Tuesday: Article
Wednesday: App Store Review
Thursday: Tips and Tricks
Friday: Weekend Roundup

After some time, this site will be changed to a branch of LetsTalkApple. I hope to use CrunchyMunchkin for more personal posts, and behind the scenes photos and videos from the LTA Headquarters (I had to say that!). I just want to make sure I have a grasp of the new site before I go and add anything new to the roster. Go ahead and subscribe, you won’t be sorry!

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All the blogs are abuzz with the continuing saga that is Apple and Microsoft. Everyone has seen the new Microsoft ads where a couple goes into a computer store, and looks for a computer. In the process, they inevitably pass by a Apple computer and say the obvious, “Sexy, but much too expensive for my budget.” To some this would be a true statement, while Apple Fanboys would completely disagree. The extra money you spend on a Mac is for peace of mind in knowing that you own a reliable, trendy and media-centric piece of technology.

To Microsoft’s defense, the commercials started before WWDC; where Apple not only upgraded the entire MacBook Pro line-up, but also decreased the entry price for Apple notebooks. Since then, Apple’s Legal Department as requested that Microsoft stop using those ads with a statement that probably sounded a lot like this, “Your ads are not taking into account the pricing changes we’ve made.” Here is the statement [Link to Transcript] making headlines around the blogosphere:

And you know why I know they’re working? Because two weeks ago we got a call from the Apple legal department saying, hey — this is a true story — saying, “Hey, you need to stop running those ads, we lowered our prices.” They took like $100 off or something. It was the greatest single phone call in the history that I’ve ever taken in business. (Applause.)

I did cartwheels down the hallway. At first I said, “Is this a joke? Who are you?” Not understanding what an opportunity. And so we’re just going to keep running them and running them and running them.

I do not see the wrong here. Why shouldn’t Apple ask Microsoft to stop airing their misleading advertisements? Isn’t that what any company would do if something was being said that was misleading or untrue?

Update: I am sorry for not adding this to the post. It was definitely essential to the argument I was trying to make. The statement, “They took like $100 off or something,” is not entirely true. A couple of things have changed since WWDC. The MacBook Pros (essentially the Mac line-up) now all come standard with 4GB of RAM, which cancels out the ad “Laptop Hunters $1500 – Giampaolo gets an HP HDX.” The entry level price for a 15″ MacBook Pro went down from $1999 to $1699, MacBook Air went from $1799 to $1499 (The SSD Model got a $700 price drop to $1799). With spec upgrades and prices dropped way more than $100 across the board, who wouldn’t want misleading advertisements taken off of the air – I know I would. I don’t know if it is the same where you are, but Microsoft has since stopped airing all of their  Laptop Hunter Ads except for a $700 ad, which I can’t seem to find the link for. Feel free to sound off in the comments!

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Let me start this article by saying, I was not always an iTunes junkie. There was a time when I would only purchase music through physical media. I swore to myself that I would never succumb to the digital movement.

Gradually the pact I made with myself wore thin, and I started to experiment with free media – iTunes Singles of the Week. I was not only amazed by the quality of the music, but the painless process of actually downloading a song. What went from a challenge of going to the store to purchase an entire CD, quickly turned into something that required much less effort. With the iTunes Store, you have one click access to the entire entertainment industry. You can preview and buy an infinite amount of songs, music videos, movies and applications with three clicks of your mouse.

Once I started downloading from iTunes, I could not stop. It is the way in which purchases are handled, and it allows you to appreciate your purchase much more. When I used to buy a CD there was always a side of me saying, “Why are you spending $13.99 on that? You know you won’t like the whole thing…” There were many times when that side of me was right! What I love about iTunes is that it removes this headache. Sometimes I feel it does this almost too well. I find myself purchasing things from the store that I do not even want or need. I have well over 200 applications for my iPhone, and somehow only have four pages in use.

What about you? How is your relationship with iTunes?

Update: I thought I would share my Spending Trends on iTunes. Here’s the graph!

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I was reading an interesting article on The Apple Blog [Link to Article] that discussed the infamous MacBook Air, and how it was the Netbook of their our dreams. They spoke about the differences in materials as well as the major differences in power. A report from The NPD Group said that people really did not know what to expect from their netbooks.

According to this report from The NPD Group, a leading market research firm, only 58 percent of consumers who bought a netbook said they were satisfied, while 65 percent said they expected the same performance as a regular laptop. Many were so unsatisfied that they returned them. How many? Intel’s Sean Maloney was quoted in this article as saying, “They [netbooks] had very high return rates, and a couple of these guys [retailers] had return rates in the 30 percent range, which is a disaster.” Three out of every 10 get returned? Yikes!

