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- Document Palette: Creating New Documents From the Desktop
Windows users have long had the ability to create a new document for any application they have installed from the desktop with a simple right-click. Many switchers probably miss that capability, and I must admit that I never understood the need for it on the Mac — until I actually started using it.
Document Palette, a free application from Cold Pizza Software, gives Windows switchers and long-time Mac OS X users searching for yet another way to save time, the ability to create new documents in the Finder with a quick keyboard shortcut.
Creating a new document from the Document Palette bezel
Document Palette runs in the background and is invoked by hitting Command + Control + Option + N. Doing so brings up a semi-opaque bezel (much like the built-in Application Switcher) containing document icons from which you can choose to create new documents. By default, a plain text, rich text and HTML file are available, but you can add your own document types simply by dragging a document into the Document Palette application list window.
Adding application documents & shortcuts
What makes this a really handy app is that all documents created are copies of the original document you drag in the Document Palette app list. This allows you to essentially create a starting template for any type of document.
You can also assign a keyboard shortcut for each specific type of app document which you can use once you invoke the Document Palette bezel window.
This is one of those features I wish Apple had built into OS X, and I'm sure one many Windows switchers are left scratching their head looking for. Document Palette is free, and requires Mac OS X 10.3 or later — great news for those who haven’t upgraded to Leopard yet!
Market research you can use: Keep informed about Cloud Computing and IT Infrastructure. Learn more »
Переслать - Our Girl Hazel Receives an Update
The lovely and talented Hazel received an update (to version 2.3) yesterday. Paul Kim of Noodlesoft announced the update on his developer blog, and highlights an update to the already useful App Sweep feature and the built-in script editor, among other improvements. This upgrade, as well as one more prior to the fall release of Snow Leopard (OS 10.6), are free with an existing license.
If you’re not hip to this versatile file management work flow application, you should really give it a whirl using the 14-day free trial. (It’s $21.95 if you decide to keep using it and buy a license.) Just like the fictitious maid that Hazel is surely named after, this application can be configured to tidy up all of your files and folders automatically, leaving you a neat and organized file system to work in. The utility is sort of a cross between Folder Actions and Automator workflows — but built in a way that allows even a novice to achieve powerful results.
To put Hazel to work, just select a folder, and create whatever rules you want. For example, I’ve selected my Desktop folder, and created a rule that moves any application (with extension .app) to the Applications folder. That way as I download something to test, it’s automatically put in its place. I can even add a step to the rule to apply a label color to the application, so I can easily identify it while perusing the Applications directory. Then, a Hazel rule applied to the Applications directory can remove the label after two weeks, assuming I like the app and plan to keep it installed. This is pretty lightweight fare for Hazel, but you get the idea.
As mentioned above, this 2.3 update adds to the App Sweep feature, which ensures that all of an application’s files are removed from your system if you decide to trash an app. The new feature supports multiple user accounts on a computer, which will prompt the other users to allow Hazel to delete their user files for an application that’s been deleted by a different user. In our home, we each have our own Macs, but I could see where this would come in handy for shared computing environments.
I consider Hazel one of those must-have utilities for my Mac — and it works so well, I usually forget she’s even there at all! (If there’s a better mark of a great application, I don’t know what it is.) If you’re not letting Hazel clean up after you already, give her a try for yourself.
Market research you can use: Keep informed about Cloud Computing and IT Infrastructure. Learn more »Переслать - Five iPhone Apps for the International Business Maverick
When it comes to business and travel, there are a few things one shouldn't be without: passport and credit cards, travel confirmations and itineraries, essential toiletries, and, of course, an iPhone or iPod touch.
In an effort to make your business trips (and really, any kind of trip) more manageable and efficient, I've put together a roundup of some of my favorite apps for the iPhone that can be used while on the road or in the air, and I hope that they'll come to good use for your next trip.
TripIt (Free)
Briefly mentioned in my 10 Father's Day Apps for Your No. 1 Dad article as a companion to the application TravelTracker, I only thought it would be fair to give this genius a close-up, because it's just so darned worthy. Think of all of the itineraries and travel confirmations you deal with such as air, hotel and car — and multiply that by however many destinations you have in one trip. That's a lot of paper juggling that I don't need while I'm on route. Now there's a way to keep and organize all travel documentation in one central accessible location — TripIt for iPhone/iPod touch.Once you book your travel and have signed up on tripit.com (membership is free), just email your itinerary to TripIt's designated itinerary email address, and in a matter of minutes, your itinerary will be read-in, parsed and displayed into your account like magic. Once you launch the TripIt application, you'll see your confirmations displayed and organized elegantly and so efficiently, it'll make your trip that much more effortless.
When you sign-up, TripIt collects some basic information about you, as well as multiple email addresses you might have, so that they recognize your emailed itineraries from wherever you're sending it. Some things I noticed while testing is that your email confirmations have to come from a TripIt-supported site. All of the major airlines and hotels are on the list, and even if yours is not (Holiday Autos was not on the list for my car rental), you can simply add the info manually, and it will be displayed along with all of the other automated confirmations you might have already sent in.
Timing: The International Clock (99 cents)
If you're like me and on the road (or in the air) quite a bit, working with international clients and suppliers and scheduling meetings for a foreign time zone from within a different zone than I'm used to can be a bit messy — but not anymore. I'd like to introduce you to one of my new travel companions called Timing by SplashData.We're all aware that our iPhones come with a standard (but pretty slick) app called Clock which allows us to track the current time of multiple cities around the world; but what happens when you need to know a specific future time of city A while in city B? Among other things, Timing takes the guesswork out about calculating time zones.
Now all I have to do is launch Timing on my iPhone and choose Time Calculator. I select the current city I'm in (or the city I will be in), along with the time I need calculated, and I can then select up to four other cities to view their respective times. Sweet.
1Password Pro ($5.99)
Previously, since there wasn't a method of sending vCards from my iPhone, I didn't bother sending them from my desktop, either, as a quick copy and paste from my address book did the job. To that end, I was quite guilty of storing sensitive data within those vCards, such as banking info and credit card numbers. With the recent release of iPhone software 3.0, we've all gained (or will soon gain) the ability of MMS and also sending contacts (vCards) via MMS or email. Since then, I've been scrambling to clean all the sensitive data out of my vCards and immediately began my crusade to find a new home for my sensitive data.Like many others, I've always been reluctant of using third-party apps to store this kind of data. Discussed in Weldon Dodd's Password Management Roundup article, Weldon effectively covered the major features of 1Password, and since then, Agile Web Solutions has revised the app for the iPhone, which is now called 1Password Pro, and it is my new confidant. The Pro version now includes a special easy switching mode that allows you to quickly copy and paste credit card info and usernames and passwords to other apps such as Mobile Safari; and they say more features are on the way. This is in addition to their already brawny list of invaluable features such as two-way Wi-Fi synchronization with the desktop application.
You now have at your fingertips, a two-layer defense (unlock code and master password) for your most sensitive data which include your electronic wallet (for all of your banking and credit card info) as well as passwords and logins to your most frequented (and secure) web sites.
1Password Pro is $5.99 for now, and will increase to $14.99 once the anticipated features are in place.
