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Cost to Make the Apple TV? Just $64
iSuppli (via BusinessWeek) has gotten around to tearing down the new Apple TV and assessing its manufacturing cost. The final tally? Only $64, a considerably smaller sum than the $237 the previous generation Apple TV, introduced in 2007, cost to make. So why the big difference?

Well, much of the cost of the original came from the Pentium chip from Intel and its chipset, which accounted for $68 alone according to 9 to 5 Mac. That means today’s Apple TV costs less to make in its entirety than just the brains behind the previous generation. The new version’s case is also cheaper, and even its most expensive parts — the A4 chip and the 8GB of RAM — are only $16.55 and $14 respectively. It’s definitely one of the benefits of going in-house with your processor.

Plus, Apple is actually making more money, percentage-wise, per unit sold. It was making 20 percent margins on the old Apple TV (minus any non-production costs) and now it’s making 35 percent. The cost to manufacture also means that even if things don’t go all that well for the new Apple TV, the company won’t be taking that much of a bath.

Because Apple TV keeps its cost down using its own chips, we might see much higher prices on Google TV, which will be based on Intel-produced processors. It’s yet another example of Apple starting to turn the tide in terms of its reputation as the high-cost electronics company, beginning with the iPad’s price vs. that of competing devices.

As is the case with other tablets, it’s likely we’ll see manufacturers try to offset the cost of their own competitors by bundling devices with subscription packages. Google TV will be incorporated into actual televisions, which could help hide the actual cost, and we might see cable providers shipping units as part of bundles for new subscribers. Price discussions will likely be on the agenda next month at NewTeeVee Live, when Google TV’s product lead Rishi Chandra takes the hot seat. Whether defraying costs through partnerships proves more or less effective than Apple’s decent-price-without-strings-attached method remains to be seen.

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Google Goggles Now on the iPhone
It’s not all war and competition between tech giants Google and Apple. Sometimes, the companies can come together, and the winner each time that happens is invariably the consumer. Today Google brings Google Goggles to the iPhone. Try saying that five times fast.

Goggles is a Labs product that Google introduced back in December of last year for Android devices. As its name implies, it involves the visual spectrum, allowing you to snap a photo using your device’s camera and using that to initiate a search. Now you can both talk to, and show Google’s iPhone app what it is you’re looking for.

Just download Google Mobile App from the App Store for free, and tap the camera button to search using Goggles. Goggles will then highlight elements of the image it recognizes, and you can tap on those areas to find out more. Google has a short video explaining the process:

Before you start taking pictures of your friends and your dog, though, be aware that this technology is still relatively new, hence the Labs designation that Google affixes to all its experimental software. It should work great for recognizing things like landmarks, or DVD and video game artwork, though.

If you don’t have it yet, don’t worry, the update’s being pushed out gradually to all the international App Stores. If you do have it, how’s it working for you? Let us know below.

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Revolutionary: Apple TV Could Be for Places, Not Just People
Just like iPads are for places, not people, there’s potentially more to Apple TV than meets the eye. And yes, it all hinges on the availability of apps and iAds on the Apple TV. As the world ponders what will be the killer app for the Apple TV, think for a moment about terminals that display live data for hotels, conferences, and mass transit meeting places like airports, bus and train stations.

These locations have all transitioned away from print and toward live, self-updating kiosks. Call centers, data centers, offices and various places of employment are likewise headed the same way. Just like iPhones and iPod touches can be used for point-of-sale (POS) transactions, iOS can also help Apple TVs replace the extremely outdated Windows in the realm of the commercial display.

Blue Screens of Death Everywhere

I found it funny back in June when each morning I was greeted by a blue screen of death (BSoD) in my hotel’s elevator as I made my way to WWDC. The same iOS technology I was learning about at WWDC could potentially replace all of the BSoDs worldwide by the time I return to San Francisco for WWDC 2011.

It’s likely that firms that sell kiosk solutions are littered with Microsoft and Adobe developers able to crank out media-rich, web-like ads that appeal to investors. The problem is, the technologies used to create such content are in desperate need of being overhauled, and neither Microsoft nor Adobe are in any position to do so.

Apple TV Is to Kiosk as iPad Is to Netbook

Pairing a relatively inexpensive $99 appliance in a custom housing with a cheap flat panel display drastically lowers costs, as there’s no longer a need for a full-featured PC or Mac. It wouldn’t be terribly hard to set up the Apple TV to launch a single app that would in turn use the device’s network connection retrieve data. It could pull down data regarding weather, sports, news, video, music, etc.

An enterprise could even create home-grown apps for ad-hoc distribution that could be used internally to share the latest sales numbers, call volumes, project status or even metrics on code repositories and data center availability. In meeting rooms, each participant could take control of the shared display as they AirPlay content to the Apple TV.

Yet Another iAd Outlet for Apple

Great idea, but how is Apple going to profit by it? By extending its iAd presence even further. Investors can add iAds to kiosks in an effort to generate a little revenue for both themselves and, consequently, Apple. Kiosks could be location aware in order to help drive which types of ads would be shown. The challenge would be feedback. If Apple enabled sharing of iAds across iOS devices when someone sees one they like, it would go a long way toward providing meaningful metrics to advertisers.

