Chris Blackwell’s Domain

Two weeks today I should have a nice new shinny 3G iPhone in my hands, Yah! Yesterday rogers released the pricing details on the iPhone voice and data plans. Unfortunately there is no unlimited data plan like previously rumored, and the plans seem to price themselves right out of the student market which is the iPhone’s biggest market in the US.

The lowest price plan starts at $60 and includes 150 minutes of talk time, unlimited evenings and weekends (Rogers starts the evening at 9:00pm), and 400MB of data transfer. Add on that annoying $8 network charge plus the $15 “value pack” and you are up at $100+ a month for the smallest plan. These plans are a far cry away from what we saw from AT&T in the US with last year’s iPhone.

I know the pricing for the iPhone plans is going up in the US because of the 3G option. However, is badly as the US 3G coverage is, it is much worse here in Canada. Only a few select cities have the 3G network and the vast majority of the country is still on the EDGE network. I don’t think I’ll have to line up in a couple weeks time for my iPhone, with this pricing structure, Rogers will have kept the demand WAY down.

Apple today officially announced the iPhone will launch later this month in Canada on the Rogers Wireless network. This comes as some surprising news, as we reported earlier that the iPhone was not due to launch in Canada until September 8. Apple has announced that the 16GB iPhone will be available for $499 with a 3-year contract. The data rate plans are said to be along the same lines as the AT&T plans that are currently offered with the iPhone. Sorry to everyone out there who is currently giving their hopes up. Hope you all have a good April Fools Day!

Andy Walker from Cyberwalker.com seems to have the inside scoop on the iPhone coming to Canada this September. Andy’s source claims that the iPhone will launch in Canada on September 8 with Rogers Wireless. The post also hints that new data plans will be coming with the iPhone that are more along the lines of the data plan rates that are currently available in the US. This will be great for both iPhone fans and anyone else who currently has a data plan with Rogers.

Over the past two days I have read five different stories, which all originate from a Financial Times posting stating that Apple is in negotiating talks with the record studios to create an all you can eat (all you can listen to) iTunes subscription. The talk has been that this extra feature would be a premium amount that you would pay when buying a new iPod ($100 is the estimated markup).

Did you forget that Apple is #2?

Apple earlier this year passed Amazon to become the second largest music distributer in the world, only behind Wal-Mart. So why would Apple now go ahead and try to break a model that seems to be working so well for them? Now I don’t want to sound like I’m saying Apple Will NEVER do a subscription model, because never is a very long time. What I am saying is that right now things are going great for Apple and the iTunes store and it wouldn’t make sense to move away from that.

I spend hundreds of dollars a year on iTunes, downloading music, TV shows, audiobooks, and soon hopefully movies (bring the iTunes movie store to Canada please). Now lately I have been buying less because I’m in this “only buy DRM-FREE music mode”, but most people don’t care. The average user plugs in their iPod to iTunes and buys whatever songs they want, and they think it’s a bargain at only $1 a song. Over the course of a few years most of these people will spend well over a hundred dollars on music, cause that is only ten albums. I know of dozens of people that would pay $100 tomorrow to download the entire Beatles collection on iTunes (if it were available that is).

iPod Sales Will Keep Increasing

I believe people are a little too caught up in these reports that keep surfacing about iPod sales. Yes, I do believe that iPod sales are dropping, but only because everyone already has an iPod. For a last couple of years Apple was doing very minor upgrades to the iPod lineup and not giving people a really good reason to go buy a new one. That all changed last fall with the introduction of the iPod Touch and the new Nano. With Wi-Fi built in, video into the nano, and let’s not forget the iPhone, people have a really good reason now to upgrade their iPods.

I will keep buying music this week, and the next, because I believe that a iTunes subscription, if any, is a long way off. Do you think we will see an iTunes subscription soon? Do you think iTunes needs a new business model?

