Why do you have Fusion AND Parallels? I have Parallels, but I don’t use it right now. Since I’m not traveling anymore, I don’t have to have Windows on my Macbook Pro, so I took it off. After all, I can get to all of my computers now

I couldn’t get into using iWork. It seemed kind of quirky to me.

As to your comments about music subscriptions… I agree; people want to own their music. But they don’t want to own music that they don’t want. So subscriptions are perfect. You can load up your MP3 player with whatever you want, and then buy the actual songs that you want to keep.

What I think they should do is have a tiered service. Instead of x dollars for all-you-can-eat, why not have different prices for different amounts of MP3s. After all, everyone most likely has part of their players taken up by their purchased tracks, which reduces the amount they can consume from all-you-can-eat-type subscriptions.

In any case, I think this type of subscription is a great substitute for the radio. People will download and listen to just about anything if they’re not paying anything additional for it. And it also allows things like shared playlists. Imagine if your friend had a playlist, but you didn’t own most of those songs. You’d have to purchase them to listen to them. But with a subscription, people can post their playlists and anyone else can just download the playlist as well as the tracks on it without having to worry about whether they’ll like all of the songs or not, and without having to pay extra. It would be a great way to take music more into the realm of social networking.

-Mike

The only ones I know that are still operating counting the recently launched music subscription service by Microsoft for the Zune include:

1) Nokia Music Store (not yet in U.S.) is operating in international countries.
2) Zune
3) RealNetwork’s Rhapsody
4) Napster 2 Go

For music discovery I use radio (satellite radio, Internet radio or terrestrial radio broadcasts will do)

By the way I have read your updated article on Apple TV and commented on it (and I see you have replied to my comments there about BBC America joining the US iTunes Store to sell TV programming; and my thoughts about improvements in iTunes movie rentals and purchases)

I’ve heard Battlestar Galactica is a good show along with Lost but never really saw either of them. Didn’t start watching sci-fi TV dramas until Kyle XY. Yeah again TV rentals would also be great but your right they would individually have to be even cheaper than the $1.99 episodes cost for purchase and download.

NBC does suck for quitting iTunes and I now hear they are joining the Zune Marketplace which is beginning to sell TV programming as downloads. I used to buy NBC programming from iTunes and am not buying anymore as of now not on DVD or online in downloadable form from any other download store.

A few years ago I bought Law & Order SVU The Complete Fifth Season 2003-2004 on DVD and since then have not bought any DVDs of NBC or USA network shows — have never bought USA network shows or other seasons of Law & Order SVU on DVD or other NBC programs on DVD. I did buy Law & Order SVU Season 1 on iTunes once while it was available.

Now I am not buying anymore programming from NBC at all at least until they return to iTunes.

I may see live broadcasts of NBC programming on my television using Dish Network, or other satellite or digital cable services but am not paying to buy or rent them.

Perhaps an all you can eat music subscription service could work even though limited music subscription services don’t. Or no music subscriptions at all should be used. Steve Jobs has mentioned even when launching iTunes movie rentals that most people watch a movie 2-3 times but listen to their favorite music hundreds of times. They do not want to rent music they want to own their music but renting a movie is more understandable — they don’t want to own all their movies although they want to own all their music.

GMail moving up to 7 GB sounds great. That full 7 GB is completely free? I know sometimes some sites charge you monthly fees for more storage.

Of all the Mac/Windows applications I find most useful on Intel based Macs are:

1) Microsoft Office for Mac 2008 (I own Microsoft Office X for Mac — don’t own Mac Office 2004 or 2008 but still think its a good program)

2) Apple iWork 08 (for me I own the Family Pack version)

3) Microsoft Office for Windows (latest version 2007) — Windows versions of MS Office often have more features than the Mac version.

4) Media Four’s Mac Drive (see http://www.mediafour.com/macdrive and http://www.mediafour.com/bootcamp)

5) Parallel’s Desktop for Mac (virtualization software)

6) VMWare Fusion (virtualization software)

Although NBC left iTunes there’s plenty of other great content now out on iTunes from BBC America, ABC Family, Showtime, The History Channel, A&E, Warner Brothers, Discovery Channel, CBS, even PBS — a public broadcasting television group, and a host of other networks like MLB.com, NHL, NFL Network, NASCAR, MTV, CMT etc.

