A couple of things about Apple products

As you may have noticed, Apple unveiled some new goodies yesterday. As you may not have noticed, I’ve written about two of them.

First up, FaceTime video calling in the iPod touch:

The big question is whether people want to see one another on the phone. I think the older generation hate the idea. I certainly do, but that’s because I have what’s best described as a face for radio and some really ugly friends.

And then, the sad tale of the UK Apple TV.

Badly dubbed adverts really annoy me. Faintly sinister firms make an advert for shoes or yoghurts or incomprehensible children’s toys in Germany, and instead of filming a new version for the UK they just do a half-arsed bit of dubbing that doesn’t even attempt to match the mouths to the sounds they’re supposed to be making. “Oh, who cares,” the advertisers think. “It’s only the UK.”

The Apple TV is a bit like that.

Windows 95′s fifteenth anniversary

Doesn’t time fly? As you may recall, Windows 95 was a good operating system surrounded by some bad behaviour.

In 1998 consumer advocate Ralph Nader wrote a devastating critique that accused Microsoft of “suffocating” the PC industry and argued that “the victims of Microsoft’s monopolistic activities aren’t just the companies that go belly-up; they are the consumers who pay high prices to use mediocre and unreliable products.”

It’s bleakly amusing to note that when the (then) Microsoft-owned Slate magazine responded to Nader, it argued that “in the browser wars, Microsoft faces a formidable array of opponents–Sun and Oracle, to name just two–and, after two years, it still lags behind Netscape even though IE generally gets better reviews than Navigator.”

Let’s be honest, it’s not the kind of scar that’s going to impress women

It’s been two weeks since my carpal tunnel decompression, everything’s healing nicely and if it weren’t for the fact my left hand’s gone completely pain crazy – it’s been doing the work of two hands for a fortnight and has developed the same symptoms as my right, with added pain just to make things interesting – I’d be quite chirpy. The operation was quick and perfectly pleasant, the scar’s going to be a tiny thing, and while I can’t exactly go around punching nuns I can type, peel potatoes, hold a pint glass, drive cars… the important things, really.

I need to keep my computer use light for a bit longer, so I doubt I’ll be blogging for a bit yet, but I wanted to say thanks for the reading recommendations and for the good wishes. They were very much appreciated.

PS I’ve filed this under “cuttings”. I’m hilarious, me.

Facebook wants you to work for it, for free

Are you getting the impression that I’m not entirely keen on Facebook? Facebook Questions is its latest attempt to be like the AOL of the 90s, but more annoying and evil.

It’s a simple enough plan: make every single link on Google point to a Facebook page. Where’s the best place to buy a T-31 Modulator? Ask Facebook. What’s the best time of year to go turtle punching? Ask Facebook. How can I tell if I have a horrible bum disease? Ask Facebook. Have we always been at war with Eurasia? Ask Facebook.

Apple’s going to bring iOS to the Mac

Never mind inventing a slightly shinier battery charger: Apple’s got big plans. I think they include giving Macs the iOS operating system, or something awfully like it.

It’s not just the Mac, either. I’m willing to bet that it’s coming to the Apple TV, too.

Apps would make Steve Jobs’ hobby much more appealing, and it would mean that all of Apple’s consumer products – iPod, iPhone, iMac, iPad and Apple TV – would share the same interface, the same apps and the same data.

The Facebook movie is just the start

Nevermind The Social Network; what if other websites were films? You know the jokes before I make ‘em:

Shit my dad says

Fictionalised biography of a man whose dad doesn’t care what anyone thinks. Starring Prince Harry.

Maybe Steve Jobs should start a blog

Me, on the iPhone 4 Antennagate:

Apple has arguably the most loyal fans of any firm, and if it had addressed their concerns earlier and got them on its side, this supposed scandal would have remained a minor kerfuffle. Look how quickly and how widely fake Jobs emails – “it’s just a phone” – spread. A real one sent to every Apple ID could have stopped the whole thing before it started.

Fixing iPhone signal strength? There’s no app for that

Apple’s holding a press conference to talk about the iPhone 4, presumably to address the ever-worsening signal strength PR mess. I think it’s been blown out of all proportion, but that’s partly Apple’s fault:

Instead of putting their hands up and saying “hey, it’s possible to bridge the antennas at one particular point and that can make the signal drop, but that’s the price you pay for the BEST RECEPTION ON AN IPHONE EVER!” they’ve said that the reason for disappearing bars is “both simple and surprising”.

Presumably it’s simple as in “let’s make something up! Simple!” and surprising as in “we’ll be surprised if anyone believes this”. In Apple PR land an issue that can be fixed with nail polish, a rubber band or a different grip can also be fixed with… software!

Can Microsoft make a must-have tablet?

Microsoft is “hardcore” about Windows Slates, consumer-focused tablet computers. Me:

The danger here is that Microsoft approaches Windows slate devices from the wrong direction. If Microsoft asks “how can we stuff Windows into an iPad-style device?” rather than “how can we make the most awesome tablet computer ever made, a machine so mind-meltingly incredible that Steve Jobs fills his pants when he sees it?” then all we’ll end up with is a bunch of slightly smaller tablet PCs.

Don’t get me wrong. I like Windows 7, and I quite like tablet PCs. But I like the iPad much, much more. It’s an amazing device, and that’s largely because Apple hasn’t just sawed the keyboard off a MacBook Pro and jumped around the place shouting “and that’s magic!” like a demented Paul Daniels.

Apple’s App Store is two today

It’s easy to mock Apple – and I do – but the App Store’s had an enormous effect on software. So when I say app-y birthday, I mean it.

Being able to pick up apps for a few quid here, a few pence there encourages us to experiment, to forget our favourites when something brighter and better comes along – and that in turn means developers are constantly under pressure to raise their game, to create even better applications. Software hasn’t been this exciting since the online shareware explosion of the nineties.