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TheAppleBlog
TheAppleBlog, 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.
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Backblaze for Mac Now Live

Last December we pointed you to cloud-based backup solution, Backblaze. At the time it was only in beta release for Mac, but today that changes. Head on over and try Backblaze out for yourself, as it’s now open to the public.

There are several options in this space, but Backblaze approaches the backup issue from an exclusionary perspective. If you’re scratching your head at that explanation, try this. Rather than having to select all the files and folders that you believe you want to keep safe via backup, Backblaze assumes you want it all by default. It’s then up to you to filter out specific files and folders, and clip out media types and file sizes that you want Backblaze to ignore.

For only $5 per month, you get unlimited backup for a single computer (and connected drives). If you’re unsure — that’s a sweet deal. Restoring from their webpage is easy, and you can browse your backed-up file tree if you just need a specific file. You may opt to download zip files of your data, or pay for DVD media or USB hard drives with your restore data.

As with any backup solution, I feel that real-world examples help to illustrate the importance of this practice. Our data is important to us, and I don’t have to tell you that the majority resides on our computers. Personally, I don’t want to lose my family pictures, paid-for music downloads, and financial docs, so I backup religiously. Good thing, too, because just two weeks ago my 6-month-old unibody MacBook’s factory hard drive died a miserable death. Luckily, my backup was only three days old. Except for some local bookmarks and Macheist apps, nothing was lost.

So try Backblaze out for yourself. If it’s not for you, keep trying other options as well. Because I guarantee that sooner or later you too will be bitten by the dead hard drive. When that time comes, you’ll either be thanking me, or see me vividly in your dreams saying, “I told you so.” Maybe the latter is a bit much, but don’t wait and see for yourself!

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Microsoft Longs For the Golden Age of FUD
So I've been unwinding in Vegas the last week (yeah, I know, "unwinding" and "Vegas" do not belong in the same sentence). Now I'm back catching up on my news feeds only to see that Microsoft has attempted a return to the good ol' days.

The Way They Were

Back in those good ol' days, Microsoft pretty much ruled the tech press and resulting message. They pre-announced products to kill or freeze competition, and sold Bill Gates' vision as the path to the future. We know now, of course, that the path Mr. Gates saw was one no one ever traveled. Truth is, Microsoft's last real innovation was when they bundled a suite of apps all designed to work together and called it Office.

The fact is that Microsoft has been a bit toothless of late. Certainly throughout this century. I don't know if it's because Apple was on its last legs or what, but Microsoft had managed to pretty much eliminate or frighten everyone, and seemed to be just sitting back. I mean, five years to come out with a new OS? And when Vista finally hit the streets we all saw what a dud it was. That's more than just incompetence, it's complacency.

Where Did These Guys Come From?

Meanwhile, Apple crept up on them rather silently, all the while being derided by Microsoft and their faithful. The iMac was mocked. The iPod was mocked (heck, in some quarters it’s still mocked). iTunes was mocked. Mac OS X was mocked. Safari was mocked. iLife was mocked. And on and on, you get the picture. Steve Ballmer alone could provide a highlight reel of Microsoft mocking Apple, even as history shows he's been wrong on each count.

So what did Microsoft do? Well, aside from the mocking, they used their classic "big numbers" defense. This is where they remind us that 90 percent of the world uses Windows. There's nothing wrong with that argument, but it doesn't mean what Microsoft wants it to mean. It doesn't translate into Microsoft being correspondingly bigger, or more profitable, or more innovative, or more respected, etc. Seems that a good portion of those 90 percent of Windows boxes are Windows 98 machines sitting in the basement still waiting for mom to put her recipes on. Most of the Windows community doesn't spend money, so there's no corresponding ring at the cash register for Microsoft and their partners from that market share discrepancy.

FUD 101

To their credit, Microsoft has finally woken up a bit. To their discredit, they've fallen back on the old game plan of the 90s. I have to wonder if it will work this time.

The "old game plan" is simple:
- Get a new OS in the mix and make sure it cures all the world's ills
- Pre-announce or hint at new products to grab press and curb your competition's momentum
- Get your tech press writers in high gear
- Run a new ad campaign
People tend to focus on the last item (it's the most visible to most people), but it's the least important strategy of the bunch. I commented on the latest round of ads from Microsoft, and in my opinion their biggest issue is that they simply point out that if you buy a cheap machine, you get a cheap machine. Nothing new here, and nothing wrong with it, but no revelation, either.

No, the real action for Microsoft is in the rest of the campaign, where Microsoft is trying to return to the Golden Age of FUD. Consider all that's going on lately…

New OS

The media blitz on Windows 7 is being laid on so fast and thick it makes your head swim. All they did was clean up Vista and grab a few more ideas from Mac OS X, but to read the Microsoft press you'd think it was a ground-up rewrite. I'm running Windows 7 on my MacBook and it’s a decent improvement over Vista. I have no problem giving Win 7 its due in this regard, but so what? What was Vista ever going to be but a modern — and hopefully more secure — XP anyway?

You've got Paul Thurrot heaping praise on Windows Live Essentials despite the fact that the main app is Windows Live Mail, the 8-year-old Outlook Express with a face lift. Wow.

You've got Joe Wilcox talking about how fun Windows 7 is. So much so that he's leaving Mac OS X behind. Double wow.

Pre-Announce

Does anyone really think we're going to see a mobile Office on the iPhone anytime soon? When Microsoft dropped these hints I had to laugh. The golden age, indeed. In the old days this may have caused Documents To Go, and other such products, to give pause. That's not gonna happen now, but for Microsoft old habits die hard.

And the new and improved Zune HD (aka the 2008 iPod touch) will of course challenge the iPod's dominance. No, we really mean it this time. Aside from Thurrott, who's going to be "all over it," does anyone believe this?