For kids there’s programming from Disney Channel, Disney’s Jetix, including Viacom’s Nickelodeon, Nick At Nite, there is even Cartoon Network and Hannah Barbera.

BTW, Gmail’s storage is approaching 7GB! I only delete spam and save everything else, and I am consistently using 17% of my alotted space (that includes attachments too!). So, Gmail is growing just as fast as I am receiving email!

I think TV rentals make even more sense that movie rentals. I would love it if Apple did that! After all, watching downloaded TV shows on AppleTV or on iTunes would bloat your storage quickly. But rentals would take care of the deletions for you.

But the prices would have to be comparable. Buying an episode costs $1.99 now for most shows. So a rental would have to be in the $0.50 range to make it really viable. $1 at most. I would do that in a heartbeat!

(You’re right, music rentals make no sense, unless it’s an all-you-can-download subscription model)

Of course, to me, the real downfall of iTunes TV right now is the lack of complete content. NBC sux that they pulled their shows off of iTunes. If I could get all my shows on iTunes, I would do so today! And if I could simply rent each episode (or entire seasons), I wouldn’t hesitate even a second!

But to date, there are still a multitude of shows that, if I want to see them as they’re released, I have to have a TiVo or other such recording device, as well as satellite or cable. Among these shows are Battlestar Galactica and Two and a Half Men. Neither of these is on iTunes (BSG used to be), and to date, I haven’t found Two and a Half Men online anywhere. And the DVDs come out FAR later than they do for other series (I don’t know why, though).

Right now, there is still too much divisiveness between studios to make IPTV viable.

-Mike

Besides, yes GMail is already awesome and Apple should in your case let you pick and choose — if GMail is good enough for you just don’t use Mac.com Mail but use the rest of the .Mac services. However, I think Apple should try to improve on the features of dot mac to make it a strong GMail alternative — if they don’t want to lose email users to Google GMail they should up their email storage to be in line with the free 1 GB at GMail and do more to make their service really compelling and stand out.

Offering the dot mac pieces individually could work for some people but others just want the whole experience with less storage space etc and not have to pay a monthly bill to Apple or any company for such a service. I have a Yahoo account for Geocities and I have the free website — I don’t need the paid hosting.

Some might need more space and have to settle for paying to get Yahoo to host their website. Also what do you think about the idea of Apple offering TV shows for rent through iTunes? Music rentals don’t make sense and Steve Jobs has even said so. The online music rental industry is falling apart — more and more companies are leaving the market. Only Napster 2 Go, Real Network’s Rhapsody and Microsoft’s Zune currently are available — Yahoo ditched its music rental business and a number of others have been doing so. Music fans want to own their music because they listen to their favorite music over and over again — several times but they only watch a movie three or four times at the most so buying all their movies makes less sense. They might buy a few movies but renting rather than owning makes more sense and is more commonplace.

In pay per view and television based video on demand systems — when you go to hotels which have special on demand services and even in homes with services like Dish On Demand for Dish Network customers and even on demand programming from DirecTV and cable companies you order an episode of a TV show and like pay per view it is available for up to 24 hours.

For me, I would prefer even a step further: an a la carte-type offering. I don’t need a .Mac email address (Gmail is too awesome). The online storage would be nice. I don’t care about the web hosting, but the contact/calendar sync would be nice. And Back To My Mac (once I upgrade to Leopard) would be nice too (although I hear it doesn’t work all that well).

Basically, I think people will look at something like .Mac and ask themselves how much of it they will use. If it’s not a majority of the services, then they will pass. So it sure would be nice if Apple offered the .Mac pieces individually. Then they could, if they were enterprising enough, offer free trials of the other services to entice people to add onto their accounts.

-Mike

I’m taking a break for a while from buying music downloads or video related downloads. It’s getting kind of expensive doing so regularly — and with the current economic situations (talk about a U.S. recession like most consumers I’m trying to save my money over the next several months and only spend when its absolutely necessary — I still plan of course to get an HD TV and Apple TV eventually but am saving most of my money for a rainy day.

