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- Apple's 27-inch iMac Now 3 Weeks Delayed
Is it a lemon? It’s not a question I like to have to ask about an Apple product, but it’s starting to look like Apple’s problem-plagued 27-inch iMac fits that description. And that’s not just a clever joke I’m making about the yellow screen complaint that seems to be popping up everywhere recently. Even beyond that cosmetic (though no less valid) complaint, the machines just aren’t living up to Apple’s reputation for quality.
Before the holidays, Apple put its foot down and delayed shipment on all new larger iMac orders until after Christmas. The ordering page for the 27-inch machine changed today to three weeks, extending delays further still. Maybe it’s just a backlog resulting from the initial delays, but reports of problems don’t seem to be slowing down, so that doesn’t seem likely.
Let’s review the storied past of the iMac that held so much promise when it was announced. Very shortly after that announcement, as soon as the first units started shipping, reports came in from users about problems with Flash performance, hard drive spindowns, bad Snow Leopard installs and permissions issues. So it tripped a bit out of the gate, but this is a distance race, not a sprint, right?
But as the race continues, the iMac in question doesn’t seem to be improving its performance. The display seemed to be the primary cause of concern as time went on. People reported cracked displays on delivery, screen flicker that drove a whopping number of customers crazy, and visual noise and dead pixel issues. The latest and most talked about complaint is significant screen yellowing and gradient change from top to bottom of displays on the 27-inch model.
The screen isn’t the only problem, though. Out of the box, some users are reporting DOA machines that just would not boot, and more complaints than any other about processor performance. A friend of mine had to return theirs twice for the same issue, and still hasn’t received a problem-free unit. Apple has tried software fixes, too, but they haven’t worked for everything.
The question isn’t really whether or not the 27-inch iMac is a lemon, it’s how Apple let this happen to begin with. Cupertino is not known for a tendency to rush machines into production before they’re ready, but this has all the earmarks of that exact situation.
Perhaps Apple was distracted by the tablet it’s apparently been developing, and if so, I’m not optimistic about the future of the Mac line. With the iPhone and a brand new similar platform in the tablet, will QA suffer in other areas? Apple’s reputation depends on two things: innovation and reliability. I, for one, am not willing to sacrifice one for the other. Are you?
Переслать - Getting Started with GeekTool
Once a tool employed mainly by hardcore users, GeekTool seemed to begin exploding across OS X desktops in 2009. But despite its widening usage, many still are unfamiliar with this fantastic utility (you’ve probably seen it, and not even realized) or just don’t know how to leverage it. If you fit either of the above stereotypes, then today is your lucky day, because I’m going to point out some great examples of GeekTool, and just how to put it to good use for yourself.
Simply put, GeekTool displays information at the desktop level (meaning it’s not clickable), right on top of your wallpaper image, in a ‘Heads-up-display’ fashion. It’s interesting (to me at least) to see how the use of a simple yet powerful tool evolves. For those of us who began playing with GeekTool long ago, it was used in a very utilitarian fashion — the output was simple lines of text displayed on the Mac’s desktop (three year old screencast here shows what I mean). And while the content that we’re seeing displayed with GeekTool hasn’t changed much, some designer-types out there have taken the display of that information to the next level. The great part is that it’s super easy to do with GeekTool — but more on that in a bit.
Inspiration
To get some inspiration — and a great feel for what we’re talking about — check out Flickr for photos tagged with ‘geektool’, or LifeHacker’s Featured [Mac] Desktops. I’ll be here, so take your time. Or if you’re ADHD, here are a couple quick examples:
So some good stuff, eh? It’s pretty neat to see the way that GeekTool can be used to morph meaningful data into specific wallpaper images, or going that extra yard, to coordinate with a custom GUI theme. Clearly some people have a solid eye for design, and the time to monkey around and put in some extra awesome. Not so much for me, which is why I pointed you in the direction of some great examples. I however, threw in some extra Geeklets on my desktop to show you what you can do.
Getting Started
So now you’re probably primed and ready to put GeekTool to work for you. It’s not very difficult, so let’s get started. I’ll assume you’ve already installed it. Since it’s a Preference Pane, it lives in the System Preferences (found under the Apple menu or in your Applications folder).
There are three types of information you can display using GeekTool:
- File – Originally intended for viewing Console type log files. Point it at any text file you choose — those with text-based todo lists will love this feature.
