What's Up Mac!

By Bill Rose

To mildly edit Grand Funk Railroad I'm in love with a girl I'm talking to.

In point of fact I'm not actually talking to her... yet... and when I do I'll have the full support of my wife of 25 years. So who is this Wonder Woman who has captured my heart?

First of all my heart is taken but this Mystery Girl has stolen a part of my brain. Say hello to Apple's Digital Assistant.... Siri.

I don't have an iPhone 4S and I won't because I'm under contract with Verizon till next December with my current iPhone 4 but there is a chance between now and then that Apple will port Siri to Apple 4 users and for sure it will be a major component in iPhone 5.

Soon Siri will be mine.

I don't need a Digital Assistant as such. I do think it will be an unbelievable boon to use my iPhone more effectively as a Navigation device during trips. It certainly will come in handy in cities and places I don't know and Siri will make regular usage of my iPhone more fun and efficient. Mostly I want Siri because of the Cool Factor. I also firmly believe Siri will be migrated to the iPad and maybe ultimately to the desktop Mac platform. As preparation for that I have been practicing my Scottish Burr so I can sound more like Scotty in Star Trek.

I wonder if Siri will be offended if I say "Hello, computer" in my rather crude Scottish accent? No matter because Siri is a game changer. I believe the paradigm of interaction with mobile and computer interfaces is at a crossroads and the smart person will follow Siri.

My one real question though is why did Apple name their Digital Assistant Siri? Some further investigation revealed some startling facts. Siri is not a woman. Siri is Daniel and Daniel is Jon Briggs who recorded the voice overs for Scansofts speech recognition software Nuance.

I still want Siri, I still wonder how Apple got that name and I'm going to keep the sexy woman silhouette graphic at the top of this column but now I'm no longer perplexed why my wife was so indulgent about Siri in the first place. As always she knew something I didn't. ; )

What's Up Mac!

By Bill Rose

It has long been rumored that one of the products Apple has in the pipeline might be an Apple branded TV. Experts are divided on whether this is a good idea or not.

Naturally I have an opinion.

An Apple branded TV could be a huge seller most of all because it's an Apple branded TV. The cachet of Apple is worth a lot of money and people are going to pay for an Apple TV because they know Apple's history of workmanship, innovation and design. Mostly people are going to buy an Apple TV because Steve Jobs said so.

Television is the last component of the Apple entertainment troika. Right now they have a lock on music and music devices plus a lock on mobile devices. Their computer business is robust mostly because of the success of the iPhone and iPad and now there is symmetry between all Apple devices thanks to Lion, iOS5 and iCloud. Television is next but what can Apple do that others haven't?

For one think Apple can do something that they do better than any other company and that is integrate. I imagine an Apple TV would be the highest quality high definition (but not 3D yet) TV you could possibly buy and it would come integrated with the ability of the current Apple TV to stream video and music plus the advantages of iOS5 which means you can check your email, browse the web, make purchases and so on.

Apple can bring their digital hub into your living room. What's more they can use their existing hardware like iPhones, Touch iPods and iPads as part of the experience. I can already control my current second generation Apple TV through an iPhone app so the next step up is controlling the whole TV experience through an Apple mobile device including using the keyboard and gestures features.

An Apple TV would be stylish too following the Steve Jobs Corporate Policy of form and function being equal partners in the end user experience. I can just imagine what Designer Guru Jonny Ive could do with an Apple TV and I'm sure it would be gorgeous and it would be manufactured with the same degree of exacting perfection as all the other Apple products.

There is a downside and likely that would be cost. I am sure an Apple TV will be more expensive than most if not all of it's competitors but I am reminded of a philosophy my father espoused frequently.

You get what you pay for. If it's an Apple TV I'll pay.

What's Up Mac?

By Bill Rose

I just got done reading Walter Isaacson's "Steve Jobs".

Wow!!!

There have been other books about Steve Jobs, all in my personal Apple library and including "iCon" and "The Second Coming of Steve Jobs", and they have been revealing but this book with it's unfettered access to Steve Jobs himself is one of the best biographies I have ever read. I find it ironic that there is an article about there is an article about turning Jobs into a "saint" but if you read the book he is anything but a saint. In fact the book does an amazing job of humanizing a cultural icon instead of just glorifying him.