Remember The Milk ($25 per year)
Everyone who knows me knows that I'm a list nut. I keep lists for practically everything, and it was truly heaven-sent when I heard about Remember The Milk. Your business trip (or any trip) wouldn't be efficiently organized without the best to-do list application around.Remember The Milk is an online to-do list manager, which comes with a spiffy app for the iPhone or iPod touch. Use it as your packing list, your to-do list before trip and even your to-do list while on your trip. Remember The Milk isn't like any other to-do application you've seen. You can create tasks based on locations so when you're going about planning your day, you can easily map out each task location and follow the most practical route to complete those tasks when going from point A to point B. Among many other things, Remember The Milk also comes with your own inbox email address which you can use as a sharing point to collect tasks from other applications you might be using, so that all of your tasks are consolidated in one central location.
The best thing about Remember The Milk is that it integrates with a large number of popular online services such as Gmail, Twitter, AIM, MSN, Facebook, as well as SMS (if your mobile network is supported). What’s more, Remember The Milk now supports push notifications. With all of these reminder methods at your disposal, you would have to try really hard to miss a task.
iTranslate (Free)
Never again will you have to worry about being lost in translation, or having to hire an expensive personal translator — no matter where you go. The developers over at Sonico have come up with an application that allows you to translate over 42 different languages right on your iPhone.The iTranslate engine is based off of Google Translate and is compatible with both iPhone and iPod touch. Now you can ditch the expensive and pesky human translator and travel with confidence.
Market research you can use: Keep informed about Cloud Computing and IT Infrastructure. Learn more »Переслать - Are Optical Drives Going the Way of the Floppy?
Computerworld’s Seth Weintraub thinks optical drives are going the way of the Dodo bird. He predicts the MacBook Air and white MacBook will get Secure Digital (SD) slots with their next updates (will the WhiteBook get another update?), and that SD may replace built-in DVD drives entirely on the next generation of MacBooks.
Why Otherwise Explain SD Bootability?
Why otherwise, Weintraub reasons, would Apple bother going to the trouble of explaining how to configure a bootable SD card, which it recently did in a Knowledge Base article. He deduces that the SD card is now a key element in Apple’s MacBook strategy, destined to replace optical drives on most Apple laptops going forward, which would logically mean system install/software restore data along with application software eventually being shipped on SD rather than optical media.
Those who really need DVD access would still be able to buy external USB Superdrives, like the one available for the optical drive-less MacBook Air.
This concept makes good sense to me, a nascent SD card fan. I mean, as Weintraub challenges, which would you rather have on your laptop — an easily rewritable, silent, 32GB SD card the size of a postage stamp that can hold about the same amount of data as eight DVDs, or a big, heavy, noisy, vibrating, power-sucking spinning disk with media that scratches easily, and which gobbles up about one-quarter of your computer’s internal volume?
“Optical is Over”
“It is a no-brainer,” declaims Weintraub, “optical is over.” I think he may be onto something here. Indeed, I’ve always thought CD and DVD ROM optical storage were second- or third-rate technology. They’re agonizingly slow. I absolutely revile having to boot from a DVD or CD and go to great pains to avoid it. Optical storage isn’t stably archival either, and the ability to rewrite is clumsy and lame at best. Floppies probably stayed beyond their best-before date even on the Mac, but at least they were easily erasable and rewritable, and I really missed that with the transition to optical, whose main advantages were cheapness combined with decent storage capacity. Then there are the manifold other shortcomings inventoried in the preceding paragraph. SD technology, which is already pretty impressive and has plenty of potential for further development, promises to be a much more satisfactory and versatile solution than optical drives.
SD data storage is somewhat more expensive than DVD at roughly $2 per gigabyte, but that’s not really a deal-killer issue. A full-length movie can fit on a 1GB SD card, and SD is a vastly superior medium for data backups. You can even use Time Machine with SD, which you can’t with DVDs. With 32GB SD media in the works (8GB is currently tops), the capacity headroom issue should be resolved.
Not Everyone Agrees
However, not everyone agrees. Prolific Irish blogger Thomas Fitzgerald thinks the optical drive isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, suggesting that Apple’s equipping the 13″ and 15″ MacBook Pros with SD card slot is simply a matter of making life easier for users with digital cameras and for compatibility with the majority of PC laptops that come with card readers, rather than spearheading any gradualist agenda to displace the optical drive.
Fitzgerald points out that when Apple unveiled a floppy drive-less iMac in 1998, most software was already being shipped on CD-ROM, but to his knowledge (and mine), no major commercial software has ever shipped on SD media. Good point, but that could quickly change.
The Cost Factor
More compellingly, Fitzgerald notes that the OEM cost of 8GB SD cards currently runs in the neighborhood of $14, even for bulk purchases. Economies of scale with increased manufacturing volumes would help lower that somewhat, but unlikely ever to as cheap as DVD, which is indeed a significant stumbling-block to displacement of optical by SD media.
The Blu-ray Factor
Less convincingly, Fitzgerald also cites “the Blu-ray factor,” noting that the format continues to gain momentum, and contending Apple won’t be able to ignore it forever. I’m skeptical. Most Mac users are getting along quite happily without Blu-ray, and it’s really a peripheral issue, both figuratively and literally, since you can buy a Blu-ray drive if you really want one. As Fitzgerald concedes, DVD still accounts for over 75 percent of video content sold (although he says Blu-ray sales have increased over 230 percent year over year). However, the media cost factor is far less significant for movies than for software packaging, and one can easily envision SD supplanting or supplementing Blu-ray and DVD both.
What do you think? Are built-in optical drives lame ducks, or does the optical category — DVD or Blu-ray still have a future in Apple laptops? External DVD drives are already a fait accompli on the MacBook Air. Will it spread to the larger MacBooks?
Photo courtesy of Marco Wessel.
Market research you can use: Keep informed about Cloud Computing and IT Infrastructure. Learn more »Переслать - App Store Anniversary: By the Numbers
The iTunes App Store has reached its first birthday. This event deserves a moment of reflection on what Apple has achieved in its first 12 months of operating the App Store.
Tens of Thousands of Apps, Billions of Downloads
Apple celebrated the download of 1 billion applications from the iTunes App Store just this April. Anytime you have a one followed by nine zeroes, it certainly looks impressive, but the remarkable speed with which Apple reached this milestone makes the achievement even more noteworthy. It took just over nine months for the App Store to hit 1 billion downloads; there were also over 35,000 apps available at this time. Not quite three months later, and there are 58,000 apps available in the App Store and downloads are over 1.5 billion.
Love Me Some Apps
iPhone apps are a certified hit. According to a recent report from Compete, the App Store generates surprising engagement with customers. Twenty-seven percent of smartphone users have never installed any apps on their phones, compared with only 2 percent of iPhone users who have managed to avoid the App Store. Of those who have paid for apps, 86 percent have never paid more than $9.99, but 83 percent of iPhone users have downloaded at least six apps.
