New iPod touch hidden in firmware; Microsoft's pro-Vista videos
A simple reference in the beta of Apple's latest firmware could hint at a significant remake of the iPod touch. Also, Microsoft has posted the controversial "blind taste test" videos that promote an improved Vista, and a Wyoming county's schools will receive 3,000 MacBooks.
New iPod touch referenced in iPhone 2.1 firmware
Although the mention is short, a text string in the iPhone 2.1 beta firmware could have a significant impact on the iPod touch, according to a discovery made by iPhone Atlas.
While Apple has used "iPod 1,1" to describe the current iPod touch as the first OS X-based iPod and the only minor revision, multiple files now contain references to "iPod 2,1" -- a number change which, for past Macs, has referenced a major revision instead of a minor tweak..
For contrast, the iPhone 3G is simply listed as "iPhone 1,2" despite its new features and indicates that the design underneath is largely identical.
The company has in recent years reserved either August or September to start updating its iPods and this year launched a back-to-school promotion that gave away free iPod touch players to students buying a Mac at the same time, triggering a shortage that has helped Apple keep its touchscreen iPod supply in check.
Microsoft kicks off Vista first-hand experience videos
Microsoft's promised campaign to restore Windows Vista's reputation has begun in earnest through a special promo website.
Now nicknamed the "Mojave Experiment," the promo campaign hosts videos of Windows XP owners who Microsoft says had a very negative perception of Vista but were shown the current version of the operating system under the fake "Mojave" name to gauge their reactions without media- and friend-made preconceptions in the way.
According to Microsoft, over 90 percent of these users came out with a complete changed, positive outlook on the operating system now that its initial kinks have purportedly been resolved a year and a half after its debut.
The company doesn't, however, say what customers were allowed to try during the test. While performance has been improved with recent patches, other complaints have centered around backwards compatibility with hardware and software.
Wyoming school district to get 3,000 MacBooks
One of Apple's larger, more recent educational deals for Macs will roll out in the least populated state in the US, says a local report by the Casper Star-Tribune.
Over 3,000 MacBooks are being distributed to K-12 schools in Natrona County. Casper's Kelly Walsh High School gets the lion's share with 1,400 of the notebooks, while the remaining number will be divided largely equally between older students at CY Middle School and Dean Morgan Junior High as well as younger ones at Ft. Caspar Academy, Manor Heights Elementary and Park. Teachers also receive their own units.
The schools plan to launch a one-to-one program where each of the older students has access to a personal system that will help them learn, including through Internet materials.
Natrona County's deal also gives the teachers some education: each of those at Kelly Walsh has gone through a one-week learning process to help those who might still be unfamiliar with how to use online information in a classroom, including keeping students honest with online assignments.
New iPod touch referenced in iPhone 2.1 firmware
Although the mention is short, a text string in the iPhone 2.1 beta firmware could have a significant impact on the iPod touch, according to a discovery made by iPhone Atlas.
While Apple has used "iPod 1,1" to describe the current iPod touch as the first OS X-based iPod and the only minor revision, multiple files now contain references to "iPod 2,1" -- a number change which, for past Macs, has referenced a major revision instead of a minor tweak..
For contrast, the iPhone 3G is simply listed as "iPhone 1,2" despite its new features and indicates that the design underneath is largely identical.
The company has in recent years reserved either August or September to start updating its iPods and this year launched a back-to-school promotion that gave away free iPod touch players to students buying a Mac at the same time, triggering a shortage that has helped Apple keep its touchscreen iPod supply in check.
Microsoft kicks off Vista first-hand experience videos
Microsoft's promised campaign to restore Windows Vista's reputation has begun in earnest through a special promo website.
Now nicknamed the "Mojave Experiment," the promo campaign hosts videos of Windows XP owners who Microsoft says had a very negative perception of Vista but were shown the current version of the operating system under the fake "Mojave" name to gauge their reactions without media- and friend-made preconceptions in the way.
According to Microsoft, over 90 percent of these users came out with a complete changed, positive outlook on the operating system now that its initial kinks have purportedly been resolved a year and a half after its debut.
The company doesn't, however, say what customers were allowed to try during the test. While performance has been improved with recent patches, other complaints have centered around backwards compatibility with hardware and software.
Wyoming school district to get 3,000 MacBooks
One of Apple's larger, more recent educational deals for Macs will roll out in the least populated state in the US, says a local report by the Casper Star-Tribune.
Over 3,000 MacBooks are being distributed to K-12 schools in Natrona County. Casper's Kelly Walsh High School gets the lion's share with 1,400 of the notebooks, while the remaining number will be divided largely equally between older students at CY Middle School and Dean Morgan Junior High as well as younger ones at Ft. Caspar Academy, Manor Heights Elementary and Park. Teachers also receive their own units.
The schools plan to launch a one-to-one program where each of the older students has access to a personal system that will help them learn, including through Internet materials.
Natrona County's deal also gives the teachers some education: each of those at Kelly Walsh has gone through a one-week learning process to help those who might still be unfamiliar with how to use online information in a classroom, including keeping students honest with online assignments.
Comments
I'm pretty confident that Vista would grow on me if I had to use it. However, since I've not once regretted switching to Mac in my first year as a Mac user (well, in 2 or 3 weeks it'll be a year) I don't see why I should. That being said, Dell, Sony, IBM and others are putting out some SEXY hardware for more than decent prices lately... don't let the competion pass you, Apple!
