Before I say anything, know that these are the words that came out of this same guy’s mouth, “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.” Moving on…

Microsoft’s CEO Steve Balmer dismisses the Android platform as financially unsound and doomed to be a failure for Google, reports Suzanne Tindal for Cnet News. 

Speaking at Telstra’s annual investment day, Ballmer said designing Android wasn’t easy for Google. “They can hire smart guys, hire a lot of people, blah dee blah dee blah, but you know they start out way behind, in a certain sense,” says Balmer. 

He questioned Google’s ability to make money with Android. “I don’t really understand their strategy. Maybe somebody else does. If I went to my shareholder meeting, my analyst meeting, and said, ‘hey, we’ve just launched a new product that has no revenue model!’…I’m not sure that my investors would take that very well. But that’s kind of what Google’s telling their investors about Android,” he said.

Personally, I don’t think the Android platform is going to take off in the way the iPhone has, but if Balmer thinks it sucks, then I must reconsider my views.

And just so that you wake up to an awesome friday morning, here’s an awesome video of Balmer doing the monkey dance! Continue Reading »

Apple has posted another ad in the ‘make fun of vista problems’ series, also known as the ‘Get a Mac’ ads. This one, called ‘Bake Sale’, exaggerates the extent to which Microsoft is relying on an advertising blitz to fix Vista problems. An earlier ad (Bean Counter) also followed a similar theme but this one is not-so-subtle. This one will continue to rile Windows users but seems like a conscious strategy from Apple and its advertising agency to create even more dissonance about Vista and thereby urging the fence-sitters (not to be confused with the fence shitters) to make that switch.

Personally speaking, the earlier set of ads that focused on a specific feature or benefit of using a Mac (e.g Magsafe connector translated into the ‘Accident’ ad) or a specific drawback of the PC (trial software or bloatware translated into the ‘Stuffed’ ad) worked better for me. Nevertheless, Apple should continue with this strategy of creating a certain discomfiture about being a PC owner among potential Mac users. The executions may vary in the ‘likeability quotient’ but this strategy is likely to pay dividends, even if it means pissing off many PC users. Take a look at some of the usual ‘insult comments’ over at YouTube.

What do you make of the ‘Get a Mac’ ad series? Time for Apple to let go of this strategy or should they keep at it?

Looks like a new trend has started on the iTunes store, with free HD shows being offered of the season premiere episodes. Or maybe this is NBC having their way with iTunes. NBC has not only got variable pricing for their episodes ($2.99 for HD, $1.99 for SD, and $0.99 for old shows), they have also made available new episodes of their TV shows as free downloads. Everyone seems to be happy with this deal. 

The season two premier of Chuck [iTunes link] is being offered as a free download on the iTunes Store, pre-air. Hear that? Before even the rest of the world gets it, you can enjoy the episode right on your iPhone (and for free). And while Chuck gets the SD treatment, the episode of crime and drama TV show Life [iTunes link], again a pre-air season premiere, is given in crystal clear high definition.

So if these two shows mean anything to you, go grab ’em already. And if they don’t, then I’d highly recommend you check them out, because both shows are very entertaining in their own way. [Ed note: Of course, as is usual, you need a U.S. iTunes Store account to be able to enjoy these freebies.]

Whatever happened to Bill’s plans of retiring and dedicating his life to helping the world with his great schemes of philanthropy? I sure thought it was a damn good way to retire. However, from what I can see, all he is doing right now is helping Microsoft burn up cash on petty jokes and self-deprecating humour.

If you look at the latest ad, the second spot in their $300 million campaign, you cannot draw any other conclusion. In fact, this is even worse than the first one with Bill’s underwear joke. A full four and a half minutes long, it speaks of Microsoft for two seconds, and that too just in passing. Seriously guys, what’s happening here? Is the top brass at Microsoft playing the most expensive prank on us?

If, for some reason, you think I’m exaggerating, see for yourself. You have been warned that you will lose four and a half minutes of your life watching this, so don’t blame me later on.

Comedy Central has been broadcasting a lot of iPhone related stuff lately. The latest to come out of their funny factory (yes, it’s an actual factory that mass manufactures funny—sort of like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, only not for chocolate) is a discussion on why the iPhone is pure evil. They have even compiled a list of four reasons and all, so it must be true.

It’s all light hearted fun, of course, and none of them actually hate the iPhone. It’s a satire, in fact, on the people who claim to hate the iPhone and give some really lame reasons for doing so. Check it out in the embedded video below. If it doesn’t play, you’ll have to visit the Comedy Central website to spend three-and-a-half minutes of your time watching a useless video—totally worth it, I say.

There’s a little bit of foul language (nothing graphic though), so you might want to send the kids away before you hit the Play button. And don’t let them read this disclaimer. Oops, too late!

The watchful folks over at Engadget found that Dell was trying to make a dent in the Apple universe with a cheap shot video of their Latitude E4200. What Dell doesn’t realise is that the Apple universe is guarded right now by the moulded steel of the iPod Touch, liquid metal of the iPod nano, and the swirling planets of iTunes 8. Sorry Dell, bad timing, and more importantly, poor ad.

The ad sports the same manilla envelope that Apple uses, except that with the Dell in it, the envelope looks like its going to burst open. The ad then cleverly tries, but fails, to hide the sheer thickness of the Latitude as compared to the Air. Engadget notes that even the music is stolen from some Lenovo ads that aired a couple of months ago. What’s next Dell, gonna copy the iPod people as well?

