WIRED 1997: 101 Ways To Save Apple

I was reading my old June 1997 WIRED issue on Apple condition lately. Some interesting points from the 101 ways how to save Apple.

1. (point 7) Don't disappear from the retail chains. Rent space in a computer store, flood it with Apple products (especially software), staff it with Apple salespeople, and display everything like you're a living, breathing company and not a remote, dusty concept.

   Apple Store. Done.

2. (point 10) Get a great image campaign. Let's get some branding (or rebranding) going on. Reproduce the "1984" spot with a 1997 accent.

   Think Different.

3. (point 25) Portables, portables, portables. Pick the best-of-breed Wintel in each of the portable categories and then better it. Wintel has a fantastic range.

   iPhone, iPod touch, iPad.

4. (point 31) Build a PDA that less than $250 that actually does: cellular email, channel TV, internet phone.

   iPod touch?

5. (point 34) Port the OS to the Intel platform.

   Done in 2005.

6. (point 44) Continue your research on voice recognition.

   Siri?

7. (point 49) Bring back Andy Hertzfeld.

   Google has him.

8. (point 65) Roll out he Mac Plus again as a hip retro machine.

   iMac. Done. But it's not a retro machine.

9. (point 70) Simplify your PC product line.

   Mobile & desktop. Consumer & Pro. Done.

10. (point 92) With each new Mac, include a CD-ROM that explains the Apple family tree & future plans.

   No need. Steve's keynotes explain everything.

11. (point 101) Don't worry. You'll survive. It's Netscape we should really worry about.

   Netscape? How about Safari?

Read more in WIRED here.

The Apple band

The Apple band. Before they lost their vocalist.

Now the high resolution digital file (3500 x 3700 pixel 72dpi) is available for download with US$7.5 US$5
Buy Now

Breaking News on Oct 5 2011

Compiled from ABC News, Erin Burnett OutFront - CNN, Piers Morgan Tonight - CNN, CNET Loaded, Nightly News - NBC, The Kudlow Report - CNBC, The Rachel Maddow - MSNBC, Today.com - MSNBC, BBC Breakfast - BBC, Click - BBC.

Steve Jobs As Cover Story

Been collecting magazines with Steve Jobs as cover story. Here are some of them. I have to digging more in the garage back in Jakarta for another issues.

Fortune - January 2000

BusinessWeek - February 2004

Fortune - February 2005

iCreate - April 2005

Fortune - February 2008

Fortune - November 2008

Fortune - November 2009

TIME - April 2010

Fast Company - July 2010

WIRED UK - July 2011

 Newsweek - September 2011

Sorry, Tim. You guys were awesome that day.

Hours before Apple event, I was mocking on Twitter about the event & Tim Cook.

Cook "I.. I cannot do it."
Jobs "Listen. Look at my eyes. You. Can. Do. The. Keynote."
Cook "I don't know.."
(link)

Minutes before on stage, Tim Cook got message from the whole family "We support you. Our pray with you!"
(link)

"What do you expect on Apple's event tomorrow?"
"Smooth keynote from Tim Cook."
(link)

Apple event without Steve Jobs. Need more popcorn or sans-popcorn?
(link)

Cook on phone "Cannot sleep.."
Jobs "Relax. Just count those iOS apps jumping over the fence."
Cook "Too many"
Jobs "Right. webOS apps then"
(link)

Cook "Sorry.. I can't.."
Jobs "Dammit, Tim! Fine! I'll be on stage!"
(link)

But then..

Yet somehow, I sense chaos behind this Apple event.
(link)

I didn't know exactly about what.
I've been watching Apple keynotes for years and by reading the live blog & pictures, I sense something is not quite right.

Today, Steve Jobs passed away. Now I know it was not chaos back then. It was tension in that Apple Event. They knew that Steve Jobs, their dearest mentor, guru, father, friend was near to death. Yet they managed to continue the keynote without any significant glitch. Smooth.

I feel bad. Then I read Robert Scoble's in his Google+.

Dear Tim Cook.

I gave you a tough time today. I thought you didn't come up to some imaginary bar I held in my head. I didn't get why you didn't come out with bigger news. I didn't get why everyone in my network was telling me about the big things that were planned that didn't come out.

Now we know.

Today I feel guilty because I gave you a tough time about your first press conference. Now that I know what was going on behind the scenes I owe you an apology. I'm sorry, I owe you and your team one.

My heart is with you during this tough time.

So my apology to Tim Cook & team. You guys were awesome that day. It was the best farewell for Steve Jobs. And thanks for the iPhone 4S. The iPhone For Steve.

The First Time I Met Apple Macintosh

April 14, 1986 was the first time I met Apple Macintosh & fell in love the day after.

iRIP Steve Jobs

1955 - 2011

"When Walt Disney died, the inspiration light was dimming that day. Then gone."

Now I can feel you, dad.

And Apple, you are just entering a new era. Brace yourself.

Trying The Final Cut Pro X Trial

Been using Avid, Final Cut & iMovie for years, my personal opinion about FCPX: it's a better & advanced iMovie. Handy for quick instant regular project like TV promotion, without sacrifying idea & quality. Even my 4GB RAM Mac mini can handle it so far. But still, Final Cut Pro X is for better (and newer) machine. Older machine better stay with Final Cut Pro 7.



