Apple for the Teacher

Thursday, January 19^th, Apple hit “The Big Apple” with a Guggenheim Museum presentation of revolutionary new educational apps.  It wasn’t that many years ago that electronics were forbidden in the classroom.  Now – if Apple has anything to say about it – they’ll be a requirement and a way to enhance the average student’s educational experience.

Apple’s Senior Vice President of Marketing, Phil Schiller, unveiled three, new, free apps:  the iTunes U, iBooks Author, and iBooks 2.  Each one of these applications promises to take a big step toward revolutionizing education – a vision that was important to Apple’s late co-founder and chairman, Steve Jobs.

The iTunes U platform could be the best “apple” ever given to a teacher, allowing educators the ability to share course materials, resources, and other information with ease never before known.  Change the date of a test, share a link to a website that ties into course material, add an assignment – it’s all handled instantly and easily, with students receiving all the information on their iPads.  iTunes U even allows teachers to upload books from iBooks Author – the next app on Schiller’s educational agenda.

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Cloud Storage on the Go — SkyDrive is Here For iOS

If you’re a fan of Microsoft’s famous file-storage service, Windows Live SkyDrive, you’ll be happy to know that you can now order it — to go!  There is now an iOS app on offer that lets you access your files from your mobile device as well as your PC.

Heaven on earth?  Absolutely — if you know what it’s all about. The new information mobility means people can choose to store their files in the clouds instead of their PCs, and that makes understanding the nature of your cloud more crucial.

A Quick Comparison

A search can give you more than 70 cloud storage options, most of which appear able to manage basic documents, photos, and videos.

One difference is in how much free storage space provided. Of the two most well known cloud products, Windows Live Skydrive has 25GB free storage, while iCloud offers 5GB free (but purchased music, apps, books, and TV shows won’t count in that measure.)

Another is in integration.  Windows Live Skydrive integrates with hotmail, Bing, and Live Groups (5 GB shared space with members.) iCloud users get a free me.com account for email integration.

The biggest difference in the two clouds seems to be what you can do with them. The Live Skydrive supports collaboration, in that multiple users can edit the same document stored in the cloud. iCloud celebrates access to everything everywhere, which means all files are relayed to all linked devices; ‘No syncing required. No management required.’ If device individualization is not necessary to a user, that service may be a terrific timesaver.

So whether you think heaven is being able to collaborate on the go, have access to all your music, books and photos on all your devices, or other potential mobile efficiency applications, now is a great time to get your head in the cloud.

You can download Windows Live SkyDrive for free, at iTunes.

iPad3 Is On The Way — Will Apple Cut the Price of iPad2?

For a moment, pretend you’re doing marketing for Apple and you have a whack of new iPad tablets to launch.  The iPad4 is the one you’ll roll out in the fall of 2012, to compete with Microsoft and Intel for the Christmas market.  The iPad3 is the one you’ll roll out in the spring of 2012 because, well, spring is when you released the first two.  The iPad2 is the 2011 version, and the iPad granddaddy came out in 2010. (That one isn’t really worth mentioning, as the technology is so two years ago.)

The concept of iPad3 and iPad4 are speculation at this point, reported by Digitimes. The 3 will supposedly have great new apps, but with the same screen resolution as the 2. The 4 will have all the great new apps plus a better screen resolution.

So far, your Apple marketing contemporaries have launched iPads at about $500 USD for a basic 16GB model, with $100 increments for each of the 32GB and 64GB versions.  But if you did the same the iPad3, and then the same again a few months later with the iPad4, isn’t there a risk of harming the sales of one product in favour of another?

Speculation That Price-Cutting is About to Start…

No, because you’re in Apple marketing, remember?  Speculation is that you are planning to drop the price of the iPad2 to $299…a significant decrease from the $499 your friends probably paid.  If you do that, Apple would have the new low-end 2 (2011 apps, good screen) the mid-end 3 (2012 apps, good screen) and the high-end 4 (2012 apps, better screen)—nine new choices, considering each would come in 16, 32, or 64GB options

In addition to one-upping yourself with a new product every year and competing with the annual upping by your competition, you are also creating your own competition with a similar product at a lower price-point.

‘Isn’t that counter-productive?’ the economists ask.

