Wednesday, September 26, 2007

The Apple Blog (7 сообщений)

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The Apple Blog, published by and for the day-to-day Apple user, is a prominent source for news, reviews, walkthroughs, and real life application of all Apple products.
http://theappleblog.com
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  • Pixelmator Now Available

    pixelmator
    Pixelmator has been pretty tight-fisted about letting their image-editor-in-progress see the light of day. There have only been 1 or 2 screencasts released by the developers, and what few beta testers were out there weren’t too loud about it. But today you can go download Pixelmator 1.0 and test drive it for yourself. If you like it, there’s a $59 price tag.

    Given that it supports Photoshop .psd files, iSight, and much more, it may be a fantastic mid-way application for those not willing or able to plunk down the cash for Photoshop CS3.

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  • Amazon MP3: Look out iTunes

    Amazon MP3

    Today Amazon launched its public beta of Amazon MP3. Amazon MP3 is Amazon.com’s foray into the digital music scene…and a it’s an extremely solid effort to say the least.

    Pricing per song is between 89 and 99 cents and albums between $4.99 and $9.99. The Top 100 albums are being priced at the lower amounts, which I assume is to try and give themselves a little bit of competitive advantage.

    The really big kicker here is that this music is DRM free. Yes, free. There is nothing tying in the files to a specific player, application, or operating system.

    On top of the music being DRM free, it’s all encoded at 256kbps. On iTunes you’ve gotta fork over an extra 30 cents if you want the 256k bringing the total to $1.29 for a 256kbps encoded song. Talk about a punch in the gut.

    The obvious downside to Amazon MP3 at this point in time is that it only has a selection of 2 million songs, compared to iTunes 6 million+ songs. I would imagine Amazon will have significantly more work ahead of them to reach the size of selection iTunes offers mainly because record execs are stuck in the dark ages and won’t wise up to the digital age of music.

    Amazon MP3 really is the first solid effort at tacking on the beast that is the iTunes Store. It will be exciting to see where Amazon takes things.

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  • Quick Tip: Enabling full keyboard access

    Quick Tip: Enabling full keyboard access

    By default, OS X has full keyboard access disabled allowing you to only tab through a limited number of items in various dialog boxes.

    In this Quick Tip I cover how to enable full keyboard access to help save you a few mouse clicks throughout your day.

    Enabling full keyboard access (.mov - 2.6mb)

    Be sure to subscribe to our TAB Screencasts via RSS feed or via iTunes.

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  • iPhone unlocking hacks possibly cause irreparable damage

    Today Apple released a statement in regards to the various hacks that unlock the iPhone from being tied to AT&T.

    Apple has discovered that many of the unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs available on the Internet cause irreparable damage to the iPhone’s software, which will likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed.

    They specifically mention the “unlocking” programs which leads us to believe they are only referring to the hacks that unlock your phone and not the hacks for things like ringtones.

    Could this just be a scare tactic? Or could Apple be making some changes to the iPhone software that actually will cause the iPhone to be irreparable if it finds hacks were used? Both of those options seem a bit bullish, but Apple hasn’t exactly played nice the past few weeks.

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  • Shh… Don't tell anyone the iPhone is actually a UMPC

    iPhone and UMPC Microsoft had their chance at defining a market. They pushed for the creation of the Ultramobile PCs ("UMPCs"). The Windows-based mini-tablets have not found their market. However, the Apple iPhone (and now the iPod touch) is actually the UMPC done right.

    The Windows-based UMPCs tried to create a market. The first-generation UMPC devices were large and bulky. The UMPC is still not quite small enough to replace a PDA or smart phone; nor is it large enough to be a laptop computer. The device is a strange in-between device. Apple snuck a portable computer into a cell phone form factor. The iPhone is not really a phone in the traditional sense. It is a computer running OS X that can run many applications (although Apple has locked many applications out for now) with a cell phone application tacked on.

    The iPhone interface is the right interface for a portable computer device. Shrinking a desktop experience onto a mobile screen is incredibly difficult. The UMPC essentially tried to replicate the desktop experience on a device smaller than a laptop. Several UMPCs did away with a physical keyboard. Others tried smaller, thumb-based keyboards. Traditional computers need keyboards in order to input data.