Isaacson did a wonderful job of reinforcing a long held personal belief of mine.

I could never, ever work for Steve Jobs. I would have gone ballistic had he launched into one of his famous and all too frequent profanity laced tirades. I realize this was Jobs way of both culling the pack of the weak and motivating the strong but unlike "The Godfather" he made it personal and not just business. On the other hand his devotion to Apple and to making the best products possible is what set him apart as a business Head of State. In a world where "OK" is the standard Jobs sought perfection. I loved how he was just as concerned how things looked on his products that were not visible to the consumer but were to him. His attention to detail may have been exasperating at times to those who worked for him but most times he was dead right and his personal quest that all of his products be "Insanely Great" or "Put a dent in the universe" is exactly what makes Apple products so unique.

The book did a masterful job of peeling away the layers of an extremely complicated and oft times contradictory man. Jobs spent a good part of his youth immersed in the hippie and Zen cultures and he considered himself a Buddhist and spiritual man but at every turn of his personal and professional life he rejected peace for war and calm for histrionics. Jobs could be highly vindictive as illustrated by refusing Apple's industrial designer subcontractors (FrogWorks) to work on a Steve Wozniak project (a universal remote control) after Woz left Apple. He felt Microsoft, Samsung and Google blatantly and illegally copied Apple products yet one of his favorite mantras was Picasso's "Good artists copy, great artists steal".

Jobs would not suffer fools but his definition of fools was ambiguous and today's fool could be tomorrow's genius. Often an idea he dismissed as "stupid" would be recirculated by Jobs himself as an original "Insanely Great" idea. Steve Jobs was an arrogant and petulant man. There is no denying his character flaws but again the word "contradictory" comes to mind. He was adopted and yet he tried to deny paternity for his daughter Lisa from his ex-high school girlfriend. He lived a very modest life for such a rich man and yet he wanted, and got, a personal jet airplane from Apple and at the time of his death he was building a custom yacht. Steve Jobs Yin and Yang were in constant combat. At the time Apple awarded Jobs his Learjet he was making $1 a year as Apple CEO. He had just removed the "i" from CEO and he felt the jet was adequate compensation but Apple also offered him stock options which was generous of the Apple Board. Jobs demanded more options than Apple offered and eventually received them. Why? He had a Learjet but he lived in a regular home in Palo Alto with no staff or security. He had several Mercedes Benz cars but he drove himself. His personal car never had a license plate because Jobs didn't think a person like him should waste his time getting one even though a plate could have been easily obtained by one of his minions.

Then there is the other side of Steve Jobs. Even when he made mistakes he made them spectacularly and he failed not because of execution but generally because he misread the market. That was a mistake he didn't make often. He was a workaholic and he loved Apple. He was as demanding of himself as he was of employees, associates and subcontractors. He had an innate sense of what Apple could accomplish and even though he rarely took the expected path to his goals he still obtained them. He confounded the "experts" time and time again. The original iMac revitalized Apple at it's darkest hour even though pundits thought it a "pretty toy". Nobody thought he could produce a consumer electronics product or unite the diverse music industry but he did with the iPod and the iTunes Store and he singlehandedly revolutionized the music business. Gateway had failed famously with branded stores selling their products when Jobs conceived and executed the concept of the Apple Store and despite almost universal negative opinions from every front the Apple Stores succeeded well past even Jobs wildest dreams. Apple didn't invent the computer, the notebook, the MP3 player, the smartphone or the tablet computer but they did make them better than anybody else imagined.

Jobs devotion to style being served by substance was revolutionary. Often Apple products were designed before any thought was given to the engineering. The engineering fit the style and not the other way around. While most companies opened up their products Apple closed theirs in making each component not just dependent on the other but perfectly in synch with each other and not compatible with the products of other companies. Again, this "vertical" thinking was widely panned but it worked and along the way set a new standard for product planning.

I think it illuminating into the real Steve Jobs just how much he planned every detail of his products from the product itself to the packaging, peripherals and marketing. To all you Apple owners out there tell me I'm wrong that you haven't marveled over the packaging of your new Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Time Machine, etc. coming out of the box. Every detail is perfect in conception and execution. Jobs and Apple Head Designer Jonny Ive spent countless hours designing things as mundane as the Apple "Brick" power supply for Apple notebook computers. No detail was too small not to escape notice from Jobs be it the design of his stores, the iPhone, Macs, his new corporate HQ or even that jet he got from Apple. It took six months to outfit it to his exacting specifications before he would use it.

