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TheAppleBlog, published by and for the day-to-day Apple user, is a prominent source for news, reviews, walkthroughs, and real life application of all Apple products.
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Sorry Redmond: Too Little, Too Late

I was recently asked in a tweet, "Have you completely abandoned Windows now?" I realized, with some genuine surprise, that not only had I stopped using Windows in any meaningful way, but actually stopped using it the moment I got my hands on my first (modern) Mac in 2008. So, in the aftermath of last months much-anticipated release of Snow Leopard, I find myself thinking about the move I made between operating systems, and my experiments since then with Microsoft's latest offering.

First, a little background. I flirted with Macs in high-school Graphic Art lessons and then again, very very briefly, in the late 90s when a colleague handed me a PowerBook and said "Here, you could use that if it's any good, but I don't know if it even works…" It did work, but to be honest, it really wasn't any use to me at all. Anyway, even if I had wanted to use the Mac, everyone I knew was working on a Windows PC of some flavor or other, and though the PowerBook had a working copy of Microsoft Office (such as it was in those days) incompatibilities were an ever-present problem.

Here's an example of a conversation I had, many times, with the one person I knew who used a Mac;

Gloria: Liam, that file you sent me…
Liam: Yes, the Word document.
Gloria: It doesn't work properly. I've lost all the formatting.
Liam: What do you mean, you've 'lost'–
Gloria: It's a mess.
Liam: Did you open it using Word?
Gloria: Of course I did! Look, will you just paste the text into an email for me, yeah?

I used to think the problem lay not with her computer, but more with her inability to use it. I later saw for myself, however, that she was absolutely right. Word documents created on a Windows PC didn't fare well in Word on her Mac. Crazy.

The short of it is that I used Windows for everything and I had no compelling reason to want to switch. At home and at work, even on the road with my Windows Mobile devices through the years, I was 100 percent a Microsoft customer. Throughout those years, every experience I had with the Mac was a bad experience. And it was usually, as in the example above, related to the same tedious issue — incompatibility.

By 2005 I'd certainly heard about Mac OS X, though the closest I came to it was reading Paul Thurrott's reviews and opinions on his SuperSite for Windows. He spoke of a decent OS, but reassured me that I was missing nothing. Then Apple released the iPhone and, despite my aversion to all things Apple, the Geek in me couldn't resist and I bought one.

The experience on the iPhone was simply amazing, far better than any I'd had on any other device in… well, forever. It made me question my assumptions about the Mac. So in the summer of 2008, I wandered into the Apple Store on London's Regent Street and spent a half hour pratting-about on different machines. I left with a MacBook. And on that very day, Windows died for me. Leopard was a breath of fresh air.

But let me be clear; I didn't switch because I felt the Mac was a superior platform. Honestly, I feel that, for the majority of people, it's no better or worse than Windows at the mechanics of making email, word processing and web surfing possible. I switched because it offered a far superior experience in doing those everyday things. When I think about Windows and where it fails for me, it always comes down to that same issue; experience.

Despite the "XP" in its 2001 OS name, it was only with Windows Vista that Microsoft finally seemed to "get" that user experience matters. Yet, beyond Vista's eye candy there's not a lot in the way of a unified, cohesive and organic experience that makes me want to use it as my everyday computing environment. This isn't blind fanboy-ism talking; I used Vista since its Longhorn days right up until last summer, so I know I gave it a long-enough evaluation!

The user experience in Windows 7, too, has not changed since Vista, save perhaps for the addition of some fiddly new UI gimmicks (Aero Peek anyone?). To me, 7 'feels' just like Vista did. I keep moving around the OS hoping to have an epiphany; "Aha! There's the cohesive, rewarding experience I was searching for!" — but it just doesn't happen.

I want to like Windows 7, but after trying various beta builds for the last year and repeatedly doing my best to enjoy it, I found myself feeling relieved whenever I returned to the elegant lines of Mac OS X.

I don't hate Windows 7. I don't think it's shoddy, unattractive or fundamentally flawed. But just as Thurrott would say of Snow Leopard, when it comes to Windows 7 there’s just not much there. Windows 7 is a perfectly capable operating system that looks nice and gets the job done. Ultimately, however, it's just not very interesting and, for recent switchers to the Mac, it's too little, too late.

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Spotify: Life Without iTunes

This week’s arrival of Spotify in the App Store (right now limited to UK, Sweden, France, Spain, Norway and Finland stores) could be the ideal opportunity for us all to throw iTunes in the trash and experience the freedom that Spotify has to offer.

Speculation was rife as to whether Spotify would even make it into the App Store. However, Apple’s somewhat unexpected approval of the all-you-can-eat music service means that iPhone and iPod touch users can now listen to anything and (almost) everything, wherever they may be.

