Monday, September 10, 2007

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) (13 сообщений)

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  • PhotoBook: Facebook photo browser

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    PhotoBook is a very Mac-like photo browser for the Facebook social-networking site. It allows you to view friends' albums on a single page with a nice iPhoto-like resizer at the bottom. It also offers live searching/filtering as you type and slideshows with transitions. Speaking of iPhoto it includes one-click importing of any photo or entire album. If you find yourself viewing Facebook photos a lot, this looks like a great way to do it.

    PhotoBook is a free download from Caffeinated Cocoa.

    [via MacTips]
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  • Colloquy for iPhone Debuts

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    Gallery: iPhone Colloquy

    A new IRC client debuted on the iPhone today and is available for download from Installer.app. Like many other iPhone projects, Mobile Colloquy is still in its early days, taking baby alpha release steps, but it shows excellent promise. It allows you to create server profiles, enter your user information and, of course, connect to those servers and chat.

    Although Mobile Colloquy uses the same core as Mac OS X Colloquy, the two projects are not affiliated. For any issues with Mobile Colloquy, the developers request that you please file reports at the Mobile Colloquy Google Code site and not at colloquy.info.

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    Комментарии к сообщению:
    http://www.tuaw.com/2007/09/10/colloquy-for-iphone-debuts/#comments



  • Vienna 2.2 is available

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    Just eight weeks after the teaser announcement, Vienna 2.2 has been released. I have been happily using Vienna for months. It's a light and simple RSS reader that's free and open. What more do you need? How about (new to version 2.2):
    • Snappier performance
    • Major UI improvements (no more brushed metal!)
    • Support for RSS/Atom enclosures, plus a new Enclosure panel for articles that contain enclosures.
    • Global search
    • Feed auto-discovery
    There's a lot more to this major update, and you can read the full description here. Vienna is free, universal and requires Mac OS 10.3.9 or later.

    If you like to travel light, check out Portable Vienna, which runs on a USB keychain drive.
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    Комментарии к сообщению:
    http://www.tuaw.com/2007/09/10/vienna-2-2-is-available/#comments



  • iPhone versus iPod Touch: What to buy

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    With the iPod Touch set to debut any second, I've been getting a lot of mail and phone calls asking: "Which should I buy? The iPhone or the Touch?" Here's a quick reference to help you make your decision.

    Cost. At $299, the iPod Touch costs $100 less than the $399 iPhone. If you're looking for the least expensive entry point, your choices are the 8GB Touch or a refurbished 4GB iPhone. The Touch has double the memory for the same price.

    Form Factor. The iPhone is bigger and heavier than the Touch. It weighs in at 4.8 ounces and 11.6 mm depth versus the Touch's slim 4.2 ounces and 8mm thickness. Not a huge difference to be sure but those extra 4 mm definitely feel different in the hand.

    Built-ins. The iPhone offers a built-in microphone, speakers and 2.0 megapixel camera. The Touch does not. You can't snap a photo and email it on the go with the Touch the way you do with iPhone.

    Contract-free use. The iPhone is designed to be used with a monthly service fee. The Touch is contract-free out of the box. The iPhone requires activation through semi-nefarious hacking before it can be used without a contract and/or phone service.

    Hackability. The Touch is probably just as hackable as the iPhone but the iPhone is a known quantity.

    EDGE. Surfing on the Touch is a WiFi-only prospect. The US iPhone offers EDGE for when you're away from WiFi hotspots. Even with EDGE, though, coverage is spotty.

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  • iPhone 101: Browser-based playlists

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    Call me fickle, but sometimes I don't want to hear any of the music I've got on my iPhone. What should I do when I'm away from my computer, itching for new music? Create a browser-based playlist.