- Image – GeekTool’s developer identifies this as useful for viewing the images generated by monitoring tools. While Analytics and whatnot may be just what the doctor ordered, you can display any image, or image URL with this.
- Shell – This is where the real power lies with GeekTool. Run either a Shell Command, or point at a Shell Script file to run. If your bash-fu is strong, you’ll be running wild. But fear not, there are a multitude of examples out there to lean on if you need some help with this geekier part.
To begin using a Geeklet (as they’ve been deemed in the 3.0 version), select the File, Image, or Shell that you want to use, and drag it to your desktop. Once there, the Geeklet properties window will populate, which is where all the magic (configuration) happens.
Drag & Drop
The great thing about the latest version of GeekTool is that you can drag and drop your Geeklet wherever you want it on screen. In earlier versions, there was a lot of trial and error involved as you had to enter the coordinates and dimensions of a Geektlet. It was time consuming to say the least — but you can still tweak these settings in the Properties window if you need to fine tune . Once it’s where you want it, define the image or file location of the data you want displayed, or drop a shell command in there. If it’s necessary, there’s space to set a refresh time in seconds.
Bling
Now we come to the part that the designers like. Click the aptly named button, “Click here to set font & color…” Up pops an OS X window that should be familiar for selecting font, font color, font size, and so on. Your Geeklet updates in real time, so you can adjust your settings on the fly. Suddenly those log files don’t seem so bland anymore…well, maybe not.
Organization
The crazier you get with GeekTool, the more Geeklets you may find yourself creating. You can group them into categories, and turn them on and off as desired. The uses for this obviously vary from person to person based on their workflows. But I could easily see having a set of Geeklets in a group for work information, and a set for home use. A GeekTool menubar item can be turned on so you can quickly maintain these Geeklet groups without having to launch the Preference Pane.
Shells
The spot that gives most people trouble is coming up with the shell commands or scripts to run. I have some limited background using Unix, so have come up with a few simple commands in the past. Luckily, there are lots of people out there who are smarter than I, and are happy to share their work with others via blog posts. Yay! Here are several of the more helpful posts I’ve come across.
GeekTool is such a free-form utility that it’s difficult to outline all of the settings and uses. It’s one of those situations where it’s great to let your imagination run wild, if only your knowledge and expertise can keep up. If you find yourself lacking the latter, post your questions below, and if I can’t help, I’m certain some of our brainiac readers will be able to chime in as well. And if you just want to show off your GeekTool-fu, we’d love for you to share some links here as well.
Переслать - 7 for 7: A Third OS for the Apple Tablet?
This is the second in a series of 7 posts in the 7 days prior to Apple's January 27 media event in which I explore various possibilities for an Apple Tablet and other potential announcements.
If you are returning from some sort of Internet exile, you might just be hearing that Apple is expected to announce a new tablet computer at an event in Cupertino on January 27. All we know for certain is that they are holding an event to showcase their “latest creation.” But there is an incredible amount of rumor and speculation about the company and the device that it is hard to ignore. I, for one, am obsessed, so I’m devoting an entire week to examining the possibilities.
Among the many questions about an Apple tablet are what software it will run, and what the user experience will be like. Before we dive into the specifics of what a tablet might offer, lets consider some history and the current state of Apple device operating systems.
History of the Apple OS
Apple first introduced Mac OS X in 2001 (though a server version was released earlier) after modifying the NeXT Computer operating system it had purchased in early 1999. Later in 2001, Apple introduced the iPod, which ran a different operating system powered in part by software from a company called Pixo, whose team included several former Apple Newton engineers. The Apple TV, running a device-specific variant of Mac OS X, shipped in March 2007, and the iPhone–also running a device-specific variant of Mac OS X–went on sale in June of the same year. Apple has released updates for all operating systems through software update and new devices, and major new versions of Mac OS X via box purchases. Major iPhone software updates are roughly on an annual release cycle, while major Mac OS X updates were once released on a similar schedule, but that has slowed in recent years.
Apple’s Snow Leopard version of Mac OS X was released in August 2009, and was touted by Apple as a performance update with few new features. My installations of Snow Leopard saved on average about 20GB of hard drive space, and seemed to make my computers run faster. But while these changes were great for my Macs, most desktop and laptop computers had plenty of memory and storage to run Mac OS X before Snow Leopard was introduced. The same improvements, however, would make a huge difference for devices like the iPhone and Apple TV, where memory and storage are more constrained and precious, and fixed for a particular model.
