Making Life Better

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Sarah Hampson recently castigated Apple for subtly insinuating that “iPhones [are] the meaning of life” in it’s latest TV spots, Our Signature and Designed By Apple. Before making her ‘meaning of life’ and hubris claims Hampson quotes this portion of the Designed By Apple ad:

Who will it help?

Will it make life better?

Does it deserve to exist?

We spend a lot of time on a few great things until every idea we touch enhances each life it touches.

Now The Macalope already had his mythical way with this piece, but I just wanted to add an additional comment about this article and these commercials.

Apple does strive to make my life better through technology. Not to infiltrate, but to enhance. If I let technology get in the way of my life that’s no more Apple’s fault than it’s beer’s fault someone becomes an alcoholic. I need to own that part.

But my Apple computers let me connect with family and friends via the internet on a platform that never crashes and doesn’t pester me to update constantly. My Airport wireless router allows me to do so wirelessly, without worrying about where the nearest ethernet jack is. My Apple TV lets me wind down with my favourite TV programs on demand, and after that program is over my Photo Stream screensaver kicks in and shows me photo after photo of my infant son. Dozens of times my wife and I will just sit and reminisce over our family photos until the Apple TV turns itself off. My iPad enables me to play games with my wife and quickly plan and print set lists for when I’m invited to lead worship for a church or youth group. And my iPhone — probably my favourite of the bunch. Not just for quick information or interactive maps-in-my-pocket as the Macalope suggests, but because I know I have a decent camera (photo and 1080p HD video) in my pocket at all times, which lets me capture moments like this video of my son giggling with his mom on film and keep them forever.

Apple is constantly trying to make technology more transparent. To get it out of the way and allow what it can do, not what it is to shine through. If that’s not making one’s life better, I honestly don’t know what is.

Sparrow for Windows

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Ellis Hamburger on Sparrow for Windows:

To sum it up, Sparrow for Windows never existed.

I recently accepted a new position. This jobs required me to use a Windows machine and let me tell you… none of the awesome software I use daily exists for Windows. That includes Sparrow, Tweetbot, Reeder, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Pixelmator, Aperture, Fantastical, Cobook, Bettertouchtool, and (to a lesser extent) Garageband. And the Windows alternatives (where they even exist) cost hundreds of dollars more than I paid for the OS X versions I use daily.

I now have two computers for work. The MacBook I use for everything and the HP I use when absolutely necessary.

Macs, Mountian Lion, and AirPlay Mirroring

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John Brownlee on the relatively recent kerfuffle over AirPlay Mirroring not supporting reasonably new Macs:

It’s simple: the secret sauce that Apple requires to make AirPlay Mirroring work is on-GPU H.264 encoding, or the ability to compress video on your device’s actual graphic chips without calling upon the CPU.

Piracy Wins (Again)

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John Brownlee on the theory that AirPlay Streaming is limited to Macs with Sandy Bridge chips to make use of Intel Insider DRM:

If true, this has got to be infuriating to Mac owners who arbitrarily don’t have an AirPlay-compatible Mac. As is often the case, AirPlay Mirroring on Mac is just another example of how DRM usually only inconveniences legitimate customers, while pirates, as always, figure out a way around the safeguard.

Windows Market Share

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Alex Wilhelm:

[W]e can anticipate that Windows 7 will overtake Windows XP’s global market share in late July. Our estimates point to the changeover occuring on July 23rd, at around 3:30 Pacific, but suffice it to know that it should happen at some point this month.

I wonder how many people are still running OS X 10.0.

Mac Malware

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Peter Cohen on the 20% of Macs with Malware:

So where was the Sophos software finding these malignant tumors in my e-mail circulatory system? Gmail, specifically. In the junk bucket.

In a previous article Peter also pointed out:

Sophos is including Windows malware, sent to you by e-mail, for example, by unwitting Windows users. That stuff will never give OS X a problem.

And:

What’s more, Sophos’ thesis is predicated on assumptions made using data retrieved from “Mac computers which have recently downloaded Sophos’s free Mac anti-virus software.” Mac users who have downloaded anti-virus software are a self-selecting group if ever I heard one. One in five of those Macs may have some kind of malware on them, but I’d be very surprised if that was the same as the public at large.