A lot of tech journalists this week are talking about computer maker Psystar’s counter lawsuit against Apple. Psystar has been making and selling Mac clones for a few months now. They put together standard PC parts and install Mac OS X on it. The only problem being that Apple doesn’t allow Mac OS X to be installed on non-Mac computers, according to the license.
So it was only a matter of time before Apple sued to stop Psystar. What’s interesting is that Psystar is fighting back by claiming that Apple has created an illegal monopoly by insisting that Mac OS X only gets to run on Apple-made hardware.
So this brings up the question: Why doesn’t Apple like Psystar and other manufacturers install OS X on their machines? After all, it is a sale for Apple.
Apple did do this for a while in the 90s. And it didn’t help Apple much at all. Those clones were a little cheaper, but quality was an issue. Steve Jobs put a stop to it as soon as he returned to Apple.
I think quality is again the issue. OS X has an advantage over Windows. Windows needs to know how to run on a lot of different hardware configurations: processors, video cards, sound cards, motherboards, buses, etc. But OS X only needs to run using a very finite set of these things. This allows Apple to spend less time getting OS X to work on every possible configuration, and more time getting it to work well on the configurations that they know and control.
I think the plan is to make sure that OS X is a good experience for users, wherever OS X runs. ANd if it is allowed to run on non-Apple hardware, then Apple looses control over that experience.
I think the guys at Apple are smart and have run the numbers. They see they can make a little more by selling OS X to other manufacturers, but that they will loose customer satisfaction in the long run.
I don’t see a monopoly here, I see the opposite. You can choose between Windows, OS X and Linux. The first is a general operating system not tied to hardware. The second is an OS that is built for specific hardware. The third is an open source solution that can be adapted to fit a need. The market has produced three different operating systems that are distinctly different, and yet all allow you to person the same basic tasks on a personal computer.
I just got back from the Digg Townhall event at the Big Tent set up for the DNC here in Denver. Jay Adelson and Kevin Rose updated the community live via a video feed about upcoming changes to Digg.com and also fielded many questions submitted by the community.
This isn’t too exciting. There’s none of the humor of Diggnation nor the coolness of Digg itself. But it is interesting to see what they have in store.
But what is interesting is the whole idea of reaching out to the community to steer the future of Digg. What other Web 2.0 company does that? Some, I’m sure, but I can’t think of any right now. Twitter seems to like to keep its users in the dark. FaceBook doesn’t make this kind of effort.
And this isn’t a halfhearted attempt at communication, either. They could have made someone the “head of community interaction” and sent them around to do townhall meetings. But instead the CEO and the founder do it. This lends credibility behind statements like “we’re working on that.”
I’d like to see other Web companies try townhall events. They probably don’t because they are afraid people will use it as a way to bitch about bugs and missing features. They will. That’s the point. And you can use that sort of feedback to make yourself better.
So we’re fairly sure there are going to be some Apple announcements soon. Some say on September 9th. But what? Rumors hint toward a shake-up of a product line. But which line and how big of a shake-up?
We’ve got the MacBook line, rumored to be ditching the white and black plastic for aluminum. Not much would differentiate the MacBook and the MacBook Pro then, just some larger numbers for the pro. They would essentially become one line, not two.
It does get confusing now with the MacBook Air in the mix. There are a lot of people not sure which one to get. One is cheap, the other is light, and the third is powerful. But if you want cheap and light, or light and powerful, or cheap and powerful, then you are out of luck. A line of smaller, cheap MacBooks and a line of heavier, powerful and more expensive ones would make sense, but I don’t see that happening so soon after the launch of the Air.
The iMac line is in a similar spot. I don’t see that it is time for a redesign, and there aren’t that many people asking for a more powerful iMac at the moment.
We just got the new iPhone, and and iPod Touch redesign to look like the new iPhone isn’t very exciting.
That leaves the iPod. I think this is where it is at, and it seems the rumors are strong here. A new Nano with a larger screen is the most popular rumor right now.
I see something a little more — something that would make more sense anyway. I think Apple will drop the name “Nano” and just call it the iPod. Think about it: there is no “iPod” right now. There are: iPod Shuffle, iPod Nano, iPod Touch and iPod Classic. For the holidays, it would probably be best for Apple if people could just wish for an “iPod” and shoppers could just buy an “iPod.”
So my thinking is that the new Nano will be called the “iPod.” The shuffle will remain, as will the Touch and the Classic. The only purpose of the Classic at this point is the large hard drive, so it will probably stay at the current configuration for a while and then go away after flash-based iPods reach 64/96GB in storage.
Then, of course, there is the Apple TV. Be interesting if they threw a curve ball and surprised everyone with a new Apple TV. But I don’t think that will happen.
So that leaves the idea of a new product, but something that will be close enough to an existing product like to “shake it up.” So everyone is back to the idea of a touch-screen Mac of some sort. iMac Touch? MacBook Touch? Or a new tablet device that is half-way between an iPod Touch and a MacBook?