It is now a misnomer to refer to the operating system as “Mac OS X,” which is really just the version that runs on the Macintosh line of computers. “OS X,” however, runs on Macs as well as iPhones and Apple TVs. So all of Apple’s current devices, except non-touch iPods (and maybe those!), run OS X: Mac OS X, iPhone OS X, and Apple TV OS X (iSlate OS X?). Of course there are differences, most obviously in user interface and input method: keyboard and mouse for the Mac, touch for the iPhone, and remote control for Apple TV. Apple excels at creating user interfaces that are appropriate for these different input methods and other parameters such as viewing distance. One of the great things about OS X is its modularity: variants can rather easily be optimized for their target devices.
Its hard to imagine a scenario in which the Apple tablet won’t run OS X. But which OS X? The same version used in desktop and laptops, or the one used for iPhones? After all, won’t the tablet simply be a big iPod touch? Or will it be another operating system altogether?
Tablet OS X
The iPhone OS has a touch interface, as the tablet most certainly will, and is thus the most likely of the existing operating systems to be used in the new device. But iPhone apps–those built by Apple and third-party developers–are specifically designed to run on the iPhone’s 480×320 pixel resolution. Ideally, app developers won’t have to create 2 versions of their apps: one for the iPhone and one for the tablet. Which means other, more low-level changes to the iPhone OS would be required. Apps will need a form of UI intelligence to recognize which device it is being displayed on, then render a version appropriate for that device.
The tablet could run iPhone apps inside smaller windows, turning current iPhone apps into something like Dashboard widgets, but this doesn’t strike me as very elegant–or very Apple-like. Indeed, there is some evidence that a small group of select app developers has been asked to create versions of their apps for a larger resolution display, but we don’t know if these are new, single versions that work on both screen sizes, or if they are new, secondary versions of the apps that run only on the larger screen.
The team working on the Apple tablet likely began creating the user experience for the new device with a blank sheet of paper. Simply trying to scale the iPhone interface would be too limiting, and wouldn’t result in the optimum user experience. Yet there is a clear business need to support the app development community and leverage to tremendous success of the iTunes App Store. There just aren’t any easy answers to this problem.
Ultimately, I expect Apple to create a third operating system (after Mac and iPhone, not including Apple TV or iPod since they don’t support app development) for the new tablet. It will be based on OS X, but will have an entirely new user interface that is optimized for the screen size and purpose of the device. Apple’s developer tools will also be updated to include support for the new tablet, including a Mac-based emulator, allowing developers to use XCode, Interface Builder and other tools to support all of Apple’s product lines. The iPhone OS will be updated to support new app parameters so that apps can be easily updated to run on both devices. Perhaps on the 27th but likely later, the Apple TV will get a similar update to support the iTunes App Store.
Related GigaOM Pro Research: Rumored Apple Tablet: Opportunities Too Big to Ignore
Переслать - New Year's Resolutions iPhone Apps: Save Money
Finishing up our series about using your iPhone to achieve your New Year’s Resolutions, today we’ll be looking at iPhone apps that will help you save money.
2009 was no one’s idea of a great year from a business standpoint, except maybe for Apple. I imagine that many of us are looking at our bank accounts after holiday spending sprees and figuring out how we’re going to be a bit wiser with our money. Thankfully there are a ton of good choices to help you manage your money on your iPhone whether it’s saving on the things you buy or keeping an eye on your budgets.
Note: All links point to iTunes store.
