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- App Review: Keymote Makes Shortcuts Even Easier
There are no shortage of iPhone apps that function as remotes for your Mac, Apple TV, or just about anything else. Keymote (iTunes link), by Iced Cocoa, takes the concept to a new level by allowing custom "keysets" for all of your favorite applications.
So why would anybody need an app to do this when most apps have keyboard shortcuts already? Well the answer is simple if you consider the power of leveraging the large screen on the iPhone. When it launched sans a physical keyboard, Steve Jobs commented that it was a great idea to do away with it, because there are times when you don't need a full size keyboard. If you are typing in numbers, it would be great to see large numbers instead of individual keys.
The same holds true for shortcuts. Why should I have to press “Shift+Command+Delete” to empty my trash when I could just use one button for that same purpose? Keymote addresses this usability blemish.
Keymote's setup process is very simple and only requires that your iPhone and Mac share a Wi-Fi connection. Download the remote software on your Mac and it resides on the menu bar. Once you've paired the iPhone to your Mac from the app, you’re ready to roll.
Keymote comes with several keysets out of the box but also includes an in-app store that provides a larger wealth of free downloadable keysets for other popular apps, all contributed by users. Instantly download keysets for Aperture, Adobe Illustrator, Pages or any other app you use frequently. My favorite is the Numerical Keypad keyset which will help your stylish Apple keyboard feel a little more powerful.
If there's not a keyset for an application you like to use, feel free to create your own and share it with others. If a particular keyset is not quite up to your standards, tap a key or spacer and hold. Then you can just drag it to a better location. If a shortcut is missing, just tap the plus and add it right alongside the rest.
The only thing to keep in mind is that you might find yourself using your phone more often than before. In case, my iPhone has become more of an auxiliary keypad and so I needed to adjust my sleep settings to keep my phone awake. Additionally, Keymote requires the software you're using be the active application. This means if I call up Photoshop key commands and create a new document, it invokes "Command+N." If Photoshop isn’t the active application, "Command+N" will apply to whichever app is active. The developers are aware of this limitation, and it’s something they are working to address.
With a stylish user interface that looks great not just on my iPhone, but as a "keypad" next to my Mac, Keymote is a great application for those whose regularly harness the power of shortcuts. Keymote is $3.99 and available for download on the App Store. If you've had the chance to try it out, please share your thoughts.
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Переслать - Snow Leopard: A Brief Introduction to the New Big Cat
I’m now running OS X 10.5.6 on two of my three eligible Macs (the fourth is a 12-inch PowerBook G4), and so far, I couldn’t be happier. I haven’t run into any nasty compatibility issues or really disastrous bugs (although Finder once auto-quit and restarted when I was fiddling with the menu bar), and general system performance seems noticeably improved.
All that said, if you’re looking for big flashy changes, look elsewhere. Snow Leopard is exactly what Apple said it was all along: a nice collection of system refinements and improvements, with a few experience-enhancing features thrown in for good measure.
Installation
OS X users will find the installation process very much simplified. For advanced users, probably too much so, in fact. Running the installer from the Snow Leopard disc off of your desktop gives you only one install option: a simple upgrade. In the interest of time, and because I was curious to see how well it would work, that’s the option I used on my MacBook Pro, though I generally prefer doing a clean install with any major point OS change.
To run a clean install, users can boot from the Snow Leopard disc by holding down “C” during startup. From there, you can use Disk Utility to format your target drive and perform a fresh install.
Installation time was surprisingly fast, taking less than an hour start to finish. Apple has streamlined the installation process by removing a lot of drivers that used to be packaged with the OS, since Snow Leopard is programmed to go to the web to find those later if and when they’re required.
System Performance
The best comparison I can make in order to describe the general system performance enhancements Snow Leopard brings to the table is my experience of moving from the iPhone 3G to the iPhone 3GS. Everything felt faster, tighter and more responsive. My Macs running 10.6 feel the same.
Initial boot-up times are improved on both my MacBook Pro and my Mac mini, albeit by only nominal amounts, but once you’re actually up and running, the response times in Finder, Exposé, Stacks and all bundled system applications is markedly improved. Launch times for non-Apple apps doesn’t seem to be much better, nor does in-app performance, but it may take time for developers to incorporate code to take advantage of Grand Central Dispatch and OpenCL technology.
Quicktime X
Aside from a cool icon update, Quicktime X also gets a completely overhauled UI, which puts much more focus on the content. Videos are framed in a minimalist, borderless window that has only a dark control bar at the top, and a playback overlay.
Like iMovie ‘09 and iPhoto ‘09 before it, Quicktime X is now more social thanks to a new “Share” menu that allows you to upload your movie directly to your MobileMe gallery or YouTube, or to export to an iTunes-friendly format. Selecting the iTunes option brings up a dialog with three conversion options, allowing you to format the movie for use on an iPhone/iPod, an Apple TV or just for general computer use. Export and trim functions are also available from the playback control overlay.
Exposé and Stacks
Two features that have become inseparable from my daily Mac experience are Exposé and Stacks. Exposé gets a major usability boost thanks to the inclusion of Dock access. Under both “All Windows” and “Application Windows” views, you’ll be able to click on open apps in the dock as well as open windows — helpful if you’ve hidden a program, or for changing the active application without leaving Exposé.