    Apple did not try to replicate full-blown desktop experience. They adapted their applications to run optimally on a portable device. The mobile Safari application makes other mobile web experiences seem lacking. The touchscreen keyboard still needs work, but functions in a pinch. Since Apple puts such an emphasis on "lifestyle" computing instead of productivity, the lack of a great keyboard is something many overlook. The iPhone disguised itself using its personal media player capabilities.

    Tying the iPhone with a cellular phone network is also what makes the product a success. Omnipresent internet access is incredibly helpful in creating a real mobile computer. People expect internet access on computers these days, and the iPhone bundles internet access on a portable computer. Yes, there have been other solutions to put wireless internet access onto portable computers, but none have been as elegant as Apple's solution.

    Why do the Apple products succeed where the competitors fail? The Apple products are incredibly easy to use. If you’ve seen the commercials for the iPhone, you already know how to use the product. The iPod touch is needlessly feature-light compared to the iPhone, but works in pretty much the same manner. It is really the Apple Tablet UMPC. Could you imagine seeing a UMPC ad showing the use of Internet Explorer?

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  • 10.4.11 Updates?

    With September ending, and Leopard effectively promised for October, the 10.4.11 ‘fix list’ keeps piling up. That I know of right now, it supposedly should cover: CUPS, VPN and L2TP, audio bugs (Core Audio and .m4a), AFP server issues, USB devices, networking fixes (again), BSD and interlock timeouts, and all kinds of ‘enhancements.’

    I know that I, at least have a couple of machines that are not going to be running Leopard ever - they just can’t hack it. They’re fine for their purpose, lab machines all, but they don’t meet system requirements for Leopard and never will. I have only two machines - my Macbook Pro and my G5 Powermac - that can, in fact. Accordingly, I am much more interested in Tiger updates than Leopard. I’ve seen all the reviews and feature lists for Leopard already.

    Here’s what I’m hoping for in 10.4.11:

    • Playing .ogg, .wma, and .flac without extra plugins or conversions.
    • Not crashing G4 machines when a Samba share goes missing. (Elegant disconnects.)
    • Pie in the sky, but - an icon editor/replacement app?
    • Reliable time from a network timeserver running on a Windows machine, because there’s nothing like locking an Active Directory password because Kerberos is being cranky.
    • Better interoperability with Active Directory - companies are not going to be switching to Leopard on a large scale yet, and fixing this in Tiger is the way to go.

    What do you hope to see?

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    Комментарии к сообщению:
    http://theappleblog.com/2007/09/24/10411-updates/#comments



  • Timex iPod Alarm Clock

    I’m not all that picky when it comes to alarm clocks. Essentially it passes my rigorous test if the display doesn’t light up my room while I sleep, and the default buzzer doesn’t stop my heart when it goes off in the morning. But I suppose after using the Timex Ti700 for a few months, those standards would have to be set aside for a more advanced, iPod-centered alarm clock. At the end of the day, I’m happy with the Ti700 - it does the job it sets out to do (wake me up so I can get into work before noon) at a fairly reasonable price ($69).

    However, if you’re slightly more picky than I about the performance and features of your alarm clock - especially one that touches your iPod - then you’ll likely expect more of a review than that.

    What better place to start than my two initial indicators? The large round display face of the Ti700 is backlit with Indiglo technology. The white-blue color looks really nice, and has 3 levels of brightness (and a 4th setting of no backlight at all) that you can choose from. Being one who would put black-out curtains on my windows if the wife allowed it, I don’t like any extra lights muddling-up my darkness. That goes for the Dish receiver LED, my charging MacBook, or anything else; Thus, my alarm clock needs to be visible only when I go looking for it. Unfortunately even the lowest Indiglo setting is like having a car’s headlight right behind my head when I wake up in the dark hours of the night. I’ve adapted by just keeping the backlight off (which makes the entire display unreadable in the dark) and turning it on only when I need to see what time it actually is. It’s not ideal, but it works.
    (more…)

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