Mojave Experiment
...cause it just rolls off the tongue.
Seriously, what kind of idiots are they?
Marketing is not rocket science: All I remember about those ads is the negative things people pointed out - speed, compatibility, etc. They don't really mention anything positive, they just show people looking shocked and saying, "I was amazed," or "It has cool features." (I might have heard speed as a specific positive, actually)
But the point is, how is it good advertising when the only features ever mentioned are negative and the testimonials themselves don't actually say anything? To me, that says they do have something to hide, and if I'm an ad agency I'm thinking, "All we're doing by trying to combat these stereotypes about Vista is bringing them up again and keeping the problems in the media and in people's minds. Why are we doing this?" Does Microsoft really think this is going to work?
Last year when he installed Vista on his home machine it corrupted all of his personal data. He finally quit MS shortly after.
I'm pretty confident that Vista would grow on me if I had to use it.
You'd think but - nope. As long as you're using both OS X and Vista, Vista won't grow on you because you know what good is. It was funny - I was talking to this guy at work who said he really liked Vista because of how it deals with Alt+Tab. I told him that's because he doesn't use OS X and doesn't get things like Spaces and Expose. When I told him what they do he said, and I quote "Man, maybe I need to get on the Mac bandwagon"
From the video: Wow its actually that fast, I dont know Vista can do that.
I mean like what kind of Win XP user will say that Vista is fast. Vista is a pig compared to XP. XP stands for eXPress while Vista is just a pig. My fren used Vista on a brand new XPSM1320 (something like that but it is a Dell XPS model) and he complains that its slow and stupid. It has such a long installing update before you get to shut down the computer.
I don't know Vista can do that....hmm, I can only think of the dreamscene content that MS decided not to further support or the Flip 3D. Any other things that Vista can do that XP cannot do?
Great campaign. They just proved people are dumb and don't know what they are talking about.
Why didn't they save $300 million and just come out with that slogan:
Vista: you're dumb and don't know what you're talking about.
Works for me.
I can't believe this website is for real. Apparently I made a mistake buying a Mac 4 years ago.
Ya. right.
Try Vista yourself!
Just like the people did in the video.
poor, poor microsoft... I'm speechless.. how they even did the play/pause button wrong!
I noticed. Funny.
My wife is ALWAYS right and she knows the difference between a PIG and a HOG.
V=XP - 5 years = hog
Just classic Micro$oft.
"It's brown, I like that"
They should make all Vista boxes brown...we all know what's it is.
I also have a friend (IT professional too) who uses Vista at work. He loves it, and it never has crashed on him... and he's used it since the second month it was released. I guess it goes to show he knows what he is doing.
I do find it funny that MS has to "prove" itself, while Apple folks flock to the latest OS release. But there is something to be said there.
The people here know nothing about computers. All there saw was what Microsoft wanted them to see. And all we saw was what Microsoft wanted to show us about their reactions.
I like the fact that this ad campaign does not reference Apple at all, unlike Apple's ads.... I do like the idea of not mud slinging.
But you do like the idea of Microsoft lying to people about what they are being shown?
I've used Vista in virtual machines. SP1 with all the updates. It's pretty slow, there were random software errors, and even with the VMware Fusion 2 DirectX 9 support, it wouldn't let me burn a DVD because my video card wasn't good enough!
And yes, Microsoft, please try to get the pause/play right next time. And did they have to use the Time Machine icon for the "replay" icon?
I also like how one lady said "I wish I could put it on my computer" -- she wishes because her 1 year old computer with a 3 GHz processor isn't compatible with Vista.
ALSO they have the same video of the girl saying that Vista isn't outdated twice. (Bottom row, fifth video and also second-to-bottom row, third video). -- Not being out of the times must be a pretty darn good part of Vista for them to put the same video up twice.
ALSO they have the same video of the girl saying that Flip 3D is good twice. (Bottom row, seventh video and also second-to-bottom row, second video). -- Not sure how many others are doubles but positive statements must have been pretty scarce.
AAAANND The lady who says that you could use Vista without reading "77 pages" should be asked to turn of UAC without reading any directions. And then resize a partition without destroying the hard drive. Ooooorrrrrrr maybe she could try a Mac which is ACTUALLY intuitive.
AAAAAAANNNNND that guy who says that it's cool how Vista can make a panorama automatically.... I downloaded a free program called Autostitch years ago -- it's just 1 MB -- and it can do automatic panoramas as well. Not impressive, Microsoft.
AAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNDDD judging by the peoples' reactions, the way they look , etc., it seems like they are actually actors, part of Microsoft's ad agency (like they're saying all the right, sentimental things) -- either that or they have been given some kind of drug.
The whole experience of clicking on that website just soured my evening. I converted to MAC more than a year ago - my experiment started with buying an iMac and just playing. Of course there was some learning (jumping from XP) but now I simply get a lot more work done in a much shorter time using a macbook pro, than with XP and especially against Vista.
I recently bought 2 UMPCs running vista (Fujitsu and a Samsung) I finally am at a point where i enjoy using the Fujitsu - it was once I wiped it and put Ubuntu on there.
The only time I see Vista looking good, is on the shiny new notebooks in the stores. Of course once you get it hope and personalize it (add applications!) IT ALL goes downhill.
In the nasty Mojave experiment - the dialogue is just awful.