TheMacAdvocate

Remember Kylie?  She’s the cute four-and-a-half year-old who figured out how to download pictures from her camera to her PC, apply image correction to the photos and email them using a distribution list – all in Microsoft’s Windows Live.

Yeah, I didn’t quite buy it either.

Seems Kylie may be the next Jerry Seinfeld for the brand.  Not content to let an ad campaign stand by itself, Kylie has appeared in a crossover ad for Windows 7.  Using her legendary computer skills, she even puts together a slick slideshow with some of 7′s most positive reviews:

Advertising challenge: plot the demographic for this ad.

I honestly can’t tell if they’re leveling themselves or if they believe they’re actually targeting viewers.  That Redmond ad group is one wacky fun machine.

The way I redefined the aria.

9 apps taking from 8 to 30 seconds to load.  And this:

What will it take to get you into this Kia? from Ars Technica on Vimeo.

Advertising.  What did you expect?  They are free‚ you know.

As a result of an announcement made at Apple’s ‘It’s Only Rock and Roll’ event‚ you can officially kiss goodbye any hopes you had of doing something stupid in public and not getting caught.  Yes‚ the rumors were true – the newest iPod Nanos can now capture you being Sharpie skunked by your “friends” in 640 x 480 pixels at 30 fps – complete with AAC audio of your feeble attempts to ward off your attackers.  I imagine Cisco feels like the time I guy you hear about who bought the HDTV from the back of a van and ended up with a box full of bricks.

They start at $150‚ so boo for remaining privacy/yay for stealth pr0n‚ depending on how famous you are and what you’re into.

The new Nanos also got a pedometer (for Nike + integration)‚ Voice Memos and FM radio.

While I’m sure someone over in the Zune product design camp is doing a little fist pump of vindication‚ Apple has done what it usually does with useless features stapled onto other people’s offerings – made them useful.  In addition to being easily able to navigate stations and program presets using the scroll wheel and middle button respectively‚  “Live Pause”‚ brings timeshifting to FM radio.  Pause a station when you’re interrupted and resume when you’re ready.  You can even rewind and fast-forward through content.  If you hear something you like and the station supports it‚ you can also “tag” a song for purchase (bonus revenue hook FTW!).  So I guess M$ can go back to sucking it.

In other news‚ the new iTunes 9‚ also announced today‚ features “Home Sharing”‚ which allows you to share content between computers on the same LAN.  While one would think that allowing one to access his content via MobileMe wouldn’t be a stretch‚ apparently that’s not yet supported (at least not in the 15 minutes since I started messing with it and subsequently threw my wireless keyboard).  I WANT MY UBIQUITOUS CONTENT NOW!!  /rant.

All in all‚ Apple looked to further position itself as a media innovator.  As TMA digs further into the upgraded iTunes‚ I’ll be sure to keep my loyal readership posted.  /sarcasm.

Oh – and the Beatles still aren’t on iTunes.  If all media outlets could agree that “the Beatles” and “Apple” would never used in the same sentence for the remainder of time until it fucking happened‚ all famine and war would cease immediately.

Seriously.

Long time reader/first time poster.  Fellow “productivity porn” recovering addict.

Sorry to hear about your run-in with Snow Leopard.  Almost more sorry to see the clicktards at Infoworld are using it as a way of equating it to Vista (sorry – no clickthrus for clicktards).  Two upgrades here – no problems.  But I’ve been where you are.  Hope you cloned your drive with SuperDuper or something and didn’t do anything silly like dive right into the upgrade.  That way you could always go back to 10.5 until all the bugs in this half-baked point-something-upgrade get worked out.  A guy with so much going on shouldn’t take chances.

I’m not here to call out Merlin like he claims a lot of his Mactard peers are doing. I have too much love for the M².  I wish him the best and hope he gets back on track soon.

Get well soon bro.

/Jesus peace

TMA

Apple responded to the FCC’s inquiry about the rejection of the Google Voice app, and posted the response on their website.  Most surprising to me: the “continued study” of the app (Apple says it has not rejected it) had nothing to do with AT&T.

Apple is acting alone and has not consulted with AT&T about whether or not to approve the Google Voice application. No contractual conditions or non-contractual understandings with AT&T have been a factor in Apple’s decision-making process in this matter.

Well then, so much for conspiracy theories.  This makes the non-approval both less seedy and more niggling:

The application has not been approved because, as submitted for review, it appears to alter the iPhone’s distinctive user experience by replacing the iPhone’s core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls, text messaging and voicemail.

No AT&T SMS revenue protection scheme, just plain a old-fashioned fencepost pissing by the chief UI stormtrooper – or maybe a desire not to make Google products “just work” with the iPhone as well now that Google has thrown their hat into the OS ring.

Cult of Mac has an interview with Rich Miller of Data Center Knowledge, a site devoted to the data center industry.  Rich speculates that Apple’s reportedly 500‚000 square-foot facility (which would make it one of the largest in the world) suggests a “cloud computing” scale.

Silly rabbit.  Obviously SJ reads TMA and is looking to provide the bandwidth necessary to fulfill my personal fantasy.

According to a Game Informer survey, over 50% of XBox 360 owners have had catastrophic failure of their consoles.

Fifty.  Imagine you were about to buy a TV from a manufacturer who you found had half their TVs go bad while under warranty.

Yet according to the same survey, people play their 360s slightly longer per day than their PS3 or Wiis and only 4% said that console failure rate would play a role in a future purchase of a 360.

M$: Success Despite Our Involvement

On Tuesday‚ Uncle Walt revealed Microsoft’s straightforward upgrade chart for current Windows users.

/cracks up

OK‚ I tried.  How bad is it?  Even Ed “Go” Bott (“Windows is like the K-Mart OS X”) thinks that the only logical explanation is that someone secretly working for Apple in M$’s ranks is releasing this stuff.

And “Custom Install” = “Wipe all your shit out beforehand”.  Nice.

With Microsoft, many times the source material is so rich that true snarkiness would be both exhausting and unnecessary.  Gizmodo has posted a copy of what is allegedly a M$ presentation about its proposed chain of retail stores.  Two of the funnier bits: “the Answer Bar” and a proposal to use the stores for birthday parties.  54 slides of shit you can’t make up here.

Pity poor Microsoft.  Coming off the heels of Apple’s record-setting quarter, Redmond…well…

Got absolutely annihilated.

Microsoft whiffed on analysts’ predictions to the tune of one and a quarter billion dollars.  The traditional sinks – online services and the Entertainment and Devices group (Xbox 360, Zune and mobile phone software) – continued their crimson streak in the books while the money-printing Windows and Office monopolies experienced sharp declines.

Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell stated “there are some signs that we’ve seen the worst” from the economy, and that, “the spending environment is stabilizing on a sequential basis.”  There’s a recession?  Guess the economy doesn’t affect us all the same way, does it Chris?

Enjoy the schadenfreude, Macheads.