Category — the Media

Daniel Eran Dilger
Part of Microsoft’s new campaign to spend $300 million in damage control for the Windows brand is the new “Windows vs. Walls” ad, which seeks to lift the message of Apple’s “Think Different” ads from ten years ago and apply the same sentiment to its own product.

Microsoft $300 Million Ads
Microsoft’s Mojave Attempts to Wet Vista’s Desert
Microsoft’s Mojave Experiment Exposes Serious Vista Problems
Paul Thurrott calls Apple “the Bad Guys” of Microsoft’s $300 Million Ads
Gates, Seinfeld and the $300 Million Ad to Nowhere
Microsoft’s $300 million ad campaign tumbles with new PC ads
Microsoft’s “Windows vs Walls” Ad Tries to Think Different, Fails
Microsoft’s “I’m a PC” Millions Actually Promoting the Mac
Microsoft’s ‘I’m a PC’ Campaign Keeps Getting Stranger (With Videos)
I’m a PC too… touché
[Read more →]

Daniel Eran Dilger
After dumping its $10 million contract with Jerry Seinfeld after just three ads (only two of which even aired) Microsoft has created new ad copy where regular people and a few celebrities say, “I’m a PC!” One problem with the campaign’s credibility: the ad work was created using Macs.

Microsoft $300 Million Ads
Microsoft’s Mojave Attempts to Wet Vista’s Desert
Microsoft’s Mojave Experiment Exposes Serious Vista Problems
Paul Thurrott calls Apple “the Bad Guys” of Microsoft’s $300 Million Ads
Gates, Seinfeld and the $300 Million Ad to Nowhere
Microsoft’s $300 million ad campaign tumbles with new PC ads
Microsoft’s “Windows vs Walls” Ad Tries to Think Different, Fails
Microsoft’s “I’m a PC” Millions Actually Promoting the Mac
Microsoft’s ‘I’m a PC’ Campaign Keeps Getting Stranger (With Videos)
I’m a PC too… touché
[Read more →]

Daniel Eran Dilger
After initially dismissing the notion that Apple could ever break its way past entrenched rivals and make any significant impact on the smartphone industry, tech pundits are now aghast that Apple is running its business the way its executives see fit. Critics charge that the iPhone and its mobile software store amount to a monopoly and a restriction of free trade. They’re wrong, here’s why.

Apple and the New Software Market
How Apple Is Changing the PC Software World… Back
iPhone Apps Store Growing Twice as Fast as iTunes Music
The Other iPhone Apps Store
SDK 3.3.3: The iPhone Podcaster Surprise Myth
Banned iPhone Apps and the John Gruber Podcaster Defense
The iPhone Monopoly Myth
[Read more →]

Daniel Eran Dilger
According to a growing swell of supposedly outraged developers, the creator of the Podcaster app had no warning that Apple might restrict the app from the iPhone App Store because there are no clear guidelines about what apps might be rejected or why. They’re wrong, here’s why.

Apple and the New Software Market
How Apple Is Changing the PC Software World… Back
iPhone Apps Store Growing Twice as Fast as iTunes Music
The Other iPhone Apps Store
SDK 3.3.3: The iPhone Podcaster Surprise Myth
Banned iPhone Apps and the John Gruber Podcaster Defense
The iPhone Monopoly Myth
[Read more →]

Daniel Eran Dilger
While Microsoft and the John McCain presidential campaign might not share many political views, there are striking similarities on how both advertise and promote their respective products. Here’s ten parallels between the two that demand attention.
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Daniel Eran Dilger
Paul Thurrott celebrated Microsoft’s new $300 million ad campaign as a promising new attempt to stop “the bad guys” at Apple from further eroding Microsoft’s monopoly grip on the desktop PC market. The problem is that the new ads don’t accomplish what they set out to do. Here’s why.

[Artwork contributed by Alf of faq-mac.com]

Microsoft $300 Million Ads
Microsoft’s Mojave Attempts to Wet Vista’s Desert
Microsoft’s Mojave Experiment Exposes Serious Vista Problems
Paul Thurrott calls Apple “the Bad Guys” of Microsoft’s $300 Million Ads
Gates, Seinfeld and the $300 Million Ad to Nowhere
Microsoft’s $300 million ad campaign tumbles with new PC ads
Microsoft’s “Windows vs Walls” Ad Tries to Think Different, Fails
Microsoft’s “I’m a PC” Millions Actually Promoting the Mac
[Read more →]

Daniel Eran Dilger
An author who has devoted his career to deriding Steve Jobs’ Apple as being “irredeemably evil” and portraying its users as a “cult” has scribbled up a new missive for Wired that attempts to hijack the company’s upcoming iPod event and replace any discussion of new technology with a tasteless personal attack of the company’s CEO.
[Read more →]

Daniel Eran Dilger
While praising Microsoft’s new $300 million ad campaign, Paul Thurrott, a Windows Enthusiast who regularly complains about any criticism of Microsoft’s questionable business practices and its shoddy product quality and who portrays himself as an unbiased user of Apple products to court the favor of his readers, has called Apple “the bad guys” in exposing Vista’s flaws.