Bump Your Kiosk to Tweet Your Preference

To make it truly relevant to tomorrow’s market, this scheme should have a social angle. While not all kiosk content would benefit from sharing via AirPlay, there are other opportunities for social interaction. If an iAd catches your attention, just “bump” (via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connection) the kiosk to remember what you found interesting. Each kiosk would keep track of who bumped it, and display iAds that individuals that frequent that location are more likely to take an interest in.

While the press and the entertainment industry are looking for a revolution in television, Apple could quietly and quickly swoop in and take over the kiosk market, placing an iOS device if not in the hands of, at least within 100 yards of every consumer on the planet.

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iPad Claims New Honor: Fastest Selling Electronic Device Ever
Analysts at Bernstein Research (via CNBC) have bestowed an interesting honor upon Apple’s groundbreaking tablet device: fastest selling electronic device. Adoption rates for the iPad are unparalleled when it comes to non-phone devices. Consider that the DVD player, the next fastest seller, sold only 350,000 units in its first year, while the iPad sold more than 3 million in its first 80 days.

Bernstein’s guess is predicated on a sales rate of around 4.5 million units sold per quarter, which isn’t at all unreasonable given that consumer interest hasn’t shown any signs of significantly flagging since then. Even the original iPhone only sold 1 million units in its first quarter. If the iPad continues to sell at its current rate, it’ll become the fourth biggest consumer electronics category, in terms of sales, by next year.

That’ll mean that the iPad, on its own, will sell more than all gaming consoles combined, and the entire cell phone market. Only televisions, smartphones and notebook computers will continue to exceed it. It’s hard to emphasize what a tremendous accomplishment that would be for Apple.

Of course, the iPad had a lot of advantages over other newly introduced, electronic devices. First, it had a built-in software platform, replete with applications ready to go out of the box, thanks to its use of iOS and Apple’s efforts to have developers prepare iPad-specific apps in time for launch. Second, demand was clearly present, as evidenced by Apple’s long, drawn out teaser campaign of carefully orchestrated leaks and PR strategizing. The campaign also no doubt helped heighten demand, whipping Apple fans into a frenzy of anticipation.

While much has been made of Apple’s rise to a position of prominence comparable to that of its longtime rival, Microsoft, the iPad and its success puts the company in an entirely different sphere of influence. For all it accomplished, Microsoft never created a brand new category of electronic device that itself ranked among the top-selling general categories. That degree of thought leadership will ensure Apple shapes the industry for years to come, despite any battles it may lose along the way.

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Is Web Working in Apple TV's Future?
So I broke down and got one of the new Apple TVs, despite my initial objections. There was a few reasons why I did, some of which I've detailed at TheAppleBlog recently. But the future possibilities of the Apple TV for web working also intrigue me.

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Xmarks Shutting Down Soon: Here's an Alternative
Way back in March I told you about Xmarks, the bookmark sync and backup service. Unfortunately, the developers have announced that, due to loss of money and having found no interested buyers, it’s shutting down for good on Jan. 10, 2011, meaning all syncs will cease, and all backups will be lost. At least they were considerate enough to give a couple of months’ notice before pulling the plug; it gives everyone time to move over to alternative services.

The Xmarks developers offer alternatives, but the only one they can suggest for Safari users is Apple’s MobileMe service. As MobileMe costs $99 a year, subscribing just for the sake of syncing your Safari bookmarks is a bit costly. If you use any other browser, there are free alternatives such as Firefox Sync and Chrome Sync.

I’ve seen some weird and wacky ways of syncing Safari bookmarks, including emailing yourself every time you change your bookmarks, or simply “remember which bookmarks you've added and add them on the other machine(s),” neither of which are helpful. I’ve discovered a much more useful method involving Dropbox. It’s not as automatic as Xmarks was, but it gets the job done.

There are two ways of doing this: one uses a free download called SymbolicLinker, and the other uses Terminal.app. I’ll start by going through the steps for using SymbolicLinker, then I’ll talk about the Terminal method.

Using SymbolicLinker
1. Download SymbolicLinker. It can be found on MacUpdate. It’s not an application, but a Service you can install, which adds a new option when you right-click an item in the Finder. To install it, simply double-click the SymbolicLinker.service icon.
2. Get Dropbox. You can sign up for free. A free Dropbox account gives you 2GB of space. Obviously you can skip this step if you already have Dropbox.
3. Quit Safari. Safari will get confused if you start messing around with its files while it’s still running.
4. Create a ‘Bookmarks’ folder in Dropbox. It doesn't matter what you call it, as long as you remember that it’s for your bookmarks.
5. Move the Bookmarks file from Safari to Dropbox. The file is called Bookmarks.plist and is located in [your Home folder]>Library>Safari. Make sure you move it rather than copy it over.
6. Create a symbolic link to the Bookmarks file. To do this, right-click Bookmarks.plist and choose Make Symbolic Link, which is the new option added by SymbolicLinker. Now drag the new file, ‘Bookmarks.plist symlink’, back to where you found the original file. Rename it back to ‘Bookmarks.plist’.
You can now re-open Safari to check that all your bookmarks are still there and that they work properly. Next, repeat these steps on the other computers you want to keep in sync:
1. Download and install SymbolicLinker. Do this exactly the same way as before.
2. Sync the computer with Dropbox. Make sure the new Bookmarks.plist file is completely downloaded before continuing.
3. Quit Safari.
4. Create a symbolic link to the Bookmarks.plist file in Dropbox. Delete the Bookmarks.plist file in Library>Safari and replace it with the symbolic link, again renaming it to simply ‘Bookmarks.plist’.
5. Reopen Safari and check it works. It should work first time, but if it doesn't, retry the steps, and make sure Bookmarks.plist has a capital ‘B’.
The Terminal Method

