I stumbled across this great Mac vs. PC ad yesterday while setting up my new computer (no, not a new mac, but a new PC for work and yes, I "downgraded" to XP). I just found it on YouTube as a video, but the original ad was just a scrolling ad at the top with the guys on the side further down the page.
I think this is a great reinvention of something familiar in a new and attention grabbing way.
iWork is fast becoming popular in the Mac circles while Office is the standard when it comes to documents, spreadsheets and presentations. What happens when you want to share an iWork file with someone who uses Office or vice-versa?
Well there are compatibility issues. It’s not to say that you can’t move files to and from but there will be problems. John Rizzo wrote a great article on MacWorld to describe what potential pitfalls you might encounter when shuffling files from both suites. Depending on how much work you’ve done on a particular file will determine how well it will translate to the destination app. Read his article to see what you should and should not do.
The last paragraph of his article sums it all greatly.
In general, the simpler the document, the greater the compatibility between iWork and Office. Complex documents don’t do well moving back and forth between been Office and iWork, because you’ll lose something with every translation. In particular, going from PowerPoint-to-Keynote and back to PowerPoint can result in the loss of a lot of effects and general deterioration of the look of the presentation. If you need to have multiple rounds of edits with Office users, you may have to bite the bullet and install a copy of Office.
But for reading Office files and sharing your documents with Office users, iWork can be completely adequate. How much compatibility is enough is up to you
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I have been using Firefox since version 0.7. I have used it on several versions of Windows. I have used it on Fedora (linux). And, of course, I have used it on my Mac.
When I first bought my Mac I was determined to love Safari. After all, I was an Apple fan now and so I should love Apple products, right? And don’t get me wrong. Safari is clean and simple in a way that other browsers don’t come close to. But the familiarity of Firefox, the cross platform support, and the extensions just kept pulling me back.
June 17th, Version 3 comes out, and Mozilla is trying to set a record. They are trying to get the most downloads in one day.
So…
If you are already a Firefox user, download the new version. And if you haven’t tried Firefox yet (or haven’t tried it in a while) go ahead and download it tomorrow. Help set a record and possibly fall in love with your new favorite browser.
Tags: firefox, download day, world record
[UPDATE: The links appear to be clogged (that’s what you get for tying to set a record). Try getfirefox.com instead.]
So it’s been a week of WWDC news and conversation. Congratulations to Adam and Ditas for winning the two licenses for TextExpander. Thanks to everyone for commenting.
The guys at SmileOnMyMac have also sent over a discount code for The After Mac readers who might want a copy of TextExpander but don’t want to pay full price. Enter the coupon code AMTE08 when you checkout and get a 20% discount on TextExpander licenses. This is good for the single license or the family pack so if you have a bunch of computers/users you are buying for, this is a great chance to save. Offer expires July 15th, 2008.
Funny story.. My cousin calls me up a few nights ago. He was frantic. He said his business partner screwed up their MacBook. They couldn’t login to the MacBook because it wouldn’t accept the password. They kept trying and trying but to no avail. So he asked me if I could just try to recover their files and reinstall OS X. I said, bring the Mac over and let’s see.
So he brought the Mac today. I was set to have an afternoon filled with recovering data and reinstalling apps. So I looked at his Mac and it was booted all the way to the login screen. I thought to myself, let’s try just hitting the return key and see if works. It did! Somehow his business partner must have reset the password to an empty one.
The lesson to be learned here is never to play with your Mac drunk. Apparently his partner was drunk when he was playing with his Mac. So the entire afternoon my cousin never heard the end of it from me.
Anyway… Just so that this post is not a total loss, I’m including a link from the Apple support section. This is where you’ll find info on recovering, resetting admin and user passwords. Just in case you forgot your password and need to reset. But before you reset, just try the empty password thing that I did. Who knows that might just do the trick.
I am just about done thinking about the WWDC.
I wish more had happened on the Macintosh front. I love what has happened with the iPhone, but I really want to see something new from Apple in regards to computers.
I am excited to see that Snow Leopard is coming out. I think this will not be a for everyone upgrade, but it should increase speed and reliability and open doors for the future.