‘Ask an automobile manufacturer’ you smugly reply.

That said, with 38.1 million in Apple tablet sales in 2011 and a reported 74% US market share, it may be that Apple marketers have been doing just fine without your help.

Keep on Top of Current Conditions — With Lock Screen Weather on Your iPhone

Adding Lock Screen Weather to your iPhone or iPod touch can make a difference. After all, who wants to arrive at the meeting – or anywhere for that matter – soaking wet or freezing cold?

You’ll never have to with Lock Screen Weather on your iPhone or iPod Touch. The app gives you instant access to current, custom weather conditions as live wallpaper. All at the tap of a button. No need to start up or even unlock your device. Just launch Lock Screen Weather once and set your preferences. After that the weather forecast for your hometown (or pretty much any other city in the world) will be at your finger tips.

 No Jailbreak Required

There’s a complete range of icons and temperatures are given in both Fahrenheit and Celsius. The reports are updated regularly and the app includes an optional five-day forecast. Best of all, this clever little addition doesn’t require a jailbreak.

So what’s the downside? According to numerous comments sprinkled around the web, this app drains battery power at a mind-boggling rate. The system plays a silent track that allows the screen to be updated regularly but also plays havoc with your battery life.

Fortunately, Lock Screen Weather app isn’t as hard on your pocket book as it is on your battery. It’s available at the App Store for only $0.99.

Never Miss Another Appointment — With Do Date!

Do Date – the latest app offering from Law On My Phone — is the easy answer to all your scheduling problems!  With Do Date, you’ll never have to worry about missing another appointment or event, because daily reminders of birthdays, anniversaries, meetings – all your important dates and times — are sent directly to your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Once you have the Do Date app, scheduling is simple, effective and worry-free. Using the notification center, Do Date ensures that all the information you need for the day is on your iPhone/iPod. Even better – this app counts down the number of days left before the important event so you are free to concentrate on what else is important – and fun – in your life!

The Simplicity of Do Date

Updates are automatic. You can’t set your reminder times individually but what you can do is make sure your iPhone/iPod is set to “show 10 recent.”  Then, at 12:01 AM every day reminders will be on your device, waiting for you. Or, if you want, you can change that time to better suit your schedule. Now that’s flexibility – which translates to freedom for you!

Do Date means you’ll never have to wonder if Katie’s birthday’s the 11^th or the 12^th.  And why should you have to when you can let Do Date do it for you – perfectly!  You can even turn the notification off so that Katie doesn’t accidentally discover that you’ve ordered a special present for her.

Why Not Do Do Date?

Do Date makes it so easy that even the most disorganized person can keep their life clicking along. When something new comes up, simply enter the time and date of the event, hit save, and relax — knowing that you’ll be reminded in plenty of time. Your responsibilities are all but over. No syncing requirements and absolutely nothing complicated. What could be better? How about the low price – just $0.99 at the App Store!

If you’re ever looking for an example of competition resulting in innovation and, ultimately, improved consumer products — you need look no further than the technology marketplace, and a little story about two rivals by the names of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.  There’s no questioning the genius of either man — but it’s also clear that, without the rivalry they shared, neither Jobs nor Gates would have achieved quite as highly.  Steve Jobs, in particular, took some painful lessons learned from his nemesis and turned them into pure Apple gold.  To understand that ironic cause and effect, you have to go back to the beginning…

Back in the eighties, in the true infancy of desk top computers, the field was crowded with companies attempting to gain market share.  At one point Atari was a market leader, with their box-like 16K contraption that offered nothing more than the most basic programming.  There was also the Commodore 64 – Atari’s main competitor.   But, as the industry started to grow,  two main players started to emerge.  One was a company called “Apple,” with its self-contained, giant-toaster-looking computer built in Steve Jobs‘ garage.  The other was a little company started by a Harvard drop out named Bill Gates.   Gates had shrewdly purchased the rights to something called DOS at the time, and then wrote a new program called Windows that made operating a personal computer much more simple for the non-technical user.

Steve Jobs had his fans

Right from the start, Steve Jobs’ company had its loyal — some would even say ”fanatical” –  user base.   Mac users were as die-hard then as they are now.  But back then, Apple was engaged in a life-and-death struggle to gain market share against this nerdy kid in Washington state who had a company called Microsoft.  The future of computing was at stake — and each of the two major players in the game was determined to win.