Seventy-nine percent of iPhone users have downloaded games for their device. Other popular app categories are Entertainment (78 percent), Weather (57 percent), and Music (55 percent). If we count all 21 million iPhones and 16 million iPod touch units worldwide at the time this report was released, these percentages mean that four out of five, or about 16.6 million iPhone users, have at least tried playing a game on their iPhone. If we assume a similar percentage for iPod touch users, then there are about 12.6 million more people downloading content for their device, or about 29.2 million users total who have downloaded at least one game from the App Store.
What should be even more exciting for iPhone developers is that the total installed base of iPhone and iPod touch units is set to nearly double within a year. At 7 million units a quarter, the market for the App Store will increase to 58 million devices by the end of 2009, or 65 million devices by April 2010, maybe 72 million to 75 million by the three-year anniversary of the iPhone and the two-year anniversary of the App Store.
The iPhone Marketplace is Huge
To get a sense of the scale and importance of the iPhone App Store, I went to Electronic Arts, a publisher with two titles on the all-time most popular paid apps leaderboard (Tetris and Monopoly: Here and Now). While it was reluctant to share specific numbers across platforms, it did have the following comment.
EA doesn’t share specific sales results, but the success of Spore Origins and SimCity being a No. 1 Top Paid App worldwide within a day of its launch speaks to the excitement around EA games on the iPhone and iPod touch. In looking at Apple’s game sales on the App Store in general, there are a few cases where Apple’s monthly sales have surpassed certain carrier sales for the same period. It is clear that the consumer is reacting favorably to the shopping, download and game-play experience that Apple and the publishing partners have brought to market. With over 60 percent of Top Paid Apps being games, EA is in an exciting category and we intend to apply our passion for gaming and our leading IP to this platform.
I think it is fascinating that the App Store has exceeded some carrier sales for EA. Of course, EA has games on other platforms, too.
EA continues to evaluate all current and emerging platforms and will launch on platforms that deliver great purchase and gaming experiences. EA has launched three games for the G1 on the Android platform, over 50 games in support of BlackBerry, and over 30 games in support of Windows Mobile.
I was a little surprised to learn there were so many titles on the BlackBerry. I have been a BlackBerry user for several years, but I don’t recall ever seeing an ad for software on the BlackBerry. The game market appears to be a leading indicator of the platform’s success. There are just 12 EA titles on the iPhone right now, but some big names are set to launch this year. If anyone had doubts about the viability of the app market, and more specifically the game market, those doubts should be gone.
Comparisons
There are not any clear apples-to-apples comparisons (pun intended) of mobile phone application marketplaces for the App Store yet, although that will change this year as Microsoft, RIM, Google and Palm all have launched or will launch marketplaces in 2009, but we can look at the existing online stores for the video game market to get a small sense of the scale of the iPhone market.
Xbox
If we compare the iPhone download numbers with Xbox Live, a successful online gaming marketplace for Xbox 360 owners, we begin to see how quickly the App Store has grown. Microsoft has sold about 28 million Xbox 360 systems (compared with 35 million Nintendo Wii systems, and 20 million Sony PS3 systems). Of those 28 million, there are about 17 million active Xbox Live accounts (about 56 percent of which are paid Xbox Live Gold memberships). A dedicated gaming system, with the best online marketplace in the gaming console business, that has been in use for four years, has only 58 percent of the active accounts of the App Store. [source: Gamasutra & Gamasutra]
Nintendo DS
The iPhone platform is a formidable competitor to portable game devices, too. Nintendo announced just earlier this year that the Nintendo DS has now sold 100 million units. It took 3.5 years to reach this milestone. They are now selling about 8 million units per quarter, or slightly more than the combined 7 million iPhone and iPod touch units sold this last quarter. If Apple continues on its 7 million units per quarter pace, it will reach 100 million units about nine quarters from now, or almost exactly four years after the launch of the first iPhone. In comparison, the Sony PSP reached 50 million units after its first four years on the market. [Source: Kotaku]
Razr
The Motorola Razr, the hottest-selling mobile phone of the previous generation, took 1.5 years to reach 50 million units and had reached 110 million units after four years. The iPhone (by itself, without the iPod touch) will take about five more years (or 7.5 total) to reach 100 million at the current pace. Of course, the Motorola Razr benefited from being available on multiple carriers and having a subsidized price in the range of $50 to $100. If Apple can successfully move to multiple carriers in the U.S. and then worldwide, and lower the cost, then iPhone growth should accelerate. [Source: Wikipedia]
iPod
If we look a little closer to home, the iPod (across the entire product line) took 5.5 years to sell 100 million units and three years to reach 1 billion songs downloaded.
Why Comparisons are Never Fair
These comparisons are always unfair because of the amount of free content for the iPhone when you try to size that up against the predominantly paid content of the iTunes Music Store, Xbox Live and Nintendo DS titles. Still, the exercise gives a small indication of the sheer scale that the iPhone market has achieved in just 12 months.
So What Have We Got Here?
The iPhone and the App Store have created an enormous market. By the next anniversary, we should see 180,000+ apps available in the App Store, 72+ million iPhone OS devices, and 3.5+ billion downloads. The installed base of iPhone OS devices will quickly leap far beyond the installed base of Mac OS computers, meaning that there will be more Objective-C and Cocoa code running on non-Mac devices than Macs — a strange thought for sure. This next year will be interesting to see if the App Store continues its breakneck growth. I, for one, expect that the next 12 months will only see this trend accelerate.
What do you expect to see in the next 12 months from the App Store? More growth? Will the curve start to level out?
Market research you can use: Keep informed about Cloud Computing and IT Infrastructure. Learn more »Переслать - Apple Boasts 1.5B App Store Downloads in First Year
Apple likes numbers, and shoving said numbers in our faces every time they reach a milestone of any kind. To celebrate the App Store’s first birthday, the company’s got a suitably huge figure to brandish: 1.5 billion. That one, five and eight zeroes indicates the number of iPhone apps downloaded within the store’s inaugural year. It’s an impressive number on its own, but it becomes even more impressive when you recall that it was only a little over two months ago that Apple hit the 1 billion-mark.
That’s half a billion downloads in around two and a half months. To say iPhone 3.0 and the new 3GS hardware probably had an effect on app downloading volume would be a gross understatement. A cursory and very unscientific examination of Twitter at the time of the official release of 3.0 saw a massive surge in interest surrounding the App Store, as people frantically shared and searched for any news of what the first push-enabled apps would be. And then probably downloaded those apps in droves as they came out.
As is now becoming standard again for Apple press releases, the official word from Cupertino includes a (rather bland) quote from returned CEO Steve Jobs, who had this to say:
"The App Store is like nothing the industry has ever seen before in both scale and quality," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "With 1.5 billion apps downloaded, it is going to be very hard for others to catch up.”
Basically, Jobs is reiterating what tech pundits, analysts and bloggers have been saying since Apple’s rivals started introducing their own applications stores. Nice that he at least sounds sporting about it, almost like he’s issuing a challenge.
For more info on the recent massive uptick in App Store downloads, including a lovely chart to show you just how Apple managed to amass so many downloads in such a short period of time, check out CNN’s Fortune blog post about the press release. As they rightly point out, this meteoric rise can’t continue forever. The question is, when and where will it end?