However, you do have people who love their netbooks, and swear they are the best thing since sliced bread. Redboy33 had this to say:

Apple could use cheap netbooks to increase their position in the windows market.. Why not? They sell the Mac mini for almost no profit? I’m sure plenty of Mac mini users upgrade to iMac’s relatively quickly? I bet the same thing would happen in the netbook segment. It’s the free drugs theory, when they’re hooked, then you make them pay…

What do you think? Do you think Apple should get into the netbook war and reinvent the netbook, or do you think it is a waste of time? Let us know in the comments!

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Longtime Mac users have become accustomed to not getting what they really want with their Macs. When Phil Schiller announced that the Express Card Slot would be replaced with an SD Slot, Macheads started thinking, “Huh? All of a sudden, we are getting an SD Card slot? I thought that would never happen…” I mean Schiller could have been pulling the one of the biggest pranks ever with that one.

I remember the days when us Macheads would say to a PC User, “The SD Slot is not there, because we don’t need it… (watch out, I am about to get a lil’ techy) Our Macs have all of the drivers pre-installed, so it will work right out of the box.” Maybe my response was not as “techy” as I thought, but I digress. Back then, either the Mac or PC inside us would have been satisfied with that response, but today that would not fly! Macs are becoming more and more of a joy to own, because we are finally getting what we want in our computers. It seems Apple is letting up on the reigns a little. Maybe we might actually see the Apple Netbook, or rebranded MacBook later this year… and maybe pigs will fly, and donkeys will take over the world!

I sincerely believe the rumored Apple Netbook is coming, and soon. It was all in good writing… Leave your responses in the comments!

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What if Apple allowed developers to create mini applications to interact with the iPhone OS in the form of a plugin? I am not thinking about larger application plugins that would eat-up the phone’s battery life, but simple plugins that enhance the user experience. Plugins that would allow applications live in a separate sandbox from other apps, but one that they could read and write to. I have come-up with two scenarios that I think would work remarkably on the iPhone, and keep up with Apple’s restrictions on the OS.

My first scenario… When I open my favorite application, ToDo, I wish it were able to remind me of what I had to do that day. The developers say that the feature is coming in the form of a Push Notification, but a major problem arises when I do not have a connection to the internet. You may rebuttal by saying, “The iPhone is always connected to the internet, so I do not see what you are crying about.” Alas, this is not true my friends. When I travel, which I should add is quite often, my iPhone automatically turns off the 3G antenna so I do not get any data charges overseas. This is when I have the most use for the Push Notification System.

If there was a small plugin-system, applications could be written to solve my major issue. Here’s how it gets solved… A plugin could be written, so that developers can add data to the plugin right before the user quits it. During a normal cycle, the iPhone could automatically tell the plugin to activate, allowing multiple notifications from the one plugin, essentially eliminating the problem caused by entire programs running in the background. The key here is the fact that more than one developer uses this plugin (Eg. ToDo does not have its own plugin). This is most likely never going to happen, however take a look at my other idea!

My second (favorite) scenario… In this scenario I am still using ToDo. When I quit, it still writes data to the plugin HOWEVER the plugin is not automatically accessed by the iPhone, it is accessed by the user. I have always thought about being able to drag the status bar on the iPhone (where the Time and Carrier info are located) down to turn on/off WiFi, Bluetooth, Airplane Mode, etc. What if Apple used my fantasy UI for plugins to live? Users would be able to access plugins quickly and effortlessly. I could find out what I have to do that day, without launching an entire application, and I save what precious battery I have on my iPhone.

My thinking comes from both the Push Notification Service and the Menu Bar on Mac OS X. What do you think? Would you like this kind of functionality on the iPhone? Do you think Apple would go for it? Leave your remarks in the comments!

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Imagine this scenario. You are canoeing with some friends, and all of a sudden their boat capsizes. Normally you would not jump in to help out, you would sit in your canoe snickering at your cold, wet buddies. In this scenario, the capsized boat starts to sink. This is not the time to “snicker” ➜ that is an expensive boat! Being the hero that you are, you jump in to rescue the boat. As your friends are congratulating  you  for your heroic efforts, you remember something that will change your life forever… You left your iPhone in your pocket!

