Thursday, October 16, 2008

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) (20 сообщений)

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  • New MacBook unboxing photos

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    If, like myself, you can't tear yourself away from your G4 iBook long enough to upgrade to the latest and greatest consumer laptop from Cupertino, our friend Joe Russell saves you the fuss with his MacBook unboxing pics on Flickr. There are notable changes in the packaging:

    "Opening the box, first thing I noticed was that it's virtually identical to the iPhone 3G experience... the back of the lid is black softy foam, and when lifting the black tab it brings the machine up and forward."

    Joe describes the box as "small but dense." As we pointed out, Apple is trying to ship more by making less packaging (both economical and green). If you've been itching to see the MacBook unboxing experience, consider yourself gratified.

    Thanks Joe!

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  • TUAW guests on Your Mac Life... right now

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    If you're not watching the presidential debate tonight, and you feel like more Mac news is what you need, then pop over to Shawn King's Your Mac Life show -- live now, 8:30 pm ET -- and tune in for MacBook discussion and more. I'll be on the show for the segment starting at about 9:20 pm to discuss your responses to the loss of Firewire on the MBs and more.

    Your Mac Life is online at yourmaclifeshow.com and is streamed in QuickTime for your listening pleasure.

    Update: The show archive is here -- thanks Shawn, and sorry about the coughing.

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  • A big bag of Blu-Ray hurt for Apple

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    Just the other day I was wondering on this very site just where Blu-Ray has been on Macs, and yesterday's big Apple event gave us the answer: Blu-Ray, according to Steve Jobs, is just "a big bag of hurt." Apple says they haven't settled on an HD format yet because no one else has either: "the licensing of the tech is so complex, we're waiting until things settle down and Blu-Ray takes off in the marketplace," said Jobs. He might as well have added an "if it does" on the end of there -- Sony, spurned by the Betamax loss, wants to make sure they get credit when Blu-ray gets popular, and for that very reason it may never be.

    In fact, if Apple has their way, there may not be a physical media of choice for high-definition content -- Phil Schiller pointed out that iTunes has plenty of HD TV and movie options without ever tying Apple down to licensing a specific format.

    Which is exactly everything we said last week. And I'm drinking the kool-aid, actually -- a while back, I was one who would have said that people need their physical media, but nowadays, I'm not so sure. I haven't bought a DVD, HD or otherwise, in months and months, and yet I've purchased and seen plenty of HD content in iTunes and over my Xbox and cable connection. Blu-Ray may have won the HD disc format wars and claimed the country, but maybe there's nobody living there any more.
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  • Perilar brings Ultima-style RPG to the iPhone

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    Man, for all of the great games on the iPhone already (I've been really enjoying Lexitron lately), what we really need is a good old-fashioned, both complex and charming RPG. Arcade games are fun and all, and they just keep getting better, but what the iPhone really needs is a sink-your-teeth-in fantasy world, complete with dragons to slay, swords and magic to wield, and XP to earn.

    Perilar might just be that. It's based on the old Ultima-style turn-based RPGs, and the tiled graphics aren't much to look at these days, but it sounds like good (Net)hacking, slashing, and exploring fun. We're still not talking about the peak of the iPhone's potential as an RPG machine, but Perilar looks like a good first step.

    And the best part is that there's a Java version out right now, so you can try before you smack down the $4.99 price. I'm definitely planning on picking it up. Until we get a great original, and solidly addictive fantasy RPG on the iPhone, Perilar seems like it'll help scratch that itch.

    [via Touch Arcade]
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  • Farewell FireWire?

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    During the meta-liveblog yesterday, I was in full-out Apple fangirl mode. I won't lie; after the MacBook specs and design were revealed, I was already contemplating putting my current BlackBook (that I bought in August '07) on eBay or Craig's List, hoping that the RAM and hard drive upgrades and all the software I would include could net at least $900. Then I would buy a new MacBook.

