VIdeo game console manufacturers, set-top box makers, and even television manufacturers are all clawing to get their hands on a partnership with Netflix or Blockbuster Online so buyers can do what they obviously want to do; stream audio and video straight to their HDTVs.

The rationale is simple – streaming Netflix and Blockbuster Online over broadband to the home has become a huge part of both companies’ business models, and clearly video on demand is the future of rented movies and material. Even Netflix’s CEO said that they expect their physical disc-mailing business to decline over the next several years as their streaming business soars.

So clearly the general public is happier with paying for temporary access to video content, whether they pay Netflix or Blockbuster Online to send them DVD or Blu-Ray discs straight to their homes, where they watch them and then return them in a mailer or they get the content streamed directly to their XBox 360 or their Boxee Box or their HTPC. We’re all comfortable with the concept that we pay a monthly fee to watch as many movies as we can stand or the mail can deliver to us, and when we’re finished watching or we send it back, the movie’s gone forever unless we want to watch it again. When we cancel our accounts with Netflix or Blockbuster Online, our access to that content is gone forever.

So, then, why isn’t the same for subscription music services? The Zune Marketplace, Rhapsody, Napster, all of those services operate using exactly the same business model, if not more generous than the video services’ are. The Zune Marketplace, for example, gives you a number of credits you can spend monthly to download and permanently own the songs you really like, instead of losing access to them if you ever terminate your account. Netflix doesn’t say every month “you’ve been such a great customer, why don’t you keep these movies from your queue, go ahead, take them,” but in order for a service like the Zune Marketplace to survive, they have to.

Why are we so okay with essentially leasing our movies from Netflix and Blockbuster Online, but we’re not okay with leasing our music from Zune Marketplace and Rhapsody in the exact same way? I have a couple of ideas, but it mostly has to do with history and perception – not functionality. Let’s dive in.

Continue reading Spinning Gears :: Why Are Rented Movies Okay but Rented Music Not?…

Yesterday was the day – the day that everyone has been waiting for for years, the day everyone just knew that Apple was going to unveil their entry into the tablet market. They didn’t dissapoint: Steve Jobs walked on stage an announced the Apple iPad, a 10-inch tablet that Apple claims is their “most advanced technology in an magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price.”

Watching the furor leading up to the event was remarkable – people have been crowing about the “upcoming Apple Tablet” for years, and even now searching Google images for “iPad” yields a number of the mockups and designs that have been posted on the Web for years while the rumbling built up to a fever pitch while fans and detractors alike started frothing at the opportunity to get their hands on or similarly detract senselessly any new product line that Apple introduced. They weren’t dissapointed either – watching the reaction from the people who simply expected far more than they ever should have (and subsequently blamed Apple for letting them down) and then watching the reaction from the people who otherwise hated Apple but warmed up to this particular product was an amazing thing to see.

You would have thought people were expecting Apple to unveil a cancer cure if you considered the hype beforehand, and it was natural that a lot of those people were let down. The typical Apple bashing began and the cracks at the name “iPad” are more than justified, but here’s the truth of the matter: the iPad is a solid product for what it is – a giant iPod Touch that stands as Apple’s first volley in to the tablet market.

There are tons of tablets out there – traditional laptops folded into single panel devices that are thick, generally bulky, and only applicable in certain situations (schools, doctors’ offices and hospitals, etc) that clearly consumers aren’t interested in. This trend of the “consumer tablet” has only recently surfaced, and considering what I saw at CES earlier this month, the market will be flooded with tablets of all shapes, sizes, and configurations by year’s end – not just the iPad.

The iPad looks like it could be an interesting netbook replacement: Apple made a point of showing off its media capabilities, a version of iWork that you’ll be able to load onto the iPad to do word processing and spreadsheet management, as well as gaming. Since the iPad is essentially a large iPod Touch (and let’s be clear about that – I don’t say that flippantly, it really is a large iPod Touch. If you love your iPod Touch, you’d love the iPad. If you hate the iPod Touch or iPhone for its limitations, you’ll find those same limitation in the iPad.) it’ll run a modified version of the iPhone OS, for which Apple released the SDK yesterday.

There’ll be tons of apps, no doubt, and tons of games, tons of eBooks, and I imagine that because of its color screen and interface that reading comics and documents on it will be fantastic. I see a lot of people comparing it instinctively to the Kindle or the Nook, which I think is a poor comparison: the iPad is a tablet, not an eReader, and the whole point of the consumer tablet market is that they’re more than just eReaders; they’re simply different classes of product, although all tablets will likely have some eBook reading functionality. One consumes the other, but they’re not the same. Speculation is flying about whether the iPad will put Amazon’s Kindle into its grave, and frankly, I highly doubt it. People who love e-ink displays will stick to the Kindle and the Nook, and people who don’t care about that can swing either way depending on what they really want in a product.