Using Terminal (Applications>Utilities>Terminal) achieves exactly the same thing, using the same method, but just doesn't involve any downloads. For this example, I’m going to put the Bookmarks file into Dropbox>Safari, but it works for any folder. Just switch out the file paths in the Terminal.
1. Create your folder in Dropbox. Again, doesn't matter what you call it.
2. Move the Bookmarks file into Dropbox. Once again, you need to make sure that you’re moving the file and not copying it, otherwise you get an error saying that the file already exists.
3. Navigate to the Safari folder using Terminal. This can be done by typing (or copying and pasting):
4. Create the symbolic link. Do this by entering the following into Terminal:
5. Restart Safari.
The Problem

Unfortunately, the problem with changing the Bookmarks.plist directly is you have to quit and reopen Safari in order to update the bookmarks on each machine. It’s still definitely a lot easier than remembering the bookmarks you've got and adding them to your other machines manually. Also, it doesn’t cost $99 a year.

I’m sure that there are a whole bunch of other methods, perhaps using Automator or maybe another service similar to Xmarks, which accomplish the same task. If you know about any of those, please share below.

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Google Plays Its Hand, Trumps Apple?
Google today launched its official site for the upcoming Google TV. The site details many of the new product’s features, and I suspect it’s designed to give at least some who were considering buying an Apple TV pause. Google won’t be shipping any actual hardware running Google TV until later this fall, but even the mini-site itself is a good opening salvo against Cupertino.

Apps

Why? Well it plays up Google TV’s advantages over Apple TV in a big way, and that can be summed up in one word: apps. It’s the second word of Google’s brief introduction that greets you when you first navigate to the site, and it’s also clearly a strong influence in the product’s logo design. Even though Google seems intent on foregrounding apps, it isn’t the only advantage its offering has.

Choice

Google TV isn’t going to discriminate when it comes to users’ mobile device choices. That means you’ll be able to use either Android or iOS devices as a remote. Choice doesn’t stop there; you’ll also be able to stream content from your phone using Fling. It doesn’t look like Fling features will be limited to Android-powered devices, while Apple’s AirPlay is clearly proprietary and not making its way to other smartphone platforms. If this works well, and it does indeed play nice with a wide range of devices, it alone could sink the Apple TV.

Not Reinventing the Wheel

The appeal of Google TV will also be much wider, owing to its ability to play nice with existing forms of content distribution, i.e. satellite and cable. Starting where people are comfortable, especially for the aging boomer population, should translate to a huge boost in consumer interest for Google. Apple TV is like learning a new language for people using it for the first time, and not everything from your native language even translates correctly (meaning you can’t get all the same content).

Combine traditional content sources with DVR capabilities, and Apple’s in trouble. DVR won’t come to this generation of Apple TV, even if apps do down the road. Plus, cable providers will be lining up to join hands with Google when Apple is actively working against them.

Not a Fair Fight

I honestly don’t even think it’s fair to count Apple TV as a competitor for Google TV at this point. Google has multiple hardware partners who are already industry leaders, the backing of many more content providers, an honest to goodness development platform already built-in, and a willingness to play nice with whatever users already have at home. That, and apps, too, right out of the box.

Apple was aware of at least some of this well before it released the new Apple TV, so you can bet that it made a conscious decision to avoid going toe-to-toe with Google in this market. Bringing the App Store to its device will help the Apple TV for the same reason it helps drive iOS device sales: Apple has a heck of a head start. But ultimately, I don’t think this is a battle Apple can hope to win, or even lose by a close margin, without major changes to its hardware and basic corporate philosophy.

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Apple Extends iPad Retail Reach, Competition Falls Short
Six months after a supply-constrained launch that saw three million iPads sold in 80 days, iPad supply appears to have caught up to demand. That doesn’t mean sales are falling, though. In fact, financial analysts are continuously revising sales projections upwards.

Deutsche Bank’s Chris Whitmore (via Apple 2.0) has the latest research note suggesting a bright future for the iPad, and a dim one for competitors. Whitmore believes the App Store is 12 to 18 months ahead of the competition, and the iTunes Store two years. But the real problem for the competition is in component pricing. According to Whitemore, Apple has contracted for as much as 25 percent of the world’s supply of Flash NAND, as well as much of the display manufacturing capacity, so those same parts will harder to come by for other firms.

We are probably already seeing this play out in competitor pricing, like the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which could actually cost more than the iPad. When was the last time an Apple product was less expensive than a competing one? Adding to price disparity are comments from Hugo Barra, Product Management Director of Mobile at Google, who said Android 2.2 is “just not designed for” tablets.

The iPad will also now be appearing alongside its predecessor the iPod touch at many more locations starting today. Adding to its retail presence in the U.S. at Apple Stores and Best Buy, the iPad is now available at Target, as well as online at Amazon.

At Target, all six models of the the iPad are now available, though only for in-store purchase, while Amazon is currently selling only the 32GB and 64GB Wi-Fi models.

This means the iPad is now available at approximately 3,000 retail outlets in the U.S., and more than two dozen countries worldwide, the latest being China on Sept. 17.

