Sep 17, 2007 Sep 19, 2007 Tuesday September 18, 2007
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Adobe's John Nack on the whole CS3 on Leopard thing... calm down
Maybe it's because it took a little longer than some would have like for Adobe's Creative Suite to run natively on Intel Macs, but when Adobe Chief Executive Bruce Chizen was quoted as saying... CS3 hasn't fully been tested under Leopard. If it doesn't work, we will make the necessary adjustments. ...the Mac web went a little nuts about it. Adobe blogger John Nack has a less frantic interpretation that should help us Mac-using graphics types relax a bit about the future of Adobe and Apple. Here's my take: It's impossible to say that something has been "fully tested" on a platform that is not yet finished. Therefore, until Leopard ships (expected this Fall), Adobe can't say with confidence that everything is A-OK. Once Leopard hits the streets, if the various product teams discover that something isn't working well on the new OS, they'll work on addressing the problem. There is clearly no need for alarm. If these two Abode staffers had said something like, "If the Adobe Creative Suite turns out to not work on Mac OS X 10.5, I guess people on the Mac platform are going to be SOL. Good thing you can run Windows on Macs now, huh?" Now that would be cause for concern.
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New York Times Violates its Own Microsoft Shill Policy
Daniel Eran DilgerRandall Stross tried to explain in the New York Times that Apple is bungling its limited window of opportunity to sell Macs as Microsoft recovers from its Windows Vista retail sales flop. In doing so, he had to rely on overly broad generalizations, ignore well known retail realities, and violate the Times’ ban on interviewing Microsoft’s weaselly shills.The Premise.Stross described Windows Vista as a “world of hurt,� but said Windows PC users looking for a replacement would find that the “choices are grim.� Apparently, those grim choices boil down to finding a PC still sold with the “comparatively ancient Windows XP,� or a getting a Mac.The problem with the Mac, Stross says, is that “odds are that you’ll have to look far and wide for a store that sells it.� This is a big problem, he suggests, and core to the reason why Apple is flubbing its golden opportunity to capitalize on Microsoft's weak rollout of Vista. Stross' article talked circles around how many retail outlets offer Macs, suggesting that if Apple could only raise that number closer to PC maker HP, it might be able to actually sell some machines before Vista recovers from its sloppy start.[A Window of Opportunity for Macs, Soon to Close - New York Times]The New York Times Is Back in Bed With the Shills.Before getting to his fatally flawed point however, Stross managed to introduce a Microsoft-enamored shill in his third paragraph, poor form for a publication of the caliber of the New York Times. 

This is particularly the case since the Times acted to ban writers from quoting Rob Enderle prattling about Microsoft, or in the words of Times spokeswoman Abbe Serphos, any “analysts who have an obvious business relationship with a company.�Perhaps Stross--who is a professor of business at San Jose State University--isn't aware of this policy, or simply doesn't know that basing the majority of an article on quotes from a single analyst with an undisclosed conflict of interest isn't really journalism. Perhaps he is also unaware that Roger Kay of Endpoint Technologies Associates--and previously of IDC--is nearly an identical clone of Enderle. Maybe he didn't know that a two second Google search would reveal that Kay has nothing but ad-speak adoration to say about Microsoft, and nothing but fear and doubt and ignorance about any of its competitors. That's a lot to suppose. Remember this is the same Kay who announced “They've shaken people's confidence in their ability to execute!� after Apple postponed Leopard for six months--the first time Mac OS X has ever been delayed by any significant period--in order to deliver the iPhone. The same Kay also worried in print about the iPhone. “You have to squeeze your fat fingers onto this fairly small, glass surface and hope to hit the right key,� he told NPR, before the iPhone was released and before he had ever touched one. “That could be quite challenging.�[NY Times bans Microsoft analysts from Microsoft stories - The Register][Roger Kay Advocates Trusted Platform Module as Real, Viable and Available Now][Apple puts a leash on its Leopard - ZDNet][Apple's iPhone: It All Depends on the Keypad - NPR]The Market Share Mantra.Stross immediately headed into familiar territory for Windows Enthusiasts: bring up that Apple once had 14% market share... in the relatively small, US-centric market for computers back in 1984, when Apple made its money selling Apple II computers, the IBM PC was scarcely four years old, the Mac was brand new, and Windows 95 was still a full decade away. Kay noted that irrelevant historical percentage to indicate that Apple's market share has dropped precipitously since then, down to a low of 2% and rebounding up to “only 3%� of the the entire world's sales of all computer systems, desktops and servers combined. That depiction is the only way to marginalize the fact that Apple actually doubled its Mac unit sales over the last few years. Kay dismissed Apple’s Mac growth by saying “the increase to 3 percent may be a result of the 'halo effect' produced by the success of the iPod.