Gadgets Blog » Apple

Apple’s music empire just grew in an important way. Arguably the greatest band of all time, British quartet The Beatles has, for the longest time, been absent from Apple’s online distribution center, the iTunes store. All that came to an end late yesterday, as the complete works of the band finally made its way to the Internet for release. Apple and iTunes commemorated the event with a full-page spread of the band.

The move accompanied a press release from the surviving members of the band, Ringo Starr and Sir Paul McCartney. Due in part to record label constraints as well as personal feelings, the super-group had never made the transition over to Apple’s store. This was, in part, due to concerns about what online distribution was doing to the music industry as a whole. Today, individual songs outsell albums 16:1 through online channels, and companies like Apple keep a tidy overhead thanks to their distribution methods.

It will be interesting to see how this functions with the future of online distribution.

Apple’s had quite the year, to put things simply. The release of the iPad, iPhone 4G, and now this? The company hasovertaken Microsoft in terms of total market worth, and they’ve done it all despite being one of the most polarizing businesses in the market. When Steve Jobs makes an announcement, people listen, regardless of their opinions. Apple’s latest and greatest device is certainly no exception. Straddling the line between netbook and laptop, the Macbook Air is perhaps the sleekest looking device ever brought to market.

The Macbook Air is designed for portability, and its apparent both inside and outside of the sleek aluminum casing. The device itself is vaguely wedge-shaped, a slight .68 inches at the “large end” and a staggering .19 inches at the base of the keyboard. This is impossibly small, and a number of changes needed to be made for the computer to even function. There’s no optical drive, meaning ripping music could be a chore. Apple’s answer to this is allowing the Air to “borrow” the drive of a nearby Mac computer via a WiFi network. There’s also only 1 USB drive, which could be a detriment to users who have more hardware-intensive needs.

These things aside, the Air represents the apex of portable computers. It’s lightweight design makes it easy to pack around anywhere. Instead of a standard hard drive, the Air boasts 128 – 256 GB of flash memory, making accessing files quick and easy. There’s been a fantastic secondary feature of moving to flash as well: the Air has next to no boot-up time. Simply awaking the device from its stand-by status is nearly instantaneous. It’s a great idea for a device that’s supposed to be used on the move, as downtime in the booting process could take away the few minutes you’ve got to surf the Internet.

If the world of modern electronics has taught us anything, it’s that social norms and standards are liable to shift at any given point in time. Telephone calls used to be a private action, e-mail and texting were considered impersonal, and putting personal information online seemed a risky endeavor. Today’s gadget, the Looxcie (which I’m assuming is a play on “look-see”), challenges another social norm, that being recording everything you do with a video camera is done only by weirdos and creeps. This bluetooth enabled camera is mounted on your ear, documenting your every move.

Its an interesting concept, one that is bolstered by the Looxcie’s innovative design. Just a bit larger than a typical bluetooth headset, the camera has a bright light that goes on when its recording. Using a foam-based clip, the unit latches onto either you left or right ear. The camera can record for up to five hours of video before it doubles back to the beginning and starts writing over the start of your clip. The battery life is impressive to allow for such a thing, but this is perhaps understandable when you look at the video quality: it’s only 480 x 320 with 16 fps.

In the world of Apple and Android smartphones, Nokia’s latest entry into the market is a bit of a misfit. Back inFebruary, Nokia first made headlines with the introduction of their N8, a phone boasting impressive hardware that has been on the market overseas for a while. Now the N8 arrives on American soil, prompting a lot of questions for Nokia, a firm that has done well on European markets without ever permeating into the United States with the same amount of success. Is the device worth checking out? That depends on your preferences, but the N8 does have a lot to offer.

As alluded to in the previous paragraph, the N8′s more intriguing feature is its operating system. It runs the Symbian^3 system, which has been a stable of Nokia gadgets for some time. While the operating system lacks the name recognition of its main competitors, it still boasts an intuitive interface that makes the phone a solid choice. Three side-by-side panels display information determined by the user, from three up to six widgets. The flexibility is convenient and should stand as one of the main draws to the system, although users will have to learn the OS when they first pick up the N8.

The debate over Internet piracy is a difficult item to resolve. For one, no amount of ethical or legal banter can stop the fact that thousands, if not millions, of files are stolen off the Internet on a daily basis. Arguments against piracy are simple and straightforward: its intellectual property and taking it is against the law. Arguments in favor of it, for lack of a better phrase, tend to focus on where the money goes and dodge around the legality of the issue. Torrenting, which draws on pieces of files spread across a larger peer-to-peer network, has become the go-to means for piracy, as it allows for both increased download speed as well as protection from authorities. A torrent begins with numerous computers contributing to the download, sending a small part of the file to the computer attempting to obtain the file. Thanks to programs that enable these downloads, piracy continues to spread.

