Category Archives: Apple

Quarterlife

I just finished watching the first two episodes of Quarterlife.


There’s an article over at NewTeeVee that examines the shows audience numbers, specifically that the numbers were going down. Andrew Baron commented about it on his blog too. Quarterlife seems to be losing their audience. The question is why.

I had no idea who made this show until the end credits and I nearly fell out of my chair. How could Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick be responsible for a show that I thought was so terrible? I usually like their work!

I’m reminded of a conversation I had a few days ago.We were discussing the difficulty in doing drama in short segments.Comedy and spectacle are easier and more satisfying in short clips but drama takes time to build.I think maybe the 8 minute length is part of the problem.It’s dragging the show down.There’s just not enough time to get into it.

OK maybe that’s part of it but there are other problems too.

So the main character calls her roommate an alcoholic on her blog and then she’s surprised that it becomes a problem? How clueless are these characters? How can I care about someone who basically creates their own problems this way?

Oh, and having TWO product placements in the first 90 seconds was really off putting. Product placement needs to be much more subtle to work. Corporate logos invading the frame constantly hovering in front of and behind the actors just kills the authenticity of the drama. It really pulls you out of the story and makes you think you’re just watching a contrived advertisement. The main character rolling around on her bed with her computer just screams product shot! product shot!

Quarterlife - Buy Apple!

The product placement right up front set a really bad tone right at that critical point where you should be concentrating on winning over the audience. Hmmm… Maybe I was just put off right from the start and didn’t give the show a chance after that…

OK, so I just watched the third episode. I’m trying. Maybe it’s getting better. I’m not sure. I’m thinking that there are too many characters. With so many character arcs to cover in 8 minutes the plot moves forward way too slowly. Maybe this show is over-reaching and would be more successful concentrating only on one character.

And where is the RSS feed? Why isn’t this show on iTunes? I want to subscribe and watch this on AppleTV in my living room. That’s a much better place to watch something like this. Maybe it would help me get into the show more.

I’m going to watch a few more episodes but only because I respect the producers’ past work. I really want to like this show, but it’s hard.

iPod out of touch

a bigger Let’s Knit2gether

So the new widescreen iPod that everyone was waiting for was announced a few days ago. Most of the discussions I’ve seen focus on the fact that you can’t change the battery, I got ripped off because the iPhone was reduced in price, iPods suck, PCs suck, you suck, etc.

What about the most obvious issue? Hello! It’s an iPod with a bigger screen for watching video, but it only has 16 GB storage! The new iPod classic has the old tiny, tiny, tiny, screen but has 160 GB! This is crazy! I bought a 30 GB iPod 5G when they came out and I’ve been regretting it ever since. I’m constantly deleting files because there just isn’t enough space for my video podcast subscriptions when they update. I’d be happy with 60 or 80 GB and 160 GB would be fantastic… but 16? I can’t do it! Sorry Apple, I’m going to have to sit this one out till you come to your senses. Give me the bigger screen AND the storage and I’ll buy a new iPod immediately.

And, oh yea… The new screen isn’t really 16×9 like it should be. Come on Apple. You guys are supposed to be good at design.

YouTube on AppleTV

When I heard that YouTube videos were going to be available on AppleTV I didn’t think much of it. YouTube videos look bad enough on my computer screen, why would I want to watch them on my big TV? I also heard that only select videos would be available so, who cares…

Well, I ran the software update on my AppleTV the other day and the new YouTube interface is fantastic.

YouTube on AppleTV

You don’t have to download the videos. You stream them directly from the internet. Browsing is very similar to the YouTube site but you can do it right on the TV with the Apple remote. The video actually looks OK. My understanding is that YouTube is re-encoding all the videos on the site from flash to H.264 so the AppleTV can play them. That sounds like a huge-crazy-insane job to me but hey, it’s Google, they’re the guys who think driving all over the world in black vans to take pictures of every single street is doable.

You can search via an on screen “keyboard” with the remote. I hate this type of interface (I call it “Ouija board“) but it’s better than having no search at all. You can also log in with your YouTube user name and access your favorites. This is all a really impressive first step. It’s what TV of the future is going to be.

Check out this episode of Don McAllister’s video podcast Screencasts Online for a video tour of the YouTube/AppleTV interface.