This sad scenario happened to one of my close friends. As everyone reading this should know, electronics an water do not go well together. Being panic-stricken, Jaimie did not want to turn on her iPhone until she did some research. Online she found various solutions to resurrect a fallen iPhone. These included:

1. Do not turn on your phone for one week…
2. Use a small screwdriver and a hairdryer to expose and dry-out the inside parts…
3. Get some white tissue paper and stick it into the headphone port, to cover up the water detecting slip of paper. Then take it to Apple for a new phone…

Which one did she go with? The first one. Jaime decided not to turn on her precious phone for an entire week, a feat I do not think I could accomplish as I would be way to anxious… Don’t get me wrong, Jaime tried to do the other two throughout the week, but failed in doing both. We tried using various screw drivers, but none were small enough to fit into the iPhone’s screws so number two got scratched. Then we discussed number three, and then realized that the closest Apple Retail Store was 3.5 Hours South of where we were, and did not even attempt to stuff tissue into the poor iPhone’s port.

The week passed, and Jaime came to my room to turn on her phone for the first time in a week. To both of our surprise, the iPhone did not hesitate in waking from it’s bed-written state, and turned on as normal! The only thing that happened to the phone was a watermark underneath the glass of the screen, which in my opinion made the iPhone look even cooler than it did before…

The image above was found on Google, and has the same watermark as my friend’s iPhone did. By the time this article was posted, the screen had cleared-up. Sorry!

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iOrganize

After about 5-minutes of using this application, I could not use it anymore. The inability to remove a note with your keyboard was more annoying than anything. Verdict: Bad

Noted

This application is slightly annoying to use, because of it’s user interface. It is slightly outdated, and does not “wow” me in any shape or form… However because of it’s ease of use, responsiveness and simplicity I would say it is decent, but in major need of some improvement. Verdict: Mediocre

TextEdit

I never really gave Apple’s Text Edit a glance until I realized how abysmal the competition was. TextEdit comes on every Mac, and is what I would call Apple’s solution to Notepad on Windows Computers. If there were a simple filing system (Eg. iTunes, iPhoto, Mail, etc.), I would say TextEdit was perfect. Verdict: Good

JDarkRoom

As a simple/clean word-processor JDarkRoom is great. The only thing holding it back is it’s unwillingness to let you multitask. Let me explain, when writing, you sometimes want to refer to another passage or article to make sure you have your information straight (I do this with the Command – Tab Keys). JDarkRoom however, will not let you switch to another application as long as it is running. Verdict: Mediocre

xPad

I Tweeted about this application a while back, and I had nothing but good things to say about it. Nothing has changed from my earlier opinion, and it is still one of the fastest and most intuitive applications available. There is one quirk to this program; its speed is due to it’s proprietary file format. In order for the file to be compatible with any other program, you must convert it to Plain Text or an RTF Document.  Verdict: Good

In the end I chose to go with TextEdit, which is actually the program I am writing this post in. I had to play around in preferences in order to get the program to respond the way I wanted it to. For more information on my rating system, please visit http://crunchymunchkin.com/blog/ratings.

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I do not think anyone (except maybe my brother) realizes how excited I am for the Schiller-note on Monday. Because of this excitement, I thought it would be proper to do a quick roundup of some of the stuff we expect to see at WWDC on Monday. Don’t forget to check out CrunchyMunchkin Live to keep up with WWDC on Monday.

iPhone 3.0 Software

At the last Apple Event, Scott Forestall gave us a sneak-peek at the next generation iPhone Software. The newest iteration of the software seems to resolve all (if not most) of the issues users have been griping about.

[iPhone 3.0 Software]

Mac OS 10.6 Snow-Leopard

The next Big Cat is on it’s way, and Apple has dubbed it Snow Leopard. The newest iteration of Mac OS X will undoubtably be shown-off at this year’s WWDC. It has been a while since Apple has shown us anything, but not too long ago, a Russian Developer leaked images and videos onto the internet showing some of Leopard’s newest features. Shortly after, Apple requested that the content be removed and all that was left were the few images snatched-up by the blog-o-sphere.

iPhone 3G, 2009

There is one thing we can not stop hearing about is the next generation iPhone. People want to know, how much will it cost? What will it look like? What new features will it have? Most importantly, what will it be called? Slowly we have received unconfirmed answers to these questions and only time will tell. For example, there are rumors that say the lowest priced iPhone will either be Free or $99. There is another contradicting rumor saying that Apple will release four versions of the iPhone (4GB, 8GB, 16GB & 32GB), compared to another rumor that says there will only be two (16GB & 32GB).

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I am just as excited as the rest of you when it comes to Push Notifications on the iPhone. This is Apple’s “solution” to the battery draining effects of background processes, but I can’t help but question some of the Developer’s intentions for Push Notifications.

Developers are allowed to use Push Notifications at their will; they just send a message to Apple’s Push Notification Server which will then send an Icon, Message and/or sound to your iPhone. This is a good way to keep in touch, because not only does the application stay closed until you get to it, but you get notified when something happens.

