Category: Apple

The Wait Is Almost Over?

It’s almost a year since the iPhone launched in the states and around 7 months since the UK launch. It was a great device and I’ve lusted after one since launch. However I was on an existing contract, without jailbreaking you couldn’t add software and dropping back from 3G just didn’t appeal. The wait is almost over though. The biggest shock at next weeks WWDC would be no announcement of a 3G iPhone.

3G and GPS seem a stick on if you pull together all the rumours. What else would I like? 32GB, better battery life and a well stocked App’s store. MMS and video chat would also be nice to have and it will be interesting if all the .me rumours are true and that .Mac is really changing.

To be honest a 3G iPhone and no other extra’s would suit me just fine. Only slight worry – would O2 increase their tariff’s for 3G. Surely not? 3 days from now we’ll have all the answers as well as a release date. I’d love to be able to get one in the next couple of weeks. Roll on Monday.

Second Coming

So O2, Carphone Warehouse and now Apple in the UK have ran out of 8 & 16GB iPhones. Same is happening in America. It can only mean one thing (hopefully) – iPhone ver 2 with 3G will be here sooner than a soon thing. Or within the next couple of months.

Apple Store - U.K. - iPhone

As I was in contract and money was tight I didn’t get the iPhone back in November. But I will be picking up ver 2 assuming it is a 3G version, which it surely must be?! What else would be nice? A decent battery life although reports seem to be mixed on just how much juice the current version eats up. I’d also like a camera > 2MP and video would be smart too for those occasions without my camera. Those features along with the software that will start to flow from 3rd parties in June would make me very happy. Not really fussed with GPS. Oh, I would want MMS. Don’t send/receive many but I’ve had the feature for years so wouldn’t want to be without it now. Flash support too.

The one thing that niggles. If Apple are announcing the phone at the Jobs keynote in June would they really have let their current stock levels drop to zero? That would mean at least 30 days with no phones to sell? Maybe it’s stock mis-managment, maybe it’s clearing the decks and the current phone’s have sold more than expected, maybe it’s building up the hype or maybe it’s nothing? Time will tell.

iPhone SDK

I was so impressed watching the iPhone SDK launch last night. As usual with Apple there were some slick demo’s, some headline grabbing quote’s and some ambiguity but watching the 2 week old demo of Super Monkey Ball was a real clincher. This is a great mobile computing platform, not just a mobile phone platform. The full SDK launch is online but I’ve copied just the Sega demo below.

[qt:http://www.iand.net/media/iPhoneSega.mov 474 266]

Firstly the enterprise additions to the iPhone are vast and will surely meet almost any enterprise requirements. The addition of push e-mail, calendars and contacts looks great – very fast. I also liked the remote wipe which again adds to the security.

However of most interest was the SDK. Harnessing the best of OS X and utilising XCode the SDK is now available for anyone to download and try, as long as you have a Mac. More developers moving to Macs per chance? You can develop an app and use a virtual iPhone on the Mac to test it or hook up an iphone and download you app to the Mac.

Software distribution of your app is via Apple only using a new app called App Store. It will sit on the iPhone and allow you to download free and paid for iPhone (and iPod Touch) software wirelessly. It will also let you know when updates are available for your software. I guess the worst thing about this is how easy Apple have maid it – one click purchases etc. If your app is a pay for app, Apple will take 30% of the money for hosting, distributing etc. Sounds steep but there’s not been too much backlash about it. To publish an app you need to pay $99 to register as a developer. That charge is for the developer, not per software so not really that steep.

More confusing is what will be allowed. No VOIP over Edge was one of the answered questions, no porn or malware, no chipping app’s but no clarification on how protective Apple will be on something like iTunes. From Daring Fireball, Amazon MP3 store on iPhones? It also looks like there are restrictions that make the SDK only of real use in the USA. There are some blog’s stating than non US residents can’t download their app’s to the iPhone.

For me it really sparked something. I just wanted to download the SDK and start hacking. It will be difficult finding the time but I’ve already got a couple of small app’s in mind that I would like to put together, just to learn how it all works. The SDK, coming in at over 2GB was downloaded this afternoon. It’s playtime. Just a shame all this along with iPhone software v2.0 and the non beta SDK isn’t released until June.

One more thing…I’ve still not bought an iPhone. I’m closer than ever to spending cash on one except I’m convinced 3G isn’t far away. Decisions decisions. It’s really the wrong time for my yearly bonus to appear!