The price is right, with Wifi only models coming in at 16GB for $499, 32GB for $599, and 64GB for $699. Wifi and AT&T 3G will run you 16GB at $629, 32GB at $729, and 64GB at $829. Everyone was expecting a $1000 price point, and Apple beat that pretty well. The wifi version looks most attractive to me personally, but that’s because AT&T is horrible where I live, and I think most people’s experiences with the iPhone being tethered to AT&T may wave them off of the 3G models as well. (which also come with a 2 year contract, mind you, and even though Apple says they’ll be “unlocked,” the 3G radios will make them impossible to use with other GSM carriers like T-Mobile.)

That being said though, criticism of the iPad is more than justified. Since it’s a big iPod Touch (or iPhone, since you’ll be able to get it with AT&T 3G built in at a higher price point), you suffer all of the limitations that the iPhone OS has; meaning no multi-tasking, no background apps, no Flash support, and only apps that are supported by Apple’s walled-garden iTunes App Store.

The iPad also has no video out, no USB or expansion ports, no choice of carriers (it’s AT&T for 3G service or nothing), no camera, and no expandable memory or replaceable battery. The fine folks at PC Mag have an excellent roundup of things that are notably missing from the iPad.

The 30-pin dock connector we all know from our iPods and iPhones will be available though, and it’s likely the iPad isn’t designed to serve as a stand-alone device: it’s supposed to be at least somewhat tethered to a computer for updates, data syncs, and app installs. You’ll likely treat the iPad like an iPod Touch or an iPhone – you only hook it up to a computer as often as you need to based on the way you use it. A number of vendors have already come out with cases and peripherals for the iPad that use the 30-pin dock connector and the new iPhone SDK, although the product itself won’t ship for another 60 days at least.

In any event, the ridiculous furor over the iPad has finally started to dissipate, and the people who love Apple and hate Apple are settling back into their respective camps after another product announcement where they all tried to claim impartiality in their criticism or support. Even so, the iPad looks like it could be a strong product as long as the price stays right and the app support is there. There are some serious and notable weaknesses though, ones that Apple’s competitors in the tablet space are likely already scrambling to take full advantage of.

Regardless, hands-on impressions of the iPad confirm that it is what Apple is good at: a solid, attractive, easy-to-use, and powerful piece of consumer electronics. It will likely sell well, but if anything the most exciting thing about the iPad is that it sets the stage for even stronger products in the future. I’m more excited about what an iPad v2 or v3 could bring to the table than the iPad itself.

[ Apple :: iPad ]

The holidays are rapidly approaching, and if you haven’t started your holiday shopping, you might want to get busy – there are precious few shopping days left before Christmas, and even if you don’t celebrate it directly, the sales and stores are all acting like you do, so now’s the time to pick up some presents for the geek in your life, and to hopefully save a little money at the same time and get them something shiny that they’ll actually enjoy.

Now of course everyone is doing holiday gift guides, and a lot of them have a ton of expensive and superfluous junk on them that may end up on Craigslist or ebay by this time next year, so I put together a short list of five items that will thrill anyone when they see them in a pretty box tied up with a bow this holiday season, regardless of whether they’re a geek – but if they are a geek? Even better. Let’s dive in!

Continue reading Gears and Widgets 2009 Holiday Gift Guide!…

Building a Hackintosh is really no big deal, and there are tons of guides out there to help you do it if you want, you just run the risk of the thing not working the next time Apple releases a patch for Mac OS X. That being said, this particular Hackintosh is a killer.

Will Urbina decided that his old classic XBox wasn’t doing too much useful around the house these days, and it would make a good case for his Hackintosh – so what does he do? Picks up the required parts, then gets his hands dirty taking the Xbox apart and makeing it the perfect case for his new build. The whole thing is documented in the glorious video above, where you can watch step by step as Will goes through the motions of making his vision come to reality. It’s absolutely mindblowing – and not just in that “He fit a Mac in that Microsoft device!” way, either.

[ Engadget :: OS XBox Pro Casemod Build Video is Mesmerizing ]

I admit, Apple’s latest store in New York City certainly looks regal and amazing, what with being made of so much glass and concrete, but a “temple?” Well, they’re not my words, but reading Gizmodo’s entire quote, they may be appropriate:

I call it a temple because the architecture conveys a nearly religious aesthetic, a place to worship Apple, beyond any other Apple store you’ve ever been to. The top floor’s a vast open space, enclosed by spartan stone walls which support a massive glass ceiling. The rows of tables in the main room feel like pews.

I can’t tell you – and the pictures can’t show you – how utterly open and expansive the room feels. Apple says it has more demo units than any other store in the world. To give you an idea of the space, the walls are 45 feet tall, and could fit 11 Apple 5th Avenue Cubes inside. It’s the spareness that’s breathtaking. It’s cold. Not literally, but the stone walls, the glass, the sheer space rob it of any sense of warmth or feeling. The only sense of life in room is the products. It’s a temple to them, really.

The Cult of Mac blog picked up the story from Gizmodo, and I’m picking it up from them, mostly because it’s incredibly interesting and I like how Leander honed in on that specific set of words that I think show through in some of the photos that are up at the Cult of Mac post about it.

