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Chris, I just want to say that you are very welcome, and thanks for replying. I’m glad to hear that your issue has been resolved, and I was able to provide you with the support you deserve. I know it is always such a feeling of accomplishment, when things work out the way you want them to.
I am glad that I could assist you and best of all, put a smile on your face. Believe me, nothing makes Apple happier than knowing that we have pleased our wonderful customers. I truly hope that you continue to enjoy all that the iTunes Store has to offer.
Also, Apple (and myself) are currently striving for the best experience possible in making sure our customers have been taken care of to their satisfaction.
It was a pleasure to assist you, and I will now close this request. Remember support is just an email away if needed. You’ve truly been a remarkable asset to the iTunes Store Family and Thank you for choosing the iTunes Store.
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Apple’s iTunes Store support in an email to me after resolving an issue.
Now that I’m doing support for AgileBits I’ve been even more keenly aware of support interactions than I was before and this response impressed me.
While it’s certainly a snippet and a bit overly formal it’s the ‘support you deserve,’ the ‘smile on your face’ and ‘it was a pleasure to assist you’ that make me feel good, cared for and valued as I read it.
I have received better, faster and warmer support from a handful of other companies — I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t — but they are very much the exception to the rule and none of them have been a even thousandth of the size of Apple. Apple may not be able to make me feel uniquely special but I do feel cared for and that is a job well done.
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So… now what? Let’s go with Ocelot for 10.9.
I still don’t understand whey they didn’t save Lion for the end.
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Apple has conducted all of its business with the highest of ethical standards, complying with applicable laws and accounting rules. We are incredibly proud of all of Apple’s contributions.
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Apple’s Response on Its Tax Practices - NYTimes.com
Smart, decisive and objective. All four paragraphs of Apple’s response are great.
[Via David Chartier]
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“The Insanely Great History of Macintosh.” Look closely, and you can actually see three distinct phases of Apple’s overall product strategy
An insanely great infographic.
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Steve Jobs didn’t invent the Mac on his own. He didn’t invent the iPhone or the iPad on his own either. But none of them would have existed if it weren’t for him, and this world would be a smaller, duller, less beautiful place without them.
— The Macalope Daily: Giant | Computers | MacUser | Macworld
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Adding all this up, this is what I think Apple is telling us: You’ll get what you get, on a timeline of our choosing, dictated by non-Pro App considerations – and not all apps in the Studio will be given equal priority.
Final Cut Studio is not a priority.
I’m not saying Apple is killing Final Cut Pro or sees no value in the Suite. Their actions are saying Apple no longer sees ProApps as a priority – either in terms of revenue or marketing value.
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Final Cut Pro Users: Apple is Speaking. Are you Listening? | The Tao of Color Grading
Nice analysis on Apple and Final Cut Studio, well worth a read. Do you still have hope that Apple will surprise us with a renewed interest in their pro apps?
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Of course media isn’t the only thing that a new Apple TV might offer. If it is indeed an iOS device, then you have to look at other kinds of apps as well, and for those plunked in front of a big ol’ TV, that means games. As the Xbox, PS3, and Wii have demonstrated, gaming boxes that also happen to play media are a popular item, particularly around the holidays. Provide an Apple TV that can play high-resolution games—with surround sound, an HDMI connection, and hardware controllers, yet—and you’ve got a fairly formidable hunk of hardware sitting next to your TV—formidable enough, in fact, that many people may forget all about its inability to play Blu-ray discs or record TV broadcasts.
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Pondering Apple’s September 1 media event | iPod & Entertainment | Playlist | Macworld
This is a nice idea, gaming on an Apple TV, and I’m sure it would have some draw for casual gamers but that’s a hard space to enter with three firmly embedded consoles covering the full spectrum from casual to hard-core. The problem is that Apple doesn’t have any of the big connections with game developers of ‘high-resolution’ games.
Unless they’re working with Valve that is.
If they take an App Store approach and present an iOS API familiar to developers making games on the iOS devices they could do really well. But they need the adoption rate to compel developers of current iOS devices already maintaining three different resolutions & UI conventions for their games to add a fourth to their support list.
I don’t want to say that it will never happen, but it feels like they’ve got the cards stacked against them (not that they haven’t overcome that before) but it’s a direction Apple hasn’t moved on in the past. Does the target audience for an Apple TV want to play games? Is that a bonus or a killer feature for them? Doesn’t seem like it to me, but it will be interesting to see where this could go.
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When we spoke to a cadre of Mac OS X developers earlier this year, they universally agreed that iOS was having more influence on the direction of Mac OS X than the other way around. Cabel Sasser, co-founder and developer at Panic, especially felt that Mac OS X 10.7 could potentially be a hybrid between the two OSes. “I could see a gradual, slow merger between iOS and Mac OS X styles and approaches,” he told Ars. “It doesn’t make sense for them to be developing two of everything, one good, one not as good—two calendars, two address books—it’s got to merge somehow.