And of course Windows Mobile 7 will be all touch-based and just like the iPhone. Right.

The Tech Press

This is where Microsoft is strongest. For all of Apple's recent successes — and getting more press than possibly any time in their history — it's still nothing compared to what Microsoft can generate simply by scratching themselves. A lot of Apple supporters seem to have forgotten this. Microsoft has legions of followers just standing by, waiting for a press release or spoon-fed "reports" to lend them whatever credibility these individuals can generate.

Microsoft also has a captive and willing audience (I’m looking at you, IT) just begging to be told all their decisions are correct. Some of these people need all the hand-holding and justification they can get.

The tech press is a business, and probably one of Microsoft's biggest "partners." The recent "report" by Roger L. Kay is a classic example of Microsoft FUD. I mean, that "report" is your father's Microsoft. It probably brought a tear to the eye of Steve Ballmer; it's been a long time since Microsoft whipped up a steaming pile of "report" like that. This thing makes their ridiculous redefinition of security look tame by comparison.

Nothing Stays The Same

The problem is, there are too many channels available to refute information these days. Sure, the Internet was with us in the late 90s, but not like now. Back then one of these "reports" would be seen everywhere, with the opposing viewpoint almost completely drowned out. Nowadays you can't really get away with that.

For example, I can use this channel to say that the primary thing I got out of Kay's "report" was that Microsoft says it's OK for families to pirate their software. After all, there was no up-front software cost for the PC family, and there were also no upgrade costs during the five-year period. One can assume it means Microsoft understands the software will be pirated. This is no big deal, as getting it for free could make it worth what you pay, but it's a nice allowance by Microsoft nonetheless.

And no, the "report's" alleged premise that the family in question may already have the Windows software doesn't fly. If that were true, a similar comparison would be done assuming the family already has Mac software. Besides, it certainly doesn't explain the lack of upgrade costs. No, the "report" is Microsoft's way of acknowledging they'd rather you pirate their software for Windows than buy it for the Mac. Why? Because it all feeds into the Microsoft "big numbers" defense.

Let's face it, when Kay has to defend his "report" by calling its critics "Mac Brownshirts," isn't it game over? I mean, can't Godwin's Law apply to blogging just as much as to USENET groups?

Tying It All Together

The bottom line here is the pounding from the press, the ads, the so-called "white papers," and the unusually excessive fawning (and subsequent Apple-bashing) from all quarters is not a coincidence. There's a bombardment going on here the likes of which Microsoft hasn’t orchestrated for many years.

I smell Ballmer in all of this. He's generally been little more than a used car salesman, and this strategy is what he knows. Microsoft wants to go back to when they could just snap their fingers and all you'd see is a constant barrage of their FUD. While it's true they can still do that — we've been seeing it build the last couple months — they can no longer control all the information channels available.

Only time will tell if this major push will have any affect. As I pointed out, I think there are too many alternate channels available to get more accurate information out. Further, there are the Apple Stores so people can actually see the competition for themselves. I think Microsoft may find that they've spent hundreds of millions of dollars returning to the Golden Age, only to find it's rusted.
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Jailbreak: If You Need Copy-and-Paste Today

Cut, copy and paste has finally come to iPhone OS and I could not be happier. The lack of copy-and-paste in iPhone OS was one of the biggest reasons why I jailbroke my iPhone. If you need copy-and-paste today, but do not have access to the beta builds of iPhone OS 3.0, there are a handful of jailbreak solutions out there.

Did it really have to take two years? Security issues arising from sharing data between apps aside, my money is on the guess that Apple had agonized and deliberated on the most elegant way of implementing cut, copy and paste. Which should come as no surprise. Apple is known to either do it the best way there is, or to not do at all (you can thank Steve Jobs for inculcating that belief at Apple).

Now that we have seen Apple’s implementation of cut, copy and paste, it is all the more interesting to see the many vastly different methods independent developers had come up with to get copy-and-paste working. How well do these solutions work? In testing all of them, I have narrowed down four methods they use to copy-and-paste text. Let’s weigh the pros and cons of each.

The Relay Method

CopierciN, one of the first solutions to come to market, is a standalone app billed as a basic text editor with some copy-and-paste functionality. Essentially what CopierciN does is relay text selections by importing and exporting them between certain apps. Once a text selection has been made, you choose from a limited list of destination apps to which CopierciN can launch and paste it.

Pastebud and Pastie take a completely different route. Rather than being apps in the OS, Pastebud and Pastie are web services that relay text selections between Mail and Safari. The upside of these two solutions is that you don’t need to jailbreak your phone to use them; all you need are a couple of bookmarklets in Safari. The downside is that it is not system-wide copy-and-paste, and the notion of sending chunks of text this way puts me off.

The Swipe-to-Select Method

In December 2008, Clippy was released. It was a breakthrough at that time, in that it took a different approach than all the other solutions out there. Instead of being a standalone app, CIippy is a system hack that hooks itself into iPhone OS as a background service.

Of all the jailbreak copy-and-paste solutions, Clippy bears the most resemblance to Apple’s implementation of cut, copy and paste in iPhone OS 3.0. Both are system-wide, and Clippy employs a swipe-to-select method similar to Apple’s.

In Clippy, you tap and hold your finger to mark the start of a selection. Then, with your finger still pressed to the touchscreen, you drag your finger to highlight a selection. Upon lifting your finger, Clippy’s HUD pops up for you to cut or copy the selection.

