Apple and Macs: New products, iMacs, iWork, iLife

[Danimal]

No, all the apps I use are there. I just don't have to "kill" any apps for the sake of my battery. Both my iPad & iPhone have great battery life esp when 'locked'. The iPad is esp impressive IMO.

We'll agree to disagree, pre OS4 my batter life was much better on both devices, especially my iPad.

[sportdan30]

No, all the apps I use are there. I just don't have to "kill" any apps for the sake of my battery. Both my iPad & iPhone have great battery life esp when 'locked'. The iPad is esp impressive IMO.

We'll agree to disagree, pre OS4 my batter life was much better on both devices, especially my iPad.

Completely agree about the battery life on my iPad. It's definitely depletes faster now than previously.

[JRod]

The Daily released today. And I haven't had a chance to take it for a spin. I don't trust anything Murdoch puts out because it's mostly spin because he knows that news sells if you sell a specific type of news (WSJ, Fox, TheSun etc.) For the record, my news reading mostly contains the big newspapers, BBC, CS-Monitor and things like that.

However, I think what it does is undercuts the $5 per issue pricing we were seeing. That was stupid. It's .99 per week. I would pay for more newspapers if this was the pricing and if there were on the iPad.

Anyway, I think the first salvo in the news-media-ipad war has been fired. To bad we had to wait for Murdoch.

I guess we'll see how the content holds up over the coming weeks.

[Rodster]

Anyway, I think the first salvo in the news-media-ipad war has been fired. To bad we had to wait for Murdoch.

That has fail written all over it. No one will pay for something on the net they can legally get for free. There's still Drudge who links tons of stuff for free and besides the major news outlets there are many outlets who provide their service for free.

Yahoo and Google news are two good choices that are offered for free.

[JRod]

Anyway, I think the first salvo in the news-media-ipad war has been fired. To bad we had to wait for Murdoch.

That has fail written all over it. No one will pay for something on the net they can legally get for free. There's still Drudge who links tons of stuff for free and besides the major news outlets there are many outlets who provide their service for free.

Yahoo and Google news are two good choices that are offered for free.

Seriously Drudge.

There is no presentation or news selection with Google or Yahoo sources.

The Daily may be a failure but you are missing the big picture. People want more than RSS readers and THEY ARE willing to pay. The problem is no one knows what content should be offered.

Second, Yahoo and Google don't write news they just link to it. (I forgot, Yahoo does have in-house writers.) And with the failing of a lot of news sources the suppliers of news are dwindling. The free-for-news model is not sustainable because of the costs of bureaus and journos. So unless, Google is starting a news division, these news orgs will evolve the model into something that can make money. It's close but they aren't there yet.

One other thing Yahoo and Google aren't really free. They follow the same model newspapers followed advertising. In the past newspapers, didn't really make money off subscriptions. That just covered the delivery costs.

[Rodster]

What part of Drudge LINKS did you miss?

Again he has tons of LINKS to news services that offer their news for free. I have no problem with Google or Yahoo News. They do a good job of reporting the news and it's free. I want news not presentation/entertainment. That's the problem with News journalism today. Many think news is Jon Stewart (Daily Show), Fox News, ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC etc etc is news, it's not. It's all entertainment with news thrown in.

The only time News channels get down to business and actually report the news is whenever there is a major catastrophe.

[Diablo25]

I downloaded THE DAILY about an hour ago (hey, its free for 2 weeks so why not) and it's actually has a pretty nice interface. I don't know if I'll pay a subscription for it but it's definitely something a little different. Two weeks should give me a good barometer on the APP. You can see what it's all about at the link below. There is a video showing it in action.
http://www.thedaily.com/

[toonarmy]

What part of Drudge LINKS did you miss?

Again he has tons of LINKS to news services that offer their news for free. I have no problem with Google or Yahoo News. They do a good job of reporting the news and it's free. I want news not presentation/entertainment. That's the problem with News journalism today. Many think news is Jon Stewart (Daily Show), Fox News, ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC etc etc is news, it's not. It's all entertainment with news thrown in.

The only time News channels get down to business and actually report the news is whenever there is a major catastrophe.

Agree that the major news outlets are a joke when it comes to actual news. Drudge is perfect for me because it links to major stories, side stories, and sometimes little things I would otherwise miss by going to only a few news sources. When I have time I read the Financial Times, BBC, and Democracy Now, but when I am on the go without much time I can go to Drudge and get a quick look at the news without missing any big stories.

[JRod]

What part of Drudge LINKS did you miss?

Again he has tons of LINKS to news services that offer their news for free. I have no problem with Google or Yahoo News. They do a good job of reporting the news and it's free. I want news not presentation/entertainment. That's the problem with News journalism today. Many think news is Jon Stewart (Daily Show), Fox News, ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC etc etc is news, it's not. It's all entertainment with news thrown in.

