China Not Only Makes Counterfeit Apple Products, But Entire Stores too!

in ,

An almost unbelievable account posted on a blog called BirdAbroad:

Being the curious types that we are, we struck up some conversation with these salespeople who, hand to God, all genuinely think they work for Apple. I tried to imagine the training that they went to when they were hired, in which they were pitched some big speech about how they were working for this innovative, global company – when really they’re just filling the pockets of some shyster living in a prefab mansion outside the city by standing around a fake store disinterestedly selling what may or may not be actual Apple products that fell off the back of a truck somewhere. Go read the entire post. The lengths they went to copy 90% of the details of an Apple store is amazing, however, any regular, perceptive, Apple Store customer can spot the parts they got wrong if you look at a few of the photos hard enough.

John Siracusa Reviews OS X 10.7 Lion - The Review To End All Reviews

in , , ,

John Siracusa has released his OS X 10.7 Lion Review. In case you aren't aware, John Siracusa is the king of Apple OS reviews. The PDF of his review is 105 pages long and has a table of contents for pete's sake. A Kindle Edition is available for $4.99 to get the article all on one page. Other notable Lion reviews that are out: 1. Shawn Blanc's review, "OS X Lion". 2. Benjamin Brooks, The Brooks Review, "Time for the Big Cat". 3. Jason Snell, Editor in Chief at Macworld Magazine, "Apple Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion)". 4. Wayne Dixon, a friend of mine, reviews both Lion and Lion Server in a combined review. 5. Not really a complete review per say, but a brief commentary, Matthew Guay wrote on tech inch, "First Thoughts on Mac OS X Lion". In addition to Lion being released, Apple released new MacBook Airs, new Mac Minis, and a new Thunderbolt Cinema display. I've been using Lion since early May, due to the fact that I'm an Apple developer and I've had access to the developer previews since earlier this year. Developer Preview 3 and 4 were stable enough for me to run as my main machine, with the GM Seed (retail version) having been released 2 weeks ago, it was just icing on the cake. My system has been very stable, with perhaps the only app to semi-regularly crash being Chrome, which was the norm for me on Snow Leopard as well. I highly recommend Lion. Mission Control, Launchpad, Versions, the recovery partition, the new About This Mac panel, I could go on and on. This is a good upgrade. Get it.

One Third Of iPhone Owners Think They Have 4G Service

in , ,

Retrevo conducted a survey they titled "Confusion and Skepticism May Impede 4G Adoption". Shawn Blanc linked to this and commented:

Perhaps it is the “4″ in the iPhone 4 name (since the iPhone 3G was a 3G device) that leads to the false assumption that it’s a 4G iPhone. But I also wonder if it’s not an assumption about the device rather than an assumption about the network provider. As networks tout their newer, faster networks, perhaps those 34% of iPhone owners (as well as 29% Android owners and 24% BlackBerry owners) assume their phones are automatically a part of the 4G network. Call me a cynical bastard, but I think that if you look at most surveys conducted, anywhere from 10 - 30% of those surveyed will generally be ignorant enough about the subject being questioned to give surprising answers. See the 28% of the populace that still thought George Bush was doing a good job at the end of his failed presidency. The results of this survey don't surprise me, but then again, I'm pessimistic when it comes to the technical knowledge of the general populace. It comes with working in IT for over 10 years.

Lion Tip: Quickly Enter 'Jiggly' Mode in Launchpad

in ,

From David Chartier at Finer Things Mac:

Quickly enter (and exit) “jiggly app mode” in Lion’s LaunchPad One of Lion’s new features is called LaunchPad, and it is essentially the Springboard home screen from iOS, adapted for organizing and launching apps on the Mac. Similar to iOS, you can click-hold on any app icon to enter app organization mode, also non-technically known as “jiggly mode”. But to get in and out of this mode even more quickly, you can simply hold the Option key. Icons will jiggle while the key is depressed, so you can move them between pages, drag them onto each other to create folders, and delete them. Let go of Option and your changes are saved. Someone with better video editing skills than I needs to cut together a short 30 second music video of the icons dancing to latin music by hitting the option key to time the icons' 'dancing' to the music. Free idea. You're welcome.

Clueless Commenter Of The Week

in , , , , ,

This morning I was attempting to read John Gruber's link to Daniel Bailey's article he wrote earlier this week entitled, "Apple, Is It Time To Shut Safari Down?". Apparently, due to everyone across the entire Internet pointing and laughing at Daniel over this absurd article where he almost goes a whole sentence at one point before getting a fact wrong, his article has been pulled down. It was pulled down at ConceivablyTech, The Motley Fool, Extremetech, and a few other places that syndicate his drivel. Luckily, Google still has the article cached. The article, as Gruber said on Daring Fireball, was as bad as I expected it to be. However, the comments were particularly bad. This one takes the cake though:

Justin Clements: I have never understood these "browser wars". I just want a browser that displays a web site. How hard is it to understand that? MS introduce IE8, because IE7 was bad? Firefox release 4 (or 5, i dunno) because 3 was awful? Safari 5 because 4 was so bad? I don't get it. No Justin, you do not.

Final Cut Pro X Released

in , , ,

Well. The day is finally here. Final Cut Pro X has been released. Already announced back in the spring, but just to reiterate the price has been cut from $999 to $299, a move that is sure to make Avid and Adobe nervous. You can buy it on the Mac App Store, right now. While no full featured reviews are out yet, Macworld has had an early release version for the past week or so and their excellent video guy Gary Adcock has written a first-look about the new application:

Apple has revamped Final Cut Pro's hands-on user experience in three major areas: Editing, media organization, and post-production workflow. New tools such as the Magnetic Timeline, Clip Connections, Compound Clips, and Auditions provide a smooth, intuitive editing experience. With the rise of data-centric workflows and tapeless video recording, organizational tools such as Content Auto-Analysis, Range-based keywords, and Smart Collections work in the background to automate formerly tedious and time-consuming manual processes. Post production workflows now offer customizable effects, integrated audio editing, color grading, and a host of streamlined delivery options.

The Price Of "Free"

in , , , , ,

Richard Muscat, writing at Serious Simplicity:

My contention is that “Free” as described and used in many contemporary web-based businesses is a non-business model that is not only broken, but actively harmful to entrepreneurship. Free rarely works, and all the times that it doesn’t, it undermines entrepreneurial creativity, destroys market value, delivers an inferior user experience and pumps hot air into financial bubbles. I think this piece hits it out of the park. Why should you price your product as a pay-for-service or good? This article lays out all of the reasons and why free should never be your decision.