The TechNow

Hey there! I just got a Zune HD a few days ago! You may be thinking, “Ew, who wants a Zune?”, but after using this for a few days I’ve grown to love it more than my iPod touch (2G). Anyway, let’s get to business. (This will not be biased, promise.)

Screen

The first thing you notice when you compare the two is the screen. Yes, the Zune HD’s screen IS .2 inches smaller than the iPod’s, but it’s OLED, so it’s brighter, crisper, and more power-efficient. The iPod touch’s is LED, 3.5″, and not too bright

So I gotta give it to the Zune. Sorry, Apple.

Sound

After listening to music for a while, you start to notice the bad quality in the file. Not with the Zune HD, the sound is so much clearer, even with the standard earbuds. BUT, the iPod touch does have an internal speaker, which the Zune does not.

So it’s basically a tie. Need an internal speaker? iPod. Better quality? Zune HD.

Apps

This is a big one. Yes, there are only 10 apps on the Zune HD’s “app store”, but they are all of mostly good quality. If you want more, moderate quality apps, then the iPod is for you. But the games and apps on the Zune HD are phenomenal. Your choice. But, I’d give it to the iPod for this one.

iPod’s app store is better for the most part.

Side note: You CAN add and make your own homebrew apps without doing ANY hacking or jailbreaking. See here and here.

Software

With the Zune Pass, you can get unlimited legal music for only $15 USD/mo. Awesome right? But if you stop paying, your music expires except for the 10 DRM free songs you get a month with it. iTunes offers no such thing. Plus we all know how Apple codes things bad for Windows. So for $15/mo, unlimited music, that’s a win for the Zune HD all the way.

Overall

Simple: Buy a Zune HD. Detailed: Your choice. It really depends on what you want and need in a PMP.

This post was written by britishtaco, and he/she may not represent the opinions of this website or it's owner.

We all know Microsoft copies from Apple, and possibly vice-versa, don’t deny it. Apple copies from Microsoft, Microsoft copies from Apple. Don’t try and oppose it, fanboys. It’s plainly obvious and even said by a Microsoft Gold Partner: “Does Windows 7 borrow from OS X? Of course it does,” said Dave Sobel, CEO of Evolve Technologies, a Fairfax, Va.-based Microsoft Gold partner. There you go, now on to the content.

How do I justify copying? Many say that it is plagiarism, blatant copyright infringement, anti-competitive, evil, and without justification. However, I beg to differ. The essential thing that people don’t realize is that it’s not copying. It’s enhancing. Apple comes up with the ingenious idea of a dock, where one can launch applications quickly and easily from the bottom bar. Windows 7 enhances that by merging the dock with the start bar. Now Apple has to come up with something even better to counter that.

You see, this cycle repeats itself with hundreds of different technologies. It’s a constant game of catch-up between the two Operating Systems. And who wins? Us. Yes, us. We get constantly lower prices on our operating systems, whilst getting years of progress in the span of months. Look at the price of Snow Leopard. $35 for a totally rewritten Finder, faster and better usability, and an even more awesome wallpaper.

So what I’m saying is that this ‘copying’ isn’t ‘copying’, it’s called progress. Companies have been doing the same thing for years without being under attack from consumers like the computer industry is today. Let it go, it helps us more than anybody else. Don’t try and keep Apple away from Microsoft, and don’t try and keep Microsoft away from Apple. Both are great companies, and both utilize the others’ technologies.

This post was written by j.dhanani, and he/she may not represent the opinions of this website or it's owner.

Apple today (about ten minutes ago as of 12:30)  quietly released the new iMacs, Mighty Mouse, and Mac Minis, with the iMac having the following specifications:

This post was written by j.dhanani, and he/she may not represent the opinions of this website or it's owner.

Apple. The “God” of all tech companies. Creators of the best inventions to grace the Earth; iMacs, iPhones, iPods, etc. Everything that comes from such a company must be good, right? Wrong.

First: Apple’s AppStore. The biggest thing I hate about Apple. Although it’s one of the smartest things they’ve done, they don’t know what they’re doing with it.

