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About this siteFor six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul Coming soon: Everything Must GoThe next edition of "Everything Must Go" will be appearing here soon. --Paul Saturday, January 17, 2004Science fun: Map of the universePrinceton University: "Two Princeton astronomers have produced a map of the entire universe. They used a variety of data including the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The map view begins with the Earth at the bottom and extends back almost to the Big Bang at the top, including such objects as the Sloan Great Wall, 1.37 billion light-years long."[ Posted at 6:09 PM | Permalink ]
Friday, January 16, 2004Installing iLife To me, iLife is everything that's right about the Mac platform. I often highlight the bad because, let's face it, the Mac Web wouldn't normally allow any dissention at all, but iLife rocks. From the release notes:
About iLife iLife gives you the most up-to-date versions of Apple’s acclaimed tools for creating, managing, organizing, and sharing your digital movies, photos, and music. Your software includes: • GarageBand, the easiest way to perform, record, and create music, whether you’re a musician or just want to feel like a rock star. GarageBand turns your Mac into a high-quality musical instrument with amazing built-in sounds and gives you the complete power of a recording studio. With GarageBand you don’t need to be a musician to make original music. GarageBand includes professionally pre-recorded rhythm sections, solos, and instrumental performances that act like “virtual musicians” that you conduct to create custom songs, or use as backing tracks for your own recorded performances or within iMovie, iPhoto and iDVD. • iTunes, the world's best digital music jukebox. iTunes allows you to import music from your CDs to your computer, create playlists of your favorite songs, and take your music with you on custom CDs and your iPod. iTunes truly puts all your music in one place with the iTunes Music Store (U.S. only), where you can preview, buy, and download individual songs and full albums. In addition, iTunes 4 lets you share music on a local network, share album art, burn DVDs, and import from CDs in the new high-quality AAC format. • iPhoto, has always been the best way to easily import photos from your digital camera, organize them for fast retrieval, and then share them with family and friends. Now with iPhoto 4 you get even more, including faster overall performance. In fact, you can find the picture you’re looking for in seconds, whether you have one hundred photos or one hundred thousand. With new time-based organization and “Smart Albums,” iPhoto keeps your photos organized automatically. And with Rendezvous photo sharing you can now share photos with anyone on your local network. • iMovie, the fastest and easiest way to create movies like a pro, continues its innovative tradition by increasing performance and adding new features that streamline the movie-making process, promote creative exploration, and help you create Hollywood-style movies that are easily shared with the world. With iMovie 4 you can quickly edit and trim right in the timeline by simply clicking and dragging. Sync audio and video with “snap to” precision. Integrate all of your iLife content and share by email, publish to a .Mac HomePage, or even take your movies with you by transmitting to your Bluetooth devices. • iDVD is the perfect complement to every iLife project. With seamless integration with all of your iLife applications, easily create beautiful DVDs faster and with many new enhancements. New iTunes playlist support gives you the ability to have multiple songs play in a slideshow background. From iPhoto, drag and drop your iPhoto albums directly into iDVD. And now iDVD supports up to 99 chapter markers from iMovie. Choose from new professionally designed themes and menu transitions, then burn your finished masterpiece onto a DVD and share your masterpieces with everyone! [ Posted at 8:32 PM | Permalink ]
LOL: Switch campaign "finally kicking in"It turns out you can make this stuff up. Bill Pallmer does, anyway. He says that iLife for Windows is the "worst idea ever, especially now that the Switch Campaign is finally kicking in." Ah, right. Personally, I'd love to see iLife come to Windows. Then Apple could kick Microsoft's butt in photos, movies, and DVDs too. But someone should tell Bill that the Switch campaign was a huge failure, regardless of his flawed logic. Down to just 1.88 percent of the market, the Mac is a non-event. What people are switching to is the iPod, and even that's a temporary effect: You can only sell so many music devices. What's really sad is that Bill uses math to prove his point. "Macintosh sales this holiday quarter rose twelve percent over the 2002 holiday quarter," he notes. There's just one problem: PC sales grew at a much faster rate, thus the Mac lost market share yet again. Sorry, bud. This isn't good news no matter how you bake it. Clueless. [ Posted at 11:19 AM | Permalink ]
Real CEO blasts Apple's lock-in approach to digital musicPC World: "ITunes is only going to be used for playing songs you bought using the ITunes store or ripped using ITunes." Rob Glaser says. "What we have done with RealPlayer 10 by making it universal is create a solution that we think consumers will flock to. Imagine the situation when you buy a couple of tracks from the ITunes store, a couple of tracks from Napster (news - web sites), and hopefully you'll buy tracks from the RealPlayer Music Store. You want it to just work. What Apple is doing reinforces format diversity. Even though Apple is narrowly focused on its one format, its success reinforces the need for people to take a universal approach. We're the only major player that does that." [ Posted at 11:16 AM | Permalink ]
Thursday, January 15, 2004Too. Damn. Cold.The next several hours should be interesting.
