Random thoughts: Apple’s 100,000 iPhone apps and the Google GPS app
Filed under: Apple Bashing, Cynicism, Opinion, iTunes
Two things happened today that filled me with a resounding feeling of… “meh”. Well, actually lots of underwhelming things happened today (I’m rather hard to overwhelm thanks to various mood evening drugs)) but two Apple-related things happened.
Apple to hit 100,000 iPhone Apps
The first announcement did not officially come from Apple itself, rather it came via the blog-o-sphere. Apparently Apple has now passed (or will reach in the next day or so) the 100,000 mark of apps on iTunes. I’m not all that sure that Apple should be all that proud of hitting that milestone. If anyone should be proud of that astronomical number, it is the developers of Apple’s iPhone Software Development Kit. They apparently did such a good job at designing the SDK that even people who have zero talent, originality, programing or artistic ability can now easily create a horrible app that does basically nothing. Read more
Fake excitement reaches new levels as Microsoft Store opens
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Cynicism, Microsoft Bashing, video
Faithful Macenstein reader Justin sent us this link of a video from the grand opening of the new Microsoft retail store in Scottsdale, AZ.
I won’t go into the whole “completely copying the look of the Apple Stores”, the color coded shirts of employees, and the “high fives” of the first customers that we’ve seen in hundreds of Apple Store openings over the years. But what I would like to draw your attention to is just how sad and confused the people seem to be once they actually get into the store. All the fake excitement and cheers from the employees gets them all worked up as they travel through a corridor of Star Trek extras until they are greeted by…. Three very elderly, unhip, suit wearing Microsoft corporate types. They then look around with vaguely puzzled “so… now what?” expressions as they realize there isn’t all that much to see or do in a store that basically sells corporate software. Although I guesss you could peruse the healthy selection of Zune cases…
[via When Will Apple?]
67% of Mac users would like to try Windows 7 (sort of)
Proving that statistics can be manipulated to present pretty much ANY picture you’d like, a recent study from Retrevo, a consumer electronics shopping site, found that 67% of Mac users would be very interested in installing Windows 7 on their Macs. Sort of.
On a lark, the study asked respondents whose primary computer was a Mac … if Microsoft (hypothetically) provided a free copy to Mac OS users would they install and try Windows 7, we were amazed to see 67% say they would. Installing an OS is a non-trivial, time consuming process, and yet there is lot of interest among Mac users. Maybe Microsoft’s Marketing department should be thinking hard about such an offer!
The slightly more realistic response from Mac users appeared when asked if they would ever consider switching from the Mac OS to Windows 7 if they actually had to PAY for it.
The resounding response was a big “no way,” with over 97% saying “no!”
I’m not really sure why Retrevo would be shocked to find people would say “yes” to receiving a free piece of software valued at $300. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in running this site, it’s that people are cheap bastards, and they love free stuff (which reminds me, I really should give something away again soon…). Quite frankly if Retrevo asked me if I wanted a free $300 Corby 7700 Pants Press I would say “Hell yes!”
Above: That’s a nice looking pants press…
In fact, while the study is meant to show high demand and anticipation for Windows 7 across users of all platforms, I kind of think the response from Windows users is somewhat lukewarm.
A very large percentage, over 60%, of the respondents indicated they were considering an upgrade to Windows 7.
Ok, sounds good…
Almost 12% said they would upgrade right away, while another 48% said they were going to wait and see what reviewers and other users had to say before they make the final decision.
See, to me that graph would be somewhat scary if I were Microsoft. Given the bad publicity Windows Vista has earned over the years, I’m surprised that more people aren’t looking to upgrade immediately, no matter what. Since most Windows users are running Windows XP or OLDER right now, I would think the knowledge that they are running an operating system that is 5-10 years old would be enough to make them think now might be a good time to upgrade. I mean, 18% of Mac users have already upgraded to Mac OS X Snow Leopard, and it more or less has no new features over Leopard (which unlike Vista was a highly-regarded operating system with no major issues) and it only can be installed on the newest Mac hardware. Granted it cost about 1/4th to 1/9th what Windows 7 will cost, but it is still somewhat shocking that Windows 7 is not a no-brainer upgrade at this point.
But then of course, I am an Apple fanboy, manipulating the numbers as I see fit.
Let’s all send a MMS video at 5PM Friday and see what happens
Filed under: Apple Fanboyism, Awesomeness, Cynicism, iPhone
DSL REPORTS is claiming AT&T is more than a little bit nervous about Friday’s US MMS rollout for the iPhone. According to the site:
“AT&T and its MMS partners are already seeing “record traffic during peak hours of the night” with just the users selected for testing.
That early testing has been a little rocky, with AT&T seeing a fairly significant test outage yesterday that has them rushing to beef up their MMSC messaging servers. Estimates among those working on the project are that traffic on AT&T’s wireless network will be about 40% higher all day on Friday as iPhone users fire pictures and video at one another.”
Well, I for one would like to see AT&T add about 4000% more servers. Maybe then they would have the infrastructure in place to allow them to UN-cripple Slingbox for the iPhone and let the bandwidth flow.
Of course, in order to get AT&T to really beef up its pipelines, it would need some sort of catastrophic PR event to embarrass it into action. So here’s hoping all you wacky kids who actually leave your houses on Friday night decide to drunkenly send each other a ton of lame videos of your cats and such. I would do it myself, but I have no friends, and will be spending this Friday night as I do EVERY Friday night – eating a barrel of UTZ cheeseballs, alone, in the dark, crying.
AT&T sends out confirmation text messages – MMS really IS coming September 25th
Of course they didn’t send one to ME… I assume mine will come NEXT September. But for the rest of you, it looks like AT&T really WILL be delivering MMS September 25th, even if it IS a couple days after their summer deadline.
Faithful Macenstein reader Phil from Pittsburgh, PA got this text message earlier this evening. I’m not sure if it has anything to do with Phil having jailbroken his iPhone or not, so let me know if any of you receive similar messages. Writes Phil:
“yea i just recently re-jailbroke mine after doing a clean upgrade to 3.0 for the sole purpose of having the HUD sbsettings app, works great for killing off the iPod and safari processes that seem to linger in the background and slow everything down. As for mms I don’t have an icon or anything to send one but am for some reason the only one to get the text, I did a carrier file upgrade at some point to get tethering(which does work and didn’t show on my bill) but that is all. Here’s to hoping it’s true!!”
Oddly, I have gotten so used to sending e-mails from my iPhone over the past two years, I really don’t know how much I care about MMS. Only my lame friend Sean (and 11-year old girls) still have a RAZR or something that can’t handle e-mail attachments, and since I never write to either, this probably won’t affect my life all that much. But at least it’s one more thing we can cross off the “iPhone user’s bitch list”.
Contest
Advertisement
Product Reviews
Our Finest Moments
Where are they now? Interview with Switcher Girl Ellen Feiss Review: The iCar by Corgi - Possibly the worst iPod accessory EVER Apple blames iPod nano screen defects on obese Americans/tight pants Using Safari can slow your system down as much as 76% vs FirefoxDonate Now
iPhone Feature Request