Stacks are now much more functional, since you can scroll in Grid view and navigate through subfolders instead of having to click through to Finder. Fan view still does things the old-fashioned way, though I’m not sure why anyone would voluntarily use Fan mode with Stacks anyway.
Finder and Preview
A few little things really up Finder’s game in Snow Leopard. There’s an icon size slider in the bottom right-hand corner of every finder window, which is great news for universal access, and for people like me who often have to take application icon screenshots. There’s also advanced icon viewing in Finder which allows you to preview movies and scroll through PDFs without even activating live preview.
Preview itself gets some great usability enhancements, such as better, more accessible screenshot and import options and soft preview using any available system color profiles. You can also preview a wider range of documents, even if you don’t have the software that created it on your system. That includes Word and Excel files.
Exchange Support
For you business-types out there, one of the big features of Snow Leopard is built-in Exchange support. This wasn’t one I could test out personally, but Exchange support in 10.6 extends to Mail, Address Book, and iCal, so you no longer have to depend on Entourage to get by.
iCal even does fancy things like detecting scheduling conflicts and suggesting alternate times depending on availability. The best part? You’re doing it all without using Windows or Outlook.
Lots of Little Things
Snow Leopard brings so many little changes that it’s impossible to list them all here, or to uncover them all after spending such a short amount of time with the OS. Among my favorite early discoveries is the new naming scheme for screenshots. Gone are the “Photo 1,” “Photo 2,” etc. that tell you absolutely nothing. Instead, images are now labeled “Screen Shot,” complete with the date and time they were taken underneath.
Another nice touch is always having System Preferences accessible from the dock, even when the SysPref app itself isn’t actually open. In Leopard, you could set your System Preferences to open and auto-hide at startup, and then with a right click on the icon in your dock, access all the preference sub-menus quickly and easily. Snow Leopard takes away the first step, so that right-clicking on the Preferences icon always brings up that sub-menu.
Finally, Core Location tech will automatically update your time zone based on nearby Wi-Fi hotspots it detects, so if you travel a lot, you won’t have to worry about constantly switching your computer clock.
Right now, Snow Leopard is like a treasure box with lots of little prizes to uncover. If you’re spending your Friday poking around and you’ve found anything I’ve missed above, please share with the rest of the class.
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Переслать - Apple Warns of Programs Snow Leopard Won't Play Nice With
In order to prepare for the arrival of Snow Leopard, and hopefully deflect some frustrated tech support calls, Apple overnight updated oodles of support documents and knowledge base articles. One of said documents could be vital to people looking to upgrade today, as it contains the blacklist of really incompatible software for 10.6.
The list is split into two parts. The first, which features software that will be automatically moved to an “Incompatible Software” folder, contains some familiar faces, like Unsanity’s Application Enhancer 2.0.1 and earlier, versions of which caused a fair amount of BSOD (including one of my own) when users upgraded from Tiger to Leopard. At least your system won’t just seize up and die this time around. Other programs on this list include:
- Parallels Desktop 2.5 and below
- AT&T’s Laptop Connect Card (1.0.4, 1.0.5, and 1.10.0)
- Norton AntiVirus 11.0
- launch2net 2.13.0 (for some 3G USB dongles)
The second part contains programs that Snow Leopard will prevent from opening, though they will remain in their usual location on your drive. Oddly enough, two of Apple’s own software offerings appear on this list. Here are the most popular offenders:
- Aperture 2.1.1 and below
- Keynote 2.0.2 and below
- Parallels Desktop 3.0
- EyeTV 3.0.0 to 3.1.0
- Ratatouille 1.1
I’ve only posted some of the programs on the list, which will probably be updated by Apple as new incompatibilities are discovered. Note that Apple’s not saying these programs will break or prevent a Snow Leopard install, just that they most definitely will not work with 10.6. If I happened to have any of these currently installed on my system, I’d probably do my best to get rid of any trace of them using AppZapper or something similar before upgrading, just in case.
Переслать - Does Intuitive + Easy = Dumb and Dumber?
There is a problem with making technology – particularly computers – easy to use. The simpler and more foolproof they become, the less technically-proficient users tend to be. There's that line from Rick Cook’s 1989 book The Wizardy Compiled; “Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.”
Apple has made usability and user-experience a core part of the design philosophy in everything they produce (Well, almost everything. That’s right, I'm looking at you, MobileMe web apps). Mac OS X and, more obviously, the iPhone OS are shining beacons of the right way to design user-friendly, accessible, easy-to-use software.
What’s a Manual?
Did you need to read a manual when you got your first iPhone? Or how about your first iPod? Even the least technically proficient people I know own such devices and they never once cracked-open the "Getting Started" booklet. These are the same people, it should be noted, who bought copies of "Windows XP For Dummies" because they considered that OS too difficult to learn and use without a printed guide to-hand.
