Posts Tagged apple
Pure unadulterated grade-A awesomeness
Posted by katiesol in Beautiful things, From around the web on February 4th, 2010
Unborn children of mine take note: this is what your future holds.
I’d rather have the Lego version, to be honest.
Waterfall sink - like an infinity pool in your kitchen. Yes please.
As good a motto as any.
Finally, a use for all those old boring books I buy from library sales because they look nice but actually they’re rubbish. Happy day.
I just adore this AT-AT Walker inspired lamp, even though it’s completely ridiculous that the light lives in a drawer.
CoolBrands in pointless exercise debacle
Somewhere out there, there is a list. A list that has been created by an ‘Expert Council’*, taking into account the opinions of over 2,400 members of the British public. A list so extensively researched that it makes your university dissertation look like the scrawl on the back of a napkin. This list will change the fate of humanity. This list has implications further reaching than any you could imagine.
It is <dum dum duuuuuuuuum> THE COOL LIST.
/anticlimax.
So, what’s cool this year then? The iPhone has taken the top spot, followed by Aston Martin, Apple, iPod, Nintendo, YouTube, Blackberry, Google, Bang & Olufsen and Playstation.
But does the fact that a handful of celebs, media-types and common people think that iPhones, Aston Martins, Nintendo and YouTube are ‘cool’ make them any better? If you make a call on your Apple iPhone from your Aston Martin to talk about Nintendo then watch the whole shebang back later on YouTube**, does that make you the coolest person alive?
No. It doesn’t. It doesn’t make you anything, other than fairly wealthy or possibly a criminal if that isn’t your Aston.
Possibly the coolest image known to man
I have an iPhone, did you know that? I might not have mentioned it before; I like to keep it on the DL. I’m quite fond of my little iPhone. I like having Twitter with me everywhere I go, and the general shinyness pleases me. I enjoy pawing at the screen, swiping my way from page to page even when the app I want is right there on the home screen. So yeah, I think it’s pretty cool.
But hearing that the ‘Expert Council’ and over 2,400 Brits agree, and that the iPhone is the ‘Coolest Brand’ turns me right off. By ‘winning’ this ‘accolade’, my iPhone has actually lost ‘coolness’. I think slightly less of it now. I don’t think that’s quite the effect they were going for, to be honest.
It’s pretty clear from the number of quote marks in this post that I think the whole exercise is utterly ridiculous. And that’s without even mentioning the fact that this repeated use of the word ‘Cool’ makes it all sound like a Dad trying to impress his teenage daughter’s friends.
*One of these ‘experts’ is Edith Bowman. So… that pretty much sets the bar to low.
**Also, in what universe is YouTube cooler than Vimeo?
While I was away
I did not tan.
Apple approved the Spotify iPhone app - oh happy day/oh crap now I have to fork out for a premium Spotify account.
Big Brother walked spanish.
I fell a little bit in love with Hal Incandenza. But now I’m stuck in the longest footnote ever and may require magnifying glasses to get out.
“Hello everybody.”
Posted by katiesol in Brilliant news on July 28th, 2009
Sigh. Is there a more heinous sound than the beginning of a Spotify advert? It’s one of the many sounds throughout the day which remind me that actually yes, I do need another cup of tea even though my mug is still warm from the last one. I hate them enough to leave the room but not quite enough to fork out £9.99 a month to do away with them altogether.
But for once those six irritating syllables are a source of much joy as they signal the opening of a video demo of the Spotify iPhone app. Dream app much?
It’s all as brilliant as you would hope; with super-speed streaming and offline playlists for when you’re on the tube. Or doing something else sans internet if you don’t happen to live in London (weirdo). Delish:
The only thing that seems to be missing is the ability to use other functions whilst listening to music - so say I was listening to something on Spotify and I wanted to check my email at the same time; can I do that or will it stop the music when you exit the app? I suspect the latter.
It could all be moot anyway, since Spotify still has all the apple-flavoured hoops to jump through before this gets approved as an app, if it even gets approved at all. The totally hug-able Daniel Ek (whose non hug related achievements include being the CEO of Spotify) told paidContent:
We’ve a great relationship with Apple, think the iPhone is awesome and absolutely expect them to approve the app in the next few weeks. Apple has already approved several other music services such as Last.fm, Deezer and Pandora. We very much look forward to people being able to access their Spotify library wherever they might be and we’ve spent significant time and resources to ensure we’ve stuck to Apple’s developer guidelines point by point.
Textbook PR copywriting aside, this comment is one part sucking up to Apple, two parts making sure that they and everyone else in the world knows that Spotify are playing by the rules very carefully indeed. Apple will have to come up with some pretty good reasons to deny the app without looking like the baddie here.
When/if Apple deigns to approve it, the app will be free but only premium subscribers will be able to use it. Well played, Spotify. I guess I might bid your irritating ads so long farewell after all.
iPhone woes
As shiny things go, my iPhone is definitely up there with my greatest ever technological investments (see also Sky+, MacBook and DS Lite). Like so many others who wax lyrical about small chunks of metal and glass, I honestly don’t know how I got along without it; I mean, I went literally hours at a time without checking Twitter. People could have been @ing me and I wouldn’t know! A topic may have been trending about which I had a witty anecdote to offer, and I’d miss my chance!! So glad those dark days are behind me.
As brilliant as the iPhone undoubtedly is in the arena of Twitter-obsession, in London at least there are problems. In what must be one of the most connected cities in the world, the network regularly fails causing the iPhone to shrug apologetically and tell me ‘no Internet connection’.
But, I rebuff, there was an internet connection three seconds ago - let’s try again… Nope, not happening. Now there’s no service at all so I can’t even phone someone to complain/tell me what’s happening on Twitter.
If you’re getting as hacked off as I am at these frequent collapses in service, then this is the blog for you: How the O2 cellphone network fails London users, where London-based tech PR Robert Follis is documenting every time O2 prevents his iPhone from working. At the very least, you’ll know you’re not alone.