Peter Black's Freedom to Differ

MacHEADS

ZDNet has a review of MacHEADS:

Prominent sex blogger and renowned Apple fangirl Violet Blue declares passionately that she'd never sleep with a Windows user. Dozens of Mac fanboys and girls drink and dance together at an Apple-centric party, jubilant that, for another year, Apple still exists. Girls hug their iMacs before tentatively handing them over to be repaired, while another caresses her Cinema Display, gently offering up a kiss to her Mac Pro's tower.

Apple fans are passionate people, both with each other and with the company's products. MacHeads, a new Chimp 65 Productions documentary from writer/director Kobi Shely and producer Ron Shely, documents the history of these Apple-lovers, looking at what underpins their fanatical obsessions. At just under an hour in length, this unbiased, unnarrated documentary takes a balanced approach to peeling the onion of Apple fanboyism. With insightful commentary from the likes of Apple Inc employee number one Daniel Kottke and ex-Apple employee and Mac evangelist Guy Kawasaki, some of the compulsive fanboyism on display is mellowed by observations of what made an Apple fan an Apple fan in the first place.

Read more here.  And watch the trailer:

The Australian Constitution on your iPhone or iPod Touch

Ben Kremer (who blogs at Lawfont) has created an iPhone and iPod Touch application that contains the text of the Australian Constitution.  You can download the free application at the iTunes Store here.

Freedom to Differ on your iPhone or iPod Touch

Last month I used Intersquash to "optimise" Freedom to Differ for the iPhone and iPod Touch (see here).  However based on the feedback I have received since this change, I have decided to turn it off.  So from now on, if you visit this blog on your iPhone or iPod Touch you will once again only be able to view it as a webpage.

What's so great about Macs?

Tim Barribeau asks looks at those crazy Apple fans (of which I am one):

Apple users have a reputation of having drunk a bit deep of Steve Jobs' Kool-Aid. Whenever he gets on stage, the "reality distortion field" kicks in, and everyday features become mind-blowing to the devoted.

That said, their fanaticism occasionally masks a hardware and software set known for amazing design aesthetic, durability and ease of use. As with any devotee to a single brand (see Holden v Ford), the fanboy arguments are hilariously inane. Watching Apple fans go at it against Windows users, while the occasional bearded Linuxer sticks in their oar, is a daily occurrence of deliciously sad comedy.

Because, when it boils down to it, Apple products look a little better, are a bit easier to use, and cost a little more. And that's it. If that's what you want, buy it.

Read more here (form The Age).

Freedom to Differ on your iPhone or iPod Touch

Thanks to Intersquash there is now a version of Freedom to Differ for your iPhone.  Now if you visit this blog on your iPhone or iPod Touch you will automatically be forwarded to an optimised version of this blog.

intersquash demo from jon on Vimeo.

Apple Mac music video

This video shows some of the many cool ways you can use a Mac set to the song of "Again & Again" by the Bird & the Bee:

Laptop thieves nabbed with help from Mac software

Boing Boing offers another good reason to own a Mac I suppose:

Glenn Fleishman says,

Two alleged thieves were found with stolen computer and A/V gear taken from three roommates in White Plains, N.Y., because one of the victims is a Mac expert. She used the notoriously hard-to-get-working Back to My Mac feature in Leopard which allows single sign-in to .Mac for remote, secure access to all computers on which you've signed in. (It uses UPnP/NAT-PMP, wide-area Bonjour, dynamic DNS, and IPsec's IKE coupled with IPv6 tunneling. Any surprise it's wonky? It's cool when it works, though.)

The unnamed victim in question was able to use remote screen sharing to capture a picture of one alleged burglar via the machine's built-in iSight camera, and copied photos on the computer that apparently were of the other alleged thief.

One of the other roommates recognized the two alleged perps from a party at their apartment (they were friends of a friend), told the police, who tracked them down, and made the arrests, finding all the stolen gear in the process.

While I've heard of plenty of Webcams-lead-to-capture stories, this is the first story that ties in IPv6 and recovered gear that I know of.

Link.

Murdering the internet

Newsweek has a fascinating interview with Professor Jonathan Zittrain:

If you say that the iPhone is the greatest invention of your lifetime, few would bat an eye. If you stay up all night playing Halo 3 like some deranged supermarathoner bent on blasting strangers a continent away on your Xbox Live, few would question your sanity. But dare to claim that devices like the iPhone and the Xbox are killing the Internet as we know it, you'd be laughed out of town.

But this is the central argument of a new book, "The Future of the Internet--and How to Stop It." Jonathan Zittrain claims that the very thing that makes the Internet great--its "generative" or innovative nature--is being locked down in a new wave of closed devices like the iPhone, Xbox, TiVo and the OnStar system. Zittrain, cofounder of Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, claims the Internet's ability to serve as an open platform for innovation is being undermined by these "tethered" toys that can't be easily modified by anyone except their vendors or selected partners.