So imagine the confusion when a torrenting program showed up in the Apple App store, of all places. Apple has been notorious for strictly monitoring the content that enters the story, preventing it from having adult material as well as programs that place users in online security risks. This program though, a spin-off of the widely-used BitTorrent computer program, managed to slip in under their radar. Called “IS Drive,” the program didn’t come bearing BitTorrent’s trademark recognizable name, but the functionality remains largely the same. The program is capable of linking users with Imageshack’s torrenting software, allowing users to manage their downloads from their mobile device. Even screenshots of successfully completed downloads are possible, making the app appealing to heavy downloaders.

The rivalry between Google and Apple has taken the two companies to all corners of the computing world. Everything from smartphones to the acquisition of technology startups have pushed the pair into a deadlocked bout time and time again. The latest development, one which has been rumored for quite some time, has Google challenging Steve Jobs and company in one of their most prized footholds: music distribution.

In talks with record companies for some time now, Google looks to unveil their alternative to the Apple juggernaut iTunes by the end of the year.

No deals have as yet been signed, but Google is leading with their best foot, putting Andy Rubin at the forefront of the negotiations. Rubin is responsible for the take-off in Google’s Android operating system over the last year, bringing the platform to a wide array of devices and smartphones.

Sales of Android-enabled devices have gone upwards to 200,000 per day, numbers that should be alarming for Apple’s products. From the sounds of things, Google’s strategy will be less oriented around the computer, instead opting to focus on mobile gadgets.

Google’s options in this regard are certainly exciting. In Apple’s framework for music relies heavily on users transporting their music from device to device, a synchronization-heavy option that can become cumbersome at times. Earlier this year, Apple acquired online music streaming site Lala, a move that excited many about the prospects of Apple backing the service. For only ten cents a song, users could stream music from Lala from any computer simply by logging in. It was a great way to take your music library with you wherever you might be, but Apple disappointed many users by shutting Lala down following the acquisition.

While Sony might be better known for their television displays and gaming systems than their smartphones, the company has still had a great lineup of gadgets that have provided solid options for folks not wishing to go the Apple or BlackBerry route. The Sony Ericsson phone line has been a solid effort for the company, despite the name not reaching the same level of brand recognition of their main competitors. All that, however, could be changing with the new concept phone design that Sony unveiled earlier this week. Still in the concept stages, the latest Ericsson could have a screen unlike any other on the market.

Technically a flip-phone, the mechanism holding the two halves of the phone together operates differently than other phones of a similar build. Instead of “flipping” open, the Ericsson pivots, enabling the screen to move in a variety of horizontal and vertical ways. It can function like a traditional clamshell phone, with one half boasting the screen and the other half the keyboard. But the screen can also position itself so that the two halves are next to each other, creating an entirely new shape and resembling something of a small tablet computer. This screen positioning is intended to improve the quality of web-surfing and media options.

Here’s a roundup of some of the loudest buzz on the web:

• A Verizon iPhone to hit the market? Rumor has it that a Verizon iPhone will be available to consumers as soon as January 2011. Two reports are powering this buzz: (1) AT&T’s quarterly filing, which details the company’s strategic plan to reduce dependency on a “single handset” and (1) Apple’s recent orders for Qualcomm CDMA chipsets “for a Verizon iPhone run in December.”
• Speaking of iPhones: Mark Papermaster, the exec. in charge of the iPhone, left Apple in the midst of the iPhone 4′s antenna problems. Those in the know-how are not authorized to provide additional details.
• ComScore released demographic information about the behavior of men and women online. Women are in the majority when it comes to social networking, email, and IM, and women over 55 are the largest demographic of online gamblers.
• An adjustable parking meter? The City of San Francisco will be installing parking meters that adjust their rates based on demand in order to control the city’s tough parking situation. The test-run will last for two years.

With a lineup of sleek and sexy gadgets, few tech buffs can fault Apple for bringing some of the most intuitive technology to market. Even in spite of their steep cost, there is a certain sense of wonder that surrounds most Apple electronics. Even though I was a longtime PC user, I’ve grown immensely attached to my Macbook Pro, making it difficult and somewhat weird to use other people’s laptops that aren’t Apple.

There are many features I’ve grown attached to, but perhaps none so much as the most essential part of computing: the mouse. Apple’s TrackPad interface has to be one of the defining characteristics of their latest laptop series. And now, desktop users are able to get in on the action as well.