This is where Clippy’s similarity to 3.0’s cut, copy and paste ends. A highlighted selection in Clippy does not have handles you can grab to finesse where it starts and ends. Getting a selection right the first time requires much precision. You have to get it right the first time or you’ll have to do it all over again. Also, when you select a passage that extends beyond the page view, you have to hold your finger at the edge of the view to get the page to scroll, if it scrolls at all. Even when it does scroll, oftentimes the selection will break. Text editor apps such as TextGuru and MagicPad also employ this method with equally mixed results.

On the upside, Clippy does have a very nice feature that is missing in iPhone OS 3.0. Called “Stack,” it stores multiple snippets of selections. In iPhone OS 3.0, you can only copy text one selection at a time.

The Mark-In/Mark-Out Method

Finally, in 2009, hClipboard was unleashed upon the jailbreaking world. hClipboard is a system mod in the form of a keyboard extension, so copy-and-paste is available only when the virtual keyboard is invoked.

In hClipboard, you highlight a selection by marking its in and out points. You mark a start point, tap a button in hClipboard, flick the page to quickly scroll to an end point, and tap the button again. Compared to swiping and dragging, this is simply the fastest and most accurate way to select a passage of text.

If you aren’t looking to only select a specific passage, there is a Copy All button. Another convenient feature, obviously well-thought out by the developer, are the ‘Move to beginning’ and ‘Move to end’ buttons that jump the cursor to the start and end, respectively, of a document.

hClipboard stores up to 10 clippings at a time. I’ve tested this with 500-word clippings and it works fine, so there doesn’t seem to exist a limit to how many words per clipping you can store in hClipboard.

A companion feature is Templates. Unlike normal clippings in the Clipboard, where older clippings will be deleted upon the 10-clipping limit to make way for newer ones, clippings in Templates are permanently stored. I like to keep HTML tags that I often use in drafting blog entries and frequently-used addresses for quick entry into Calendar.

The Best of Both Worlds

In the four months I’ve been testing all of these solutions, hClipboard stands out as the fastest and the most effortless way to copy and paste text in iPhone OS, while Clippy extends more seamless copying and pasting into areas of the OS such as Safari and Mail¹.

I’m glad that Apple’s implementation of cut, copy and paste is a combination of both swipe-to-select and mark-in/mark-out methods, one that offers the best of both worlds.

Now that Apple has finally caught up and has given us cut, copy and paste, all of these solutions may become largely irrelevant once 3.0 is released in the summer. But for now, Clippy and hClipboard are as good as it gets for copy-and-paste goodness in iPhone OS 2.x.

¹ hClipboard can copy text on a web page through two Javascript bookmarklets that convert non-editable text into editable text fields.

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Apple Replaces 17″ Antique With 20″ for Education

It wasn’t so long ago that the Internet was ablaze with news of the “new” 17-inch iMac for education priced at $899, which was actually a model they’d been offering, without updates, in that capacity for two full years at that point. Its “discovery” was in fact just people noticing something they’d never noticed before. Today, though, brings real news of a brand-new deal for educational customers.

The price of the new iMac for education (PDF link) hasn’t changed, but the hardware definitely has, and for the better. For starters, it uses the aluminum body frame that’s been the standard for all iMac machines, save the old 17-inch polycarbonate machine it’s replacing. It also gets the same 1066MHz front-side bus as its consumer cousins, though only a 2.0GHz processor, compared to the 2.66GHz for people and institutions not trying to teach anyone anything.

The $899 price tag will also kit out the iMac with 1GB DDR3 RAM, a 160GB SATA HD, and the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor that is now the standard entry-level card across Apple's Mac lineup. All the standard ports, and the usual optical drive and wireless card, are also included.

For those counting, that means educational institutions get half the RAM and half the hard drive space in exchange for a cost savings of $300 per unit. Not a bad deal, considering most educational customers will never have cause to upgrade beyond those specs, as they'd primarily be buying the machines to fill up computer labs and/or student common areas.

Note that this deal isn't for individual students, staff or faculty of educational institutions, but for the institutions themselves. Now might be a great time to start that correspondence school for ballroom dancing you've always dreamed about.

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Disk Fragmentation & OS X: When Does it Become a Problem?

Disk fragmentation is an old problem that has affected every operating system throughout history. File fragmentation occurs when a single file isn’t located in the same physical location on the disk, but is scattered around. OS X does a great job at minimizing file fragmentation by rewriting files in contiguous space when a file is opened, is under 20MB and contains more than eight fragments. This works quite well to prevent heavy file fragmentation, but what it doesn’t prevent is free space fragmentation.

Free space fragmentation?

Free space fragmentation can become a problem when you start running low on disk space. If you have a small percentage of your disk free — and you frequently use and then free-up disk space with temporary files — you’re likely to have high free space fragmentation. This means the free space is spread all over your hard drive in small amounts here and there — its not all laid out in one contiguous section in one spot.

So what’s the problem with this? Ultimately, this impacts OS X’s ability to keep file fragmentation under control as it can not rewrite large growing files into contiguous empty space, as there is none. Any new large files that are written also get fragmented by the same issue. Just as importantly, when space is fragmented, caching files for the system and for applications also get spread around all over the place. OS X utilizes file caching heavily. The problem is that when the file cache is spread all over the hard disk, it takes a time penalty to access (and also to write) these files. Being able to write and access caches from the same physical area gives a very noticeable speed increase — rebuilding caches after de-fragmenting can thus be advantageous.

How do I tell if my free space is fragmented?