I’ve seen 2 third party apps though that interface with Apple’s dot mac service and look like great apps — one is dot mac menu by Infinite Nexus and another is a widget called Dot Mac Button that works with the Mac OS X Dashboard in OS X Tiger (10.4) and later.

If Apple really wants dot mac to succeed they need it to branch out. Offer two types of accounts — like a dot mac basic account completely free and premium accounts for which a monthly fee has to be paid.

What they could do is just charge users for additional storage in their web-space, email, iDisk etc. They could offer a certain amount of free disk space and beyond that you would have to pay a monthly fee to have additional storage.

I’ve sent feedback to Apple before as I said earlier. Some of the feedback for new features they could easily implement without legal troubles. They have Remote Disc feature for MacBook Air I merely suggested they port that to Apple TV. I also suggested they acquire certain technologies — like CoverStream (www.snarb.tk) — if they bought it from its developer they wouldn’t have to worry about being sued over implementing such a feature in OS X if they owned it — also JewelCase a music visualizer for iTunes that is Mac OS X compatible only — it has Universal Binaries though (www.opticalalchemy.com) anyways these are great technologies that enhance Apple’s own products. CoverStream improves Mac OS X Leopard’s CoverFlow and JewelCase improves iTunes.

Anyways I doubt Apple would delete emails with product suggestions without even reading them (as you mention) because of concern of legal issues. Of course they wouldn’t want to get too much legal blowback though. I sent them an email once about improving the iPhone for consumers by enabling them to use the camera in iPhone to not just take pictures but also record video clips. I’ve also written them about supporting Linux the way they do Windows via Boot Camp.

Well its getting kind of late for me. It’s 10:30PM local time and am going to bed.

I’m not a .Mac user either… I hate the idea of a recurring cost. And $99 per year doesn’t seem worth it to me, either. I run servers of my own, so I don’t want to pay for such services. But it would surely be nice if the .Mac-built-in parts of OSX could be allowed to point to a personal server. Kind of like running a tiny .Mac of your own. There are some cool features to .Mac, but they’re totally useless to people who don’t want to pay.

-Mike

I also suggested they add a remote disc feature to Apple TV for streaming DVD Video content to an Apple TV which could then send the signal to an HD TV and make the DVD play (as an alternative to just plugging a DVD Player to the TV and putting the disc in the DVD Player). I also suggested to them to get iTunes Movie rentals to reach the promised 1,000 movies for rent as soon as possible. For me Apple TV is most likely the right way to go. I use Mac OS X and I use iTunes for video. Like you I’m looking forward to a future with the Apple TV but as I said before I just need an HD TV to plug it into.

As for your thoughts on iTunes Digital Copy that is interesting — you may have a point on why the current system is not such a good idea. Hopefully, they improve it to make it better by offering some of the incentives you mentioned.

I’m eagerly planning in the next 1-2 years to buy an iMac, an Apple TV with 160 GB hard drive, an iPod Classic and eventually an iPod Touch I just want to wait till the storage space on the Touch gets at least 80 GB of space. I’m enjoying using my Mac Mini with my existing iPod (a 5th generation video iPod) aside from the Apple TV the VUDU and Archos TV are the only media extenders I know of for the living room not acting as all-in-one convergence devices like XBox 360 and PS3.

I am eager to upgrade to Mac OS X Leopard by the way — still haven’t done so but really want to do so — am just concerned with application compatibility between APE and Leopard. Otherwise would be perfectly happy upgrading. I love the Cover Flow in Mac OS X Finder in 10.5 Leopard and found a great program that enhances the Cover Flow experience even further — which claims to add a feature Apple forgot to add to Cover Flow — flip browsing — the program is Cover Stream and is shareware but I think its worth it for Leopard users interested enough in adding its features to the Leopard OS.

Cover Stream requires Mac OS 10.5 Leopard or higher to work and is advertised as a program to bring Cover Flow to the Mac Desktop itself.

Getting back to Apple TV I’m just waiting like I said earlier to buy an HD TV to use with it. I also like Apple’s dot mac service somewhat — am disappointed with it lately — don’t think its worth paying $99 a year for service. With delays in upgrades and sometimes even a lack in upgrades, but think it could have a promising and potential future if Apple lets dot mac work better.

