We digress from our constant blather about caricature, cartooning and illustration to talk about one of our other favorite subjects… gadgets!

This year for Christmas The Lovely Anna got me the new Apple TV, Apple’s new incarnation of it’s “hobby” entertainment server for your living room. We have owned one of the original Apple TVs for a while now, and use it for The Animated Elizabeth‘s TV room where it works great for her demanding video needs associated with her autism.

The new Apple TV is a big departure from the old model on many levels, but first here’s a little history of the Apple TV:

The original Apple TV model was about the size of a Mac Mini computer, and had it’s own hard drive as well as built in wifi . It worked as a modified iPod for your TV… using wifi it would sync with your iTunes library (according to your choices for what would sync and what would not) on your computer just like an iPod, but it would also stream content from iTunes that was not saved locally. Thus, you had some content that you could watch even if your computer was not awake and/or iTunes was not open, but other content was not available unless you had your source computer on and iTunes open. This made the ATV a gateway to get your iTunes content from your computer to your TV, but it was hardly convenient. You could not seek out and rent or buy content FROM the ATV… that had to be done from your computer and then you could sit down in front of your TV and enjoy it from your couch.

Eventually Apple changed the software of the ATV to allow for all that streaming and syncing plus the added benefit of being able to access the iTunes store directly from the ATV, allowing your to purchase or rent content without needing to go to your computer. Later, they added the ability to access resources like NetFlix, YouTube, ect. for more viewing options.

Last year Apple took a much different approach with a new version of the Apple TV. Gone is the hard drive, and the unit itself became significantly smaller… it’s a little smaller than a slim paperback book. It’s output connections are as simple as it gets… one HDMI out (it also allows for optical audio out, so you can use the HDMI output as video only), an Ethernet port in case you want to use a hardwire solution to your internet connection as opposed to using the built in WiFi, and a USB port which so far is used for nothing. Like the previous ATV, you cannot use the unit with a TV that does not support HDMI video… no composite or component video outputs.

Since you have no local storage of media anymore, everything is streamed by the ATV to your TV/entertainment system. There is no syncing. You simply connect it to your home network and use the “Home Sharing” iTunes feature to access any content on any of the computers on your home network. “Home Sharing” is a simple sharing format where each computer with iTunes installed is able to choose any or all of their content to be “shared” over their network. There is no one iTunes master computer using this model… each computer that opts to be a part of home sharing through their iTunes program has whatever content they choose to share available for streaming to the ATV. The computers need to be awake and iTunes must be open for this to work, however.

More conveniently, you can quite easily browse the iTunes store right from your ATV to rent movies and TV shows for instant enjoyment. If they are available in HD (the 720p version, anyway) then you get them in HD. Most movies rent for $4.99 in HD or $2.99 if in SD, but a few “specials” are available for $1.99 or even $.99 and there are some films that get “previewed” via the iTunes store before they hit the theaters and rent for $10.99. You can rent TV episodes for $.99.

There is also an “Internet” menu where you can log in to your Netflix account and watch hundreds of movies instantly at no extra cost to your Netflix membership. This is an amazing deal… it’s almost unlimited how many films are available to watch instantly through your Netflix subscription. YouTube, Flickr and MobleMe content is also available through this menu if you want to watch that kind of thing.

The quality and speed of the downloaded content through iTunes is very good. HD shows look sharp and clearly “HD” quality with no noticeable artifacts or pixelation. It only takes a minute or so after you start the rental for the content to become available to play, and I have not witnessed a single moment when the show I am watching “freezes” because the buffering/download of the media cannot keep up with the running video. I have noticed some of the Netflix movies experience freezes and some pixelation at times, so that technology isn’t quite up to par with the native iTunes content… but it’s not bad and without paying extra to watch Netflix movies instantly on your living room TV a little pause now and then seems a fair trade off.