If you suspect you might be suffering from free space fragmentation, there is a free tool you can use to verify your suspicion. Download hsfdebug (the download link is at the end of the page) and copy the file hsfdebug to any directory (such as your home directory, ~/). Open a terminal window, navigate to the directory you copied the file to, and run the following command:

sudo ./hfsdebug -0 | sort -n

This will list all the blocks of free space available, in order from smallest to largest. For example the last 10 lines of output when I ran this was:
10391 0×134e488 0×1350d1e 40.59 MB 10993 0×11004e7 0×1102fd7 42.94 MB 11691 0×152cd74 0×152fb1e 45.67 MB 12229 0×26d1a05 0×26d49c9 47.77 MB 14537 0×2693cdc 0×26975a4 56.79 MB 24090 0×129b388 0×12a11a1 94.10 MB 57704 0×12a9b0c 0×12b7c73 225.41 MB 68490 0×133c5dc 0×134d165 267.54 MB 69680 0×12c82f7 0×12d9326 272.19 MB 237568 0×1d02 0×3bd01 928.00 MB

This tells me that the largest amount of free space I have in one contiguous block is 928 MB. The next biggest is 272.19 MB and its all downhill from there (there were 60,000 lines in total, with 43,000 of them under 100 KB). Since I have a total of 22 GB free disk space, most of that is clearly spread out in tiny blocks. That’s pretty fragmented, which doesn’t surprise me as I deal with a lot of temporary files that are constantly being written and then deleted over a few days.

Of interest, hfsdebug can also tell you the amount of file fragmentation for the curious:
sudo ./hfsdebug -f -t 5

This will take a little while to process, but will tell you the percentage of files that are NOT fragmented:

Out of 1214506 non-zero data forks total, 1209938 (99.624 %) have no fragmentation. Out of 4135 non-zero resource forks total, 4074 (98.525 %) have no fragmentation.

So OS X has been doing a good job at keeping file fragmentation low, as expected.

Why else would I need to defrag?

Another reason to defragment free disk space is to make it possible to create a Boot Camp partition. While OS X can smoothly resize the existing partition and create the new one for Windows, it requires contiguous free space. If this doesn’t exist, you will be told “Can not create partition, please re-install OSX and try again.” This is because Apple does not provide a method to explicitly defrag your hard drive. For the cases it can help (such as creating the Boot Camp partition), Apple recommends just doing a full backup and restore; formatting the hard drive, re-installing the OS and restoring your files. This does indeed do the trick, as it forces every single byte to be rewritten to the disk — however there are a number of third party applications that will do the trick with much less effort.

Defrag Tools

The following applications will provide comprehensive disk defragmenting. I think its important to note that to maximize the benefit of caching performance, a tool such as Onyx should also be used first to clear your System and User caches before you do your defragging. This results in the caches being rebuilt in contiguous space afterwards.

iDefrag — iDefrag is all about defragging and provides a number of methods to do so. For example we could just use the ‘Compact’ algorithm which will put all files at the start of the disk, making our free disk space all at the end with the minimum time spent. iDefrag is £19.95 ($30).

Drive Genius — Drive Genius is a full disk maintenance utility, allowing partitioning and recovery as well as defragmenting. It is claimed that Apple Geniuses at the Genius Bars use this when dealing with problematic hardware. Drive Genius costs $99.

TechTool Pro 5 — TechTool Pro 5 claims to be a complete Mac problem-solving system, that includes disk defragmenting. A cut-down version (TechTool Deluxe) is included with Apple’s Apple Care product, but this does not contain the defragmenting functionality. The Pro version costs $98.

Results?

After a full defrag with iDefrag, re-running hfsdebug gave me an output of only 123 lines, with the following being the last 10:
370 0×1883fd 0×18856e 1.45 MB 377 0×232da2e 0×232dba6 1.47 MB 445 0×232efb1 0×232f16d 1.74 MB 479 0×1670b2 0×167290 1.87 MB 768 0×1d02 0×2001 3.00 MB 8343 0×232abfa 0×232cc90 32.59 MB 63659 0×78756 0×88000 248.67 MB 184298 0×3a202 0×671eb 719.91 MB 1183949 0×881437 0×9a2503 4.52 GB 5014722 0×232fb3d 0×27f7ffe 19.13 GB

So the bulk of my free space is now nicely contiguous and large. My caches are rebuilt and my system is noticeably snappier and more responsive. Milage may vary, depending on exactly how the fragmentation is affecting you to begin with, but free space defragmentation can definitely improve performance in some cases. Importantly, be sure to always have a backup on hand, as any power glitch during any long disk operation may cause damage your file system.

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iPhone Brings Unique Perk to Enterprise Users: Happiness

Much has been made of the iPhone’s potential as an enterprise device, with many still holding out against its usefulness in a corporate environment. A new report from Forrester Research, however, finds that enterprise iPhone users get more than just a communication tool with Apple’s handset; they get happiness and productivity, too.

The 12-page report from Forrester covers three large companies that support iPhone deployment: Kraft Foods Inc., Oracle Corp. and Amylin Pharmaceuticals. In each case, the report’s author Tim Shadler says the evidence suggests that the iPhone not only lead to a “happier, more productive workforce” but also carries lower support costs, which is unexpected considering that the device is still a relative novelty in corporate IT environments.

Apparently the effects the iPhone has on employees depends more on it being what they want than on any specific software or hardware feature it offers. Basically, they’re happier and more productive because they’re using the tools they want to use, which in the cases described in the report, just happens to be the iPhone.

Not everything is roses, though, as problems persist with ActiveSync and calendering when using Apple’s smartphone. Also, tests find that BlackBerry Enterprise Server is much more dependable for messaging. The report recommends leaving phone plan management and hardware purchasing to individual employees, but managing device usage policy in-house in order to avoid even more issues related to ballooning IT costs.

