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The Apple Blog
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.
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Apple Tech Support Trials Begets Better iPhone Headset + License Woes
It’s been quite a while since my last post due in large part to my dead MacBook Pro. Perhaps, unstable would have been a better choice of words as my trusty 15″ developed a very nasty power issue where it would just randomly power off without warning. The instability made it impossible to do any serious work and the ensuing extended service call forced me to rely mostly on my iPhone for keeping up with the happenings of the internets. Our household has other systems but they were all taken up by end-of-school-year projects or dedicated for other uses…or were Windows-based. While Safari made the Windows work slightly bearable, I found living in an all-Windows world (for personal use) to be a less-than-stellar experience (and, I’m a very experienced 3.1 through Vista user & developer).

It took three visits to the local Apple Store – over the course of 8 days – to finally get my machine back. Two logic board swaps and keyboard + top cover replacement later and my MBPro feels like new again. I definitely want to give kudos to the team at the Alderwood Mall Apple Store for doing everything in their power to get me back up and running. While a loaner Air would have been nice, the techs did a good job giving me updates and making things happen as quickly as Apple processes would allow. If you haven’t had to deal with Apple support, they really do an excellent job between online scheduling, in-store attempts at problem resolution and speedy return of items in repair. Even though this fix took a while, they definitely showed they cared at every step of the way.

Service Generates Sales

During the course of those three visits I had a great deal of time to hang at the Apple Store waiting to be processed by a Genius (scheduled times can be off a bit as they do make every effort to fix problems right there). Staring at the walls of Apple-compatible products, it was difficult to resist the urge to buy…everything. I did manage to successfully leave twice without a single purchase, but one item caught my eye: the Monster® iSoniTalk™ Microphone Headphone Adapter for iPhone

From one of my earlier posts, you should know that I’m ever on the lookout for the best accessory for the job when it comes to my Mac’s, iPhone or iPod. While the Shure adapter reviewed in that post has done a great job, it is far from an optimal product. The headphone cable is extended way too much and the weight of the cable + mic is a bit much for the clip to support well.

While I generally find Monster products to be overpriced and not always better than their “normal” counterparts, the iSoniTalk has some definite merits (and a few detractions). First, you can find it online for close to $10.00 USD, which is significantly cheaper than the Shure counterpart. Second, because of the combination jack & extension you do not have to deal with a ton of extra cable to manage. Third, there are built-in clips along the adapter cable which make it very easy to manage the cable from your existing headphone sets.

Lastly, the mic + clip + button combo control attaches securely and works very well (not nearly as sensitive as the Shure, which for me is a good thing). I probably should mention that sound quality for music and calls is not impacted in any negative way by the adapter.

There are a few “gotchas”, however. The same jack + extension dongle combination can be a bit unwieldy, especially if you use any type of case with your iPhone. It just doesn’t hold in as well given the overall size of the unit. The actual cable itself could use a couple of inches as it comes up short to most headphones I own. One extra clip near the mic would also be nice in the event you just want to use it without talking.

I’d have to definitely recommend it over the Shure on price and convenience, but I’ve only had it a few days and would really like to hear from TAB readers on your experiences with the product.

Hardware-tied License Woes

While Apple managed to get some additional hard-earned cash out of me from my free repair (1-year warranty FTW!), my support saga continued with the annoyance of hardware-based software licenses. At least two products on my system - iTunes and launch2net tie themselves to data that is specific to the logic board of the system they are installed on. I had to burn an iTunes activation (no time to deal with Apple online support just now) and e-mail the customer service folks at nova media to deactivate my old launch2net code from their database. This should serve as a notice to consumers to ensure you deactivate your hardware-specific licenses prior to service (if possible) and a plea to developers to find an alternate mechanism to secure software purchases. nova media may have lost a future upgrade sale since Leopard works fine with my 3G modem without their software and I do not need the hassle of waiting 3 days for tech support to reset a license. I understand Apple’s constraints, but they should make it easier to manage authorizations online rather than the “reset all” feature once per year.

If you have had similar experiences with license woes post-repair or want to provide data on software that you use which ties itself to hardware, definitely drop a note in the comments.

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Forum Activity: June 23, 2008
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Entourage 101: Put Signature on Most Recent Reply Email
Like I’ve stated earlier, my work is a Mac shop. This being said, we need to use Entourage, Microsoft’s email solution for Macs, to manage our exchange email accounts. Entourage defaults to putting your signature at the bottom of reply emails, but most people like having it right at the end of their reply.

To have your signature appear in the most recent reply email follow these steps:
1. Open Entourage
2. Click the “Entourage” menu and select “Preferences”
3. Click “Reply & Forward” under the “Mail & News Preferences”
4. Under “Mail Attributes” select the last option “Place reply at top of message and include From, Date, To, and Subject lines from original message”
5. Click “Ok”
Now everytime you start a reply email your signuate will default to the end of the reply, instead the end of the string of emails. I have tested with both Entourage 2004 & 2008 and it works with both. Have fun!

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Sega-Hasbro: Crank up your iPod with Ampbot the dancing Robot

Imagine having a robot that carries your iPod, dances, and chases you around the house? Almost sounds as though you’ve stepped into the future where robots rule. If you like gadgets check out the one Sega-Hasbro has created. It’s an A.M.P (Automated Music Personality) or Ampbot. In other words it’s a musical robot.

The Ampbot was recently released at the Tokyo Toy Show. It’s not a new concept Sega Toys has released similar devices over the years; however, none of them have been as advanced as the Ampbot.

Ampbot is 2.4 feet tall two-wheeled wonder. It features a MP3 cradle on its back. It’s a perfect place to store your iPod. What’s interesting is that Ampbot will follow you around. Osamu Takeuchi of Sega Toys says, “The owner can also enjoy being chased around the house by the robot.” Oh great, my dogs and ferrets already do that now I have another shadow. Somehow the thought of a 2.4 foot robot following me around the house isn’t appealing. I know my five-year old daughter would get a big kick out of it, however after the novelty wore off she would be trying to figure out a way to get it to stop following her.

If you successfully escape Ampbot’s stalking, you’ll still hear your music blasting from its speakers. Which is a good thing it’s the reason you bought it in the first place, right? So it can play music stored on your iPod, right? Ampbot comes equipped with 5-inch mid range speakers that are located in its chest. You’ll also find a pair of small tweeters located on its shoulders giving it a total output of 12 watts.

The Ampbot needs a lot of juice. Be prepared to stock it with 6X D and 3X AAA batteries. I would suggest investing in rechargeable batteries so you don’t have to keep purchasing them? That’s what we use in my home. The batteries will give you about 10 hours of continuous music.

Ampbot will make its appearance in November 2008 just in time for Christmas. Cough up $500 and the musical robot is yours.

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Reset OS X Password Without an OS X CD
I wrote about this a while back on my blog, hackaddict, but it was such a popular post I thought I’d give it a revisit. A lot of people buy used Macs, and they often run into the problem of not knowing the admin password, so here is a way to get around not knowing the admin password on Macs.

To reset your OS X password without an OS X CD you need to enter terminal and create a new admin account:
1. Reboot
2. Hold apple + s down after you hear the chime.
3. When you get text prompt enter in these terminal commands to create a brand new admin account (hitting return after each line):
  - mount -uw /
  - rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
  - shutdown -h now
4. After rebooting you should have a brand new admin account. When you login as the new admin you can simply delete the old one and you’re good to go again!
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