You cannot “buy” films or TV shows permanently via the Apple TV, as there is no hard drive to keep them on. You can still do so via your computer and then watch it from your Apple TV via Home Sharing. I’ve got mixed feelings about that. I’d like it if you could buy a movie you want permanently via the ATV and either always have access to watch it through iTunes or have it download to your computer’s hard drive for permanent storage, but it’s not a deal breaker. I still don’t like buying digital media and prefer physical discs for movies I want to keep.

The one thing I don’t like about this arrangement is the short time they give you to enjoy the movie you rent. Once you’ve rented it you get 30 days to start it. Once you start it, you only get 24 hours to watch it if it’s a movie, and 48 if it’s a TV show. If you don’t get to then end of it within that time, you are SOL. It expires and is deleted from your menu. I think that’s a little too short a time. It would be better is they could figure out how to make the program available to watch as often as you want for the first 24 hours, but it does not expire if you have not finished it after that period of time. Once you watch it through to the end, then it expires permanently. Maybe they can have a 36 hour expiration whether you’ve watched all the way to the end or not, just to prevent people from stopping it during the end credits and keeping it active forever. Usually I do watch a movie all the way through at home, but when I am traveling I often am forced to stop if my flight is landing and can;t start watching it again until I am traveling back home… and by that time the 24 hours have passed. The same rental model applies to movies you download for your portable device as the ATV.

Overall, though, I think Apple is on to something with the new Apple TV. It’s easy to use, has reasonably priced access to a gigantic library of content, allows even cheaper access to Netflix account content and is reasonably priced at $99. I’ve been enjoying it since Christmas.

The future?….

Here’s a link to an recent CNN article on how the iPad is boosting the appeal of digital comics.

I absolutely agree that the iPad and it’s descendants will be the new format for publishing, including comics and magazines. I can see a virtual news stand in the future full of individual issues and subscriptions for magazines, comics, comic books and newspapers… delivered without user effort to your mobile tablet device in a format that is easy and natural to browse, read and enjoy. However I don’t see the iPad being that device, but some other piece of hardware that doesn’t force the Draconian limitations on the content providers that Apple does. Unless Steve Jobs and Apple wise up and start playing along with publishers to develop a real business model for digital publishing, the iPad will be the next Betamax player or Macintosh… a superior piece of technology squashed by the concept of free enterprise.

I know I promised an artcentric review of the iPad a long time ago, but I haven’t had the opportunity to test out very many drawing and painting applications on it so far… I’m also wating deleivery of one of those silly marshmallow tipped “stylus’s”.

I did run across this intriguing video recently, showing that someone is working on one of the two biggest limitations to drawing on the iPad… the lack of pressure sensitivity. At first I thought the case the iPad on the video is in might be the source of the pressure sensitivity, but from reading the brief description at tenonedesign.com it seems to be a pure software solution. The pressure sensitivity would be something any drawing app could incorporate into their programs.

Don’t get too excited. According to the developer the software uses a “private function call” to work and Apple of course refuses to allow developers to use private APIs, so right now this functional software is not allowed on the iPad.

Oh, and in case you are curious, the other major limitation to drawing on the iPad: the lack of a precise stylus.

If you’ve happened to visit this blog in the last few days on an iPhone, Android or other mobile device you (hopefully) will have noticed a different look on your hand-held surfing machine courtesy of a great plug-in called WPtouch.

The MAD Blog uses the excellent WordPress blog software, and this plug in automatically formats the blog with a quick loading and easy to use mobile theme when it detects the visitor is using an Apple iPod Touch, iPhone, Goodle Android, Palm Pre or other touch- based mobiles. There are configurable options but it works great right after loading and activation. It cuts down on load times, sacrificing the eye candy for a streamlined interface. Miss the colors and other stuff? A switch at the bottom of the page let’s you go back to the “full site”, and it will even remember your choice until you switch it back to the mobile version.

Several other WordPress blogs I frequent use this great plug-in, including Alan Gardner‘s Daily Cartoonist.