At each of the three companies used in the report, iPhone adoption numbers were strong, and were expected to grow significantly in the next year. Kraft, for example, currently has around 2,000 employees using the devices, growing to an estimated 4,000 by year’s end. Considering some of the new enterprise-friendly features of iPhone 3.0 software, like copy-and-paste, push notification and custom hardware peripheral support, I wouldn’t be surprised if those estimates get revised upwards following the WWDC in June.

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Unlocked Apple iPhone Available From Buy.com in the U.S.

If you’re still skittish about being locked in for a lengthy contract and don’t mind the fact that new hardware will almost undoubtedly be hitting the streets in only a couple of short months, and if you have money lying around not doing anything useful, Buy.com has a deal for you, for the low price of $799. That’s the price you’ll pay for a brand-new, in-box, unlocked Apple iPhone from Buy.com. In fact, it’s better than unlocked, it’s never been locked in the first place, so you won’t have to worry about sketchy jailbreaking/unofficial unlocking procedures if you’re not tech-savvy.

The never-locked 16GB iPhone 3G comes with a full Apple warranty, which is probably not the case with most unlocked units you’ll find on eBay, but Buy.com does warn that you might not be able to understand your product’s instruction manual, since the devices come from all over the world, and not necessarily English-speaking countries. That means this is probably a case of an overstock buy-out from a variety of global carriers in preparation for the June WWDC ‘09 iPhone hardware refresh.

Apparently you can easily swap out SIM cards using these models, so if you’re a globetrotter, this might just answer your prayers. And maybe Om Malik, over at our sister site GigaOM, can finally come back to the iPhone fold using a more dependable network than AT&T’s. T-Mobile, or any of the 30 different smaller GSM carriers in the U.S., will work with these phones out of the box, according to Buy.com’s product information site. Plus, unlike with unofficially unlocked phones, you can connect to iTunes and update without worrying about being locked out and having to jailbreak again.

I’ve been wanting a second device so that I can devote one to testing, and it’d be nice to have something I can travel with and use pay-as-you-go SIMs with so as not to get charged massive roaming fees, but my heart flutters every time I think about that $799 price tag. Plus, I’m already going to be sufficiently gouged when the new iPhone hardware comes out in June and I have to try to talk my carrier into allowing me an upgrade when I still have two years left on my contract.

Buy.com may just be trying to move more units, but they are claiming that they have very few units left in stock. Anyone planning on picking one of these up? If so, what for? Is the $799 price justified, considering the freedom you get by avoiding a contract/AT&T’s spotty network?

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Workflow: Web Design

OS X is a remarkably versatile platform, with a huge range of software on offer. Whether you’re a designer, musician, journalist, scientist or running a business — there’s a tool to meet your needs. To help you wade through the mass of software and pick out the best bits, we’re starting a new series called “Workflow.”

Each post will walk you through all the particular applications required for a particular task. The first installment will outline all the best applications available for web design. From collecting together your inspiration to hitting publish, you’ll soon have a collection of software to make the process as easy and enjoyable as possible.

Asset & Inspiration Management

LittleSnapper

LittleSnapper is a fantastic application for creating a collection of screenshots and graphics for use in a web project. Whether gathering inspiration, design mockups, or revisions of a design, it can offer a great tool for tagging and storing images.

It’s possible to capture screenshots from any major browser — either of the entire screen, or a particular element of a web site. Annotation tools are excellent, and are completely vector-based. It’s simple to undo additions, and an image can be exported with or without all the notes you’ve added.

Screenshots can be shared with others via an FTP server, or through the integrated QuickSnapper service. This is simple to set up, and works reliably.

Text Expander — A great way for storing snippets of text, code, or copy, and easily recalling them when needed.

Yojimbo — A powerful information manager, allowing you to store almost anything at all: passwords, text, PDFs, images…you name it.

DevonThink — Similar to Yojimbo, providing another fantastic way to store web resources, screenshots, documents, client information and mockups.

Linotype Font Explorer — If you’re someone who works with type on a regular basis, Font Explorer X is a great tool for browsing, managing and activating your typography.

Graphic Design

Pixelmator

Pixelmator offers a fantastic solution for web designers looking for a simple, inexpensive graphics editor. While it can’t match the sheer versatility and power of Photoshop, the interface and tools available are excellent for the price ($59).

The speed of Pixelmator is impressive, as it can rely upon core image technology to utilize graphics card performance, rather than passing the load of processing on to your internal memory or processor. Integration with Automator is also excellent, and setting up repeated tasks is a simple process.

Adobe CS4 — A thorough collection of graphic design tools for professionals. Not cheap, but some of the most advanced software available.

RapidWeaver — A “WYSIWYG” web design environment for OS X, with some great in-built themes.

xScope — A thorough set of tools for measuring, aligning and inspecting on-screen graphics and layouts.

Keynote — While Keynote is a presentation app, it’s fantastic for creating charts, graphics and design elements.

Slammer — A great tool for overlaying grids and measuring spacing of a design.

Development & Coding

Coda

Coda is a relatively long standing integrated application for coding and developing web sites. Managed around a collection of “sites,” each one is associated to a local folder and FTP server. Both can be kept in sync easily through the integrated publishing system within the application.

Text editing looks good and is remarkably functional. A wide variety of different languages are supported, and full subversion support is built into the application. CSS code can be edited with visual feedback, showing how changes made will affect layout.

Espresso — The main competitor to Coda, Espresso offers a similar range of features and includes the excellent CSSEdit.

TextMate — A powerful and versatile text editor, with a bunch of powerful snippets, macros, and unique scoping system.

CSSEdit — A novel environment in which to edit CSS, showing changes visual previews in real time.

TextWrangler — A completely free text editor, with coloring support for any language you care to throw at it.

SubEthaEdit — Famous for providing real-time collaboration between different users, SubEthaEdit is also a solid code editor in its own right.