I think the biggest problem with the “high” that is an Apple Event is that I am already over this one and looking for to the next big thing Apple has coming.
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Don’t forget… You have until Sunday Night to Comment on any of the WWDC posts to be entered to win a copy of Text Expander. Don’t miss out.
So I’ve been giving Mobile Me a lot of thought lately. I wasn’t really sold with .Mac before. I mean it was a good service just not worth the $99 per year. There were free solutions after all. However having seen the demo at the WWDC keynote and the guided tour over at the Apple web site, I’m starting to reconsider.
Sure, there are free solutions as well. There’s Gmail with IMAP. That should help you sync your emails. There’s free file storage for sharing big files such as Senduit. There’s Flickr for photo sharing, etc.. You get the drift. So why pay $99 a year for things you can get free?
Well… The main reason I’m considering forking over $99 is the integration. Mobile Me just makes life simpler. Everything is integrated plus everything works well together. I only need to login to one service to access all of the features such as email, file and photo sharing. I don’t need to create accounts for different services.
Have you seen the web interface of Mobile Me? It’s crazy! It’s like you’re just working on your desktop.
I like the way it works well with the iPod Touch, iPhone and your computer. Whether it be a Mac or PC.
I know if I look hard enough I can find a setup that’s free and that will work similar to Mobile Me. It will however not be as elegant, harder to manage and won’t be as easy. So in essence I will be paying for convenience plus the comfort that everything works well together.
So, is Mobile Me for me? I’m thinking maybe it is. How about you?
I’ve had one of those days. A Windows kind of day. Now technically, my problem is not Window’s fault, but 1, it is easier to have someone to blame, and 2, If Windows wasn’t such a pain, the solution would have been much simpler.
What happened was something rather simple. A hard drive failed in a mission critical computer at work. We use a POS system that requires Win 2k Pro, Win XP Pro, or Vista Business to run.
So, dead computer needs replacing. No big deal, right? Just go buy one, right?
Not so easy.
Windows no longer comes in the XP variety. At least not in stores. And Vista Business… special order only.
So I’ve ordered my new computer. If only I could have run up to the Apple store and bought a new Mac instead.
So I hope you had a Mac kind of day instead of a PC kind of day.
I was going through the iPhone 3G web pages and I saw the new ultracompact USB power adapter included. It’s sleek and small. Looks really good. It’s a polished version of Eneplug. They’re both similar devices however true to Apple form, they made theirs look just a way bit cooler.
Check out the side by side pictures. Apple Ultracompact USB Adapter on the left, Eneplug on the right.
Unless you live in a cave you probably know that the new 3G iPhone has been announced and is coming out next month. Like a lot of people, I was kind of hoping it was going to be available this week. Even if Apple was ramped up and ready for such a thing, the marketing and hype they get by waiting a few weeks is worth the inconvenience for their customers. (My phone is literally dying and I need a new one yesterday).
I have put of writing specifically about the iPhone because I still have mixed feelings about it. It is revolutionary, no doubt, but it is not quite the savior that everyone is making it out to be.
Steve listed 5 things in the keynote that were keeping people from getting an iPhone: 3G support, enterprise support, third party application support, more countries, and price. We’ll take a look at each of these and then I’ll add a few of my own.
3G Support
This was by far the biggest complaint of most users I talked to. With all the things this thing could do, 3G seemed like a prerequisite to making all those features fast enough to be worth having. Who cares if you have beautiful Google maps if they take forever to load. Same with YouTube and access to the "real" internet.
Apple’s argument was battery life. 3G support would just simply take too much battery. Based on the reported specs, this problem should be solved, but we’ll have to wait and see if real world numbers add up.
Enterprise Support
If you are a hip professional stuck in a Blackberry only shop, this is the feature you’ve been dreaming about. Finally, enterprise support out of the box. And with MobileMe, pseudo-enterprise support for us freelancers and Small businesses who don’t have the need for a full blown exchange server.
A few people online have called the new iPhone the Windows Mobile killer and/or the Blackberry killer. And as much as I would like to believe this, I just don’t think this is true. I think some companies, for uniformity and simplicities sake, are going to stick with their current choice, whether it is better or not.