So, enjoy the simplified mobile version of The MAD Blog if you are surfing on-the-go!

The iPad has been out for all of two days and already we are seeing apps that demonstrate not only how much more this device is than the “bigger iPod Touch” naysayers are dismissing it as, but exactly the kind of content delivery that it and it’s eventual ancestors are going to revolutionize the publication industry with.

Take the new Marvel Comics app. It’s a free app that is used as a gateway to the buying of single issues or a series from Marvel. They have both an iPhone version and an iPad version. Comparing the screenshots of two you can instantly see how the larger screen and form factor of the iPad changes the entire experience of reading a comic on a portable device. Flip the page with your finger, see the entire page on a vertical screen, zoom in for a closer look, browse the entire comic via a thumbnail gallery… all on a screen the same size as a real comic book. Wow. You can preview before you buy an issue, buy single issues or an entire series. You can also buy back issues. The app also syncs with your marvel.com account to back up all your purchased comics, so if your computer goes belly up or you get a new one you can access your entire library with your replacement device. Personally I think $1.99 per issue is a little pricey for a single issue. 99 cents seems more in line to me, but the market will work itself out with pricing.

I cannot imagine any publication not getting on board distributing and selling it’s content via a free proprietary app like this. The logical next step is to have subscribed content delivered via “push”, which would download your issue of MAD or People Weekly or your local daily newspaper right to your device while you are sleeping so it’s waiting for you when you are eating breakfast at the kitchen table, riding the train to work, taking a coffee break, etc with no need to have an active wifi connection or pay to use the 3G network. That kind of convenience, portability and the form factor/interface will get people to part with some money as they understand the difference between this and having to sit in front of your computer or laptop somewhere with a wifi connection and use it’s clunky web-based interface. No doubt publishers will quickly offer only limited content for free on it’s websites as well.

Hopefully DC will follow suit here and create a similar delivery system for it’s comics and maybe MAD.

Just in case you have been frozen solid and living under a rock- yesterday the eagerly awaited Apple branded tablet device, the iPad, finally was unveiled… to a lot of fanfare and a fair share of catcalls. It has been anticipated as a bold new step for the way people use technology in their daily lives.

Will it live up to the hype?

I think it has a chance to, but right now there is just not enough software written to take advantage of the hardware. Personally I think once there is a wide selection of software out there that is native to the iPad (right now it only has a handful of apps that are designed to work with it’s larger screen… it will run iPhone apps they look tiny at native size and clunky at increased size) the device will start realizing its potential. Right now it’s little more than a better portable way to surf the internet, watch movies or read books than the iPhone or other smartphones. That’s not to say it won’t eventually be the revolution it was anticipated as being, but it’s in its infancy right now.

I’ve read a lot of angry reactions from people who seem disappointed that this gizmo won’t do everything but tie their shoes for them. I think they are missing the point. It’s not supposed to be able to do anything radically more than what your laptop or iPhone already does… what it’s meant to do is those same things but in a way that addresses the limitations of the laptop and the smartphone, and do them better. It’s the form factor that is the selling point. I don’t think people really understand how much this “giant iPod touch” is going to make the Touch and the iPhone look like toys in comparison. The potential that programmers have in this large of a multitouch surface is huge… Apple’s handful of native apps only scratch that surface and yet they look fantastic. By the time Apple releases an updated iPad in a year or so, it will be a completely different animal thanks to the software that developers are no doubt slobbering to start creating and marketing.

The multitouch technology is one of the most intriguing parts of the iPad. In the iPhone and iPod Touch, the tiny bit of real estate makes the technology little more than a novelty by comparison, yet it was hailed as groundbreaking. Imagine being able to drag things around a real screen, access pop up menus, use fingers from both hands to combine and shift objects and make choices. It’ll be like the computer interface from Minority Report. People have been using computer mice for so long they’ve forgotten what it is like to use their hands and fingers for tasks in front of their eyes, instead of separated from them. When some of the native programs start popping up there will be a few eyes opened. Apple’s next step will be an iMac without a mouse using a multitouch monitor.