    The Internet Archive is a tremendous source of streaming music files (among other things) that play just fine on the iPhone. Here's how to set things up.
    1. Create a new bookmark folder in Mobile Safari. I named mine "Rock."
    2. Navigate to the Internet Archive, and find some music you'd like to listen to (I chose Smashing Pumpkins)
    3. The Flash player at the top of the page will not work, but scroll down to the botto and click either of the "Mp3" files
    4. A new page will open to play the file
    5. Click "Done" at the top of the page, then touch the menu bar
    6. Add a bookmark to the file to the "Rock" folder
    Done! Add as many links as you like, and you've got a web-based playlist of tunes that aren't hogging storage space.
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  • Flickr find: Apple protoypes group

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    While browsing Flickr from the luxurious TUAW offices this afternoon (read: That Starbucks on the corner), we came across the Apple Prototypes Flickr group. There's some very cool stuff pictured, including a penlite prototype with duodock and a transparent SE/20.

    As the group's administrator notes, prototype Apple hardware rarely sees the light of day. If you've got something cool lying around, consider adding a few shots to this pool (Anonymity will be granted, if desired). Because sharing is caring.

    Photograph used with permission from Sonny Hung. Photographer anonymous.
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  • Journeyman: The iPhone as character actor

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    Turns out that iPhone will play a major role in the upcoming NBC show Journeyman. When the show debuts on September 24, keep your eyes open to spot the iPhone as it repeatedly appears on-screen performing such vital acts as losing network connectivity through time travel and having visual voicemail work as an indicator of missing time. The iPhone reportedly follows the method and insisted on not bathing and gaining 20 lbs before its scenes were shot.

    TUAW mourns the early passing of Adam Finley

    Update: Reader Mike passed along this amusing screen shot showing a Journeyman hand actor holding the iPhone upside down with a screen mockup added in postproduction. Mike notes that the iPhone is encased with the Griffin Clear Case.

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  • School days: Firefox Campus Edition

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    More back-to-school suggestions; this one has the advantage of being free. If you haven't already downloaded Firefox for your machine, it's a good idea to have it handy for those occasional sites that aren't Safari-friendly. If you're interested in a few extra plugins with a student-friendly bent, then you might check out the Firefox Campus Edition, which is simply the current Firefox build plus the FoxyTunes, StumbleUpon and Zotero plugins in one convenient package.

    FoxyTunes (for controlling your music player via the browser) and StumbleUpon (social bookmarking for interesting/useful sites) are both fine, but the real power tool here is Zotero: this research tool, file manager, PDF bucket and citation editor is a boon to anyone working on research projects with Firefox. Given enough practice with Zotero, it might replace a local note manager like Yojimbo or other online tools like Google Notebook.

    Of course, if you already have Firefox, you can download these plugins (or scores of others) separately, and all three are free.

    via PaulStamatiou.com

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  • Apparent edit to iPod Touch webpage

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    Take a look at this page describing the new iPod's touch capabilities. Now, look at this older version via Google cache. Are they the same?

    In the current version, the first paragraph reads:

    "...And iPod touch features a touchscreen QWERTY keyboard perfect for browsing the web in Safari, searching for videos on YouTube, finding music on the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, or adding new contacts."

    In the cached version, the end of that sentence reads:

    "...searching for videos on YouTube, finding music on the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, entering calendar events, or adding new contacts."

    It seems that "entering calendar events" has disappeared. A last minute adjustment? We'll have to get our hands on one to see what's what.

    Thanks, Jools!
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  • Create your own iTunes-compatible ringtones: Part 2

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    Last week, I posted about creating your own iPhone ringtones, then iTunes 7.4.1 toddled along, so here are updated instructions.

    iTunes uses the m4r file extension for ringtones. If you remove an AAC file from your library and rename it from .m4a to .m4r and then add it back to iTunes, the program reads it back in as a ringtone rather than a normal library track. You must then go back and rename that file back to m4a so you sync it to your iPhone. (That's what that unrecognized format error is all about.)

