Chadwyk

New AppleTV – Lacking Ability to Purchase Movies – Response from Steve Jobs

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So I have had the new AppleTV for a few weeks now. It is very similar to the old model in my opinion. The main things that I see that are different are that it is smaller (bonus), lacks RCA audio jacks (sucks), has Netflix (awesome!), has the ability for Airplay (pretty sweet), and it lacks the ability to purchase movies from iTunes directly (major suckage).

The last thing that I mentioned really bums me out. This was probably the feature that I like most, even though I got addicted to it fast. In the first few months that I owned my original release AppleTV, I spent a few hundred bucks at least on buying movies. My thoughts were, if I’m going to spend 5 bucks to rent the movie – what is ten more to keep it forever? More than likely I’ll watch it at least 2 more times so It would be worth it.

Now with the new version of AppleTV this feature is gone. You can only stream rentals, or stream from your existing iTunes library on either your iOS device or Mac. This seems like a gigantic pain to me. If I am looking for a movie to purchase now, I must go on over to my desktop iMac to purchase it, wait for it to completely download to watch it on my Apple TV.

Originally you could purchase it on the AppleTV and start streaming the movie before it finished downloading… no more. This is gone. My assumption behind the reasoning on this is that the new AppleTV lacks a hard drive, as it streams everything from either the internet or your local network. But even if this is the reason, I would think the techs at Apple could make a way to download it to your desktop while you stream it from the purchase.

It seems like a no brainer to include that feature, and they may be losing a ton of money from movie addicts like me! So I was curious to see if this was an option that Apple was pursuing, and knowing that Steve Jobs responds to some of his emails fan-boys like me submit, I emailed Steve Jobs. I was ecstatic to get a response, however it was not the response I was looking for. Below is the email chain.

Even though this is not the response that I’ve been looking for, I’d like to say that this is one more reason why I love Apple products. A CEO who cares enough to respond to his emails. I got a response within 5 minutes!

Email from Steve Jobs about AppleTV movie Purchases

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WykMedia

I finally have started my new project called WykMedia. You can check it out at wykmedia.com This site will be my launching platform for all sorts of media projects I hope to create. My first iPhone app will be launched soon!

Blizzard in Madison!

It snowed over 17.5 inches last night! As I was coming back home late after bar close, there were a ton of people making a huge snowball down the middle of Gilman Ave.  They stopped when they got it to the center of University Ave.  I took a video and uploaded it to CNN and can be viewed here. http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-366617

I then got a phone call from CNN saying they wanted to know more!  I told them some more details and a few hours later the following segment aired with part of my video!  It’s also in a video montage here http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/weather/2009/12/09/natpkg.irpt.snow.reports.cnn.html

The clip that they aired was a shortened version though. I wish they would have shown it in the center of the intersection when they all celebrate that they got it there!

This Snowman video that someone else recorded is amusing too! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1grCwOWYTU

UPDATE**** They aired it again! Both clips are below!

UPDATE**** Apparently they are airing it on local news channels all over the country!

Halloween FreakFest 2009

Halloween was a fun time this year down on State Street. Here is a mashup video I made of some of the costumes and people.

AT&T FAIL – rant

So it was an hour before I leave work on a Friday… I just wanna go home and hoping nothing comes up at work.. something simple turns into something big…

One of my Faculty just got a new iPhone 3gs and came to me to activate it and configure it with our Exchange server. No problem! I’ve done this before… He used to have the Blackberry with full Enterprise Data package. We received the phone today. I call the number on the sheet it came with to activate it. The robot says all is good. All is NOT good. Sure the internet and everything works, until I go to Voice mail. It starts dialing a number, immediately I think oh, we just have to set it up. Wrong. All attempts fail.

I stay on the line to talk to a rep. No biggie… Then she notices that the plan didn’t transfer over a data plan! He just has a voice plan on the iPhone… I didn’t think that was even possible!?! She said ok, please hold I’ll look into what i can do… suddenly the phone I called from (also an iPhone) says “Call Failed”. ughhh… AT&T fail! I wait for her to call back… then I suddenly get a voice mail with out it ringing (all bars in service) AT&T fail again! . She tells me to call back the generic 800 number, so I don’t even get to talk to her – the person who knew what happened…

I call back on a land line this time, and get another person on the phone… she seems understanding, however because my name isn’t on the business account she can’t make the change. Oh by the way – it’s after 5pm on a Friday, so the people who are on the account are all home for the weekend – and I have none of their numbers! She tries calling the numbers listed anyway but no answer (big surprise)… and won’t tell me their names out of policy… She said they would call back Monday and contact them, or I could have them call if I could get a hold of them (yeah right.. doubtful)

So where does this leave us? With an iPhone that can send and receive calls (at least it can do that) – no Voice mail and a non existent data package that will be racking up a huge bill over the weekend, because since it doesn’t have a data plan on it currently, it is set to pay per download. Which means big fee’s, because I already synced his email, contacts, and calendars from exchange. They had better take that off the bill. After-all, it was their system that failed.

OK, that’s my rant for the day. Time to enjoy the Friday night!

Video game consoles obsolete?

In the future, we may be saying goodbye to our favorite video console, whether that be the Nintendo, Playstation, or the Xbox.  OnLive is a startup company that plans on releasing a new device that plugs into your computer or tv and replaces the console.  Customers will no longer purchase copies of their favorite video game.  Instead, all gameplay will be streamed over the internet – think Netflix.  The games will be stored at OnLive’s server farm and your inputs will be sent to them.  They say that the device can be upgraded so it will never become obsolete.  Is this too good to be true?  Will it catch on?  We’ll have to wait and see!

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Ghostbusters meet Indiana Jones

Dan Aykroyd is coming to Madison, WI on Wed March 25th to promote his new vodka, “Crystal Head”.  The background of it as explained at crystalheadvodka.com is similar to the Indiana Jones theme.  Dan is a long time believer in the supernatural and continues this trend with the stories of the Crystal Skulls found throughout the ages on our planet.  Each one of these bottles costs $50 and is apparently “diamond filtered”, though I’m not sure what that does other than sound cool.  Dan will be at the West side Woodman’s market from 4pm – 6pm signing the skulls.

In a phone interview Saturday from Minneapolis, Aykroyd said he is willing to sign other items, including “Blues Brothers” and “Ghost Busters” memorabilia, as long as fans arrive early, and understand his primary purpose is selling vodka.
“I’m gonna sign about 700 skulls this afternoon,” he said Saturday.

I may need to get my Ghostbusters t-shirt or pillowcase signed, hahaha.

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MySpace FotoFlexer Picture Editing

MySpace has now teamed up with FotoFlexer and has photo editing tools directly on the site.  That’s right!  If you don’t have Photoshop available, you can do simple editing right on MySpace (cropping, resizing, remove red-eye, etc).  So far it is only available to users in the U.S. but will be rolled out internationally soon.

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