Thursday, August 30, 2007

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) (8 сообщений)

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  • OMG! OMG! OMG! The Apple store is...

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    Deep breaths, everyone. We know, we know. The Yellow Sticky Note of Unpromised Excitement has returned. The store is down. We do not, however, know why. But we thank all of you who have written in. It's probably periodic maintenance--it happens--but if something big shows up, let us know. We love to hear from you, even when it's just a quick "OMG OMG THE STORE IS DOWN" note.

    Update: The store is back online for the most part--although it keeps popping on and off. See anything new?

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  • Vista SP1 to support EFI booting standard - what does this mean for Boot Camp?

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    Rounding up on 9 months of Vista being on the market, Microsoft is of course at work on Service Pack 1 which is slated for an early 2008 release. At the official Windows Vista blog, Brandon LeBlanc has offered extensive details on what the focus of Service Pack 1 is, and while much of it is targeted at businesses and independent software vendors, an interesting section outlining some of the fundamentals mentions that support for the EFI booting standard is on its way (under the Introducing Windows Vista Service Pack 1 section; there aren't any anchors I can link in this extensive post, so you'll have to search for that title or simply 'EFI').

    In their hype and marketing for Boot Camp, Apple makes a pretty big deal about Intel-based Macs supporting EFI while "Windows XP, and even Vista, are stuck in the 1980s with old-fashioned BIOS" (check the sidebar of the Boot Camp page). So what could it mean if Vista catches up to the EFI bandwagon? I'm not quite sure yet. It could likely make the Boot Camp engineers' lives a lot easier, and while I know less about virtualization software like Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion, they might be able to sleep better at night as well. Ultimately, if EFI support in Vista makes it easier for Apple to support running Windows on a Mac, this could likely yield even more sales from swtichers - especially those who need Vista for things like work or gaming. As to speculation on whether this could bring some of the wilder stuff like running Windows apps in Mac OS X without the need for the Windows OS or virtualization tools, I'll leave that to the tin foil hat enthusiasts in the audience.

    Thanks Adam
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  • Leopard's Dock doesn't work on the side

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    Rogue Ameoba's got a legit complaint with the Dock in Leopard: it looks horrible sitting on the side. Personally, it's not really a concern for me, because I've never moved my Dock from the bottom of the screen (seems weird to have it on the side, like the workspace is off balance). But they're exactly right-- Leopard's "perspective Dock" just looks strange in the vertical. The icons seem to float in space, and the whole perspective looks weird.

    Of course, they have other problems with the Dock as well-- the reflections of the Desktop and the Windows happen in Leopard no matter where the Dock is, right? But yeah the angles that normally look like a shelf for the icons to sit on when the Dock is on the bottom of the screen look literally "off the wall" when the Dock is on the side.

    With something like Cleardock, this is easily fixed. And we're still looking at a dev build of Leopard, so maybe Apple has a trick up its sleeve to fix it before release. But would you put the Dock on the side of your screen if it looked like this?
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  • Is Apple down with an iPhone unlock?

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    CNET's Don Reisinger has a great article up about what may have been Steve's Master Plan: letting an iPhone unlock happen.

    Pretty ingenious if it's true. Basically, Reisinger maintains two things: that Apple is a hardware company, and that AT&T was just a means to an end for them. If hackers are able to unlock the iPhone, Apple will lose a little bit (because they do get a small cut of service plans), but they'll still sell iPhones, and AT&T will lose everything. Jobs "did his part"-- he closed off the iPhone and declared an exclusivity deal. But now that we're on the verge of completely unlocked iPhones, Apple has no real incentive to cut it out.

    And that's exactly how it's played out-- Apple's recent iPhone update did pretty much nothing to close off the system, and as Reisinger says, it wasn't Apple knocking on the doors of those who are about to unlock the iPhone-- it was AT&T. The iPhone's unlocking will bring a rush of sales for Apple-- and a rush of sobbing from AT&T headquarters.

    It's hard to believe Jobs planned it all out, and we'll likely never know for sure anyway. But considering that we might be days away from an iPhone unlock, you have to wonder if Apple not only knew it would happen, but kind of wanted it to.

    [ via MacBytes ]

    Update: Our own Erica Sadun pinged me right before this post went to press to remind me that we're really, really close to the 90-day unlock period for most iPhone owners. In the past, AT&T has provided an unlock code for any phone upon request, as long as the customer has stuck with them for 90 days. I'm not sure if that policy is applicable with the iPhone, but that may be another factor in just how much AT&T has to lose with an iPhone unlock.
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  • Panic releases Transmit 3.6

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    Panic has dropped Transmit 3.6, the latest version of the FTP app that we freakin' love here at TUAW. Included in the new version is all the great old stuff (droplets, and the "edit anything anywhere" ability), and the new features of Amazon S3 support and a "Copy URL web preview" (in which you can right click any file to automatically get a URL for it). There's also a whole host of bugfixes and improvements.