Steve Jobs will be lionized for making Pixar Studios one of the great forces of the entertainment industry and rescuing a dying Apple and turning it into one of the world's most valuable companies. He will be idolized by the Apple faithful for his string of great computers, MP3 players, smartphones and tablet computers. Steve Jobs deserves all the accolades because he earned them the old fashioned way by marrying his own unique genius and a maniacal work ethic that bordered on obsessive. I think Walter Isaacson's book serves to remind us how flawed this genius was and at times what the price he paid for his genius. In his 20's Steve Jobs was convinced he would die young so he was determined to make his mark in whatever time he had left on this earth. He succeeded on a level far past even his considerable expectations. Along the way he made mistakes and enemies as well as friends and allies. I think when he was diagnosed with cancer and certainly when he knew he was terminal the "other" side of Steve Jobs came out. Even with his great arrogance and impatience he knew he was often wrong and could be a jerk. He didn't dwell on his triumphs near as much as he pondered his many mistakes. In fact this book is Steve's ultimate and fittingly final gift to everybody from family to friend to fan to enemy. Throughout his life very few famous people were as private and guarded as Steve Jobs was about his life. This book is full of his candor and while there are examples of his famous "reality distortion field" this is the real Steve Jobs unfiltered and uncensored by his own request. He never got a chance to read his book and as he told the author he's sure parts of it "would piss him off" but it's real, it's honest and most impotent of all it's accurate because it comes from Steve himself.

Get the book and read it. Apple and Jobs changed my life by giving me a passion and a voice but after reading this book I think it ignited something deep in my own soul not to settle but to strive. That's pure Steve Jobs at work.

What's Up Mac?

By Bill Rose

Bose Companion 3 Speaker System

I like music. A lot. In my younger days I spent copious amounts of long green folding stuff on albums and stereo gear and hanging out in the various clubs in my area that played rock music. You may have heard of that area. It's called Asbury Park, NJ and if you are not sure where you might have heard of Asbury Park think the home stomping grounds of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

Besides the clubs I almost never watched TV at home preferring to listen to music. At one point I had over 1200 albums and played them through a Pioneer system (amp, tuner, cassette player, CD player and a very expensive linear arm turntable all by Pioneer plus a cartridge and needle that alone cost almost $400) that cost almost $4000 and a Polk Audio speaker system with subwoofer (they were first entering the market back then) that cost another $1000.

Those were the days but things change. I have a much better system these days that costs maybe a quarter of what my early top of the line system cost. Equipment gets better and cheaper and sometimes the whole technology changes. Those 1200 albums have been replaced by CDs and digital music. My stereo is now stereos because by adding some good speakers to your Mac you have a kick ass stereo/home theater system. I bought into the whole "Digital Hub" concept that Steve Jobs trotted out to MacWorld in 2001. My Mac was primarily a productivity tool but with the advent of MP3 digital music and iTunes plus movies both streaming and digitized my Mac paradigm shifted. My Mac became a digital entertainment hub.

Of course I had all the pre-requisites for a digital hub in my Mac itself but one of the key additions to my Mac was the Bose Companion 3 speakers I added 4 years ago. Paired with my 21.5" iMac (8 GB RAM, 1 TB HD 3.06 Intel Core 2 Duo) I now have the a wonderful Digital Hub setup. My Bose speakers made a huge difference with quality high fidelity sound for my music, movies and games.

The Bose Companion 3 speakers, two satellites and a powered subwoofer, were not cheap and to be honest you have a lot of choices out there that can do a wonderful job. I have the Bose Companion 2 speakers connected to my bedroom TV and they are marvelous and at $99 a pair they are a bargain compared to the $249 I spent on the Companion 3 series. Audioengine, Altec Lansing, Harman Kardon, JBL and Logitech have impressive computer centric speakers systems too ranging in price from $325 for the top line Audioengine A5B to $99 for the Logitech Z523 Speaker System. Apple has carried the Harman Kardon Soundsticks III ($169) in their retail stores since they first opened.