PocketMoney
Price: $4.99 (free lite version also available)
Rating: 3.5 Stars
If you want to manage all of your finances on your iPhone, PocketMoney is the app for you. It supports multiple accounts and acts as a simple check register, but also includes the ability to create and manage budgets and allows you to get a good overview of your spending with attractive charts. You can also export your data to back it up or import data from a desktop application.DebtTracker Pro
Price: $2.99 (99 cent lite version also available)
Rating: 3.5 Stars
The premise is simple, track your debt and set up plans to pay it off. The interface is attractive and easy to use. You can also see what your debt ratio is and track how much you’ve been able to pay off. If you don’t like the default payoff approach, you can create your own custom payoff plans as well. Getting rid of that high interest credit card is a great way to start saving for the new year.RedLaser
Price: $1.99
Rating: 4 Stars
The perfect comparison shopping app, simply scan any barcode to get a list of competing prices from a variety of sources. You can email yourself a list of scanned products for comparison shopping later and you can add custom URL’s to search for if there’s a retailer that’s not in their database.iBank
Price: $4.99
Rating: 3.5 Stars
The companion to the popular Mac desktop finance manager, iBank doesn’t offer as wide a range of features as some of the other finance applications out there for the iPhone. It more than makes up for these deficiencies, however, with easy to use transaction entry and over the air synchronization. If you want to manage your budgets on your Mac but want to enter and sync transactions from your iPhone without a problem iBank is your best bet. Note that iBank for the Mac will cost you an additional $60.Mortgage Calculator Pro
Price: 99 cents
Rating: 3.5 Stars
If you’re thinking about making any major purchases in 2010, it’s a good idea to have a program like Mortgage Calculator on your iPhone. Despite the name, you can calculate car and credit card payments as well as mortgages. A nice feature is that you can save loans so you can look at them later and compare options. You also get a complete amortization table to peruse.20 Minute Meals
Price: $4.99
Rating: 4 Stars
One of the biggest money sinks out there is eating out, so having a good recipe application on your iPhone to give you fast and easy meal ideas you can make at home is a great way to save money. 20 Minute Meals only has 55 recipes, which isn’t much considering the $5 price tag, but it also includes a helpful shopping list feature and videos to help you prepare the meal. And really, if this app can help you eat in more you’ll save the cost of the app the first time you don’t go out to a restaurant for dinner.Переслать - Rumor Has It: iPhone OS 4.0 Details Leaked Early
I'm pretty sure that late January is traditionally that time of the year when the Apple rumor mill starts heating-up in anticipation of the impending iPhone OS update. A young tradition, to be sure, but a tradition nonetheless.
This year, however, the media frenzy around the mythical-but-completely-certainly-probably-real Tablet seems to be getting all the attention — rather like a new born baby stealing the limelight from its three year old sibling.
At least BoyGeniusReport — in the past a reasonably accurate source of information on upcoming iPhone OS updates — hasn't forgotten the tradition and, even though no one is paying the least bit of attention, they resolutely committed to web-page what they think they now know about iPhone 4.0.
So what's the latest? From BGR:
"There will be multi-touch gestures OS-wide. (Would make sense […] as the rumored OS for the iTablet is close if not the same as the iPhone)
I'm not sure I understand what this means if I'm honest with you. I mean, the few multi-touch gestures we get now in apps like Photos and Safari are sensible enough, (double-tap and pinch zooming are useful in those apps) but do we need multi-touch everywhere? How will the addition of OS-wide gestures make the OS more elegant, more intuitive and easier to use? Now, I'm not suggesting any sort of major calamity; I'm just experiencing something of an imagination-failure here.
"A few new ways" to run applications in the background — multitasking."
So, the elusive Multitasking is coming to iPhone? I'm not convinced. Speaking from my many years of experience using Windows Mobile, it seems to me that Apple's approach to memory management on the iPhone is pretty much perfect. Sure, it doesn't multitask — but in almost three years of iPhone ownership, that has never presented an insurmountable problem for me. And the (ahem- late) introduction of Push Notification Services was a very welcome compromise.
I have since discovered, however, that I don't need Facebook to notify me about every poke or thrown sheep, and I especially don’t want to be notified of every tweet from my Twitter stream. No thank you.
Perhaps the "few new ways" refers to a sandboxed memory "space" that runs in the background, sort of like an app for keeping-alive portions of other apps, even when they're not currently front-and-center. Maybe. Whatever it is, you can be sure there won’t be a task manager.
"Many graphical and UI changes to make navigating through the OS easier and more efficient. We haven't had this broken down, but we can only hope for improved notifications, a refreshed homescreen, etc."
What do you think? A new, refreshed UI style, perhaps? Or an iPhone version of Exposé? The latter sounds horrid, but still, Soptlight can't be the only solution to quickly navigating through 10 pages of apps.
"The update will supposedly be available for only the iPhone 3G and 3GS, but will "put them ahead in the smartphone market because it will make them more like full-fledged computers" more than any other phone to date. Everyone is "really excited."
Makes sense. The 3G and 3GS have more memory than the venerable first generation iPhone. Consider how sluggish the latest build of the iPhone OS (3.1.2) can be on first generation iPhones. Apple is so concerned with guaranteeing a consistent, elegant user experience they kept cut & paste out of the OS for years before they felt the solution was good-enough to publish. So they're hardly going to support their latest and greatest OS on the ageing first-generation iPhone because the experience will be terrible.
