International Mac Podcast » Chris Wall

Happy New Year!

Chris Wall — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 21:30:05 +0000

It’s 2010! Can you ruddy believe it!?

From everyone here at the International Mac Podcast, we want to wish all our amazing readers, listeners and now viewers (thanks to Keaton) the best year and let’s hope for you it is a fantastic year.

Thank you so much for making 2009 great for us and we have so much more to come in 2010 as we grow more and more.

On Twelth Day of Christmas iTunes Gave to Me…..

Chris Wall — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 00:52:43 +0000

If you wish to skip to the end of the ‘song’ the information will be available after the break.

On this day of Christmas O2 sent to me,
A text with an offer that’s free.

On this day of Christmas iTunes sent to me,
A gift of a song for my tree.

On this day of Christmas you may be asking me,
How too can I join the Glee.

On this day of Christmas I will let you know,
You first have to be quick and not slow.

On this day of Christmas there’s an offer for you,
Where to find it? Here’s a clue.

On this day of Christmas I send you the link
And regret the rhyme which truly does stink.

Although a cryptic message mainly due to my inability to think past sleep at one in the morning, I received a text from O2 giving me a link to this website which seems to me (although I could be wrong.)That they are giving a coupon for one free song a day for 12 days starting from 26th Of December.

This link only applies to the UK store and may yet be only for songs that Apple choose themselves but sign up now to avoid disappointment.

Oh, and apologise for ruining a beloved tune.

IMP LIVE IN NEW YORK!

Chris Wall — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 16:58:24 +0000

Today at 3:00-6:00 (EST) in the heart of Manhattan there will be the first IMP event in the states and hopefully not the last. The event is taking place at B&H Photo and in attendance will be Stu amongst others from the NY area so if you are free and want an awesome time go to:

420 9th Ave, New York, NY 10001.

Check out all the details by clicking here.

If you can make it please go along it would really mean a lot to us for you to go along and support the guys and hopefully we will see you there!

Happy New Year

Chris Wall — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 01:21:44 +0000

It’s just turned 2009 and from everyone here at the International Mac Podcast we want to wish all our amazing readers the best year and let’s hope for you and Apple it is one of the best ever despite others claiming otherwise.

Thank you so much for making 2008 great for us and we have so much more to come in 2009 as we grow more and more.

O2′s Burning O2′s Buring, Fetch The iPhones Fetch The iPhones

Chris Wall — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 19:58:31 +0000

Everything went wrong for O2 today. With the iPhone 3G launch being the biggest day in the little phone companies life, well almost, and for most customers everything went wrong. Claiming unprecedented amount of customers wishing to purchase an iPhone, most Carphone Warehouse and most O2 Stores had limited supply of iPhones with some Carphone warehouse stores stocking one lonely 16GB model.

The O2 stores had more than their partner in crime but still not sufficient supply for those in demand. I was in a Y10 business studies lesson the other day and we talked about supply and demand, “The More Demand, The More Supply You Need”. Is that such a difficult thing to master I mean really?

If you are going to be selling a phone with over 250,000 people registering an interest in the new device then why not provide as many phones as needed to the stores spread across the land. Admittedly some stores would sell out still but you wouldn’t be having the laborious process of having people trundle to your store to be thrown out and loathing your company. Apple, when you first released the iPhone in America how many of the 4GB versions did you sell? Not many? Why is that? Did you not learn a lesson from that? Clearly not.

The iPhone 3G was a disaster launch in many parts of the country. At my personal store we were not allowed to upgrade due to an evacuation at the upgrade call centre in Glasgow. This centre was a special upgrade centre for current O2 customers as apposed to those signing up with a new contract as this is a different ball game. This wouldn’t been as much as a problem if the O2 servers were up to the job of keeping up with the demand online.

As I am writing this iTunes is still telling me that 1.1.4 is the current iPhone release update. I am not happy.

I am iReady to kick some ass!

Viva La Moneybags

Chris Wall — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:39:35 +0000

Coldplay the Number 1 Fathers day present of the UK this past week has also been a popular hit in the US. The band at the current pinciale of the UK Top 40 with their single Viva La Vida and their album Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends both number 1.

The band has also overtaken Jack Johnson on the iTunes music highway with a suspected 275,000 digital copies being loaded onto peoples iPods across the atlantic. It holds the number 1 spot on both sides of the pond which is a testament to the power of the iTunes ad. If you haven’t seen it click to read on and find out more about it.

This was the sole marketing drive for the album and with the stunning visual effects it has created quite a buzz and just shows that Apple can be a good leader for bands to sign up with to help promote them. I’m sure that Chris Martin and co are a very happy bunch of blokes right now.

The wonderful iTunes of Oz

Chris Wall — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:45:26 +0000

Australians can guess what iTunes has in store for them despite Rolf trying to convince them otherwise. The store has become the latest in the iTunes worldwide TV take over to have some of the countries hottest television networks listing their shows in the store.