Speakers are a matter of personal taste and the size of your wallet but one key feature is that they be powered. Speakers that use your USB port to power up tend to be far less expressive than powered speakers. The test is a piece of music you know well that has a lot of components to it and a lot of musical range. Play it at a low volume setting and see how it sounds. Good speakers sound great at low volume settings while cheap speakers trick you with volume that masks a lack of dynamic range and timbre.

Add a good pair of speakers to your Mac and you are on your way. I listen to music while I work so good speakers make that experience far more pleasurable. Bose has a little hockey puck On/Off control so all I have to do is lightly touch it and the sound mutes if I get a phone call. Once I get tired of actually working I can watch movies and TV shows I have purchased through the iTunes Store or tap into the movies and TV shows I have digitized using Wondershare Video Converter ($69) for the Mac.

Bose has made their reputation on high quality and affordable speakers that accentuate spatial sound to simulate higher end speaker systems. The sound quality I get for movies depends on the movies themselves but uniformly the quality is excellent. My office is very small so I don't need a lot of sound but the powered amp (12.5 watts per channel) is more than adequate. For larger spaces Bose has a Companion 5 series ($399) that has a little more oomph.

I had Altec Lansing speakers on my system before this and they worked fine though the quality of the Bose is far superior. Of course it should because I spent $79 on those Altec Lansing speakers. ; )

As I said before though just add any good speaker system to your Mac and then sit back and enjoy.

* Bose no longer makes the Companion 3 Series but you can still find them for sale. They continue to make the Companion 2 and Companion 5 speaker sets along with their MusicMonitor and Companion 20 2 speaker systems for computers.

What's Up Mac?

By Bill Rose

Today as I leisurely read the news of Lindsay Lohan being handcuffed for violating her probation (again!!!), a man in Ohio literally letting Lions, Tigers and Bears go free from his exotic animal refuge before killing himself, various Republican Presidential candidates ripping each other up two tiny items caught my attention.

The first is Apple did not meet it's projected sales figures for this past quarter even though they had a 54% increase in sales and this past quarter didn't include the astronomical sales of the iPhone 4S. OK. The projections were ridiculous when you can sell 17 million iPhones in a 3 month period and show a 54% increase in overall sales right before a huge release of a new iPhone. A lot of people held off buying their iPhone waiting for the new iPhone's release. With 4 million iPhone 4S smartphones out the door 3 days after their release and the upcoming Christmas season it's fair to predict Apple will be fine for the 4th quarter and the year but it is ironic to note how the media spins what should have been amazing news into a negative.

The other piece of news I spotted was the release of the "Son of Stuxnet" virus. Apparently this variation of the infamous Stuxnet virus that supposedly attacked Iran's nuclear industry cyber infrastructure a few years ago is even more virulent. Codenamed "Duku" it creates a 36 day window into effected corporate computers where it can send data back to it's host, located somewhere in India, as a prelude to an even more serious and potentially debilitating attack by a more damaging virus.

As Mac users there is nothing we can do about these types of viruses but the article did get me to thinking about the security of my own system. Mac users have been lucky that they have not been targeted by virus or malware writers but as the popularity of the Mac and iMobile devices grow we will no longer be in the shadows safe from those who would try to crack our computers for monetary reasons or out of pure malevolence.

Sooner or later Mac users will have to trust some of their security to a third party program. Symantec, Intego, Kapersky and McAfee have or will have programs that protect your Mac from viruses and malware. Mac OS X is good at security but every OS has security flaws and OS X is no different.

Recently I upgraded my security measures on my own Mac. I always follow the common sense rules of security which are backing up data, never trusting emails as legitimate and never downloading attachments, accessing my bank and financial information through the web and not through an email link, doing software updates as soon as possible, never downloading an app except from the App Store or the software company's home site, and using hard to guess passwords. Recently I went a few steps further using iCloud and another Cloud service as remote backups and also employing 1Password on my Mac, iPhone and iPad to encrypt my passwords especially my email account which is the most vulnerable portal to your Mac.

I have no doubt my Mac is more secure now then it was six months ago but I can see a security utility in my future. The problem is all security programs scan everything and often flag legitimate files. That becomes a bore and wastes time. I am hoping a more efficient and less problematic program becomes available for the Mac. I have used McAfee products on Windows machines and it has caught some potential problem files. As pointed out before it has also flagged a lot more legitimate files than potentially damaging files and it's not proactive. Your computer can get infected by a new virus, Trojan or malware that McAfee hasn't seen yet so you have to update the software often and sometimes the cure is almost as bad as the disease if your computer does become infected.