    After the dust settled and the specs were released, a dark cloud quickly dashed my plans: FireWire 400 ports are no longer included in the redesigned MacBook. The old style MacBook (now selling for $999) still includes FireWire 400, but the new beauties are FireWire free. What a bummer! Back in January, we listed lack of FireWire as one of the biggest downsides of the MacBook Air. On our Talkcast earlier this week, we actually discussed the idea of FireWire being withdrawn from the MacBook line. I thought it was plausible on the then-rumored $800 MacBook (a rumor that never materialized, sadly), but I was really, really hoping it wouldn't be removed from the line as a whole.

    Whether the reason was based on user-feedback (which I'm sure Apple will claim), or done merely to force a schism between the "consumer" and "pro" lineups (as commenter Kai Cherry suggested), the net result is that a technology Apple has been pushing for nearly 10 years and that many of us have come to rely on, for external devices, target-disk mode and digital video needs, is no longer available in any laptop other than the MacBook Pro (or the older generation white MacBook).

    No company has pushed IEEE-1394 (the technical name for FireWire) more than Apple (though Sony is close). The iPod was a FireWire device until its fifth revision in 2004 (USB adapters were available for the third and fourth generation units). Target Disk Mode is arguably one of the most useful Mac diagnostic tools. As long as you have a FireWire hard drive, you can safely migrate, repair or perform component tests on Mac, without damaging the internal drive.

    Continue reading Farewell FireWire?

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  • Zut alors! MacBook announcement doesn't translate well

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    Thanks to what appears to be a character encoding problem on a French version of the Apple website, the MacBook announcement -- meant to say "perfectly designed" in French -- came out reading "perfectly dumb" (or as one of our tipsters said, a more vulgar version of "perfectly poopy").

    That wasn't the only problem: according to Macenstein, a Macgeneration article noted that the announcements were replete with spelling and grammatical errors. (Link is en français.)

    The pages have since been updated with better grammar.

    Unfortunately my decade-old high school French can't tell me what about the grammar is wrong, but hopefully our commenters can let us know by leaving a comment.

    Thanks, Bertie and Fabrizio!

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  • Byline 2.0 update a huge improvement: adds tag support, mini browser

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    Phantom Fish yesterday updated Byline to version 2.0, adding functionality to browse by tag, and a spiffy new wood-grain interface.

    I briefly reviewed Byline 1.0 in July, but wanted to re-visit the application after the update. Byline 2.0 is a Google Reader client and offline browser for the iPhone and iPod touch. After having used beta versions for the last few weeks, I can say with certainty that this update takes Byline head and shoulders above the first version.

    Byline 2.0 is faster than both version 1.0 and Google Reader's MobileSafari-optimized interface. Articles are now grouped in folders according to tags you've already set up in Google Reader. You can mark whole folders of items as read, and save items to your phone by starring them. The app doesn't show a splash screen at startup, but instead a "blank" version of the interface, which gives the illusion that the app is hanging for a short period of time. As soon as the list of folders appears, however, loading items was zippy on my iPod touch (connected via WiFi, of course).

    Continue reading Byline 2.0 update a huge improvement: adds tag support, mini browser

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  • Adobe releases Flash Player 10, ships CS4

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    It's been in beta for a while, but now Adobe's ubiquitous media plugin (warning: LOUD) has turned 10 officially for the Mac. The 5.5 MB download (available in separate versions for Intel and PPC) gains a host of new and improved features, including custom After Effects-style filters, advanced text support, 3D effects, better hardware acceleration and streaming support, vamped-up APIs, and file upload/download improvements.

    Flash 10 requires a 500 MHz G3 or better on the Mac, and runs on Tiger or Leopard: OS X 10.3 Panther users are out of luck. Download now from Adobe if you dare. Authoring content that takes full advantage of Flash Player 10 means using Flash CS4, which -- what a coincidence! -- is shipping as of today, along with the rest of the CS4 suite.

