Android vs. Apple....

Everyone loves a winner until the winner gets a little too big. You can take your pick between Apple's fluctuating stock price, antenna gate on the new Apple iPhone 4G or the bitching and moaning about iTunes being too restrictive and totalitarian but the result is the same; let's pick on Apple.

People whine that they "have" to download their apps from iTunes and developers whine that all the apps are subjected to a rigorous certification test from Apple. The blogosphere is whining because Apple's new iPhone 4G can get poor antenna reception if you death grip the phone. Bag on Apple because they have become the new Microsoft of the 80's. They are the innovators where Microsoft once was, they are becoming the behemoth that everyone hates just like Microsoft has become. I suppose there is one difference, Apple customers are rabid. So rabid in fact that they can be referred to as fanboys.

So where does that leave us? It left an opening for Google to come in and introduce the open source free for all called the Android platform. In the Android's case applications are distributed either through the Android Marketplace (an icon on the phone's home page) or through the developer's website (scary). This link is from Phone scoop and it talks about a Chinese owned domain stealing personal information from people downloading their wallpaper Android app. Imagine that....No controls on the apps at all, unlike iTunes, so thieves go about unchecked. Give me Apple and it's controls anytime!

Here is a poignant snapshot of the Android Marketplace article:

In June 2010, a study performed on 48,000 Android market applications by SMobile Systems Inc., revealed that 20 percent of applications asked users permission for access to private or sensitive information that an attacker could use for malicious purposes, such as identity theft or mobile banking fraud. 5 percent of applications have the ability to place a call to any number, without requiring user intervention.[15][16][17]
However, while installing applications, Android displays all required permissions, so the user can decide whether to install an application whose permission requirements seem excessive or unnecessary (e.g. a game is likely to enable vibration, but unlikely to read messages or phonebook). This effectively makes the process more secure than other systems that do not ask for any permissions and instead receive full complete access.

Which phone will you buy? Who do you trust? Only you can decide but you shouldn't decide based on the phone's good looks. You should decide on many factors and being well informed is vital!

Our new iMac

We have recently purchased a new Apple iMac. At first I was pretty cool to the idea and had a mindset that this was going to be Dena's computer and I could just use it for doing videos. Now that I've had a chance to play on it a little I'm getting quite excited. Using iPhoto for sorting pictures seems pretty cool, especially using the facial recognition. I'm starting on a couple hard cover photo books as well and hope to move into digital scrapbooking in a couple weeks.

We purchased this Apple One to One package , $ 99 for one year of basically personal one on one training. I think that is pretty cool. My first class is this Saturday at 8am. What can I say, I'm a morning person. I need to be trained as there is no right click in the Mac world. What is up with that? And sometimes windows move around and blur out and it's confusing. I'm sure I must be doing something but I have no idea what. I'm also sure that all the shortcuts I know on the PC are somewhere on the Mac but I need to be trained on what they are.

After only 2 weeks of using the Mac on a cursory basis I have to say that I would strongly recommend it to anyone needing a new computer. The AppleCare package and the One to One package allowed us to drag Dena's old desktop into the Apple store and they magically transferred all folders, documents, calendar and contacts over to the Mac. There was some cleanup to do but that was inevitable. The computer is 7 years old for crying out loud. All in all, I'm very happy with our new purchase, especially since it was 12 months, no interest financing :-)