MacNN has some details of a couple of teasers indicating that Valve confirms intends to produce games for mac. Namely, an image with Gordon Freeman with a Mac logo on his chest is a pretty good indication :)
Thanks to my Coworker Randy for pointing out that through MacHeist that Squeeze for mac is free today. Hit the MacHeist page to generate a key. You'll of course have to sign up for MacHeist and give them your name and email....
Apparently yesterday Apple sold it's 10 billionth iTunes download.
As speculated earlier today, Apple did in fact manage to sell their 10 billionth iTunes download. This represents a huge milestone for both Apple and the music industry. Apple has revolutionized the music industry with the iPod and iTunes.
Yea, I'm thinking maybe this digital music thing might take off after all...
So looking through the What's new in Aperture 3 page, it looks like some people's dreams will come true, with "Faces" and "Places" from iPhoto appearing, brushes for retouching (echoing the local adjustment brushes from Lightroom), presets (they didn't have those before?), and what looks like a gorgeous full scren browser for browsing and viewing. Rounding out the major features is new slideshows with advanced affects, ability to combine video and audio with your photos, etc (sounds like they mixed in some Final Cut/iMovie in there as well).
All I can say is I kinda wish I a) wasn't already invested in Lightroom (come on Adobe, bring us Lightroom 3!!!) and that my main and most powerful computer wasn't a windows machine.
TUAW notes that iTunes 9.0.3 was released, and hopefully based on the release notes, it'll fix the current bug I have where podcasts aren't properly synced to the iPhone if you manage them by hand.
Apple has produced (finally) the Apple iPad. Short story, a big iPhone with no camera, a wifi + optional 3G, a book store and a new suite of office suite apps, compatible with current iPhone apps.
In a way I'm a bit disappointed that all the "it can't just be a big iPhone" talk wasn't true, and that the system looks and acts like a bit iPhone instead of a small computer with an iPhone-like UI. IE: no video conferencing, no multi-tasking, and most of the other limitations of the iPhone OS.
That said, they basically killed a big chunk of the Amazon kindle market with the "iBooks". If I can transfer my PDF eBooks to it and view in full color, with zooming and panning and page flipping? Awesome. The non-active screen on the kindle will keep some of the more "high end" readers who appreciate the lack of eyestrain, but I'd be willing to bet that most of the good parts of the kindle (with the Apple Book store and it's power) plus all the awesomeness of the iPhone and it's apps will make a compelling argument.
Other stats:
The product page has more, plus a video. Personally I'm vaguely excited, it looks beautiful and comes with a great Reality Distortion Field, and some of the potential (my own collected eBooks, videos, etc) I can completely see. But replacing my laptop and all it can do with this isn't going to save much weight or space in the backpack I take to work all day. I still want one though :)
Hands on from Gizmodo.
Dude over at reddit is putting together a Mac tips ebook and submitted a draft for comments. Some nice tips in there for new switchers and old.
Thanks to Peejay for pointing me to the Engadget story where it's finally official.... IApple holding January 27th event to show off its 'latest creation'. So now the blogosphere will explode with more speculation, instead of exploding if Apple didn't have an announcement.
Of course the "Latest Creation" part indicates that this is probably not an iPhone OS 4.0 announcement or a new iTunes (though both of those I'd appreciate as well).
Best comment for the Engadget story IMHO is by DirtyVegas:
1) Expensive or not, it will look super cool and sell like hotcakes
2) We can stop with dumb tablet rumors and look forward to 2nd gen tablet rumors.
Update: The nuts over at TUAW have already started Zaprudering the Invite.
Microsoft's Slate: Exactly Unlike Apple's Upcoming Tablet :
And I guarantee you will not see a single control element (button, tab, scrollbar and the like) migrate, intact and unchanged, from desktop OS X to tablet OS. Apple knows not to make that mistake. Microsoft does not; it's loading Windows 7 -- unmodified UI et al -- onto its tablet. But this time there's not even a stylus to help you. You gotta use your pinkies. The result -- an awkward, practically unusable UI.Ballmer very handily (pun intended) demonstrated this by fumbling about with the thing. His fingers weren't particularly good at hitting the UI controls on the 7-inch screen that, due to its very form factor, rendered Windows controls as little more than diminutive dots.
Yes it's a slanted source, of course they have better hops for the (rumored) Apple tablet. However, they do key onto a few details about some of the different design philosophies of the two companies. For example. compare the start menu based, stylus using windows mobile to a completely new iPhone OS (at least different from standard desktop computing for the most part).
A bit sad in a way, especially considering the awesome looking (rumored) Courier tablet that we heard about a while back as the (rumored) tablet from MS.
Again, lets not forget about the (rumored) table being (rumored) to be announced at the (rumored) media event on the (rumored) date of Jan 26 or 27. :)
I'm sorry, but this is getting ridiculous at this point.... so the rumored Apple tablet/reader/slate has a rumored media event who is now rumored to have it's rumored date changed to Wednesday, Jan. 27. Take that for what it's worth. Seriously, I'm excited about new Apple products as much as the next guy, but the amount of photoshopped tablets, rumored specs, fake video, and naval gazing from the Apple fanboys ever since the iPhone has got to be a record of some sort. For something that there is zero released information about it's got events, date changes, specs, and changing uses and form factors.
This is why Apple stock always takes a dive after a product release, people work themselves into such a lather about what could be happening and what they hope will happen that even if Apple upgrades an entire product line and introduces new products with new capabilities they still are disappointed after. If there is a tablet released there's no way it'll live up to the expectations and everyone will a) buy one and b) moan and whine about how it doesn't have a front facing camera, display full PDFs in color, or link directly into their mind (like the combined information about the increased shipments of chips from [random company in random country] and new plugs being developed by [other random company] obviously pointed to in the leaked PDF on a Taiwanese media board before it was taken down for no reason but we know it was by Apple lawyers of course).
And we of course will still continue to hang on every word :)
Gruber gives us some end-of-the-year tidbits about the (still mythical and rumored) Apple Tablet.
The interwebs are abuz with the Apple Special Media Event Scheduled for January 26th. Tablet time? Complete rumor? iPhone version 4?
So after allegations of fake reviews and various other slimey-feeling activities, app maker Molinker as expelled from the AppStore.
There's nothing wrong here I don't think, the app maker was doing slimey things, they were called on it, Apple was notified, and they were removed. Good on Apple for responding appropriately (IMHO).
I didn't know what to expect when I started the video called OS Xbox Pro is the hottest hackintosh ever, but after I have to admit that it made me feel kinda funny in my you know, hardware and apple places.
The Mac based password form saver/filling known as 1Password has released 1Password 3.0. If you own it already it should be a free upgrade (depending on when you purchased it of course). They are also have put their 1Password Pro iPhone app (link goes to iTunes store) on for the low low price of free.
I'm of two minds about this story about Steve Jobs' Personal, Terse Reply to an Apple Developer. On one hand, big companies that create an eco-system around themselves of small developers creating great software, and then slapping them down for legal stuff, pisses me right off. Remember the debacle a few years ago with Mike Rowe vs. Microsoft? See it here if you don't.
On the other hand, Jobs' reply (which is both awesome and horrible IMHO), is true, and looking at the product page, it looks like his suggestion has already been done, and other than a no doubt feverish night rebuilding software and resource strings, no harm no foul. Still a crappy thing to do to a small company though.
You have to love the hacking/modding community. Seems they have a Workaround to Restores Mac OS X 10.6.2 Compatibility With Intel Atom Processors to get the functionality back that was removed in the last update.
Similar to MacHeist, The Mac Sale is giving you a bunch of mac apps for one low low price.
Speaking of MacHeist, I see that they didn't make their 500,000 users to unlock the last app, Mariner Write. Sad, but honestly the set of apps in their NanoBundle weren't all that impressive (IMHO).
Run a netbook hackintosh? Upgrade to the latest OS 10.6.2? Did you get it right in the jibbly bits from Apple and their removal of Atom processor support? If so, you'll be happy to know that a Fix for Netbook Hackintoshes is in the Works, and a Temporary Fix is Already Available.
Apple Releases Mac OS X 10.6.2, fixing the guest account bug as well as as a bunch of other issues and fixes. Wonder if the "four finger swipe gesture" issue is the oddness I've found with expose.
The MacHeist nanoBundle is in the process of a live announcement. The following apps are part of this years MacHeist:
Sadly I must say that other than the cool live announcement, the software is fairly "meh" to me, as I either have no use for the software or already use something equal or better.
A very special day as VMware ships Fusion 3.0, many performance and integration improvements, the most interesting are some Windows 7 updates that allow Aero effects. Looking forward to trying this one out.
A good look at how to run Windows 7 on Mac OS X Snow Leopard at no additional cost for those folks wanting to flirt back with a reverse switch :)
Remember that Droid teaser that came out the other day with the bunch of "iDon't" things that the iPhone doesn't do? If not, here it is. Anyway, someone has a very cool response video worth watching: iDon't Care.
The Apple Store is back, and the following things are up and on the main Apple site:
Interesting timing too, two days before the Windows 7 release.
Great song lyrics: Apple Store is down, apologies to Julie Andrews over at TUAW. Store is actually still down, so who knows what treats we'll get when it comes back up. Rumors are rampant though, from new Mighty Mouse to new iMacs, Mac Minis and a magical multi-touch trackpad.
Or maybe it's just maintenance.