I’m not a dot mac member even though I’m a Mac user. Mac users are already considered a minority — even as Mac market share increases gradually each year (however, high they go up they are not going to completely surpass Microsoft’s Windows OS and won’t be able to have the chance unless they license OS X to other vendors which they won’t do) dot mac members are an even smaller minority than Mac users overall. I doubt most Mac users today use the dot mac service. Some certainly do but not all.

I think the iTunes Digital Copy feature is stupid. As I understand it, you have to have an iTunes account, and then you type in a code, which then places DRM on the digital copy with your account’s information, just like you purchased it from iTunes. All it saves you is the purchase and the download. Well, to use this, you have to have an iTunes account and, thus, you also have to have an internet connection. So why not just place a purchase code (coupon) in the DVD box that allows free download of the movie in question from iTunes? Wouldn’t that be a lot easier?

Some will say, “but it allows people with a slow internet connection to get the movie without the slow download.” But let’s face it. People with slow internet connections are probably not the tech-elite that are using the internet to purchase movies or music. I would wager that well over 95% of all iTunes users have broadband.

So, I say it’s a silly thing. Just give us a coupon. Or else make the movie non-DRM (which would allow it to be used on platforms other than iTunes).

If all you use VUDU for is rentals, then it’s a fine thing, I’m sure. As I’ve indicated before, DRM and proprietary formats become far less of an issue when it comes to rentals. You know you’re only going to have the video for a short time anyway, so there’s no big deal in it. But for VUDU, which is $295, if all you want is movie rentals, why not just use the free iTunes? A 40GB AppleTV is $229. A 250GB Archos TV is only a little more than VUDU at $320, and it will record TV from your existing system, which can then be transferred, DRM-free, in a standard format (it uses either MP4 or divx, I forget which) to an Archos player or a PC.

So, the end question is, is $295 worth it to rent these movies online? Can you purchase them? Can they be played anywhere else other than the VUDU?

I don’t think it’s a worthless or useless product. I just believe that, for the money, there are products out there with far more functionality and usefulness.

-Mike

Imagine buying a DVD and as a bonus feature getting a second copy of the same movie for iTunes without having to buy and download from the iTunes Store.

Here’s an example:

Let’s say I rented the Disney movie Meet The Robinsons through iTunes (I actually did in fact I rented it twice) and I like it enough that I decide to buy the movie. If I choose to then buy the movie via iTunes Apple could offer a discount to the purchaser for first renting the movie and not require the purchaser to pay full price. You just pay the difference of whatever amount left over needs to be paid.

If I paid $3.99 to rent the movie via iTunes and iTunes charges $14 to buy the movie instead of paying the full $14 (customers who rent first and then buy) can get let’s say $3 to $4 dollars off the purchase price. So instead of paying $14 for the movie I might end up paying $12 to purchase the movie. That and the 99 cent weekly movie rental option (in which 1 movie that is pre-selected by them each week costs 99 cents and the offered movie is available at that price from Thursday till Sunday or Thursday till Monday) would make the service even better.

Now if only Apple could deliver the full 1,000 movie rentals promised via iTunes that would work great.

As for VUDU wow I didn’t know it had so many problems. I’m definitely getting Apple TV asap I just need an HD TV to plug it into.

From what I read, it uses a proprietary video codec, so you would have to re-encode (read: loss of quality and more HDD space used) your existing videos. Otherwise, it’s more expensive than AppleTV, the selection is bound to be less-extensive, and it really doesn’t do anything novel.

In the end, it really seems to go back to the old standard: what do you have and where do you watch it? The ArchosTV will play a variety of codecs, so if you’re looking to take your already-existent glut of DivX or Xvid movies to the living room, that’s a great option. But if you have everything in iTunes already, then AppleTV is probably the best, and least headache-inducing, option.

If you use Windows and have most of your stuff in Media Player, then if you also have an Xbox 360, then it would be a great option for a media extender.

Mac users pretty much should use the AppleTV if they want their content in the living room. They could branch out, but it’s probably easiest to just go AppleTV.