Market research you can use: Keep informed about Cloud Computing and IT Infrastructure. Learn more »Переслать - Mac Users Left Out of the Microsoft Office 2010 Launch Party
Sometimes I feel like Microsoft keeps the Mac BU around just so it can mock and ridicule it. The unit never seems to get to join in the fun when it comes time to release a new iteration of Office. Not, at least, until well after its PC counterparts. The official line is that the development cycle for both products is always around two to three years, so the schedule dictates when new releases become available — which explains why we won’t be seeing Office 2010 until 2011. Regardless of cycles, Office for Mac is badly in need of an upgrade — right now.
I have Office 2008, but I can count the number of times I use it in one month on one finger. Whenever possible, I use Google Docs or Bean (an excellent freeware multiformat text editor for Mac) for any Word doc editing I may need to do, which is almost none now that I’ve left school and the corporate world behind. Even though a lot of people still depend on the format, as the number of Mac users grows, I suspect Office will continue to lose ground, especially if Microsoft continues to offer such seriously unpleasant Mac-specific software.
Sometimes I swear Office 2008 was just a ploy to get me to install Windows on a Boot Camp partition and run Office 2007. I find command and menu placement to be completely unintuitive and just plain awkward on the Mac version. Google Docs in an SSB seems like a natively designed OS X app by comparison.
Of course, a big part of the announcement of Office 2010 was the revelation of a suite of online apps, which theoretically should be accessible from any browser on any platform (unless MS pulls a classic IE-only block, which I don’t think it would for fear of inciting riots). So, Mac users will be able to join in on the fun, right? Not quite. The web portion of Office 2010, from what I gather from Microsoft’s press releases about the software, will complement and work together with the old-fashioned installed media portion. I think it’ll end up looking much more like iWork.com and iWork than Zoho Writer or Google Docs.
Microsoft, if you want to be a software company, be one. Clearly you think it makes business sense to develop for Mac, or the Mac BU wouldn’t exist (unless my conspiracy theories above are correct). If that’s the case, treat it as you would any other software, and build excitement by launching cross-platform products of consistent quality, all at once.
Market research you can use: Keep informed about Cloud Computing and IT Infrastructure. Learn more »Переслать - App Review: Doom Resurrection — Casual Slaughter for the Masses
App Quick Stats
Doom Resurrection is aptly named, the archetypal shooter having risen from the grave for the iPhone and iPod touch. The thing is, though, when the dead return, they never come back the same.
You know the story: future, Mars, research facility, teleportation experiments, hell unleashed. Mayhem ensues as you, the sole surviving marine, attempt to thwart the evil and escape, killing anything that moves along the way.
The game itself is clearly derived from Doom 3, the 2004 re-imagining of the PC franchise. Remade again for a handheld experience, Doom Resurrection is visually stunning. The textures, the models and the lighting all are superb, as are the sound effects. Doom Resurrection made me forget I was playing a game on a phone or a media player. The detailed graphics are something I would expect to see on a PlayStation Portable, and yet the frame rates are fluid on my iPhone 3G.
Controls
However, unlike the PSP, the lack of physical controls on Apple's devices has condensed Doom Resurrection, too. At 80MB and eight levels of play, there is still plenty of game, but it's a different kind of play.
Accelerometer = Aim/Look
The biggest change is the control scheme with the accelerometer being used to look and aim by tilting the device. It's a responsive, well-designed implementation, as is the solution for player-controlled movement: eliminating it. A "shooter on rails" has been the pejorative refrain from critics describing the lack of free roaming in Doom Resurrection. Instead, the player is moved along a set path through the levels, pausing for combat and story exposition, the latter playing out in IM chat bubbles — voiceovers, please!
Doom Resurrection User Interface
The UI is built around the core of the Doom franchise: shooting things. Up to three weapons can be cycled through, most of which need reloading. Ammunition, as well as health packs, are scattered and hidden on the levels. Touching them on the screen picks them up, but since movement is guided, they can be easily missed.
Shake Move
Besides shooting, there are three other actions the player can take during the game. On the first few levels, fat zombies will attempt to grapple and bite. Shaking the device pushes them off.
Dodge Move
Dodging missile attacks like fireballs is accomplished by using the special move button located on the bottom, opposite the fire button. Timing is everything, and it's best to learn early. Dodging is used throughout the game, as is cover.
Uncovered
Some enemies will stand off and shoot at you. In that situation, by toggling cover you can hide behind objects and avoid damage.
Under Cover
Whether behind cover or not, a yellow hexagon will appear as enemies fire. That shrinking hexagon represents enemy accuracy, and when it turns red you'll start taking damage if you are out in the open.
Overall, the control scheme is great for a multitouch device. The question then becomes whether the game itself is worth playing, not to mention paying $9.99.
Gameplay
Three most important rules for Doom Resurrection: headshot, headshot, headshot.
Play begins with acclimation to the control scheme and introducing the story that continues throughout the game. While some exposition can be skipped, other dialogue has to be tapped through, annoyingly even on replay. The story and dialogue could be better, too. One character, a little plot device robot that follows you, makes sounds in lieu of speech. Does a game that's based upon blowing bodies apart with a shotgun really need a cutsie R2-D2 knockoff?
You see this? This is my BOOMSTICK!
The repetition of the storytelling is a small annoyance; a larger one is the repetition of the killing. Sadly, there is no random spawning of monsters. The game is exactly the same, regardless of difficulty setting, and that would be the third disappointment. The four levels of difficulty are based upon how much damage attacks inflict. One other complaint would be that only a single saved game is allowed. Still, the complaints on play are small, and the praise deservedly big.
I said stay down! Bad dog! Here, have a chainsaw chew toy.
The first time through, around three hours at moderate difficulty, was a riot. The lack of roaming was never missed, the near-constant combat keeping me fully engaged. It's not just point and shoot, either.
Two-headed monkey demons, meet the chaingun, chaingun, demon monkeys.
Nicely migrated from the franchise is the need to match weapon to foe. There are eight seven weapons: assault rife, shotgun, double-barrel shotgun, chainsaw, chaingun, plasma rifle, and, of course, the BFG. In my opinion, the assault rifle is a concession to the casual gamer, what with an infinite ammo supply, but the rest require judicious use of supplies.
Attention, monsters, there's a blue light special on aisle nine, the plasma gun.
The best firing solution is short bursts when possible. If not, switching weapons often takes less time than reloading. Frantically reloading while an unspeakable evil charges down a hallway is another hallmark of Doom. Resist the Pavlovian urge to reload after every kill, as there is often an immediate follow-up attack.
BFG: good times, good times
Of course, bosses require an entirely different approach: biggest weapon to smallest, full auto, keep shooting. The exception is the BFG. That weapon requires holding the fire button down as long as possible, releasing a correspondingly large plasma discharge. I love the BFG, and I love Doom Resurrection.
Summing Up: Gold Award
Doom Resurrection is bloody fun, if you swing that way. For those that do, but worry over a "rails" ride, Doom Resurrection is "rails" like a roller coaster. For those wary of repetitious play, the replay value is in the perfect level as scored at the end. New features will diversify play with future updates like leaderboards, downloadable content and cooperative multiplayer, but even without new play, Doom Resurrection is golden.