Update: 9-5 Mac reports new everythings, but I don't see them yet... Store is still down. 9-5 Mac is down currently, here's the page from my RSS:
Apple updates iMacs, Minis, MacBooks, Keyboards, Mice, Airports, kitchen sink
by Seth Weintraub
After a harrowing Apple Store outage today, Apple today updated a great deal of its consumer line of products.
As anticipated by many, the iMac line got updated with a new low cost 21.5 inch HD model. Utilizing a new 1920x1080 16:9 aspect ratio screen, the new iMac replaces the previous 20 inch models.
Mac Minis got a mild refresh updating processor speeds mildly while getting a new 1TB version.
9 to 5 Mac posted this story: Apple's Phil Schiller: 'Win 7 upgrade hassle - why not just buy a Mac?' and I couldn't help but comment. First of all, I'm coming to realize that I'm an Apple Fanboy (the first step is admitting it) but I think I'm also a realist. First of all, a couple of points that I'm sure people have already made about the article:
The Google Quick Search box, which as an aside I didn't realize had an update in August (it doesn't have an auto update or check for update capacity), got a nice tutorial with lots of good tips and tricks.
If you don't know, the GQSB is a free quicksilver / launchy / launchbar type application launcher and magic do-everything app for the Mac. The article is a nice intro to GQSB and a good introduction to what these type of launchers can do for those who think that there's no point in these where the win7/vista start menu or spotlight in the mac can find your applications quickly.
I haven't seen much confirmation of this, but I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't point to a story where <screaming alarm voice>a Major bug in Snow Leopard deletes all user data</screaming alarm voice>. It appears to be centered around the guest account, and logging into it, then back into your account deletes all your data (if it's true, Steve Jobs deserves a spanking, cause that's bad), but might also have to do with the way you upgraded to Snow Leopard, upgrade vs fresh install or something. Read the article and watch for news about this, and maybe stop using the guest account until this is all worked out. And maybe switch back to a PC for a bit too....
The Apple Blog has some details of VMware Fusion 3, expected at the end of this month.
iTunes 9.0.1 looks like the random crashing and becoming unresponsive bugs are fixed (yay).
Finer Things in Mac is a cool (though sometimes overly fanboy-ish) collection of some of the little things in the OS/X system that makes it a joy to work in (most of the time).
The Apple Blog notes that in iTunes 9 Smart Playlists Are Now Smarter , in particular, you can now mix and match the ALL and ANY match operators, so you can say that I want all 4+ rated songs from any of these x,y,z artists. Previously you could only apply either the AND or the ANY operator to smart playlist rules, and you had to hack things (ie: create a separate playlist of your ANY artists and then another one that uses the source as that playlist, and then apply the ALL rule). Or something like that. Look at the screenshot and you'll be happy if you've made a lot of iTunes smart playlists :)
Sounds like the iPhone OS 3.1 Update is Causing Crashes On iPhone 3G's so sayeth the Apple Blog. I've noticed mine has gotten a bit less stable, and my iTunes 9 has gotten really bad, as well as I've been hit by this bug, which seems restricted to only Canadian accounts.
Hopefully Apple will release a couple of updates to get things back to the stability of iPhone OS 3.0 and iTunes 8.x.
Some cool Q&A with Steve Jobs after the Apple event, where he clarifies some of the decisions made for products (ie: why no camera on the Touch).
So it's all over and it was.... pretty good, but not spectacular. Ars has a nice wrapup. Basically nothing really new, like a tablet, but:
So not a huge amount to get excited about, but a nice update to the entire lineup. Explore around Apple.com to see more details and goodness. Also pretty much every tech blog will have a similar update.
Awesome article at LifeHacker on How to Build a Hackintosh with Snow Leopard, Start to Finish, including hardware, partitioning, etc etc. Might be time to upgrade for a bit less than Apple charges for their insane hardware :)
The only danger of course, is some random update somewhere down the road will render your nice $800 Hackintosh rig a brick. Course, at that point you can just install Windows 7 on it!
First of all, the Ars Technica review of Snow Leopard is exhaustive, going into about every detail you'd want. Here's my take too, if you care:
I'm a bit underwhelmed to be honest. I know that Apple hyped this as "no new features" and that there wasn't anything to really expect, but I still felt a bit empty after the install. However:
Pros:
My consensus, hey, it's $29 and as long as you realize it's basically a service pack and roll up of tweaks, you'll be fine.
Yup, August 28th is here, which means that Snow Leopard is available to the general public today. Here is Snow Leopard reviews roundup over at TUAW, and I'm sure there will be many more today.
My favorite summary from that page is from Macworld's Jason Snell:
"Failing a massive makeover, then, we've got to take joy in the little gifts that Snow Leopard gives us. And there are a lot of them. I'd like to pick my favorite, but the fact is, they're all small enough that I can't really choose one. But if I could gather up the whole lot of them in my arms, I'd give them a hug."
I'm heading down to the local London Drugs computer department in about an hour when they open to see if they have it in as "Jay" said they would when I was there yesterday, and this weekend will be a weekend-o-OS-upgrades for me.
Anyone upgraded yet? Thoughts?
Not trying to make it Snow Leopard week here, but this is something I want to know for myself, thanks Darren for the Snow Leopard Compatibility List.
Well, looks like reddit is making fun of more reliable disk eject in Snow Leopard (pic, and context (bottom of the page)). While I don't think that disk eject improvements necessarily needs it's own icon, it is a feature that's nice to have, and makes the OS experience better. Ever had one of those times when you try to eject a CD or removable drive and it just says "can't eject" and you can't figure out why, and end up having to reboot? It happens on Mac, Windows, and Linux... this is just a little feature that will tell you what process is preventing the ejection. Simple, but a nice bit of polish (IMHO) that adds a bit more user friendliness to the OS. Pretty sure that Ubuntu has this as well come to think of it.
As another side note, looks like Windows 7 does this too, which is more good news.
No, not by some sort of space doubling compression utility, just by creating a machine with dual Internal SATA Hard Drives!
Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is going to be available on Friday August 28th, and is available for pre-order now. If you're a mac-head and unfamiliar with Snow Leopard and what it'll bring, you can check out this page for more details. Short story is it's evolutionary, new/better tech, nicer quicktime, Exchange support out of the box, and lots of nice little tweaks.
Anyone heard of Plex Media Center for OS X before? Looks pretty sexy... the only thing that these are all missing are support for decoder cards (a la MythTV) or something to auto-torrent download to give the impression of recording TV. MythTV is kinda old and busted looking and in terms of some of the features (especially compared to the new sexiness that these media center apps have), but it will record TV which none of the other systems do (for the most part).
I want it all dammit! In the form factor of a mac mini. And a pony!
I don't know if this was the fault, but my home-brew Time Capsule setup has been failing lately, and this weekend I probably put in 5+ hours of mucking around to try to get it working, and then it'd work, go for a few (1-20) Gb, and then fail. Looks like this might have been caused by the Mozy backup, which has been fixed. Fingers crossed that I can get this set up and working tonight with the updated Mozy software!
Macenstein has a cool Time-lapse video of a Macworld cover creation. As a photography it's particularly interesting in their lighting setup and the amount of post processing that's involved to get the shiny gadgets to look so shiny. Also I didn't realize what was all involved in setting up and tweaking all the stuff on the cover, fonts, and text and layout and whatnot.
TomTom has called a Media Event for September 22nd for some journalists (apparently yours truly wasn't on the invite list). They aren't sure if this is for the iPhone app and holster (which had UK pricing of £113 leaked a few days ago or something else), but the message is about how "TomTom will reveal the future of navigation to you".
Also, this is from a .nl site via google translate, blogged by a rumors site, picked up from an iphone subsite of the "topnewsdigest" site, and then by me, so take it as worth the paper it's written on :)
MacRumors has some details of the recently rumored iTunes 9's Social Media Integration features. I'm not sure if I want more cruft in my iTunes though. Version 8's big new feature, Genius, seemed more about selling you new music than anything, but I do enjoy being able to create a playlist of similar music when I'm listening to something I'm really in the mood for with one click. I'm thinking that while it seems like a small thing, it'll start being a given for future media player systems.
I'm looking forward to see what apple pulls out. I'm wondering if version 9 will also tie into new hardware somehow.
Looks like Apple reinstated the matte display option on the 15-inch MacBook Pro, for the lovely charge of $50. WTF?
So let me get this straight.... first they change the perfectly fine matte display on the new model of the MBP to a sexy glossy screen that causes glare/reflection problems that people bitch about. Then they change the whole lineup of laptops to use the new glossy screen. People whine, and Apple Fanboys say how you just need to move your head a bit and stop whining The Steve Knows Best for us. Now they bring back the original for half a c-note. This rings back to the "black macbook" model option, where a black paint-job cost $250 (or something crazy like that).
We've never had a matte display, we've always had the glossy display.
[bad attempt at a 1984 reference].
The ever-vigilant Macenstein blog nicely lists out what we know so far about the oft-rumored Apple tablet system. Great conclusion with:
Excited? Us too. Seeing the specs laid out like this really cuts through all the rumors and really solidifies the iTablet in the mind... I can almost feel it in my hand! (By the way, it weighs between 8 ounces and 13 lbs).
If you haven't heard about the NinjaWords kafuffle, here's the readers digest notes. It's a dictionary app that Apple rejected from the iPhone app store because it contained dirty words (the 7 dirty words apparently are in the standard english dictionary). Daring Fireball got a letter from Phil Schiller and has put up his response. An excerpt that seems to be part of the root of the rejection:
The issue that the App Store reviewers did find with the Ninjawords application is that it provided access to other more vulgar terms than those found in traditional and common dictionaries, words that many reasonable people might find upsetting or objectionable.
