Latest Episodes

• Thoughts On Razr2 And iPhone Sales

  • As noted in a recent article sales of Motorola's new Razr2 cellphones have not been as high as the company might have liked when compared to sales of Apple's iPhone over the recent holiday buying period, and it occurred to me that not only is it possible that the iPhone affected Razr2 sales, but Motorola may be doing a better job of stifling Razr2 sales with its strange product strategy.

• Hi-Def FM Radio Tags That Song

  • What can Apple do to help the commercial radio market? With Hi-Def radio and iTunes Tagging, maybe a lot.

• Vern's Apple September 5th Event Predictions

  • Ah, another Apple media event. Apple seems to like giving them and we love viewing them. For many of us it's yet another opportunity to put on our seer's hat (mine is a purple beanie with glittery zodiac signs inscribed around the brim and the obligatory USB port in the back) and guess, divine, or do that hoo-doo we do so well and predict what goodness Apple will lay on us this time.

• Damn You Apple And The Earbuds You Rode In With!

  • It is my opinion that only a constipated mule with sore feet is more obstinate than Apple when it latches onto an idea it believes in. Apple will stand firm against herds of angry stampeding end users if it thinks its philosophy is worth defending. This time it's those silly earbuds that the company introduced to the world with the iPod.

• Apple Store: 240 Hours A. i. R. (After iPhone Release)

  • Well, it's been a bit more than a week since the launch of the iPhone and you'd think that the hubbub surrounding Apple's new consumer device would have diminished, but the clamor around the iPhone, and to a large degree, anything Apple, remains high. Just how high? I decided to go see for myself. I stopped in to one of the two local Apple Stores

• iPhone Numbers

  • Well, iDay has come and gone and we're still waiting for some solid numbers on how many phones were sold, which may be a while in coming if Apple's history is to be taken into account. Still it might be fun to play around with some numbers to get a feel for just how many iPhones were sold over the weekend and put things into scale for the long haul.

• The iPod/iPhone/eBook Connection

  • One thing that some people still don't seem to understand is that, like the iPod, the iPhone is platform, a handheld computer, if you will, that just happens to let you make calls. But that's not what I want to talk about. What I want to talk about are eBooks.

• Spin It! Spin It!

  • Apple's iPhone is due to ship some time in June. So, what do you do if you have a hand full of features that should be there, but can't be there for whatever reason? Spin, baby, spin!

• DRM-free Music: A Baby Step In The Right Direction

  • EMI and Apple recently announced that iTunes will be offering digital rights management (DRM) free music at a higher bit rate. Joyous celebration erupted in many corners of the world, as many proclaimed that this was the first of many blows to digital music DRM. But is that really the way of it? Will DRM-less tunes open a new era in music loving or will it just become an interesting historical footnote?

• 50 iPod Uses

  • iPods are more than this decade's WalkMan -- a fact that keeps Sony execs sucking down Mylanta faster than you can say "Wasabi!!" Still some of you may not realize the full potential of that little jewel you hold in your hands (no, the other jewel). So, here's my list of fifty iPod uses; I picked fifty because it's a nice round number and I was getting tired of writing.

• iPhone Survey Crud

  • Take this latest survey done by Compete Inc. that suggests that few people would pay $500 for an iPhone. See, the funny thing about number gleaned from polls and surveys is that you can make them say anything you want.

• On iPhone, AT&T/Cingular, Contracts, And Apple

  • I spoke with the guy who sold me the contract and he says that he's been literally swamped with questions and requests for iPhones, and that he knows he could sell 100 a day if he had them now. That got me thinking about how Cingular/AT&T will handle the iPhone and its customers.

Vern Seward is a writer who currently lives in Orlando, FL. He's been a Mac fan since Atari Computers folded, but has worked with computers of nearly every type for 20 years.