Scoring a Level
Doom Resurrection is the best game to date for the iPhone and iPod touch. Seriously, it is, and if $9.99 seems like a lot, it's really not, not for a game that can compete with content on dedicated handhelds like the PSP. The big brains at id Software have done it by creating the next evolutionary leap in casual gaming, and it has teeth like razor blades.
Market research you can use: Keep informed about Cloud Computing and IT Infrastructure. Learn more »Переслать - Tips & Tricks: What's Your Alias?
Aliases in Mac OS X are essentially equivalent to shortcuts in the Windows world. They work by creating a link to an original file located somewhere on your Mac or network and maintain the link even if the original is moved or renamed.
How to Create Aliases
Creating aliases is pretty easy. You can right-click on a file and select "Make Alias" or choose "Make Alias" from the File menu. Viola! You have created an alias, indicated by the shortcut arrow on the icon and the word "alias" appended to the end of the file name.
If you want to create an alias and not have it include "alias" at the end, you can do so by holding down the command and option keys while dragging the desired file to a new location other than the original.
How to Ditch the Arrow
You can easily tell your aliases apart from your original files by the fact that aliases include a little arrow in their icon. For some, this may be a great reminder, but for others who may be creating collections of aliases for custom stacks in the Dock, or other reasons, the arrows may be annoying. Fortunately, with a little trip to the Terminal, we can solve this dilemma.
Essentially what we are going to do is take the graphic files that apply the arrow "badge" onto the icons and rename them so Mac OS X cannot find them. If your system cannot find the arrows, it cannot apply them to your aliases. This modification will affect all aliases on your Mac.
The first step is to fire up Terminal (located in the Utilities folder inside your Applications folder). At the command prompt, copy and paste the following line of code.
cd /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/ResourcesThis navigates to the location where the alias badge icons are stored. Then copy and paste this next line of code. It will require your administrator password after you execute the command.
sudo mv AliasBadgeIcon.icns AliasBadgeIcon_OFF.icnsFor Terminal newbies, this command invokes "sudo," which allows you to run powerful commands as another user, in this case, the "root" user. The "mv" command is Unix-talk for "move files." In the example above, it simply causes the file to be renamed.
To see the changes, you can either restart your computer, or type in the following line of code. (In my tests using the latest builds of Snow Leopard, I actually had to restart the system to see the results).
killall FinderTo put them back, simply follow the steps again, but when you reach the sudo command, use this line of code.
sudo mv AliasBadgeIcon_OFF.icns AliasBadgeIcon.icns
Market research you can use: Keep informed about Cloud Computing and IT Infrastructure. Learn more »Переслать - Complaint Desk: Whose MacBook Pro 7200RPM Drive Sounds Like R2D2?
Apple users are dedicated defenders and evangelists of the products we love, but we also really like to get together and gab about the problems our devices have. I know I become obsessively detail-oriented whenever I pick up a new piece of Apple hardware, and am quick to overreact to every perceived imperfection I find by calling the Genius Bar and scheduling an appointment. Most of the time, my problems are more the product of a fevered brain and less concrete examples of design or manufacturing flaws, but some problems are all too real.
Case-in-point: Many consumers who ponied up the extra cash to get a faster, 7200RPM HDD vs. the standard, 5400RPM got more than they bargained for. Some of the drives apparently boast the unadvertised feature of making odd clicks and beeping noises while in operation. Maybe that’s just Apple’s way of making sure you’re paying attention to how much better your computer performs with the faster drive?
Seriously, though, the problem seems to affect quite a few users, with more reporting the same or similar issues every day. Reports indicate that in addition to audible clicking and beeping sounds, some of the drives are showing more serious performance issues, too, with the OS appearing to freeze for a brief second whenever a click occurs. While a vocal HD might just be annoying, a vocal HD that also seems to skip a beat is downright terrifying to anyone who depends on their MBP for work or for storing sensitive data.
Early theories on what’s causing the problem is the Seagate Momentus 7200.4 drive’s G-Force shock protection feature, which is probably redundant anyway, since Apple builds in its own fall detector and data protection system on every notebook it makes. Sadly, there’s no easy way to disable the special features for said drives. Users who’ve upgraded themselves with other 7200RPM drives seem not to be experiencing the issue, so the problem likely lies with the HDD and not with the MacBooks themselves. Cold comfort for those who’ve already paid for the Apple-installed upgrade.
The thread at the Apple support forums dealing with this issue is now 35 pages long, so I doubt it’s fallen through Cupertino’s nets. That said, no users have yet reported an actual drive failure as a result of the problem, so pressure for a response from official sources is not yet urgently required. I suspect they’ll play this one close to the chest and try to quietly issue a firmware fix before taking any more drastic action. For the time being at least, it looks like most appeals to the Apple Store for returns and exchanges are largely falling on deaf ears.
Is your machine one of those affected, and if so, has it become communicative? Describe your symptoms and discuss your experiences in the comments.
Market research you can use: Keep informed about Cloud Computing and IT Infrastructure. Learn more »Переслать - iPhone Social Gaming Service Roundup
Like any gaming platform, the sustained success of the platform itself is driven by its users. Social gaming networks allow for increased user interaction and, in many ways, a more engaging gaming experience. On the Xbox, you have the Xbox Live service; the Playstation 3 features the Playstation Network; and the Wii features WiiConnect24. So what types of social gaming services does the iPhone support? Come to find out, an increasing number of them. Here's a look at the top three.
ngmoco's Plus+
The company who dazzled your iPhone with hits like Rolando, Rolando 2, Topple (my favorite) and others, recently introduced their service called Plus+. This service allows users to challenge your friends on the network (or via Twitter) and track awards and top scores on leaderboards.For more information, check out Darrell's review of the service. From what I have been able to find, the Plus+ service is not open to outside developers at this time.
OpenFeint
If you are a fan of Aurora Feint, you've likely heard of their social gaming service called OpenFeint. This service allows users to interact similarly to Plus+, but is based around a concept they call "social discovery." Some unique features to OpenFeint-enabled games include chat rooms for more open social discussion, the ability to see what other OpenFeint-enabled games your friends might be playing (and buy them from within the app), and the largest user base of games supporting its service, with over 100 games based on OpenFeint.For developers, if you're interested in integrating OpenFeint into your next masterpiece, its SDK is free to try and is available here. The size of your user base, or if an app is paid vs. free, determines the cost per user for developers to integrate OpenFeint's service into their applications.
Scoreloop
Another service to enter this market is Scoreloop, a company and service formed by previous Apple and NeXT employees. Scoreloop is based around the simple objectives of global high scores and player challenges. Much like the other services, it also features integration with social networks such as Facebook, and allows for custom avatars and personalized profiles for tracking records and high scores. Scoreloop's "economy" is based around coins, which helps to provide a unified scoring system between games, allowing users to maintain their collection of coins and gain or lose more via challenging other players.While perhaps not as fully featured as other services, like OpenFeint, Scoreloop is, however, the first to announce that it is working to release its service on other devices, such as the Android platform. With a larger target market and a cheaper cost of entry for developers, Scoreloop could easily become more popular than OpenFeint (not to mention it’s user interface is more customizable to fit your application). For developers interested in Scoreloop, check out their free SDK here. Bug Landing, by the Scoreloop developers, is also a free application that features integration with this service.