In retrospect, Steve Jobs and Apple really didn’t stand a chance.  Microsoft and Windows was licensed out to just about every major hardware company on the planet.  The result of that was that there were essentially two types of computers – Apple’s proprietary devices,  and every other computer by every other manufacturer in the world, all of which were running Windows and DOS.

For the consumer though,  what really made the computer was the software and programs you could run on it.  Computer gaming was a new trend back then – after all, this was a generation that had grown up in seedy mall arcades across North America.  It was an exciting development when you could suddenly play in your own living room, on your own computer.  The only  question was:  which computer would you buy?

In that dark time before the Internet, downloading, and file sharing, software was something you bought from a store.   And when you were deciding which computer to buy — your decision was largely influenced by how much software it was compatible with.  On one little wall in the corner, you’d see the Apple-compatible software – and, then, taking up ten shelves and four aisles of floor-to-ceiling space, you would see the software dedicated to Windows programs.    This is where Windows had an insurmountable lead over it’s main competitor – a lead that it has never given up.

It didn’t take a degree in psychology to know that Steve Jobs was not a happy camper when, in 1985, the company he created was wrestled away from him in the boardroom of Apple Inc.    Jobs went on to found Pixar, the company responsible for such huge hits as Toy Story and Finding Nemo.   He also created a new computer company called NeXT which was acquired by Apple in 1996 – a move that brought Jobs back into the near-bankrupt Apple organization.  As he took over the post of CEO and Overall Supreme Warlord – Jobs took those painful lessons he learned from Microsoft and turned them to his advantage.

Steve Jobs Applies the Lessons Learned…

It started with a new service called iTunes – introduced at the same time as a new portable music player called iPod; a handy little device that could hold 1000 songs in your pocket.   Then, in 2007, Apple announced that it was getting into the cell phone business and the world caught its first glimpse of the iPhone.   Shortly after that, Apple introduced the App store – a giant online software retailer where Apple was the only kid on the block.   It signalled the end of one era and heralded the beginning of another — an era where Apple no longer had to play second fiddle to Microsoft and Windows.  Steve Jobs had learned the hard way that no matter how cool or smart the device was – the real key to consumer loyalty was in having the software applications to make that device an indispensable element of the owner’s life.

Twenty years earlier, Jobs had learned from Bill Gates that no matter how smart your computer was – what made people buy it was the programs they could run on it.  Applying that knowledge, he built the entire Apple mobile empire on software that was only compatible with Apple devices, such as the iPhone, iPod , and iPad.

It’s a lesson that other companies may be learning right now — a lesson that is bringing Blackberry creator Research In Motion to the brink of bankruptcy, and a lesson that many new players in the Tablet and Smart Phone industry will learn as they fail commercially.  As the school of hard knocks taught Steve Jobs, it’s ultimately the software programs that make any device a must-have item.

Apple Television—32- and 37-inch Apple iTV for 2012

Apple will be stepping into the television market with a 32- and 37-inch “iTV” in the second or third quarter of 2012—albeit with baby steps. Baby steps because in terms of the ultra-competitive television market where bigger is better, this small format seems to be a modest introduction for the computing giant. Then again, if Apple has proven anything, there is no such thing as ‘small’.

Industry sources spoke to DigiTimes and stated that Apple’s supply chain will be preparing materials for what is being dubbed as the new iTV. With chips from Samsung and displays from Sharp, Apple will bring to its venture into television the kind of aesthetics and performance consumers have come to expect from the Cupertino-based company.

Although the set-top box version of Apple TV has only enjoyed “modest success” compared to sales of the iPhone and the iPad, the numbers have been steadily rising. Add that to the growing numbers of AirPlay-enabled apps now available, and it’s easy to see that the iTV will arrive on the scene with an already-established niche.

The smaller format will also allow the company to offer the TV at a price that will not come as a shock. It seems consumers have accepted that Apple products don’t come cheaply. But even the most loyal and fervent supporter might be put off by a sticker price that doubles or triples the price of an ‘equivalent’ product.