�This is particularly comical because Kay was quoted in BusinessWeek just last year saying, "I really don't think there has been much of a halo effect. Most of what they've done is reconvert the faithful." Which story is correct, Kay? Is it whichever sounds worse for Apple at the time of utterance?[Apple Computer: iPods, sure. But don't go dissing Macs - BusinessWeek]Confusing Macs with Zunes.Stross used Kay's “3%� quote to set up a false comparison of percentages, something that a business professor can't do without knowing they are lying, unless they are simply incompetent. He wrote that Steve Jobs cited the Zune's 2% market share among sales of music players in January after its weak launch last winter, suggesting that percentages of the music player industry--which brings in roughly $250 million in retail every month--are equal to percentages of the roughly seventy times greater, $213 billion worldwide PC industry. They are not. Recall that Apple makes nearly as much of its revenues and profits selling iPods as Macs, despite having a market share close to 75% among music players, but only 3% among all computer sales.To suggest that Mac sales are an insignificant bump related to an iPod "halo effect" is just as silly as to deny that any "halo effect" ever existed, two sides of the truth Windows Enthusiasts like Kay perpetually find themselves on the wrong side of, as Ogden Nash might have observed.[Market Share Myth 2007: iPod vs Zune and Mac vs PC][Market Share vs Installed Base: iPod vs Zune, Mac vs PC]Market Share vs Sales.After acknowledging that the “official line from Apple� is that Mac sales are up over 30% over last year and that unit sales are hitting new records, Stross returns to the safety of market share percentages to point out that “no gains can be seen for Apple.� This is why Windows Enthusiast like to talk about market share. So what's the solution to raising market share? “To try to win over customers when Vista appeared,� Stross complained, “Mr. Jobs and his managers did not enlist resellers for the Mac with the same enthusiasm that they showed in building Apple’s own network of retail stores. In the war for operating system share, there’s no substitute for boots on the ground to retake territory, shelf by shelf.�He managed to find another analyst to agree, whom he cited as saying, “You could grow your share a lot faster if you could get your Mac retail presence up.� Stross noted that HP sells its PCs through 23,000 retail stores, but said Apple wouldn't provide a figure for its Macs. Perhaps it didn't want to further arm Stross in his “can't see progress� numbers games.The Retail Outlet Numbers Myth.The simpleton logic that having more Macs on more shelves would result in greater market share sounds good, but we really already know how that would work out, because the company already tried it and failed miserably. Throughout the 90s, as computer stores dried up and sales migrated towards big box retail, Apple embarked on a retail strategy that involved a wide spectrum of chain stores, from Sears to Office Max. Having Macs sitting on shelves in lots of stores did not in itself help Apple's market share, nor its sales, nor its profits. Between 1997 and 2000, the number of retail outlets selling Macs began to drop quickly, from 20,000 stores to 11,000. However, Apple wasn't getting kicked out; it fired those stores for poor performance. Shortly after taking over Apple, Jobs recruited Tim Cook from Compaq in 1998. Cook took efforts to simplify Apple's operations and reduced the number of suppliers the company used. Cook also slashed retail outlets; that same year, he announced Apple would “cut some channel partners that may not be providing the buying experience [Apple expects]. We're not happy with everybody.�Apple subsequently pulled out of Sears, Best Buy, Circuit City, Computer City, and Office Max to focus its retail efforts with CompUSA. Apple later returned to Sears, only to pull out again in 2001. Apple also ended a shaky retail partnership with Circuit City in 2001. Having 20,000 retailers wasn't working, because each of those stores sold Macs with the same casual indifference that they later sold Microsoft's Zune. Recall that Microsoft boasted that over 30,000 stores were lined up to sell the Zune. That fact didn't result in sales, let alone significant market share. [Apple's Retail Challenge]DIY Retail Stores.Apple found in the late 90s that trying to sell Macs by relying on retailers to do it for them was not going to work. Instead, it focused on its partnership with CompUSA while also working to develop its own retail strategy. Jobs brought in Mickey Drexler from J Crew--and formerly the Gap--to help set up a retail sales team and build a network of stores. At the time, expert critics like David Goldstein of the Channel Marketing announced, “It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever for them to open retail stores,� but Apple's retail stores now earn exceptional, market leading revenues and profits. Other tech companies from Gateway to Sony to Microsoft have all struggled and commonly failed in their efforts to maintain retail stores.Given Apple's stellar success in retail, it’s questionable why Stross is insisting in his article that Apple should turn back the clock to 1996, when Apple had Macs sitting unsold on dusty shelves in tens of thousands of retail stores, while losing money and falling behind in growth. And at the same time, he also notes that Apple is working with Best Buy in a program to expand its retail sales. He complains it’s not enough.