Apple SHOULD have used this idea with the introduction of the iPhone. Instead, they decided to leave users with the small amount of pre-installed apps. Possibly one of Apple’s biggest mistakes concerning the iPhone, ever. This led people to want something more. Something new. This led to the jailbreak, now the bane of Apple’s idea of a perfect iPhone.

My absolute BIGGEST annoyance about the Apple AppStore is the approval process that all apps must go through. The people who work in this area have got to be the biggest idiots on the face of the planet. Daily, we see apps like “MegaFart”, “iGun”, and “101 Sexy Girls” approved. The AppStore is cluttered with these useless apps, often just a slightly modified web browser or an image with a sound linked to it. That’s not the least of it. Apple REJECTED apps like Google Voice Mobile, which with even a small price tag around $5 could have brought a bunch of profit to Apple. Instead, they denied it access to the AppStore, sending it off to Cydia, the jailbroken users AppStore. Not only did this take some money (and good reputation) away from Apple, it sent more users to jailbreaking, doing what Apple DOESN’T want them to do. Smart move, Apple. Smart move.

Back on to the grander scope of things, another thing I dislike about Apple is the general attitude of their fan-base. While not directly Apple’s fault, their ads essentially promote the mindset that you only use PC’s if you’re a middle-aged white man who lives with his mother. Hardcore Apple fanboys are blind to reality. They believe PC’s are the worst thing ever made, choked with viruses, impossible user interface, and more bullshit. First, I’d like to dispell the myth that all PC’s are going to get viruses no matter what you do. I’ve gotten one virus. Ever. On five PC’s. You get viruses if you’re an idiot. Same happens if you’re an idiot on a Mac.

The last thing I want to note is Apple’s bang for your buck. Admittedly, most of their products are quite amazing. I love my iPod touch (jailbroken, of course). But Apple needs to cheapen up. When you buy something from Apple, you’re buying a logo and a name. Laptops of equal to or greater power than a Macbook can be bought for a lower price. The Zune HD can be bought for cheaper than an iPod touch, and with many better qualities. All it’s lacking is a good web browser and an application market (which is not too far away). If Apple made their products a WEE bit cheaper, then they’d get enough new users that the money would be made up for.

Apple is a great company. But they’re idiots.

This post was written by BMatt, and he/she may not represent the opinions of this website or it's owner.

The new iPod touch was amazing. At the 8GB tier, we got a sub-$200 price, a long shot from the original $299. We got 256MB RAM in the 32 and 64GB tiers, and an almost 1GHz processor. What more could we ask for? Well, for one, there’s the camera.

We’ve all seen that picture, or some variant of it. These rumors have been around for a long time. We’ve even seen video footage of the thing in live action! So what happened to that iPod touch? Where did the camera mysteriously disappear?

Rumor has it that the camera was originally installed in thousands of iPod touches, but a manufacturing defect caused these models to be cast away. In haste of achieving the 9/9/9 release date, Apple hastily reassembled the models, but without a Camera this time. It sounds like a fairy tale to most, but there is reasonable evidence to back this up.

So what about it? When will they install a camera, or will they put one on at all? The simplest answer is the second week of September of the next year, as it has traditionally been, although some beg to differ. It can be said that the new iPod touch may come sooner, even at Q2 of 2010.

What are your opinions? Camera-laden iPod touch in Q2 2010, September 2010, or none at all?

This post was written by j.dhanani, and he/she may not represent the opinions of this website or it's owner.

Cracked applications, the term used by hackers to refer to pirated or illegal applications, have now been prevented by Apple in the newest beta firmware release. This is the first time in about a year that Apple has taken any preventative measure to protect developers against the largening community of crackers and pirates.

The newest firmware release, iPhone OS 3.1 beta 3, also sports copy-and-paste with video, as well as minor bug fixes and features, although this strengthening of verification processes, so to speak, is possibly the most significant upgrade with this update. It was available yesterday to select developers who are members of the iPhone Developer Program ($99 at Apple Developer Connection)

Among developers, this news has been received well, and long-awaited. However, among the ‘jailbreak’ (iPhone hacking) community, response is varied. Some believe that this will prevent their ‘try before you buy’ practices, but others believe that it is a godsend blessing.

What are your opinions? Good or Bad?

