Computer Support Blog

Apple enthusiasts are, in many ways, an ideal type of customer for a big business.  The culture that surrounds Apple products makes virtually every new product release a resounding success.  There is such enthusiasm for new Apple products that entire websites are devoted to leaking rumors to keep that enthusiasm active and engaged on a daily basis.  Add to that, Apple enthusiasts are very slow to quit on an Apple product or service.  To wit, despite consistently declining customer satisfaction rates with the service, virtually everyone who has an Apple iPad, iPhone, or iPod utilizes iTunes.  To reward Apple customers for years of putting up with a system that has not kept up with its other products, Apple is revamping iTunes. Read more »

Despite what the big computer companies might want you to believe, the tablet computer is not a new idea.  In fact, before tablet computers achieved popularity with the breakout of the iPad, there was the computer tablet!  Less a full computer system like a tablet computer, computer tablets are essentially a peripheral, an input device used by visual artists to create artwork on the computer.  Despite the rise of tablet computers, computer tablets remain very popular with digital artists.  One of the most impressive computer tablets is the Wacom Bamboo Create. Read more »

The tech sector – and business interests who do not want to see the world dominated by Apple Computers’ products – is abuzz with renewed enthusiasm over tablet computers.  Out of the tablet computer manufacturing business for the boom time of the device, Microsoft is once again producing tablet computers!  Intended to compete head-to-head with the Apple iPad, Microsoft’s new tablet computer will arrive in the marketplace later in 2012.  It called the Microsoft Surface.  Read more »

It is developer’s conference time!  Following on the heels of Apple’s Developer’s Conference and the All Things D D10 Conference, where guests from all across the tech sector and media spoke, Google’s annual I/O Conference will start on June 27 in San Francisco, California.  The three day conference is sold-out and is expected to include a slew of new product releases that should reach the marketplace by the end of the year.  Rumored products being announced at the I/O Conference this year include: Read more »

Despite what all of the major computer and smartphone manufacturers might want you to believe about their products, there is one of the bestselling computer products in the world that they do not manufacture.  The computer device that is facing almost no competition from any of the major manufacturers is the LeapPad.  The LeapPad is an educational tool that LeapFrog designed to look like a tablet computer, but is programmed exclusively with educational software for children from ages 3 – 9.  This is a noble idea, but it is hard for educators not to be wary of it. Read more »

Earlier this year, earnings reports from 2011 revealed that Apple had become the world’s most profitable company.  Exceeding the profits from Exxon-Mobile, Apple Computers reached the zenith of both the tech sector and the business world.  Ever since, every major player in the tech industry has worked to chip away at the exceptional market dominance Apple possesses in almost every niche in which it competes.  While some manufacturers hope to sue Apple out of the number one spot, others are simply offering Apple more competition.  Part of Microsoft’s strategy is to more directly compete with Apple products in markets it had ceded.  With that, Microsoft is re-entering the tablet computer market! Read more »

It is hard not to look at the advancement of recent technology and wonder just what the science fiction model coming out of the current generation will be.  From Star Trek to now, science fiction media has posited a future where technological leaps free humanity from the shackles of capitalism, consumerism, and want.  Indeed, one of the iconic moments of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was when James T. Kirk had to admit that he did not have any money – and that was set during the “greed is good” 1980s!  With so much of today’s technology geared toward simply getting consumers to spend more money, buy more products, consume more, it is a dismal time to consider not only the future of science fiction, but the actual future. Read more »

It is interesting to watch how the market reacts to a change.  Sometimes, the influence of a product or service is not realized until the product or service is removed from the marketplace.  Watching the market react to the shutdown of Picnik, a niche market online digital photo editing tool, has been a study in corporate loyalty and opportunism.  Fans of Picnik vociferously resisted the integration of the Picnik tools into Google+.  The market responded with the birth or promotion of several services similar to Picnik.  One of the frontrunners to replace Picnik in the Internet zeitgeist is Aviary. Read more »

The marketing and statistics company Barclay’s has released its new CIO survey results, which explore how businesses are investing in technology.  Unsurprisingly, one of the emerging technologies that businesses are investing in more and more are tablet computers.  As the dominant manufacturer in the tablet computer market with its iPad, Apple Computers is witnessing a potential windfall from businesses buying iPads.  However, businesses investing heavily in iPads have the potential to be bad news for both Apple and businesses that invest in them.  Some of the looming issues for Apple include: Read more »

Apple Computers is now the largest, most cash-rich company on Earth.  While hitting that apex is usually a cause for celebration – and Apple executives and stockholders have been celebrating, most notably by announcing a stock dividend – those who take a longer view of the company’s trajectory see the milestone as a potentially troublesome one for the company.  For sure, when you reach the top the only way to go is down, but the real problem Apple faces is not with pessimists; it is with the company’s own image.  Unfortunately for Apple Computers, Apple’s exceptionally successful publicity machine that helped the company rise to the top of the corporate food chain is now working against the computer and technology company. Read more »