Some of the shows include Aussie fave’s like Sleek Geek and We Can Be Heroes. They also have shows exported from the US over to our friends in the land where the toilet flushes the opposite way ( I won’t say backwards to be PC ).

If you are in Oz hop (kangaroos geddit!? ) (Sorry) onto iTunes and stock up on some iPhone loving shows to sync with the device when it hits the stores in the first weeks of July.

Kid Rock : Boy Cott

Chris Wall — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:11:15 +0000

Kid Rock has spoke to the BBC over the iTunes store, and publicly letting the world know why he won’t sell his music in the largest music store in the US. After hearing the success of iTunes hitting the big 5 billion, It’s hard to comprehend why a musician might not want to be in the store.

Despite not being on the online music shop, his album made it to number one in the US last year. His reasoning for not selling his music through the service is based on claims that iTunes is stuck on a model in which the artists do not get paid and Apple and the labels do.

Don’t think he’s all bad. Kid Rock famously stood up to the record labels when they asked him to fight against music theft and responded with the fact that they had been stealing from artists forever and they now wanted to stand up for them. Kid Rock was turning into a man. Some of the albums from his repertoire are on the iTunes store in various forms but he is one of only a few major bands including The Beatles and AC/DC who aren’t on the store.

Are these bands going to survive without being on iTunes or will they make it their own way. What do you think?

5 Billion, It’s a Magic Number

Chris Wall — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 23:26:16 +0000

iTunes has surpassed itself in music sales with its 5 billionth song sold in the iTunes digital music store.

5 billionth song! If there are roughly 100 million iPods that 5,000,000,000 divided by 100,000,000 that is roughly 50 songs per iPod downloaded in the history of the iTunes library. The colossal number of songs was reached with the iTunes store serving up 8 million songs to your music plater for you to enjoy.

Also on the menu are 20,000 TV episodes, 2,000 movies (350 of which in the chef’s special high-definition sauce). Apple has shifted 50,000 of their movies per day in either rented or purchased form. These statistics are based on the US alone but in other countries I’m sure that “La Cordon iTunes” is dominating the online music market in a very similar way.

Youtube : 30 Years Of Apple

Chris Wall — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 21:43:48 +0000

The news train is stopping for fuel after the long awaited WWDC keynote. Nothing in the way of news seems to have happened so instead of leaving you on the dimly lit platform waiting for the next bandwagon to jump on, I thought I would provide you with this awesome YouTube fodder that is of Apple’s iconic design over the past 30 years.

Once Black You Never Go Back!?

Chris Wall — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 21:36:36 +0000

Why does everyone seem to hate the 16GB white version of the iPhone 3G?

I think that Johnny Ive and his team that he whips into photoshop mode as he stands by Steve Jobs’ side riding swiftly through the design department of the Apple campus on a glorious Apple branded chariot driven by beautiful white stallions (ok so maybe a little bit of poetic license there) do a fantastic job of making products that, if legal, I know some people would marry for their beauty.

The latest installment to the Apple design family is the iPhone 3G. Much similar to the iPhone 1.0, the iPhone 3G has one distinct difference. The back. On the 1.0 model the iPhone had a mostly metal back with a small black plastic bit towards the bottom.

This will probably look familiar to you all but what about the latest 3G iPhone design. The latest iPhone design has 2 different backs. Although the front is almost indistinguishable from the old iPhone the back looks quite different.

The 8GB iPhone 3G comes in a lovely dark-night black, with a White Apple shaped moon rising to a focal position at the top in the center that makes the phone seem dark and mysterious. Admittedly very gorgeous. For some reason the following has riddled me flabbergasted since I discovered it, this is the only one that everyone I have spoken to has really thought they wish to purchase.

What is wrong with the gleaming Aqua-fresh white iPhone? To be honest I really like the design. I also like the black iPhone design but to me it seems too plain. It doesn’t make you want to look at it and noticed it just seems regular. This is most likely a good thing in my neighborhood as I won’t be raided for my phone by some chavs who want to sell it on to the local cost cutters for £100 so they can feed their microwave pot noodle habit but I digress.

To me the white iPhone signifies that you are someone who wants to be different: stand out from the crowd make an impact. The tube may be packed to the rim with business men yelling at Helen, the secretary, about how the Q1 profits of the last four decades are not matching with this years and they will all be on their black plain iPhones and then there will be the person, who is different, and will stand out who skillfully whips out his/her white iPhone from its holster and be the one who is noticed.

Let your voice ring true in the comments below and tell me, What is so wrong with the white iPhone? Is it once you go black you never go back? Or is it that someone recently flung a kebab needle into the eye of the designer at the company BBQ at Apple thus resulting in the white version? Are you one of the silent majority who actually like the white iPhone let me know.