Regarding the functionality, I think there is a market for something in between a laptop and a smartphone. Let’s face it, using an iPhone or Blackberry to surf the web is an exercise in exasperation… the screen is just too small for it to be easy or enjoyable. Can it be done? Sure, but it’s a major hassle. I’ve been frustrated many times attempting to use my iPhone to order some supplies or such on a website for one of my caricature concessions, trying to switch back and forth from the text field entry boxes back to the entry page. Almost impossible. I’ve had order pages time out on me before I can get to the end of the process. Likewise forget about reading books on the iPhone. Too small a screen. Laptops are plenty big… in fact too big. A laptop is great if you have the room to open it up and use it, full sized keyboard and all. That’s hard to do on a bus or train, at the lunch counter, while you are on a coffee break- even with a “netbook”. Laptops are heavy, clunky in their clamshell design and just not that easy to whip out anytime. Few have built in cellular connectivity, either. They are built to be transportable computers, not instantly accessible anywhere machines. Battery life is only a few hours. They are not truly portable in the way a smartphone is.

The form factor on the iPad is the major appeal, rather than the clamshell/keyboard design of a laptop. Here is a device with a screen big enough to be able to comfortably read a real web page, use a web 2.0 site, read an eBook (and the iBook app looks truly awesome… it’s my favorite thing I’ve seen from the iPad so far), read and respond to an e-mail with a decent sized keyboard, watch a movie that won’t give you a headache from squinting, allow you to really view and edit photos while you are on your vacation, store, read and edit documents from work… all while you are sitting on the bench at the park or on an airplane (even if the jackass in front of you reclines all the way back from takeoff to touchdown). The iPad is lighter than a typical hardcover book, and about the size of a magazine. Not pocket sized, but a far cry from a laptop that needs a shoulder bag to lug about. It’s got (supposedly) 10 hours of battery life, so a day’s worth of use is not a problem.

If you are expecting it to be a portable replacement for your desktop, you are going to be disappointed. If you want it to fit into your front pocket, you will also be disappointed. That’s not the point and never was. This device and it’s eventual decedents will someday be what we get our news, magazines, entertainment and productivity from. Someday everyone will have some form of this kind of portable multitouch device, and we’ll have subscriptions to all the content we want delivered to us invisibly, ready for our consumption when we are. Eventually they will be powerful enough to replace our desktops, but that is years away.

So, do I want the iPad? Yep, absolutley. I will likely get one at some point. I was considering getting a Kindle for eBooks and for just a bit more I can get the iPad which does books even better and so much more besides. This device will let me bring all the videos, books, music, documents, photos, access to current news, communication and information I could possibly ever want or need with me in a 7.5″ x 9.5″ 1.5 lb package. That is pretty handy.

Is it perfect? Hardly. No camera? Only 64 GB max? No flash capability with the browser? Only Apple sanctioned software? No pressure sensitive/stylus drawing (that’s just for us artists)? It has some growing to do, but as software for it matures and expands, and as future hardware improvements are realized, this kind of device really is the future.

I don’t usually endorse products or services on The MAD Blog, so when I do you can bet it’s because I am really impressed with whatever it is I am recommending. UBreakIFix iPhone repair service is one of those exceptions. Here’s the story:

The entire Richmond family was visiting Universal’s Islands of Adventure theme park last week when my son Thomas had a disaster with his iPhone 3g. He took it out to type what was probably his 10,000th text message of the day when it slipped out of his grasp and fell face first to the sidewalk. When he picked it up it looked like this:

He has a protective case but didn’t have it on that day. Needless to say he was devastated because he knew two things:

1. He was not going to have a phone for the rest of that trip and
2. He was not going to get another iPhone

That second one is the killer. The reason is because iPhones may be (sort of) reasonably priced when you can get one with a 2 year contract with AT&T ($99 for his model), but what if you have only had your phone for a few months and are ineligible for a contract discount and you break it? Well, then you are SOL, because you will not be able to get a replacement for the contract price and will have to pay full retail for it. For a new 3Gs that is a whopping $399 for the 16gb and $499 for the 32gb. Whoa.