    Transmit, as always, is available from Panic's website free with a 15 day trial, and $29.95 to purchase.

    [ Thanks, Jonathan M! ]
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  • No Beatles at next week's event?

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    No Beatles next Wednesday? Like pretty much everyone else, I figured the whole "Beat" goes on thing, not to mention that the third Beatle got added to iTunes recently, all pointed to next week's event as not only showing off new iPods, but Beatles music to play in them (and I wasn't the only one-- mockups are all over the place).

    But now the rumor mill (so, again, grain of salt with all of this) says it's a no go on the Beatles. There will be a new iPod, and supposedly a brand new Ringtones system will be brought to the iPhone, where you can use iTS purchased music as a ringtone, but we won't actually meet the Beatles.

    Then again, no one really knows but Apple-- Gruber speculates that since the event is being held at Moscone West, McCartney will be on hand to play live. And let's be realistic-- even though there is evidence for both a new iPod and the whole ringtones thing, no one's really sure what's going down anyway.

    So, as usual, we'll have to wait until next Wednesday to find out (or at least until next Tuesday, when the New York Times confirms what blogs have been saying all alone). What do you think?

    Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
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  • Found Footage: Scrolling iPhone dock smashes through 16-icon home screen limit

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    The iPhone home screen doesn't scroll. This 16-application limit is just a reality most users have come to accept. Third party developers have turned to launcher apps that search for additional applications and let you choose one from a list. Today, Nate True introduced an iPhone mod that smashes these launchers into yesterday's news.

    True's Dock package loads your entire application collection into a single usable list that appears directly on your homescreen. Just use a finger to scroll the bottom row of icons left or right and tap the application you want to launch.

    This is still a relatively early release--so there are a few bugs here or there--but I've tested it out and it works fabulously. To install, download a copy of iBrickr (Windows) or Breezy (Macintosh Universal Binary) and use them to load the Dock package to your iPhone.

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  • Planbook: Lesson planning for teachers, Mac style

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    In an education world where parents make all the decisions and administration knows less about teaching than the students, teachers can use all the help they get. While I wait for Assistants R Us to open in the Denver area so I can take some of the burden off my wife's high school English-teaching shoulders, educators of all kinds might be able to take some solace in Planbook from Hellmansoft. Designed and developed by Jeff Hellman, a 9th grade physics and science teacher, Planbook aims to do away with the clunky ways of writing lesson plans with paper by providing tools to plan, attach files, print, publish and search the digital way. Teachers can plan out lessons for one or multiple classes for the week, month or year, attach files the students will need for homework and publish it all to the web via FTP or to a local folder. Students, parents and administrators alike can then view the site, the daily lessons and download the files at their leisure. Still need paper versions? No sweat - Planbook can print out customized reports for students and administrators, great for handing out or posting in class.

    Since I am the farthest thing from a teacher, my wife graciously offered to give this software a whirl and share her thoughts. To be honest, after a minute or two of poking around, she was absolutely thrilled. She was impressed with Planbook's feature set and how easy it was to start writing plans for multiple classes. She loved the publish-to-web idea since her school already provides some digital records for parents to check from home, but I am sad to report that there was one killer deal-breaker that took the bounce out of my wife's step - Planbook is Mac-only. Now my wife is a Mac user through and through, but her school lives in the Windows world making Planbook ineligible for consideration.

    [Update: Jeff Hellman stopped by to comment that he's one step ahead of me; he actually is working on a Windows version and hopes to enter beta this weekend. This could certainly boost Planbook's appeal in Windows and mixed-OS environment and for teachers who live on both sides of that fence between the home and office.]

    If you or your teaching friends are fortunate enough to work on the Mac side at school, I (via my wife) definitely recommend you take a look at Planbook. Even as a 1.0 product it sounds like Hellman has hit most of the large nails right on the head, and more interest and support can only make a good product get better over time. Check out the Planbook site for more information, including an example published Planbook, as well as IM support and a Yahoo! Groups link. Individual licenses are $30, while volume licenses begins at up to 10 teachers for $100, going all the way up to 65+ teachers for $300. As a bonus, the volume license allows teachers to use Planbook on both their home and work computers.
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