Steve Seems Sick :-(

Chris Wall — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 13:06:59 +0000

Lately there have been words going around about Steve Job’s health after his appearance on the Moscone stage as he pulled back the curtains on the iPhone 3G. People have been speculating and rumors have been flying around about his health.

In 2004 Steve Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer but has been healthy after the surgery. People have exchanged words and the speculation is either his cancer has come back or he is suffering from a common bug and the statement from Apple officially says that thankfully it is the latter.

This is probably reliable as if his cancer has in fact returned, Apple would be in trouble for not disclosing it too the board and stockholders. In 2004 awareness of his cancer was not raised until after the surgery, this was a risky move but no legal grounds say you have to make a statement but a statement being made which is a direct lie can be a treacherous path to venture.

Mainly I don’t think that at the moment we need to worry and if worst comes to worst Apple will have a successor to Steve Jobs. Analysts and punters say that Steve Jobs is Apple, and we know that he lives and breaths iAir and has iDreams in his iSleep. He comes up with amazing products and is of course an omnipotent CEO and has perpetual ideas but doesn’t mean his successor will be a failure.

Apple have a great team behind them and they will still come out with great products. Hopefully Steve is feeling healthy and well and whatever his health Status is we all here at IMP wish him all the best and hopefully we will not be seeing this anytime soon…

Shock Horror! 3G iPhone!

Chris Wall — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:58:07 +0000

The iPhone is held in some households as a god on a dock of solid gold. Or so I have heard. Now their is a new JesusPhone and it is much improved.

Steve Jobs on stage at the WWDC 2008 stage and all ears were tuned to the iPhone frequency. People lay outside bearing arms if Steve let them down but fortunately he did not.

Mr Jobs first celebrated the iPhone EDGE’s birthday. As a loving parent does he boasted about what his baby had accomplished in his first year. 90% customer satisfaction with 98% of people satisfied with the iPhone web browsing.

So far 6 million iPhones have been sold. Apple say they know what it is that people want but do they…..

His holly appleness proceeded along to list some of the things that iPhone luva’s have wanted for a long time, including.

3G!
Enterprise Features
Third Party Applications
More Countries
More Affordable

Apple has addressed the 3rd party applications and also the enterprise features in the software part of the presentation and for more information on that see this post.But what about the other things on that list. Well Steve satisfied the cravings of geeks around the world and today they are today announcing the iPhone 3G.

Mostly it is the same hardware. They have the same screen, camera and basic look to the front but the back is slightly different. It is just like the curved plastic backs we have seen previously. It also has, which makes me happier than Mr Brightside, a flushed headphone jack so that all standard headphones will work with it without any adaptors. It does seem like they have learnt from their mistakes.

3G will of course provide better download speeds. Comparing 2 sites the Jobsinator says that it takes 59 seconds on edge and 21 seconds on 3G. Approaching the “zippy” 17 seconds of WiFi. They have also done great things with the battery in this model. Having 300 hours of standby time and 10 hours of 2G talk time, suggesting that their will be an option to turn off the 3G data downloads. This was the main concern with the iPhone being 3G and if Apple are correct with their data then we should be ok.

Also a big feature that people have been crying out for is GPS and Apple have included this and they the iPhone is taking a big step towards being about location aware applications. There were demos of applications that depended on people being able to see where they are. Apple sell the phone in only 6 countries currently and they set themselves the target of 12 for the iPhone 3G and at a stretch 25.

They ended up at 70. It’s an iPhone world after all.

The next step they wanted to tackle was pricing. Now we are not going to go into the pricing too much here look for a post later when we have more details of the prices in different countries. The iPhone 8GB will be $199 and that will be the highest price the world over for that device and we mean with conversion rates as well. The 16GB will be $299 and that will have an optional white version. It will have, as far as we can tell, worldwide rollout on July 11th so add the date to your upcoming.org.

Today was a day of many tissues some of tears of joy, some of sorrow for the loss of a further $199 from peoples pockets and the other tissues were for the people who got really exited by the new device. Safe to say, the Jobtopian company has done it again.

MobileMe : Anywhere You Go.

Chris Wall — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:36:23 +0000

MobileMe

You may or may not have heard of this service called .Mac and as the rumours predicted it has been renamed, rebranded and slightly changed. Basically it is an upgrade to .Mac with a lot of exchange features built into it. Phil Schiller donned the hosting duties for this bit begining straight off the bat with saying it is “Exchange For The Rest Of Us”.

It will work like exchange does, pushing (said more than any other word in this keynote) and pulling data from the server to your mac PC or iPhone. Works with all the ones you expect mail iCal address book and outlook.