[...]
It is certainly arguable whether Wiktionary's English dictionary content should be rated 17+. I personally disagree with that. But what I -- and, judging from reaction around the web yesterday, many others -- found outrageous was the idea that Apple insisted that Ninjawords both filter its dictionary and still carry the 17+ rating.That is not the case, and that is good.
Aryk pointed me to FreeAppAlert, which gives you Free iPhone apps that were paid iPhone apps yesterday.
Apple has posted a fix for the SMS vulnerability for the iPhone, so sayeth Pixelated Geek. Go forth and update before your phone is part of a botnet!
Not all from Apple is wine and roses. Check out this dialog between the developers of a Google Voice app and Apple in There's No App for That. What I've discovered with Apple is when things work, they were very well and life is good and you feel like you're dancing on candy rainbows. But if things go badly, they go very, frustratingly, hair-ripping-out, mindblowingly badly, and, as you can see from the exchange in the link, this holds true for the App store process. For every "write a fart app and make $7k a day" there's something like this...
If you've been paying attention to the tech world (or at least the Apple rumor world) for the last couple of years, ever since the iPhone rumors of a "big" iPhone in the form of a Mac Tablet have been flying. Now, I've seen a lot of argument against the tablet / NetBook as an a) viable platform and b) good market for Apple to get into, but the Apple Blog makes some good points for an Apple Tablet in Late 2009. My favorite is "September comes before Christmas" :)
So as you may have noticed if you're an iPhone fanboy, a comany called Navigon released a fairly good looking GPS app ahead of TomTom. Wish you could check it out, even if only to see how the interface feels? You can, kinda. Use these instructions to get yourself a free iTunes account in Australia, then search in the app store for 'navigon', and you'll see (and download) they released a free 'lite' version of their app (itms link to .au store).
Of course, unless you're in Australia you won't be able to use it, and I have no idea if it'll even run or just bitch that you're on the wrong side of the world. However, in theory it'll give you a demo and you'll be able to get a feel for things to see if you want to drop the $69 (or $99 after Aug 15). Also as this is a lite version there isn't any GPS or "active route" support available anyway :)
So I have no idea what's up with the TomTom iPhone app that was so touted at the last couple of Apple iPhone events. Sadly, either the app was a complete tech demo (read that as you will) or they are somehow strategically doing nothing to let people know that it's coming (or not). In the meatime, MacRumors has a look at the Navigon GPS unit. Bonus here is it's a single up-front cost (though at $69 till August 15, $99 after it's a bit pricey), and I believe that the map updates are said to be free.
Some folks in the forums seem to think it's not the best deal, or are waiting to see what TomTom is doing. They also point out "gmaps", which is far less ($20) and has state/country (including Canada, yay!) specific releases. Sadly some of the reviews for gmap aren't all that great.
Personally I too am waiting for the TomTom, just to see what the options are. I really want the charging mount, as one reason I don't like using the iPhone maps in the car too much is I worry about battery life. Also if the mount can be setup to pipe into my stereo, hey, double-plus-good bonus? However, if the mount is super expensive, or the app has a large cost associated (ie: monthly fees, map update costs that are high, or a huge upfront cost), I may find something else. Personally I think that TomTom is killing themselves a bit by not giving out any new information... Course, they may also be trying to figure out how to make money on the app without completely cannibalizing their hardware business.
Anyone out there doing the turn-by-turn iPhone GPS thing? Suggestions? Good finds?
Today only, the iPhone astronomy app SkyVoyager (and it's companion app, SKyGazer) is free today only. Haven't seen them yet, but given they are normally $14, might be an idea to grab them...
Speaking of Apple, here's a great example of them being bastards. Seems the new iTunes 8.2.1 release cripples the Palm Pre. On one hand this is Apple's software and they can do with it what they want, and one could argue that keeping other devices from faking it out and using it is in their business interests... if you like iTunes and want a smartphone, the only choice is really the iPhone/iPod and not a Palm Pre.
On the other hand, geez, are they going to get into an arms race with the 13 people who bought the Pre to battle to stop them from using the iTunes store and listening to the music they are buying from the iTunes store on non-Apple devices?
That said, anyone not see this coming? :)
Yea yea, a bit fanboy-ish, but this article on the Apple Blog about Hidden Gems in Apple Design has some good info not only on why Apple Fanboys are apple fanboys (and why it seems that when people start using a Mac they fall in love), but also some nifty things to look for next time you see an Apple ad. For product designers, some things to take note of here too :)
Mac App Storm has a few notes about what to look forward to in the next version of OS/X. Nice upgrade I think, but about on par with (and I know this blasphemy) Windows 7.
Mac App Storm has a few notes about what to look forward to in the next version of OS/X. Nice upgrade I think, but about on par with (and I know this blasphemy) Windows 7.
Bit of a puff piece on the Apple Blog about the Apple Retail Store Success. It brings up some excellent points, as someone who has been in an Apple Store and a Future Shop in the last 2 weeks or so, let me say that talking to the salespeople in the Future Shop/London Drugs/Best Buys of the world could be used as torture for enemy combatants.
"Tell us your invasion plans." "Never!" "Tell us now or we'll make you talk to a Best Buy salesman about wireless routers." "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!"
That said it's not all wine and roses in the Apple Store as they suggest, their main failing point (IMHO) is the people, not the knowledge or anything like that, but availability. I was in wondering why my laptop DVD drive was simply spitting out disks (duh, turned out it was busted) and had to beg and pull the "I drove in from way out in the Valley to Vancouver and I hardly ever make it out here!" and push out a couple of single, tiny tears to get slotted in to see someone at the "genius bar" when someone's scheduled 15 minute time was late. Also having to go through an orange shirted "concierge" person who (in this case) seemed completely elitist and condescending... "we'll have to see sir, our geniuses are very busy".
That said they did get me in, and did seem to take personal interest in making sure I did get helped, and the concierge did make sure I got things all set up when I was heading out the door.
Anyway, it's an interesting look at how Apple has made the retail experience a bit more appealing to the consumer.
Pretty great story about getting a stolen iPhone back from a thief, using the Find My iPhone service. The full story is here, and even if it is a publicity stunt by Apple (in this day and age of "social networking" and "new media" it wouldn't surprise me), it's still a great story. Best line of all is:
"We laughed triumphantly, adrenaline racing, feeling like the Jack Bauer trio. (Disregard the fact that we'd just left a Lego convention."
According to Bloomberg, it sounds like Steve Jobs is said to Be Considering Liver Transplant. This is screaming across the twitterscape now.
Guess we'll see if this is a) true and b) has any official word from the Apple compound.
Update: Or maybe he had a transplant two months ago.
Evernote for iPhone 3.0 is Here, and it's sexy. Lots of UI improvements, integrated maps, seems way less crashy and even a bit faster (though the taking a snapshot still seems to take forever). Big update though, a nice complement to the new iPhone OS 3.0 update :)
It's not all wine and roses in the Apple World sadly. Seems that Apple is now warning about unsupported players' iTunes integration. This of course is referring to Palm emulating an iPod with their Pre. So far just an article on the support site, but I have no doubt that a minor iTunes update will come out soon to "address" these issues.
Well, still no OS update this morning, sounds like it'll be out sometime around 10-12 (or 5pm-7pm depending on who you listen to). In the mean time, you can How To Use The Best 40 Features of iPhone 3.0, so you at least know where to go for the new bits, instead of trying to find them all. IE: I didn't know shake to shuffle was a new feature.
OK, this is probably fake, but it's a good fake, and hey, who wouldn't want iPhone/iPod OS running on Mac Pro with touch screen monitor. Seriously cool (though I'm pretty sure that typing with the keyboard would be faster :)
Just to show that not everything in apple is ponies and rainbows, MacRumors is reporting that the new 13" and 15" MacBook Pros Have a Slower SATA Interface, using SATA 1.5 instead of SATA 3, which is what the previous "new" laptops had.
Whether this will affect "real world" usage or not has yet to be seen, but it would affect battery life (making it longer), by making the computer, slower.
Since it's now been released to developers, screenshots of iPhone 3.0 OS GM are around, showing all the new Apple-y goodness.
The google mac team have released Google Quick Search Box. Looks like they are edging into the QuickSilver (not not in development anymore) and TaskBar (non-free).
This is interesting because while being an app launcher and app "do stuff with"-er (though doesn't seem quick as cool as launchbar or quicksilver in terms of chaining stuff together), is it is obviously a google search engine, and you can integrate search from your google or twitter accounts.
A bit of testing sees it as having very much potential. Intuitive if you're used to using QS or LB at all, feels a bit laggy compared to QS/LB, but having things like results popping right in (ie: put in "weather
Also according to the reddit article the development is done by the QuickSilver creator, Nicholas Jitkoff.
I'm sold so far....
Sorry I was away all day folks, had a day of driving around... I did catch some of Apple's WWDC. Here's the wrap-up (for the 3 of you who haven't heard so far) and the highlights:
So that's about the wrapup from the high level view, I think I got the major points. Honestly I'm not hugely impressed, as usual. Lots of new stuff, but nothing mindblowing. I guess every year can't be like the release of the original iPhone. I think most of my disappointment is that probably 90% of the new coolness of the iPhone 3Gs is in the software, which is available to all iPhones, and was shown off months ago.