Will one rise above the rest?
As Twitter became popular, we saw a plethora of competitors enter the market, from Plurk to Jaiku to Pownce. At the moment, a similar effect is starting to happen among these social networking services. Where on the console platform, each manufacturer has produced their own service, Apple has yet to bring any sort of unified service to its users. Since we all have an Apple ID for iTunes, Apple could easily integrate a beautiful solution so you can keep one central list of your gaming friends, awards and achievements.
Will Apple continue to stand by and allow multiple social gaming network services to evolve on the iPhone platform, or will they step in to offer their own service?
Market research you can use: Keep informed about Cloud Computing and IT Infrastructure. Learn more »Переслать - Rumor Has It: Apple Could Field $800 Tablet as Early as October
Do I have $800 to spend on yet another Apple device that bridges the (relatively small) gap between my iPhone and my 13-inch MacBook Pro? Not really. But if rumors prove true and this October does indeed see the launch of a small tablet device priced in that area coming out of Cupertino, I will be hard-pressed not to find an excuse to pick one up. In my dream of dreams, such a device would also be Wacom penabled, but Apple rarely seems to take into account my opinion when designing new products.
Regardless, I’m probably better off earmarking that $800 as pretty much spent, according to new reports from Chinese tech news site Info Times. The site, which is renowned for reporting rumors and leaks on the supply chain side of Apple’s operations, is now saying that the tech giant is set to begin actual production on a 9.7-inch touchscreen device, aimed at competing with the netbook market. $800 is still a far cry from the $300 to $400 most basic netbooks will cost, but who’s counting?
The suppliers who’ve received orders from Apple for parts for the device are the usual suspects, including Foxconn, Wintek and Dynapack. Rumors have long been circulating that Wintek has been tapped to provide screens around 9.7-inches in size, so if nothing else, this latest rumor is at least consistent with previous ones. No other details about the device are made specific in the article, including whether or not it will also have some kind of keyboard, what OS or software it will use, or what kind of hardware specs it will have under the hood.
Let the wild guesses begin. For my part, I think Steve Jobs & Co. must have something fairly out of the ordinary in mind if they want to release an $800 device to compete in a market that really tops out around $500. Jobs once remarked that Apple didn’t “know how to make a $500 computer that's not a piece of junk, and our DNA will not let us ship that," but will consumers see the $300 worth of value-add that goes into this new device, should the rumored price point prove accurate?
I think that Apple is probably counting on establishing a new device category rather than competing with the netbook market. Basically, it looks to me like it wants to recreate its success with the iPhone by porting the same incredibly versatile software platform to a device more suited to browsing, video playback, and touchscreen gaming. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was compatible with some kind of keyboard peripheral, which would give you maximum portability with the option to add girth, along with productivity enhancement should you need it. With 3G-capable netbooks popping up in deals with U.S. wireless providers, I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple announces a similar partnership to offset the high cost of this tablet, either.
It will be hard for Apple to thread the needle, so to speak, on a device which arguably fits into a very small niche in its existing line of offerings, but the company has been known to tap unexplored markets before, so we’ll have to wait and see if it can pull it off yet again.
Photo courtesy of flickr user factoryjoe.
Market research you can use: Keep informed about Cloud Computing and IT Infrastructure. Learn more »Переслать - App Store Anniversary: One Year Later
This past Saturday, July 11, marked the 1-year anniversary of the opening of the iPhone App Store. In that time Apple has simultaneously redefined the expectations of what a mobile phone can do, and fundamentally changed the way that software for smartphones is delivered to consumers.
There are now about 58,000 applications available through the App Store, providing everything from bird-watching reference guides, to live video of baseball games, to first-person shooters like Doom Resurrection, to Koi ponds. Just like the commercials say, whatever it is you want to do with your iPhone, you are likely to find an app for that.
The Good
In April, Apple announced that as of the end of its second fiscal quarter, it had sold a total of 21 million iPhones and 16 million units of the iPod touch. Also in April, Apple announced that one billion apps had been downloaded by consumers, representing about 27 downloads per device at the time. Three months later, at the end of this quarter, we should expect something like 1.3 billion downloads for 45 million devices, if the trends hold up. The App Store has been such a success that all the other major smartphone makers are launching their own app stores, for the BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Palm Pre, and Google Android devices.
This new model for selling software, pioneered by Apple, is a significant shift for the industry. Previously applications for smartphones were either available from the carrier directly, or involved finding software to purchase from independent software companies or in specialty online marketplaces. These models suffered from significant hurdles. The carrier model held back a large amount — sometimes over 50 percent — of the revenue from sales for the carrier itself. The independent distribution model lagged because of a lack of awareness among consumers, and even marketplaces like PocketGear have taken years to develop a catalog that Apple enjoyed within nine months of launch.
The appeal to developers was an important factor in this growth. Apple has put together some decent tools in Xcode since the transition to Mac OS X in 2001. The Mac developers that were already familiar with the tools and the Cocoa frameworks were eager to develop for the iPhone. Coders outside of the Mac circle were also quick to jump on board because at a fundamental level, writing Objective-C code against Cocoa libraries is not that different from writing C++ code for any other framework.
This distribution model for the finished software is, I believe, the key factor to Apple’s success. Combined with the ability to access the store directly on the device and a dead simple install process, the iPhone model has encouraged customers to try out software. A low price point, of 99 cents, and many free apps have driven download numbers. Now the iPhone is far more than just a great phone with email and web. It can be almost anything. It is no surprise that Apple’s marketing features the App Store by reminding everyone that whatever you want the iPhone to be, “there’s an app for that.”
The Bad
And while I am still blown away by the fact that you can purchase an app for $10 that lets you watch live baseball games on your phone, there is a bunch of junk out there, too. While there was a big stink made about farting apps a couple months ago as the leading title of that genre generated some not-so-insignificant revenues for its creator, the interest in fart apps has (predictably?) fallen off in recent weeks. There is frankly a lot of bad software among those 58,000 apps that doesn’t do much or offer much value to anyone and threatens to choke out small quality titles.
And while other fads will continue to come and go in the App Store, this leads to a crowded marketplace where it becomes difficult to find any software of real interest. One can either use the search field, which isn’t particularly clever and easily gamed with keyword stuffing the app description, or one can browse the categories and Top 100 lists. Either approach is somewhat lacking.
The Ugly
The ease with which consumers can try software has also led to some problems for the App Store. There is a significant trend to price apps at the minimum 99 cents in order to try and reach the Top 100 lists, which convey a significant boost in sales as they are featured to everyone browsing for software. To a certain degree, this price floor limits the potential for developers to push the limits of the platform. It makes sense for many shops to try making several small, 99-cent apps that might enjoy a few weeks or months of glory rather than shoot for a more substantial project whose price may keep it off the top sellers list.