"The Internet has been a collective hallucination," says Zittrain, who is also a professor of Internet governance and regulation at Oxford University. Zittrain spoke recently with NEWSWEEK's Brian Braiker about his qualms with Apple, Facebook applications, spam and government filtering.

Read the interview here.

Lenovo parodies MacBook Air ad

Gizmodo drew my attention to this clever parody ad:

Most parody videos are lame in the sense that they take one joke and stretch it to 60 seconds, but Lenovo's one joke actually works when properly executed. Not to spoil anything, but it's a send-up of the MacBook Air in favor of Lenovo's own X300.

Am I smug and condescending?

Information Week drew my attention to this Marketplace public radio story on the typical Mac user:

It was technology's turn in the earnings barrel today. After the bell, Amazon reported a 28 percent rise in first quarter profits. Apple said its profits jumped more than 35 percent. That's got to have shareholders thankful for all those iPod and Mac owners out there, thankful for the advertising and marketing teams, too, They've made a splash with those commercials, the ones where the techno-hip Mac guy triumphs over the clueless PC guy.

Andrea Gardner reports Mac owners might be a little clueless themselves.

ANDREA GARDNER: You know the commercial.                    

MAC COMMERCIAL: Hello I'm a Mac --- And I'm a PC.

Apple rolled out these ads to make you think Macs are much cooler than PCs. After all, the Mac guy wears designer jeans and sneakers, and the PC guy is overweight and balding, but over time, many consumers have found themselves charmed by the bumbling PC, and irritated by the lofty Mac. Marissa Gluck is a marketing analyst with Radar Research.

MARISSA GLUCK: The character of the Mac guy is almost too perfectly cast. He is smug. He is condescending. He's just that uber-hipster you love to hate. It just makes you want to slap him.

According to a new marketing study, if you own a Mac, you might want to slap yourself. Mindset Media surveyed 7,500 computer users in 20 different personality traits, such as self-esteem, pragmatism and modesty. They found that Mac owners pretty much personify the Mac guy from the commercials. Among other things, they think they're more extraordinary than the average Joe. That's according to Mindset co-founder Sarah Welch.

SARAH WELCH: This is a group that is not afraid to shout its accomplishments from the mountaintops. They're happy and proud to talk about their successes and their accomplishments, and that can come across as possibly a bit conceited.

The survey revealed that Mac users often describe themselves as perfectionists. They're also more likely than PC users to whiten their teeth, drive hybrids, drink Starbucks coffee and eat organic food.

Read the rest of the transcript here (or listen here).

How Apple breaks the rules

Wired explains how Apple got everything right by doing everything wrong:

Google's famous catchphrase, "Don't be evil," has become a shorthand mission statement for Silicon Valley, encompassing a variety of ideals that proponents say are good for business and good for the world: Embrace open platforms. Trust decisions to the wisdom of crowds. Treat your employees like gods. It's ironic, then, that one of the Valley's most successful companies ignored all these tenets. Here's how Apple succeeds by defying five core Valley principles.

Read more here and here.

Are Apple ads hurting Microsoft's brand?

CNET's Beyond Binary blog considers whether Apple's "I'm a Mac" ads have hurt Microsoft's brand:

A new ranking of global brands shows Microsoft's reputation sinking in recent years. Among the possible factors: Apple's "I'm a Mac" ads.

Microsoft lands at No. 59 in the rankings for 2007, down from No. 11 in 2004, according to the survey from CoreBrand released Wednesday.

"The effect of Apple's 'Hi, I'm a Mac' advertising campaign may have taken its toll on Microsoft," CoreBrand CEO James Gregory said in a statement. "The launch of a series of new products, following a long, relatively dormant period, will be closely watched to see if it will have a positive impact on the Microsoft brand."

...

In fairness to the folks in Redmond, they have fared far better in other recent brand studies. They were No. 1 on a list of Britain's top "superbrands" last year, and No.2 in an August BusinessWeek ranking of top global brands (trailing only Coca-Cola).

I don't know how much stock I put into the study, or its thesis that Apple is to blame, but it is an interesting question. How has Apple's rise affected Redmond's overall image beyond just a few points of PC market share?

When Apple occupied a smaller niche, it could be argued that what happened on the Mac side of things was less relevant to how Microsoft is perceived. But now that Apple has a larger role, is it affecting how Microsoft as a company is seen?

Read more here.

iPods = crime?

Wired covers a report that suggests a crime wave in the US might be caused by iPods:

It's easy to see why iPods would be alluring targets for criminals: The music players are valuable and easy to resell, and people absorbed in their personal soundtracks can be vulnerably oblivious to their surroundings.