I use iTunes for nearly all of my entertainment, from movies to podcasts to TV shows (downloaded from TiVo or SnapStream). Therefore, the AppleTV is a perfect solution… the single-source-of-truth syncing is great, so I don’t wonder if I’ve watched that podcast or this TV show. Once I’m sync’ed up, all of my devices (Mac, AppleTV, iPhone, iPod) know exactly what’s been watched and what hasn’t.

The one glaring shortcoming in the AppleTV is the lack of DVD support. Apple just did that whole remote-disc thing for the Macbook Air, they should allow a DVD drive on a networked Mac to act as a DVD drive for the AppleTV, so that movies can be streamed to the living room TV via the AppleTV. They have the technology, why not make it happen?

Failing that, future AppleTVs should have a DVD drive built-in. Maybe a burner too, so that purchased content can be backed up without the use of a computer. Then the AppleTV will become a truly-standalone and viable appliance.

Speaking of which, there was a patch for AppleTV and for iTunes recently. If I read the upgrade correctly, I think that high-def content can now be purchased/rented on iTunes, or on the AppleTV, and sync’ed between iTunes and the AppleTV. I’m not 100% sure of that, but there was a comment in the new features that led me to believe that.

-Mike

I just wanted to add the following:

Were it not for my interest in Apple TV and had I not become interested in videos from iTunes (had I not invested my money in buying from iTunes Store) my # 2 choice for a media extender would be VUDU. Rather than using XBox 360 or PS3 for media I actually prefer a simple media extender box. XBox 360 and PS3 are video games consoles first and foremost with media capabilities second. In comparing Apple TV to other media extenders (sometimes it has been compared to XBox) but to be more fair to users interested in simple media extender to media extender comparisons there have been some comparisons of Apple TV directly to VUDU with no mention of XBox because it also doubles as a games console. In such comparisons XBox doesn’t count that is it is not covered in the comparison.

There have been some cases where Apple TV and XBox might be compared but others where it is only compared to media extenders (without gaming functionality).

Fox Digital Copy and Lionsgate Digital Copy are great initiatives for bringing DVD content to iTunes, iPods, iPhones, and Apple TVs including Macs and Windows PCs.

Also I dunno if there are specific bugs in Zune 2 but its still not great enough to challenge the iPod. Microsoft has no Zune product to rival the iPod Shuffle or iPod Nano. There is no Zune phone (although Microsoft makes Windows Mobile or Windows CE software for mobile phones and has been doing so before Apple’s iPhone was even made) nor is there a Zune touch device to compete with iPod Touch.

Am yet to actually see Zune games to compete with iPod Games. Zunes still don’t have any video playback either for watching episodes of TV shows and seeing movies on the go. Yes Microsoft has video on the XBox Live Video Marketplace but no portable player capable of playing video like most iPods now do.

I like how Apple is expanding the market for portable music players (mp3 players), portable video players, and hand-held game systems for casual hand-held games with its click-wheel based iPods and hard-core hand-held games/casual touch screen games on the go via iPod Touch and iPhone.

I like their expanding the desktop and notebook (laptop) computer market with iMac, Mac Mini, Mac Pro, MacBook, MacBook Pro, (MacBook Air etc although there are issues with the Air’s lack of features) and the markets for online downloadable movie rentals, the market for purchasing movies via download and TV shows etc. Apple’s digital distribution and delivery methods/services are great and even when Apple doesn’t gain a lot of dominance in a particular market that it is involved in the fact it is involved in those markets even which it can’t dominate but gets some market share is good for consumers.

Had Apple not come along with the iPod and iTunes most consumers wanting to legally purchase music and video would be locked into a Microsoft DRM system. Apple is the only major company to provide a solid and good alternative to Microsoft DRM solutions.

While Apple also used DRM it was a DRM independent of Microsoft with better usage rights in some respects — FairPlay is still more user friendly than Zune DRM.

Plays for sure in some ways was more user friendly than FairPlay in the sense it could work with more devices than just iPods and devices from other companies but it was Windows only. iTunes is not yet truly cross platform — it works with Mac but that’s Apple’s operating system platform anyways and if Apple didn’t have it their iTunes program would probably be Windows only also — however, they provide a great user interface and easy navigation etc.

Which Zune 2 bugs are you referring to? I hadn’t heard of any.

-Mike

As to what side Switzerland was on in WWII I’ll have to double check that.