But hold on, ubreakifix.com to the rescue!

UBreakIFix is an iPhone repair service that will handle all sorts of repairs to your phone including replacing a broken touch screen, water damage, broken and unresponsive buttons, camera, rear casing and battery replacement. They have complete menus on their website, with detailed descriptions of what kinds of damage or problems you may have so you can self-diagnose the issues and order the right repair. They also have a diagnostic service that will determine what you need for you.

As it turned out Tom royally messed up his phone, not only breaking the touchscreen glass but also ruining the LCD screen. We needed both the glass and LCD replacement service… total cost with shipping was $149.00. Not exactly cheap but better than  $399 replacement phone. That kid has a lot of free snow shoveling to do this winter to pay that off… but he’d have been mowing the lawn for free all summer without UBreakIFix!

The best part was I shipped the phone off on Monday morning via overnight delivery, and we received the repaired and perfectly functioning phone back on Wednesday… 48 hour turnaround. The repairs were flawless and the phone is working just like new.

The phones are expensive and when something like that happens it’s nice to know there is a reliable and fast way to fix them that will save you some money.

Whenever I get a new techie toy that I use in conjunction with my work I try and post a review of it from a visual artist’s perspective… in other words how does it affect my work on the computer or in business? You can read my reviews of the Cintiq 12wx, OS X Leopard and the iPhone from previous posts.

I wanted to review the new Apple Magic Mouse from such a perspective, but to be honest it’s still just a mouse, and has no real impact positively or negatively on my illustration/graphic work on the computer.

It is a cool new toy, though. Thus the review.

First off, some complaining. Apple has a very annoying habit of announcing new hardware and then have it unavailable for an unacceptable amount of time. It’s frustrating when you walk into an Apple store with $70 in you hand and you are told they don’t want your money because the product they have been crowing about for a week is still not in their store, and it’s over a week before it ships if you order it online. Yet every new iMac on display has one. That is some serious arrogance. Vaporware is one thing, but when the product is obviously in production and included with new computers, Apple should just wait until it’s got that product boxed and in stock before announcing it… especially at the premium prices they charge. $70 for a MOUSE??? That better be an amazing pice of equipment.

Well, for the most part it is pretty amazing. I finally received mine the other day after ordering it online, and immediately realized I can’t go back to the old wheel and button style. In case you have not read about the Magic Mouse, it is an innovative new design in mice that combines the technology of the iPhone touchscreen and the new multi-touch pads on Apple notebook computers to create a button-less mouse than responds to the movement of your fingers across it’s surface.

Like the old Mighty Mouse, you click the entire mouse unit rather than indivdual buttons, but it is sensitive enough to recognize both left and right clicks as the Mighty Mouse did. Unlike the Mighty design, this mouse has no scrolling  ball sticking up from the mouse’s surface. Instead your finger slides across the touch-sensitive surface to scroll up or down a document or web page. You can also scroll about a large document or web page in a circular motion or to right and left. Momentum of movement also counts, so a slow drag of your finger down the mouse surface moves the page accordingly, while a fast flick sends the page rolling downward and slowing up naturally like spinning the Price is Right prize wheel. Movement is very responsive.

You can also do a two fingered sideways swipe, that will navigate in programs like iPhoto, iTunes and the Finder to browse folders, photos and such in “cover flow” and other modes. It also works to go backwards and forwards to browse web pages in browsers like Safari. Handy but only for a small number of programs.