Over the last year I have switched a lot of people to the Macintosh platform. One of the first questions I get asked after having their new Mac for a couple days is, “What applications should I install?”. This is a fairly good question because most of these people are used to having a certain number of third party apps installed on their Windows machine. So I have put together a list so that everyone can reference back to it or show your friends or family if they need help with their new Macs as well.

1. FireFox web browser is my first and foremost application on any computer, running any platform. This great open source application is a secure alternative to Internet Explorer on the Windows platform or Safari on the Mac platform. The browser is made by the company Mozilla which is dedicated to providing free open source software to the general public. FireFox has a huge community base and has thousands of extensions that are available to add to the functionality of the browser.
   Price: FREE (Open Source)
2. Quicksilver by Blacktree is another open source application that gives you the ability to quickly launch any application or file with your keyboard. The program actually has a lot more use then what I just mentioned, but it is too long to get into here. Later I will post a tutorial on how to use Quicksilver both for beginners and for advanced users. Price: FREE (Open Source)
3. Adium is a aggregator of your instant messaging applications. Using Adium you can connect to Jabber, AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo, ICQ, or Google Talk. The interface is quite impressive and allows you to have all your IM contacts in a single application. The program is also expendable through skins, themes, and other extensions. Price: FREE
4. 1Passwd is a program that includes FireFox and Safari extensions to keep track of all your usernames, passwords, and form data. The program not only keeps track of all your secure information but it also includes a secure password generator that automatically fills a password request field with a very secure password and then is remembered by the program. This allows you to do what you should be doing all along which is use a different password for each website. All you have to remember is your one master password and 1Passwd will remember the rest. It is completely encrypted using the keychain and can even be synced between your various mac computers using the .Mac service. Price: 30-Day Free Trial then $29.95 USD
5. Parallels allows you to run other operating system (like Windows) natively on your Mac. Unlike Apple’s bootcamp, Parallels allows you to run other operating systems inside a window running in OSX. Parallels supports a shared folder option that will allow you to keep the same folder for Documents, Music, Videos, etc. the same on both the Windows and Mac side. This is one of the most important programs you can have if you still have to run Windows.
   Price: $99.95 USD
6. Text Expander is a tiny application that runs quietly in the background of your Mac. It allows you to enter snipplets (small text phrases) that will expand into preset text or graphic strings. For example; say you keeping having to enter your email address like bob@something.com. You could setup a key so everytime you type bob@ the text is automatically replaced with bob@something.com. You can even program in complete email signatures, and photos to pop up, just about anything you can think of. This is a great time saving application that has saved me from a lot of excess typing. Price: 30-Day Free Trial then $29.95 USD
7. HandBrake is a great little lightweight program that allows you to rip (backup) your DVDs to just about any format you want. The quality is fantastic and the program couldn’t make the process easier. With one click you can choose to rip a high quality version, an ipod version, Apple TV, and dozens of others. Price: FREE (Open Source)
8. Skype which is now owned by eBay is a cross platform application that allows free PC-to-PC calling (both video and audio). What makes this program so spectacular versus just using a regular instant messaging service is the amazing high quality video calling and that the program allows you to dial-out to regular phones to bring anyone into your conversation. Whatever operating system or computer you are running you owe it to yourself to give Skype a change, a great communication tool for keeping in touch with friends and family. Price: Free for PC-to-PC, $29.95 a year for unlimited long distance in North America
9. Transmission is a BitTorrent client from the same people who brought you HandBrake. This is a very simple and very lightweight application so that you can continuing downloading while not taking up a bunch of system resources. Price: FREE (Open Source)
10. Super Duper takes care of the task that all of us seem to avoid, BACKUP! SuperDupper can be setup to make a complete screen shot of your computer’s hard drive so you can be backup within minutes of a complete system failure. SuperDuper also allows for incremental updates so you don’t have to make a huge backup file every night. Price: Free for regular backup, $27.95 for advanced feature

Well those are my top ten applications that I just can’t live without. There are several other advanced applications which I will probably mention on a later post, but these are the basics that everyone should have.