I would wager, too, that core location services have been greatly expanded and even more tightly integrated with the entire OS, making the original location-ignorant iPhone a bit of a silly platform for 4.0. (Don't forget that patent for a location-aware home screen…)
"The last piece of information is the most vague, but apparently there will be some brand new syncing ability for the contacts and calendar applications."
Since I'm one of the five or six people in this world who pays for a MobileMe subscription I never really think about contacts/calendar syncing. It just happens for me, quietly, no fuss. I've never synced any other way, so I have no experience of the perils and pitfalls of syncing via different methods. I'll leave you to tell me what you think this means and why I should care.
And Then There’s That Tablet (Again)
Don't forget that the established wisdom of the Rumor Mill has it that iPhone OS 4.0 and the Tablet's operating system are pretty much built upon the same core code — hence the reason for Apple's delay in seeding the 4.0 build to developers. (Since the code is so similar it's pretty likely that tablet functionality will be easily discovered by a few minutes spent digging through iPhone OS 4.0’s bundled APIs. Apple has held-back on seeding the next major iPhone OS build for this very reason — they don't want to give away clues as to what's in store with the Tablet — that sort of information will leak fast.)
So while the world's press salivates over the upcoming tablet and forgets completely about Apple's other major products, spare a thought for iPhone OS 4.0. It's likely to be the most important — and impressive — update in the iPhone's history. And, unless you have your money ready to splash on the Tablet, iPhone OS 4.0 is the most likely next "new thing" you're going to get from Cupertino.
Переслать - One Tablet for All: Apple's Slate as a Shared Media Device
The Apple tablet, when (and if) released, will be a multimedia device. There’s little to no question about that. It’ll play video and music, allow you to browse photos and web content, and play games. But that simplistic definition of what it does doesn’t actually capture the significance of the tablet, according to a new report at the Wall Street Journal.
In the report, the WSJ talks about how during development, the focus with the tablet was on what its role would be in homes and classrooms, rather than on how it could be used by individuals alone. Apple set out to create a device that would be perfectly suited to a shared use environment, which strikes me as a fairly novel way of designing personal electronics.
Here’s how the device is tailored to household or group use:
One person familiar with the matter said Apple has put significant resources into designing and programming the device so that it is intuitive to share. This person said Apple has experimented with the ability to leave virtual sticky notes on the device and for the gadget to automatically recognize individuals via a built-in camera. It’s unclear whether these features will be included at launch.
Even with only that little information, I begin to see the marketing wisdom in such a design. Let’s face it, the tablet will be entering a market that is already fairly computer-rich, especially among the Apple faithful. If every member of a household has their own computer, how best to sell them another device that really has the same capabilities in a different form factor?
The answer: Sell them one that everybody can use as easily as if it were an extension of their own computer, without the bulk, startup/shutdown hassle and other inconveniences associated with a proper desktop or laptop. The idea probably came naturally enough as an extension of what families were already doing with iPhones and iPod touches in the household belonging to one member. To then take that natural inclination and make it the actual focus of a new hardware platform is a stroke of marketing genius.
If this is true and the development of the tablet really did focus along these lines, then think of what it might be able to do. You could pause a movie you were watching and go out for a run, then your wife could pick it up and instantly be taken to the email she was composing before you started using it, thanks to facial recognition tech. When you got back, if it was available, you could pick it up and the camera would see your face and resume the movie at the point where you left off, seamlessly.
Apple is also looking at pitching the device to the education market, according to the WSJ report. It should be much more appealing to education users than the Kindle DX, which currently represents its main competition, since it will be able to support interactive applications and color display, which Amazon’s 9.7-inch reader cannot, though apps are reportedly in the works. Price will probably be the biggest factor. Both students and schools will be wary of something with a high per-unit price tag, unless Apple can make up the difference by offering significant discounts on the content side.
Marketing the tablet as a household or shared device has the additional benefit of breaking up the cost in the mind of the consumer. A $1,000 price tag won’t look nearly as daunting if you start thinking about it as a shared community resource like a television. As a single guy living on my own, though, that consideration wouldn’t enter into my decision. Would it help you justify the cost?
Related GigaOM Pro Research: Rumored Apple Tablet: Opportunities Too Big to Ignore
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