Humor: eBay pulls plug on auction of West VirginiaABC News: "An attempt to auction off the state of West Virginia drew 56 bids and nearly enough promised dollars to fill the state's projected budget hole before eBay learned of the joke." [ Posted at 7:34 PM | Permalink ]
Financial expert discusses Apple financials, quality problems, iPod problems, market shareTheStreet.com: A fascinating report for a number of reasons.Apple financials and quality problems: "A small slip in margins due to some quality problems, and a somewhat slower-than-expected transition to the fast new G5 Macs, apparently disappointed some investors. As a result shares of Apple dropped Thursday, along with other technology companies ... Sales jumped 36% year over to $2.006 billion, a bit better than the $1.932 billion expected by Wall Street. Gross margins were 26.7%, down from 27.6% in the year-ago quarter, and 40 basis points below prior guidance ... Apple, which has had product-quality problems in the past, took a larger warranty reserve to cover problems with the screens of some notebooks. The problem with the displays has been cured and should not appear in newly manufactured machines, the company said." And there's no way to sugarcoat the fact that Apple's expensive G5's just aren't selling well. " PowerMac sales were definitely disappointing -- 206,000 units for $398 million, vs. expectations of 250,000 units and $446 million, commented Fil Zucchi, managing member of Zebra Fund, LLC, a long/short equity/options fund, and a contributor toStreetInsight.com ... Another problem: iMac units declined 10% sequentially and 24% year over year." Despite all the iPod success stories, a sign of weakness: "'For Apple, [the deal with HP] represents the ability to further accelerate unit growth and gain volume -- which it needs to leverage its cost structure -- by tapping into HP's massive distribution capabilities,' commented Joel Wagonfeld, a principal of First Albany. 'However, the fact that Apple has agreed to supply its most successful product to a key competitor on a Wintel platform ... provides an important signal. We think this move reflects Apple's difficulty in driving increased PC penetration via its new non-PC offerings,' he said in a note to clients." Market share: "In 2003, [Apple] claimed less than 2% of the global market by units, according to estimates from Gartner Dataquest and Merrill Lynch." [ Posted at 7:30 PM | Permalink ]
Apple financials in-depthMacintouch: "Apple reported financial results for its most recent fiscal quarter: a profit of $63 million ($.17 per diluted share) on quarterly revenue of $2 billion. The company said it shipped 733,000 iPods and 829,000 Macs. Some notes from a conference call with Apple CFO Fred Anderson:* Portables accounted for a record high percentage of sales, 48%. Apple sold 195,000 PowerBooks, 201,000 iBooks, 206,00 Power Macs and 227,000 iMacs in the quarter. Dual-processor (high-end) models accounted for a larger part of the Power Mac mix than expected (see below). * There were 73 Apple retail stores open by the end of the quarter, producing $9 million in 'segment profit' plus $52 million in 'manufacturing profit.' The new Tokyo store was a big success, generating $1 million/week on average. A San Francisco store is due to open in the Spring, with an Osaka store due in the Fall. * Anderson noted higher-than-expected warranty expenses for the quarter, caused by screen problems with the 15" PowerBook and iBook hardware problems. This contributed to a reduction in Apple's gross margin to 26.7%, a little lower than the company expected, but Anderson said that the 15" PowerBook problem has been fixed: 'For any new systems being shipped, the problem's been resolved.' * With plenty of cash on hand, Apple is planning to become a 'debt-free company' next month, by retiring $300 million in 'senior debt.' Apple sold its remaining shares in Akamai for a $4 million pre-tax gain ($3 million after taxes). Revenue from non-computer sales accounted for 37% of Apple's total (13% of which was iPod sales). Direct sales also rose, to 43% of the total, with Internet sales "up appreciably." * 'Higher-education' sales were up strongly year-over-year. [Remember Virginia Tech's purchase of 1,100 dual-CPU Power Mac G5s...]. K-12 sales were down a bit, attributed to continuing budget problems faced by school districts. * Panther revenue 'was just phenomenal,' according to Anderson, who said it was the best first quarter ever for Mac operating system revenue, a 54% increase year over year. " [ Posted at 7:24 PM | Permalink ]
Mac marginalizationMacintouch has an interesting discussion about Mac marginalization, including a few interesting tips on what Mac users can do about it. [ Posted at 7:20 PM | Permalink ]