The only time News channels get down to business and actually report the news is whenever there is a major catastrophe.

News for free is not sustainable. And it's not really free. It's free to you but that's because either they are taking a loss or they are generating revenue through advertisements.

Drudge is slanted one way (even if you can't see it.) Drudge is yellow journalism and it's highly profitable but it's not really "news". When I say yellow journalism he doesn't pursue one side as fervently as the other. That's all I'm going to say about Drudge. And HuffPo is slanted too so I'm not saying it's equal.

The daily may fail but it's a game-changer because it will bottom out prices. I think we'll see NY Times, Wired, GQ follow a similar model (I list those because they have iPad Apps.). Wired isn't bad but if you pay for 3 digital versions you pay more than a years subscription for the print version. Customers know that doesn't make sense.

People will pay for content, if that content is good and they can't get similar news for free. But they will pay for that same news, if the delivery is better than the free version. What that is, I don't know. Plus we are going on year two of the iPad. Good digital content is on the way but I don't think it's going to come from the big media. I think start-ups will create content that consumers want and I think those ideas are being coded as we speak.

[Rodster]

JRod Drudge IS NOT slanted as it's all links to other news sites, sorry. Now the news sites it links to is a different matter. HuffPost, yes that's definitely slanted as they do their own news.

[Naples39]

I think there might be a market somewhere for paid news if it provides something free news does not, and that something can be interface or organization.

I have a subscription to The Week, which for those that don't know is a weekly magazine meant to be read in a hour that provides abbreviated stories summarized newsworthy events of the last week, and collections of noteworthy editorials...etc. I would glady pay to get that on the iPad for instance because it's providing a service a laundry list of semi-organized links on a free webpage cannot.

[JRod]

JRod Drudge IS NOT slanted as it's all links to other news sites, sorry. Now the news sites it links to is a different matter. HuffPost, yes that's definitely slanted as they do their own news.

Believe what you want. It's laughable people are so naive to Drudge. Media study sites have repeatedly shown Drudge's slant and in what it links. I used HuffPo to illustrate that an aggregator can have a slant.

[toonarmy]

JRod Drudge IS NOT slanted as it's all links to other news sites, sorry. Now the news sites it links to is a different matter. HuffPost, yes that's definitely slanted as they do their own news.

Believe what you want. It's laughable people are so naive to Drudge. Media study sites have repeatedly shown Drudge's slant and in what it links. I used HuffPo to illustrate that an aggregator can have a slant.

What media study sites say that? Are they slanted too? Seems to me Drudge just posts links to relevant news stories. His links go to stories that are negative for both parties.

[Rodster]

JRod Drudge IS NOT slanted as it's all links to other news sites, sorry. Now the news sites it links to is a different matter. HuffPost, yes that's definitely slanted as they do their own news.

Believe what you want. It's laughable people are so naive to Drudge. Media study sites have repeatedly shown Drudge's slant and in what it links. I used HuffPo to illustrate that an aggregator can have a slant.

What media study sites say that? Are they slanted too? Seems to me Drudge just posts links to relevant news stories. His links go to stories that are negative for both parties.

It probably those media sites who are jealous that his site last year had like 9.3 billion hits to the Drudge Report.

[JRod]

Downloaded the daily. EH. Can't say it does anything more than other free apps. So it has twitter and video built in. Wired had video. The Twitter integration is jumbled as it just pulls up similar tweets. When reading an Egypt story I saw tweets not even close to relevant.

To be honest it feels like old media is trying to use the same tactics that worked in print for the iPad. They almost need to forgot everything and start over. I think the daily will work initially because the price is attractive. But like I said, the content isn't far enough away from what you get for free. Nor is it presented in a way that makes you impressed.

[dbdynsty25]

Well anyone who tells you "get a mac, you won't have any problems like you do on a PC" is full of it. Last night, after using my aluminum Macbook for a good 2 plus years...the thing freezes. I can't get it to boot back into OSX if my life depended on it. I tried everything (safe mode, verbose mode, fix disks)...even restoring my time machine backup...nothing worked. Somehow I got some virus or something embedded in the kernal of the OS and it wouldn't let me do ANYTHING to fix it. Oh and all the while, I coud easily boot into my Windows XP partition, lol. I literally had to zero out the hard drive (format for you PC only users) and reinstall the whole OS over again.

Sure, it could have been a fluke, but the partition should not have a catastrophic failure for no reason. Whether it was virus related or not, the OS shouldn't just crash like that. So yeah...it's working again, but it took me a good 5 hours last night to get it functional again. Oh and last weekend I reinstalled my Windows 7 machine and it took me all of 30 min. It's much less painful to redo a windows machine...I know that is a fact.