As a counter point of course, Paul Thorrott (Windows guy, but someone who I respect a lot) has a reality check for the fanboys out there. Some of his points are very valid as usual, some seem a bit snarky and like a killjoy :) Still, a counter point that's needed.
Well, WWDC is less than a week away, and the Apple rumor mill is in high gear. The Flickr set with the WWDC 2009 Banners ('One Year Later, Light-Years Ahead') is up, and the iPhone rumor roundup has been compiled.
So what do you think? Boring "meh" updates (we all know that iPhone OS 3.0 is going to be out RSN and that at least is going to be cool, based on the demo given early this year and the developer seed information that's been coming out), or will we be wowed? Is there going to be a new iPhone (all signs point to yes) and if so, will it be awesome, or just an evolutionary move up (bumped storage, processor, slightly different case) or will there be something "OMFG WTF WOW" to see. Will there be the oft-rumored tablet and changes / updates to the Macbook and Mac pro lines? Maybe just some more speed bumps. Biggest question though, will The Steve be onstage again?
Adium, the multi-IM client for the Mac, has released 1.4 beta and stable 1.3.4 releases. This is a major update beta wise anyway. The 1.3.4 stable has more polish, but the 1.4 beta release includes Twitter and IRC as protocols, along with a "ridiculously long" list of improvements :)
Just a note of warning, users of the Twitterfon twitter iPhone client, changes are coming. The author posted a blog post about the upcoming Ad support for TwitterFon 1.5. The change (which just showed up as an update for me this morning) has quick add/remove, rich tweet view, and user lookup among the other changes. Looking at the Twitterfon page it also looks like there's now a "Pro" version of the app.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. I use Twitterfon because it's clean, free, and uncluttered with ads. On the other hand, the app author deserves a bit of a payday to reward him for the great work! Guess the simple answer would be to suck it up and get the pro version for (most likely, as it's not yet actually out it seems) less than the cost of your starbucks double no-whip skim latte :)
However, if you're a cheap bastard like me, maybe hold off on the upgrade to Twitterfon 1.5 until someone else sees how intrusive the ads are.
Darren pointed me to Poolga, a free iPhone wallpaper site. Looks good, with some decent quality wallpapers too.
Dreaming Of Beetles has downloads of intel optimized builds of Firefox for mac. Version 3.5b5pre at the moment. I hear it actually even feels faster then the official betas. We'll see how it goes.
The Unofficial Apple Weblog has Six things I learned from losing my iPhone 3G. Speaking as someone who had an iPhone 3G stolen, I can attest to all of these, except the replacement cost... for me it was $930 CND for a new unit (luckily half covered by insurance). Still a blatant ripoff though :(
Amidst the Apple Blog's Weekly App Store Picks I noticed that there is now a lite (and free) version of Wolf-3D iPhone game (if you're too cheap to spend the $4.99 on the main game that is).
Some testing by CNET and their Xtreme typing challenge had typing in some extreme conditions pitting an iPhone against an EEEEEEEEPC.
Their completely unscientific test came to the same result as I have... while the iPhone isn't tactile, the smarts in the software (auto-correct, guessing what the next letter will be and increasing the hit box for it, etc) makes it far easy to just stab along quickly, and for the most part will figure it all out properly. Course, if you're hacking out an email on the train, the jostling around you're going to get isn't the same as what this guy is experiencing :)
10 Mac applications that promise to improve your productivity. Cool.
Tweetie for Mac OS X was released last night, and the twitter app has gained a lot of buzz. It's sexy, sleek, and while some of the UI elements are a bit odd (for me) it's definitely a good contender for twittering from your mac desktop. Makes me think I should check out the tweetie for iPhone (I use TwitterFon right now).
Business Week goes over the Microsoft "Laptop Hunter" ads and asks What You Don't Get for $699. Blah blah point of view blah blah fanboys blah blah of course :) I don't buy the "you are paying more for security" argument... AVG is free and most of the software I use is free anyway. That said, looking forward to Windows 7, things like burning ISOs on the desktop is a very nice feature (that I've had in Linux for the last 10 years or so... :)
25 (Most Wanted) Tips For iPhone 3G has some nice stuff, even that I hadn't heard before.
The Apple Blog has a nice Dev Session on how to create a orientation aware clock. Very nice and easy to follow for those of us completely new to iPhone development.
Seems the latest beta of the iPhone OS 3.0 has some video recording capabilities revealed, but you have to alter the config to say that the hardware has a video camera. Macenstein asks Will Apple pretend iPhone video recording requires the new iPhone? as there are many jailbroken phones that use video recording just fine. *sighI* another case of Apple deciding what we can do with the hardware that the user (theoretically) owns?
iTunes drops all DRM, adds variable pricing according to many blogs around. A few posts I've noted say it's not that easy (ie: impossible) to find songs at the "low" price point of $0.69. The lack of DRM is nice though.
The Apple Blog has some details on Skype for iPhone, including screenshots. Basically it looks a lot like the normal iPhone phone app, which is good. I'm interested to see how it works like in real life. I've had the Fring app which allows VOIP connection on the iPhone via Skype, but I honestly haven't ever actually called anyone on it :)
Update: It's here. Well, in the US app store anyway. Hope it comes to Canada soon.
Update2: Seems it might not. This CBC story has this:
Chaim Haas, a public relations representative acting on behalf of Skype, said the application is available in every country in which the iPhone is on sale and in which Apple has an iTunes Store — with the exception of Canada.
Just heard about Video Monkey via MacBreak Weekly as a theoretical replacement for the now-defunct VisualHub video converter software. Definitely going to check this out tonight!
Via Appstorm.net comes a nice set of 50 iPhone Wallpapers for Design Lovers. Some better than others, worth a look anyway.
The Apple Blog has a First Look at the iPhone OS 3.0 Beta. Lots of screenshots and impressions there.
Update: More screenshots here. Lots of great detail about how things work, excellent read @ iLounge.
Psystar: Psystar Ignores Every Lawyer In The Entire World, Debuts New Compact OS X Desktop
Again with the Apple stuff, will it never stop?! You can keep an eye on the iPhone OS 3.0 event today by checking out either Engadget or the @macrumors twitter stream. If you're a twitterer you probably you that doing a search for #iPhone will probably garner you some good stuff as well :)
Update:
Highlights from the event are below (hit the read more):
I'm fairly excited to be honest, I'm looking forward to what people can do with this in their apps, and I'm happy there aren't any silly "new feature XXX only will work on our new iPhone 3.0 hardware" restrictions. At least not yet :) I'm also glad they haven't radically changed the iPhone, but have added to it significantly. I'm especially interested in the spotlight app, and seeing how it works in practice and how well. It sounded like it was an 'always open' app in the leftmost screen, which makes it more useful than a search app you have to open up each time.
Still, we'll see :) Going to download the SDK tonight and start programming something to make my millions with!!
Tomorrow Apple will give a sneak peak at the 3.0 version of the iPhone firmware. No clue so far as to if this will be on a new hardware platform (ie: version 3 of the iPhone handset) or just an upgrade to the current version. Hopefully some of each (ie: I don't want to buy a new $500 phone to get access to whatever new features there are).
A lot (lot) of "3.0 firmware wishlists" have appeared, mostly fueled simply by wishes, practically none with any actual inside information on them (some might argue that there are leaks who do go to people like Kevin Rose with details, but again, who knows. Anyway, one of the good lists I found was from Frasier Speirs, who has his own iPhone OS 3.0 Wishlist.
My list is pretty simple:
Boing Boing Gadgets reviews the iPod Shuffle (Third Generation).
[...] The new iPod Shuffle is Apple's worst product in years. Its headphone module-interface fails because it's really about physical appearances: it does nothing to improve the experience of listening to music, and is in fact irritating until you've learned how to use it.
DIY: Star Trek iPhone Is the Definitive iPhone (If You Are Picard or Jason Chen)
Two bits of mac news for the price of one!
Confessions of an Apple Store Employee has some insight into how things work inside the Apple stores from a former employee.
Saw the news this morning that Apple has released Safari 4 beta for the masses. It's free of course, for mac and PC, and has a few interesting new changes:
I'm going to give it a go on my Mac for a while, just to see how it is, and see if I can tell just what part of Firefox I'm so attached to. The one thing it really needs is a Firefox-like import of saved data... losing my history, saved passwords, form data, etc would really suck for a convert :(
Interesting article on the design and pricing in the Apple iPhone App Store. Check out Cold Hard Truth of the App Store.
Just discovered TwitterFon twitter app for the iPhone thanks to @chasejarvis.... lots of features, free, no ads, more functional (IMHO) than my previous one (twitteriffic). Going to give this one a good go and see if it works as well as it looks. Oh, and did I mention it's free?
Nice article on the apple blog - More Mac Viruses, Similar Sources: Time to Worry?
Really, as it stands, the only people at risk are those trying to pirate software, so it’s not really a case of “Is the OS less secure?”, so much as it is one of “Are Mac users security savvy?”.
Personally I look at it this way... if you download the iwork trial from apple.com and install it, it'll ask you for your password before it installs itself. If you go to your friendly neighborhood torrent site, download ilife09.torrent, and click the installer it (I presume) asks for your password before it installs a trojan and then installs iLife.
Is this some new form of super-evil mac virus? An age where apple-heads can't surf in peace? An age where you shouldn't suggest an iMac to your grandma because it'll come to life, kick her in the behind, and impregnate her granddaughter?