HP grabs 4th quarter PC sales crown, but Dell was number one in 2003CNET: "Hewlett-Packard snatched the PC market-leader crown back from Dell in 2003's fourth quarter. Hewlett-Packard overtook Dell to become the world's largest PC maker in the fourth quarter, in a market that is both growing and becoming more difficult. PC shipments grew 12 percent to 15 percent in the fourth quarter in terms of units and around 11 percent for 2003 as a whole, according to, respectively, research firms Gartner and IDC; substantially more than predictions from a year ago. In 2004, shipments are expected to grow 10.9 percent worldwide according to Gartner and 11.4 percent according to IDC ... For the year, though, Dell remained No. 1, hitting a worldwide market share of 16.9 percent, up 25 percent from the overall figure for 2002 of 15.1 percent. HP's annual market share came in at 16.4 percent worldwide, up 14.5 percent from its share of 16 percent for 2002 as a whole." [ Posted at 7:18 PM | Permalink ]
Apple's US market share falls as wellMacMinute: In addition to falling to just 1.88 percent of the market, the Mac is falling domestically as well, and Apple was even outsold by struggling Gateway. "Apple captured 3.2 percent of the U.S. market share in 2003, down from 3.5 percent a year ago, according to research firm IDC. The company shipped 1.675 million Macs in 2003, compared with 1.679 units in 2002. Apple's worldwide market share remained under 2 percent in 2003. The companies ahead of Apple were: Dell (16.319 million - 30.9%), HP (10.851 million - 20.6%), IBM (2.748 million - 5.2% ), and Gateway (1.987 million - 3.8%)." [ Posted at 7:14 PM | Permalink ]
Apple earningsApple announced its quarterly earnings today, a mixed bag by any account. The company's core product--the Macintosh--continues to fall short, compared to the huge growth in the rest of the industry, with the company's global market share falling to 1.88 percent for the quarter ending December 31, 2003. The iPod did well, but of course it has a relatively low price, compared to Macs. Apple earned $63 million on sales of $2 billion, up from $1.47 billion a year before. Apple sold 733,000 iPod digital music players in the period and its iTunes had 70 percent of the legal music-download market. But gross margins slipped to 26.7 percent from 27.6 percent a year earlier, due mostly to higher-than-expected warranty expenses. Apple shipped 829,000 Macintosh computers, a rise of almost 12 percent from 743,000 a year ago. [ Posted at 7:11 PM | Permalink ]
Apple to be debt-freeWall Street Journal: "Apple Computer will be a debt-free company after it makes a $300 million payment on senior debt due Feb. 16, Chief Financial Officer Fred Anderson said Wednesday. In an interview following the company's fiscal first quarter 2004 release, Anderson said the $300 million will come out of the $4.8 billion in cash that the company was holding when the quarter ended Dec. 27." [ Posted at 7:08 PM | Permalink ]
Corel kills Mac graphics suiteMacWorld UK: "Corel has discontinued its CorelDraw Graphics Suite product for Macs ... Chairman Derek Burneysaid: 'Corel has not experienced that much demand for this product from Mac users.' He added that 96 per cent of Corel Graphics Suite sales have been of the Windows version of the software, and observed that the ... sales to Mac users 'were insuffficient to justify Mac development of the product.'" [ Posted at 7:07 PM | Permalink ]
Tuesday, January 13, 2004New Mozilla Calendar releaseMozilla.org: "Released new XPI for Windows and Linux" with a number of bug fixes. [ Posted at 9:47 PM | Permalink ]
iBook loveConspiracy theorists won't know what to make of this one, but here goes: I brought my aging iBook 500 (as usual) and an IBM ThinkPad R50 to CES (I generally travel with at least two laptops), and then shared a huge, power outlet-laden room at the Aladdin with Keith and Joe, which was fun. Between us, there were four computers (Keith has a nice Compaq widescreen and Joe has the new Acer Tablet PC), three Pocket PCs, three cell phones, two Fossil SPOT watches, two iPods, and more wires than you could imagine. But the reason I'm telling this story is that we shared the room's Internet connection via the iBook's wireless adapter: It's just so damned easy to set up. So there you go: Real Mac use in the real world. [ Posted at 9:38 PM | Permalink ]
CES photo galleryI've posted my CES photo gallery over on the SuperSite, so if you're looking for a visual rundown of the most important consumer electronics products for the coming years, this is the place. Thanks to Keith and Joe for taking the pictures. [ Posted at 9:33 PM | Permalink ]
