gwschreyer's Profile

  • May 15, 2010
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Latest comments made by: gwschreyer

  • I still have a Dual USB iBook, aka "icebook" in server service 24/7.
    gwschreyer had this to say on May 01, 2010 Posts: 23
    May 1, 2001: IceBook Introduced!
  • hmmm.. I don't remember ANY hype on any of the products that you mention except the Wii.
    gwschreyer had this to say on Jul 04, 2007 Posts: 23
    Harry Potter and the iPhone of Doom
  • The iPhone is less than a week away and Apple has a new video on their website that demonstrates the features of the iPhone. This device looks like it might actually work as a convergent device. It is clearly a FAR better stab into this market, perhaps it is an entirely new market. iPhone detractors have wailed and whined about the "obvious" failures of the device. I suspect that this is just FUD because these "failures" seem to instead be conscious design decisions made by Apple. The camera sucks! (as if 2 megapixels isn't enough for snapshots and the lens couldn't be good enough to support the sharp focus that even 2 megapixels needs). There is only ONE camera and it can't used for videoconferences! Can you imagine how annoying it would be for someone to be talking on their phone in public AND doing a video conference. He would have to hold the phone in front of his face and speak loudly enough to complete tick off everybody nearby. No video conference = good plan. There isn't enough memory! Maybe for heavy duty music and video users, but its a phone! If one wants a portable entertainment device that will hold a whole video library, then buy a device intended for that niche job. No 3G! 3G takes more power to run, 2.5G is good enough for light duty work and 3G isn't implemented over nearly enough of the coverage area. No GPS! Again, takes power and not needed. Cell tower triangulation works well enough for E911 and finding a the user's location well enough to make Google Maps work. Battery life sucks! Apple just announced a moderate increase in battery life AND all the other stuff that is "missing" would all consume power. You can't have it all. No user replacable battery! Could be a problem but it would add to the size and weight of the device. Also, the iPods don't have "replaceable" batteries and that hasn't killed them. It would be nice, however, to have a hot spare battery though. Apple really ought to think hard about this one. However, the iPhone is still a convergent device and carries with it the woes that come with being a convergent device. It is expensive to buy It is horribly expensive to use (probably about $1000/year) It has good standby time, but as soon as the other neat stuff lis being used, the thing STILL may not last a whole workday, especially after the battery degrades over the life of the phone It will be expensive to replace if damaged and hand held devices often turn into hand dropped devices. If one function or feature becomes obsolete, the whole device needs to be upgraded. For example, Flash RAM storage would be hard to upgrade. If a future version has GPS and you decide that you MUST HAVE GPS, then it's new device time. If you just can't stand AT&T for any reason, then you are simply stuck. An iPhone won't be following me home, but I am certain that it will attract many others who really want what it offers now. I hope that it is wildly successful but primarily because it will give the rest of the cell phone industry a swift kick in the backside and force innovation. I also like it because MicroSoft has the most to loose with eventual failure of their Windows for Mobil plans as if they haven't failed already. If the iPhone is successful, it will also prod Apple into making more types of embedded devices and eventually one of them will be something that I could use.
    gwschreyer had this to say on Jun 23, 2007 Posts: 23
    Will Apple's iPhone Push The Mobile Market?
  • The article, and the addition, still don't make a lucid argument. The iPod will evolve, just as CE has done for the last 30+ years. I doubt that DRM is anything more than a bump in the road.
    gwschreyer had this to say on Mar 16, 2007 Posts: 23
    The Not So Great Future Of The iPod
  • Get rid of the chin, make it look more like a Cinema display and add a height adjustable foot so that it can go right down on the foot. The speakers may be a bit of a problem though....
    gwschreyer had this to say on Mar 13, 2007 Posts: 23
    Where Does the iMac Go From Here?