The footages recorded on iPhone 4 with fish-eyed lens. Get the 30 days free trial here: http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/trial/

Testing the iOS 5 beta 1

iPhone 4
Good news:





• "Connect to iTunes" still exist at the first setup. Even the MobileMe still exist in this pre-iCloud era.

• 'iPod' is gone. Now changed to Music app & Videos app.

• Green bubble chat: SMS. Blue bubble chat: iMessage.



• Yay! Free rotation editing in Photos.app.





• After created an iCloud account in the iPhone, it appears in Notes.app. And also in Contacts: All iCloud.

PhotoSync.app for iPhone crashes. The developer are working on a fix already. New update of PhotoSync 1.2 now working.



• Double click the home button for the camera icon in the lock screen.

• You can tweet your photo from Photos app without Twitter app installed. Though there's no sending-progress indicator so you won't know if it sent or failed.



• Notification Center doesn't interupt Nike+ GPS in indoor mode.

Bad news:

• iMessage cannot send video file. :-/

• Unprecission keypad. Tap "T" but typed "R" or "Y" instead.

• Video library is not accessible for other app, incl. Tumblr. (pic)

• Twitter, iMovie etc can access the video library but cannot process the file. (pic) If you want to share video, you can upload it from Photos.app > Share > Email. I can upload video file via email to twitvid. http://www.twitvid.com/CWZMP

• Ergonomically, using volume button as camera button is not convenient. The other fingers keep blocking the lens.



• BlogPress fails to upload blog.



• iBooks is buggy.

• Photo Stream synced after more than 10 minutes. And not all the photos are streamed.

• Problem with email sharing from Photos.app. Takes forever to send for a 200kb photo.


iPad

• There's no Weather & Stock in Notifications setting.

• Home Sharing's podcast tab is missing in Videos.app. But I can watch video podcast shared from Home Sharing in Music.app, not in Videos.app.





• The Notification Center UI is too tiny for iPad. Waiting for the 'HD' interface.

Overall: there's no turning back to iOS 4! :)

(..updating)

Zain Is Now iPhone Official Carrier

Now there are 2 carriers for iPhone in Kuwait: Viva & Zain. Somehow Zain's package is much cheaper & affordable. Not to mention the unlimited internet (fair usage policy) for all packages. Compare to Viva that only offer 1 package for unlimited internet.

iPhone 4 Resmi Hadir di Kuwait

Akhirnya, ada juga operator lokal Kuwait yg mem-bundle paket resmi untuk iPhone. Kali ini adalah Viva dengan iPhone 4. Dengan paket yang relatif 'murah' untuk ukuran Kuwait, Viva menawarkan 3 jenis paket dengan kontrak 1 tahun.



Launchingnya pun kebetulan bersamaan dengan XL di Jakarta hari ini dengan paket lebih 'murah' dibanding Viva Kuwait :D

Buat perbandingan sekilas plan 3/premium iPhone 4 16GB:

• Viva Kuwait: Rp 2100000 dengan bulanan Rp 780000, gratis telepon 1000 menit, data unlimited, SMS 300.
• XL Jakarta (belum termasuk pajak): Rp 999000 dengan bulanan Rp 599000, gratis telepon 600 menit, data 4GB, SMS 600.

Paling tidak, paket Viva ini masih lebih murah dibanding paket tidak resmi dari operator lain, Zain, di bulan Desember 2010 menawarkan promo iPhone 4 seharga Rp 4790000 :D

(crossposting dari sini)

Quick Review: Red Giant Movie Looks

The Process

There are 2 free categories with 8 effects in it: Quick & Essential. And 3 paid categories: Popular, Black & White and Blockbusters. Each $0.99.

Pick an effect to tweak the video look. There are only 2 simple slider: strength & brightness. Also an option for half & full resolution rendering.

A confirmation message before rendering with estimation time rendering. Sweet.

While it's rendering, there are some useful tips & information box to read for killing time.

When the iPhone receives an incoming call, the app suspends the rendering process. Then we can resume the process later. Awesome!
Problem is, this Suspend & Resume feature also occurs when we're inside the app & receive notification alert from other apps. Which is a bit annoying, since I have to resume manually everytime the notification appears.
"Stop mention me on Twitter, dude! I'm rendering!"

The Results

The effects are great. I usually get this kind of color on AfterEffects or Final Cut Pro. Now I can do 'Magic Bullet Looks' thingy on my iPhone.

Click to enlarge.

Though there are some compressed blocky artefacts especially in the dark areas, this app definitely leads us to next mobile video era: mobile color-grading.
Before: Nexvio CinemaFX. Now: Red Giant Movie Looks. Next: Boris Continuum?

Useful links:
- iPhoneography
- Red Giant

Red Giant Invades iOS

Anyone who works with video post production service are familiar with Red Giant software. Their Magic Bullet Looks plug-in is amazing. Been using it on my FCP & AFX.