Rating MacWorld 2004MacWorld is the seminal event in the Mac community, of course, but this year's event was largely disappointing. Here's my take on the various announcements Apple made at the event.Jobs keynote. A snooze-a-thon that featured a mind-numbing 40 minute demo of the utterly boring Garage Band application. Still, better than anything Bill Gates could muster. Grade: C Final Cut Express 2.0. A long-overdue "light" version of Apple's excellent Final Cut Pro 4.0, and a great upgrade to Final Cut Express, of which I'm a huge fan (and a customer). I'll be upgrading. Grade: A XServe G5. Sort of an obvious upgrade, but it's a nice addition to Apple's curious rack-mounted server line, which, like Garage Band, seems aimed at a non-existant market. But given the Virginia Tech super-computer, what the heck do I know? Grade: B iLife '04. Terrible name, awesome product. I've been playing with the updated versions of iPhoto and iMovie that will debut in this suite on Friday, and am looking forward to the other applications, including iDVD 4.0 and iTunes 4.2 (previously available). Garage Band? Please. Still, I'll be in line Friday for the upgrade. You gotta get it. Grade: A+ iPod Mini. It looks great, and it's price way too high. Fans are correct that the capacity issues are irrelevent, as potential customers will be more interested in style than technical issues. However. The problem here is that such people are a niche market, and if Apple wants to hit the mainstream, this thing needs to be a lot cheaper. If it weren't for the price, this would be a firm A. Grade: B Overall. No new Macs. No faster G5's. No faster PowerBooks. No price reductions on anything (though arguably, the new low-end iPod, with more storage, is better than the previous model it replaces). So what did we get? We got excellent iLife and Final Cut Express upgrades. And that's about it. With the understanding that Steve Jobs has reserved the right to introduce products whenever he wants, MacWorld 2004 was still way too boring. And that's a shame, because the company only gets a couple of chances a year to garner this kind of press. Grade: C [ Posted at 9:25 PM | Permalink ]
HP/Apple deal is a blockbuster I've criticized the HP/Apple deal, and for good reason: How HP is going to get Apple's proprietary Protected AAC format working with its innumerable PCs, set-top boxes, iPAQs, and other devices is a great unknown at this moment. But let's face reality for a second: This deal is HUGE, and Carly Fiorina is, as one Microsoftie put it recently, a rock star. Here are some good reports about the HP/Apple deal:
Apple press release: "Working to provide consumers with the most compelling digital content whenever and wherever they desire, HP and Apple today announced a strategic alliance to deliver an HP-branded digital music player based on Apple’s iPod, the number one digital music player in the world, and Apple’s award-winning iTunes digital music jukebox and pioneering online music store to HP's customers." The New York Times: "The agreement - which was completed only after an extensive bargaining session that ran long into Wednesday night between Carleton S. Fiorina, Hewlett's chief executive, and Apple's Steven P. Jobs - represents a significant departure for both companies. For the first time, Mr. Jobs has stepped away from the self-enclosed Apple-only strategy he has pursued since he returned to run the company in 1997." BBC: "The agreement marks a change for Apple which has formerly been reluctant to licence its technology ... In the past Apple has jealously guarded its technology and resisted the temptation to let others make computers based on its hardware." [ Posted at 8:59 PM | Permalink ]
MacWorld disappointsLast week's MacWorld was one of the weakest Apple events since Steve Jobs took over. But the big news was the small news iPod Mini, which is at least $50 overpriced at $250. What's interesting is that even some of the most die-hard Apple advocates on the planet have been forced to admit this as well. Some interesting related reports include:Fortune: "Macworld's Mini Disappointment - Two decades after it introduced the Macintosh, Apple proved it's still as innovative as ever by unveiling a trio of new products, most notably a smaller iPod. The only problem? Price." Washington Post: "Apple Focused on Compositions, Not Computers - The first people on the thousands-long line to watch chief executive Steve Jobs's keynote presentation of the Macworld Conference and Expo trade show here said they had showed up at 2 a.m. For all their troubles, they got a guided tour of new Apple Computer Inc. products." The Register: "Jobs caps snoozathon with cut-down Emagic, iPod - One prolonged product demonstration today clocked in at over 40 minutes, which tested even the patience of the faithful ('the longest demo on earth') and left