thomas fitzgerald.net

There’s so much I want to say about the iPad but I just haven’t been able to get my thoughts together yet. Mainly because I’ve been battling a nasty virus which has left me drained, but that’s a whole other story. I think a lot of the complaints from people are eerily reminiscent of when the iPhone launched and a lot of people were to preoccupied with moaning about what it doesn’t do that they forgot to take a good look at what it does do.

Here’s something I wrote when the iPhone was first introduced. Just replace iPhone with iPad and iPod with iPhone and you’ll see the pattern. I think the iPad is a truly revolutionary game changing device. I think it will take concepts first introduced with the iPhone and bring them to the world of general computing. There’s lots I want to say and once I’m feeling a little better I’l put my thoughts together properly. For now though, here are some things I reccomend you read, as they echo my onw sentiments on the iPad.

Scott Kelby’s excellent piece on the iPad and why the nay sayers have got it wrong (again)

I just came across this incredible CG animation of the remains of the Space Shuttle after a mythical disaster, floating in orbit. What’s incredible about this is that it’s all done in 2d. There’s no 3D animation here other than what I presume is the use of 3d layers in After Effects.

(Via Gizmodo)

There’s been a rumour doing the rounds the last few days that really doesn’t make sense. It started when some analyst (I think it was on techcrunch) said that they’d heard that Apple plans to offer people the ability to put their iTunes collection “in the cloud”. Basically, it would allow people to access their music anywhere in the world. CNET are now reporting that Apple have been talking to the record labels about the possibility. Needless to say the mac rumour web has jumped on this. I have doubts though. There’s one aspect in particular that just doesn’t make sense. Here’s an example From 9-5 Mac:

“Apple didn’t reveal much, but much like what was reported yesterday, the idea is that people would upload their music to Apple’s servers and it would be available to them anywhere in the world on any device.”

Why though would Apple make you upload your music? Surely it would make more sense to scan your library or even your iTunes sales records and see which tracks you’ve bought and allow you to stream them from Apple’s servers. I mean, why download a song from iTunes only to then re-upload it to another Apple server? There’s no way in hell you’ll be allowed to do this with content you didn’t buy through iTunes either, so forget about using this for music you’ve bought on CD.

This has to be the coolest remote control airplane ever.

The much rumoured January 27th Apple media event has been confirmed by Apple. The company sent out official invites which showed an Apple logo with a splash of colours and the tag line “Come See our Latest Creation”. Note it says “Creation” singular. Anyway, it will in all likelihood be the unveiling of the over-rumoured tablet. Soon, the suspense will all be over and the complaining about what it doesn’t have can start !

I’ve been running my various blogs off wordpress fore years now, and over that time I’ve tried various themes. Originally I used free themes and then progressed to using some premium ones. But even then I was never really happy. Then I discovered Woo Themes. Woo is a purveyor of premium wordpress themes, but they do it really really well. What impressed me about the company was not just that they created some really nice and high quality themes, but that they gave them a really good back end, and that they continued to upgrade them. But what I really like is the way they structure their themes.

All their custom functions, the “woo framework” as they call it is regularly upgraded, and they’ve just issued an upgrade again. However, as I’ve extensively customized the themes on my blog, this would be a pain to upgrade, right? Well, on some of the themes I’ve owned in the past this would be true, but not now. Thanks to the way they’ve organized the layout of the backend, I just have to replace one folder within the theme I’m using and hey presto, framework upgraded. Simply brilliant. In the past when I’ve had to upgrade a theme it’s been a nightmare, trying to locate all the files I’ve changed then paste those changes into the new version and so on. This is so much simpler. If you’re looking for a premium wordpress theme then I can’t recommend the folks at woo themes enough.

Once again, the extreme stupidity of certain tech blogs on the internet raises its ugly head. Following up from yesterday’s post about the insane “bounty” that Vallywag offered for anyone willing to reveal information about the Apple Tablet, Apple has unsurprisingly responded with its Lawyers.

“While Apple values and appreciates vibrant public commentary about its products, we believe you and your company have crossed the line by offering a bounty for the theft of Apple’s trade secrets. Such an offer is illegal and Apple insists that you immediately discontinue the Scavenger Hunt.”

That’s pretty much the crux of it and why it was so insane in the first place. Vallywag were essentially offering a reward for someone to break the Law. But here’s the best part: Does Gizmodo, reporting on this story call gawker media out for it’s stupidity? No, instead their headline for the latest installment of this fiasco is: “Apple Indirectly Confirms Tablet Existence with Cease and Desist Letter”

Gizmodo finishes by telling people to use an anonymous email when sending anything to Gawker, essentially encouraging the whole illegal stunt although they cover themselves with a trite “Just don’t do anything illegal to get any of the evidence”.

Before Apple wowed everyone with the iPhone when it was first unveiled the usually active rumor mill went into overdrive. That, however paled into insignificance compared to the way the online technology community has lost their fricken’ minds over the upcoming tablet. For every rumor and idea that gets floated another one comes along to shoot it down. I think we’ve had every possible combination of feature and service that this thing is going to offer, along with another bunch of rumors claiming the first bunch of rumors is bogus. On top of that we’ve had people complain about the non existent device, argue how apple’s non existing policies regarding a non existent NDA for developers on a non existent product is going to stifle the development community.

It’s amazing that for a company renowned at keeping secrets, everyone seems to know someone who knows something about the tablet. If you read between the lines of all this chatter you quickly come to realize though that no one really knows anything. Duh. Still, people are so desperate to find out anything that they’re going to extremes. How extreme? Vallywag is now offering a reward of up to $100,000 for evidence of the device that may or may not even exist (Fair enough it probably does). This is just insanity now. Considering it’s less than two weeks to the (possible) launch of the Tablet are they really that desperate for the scoop? Like I said, it’s just getting silly now.