Stay tuned...

What's Up Mac?

By Bill Rose

Another rant….

Who has taken charge of my email account? I know for a fact it isn't me and this is how I know:

A two day sampling of the emails I have gotten….

Comparing forklifts. I swear this one came out of left field unless everybody but me has a forklift at home. Ironically I do know how to operate one. I don't need one though.

Best Cigars. I have smoked exactly THREE cigars in my lifetime so why am I getting REPEATED emails to try them?

Political. The Tea Party. The Coffee Party. Liberals. Conservatives. Moderates. Libertarians. Democrats. Republicans. They all seem to want me and ironically they all seem to think I want them.

My Life. For the last time. I know where my little brother is!!!

PC. I have an easy fix for all those nasty Windows issues. Don't use Windows!!!

Dating. I'm not interested in dating Jewish women over 50 or any woman over 50, Cheating Wives, Pretty Young Things looking for a Sugar Daddy, wild middle aged divorced women or anybody but my wife of 25 years. Believe me when I say my dance card is filled!!!

I also don't need a new roof, a Halloween costume, credit cards, Medicare supplemental insurance, Viagra, XFINITY, DirectTV or a Dish Satellite System, a tax shelter in Nevada, a timeshare in North Carolina, a new car, any kind of online degree, a fad diet, hair products, a new mortgage, an equity loan, credit repair, my daily horoscope or plates that double as graters.

No matter what I set my Spam filters to do I keep getting an amazing array of email that I don't want, need or will ever use. So how does this happen and why do most of them mirror on a second .mac account I have? I know companies sell client lists and any time you deal with an online store or service they can sell your name to companies phishing for customers. Maybe I should pay more attention to the sites I visit but really... a forklift?

I have to go now. My email chime just sounded and it appears somebody out there in the Great Blue Nowhere thinks I will look smashing in a Genie Bra. ; )

What's Up Mac?

By Bill Rose

It took three posts but now I'm ready for my first rant.

The iPhone 4S.

It came out the day before Steve Jobs died and almost universally the media/public reaction was negative. I read articles stating this was the most disappointing release of a new Apple product in years and that maybe Apple was slipping.

Slipping? Really?

Forget the 4 million iPhone 4S phones sold in just 3 days since the official release. Forget the fact that Apple added another distributor in Sprint. Forget the humdrum things like a much faster A5 Processor, a better camera and extended battery life. Forget all that! The iPhone 4S looks exactly like the iPhone 4 and that's bad!

Or is it. The iPhone 4 form factor was universally hailed as dynamic, unique, sleek and breathtaking when it first came out so all those expecting a new form factor shouldn't be too surprised and certainly not disappointed. It still looks cool.

People wanted a larger screen but a larger screen altered that unique one size fits all hands dynamic of the iPhone. The iPhone's Retina Screen more than makes up for a loss of screen real estate but again that's a carryover element from the iPhone 4. Since iOS5 and iCloud work with the 4 and 3GS it's not 4S concentric enough to be a factor but Siri is. Siri is the game changer on the iPhone 4S and you have to have a 4S to meet this charming young lady who is going to change the way we use smartphones.

Siri is a voice recognition digital assistant. Siri is smart and the more you use Siri the smarter she gets. You can ask Siri for directions or the weather and instantly you get the information you need. Right now Siri only works with the native iPhone products but soon there will be third party apps support too. In the meantime you can dictate notes, send a text message, play music or a video without having to navigate your iPhone. Simply push the HOME button and keep it there (like you do to activate VoiceOver on older iPhones) and then ask or command Siri to do your bidding.

That's revolutionary my friends. That changes the whole smartphone paradigm. Yet even though the pundits had an idea Siri was coming with the iPhone 4S they still complained it wasn't an iPhone 5. I guess they don't understand Apple because when the iPhone 5 is released it will be Insanely Great by an order of magnitude. In the meantime some of us who aren't locked into their carrier contracts for another year can be charmed and amazed by Siri and the rest of the new features on an iPhone 4S.

As for the critics they went away on October 5th, the day Steve Jobs passed away and now the reviews have come out and they are very favorable making that early post rollout angst seem either foolish or even more deliberate than accurate.