neutrals catatonic. With no new product lines, or any key hardware updates (for example, to the flagging iMac line), this turned out to be the dullest MacWorld keynote since Gil Amelio's notorious snoozathon seven years ago." Business Week: "Even Jobs's Jedi-esque powers of reality dispersion can't alter the unfavorable math behind Apple's new offering. Here are the hard numbers. The new miniPod will cost $249. That's about $100 more than the rumor sites had posited. It will offer 4 gigabytes of capacity on its hard drive. By comparison, the entry-level iPod now costs $299 and has 15 gigabytes of disk space. The miniPod's cost per gigabyte is $62.50. In the entry-level iPod, it's about $20. So Apple is asking customers to pay three times as much per gigabyte. I have one word for that. Ouch." Washington Post: "And while the products unveiled at this year's expo 'were less dramatic than the company's usual introductions aimed at wowing customers with innovative technologies and new product lines at this regularly scheduled event,' ... many observers were put off by the 'low' price of the iPod mini -- $249 verses $299 for the current low-end iPod model." O'Grady's PowerPage: "At US$249 the new iPod mini is just too expensive ... Apple has to remember that iPods are designed for the Consumer Electronics (CE) market and not for the computer market - despite what they think ... Apple is taking advantage of the market leadership in the MP3 player space and gouging customers who they know from experience will have to be the first on their block to have an iPod mini." 1115.org: "We are big supporters of Apple Computer and praise our Macs and iPods loudly and without hesitation ... $250 is ... a significant amount of money for many people, which will limit the iPod Mini's appeal as an impulse purchase. And the new player's biggest competition comes from Apple itself; at $299, the "normal" 15gb iPod offers more than three times the capacity for only $50 more ... Apple missed an opportunity here." Newsweek: "When he announced the mini’s $249 price tag in his keynote, the reaction—from a crowd predisposed to give standing ovations when the maestro cleared his throat—was like the air being let out of a volleyball. The price is neither fish nor fowl: more than a high-end flash player but not much less than the entry-level maxi iPod." [ Posted at 8:48 PM | Permalink ]
Awesome online clockThanks John: Check this out. [ Posted at 1:36 PM | Permalink ]
Stupid high-tech productsThanks Grant: In Search of Stupidity.com, featuring the The Hall of Stupid High-Tech Products. My favorites: IBM PC Jr., E.T. for Atari 2600, and the Coleco Adam (I still own one). A few products don't belong on this list, however, including the Osborne Executive and the TI-99/4A, which any early 80's enthusiast will tell you was way ahead of its time. And how could they not have added the Smart Display?? One other falacy to this page: The story about the Apple service bulletin advising customers to pick up broken Apple III units and drop them from a height of two inches happened to an Atari computer, as I recall, not an Apple computer. Anyway.... [ Posted at 12:27 PM | Permalink ]
Monday, January 12, 2004Tog on PantherAsk Tog: Bruce Tognazzini takes a long, hard look at Mac OS X "Panther" and, as expected, has some interesting comments. Under "the good," Tog says that Panther is the first OS X version to offer speed comparible to OS 9.x versions, which is largely true (though it's unclear whether most of that is hardware improvements over the past three years). He also likes Expose (a power-user feature) and File Vault (home directory encryption). Under "the bad," Tog lists the Dock (which he discussed accurately long ago); the size of onscreen objects, which is interesting; the weird OS X dialog-drawers; and a bunch of other features (Software Update: "Windows handles this much better, offering small, if excessively frequent, patches that load and install themselves in the background. Mac needs to emulate this approach if they want to become competitive."). Under "the ugly," Tog doesn't have much to say, which is curious, as he's an interface guru and Panther is barely different than the Mac versions he worked on over a decade ago. "It may seem I'm damning Apple with faint praise, considering how much bad I have mentioned. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. Apple is indeed back. OS X is a fully-usable powerhouse once more, with a free and open future. I'm giving Apple some free advice, from someone whose advice is normally screamingly expensive, on where to go from here. The way is open." Anyway, it's worth reading, as Tog is the man. [ Posted at 5:35 PM | Permalink ]
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