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- Your Favorite Snow Leopard UI Changes
Now that many of us have upgraded to Snow Leopard, I would like to start a forum where you can share your favorite UI changes. Use Command + Shift + 3, Command + Shift + 4, a third party screenshot capture tool, or links to your favorite photo sharing site. I’ll start it off with my favorites.
Expose
Below is a screenshot of a new Expose feature in Snow Leopard. I opened six Safari windows and simply clicked on the Safari dock icon for a second. The dock icon lights up while the rest of the dock darkens. Very fast. Very slick.
Airport
Next is the new Airport menu. We finally have signal strength next to the network name. Before, a third-party tool was required for this.
Services
Honestly, I have never used the Services feature in the Finder. It’s cluttered and confusing. Now, it’s smart enough to know what I want to do and provide the correct options. A more thorough write up of the new Services feature is coming to TheAppleBlog shortly.
Leave a comment with links to screenshots of your favorite UI changes in Snow Leopard!
Переслать - Apple Has Some Important Lessons to Learn
We love Apple. We love its style. We love its vision. We love its marketing and PR. A generation of the world's best designers cut their teeth on Apple computers, much as they might dislike admitting their sense of taste was shaped by a consumer electronics company.
In business, too, Apple has proven to be a visionary. Entrepreneurs often look to Apple for inspiration. Software startups the world-over are compelled to study Apple so as to learn how best to "do it" — whatever "it" may be.
I don't know — do entrepreneurs look to Microsoft for inspiration? Arguably one of the greatest speakers on entrepreneurship and startups, Guy Kawasaki, was Apple's first Macintosh evangelist and still praises the company today. Kawasaki picks winners — after all, that's his job — and he chooses Apple every time.
In the bad old days, back when Microsoft was "The Borg" and Apple hadn't released an iPod yet, a big part of the reason for loving Apple was our affinity with the underdog. After all, people root for the underdog, and, back in the nineties, a waning Apple couldn't hope to compete with Wintel dominance.
Today, despite Microsoft's monopoly continuing to grow in the last decade, Apple has risen from the proverbial ashes. It might be in Microsoft's shadow (where all software companies can be found) but this Apple shines. (Sorry — terrible pun, I know.)
This is a company that sweeps in to well-established markets (MP3 players, online music, mobile phones) and fundamentally changes them. It establishes itself as the Porsche of a laptop market otherwise saturated with Fords; it launches an operating system so advanced that, eight years and (nearly) six updates later, makes Microsoft's latest-and-greatest efforts still look like Redmond is playing catch-up. And don't forget the stores. Every expert, analyst and critic said they wouldn't work. Yet in the midst of a global recession, Apple's retail stores are seeing increased profits.
Apple today is a different company to the limping, broken one in which Microsoft invested $150 million 12 years ago. At Boston's Macworld in 1997, Steve Jobs said that Apple had to change its (then) dominant mentality; that is, "…for Apple to win, Microsoft must lose. We have to embrace the notion that, for Apple to win, Apple has to do a really good job."
And what a fine job it has done despite what it was up against. So when it starts behaving unscrupulously (or if that's too strong a word for you, try "questionably") we get concerned, even angry. Pundits like Calacanis publish diatribes on everything they think is wrong with the company. The Arrington's of this world declare they are "quitting" the iPhone in protest (but really, does anyone care all that much if Arrington uses an iPhone?)
Apple has, for a long time, apparently subscribed to the "treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen" school of thought, doling out products and services that are just what we need, just when we need them. Jobs has referenced Henry Ford's statement about customers' desire for a "faster horse." In short, Jobs is saying we have no imagination, no inspired vision of what we really need to improve our lives. Oh yeah, and we have absolutely no style.
It seems we agree, judging by how eagerly we embrace the solution — buying what Apple tells us we want, when we want it because, if we own the latest iMac, iPhone and plastic white earbuds, we're automatically imbued with impeccable taste, right? Well, I don't know about you, but I know I am. I have two Apple Cinema displays, several Macs and an iPhone 3GS and I feel positively groovy, thank you very much. (Of course, I also live in fear, anticipating the time Apple updates its hardware, at which point I will automatically be not quite so groovy.)
We don't want to see Apple turn into the Borg we used to despise but, for all its sexy unibody curves, funny commercials and Simpsons episodes, that's precisely what has happened. Apple is today the megalithic entity it once derided. But even that would be tolerable if only it didn't do stupid things, like inconsistently approve/reject/pull apps from the store and then deliver wishy-washy statements when taken to task for it. (I say wishy-washy, some people would call them lies.)
Absolute power corrupts absolutely, as Baron Acton so eloquently put it. Apple might not be as big as the Microsoft's of this world, but it arguably has power. An awful lot of power. Apple sells more digital music than anyone else by a wide margin. It has arguably the most important (and fastest selling) mobile platform in the world. It’s deeply-established inroads into the education and entertainment industries establishes it firmly in the minds of countless young and creative minds in the western world.
So Apple must tread carefully. It's bigger now than it has ever been, with fingers in more pies than ever before. It's growing and, paradoxically, proving profitable in markets where far-cheaper alternatives are widely available.
Let's hope Google Voicegate teaches Apple a sobering, but not too damaging, lesson about the importance of transparency and honesty. We don't expect to know Apple's deepest darkest secrets (I'd rather not), but these days a degree of openness is not only preferred by customers, it's expected.
Even if Apple approved Google Voice in the coming weeks, would it make practical, useful and obvious changes to its app store approval process as a result? I like that Apple doesn't have its collective minds fixed unimaginatively, like the rest of us, on faster horses — but just because we don't share its vision doesn't mean we are owed anything less than respect and honesty.