After hinting at getting back at the Get a Mac ads, then signing on Jerry Seinfeld to do the job on a $300 million ad campaign, Microsoft has finally got their first ad out the doors.

“Huh?”

Watch the ad and that is definitely going to be your reaction. The 90 second ad consists mainly of friendly banter between Jerry and Gates at a discount shoe store, totally unrelated to Microsoft. And even the last 20 odd seconds, which actually speak about Microsoft, have some vague mention of the future and it being delicious. So in effect they are admitting that Vista is a flop and you had better wait for the future to bring in something better.  

Another way to look at this, is Microsoft is trying to get a new brand identity for the whole company, and not just Windows. An identity that is hip, cool, and fun loving. But having two old guys do that isn’t exactly the right way to go about things. Either that, or I just don’t get it.

This certainly isn’t their best foot forward. Bill Gates is a natural though, and his humour is well received. But this, as a competition to the Get a Mac ads? No way! 

Take a look for yourself and let us know what you think of this, what I would like to call, epic fail.

Steve Jobs recently confirmed that there exists a “kill switch” mechanism that can remotely strip already installed apps off iPhones all across the globe if Apple ever feels the need to go to this extreme. Presumably, this has been put in place as a last resort to protect users from malicious applications in case any of them slip through the App Store vetting process.

But Stephen Colbert, the host of The Colbert Show on Comedy Central, has an entirely different interpretation of the kill switch. Apparently, Steve Jobs is misleading the legions of iPhone users out there and the “kill switch” actually does what it says. Your iPhone can kill you!

“Steve Jobs claims the kill switch is just programming code that lets Apple remotely remove undesirable software,” Colbert said, “but he doesn’t call it a Remote Undesirable Software Removal Switch. Why? ’Cause that’s not what it does; it kills you!” There’s also some light hearted Zune bashing thrown in for good measure. Check out the embedded video below. In case it doesn’t work, you can watch the clip on Comedy Central’s official website.

[Via The iPod Observer]

One of the most annoying things about the iPhone is its utter inability to copy-paste text. A feature that comes standard in almost all other phones, it has been intentionaly left out of the iPhone since day one, much to the dismay of iPhone aficionados. Even though a lot has been said about the absence of the feature, Apple doesn’t seem to be keen on adding it to their flagship handheld, claiming that it’s simply “not a priority at the moment”.

With the release of the official iPhone SDK, some amazing (and some really crappy) new applications have made their way onto the App Store. Developers are making full use of the iPhone hardware and coming up with innovative applications for its users. However, each developer has to abide by the stringent and restrictive rules laid down by Apple with regard to the SDK and the apps are thoroughly scrutinised by them before they are approved and made available on the App Store. Therefore, it had been assumed that copy-paste, if it ever makes its way onto the device, would have to come from Apple itself.

However, Proximi, the makers of MagicPad—a full blown rich text editor that allows users to cut, copy, and paste text within its various notes—have come up with a pretty decent solution for implementing copy and paste features on the iPhone. But since it only works within their own application, it wasn’t as well recieved as they might’ve imagined. Proximi also did propose a detailed and well thought out concept interface for systemwide copy-paste functionality but that’s about as far as they got.

Now, a student has come into the limelight by announcing a non profit, open source, and community powered project called OpenClip that claims to add the copy-paste functionality across applications. Zac White, the brains behind the framework, claims that all the apps which make use of the framework can fully support copy-paste. Interestingly, the app does not break any of the SDK terms and conditions.

Cali Lewis, from GeekBrief.tv, got to play around with early editions of a few applications that have integrated the framework.

Cut and Paste for iPhone from Cali Lewis on Vimeo

How does it work?

As Cali explains in the video, the framework makes use of free space on your iPhone’s memory. Applications using the framework are given read and write access to that memory space and use it as a clipboard. When you copy some text in an app, it writes that text to that memory space. Later, when you attempt to paste the same text in some other app, it reads from that memory space and pastes it. This makes it possible for different apps to share the clipboard without the need to have any background processes running (something the iPhone doesn’t allow).

What’s next?

Unless the iPhone coding whizzes at Apple decide to do something about this, I expect to see more and more applications going down this path. Apple has just seeded firmware version v2.0.2 which shows no signs of inching closer to building in copy-paste functionality. Even the beta seeds of the firmware version 2.1 have no idea of the wonders its sibling on the Mac desktop is capable of, courtesy copy and paste.

As long as this remains low on Apple’s priorities list, OpenClip seems like a pretty decent substitution, assuming it works as advertised. [Ed note: A big Smoking Apples shoutout goes to both Proximi and Zac White for not accepting Apple’s unsatisfactory reponses and figuring out ways to bring this much requested feature to the iPhone using masses. Bravo!]

On the event of the iMac’s tenth anniversary, Scott McNulty, over at MacUser, posted ten of his most favourite iMac commercials since its inception. From the original bondi blue iMac to the latest aluminium and glass machine, he’s covered it all.

One of the videos he posted, though not really an advertisement, literally made me laugh. It’s quite old but still clearly relevant and true. Check out the three-and-a-half minute video below and marvel at the simplicity that’s associated with every Mac and is ingrained in Apple’s DNA even today.

[Full disclosure: The author of this post is also a freelance blogger for MacUser.]