Monday, August 20, 2007

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) (19 сообщений)

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  • Adobe adds H.264 support to Flash Player 9 beta

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    This video on the web thing is going to be big I tells ya! Read/Write Web is reporting that Adobe will be releasing an updated version of their Flash Player 9 beta tomorrow which has some new features aimed squarely at video on the web. The two biggies are:
    • H.264 playback support. You might recall that Apple is a big proponent of H.264, which every video sold in the iTunes Store encoded in it, and working with YouTube to encode their videos in H.264 for playback on the Apple TV.
    • Hardware accelerated fullscreen playback.
    The beta will be available later today, with the final product shipping sometime after September. No word yet on if this release will be Intel only.
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  • Apple earns a silver in environmental evaluation

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    Recently, Apple has been the target of much environmental criticism, especially from Greenpeace, and a recent EPEAT survey reinforces some of that negativity regarding the company's lack of environmental attention. EPEAT is a government operation created to approve computers before they can be purchased by other governmental institutions, and the organization gives product ratings based on a multitude of environmental criteria.

    Apple has earned five silver medals for several of its MacBook Pro systems, meaning that the company has passed 23 mandatory standards, and 14 of a possible 28 optional standards. The highest rank, gold, is rewarded to computers that have passed all 23 mandatory standards, plus 21 of 28 optional ones. For comparison, Toshiba has earned five golds, 15 silvers, and four bronzes, Dell has earned two golds and 12 silvers for its laptops, and Lenovo has 48 silvers and a single bronze under its belt. Hopefully Apple will step up and make a greater effort to address some of its environmental shortcomings in the near future and go for the gold.

    [via MacNN]
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  • Want an iPod shuffle and have way too much money?

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    There are some who look at Apple's industrial design and think, 'That's perfect! Nothing needs to be done,' and there are some who think, 'it looks nice but it could really use some gems.' That's how this $40,000 iPod Shuffle, called the iDiamond by the makers, was born.

    I wonder how much a diamond iPhone would cost.

    [via Engadget]
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  • Paramount and Dreamworks leave Blu-Ray behind

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    Technology has long been a battlefield with two competing standards facing off against each other: VHS vs. Betamax. AC vs. DC. Mac vs. PC. Atom vs. RSS. The most recent standards showdown revolves around next generation DVDs: Blu-ray vs. HD DVD. Industry titans have aligned themselves behind one or the other, and many are wondering when Apple will be shipping Macs with next gen DVD drives (these new DVDs aren't compatible with older DVD drives).

    Apple is part of the Blu-ray Disc Association which leads one to believe Apple will be shipping Macs with Blu-ray drives at some point in the near future. However, CNet reports that two of the biggest studios who were committed to shipping Blu-ray Discs have jumped ship to HD DVD. Paramount and Dreamworks Animation announced they will be releasing new movies exclusively on HD DVD, which is a set back for Blu-ray.

    It looks like Apple has the right strategy with regards to including these next gen DVD drives. Wait until a clear standard emerges and then go with that, however, I know many Mac users are eager to watch HD content (whether from Blu-Ray or HD DVD) on their Macs not to mention burning data to these high capacity discs. Which side are you hoping will win out? Or does it not really matter to you, as long as you can find your favorite movies?
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  • Ultimate Buds Apple-Etymotic ER-6i iPhone Earphones

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    I'm pleased to report that I am no longer the odd man out at TUAW. That's right, I finally got around to buying an iPhone. Overall my iPhone experience has been fairly good, but I've been spoiled in the earphone department. Some might recall that I sat down with iLounge's Jeremy Horwitz I asked him the question that he gets asked over, and over again: what are the best headphones for the money? He quickly replied Etymotic ER6i's (which lead me to interview the president of Etymotic later at the show). I took Jeremy's advise and fell in love with the clear sound that the ER6i's produced.

    What does this have to do with the iPhone? The iPhone comes with a pair of very cool headphones that have a built in remote for the iPod functionality, as well as a built in microphone so you can chat on the phone and listen to music with the same headphones. Brilliant, and one of the best features of the iPhone. Sadly, after using the ER6i's for months, the Apple headphones just aren't up to snuff. That's why I was delighted to read about the Ultimate Buds Apple-Etymotic ER-6i iPhone Earphones.

    Ultimate Buds has combined the best of both worlds, the remote/microphone of Apple's supplied headphones, and the stellar sound of the ER6i's (the company actually splices a pair of ER6i earbuds to the Apple headphones). This brilliant little contraption will set you back $145.99, $119.99 if you provide the Apple headphones to them, or $40 if you send them both ER6i's and Apple headphones. I'll be ordering a set for myself, until Etymotic comes out with a solution themselves, and you can expect a review as soon as I get my ears on a set.