The store looks truly remarkable from the inside out – almost too remarkable to be a simple place of retail sales. Every design aspect echoes Apple’s commitment to form AND function – the stores operate well, function well, and perform well and in addition to all of that, they look amazing – newsworthy, even. I think that’s Apple’s design philosophy with its products as well – when design and function come into play, only the best will do. Even if it costs more.

[ Cult of Mac (via Gizmodo): Apple’s Latest Store on New York’s Upper West Side Is a “Temple” ]

I’ve been mulling over this column for a long long time, and it’s pretty difficult to write, but some recent developments have really thrust the topic forward. Let me give you the breakdown first: there’s a problem with Linux: it’s just not ready for prime time. As much as Ubuntu users will cry the opposite, and while admittedly they have the most robust and close to prime time version of Linux for the desktop available, it’s just not there yet – it’s not an OS that anyone would seriously install on a system for the average user. The fact is that virtually every distribution of Linux is still too bulky, too difficult to administer and manage, too quirky, and too poorly supported.

This isn’t news in and of itself; the Linux community has been struggling under its own weight for years now, with half of it complaining that if you can’t figure out how to manage and administer Linux distros on your own then you have no right using it (the elitists), and the other half begging and pleading with the rest of the community to build a version of Linux for the desktop that can actually get some traction with everyday people and some support from software developers other than ones who want to port Windows apps to it (the populists). This schism is at the heart of the problem, and it always has been.

But lately, there’s been a dramatic shift in the Linux landscape, and it hasn’t had to do with this schism – it’s been in the way that other companies have gotten behind customized distributions of Linux for selected platforms and really put their weight behind advancing them, each in their own specific way. The big news? They’re (almost) skipping entirely over desktop Linux in favor of mobile platforms.

Let’s dive into this a bit more behind the jump.

Continue reading Spinning Gears: The Linux “Problem,” and How Apple and Google Are Solving It…

Last week Apple made some new product announcements at an oddly-timed shutdown of the Apple store. The blogosphere and news outlets noticed early in the morning that the Apple Store had gone down for “updates,” and speculation ran rampant why the store was down as long as it was. There were no conferences, no special press events, just a vanishing store that was down for hours – Apple had something up its sleeve, but what?

When the store came back up, the flurry of news rushed out to show off the myriad of new products that Apple had unveiled, most of which were available immediately. Let’s take a look behind the jump:

Continue reading Apple Unveils New iMacs, Mac Mini, Macbook, Magic Mouse…

(photo courtesy of Mashable)

When I get married, I can’t say I’d want a cake like this one, but I’m geeky enough to appreciate it if it showed up at the reception!

Who made it? The geniuses at Charm City Cakes just north of me in Baltimore, of course, the same folks who are the stars of the Food Network series, Ace of Cakes! The crew there is famous for making cakes in the shape of just about everything, from a scale model of Serenity from the show Firefly to Hogwarts Castle from Harry Potter to punk rock cakes with zombies on them and whatnot – they’re killer cake designers. Can you tell I’m a fan of the show?

In any event, (and I hope I see it on the show at some point) the folks there were commissioned to design and bake an iPhone cake for Jerry Brito’s wedding last May, and here you see the glorious results. Of course the cake has amazing detail, and the apps on the home screen reflect parts of the newly wedded couple’s life together, from their proximity to Washington DC to their mutual love of rioja wines and cupcakes!

[ Mashable :: iPhone Wedding Cake is Nerdy Goodness ]

The video above is of a gorgeous hand-made iPod Dock that Murtaza Lakdawala out of wood. You can watch it in action, but the thing that really thrills me is that he puts his iPhone on it and can turn the crank to go from portrait mode to landscape mode whenever he wants, and the crank actually works!

Lakdawala allowed Cult of Mac to use his video and images, so I hope he doesn’t mind us doing the same. Head over to see more photos at the link below, or head over to his website to see tons more photos of the project and the results!

[ Cult of Mac :: A Lovely Automata iPhone Dock ]

The lovely folks at Gelaskins unveiled a number of new designs for their iPhone and iPod Touch cases, and our friends at The Cult of Mac has a gallery of some of their new ones. They’re all, as all of Gelaskins designs, gorgeous and all made by real artists and not just marketing folks looking to put something new and hip on the backs of their iPhones – it’s what makes Gelaskins so special.

Gelaskins also has a number of really stunning Macbook and Macbook Pro cases as well, and they all adhere directly to the surface of the device – when you’re ready for a new look, they’re easy to peel away as well. All you have to do is pull them off and they don’t leave residue. They may be a little pricey for some people’s budgets, but it’s more than worth it when it comes to having a laptop, music player, or phone that stands out from the rest.

Check out the new designs in a gallery (with apologies for having to click next a dozen times) at the link below.

[ Cult of Mac :: Gallery: Gelaskins’ Coolest New Designs ]