Updated items to my Apple Wish List:

I want the covers to actually match the songs that are playing. Too often, the covers are out of sync with the song that is playing.

Bookmarks for Audio Books / Podcasts / Playlists on home screen that launch the program where paused last.

The ability to create icons / cover art for my Playlists.

A virtual scroll wheel to be able to go fwd/bck in small increments. There should be a wheel in the navigate pane that opens when I tap on the cover. When I touch the wheel, a virtual scroll wheel appears improving fwd/bck navigation. Other navigation to the Wheel Pane could likewise be useful.

Two finger swiping could also trigger the fwd / bck scanning.

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My old list:

Buttons for Favorites and Contacts from my iPhone home screen.

Two finger swiping in QuickTime to scan forward or backward.

iTunes + .Mac. I want my purchased media to automatically be backed-up to my .Mac account. I want to be able to stream those purchases from .Mac.

In Almost Famous, the clairvoyant Estrella Strarr says:

Don’t worry William, I’ve seen the future and this all works out reasonably well.

That’s the plan for my story. It will work out reasonably well. Leave it up to professionals, as they say.

Moments before Estrella predicted the future, William is trying for the first time to write his Rolling Stone article on Stillwater. Penny Lane can’t yet allow that, and interrupts him to pee.

At that moment, William isn’t ready for journalism, and he hasn’t graduated to manhood either. Part of the problem is soon solved: he is deflowered. It has to be done.

Sapphire: Any other city in the world and you’d still be a virgin.

William Miller: Oh God. Oh God! I have never written anything more than a few pages in my whole life.

Animae like Penny Lane are tricky beasts, and almost never do the thing themselves. This scene was a particularly brilliant touch and it’s billiance had nothing to do with three ladies dancing around with feather boas in their skivvies. Honest.

In Almost Famous, William Miller is more interested in remaining a Stillwater fanboy - such an awesome Peter Pan, never age image - than in becoming a real man. He hasn’t yet made any genuine effort to write anything. The enticement to grow up has to be epic. He would rather run away, like his sister and his father before that (who ran away by dying).

—
The story of the Halo Effect and the value of the web start emphatically with enticement. Enticement is a necessary tool in building or changing a relationship. Enticement is a request for permission. Enticement is the dark, mysterious Merlin Mann’s speciality.

Apple sells iPods and iPhones for full price. Those products cast a Halo Effect on the whole Macintosh computer line. They helped drive surging sales. Nothing free, or cut rate was involved.

Most potent enticements are different than freebies, or give-aways, or propositions. It’s easy to write, “give stuff away.” That’s the lazy way.

The Halo Effect is about seeking permission, about earning the right for a relationship at a different level. Asking someone to spend $15 and several hours reading a book is a lot of permission seeking.

Some lament the decline of books. Other forms are more efficient: they provide more reward and seek less permission. The inefficiency of books might account for some of the challenges faced by book authors. Web authors gather and use permission differently, and arguably more efficiently.

———
Below, I introduced Russell Hammond and Merlin Mann. Now I need to introduce the writer. I write for executives. When I pitch business, I will suggest to a potential client, “bring me a copy of the written work of one of your competitors. Either another company or someone who you’re competing against for the big promotion.”

Most bring me an internal memo and slide deck from a rival.

I do two things to that. I rework it so that it sparkles. I also tear it apart savagely. Most clients sign me up once I point out that I will only work for one executive per firm.

I use the contempt raygun of death. It’s the opposite of Merlin’s Halo.

———
Remember, Merlin Mann is Emily Rugburn.

According to unnamed associates, Merlin wants a twitter-duel - a 30-minute joust of wit against any self-styled, old-media pundit. That would be enticing.

———
Some points on Almost Famous:

Penny Lane takes William Miller’s pen early in their first scene when William is trying to get past the bouncer. Cameron Crowe wrote about a similar event in his life for Rolling Stone.

Since Penny has William’s pen (in all those entrendrelogical ways), he cannot write until he is released back into the real world.

Penny Lane carries a tool box / tackle box as a purse or perhaps a chest for the pen. When the prince finally kisses her, she falls to the floor near dead. So we can rule out that this is a faerie tale.

———
This concludes Part 4 of:

All I Needed To Know About The Value Of The Web I Learned From Russell Hammond

Or

Why Merlin Mann Should Write, Fear & Loathing At The Algonquin Round Table.

Earlier Parts:
The Halo Effect
Merlin mann Is Emily Rugburn
All Halo Merlin Mann

More new things that I want from Apple.

More buttons for my iPhone home screen. I want a Favorites and Contacts button for the phone app, and I want a Playlists and Podcasts button for the music app. One button navigating, rather than the 3 or 4 ‘clicks’ - whatever it is you do with your figures - ‘gesture’ i guess - yes, I love ‘jestering’ at my phone.

Swiping in QuickTime. When I want to go forward or backwards in a video I’m watching, I want to do a two finger swipe on my MBP trackpad. I want to be swiping and jestering at my Apple products.

I like to act sophisticatedly.

My computer stuff is all Apple / Macintosh stuff. I have two requests of Apple, one small and one big.

1) I want to set up a least one space where nothing can grab the focus. In this space, my Twitterific app cannot pop up it’s cute little HUD, for example. This space would be where I can match my computer’s focus to my own, restricting distractibility. Other times and in other spaces, I welcome the distractions, but not in this one specific space where I restrict change of focus.

2) iTunes + .Mac. I want to push my purchased media to .Mac. I want to push my iTunes permissions to .Mac. I want to then be able to stream that media to any enabled iTunes. I could radically reduce the size of the hard drives in all my computers if iTunes + .Mac could effectively replicate the iTunes store. My media would be everywhere I had access to reasonably fast WiFi.

Addendum. 3) I want to put the iPhone contact button on my home page.