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How to Back Up Your Data & Installation Discs
With the advent of the Mac App Store, it seems arcane to think that software is still being distributed on disc. But even if you buy into digital distribution completely, what about all of your existing installation and data discs? What’s a good way to preserve the disc and its contents? Create an image of your disc on your hard drive, that’s how.

Every time you enter a disc into your SuperDrive, it gets mounted to the big directory structure that makes up your computer. We use the term mount because we used to physically mount spools of magnetic tape onto devices that were accessed by computers. Once mounted, the user can then delve into that particular disc’s file structure and access its content via the Finder. The same concept holds true for .dmg (or Disk Image) files.

Apple’s Disk Utility has the ability to mount and unmount these devices as well as format, erase and copy file structures. It’s therefore possible to create a an image or copy of any CD or DVD. This resulting image file works just like the .dmg files you often download from the Internet and use to install third-party applications, like Firefox and Skype. In fact, if you open a .dmg file and then type the command ‘mount’ in the terminal, you will see that the operating system is looking at the .dmg file in exactly the same way it looks at discs you load using the SuperDrive.

To preserve the type of file system the optical disc is using, you can Disk Utility’s ability to create images. Here’s how:
1. Insert a data CD or DVD into your computer’s SuperDrive and launch Disk Utility (located in your [User] > Applications > Utilities folder)
2. From the source menu on the left, select your disc drive. It should have a CD icon next to the manufacturer’s name and a model number
3. Click on the New Image icon in the Toolbar at the top of the Disk Utility window
4. Select a save location as well as a name for the image file you are about to create
5. Be sure to select “DVD/CD master” as the Image Format and leave Encryption set to none
6. Click Save
At this point, Disk Utility will create a copy of the CD or DVD that you had in the SuperDrive. To mount this file as a drive, simply double-click on the file in the Finder. Your file will be mounted just as if the original disc was inserted into your SuperDrive. This only works for data discs, not movies or music. You can even reverse this process and burn a physical disc from an image that was created by Disk Utility. To burn a disc from a .cdr image, you need to:
1. Open the image file in Disk Utility (File > Open Disk Image… in the menu bar)
2. Find and select the image file
3. Click on the Burn icon on the Toolbar
4. Insert a blank disc of appropriate size into the SuperDrive
5. Click Burn
Disk Utility will burn the disk image from the hard drive to the optical disc. Again, this only works for data discs, not music CDs or movie DVDs, but it should help you get started on de-cluttering your physical media collection.

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How In-App iOS Subscriptions Will Work
Apple today introduced in-app subscriptions alongside newspaper app The Daily, and though during the app’s press conference, Apple VP of Internet Services Eddy Cue said an announcement regarding details would be forthcoming, little else about how subscriptions would work was discussed. Luckily, Apple’s own updated terms of service (via Macworld) for the iTunes Store shed some light on what to expect.

Under a new “Paid Subscriptions” model, developers will soon be able to offer renewable subscription pricing plans through the iTunes Store via in-app purchasing. Subscriptions will work as follows:
- Subscriptions can cover different lengths of time, like a weekly or monthly period
- Subscription charges can be set to auto-renew
- Auto-renewal will not remove funds from your account any more than 24 hours before your renewal period is up
- If a publisher raises the price of subscription, your auto-renewal will be instantly disabled
- Subscriptions are charged immediately upon sign-up, even if you’re in the middle of a free trial
- Subscriptions can be managed from one central location in your iTunes account (much like they’re handled on the Kindle store)
- Publishers can ask for permission to collect your name, email address and zip code information, and iTunes will pass that data along to them to use for marketing purposes
It was originally a point of contention between publishers and Apple that the Mac-maker wouldn’t pass on access to customer information, but it appears as though Apple decided to make a concession to make the payment scheme more appealing. Maybe that’s what the company traded in exchange for reserving the right to block free access to print subscribers.

Though some are speculating that Apple also relaxed its stance regarding the traditional 70/30 revenue split shared between developers and itself for app sales and in-app purchases for The Daily, Murdoch is on the record as saying that Apple is indeed getting a third of the $0.99 weekly subscription price, at least for the first year. Whether or not other publishers will accept that deal, or can match or beat paper subscription prices while still giving Apple it’s cut remains to be seen.

If publishers do agree to Apple’s terms and prices go down, magazines on the iPad just got a whole lot more appealing. What do you think? Will the availability of subscriptions affect your decision to buy iPad news and magazine applications?