Anyway.
Now Red Giant releases apps for iPhone, iPod Touch & iPad. They just released 3 apps:



- Movie Looks: color grading app for video.



- Plastic Bullet: photography app with radical/extreme effects.



- Noir: photography app with dramatic black & white effects.

Haven't purchase the Movie Looks but there are some important points that I tweeted last night:
- Red Giant Movie Looks for iOS is available for $2.99.
- Suspend & resume to interrupt the render when take a phone call & return to where we left off. Nexvio CinemaFX's missing feature.
- The color are beautiful. Usually I can get this kind of color with Magic Bulllet Looks in FCP or AFX, but now on iPhone.

- Movie Looks does not yet support portrait movies.

- Movie Looks does not yet support more thant 120 seconds video.
- Though the color is great, you can see the 'damaged' artefacts on the jelly fish body.



Red Giant is here, time for proper color grading on iDevice?

note: none of these pictures & videos are mine

Video Review: Toca Tea Party

Kids are playing with Toca Tea Party. Suddenly the house becoming a picnic area!

Shot with Canon EOS 5D Mark II (lens 50mm ƒ1.4) & iPhone 4.
Edited on Final Cut Pro.
Music arranged on GarageBand for iPad.

Responds from Toca Tea Party Teams

Got these awesome responds after we post our video review our video review about Toca Tea Party app.

@pinot your amazing video really lifted everyone's mood here at Toca Boca! So it's me who's bowing to you ;) (link)

Absolutely amazing video! RT @pinot: Picnic with Toca Tea Party app for iPad [video] http://bit.ly/gqzXpn cc @tocaboca (link)

@bjornjeffery @pinot @tocaboca Fantastic! (link)

Helt otroligt - det är en alltså en fan-video! RT @pinot: Picnic with Toca Tea Party app for iPad [video] http://bit.ly/gqzXpn cc @tocaboca (link)

Amazing to see that we make children smile :) RT @pinot: Picnic with Toca Tea Party app for iPad [video] http://t.co/WJb6TB (link)

Almost made this Play Designer cry :) @pinot: Picnic with Toca Tea Party app for iPad [video] http://t.co/3nEpPE8 cc @tocaboca (link)

@pinot We're all very happy in the office right now because of your video! (link)

@pinot Love your video! I'm proud to be part of @tocaboca :) Can we snailmail some presents to you? (link)

So sweet! Definitely Toca Boca team develop their app with their heart.

Vimeo Goes Mobile With iPhone 4

Akhirnya Vimeo merelease aplikasi resminya di AppStore untuk iPhone 3G, iPhone 4 & iPod Touch 4. Cukup lama para Vimean (panggilan untuk pengguna Vimeo) yang menggunakan iDevice menunggu Vimeo untuk sepenuhnya mendukung HTML5 sebagai alternatif selain Flash supaya bisa ditonton di Mobile Safari. Dan kini justru hadir native apps-nya untuk iPhone. Mari bersorak: yay!

Awalnya saya tidak menduga aplikasi Vimeo ini bakal dilengkapi feature editing. Sebelum kita upload ke Vimeo ternyata terdapat fasilitas untuk mengedit footage. Saya jabarkan secara garis besar mengenai fungsi penyuntingan videonya:

Nilai tambah:

• Gratis!
• Interface clean & simple. Mengingatkan pada interface dari Ableton Live.
• Terdapat fungsi timeline zooming, membuat timeline bisa muat dalam satu layar iPhone. Pinch out untuk zoom in melihat timeline lebih detail.
• Title memiliki track sendiri. Mempermudah kita untuk membuat beberapa subtitle dalam satu clip.
• Audio adjustment.

Track tersendiri untuk TITLES. Bandingkan dengan iMovie yang TITLES-nya bergantung pada clip video.

Nilai kurang.

Hanya menyediakan 6 lagu & tidak bisa akses koleksi lagu dari iTunes Library

Tersedia efek video yang ala kadarnya

• Tidak bisa akses iTunes Library. Aplikasi ini hanya menyediakan 6 lagu dalam audio librarynya.
• Saving ke Camera Roll tidak ada pilihan kualitas rendering selain 720p.
• Buggy & sluggish mulai dirasakan saat timeline melewati durasi 30 detik. Di iPhone 4 beberapa kali crash & last progress dari project tidak ter-save.
• Tidak memiliki template graphic.

Saran saya, jika ingin menyunting video, gunakan iMovie for iPhone/iPad, render & upload ke Vimeo di dalam iMovie. Atau paling tidak tunggu hingga fitur penyuntingan ini lebih stabil.

Lepas dari fitur penyuntingan videonya, Vimeo app ini sangat bermanfaat buat pengguna Vimeo. Semua fungsi di website hampir semuanya terdapat dalam aplikasi ini. Preview, share, tags, comments kini bisa dilakukan secara mobile di iPhone.

View video, share, tags, comments etc di dalam iPhone


Share options.


My video library! Tanpa harus menjadi pengguna VimeoPlus.

Sebagai Vimean ber-iDevice, all-in-one app ini wajib adanya. And it's FREE!

Mencoba Vimeo app. Diedit & diupload dari app setelah crash 2 kali :D