While many people are suprised, I actually am a BlackBerry user. While I’ve had the iPhone, the BlackBerry suits my needs for serious productivity, messaging, and amazing battery life. However, I find myself continuing to be tempted back to the iPhone fold, and also toy with the idea of getting an Android device.
However, I’m holding out to play with the new BlackBerry OS 6, since I really don’t want to give up my physical keyboard. Check out this presentation which outlines many of the features we can expect.
I currently have a Mac Mini hooked up to my TV, and it is the perfect home theater PC. While Boxee might get a lot of PR these days, my absolute favorite media center app is Plex. It is based on the same legendary XBMC software that Boxee leverages, but has the level polish and ease of use that a Mac app deserves.
The next version of Plex, 0.9 a.k.a “Alexandria”, has some exciting library management features that put all other pieces of software to shame. Check out this video to get a preview of some of the fantastic new enhancements.
Today Google announced their new Chrome OS, which is an operating system optimized for always-connected netbooks. The OS focuses on users who already leverage web-based applications, and forgoes any native software for leveraging HTML5 and the Cloud. While certainly an interesting concept, the OS seems more geared towards casual users who already use Google apps and don’t need to perform serious tasks offline (although Google Gears could help with this). The OS boasts syncing with the cloud and robust security, and also boots incredibly quickly.
I spent the time to build the Chromium OS, which is the developer build. While it was a time-consuming process, it was fairly straightforward, and instructions can be found here. This initial build doesn’t give you much to play with, but considering that the OS isn’t planned for launch until a year from now, they have plenty of time to build this promising project into something more exciting. Once you play around, you immediately see that Google really is cutting out the application layer to connect the browser to the kernel, and anyone who has played with Chrome will feel right at home. Additionally, the fact that the entire OS leverages web standards, it will be interesting to see how this could help evolve various open standards initiatives.
For some videos that explain the OS, check out the official YouTube page for the project here.
My favorite instant messaging client on the Mac is Adium. It is a robust open-source project that supports a variety of IM protocols (Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, etc.) all from one client. I have been a loyal user for years, but the depth of the product features continues to present me with surprises.
The most recent discovery I stumbled across by accident one day when I was trying to do a “Spotlight” search. It turns out that all you need to do to search your contacts is start typing a query. For people like me, this is a great way to avoid scrolling through a lengthy list for the right person. Enjoy!
Today at Apple’s WWDC developer event they announced “MobileMe”, a replacement for the “.Mac” suite of services. “MobileMe” will enable a user to keep their contacts, calendars, e-mail, synchronized across all devices via push. It also offers enhanced photo sharing capabilities that will be integrated into the iPhone and new website, as well as better data synchronization courtesy of iDisk. All of these new web applications and services can leverage “MobileMe’s” new 20GB of storage space.
So, the question inevitably becomes, “is it worth $99?”. For me, the answer is a resounding, “no”. There are a couple of major snags in the offering. First of all, my e-mail is associated with this domain, and so I have no interest in getting a “me.com” e-mail address. I have scoured the new documentation, but it doesn’t mention allowing you to do an MX forward so that you could associate a personal domain with these services. Major bummer.
Second, the services don’t match the price. $99 is a hefty sum for synchronization services. I use a Zimbra mail host for my personal data management, and it provides roughly the same functionality (disclosure: I work for Yahoo, which owns Zimbra, but this has nothing to do with why I use it). The Zimbra hosting allows me to keep my personal domain, and offers an iSync conduit that keeps my address book and calendar in sync across all of my devices and has a web interface for accessing my e-mail, calendar, and contact list. iTunes also supports syncing iPhone contacts with Gmail and Yahoo!, and I imagine that both of these companies will offer native apps for the iPhone to help keep everything up-to-date.
If you combine one of these PIM solutions with a free file storage solution like the most excellent Dropbox you can replicate these services for a much cheaper cost. I pay around $6 a month for Zimbra hosting from 01.com and Dropbox is currently free. Sure, you may not get everything managed in a single place with the extreme elegance and simplicity of an Apple product, but you do get a more flexible solution. Is “MobileMe” for me? Certainly not. Is it a great service that would be perfect for my mom? Definitely.