I'm thinking not. I could put up a shell script that has in it a request for password followed by deleting your system while it plays a clown song and put it up for download and most likely it'd still get downloaded and accused of being an evil mac virus. The sort of viruses we're talking about here are simple trojans (IMHO) and requires no more than the normal (well, perhaps normal by windows and I-surf-pirate-sites standards) amount of care and attention in surfing and downloading.
Thanks to a FUBAR on my part and losing my carefully crafted addressbook on my MBP, I did some looking into finding a way to do time machine backups without spending $600 on Time Capsule and utilizing my already existing NAS device. Turns out that Time Machine with SMB and NFS Shares is very possible with a bit of diddling with settings. This guy got it working with remotely mounted AFP, SMB and NFS shares on a random NAS device.
Also looks like there's an addon for DroboShare via the DroboApps SDK called BackMyFruitUp to add Time Capsule like capabilities, which looks to have potential too.
Now I know what my project tonight will be!
Macworld San Francisco 2009 Keynote Live Coverage is up at Macrumors..... just got in so haven't had a chance to see much. iLife '09 seems to be out though!
I don't plan on pimping every new iphone or apple accessory here, but this looks interesting... Ars has a review for the Incase Power Slider battery backup for iPhone 3G. It's like a thick case for your iphone, but it has extra battery charge. Hit the article for pics and review. Might be worth the $$..... I already have a thick case on my phone, assuming this doesn't make it too much larger, or unreasonably heavy that is.
Found this via Reddit... looks like Apple's new online ad does that page destruction thing that wii did a bit ago. Kinda cool. Annoying as hell I'm sure to encounter in the wild though...
Wow, not only has Apple released iPhone 2.2 firmware, but it's available to me right away! Anyone tried it yet? Any fail? Awh, who am I kidding, I'm downloading it and installing it right now!
According to the release notes no cut and paste, but the expected bug fixes, performance fixes, over the air podcast updating, street view (and some other) map improvements, as well as toggling for spelling. So pretty much what people were expecting.
I'll let you know if it explodes my phone :)
Update: No issues, heck, even a fast download speed. Since I just updated all my podcasts I'll have to wait to use it in practice, but in theory the 'get more episodes' just pops you into the itunes store and allows you to download episodes from the listing there (I never use the itunes store on the iphone so no idea if that was there before). It also does the right thing when it syncs to iTunes as well, loading any new podcasts you weren't subscribed to in. Looks very slick.
The street view is sexy, and probably the new "must show" app for iphone/touch owners. You need an address in a city with street view of course, and if you have it click on the orange icon on the left of the label (try searching for "1 microsoft way seattle" as an example). The transition to street view is done with the usual care and attention so the user knows what's going on (ie: is swoops in). Pinch and drag are all there and work as expected, the only niggle I have (and not sure what could be done about it) is that I almost want to pinch or double tap to move down the street, but I need to tap on the street "arrows" just like in the actual google maps street view. I'm not sure how you'd distinguish between a "move forward" doubletap or pinch and a "zoom in" double tap or pinch. Still, a very minor thing.
Safari does indeed now have the google search as a primary element in the nav bar. Not sure if this is a needed thing or not, but I guess it saves a tap...
Haven't looked at the rest of the stuff, but it feels a bit faster overall, though that might be the reality distortion field :)
Apple: Aluminum MacBook X-Ray Makes Perfect Desktop Background
This will be a cool thing for the iPhone / Touch (second gen only) users.... Voice Search Coming to the iPhone via the google mobile app. There's a nice little video demonstrating it in true Google fashion. Basically speak your google search into the microphone and it gives it to you.... how much simpler could it be?
MacRumors asks the very leading question of iPhone 2.2 Firmware 10 Days Away? If so, very cool, as there are a bunch of new stuff (no copy and paste yet!!?!?!?!?) that's rumored to be in it, coolest for me being updating of podcasts over the air (well, over 3G for <10mb and wifi for >10mb) which will mean I don't have to worry about running out of stuff to listen to if I'm away from my main syncing computer. Street view is nifty, the Japanese emoji icons get a "well whatever" and the rumored new look for safari with the google bar on the title bar (anyone have screenshots of this?) sounds interesting.
Course, apple being apple, we'll see what happens in 10 days :)
Rumors are that apple will Activate Podcast Downloads in 2.2 Firmware at MacRumors. This and street view would make the 2.2 a very nice upgrade... Course, cut and paste and background notifications would make it even better!
Woo! Finally Google Earth Comes to the iPhone!
Amidst the launch of Google’s own Android mobile operating system, the company is bringing its Google Earth software to the iPhone App Store. As reported by our sister site News.com, the iPhone version replciates much of the desktop application’s core experience, downloading imagery from Google’s servers as the perspective shifts and dotting the map with landmarks, photos, and other information.
Installing this now, wonder if it'll be better than the Earthscape app that is already there and is not bad...
A concept computer that came out this morning was the OLO iPhone-powered Laptop. Basically the iphone plugs in to where the trackpad would be and acts as the CPU and touchpad. Interesting idea... not sure how realistic this is, but it's definitely an interesting concept.
Looks like all the rumors were true... next Wednesday there is a MacBook Event. From the Apple Blog:
Members of the media have just received word that the rumored October 14 MacBook event is rumor no more. Invitations sent by Apple’s PR department confirm that next Tuesday will see a special event hosted by the company at its Cupertino campus.
Wonder which (if any) of the various rumors will come true.
TUAW notes that the iPhone NDA was dropped. The NDA (better known by developers as ) was a large burden on people developing software as sharing information and tips makes developing software much easier. Now Apple has removed this barrier, hopefully we'll see better/stronger/faster iPhone and iPod Touch apps.
Sorry about the slew of apple stuff, but this is more for me to check when I get home. Seems there are some Free iTunes HD TV shows up on iTunes. Seems (according to the comments) they aren't available in Canada. *sigh* Sucks to live in the north it seems. Hopefully this link willl help my 'merkin friends though.
However, these two links claim to get itunes downloads from anywhere, though it's legality and tested-ness is unknown.
The folks over in the MacRumors forums are compiling a List Of 2.1 Features that may be interesting above and beyond the ones noted in the official changelog (which in typical Apple fashion is about 5 lines long). Some nice stuff in there, little fixes like apps going back to where they belong when they are updated. Looking forward to the iPhone version on Friday.
Since MacRumors doesn't have their live event coverage site up, however the Gizmodo Liveblog is up and going for today's 10AM PST iPod-o-gasm is.
Update: So if you haven't seen already, here's the rundown:
Macrumors has the Let's Rock: Rumor Roundup and Expectations for tomorrows apple event. Personally the one thing i'm really hoping for is the new version of iTunes with proper tagging support. I'll be miffed if the new iPods are released as rumored as I just replaced one of the 3rd gen Nanos that was stolen! Ah well, I'm fine and happy with the 3rd gen and the 4th gen (should it be released) better do something pretty amazing for me to want to upgrade.
Lately I've been re-doing my music collection thanks to a new fileserver and a new computer. Since the new computer is a Mac, the logical choice for music is iTunes. It's not perfect of course, but it does the job, and is the logical choice if you have any iPod type devices. However one of the places where it completely falls down is in realm of tagging, as smart playlists can only get you so far, and sometimes I want to say that something belongs to my "highschoolmemories" collection as well as "hotdancetracks" and dragging those into playlists just doesn't cut it. Enter the power of applescript and quicksilver (sorry guys, this is a Mac only link). Check out how to set up tagging tracks in iTunes with Quicksilver via MacOSXHints.com.
Another method that will work for everyone is from this lifehacker article using the power of "grouping".
Kinda a cool little app if you're a D&D guy or gal, Mach Dice: Roll for iPhone supports up to 100 d100 die, and is funky 3d and makes good use of the accelerometer.
This is pretty cool.... iPhone factory workers send message of peace to our lands via the iPhone’s camera is from a guy who found a bunch of pictures on his new iPhone.... not the "accidental" type pictures I've heard of before, but more of a proper photoshoot!
To balance out the last mac-vs-pc-pricing post I made a few days ago, Paul Thurrott has his own perspective on the issue of Mac laptops cost twice as much as PC laptops.
Tom's Hardware has a good article on The Apple Mac Cost Misconception. As a recent mac user, this hits my heart because I've heard a lot of these misconceptions for years from my peers (and myself of course). Good to see it all laid out.
From the section on "I can build a mac pro for half the price":
The above is essentially a baseline Mac Pro replicated using the cheapest minimum required components to build. The difference? A negligible $5.67. Those who claim that they can build "the same" PC for half the price are at this point baseless.
Darren pointed to me the google page on Google Calendar CalDAV support, which is the ability to sync Google Calendar with iCal. Very interesting, I'm going to have to check out how to best use this, as some of my stuff is in iCal and I really like the idea and portability of Google Calendars, but I don't actually use it.
Stage 1 in the new iPhone mania is complete, Apple Released iTunes 7.7 which allows access to the app store. W00t! Well, in theory "W00t!" as I'm still doing the install, and I've seen some people saying that even with the new iTunes they don't see the App Store. Wonder if there'll be different rules for us Canadians too :( Will let you know when my install is done and I can test.
Update: iTunes 7.7 installed on my macbook with the latest Leopard, no app store in sight. Either it's being rolled out in waves, or the Canadian iTunes store is behind the times again. Note that the new iphone 2.0 firmware has been found by macrumors posters already.