    [via iLounge]
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  • More on application access to the iPhoto '08 library

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    As noted last week, iPhoto '08 has changed its library format from a folder tree to a package, which has put a crimp in some folks' workflows. There were a number of helpful suggestions in the comments, starting with using the built-in features of iPhoto (external editor preference, drag-and-drop) to access the photo files, and continuing on to creating aliases of the hidden internal folders to get at the picture files when necessary.

    Now the fine folk at Mac OS X Hints have formalized the latter suggestion into a hint, specifically aimed at Adobe Bridge users who need folder-level access to the iPhoto library but equally useful for the rest of us. Just keep in mind that you should not ever manually remove files from your iPhoto library folders; the result will likely be quite unpleasant.
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  • CNET Labs benchmarks Parallels and Fusion virtualization products

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    Whenever two options are presented, it is often a smart move to weight the pros and cons of each and make a decision based on your needs. If you need to push Windows in a virtualization environment, Daniel A. Begun at CNET Labs has benchmarked Windows Vista running in both Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion. The short of the long? If you really need to push Windows, do it in Boot Camp if at all possible. If Boot Camp is out of the question, VMware Fusion was the winner in heavy duty, multimedia tasks by a landslide, due largely in part to its support of multiple core processors (Parallels, as of this writing, only supports one core per CPU). On the flip side, however, Parallels Desktop is the only virtualization product that supports 3D gaming right now, but as a Parallels owner, I'll still vouch for running your games in Windows via Boot Camp.

    At the end of the CNET Labs day, both apps still have their pros and cons. Begun hails Parallels Desktop for being the more usable and intuitive of the two (and during my initial tests of both before deciding to buy, I agreed), though I had a much easier time getting non-Windows OSes installed in VMware Fusion (to this day, Parallels Desktop still won't install Ubuntu, and I have received no response as to why). Still, the moral of this particular story is that if performance is at the very top of your virtualization shopping list, VMware Fusion is, at least for now, the reigning champion. Check Begun's full article for more details on the tests and how they were performed.
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  • ESPN brings PodCenter to the iPhone

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    Add ESPN to your list of major media outlets who have designed a portal specifically for the iPhone. While they might have had an easier time customizing their PodCenter with podcasts and downloadable media for the iPhone (after all, they were already halfway there with a PodCenter), they win absolutely zero points for the URL you use to get there:

    http://sports.espn.go.com/espnradio/podcast/iphone/

    If you know of a better way, please sound off.

    As far as the iPhone-ified UI, ESPN did a pretty good job. Shows are listed descending by date, and tapping on a specific episode presents a logo, brief description and the ability to stream the episode. ESPN has also launched a few new shows for this rev to the PodCenter, though I can't get a single one to play yet. For now, I'll chalk that up to growing pains, since this iPhone UI more or less just launched today.

    [via iPhone Alley]
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  • Three stories of Mac woe

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    Maybe there was something about this weekend, but we received not one but three stories of busted Mac stuff in the past few days. Warning, these pictures are pretty graphic, if you consider seeing computers worth thousands of dollars in disrepair graphic.

    First up, we have Katie W's iPhone vs. Recliner story: She was apparently sitting in her recliner at home watching a movie, and after the movie, couldn't get the footrest to fold back in correctly. After a lot of pushing (and a few sickening crunches and grinds), she got it fixed, but then figured out why it wouldn't close: her iPhone was sitting right on the metal mechanism. And it still worked! Even more unbelievable: apparently Apple hooked her back up with another 8GB iPhone for free.

    Then there's Nicholas' story-- he works in an Apple store, and says they had a new iMac sitting in the sun for days. He says the glass was superheated, and you can see from the pictures that the screen's color got thrown way off. But he says after putting the iMac away and powered off for about 3 hours, it was back to normal.

    And finally, Shawn M sent us this forum thread, which is "what happens when you run over a MacBook Pro." Yeah, pretty gruesome. Again, apparently the flatted MBP worked just fine-- only the screen and the SuperDrive had issues. The guy was, however, able to hook it up to a monitor and keyboard and had no problems. Apple didn't treat him so well, however-- they told him it wouldn't be covered and it would cost $900 to fix.

    Pictures of all the carnage in the gallery below. Take care of your Macs, or this too could happen to you!

    Gallery: Apple Product Devastation

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  • Keeping time with Aurora and PolarClock

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    Here's two more cool ways to figure out what time it is, because sometimes you just can't look out a window.