It seems clear that Apple is doing everything possible to maintain and extend their advantage on tablets. Having already won 2010, the next step for Apple would be to launch the iPad 2 at an Apple event early next year.

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Quick Look: Postbox 2
If you need a smarter alternative to Apple’s Mail, Postbox 2.0 may be just the thing. It’s a Mozilla-based email client that prides itself on saving you time. It also has support for plug-ins, native archiving, to-do tags and tabs. All these features are aimed at creating a more organized inbox.

The just-released Postbox 2.0 introduces a handful of new features that include Quick Moves, a Focus Pane, Quick Replies and better Conversation Views.

The threaded Conversation View is pretty well done with quick reply buttons readily available to respond to any particular email within the chain. I also really like the Inspector Pane that gives you some shortcuts, including all the links contained within the email thread.

The Focus Pane is all about organization. Quickly navigate to emails that match a date or topic, or are unread. If you want to deal with an email later, drag it to the “Later” topic and come back to it or click on “Today” to see emails only from today. The idea is that if organize your mail better, you’ll save time and be free of distractions.

Speaking of distractions, you can post directly to Twitter, Facebook or FriendFeed from the menu bar also.

Pros:

Conversation View is very well done, with quick navigation, and the Inspector Pane could be very useful for link-happy users. Organizing mail into topics is accomplished quickly by dragging and dropping. The Focus Pane drills down to what’s really important. Keyboard shortcuts are a time saver for those who like to keep it old school.

Cons:

It’s $40, and the free Apple Mail works well enough for most. Organizing mail into topics requires commitment, and not all users care that much. There’s also no Exchange support. This is disappointing, considering Apple Mail has it built-in and business users can be notoriously organized when it comes to email.

Summary:

Postbox 2.0 supports POP and IMAP protocols, but has no Exchange support. There’s a 30-day trial, and it’s $40 if you want to keep it after that. If Apple’s Mail isn’t quite delivering and you need more organization, Postbox is probably the solution for you.

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Invest From Your iPad With Kapitall
You can do many things with your iPad, and investing is now added to that list with the release of Kapitall. The iPad app is a portal into the Kapitall website, a simple site designed to build and track investment portfolios online.

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Flickr Photos Get Interesting on the Apple TV
I picked up the tiny new Apple TV over the weekend and have really been enjoying it so far. Aside from all its other awesome features, it's just nice to have some music streaming on the home theater system while nice big photos cycle through on the HDTV. Choose some ambient music, and it's the ideal audio/video white noise for getting some work done.

The only real problem is a dearth of quality photos for the screensaver. My own photos aren’t up to scratch, and the limited ones Apple includes get old pretty quickly. What I really wanted was a screensaver with a large and constantly renewing set of high-quality photos.

Flickr Integration

The first thing I did was to have a look at the included Flickr integration to see if that provided a solution. You can use saved searches, and pull photos from Flickr contacts, but neither of those options really solved the problem. A saved search limits the scope and reduces the overall quality of the set, while contacts, no matter how good or prolific, just can't provide enough material to keep things interesting. Eventually, I realized that the photos showing up on Flickr's Explore page were the ones that I wanted.

Things Get Interesting

If you're not familiar with how photos get picked to be featured on the explore page, it all has to do with a mysterious algorithm cooked up in the Flickr labs that calculates a photo’s interestingness. No one's really sure exactly how a photo's interestingness score is calculated, but it's thought to involve some alchemical mixture of a photo's tags, groups, comments, views, traffic, favorites, and other sundry properties. Whatever the exact ingredients may be, the top 500 interesting photos that end up on the explore page every day seem to be exactly what I'm looking for.

The problem is that there's no real way to tell the Apple TV to use just those "interesting" photos for the screensaver. So, inspired by a couple of old and now defunct attempts to overcome this very same roadblock, I decided to write a quick PHP script and take advantage of the nice Flickr API to make it all work. I created a dummy flickr account named TABScreensaver which, thanks to my script, now marks each of the day’s most interesting photos as a favorite.

A Solution

Now, anyone who wants a large and constantly renewing collection of interesting photos for their Apple TV screensaver can simply add TABScreensaver as a Flickr contact and choose it's favorite photos for the screensaver. Every evening, the set will be automatically updated with those photos picked to be featured on the Flickr explore page.

In the long run, I'd really like to see Apple improve the photo sharing features on the Apple TV so this kind of workaround isn't necessary. It would be great if we could subscribe to RSS feeds with image enclosures, or add Flickr groups, or pull images from a Twitter stream, or combine sources, or lots of other cool stuff I'm too dim to think up. Who knows? Maybe if we get an App Store for it, our biggest problem will be sifting through a glut of Apple TV photo sharing apps trying to find the right one. It’ll be a nice problem to have.

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iLife '11: Coming to All Your Apple Devices?
A leak just ahead of Apple’s September music event had people thinking that the next version of iLife might appear there. It didn’t, but a new leak adds to the mounting evidence that it’s just around the corner. Amazon’s German site has a listing for a book about the suite, which of course has yet to hit retail shelves itself.

The listing reports some info about iLife ’11 that would suggest its author has insider information about the technical specs of the suite. In the summary, iLife ’11 is described as being composed of 64-bit applications, with improved social networking integration for iPhoto and a completely rewritten iWeb. It also claims that iDVD is gone, replaced by another, mysterious application. Maybe Apple’s finally come up with a way to let consumers create and install their own basic iPhone apps?