This post was written by j.dhanani, and he/she may not represent the opinions of this website or it's owner.

Apple is going to, and is currently in the process of lowering their prices for the Macintosh line of products. Already the price of the MacBook is sub-$1,000, and the Mac Pro is now less than 2.5 thousand.

To fight the ongoing recession, Apple is also prepping for the “free iPod touch” deal, where when you buy a qualifiying Macintosh computer, you get a free 8GB iPod touch (Or one of several other qualifying products)

The price drop could appear very soon, so hang in there; Apple’s price drop could come any time, possibly at WWDC.

iPhone, however, will probably still stay at it’s current price point of $199/$299.

This post was written by j.dhanani, and he/she may not represent the opinions of this website or it's owner.

So it’s finally happened. The App Store has hit a billion downloads, in just over nine months. One lucky winner from the group of people who had purchased one or more applications during the time of the countdown is eligible to win a grand prize of an iPod touch, MacBook Pro, and a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card.

“Join the celebration” - “Thanks a billion” - these Apple slogans regarding these events can summarize it perfectly.

Since it’s launch on July 11th, the App Store has been without any question the most successful method of distributing programs or applications through any mobile device. iPhone 3G has been best-selling, and now there are almost 50 million iPhones and iPod touches in circulation.

This post was written by j.dhanani, and he/she may not represent the opinions of this website or it's owner.

We’ve all seen them; the “Get a Mac” ads, the iPhone 3G “Unslow” advertisements, and the iPod touches’ “Funnest iPod ever” commercial. I’ve taken all of them from 2009, and more, and put them together in one RAR file, for you to download.

http://www.badongo.com/file/13534333

For those of you who are not familiar with Badongo, the CAPTCHA is on the right side, insert the text shown, and click download.

Here’s what’s included in the 100MB package:

• 9 MOV iPhone Ads, Medium Quality, All featuring “You, Me, and the Bourgeois” by The Submarines
• iPod nano Ad, featuring “Bruises”, by Chairlift
• iPod touch Ad, featuring “No You Girls”, by Franz Ferdinand
• 3 iTunes Ads, Gamma, Sonic, and Queen
• 8 of Apple’s famous Get a Mac ads.

If anybody would be as generous as to host or upload a mirror to this file, put it on BitTorrent, etc… It is greatly appreciated. All that we ask is you include a *.txt file saying “Courtesy of TechNow at www.thetechnow.com”

This post originally appeared on MacUniverse, an old site I used to co-own.

This post was written by j.dhanani, and he/she may not represent the opinions of this website or it's owner.

It has been almost a year since iPhone 3G was released, and approaching the original iPhone’s second birthday. It’s time to start speculating about the next iPhone 3G, which according to the Dallas Morning News, could be ready by the beginning of June. Nobody expects any major hardware changes, and iPhone OS 3.0 is near-ready for launch, at it’s Beta 2. In addition, Apple has purchased over a hundred million NAND Flash chips, primarily from Samsung Electronics. Rumors and speculations also state that the original iPhone may keep selling officialy even after the new one is released, possibly at the lowest price point.

Apple has also placed orders recently for 3.2 and 5.0-megapixel cameras, which could be a major indicator of a higher-end iPhone counterpart, possibly with a screen almost twice as big as the current 3.5-inch screen that currenly is placed on iPhones and iPod touches worldwide. Another comment that people are making is the addition of 14.4 Mbps 3G speeds, which is above the industry standards for cellular internet speeds.

Regarding software, iPhone 3.0 has locked traces of video capturing inside the camera application, and also zoom, and other effects that are featured in a regular camera. These may be exclusive to the next iPhone (such as MMS is exclusive to iPhone 3G), so iPhone 3G users - don’t get your hopes up.

It’s still to early to reasonably conclude what the next iPhone will have, but here’s a vague summary:

• 3.2 Megapixel Camera
• 14.4 Mbps 3G speeds
• Video recording
• iPhone OS 3.0
• 8, 16, and 32GB options.

There is not much we can hope for, with the wish of Copy & Paste and MMS being (partially) fulfilled.  What are your comments?

This post was written by j.dhanani, and he/she may not represent the opinions of this website or it's owner.