Design wise it’s as elegant and attractive as most everything Apple comes up with. Not that you need your mouse to be pretty, but it’s a great combination of aesthetics and functionality. It’s got a lower height profile than the old Mighty Mouse. It moves nicely on the surface of the desk and seems to work better on natural surfaces eliminating the need for a mouse pad.

It’s also very customizable, and the mouse’s control panel in “Preferences” is very well done with nice little video demos on the right showing the feature highlighted on the left. Most of the preferences from the old design are here (like switching to a left handed mouse) and new features like “momentum” can be turned off. It looks like there is plenty of room for future features as well.

It was a welcome change from the Mighty Mouse, which was a really poor design. Being impossible to open up to clean, it was difficult to keep the scroll ball from becoming virtually unusable. The Lovely Anna hated that mouse as it would quickly become dirty and the scrolling useless, and she loves the new design for eliminating that problem. Please do not write me or comment on how to turn the stupid thing upside down and rub it vigorously on a piece of white paper or similar instructions on cleaning it. We did all that over and over and at best it helped for a little while, but eventually it could not be cleaned up to work like it should and needed replacement. I even found a tutorial on the web on how to open and clean it which involve breaking iti open and re-gluing it, and ruined one mouse in the attempt.

Which brings me to the one complaint I have with the Magic Mouse, and really on ongoing issue I have with Apple in general. The complaint with the new mouse is the lack of side buttons to activate Expose or a way to bring up the dashboard like the old mouse so conveniently had. Yes, there are simple keyboard shortcuts for these but I miss the mouse features. So why did Apple leave them out? For the same reason they designed the old mouse to be sealed and unable to clean thoroughly… they think their customers are morons. Really, they must. They don’t trust them to be able to do the simplest of tasks, like open up a mouse, remove the tracking ball, clean the wheels and reassemble the unit. The guts of a Mac and the nuts and bolts of the software are hidden and inaccessible to the average consumer as well. They keep designing their hardware to be more and more simple, seemingly because they don’t think their customers are smart enough to handle things like extra buttons on the mouse. I’m all for clean design, but give me a little credit in that I won’t fall apart and be hopelessly confused because there are a few extra buttons on my new mouse. I keep squeezing the sides of the Magic Mouse expecting the Expose feature to activate and then grumble as I reach for my keyboard. oh, well.

So, does the new Magic Mouse make working on the computer easier? No, but I don’t have to get angry because my mouse won’t scroll to one side or the other anymore. $70 is pretty steep for a mouse but it works very well, despite the dumbing down of the features.

Apple does a lot of things right.

They build good computers. They design good software that is easy and intuitive to use. They (mostly) stand by their products and offer very good support, especially if you are willing to pay for their AppleCare extended warranties. AppleCare is expensive, but you get something for your money. Macs are expensive but you get a lot of computer for the money. Apple comes up with innovative products like the iPod and the iPhone. They pride themselves on having their fingers on the pulse of their customers.

However, Apple is truly clueless when it comes to the video rentals in their Apple Store. In that case they are trying to take the pulse of their customer by sticking their fingers in the customer’s eyes. They have the best portable video player available today in the iPhone and iPod Touch, but their rental system is designed to be as inconvenient to a traveler as possible.

I haven’t had many occasions to rent a movie from Apple. Usually I rent them from Netflix, but dragging along a bunch of DVDs and watching them on my laptop isn’t nearly as easy and convenient as loading a couple of movies on my iPhone and watching them. For starters, I’d be lucky to get through two full movies with a charge on my laptop before it died. Second, there is not a lot of room in those airplane seats and only a small DVD player is easy to move when you have to get up and let the fat, smelly man in the seat next to you out to use the bathroom he obviously needed to visit 10 minutes ago. No, if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch you can load 6 or more movies on them and watch them in an easy to access and put away manner.

Watching movies on the iPhone is great… but renting them sucks because for some reason Apple insists on building in a 24 hour self destruct on their rentals. Once you rent them, you have an unlimited amount of time to start watching the movie, but once you start watching it the movie erases itself from your iPhone (or from your Apple TV or in iTunes) after 24 hours. Not once you are done watching it, once you START watching it. So you have 24 hours to finish watching your movie… or else you don’t get to finish it. Ever.

