Alfiejr's Profile

  • Apr 13, 2011
  • 18
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Latest comments made by: Alfiejr

  • "It has to be easier than the TV you are using today" is one key. the other is "cheaper" (than cable). but new Apple video hardware is not the solution. instead the solution to both is apps = channels. the way to buy the HDTV content you want a la carte, instead of paying a lot more for bundles of CATV channels, 90% of which you never watch, is via apps with their own subscriptions and on-demand delivery. now MLB, NBA, Hulu, with many more to come including local stations. Apple TV can serve this up to anyone with any brand of HDTV and an iTunes account for just $99. it will work with AirPlay and your iOS gizmos too. and i expect the ability to run these apps will come to Mac computers with OS X Lion. that will turn every Mac into an "Apple television" as well.
    Alfiejr had this to say on Apr 25, 2011 Posts: 18
    Will Apple Rule the Living Room?
  • Keep it simple. that's the only possible way to compete with iPad. Honeycomb's fatal flaw is that it is - everyone agrees on this point, even Android fans - somewhat more complicated than iOS. and then tie it in seamlessly with your other stuff. which is Google's great strength in smartphones - all its very convenient communication cloud services. but tablets are not primarily about communication. they are about the rest of your life ... 90% of consumers don't want "more" - they want "easy." they don't want "create your own" - they want "just works." i honestly don't see who other than Apple can really deliver that today. MS might have the pieces, but they have proved totally unable to put them together seamlessly. no one else even has the pieces.
    Alfiejr had this to say on Apr 01, 2011 Posts: 18
    Competing with the iPad: the Old Tricks Won't Work
  • the article misses the obvious problem with Apple buying Netflix - anti-trust. folding Netflix into iTunes would undoubtedly trigger a federal review, with uncertain outcome. also, Netflix' mediaco contracts are probably not transferable to a new owner, which means Apple would have to re-negotiate them all with equally uncertain outcome. these are two fatal flaws. this is never going to happen.
    Alfiejr had this to say on Dec 06, 2010 Posts: 18
    Apple Acquisition Targets: Part One: Netflix
  • Running iOS apps on a big screen TV via iTV plus an iThing remote offers a lot of great possbilities, some immediate, some potential: - easy web browsing. many efforts have been made to display web browsing on TV screens (e.g. PS3 and even ATV hacks). but the clumsy inevitable crude cursor controls ruin it practically. problem is solved via app touch screen control just like your iThing. opens door to "group" surfing together in your living room. - info-type apps displayed like widgets. not great, but not useless. real potential for future expansion with a wide range of extra in-app content (some monetized). - media content apps of all kinds. obvious immediate potential here. aspect ratio and screen resolution factors can be optimized with a new generation of iTV-specific apps, but iPad apps will work decently right away. all the video stuff, the magazine stuff, and more. - and games of course. like media apps, current iPad apps will work decently until iTV specific apps are offered. graphic intensive action games obvisouly could look great. being a life-long TV-loving couch potatoe, i can expertly adivse you that with an iTV like this i would not need my Mac Mini HTPC plus blutooth mouse/keyboad anymore. so, ultimately one less computer in the house. save some money. the one other nice iTV feature i would hope for is a live USB port to connect a huge external drive to hold all my media files that could then be streamed anyplace on my LAN or via the web. right now it is plugged into the HTPC. but that means that computer has to be running all the time and that user logged in, which is not ideal. however, Jobs seems to have some bias against this - the ATV USB port has been left unused - so i don't have much hope.
    Alfiejr had this to say on Aug 27, 2010 Posts: 18
    iOS on an Apple TV? A VERY Bad Idea
  • like the previous commetor, a couple thousand other folks posting on the web have already figured out iOS on ATV would use an iPhone/touch/iPad as its remote control. in fact, you can already use them as a remote for AppleTV now with the Remote app! duh!! do you have any idea what you are blogging about?
    Alfiejr had this to say on Aug 27, 2010 Posts: 18
    iOS on an Apple TV? A VERY Bad Idea
  • you forgot fact #3: the effect disappears if you simply get a case for your phone. which maybe a majority of people do ANYWAY.
    Alfiejr had this to say on Jul 14, 2010 Posts: 18
    The iPhone Antenna “Issue”: FUD
  • on his first point, it's even worse. Calacanis is simply, literally wrong as a matter of pure fact. one can easily access and copy/transfer your full no-DRM iTunes music library on a wide range of third party devices, including TiVo, the PS3, and many PMP's plugged in or via a LAN simply by installing a DLNA utility like NullRiver's MediaLink. DLNA is an open standard that Apple supports in iTunes. you can "see" the essential iTunes metadata as well - playlists, albums, etc. if the media presentation UI software on the other equipment is not as slick as iTunes, that is hardly Apple's fault. Calacanis apparently does not know what he is talking about here. the story is different with TV/movies since the content owners still insist on DRM in iTunes for them. but that is undeniably an industry-wide DRM issue that Apple did not create and does not control overall. otherwise DLNA can also share your no-DRM iTunes video files too. There is no industry-wide DRM file format standard (yet), just several proprietary systems, including Apple's FairPlay. Many have suggested it would benefit consumers if Apple licensed FairPlay to work with other companies' hardware/software too. That is a fair criticism of Apple's "walled garden" business model, but it is not the issue that Calacanis went after.