Microsoft $300 Million Ads
Microsoft’s Mojave Attempts to Wet Vista’s Desert
Microsoft’s Mojave Experiment Exposes Serious Vista Problems
Paul Thurrott calls Apple “the Bad Guys” of Microsoft’s $300 Million Ads
Gates, Seinfeld and the $300 Million Ad to Nowhere
Microsoft’s $300 million ad campaign tumbles with new PC ads
Microsoft’s “Windows vs Walls” Ad Tries to Think Different, Fails
Microsoft’s “I’m a PC” Millions Actually Promoting the Mac
[Read more →]

Daniel Eran Dilger
Pundits have insisted that SSL email in MobileMe would prevent users from being hijacked to a different domain by elite hackers. However, both Gmail and MobileMe have presented enough spurious Vista UAC-like certificate warnings to users (not to mention other web sites and plugins) that nobody pays any attention anymore. Users will simply click it and forget it, turning Google’s SSL Gmail feature into a false sense of security.
[Read more →]

Daniel Eran Dilger
It’s great news that Google is planning to deliver a market for mobile software with its own centralized “Android Market.” It should give Apple’s iPhone Apps Store competitive pressure to continue to innovate, and provide a safety net for smartphone users if Apple fails to deliver progress fast enough. If Apple and Google both fail, users will be stuck with the failed third party software models related to Microsoft’s Windows Mobile and Nokia’s Symbian. Those high stakes make it all the more disappointing to find that the Android Market fails to answer the tough issues correctly.

[Read more →]

Daniel Eran Dilger
AppleInsider’s article “Developers question why Apple keeps its iPhone 2.0 SDK under NDA” presented several reasons why developers are frustrated with Apple’s tight control over the iPhone platform. Another facet behind Apple wanting to maintain a centralized position of control over iPhone development, where developers are bound by NDA to interface only with Apple but not each other, is to head off tangent hacks that might complicate Apple’s ability to lead its platform in the direction it wants.
[Read more →]

Prince McLean, AppleInsider
Despite the lack of any clear and obvious enterprise strategy at Apple, analyst Benjamin Gray of Forrester Research reported an incremental gain in enterprise Mac use among the 2,500 organizations the company tracks, representing 50,000 end users.

Report: Mac adoption expanding in the enterprise
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Daniel Eran Dilger
Kevin Rose has been trying his hand at making broad sweeping generalizations about the next generation of iPods, but sorry, no digg. Most of his predictions are not even original, and those that are are so vague that they’re really just worthless. Here’s what you can really expect.

Articles in this Series:
What’s Next from Apple: New iPods Sept 22, iPhone OS 2.1, iTunes 8.0
Two Decades of Portable Macs: 1989 – 2009
The iPod Power Behind Apple’s Big Mac Push
A Product Transition: Giving MacBooks the iPhone Touch
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[Read more →]

Daniel Eran Dilger
A recent article presenting how MobileMe works was been roundly criticized by at least three different bloggers. While the original article did not primarily address MobileMe security, the statements made about MobileMe’s security do warrant some additional detail and clarification. In contrast, much of the criticism was wildly overstated to the point of actually misinforming users about the actual state of MobileMe and email security. Here’s a look at what’s involved.

Inside MobileMe: Web 3 and Web Client-Server apps
[Read more →]

Daniel Eran Dilger
Today’s broad array of smartphone operating system contenders are offering lots of potential answers to a problem that only requires one. It appears the market has two options ahead: either pool generic hardware makers behind a single operating system and deliver a smartphone marketplace that resembles the Windows PC market, or watch them fall to a dominant leader and have a smartphone market that resembles Apple’s iPod ecosystem.

This decision isn’t going to be made by a class of intellectual elite, or by government mandate. it’s going to be made by the market itself. Here are the factors that will influence the outcome, either marginalizing Apple’s iPhone into a niche as the company has twice experienced previously at the hands of DOS in 1981 and Windows in 1991, or positioning it as the dominant leader as Apple has achieved for itself with the iPod since 2001.

The second segment in this series looks at Microsoft’s Windows Mobile’s attempts to “DOS-attack” Apple’s iPhone. Subsequent segments look at Google’s Android and Nokia’s newly opened Symbian and other mobile contenders challenging the iPhone.

Will the iPhone Meet its Match from a Modern Day DOS?
Will Windows Mobile Play DOS to Apple’s iPhone?
Will Google’s Android Play DOS to Apple’s iPhone?
Will Symbian Play DOS to Apple’s iPhone? [Read more →]