More Quickies

  • I prattled on the other day about backups and how SuperDuper is now out for Leopard. Since then Shaun Blanc has published a superb post on Bulletproof Backups. It’s a great read like most in his Mac Software Reviews (Coda is a great example).
  • Open source is good. Usually. This list of 50 Proprietary Programs and their Open source Alternatives has already delivered a couple of nice programs that I hadn’t heard of before. For Windows, Mac and Linux users.
  • Everyday Shooter is finally out this week for European PS3 owners. It’s only about 4 months after the USA release and while I appreciate it can take time to add languages the delay has been pretty sucky. Looking forward to it all the same. PS3 has got a great crop of arcade style titles now – just need to sort out their full price catalogue.
  • This week is my last week working for engineering at my current firm. From next Monday I’ll be working in IT, mixing analysis with a bit of hacking. For my sins I now have a laptop at work and boy do I miss my Macbook when I’m using it. I don’t think the hardware’s really to blame. It’s Windows. Well, maybe it’s both. Wireless on the PC is really flaky so much so it’s blue screened a few times, something I hadn’t seen in a long time. Sleeping/waking is also an issue for the PC compared to Mac. Even though the PC is newer and has a better spec than the Macbook it’s really slow in day to day use, probably down to the security software on the PC and stuff like Becrypt. It will be interesting to see how it pans out over the next few months but in 4 days it’s reinforced my Mac loving opinions. Still, looking forward to new job. In fact, I can’t wait!
  • New Leopard update out tonight. Lot’s of fixes (> 300 Mb download) and just when you think thats the last update there’s some new graphic drivers to grab as well. Nice to see them addressing stacks list view and transparent menu bar (some of the biggest grumbles on Leopards release) in that they are now user options. Should have been there for Leopards release but shows how tight it’s original release date probably was. Impressive how quick the update is to download when you think about how many Mac users are downloading it right now.
  • Any good backup software for Windows? Need something to back up work laptop.
  • New Sony Ericsson Xperia looks like a great phone. Loving that screen resolution.
  • FancyZoom – nice effect for images that’s easy to add.
  • Frustrated with the amount of sites blocked at work. A well as the pron, torrents, e-mail, IM and normal stuff you’d expect it now extends to social networking sites (Facebook etc) and also Twitter, every hosted WordPress blog, anything to do with games and the playing/buying/reviewing off and some real oddball sites including some on Oracle. Bizarre, frustrating but I guess I’m at work and should be…working?

Mac Quickies

Finally I can ditch Time Machine. SuperDuper 2.5 was released today and is at last compatible with Leopard. This is a superb backup tool and while Time Machine filled the gap it doesn’t really cut it for me as a proper backup tool. Especially when you look at how it backs up sparse files like Yojimbo and iDisk. What a waste of space! While it’s easy enough to disable certain folders in Time Machine I prefer to know I have a bootable backup disk that has everything I need to get back in action should my disk fail.

iPhone and iPod Touch upgrades. iPhone now comes in 8 & 16GB while the Touch comes in at 16 & 32GB. iPhone 16GB retails at £329 which doesn’t seem to bad. Certainly the extra room is needed as 8GB felt too small. Now that my current T-Mobile contract has ended I’m more tempted than ever to buy an iPhone, especially with developer app’s coming in the next month or so. Other expenses, lack of 3G plus some other missing features and a nagging ‘don’t do it’ means I’ll probably wait until later in the year. Probably. Nice to see the new iPhone’s available in the Uk from today as well – no six month delay this time!

XBMC. A lovely media player for the original (hacked) Xbox. Well today the 0.1 release for OSX XBMC has been made available. It’s an early release, quite buggy but it’s a start and shows what has been achieved in eight weeks of development time.

Final thought – Apple – please buy Flickr. Would make a great companion to iPhoto, especially compared to .Mac galleries. It’ll never happen but if you don’t ask…you might end up with Microsoft owning Flickr. Thinking about it, it might mean no difference to Flickr apart from some decent maps instead of the sucky Yahoo ones if MS bought Yahoo, but it just doesn’t feel right. I can’t believe MS won’t affect the Flickr service detrimentally if the buyout takes place. Maybe not immediately but over time the service and community would probably start to deteriorate. Let’s hope not.

Fixing Mac Batteries

My Macbook Pro is still going strong in it’s second year. Something I have noticed though is that while the battery life is still very good and hasn’t really deteriorated, the reporting of battery capacity has become a bit erratic. On start-up it will say there’s an hour left but after half an hour it will then say there is 2.5 hours remaining. There’s also been a couple of times when there’s been at least an hour left for it to conk out within five minutes. This wasn’t down to capacity but misreporting what charge was remaining. Help is at hand though.

I found a document on Apple’s site that explained how to calibrate your Mac’s battery. It turns out that each battery has a microprocessor that works out how much juice is remaining. However this needs calibrating from time to time to keep your on-screen battery indicator accurate. I ran through the steps a few days ago and I now have a happy battery icon again. Joy. Might be worth running through the steps if your having similar hiccups on your Mac.

Macworld Thoughts

Leopard sales look to be very impressive but it’s a shame that the new update wasn’t announced or released. Hope that will be out soon.

The iPhone firmware update looks great and wets the appetite for the up coming SDK in Feb and the slew of app’s that will no doubt be released afterwards. While the update to Google Maps looks good the web clipping looked to be the best new feature. Favourite web clips from a custom home page – nice. Not so nice is charging existing iPod Touch users $20 to get 5 app’s that came with the iPhone but not the iPod Touch. New users will get these app’s built in with the Touch from now on but charging for this is just mean.

iTunes movie rentals look to be everything I would want except that it’s not in the UK (yet) and a 24 hour window for watching a movie once started is pretty tight. At least 48 hours would make more sense but I’ve no problem with the 30 day window to start watching a film. It’s great that HD films will be available for rental. Not so great is that they are only available on Apple TV (not syncable to other Macs) and that not all will have Dolby Digital 5.1. It also looks like the price drop for Apple TV is USA only which is poor. $229 for the base model in the USA, £199 for the same box in the UK. At today’s rates the UK price in dollars is $389.76. Robbery.

Finally, the Macbook Air. This looks to be an amazing piece of engineering. Incredibly thin it looks to curve at the edges probably giving the same effect as the latest iPod Nano’s which feel great in the hand. Might worry some but I think losing the optical drive is a good thing. Software delivery, backup’s, file management etc is moving increasingly to wireless and t’internet only. The device won’t suit everyone but the Remote Disk feature allowing you to use a PC or Mac drive in a local PC as a drive on the Air is a great work around and fall back should you need to restore your Mac. Couple of caveats. Can’t replace the battery (similar to iPod) and it is a tad pricey but this is really cutting edge. The SSD upgrade s also ridiculously expensive but again this is new tech and the price over the years will fall. Can’t wait to get my hands on one…but I won’t be buying. Happy with my current Macbook Pro. Just want to see just how light it feels.

I am tempted with an Apple TV though. With all cd’s ripped and so much media on the iMac and external drives, streaming to the TV via Apple TV is making more sense. I’ll hang off for the moment but the new Apple TV software looks pretty sweet and could be tempting once I get the new amp in place. Especially as Connect 360 works well but the 360 is noisy…and the PS3 is quiet but MediaLink is a bit…funky at the moment.

One more thing…who drugged Randy Newman?

Macworld Predictions

So what will we see this week?

  • Apple TV 2. Bigger hard disk and support for HD. iPhone as remote?
  • iTunes movie rentals…and movies now available in HD.
  • iPhone – new firmware, new features, talk on the SDK but no 3G.
  • Leopard update with some new (small) features and fixes.
  • One more thing…small form factor Mac. Touch screen only. The new features in Leopard are geared for touch although it’s maybe too early to announce this yet.

If it lives up to last years keynote which unveiled the iPhone then it will be something pretty special. But Apple can’t keep the fanboy’s and shareholders happy forever, can they? We’ll find out at 17:00 Uk time on Tuesday. Also looking forward to some new software releases this week. A lot of dev’s keep releases back until Macworld so hopefully there will be some new goodies to play with soon.

Stacks Tweak

The ever changing stacks icon is a bit of a distraction on the Leopard dock. However thanks to a really smart idea and some well designed icons stacks can now have boxes to hold the contents. XD has the info on what to do using these well designed icons.

Stacks

Much better. Also notice the Firefox icon next to the minimized widow – a nice touch that helps identify which app is minimized. I’m sure this wasn’t in tiger. The stack when opened will show your chosen stack icon first but this actually looks pretty good, almost as if the container is shown and then the objects within.

Stacks Open

Recommended Mac Apps – Updated

I posted a list of my favourite Mac app’s almost a year ago. With advent of leopard and some badgering from other’s, here’s an updated list of what I would install on my mac.

delicious.jpgDelicious Library
http://www.delicious-monster.com/
$40

I’ll admit this is a very non-essential app but was the first I bought for the Mac. Delicious Library allows you to catalogue, store, rate and search your music, films, games and books. There are many other media cataloguers out there but none look so good as Delicious Library or carry out the task with such elegance. Using the iSight I can scan in media barcodes for easy compiling of the library. The virtual shelf allows for browsing of titles, the app comes with spotlight support, a widget for easy title searching and option to export the library to iPod. There isn’t much in the way of web exports though (although the DeliciousSQLExport utility allows for exporting of the library to MySQL) and you can’t add your own media types. Coming soon is Delicious Library 2 which promises a fancier user interface, publishing and sharing capabilities and support for a lot more media types. Can’t wait.

YojimboYojimbo
http://www.barebones.com/products/yojimbo/
$39.00

This was the first app I installed after Leopard. It’s an app that groups together miscellaneous items into one place. You can store text, rich text, PDF’s, serials, passwords and web page snapshots. It’s support tagging and also folders/projects and I’ve found it invaluable over the last few months as I took on a number of projects in my own time that needed a fair bit of management. It also support Spotlight searching and importantly for me, .Mac syncing. This means the Yojimbo library is the same on the desktop and laptop. As it uses the same storage method as Aperture there are some compatibility issues with Time Machine but I’m sure these will be addressed over the next month or so.

Continue reading “Recommended Mac Apps – Updated”