Update2: Ah, you have to go into the iTunes preferences and enable the 'applications' source before the store will show up. Only shows a black screen for me though.
Update3: Ah, there it is.... 2 minutes in and already I have about 10 downloads of apps going!
Wall-to-wall iPhone coverage here at UFies.org points to the First iPhone 3G reviews via the WSJ, USA Today and NY Times. Summary:
Overall, the new phone "mostly keeps its promises."
Not bad I guess.....
Story from Darren about the Spat with Rogers leaves Canadian Apple stores without iPhones looks a bit like rumormongering to me, but as Darren noted, it doesn't matter, it's still bad press for Rogers and I really hope that all the bad press and (presumed) public pressure will help to make them reconsider their data plans. Really, they have a huge opportunity to offer reasonable data rates for Canadians, which they should take (says I the consumer). Of course, the minimal competition up here means they have no need to, hence the $115/month plan that gets you 2G of transfer :(
In other iPhone 3G news, engaget has some 3G iPhone in the wild pictures. Not a huge amound there sadly.
Just to get everyone riled up for the Apple keynote on Monday, here's a link to the “Just One More Thing…” Timeline which includes videos from back to the late 90's of all the "just one more thing" moments (and other historical stuff :)
*come on iphone 2.0 available-in-canada-and-non-sucky-data-plans!*
The Macalope looks at the iPhone 2.0 FUD-o-rama.
Rob Enderle, in regards to anything Apple, is not an "analyst", Eric. He is a quote machine. And, thus, the horny one will not be linking to or bothering to dissect the source of Zeman's piece.
Another rumor has it that there'll be a 3G iPhone in Canada next month with reasonable data costs over at the Apple blog. The $7 unlimited data plan they predict sounds very good, especially compared to the $97 for 25mb that they currently have. This combined with an upgraded / tweaked iPhone, maybe a 32mb version, and I'm there. I love my iPod Touch, but would love to combine it with my phone for one less bit to carry around :)
Course, all this depends on a new iPhone, a 3G version, and Rogers not to completely shaft us Canadians with data plan pricing.
The Unofficial Apple Weblog spreads this juicy bit for me and all my Canuck friends:It's official: iPhones in Canada via Rogers. Of course, I'll believe it when I see it "for real". Of course, 25mb for $97/month will kill it for me and many others I'm sure. Canada's lack of decent data plans is going to hinder iPhones up here until someone gets us out of this data backwater (Darren's words).
Very exciting is a feature from Lifehacker on how to Turn Your iPod Touch into an iPhone and allow you to make VoIP phone calls from your iPod touch or iPhone using a freeware application called SIP-VoIP.
Very exciting stuff!
After a few weeks with a "Beta has expired" message, and no new beta to download, looks like MS has gotten their act together and released Beta 3 of the RDP Mac Client.
Now the question is, is this a new beta with actual changes, or just the same software with the expiry date removed? Being that the only information about the beta is here there's no actual information about any changes. Oh, and the 'feedback' link to read the forums about it doesn't work. *sigh*
If you're looking for an alternative (if you hadn't found one already), the de-facto seems to be CoRD, which I've played with a bit.
An article I've been waiting for, on Developing Rails Applications on Mac OS X Leopard. Most important is that it has "official" update commands... myself being a total rails newbie I was glad to see this:
Out of the box, you get Ruby version 1.8.6 and Rails version 1.2.6, the latest stable releases at the time Leopard shipped. Ruby releases are few and far between (it's still at 1.8.6), but Rails has frequent new releases. In fact, the application we'll build requires Rails 2.0.2. The good news is it's easy to upgrade Rails and RubyGems. Make sure your system is up to date now by running these commands:
Instead of just hoping that running random commands would make it work. Coming from a Linux world of package managers where doing something "outside" the package world potentially pollutes the filesystem with outside code.
The Unofficial Apple Weblog asks some questions to Cory about What do you expect from the upcoming iPhone SDK, which is scheduled to launch Thursday March 3rd. Not all questions answered, and some guesses in there, but still, bit of news.
Glad my iPod Touch is on it's way back home to me!
Interesting writeup called Things I Learned At The Apple Store (here's part 2).
* For God sakes, people were lining up -- waiting time, 22 minutes -- to get a seat in the Apple "lounge" at the back of the store. What was special there? Nothing. A chance to sit, read some magazines, drink coffee and sample some computer stuff.
Interesting read and follow up... especially to see how vile the reaction is to saying nice things about an apple store.
Humanized has a good article on one particular aspect of usability in the Mac Vs. Windows dispute.... Luxury Computing talks about some of the challenges in doing some simple things in both Mac and Windows.
After going through the same three dialog boxes, the wizard appears yet again; this time it’s found a “HID-compliant device”, and I have to go through the same song and dance, after which I get yet another wizard for a “HID-compliant device”.
Another "what tool for what toolbox?" debate, though some usability issues are more like using a hammer that randomly smacks you in the thumb by itself (Ok, so I'm not all that good at analogies :)
I'm not sure if I would have paid $2500 for a 20 year old computer.... but the unboxing pics and story about it certainly is interesting.
Unofficial apple weblog has a Complete guide to iPhone car integration now online.
Rogers, please move your butts and get me an iPhone up in Canada!
iTransmogrify! allows iPhone and iPod Touch users to view flash video on their devices. Bookmark a javascript bookmarklet and it'll magically transmogrify the flash into a format playable on the non-flash apple devices (damn you Steve Jobs!).
How simple is this... there is a 1.1.3 "JailBreak" in Installer. Basically ensure you have the right version of a couple of packages, and a couple of settings (autolock set to never!) and time to wait (about 20-40 minutes from the forums)... then click the '1.1.3 jailbreak (dev team)' icon. Doesn't get any easier than that does it?
Darren sent me a link to just what I was looking for for my popcorn watching for MacWorld..... a page with all the MacWorld live blogs on it! Watch Macrumors, engaget, mac observer and gizmodo updates all at the same time!
RSS Reader for Mac - NetNewsWire now no longer is a for pay version and a Lite version, but a completely free version. Version 3.1 is available for download here.
I've been a Google Reader fan since the new version came out a couple of years back... I'm definately going to give NNW a shot again as I did used to use it back in the old days when I had a PowerBook. Via 50 Leaves.
Macenstein has asked the question I've been pondering the last few days, remind me again why we want an ultra portable? The biggest rumor that I've seen of what's incoming at macworld in a week is that Apple will be releasing an ultra portable, touch based system that is whafer thin. From the Macenstein article:
For some reason I am just missing the allure of a wafer thin MacBook, and I would like someone out there to set me straight. What am I missing here?
Anyone remember Origami, the Microsoft UMPC? They had a great advertising campaign which seemed to peter out as soon as it was released. Has anyone heard anything about UMPC in the "real" media since then?
Anyway, the same goes, IMHO, for an apple device. Yes, the apple touchscreen from the iPhone and iPod Touch is fantastic and could be an improvement over the pen based interface, and the on-screen keyboard and predictive typing that those devices have could be useful on such a device. Isn't this a solution looking for a problem? Macenstein goes through what the current Apple offerings have, where the holes are and aren't, cost thoughts, etc.
I have to agree, it's a supremely cool idea, but I can't see it being hugely useful outside a couple of minor areas.
We'll see in a week I guess. I personally am prepared to be totally disappointed by this years MacWorld.
Macenstein and Gear live have details on the iPhone firmware 1.1.3. This of course will also break any jailbroken apps.... *sigh* :(
Mac Buyer's Guide: Know When to Buy Your Mac, iPod or iPhone, with info based on trends, how recently things were updated, etc.
Don't want to pay a boatload for an iMac or Powerbook? Lifehacker show how to Build a Hackintosh Mac for Under $800.
If you're a lucky one with an iPhone or iPod Touch and want to upgrade to the 1.1.2 firmware but don't want to lose your custom apps and setup, conceited software has released a windows/linux solution as TUAW. I've as yet untested by myself on my Touch, so read the comments and research before you put your baby at risk. Apparently the big draw to the 1.1.2 release is a speed boost, but that looks like about it (unless you use non-english characters a lot).
As they generally do, Ars Technica has produce a fantastic Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard review.
Very cool... no more needing a mac or PC to install custom apps on your iPhone or iPod Touch. Check out this Instant Jailbreak for iPhone and iPod touch which lets you do it all by visiting a webpage on your iPhone or Touch's Safari web browser.
It'll be very interesting to see what happens with the next firmware update...
Darren pointed me to an article proclaiming that a Molson beer contest confirms Apple iPhone coming to Canada in January. $800 though, that's a bit steep (assuming that's the the retail price). Are they going to be selling for $200 less in April though?
Still, good to know things are heading north. Big questions now are a) will the carrier be Rogers and b) will they come out with an unlimited data plan...
Stuff like this Mac OS X Leopard - Guided Tour show once again why Apple is the king of marketing. I watched the movie and even though I have never used any of the features they show, nor have ever wanted them, I so want a mac running Leopard right now. The goodness wasn't only in the demo, but also the slickness of the features. Timeline, ichat, stacks..... all soooo slick. Am I right or am I right about this?
Course, I want to be able to play more than 3 games, so sadly it'll doubtfully replace my windows gaming box. But a nice macbook pro? Hmm.....
TUAW also has some thoughts.
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes says he admits that Leopard has more “Wow!” than Vista … in theory anyway and goes on to enumerate some of the bits (a nice summary by the way). One thing really stuck out for me though.:
Google Map Addresses
View a detailed map of any address in Address Book. Just hold down the Control key while clicking any address and select “Map of” and Safari will show you its location in Google Maps.