It remains to be seen what patience the market will have for casual titles and software toys as the novelty wears off in this second year of the App Store. I hope we will see some significant titles get the attention that they deserve. I cannot tell you how impressed I was when I first saw Super Monkey Ball at the iPhone Developer Preview event. That title completely changed my perspective on what iPhone gaming could be. Titles like Real Racing, Star Defense and Tiger Woods PGA Tour have continued to advance what is possible. I want to see developers push the envelope to bring us amazing apps that will blow our minds. But there needs to be the right financial incentive in place so that developers can fund larger teams to bring us this software.
Market research you can use: Keep informed about Cloud Computing and IT Infrastructure. Learn more »Переслать - The iPhone, IT, and the Enterprise
Fortune has a nice article on discussions with IT professionals with regards to the iPhone. I especially like this quote from a former CIO:
"What's interesting about the iPhone is [that] the capability of the device is tremendous," he added. "We're looking closely at it. There are a lot of people in IT who play around with it. So I wouldn't say we have our heads in the sand. And as Apple catches up on the centralized management issues, it's not out of the realm of possibility that we would replace BlackBerrys with iPhones, or add iPhones to the mix."
I like the quote because it’s realistic. If you’re rolling thousands of these things out, then RIM is ahead of the curve in terms of manageability at this point. But, as he states, Apple is getting there. Someone with this attitude gives me hope that they’ll give the iPhone a fair review, keep an eye on it, and potentially roll it out as improvements dictate. With this kind of attitude, RIM should be worried.
On the other hand, there are still some backwoods folks, the kind RIM loves and hope to keep in its pocket forever:
"Frankly," added a second, "some management in our organization think it's more of a toy/gimmick thing because of the way it's marketed."
Ah, yes, the old “toy” argument. Just like a Mac was a “toy” 25 years ago. As if being fun, easy to use, and a major leap forward is a curse. Did they never consider that if a device is easy to use people will, you know, use it? Wouldn’t that be a benefit to their company? How short-sighted can a company get?
Market research you can use: Keep informed about Cloud Computing and IT Infrastructure. Learn more »Переслать - Weekly App Store Picks: July 11, 2009
Wave good-bye to the week and say hello to the weekend, complete with a hand-picked selection of the latest apps to hit the iPhone.
Prior to diving into the picks, it’s customary ’round these parts to provide an enlightening summary of the week’s iPhone news and Apple-related happenings.
First up, accident-prone owners of the iPhone will be particularly pleased to note that Apple is now replacing iPhone displays while you wait. Apparently the magic happens behind the scenes, armed with a giant suction cup your designated Apple Genius will pull the damaged screen off your iPhone before replacing it with a shiny new one. Great news, but potentially expensive if you’re out of warranty.
We may be in the midst of Summer, but the rumor-mill just keeps on churning out potentially golden nuggets of (dis)information. This time, Apple has apparently ordered a large quantity of super-cheap camera modules, supposedly to be integrated into the next iteration of iPod.
Prowl, a new iPhone app specifically for devices on the latest OS 3.0 software, allows you to receive desktop Growl notifications via push. This means that Growl notifications generated by desktop applications, such as torrent clients, instant messaging or email, can now be piped directly to your iPhone when you’re on the go.
Augmented reality has finally made it to the iPhone in the shape of Nearest Tube, an app that takes your iPhone’s camera feed and overlays directions. Designed for use in London, hold the iPhone up and it’ll point you to the nearest underground train station — perfect for locals and tourists alike. While it may not be useful for most of our readers outside the UK, it’s a compelling look at where the future of iPhone apps may be heading.
This year, July 11 doesn’t just signify a lazy Summer weekend, it also happens to be the first anniversary of the App Store’s official launch. In celebration of this, Apple has compiled a list of its favorite apps from the store, notable picks include Rolando and Dictionary.com’s excellent (and free) iPhone app.
TheAppleBlog’s Darrell Etherington may be a subscriber to Apple’s MobileMe service, but I certainly am not. I just don’t see the value in paying so much for a service that can be pieced together for free: Gmail, Picasa, Dropbox, Google Calendar and Google Sync. Now yet another reason has been added to the anti-MobileMe list, in the form of GPush — an app that generates an iPhone push notification whenever your receive new mail.
Moving on to the picks, this week I’ve been looking at iTwitter, VideoUp for Facebook, Mecho Wars and Evacuation.
iTwitter ($3.99)
Several months back, I posted a rundown of the most notable Twitter clients on the iPhone. Since then, the landscape has barely changed: Tweetie is still a firm favorite with the masses, TwitterFon is the well-rounded underdog and Twinkle is the pretty but shallow airhead. Until now, the only notable addition to this perpetual 140-character battle has been TweetDeck, introducing groups and a Palm Pre-style browsing interface. iTwitter isn’t a massive leap forward, but it does introduce push notifications — a feature which its competitors have yet to integrate. The app also looks great, is easy to navigate and can be used in landscape or portrait orientation. This is definitely one for the frequent tweeters to check out.
VideoUp for Facebook (99 cents)
Those who aren’t early adopters, take note, this app is for iPhone 3GS owners only. The latest iPhone integrates video recording straight out the box so, unlike the iPhone 3G, no nasty jailbreak-related hacks are needed. By default, you’re able to upload your videos direct to YouTube, which is great but not ideal for users of other social networks. VideoUp for Facebook is a simple uploader app that, once you’ve trimmed your vid down, allows you to upload direct to the social networking service. In particular, Facebook users who are a tad trigger-happy with iPhone 3GS video recording will find this to be an essential download.
Mecho Wars (99 cents)
I was excited to discover UniWar a few weeks back, a polished turn-based strategy with a sci-fi vibe. Now Mecho Wars joins the fray, bringing turn-based action inspired by Nintendo DS Advance Wars to the iPhone. The graphics have a retro-2D Japanese style to them, with weird robo-bugs and lunar landscapes, and the gameplay even features excellent cut-scenes for the battles. There’s also single device multiplayer, which means that you can compete with a friend using one iPhone. The app is also on sale for a limited time, so grab it while you can for just a buck.
Evacuation (99 cents)
Recently, I’ve developed a growing obsession for flash games — they’re the perfect distraction, quick to loud, easy to learn and occasionally great fun. With gameplay reminiscent of the Kill Bill flash game, one of my favorites of late has been Too Many Ninjas, a hack ‘n’ slasher with Commodore 64-esque retro graphics. Ported to the iPhone, Evacuation is another fun mini-game from the creator of Too Many Ninjas. It’s a puzzler where the goal is to shoot all the purple aliens out of the ship’s airlock, without blasting your crew in to space, too.That’s all the picks for this week. I’ll be back in seven days with more news from the week and picks from the App Store.
In the meantime, what apps have you been using this week?
Market research you can use: Keep informed about Cloud Computing and IT Infrastructure. Learn more »Переслать - AmazingMail's Web-to-Print Engine for iPhone
For both iPhone users and developers, a new service from Amazing Mail pushes the envelope — quite literally — of what a mobile device is capable of. The on-demand printing company is offering an integration service for iPhone developers, allowing for the creation of applications that are able to send physical postcards or printed photos.
Two applications have already put this feature into production — Postino (free) and PicCard (99 cents). Both offer the ability to print and send physical copies of photographs taken on your iPhone, priced at between 99 cents and $1.99, depending on where you’re shipping to.