Publishing

Transmit

Transmit is one of the best-known FTP clients for the Mac, and my personal tool of choice. Priced at $30, the feature set is impressive: Amazon S3 support, .Mac sync, Dashboard integration, server-to-server transfers, and a wonderful interface.

A few of the other applications noted below do offer similar features for a lower price, though they lack the polish and reliability of Transmit. If you’re a Coda user, you’ll also appreciate the integration with Transmit and similar cross-over of style and interface.

Cyberduck — An open-source client, with a feature set to rival Transmit. It also supports transferring to Mosso and Amazon S3.

Interarchy — An expensive application at $59, with a bunch of powerful features for advanced users.

Yummy FTP — Offering a few unique tools such as transfer auto-recovery, scheduling and alias support.

Forklift — A great-looking app, though it comes with a heavy price tag.

Fetch — A basic and fairly inexpensive app that checks off all the features expected from a traditional client.

Subversion / Git

Versions

We’ve previously covered a roundup of subversion and git tools. While the command line does work for these version tracking systems, a variety of applications can offer a much easier-to-use interface. Our featured tool of choice is Versions, a gorgeous-looking and full-featured app for OS X.

Versions includes the latest release of SVN, a visual timeline of changes, easy reverting to older versions, and thorough security features. The app feels at home on a Mac, with a solid interface and excellent visual design.

Cornerstone — A great-looking app, with all the features you’d expect for a subversion client.

svnX — An open-source GUI for most features of the svn client binary, with a slightly plainer interface.

Gitx — Featuring a history viewer and a decent commit GUI for dealing with Git.

OpenInGitGui — A droplet which allows you to open Git-Gui from finder.

Conclusion

The Mac provides a fantastic platform for developing web sites: organizing your material, designing, coding, uploading and version tracking. We’ve covered almost 30 applications, each with something to bring to the table in each respective area.

Feel free to make your own decision on which tool is best for your needs. If you’re a big fan of an application that hasn’t been mentioned here, please let us know in the comments!

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WSJ Says Jobs Still in Control of Apple, But Should We Buy It?

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday, Steve Jobs is still very much involved in the activities of Apple, and in fact still provides most of the vision, direction, and general control of the company. The WSJ cites people “familiar with the matter” as the source of the information, but officially Apple is remaining silent, noting only that Steve still plans to return in June.

The source also says that Tim Cook, Apple’s COO and the man in control of the company while Jobs is away on medical leave, still runs the day-to-day operations of the computer and electronics manufacturer. Meanwhile, Jobs works on big picture items from home, like testing devices, product plans and key strategy. In fact, the WSJ maintains that he was instrumental in the recent iPhone OS 3.0 update, revealed last month.

That’s not the surprising news, though. According to their sources, Jobs is also hard at work developing a new device, one that’s been hinted at many times before. Yes, it’s the elusive Apple tablet that has fanbois basically salivating. The device, if real, will be sized larger than an iPod touch or an iPhone but smaller than a Macbook (something we’ve heard about before), and it does seem to agree with recent reports of Apple ordering a significant number of 10-inch touchscreens from Taiwan.

Regardless of whether the recent reports are real, Apple seems to have recovered from the initial damage done from Jobs’ original announcement of his absence. Investor confidence has been restored by the company’s continued strong performance, and many analysts suspect this leave-taking was only the first step towards a permanent transition of power, done gradually to soften the blow.

Frankly, I’m a little worried that this new report is an intentional leak by investment groups to artificially draw down stock prices before the new iPhone’s launch to encourage larger gains. Investors might see the news as proof that Jobs was actually behind the company’s recent success all along and lose the shaky new confidence they’ve found in the current acting management. It’s not like investment bankers are above using Apple’s Internet community following to manipulate stock performance.

Maybe I’m just jumping at ghosts, but the whole WSJ article seems designed to renew fears about the state of the company in a post-Jobs era, right down to the parting suggestion that Apple managers seem to be showing a renewed interest in Silicon valley recruitment agencies. It’s exactly the kind of unverifiable suggestion that could make a skittish investor get cold feet and pull out. We’ll see how the market responds soon enough, since the WSJ article is spreading like wildfire across the Apple blogosphere as we speak.

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Teens Love iPod and Don't Have or Are Just Ashamed of Zune

As if you couldn’t already tell by the sheer number of white earbuds you see slouching youths with backpacks and baby mustaches wearing, iPods are popular with the teen crowd. Very popular, according to a recent survey of teen consumer spending by investment banking firm Piper Jaffray. The survey, the results of which were reported by AppleInsider, found that Apple was actually nearing the saturation point with its survey respondent sample, which, if true, is both good and bad news for Cupertino.

Of the students surveyed, 92 percent reported that they did in fact own a portable media player, and of those, 86 percent own some variety of iPod. Contrast that with Zune owners, who represent a whopping 4 percent of those who took part in the survey. Or at least, 4 percent admitted to owning Zunes. I’m willing to bet some of that 86 percent have had Zunes foisted upon them by misguided parents, so they just say they have an iPod to avoid the social stigma.

This is good news because it means that the iPod is by far the most popular brand among teens, which is a crucial demographic for electronics manufacturers. It’s bad news because it means Apple may be close to reaching the saturation point with the market, which could negatively affect sales. The key to taking advantage of their overwhelming lead among teens is to translate iPod sales now into iPhone sales later, and the iPod touch is the cornerstone of their ability to do so. Introducing enticing new features like a camera and Bluetooth might be enough incentive to convince teens it’s time for an upgrade.

iTunes users also rose, with 97 percent of teens surveyed using Apple’s digital music download service and 82 percent of those who buy music online through legit channels. Of course, that number is pre-variable pricing structure, so it’ll be interesting to see if the recent price hikes change things in the next installment of the bi-annual survey.

