ExtraBITS for 25 July 2011
Lion dominated our lives last week, with Adam guesting on the Tech Night Owl Live, Matt looking at Lion’s new features on MacVoices, and Glenn writing an article for Macworld about upgrading at an Apple Store. Plus, don’t miss John Siracusa’s Lion review at Ars Technica. But there were a few non-Lion-related items worth noting, such as Boomerang for Gmail’s release, counterfeit Apple retail stores appearing in China, and Chris Breen’s look at the Spotify music service.
Adam Discusses Lion Release on the Tech Night Owl Live — After last week’s release of Mac OS X Lion, Adam joined host Gene Steinberg to discuss various aspects of Lion, including the question of whether the name is really changing to “OS X Lion” (no) and how Apple provides terminology guidance to employees and media alike.
Upgrading to Lion at an Apple Store — Over at Macworld, Glenn Fleishman recounts what it was like to upgrade to Lion at an Apple Store, something that people without sufficient bandwidth might consider doing. The moral of the story? Bring an iPad or a book and plan to spend a few hours at the task.
Boomerang 1.0 for Gmail Adds Pricing Plans — Boomerang, the clever service for Gmail that enables you to send messages at specific times and reminds you if you haven’t received a reply to a message you’ve sent, has left beta and developed pricing plans. Boomerang remains free to use for up to 10 messages per month, but personal accounts (for normal Gmail) now cost $4.99 per month and professional accounts (for Google Apps accounts) cost $14.99 per month.
Chinese Counterfeit Entire Apple Stores — This is truly bizarre. It appears, from a blog post that has gone viral and been read by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, that there are entire Apple retail stores in China (and other countries, to judge from the comments) that are complete fakes. But these aren’t cheap fakes; from the photos, they’re tremendously well-executed fakes. The mind boggles.
Siracusa’s Lion Assessment — Brilliant, As Usual — With each new major Mac OS X revision, we eagerly look forward to reading John Siracusa’s in-depth discussion in Ars Technica, and this time is no exception. The description is full, the opinions are spot-on, and the technical information is fascinating.
Meet Lion with Matt on MacVoices — Matt Neuburg and Chuck Joiner talk you through Lion’s new features in this MacVoices podcast. The takeaway message: remain calm.
Chris Breen Examines Spotify — The popular European music subscription service Spotify is rolling out in the United States now, and it has been a major topic of discussion on Twitter. Although we’ve taken only a cursory glance so far (seems fine for listening to a limited amount of user-selected music each month for free), Macworld’s music geek Chris Breen has looked at Spotify’s application and service in more detail.