Переслать - Report: Surveying the Mobile App Store Landscape
The mobile content distribution industry began to undergo a seismic shift last year with the launch of Apple's App Store, and a host of competitors from across the mobile spectrum are in various stages of following Apple's lead.
Google was first with Android Market, which is built on an open-source platform backed by a consortium of dozens of key players in wireless. Research In Motion jumped on the bandwagon in recent weeks with its BlackBerry App World, and Microsoft, Nokia and Palm –- among others — are set to launch offerings this year.
Colin Gibbs takes a look (subscription required) at the major players in the application-distribution model and looks at how the trend will affect carriers, handset manufacturers, developers, content owners and end users. He also examines key factors that will contribute to the success or failure of specific app stores, general shortcomings in the new app-store model, what solutions are already needed and how the space will evolve over the next several years.
Check out the full report → (Subscription Required)
Hurry! GigaOM's Mobilize conference is on Sept 10th in SF. See our final speaker lineup and topics. Mobile web is booming. Join us!
Переслать - ATI Returning to Mac With 4000-Series Graphics Cards
Poor NVIDIA — it looks like your honeymoon with Apple is over. There hasn’t been an official announcement from Cupertino yet, but a glance at the customization options for high-end iMacs (the ones that use discrete graphics) and Mac Pros reveals that ATI Radeon HD 4000-series cards are already available as new configurable alternatives to NVIDIA products.
ATI was shown the door at Apple when the computer maker introduced notebooks and desktops that feature integrated NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics cards. Many suspect that things turned rocky between Apple and NVIDIA, thanks to the faulty GeForce 8600M GT cards that resulted in the Mac maker offering customers an unprecedented warranty extension for problems related to that component.
We didn’t see the effects right away, because Apple’s supply chain is likely structured in such a way that its product line was probably in place long before any of the hardware problems began to surface. Adding the Radeon HD 4850 to the iMac line and HD 4870 to the Mac Pro as configurable options may not seem like much in the way of retaliation, but it was probably the first option available to Apple short of overhauling its product line.
Both new ATI options are easy single component swap-outs. If Apple intends to get rid of the integrated GeForce 9400M cards, it will have to wait until the computers themselves receive a major update.
ATI is touting the ability of the new cards to fully utilize and benefit from Apple’s implementation of Open CL Version 1.0 in Snow Leopard, which developers can incorporate into their software to allow a sharing of processor load between CPU and GPU. The HD 4850 is a $50 upgrade, available on the 2.93GHz and 3.06GHz 24-inch iMac models, and the HD 4870 is a $200 upgrade for the Mac Pro.
Переслать - Does Mom Need Snow Leopard?
Naturally, as a contributor to this blog, I purchased a Snow Leopard family pack the first possible day. Some people may have pre-ordered on Amazon, but they missed out on the in-store experience. My mother lives close to an Apple store, so I decided to stop by and upgrade my Macbook Pro while catching up with her.
Soon after arriving she asked, “Do I need that?”
Silence.
I honestly had no idea what to say. Sure it’s a cheap and quick upgrade, but does she really need Snow Leopard on the 20 inch iMac she bought last year? Her entire computer life at home revolves around Safari, Mail, and Microsoft Word. She networks, reads, and writes. I, however, consider myself an über power user: Netbeans, Adobe CS3, and tinkerer extraordinaire. I can’t refuse an OS upgrade.
Let’s take a look at Apple’s Snow Leopard page.
The only item I see here that is actually appealing to my mother is “faster.” One can never say no to speed in the computer world. The rest sounds like under the hood features. Fortunately, the UI changes in Snow Leopard are miniscule enough to not terrify the average Mac user. I guess it’s safe to upgrade her. After all, the Apple coolness factor always entertains.
What about all of you? Planning on upgrading your parents’ computers?
Переслать - SEC Suspicious, Opens Investigation
August 2009 will be remembered as something of a mixed bag for Apple. There was Google Voicegate, and the backlash it generated from the tech press and public alike, culminating in questioning from the FCC. On the other hand, Mac OS X's latest big cat was released, and that gave almost everyone something to be happy about.
But now, as August finally draws to a close, there's news that some investors might have been a bit naughty in their dealings with Apple shares. And the Securities & Exchange Commission is very keen to get to the bottom of it.
Reporting yesterday in the Huffington Post, Dan Dorfman says that he has obtained copies of internal SEC documents from what he calls a "regulatory contact" that show the SEC is investigating trading that occurred in four very specific periods of time, suggesting that more than one violation in trading may have taken place. Wall Street sources, he writes, have speculated that:
"…the agency’s investigation likely centered on possible trading that may have been based on the illegal use of inside information involving three particular Apple-related developments."
The SEC is asking very pointed questions. It wants to know:
- Whether anyone got an illegal lead on precisely how sales were faring on key items in Apple’s highly successful Ipod product line.
- Whether anyone was given a precise insight into the health of the company’s co-founder and CEO, Steve Jobs, a cancer survivor who took a six-month leave of absence last January and then received a liver transplant. Subsequent questions about the viability of his health then led to a great deal of volatility in Apple’s shares.
- Whether anyone had exact knowledge of when specific releases would be made by the company with regard to Jobs’ health or Ipod sales and pretty much of an awareness, as well, as to what those announcements would say.
Dorfman adds that a trader told him that he saw "uncanny" trading taking place at Apple. "[I]t almost looked at times like the buyers and sellers were working at the company,” he quotes the trader as saying.
Coincidentally fortuitous buying and selling happens from time to time. But on four separate occasions? However this unfolds, you gotta admit that August has been a tumultuous month for the boys and girls in Cupertino.
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