A red band on the image of the books cover translates roughly into “iPhoto, iMovie and more with apps for Mac, iPhone 4, iPod and iPad.” Does that mean we’ll finally see a full iLife release on iOS? I’m okay with the current iMovie release, but I’d love to see a pocket Garage Band, and the Photos app just isn’t on par with iPhoto. Give me basic image tweaking tools, for instance. A scaled-down iWeb would also be a welcome addition for those who maintain a site on MobileMe.

Books from the same publisher also appeared purporting to deal specifically with iMovie and iPhoto ’11. Take this all with a grain of salt, however, because some of the details on those products make specific mention of iDVD, apparently contradicting the summary of the first, in which iDVD’s demise is mentioned.

It’s possible these are just placeholders, and that real versions will be written immediately upon iLife’s release, but all of the products do announce an anticipated release date of November 2010. Apple has updated its MacBook line in either October or November for the past four years, so it’s not unlikely that they’d ship a new iLife just in time for the holidays, too, alongside new notebooks.

Would you like to see iLife on the iPhone/iPad, or is it just overkill for a mobile platform?

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Open Thread: Which Apps Do You Want on Your Apple TV?
We learned this week that the new Apple TV is running the same operating system as the iPad, and hackers have been able to jailbreak the device already. So with at least one door open for apps on the Apple TV, which ones do you want?

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MobileMe Gallery App Finally Goes Universal
Apple just released version 1.2 of the MobileMe Gallery iOS app, and it brings support for the iPad, along with Retina Display-enhanced graphics and fast app switching on iOS 4+. iPhone and iPad users can now also view friends’ MobileMe galleries even if they themselves aren’t MobileMe subscribers.

It’s great to see Apple finally getting on the update wagon with its own apps. Remote recently got the universal treatment, bringing much-needed improvements beyond just multi-device support. Now it’s time to get cracking on those universal versions of the iWork suite, Cupertino.

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Report: iOS Driving Apple Market Share
The latest data from web metrics firm Net Applications reinforces the notion that iOS is the future for Apple, and Mac OS X is the past.

A year ago, OS X accounted for 5.12 percent of the overall OS market, according to Net Applications. In the year since, OS X has gone has high as 5.33 percent, as low as 5.00 percent, and is now at 5.03 percent. In contrast, a year ago “iPhone OS” was at 0.35 percent, and since then, has seen both a name change to iOS and a near tripling of share at 1.18 percent.

Last month, iOS passed Linux, taking third in market share after OS X and, of course, Windows. While iOS won’t pass Mac OS X this year, next year isn’t beyond the realm of the possible. Apple will likely sell between 12 and 15 million Macs in 2011, compared with somewhere between 75 and 100 million iOS devices.

Clearly, the future is mobile, though the good news for the Mac is that iOS devices are probably leading to more computer sales, the long-theorized “Halo Effect.” However, the bad news for Apple is Android’s growing popularity, though it’s not too bad, at least according to Net Applications, which derives market share data from web browser usage.

While it’s important to note that the leading mobile operating systems account for only about three percent of the overall OS market according to Net Applications, that still represents tens of millions of users. Looking at those millions, iOS is still clearly the leader, ahead of even Java Micro Edition. Android is pretty far back at nine percent, though it will pass Symbian by the end of the year. By then, iOS may account for a majority of mobile market share, though looking at just the iPhone paints a different picture.

While other metric firms have Android smartphones overtaking the iPhone, Net Applications shows the iPhone still well ahead, though Android is gaining quickly. Last year, the iPhone was at 0.35 percent of overall market share, while Android was 0.02 percent. This year, three months after the iPhone 4 launch, the iPhone is at 0.75 percent, more than doubling share. Android is at 0.10, five times what it was a year ago.

With Android entering the tablet market in a big way in 2011, the gap will close quickly. Next year may be the last iOS is ahead of Android according to any metric or firm, but Apple’s mobile platform isn’t likely to fade into the background anytime soon, either.

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How-To: Enable WebDAV on Your Mac for iWork on iPad
With the latest release of iWork on iPad, sharing files across your local Wi-Fi network is now possible. Using WebDAV, files can be shared between iWork on your Mac and iWork on your iPad. All you need to do is enable WebDAV on your Mac. But how do you do that?

What is WebDAV?

WebDAV stand for “Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning protocol”, and it works over HTTP. WebDAV was designed for read/write access on web servers, which is great, because every Mac ships with a web server built-in. When you enable “Web Sharing” in your System Preferences, you’re actually running an Apache web server. The problem is that while the necessary modules that support WebDAV have been installed, WebDAV isn’t configured by default on OS X, and you need more than just administrator privileges to enable it.

More Than Administrator Privileges

If you’re extremely concerned with security, you’re logging into your Mac every day using an account that doesn’t have administrator privileges. Unlike its distant cousin from Redmond, OS X can execute just fine without Administrator account access. There are times, though, when administrator privileges are required, such as installing software, or changing some System Preferences. Then there are the rare cases, like this one, where you need to change configuration files that weren’t meant to be changed. That’s when you need what’s called “root” access.

“SUperuser DO” or sudo for short, is the command that grants Administrator accounts root-level access to a Mac. It is meant to be used for short periods of time and requires the Administrator password with each execution. When using the terminal to execute commands, preceding each command with sudo will enable that command to be executed with root-level privileges. Given the fact that we’ll be altering server configuration files in hidden folders on the system, we’ll need root access in order to enable WebDAV.