AmazingMail’s CEO Chris Lynde notes:
Postino and PicCard are fabulous examples of how developers can generate margins of 100 percent or more with our web-to-print engine. We’ve already seen both of these apps evolve their feature sets in a matter of weeks based on iPhone user feedback.
For iPhone Users
Postino is a good example of how the service can work. You snap a picture with the iPhone camera, select a frame, draw an accompanying message or signature, and enter the address details of the recipient. The app can also send cards via email, if you’d prefer not to pay for the physical service.
Postino
For Developers
The ability to easily integrate physical printing with the iPhone allows developers to exploit a new revenue stream, particularly with the recent addition of in-app purchasing to the iPhone software.
Key features of this new web-to-print service include:
- Print and mail the next business day to any country
- High quality card printing
- Automatically standardize recipient addresses for maximum deliverability
- Easy-to-use HTTP submission method
- Wide flexibility in terms of the content able to be printed
- Environmentally friendly mailing options
A range of potential uses present themselves, both for personal use (sending family postcards or photos to friends), and for business. The relatively low cost of shipping is appealing — $1.50 to send a postcard internationally is certainly acceptable. It will be interesting to see how the model is adopted, and how developers look to merge their applications with a physical printing service in coming months.
From a slightly different perspective, the addition of dock connector APIs in the latest iPhone 3.0 software may further the ability to print directly from the iPhone. I wouldn’t be surprised to see accessory manufacturers produce a portable digital photo printer, as so many have already done for digital cameras.
A Step Backwards?
Part of me feels that this is a move back to a traditional postal medium and unlikely to work long term. The very notion of a “postcard” is beginning to feel slightly antiquated in the modern age, when you can upload images and video to services such as Flickr as you travel.
That said, I’ll certainly be taking one of these applications with me on my next trip, and hope to impress a few friends back home with some unconventional postcards. Work colleagues may be comfortable with Flickr and YouTube, but I know for a fact my grandparents will still feel excited to pick up a customized iPhone postcard from the letterbox.
Market research you can use: Keep informed about Cloud Computing and IT Infrastructure. Learn more »Переслать - Apple Climbs to Middle of the Pack in Fortune Global 500 List
Once a year, Fortune releases its ranking of the top 500 global companies, and in recent years Apple has usually managed to nab a spot. This year, it rose to almost exactly the middle of the field at 253, up from 337 last year. The ratings are based on gross revenue, so it isn’t surprising to find larger PC manufacturers like Hewlett-Packard (32) and Dell (115) ranked significantly higher, despite the fact that Apple enjoys healthier profit margins.
Rankings are based on performance over the course of the last year, so the new list represents results for 2008. Apple first made the cut of the Global 500 list only two years ago for 2006, when they placed near the very bottom, at 492. Considering the short time frame, that’s actually a fairly impressive 2-year gain.
Take into account, though, that collective earnings for the list taken as a whole declined 85 percent this past year, which marks the most significant loss since Fortune began compiling it. Apple, Quanta, and HP were the only computer manufacturers on the list to post gains, with Apple outpacing all with a 38 percent boost in overall profits.
The results show that, if nothing else, Apple has been especially resistant to the effects of a down global economy thus far. Their success with the iPhone 3GS, coupled with the recent popularity of the newly upgraded 13-inch MacBook Pro, suggests that that resilience will continue through the summer and probably into the holiday season, especially if the rumored iMac price cuts come through as predicted.
The Fortune Global 500 is not to be confused with the Fortune 500, which only ranks American companies. When that list was released earlier this year in April, Apple had broken the top 100 for the first time since Steve Jobs’ return to the company in 1994. It reached number 71 on that list.
Market research you can use: Keep informed about Cloud Computing and IT Infrastructure. Learn more »Переслать - Thanks to TheAppleBlog Sponsors!
We’d like to say thanks to this month’s sponsor of TheAppleBlog:
- Mozy: Back up your photos, music, and files with Mozy for as low as $4.34 per month.
Переслать - BluePhoneElite Partners Your Mac and iPhone for Calls
Skype calls are fun, especially given the quality of the mic/speaker hardware built into most currently offered Macs. You get hands-free calling, which is especially great if you’re already using your computer anyway. Not everyone has Skype, though, and even fewer people have Skypeout credit, which allows you to call standard mobile phones and landlines. Now there’s a way to call via your iPhone and a Bluetooth connection through your Mac, so you can get all the benefits of Skype (except for video) using your wireless minutes.
BluePhoneElite has previously supported a variety of other phones for Mac calling, but only this latest version brings the much-requested iPhone support to the table. It should work with both the 3G and the 3GS, though I’ve only been able to try it out using the latter. I should also note that I wasn’t able to get it to connect successfully with my iMac, though it worked with my Mac mini and my MacBook Pro. As Smoking Apples points out, it does appear to be a bit buggy in this release, but when it does work, it works simply and well.
I’m sure at least a few people will wonder aloud about why this is even useful, but trust me, as someone who spends the bulk of their day plopped firmly in front of at least one computer screen, the ability to field and make calls from the same device you’re working on, without undue use of your hands or even headset devices, sounds like quite the blessing. So far, BluePhoneElite does not support text messaging on the iPhone (though it does with other devices), so it falls just short of being the ultimate phone/computer work combo. It’s $25 for a full license, but a free 14-day trial ensures you’re not buying anything you can’t/won’t actually use.
Market research you can use: Keep informed about Cloud Computing and IT Infrastructure. Learn more »Переслать - Patience Is a Virtue: Wait to Buy Your Mac and Save
They say you can’t time the market, but for some lucky folks, there is special time to buy a new Mac and related accessories. By doing nothing other than waiting for this magic time, you could save an average of 5-9 percent on a new computer. It’s all about being at the right place at the right time.
The right place is one the eight states that have computer-inclusive sales tax holidays, and the right time is usually a weekend in August.
Many state legislatures, in an effort to ease the costs of going back to school (and help themselves get re-elected), have enacted laws specifying periods of time where certain purchases are tax-free. Common exemptions include clothes and back-to-school supplies. Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee also exempt certain computer purchases from sales tax. Click on the sites of any of those states listed above and you’ll be linked to their respective Tax Holiday Information pages.
Each state does it a bit differently, and it can be confusing trying to figure out what’s included and what’s excluded. For example, mail order sales may still be taxed. Some cities can opt out of the state laws, and some cities may charge other taxes that are not exempt. Occasionally the computer cannot be used for business purposes and some peripherals are excluded. None of the states require that the computer be used for educational purchases nor must you be a resident of that state, so if you live near one of these eight states, it might be worth a drive to save some money.
If you decide to take advantage of a sales tax holiday, note that Apple stores will be packed. Go in a few days before and pick out the items you want and find out the exact rules. Based on past experience, Apple stores will have a procedure to get you in and out quickly on the tax holiday weekend, as their stores will have long waits. Want to avoid some of those lines? You might consider purchasing at an Apple Authorized Reseller.
Unless, of course, you like paying taxes!
Market research you can use: Keep informed about Cloud Computing and IT Infrastructure. Learn more »Переслать
Об этом говорят! Ссылки на самые горячие темы интернета!
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