Now Apple TV has a Killer App
In what appears to be a direct response to my multiple blog entries on the topic, Apple announced yesterday that it will update Apple TV so that it can directly access the iTunes Store for rentals, videos and songs was music to my ears, since I’d been calling for that behavior for some time, as noted here and here.
Watch the guided tour and then sit back and realize something. You page through films, choose one to rent, then you rent it. Then you watch it. On your TV. That’s it. It works.
That, my friends, is a killer app.
Oh, plus, you can buy TV shows, play podcasts, play your music collection, buy more music…Apple TV just became the heart of your media center. (If you could rip movies to MPEG-4 from DVD that would take this thing even further. The drag-able movies from new DVDs will be the next best thing.) Apple TV can replace your music channels on digital cable or satellite — in fact, it can replace your CD player or iPod dock device altogether. Internet radio. It’s all there.
Once I’m allowed to buy an HDTV (ahem…Ms. D?) this will revolutionize how *I* watch TV. I imagine others will agree.
Now if only they would make it so that you can purchase football and baseball games without the damn commercials…
Numbers…Cool Little App
I just got a copy of iWork 08 in the office today and decided to install it during some downtime this afternoon. I had to write a short piece for the paper and thought it’d be fun to do it in Pages.
So, I did. Worked fine, although I was a bit dismayed to find the Word Count (a vital feature for newspaper writing) in the Inspector window instead of in the Status Bar at the bottom of the window.
Otherwise, no complaints.
Then I played with Numbers. I’ve never been much of a spreadsheet guy, although I do use them when I can’t avoid them. (That seems to be more often than not with the Film Society, not with the JFP where most of the financials are done in MYOB AccountEdge. But, I digress.)
What impressed me immediately was the graphical nature of Numbers, which made working with the spreadsheets I needed to create (a very small budget and then a list of our film society’s board members — I was filling out a grant application) fun to do. I got through those two sheets and decided to play with the templates.
While they’re cute and fun, I tired of the built-in Numbers templates quickly. So, I decided that I yearned (yearned!) for others. I found my way to Numbers Templates, a fun little site where people are posting a variety of different templates for Numbers. The programming for these things can get pretty sophisticated and, even more to the point, the sheets created tend to be attractive and fun to work with.
Like FileMaker, Final Cut, and Keynote before it, Numbers may be the “killer implementation” of an app for creative Mac users because it focused on both the mundane and the aesthetic. Suffice to say that I’m going to continue surfing for spreadsheet templates to play with — and that’s not the sort of thing I would have said, er, yesterday.
iPhone Tether for Net Access
I haven’t jumped on the iPhone bandwagon as of yet (mostly because I don’t want to move to AT&T service, given my company already has two mobile providers), but were I to get an iPhone, the ability to tether and use the Internet away from WiFi spots would be key. Just in the past six months I’ve done quite a bit of traveling and too often I’m either out of range of WiFi or the WiFi in a coffeeshop or hotel doesn’t work as advertised.
Check out the instruction here: Tether Your iPhone
Now that I’m running again with a MacBook (after the HP zt3000 died, I went on a quest to buy a new MacBook I’ll blog about later), WiFi reception seems excellent. But I know I’m going to end up in a deadzone here soon, and my Blackberry may not save me. (I’ve not yet tested switching over to Windows via Boot Camp to see if I can get the Blackberry tether to work. I should.)
I’m considering a Treo 700p for its Mac tethering capability (plus, via Alltel, the full data plan is $5 cheaper than the Blackberry for some reason) but will first need to justify the $250 for a used Treo 700p. If, in the interim, I decide instead to make the jump to iPhone (I’m already thinking about an iPhone more than I should, particularly considering the $299 4GB version or $349 for the 8GB Apple Refurb), it’s good to know there’s a tethered iPhone solution.
Apple & VW Working on iCar?
Cute entry over at ArsTechnica suggesting that Steve Jobs has been in early talks with VW to consider an iCar. The story comes from German Financial Times and is, er, written in German, so I can only make out bits and pieces like “Apple” and “Steve Jobs.” The story also suggestions that VW is working on a sub-$10k car, but why they would jump to the conclusion that Apple would be part of making a cheap car isn’t clear to me at all.
‘My iTunes’ Widgets For Blogs
Now you can advertise for Apple with nearly no benefit to yourself! Whoo-hoo!
Actually, I’m sure some folks will find the ‘My iTunes” widgets appealing — they enable others to peer into your iTunes buying habits and link to the albums and artists you tend to check out the most. (This, of course, would be hideously embarrassing to me, what with my penchant for show tunes and karoake tracks.) The widget uses flash and can be added to your standard issue blog sidebar.
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