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Hands-On With The Daily for iPad
The speed with which it loads is the first sign that The Daily is different. JPEG artifacts and a distinctively print look for text-based articles are signs that things might be somewhat the same. So which is The Daily? Brave new format or warmed over rehash?

First, the good news. More than any existing newspaper or magazine app for the iPad, The Daily feels like it belongs on the platform. When it starts up, it asks for location and notification permission. It uses the location data to present you with your local weather in the upper right-hand corner of the home screen, which you can tap to go to the full forecast. At first launch (and presumably every time the app has to download a new issue), there’s a wait time as the magazine loads. Luckily, the app is smart enough to load an initial bit of content first, then download the rest in the background, so you don’t have to wait very long to get reading. It’s a much better experience than the long wait for each issue of Richard Branson’s iPad-only Project magazine.

Once loaded, the articles in the current issue of The Daily will appear in a cover-flow like carousel on the app’s main screen. You can swipe left or right to browse through these articles, and tap on one to bring it up in full. This is where I was less than impressed with the app. The preview thumbnails all have pretty heavy JPEG artifacts, and look like badly scanned pictures of pages. Once you click through, everything turns out fine, but it strikes me as a somewhat awkward and outdated way to organize your primary navigation interface, especially if you’re trying to distance yourself from the converted print model of iPad news apps, since it essentially emulates flipping through paper pages.

Once you actually click on an article, navigation gets better. Tapping the location indicator bar at the top of the interface opens up a drop-down tray of all the articles in the magazine, and you can scrub through to navigate back or forward. You can also click on any section title (News, Gossip, Opinion, Arts & Life, Apps & Games, Sports) to quickly jump to the start of each. Being immersed in The Daily feels much more comfortable and tailored to the iPad than does the high-level home view. Swiping left or right to navigate between pages works quite well, though there’s a bit of a stall — which varies in length — that mars the experience, and the fact that some pages scroll up and down while others continue on subsequent pages might be confusing to some (you can tell by the orientation of the blue arrow at the bottom of the page which method is used).

While in general, the app does very well with orientation changes, providing content no matter what your viewing preferences, in some cases how you turn the device will affect what you see. For the feature story of today’s issue about the current situation in Egypt, the app offers an image slideshow when viewing in landscape, and a text article in portrait. While this is an innovative use of features unique to the iPad, it won’t go over well with users who prefer to do their reading one way or the other. Having to physically upend the device while reading gets old quick.

Sharing, commenting and saving are a big strength of The Daily. The app allows users (once registered) to post comments on any content, either using text or by recording your comment using the iPad’s built-in microphone. Comments can be voted up or down, or reported as abuse. You can also post stories to Facebook or Twitter, and share them via the web, which provides a full version of the content selected as a web page, complete with links for downloading The Daily from the App Store. Finally, any article can be saved for later, which is how The Daily is currently getting around the issue of not providing access to back issues. It’s a nice workaround, in that it’ll save space on your device and allow you to quickly retrieve articles you deem important without wading through an entire issue.

Other interactive elements also shine. The built-in Sudoku and crossword puzzles, for instance (featuring Game Center support) are well-designed and implemented. And small touches like the ability to email The Daily’s advice columnist with a single tap make the app really feel like a newspaper made new. Since The Daily seems eager to embrace the app community of which it now finds itself a part, I’d love to see integration with other popular third-party apps like Instapaper and Twitter for iPad, but that’s a long shot.

The Sports section offers some of the best customization options, allowing you to pick your favorite teams to provide custom content. I found it difficult to find where to actually set this up initially, since it’s at the last page of the entire issue, and not in the app’s settings, where I would expect it to be. It is really cool once you do get it set up, though, and the process is made easier since the app auto-selects teams based on your location.

The audio and video features in The Daily are well done, loading and playing back without issue in my experience. The video anchor feature is a good way to get a summary of the top stories without sifting through the actual features, and could become much more useful if AirPlay video-out support is upcoming in iOS 4.3. The audio versions of the top stories are good too, performed by an actual voice actor instead of a computerized voice. I personally happen to find the guy they picked incredibly annoying, but your mileage may vary.