Simplicity, integration—these are things Steve Jobs always strived for in his work and his life. It seems television is just another area of our lives where the late visionary felt we lacked symmetry. Ease and simplicity are not necessarily the aversion of having to “lift a finger”. Indeed, in Apple’s case, this seems to be the goal: having everything at a finger’s touch.

Cloud Phishing: iCloud and MobileMe Users, Latest Victims

iCloud and MobileMe customers may receive some unwanted mail over the holidays. This latest phishing attack involves asking unsuspecting users to give up their login credentials—always a no-no.

Phishing is an internet scam in the form of an email that lures individuals to give up personal and sensitive information, such as passwords, credit card numbers, login information, etc. Legitimate companies do not ask for this kind of sensitive data via e-mail.

Snake Oil Salesmen of the Internet

With the emergence of every new technology or service, there will always be people who will try to abuse the innocence of others (these days it’s hard to maintain that innocence and easy to become jaded and cynical). Surely moments after the first telephone was in place, there was someone else calling that line, offering up a con. The age of the internet is no less immune to the con artist. In fact, it is quite easy to see that the potential for fraud has only grown exponentially with the creation of the www.

But there are always giveaways…

Spammers are equally as good at giving themselves away as they are at luring in people. Look for some of the following telltale signs of a spam email:

1. Bad Grammar

Be suspicious of an email that asks you to give up you’re information. Spammers are usually too busy plotting their schemes to notice incorrect word usage. They may ask you to give them your account info, and than everything will be fine. If you do that, then nothing will be fine. Run-on sentences are also hallmarks of spam emails, spammers seem to have an aversion to periods. (That was a run-on, by the way.)

2. Links

Reputable companies will not send you an email asking you to click on a link that will invariably send you to another site where more damage can be done. The pages you get sent to often look legitimate and ‘professional’. This is precisely how people get tricked into believing they are in safe hands.

3. Jargon

Spam emails often contain technical jargon not only there to confuse you and make it harder to understand what the so-called issue is but also to make you believe that it is a trusted source that this is addressing you (also, be careful if you are not addressed by name). Surely if they are using such intricate language, they must be legit, right? Wrong. Don’t be fooled by fancy words.

Never Too Careful

Some clichés hold true. Always look both ways before you cross the information highway. There are many more indicators of spam emails than those listed here and that can easily be found by doing a quick search on Google. However, many of today’s spammers are pretty sophisticated in their ruse. Apple gives some very good information on how to spot these phishing scams. They also have two aptly, if not dubiously, named emails (abuse@me.com and spam@me.com) to where spam emails can be forwarded.

If you ever have any doubt about an email’s legitimacy, most companies have a department that deals with this sort of thing. The safest bet always is to phone the company’s customer service line and to speak to a representative directly. So this holiday, don’t be duped by garland-wrapped con artists. Unless it’s your Uncle Harry and he’s had a little too much of the rum eggnog and he’s playing three-card Monte with you—humor him.

There are a lot of good photo editing apps out there, but Snapheal is the newest, simplest, and definitely the cheapest of the bunch.  This brand-new app from McPhun—the makers of such inspiring and creative tools as FX Photo Studio and Color Splash Studio—lets you do a wide range of image touch-ups and edits with the click of a button.  Professional results have never been this easy to come by.

Snapheal’s most impressive feature may be its ability to let you erase unwanted objects with click – drag – done ease.  You simply highlight the item, click “erase,” and let the app do the rest.  This is where Snapheal really shines:  it uses its unique patented technology to fill in gaps in the image left by editing.  It automatically senses the color and texture needed to complete the picture—leaving you with a flawless image.

Of course, there’s more on offer than easy-erase.  Snapheal gives you a toolbox full of the most popular photo editing functions, including:

• Clone & Stamp – duplicate images and fix imperfections
• Retouch Studio – adjust contrast, saturation, lighting, or sharpen specific areas
• Image Adjust – use sliders to adjust elements of the entire image at once
• Crop, Rotate, and Flip
• Import from Aperture and iPhoto albums
• Export to iPhoto, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and more

That’s a lot of fun for a little money.  The Mac App Store will soon be selling Snapheal with a $20 price tag.  But right now—you can snap up Snapheal for the introductory price of only $10.  That’s a steal of a deal for an app that offers such a remarkable package of simplicity and impressive results.