Obviously, Apple should increase their “firing people” rate, not only in Mobile Me division, but also in iTunes and iPhone divisions…

Here is something that happens all the time, lately… I see that in iTunes, telling me 5 apps have available updates online.

So I click on “Applications” in the list. And get a listing of all the downloaded Applications. In the bottom right corner, a message tells me that I can go and download the 5 updates.

I click on that and I get the following message :

I live in France, so, even if my whole machine is in english (for reasons I’ve already explained, I think), the iTunes Store I’m logged to is France’s and the specific messages are in french too. But here is the translation :

Application updates

No updates are available right now for ••• (•••@mac.com). To look for updates for another account, log in with this account.

[ Finished ]

Well, this is obviously another case of “we hired cheap, incompetent people from microsoft and now we make our users suffer as if they were on the Dark Side and we still haven’t taken the necessary steps to make it right”… Sure, as crappy as Mac OS X, the related hardware and applications have become, they still are far superior in terms of ease of use, elegance, stability and robustness to their windows counterparts. And I wouldn’t cross the line and leave what is still the best system available. But I certainly miss the days when uptime could be counted in weeks, even months and we could laugh at windows users problems, since we now know what it is to be forced to do regular backups, fear fo
Now, please, Apple, do whatever it takes to become the best hardware and software company again. Steve Jobs is known to fire people easily and harshly, for much less than that! Time to practice, Mr. Jobs, time to practice…

Tags: iPhone, iPod Touch, , Apple, iTunes, AppStore, bug

Shazam is able, when you make it “listen” to a tune for about ten seconds, to recognize it and display title, artist and so on. It can even allow you to see the music video on YouTube or go to iTunes to buy it.

In the original article I saw this in, they stated that, « strangely, it didn’t recognize the lastest album from carla bruni… » … to which I answered (and I can’t resist the temptation of quoting myself, as vain as it might seem) : « Does it mean that, in addition, it's able to make the distinction between music and shit? Fantastic software! I need it… well, as soon as the iTunes Store will be available again, to allow me to reactivate the iPhone after the firmware 2.0 update. »

The article title suggests, with a bit of exageration, that Shazam turns the iPhone into a fine music connoiseur. Anyway, I wonder if it will be able, one day, to distinguish between different interpretations of “The Four Seasons” of Vivaldi, finding the right artist or find out when a certain tune is a “cover” and by whom. Well, when more processing power will be available to everybody, why not?

Shazam est capable, quand on lui fait “écouter” un morceau pendant environ dix secondes, de le reconnaître et d’afficher son titre, l’artiste, etc. Il peut même vous permettre de voir le clip sur YouTube ou d’aller sur iTunes pour l’acheter.

Dans l’article original où j’ai lu ça, ils disaient que « étrangement, il n'a pas reconnu le dernier album de Carla Bruni…» … à quoi j’ai répondu (et je ne résiste pas à la tentation de l’auto-citation, si prétentieux que ça puisse paraître) : « Est-ce à dire qu'en plus, il est capable de faire la distinction entre de la musique et de la merde ? Fantastique logiciel ! Il me le faut… enfin, dès que l'iTunes Store aura bien voulu se rendre accessible, pour me permettre de réactiver l'iPhone après mise à jour en 2.0… »

Le titre de l’article laisse entendre, en exagérant un peu, que Shazam transforme l’iPhone en fin mélomane. Et justement, je me demande s’il sera capable, un jour, de faire la distinction entre différentes interprétations des “Quatre Saisons” de Vivaldi, en proposant le bon artiste ou de s’apercevoir qu’un certain morceau est une “reprise” et par qui. Je suppose que quand assez de puissance de calcul sera à la portée de tout un chacun, pourquoi pas ?

Tags: iPhone, Apple, , firmware, 2.0, AppStore, putes, sarkozy