Overall, despite some issues with slow transitions and one crash related to video playback, The Daily provides a solid experience. Here’s the issue: The Daily is, like a newspaper, more or less designed as a once-a-day experience, with a few live updates with breaking news. The team behind the paper emphasized at the launch press conference earlier that the focus would be on preparing a finished daily product, however, with managing editor Jesse Angelo stating that was how he preferred to read his news, as compared to the constantly changing feature articles of the modern news blog. But at the same time, The Daily is far too media rich (busy) to make it something users are likely to casually peruse during their commute or while grabbing a quick coffee break.

The Daily isn’t aimed at those who pore obsessively over their Twitter and RSS feeds, eager for the latest news. Instead, it seems designed to appeal to iPad users adjusting to life without physical newspapers and finding current solutions inadequate, and it performs quite admirably in this capacity. It’s priced right, at just $0.14 per day, and the quality of the content seems quite good, at least as far as initial impressions. The question now is, can The Daily successfully find a daily place in the lives of iPad users?
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The Daily for iPad Arrives, New iOS Subscription Billing Included
Today Rupert Murdoch announced The Daily, a dedicated iPad newspaper app available now on the App Store. The app looks to distance itself from existing iPad news apps by offering completely original content and a design tailor-made for the iPad platform. Here are the details.

The Daily will be available for a subscription of either $0.99 a week or $39.99 a year (roughly $0.14 a day, as Murdoch pointed out during the press conference). As per its name, The Daily will be published 365 days a year, beginning with today’s inaugural edition. The newspaper will feature video, images, animation, audio and text to convey its information, depending on the story. It features a navigation interface that resembles cover flow in iTunes, and offers professional audio voice-overs of top stories and a video anchor who takes you through the news of the day.

Unlike many existing print and newspaper magazine conversion apps, The Daily seems to feature a lot of clickable and interactive elements. Web links will bring up pages in a built-in browser, and Twitter feeds are accessible from within the app. There’s also an in-app text and audio commenting system for greater reader interaction. The app will also be able to pull in breaking news using Twitter and other sources, so that it stays fresh throughout the day without undergoing the kind of massively frequent overhaul you see on blogs. It’ll be interesting to see how The Daily strikes this balance.

No back-issues will exist at launch, and users instead will have to save articles for later from within the app or retrieve them on the web via HTML. Plans for improved access to older content are in the works, but won’t be included at launch.

At launch today, The Daily will be available only to customers shopping in the U.S. store, and will be free for the first two weeks. According to a leaked official memo published by Gizmodo (which was completely accurate regarding other details), News Corp. is planning to bring The Daily to international markets (and other tablets) in the coming months.

Apple VP of Internet Services Eddy Cue announced the inclusion of new in-app recurring subscription billing with “one click,” but didn’t offer any further details. Cue noted that an upcoming (“soon” was the only timeline hinted at) Apple announcement would detail this new feature further, including implementation plans among other publishers.

Basically, Murdoch and News Corp. seem to have followed a lot of the advice I suggested for news media on the iPad, and I’m excited about the results. We’ll have a look at The Daily in action coming up soon.

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Apple Verizon iPhone Pre-Orders Begin Online Tomorrow
Apple confirmed Wednesday that pre-orders for the Verizon iPhone will begin Thursday, Feb. 3 for existing customers. Pre-ordering can be done exclusively online through the Apple Store or Verizon’s website, and Apple cautions that orders will be filled “on a first come, first served basis” owing to high demand.

Apple doesn’t specify a time for pre-orders to kick off in its press release, but Verizon has confirmed in the past that they will begin at 12:00 a.m. PST (3:00 a.m. EST). If you’re not an existing customer, you’ll have to wait a little bit longer to get your hands on the long-awaited device. According to Apple’s press release:

Beginning on Wednesday, February 9, all qualified customers will be able to order an iPhone 4 on Verizon through the Apple Store (www.apple.com) for delivery or reserve for in-store pick up beginning February 10.

Beginning at 7 a.m. local time on Thursday, February 10, iPhone 4 on Verizon will be available to all qualified customers at Apple's retail stores. iPhone 4 will also be available at more than 2,000 Verizon Wireless Communication Stores nationwide.

Verizon’s iPhone 4 will be the same as the existing model, but features a new antenna design (which early evidence suggests reduces the signal attenuation problems of the current design) and connects to a CDMA-based cellular network. The Verizon iPhone will also offer an exclusive connection-sharing Personal Hotspot feature, although GSM iPhones should get the feature when iOS 4.3 is released to the public, depending on your carrier.

Who’s planning on pre-ordering?

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