    Flash's ubiquity in the marketplace (99% of Internet users have some version of it installed, says Adobe) does give it a wide advantage over media alternatives like QuickTime and Silverlight, but one of the ongoing challenges for Flash is version upsell; getting people to move to the new build sometimes has to wait until a popular service requires it. For Mac users, the lure of upgrading includes a move away from the traditionally lackluster performance of Flash on the Intel hardware -- I know many MacBook users who can tell when a Flash ad is playing in a hidden Safari tab just by the sound of the cooling fans ramping up -- so with any luck, version 10 will address the challenges in that area while simultaneously adding all these cool new features.

    Thanks Richard

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  • Yes, Virginia, you do have to log out to switch graphics cards on the MBP

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    Having options is good; saving energy is good; improving battery life on your laptop is very good. Having to log out and back in to switch between the two video cards on the MacBook Pro? Um... not all that good. Kinda annoying, to tell you the truth.

    Engadget posted a video last night of the swap process (click one button in System Preferences, log out, log back in -- seems ripe for automation) and while it's not particularly onerous, it does seem very weird considering that there aren't any other Energy Saver changes that require a logout. Also worthy of note: the default setting on the new machines is for "Better Performance," using the integrated card.

    Why force a logout? Perhaps there are issues with having to redraw windows when flopping from card to card, or particular apps that go 'kaboom!' when told to move onto the other hardware? I can certainly imagine that 3D games or Core Animation-dependent apps might throw a minor freakout if the world shifted under them suddenly, but it still seems like a lot of people are going to settle on one graphics card based on their usage profile (desk-bound gamer vs. mobile maven) and stick with it.

    There's also the possibility that the real advantage of this dual-GPU config won't be realized until the OS catches up with the gear. Adding a 2nd GPU is a fairly radical proposition if all you're gaining is the option of better battery life (although, since the 9400M hardware is part of the system chipset, it comes along 'for free'), but when Mac OS X 10.6 comes along it should include the capability to offload general-purpose computing tasks to the GPU, which could provide exponential performance increases for certain apps. Having an extra GPU sitting around waiting to be harnessed starts to seem like a really good idea when considered in that context.

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  • Microsoft Office updated to 12.1.3

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    It got a bit lost in the hustle and bustle of yesterday's announcements, but there was an update released for Microsoft Office 2008; the 12.1.3 update, weighing in at 154 MB, provides the usual slew of security fixes and bug repairs that you know and love. Some crashing bugs have been squashed (including one that affected documents with embedded PDF images that I've seen once or twice), chart performance is improved across the entire suite, PowerPoint gets a fix to address file timestamp issues, and Excel comes in with multiple fixes for file saving and corruption problems.

    You can download the DMG of the update directly from Microsoft, or run an Auto Update pass in your Office application of choice. If you encounter update issues or problems after the patches are run, please advise (and, more importantly, let Microsoft know). The best way to get improvements in Mac Office, when there are definitely some management attitudes that need adjustment, is to make your needs clear.

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  • iPhone headphone mic works with new laptops (and previous MBPs?)

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    As our old friend Nik tipped us yesterday and Macworld's Jason Snell reported in his two-hour rundown of the MacBook Pro and MacBook updates, there's a stealth feature with these machines that is sure to please iPhone owners: the $29 US Apple Stereo Headset, included with the iPhone, works as a microphone on the MB/MBP unibody models.

    While this might not be a top-line selling point for the laptops, it's actually a very nice added feature for users of VoIP software (Skype, Gizmo) or iChat audio conferencing. Trimming your laptop bag by skipping the USB headset (or the Bluetooth headset, for that matter) will save wear and tear on your back; not having to buy another device to do sound input for your laptop will save wear and tear on your wallet.

    Update: One commenter notes that these headphones also work for sound input on the previous MacBook Pro ("MacBookPro4,1"); if anyone else can confirm, please chime in. Another asks if the clicker button works to control iTunes playback; per the Macworld article, it does indeed.

    Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

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  • Win one of 10 copies of Logbook

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    Cory took a look at Transmissions' Logbook app last week. Designed for your Logbook on Backpack:

    The application gives you a simple user interface with which you can update your status and add completed tasks. If you're having a hard time remembering to update your Journal, have Logbook remind you every x number of minutes, and only between certain hours. In addition, you can set a keyboard shortcut for showing/hiding the application in the menu bar.

    Now, courtesy Transmissions, you can win one of 10 licenses for Logbook. Just drop them a line at contest@transmissionapps.com to enter.

    UPDATE: fixed the email address, sorry folks!
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  • Engadget goes hands-on with new Apple products

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    Just in case you missed the Apple event today, they released some pretty neat upgrades to their notebook line, and a new 24" LED Cinema display. While we were not invited to the fun party, our sister blog, Engadget was -- and they took some awesome hands-on photos.

    So far, they have played around with all of the products except the MacBook Air. You can see the hands-on pictures by clicking the links below:

    You may have noticed from the pictures (i.e. the one above) that the new MacBooks/Pros only have glossy screens (and by glossy, we mean like a mirror). Apple tells me that the screens are in fact glass, and not a plastic overlay.

    We want to know how you feel about Apple's move to all-glossy screens. Be sure to express your thoughts in the comments, and take part in our poll.

    View Poll

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  • Apple releases MacBook, MacBook Pro Software Update 1.2

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    With the new MacBook and MacBook Pro computers shipping today and appearing in stores tomorrow, everyone is waiting to get their hands on one. We can't say when you'll get yours, but we can predict exactly what you'll be doing when you get home with it. That's because Apple just released a software update for the new MacBook and MacBook Pro. Seriously, they couldn't have updated them at the factory?

    The update is a whopping 45 MB, and is recommended for all users of the "precision aluminum unibody enclosure MacBook and MacBook Pro notebook computers introduced in October 2008." (Wow, long description there, Apple).

    They note that the update "improves compatibility with external displays and includes a variety of software fixes." If you somehow (magically, perhaps?) have your MacBook/Pro already, you can download the update by opening Software Update (Apple menu > Software Update) or by downloading the installer package from Apple's software downloads website.

    Thanks for the tip, Thomas!

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  • Apple products announced today: It's easier being green

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    Apple made a concerted effort today to highlight the reduced impact its new products have on the environment.

    This effort all started with Steve Jobs' open letter in 2007, A Greener Apple, announcing a long-term plan to "protect the environment and make our business more sustainable." The letter was released partly in response to a Greenpeace campaign, encouraging Apple to reduce the amount of toxic chemicals in its products and improve its recycling programs.

    Today, the star of the show was Apple's new "unibody," a single, complex chassis for new MacBook and MacBook Pro units fabricated from a single brick of aluminum. In a video posted on its website, Apple noted that as a result of the new fabrication process, fewer parts in the laptop means a reduction in weight, size, and the amount of other material necessary to hold the device together.

    Continue reading Apple products announced today: It's easier being green

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  • Apple posts "Notebook" keynote event video

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    If you've been reading TUAW today, you already know all of the exciting news from today's event. However, some people would rather hear it straight from Steve's mouth instead of reading the "spoilers," so here's your chance. Apple just posted the keynote video for the Apple Special Event.

    You can watch the keynote here, or wait for Apple to update the Keynotes podcast [iTunes Link] soon with the new video. It's 53 minutes long, so be sure to lock the door and put up the "Do Not Disturb" sign for the full hour.

    Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

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  • Apple Store is back online, with changes

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    With the day's Apple news slowing down, the Apple store finally came back online after what seemed to be an eternity. We've been looking around and here are the changes that we found:


    That is all the newness that we spotted, be sure to leave a comment below (or send us a tip) if you spot something else.

    Update 3:12pm ET: Store's down again!

    3:30pm: And now it's back.

    Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

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  • New MacBooks add metal cases, power to burn but no FireWire

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    You heard the rumors, now get the details. Apple has just released a major update to the MacBook line, leaving the original white plastic model in the mix but lowering the price to $999; the two new models are priced at $1299 and $1599. You can see a video overview of the new beasties at Apple's site.