Now I ask the question, what if nothing has happened? Can a developer send a notification to your iPhone in the form of an Ad? Most Free Applications remain free because they are supported by Ads. I am not saying that using advertisements to keep an application free is a bad thing, but I do not want to be alerted to look at an advertisement. See where I am going here?

Scenario: You are sitting in a meeting with a client, and you forgot to put your phone on silent. You told most of your friends that you had a meeting that day, so you are not expecting any Calls, Emails, SMS Messages, etc. However, there is one thing you forgot about… The Fart Application you downloaded a month ago for Free. The developer has just updated the application to support the new Push Service provided by Apple. He needs more revenue to keep the application free, and decides that in order to do this he will send advertisements to the users of his app. Even better, he as attached the “Fart” Sound File to that notification. You are one of the lucky recipients of that Ad. Your phone goes off for no apparent reason other than the developer wanted to send you an advertisement. Because of the “childish” noise made by the app, you could potentially loose your client. What do you do next? Delete the app? NO! You upgrade to the 99¢ version of the app that gets rid of all the advertisements and notifications… Way to stick it to the man.

I can only hope that none of the developers abuse the Push Notification Service. Keep in mind, I have no idea whether or not Apple has a ban on this use of the Service or not, so if you know anything, or have something to add please leave it in the comments.

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On Tuesday, Scott Forstall gave us a sneak preview of the newest iPhone Software due to hit sometime this summer. The newest iteration of the software seems to resolve all (if not most) of the issues users have been griping about, as well as bring the iPhone up to par, software-wise, with the Palm Pre. Hit the link to see what’s new…

SDK/Developers:

With the introduction of the iPhone 3.0 Software comes over 1,000 new APIs to help you develop your apps in the most convenient way possible.

Features/Consumers:

When the iPhone 3.0 Software becomes available to consumers, it will unlock over 100 new features that will make the iPhone an even better device.

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On Thursday, Apple released the Safari 4 Beta to the public, and I was one of those who took a bite. There have been a few UI changes, which some will not like, and also some major improvements to the speed and performance of the browser. Personally, I have always preferred Safari and have always used it as my default browser since I got my first Mac. Let’s take a look at what’s new with my, and possibly your, favorite browser.

Top Sites

One of my favorite additions to the browser is the addition of Top Sites, which gives you an “Apple TV-esque” view of the sites you visit most. You can control the amount of sites shown from Small (24), Medium (12) and Large (6). In the Top Sites View, you can even choose to hold a favorite site on the grid in a specific spot. This is great so that whenever you open the browser you will always know where the site you want to visit is. Another great feature of the Top Sites view is the fact that is shows you what sites have changed since the last time you visited them. All Safari does is put a Blue Tab + Star at the top of the preview image.

Cover Flow

With Apple’s mission to incorporate Cover Flow into every facet of their operating system, Safari 4 has not been left out. In both the History & Bookmark Views, you can now see a preview of the site exactly as it looked when you last visited it. If you know how to use Cover Flow in iTunes, you will know how to use it in Safari. Personally, I have never found Cover Flow useful until Safari 4. Whenever I look at my bookmarks or search through my history I no longer have to look at the Title to guess which page it was I wanted to visit; all I have to do now is look at the Site Preview.

Tabs:

One of the biggest UI changes to the browser was Apple’s decision to move the tabs from below the bookmark’s bar to the space above the address bar. It seems this idea was taken directly from Google’s Chrome Browser, but there may be more use to this than you think. By changing the location of the tabs, Apple has given you more room to see the page you are viewing; and as a blogger + web designer, I know that every ounce of screen space is precious. This new interface is even carried through to Windows Vista & XP for a much better look and feel when using a PC.

Miscellaneous

• Full Page Zoom
  • The new Safari scales images and text as you zoom into the page to get a better look.
• Smart Address Field
  • Similar to Firefox, the new address field will try to guess what address you are trying to find, and offers suggestions if one can’t be found.
• Smart Search
  • Google-Served-Suggestions to help you find what you are looking for, as well as a quick-search through your recent history.

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Developing for the iPhone? Great! Want to develop for the iPhone? Even better! Go ahead and download the newest SDK for yourself, it’s free… If you want to learn more, you can visit the Apple Website, or read the post: iPhone SDK + Enterprise.

[Join The Developer Connection]

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Plug-in your iPhone, because there is a new software update available for your baby… I mean er, Phone… Anyway, as you can see in the screenshot above there is no new functionality, but it does address some issues with saving pics from mail to your camera roll. It also improves the stability of Safari.

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