P.S. Still think my MacBook is the best laptop I've ever purchased...to be clear...but they definitely aren't immune to OS issues as well.

[Murph]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 68876.html

Apple has started manufacturing a new version of its iPad tablet computer with a built-in camera and faster processor. WSJ's Yukari Kane joins Stacey Delo to discuss.

The new iPad will be thinner and lighter than the first model, these people said. It will have at least one camera on the front of the device for features like video-conferencing, but the resolution of the display will be similar to the first iPad, these people said. It will also have more memory and a more powerful graphics processor, they said.

The new iPad will initially be available through Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc., but not Sprint Nextel Corp. or T-Mobile USA in the U.S., according to some of the people familiar with the matter.

[wco81]

You might look at reformatting the entire disk, not just the partition. But if you still have the bootable DVD, you can boot to it and run Disk Utility to verify the disk, repair and check other diagnostics. I once had a bad DIMM that was corrupting the files on disk and took like 10 minutes to boot and would keep rebooting. Finally ran the diagnostic and figured out it was bad RAM, not a hard disk problem.

Or it could have been a corrupted installation. You should be able to restore the Time Machine backup AFTER doing a clean OS install. When it's going through the setup, you should get an opportunity to restore the settings and stuff you had in the Applications folder through a TM backup.

[dbdynsty25]

You might look at reformatting the entire disk, not just the partition. But if you still have the bootable DVD, you can boot to it and run Disk Utility to verify the disk, repair and check other diagnostics. I once had a bad DIMM that was corrupting the files on disk and took like 10 minutes to boot and would keep rebooting. Finally ran the diagnostic and figured out it was bad RAM, not a hard disk problem.

Or it could have been a corrupted installation. You should be able to restore the Time Machine backup AFTER doing a clean OS install. When it's going through the setup, you should get an opportunity to restore the settings and stuff you had in the Applications folder through a TM backup.

Yeah, I didn't want to chance it. It obviously wasn't a corrupt installation because I used the thing for over 2 years in that state. It just crashed yesterday for some reason. I didn't have much on the laptop really, everything is on my main PC that's constantly backed up, so I'd rather just have a clean install completely. So far so good.

In the back of my mind, I was hoping it was just a hard drive failure. Then I could use it as an excuse to buy the 250gb SSD I've been drooling over. But can't see spending 500 bucks when the hard drive I've got works fine (for now).

[Rodster]

Too bad MS couldn't do a commercial on a Mac with a crashed OS.

[wco81]

If it was a virus that crashed it, it would affect other people and you'd be hearing a lot about it.


HP has tried to copy the MacBook Pro unibody design with their Envy series of laptops, which are cheaper. Those may be worth checking out, especially for something like Blu-Ray which you can't get on a Mac.

Otherwise, HP also showed new webOS tablet and phones today. Probably the last chance for webOS. Looks slick but it's going to come down to getting app. support. No pricing info yet and releases in the summer.

[fanatic]

Hey guys,

I'm looking to replace our current laptop (entry level Dell) with an iMac, to act as the main "hub" for pictures, home video, etc...

When do you think new a new iMac will be released? And more importantly, will it really be worth waiting for considering we aren't heavy users? The only thing I can think of that would make me regret a purchase of a current iMac, is if they were to add a Blu Ray player - is this a possibility?

Any input would be great.

[EZSnappin]

New iMacs should be out soon, so unless it's a pressing need I'd wait a bit. The new laptops were announced today, there is an ipad event next week, and I'd expect the iMac announcement sometime shortly after.

Rumors are better chips, different sizes and a lower price point entry-level model. Based on the today's laptops, expect a better camera as well.

I doubt that a blu-ray will be standard; they see Sony as competition and don't want to give them money.

[fanatic]

New iMacs should be out soon, so unless it's a pressing need I'd wait a bit. The new laptops were announced today, there is an ipad event next week, and I'd expect the iMac announcement sometime shortly after.

Rumors are better chips, different sizes and a lower price point entry-level model. Based on the today's laptops, expect a better camera as well.

I doubt that a blu-ray will be standard; they see Sony as competition and don't want to give them money.

Yeah, I figured as much about Blu Ray...would be nice though.

You're right that I should probably try to hold out. My Dell is definitely on its last legs (haven't had to use duct tape quite yet) so it ain't gonna be easy!

[EZSnappin]

If you buy one now it'll still be a good computer that'll meet your needs with no problems, but, based on history, the new ones are tantalizingly close.

I'd love if they even made the imacs play nice with external blu-ray players. Just not a priority in Cupertino.