Does this expose your Mac to additional security risks? Yes it does. From a strictly security perspective, nothing being discussed from this point forward is a “good” thing. On the other hand, from the strictest security perspective, simply turning on your Mac is a security risk in and of itself.

Enabling WebDAV on OS X 10.6.4 Snow Leopard

Step 1: Shutdown the Web Server

Make sure you’re logged in to a user account that has administration privileges, open System Preferences, and ensure that Web Sharing is turned off.

Step 2: Edit the Apache Web Server Config Files

So much for the easy part. From here on out, everything will be done via the terminal utility. In the Applications folder, there’s a sub-folder called Utilities, in which is the Terminal application. We’ll be using that for most of the remainder of this tutorial.
- Open the Terminal and change directories to the location where the first config file is located.
```
 cd /etc/apache2 
```
- Use the sudo command to open and edit the httpd.conf file located in /etc/apache2 folder (use your favorite plain text editor like Emacs or vi, or optionally execute the following command to open the file in TextEdit). NOTE: You will be prompted to enter the password of the account you are logged in with.
```
 sudo /Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit /etc/apache2/httpd.conf 
```
- Search for and un-comment the following line”Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-dav.conf”. NOTE: To un-comment the line, simply remove the ‘#’ at the beginning of the line.
- Save the changes to httpd.conf and quit the editor.
Step 3: Edit the WebDAV Module Config Files

Now that the WebDAV module is turned on, the next time the Apache Web Server starts up, it will look for instructions on how to execute the WebDAV module. This next series of configurations will tell WebDAV exactly which folder should be shared.

While it’s tempting to share a folder you’re already using, it’s not recommended with the following configuration. Files located in this particular folder will be “owned” by the web server, and a separate security authority will govern access to the files. Attempts to read and write to files in this folder using the following security configuration could render the files inaccessible to the web server, and therefore to the iPad, too.
- Open the Terminal and change directories to the location where the second config file is located.
```
 cd /etc/apache2/extra 
```
- Use the sudo command to open and edit the httpd-dav.conf file located in /etc/apache2/extra folder (use your favorite plain text editor like Emacs or vi, or optionally execute the following command to open the file in TextEdit). NOTE: You will be prompted to enter the password of the account you are logged in with.
```
 sudo /Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-dav.conf 
```
- Delete the existing Alias and Directory configurations and replace them with the following:
```
 Alias /webdav "/Library/WebServer/WebDAV" WebServer/WebDAV">   Dav On   Order Allow,Deny   Allow from all   AuthType Basic   AuthName WebDAV-Realm   AuthUserFile "/usr/webdav.passwd"   <LimitExcept GET OPTIONS>     require user myipad   </LimitExcept> </Directory> 
```
- Save the changes to httpd-dav.conf and quit the editor.
Step 4: Create New WebDAV Users

The configuration in Step 3 established a password file, /usr/webdav.passwd where the WebDAV module will validate logon attempts for each WebDAV user. One user was also specified in the configuration with the user name of ‘myipad’.
- Open the Terminal and change directories to the following location:
```
 cd /etc/apache2/extra 
```
- Create a new WebDAV User Account named ‘myipad’ by executing the following command. NOTE: You may be prompted for the sudo password, and you will be prompted to set the password for the new WebDAV user ‘myipad’ being created.
```
 sudo htpasswd -c /usr/webdav.passwd myipad 
```
Step 5: Create Directories and Setup File Permissions

The configuration in Step 3 also established the location where the files will be hosted. In this case the location is /Library/WebServer/WebDAV. The directory for this new location will need to be created and the appropriate file permissions will need to be established.
- Open the Terminal and change directories to the following location:
```
 cd /etc/apache2/extra 
```
- Create the following WebDAV directories as follows:
```
 sudo mkdir -p /Library/WebServer/WebDAV sudo mkdir -p /usr/var 
```
- Finally set the appropriate permissions on the files and directories you just created as follows:
```
 sudo chown -R www:www /Library/WebServer/WebDAV sudo chown -R www:www /usr/var sudo chgrp www /usr/webdav.passwd 
```
Once all of the above instructions are carried out successfully, you can once again start Web Sharing in System Preferences. This will now turn on Apache with the WebDAV extensions installed and configured.

Access WebDAV from iWork Apps on the iPad

All that is required is to access the new WebDAV share via the iPad. Open one of the iWorks apps, like Pages, and scroll through the docs stored on the iPad. To save a document from Pages to the WebDAV share, select the document and click on the Copy To icon. If you haven’t accessed this WebDAV server before, you’ll be prompted to enter the WebDAV configuration. The Server Address is your local IP address, which can be found in System Preferences under Network by clicking on your active Internet connection in the source menu, followed by “/webdav/”.

To open a document stored on the WebDAV share, click on the “Open From” icon in Pages. If you haven’t accessed this WebDAV server before, you will be prompted to enter the WebDAV configuration URL, Name and Password.

Access WebDAV from the Finder on the Mac

Unfortunately, I don’t recommend you try to access the directory that is being shared via WebDAV directly. If you do, you may alter the file permissions and render the files inaccessible via WebDAV. Fortunately, OS X does support mounting WebDAV servers directly in the Finder. Launch the Finder, and choose the Go menu. From there select Connect to Server… and enter the URL of the WebDAV server.

