Is Apple going to back to colourful and fun? Apple recently in it's advertising has been a very minimalistic approach. All the recent TV ads for iPod and iPhone have been on simple white/black backgrounds with the product just sitting there. In the apple stores, the "uniform" has been the black t-shirt with different words printed on them denoting the employee type.

Apple retail are now going to "colourise" this uniform, With Creatives and Genius's wearing dark blue, the specialists wearing light blue, and most significantly, the Concierge now wearing bright orange. It is in the bright orange where we can see the change in design.

Our favourite fruit store has also posted the first colourful sillouhette iPod tv ad in ages, I think the last time they did this was in 2005/2006 ? i could be corrected. However the majority of their advertising has been on the chic product on the white/black background. This was reflected in the colour changes for the whole line up. The bright colours were lost, changed for dark (and in my opinion, ugly) colours, like purple, green, blue and dark red.

Hopefully Apple are going back to their colourful products and marketing.

Aztext  ¶ 6:11 PM 0 comments

  Pearshaped Apple Computer Inc. Macworld came and went last week and with it came the Apple TV and the hugely covered iPhone.

The Apple TV, is really quite an interestingly stupid product. It's purpose as a Wireless entry into the living room, is a failed attempt. With the Mac Mini with the same file-sharing capabilities, larger hard disk and DVD drive, it is a much smarter choice for the living room than the Apple TV. The "advantage" of the Apple TV being able to purchase and watch shows from the ease of your couch is nullified completely outside of America, with no iTunes Store to download so many great shows from. Not to mention the fact that you'll have to convert your videos to a compatible format to play on the Apple TV. I definitely do not see any advantages of this over the Mac Mini or even any of Microsofts Offerings.

there is much to love and hate about the iPhone and it's specifications, which has been covered to death by critics over the last week. This so called revolutionary phone, which really isn't that revolutionary, and as the Steve Jobs "Reality Distortion Aura" fades the gaping flaws start to reveal themselves. My lust for being one of the first on the block to get my hands on this thing has withered away to a conscious recollection of how infamous first generation Apple products really are, and how much Apple likes to refresh their product line-up... As we all saw last week, the day the iPhone was released, it was made known to the whole world within 24 hours. News channels reporting on this revolutionary new phone from the makers of the iPod, and you have to congratulate the Apple marketing team on that note. That is where it ends.

As Apple rises from it's underdog status to a major player in the electronics world again, it's abandoning what used to set it apart from the rest of the industry. One of the greatest things of the older Apple Keynotes was that products would be available within a week of announcement. With Apple's three latest offerings, the iPod Shuffle, Apple TV and the iPhone all announced with a significant lag time, causing great frustration to many an Apple Fan. From a financial standpoint, this lag time, really doesn't matter as most people don't find out about these products until they walk into the shop, and as seen this christmas, the iPods were completely sold out across the world.

Apple's advertising campaign is also one which I do not agree with either, the cockiness would actually be quite annoying and is a big claim from a company who's computers don't really have that great a market share. Their portrayal of Windows as a totally non entertaining platform has not much merit either, with the computer gaming market firmly rooted into Windows.

I've touched(incoherently) on many subjects in this post. Maybe this is where Apple's growth stops, and crumbles from it's pride, or maybe this is where Apple gets back out into the world as the great operating system it is. On one hand Apple needs to remember that it is the best computer maker in the world, and on the other hand it must also learn to contain it's pride.

We'll see how this plays out.

Aztex>--  ¶ 5:05 AM 0 comments

  This post incorporates Content Control technology. We all know that piracy is bad and that copying CD's will result in hair growing on your palms but there are several reasons why people are still forced to go down the path of ultimate sins. Yes forced.

I recently bought the new Coldplay Album X & Y, i shove it into my computer and lo and behold i get a warning.

"To listen to this CD a number of files may need to be updated on your PC."

so i click OK and fall further down the rabbit hole arrrghhh it opens this ugly "Player" and starts playing the music..... i can't listen to this music on my iPod either because of the content protection, i have bought this CD yet i can't rip it onto my computer, I remeber an Australian Law which allows us to rip music onto portable devices for personal use. So i feel jipped.... of course i head off to the internets and download off Pirates Bay. I could have gone into iTunes and bought another copy but why must i pay again to listen to this? I'm just utilising a tool so i can listen to the music that i bought.

The iTunes Music Store is a wonderful thing, leading the charge against piracy and spreading the obvious new way of distributing media. which brings me onto my next point of TV.


It seems that apple has not been putting the time and/or effort into getting the licensing deals with other countries apart from the US, of course Steve now is the largest shareholder of Disney which owns ABC so they have a large pull over there and the success of the iTMS over there is something which must be observered.

It seems that Apple has hit the nail on the head with it’s iTMS and now with their “season pass” model where using the pwoer of RSS and prepayments the Americans can have their episodes downloaded straight to their libraries it’s a very real and new way of distributing content and making a profit. If just they can raise the quality of the videos……

but those who want it often will turn to piracy as the quality is often better. for example TV episodes… I’m currently downloading Desperate Housewive episodes over BitTorrent… It is so much better for a number of reasons… it is at least 10 weeks ahead of Australian episodes, is recorded in widescreen unlike what is broadcasted to my TV, there are absolutely no ads plus it has the option of pausing and tracking through and i can watch it whenever i want, i don’t have to sit down at a prescribed time. In my view i would’ve watched it for free anyway, it really doens’t make a difference.

It just seems frustrating having to wait for things to come to Australia be it new technology, ideas or products.

Worldwide lauches are where it’s at.

  ¶ 6:45 AM 0 comments

  They lied! Nintendo are getting more and more like apple

apple said that they will not venture into the portable video market any time soon back in 2004. 2005 they release iPod (with video as a side dish). and now iTunes Music Store (or should it be now iTunes media store?) has like awesome collection of videos! (only in the US though!)

So what has Nintendo done this time? well the DS. It's ugly, bulky and mostly grey. So rumours were floating around earlier this month saying that they would release a redesign. They later came out and rpelied that they aren't redesigning the DS. So what did they do yesterday? Release a new redesigned DS. It's smaller. sexier. and it's pearlescent white. Or "apple white". Which is a good thing.



you really have to say it does look nicer! Apple is the king so maybe hopefully Apple and the Big N get together some time and create something awesome...

in other happenings, school is about to start... yay I hear you all cry out collectively......

i'm kinda missing school, the common room with it's almost neverending supply of coffee and bad music. The waking up at early times and the drilling of learning.... wtf am I talking about?

well hope u guys had a great holidays.

Aztex  ¶ 4:17 AM 0 comments