But could the temptation for stealing iPods be so strong that they're behind an increase in the crime rate? Researchers at a public policy institute say yes.

They argue that the tantalizing gadgets are perhaps the main reason U.S. violent crime rose in 2005 and 2006 after declining every year since 1991 - although a close look at the findings suggests the hypothesis has holes.

The Urban Institute, a Washington think tank, first raised the subject of an "iCrime wave" last September, and held a panel discussion Tuesday to explore it further. The researchers don't blame iPod maker Apple Inc. or any other device maker for crime, but they do say consumers should demand technologies that would render stolen gadgets useless.

Read more here.

Over at Lawfont

Kim Weatherall had two particularly interesting posts over at Lawfont yesterday.  The first was noting an article by my QUT colleagues Dale Clapperton and Professor Stephen Corones arguing that the technological tying of the iPhone in Australia may contravene the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth):

All over the press today that QUT people Dale Clapperton (of Defending Scoundrels) and Stephen Coroneos have published a paper arguing that a deal that saw the iPhone locked to a single telephone network could breach competition laws.

I’m not a competition lawyer, so I’m not really in a position to assess the validity of the argument from a legal point of view. Nor am I an economist, so I’m not able to tell you whether a deal like the iPhone one would actually pose a danger for competition. But Joshua Gans is, so head on over there for his views.

Read more here and read Dale and Stephen's article here.

Second, Kim asks for discussion on whether the Fanatics Songbook is a fair dealing for the purposes of parody or satire under Australian law:

I’ve been reading through the Australian Copyright Council’s publication, ‘The 2006 Copyright Amendments‘ (B129v01, December 2007), and I found an interesting couple of paragraphs on parody.  They discuss the ‘Fanatics Songbook‘ - a songbook produced for Australian cricket fans that took, and twisted, popular songs to make comments about Australia’s cricketers and the cricketers on opposing teams. The songbook was specifically cited in an opinion piece by the then Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, as an example of Australia’s sense of humour, newly protected by the new parody defence to copyright infringement.

According to the Australian Copyright Council however,

‘It is doubtful … that The Fanatics’ use of the song lyrics constituted parody or satire, or was ‘fair’ in the circumstances. The purpose of using the lyrics was to support members of the Australian team and/or to taunt members of the English team. This is not parody, and it is difficult to categorise it as satire - unless, perhaps, the desire of the English team to win the match could be characterised as ‘folly’ [he he - Ed.]. The songbook reproduced some of the lyrics in full [’Some’ of the lyrics ‘in full’? What does that mean? - Ed], without any changes, which would make it difficult to characterise the use as ‘fair’, given that the reproduction of song lyrics is an activity normally licensed by music publishers.’

So, people, whaddaya think?

Read more here.  If I had time this week I would discuss, but instead I'll echo Kim's call and encourage others to enter the debate.  (But for the record, I would argue it is a fair dealing for the purposes of parody or satire.)

Steve Jobs ... the epitome of cool

Alexander Wolfe asks, what is that song in the new MacBook Air commercial?

You can't teach cool. Fortunately for Apple, Steve Jobs needs no instruction, as he's proved once again with his company's new TV ad for the DVD-less notebook I've taken to calling the MacBook (Hot) Air.

As my three regular readers know, I went nuts last fall for the iPod "Fatty" Nano commercials, which propelled Canadian singer Feist to stardom by showcasing her wonderful tune, "1234."

The current Apple MacBook Air ad features a song called "New Soul," by Israeli singer Yael Naim. It's a charming number, as you'll see in the YouTube video at the bottom of this post. It's funny; I now consider the debut of a new Apple commercial more important than the introduction of its latest piece of uber-cool, overpriced hardware. I'm unlikely to buy the latter, but I rush to check out the music spotlighted in the former.

... [I want to] talk about Apple's status as both an arbiter and definer of cutting-edge culture. And, yes, I realize that Steve Jobs doesn't pick out the music for his commercials himself, but he clearly inspires enough fear in his ad agency that they'll never come back with something as hack-like as a Rolling Stones-scored commercial.

Consider that at most companies, they'd simply designate a chief coolness officer, she'd pick something unhip -- Sammy Hagar doing "I Can't Drive 55," maybe? -- and then everybody'd have to fall into line or be considered unteamlike. Luckily for Jobs, his picture is in the dictionary next to "unteamlike," and he presides over a publicly traded company as a dictatorship of one.

Read more here (from Information Week) and watch the clip:

Learning from failure

Wired takes a look at eight of Apple's most notorious flops.  Find out what makes the list here.

MacHeads

At the Geek Gestalt blog on CNET News.com Daniel Terdiman writes about the upcoming movie MacHeads.  Read about the movie here, visit the official site here and watch the trailer:

Macheads - the movie (trailer)
Uploaded by brunogarattoni

MacBook Air parody

It looks pretty cool, so why the hell not?