  • the next big flap. Let's suppose that the music industry decided to drop DRM (fat chance, those dudes are DUMB) and Apple is good to it's word and drops Fairplay (and maybe even back dates it so that previously locked music becomes unlocked). The howling will then transfer to AAC. Most non-iPods won't decode AAC even though they could. The hew and cry about the "propriatary" Apple standard will be immense even though Apple doesn't even own the standard and AAC is itself is licensable. Note that Steve used the term licensable several times in his letter. I doubt that Apple would convert to MP3 simply because the iPod plays AAC and it works better than MP3 at any given bitrate.
    gwschreyer had this to say on Feb 09, 2007 Posts: 23
    Thoughts on Steve Jobs' Desire to Abolish DRMs
  • I also want a smaller portable. A lighter ibook G4 would do. This is a long read, but I've put a lot of thought into it. http://www.girr.org/mac_stuff/upgrades.html overall, it goes along the lines of the previous posters, smaller, lighter, cooler, longer battery life. - gws
    gwschreyer had this to say on Dec 29, 2006 Posts: 23
    Ode to the 12" Powerbook: 14 Wishes for A New Hyper-Portable Macbook
  • #13) If the preferences are set right, then cmd-shift-click will open new windows behind (cmd-click in Camino). This allows a ton of windows to be opened from a page full of links (like Fark), then viewed one by one and closed with cmd-w without touching the mouse. Same thing can be done in tabs, but if you have 100 windows open, tabs get a little bothersome... - gws
    gwschreyer had this to say on Nov 07, 2006 Posts: 23
    20 Useful OS X Tips
  • I wish Nudge worked on Intel Macs.... - gws
    gwschreyer had this to say on Jul 06, 2006 Posts: 23
    12 Things I Hope to See in OS X 10.5, Leopard
  • Ben, it's these people that SHOULD be buying the cheapest hardware that will suit their needs. Apple cannot hope to include these folks in their customer base. You simply cannot be everything to everybody. - gws
    gwschreyer had this to say on Jun 23, 2006 Posts: 23
    Why Is Vista So Resource Hungry?
  • "Right, because companies like Microsoft and Apple only support the latest version of their hardware." Uhhh... 10.4.6 seems to run fine on hardware more than 5 years old, long ago "obsolete." Some of this stuff predates OS X. 400 MHz G4 PowerMac (384M) 533 MHz G4 PowerMac (384M) 500 MHz G3 iBook (640M) - gws
    gwschreyer had this to say on Jun 17, 2006 Posts: 23
    Why Is Vista So Resource Hungry?
  • After Apple completes the initial transition to Intel, I'd like to see them become processor independant, using whatever suits a particular product. They could use some future PPC or AMD chip if it made sense in a particular product. The super low power PPC offshoot could be useful in a sub notebook for example. - gws
    gwschreyer had this to say on May 23, 2006 Posts: 23
    May 23, 2005: Rumors Surface of Something Starting with Capital "I"
  • "I think they’d just switch to rival services. Meaning iPod sales would drop." Maybe, maybe not. If the labels were to raise prices at iTMS, they'd turn around and do it with every other digital service when the contact expires. They want the money. However, if OVERALL digital sales dropped because people wouldn't pay, then the labels would adjust the pricing, this is called elasticity. If I had to pay $15 for an album download, I'd buy the CD instead of dealing with the DRM. This would hurt iTMS sales, but it may not hurt iPod sales because many of these CD's get ripped right to an MP3 player immediately anyway. I don't even listen to most of the CD's that I buy, they get ripped and put away. - gws
    gwschreyer had this to say on Apr 05, 2006 Posts: 23
    iTunes: How Much Is Too Much?
  • Something really bothers me about the claims for pricing..."higher prices for popular songs, lower prices for older stuff" or something like that. What do they mean by "lower"? Lower than the new stuff for sure but I think that they don't mean less than $0.99. I would guess that they are thinking $2.49 for new stuff, $1.29 for old stuff. I strongly doubt that they feel that $0.79 is a good price for ANY song. - gws
    gwschreyer had this to say on Apr 04, 2006 Posts: 23
    iTunes: How Much Is Too Much?
  • EASY (Efficient Assembly System, Honeywell)
    gwschreyer had this to say on Dec 05, 2005 Posts: 23
    How Many Operating Systems Can You Name?