• Seems like this is one of those “curable Cancers” with a 90% success rates. It’s still the worst pain I have ever experienced, with daily radiation treatments for the last four weeks. It was all I could do to take a ride to the hospital each day, get a treatment, then home and collapse into bed.

• My darling children and my ex-wife have been providing some care, but I wasn’t doing to well living on my own, most of the time. Got so dehydrated then delirious, I am back in the hospital getting continuous fluids as of last Thursday, anti-nausea medicine, with four more radiation treatments to go.

• Not the best weight loss regimen I’d recommend, but I’ve shed 90 pounds since leaving Florida last May – good riddance. My life style is changing, and I’m determined to dance with at my Granddaughter Leah’s wedding!

Gramps & Leah

Pocket Mac is a horrible application, and I believe the Curve is not supported. Have him/her try Missing Sync for Blackberry. They just came out with a new v2.0 for the Blackberry platform. It’s going to
cost $40, but it is well worth it.

http://www.markspace.com

Giuseppe Di Franco
gdifranco@me.com

A co-worker has a Blackberry Curve that she would like to sync with her iMac running OX 10.4.11. She says she downloaded the Pocket Mac software, but her Mac will not see the BlackBerry at all. Not sure if she also installed the updated drivers or not. Or if she needs to. Any suggestions on how to solve this? Buying an iPhone is not an option.

Thanks much!
Marian Wertalka

I’ve counted over 30 articles from the likes of the WS Journal, Forbes, Bloomberg, TheStreet.com to Macswoop, mostly pointing out how disappointed they are with Apple’s Q1 Financial Report. The company reports a 47% profit increase and a 57% rise in profit. What do ya’ll expect? Steve Jobs plays poker AND HOLDS HIS CARDS close to his vest? 

Apple just isn’t going to let anyone know what the future holds, until they are darn good and ready. 

The day traders who run the stock price up and down are worse yet. But they have created a real dicsount stock buying opportunity for the long haul.

The Macbook Air® design is a bit of a mystery to me, but then again so were the floppy-less Bondi Blue iMac, SCSI-less Bondi-blue G3′s, original iPods, Airport Base Stations and the iPhone. Ironically, all those products were not first (or even second or third) in their given categories. It seems any time Apple has released a new product it has been innovative, but the market often ignored this innovation.

That is until about two years ago, the long term price index started to creep up. Then WHAM, more than doubled over this past year. The iPhone and release of Leopard (OSX 10.5) certainly has had something to do with this, as well as the increase in Macintosh computer sales. I think the computer sales are a bonus for Apple who ironically also struck “Computer” from their official corporate name this past year.

The “Pundidiots” after seeing the Q1 financial reporting a 57% increase in profit, are now saying, “..we can’t see a clear Road-Map for Apple this year…” which translates to panic for day traders. Apple stock closed at $157 (Jan 22, 2008) then,

“Apple Shares Go Sour: Apple blew past expectations for the first quarter but guided Wall Street lower with a weak second-quarter forecast.” ["Shares of Apple plunged more than 11% in after-hours trading to $137.65 -- a four-month low."] TheStreet.com

This is a definite pull-back in shareholder confidence, but those of us that are with Apple for the long haul are now glad we can buy back into Apple at such a great discount. Steve Jobs cut short his keynote speech at the January 2008 Macworld but at least one half hour. That makes me think there might have been “…just one more thing…” that was not announced either because the product wasn’t ready, or didn’t quite fit into the road-map Steve has in his own mind. They’ve taken a stab at getting more deeply into the living room, boosting the AppleTV capability and capacity. However, they did not really change the basic design, which has some flaws and lack of capability that would make it a “perfect” entertainment and information controller.

I wrote an article last year when AppleTV was released suggesting some improvements to the format that I think would make it more sellable, and I still think we’ll see something soon that will incorporate a few (if not more) of them. With the movies on iTunes music Store, and the promise of HD movies, if they can pull it off it will be truly evolutionary Daniel Eran Dilger has an extensive report on his website entitled “Apple TV Promises to Take 2008” .

He continues on with “Five Ways Apple Will Change TV #1

When Apple announced the first iMac without a floppy drive I thought, “How could a computer work without a floppy drive?” I think the stock price was around $20, but after the announcement at a Macworld, the price plummeted down to an all time low around $13 bucks. (JUMP to more about my thoughts about the Apple stock)

No Machines were announced that support either Blu-Ray or HD DVD, the two formats that are duking it out with the hopes of becoming the dominant entertainment platform for Digital and High Definition TV. Many have said they think that Sony’s Blu-ray will be the winner, but I think Jobs’ vision is that AppleTV might eliminate BOTH formats and deliver High Def to wide screen TVs, downloaded from the internet. While to me it seems impossible because of the shear humongous file size of High Definition, perhaps ole Steve is onto something.

There was a lot of prognostication about what would be released at the 2008 Macworld in January. Many Apple watchers/commentors suggested a new thinner laptop. On this they were correct, but a bit off on the specs. They were right on the CD/DVD less factor, but they got most everything else sideways. The Macbook Air is not a Mac for everyone in my not so humble opinion.

So who is this new laptop for? This machine will be a great traveling machine, as it is lite and super thin. It’ll feel like nothing in a work bag or carry on. (I use a rolling bag for my 15″ Macbook pro). For the road warrior running Excel or Word, sending email or browsing the web, a perfect compliment. For “road warriors” like myself it simply won’t do, at least not in it’s current iteration. Without a Firewire port, it’s simply a “no go” for this fellow. I use my Macbook Pro as a target drive or a diagnostic tool and I must have every port I can available to make me compatible with all sorts of difficult situations.

The Macbook Air is slower than it’s less expensive cousin the Macbook (1.6/8ghz compared to 2.0ghz). For $200 more you can get an entry level Macbook Pro, for $500 less you get a faster more capable Macbook. I’m not sure about what this model really is. I think it’s clearly aimed at a professional market that doesn’t need to connect to the world by anything but a WiFI connection (there is no Ethernet jack). The only time I really use a DVD is when I am authoring a video or photo collection. I never play DVD’s and rarely RIP a CD for iTunes.

I like being wireless, when it works as so often it does not. Even with the new proposed “N” standard wireless hasn’t seen much improvement. Sometimes it just doesn’t work. Airport base stations seem to work better but if you have a need to move large graphic, movie or sound files, you will not like having to do it through the air. I;m sorry Apple, I need a solid plugged in network or at least a mountable machine through IEEE1394 Firewire. I’ll bet the next or subsequent generation has one. Maybe one will be able to put the Air into Target Mode and use the USB 2.0 port, but I haven’t seen this mentioned as any of the ways to connect.

Recently Mac News Network reported on an Apple Patent for an iMac like screen “docking station”. I got excited about that possibility and frankly think we will see this sooner rather than later. It just makes perfect sense. A super thin laptop that just plugs into your desktop screen when you are at the office. This new Airbook wouldn”t / couldn’t be that model could it? To me it wouldn’t have anything but the WiFi N connection, which would really be counter productive. Unless of course it’s the dock for the i”Word” only market the Air seems to be aimed at.

I now use my Macbook Pro exclusively, relegating my G5 tower to a video and file server. I have it propped atop a slanted USB cooling fan and run with the lid closed most of the time it runs rings around the G5 in terms of speed and I can play Madden NFL 08 in native Mac mode!

A Mac in my Car?

I’ve been thinking that Apple should get together with auto makers to make a “head unit” with a “cassette” sized slot to plug an iPod or better yet an iPhone directly into. No wires to plug in, no adapters to keep track of. Make the car’s head unit with a display screen to play DVD’s, show iTunes control, handle Bluetooth and voice phone “hands free”, and of course more options in the GPS arena. Some car manufacturers have adapters that plug in, but nobody has come out with a slot load stereo for the car. A radio like that wouldn’t need a CD or DVD changer at all. Some of the new Cadillacs come with a”built in 40gig hard drive” (or so the wench in the Cadillac says, “it isn’t any of that, it’s once you turn your car on, does it return the favor”.…sheesh – Who wants a crummy Cadillac anyway, I drive a Mercedes, but I would love a built in Mac with GPS. I have an Alpine stereo head unit with a High speed iPod link which works great, but the control screen is kind small and I cannot control it through my steering wheel controls like the original FM radio. Have you seen the new obnoxious Ford commercials touting the Microsoft Sync, steering wheel voice control over MP3, NAV, and cell phone? “Play Michael Boulton… Play the Strokes!” yuk!!! Hasn’t this one occurred to Apple yet?

but I digress …I wanted to write some about Apple Stock

I bought some stock on a lark when it was around $20/share and played with Apple for the last 10 years or so. I guess the Apple stock watchers get pessimistic when “the Macworld” doesn’t meet the pundits lofty expectations, and it seems no different after this past weeks “show”. Apparently there were not enough innovative designs or improvements from Sir Steve to satisfy Wall Street. I’ve bought more stock as the price has been falling. Nearly all of the announcements were prognosticated by the websites that cater to we “fanboys”, weeks ahead of the conference. The really astute analysts like Gene Munster still say Apple stock is still a buy with his estimate the target price being $250 for 2008. He’s still conservative there as I wouldn’t be to surprised if the price point exceed $300 by Jan 1st 2009, here’s why.

I think Steve Jobs enjoys the “cat and mouse game” between what Apple’s road map really is and what they reveal in his keynote at Macworld. Used to be there was, “… just one more thing…” as the big announcement of a new product. However, Jobs has not followed predictable behavior in this vein, for the last few years.

The stock price races up in anticipation of Macworld, then falls when the pundits are disappointed.

Here is why the price of the stock will climb and exceed current expectations. Apple announced two screaming fast professional models two weeks before Macworld. For the last couple years I have noticed about six weeks after Macworld they refresh one line or another but even more significant, announce totally new product after this short delay post Macworld. Their Fiscal Yearend report to share holders usually occurs about two or three weeks later.

Archive and Install
It’s amazing how much controversy was generated by our recommendation that users perform an Archive and Install when upgrading from Mac OS X 10.4.x to Mac OS X 10.5.x, with pundits claiming that the process represents a wholly unnecessary waste of time. This despite the fact that hundreds if not thousands of who used the default “Upgrade” path experienced problems that could have been obviated by the generally painless and relatively quick Archive and Install process, which we initially recommended and Apple later proposed itself in a Knowledge Base article.

Dock Rearranging 

We think a few months of patience now will be rewarded by many years of great third party applications running on safe and reliable iPhones.

Steve (P. Jobs)

P.S.: The SDK will also allow developers to create applications for iPod touch. [Oct 17, 2007]

I’m not sure why Steve Jobs didn’t just think of saying this back at the Developer Conference when announcing the iPhone. He could have said “soon after” or “within a reasonable amount of time” or “soon, with relation to the release of Leopard and it’s new SDK’s”. Perhaps this is all part of his plan anyway. They say, “… any press is good press”, so I imagine the furor over the iPhone and it’s “closed” architecture was a test for Apple to find out how vulnerable this v.1 product is, also to see how truly interested developers really are in the platform.

Personally, I wasn’t particularly worried about iPhone progress. Although I must say I was expecting more advanced features sooner than this. Even if they release a completely new model soon, that makes the current one obsolete. Unlocked units will be sold in France, so I can see that it will logically follow they will propagate all over the world. Once the chip-set comes along to allow them complete portability between CDMA and GSM systems, the iPhone will be everywhere! Apple might be smart enough to put the code limiting the iPhone use to certain countries or excluding (somehow) the unlocked versions from working in the USA.

I can’t think that Apple is hurting for cash, as it’s always been said that their reserves were flush with cash. But now they have a guaranteed multi-year cash flow promise from AT&T. After all, if AT&T and all of the other cell providers in this country get away with these ridiculous “penalty” fees they foist upon the public, why wouldn’t Apple be able to continue the monthly drain on AT&T?

As an investor in Apple stock, this makes good financial sense to me and can only go to support the confidence the market has in Apple’s ability to continue innovating. Keep up the good work Apple, and “Thank You” –Steve–!

Thanks Steve. It’s a fair gesture – and it should appease we worried investors, even though it’s only costing Apple $100 Million or so. Probably not even that seeing as you have to buy another Apple product that is also marked up. I’m going to pick up iWork & iLife. I’m tired of waiting for our NFR copies.

What’s my pet peeve? You cannot manually add songs as you choose, directly to the iPhone! You can add playlists, but not by drag & drop. Oh no, you have to select which playlists to add to the phone. So if you just want to add 1 song, it MUST BE IN A PLAYLIST! This is a really stupid programming oversight. You’d think with the success of the iPOD, Apple would know to make the interface consistent with the iPod. You also have to perform “Sync” in order to add the song. I didn’t really buy an iPhone to use as a music player. I bought it for other features, and so far I am pretty happy with the decision.

If during experimentation you choose NOT to auto “Sync” the iPhone (by changing one of the cryptic settings in the iPhone setup general screen – within iTunes), iTunes will remove all of the songs you had there.

