worst. blog. ever.
michael’s pretty interesting links
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Yup. Sibelius and laptop users rejoice. Someone has released an app that turns your iPhone into a wireless number pad, so that you can do things like note and articulation selections quickly, like you do on a desktop. Click on the numberpad picture above, and it will link you to the app.
Rejoice!
You can check out iWork for 30 days, free. For those of you who dont want to wade through 90 pages of the apple website, here’s the direct link:
http://www.apple.com/iwork/download-trial/
Happy iWorking, iPeople. (can we be done iDone with that i think now, Steve? Please?)
Apple Fanboys had their orgiastic expo-tacular today, where new products are typically unveiled by His Steveness. Steve was absent today, part of the ongoing effort to confirm the internet rumors that he died in March of last year.
Nothing big was announced: a new laptop, upgrades to popular software suites iLife and iWork, pretty much what was expected. The big surprise for me was the announcement that iTunes would be going DRM-free. For those of you who don’t take the time to memorize every TLA that you come across, DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. It’s the thing that prevents you from emailing a song to a friend, or playing it on another computer, or taking advantage of any of the awesome powers granted to us by the digital era. It’s the industry’s lock and key.
I haven’t bought anything on iTunes for about 12 months, and DRM is exactly why. I love everything else about the Apple model, but I can’t abide having my audio files locked away, preventing me from doing things that are well within my legal rights to do (like playback on any device I own). I switched to the Amazon MP3 store because they offered a universal file format (mp3), and no DRM lockdown.
In some ways, I think Apple was paying the penalty for being first to market. They made a deal with the devil to get major record labels to agree to release their catalogs to the iTunes music store, and the price was DRM lockdown. Once the model proved successful, other distributors (amazon, for example) were able to negotiate much more favorable terms for their own download sales. Steve Jobs said as much almost two years ago.
I’m glad to see Apple unchain their content. I hope this marks a step forward into a new model of distribution for all kinds of digital media, from video to software.
I dream of a wireless, portable, personal, and highly fungible digital future, where my data moves with me and works for me, without barrier or constraint.
I love the new iPhone Apps store – another coup for Apple in their ongoing campaign to change how we use technology. The release of the WordPress app got to me thinking about other iPhone apps that I’d like to see. Hopefully some of these software makers will take up the charge and release these apps!
I realize this one is a geek-out, but I’d love to have a command line interface that will allow me to login to remote servers via SSH, and do basic maintenance tasks (like deleting Zack’s bootleg collection of vintage pinup girls that he keeps uploading to the server). This shouldn’t be too hard, should it?
Find programs, record them, manage season passes, order video rentals from Amazon’s UnBox, all remotely. And by remotely, I mean from the kitchen table. Tivo already allows http access to your home box, through both Yahoo’s TV listings and amazon’s website, so the code infrastructure should be in place.
Remember the Milk is my favorite task-list software, and it already has a very nice iphone web interface. So what would they add by building an iPhone app? The ability to import and export tasks from the iPhone calendar, the ability to add contacts to a task, and the ability to push alarms for incomplete tasks. Basically, the ability to take away every excuse for my total lack of personal organization.
I know. iTunes video downloads rock, hulu.com sucks. I said as much myself, some while back. You know what? I was wrong. Hulu is fast, high quality, has a very broad catalog (including great older shows), and the ads are less obtrusive than on broadcast TV. I realize that this will never happen, because 1) Hulu videos are flash-based, so far an iPhone no-no, and 2) Apple maintains tight control over apps that are released in the store, and there is zero chance that they are going to allow access to an app that directly competes with one of their primary profit models. Still, a girl can dream.
If you don’t yet know the awesomeness that is armagetron, here’s the recap – you race the light cycles from the movie Tron. Now, picture the same thing, but with the motion sensor in the iPhone controlling your cycle turns. Awesome.
Well, that’s me. What about ya’ll? Anything you’d like to see someone build for the iPhone?
…but enough about me, what do you think of me?
So, it gets a little inappropriate towards the end for some of our more sensitive readers, but this is a must see for any and all geeks out there.
Steve Jobs shares his thoughts on the future of digital music, and SURPRISE! He hates encoded and protected downloads just as much as the rest of the known universe.
Just in case you’re hiding in a hole today, Apple released info on the long-awaited, much-rumored iPhone, as well as Apple TV – which lets you stream all kinds of content to your TV.
Apple fanboys (and girls) rejoice, for we have more semi-useless junk to obsess over.
UPDATE: Everyone’s favorite harmless songster, John Mayer, is providing the wrap-up entertainment at MacWorld. No doubt convincing everyone in attendance that Steve Job’s body is indeed, a wonderland.
I need a little help from my friends. Remember this class that I’m teaching?
It’s the one where the students produce a short album over the course of a semester.
Well, I’m meeting with the students for the first time on Monday night, to talk through the details of the class, and to get them headed in the right direction on the project. I’m going to hand them a sample packet of what a final project should look like, to give them something to shoot for, and I decided to use a song from The Dailies’ record as the model (totally violating the sanctity of Chad and Erica’s intellectual property of course. Suck it up. It’s for the children). I’ll put together a microphone input list, a budget, a timeline, a recording schedule, everything they need to do for the course, around that one song. The cool thing about this is that I have actual demos tracking the progress of all of these songs from The Dailies record, so the students will get to hear everything from first demos all the way through to final masters.
So, here’s what I need from you – which song should I use? Picture yourself as a 21-year-old music student. Then, go here and listen to the 30-second clips (or better yet, buy the album!). Then, tell me which song you think would most capture the interest and creative attention of the students in the class.
Hear, O People, the words of the Prophet Jobs.