Where is Apple's rental service for music?

Blogging for Bits, Saul Hansell asks where is Apple's rental service for music?:

One quick last word on Macworld and what Steve Jobs didn’t do. The technology that enables movie rentals also could enable music rentals — or, in other words, a music subscription service like Rhapsody.

The technology behind this is that iPods need to have a tamper-proof clock in them so that content can be vaporized after its expiration date. The first models didn’t have this feature; the new ones do.

Mr. Jobs said on stage at Macworld that he didn’t originally support movie rentals because he believes that people want to own content. He has changed his mind about movies, but not about music, at least as far as I can see.

This came up yesterday for me when I had lunch with Ted Cohen, one of the most thoughtful people on digital music. Mr. Cohen has worked for EMI, the big record label. But he has also consulted for the original Napster and, much later, Limewire, makers of the rogue peer-to-peer software. Now he is on the board of Imeem, the advertising-supported music service and social network.

Mr. Cohen sees the world from lots of angles, and like most people I know in the music industry, he believes that subscription services are the best answer to the industry’s problems.

The logic is powerful.

Read why here.

Apple disappoints Australians ... again

iTunes movie rentals, one of the big announcements from Macworld this week, will not be coming down under any time soon:

APPLE has unveiled its much-anticipated online video rental service, which lets viewers rent movies directly from their television. But the service will not be available in Australia.

Chief executive Steve Jobs said all major Hollywood studios had signed up to offer their movies. They include Paramount, Universal, Walt Disney, Warner Bros, Sony Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Lionsgate, New Line and News Corp's Fox (News Corp is the owner of News Limited, publisher of The Australian).

...

Apple has bad news for Australian movie lovers, however. ''The video rental service will not be introduced in Australia,'' Apple Australia spokesman John Marx said.

This stance will come as no surprise to long-suffering local Apple users.

The company's iTunes music download service, for example, took the best part of a year to make it Down Under after it was launched in the US and then Europe.

Australian iPod owners are still awaiting the ability to buy more than music video clips, long after US owners were able to purchase entire episodes of television shows such as Lost and Desperate Housewives for their portable players.

Then there's the iPhone, launched with great ballyhoo in the US this time last year. This innovative phone has only in recent months become available in Europe, much less Australia.

Read more here (from The Australian).

Steve Jobs at Macworld ... in 60 seconds

Mahalo’s Veronica Belmont the 90 minute Macworld Keynote from Steve Jobs in 60 seconds:

Steve Jobs at Macworld

Information Week has a good recap of Steve Jobs's Macworld Keynote.  Read it here.

(Of course, you can always watch it at Apple's official site here.)

Macs, PCs and music downloads

This story from the New York Times is just over a week old, but I thought was particularly illuminating about the difference between Mac users and PC users:

Macintosh owners are far more likely than PC owners to have recently paid for a music download, according to the NPD Group, a market research firm. In the third quarter of 2007, exactly half of Mac owners paid to download music at least once, while only 16 percent of PC owners did. The data was derived from an online panel of 4,915 people and weighted to reflect the United States’ online population.

In part, the disparity reflects the ways Apple Macintosh and PC owners use their computers: Mac owners are more likely to listen to music on their computers and to upload music to digital music players. The Mac is marketed as an entertainment machine, and music and video are tightly integrated into the operating system. And, of course, the iPod is an Apple product.

“The whole concept of using the Mac as an entertainment tool across the board is much more woven into the fabric than with PCs,” said Russ Crupnick, the senior entertainment industry analyst at NPD.

It does not hurt that the most popular peer-to-peer file-sharing programs, which allow for free downloading, have generally introduced Mac versions later than PC versions, if at all.

Read it here.

David Lynch finally makes sense

David Lynch on movies and the iPhone:

The power of the Apple ad

Mashable observes that Apple iPod ads are the new hitmakers:

It seems that if you’re a band, and you can get your song in an Apple iPod commercial, you can expect a surprising amount of success.

The most striking example of this is when Nick Haley, an 18-year old university student in England, made an amateur commercial for the iPod Touch.  He paired his images with a song named “Music is My Hot, Hot Sex” by a Brazilian band called CSS (short for Cansei de Ser Sexy which translates to “tired of being sexy”).  The commercial impressed Apple and they brought Mr. Haley to Los Angeles to to professionally make his commercial and they kept the same song.

Since the ad debuted, the critically acclaimed band, which had no commercial success in the USA, has climbed the charts, selling thousands of albums.  Feist has also seen similar success with their song “1234″ being used recently in ads for the iPod Nano, and has since sold tens of thousands of albums and landed a spot on Saturday Night Live.

There has been no mention of how Apple choses their songs, but it is sure bands are going to try to crack that mystery.

(via SF Gate)

Read more here.  And this is Nick Haley's ad: