Fresh Apple: The Apple Blog (8 сообщений)

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The Apple Blog
The Apple Blog, published by and for the day-to-day Apple user, is a prominent source for news, reviews, walkthroughs, and real life application of all Apple products.
http://theappleblog.com
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Last.fm 2.0 iPhone App Sneak Peek
Back in July, Last.fm released the 1.0 version of their free iPhone app which basically lets you have access to the millions of songs streamable from their website by accessing various stations.

The 1.0 app has a rating of 3 out of 5 stars with most complaints being that it crashed frequently. Other low ratings were mainly complaints of the lack of scrobbling…though that’s really an issue with the limitations Apple put on the SDK.

Last.fm was kind enough to give us a sneak peek of the new Last.fm 2.0 version of their iPhone app.

The new version includes an updated/polished UI, better tagging support, a new calendar view for events, and a cool feature that lets you see common artists when viewing other user’s profiles. Overall the updated UI really makes the experience smoother and more enjoyable.

Last.fm has submitted the app to Apple and is awaiting approval for it to be added to the store. In the meantime, check out these exclusive screenshots.
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Organizing Apps on the iPhone
Ask my wife about how neat I am, and she’s very likely to laugh at you for referencing me and the word ‘neat’ in the same sentence. But when it comes to my digitized life, “neatnik” couldn’t be a better descriptor for me. Ever since the iPhone went 2.0, and third party applications have become available to those of us too scared to unlock our phones, I’ve had screens upon screens of icons.

I’ve found the need to now keep them organized - and it’s driving me crazy! Every couple of weeks I attempt to reorganize my many iPhone apps, and along the way I’ve hatched a few ideas that I think would greatly improve the organization of the platform (at least for those of us who are somewhat compulsive about such things).

First, here’s an idea of what I’ve got stacked against me - 47 apps and 5 screens of icons. (I’m sure my numbers aren’t outstanding by any means - How many apps are you wrestling with?) I try to keep them grouped with like functionality (games, locations, news, utilities, etc), but each time I add or remove something it generally throws my iPhone feng shui off completely! And don’t even get me started on every time I would update one of my apps. (However, Apple saved me a little bit of sanity with last Friday’s 2.1 update - which in case you hadn’t found yet, seems to install the update to an application in place of its deprecated self. Woohoo!)
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Line Rider Released for iPhone

Yesterday, Line Rider finally dropped into the App Store for the iPhone. Selling for $2.99, this is one game that gives hours upon hours of fun - the only limit being your creativity. Since the announcement on the web a couple weeks back, I’ve been watching for this title in the App Store every single day. This is indeed a treat, my friends!

If you haven’t played Line Rider online, (then perhaps you’ve been hiding out in a bomb shelter for the past 2 years?) you’ve definitely been missing out. In this addictive physics-based game, you get to draw the lines that make up the sledding hill that “Bosh” will go screaming down. If your inclines are too steep, or the angles of change too abrupt, Bosh will crash and burn. But with some experimentation and practice, the tracks you create will make Bosh do some crazy and fun things on that little toboggan-style sled of his.

The controls are exact, and offer just the kind of precision you’d expect. The minimal sounds aren’t overbearing, and in my opinion can be left on even if you’re passing time by playing in the waiting room of a Doctor’s office (ok, maybe turn it down slightly). There are different tools which allow you to fine-tune your tracks, you can erase your lines in part or in whole, save your tracks for another time, and even share them with other players.

With only a little amount of time under my belt so far with the iPhone version, I can safely say that it is just as good as the web-based (flash) version, but now on the iPhone.

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Daily Apple: iPhone MMS, New Harddrives, Front Row Update
Seagate FreeAgent Go Drives Debuted - Seagate announced it’s next generation of absurdly thin notebook-sized drives. The drives start at around $160 for a 250GB.

Picture messaging for the iPhone - Send free, unlimited picture messages and geo-tagged location to any mobile phone in the world. Have the convenience of sending multi-media messages (MMS) to virtually any mobile phone number in your iPhone contact book.

Front Row 2.1.6 Update - Provides improved iTunes 8 compatibility for the nine people that use Front Row. Available via Software Update or Apple’s website.

Things That Podcaster's Rejection From the App Store Is Not About - Great bit by Gruber in response to claims that the Podcaster app’s rejection should have been expected. I’m with Gruber on this one.

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Gears for Safari Now Available

Gears, Google’s “browser improver” (for lack of a better term), has come out of beta and is now officially available for Safari.

Gears is a browser plugin that extends its functionality by allowing it do things like store data locally in a searchable database as well as run JavaScript in the background to improve performance. A common example of its use is to allow web applications to be accessed offline.

Gears requires an applications developer to implement the functionality in to their site, so there aren’t a huge number of sites that make use of Gears.

A few that currently do:
If you’re a developer, you can checkout the Gears API and get started on implementing it in to your site.

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OS X 10.5.5 Released

Today, Apple released its 5th update to OS X 10.5 (Leopard).

The update is currently available via Software Update and should be available on the Apple website within a few hours.

The last update (10.5.4) was released on June 30. Apple has, on average, released an update to 10.5 every 65 days.

This update includes quite a few bug fixes and updates to Address Book, Disk Utility, iCal, Mail, MobileMe, and Time Machine. Almost all of the updates to these apps include some sort of “reliability” or “performance” fix.

If you dare to be a pioneer and install this guy right away, let us know in the comments if you run in to any issues or if you notice any particular issues that are fixed for you.

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Remove Store Arrows in iTunes 8
I updated iTunes to version 8 following the “Let’s Rock” event the other day - Genius looked snazzy, and I wanted it! - and was merrily looking through my recommendations when I noticed something a little strange. The arrow links to the iTunes store were appearing again. One of the first things I do upon installing iTunes is tell it to hide those. I went to check the preferences, and even the option to hide them was gone.

Fortunately for me, and anyone else annoyed by this, a little poking about in the plist files uncovered a way to hide them.
1. Quit iTunes
2. Open Terminal.app and input this: defaults write com.apple.iTunes show-store-arrow-links -bool FALSE
3. Restart iTunes
All of the arrows to the iTunes store should be gone!

To re-enable the arrows just open Terminal.app and input this: defaults write com.apple.iTunes show-store-arrow-links -bool TRUE

A quick tip to start your Monday off musically and arrow-free.

[Hat tip: MacOSXHints.com]

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Giga Omni Media Acquires The Apple Blog

In November of 2004, a few months after I got my first Mac (a PowerMac G5), I registered theappleblog.com not really having any big plans of what I’d do with the site. I was a senior design student in college and just wanted a new site to design and something to write about.

My first post was, shall we say, anti-climactic…but I had to start somewhere. Within the first week of the site being up, I somehow convinced three different people to write some 20+ posts, and within a month, with the addition of another couple writers, had close to 80 posts.

But I seriously doubt that TAB would have lasted for more than a few months had it not been for the massive amounts of effort put in by Dan Lurie, Chris Holland and Nick Santilli. Those three guys, plus the combined efforts of some 65+ contributors over the past four years, have made TAB what it is today. I was so lucky to find so many people who wanted to help out, and I’m truly grateful for every single person who has contributed over the years.

So, with all of the “I love you man” out of the way, I’ve got some really great news. As of Friday, Sept. 12, The Apple Blog is now a part of the Giga Omni Media family! Giga Omni Media is home to publications such as GigaOM and WebWorkerDaily, as well as the Mobilize Conference and the GigaOm Show.

So what the heehaw does that mean for all of you?

What it does not mean is that we’ll be making massive changes that will make us lame. Lame isn’t on the list of things we’d like to do with the blog…so have no fear. What it does mean is that we’ll be able to provide you with more iPhone/iPod coverage, more news analysis, more product reviews, more Mac tips and tricks, and more quality coverage in general of anything and everything related to Apple.

I’m honored for The Apple Blog to be a part of such a solid group of publications, and really look forward to where The Apple Blog will go in the coming months and years. I’ll be staying on board with the transition as will a number of our great contributors.

Finally, thanks so much for being a reader of The Apple Blog. It really means a lot to have so many people enjoying and getting a thing or two out of our articles. My hope is that we can continue to provide you with the content you want to read with the quality you deserve.

And, as a side note, if you’ll be in San Francisco for the Mobilize Conference (or just there in general this Wednesday through Friday), let me know. We could have a little TAB meetup.

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