The worst news in the survey came in the area of iPhones, where teen owners remained at 8 percent, the same as last time the survey was conducted. Intent to buy actually dropped from 22 to only 16 percent, with Piper Jaffray speculating that the lack of interest has to do primarily with AT&T’s pricing for cellular plans. It probably will remain a market where Apple has trouble until they can offer a device not tied to a data plan or strong-arm AT&T into introducing far more reasonable data subscription prices. It’s hard to imagine they won’t try to capitalize on the growth potential represented by their iPhone numbers among teens, especially with their selling opportunities with iPods dwindling, at least for the short term.

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Weekly App Store Picks: April 11, 2009

It’s time for the very apex of everyone’s Easter weekend, the all important revealing of this week’s picks from the App Store.

But it’s not all about the latest fresh pickings from the App Store, before we get in to all that, I’ve collated the week’s news in handy bite-size form — think of it as factual Easter egg, especially for your brain.

The week was kicked off with rumors and speculation surrounding the next iterations of the iPod touch and iPhone. An official job posting by Apple suggested that the next generation iPod touch will feature a camera. Plus, it’s looking almost certain that video recording and FM transmit/receive will be coming to the next iPhone hardware update.

With the added potential for apps that the forthcoming 3.0 iPhone software update will bring, budding coders can now learn about development via iTunes. Stanford University is now running app development courses for download, available for download now and, what’s more, totally free.

During the week, I reviewed two new iPhone apps: novelty sound tool Amplitude and The Void, an Asteroids-esque space shooter. Note that next week, I’ll be stamping my big boot of opinion down on yet more apps, including Hysteria, a creepy choose-your-own-adventure horror game, and The New York Times Crosswords Daily.

We also kicked off our latest series iPhone Dev Sessions, with a fantastic tutorial on designing an Orientation-Aware Clock, courtesy of Bickbot’s Henry Balanon. If you’re looking to dip in to iPhone-coding, I’d highly recommend this article.

Moving on to the apps, this week I’ve been looking at Fat Tag, RjDj Shake, Japanese Massage and Tap Tap Coldplay.

Fat Tag (free)
The Free Art and Technology Lab — aka F.A.T. — is behind all sorts of clever, disruptive, challenging projects, such as SelfControl — an OS X application that can temporarily block access to specific sites (or mail servers). Their latest release is Fat Tag, a simple graffiti tagging app (with accelerometer-controlled dripping paint). The really special thing about their app though is that, in-keeping with F.A.T.’s copyright free spirit, the source code is available to download from their site. It’s a potentially valuable learning opportunity for fresh iPhone app coders.

RjDj (free)
Back in October last year, my second article for TheAppleBlog was about RjDj Album — a sound toy that the creators described as, “the next generation of walkman or mp3 player… a digital drug which causes mind twisting hearing sensation.”I talked about how RjDj could become an effective sub-platform for distributing some of the most exciting experiences available on the iPhone. That time has come. The latest RjDj app integrates scene-downloading, which means an ever-expanding library of new sonic devices to play with. Plus, you can now share your recordings via Facebook and Twitter. This is seriously innovative and exciting stuff, capturing the iPhone’s true potential. Download it now.

Japanese Massage ($1.99)
If all the action of the week has got you aching all over, this is the app for you. It’s a DIY self-help app that teaches you to squeeze, smooth and pummel that pain away, letting a river of relaxation flow through your body as if it were a blade of grass in the cool Spring breeze. Featuring 20 different massage styles, each technique contains a description and — vital to effective learning — a clear illustration. The key here is that these are all self-massage techniques, so anytime you’re feeling the burn, you can use this app to help ease the stress away.

Tap Tap Coldplay ($4.99)
Let it be stated now. I am not a Coldplay fan. If their not-so-unique brand of proto-U2 stadium rock was a bus to town, I’d rather walk in the rain…even if it took all day and I was just wearing sandals and shorts. However, and this is a big however, Brian Eno lent a hand on their latest album, and — although it’s got that Where The Streets Have No Name epic vibe (courtesy of Eno) — it’s not so bad. As for the app, blending Tap Tap Revenge with Coldplay is a serious success — it makes their music fun and, for fans of the band, this is a must-have. Plus, it’s got Life in Technicolor II, a great tune with a great video.

That’s the picks for this week. I’ll return in seven days time with more from the App Store. Drop by TheAppleBlog during the week to find the latest Apple news alongside app reviews too.

In the meantime, what apps have you been using this week?

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Resisting the Touchscreen Blight

Last weekend, New York Times’ Virginia Heffernanhit a resonant chord with me in a wonderfully crafted piece eloquently relating why she hated the iPhone experience so much she returned her iPhone to AT&T, replacing it with a BlackBerry.

The nexus of Ms. Heffernan’s iPhone discontent was mainly an issue that I can identify with — her dislike of the Apple device’s touchscreen virtual keyboard. I also detest touchscreens, and even as someone who makes his living partly from writing about Apple products, when I get a smartphone (something I’ve successfully resisted so far due to the fact that the nearest 3G or GSM wireless coverage ends some 35 miles short of where I live) I would likely opt for a BlackBerry myself because it has a real analog keyboard.

There’s something that just rubs me (pun intended) the wrong way at a very elemental level about touching display screens. I’m extremely picky about keeping my computer and iPod displays, TV screens, digital camera preview LCDs, etc. clean and free of smears and smudges, and I recoil reflexively from touching them, so touchscreens are massively counterintuitive for me to almost the degree of a phobia. But it goes deeper than that. I had a pocket calculator and organizer for a while that required data and control entry via a screen stylus, and while technically that didn’t involve actually touching the display with my fingers, I still didn’t like it as an input method.

