Greg In The Desert

According to USA Today Apple is in negations with Verizon. AT&T’s contract with Apple to carry the iPhone expires in 2010.

The New York-based telecom entered into “high-level” discussions with Apple management a few months ago, when CEO Steve Jobs was overseeing day-to-day business, these sources say. They declined to be named because they aren’t authorized to speak publicly.

People tell me all the time how much they want the iPhone but won’t switch to AT&T because of the superior coverage of Verizon. That Verizon is sucking up to Apple to get the iPhone wouldn’t surprise me.

Before releasing the iPhone, I think Apple looked into starting their own wireless company. Having no idea how successful the iPhone would be and how much a undertaking starting a wireless phone company would be, they decided they needed to focus their efforts onto the hardware and partner with a wireless company. If the iPhone was a hit, they would work on being their own wireless company later.

Apple will eventually want to have control of the wirless network. They will either start their own or buy out AT&T. Why not stick with the world stanardard of wireless phone networks GSM, which AT&T uses and not Verizon.

I don’t think a deal with Verizon and Apple will happen. I also didn’t think Apple would switch to Intel processors.

Apple had their shareholder’s meeting today. Forbes has a transcript of the event. I found this part particularly odd.

Next person is complimenting company for beautiful products. Wishes Steve well. Singing happy birthhday to Steve..EVERYONE singing.

It’s especially strange since Steve Jobs did not attend the meeting. I’m not sure I would sing along.

• Mayor Chavez, You've Got a Drug Problem
  Men would congregate outside my door or window, only to briskly walk off when I opened my door to see what they were up to. They usually had a lighter in one hand, and something else clinched in their fist. Sometime during the afternoon, three police officers on horseback came strolling down the street, but I really don’t know the purpose, since the loud clackity-clack of the horses walking on the blacktop announced their arrival to everyone within hearing range. I realized that my confrontational tactic might not be a good idea, considering how vulnerable I am, especially when the sun goes down. And my car would make a perfect target for retribution, since I have to park it on the street.
  (tags: albuquerque newmexico )
• Mac Memories: The Day Steve Jobs Showed Me the First Mac – Forward Thinking by Michael J. Miller
  n the fall of 1983, I was working on the west coast for Popular Computing , and my editor asked me to go down to Cupertino to see the work Apple was doing on the Macintosh, which at that point was the hot rumor in the valley. Once there, I met with Steve Jobs, who was then Apple Chairman and heading up the Mac project, along with a number of the key designers of the machine, including Burrell Smith, the original hardware designer, and Andy Hertzfeld and Bill Atkinson, key software designers.
• The Raw Story | Limbaugh's desire for Obama to 'fail' is 'arguably treasonous': Stewart
  With Daily Show link that is HILARIOUS!

I can’t let this day go by without mentioning that January 24th is the 25th anniversary of the Macintosh computer. If you keep up with any Apple news you would have known this weeks ago.

Macworld magazine has several articles to read on the anniversary. However I recommend you watch the “Steve Jobs showcases Macintosh” video on YouTube, which is the first introduction of the Macintosh in 1984.

Then watch the 1984 Superbowl commercial

I’m looking forward to another 25 years of Macintosh.

• Just got in cell range. Was on a 4 day ski to yurt trip near chama. #
• I’m at over 3000 unread feeds. May declare feed bankruptcy. #
• I am down to 2600 feeds. #
• Just watched the last stargate atlantis. Learned there will be a new series this summer called Stargate Universe. YAY! #
• Moonlight Over Spruce Hole http://tinyurl.com/spruce2009 #
• If my eyelid doesn’t stop twitching, I’m going to cut the fucker off! #
• getting familiar with imovie 2008 in preparation for imovie 2009. #
• Using a broken link checker plugin with WP and started with over 2000 broken links. #
• I was in a good mood when I came into work today. Now I’m pissy. Can anyone guess what time of year it is? #
• The day just gets crappier. The family dog died. RIP Annie. #
• Pic of annie. I will miss her. http://snipurl.com/9zvcc #
• Any other INTC people hear rumors about a 10% pay cut? #
• Thank you, every-website-on-the-internet for telling me about Steve Jobs. #
• Is there anyway to geotag movies on a Mac? #
• Why do I bother leaving Safari open with multiple tabs when I know it will just lock up on me. #
• It’s too bad about Circuit City. I had better luck with them than Best Buy. #
• Congratulations! You picked the right day to give up cocaine http://tinyurl.com/a93936 #
• The only way for websites to stop talking about Jobs is for Apple to come out with a new product. #
• I’m thinking of hiring a contractor to finish this master bath/bedroom remodel I can’t seem to finish. #
• Just watched BSG. I don’t get what’s going on. #
• I love watching COPS. #

