Tag: apple

Posted On

According to TechCrunch, YouTube uploads from mobile devices are up 400% since the launch of the iPhone 3GS:

Even without the iPhone, YouTube is seeing major growth across the entire mobile space — the site has seen uploads go up 1700% over the last six months. It’s not hard to guess why. Video-enabled smartphones are becoming increasingly popular, as are high speed data connections. YouTube also attributes part of the growth to a streamlined upload flow (note how easy it is to upload a video from your iPhone to the site), as well as its improved sharing capabilities (you can now syndicate your videos to services like Facebook and Twitter).

I wonder how AT&T’s network engineers are handling this kind of influx of data transport.

Posted On

Tapbots on the iPhone OS 3.0 adoption rate:

The data seems pretty clear. Prior to June 8th we have a fairly low adoption rate of ~3%. Starting on June 9 this jumps up to 6-8%, which can be directly tracked to the developer release at WWDC. Starting on June 17th we get a huge jump as all the non devs start upgrading. We’re currently running at an overall 75% upgrade rate which is pretty insane considering the number of devices and the fact that its only been 5 days.

The article is a great read both because this level of uptake in an upgrade release is phenomenal—even with the iPod touch, which is around 50% (and you have to pay $10 for it)—and because the statistics and data in the post are, well, really nerdy.

Apple deserves credit for making the upgrade process more or less an automatic thing. You sync the device, it checks for updated software, and shouts at you to upgrade. A couple of clicks and some time later, and you’re good to go. Lots of things should be so easy and decided for you.

Posted On

(Photo credit: My new netbook from flickr user yurukov.)

Posted On

I’ve recently been performing some research into so-called “social DRM” as it applies to digital files for my own knowledge bank. I’ve been very interested in the approaches to DRM shown by groups such as The Pragmatic Programmers and ebooks purchased from outlets like Lulu, where the name of the purchaser is automatically embedded within the purchased file in order to provide it with some measure of discouraging sharing/piracy.

iTunes has done this from the start, and even though they have dropped the traditional notion of DRM from their music files now, they still mark each and every file you download with the email address of the Apple ID used to purchase the song. It’s not used in any sort of enforcement application (that we know of to date), but knowing it’s there stops some people from posting the tracks publicly or sharing them with anyone who is not a close personal friend or relative (my conjecture).

In doing this research, I ran across a two year old blog post from Bill McCoy of Adobe. He has some words to say about the same, which is fascinating coming from the GM of their ePublishing department. His comments are in reaction to the Steve Jobs note from 2007 regarding music and DRM—something that ended up happening less than two years after the fact. I also ran into some more recent comments from McCoy, speaking to the establishment of a DRM standard that is cross-platform instead of complete advocacy for the removal of traditional DRM systems from ebook titles.

Let’s talk about why this isn’t feasible and how we can learn from the past.

Continue reading “Thoughts on Ebook DRM Standards”

Posted On

For some reason, in the past 24 hours or so, I’ve had more search hits on the term “confirmation@apple.com” or “confirmation@apple.com email” than I’ve seen for any search result that’s ever hit this site in the months I’ve been tracking.

Could one of the people hitting this site based on that search leave a comment and clue me in on why all these searches are hitting my site? What are you looking for? Was it triggered by anything—a blog post or news story or something?

In other news, my site is the number two search result for “confirmation@apple.com”…

Posted On

The iMacs are coming!

Apple cut the smallest display out of the product loop, redesigned the enclosure in aluminum and glass – which may be part of their new environmental initiatives, and added a glossy display, new keyboard and a few smaller features to the iMac lienup today. Looks nice. Notice one thing, though:

imackeyboard_3_20070807

The border around the display itself is now black. TV salesmanship 101 was that a black border around the display was always preferred by customers over a silver or white border, because the darker frame increases the perceived contrast and color definition of the display to the average eye. Many people will now say that the new display looks sharper or brighter, if only because there isn’t something light-colored hanging around the edge of the display.

The other thing that jumped out at me (and as part of the iLife demonstration as well) is that the redesign very deliberately looks a lot like the iPhone. Flat metal, black border, shiny Apple logo… if we get more changes like this, it will become only more apparent that we’re looking at a product family.

Posted On

John Siracusa’s annual WWDC bingo card for the year has been posted, and I’ve already got mine printed and ready to go while I keep up with the live feed at work on Monday.

In case you’re unfamiliar, this has become a tradition in the last few years with the Mac faithful. We dream about the wonderful things that are going to be announced either at WWDC or at Macworld, we get our hopes up to stratospheric levels (my big hope for Monday is a new iMac running Leopard), and then we sit over the keynote presentations like hawks, waiting for tidbits of news to make us excited.

I know of no other group in geek-dom that behaves quite like this.