I already have two iPods, one of which is permanently in my car with a direct connection to my car stereo. The other one I use while traveling, will be replaced (in use) by the iPhone. The minor inconvenience of pre-selected playlists won’t really matter that much, I like to watch TV shows or movies while flying. I believe there will be a Skype like application developed, where we will be able to circumvent any wireless phone carrier, if we can find a WiFi hotspot. (Miami Beach is rolling out free “Beach-wide” WiFi soon) Of course that probably won’t happen until AT&T does something to piss Steve Job’s off and he decides to “divorce” them from iPhone. It wouldn’t surprise me too much to see an alternatively named iPhone such as “iPhone Nano”, not subject to the ridiculous and unfair 2-year commitment AT&T has come up with for early iPhone adapters. It would be one thing if AT&T were actually subsidizing the real cost of iPhone to consumers, but we are paying “full price” for the iPhone, so how is that commitment benefitting the consumer?
…
I’m reasonably certain we’ll see this changed in an early software update. It’s so glaring an issue, I cannot see that they wouldn’t change it to work more like a regular iPod.

As far as other missing features people have been complaining about; remember the iMac when it was first introduced? It didn’t have a floppy drive or SCSI! How can we do without a floppy drive, everyone exclaimed or SCSI! How will we hook up our external hard drives?

We all thought (at least I don’t think that I was alone in thinking) Apple had lost it’s friggin’ mind. Actually, what Apple was saying was, “Here’s the newest technology, we’re done supporting all of that old stuff!” Firewire was invented by Apple as well as SCSI I think, so they were saying, “Get used to it, this is the direction we’re heading”. Seemed downright user un-friendly, huh?

Of course since then, we’ve grown to see the wisdom in this. I can’t say where I HAVE THE BOX OF SCSI CABLES I’ve collected over the years, but I assure you, it’s collecting dust somewhere in storage.

My point is this; Apple is one tough innovator. We have always paid a premium to have the latest and greatest technology from them. As early adopters (which I now seem to be part of that crowd), we always suffer the pains of what is new and what is left out of an Apple product, when the next generation of that product comes along.

While many an IT manager stubbornly will reject having Macintosh computers on their networks, CEO’s, CIO’s and CFO’s are now also rejecting IT managers claims and questioning the merits of their hardware and software selections. They have to comply now with younger more learned bosses, who just won’t accept “average” or “it will do”. As companies now realize the norm (MSloth) isn’t necessarily the best or cheapest in the long run. Apple hardware and software and hardware solutions are starting to gain credence and viability in the Enterprise market. Ironically, most heavy duty IT managers hated Windows (and still do) when it came along, but were forced to accept it, because the bosses wanted it that way. Off the shelf software seemingly made more financial sense, rather that custom built, proprietary software solutions they were accustomed to.

The fallacy therein was truly one of a false sense of economy. Corporations now had to hire many additional IT support staff, just to MAINTAIN Windows. We all know the battle that’s been raging between Apple and Microsoft fanatics for years; which is better, Mac or Windows?

As a Mac consultant/technologist, there were times when I found it hard to advocate the platform. Really, I had to analyze what a customer wanted to do with their machine, or rather what they really needed the machinery to do for them. Often, the cost of Mac deployment didn’t make sense in an office environment. Things have changed though, haven’t they? Microsoft still produces the 800lb. gorilla “Swiss Cheese” OS and a majority of NON-STANDARD (non-Open Source and proprietary) bloated office suites.

Apple on the other hand, has ALWAYS been the proprietary platform controlling the Hardware and the Software, but they are now complying more with “open standards software”, than ever before, and is producing competitively priced hardware. Software developers are now making software for the new Apple Macs, at the same time as they are releasing Windows versions, and not just as a ported afterthought. Apple seems to have a roadmap for the consumer base, they long ignored, and the quality of the products is affecting and impressing the way Big Business does business, once the opportunity is realized.

It started with jelly colored, floppy-less iMacs, then a “useless” music player called iPod, and now the iPhone. Will there only be one model of iPhone? I somehow doubt it. Will the iPhone always have to be carried by AT&T? I see that marriage in divorce sooner rather than later. Will Leopard really be the operating system that will dwarf all else in ease of operation and efficiency? That remains to be seen, but I am very hopeful.

If I can play Apple advocate here for a moment, I don’t see Apple taking any rest from innovating. I am really excited about the new direction. I always wonder, “Why is Apple doing this or that?” I can only trust that it’s a good direction, they seem to know trends far better than I do.

I can see when Leopard is released the true beginning “real” communications integration of “Open Source” standards and proprietary operating systems. I hope it all doesn’t “Just Work”, or I’ll be out of another job, but I know it will work better than ever before, and allow us to accomplish incredible things. Apple should take “incredible” as part of it’s corporate name, because that is what they are.

Just wait and see!