You will then be prompted with the User ID and Password that was set up on the Mac running WebDAV.

Access WebDAV from Apps Running on Other iOS Devices

Believe it or not, there are several iOS apps for iOS devices that can access WebDAV shares. Air Sharing Pro ($6.99), JotNot Scanner Pro ($0.99), and WebDAV Navigator (Free) are three examples I’ve used to access the WebDAV share created above. The configuration is again the same; just enter the URL, Name and Password when setting up the WebDAV share in each app and you’re good to go. Happy your WebDAV sharing!

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Why Apple TV is a Ticking Time Bomb for Big Cable
Make no mistake: Apple is in the process of staging a coup. That’s what a very close look at the new Apple TV reveals. Despite its somewhat innocuous appearance and diminutive stature, it’s a weapon of war. The opponent? The entrenched cable and satellite TV service providers.

That’s not the surprise, though. Even just by introducing video purchases and rentals in iTunes, Apple was ostensibly taking aim at traditional means of TV distribution, so they’ve been contending with cable and satellite for quite a while now. The difference now is that the Apple TV could be the weapon that sways the balance overwhelmingly toward Apple’s side, guaranteeing the company victory.

Now, I don’t own one of the new Apple TVs. In fact, I went to great lengths to describe the reasons why I probably never would. But that was before a couple of things came to light:
1. The Apple TV shows signs of supporting apps
2. The extent to which AirPlay would be supported across apps became apparent
Alone, either of those would be enough to have Time Warner Cable, et. al. shaking in their boots. Taken together, it amounts to advance warning of an imminent invasion, which is why the aforementioned Time Warner is being coy about 99-cent rentals. Grasping the outstretched hand of your obvious successor isn’t really an easy thing to do, especially when doing so would speed along your demise.

But 99-cent rentals aren’t the real beachhead. They’re a gamble for more interim revenue, and possibly even an olive branch, but it’s not something Apple’s banking on in the long-term, because they have a means of cutting out the networks and cable providers altogether if they won’t play nice. That means is AirPlay, and to a lesser extent, apps.

AirPlay will allow anyone to play whatever content they can view on their iOS device on their Apple TV. Where that once still represented a relatively limited content pool, Apple’s recent relaxation of App Store restrictions has allowed apps like CineXPlayer and VLC onto the iPad, which means playback of more video formats is here and set to improve in the future. While Cupertino would probably rather you still get your media the legit way from its iTunes store, it’s becoming more apparent that if it means selling more hardware, the company is willing to look the other way regarding how users acquire what they watch, especially if it can’t strong-arm TV and movie content providers into playing by its rules.

By avoiding having actual apps on the Apple TV initially, Cupertino is hoping to have its cake and eat it too. AirPlay allows them to access the media content of any app, in theory, which also has the advantage of encouraging iOS device sales. At the same time, it keeps the Apple TV platform relatively closed, something which should appease the content providers and avoid direct conflict for the time being. Now, if providers pull out in protest of Apple’s growing dominance over distribution, it has AirPlay and a more format-friendly iOS in its pocket to force them to make nice, lest iOS users turn to less legitimate sources for their content.

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More Evidence for a Touchscreen iMac Emerges
More and more often, I’ll reach out and touch my iMac’s display, only to remember that no, it isn’t like my iPad, and touching the screen accomplishes nothing besides fingerprints. That may change soon, if a new report by DigiTimes proves accurate.

The new report is in keeping with earlier supplier news coming from DigiTimes, and states that Sintek Photronics, which had formerly been cited as the company Apple chose to provide the touchscreen panels for the new iMac, has sent samples of the hardware to be used for testing purposes. Apple will reportedly be incorporating the batch of panels into the latest version of the iMac, presumably as a step toward introducing them in production models for wide release.

The production of touchscreens exceeding 20-inches is highly specialized, and Sintek is one of the few companies out there with the expertise needed, so it makes sense that Apple would tap them for this project. Among the drawbacks of large touchscreens housed behind glass is diminished brightness capacity. On the plus side, good viewing angles are possible, and the displays should be anymore hefty with touchscreen tech built-in.

Now despite my tendency to touch my desktop’s screen absent-mindedly on occasion, I’m on record as being not all that interested in a touchscreen iMac, at least not with OS X. I’ve since had the opportunity to use my iPad as an additional monitor thanks to AirDisplay, and that only reinforced my original opinion. The Magic Trackpad is also a new introduction since that piece, and I actually really enjoy using it with my iMac, but it’s a far cry from a touchscreen.

If Apple provides an experience designed from the ground up for touch on the iMac, both in terms of hardware and software, then I’m in. Otherwise, it’s just another expensive, extraneous feature that adds to the cost of an already fairly pricey machine.

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Mac 101: A Short(cut) History of the Command Key
Are you or someone you know a recent convert from PC to Mac? Has the single most difficult thing to deal with been breaking your old keyboard shortcut habits? This seems to be one of the hardest parts of switching from one platform to the other. Maybe understanding why the differences exist will help you be more patient when adjusting to them.

Why Are Apple and Microsoft Keyboards So Different?

The disparity is a little deeper than a simple case of Apple and Microsoft just not being able to get along. It’s actually rooted in the core of Apple’s engineering principles of thinking things through and getting it right the first time. Apple started from a proven and well accepted principle, whereas Microsoft saw value in a ‘feature’, didn’t bother to understand it, and screwed it up. Human nature being what it is, since more people grew up PC than Mac, PC had it “right”, and Mac had it “wrong.”