    The secret lies in making sure the name change happens properly. This isn't a big problem on Windows. On the Mac, though, the Finder tries to keep you from renaming the file extension -- this isn't to keep you from making ringtones, it's to keep you from hurting your files. That file you just named "MyTone.m4r" may actually be named "MyTone.m4r.m4a" (unless you have the Finder advanced preference "Show all file extensions" turned on, usually a good idea if you plan to be tweaking your file types).


    If you don't have the show all extensions preference on, you can do the rename in Terminal, or select the file you want to rename and Get Info (Cmd-I). Scroll down to the Name & Extension field and change the extension to m4r there. If the Finder is set to show all file extensions, you can pretty much just go ahead and change the extension; you may get a warning dialog but you may plow ahead safely.

    At this time, the m4r items do not appear in your Library. You can only see them when you select an iPhone in the sources list and then click on the Ringtones tab. Also, there is no way to remove ringtone items from your library yet.

    Thank you to Alex

    Update: I've only tested this update on the Mac.

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  • 1 millionth iPhone has been sold

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    You can't rush excellence, but sometimes you can speed it up just a smidge. Apple reports that it sold iPhone #1 million on September 9th, just 74 days after the product introduction (and 4 days after the price drop). As Steve notes in the press release, it was two years before the iPod reached the million mark.

    Apple COO Tim Cook announced Apple's forecast of 1 million phones sold by "September, 2007" earlier this summer, and that's what Apple has done. If my personal experience is indicative if the phone's popularity - people still stop me in my tracks so they can see it - this should be a very good holiday season for Apple.

    Thanks, Tim!
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  • Flying Meat releases Acorn image editor

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    Okay I admit it; I was fooled. Last week Gus Mueller posted an "interview" on his blog with a "fellow Pacific Northwest developer" about an exciting new app to be released today. While I had figured out it was probably an image editor, I did not figure out that Gus was talking to himself! In any case, Flying Meat software (of VoodooPad and FlySketch fame) today announced Acorn, an image editor "built for the 21st century." Much like Pixelmator (with which I expect Acorn to be compared once Pixelmator finally ships), Acorn takes advantage of your GPU to speed up its operation. It has the normal assortment of editing tools, including layers (with filters), vector tools, as well as a built-in Python and Objective-C plugin system. The latter is particularly exciting as it will allow third-party developers to extend Acorn in potentially interesting ways.

    I've long thought that there was an obvious hole in the market for a reasonably priced image editor that was powerful enough for most user but much cheaper than Photoshop. Since Adobe is taking its sweet time releasing a Universal version of Photoshop Elements, it's good to see smaller developers like Gus Mueller and the guys behind Pixelmator stepping up to the plate. It'll be interesting to see how each of them make out in the long run.

    Acorn is $39.95 (intro price) and a demo is available.

    Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
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  • TUAW Talkcast #6: iPod announcement recap

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    Last week's TUAW Talkcast features an extended program of reactions, questions and reader responses to the big iPod annoucements with bloggers Lisa Hoover, Erica Sadun, Dave Caolo and Nik Fletcher; it also marks the talkcast debut of Mat "The Philosopher" Lu. We had great contributions from our call-in listeners and it was an enjoyable show for all, if a bit echoey at times. It clocks in at 1:08 and 39 MB. You can pick it up from our RSS & iTunes feeds, via direct download here, or via download and streaming over at Talkshoe. If you enjoy the show, be sure to throw a quick Digg our way.

    Thanks to all of your poll responses, we're moving the talkcast to a new day and time: 9 pm Sunday nights, starting next week on September 16. We look forward to talking to you all then! For those who have had issues with the Talkshoe client, the new version released this week adds a more graceful text chat interface and the wide availability of the Shoephone VoIP built-in tool, plus 'anonymous call-in' allowing you to listen to the show over a regular phone without having a Talkshoe PIN -- more details next week.

    TUAW & the entire Weblogs, Inc. family mourn the loss of TV Squad blogger Adam Finley. Our thoughts are with Adam's family and friends at this time. TV Squad will be publishing a tribute to Adam on Monday, September 10.
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