Apple Buzzkill

I was really looking for something to talk about other than Apple today, honest, but I've just been inundated with reactions to yesterday's keynote, so I just have to talk about it. You'll find that the rose-colored glasses are off though. So if you missed all the iPhone news, you can get a whole recap over here. When I was in the IRC backchannel, the first things I heard after the keynote was over was whining that he didn't talk about any new Macs, Leopard, iLife, or iWork, all of which are valid concerns, except for the fact that they'd all be far overshadowed by the iPhone. Plus, any more than 2 hours and people would go crazy. Still, those topics do need to be addressed, so I wonder if Steve will have another press event soon for them. It turns out that there are more weakpoints to the iPhone than I thought of previously. It actually requires a two-year contract with Cingular to purchase, which is understandable since Cingular wants that money, but still kinda annoying. That's not all though. I forgot to mention the lack of 3G, and I spoke with my brother about the lack of removable media, which is another annoying problem. Oh, and despite having OS X, it's not currently readily extensible by 3rd party software vendors, and there's currently no support for Exchange or Office. Plus, you can't visit the iTunes store from your phone, despite having WiFi, which I think is a bit odd. And if that weren't enough, Cisco is suing Apple over the rights to "iPhone". Last month I reported that there was a false rumor of the iPhone coming out at that time, but it was really a product from Linnksys, so I had assumed yesterday that Apple just cleared up this trademark. However, they haven't, so now Cisco is none too happy. To end this paragraph on an optimistic note though, Apple only spent 2 and a half years on this product, and it's still pretty cool. Just imagine what it'll be like in another year or two! I think enthusiasts shouldn't be too shot down, but just realize that it does have issues to resolve and Apple isn't infallible.

I couldn't fit it in that paragraph, but Ars Technica prodded an Apple representative standing in front of the Apple TV to find out useful nuggets like that you can't attach extra storage to it, you can't buy music from it, and it only supports iPod-supported formats. It's kind of a bummer for a media center in your living room to not have those abilities. By the way, those Apple reps typically aren't very smart. I asked one in Austin last August when the Core 2 Duo MacBook Pros were coming out, and he said they already were, and when I asked how one could apply for an internship he said they don't hire any. Both answers were really wrong. CES is going on as well, in case you guys have forgotten (as it's easy to forget amidst all this Apple fanboyism running rampant online), and Warner Brothers has announced Total Hi Def DVDs, which are HD-DVD on one side and Blu-ray on the other. This is a really smart move for WB, the problem is that both formats are inherently flawed (search my archives for more on this, I've talked about it plenty), so I don't know that we should be applauding any efforts to further either format. One more thing from CES that I think many of you can use: a very cool, USB-powered, affordable laptop cooling fan from Belkin. I'm totally getting one of those for my laptop purchase. Lastly, Google has finally actually released Google Earth 4, and the changes aren't obvious, but I do like the new community layers that give you more fun stuff to look at, especially if you're going sightseeing at a certain place.

Remember how I was talking about the 24 movie yesterday? Well, it turns out that the movie won't be out for quite a while because they actually don't want to start shooting until near the end of the show, which is towards 2009. Oh well, I can live without the movie as long as the show lives on (can't wait 'til Sunday). Michael Caine has revealed that The Dark Knight will be shooting in many locations including Hong Kong, Baltimore, LA, and London. Still no word on the plot, but I like these locations. Lastly, we have a couple of trailers. The first is for The Lookout, an interesting looking movie about a bank heist involving a guy who had a great life before a car accident screwed him over. My beef with it is that it almost looks like it's trying to be Memento with the whole notepad thing, and I'm not sure what the point of that thing is. The other is for Outlaw, about a group of vigilantes in the U.K. when it becomes unruly, but I just wasn't pulled in by the trailer.

Now for the Wednesday Mind Hump:

1. What do you dream about lately (literally or otherwise)?
Not a whole lot that I can remember. I know that last week I had a really weird dream and tried to not remember because it was so strange. The past couple of nights, I haven't really dreamed of anything at all.

2. Tell us about a dream you had that you fulfilled and what you did to make that dream come true.
I remember years ago I had one about a girl who I had a crush on where I saw her and just walked by her, as if to ignore her. A few months later, we did have a falling out, and we did start ignoring each other. Not the best dream, but it happens.

3. Name a few songs with "dream" in the title.
Dream On - Aerosmith