Making it really simple to have everything around you up to date and keeping it so that everyone is fresh and dandy knowing that they will never miss an appointment again. Sounds bliss. If you head over to me.com then you will find a suite of web 2.0 applications that are like desktop pieces of software for your mail, calendar, contacts and photos. Photos even the skimming feature works so you can have an iPhoto away from iPhoto on any interweb embracing computer.

Mobile me is the new .mac and will replace it. Current users will still get all their .mac goodness like the .mac e-mail address but you will also get a .me e-mail also.

It will cost $99 US to pay for the MobileMe package on a yearly basis. For this you get an even grater 20GB of storage. If you already cherish .mac don’t panic all information on what will happen to your account can be found here.

iPhone Software 2.0 : Revisited

Chris Wall — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 23:49:02 +0000

iPhone 2.0…..Software

His holly Steveness first said he would talk about the iPhone 2.0 Software. Now we had heard a lot about the SDK from previous events such as the iPhone software roadmap. We all know that Apple are trying to push enterprise on the iPhone and also trying to make it a better experience for developers by, well, letting them develop for the thing!

Steve started by trying to push the iPhone onto new users with its (wait for it) PUSH capabilities (so sue me) push email, calendars, contacts are all prominent in the iPhone 2.0 exchange support.

Steve then handed over to one of his minions, or iPhone man Scott Forstall, to talk more about the iPhone SDK. When I say more he basically recapped everything that was talked about at the iPhone Roadmap event.

Some of the games that were previously demoed were again such as Super Monkey Ball which now has 100 levels. All the apps looked amazing and their will be plenty to choose from at around $9.99 US price.

The next main thing that Scott went to talk about is IM. The reason why applications aren’t allowed to run in the background is mainly for battery life and cycle use. So the iPod and Mail apps of course don’t take up either of these?

Apple’s solution anyway, is to use a service similar to texting. Apple will use a persistent IP connection with the phone and it will then have the ability to ping the server and download any badges, text, sounds and all the other fun novelties that an instant messaging service provides. The best bit is that all developers have access to this feature so we might not just see it in IM clients.

Steve took over the reins again and discussed iWork and Office support integrated in a fuller environment on the iPhone. You can also bulk delete e-mail and save photos from e-mails to the phone. Moving to clean up about the iPhone 2.0 Software, Steve spoke about the AppStore. As this is an International Mac Blog then I feel I should point out that the AppStore will be available in 62 countries and you can download applications through iTunes and WiFi and if under 10 megabytes then you can download over the cell towers.

The final way people can get the iPhone apps is if an enterprise wants to create a new app just for that company they can use iTunes to distribute it over their intranet. iTunes for business. Who would have thought of it.

That finished up the iPhone software powwow due out early July.

WWDC 2008 Roundup.

Chris Wall — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 23:40:51 +0000

Thousands of people were gathered to ogle at the leader of the fanboys Steve Jobs as every syllable that left his and his teams lips was noted down by around 5200 attendees.

Speculation almost left this conference dry with so many rumors flying out of control and the numerous spy photos but even if apple basically confirmed it themselves before hand then there would still be speculation.

There will be more detailed posts to follow but for now this is the quick rundown of what the head hancho and Apple Inc announced today.

iPhone 2.0 firmware

Launching early July
Download Applications over Wifi,iTunes or cell service depending on size of file.
Games will be launched with the release with most titles at $9.99
AppStore to be available in 62 countries.
Full iWork and Office support, now able to open powerpoint and keynote.
Contact Search, Scientific Calculator, Parent Controls and increased language support

MobileMe

Replacing .Mac with me.com
“Exchange for the rest of us”
Push e-mail, contacts, calendar and the rest of that fun stuff.
Web 2.0 application to use all of these features. Very good user interface.
All current .Mac users will be upgraded early July.
$99 US a year no other countries price point confirmed.
20GB of storage online

iPhone 3G!

3G Capable iPhone. 2.8 times faster than the current edge.
GPS-Built into the device.
5 Hours 3G talktime. Competition is 3 hours.
6 Hours 3G Browsing
No more recessed headphone jack!
Comes with White or Black backs.
$199 US for 8GB model and $299 US for 16GB model
Available July 11th

OS 10.6 : Snow Leopard

No new end-user features to speak of
Enhancing Stability and laying groundwork for bigger things.
Grand Central lets developers build for multi-core macs.
Quicktime X adds support for more codecs
Safari has its own Javascript Engine enhance efficiency by 53%
Software to support 16TB of RAM. You have to be prepared for the future.
Out of the box exchange support
Aims to ship in about a year

In effect these are the major announcements and their will be more detailed posts to follow tomorrow as we discover more. Hopefully you found this useful sound off in the comments below and tell us what you think.

Be prepared to find individual posts covering thoughts on the WWDC announcements tomorow and be sure to join us at Talkshoe at 4:15 EST and discuss your thoughts live on air with us.