What do YOU think? Leave a comment!
NOTE: This is an old article. The ringtones are no longer available via podcast. You can download them all directly here: http://macmost.com/free-iphone-ringtones.
So it looks like putting our MacMost free iPhone ringtones in the iTunes store as a free podcast was a good idea. A lot of people have subscribed. I wanted to do a short blog post about how to get these ringtones on to your iPhone.
1. Go to our iPhone ringtones page at http://macmost.com/iphoneringtones/ and click on the “subscribe to the free iPhone ringtones feed as a podcast” link. This will open iTunes and take you right to the subscription page. Note that iTunes will not show you the ringtones in the list of episodes — a bug in iTunes. But they are there. Click on the Subscribe button.
2. In iTunes, under the Library heading on the left, look for “Podcasts.” Click on that and then look for “MacMost iPhone Ringtones” in the list on the right. Click on the triangle to the left of that to see all of the items under that podcast.
3. Press the Get button next to each of the items you want to add. Or, press the Get All button at the top of the list.
4. Plug your iPhone in to your computer. Let it sync with iTunes.
5. Click on the iPhone in the iTunes list on the left, under Devices. Now you should see your iPhone settings in the main iTunes area. Click on the Podcasts tab.
6. Set your iPhone to sync all episodes of all Podcasts. Or, alternatively, set it to sync only the podcasts you want. Either way, you must have it set to sync ALL episodes. If you set it so it only syncs the X most recent episodes of your podcast, you will not get some or any of the ringtones.
6a. Alternatively, you could create a Smart Playlist by choosing File, Create Smart Playlist. Set the options so the “Kind” contains “Ringtones” and Live Updating is turned on. Then select the Music tab of your iPhone settings and make sure that the new Smart Playlist is set to sync to your iPhone.
7. Re-sync your iPhone to send the ringtones to it.
7a. Some people have reported that you must have at least one ringtone in your iTunes library for ringtones to appear on the left side of iTunes and for ringtones to sync at all. So you may need to download a free ringtone here and drag and drop it into your iTunes library.
8. In the Settings app of your iPhone, click on Sounds to set you default ringtone. You can also go into the Contacts app to set a specific ringtone for some of your contacts.
9. Go back to iTunes and write a review!
Also: If you are still having trouble, please contact us via email and we’ll be glad to help. You can also just go to the iPhone Ringtones page and download any ringtone individually and add them to iTunes without subscribing to the podcast. So you have plenty of options.
Enjoy the free ringtones!
I don’t mind MacMost being labeled as a “fanboy” site. I am an Apple fan. But it doesn’t mean I think everything the company does it right. Here are five things I think Apple should do differently.
1. The iPhone should be on more carriers. They shouldn’t have an exclusive deal with AT&T. We should have all the major mobile companies in the U.S. and elsewhere competing to give us the best price and service. The bottom line would be more iPhone sales and happier iPhone owners.
2. MobileMe should be free and better. The price of admission for MobileMe should be simply owning a Mac or an iPhone. And MobileMe should have features like Blogger, FaceBook and Flickr. MobileMe as an Apple-only social network would be a huge hit and would drive Mac sales like crazy.
3. The iTunes store should ban DRM. Apple should use its market-leading position to put an end to DRM. I’ve been buying music exclusively on CD and at DRM-free sites like Amazon. I’m sure I’m not the only one.
4. New versions of Mac OS X should have an upgrade price. Paying full ticket price to upgrade isn’t reasonable.
5. Make Apple TV more useful by making rentals good for 36 hours and adding some basic RSS-reading Web-browsing functionality. Add a BluRay/DVD player to it for $100 more. To make it really great, add DVR functions.
So we’ve had a collection of free iPhone ringtones for a while. The idea is that we think it is ridiculous to have to pay for new and interesting ringtones — they are just ringtones!
We’ve added a feature to that page where you can subscribe to the ringtones as a podcast feed.
There’s a trick to it, though. iTunes doesn’t show .m4r files through its iTunes store listings. So when you look at the subscription page, all you see is the sample .mp3 file. But when you subscribe to the feed in iTunes, you will see all of the .m4r ringtones in your iTunes Library, Podcast, MacMost iPhone Ringtones list.
The great thing there is that you should be able to control which ringtones you download rather easily through your iTunes podcast subscriptions screen. Then, you can automatically get new ringtones when we add them. In addition, if you set up your iTunes/iPhone settings properly, the ringtones will automatically transfer to your iPhone and be available to be used as ringtones.
We just added two new iPhone Games to the free iPhone games section of the site: Poker Solitaire and Astro-Blobs.
Poker Solitaire is a card game where you place 25 cards in a 5×5 grid to make 10 vertical and horizontal poker hands. You get points based on how good the hands are.
Astro-Blobs is a version of the Flash game at GameScene. The original game dates back to the early days of Flash, but the gameplay is well suited for the tap interface of the iPhone.
