TickleSpace - iPhone App & Drupal Developers

Dear Steve Jobs,

The private walled garden known as .Mac is out of touch with reality. With .Mac's major features available for free from various web 2.0 companies .Mac is becoming irrelevant. iLife's many sharing features are crippled if you don't have .Mac.

If .Mac hadn't become pay only in the .bomb days, it would have grown to be the largest social network today. For example just adding a friends networking feature based on iChat buddy lists or AddressBook could make .Mac a wonderful MySpace replacement. .Mac as a social network can sell more Macs, iPods, Photo prints, music and movies. .Mac could make the life of Mac users easier and better.

To still have the .Mac tax today is just plain stupid. Why make users pay? Bandwidth costs? Nope. Apple is selling movies and TV shows for less than 10 bucks? It would take weeks for an average user to use that much bandwidth. Storage? Nah. That's too cheap to even discuss.

Someone at Apple needs to re-do those basic calculations of what the residual value of a .Mac user is to Apple.

Steve, with the iPod success heading for the plateau, you need a new killer app, .Mac can make Apple the hottest and most useful social network.  Do something before dotMac becomes deadMac. Or kill .Mac & have the dev teams work on making iLife integrate better with other successful 2.0 sites.

Frankly no one cares for .Mac anymore.

Cheers.

Technorati Tags: iLife, MySpace, apple, .Mac

Potion Factory has made me smile several times this past week.

The first time was when they offered Voice Candy at My Dream App contest. I found Voice Candy's interface beautiful and the sound effects very realistic. I had lots of fun listening to myself talk. I think my primary use for Voice Candy will be to record my thought streams (with eyes closed, visualizing and verbally describing various ideas without having to write stuff.)

Today I learn that the have made a new app called Tangerine. It analyzes a track's beats per minute (BPM) and compiles playlists based on the setting you choose. This is the first time I've seen an app that helps organize music in this fashion...it is perfect for helping create a good group of like-sounding songs for a steady workout.

Good luck guys and keep surprising us.

Disclaimer: they did offer to provide license to tangerine if you blog it. That helps motivate me to blog, but the main reason I blogged them today is because here is a company that is testing new ideas, not just in terms of apps they are creating but also the various avenues they are taking to expose themselves to the world at large.

Technorati Tags: apple, music, Tangerine

Novis Design the daddy/alpha/omega of the chi pets, a while ago posted this:

The New Pet In Town - Upcoming Chi Pet Features
The Chi Pet has been one of the most popular widgets out there to date. And we think it could be much better. New features in an upcoming release are going to include a haircut named 'Barber Shop', a sleep called 'Hibernation', and a huge innovation that will let you talk to your Chi. These features and more will be in the upcoming version 1.1.

I have a fully grown chi pet that needs to learn to take naps and get trimmed.

Please hurry with chi pet 1.1. two additional pets have died on me so far, and I am not sure how many more deaths I can take.

Technorati Tags: chi-pet, widget

TUAW - Why Apple's Mighty Mouse is like the Apple III:

Well Apple's done it again with the so-called "Mighty" mouse. Their 3 or 4-button wonder is great, as long as you don't get hooked on using the little scrollball. Never mind the fact that you can't move in X and Y directions at the same time (as you can using 2-finger trackpad scrolling)-- the trackball is a piece of junk. I mean, the build quality is nice (just like those Apple III's had heavy-duty aluminum chassis), but after about a month of frequent use, the thing gets jammed with gunk, making it largely unusable. And yes, I wash my hands regularly...

I have found the little nipple/scrollball on the mighty mouse too-wiggly for my taste. I guess with my next iMac (24'' baby!) I'll have to get another Logitech to replace the Mighty mouse it will come with.

Currently I'm in love with the features of Logitech MX Revolution Cordless Laser Mouse

I'm hoping that a wired version of the MX Revolution will be available soon.

Technorati Tags: Logitech, mighty mouse, apple

Well after 3 weeks of growth, thanks to labour day weekend and construction at my house, I didn't get to water my pet.

It died. *sob.

After my last post the pet never grew more fur etc. It would be nice if someone made a vine dashboard that grew all over the other widgets or something...that might be more exciting.