Controlling Teletype Machines

The use of control key sequences date back to teletype systems, where certain commands were mapped into the American Standard Code for Information Interchange
(ASCII) character set. Teletype systems basically replaced the telegraph and were used to send typed messages over long distances. The ASCII was created in part to standardize the communication protocols between teletype machines. These teletype systems would send commands to control non-printing functions like movement of the printing cartridge.

This is where the “control” key originally got its name, since it controlled the mechanics of the machine it was sending instructions to. By holding down the control key when striking another character on the keyboard, you actually applied a sort of offset to the ASCII code, sending a different signal and producing an effect not related to actual typing.

Communicating to Unix Computers

Enter the age of computers. Early computer input worked in a very similar way as two teletype systems communicating with one another. In fact, the protocol that Unix uses to map keyboards as devices comes from teletype. Modern day Macs running OS X are based on Unix, and therefore, still support this paradigm. The Terminal application found in Utilities could actually be considered a software version of an old teletype system, sending commands to the computer to be executed.

The exact same control sequences used in early Unix-based systems are still supported on modern Macs. The original Control+C keyboard sequence once used to stop teletype printing is being used today by the Terminal Application to instruct the computer to cancel or stop an operation. Apple has chosen to maintain the integrity of its systems by choosing not to change the way the control key works.

Open Apple on a Swedish Campground

The command key, on the other hand, is an Apple original. Given that Apple was into selling hardware, and not just licensing software, adding a key to the keyboard was just part of the engineering process when creating new products.

The existence of an additional command key on Apple hardware dates back to the original Apple IIe. The first Macintosh computers also had a need to create specialized command key sequences and kept the Apple key.

Mapping menu functions to keyboard shortcuts were emphasized in part because the graphical interface of the Macintosh could actually display complex images like the Apple Logo on screen.

Rather than devalue the brand image by littering the menu system with an orchard of Apple logos all over the place, the Apple Icon was replaced by a symbol used in Sweden to indicate an interesting feature at a campground. Thus the Command Key as we know it today was born.

Disk-Based, not Terminal-Based Operating System

At the same time, Microsoft was growing up from its roots on DOS. Microsoft was not in the business of manufacturing and selling hardware, and had to deal with what was readily available on the market. Since early PC keyboards were born from older terminal based computer keyboards, and those keyboards have origins rooted in teletype systems, there was an extra control key just waiting for a disk-based OS to abuse.

Almost every MS-DOS application had a different mapping of keyboard sequences for common functions like open, close, cut, copy and paste. And they all abused the control key. When Windows first came around, Microsoft also wanted to map the menu actions to keyboard shortcuts in exactly the same way that Apple did. Rather than add a new key as Apple did, the control key was adopted as Microsoft’s command key, and Windows strong-armed its software vendors to follow the new shortcut convention.

It wasn’t until Windows 95 that Microsoft decided that it really needed its own true command key, but by that time, it was too late, and users had already formed habits and burned their favorite shortcuts into their brains.

Online Keyboard Mapping Resources

Now that you know why the two operating systems look at keyboards differently, how do you adjust smoothly? There are actually some great online resources from both Apple and Microsoft that map all of the keyboard shortcuts and even show some of the PC to Mac equivalents. It may take keeping a browser window open with these resources on hand for a while, but trust me, you’ll get there, and you’ll be glad you did.
- Apple Support Article ID: HT1343 - Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts
- Apple Support Article ID: HT2514 - Switch 101: On Windows, I used to…
- Mac OSX Reference Library – Apple Human Interface Guidelines - Keyboard Shortcuts Quick Reference
- Microsoft Support Article ID: 970299 - Keyboard mappings using a PC keyboard on a Macintosh
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Survey: Consumers see iPhones and Android Phones as Equals
The good news for Apple is that iPhone 4 antenna problem hasn’t damaged the iPhone brand with consumers, but the bad news is that consumers are nearly as satisfied with Android phones.

According to market research firm ChangeWave, the iPhone continues to lead the competition with the highest number of “very satisfied” consumers at 74 percent. A satisfaction level above 70 percent has been consistent with the iPhone brand from model to model, meaning the iPhone 4 antenna problem really was the “non-issue” that Steve Jobs originally described it as for most consumers.

As for the competition, Android continues to maintain high satisfaction, in the 60 percent range. Considering the diverse number of handsets, that’s quite impressive, especially when compared to other competitors. HP, RIM, and Microsoft appear perpetually unable to achieve high levels of satisfaction with consumers. It will be interesting to see if Windows Phone 7 can change that.

The information says likely not. Those considering buying a new smartphone within the next 90 days aren’t looking at Microsoft, which is expected to launch Windows Phone 7 devices next month. However, it’s important to note that ChangeWave survey respondents aren’t necessarily representative of a broad range of buyers. RIM sold a record 12.1 million BlackBerry OS phones last quarter, despite being considered by few in ChangeWave surveys.

Unfortunately, at least for Apple, the survey is indeed an accurate reflection of sales when it comes to Android. The number of consumers considering buying an Android phone has climbed from six percent a year ago to 37 percent now. Corresponding sales have borne out those considerations, with Android devices now outselling the iPhone, at least in the U.S. If Apple is to have any chance of competing with Android in market share, carrier exclusivity in the American market must end soon.

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