For the moment, Spotify is available exclusively in Europe. Released initially for both Mac and PC, the desktop version of Spotify looks and functions quite similarly to iTunes, except with one major difference: everything in the store is free.

Users of Spotify are granted the freedom to cherry pick their favorite tracks, nibbling on morsels of music and sampling the latest flavors, and the tools to legally share them too. You’re able to select any song and instantly generate a URL linking back to the full track, making sharing music a breeze.

The Spotify iPhone app has changed everything. I’m no longer tied to its desktop application. With the iPhone app, I’m able to download and listen to thousands of tracks on the go, which gets me to thinking, is it time I threw iTunes in the trash?

Playlists Versus Libraries

Shifting over from iTunes to Spotify has been a more difficult transition than I expected. Making use of the iTunes “keep my music folder organized” option, my own iTunes library is stored on an external HD where each track is properly named, tagged, numbered and even dated. If I could, I’d wear a top hat and monocle while showing guests around my immaculately maintained iTunes library.

When I’m at home, it’s all about the album experience. I prefer to consume music as the artist originally intended, whether it be the epic tones of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon and Sigur Rós’s Ágætis Byrjun, or the bloops and glitches of Kraftwerk’s Computer World and Aphex Twin’s Chosen Lords.

Out and about however I don’t even tend to listen to music anymore. Over the past couple of years I’ve succumbed to the joys of podcasts via iTunes, subscribing to The Bugle, Answer Me This and Totally Rad Show amongst many others. As a result of this, I’ve increasingly felt as though I’m losing touch with my music collection.

The Album Is Dead

Listening with Spotify is an entirely different experience, though. Like many Europeans who are lucky enough to have a Spotify invite, or affluent enough to pay for a €9.99 premium account, I’ve begun to focus on consuming and sharing music exclusively via playlists.

It’s been a tough transition over to Spotify for me, specifically because there’s no iTunes-style music library. With Spotify, the album is dead, felled by his younger and more agile counterpart, the playlist.

Without the personal music library, the heart of iTunes, there’s none of the satisfaction of flicking through your collection in Cover Flow. And with Spotify managing its vast selection of tracks, never again will you glow with pride after correctly tagging, naming and selecting cover art for your latest procurement.

The App Effect

The Spotify iPhone app doesn’t attempt to ape iTunes or the iPod, rather it plays to its own strengths. In effect, the app further establishes Spotify as an entirely new platform for discovering new music. Although the app is available for free, the service can only be accessed on iPhone by premium subscribers.

The €9.99 monthly subscription fee (equating to roughly $14.50) is worth it though. You’re granted unlimited access to Spotify’s growing library, consisting of almost 4 million tracks. And while there are occasional disappointments in both the mainstream and esoteric departments (there’s currently no Immaculate Collection and very little Boards of Canada), more frequently you’ll find yourself overwhelmed at the breadth and depth of what’s on offer.

Imagine having a free-pass to access everything in the iTunes Music Store. It’s just like that. In the past day I’ve tried a little bit of The Breeders, delved into some classic Radiohead, sampled the delight’s of Jason Schwartzman’s Coconut Records, and, via Bob Dylan’s Theme Time Radio Hour collection, discovered the joys of Gene Harris, Roy Brown and J.B. Lenoir. It feels liberating and exciting.

Using the desktop app, you’re able to design elaborate and lengthy mixes or, as I do, build playlists out of individual albums. You can then wirelessly sync your playlists to the iPhone app. And here’s the best bit: all of the tracks that are synced to the iPhone are actually downloaded to the device, you can take them with you wherever you go and listen offline.

Life Without iTunes?

The freedom that Spotify offers encourages you to spend more time digging deep, inevitably discovering mountains of new music. No longer can I derive pleasure from pruning my tracks and tending to my albums, but then who cares? With Spotify, I spend more time actually listening to music.

It’s not quite time for me to throw iTunes in the trash though. While I imagine Spotify will have podcasts covered in due course, until they do, iTunes is all but essential. Plus there’s all the albums and artists in my collection that just aren’t available in Spotify, meaning I won’t be wiping my iTunes library just yet.

Until Spotify integrates seriously expands its library and integrates podcast subscriptions, iTunes will be afforded a stay of execution. In the meantime, I’ll be leading a dual life, enjoying podcasts and a few select albums via iTunes, while exploring the vastness that is everything else with Spotify.

While Spotify is currently only available in Europe, stateside readers should be able to try the service soon as Spotify is pegged to arrive in the U.S. before the end of 2009.