• @bsailer Where at? Nothing near sothern and Unser. in reply to bsailer #
• @bsailer Nevermind. One just needs to wait 20 seconds. in reply to bsailer #
• Wow, I really didn’t think we would get snow like this #
• @bsailer same here in reply to bsailer #
• and here’s the sun #
• @jcsheng505 i know you have nothing better to do. in reply to jcsheng505 #
• @fivezerofive Ive tried it, I hate to admit that I can only do one. I plan to remedy that. in reply to fivezerofive #
• As John Stewart pointed out, Czars failed. Lets stop calling everyone in charge of something a Czar. #
• @jabancroft the car sliding bit is crazy! in reply to jabancroft #
• RE: Rail Runner hitting cow. 2009 is year of the cow according to Chinese calendar. #
• I should be in bed. Instead I’m eating peanut butter. #
• @bsailer Buy it! in reply to bsailer #
• looks like facial recognition in iPhoto. Now they need to put it in Aperture. #
• macrumorslive: STEVE JOBS JUST DIED. I say BS. #
• Think MacRumorslive was hacked #
• What other live feeds are people watching? #
• I could do without the snarky comments on engadget #
• I paid for image stabilization plugins on the previous iMovie. They worked well. #
• Box set is totally cool idea. #
• was hoping for a 32GB iPhone. #
• I upgraded some of my DRMed music. Now I have a whole bunch of duplicates. Thanks iTunes! #
• Apple did a terrible job of repacing my song. Gave me “clean” version of songs I had bought as “Explicit” and didn’t give me the same album. #
• More bad news from INTC today. Not looking forward to Jan 15th. http://tinyurl.com/7mp2db #
• stupid applescript. Why does something that works 2 days ago not longer work. #
• A reboot fixed applescript issues. Hope Snow Leopard makes this kind of thing less problematic. #

Steve Jobs pretty much said that a 3G iPhone will come eventually. That shouldn’t be a surprise. TheStreet is the one saying that it will be in the first quarter of 2008. I’m 100% sure it will be here in the next 5 years, within the next 9 months is a little less certain.

Navigadget says that Apple will add GPS hardware in the first quarter of 2008

The reason behind this rumor is the fact that Apple has been in touch with Broadcom’s Global Locate unit to supply chips for the phone. Global Locate, which was recently acquired by Broadcom, makes assisted GPS chips that use a combination of GPS satellites and cellular network signals to get a location fix. A-GPS will improve what’s a called TTFF, even making it possible to get acquire correct position indoors

I’m not holding me breath for either. What I am still waiting for is a minimum 16 GB of memory. I will keep my money until then.

Steve Jobs will be giving the keynote at Monday’s WWDC. Generally, the WWDC focuses on, surprise, developers. Expected this year is a beta of Leopard aka Mac OS 10.5. We will hopefully know what all the secret features are.

There a possiblity that other things could be released including iMacs, iPhone stuff, an ultra-portable? Who knows. MacRumors runs down the possibilities.

I will be watching live updates of the keynote via one of the various sites offering updates. There’s plenty to choose from. nikfletcher offers a ichat room and a applescript that will open up 10 sites in your browser.

Colleagues at my former outlet, PC World magazine, have told me that Editor-in-Chief Harry McCracken quit abruptly today because the company’s new CEO, Colin Crawford, tried to kill a story about Apple and Steve Jobs. The piece, a whimsical article titled “Ten Things We Hate About Apple,” was still in draft form when Crawford killed it. McCracken said no way and walked after Crawford refused to compromise. Apparently Crawford also told editors that product reviews in the magazine were too critical of vendors, especially ones who advertise in the magazine, and that they had to start being nicer to advertisers.

Epicenter – Wired Blogs.

Does Microsoft want to make stuff for the Mac or not? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. With the announcement at MacWorld that Office would be made for at least another 5 years the answer would seem to be yes.

Speaking during Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ Macworld Expo keynote, MBU General Manager Roz Ho said the company had entered into an “official agreement” with Apple to “continue shipping new versions of Office for Mac for a minimum of five years”.

“This commitment should leave no doubt in your mind that we’re here to stay and in [this market] for the long term,” Ho told attendees.

Yet, they are no longer going to Make a mac version of the Windows Media Player

Despite pledging its support for Apple’s platform, Microsoft has backed out of future releases of Windows Media Player for Mac, and the company’s Web site now directs visitors to download a third-party application from developer Flip4Mac.

Yet, they are going to make a Mac only keyboard and mouse.

The wireless keyboard also will come with a mouse specially designed for the Mac. Slated to debut this summer, they will be sold for about $100. Prototypes are on display under glass at Microsoft’s booth at Macworld this week.

Microsoft clearly has no overall Mac strategy. Where there’s money to be made they will put out products. As the Mac market share increases (yes, I think it will increase) we will see more stuff from Microsoft. Good or bad.