Now, you might say “Big deal! A movie is only two hours or so. You should be able to finish it in 24 hours!” Not if you are traveling, especially in an airplane. You only have a certain amount of time you are allowed to use “approved electronic devices” on an airplane. After all, as we all know, if you happen to have a small, handheld electronic device like an iPod still powered on when the plane is under 20,000 feet it’s enormous magnetic field will “interfere with the plane’s navigation system” quickly turning the aircraft into a flaming pinwheel of death. How often do you think a traveler would start a movie on an airplane and actually finish it before landing? If it’s along flight, could you finish two movies? Not likely. It’s much more likely that said traveler would end up “turning off and stowing” that iPhone somewhere during whatever film they were watching, thereby saving the lives of all the other passengers by deactivating the insidious, plane navigation destroying magnetic field of destruction that threatens the aircraft.

Yet, Apple only allows you another 22 hours to watch the end of that movie. Here’s the rub… in all likelyhood you are going to your destination to do something other than sit in your hotel room and finish watching a rented movie. It’s also likely that eventually you will be taking a flight BACK to where you just came from, and would like to resume your movie at that time, or perhaps even rewind a bit to get back into the story.

No, says Apple! Your $2.99 is only good for 24 hours after you START the film. If you don’t get around to watching the entire thing it that time, it will disappear along with your money from your device. Poof… gone. This happened to me not once but TWICE recently.

That is just plain stupid. Of course Apple needs to restrict the time frame in which you are allowed to have the movie on your device… as a rental you must “return” it at some point. However when you rent a disk from Netflix or BlockBuster, you are allowed to watch it as often as you want during the time period allowed, stopping and starting as often as you wish over a period of at least a week. Apple lets you watch your movie over and over if you want during that 24 hour period, but once it’s over it’s gone.

Wouldn’t it be better for the customer to guarantee they will be able to watch the ENTIRE movie at least once? Why not set the 24 hour self destruct to start once the movie is over… or a week from the time the movie starts? It’s very aggravating to pay $2.99 for a movie rental and never get to see the end because you were too busy doing whatever it is you were travelling for to stop and watch the rest of your film and it was digital dust by the time your return flight departs.

The self destruct 24 hour limit on their movies is extremely counter productive. They should design their rental system to be as travel convenient as possible, and this is anything but. Right now portability is the biggest thing the Apple Store’s video offers, but they don’t do it in the kind of user-friendly fashion one would expect from Apple.

Can you tell I just spent about 24 hours on airplanes in the last week? Next time I’ll rant about the stupidity of travelers who wear surgical masks that offer absolutely no protection from Swine Flu.

I have blogged some in the past about our oldest daughter Elizabeth, who is autistic. Elizabeth will be 19 on Tuesday (gulp!), and like many autistic people she has certain routines, patterns and obsessive/compulsive demands that dictate her days. One of Elizabeth’s big things is watching videos. Her subject matter of choice will gradually fluctuate but there are several constants: the “Barney” children’s videos, the “Roseanne” TV show and currently the “Kidsongs”, “BabySongs” and “WeeSing” series of kid’s videos. She will watch these shows repeatedly all day long, often rewinding and watching a certain scene over and over.

Back in the days of VHS rule, she had at least a hundred video tapes of many of these shows that she would literally wear out watching. Frustratingly for us, one of the first things she’d do upon getting a new tape was to destroy the packaging and scrape off the tape’s label, so we could not tell them apart. Fortunately she could somehow. We could hold up a video that had no label or marking on it, one of a hundred that looked exactly alike we kept in several laundry baskets in the downstairs TV room, and she would tell us what the video was. She was never wrong. I still do not know how she could tell them apart… it’s an autistic thing. (more…)