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GigaOM's Top 15 Mobile Influencers

Hundreds of startups, giants like Nokia and Motorola and disruptors such as Apple and Google are all positioning themselves for what is going to be a bonanza as big as the wired Internet.

GigaOM editors' have put together a list of the top 15 most influential people in the Mobile Internet; together they make up the inaugural Mobilize 15 Influencers, a list that is going to be published annually in tandem with our Mobilize conference.

Check out the listing and vote on who you think should be No. 1 in our poll →

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Rhapsody App for iPhone Approved, Available Now

Across the pond, our European neighbors have been enjoying Spotify for some time now. It’s only fair that Apple should continue on in that vein and approve Rhapsody for the American masses. Sure Rhapsody costs money and Spotify doesn’t, but it does present a very competitive subscription-based alternative to iTunes.

For just $15.99 a month, Rhapsody subscribers have unlimited access to the site’s entire database of tracks, which numbers somewhere around eight million, and features most of today’s popular artists. While users of Last.fm and Pandora have been able to stream customized radio feeds directly to their devices since early on in the history of the App Store, Rhapsody is the first to bring on-demand tracks and albums to U.S. iPhone owners.

It may seem like direct competition for Apple’s own iTunes service, but is it really? Subscribers can stream music to their devices over either Wi-Fi or 3G network connections, but if you want to listen to music outside of Wi-Fi or cellular coverage areas, you’re out of luck, because the app has no offline access at all. Even if you are connected, constant streaming will significantly reduce your device’s battery life.

There’s also the issue of quality. Regardless of the type or quality of data connection you have, Rhapsody content streamed to the iPhone is only 64kbps — which, to someone like myself who tries to find FLAC recordings when possible, is absolutely unacceptable. I won’t even listen to internet radio streams if they don’t broadcast at at least 128kbps, and I don’t touch AM radio.

If you’re willing to put up with sub-par sound quality, and complete silence anytime you have to use the subway or take a trip to the remote wilderness or do anything that lasts more than a few hours away from a power supply, then maybe Rhapsody seems like a true iTunes competitor. I think Apple is gambling on the fact that most users will be willing to make one of those concessions, but definitely not all three.

Rhapsody is the product of a partnership between RealNetworks and MTV, which means they know a fair bit about sound, digital audio and music appreciation. This early version of its iPhone app probably doesn’t tell the full story of what it has planned in the future. Better to have a foot in the door with less than ideal functionality than to be left out in the cold like Google was with its Voice app.

Rhapsody is available now as a free download in the App Store.

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Steve Jobs Talks Touch, Nano, and Maybe Tablet

Steve Jobs return as the face of Apple yesterday was immediately followed by an interview with Tech Guru David Pogue of the New York Times. A lot of the conversation focused on cameras, like why the iPod nano got one and the iPod touch did not.

It turns out Apple had no idea how to market the iPod touch — imagine that! Vacillating between concepts such as an “iPhone without the phone” and a pocket computer that actually fits in a pocket, touch users had to help the company that is arguably the most adept at advertising in the world figure out what to do. “What happened was, what customers told us was, they started to see it as a game machine," Jobs said. From there, a multiplicity of game screenshots drove advertising and “it just took off.”

Completely coincidentally, this also made it unnecessary for Apple “to add new stuff,” like a camera, or a compass, or GPS. Instead, as Phil Schiller said during the Apple Event yesterday, “at just $199 the iPod touch is the most affordable gateway drug to Apple’s revolutionary App Store.” Jobs echoed those comments in the interview, saying that what “we were focused on is just reducing the price to $199.” So, it’s not about artificial product segmentation at all. Glad we cleared that up.

More realistic was Jobs’ response to the lack of photo capability in the video camera on the iPod nano. Apparently, the sensors for video are thin enough to fit in the nano, but the technology for pictures is not. Personally, I find this a little curious, as I often export still images from videos I have taken using QuickTime. At the very least, some kind of built-in workaround like that could have been included with the new nano.

The other topic covered during the interview, and one that will have message boards buzzing, concerned e-readers. Pogue asked Jobs if his dismissive attitude towards the devices had changed since the appearance of the Kindle. Jobs noted that digital books aren’t big sellers, then tossed the tablet fanatics some red meat, stating that “I think people just probably aren't willing to pay for a dedicated device."

If that wasn’t an oblique confirmation of the Apple iTablet, this response regarding future products being delayed because of Jobs’ absence is likely as close as we will get before the mythical device is unveiled.

“There are some things that I'm focusing a lot of attention on right now—to polish," he said. "No, I don't think we're going to miss a beat. We have some really good stuff coming up."

And this is why I love Steve Jobs being vertical again.

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