Because of training, contracts, and budgets, corporations tend to have long product lifecycles and slower adoption of newer technologies. One of the colleges I worked for would often skip versions of software, choosing to stick with familiar software over the latest greatest. Another college I attended switched to Windows 2000 SP2 about the time XP was just releasing.
Just like personal users, companies have contracts with their service providers as well. In order to get great rates on as many phones as they need, they may have signed a multi-year contract on hundreds of lines of service. It could be several years before the iPhone is even an option for them, even if it does everything their current Blackberries or Windows Mobile devices can do.
Which brings us back to 3G support. AT&T’s 3G support is fairly good in a lot of places, but isn’t available everywhere. While AT&T’s 3G may be faster than Sprint’s EVDO, I am pretty sure EVDO is cheaper and faster than 2G. So if I am in charge of buying service for a major corporation, do I go with hip and cool for slower service and more money, or do I go with what is best for the company with faster service for less?
Third Party Application Support
This is probably the most exciting new "feature" of iPhone, but it is available for both the new 3G iPhone and the first generation iPhone running the 2.0 software when it comes out. This opens so many doors for all sorts of amazing software. It also opens the possibility of lots of lame software and possible viruses.
Windows Mobile, Palm, and RIM have had third-party applications forever. Some of them are amazing and have made decent devices into amazing, indispensable tools. Others are mediocre, at best, and cost too much money.
More Countries
With over 70 countries offering official support by the end of the year, I think Apple has hit this one head on. The greatest limitation, as I read comments around the web, is the actual service in some of those countries is going to cost too much for not enough features. Some of the things that Apple sells as their feature seems to actually be something that is only available because of AT&T’s infrastructure (think Visual Voicemail).
More Affordable
$200, that’s what you are going to save when you buy the new iPhone right? Well, sort of. One of the reasons I had previously considered the iPhone vs. another smartphone was because the savings on the data plan would make the iPhone cheaper after about 12 months. But the new iPhone will be on the same $30 per month data plan that other PDA’s are on.
So what’s this mean. It means that if you skip text message, you are going to pay $10 per month more for your iPhone than before. If you keep the 200 texts that the iPhone plan included before, you will pay an extra $15 per month over the old iPhone plan. So at the end of your 2 year contract you will have paid a minimum of $240 extra in data fees.
Old iPhone: $399 or $499. New iPhone with the extra data fees: $439 of $539, and up.
Keep in mind, this is AT&T’s numbers. I don’t know what this will look like overseas. (Just look what they are doing in the UK).
Things I Would Add To The List
GPS - Here is something Steve didn’t talk about, but they delivered anyway. The other PDA’s that AT&T are currently selling that have map support have an actual GPS built in. It is great to see Apple match this.
Video - This is one of those features that I don’t use too often, but it seems to me like it should have been added. I have read some speculation that the physical components necessary to handle video simply aren’t present. Idea! What if we added them?!? But it costs more! If they can include video in $50 phones and free phones Apple should be able to include it in a $200 phone. Can’t squeeze it in the budget, drop the price $150 instead of $200. People would still wet themselves over the great price and we’d get video.
MMS - Again… Every free picture phone on the planet can handle MMS. This wouldn’t be a problem except sometimes I like to send pictures from my phone to another phone. I know that each carrier has email addresses that I can use to send pictures to, but do I now have to figure out and remember everyone’s carrier? Beyond that, if I accidentally send you that full res picture I just took on my iPhone to your MMS only free phone, your carrier is going to charge you for the extra data transfer.
Cut & Paste - Are you kidding me? How in the world do we not have cut & paste? Maybe this is built into 2.0 and Steve just didn’t say anything. But seriously, this should have been included day one and it should have been demoed at the keynote.
Time to Buy
I still don’t think the iPhone is quite perfect. But with MobileMe and what they have added, I just can’t help myself. So what do you think? Are you going to hold out for a few more fixes or are you in as soon as possible?
News about Apple, iPods, the cult of Mac and Steve Jobs' reality distortion field. Kool-Aid in Moderation.
Written by Juan Magdaraog , Chris Marsden [email], and Jayvee Fernandez [email] for b5media.
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