I’m a mechanically-oriented guy, and I’m most comfortable working with input keys that visibly depress when you push on them, and whose movement registers spatially and visually. Touch screens offer no typing feedback, as typo-strewn messages from my iPhone-user friends highlight.

As Virginia Heffernan notes, with her iPhone “To answer the phone, I had to touch the screen. Years of not touching screens - so as not to smudge or scar - made me wary. But I brushed the ‘answer call’ and up came fragments of my mother's cheerful voice….I hunted for a keypad to call her back, but it was gone…”

Then there was something about the iPhone touchscreen “keyboard” that seemed to induce ineptness. “My right index finger - the only digit precise enough to hit the close-set virtual iPhone keys - seemed an anemic, cerebral thing, designed for making paltry points in debating club. I repeatedly stabbed to the right of my target letter. It was like being 4 again - or being 90. I couldn't see, it seemed; I couldn't point; I couldn't connect.”

I find myself klutzy and error prone with touchscreen input, too.

I’m also of the same school of thought as Ms. Heffernan on what she calls the iPhone’s “know-it-all suggestions.” She observes that “the iPhone seemed to want to be more human, more helpful, jollier than I was! The vaunted Apple user-friendliness was exposed, before my eyes, as bossiness and insincerity,” in a word, “smug.” That assertive busybody dynamic is one of the characteristics I really detest about most Microsoft software, and unfortunately increasingly creeping into Apple’s software applications and even hardware (eg: the ambient light sensitive screen brightness setting on my new MacBook) as well. I like to think for myself.

What worries me most is that some rumor speculation suggests that Apple’s answer to the PC netbook market share challenge could come in the form of an oversized iPod touch rather than an Apple riff on the conventional mini-laptop form factor with a real keyboard and a screen that you keep your grubby paws off of. Personally, I have less than zero interest in even an ultra-portable computer with a touchscreen keyboard, although a tablet that allowed for stylus based handwriting recognition and command input might have some utility — so long as the option remained to hook up a keyboard and mouse when practical.

I’ll be keenly interested to see what materializes, but if it does turn out to be a touchscreen netbook, I’m apprehensive that the touchscreen blight could spread into Apple’s regular notebook space, as the non-swappable battery metastasized from the MacBook Air to the 17″ unibody MacBook Pro.

Don’t go there, Apple — please!

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Apple Places Order for 100 Million 8Gb Flash Chips

Let’s not jump to any conclusions. Maybe they just want to redecorate the Cupertino campus, and they thought covering the walls in 8Gb (gigabit, not byte) flash chips would be original and visually appealing.

Actually, that’s probably the last possible reason Apple recently placed a massive order for 100 million 8Gb chips from their suppliers, most of which will come from Samsung, according to DigiTimes, the source of the report. Yes, that is a lot of chips, and apparently the whole industry will feel the strain as the NAND flash supply will be pretty tight up until the end of May, thanks to fairly large orders by Sony and Nokia, in addition to Apple.

In case you didn’t guess, Apple is most likely going to be using the new chips for the new iPhone that’s been all but confirmed as due this June in time for WWDC ‘09. The tiny chips can be combined by Apple into larger configurations of 16GB and 32GB sizes, which is what most are expecting from the new iPhone models. For those still skeptical about the new iPhone’s imminent launch, the same thing happened last year around this time before the release of the iPhone 3G, except that time the order was only half the size. Which doesn’t mean Apple is planning on producing double the launch units, but that those units will almost definitely have double the storage capacity.

Would it be too much to ask for a leapfrog of the 32GB capacity and go straight to the 64? Probably, but I’m going to anyway. Though as it is, I don’t use the 16GB I already have. But there’s a difference being needing something and wanting to be able to do something, if the mood strikes me.

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BumpTop as a Finder Replacement: Unlikely

Most people have seen the BumpTop videos on YouTube and TED by now. (If you haven’t, I’ve embedded their current demo vid below. Take a look!) The official desktop replacement has been in private beta (for Windows only) for a little while now, and I’ve had the pleasure of playing along at home. The OS X release is pending, and after what I’ve seen on Windows, I’m interested to use it on my computer of choice.

Immediately, you get the cool vibe when using it. As a geek, I must say it’s just as slick as the video presentations we’ve seen. Though probably much better suited for the multi-touch interface it was designed for, at face value the features seem pretty useful. (Or at least a good alternative to the native Desktop.) But is BumpTop going to be worthy of daily use in place of the vanilla desktop we’re all used to? Right now I think its focus is a little too narrow for that. Here’s why.

BumpTop is first and foremost an application that runs in place of your computer operating system’s desktop interface. It’s neat, but it’s the Desktop, which is usually covered-up by the applications you’re actually using 90 plus percent of the time. In many cases, one of the applications being used quite regularly is probably a file browser, like Finder. This is the space into which I think BumpTop could become a great fit because honestly, who keeps the majority of their files right on the desktop?

Personally, I just don’t focus on my desktop all that much. Some of the craftier among us have begun making their desktops pretty interactive (by using widgets and GeekTool, for instance — see Lifehacker for some of the cool stuff I’m talking about), so they may have room to disagree. For now though, they’re in the minority. But I submit that many of us spend more time in the likes of Finder, looking for files to work with. If BumpTop can come up with a more file-browser-centric strategy, I think it will gain more longevity. Otherwise, I think its cool factor will wear off after a short honeymoon period and fall by the wayside for many users.

You can sign up to get updates on the availability of the Mac version by entering your email address at BumpTop’s web site. If you have a Windows machine, that version is currently available to the public, so you can download and enjoy it for yourself.

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