[Note that this is one of those re-tweaked features - I believe that this is already in OS X Address Book but uses MapQuest instead of Google Maps. But yeah, it’s cool. Why can’t Outlook Express/Windows Mail have this?]
Isn't this basically the feature in MS Office where it would parse out addresses / phone numbers and make them yellow and clickable to add them to your address book or something? And wasn't this the feature that when it was announced (2002 or 2003 probably) had people up in arms about invasion of privacy, Microsoft stealing our data, etc etc? Sure it's slightly different, hooking into maps, but still... a bit of hypocrisy mayhap (not on Adrian's part as much as the net in general giving Apple/Google a big pass and coming down harder on MS for some things).
Darren passed me on the best news I've heard all day.... the Apple Hot News that a third party SDK for the iPhone and iPod Touch will be available in February. Should be sooner, and it'll be interesting to see how they make it open to developers, without putting way too many hoops to jump through for developers. Putting some of the iPhone apps on the Touch would be great as well :)
Also while you're at it, availability in Canada and unlimited data plans would be great!
Apple Answers Leopard Questions and gives some interesting insight to what's going to be out in less than 10 days.
Jailbreak Guide for the iPod Touch over at TouchDev.net. Looks like it's still a bit convoluted and sounds like you still need a Mac to do it though. Hopefully it'll just get easier (or heaven forbid), get blessed by apple to allow access into the device without jumping through hoops.
Darren passed on the rumor that Holt Renfrew Insider Says iPhone Coming to Canada in Two Weeks. Interesting to see, fingers crossed after I had a chance to check one out recently.
Apple's latest ("it'll brick hacked iPhones") update has garnered a re-review from Gizmodo.
It's understandable for Apple to wage a war on unlocking the iPhone, since the company shares revenue from fees with AT&T. But the truth is, if cellphone service was awesome, like it is on iTunes, there wouldn't be a need to unlock the iPhone.
The last image on the page, the chart, is the most telling I think. Hopefully Apple will change their way/tune soon to win back some of the love.
Well, according to Gizmodo, the new iPhone firmware (1.1.1) won't brick your iPhone. Good thing to know, not that I have an iPhone of course... Lots of other good info in the article though, best to read the full thing through.
Apple, please bring them to Canada. Pretty please? With sugar on top?
I totally agree with this Muppet's rant about iPhones (or rather, lack thereof) in Canada.
Just cause I really want one of these puppies, heres some iPod Touch unpacking tour and first look pics and commentary from AppleInsider.
[...] but the Touch lacks a fourth conductor on the headphone jack, so there's no way to use the iPhone's mic, a second strike for the potential of VoIP after its lack of Bluetooth.
Macrumors.com posted a link to the iPod Touch Manual which will be interesting to read through.
Suddenly the decision (for me as a Canadian) to get an iPhone or an iPod Touch just got a bit murkier. The iPhone has no ETA in Canada yet, so before the rationale was it's not here, the iPod Touch is (or will be sometime, my local apple store is giving me the "1-2 weeks for the new nano and classic, no ETA given for the Touch" run-around), so the only real choice for now is the 16G iPod Touch right? Now there is a iPhone Free Software Unlock that GIzmodo has tested, which means in theory I can go down to Seattle, get myself an iPhone, and use it up here unlocked.
Grrr......
My ex-boss made his first iPhone call, and talks a bit about how the The iPhone came to Canada. Still not sure I'd pay $600 for this especially with rumors of a new iPod (please, please let it be touch with full screen video and a hard drive or at least 64G of solid state storage) and that Apple could turn it off with one sync of new firmware pushed down. Still, cool to know someone who had used an iPhone :)
Welp, looks like it only took a month or so... Engaget says: iPhone unlocked: AT&T loses iPhone exclusivity. Glad it's finally happened..... now gotta get me some of that (assuming that this isn't nuked the next iPhone update).
How I broke into the iPhone UNIX files and lived to tell about it, via The Unofficial Apple Weblog. Full shell access via software, no serial or special hackery required.
Ars Technica has a great iPhone in depth review full of pictures, screenshots, tech info, etc.
Well, that didn't take long? iPhone full shell access is here! Course, you need to do a bit of soldering to get the serial cable connected. Still, shouldn't be long now.
Well, I spent what little time on Saturday I had free reading iPhone reviews, watching the 'first unboxing' videos, usage videos, screenshot galleries, etc. Darren found a nice initial (but in-depth) review of the wee beastie (I want one!).
The end result from pretty much everything I've read is that it's gorgeous and amazingly user friendly (JK has a nice writeup on the little details that make Apple the leader in UI. It's not the major things, it's the little bits....) and gorgeous to look at and use. They keyboard gets some getting used to, and EDGE for data transfer sucks slightly more than other options. Definitely sounds like the pros outweighs the cons by a long shot though.
Sorry for yet more iPhone news, but I'm going to be pretty busy the next couple of days, it'll be quiet around here :) Till then though, here's the Slashdot story, the Mossberg review after two weeks of use, and other reviews. Looks like basically the iPhone will be mostly a winner. Some details that people are pointing to seem perfectly legit (not being able to set itunes songs as ring tones for example) but knowing apple these sorts of deficiencies are either a) not really that big a deal, and people will quickly learn to live with out them or with the alternatives or b) quickly addressed with software updates.
There'll be lovers and haters though. How about a nice Windows Vs Linux flame war instead? :)
Engaget did some research and found out just How does the iPhone stack up in total cost? Hint: bloody expensive :) The base $500-$600 sure doesn't help that's for sure, but the yearly price is way above even double or triple that! Course, the other providers compared aren't that much better.
Daring Fireball has some thoughts Regarding the 80 GB iPhone Capacity in the Activation and Sync Video.
(a) The demo screencast was recorded using a super-secret pre-production iPhone 2.0 with 80 GB hard drive; or (b) the original 4 and 8 GB iPhones are still so secret that the screencast was recorded using an 80 GB iPod hacked to resemble an iPhone in iTunes.
See this post on the unofficial apple weblog about the mysterious 80G space.
The Unofficial Apple Weblog points out that Apple posted and iPhone welcome video. It's about 20 minutes and has a fairly complete tour of the iPhone functionality and features.
The graphics are nice, though I'm wondering if they are "real" at all or it's composited from the actor and CG.
Well, guess there's no point in me lining up for an iPhone on the 29th, as Darren pointed out that there's no iPhone coming to Canada anytime soon. Not even in talks with Rogers yet. Bastards!
Until things do happen this directory of Leapoard screenshots will have to do.
JohnK, my ex-boss has some good thoughts on The genius of the iPhone’s keyboard that I have to agree with. I have a blackberry for work and find it very fast to type with, but a pain to have a huge form factor just to get that, and I also hardly ever text anyone with a normal phone.
I'm not sure that the iPhone isn't for the theoretical 17 year old who texts hours every day... I have a feeling that your teenagers will learn to text by feel on the iPhone, tactile feedback or not, just as they learned to text 26+ characters on a 12 key phone handset, though.
Worth a read, thanks John!
So I finally managed to download Safari for windows (ironically it only worked for me in IE, not Firefox).
Pros:
Nice look.
Nifty appleness with the input field highlighting.
Nice working with RSS.
Sheets work and look nice for bookmarks, RSS, etc.
Built in bug reporting from the toolbar, including option to send in screenshot as well... nice and fast and will no doubt lower the barrier to entry for bug reports.
Plugins seem to work out of the gate.
Nice font smoothing, cleartype-ish, almost a little too cleartypeish for me though.
Gorgeous apple native widgets.
Dragging around tabs works nicely and is great visually (drag a tag off the window and it gives you a shaded thumbnail of the new browser window that'll appear.
In page find is great and spotlight like.
Cons:
My MS mouse back button doesn't work.
No adblock and other Firefox plugins I've grown used to.
No ctrl-backspace in text entry boxes and textareas.
No built in spellcheck in textareas (I'm very used to this in FF).
Other:
The way the address bar works I don't really like... in FF I can start typing in an address, then hit TAB to move to the autocomplete entries. In Safari TAB moves from the address bar to the search box, down arrow moves to the other autocomplete entries, which takes my hands off the home row. Maybe a familiarity thing, but kinda a con for me.
Sadly the lack of a working back button (might be just this particular computer... will test more when I get home tonight) and the lack of adblock are deal breakers for me :(
Probably the last Apple post for a bit, unless new stuff comes out, but here's the details of Steve Jobs live from WWDC 2007 from Engaget.
To summarize:
Another Apple story? Bah! Well, Wired says we will Kiss Boring Interfaces Goodbye With Apple's New Animated OS. According to them:
When Steve Jobs takes the stage Monday at Apple's programmers conference, he's likely to give the world a glimpse of an upgraded Mac operating system that could herald the biggest changes to the machine's interface in 30 years.
Basically this will integrate animation into the core of the OS. The example they show are a CD burning app that smokes while it burns CDs. If you blow into the microphone the smoke blows across the desktop.
I'm all for eyecandy, but that sounds a bit pointless no? That's just an example 3rd party app though, we'll have to wait until Monday to see what Steve will bring in this regard (if anything).