    First off, Aurora (which we've written about in the past) is an free and easy little alarm clock that will play almost any media you've got, including any playlist in iTunes or even channels from EyeTV. There's an amazing number of options that go along with it (including setting the fade-in time and even waking your Mac from a power-off state), and with a little configuration, you can actually use it to get your Mac ready for you in the morning (one example even has the program starting up NetNewsWire for you after the alarm goes of. Pretty slick).

    And second, Evan sent us a tip about PolarClock, a new screensaver from pixelbreaker. It features a visual clock (wait, aren't they all?) that consists of a number of circles rotating around each other. It's hard to explain, but the implementation looks really nice, and this one also offers a lot of customization. I'm not sure it'll replace your other clocks in terms of being easy to read, but as a screensaver, it looks good, and can be pretty functional as well. PolarClock is free, and can also be installed in widget form (or in Windows, if you happen to know someone who swings that way).

    Never wonder what time it is again! As for showing up on time, that one's still up to you.

    Thanks, Evan!
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  • iMobiMac tethering for Blackberry hits private beta

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    Lo, and the cries of the Mac Blackberry faithful went up, and indeed they were a fractious multitude: "Where is our dial-up networking?" they wailed. "We are paying for data service on these things, and it's EVDO, and everyone else is doing it!" And they saw that those with Intel Macs could tether their Blackberries within Parallels or VMware, and did get online after a fashion, but they said "This is a silly hack, not good." And they saw that Pulse would give them a proxy server and Bluetooth, but they cried "This is slow, and we crave USB!"

    And the developers of iMobimac did hear this loud kvetching, and did indeed release upon the multitudes a private beta of a new, USB-based DUN tool. No way to gauge final performance yet, and the beta release notes warn that Safari may not detect the proxy server running on your machine, but it's a start. You may sign up for the beta at the iMobimac site, and may the broadband be with you.
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  • EA selling games in the Apple Store

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    As many of you pointed out over the weekend (thanks, everybody!), EA must be big fans of TUAW-- we called them out on Thursday for not catering to the Mac as they'd promised, and on Friday they dropped a press release that the exact four games we'd called MIA were now available in the Apple Store (and sure enough, they are). As our good friends over at Joystiq noted, EA also promises that those games will also be available in brick-and-mortar Apple stores by the end of August, with Tiger and Madden coming later this year.

    So: redemption, or too little too late? Either way, I doubt EA cares. While it's nice that they're reading, and clearly the announcement of the release shows they're interested in keeping their word (at least a few weeks after they promised to keep it, anyway), I really think that releasing these games will only tell EA what they already knew: Mac owners don't buy their games. Be serious: how many of you readers are really going to hit the link above and buy Battlefield 2142 right now? I didn't think so.

    But that doesn't mean that EA's right to ditch us completely, either. If you were a Madden fan, and showed up to Gamestop to buy '08 with a choice of two options: PC or Mac, which one would you take? The Mac version, obviously. Unfortunately, the Madden Mac version isn't coming out until the season is half over, so no one actually had that choice last Tuesday.

    Bottom line: it's nice that EA put these games in the Apple store (eventually), but we're still getting leftovers. You can't offer us games months or years after they come out, and then claim the fact they don't sell well is the reason why no one wants them.
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  • iPhone MAME project launched

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    I'm pretty sure that, with this link, we've hit all the basic retrogaming points for the iPhone (wait-- can I play Nethack on it yet?). Yes, iphone-sdl-mame aims to bring all of your MAME favorites to Apple's latest endeavor. Like all of the other projects we've covered, it's open source, unofficial (duh), and a work in progress. From the text, kaisersoze (who's heading up this go) says PacMan and Q*Bert will run, but other games are too slow to be playable at the moment. And there's no word on whether control of anything is working yet or not.

    So it's a super early build-- all there is at the moment is just a few files in the subversion repository, so if you're looking to just install a file and get rolling, not so fast. But as with all of these open source iPhone hacks, attention seems to equal progress, so there you go. Hopefully, now that the word's out, playing Galaga at full speed on the iPhone is just around the corner.

    Oh and if you don't have an iPhone yet, worry not-- MacMAME's got you covered.

