Author Archives: Chris Ainsworth

iTunes Movie Rentals and device syncing

iTunes Movie Rentals transfer in iTunes

So, before I left San Francisco, I rented Pirates of the Caribbean 3 to watch on the flight and I synced it to my iPhone this morning. Actually, I started the download process yesterday afternoon, because the bandwidth in my hotel was so poor, but I digress. Anyway, the rental process was very easy and moving the file over was just as I expected. It’s a 1.8 GB file, so moving it over via USB takes a few minutes. What seems to happen though, is the file is moved from …

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iTunes Movie Rentals starting to trickle in

iTunes Movie Rentals

iTunes Movie Rental titles started to show up slowly overnight, replacing some of the placeholder titles iTunes web developers had presumably stuck in to test the Top Rental module (some which were not for rent, by the way). I’m trying to decide what movie I’m going to rent for my iPhone and my 4+ hour flight back to Cincinnati Friday. On the way here, I watched a movie I purchased, but renting is what I really want to do. I wonder what this will look like on my iPhone display. …

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MacBook Air’s unremovable battery

John Gruber posted a great first look at the MacBook Air, chiding the tech media about its enclosed battery, and I couldn’t agree more:

No swappable battery. I think this aspect is going to play out exactly as it has with the iPhone: (a) there’s going to be a ton of criticism from the gadget and tech press decrying this as a terrible decision; and (b) the vast majority of users don’t care and won’t mind the sealed battery at all. Seriously, the press is not going to shut up about this — you can’t go 10 feet in the Expo media room without hearing someone complain about it.

I personally like carrying an extra charged battery with me on long trips, but it wouldn’t keep me from buying an Air if I otherwise wanted one.

Amen, brother. Folks need to get their heads around this.

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How to seduce a Mac geek

Last year for Macworld ’07, San Francisco Chronicle newspaper sex columnist Violet Blue posted her sexy Macworld tips in a column entitled “How to Seduce a Mac Geek: A Macworld Sex Guide.” When I stumbled upon it this morning, I had a good laugh. It’s fun reading, and don’t worry–it’s safe for work–well, barely. It’s a newspaper web site, so c’mon. Here’s a taste: You can tell by how they walk, male or female, that they’ve had a bite of that Apple. It’s obvious that the Mac user is just …

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MacBook Air ad song: New Soul by Yael Naim

New Soul by Yael Naim MacBook Air commercial song

I searched on all the lyrics that I could recognize to find the song in the MacBook Air envelope ad in iTunes. It’s called New Soul by Yael Naim. Kinda catchy. You can download it here. And how cool is it that Apple continues to introduce artists to a bigger audience via their television commericals?

Interoffice envelope

Manila interoffice envelope MacBook Air

C’mon, how cool was it when Steve brought out the MacBook Air in an interoffice envelope? And how many of you are going to slide your new MBA (yes, folks are calling it that) into a manila envelope the first day you take it to work? Huh? Huh? Yeah, that’s what I thought. All of you. Check out the MacBook Air envelope ad introduced in today’s keynote at Apple.com.

iTunes / iPhone update server overloaded

If you’re trying to update your iPhone and iTunes, get in line. I was able to get my iTunes updated to 7.6, but can’t connect to the iPhone update server at all. Anyone having any luck? Post your successes and thoughts in the comments or on the forum. Note: Macworld also seems to be crashing Twitter sporadically.

My Macworld keynote initial impressions

Wow…where to start?

I gave myself time to think about Steve Jobs’ Macworld keynote on my way back from Moscone West to the hotel, and let what I just saw sink in a little. Let me take the major announcements and items one-by-one and give you my first thoughts. Bear with me…I’m still trying to get my head around some of this stuff.

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