    The new models feature the same unibody aluminum construction process as the MacBook Pro; video chores are handled by the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M display subsystem with 256 MB of shared video RAM, a dramatic performance boost from the older Intel integrated graphics -- Apple claims 2.5x-6x better 3D performance on gaming tests.

    Both new models support up to 2560x1600 pixels on an external display (via the new Mini DisplayPort connector) and sport a native 1280x800 13.3" glossy LED screen. The design of these laptops is so radical, Apple has two full pages of sweet geeky detail posted on apple.com.

    Both models include the new all-glass trackpad, built-in iSight, 8x Superdrive and 2 GB of RAM. They are under one inch high (2.41 cm), 12.78 inches (32.5 cm) wide, and they both weigh 4.5 lbs (2.04 kg). Neither MacBook model includes a FireWire port (unlike the big boys, which have a single FireWire 800 port) -- this is a definite drawback for anyone thinking of one as a mobile video workstation. Note that, contrary to some of the comments below, I see no evidence that the USB ports on the new MacBook will support target disk mode.

    Lower-end model:

    • Price: $1299
    • Main Specs: 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo, 3MB L2 cache, 2GB of RAM expandable to 4 GB, 160GB HD
    • Display & Other: 13.3" screen, 8x Superdrive, 2 USB
    • BTO: Add RAM (up to 4 GB), up to 320 GB HD or 128 GB SSD

    High-end model:

    • Price: $1599
    • Main Specs: 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, 3MB L2 cache, 2GB of RAM expandable to 4 GB, 250GB HD
    • Display & Other: 13.3" screen, 8x Superdrive, 2 USB
    • BTO: Add RAM (up to 4 GB), up to 320 GB HD or 128 GB SSD

    More details on features, graphics, tech specs and environmental compliance are up at Apple's site.

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  • New MacBook Air adds speed, storage


    Sweet! Even the MacBook Air got a boost, 9 months after the first release in January. As with the rest of the MacBook line, the new Air features the Nvidia GeForce 9400M GPU and the Mini Display Port. The MacBook Air now supports DVI, dual-link DVI, and VGA video output. It will connect to the new Apple LED Cinema Display and can drive other displays up to 30 inches in size. Unlike many of the other MacBooks, it doesn't have the new glass trackpad.

    The big deal from today's announcement? The top level MacBook Air now has a slightly faster CPU, faster memory, and a 128 GB solid state drive. The details are below, more to follow as we get a chance to play with one.

    Entry level MacBook Air

    Price: $1,799

    Specs:13.3" LED-backlit display, Nvidia GeForce 9400M GPU, 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo / 6 MB L2 Cache, 2 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 Memory, 120 GB SATA hard drive.

    Form Factor: Same as existing model

    Top level MacBook Air

    Price: $2,499

    Specs:13.3" LED-backlit display, Nvidia GeForce 9400M GPU, 1.86 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo / 6 MB L2 Cache, 2 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 Memory, 128 GB solid state drive.

    Form Factor: Same as existing model
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  • New Cinema Displays finally arrive with iSight cameras, MagSafe connectors

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    In a move that surprised everybody and nobody simultaneously, Apple has released a brand-new 24-inch LED Cinema Display to spruce up the languishing product line.

    In addition to a new form factor that brings their look in line with newer iMacs (and now the new MacBook and MacBook Pro models announced today), the displays have an iSight camera, speakers, and a MagSafe power connector to charge your laptop. They have a native resolution of 1920 by 1200 pixels.

    Also, the displays are more environmentally friendly, moving away from the mercury-vapor backlights to newer LED backlights now available throughout Apple's line of laptops. The surface of the display is glass, with a glossy finish.

    The display includes three USB ports, but no FireWire ports featured on older Cinema Displays.

    The new 24-inch display will be available in November for $899.

    Update: "Old" Cinema Displays still appear to be on Apple's website, so it looks like other screen sizes in the older form factor will continue to be available. For how long, we don't know.

    [Via Engadget.]

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