    Alfiejr had this to say on Aug 11, 2009 Posts: 18
    Jason Calacanis is Wrong: Part 1 of 5
  • everyone has anecdotes, but those aren't the same as stats. of the dozen or so Mac products i've purchased, three failed. two during warranty and easily replaced on the spot at the Apple store, one after three years (dead PPC motherboard), which was one year sooner than my four year replacement cycle. so i was unhappy. anyway, you can find bitter buyers of every brand of PC in the world on any blog forum with similar tales of woe. the people who think it's all about them get nasty. the rest just chalk it up to the law of averages. things break. reliable stats on the hardware reliability of various brands and models of computer gear are hard to find. to the extent they are available, Mac products fare well compared to others. that's about all one can say definitely. (and that the 2007 XBox 360 was definitely a lemon.)
    Alfiejr had this to say on May 22, 2009 Posts: 18
    Apple, Please Give Us More Bang for Our Buck
  • @ jocknerd: the "Hackintosh community" is that other 0.01%. props to their skill, but what they do is irrelevant. it's not a realistic option for anyone else. you want Mac OS, you pay couple hundred extra and buy the hardware package. preloaded, with top-quality iLife thrown in. and with on the spot warranty service and free tech support at your local Apple Store. plus the right to piss, moan, whine, and kevetch about Apple as much as you need to.
    Alfiejr had this to say on May 20, 2009 Posts: 18
    Apple, Please Give Us More Bang for Our Buck
  • "If you argue that OS X makes the Mac much more valuable, I'll argue "go stick it on a PC then"" well, yeah, you can try that comeback, but then you'd be really stupid, since reality does actually matter. 99.99% of buyers of all kinds are not ever going to even try to install Mac OS on a PC. a significant number tho do install Windows on Macs - since it is fully supported by OS X and can be seamlessly integrated on the desktop with third party software. the obvious bottom line question for all buyers is, is the quality of the Mac OS and its ecosystem (including its near perfect integration with its own hardware, and the convenient tech support at your local Apple Store, etc.) worth the extra cost of the hardware, whatever it is? for most buyers, when you add up all the various expenditures involved, including software important to them, the cost difference is some hundreds of dollars. obviously, you're cheap (or maybe just another blogger scraping by). so several hundred dollars is a big deal for you. i'm not cheap, and i make a decent living. i always buy better/best quality products if i can afford them, and several hundred bucks is not a big deal at all. and backing up to look at the big picture, the price of both PC's and Macs have gone done over the decade, especially when you discount for the impact of inflation, while their powers and abilities have increased dramatically. at this point, whining about what you get plus or minus a few hundred bucks compared to Win 2000 PC's and OS 9 Macs that actually cost quite a bit more in constant dollars is just so silly. i don't think i ever want to split a restaurant bill with you.
    Alfiejr had this to say on May 20, 2009 Posts: 18
    Apple, Please Give Us More Bang for Our Buck
  • That's it? a few tweaks and two things that are plainly wrong? "lowest specs"? lemee see, Mac OS runs perfectly well on all Mac computers already - no 'lite' version is needed as planned for Win 7 and netbooks. and oh, i run Leopard now on 6 year old eMacs - not fast, but ok. do ya think you can run Vista on a 6 year old PC?? or Win 7??? ... of course not. get your facts straight before you post. and speed? all benchmark tests published show Leopard wiping out Vista and Win 7 for multitasking - the one that really matters since that is when our computers really do slow down notably. (no tests published yet for Snow Leopard). for simpler calc crunching the results vary a lot depending on the hardware. what benchmark tests did you run? - using the same Mac for both would be instructive. get your facts together before you post.
    Alfiejr had this to say on Mar 26, 2009 Posts: 18
    7 Things Apple could Learn from Windows 7
  • well, you're right, but you missed the other half of Ballmer's strategy. Since Windows 7 is going to be a blatant knock-off of Leopard for much of its UI, his argument then will be Win 7 is 'just as good and $500 cheaper.' which the generally pro-windows media will eat up, along with the current meme 'there's is no real difference' between Mac OS and Windows.
    Alfiejr had this to say on Mar 24, 2009 Posts: 18
    Ballmer fixated on Mac, Misses Big Picture
  • FM radio?? oh please get out of the stone age. in this era of internet radio with x thousand stations available from all over the globe on your iPhone (including your local ones) why in the world bother sticking an antenna in there? instead of listing what we want, how about trying to predict what stubborn old Apple will actually give us in June? so i predict: - an improved camera. not great, but not so bad. video? i wish, but i don't think so - unless they can feature it with iMovie '09 somehow. - some version of background processing for apps, although probably limited in scope. - an iWork lite app, with editing and direct MobileMe integration. Apple will really hype this, just like iWork '09 at MacWorld. - Flash? no chance. - bluetooth stereo headsets. - various UI convenience tweaks, but not voice control. - maybe streaming of your iTunes library from home to iPhone (third party apps can stream your music now) - including movies/video maybe. so overall theme i think will be tight integration with iLife, iWork, iTunes, MobileMe - the Apple "ecosystem." in part to encourage more people to switch to a Mac computer too.
  • Correct! all we really need is a bigger Touch - a 7" or 9" screen - plus some improvements everyone has already asked for, like running at least a few apps in the background. someone will then provide the necessary 'Office' style app suite - a simplified GoogleWorks or even Apple's iWorks. this would take half the netbook market almost immediately if priced at, say, $499.
  • yes, one school of thought is to pack more hardware and functions into AppleTV to make it like a TiVo, Slingbox, BluRay DVD, and Windows media server all rolled into one. but somehow i don't see Steve Jobs going that way ... another is to add more software tools to make it a dumbed-down HTPC, including a browser and stand-alone iTunes media library/processor. well, maybe ... but my favorite idea is very different: to clone iPod Touch software on it, including all your apps, then using a Touch or iPHone as a wifi remote control for it. now that would be killer, really something new.
    Alfiejr had this to say on Oct 02, 2008 Posts: 18
    Apple TV, the Do It All Machine