Posted by Aaron Nelsen on Jun 2, 2008 in
Aaron Nelsen,
Apple,
Google,
New Products,
Reviews,
iPhone Except it’s not.
It’s a nice thought that the revamp of .Mac will yield a brilliant and usable service to connect everything in your digital life, but the likelihood of that happening just isn’t very high.
Colin Pape of Seeking Alpha thinks that Mobile Me (or .Me as some are calling it) is going to be the magic bullet for Apple, and it will suddenly tie all their products together. I’m sure that’s what Apple is aiming for, but they’ve neglected .Mac for so long that I’m not sure an overhaul and a new name is going to be enough to breathe life into it.
On the other hand, some rumors suggest that Apple will be turning .Me over to Google for a portion of it’s revenue. Though with Steve’s ego, I find this hard to believe. It’s a nice idea though, imagine a Google run service that would allow for unlimited email/file storage and instant syncing of your contacts/calendar/photos/email/music from your phone (iPhone or Android) to the web, and your home or office computer.
While the promise of an easy solution all in one place is nice, why pay for it? Nothing .Mac currently offers is worth the yearly fee, you can easily find free or cheap alternatives to most everything it offers.
Only time will tell I suppose. I’d be more than happy to be wrong on this, the more innovative products and services Apple launches the better.
[ In the interest of full disclosure, I currently hold stock in Apple ]
Tags: .Mac, .Me, Mobile Me
Posted by Aaron Nelsen on May 4, 2008 in
Aaron Nelsen,
New Products,
OS X,
Technology,
equinux On May 1st, equinux released their new TubeStick hybrid for the modest price of $129. The TubeStick hybrid is a new TV receiver for the Mac, designed exclusively for North America. It features two receivers: One to watch digital over-the-air HDTV broadcasts and one for digital HDTV (QAM) cable or regular analog cable TV.
It’s a pretty sweet piece of hardware, that actually makes me wish I watched TV, just so I could buy one.
$129 (with free shipping) will get you the following…
- USB 2.0 Stick for ATSC, Analog and Cable TV
- TV Software “The Tube 2″
- Printed quick start guide
- Extensive PDF manual
- Antenna with magnetic base
- External antenna adapter
- Break-out Cable (S-Video; Composite)
- USB extension cable
The TV software “The Tube 2″ seems pretty robust, offering a timeshift buffer that allows users to go back and record a show from the moment they started watching it. It also includes automatic synchronization with iTunes, so as soon as you stop a recording it converts it to your preset format and adds it to your iTunes library.
Another great feature is their free TubeToGo service, it allows you to upload clips to a web gallery and view them on your iPhone, iPod touch, or another computer. It also includes the ability to add, remove and even schedule recordings.
Turns out the TubeStick also ships with a Windows driver, and works with Windows Media Center. Not bad at all.