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Apple looking at dual-mode touchscreen desktops and laptops
Interesting take, I do think we will see more convergence and things like address books can be standardized. I’m not sure I fully buy that the two operating systems will merge in the future, at least anytime soon.
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While the paranoid conspiracy that Apple is out to disable all jailbroken devices is far-fetched, the ability to remotely detect attempts to hack or jailbreak the iPhone or iPad can be a valuable tool for IT admins who need to monitor and maintain the devices remotely.
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How Apple’s patent could improve iPhone and iPad security | Phones | iOS Central | Macworld
Exactly.
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With these developments in mind, and considering the massive gains of this graphics performance update, the Mac’s gaming future looks pretty bright. I don’t think anyone besides the most zealous of your gaming friends could blame you for getting your shades ready.
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Inside Snow Leopard Graphics Update’s surprising gains | Games | MacUser | Macworld
Like David, I’m optimistic about the future of Mac gaming. However, there are some very big challenges ahead that I believe will slow Mac adoption as a gaming system.
As Dave points out, the largest challenge is hardware; particularly not hardware that can be upgraded without a huge investment in the first place. Apple’s non-upgradeable systems aren’t exactly much better either given the higher price you pay for a decent system. Pricing out a Macbook this last weekend getting even the lowest end Apple laptop cost as much as $400 more then similar PC laptops in terms of CPU, GPU & RAM. Granted, you’re going to get stuck with a crap case/size, keyboard and trackpad, not to mention battery life. High specs aren’t that important to a lot of Mac users, other then organizing large photo libraries or watching Flash videos they’ll rarely see their CPU’s jump (they might run out of RAM though). Gamers are a lot less forgiving, they live by the power of their machines and they will often pay a premium for high performance hardware but typically at heavily budgeted prices by building and upgrading their own systems.
Until Apple addresses this market it’s going to hold the platform back. Existing Apple users will start gaming on their Apple hardware, but gamers won’t go out and buy Apple hardware unless they find other features compelling.
The other issue is that we need to see more game developers join the fray, Valve (and Blizzard) is big, especially for PC gamers but they are hardly the only AAA developer that needs to get on board before the Mac gaming platform is fully legitimized. The rub here is that while PC gaming is experiencing a bit of a resurgence lately it is still shadowed by cheaper and more accessible consoles. If PC is a niche of gaming how much more so is the Mac? A lot rides on the next few years and particularly what and when the next generation of consoles will arrive to catch up with the quality higher performance PC’s can produce. OnLive is another big question mark, if it’s adopted widely and cloud gaming grows that could change the playing field significantly.
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And while we’re on the subject, I agree with John Siracusa that the first thing you do with a new Mac is toss the mouse in a drawer and get one that’s useful. We get it, Apple, Steve hates buttons and we must suffer for his art. The only one that’s come close to ‘normal’ is the Mighty Mouse with the clitoral scroll wheel. But it’s been 25 years and we’re still complaining. Hello? Hulk smash! Sorry. Where was I…? Oh, anyone need a half-dozen unused Apple mice?
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An interview with Maggie McFee : The Setup
“Clitoral scroll wheel?” LMAO.
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It is a truism that in platform plays he who wins the hearts and minds of developers, wins the war. In the PC era, Apple forgot this, bungling badly by launching and abandoning technology initiatives, co-opting and competing with their developers and routinely missed promised milestones. By contrast, Microsoft provided clear delineation points for developers, integrated core technologies across all products, and made sure developer tools readily supported these core initiatives. No less, Microsoft excelled at ensuring that the ecosystem made money.
— Five reasons iPhone vs Android isn’t Mac vs Windows - O’Reilly Radar
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Apple/Steve are the best long-term strategists in business today. Their whole focus now is in mobile, cuz that’s where it’s hard. Hence the focus on low-power, efficient code for apps (Objective-C), and for web (HTML5 and the mix).
— Craig Syverson, via email.
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Given its poor sales numbers, we can safely say that most of Zune’s critics have never used the device, and even fewer of them have really spent any serious time with Zune’s online music store. But we have used it, and, what’s more, we like it. iTunes Music Store could learn a thing or two from Zune Marketplace, and if Microsoft does end up dropping Zune then the digital music ecosystem will be worse off for it.
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Too Zune to pass judgment: a review of the Zune Marketplace
This post is over a year old, but just as true as if it were written yesterday. I still think the Zune devices are better media players then anything else out there and the Zune marketplace is not only the best music application and marketplace in existence but also the best application Microsoft has ever released.
Signed,
The elegid Apple fanboy.