The iPhone is probably the ultimate user-friendly computer (though not the most accessible, but that's a different matter). My neighbor's six-year old son once took my iPhone from my hands and brandished it proudly to his friends, announcing "I've seen these on TV". He then demonstrated to his impressed buddies, with absolute confidence, "This is how you take photos… this is how you play music…"
For a six year old with no previous experience of an iPhone other than what he had seen on television commercials, he was surprisingly adept with the thing. I doubt he could have been quite so confident (or impressed) with a Windows Mobile phone or, even worse, a Motorola.
By the Numbers
A recent article on MacRumors reported analysts' predictions that Apple is expected to sell more than 80 million iPhones in 2012. Of course that's not the same as 80 million iPhone users, but it's still a mammoth user-base. If we're to assume an OS convergence across iPhones and iPods (and maybe tablets, too?) in the next three years, we can easily assume a few hundred million people all over the world owning Mac OS X-powered devices that are super-easy to use despite their many and varied forms and functions.
A Nightmarish Tale
The end result? Well, in the world of desktop computers the drive toward user-friendliness has today produced legions of end-users who know how to send an email but don't know the difference between POP3 and IMAP; users that practically live on Facebook but can't tell you if they're using Firefox or Internet Explorer to get there. Users that – and I have personally experienced this during years of providing technical support to friends and family – can't even tell you what Operating System they're using;
Liam: What Operating System are you using?
Friend: What's that? Is it the Internet? I use Google.
Liam: No, I mean… [thinks]… The thing you see when you turn your computer on.
Friend: I don't see anything.
Liam: Well, you ought to see something. It'll probably say ‘Microsoft’ or ‘Windows something-or-other’…
Friend: Where should it say that? Do I have to click on something?…and so on.
I've had these conversations (yes, exactly these sorts of conversations, I'm not exaggerating) with otherwise very smart, very well-informed individuals. University lecturers, engineers, lawyers and doctors are all categories of end-user I have helped and who have all responded precisely in that stumbling, bewildered manner.
A telling point; I've never had to provide tech support to fellow Mac users. Sure, I've shared hints and tips and recommended cool software. But no Mac owner I know has yet asked me how to find their trash folder, email a photo or connect to their wireless router. (All examples of common issues my Windows-using friends have shared.)
The Death of Technical Proficiency?
These people are not dumb, they're simply computer illiterate. When I was in high school in the early 90's, there was a lot of talk about the importance of computer literacy. Becoming computer literate at that time meant learning how to build your own network, how to ping servers, how to patch, bridge, daisy-chain and hack until everything kinda-sorta-worked.
But this wasn't the Reserved Domain of the Geek. These were skills required of anyone who wanted to use computers. Today, the standard by which someone is considered (generally) computer literate has almost nothing to do with technical proficiency, and everything to do with throwing sheep at friends on Facebook.
More than any other software or hardware company, Apple has removed the barriers to entry that, when I was growing up, were simply accepted landmarks in the computer technology landscape. The soon-to-be-released Snow Leopard is the latest in a long evolutionary line of carefully researched and engineered efforts at democratizing computer technology – and all the potential it unlocks for end-users.
For thirty years, in fact, Apple has lead the way in creating intuitive, user-friendly computer technology. They've most assuredly made the "dent in the universe" Steve Jobs spoke of. But the more foolproof the products become, as Rick Cook warns, the greater the idiocy of those who use them. I guess that means there will always be a job for a geek like me. But, really… how much easier can it all get?
Переслать - OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Officially Available Today
It's the moment we've all been waiting for. Today, Apple officially launches the latest milestone update to its Mac OS X operating system. "Snow Leopard" is the fifth major update to the operating system since it was launched in 2001. Apple has spent the last year tweaking and refining just about every line of code in the entire operating system and the result is a far leaner, meaner animal.
We've been covering the rumors, news and leaks on Snow Leopard for what feels like forever. For a whistle-stop tour of how 10.6 has developed over the year and what new features and functionality it brings, follow these links to learn about:
- How much weight Snow Leopard has lost -– system apps are much smaller than ever before now all that old PPC code is a thing of the past.
- How the Finder and Dock have been tweaked to make navigating your files faster and easier than ever before.
- Under-the-hood additions, tweaks and tune-ups that make Snow Leopard the most powerful and sophisticated Mac OS X yet.
- Changes to Apple's venerable QuickTime media software.
- The introduction of native support for Microsoft Exchange.
- The revolutionary new multicore management technology Grand Central Dispatch.
Finally, just in case you're not sure where to get started when you upgrade, check out Jon Buy's Upgrade Strategy: Getting Ready for Snow Leopard and Chris Ryan’s Snow Leopard: The Installation Process.Of course, in the interest of fair and balanced reporting, you could always read Dave Greenbaum's Why I'll Wait on Snow Leopard, and Why Maybe You Should Too.
But of course, you won't be doing a Greenbaum. You'll be rushing out to buy your copy. And why not? It's cheap. If you are upgrading from Leopard (and maybe even if not), a single-installation license will cost only $29. For a 5-license Family Pack, it's just $49.
Bottom line: It runs faster than Leopard. It gives you back a lot of hard drive space. It's packed full of next-generation technology and it's a lot cheaper than the competition. Snow Leopard is available now.
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