A long afternoon of teeth-gnashing for early iCloud adopters
When Microsoft (MSFT) was developing Windows NT in the early 1990s, the project manager insisted that the 200 engineers assigned to the task do it on computers running NT's latest build -- a practice known in the industry as dogfooding.
Early adopters of Apple's (AAPL) iCloud got a taste of what that's like Wednesday when the company released, in short order:
Wise computer users will wait a decent interval before rushing into such things. But for enthusiasts who just have to have the latest thing -- and those of us who are paid to do so -- it was long and painful process.
I started updating my Mac shortly after 1:00 p.m. EST and my iPhone about 20 minutes later. According to iTunes, the iOS 5 update would take 10 minutes. Three restarts and three hours and 28 minutes later it was finally complete.
Meanwhile on my MacBook Pro, the OS X installation process had ground to a halt. Software Update informed me at about 3 p.m. that it was going to take 92 hours to finish installing Lion Recovery Update, at which point I quit and started over.
I'm sure most of my woes -- and those of the legions of Mac users reporting similar troubles (see Business Insider's Updating to iOS 5 has been a massive headache) -- were due to the crush of simultaneous requests to Apple's servers. And indeed, by 5 p.m. the logjam seemed to have broken up.
Even so, Thursday morning still felt like an Apple shakedown cruise. Calendar synching was a nightmare, with entries either popping up twice or not all. OS X kept asking me for the password to my no-longer-operative MobileMe account. And the Mail app -- which was hit and miss all Wednesday -- was rejecting my password to p99-imap.mail.me.com, which it has decided is now my incoming mail server.
Result: No incoming mail at all since 8:32 this morning. Which I suppose I could take as a blessing.
A taste of what the early users had to say. Spoiler: They loved it.
Photo: Apple Inc.
Apple must have handed out a lot of pre-release units at the "Let's Talk iPhone" press event last week. I counted at least a dozen hands-on reviews Wednesday morning. A sampling:
The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg: The iPhone Finds Its Voice. The iPhone 4S is one of Apple's less dramatic updates, but, when combined with MORE Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Oct 12, 2011 5:45 AM ET
Source: Apple Inc.
For those who couldn't be there live, Apple (AAPL) has put the Oct. 4 iPhone 4S event online.
Much of the 97-minute video is spent recapping iOS 5 and iCloud features that were announced at WWDC in June.
But the thing is worth watching if only for Scott Forstall's demo of Siri, Apple's new voice-activated personal assistant. The fun starts around the 73 minute mark.
Click here to get the MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Oct 4, 2011 6:41 PM ET
Free for those who couldn't make it to San Francisco or didn't sign up before they sold out
Source: Apple Inc.
The 5,200 developers who rushed to register before the $1,599 tickets sold out, flew to San Francisco to be there in person, and stood in lines that snaked around three city blocks say that the conversations that took place in the hallways between sessions were half the reason to attend MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jun 24, 2011 11:44 AM ET
The new device is said to have a more powerful processor and a higher-resolution camera
AAPL shot up $9.98 (3.17%) on Tuesday
In what may be the most authoritative confirmation yet of rumors that have been floating around for months, a Bloomberg report late Tuesday cited two unnamed people familiar with Apple's (AAPL) product release plans to say:
Apple plans to release the successor to the iPhone 4 in September
It will run MORE
Steve Jobs may not care about his company's stock price, but someone in Cupertino does
Forstall with fantasy stock price. Click to enlarge.
Here's a piece of Apple (AAPL) keynote trivia spotted by a keen-eyed member of Investor Village's AAPL Sanity board who calls himself the silver_Fox.
At the 45:11 mark in Monday's Worldwide Developer Conference keynote presentation, in the middle of Scott Forstall's canned demo of iOS 5's new notification feature, MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jun 12, 2011 10:52 AM ET
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Windows 8 may include a Ribbon-like user interface. Photo: PC World
PC manufacturers -- and apparently, some users -- have gotten their hands on early builds of Windows 8, which will include support for ARM chips and features like enhanced graphics, 3-D support, facial recognition, MORE
JP Mangalindan, Writer-Reporter - Apr 4, 2011 8:44 AM ETEvery morning, discover the companies, deals and trends in tech that are moving markets and making headlines. SUBSCRIBE
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|---|---|---|---|
| Bank of America Corp... | 7.95 | -0.16 | -1.97% |
| Microsoft Corp | 31.27 | -0.17 | -0.54% |
| Ford Motor Co | 12.28 | -0.25 | -2.00% |
| General Electric Co | 19.39 | 0.17 | 0.88% |
| Citigroup Inc | 32.36 | -1.00 | -3.00% |
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| Treasuries | 2.00 | -0.04 | -1.96% |
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