    [ via Waxy ]
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  • MoodSwing multi-status utility: Now in convenient menubar dosage

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    Attention all ye users of Adium, Skype, iChat, Twitter, Facebook and Jaiku - Brett Terpstra has struck again with MoodSwing, his excellent utility for updating your status across all these apps and services. Why do I call it a utility instead of just a Quicksilver action, you ask? Because Brett is now providing both the original action and a new full-blown menubar app - at the request of TUAW readers - called MoodBlast. Both now live on the same download page at Brett's Circle Six Design blog, and they both allow you to update your status across all the aforementioned services at once. While MoodSwing is an action you set-and-forget to work with Quicksilver (though you can reconfigure later), an advantage of the MoodBlast menubar app is that you're presented with the UI you see above every time you activate it, with any services you used previously already selected for updating. The other advantage of the MoodBlast app, of course, is that you don't need Quicksilver in order to minimize the effort spent for online socialization.

    As with his other excellent projects, Brett Terpstra provides MoodSwing and MoodBlast as donationware.
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  • iPhone 101: Phone Support

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    When it comes to Phone support, Apple isn't exactly known for its generous terms. iPod owners can call once within the first 90 days of ownership, for example. So isn't it nice to know that Apple offers two years of complimentary technical support for your iPhone? Of course, it comes with restrictions. You have an active AT&T wireless plan subscription to qualify for support--although Apple doesn't specify which wireless plans qualify. To receive support during those two years, just call 1-800-MY-IPHONE. (That's 1-800-694-7466 if the translate-from-letters-to-numbers thing doesn't appeal to you.)

    Update: The following graph comes straight from the Apple iPhone Applecare page

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  • iPhone NES emulator reaches Release Candidate 1

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    NerveGas, the developer who forked "StepWhite"'s iPhoneNES program from StepWhite's proof-of-concept version 0.01 to actual playable product, has announced Released Candidate 1 for his NES emulator.

    The emulator, which uses a modified version of the InfoNES emulation core, is a separate development effort and should not be confused with the original Google Code iPhoneNES project. StepWhite's original code has been removed from NES.app and replaced.

    NES.app includes Game Genie, saved games, sound, and battery ram support. It provides both landscape and portrait gameplay and uses multitouch to allow you to access more than one game control at a time.

    Version 0.99.00 is hosted at and can be downloaded as a binary release and SVN source ( svn checkout http://svn.natetrue.com/nesapp).

    NerveGas has released his code under the GPL. Since NES.app uses the iPhone's proprietary APIs, you may want to scope out the code to pick up some iPhone programming tricks.

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  • iPhone now available as refurb

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    Did you want to get onto the iPhone train but the $500 pricetag was holding you back? You can now pick up an iPhone for just $399 at the Apple store for the 4GB model. (The 8GB runs $499). The deal includes free shipping, a one-year limited warranty and all the normal iPhone telephone support.

    If you're looking to save money on phone plans, it's also a lot easier to do now than it was a month and a half ago: You can use third party programs to activate your iPhone for use without signing up for a phone plan. Other utilities allow you to use prepaid GoPhone cards or other existing AT&T accounts for your phone service. And, of course, you can sign up for the otherwise unadvertised contract-free iPhone GoPhone service at a slightly reduced monthly rate.

    Thanks to Jason Kasprzak

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  • CamCamX: Spice up your video chats and get more out of them

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    For those who want to spice up their video conferences and would like to use their iSight (or other webcam) with more than one application simultaneously, CamCamX might just be the app for you. Offering an old-school UI for mixing movies and images into your video conferences, CamCamX allows you to play digital broadcaster with most of the webcam-enabled apps for Mac OS X. In addition to mix-master-iSight with your video and media, CamCamX also allows you to use more than one webcam app at once, allowing you to, for example, hop into a video chat while also providing a live webstream or recording yourself with QuickTime (though, for some strange reason, you apparently need to purchase iChatUSBCam if you want iChat to fit into your CamCamX workflow). While the UI isn't the most beautiful thing this side of the HIG, it's a powerful concept that mimics Apple's upcoming iChat Theater in Leopard, but seems to open a few more doors since it works with apps like Yahoo! Messenger, Skype and even Flash.

    A watermarked demo of CamCamX is avaialble from VJ Software, while a license costs $29.00, with 3-year and lifetime upgrade memberships available for $59 and $99, respectively.
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  • TUAW Back-to-School Giveaway Day Six: 859 Miles... from Redmond

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    Here's a golden oldie for you: the slogan "859 Miles and 180° from Redmond." If you recall, this was Apple's snide jab at Microsoft, in banner form at Macworld, when Steve started blabbing about Leopard features. We just happened to have a t-shirt with this on it, purchased during the Macworld conference. You won't find it at the company store in Cupertino any more, however, as our last trip saw rows of "I'm a mac" shirts instead.

    Enter to win this shirt (plus an Ambrosia pack) by leaving a comment on this post. Entry period is 5AM-11:59PM Eastern on August 20. Full rules on our contest page.
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