?
I hate to burst your bubble, though, as a recent podcast preview on Kotakurevealed that Tim Cook actually did not visit Valve’s headquarters. All of this seems to be made up. Nonetheless, we all know that Apple, who for a long time spurned the video game industry, is now fully embracing that medium as not only valid, but highly profitable. Games are garnering Apple an enormous amount of income through the app store. As more and more people own iPhones, more games are being downloaded and played. You might catch a fellow commuter playing a game of Angry Birds on the train to work. You may have even witnessed them drop their iPhone and crack their screen in the process; you know where to go for an iPhone screen repair dont you ;)
Summing things up, although Apple may or may not be partnering up with Valve, Apple is in the video game market and they are here to stay.
The main reason I switched to Apple from PC while I was at Mizzou about decade ago was because Apple computers were simply not susceptible to the same viruses and spyware that plagued Windows. Working at the school’s help desk, I would check-in computers that had problems. The number one problem that I saw was a combination of viruses and spyware exclusively on PCs. Students were constantly streaming in with their infected Dell laptops. They would have to shell out $75 for an OS reinstall and all their data would be lost in the process. This is simply a fact of life when you own a Windows machine. One constant, though, was the fact that every Apple computer that came in was not checked in due to a virus or spyware, but because of hardware damage. Long story short, Apple computers very rarely had software problems. When an Apple computer was checked in, it was because the student or professor dropped their laptop and cracked the screen.
The moral of the story for me was simple: BUY A MAC!! I can personally attest that I have NEVER had a software related issue with any of the Macs I own. As a matter of fact, I’m still using the same MacBook I purchased in 2007 without ever having to reinstall OS X. Sure, I’ve upgraded the OS from 10.4 all the way through 10.6, but I never did an “erase and install”. This is a true testament to OS X’s durability.
Unfortunately, due to Apple and OS X’s success, at least one virus has surfaced: The Mac Flashback Trojan. Fortunately, this virus has only affected a relatively small amount of Mac users. If you are unsure if your Mac has this virus, follow the following link to a Gizmodo article for a quick guide on how to troubleshoot the issue.
This is actually kind of funny, some PC friends of mine are actually happy that Macs now have viruses. Here is an example, “Hahaha. All of you Apple fanboys claim that your computers couldn’t get viruses and thats a lie! They are able to get them too!” Now if this is not comedy, then what is? It’s pretty much backhanding their PCs while they are attempting to make fun of Apple. Oh the humor.
Earlier today I stumbled across a very interesting video about how iPads are manufactured from Rob Schmitz of the public radio show Marketplace. This video offers us a little insight as to how our prized devices are manufactured. Not long enough to go into too much detail, the video shows us just enough to get the gist of how our iPads are made. It’s no surprise that many workers are flocking to the Foxconn factories in search for a coveted position amongst the assembly line ranks. The job offers relatively high pay compared to other manufacturing facilities in China as explained in the video. The amenities provided (such as athletic complexes) also show us how this company is trying to accomodate its employees.
In time where Apple is getting flak for how their manufacturers treat their workers, it is nice to finally be able to see footage inside the factory. There is actually a lot more human interaction in building these devices than I previously thought. What are your thoughts on the video?
