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Apple Going After Black America?

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LeBron and his Beats
LeBron and his Beats

Here’s an interesting angle of why Apple is interested in Dr. Dre’s Beats line. Apple wants an “in” with Black America. Seemingly over two thirds of African Americans own Android smartphones rather than iPhones, but Beats doesn’t follow this ratio.

You remember the outspoken Richard Sherman Beats commercial during this past SuperBowl? Or how about Vernon Davis rocking his custom 49er Beats during last year’s SuperBowl. The heavy influence may spill over to Apple sales.

Who knows? If this doesn’t work, there’s always Justin Bieber.

Toyota Taking a Page From Kanye and Jay-Z’s Playbook?

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Toyota has taken a bashing in the news recently with their massive recalls of 8.5 million vehicles.  But amidst all the negative publicity, have you simply noticed how much Toyota has been in the news.  Sure, it is for all the wrong reasons ala Kanye West and Taylor Swift, but you know, there may be some mad genius behind the timing of all of this.

Announce the recalls around the time of the Superbowl when commercials and ads get as much attention as the game itself?  Hmmm…  Then you see and read all those announcements on how Toyota is going to address and fix the problems.  On the news, you’ll see how Toyota dealerships are staying open later to fix affected vehicles.  Then you see this new commercial on television, admitting Toyota’s errors and reaffirming their commitment to safety.  Like Kanye at the time, all you see and hear about is Toyota.

Of course, other car companies have an opportunity for more sales, but do you think they are going to risk disparaging Toyota’s design flaws?  No way; it’s too risky.  In the future, these other competitors could very well have issues with their designs, so they can’t afford to tout superior designs just in case.  That fall would be too severe.

So while Toyota is in for a rough ride in the near future, its long term outlook could be very bright from this moment of darkness.

I Like “Canvas”

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Macworld has a list of potential names for Apple’s forthcoming tablet. From their list, I like “Canvas”.

It’s already spreading around the Net about the CEO of McGraw-Hill spilling some beans about Apple’s product announcement tomorrow.

I’m still hoping for some kind of tethering or MiFi-like wireless sharing for the iPhone and Canvas combo. I really don’t want to pay yet another wireless bill for the Canvas.

Apple and LaLa, What Could Be

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Here’s a convincing article about what Apple could be announcing as part of their Special Event next week. How Apple uses its buyout of LaLa and its rumored plan to reshape the digital music ownership landscape sounds very Apple-esque.

Leave it to Steve Jobs to change the game.

Active Imgination or Hijinks at Office Max?

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Have you visited the Office Max Waikele location recently? Maybe it’s just my active imagination at work, or is there some kind of hijinks going on at this location?

I got a bad vibe when I was there the other week. Most of the employees are local looking, but the management guys are not. They’re definitely not from Hawaii and really stick out. Maybe this is just part of Office Max’s management training program, moving managers to various locations. But these “outsider” managers seemed especially suspicious keen of things going on.

What kind of things were going on? Probably nothing and just coincidental but… employees at a register talking amongst each other then as customers came up to check out, the register “mysteriously” rebooted. Then there’s the same employees handing other employees Office Max gift cards. And then there’s my “new” membership to Office Max Perks which mysteriously has a purchase registered on it. While I won’t dispute a $12 credit on this account, why does a supposedly new account have transactions already on it.

From a recent purchase and membership to Office Max Perks, I’m supposed to get a $50 credit. Now I wonder about that.

Anyone else get bad vibes from Office Max Waikele?

Samsung Hearts Kailua

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On Wednesday, there was a strange occurrence in the neighborhood as a film production crew settled in and marked off stretches of roadway.

Production Crew

Road Blocked

Had LOST started filming its final season? It couldn’t be since missing were the telltale white trucks and precursory set dressers. Additionally, there were no sightings of Jorge Garcia, Naveen Andrews, Josh Holloway, Henry Ian Cusick, or Sonya Walger. And most obviously, when were there Asian bikers on LOST?

Asian Bikers

So what was filming in the hills of enchanted Kailua?

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Can you believe a commercial for Samsung? Yes, that Samsung, producer of televisions, home appliances, digital cameras, and other electronics. Yet this commercial featured bikers and a bicyclist carrying french bread in a basket. Even I can’t figure out this pulp connection. Somebody at Samsung must love Kailua!

So if anyone sees an upcoming commercial for Samsung set in a residential area with some bikers, please let me know. Thanks! It might look like this (from a reverse point of view. Wow, iMovie 09’s video stabilization feature is awesome!).

iWeb to the Cloud?

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There are rumors that the upcoming Macworld Expo will showcase a version of iWork that lives in “the Cloud” aka the Internet. Instead of being traditional desktop applications, the iWork suite will be network services much like Google Docs.

What I would like to see is iLife’s iWeb component move to the Cloud. iWeb is Apple’s web page authoring app that I use occasionally. The biggest hangup for me using iWeb is that different Macs can’t (or have a very hard time) authoring/editing the same iWeb site. iWeb on one Mac is different from iWeb on another Mac. So I can’t easily start an iWeb page or site on my home Mac and work on it using a portable MacBook Pro.

Moving iWeb to the Cloud would make it similar to the web-based WordPress and Blogger. Of course, there could be a desktop client that connects to the service as well.

We’ll see next week when the final Macworld Expo unfolds…

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