As WWDC on the 11th and the iPhone release on the 29th approach, more iPhone news, rumors and info are coming out. Gizmodo has An Insider's iPhone Hands-On & New Details. Most of the stuff there is either obvious or easily guessed (ie: already having aol/gmail/hotmail/etc set up already), assuming any of it is true, of course :)
Thanks Darren for the link to some footage of Quake 4 running in Parallels 3.0, showing that the hardware acceleration seems to work just fine. Wonder if it goes fullscreen?
Found the video footage of Steve Jobs talking about Mac, iPhone, etc from the posting the other day. Interesting read if you have 10 minutes to listen.
So it sounds like Parallels 3.0 will come close to doing what the new version of Mac OS/X is rumored to do as far as supporting running Windows apps natively (or at least, very close to it). It has snapshots (a la vmware), support for OpenGL and DirectX (wh00t! gaming!) and "SmartSelect", which lets you open any file from either windows or mac operating systems.
Interesting to see what this brings.
Interesting article on theories and rumors about what Leopard's most top, Top Secret is.
Let's imagine that Steve Jobs wasn't kidding when he said he didn't want to show Leopard's Top Secret stuff at last year's WWDC. He wasn't merely having fun at Microsoft's expense knowing full well how close Vista was coming to the look (but not feel) of OS X. He was quite serious at playing his cards not just close to his vest, but playing a bet-the-house, put-up or shut-up game of poker.
Read linked article for the full deal....
Cool stuff from Steve Jobs from Engaget about the iPhone, Apple in general, and stuff that we'll find out more about at WWDC in a few days.
Very cool little hack for OS/X, Sticky Windows allows you to (go figure) stick your windows to the sides of the screen for easy access. Not 100% sure why this is easier / better than using the dock, but hey, it's a neat idea for sure.
Since the new Apple TV is all the rage the last few days with people hacking them and all, Gizmodo has a Apples and Oranges Hands-On: Apple TV vs. TiVo Series3 HD. Obviously for people in the "Apple Lifestyle" one will work better than for people in the "Tivo Lifestyle". Same as xBox / Media Center extender will work for people who are Windows/xBox people. Anyway, it's an interesting comparison if for nothing less than comparing how the two companies have done their user interfaces (I do love the comparison of remotes and the obvious targetted audience for each :)
According to some Apple WWDC details including the agenda, which will focus a large amount of attention to Leopard. Can't wait to see what's there! Now I need to wait another 3 months (at least) before looking at macbooks :)
Macenstein has an interesting look at how it appears that Using Safari can slow your system down as much as 76% vs Firefox. Interesting analysis, wonder if there is a conspiracy theory, or this is something to do with the HTML / Javascript rendering system being deeply embedded in the operating system. It'd be interesting to see a similar study of IE vs Firefox on Windows, and sites with heaving javascript / flash vs static HTML.
What happens when you get 500 MacBook Pros delivered? You make a movie of course!
Another Gizmodo link has the news that iPhone Confirmed on Rogers Wireless, which luckily happens to be my provider. Of course, we'll see what happens when this sexy phone is actually out though :)
Tog, of AskTog has his views on The iPhone User Experience: A First Look. Looks at the phone, sms, ipod and other areas with a realistic look at the amount of innovation and usability that is either there or not there.
Looks like the Apple keynote is now done, and The Apple iPhone is real. A combination full screen video iPod, phone and internet communicator device (has wifi, web browsing, etc). Full screen touch screen, system runs OS/X and has all the sexyness that Apple brings to not only hardware and software. Everything it runs is like the desktop app as far as contacts, safari, ichat (for sms messages), etc. Visual voicemail, imap, push imap, google maps, etc.
Dana's comment is that he has a smartphone already and half the stuff that the iPhone does doesn't really matter (80/20 rule). I say we'll see. The first iPod that was introduced was poo-pooed as well as being useless and no one would ever use one. Personally I am confident in Apple's ability to create a market.
They also changed their name to Apple Inc, from Apple Computers Inc. Change of focus maybe? Something more ominous?
As usual, MacRumors have MacWorld San Francisco 2007 Keynote Live Coverage.
Looking forward to new toys!
Daring Fireball has some Macworld Expo 2007 Predictions. I agree with him for the most part, though the sub-compact notebook, not saying "tablet" or not, just doesn't make sense to me. Of course, I don't see a purpose for the Microsoft ultra-portable "origami" (or rather, "ori-where-did-that-go") or their tablets for the mass market beyond a couple of very specific applications either.
Maybe not "agree" with the predictions as much as "yea, I can see that" anyway. We'll see in an hour or so I guess!
Really good article by John Siracusa on the top secret features of the as-yet-unreleased OS 10.5. A really well thought out look at just what might be left that hasn't been leaked already, and why (and "if").
Here's a completely unsubstantiated, pulling stuff out of the air rumor for ya. CNBC says possible touch screen iPod in December. Fingers crossed it's ready for my vacation in January.
Interesting response from Steve Jobs regarding the ear. Basically says that Apple clients get the girl.
Personally I'm not all that interested in the Zune. Just like the other 30 "iPod Killers" on the market right now with similar and in some cases higher specs / more features, they just don't make me frunny in the pants if you know what I mean. I'm sure that MS will continue their grassroots / astroturfing campaign to show how so many people just love the Zune and might even gain some foothold in the market. However, since they are still being compared to the iPod still, and since music/media players are still referred to as "iPod Killers", we know who is on top. When we're looking at the top 32 Zune killers some Christmas, then things will have changed.
What I am looking for for myself (and I doubt such a thing exists):
Not to be outdone by sponsored research from Microsoft coming to the conclusion that Microsoft is better/faster/more productive and uses less calories, Apple has recommended that 30" monitors increase worker productivity compared to 17" or 19" monitors. Todd Weiss writes about it here.
You don't think that it's a coincidence that Apple has some 30" displays? No, couldn't be.
As an aside I checked out an Apple 30" display in the local Apple store last weekend. Gads the thing was massive, I felt like I'd have to sit on the other side of the room to not have to move my head looking at it. Still a bit pricey for my pocketbook (unless of course you use Scoble Finances, which involves just putting big expensive things on your credit card... :)
Hands on: A Mac fan takes on Vista... vista via bootcamp from a Mac. No surprise which one comes out on top of course, though the way that I read it it wasn't due to a glaring bias towards mac, the article seems relatively fair and balanced to me. Some of the critisism can also be boiled down to familiarity. If you're used to hitting a key combo to get your widgets up then not having that will seem like a bad thing. If you've never had key-combos, you won't miss it (as an example).
Course, if you're a Vista fan I'm sure you'll disagree with some of the assertations.... feel free to discuss here of course!
Update - OK, sites with updates: MacRumors, stuffmag.co.uk and MacNews.de. Short story is new iTunes, new ipods, video ipods, new imac with built in isight, and new apps. Looking foward to Apple.com being updated.
Update well, it was up....
Summary: iWork app suite, mac mini (think shuttle-X case form factor) and a 1oz flash based ipod. Here's the slashdot story.
Ok, just finished "watching" the Apple WWDC keynote on IRC with about 1100 other people, and the previously noted webpage at macrumors. The summary for features in OS 10.4 went something like this.
My thoughts are that there are some neat things (searching, RSS) but the rest is a bit of a yawn. However, Apple is known for putting out evolutionary updates, not revolutionary ones, and this will be the 5th new release in as many years of their OS since Windows XP was put out as well. If you're upgrading that often you really can't have every release being as huge a change as OS9 to OS/X was.
This is all shipping in Q1 of 2005, so until then this stuff is as "real" to me as the wonderful features in Longhorn that the evangelists have been yakking about for the last year. Until it's in my hand I won't believe it. Of course, I fully belive I'll have Tiger before I have longhorn.
Anyone else have any thoughts?
Scoble, or at least some of his commenters, are annoyed.
Update: The site is back up in a low bandwith version, updates every three minutes and has pointers to IRC channels with live updates.
It'll be neat to see what the folks at Apple have planned. They contrast sharply with the Microsoft folks these days, who are telling us again and again how wonderful Longhorn will be when it comes out .... uhmm.... eventually. History though has shown that this MacOS update will probably be an evolutionary jump like Panther was and not the revolutionary jump that the original Mac OS/X was. If the hype from Redmond is correct though, Microsofts Longhorn will be revolutionary (well, assuming it ever comes out :)
This may be right, but the thing is I doubt that iTunes could exist without the "blessing" of the RIAA. Like the godfather, if the big buys that basically control what music we hear every day don't like it, it doesn't happen, and they have the $ to try to sue anyone out of existance (they have lots of $ of course, from years of exploiting artists). So is no iTunes store better than one that lets the artist continue to be screwed?
Personally I say that no, iTunes is good. Artists still may not get the compensation that they deserve, but with the infrastructure in place subversion can start. Maybe apple can start introducing independant artists, giving them the FULL cut of the profits (minus the Apple take of course), or adjust artists vs record company cuts. What would happen if [random artist] decided to cut loose from their RIAA handlers and move to being independant, and have the support of iTunes? Suddenly they'd be getting a lot more per song then they do being in the shackles of servitude to the RIAA. Could it work?
Well, in my opinion it might or might not, but there'd be no way to try without a large and established infrastructure such as the iTunes store, which now that it's available to Windows users, will no doubt start increasing.
It's an interesting page anyway, I've seen it before, but never really read through it. Make your own call.
They are sexy, but mac-mike needs to a hold on himself! (Not in that way you perverts!) Wish I could justify buying a new mac.
All I want is spring loaded folders dammit! And I don't want to pay for Apple hardware to get them!