[Apple's Adventures in Retail]Best Buy Actually Probably Not.Stross wrote, “If Apple had begun wooing Best Buy two years ago, and perhaps appointed an ambassador to look after the relationships with the chain and other resellers, the Mac would have been much better off.�Would it? Best Buy runs its cold warehouse stores like a police state, demanding receipts and digging through bags. Its employees are few and far between, and have incentives to steer customers toward store brand PCs and the resulting profits from Geek Squad repairs and service. Vista's Gonna Get You.The biggest problem for any hope for change in Apple's market share numbers, worries Stross, is that his Microsoft shill Kay informed him that the problems of Vista are only temporary and that Microsoft's “thousands of certified supporting hardware vendors and the two million device drivers� for Windows make up “an enormous flywheel.�“It takes a lot of energy to spin it up,� Kay said, “but once it gets going, it’s virtually unstoppable.� One might recall that IBM was also unstoppable up into the 80s, and that US carmakers were unstoppable into the 70s. The reason they were unstoppable was largely because they had no effective competition.Once competition arrived and began grinding the metal off of those large flywheels, the momentum they had been coasting on failed to continue to propel them along with the minimal effort and maximum profits they had been generating. Microsoft's Vista is now facing an industry aligning behind Linux in servers, OpenOffice in desktop applications, and open software in embedded applications. It has also completely lost its leading edge in desktop computing to Apple, and now trails behind in a me-too fashion. Apple trounced Windows Media with iTunes, and just recently slaughtered Windows Mobile with the iPhone. A flywheel that loses its weight can't maintain the same momentum. One that slows to a deal stop--as Microsoft managed to do with its disastrous rollout of Vista--can be tough to get going again. It’s going to take more than some spin from Kay.[Windows 95 and Vista: Why 2007 Won't Be Like 1995]More Zoon Awards!Randall Stross gets a Zoon for his atrocious article relying on shills, false numbers, and half-truths; Roger Kay gets a Zoon for his Microsoft babbling and self contradictions, and the New York Times gets a Zoon for printing this problematic piece despite having a policy against publishing Microsoft shill interviews as news articles.What do you think? I really like to hear from readers. Comment in the Forum or email me with your ideas. Like reading RoughlyDrafted? Share articles with your friends, link from your blog, and subscribe to my podcast! Submit to Reddit or Slashdot, or consider making a small donation supporting this site. Thanks!
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Article: Changes to Tetris, Sudoku, Ms. Pac-Man Versions 1.1.0
Apple today updated three downloadable iPod Games—EA's Tetris and Sudoku, and Namco's Ms. Pac-Man—to enable the titles to be played on the iPod classic and iPod nano (with video). In the process of re-releasing these games, the version number of each title has been changed to 1.1.0, and previously undisclosed adjustments have been made to certain game options. These changes are compiled below for your easy reference. Notably,…
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Rhodri Marsden: Cyberclinic
While we give our blind, unquestioning loyalty to many things ? from the wake-up radio station on our alarm clock to our preferred brand of washing powder ? there's something about computers that's particularly polarising. There's Mac vs PC, there's Firefox vs Internet Explorer ? and there's also those who champion webmail services like Yahoo!, Hotmail or GMail vs the deskbound dissenters wouldn't dream of giving up their copy of Outlook Express or Apple Mail.
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iPhone finally arrives but it's neither cheap nor G3
Consumers clamouring for one of the UK's first iPhones this Christmas are set to pay substantially more than their US counterparts after Apple revealed that its first mobile phone will cost £279 when it goes on sale in November.
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Steve Jobs in Berlin tomorrow, France on Thursday?
Filed under: Cellphones Now, we know how hot-under-the collar you guys get when we note El-Jobso's movements in Europe, but news is news, people. Just as speculated yesterday, it appears that the Apple honcho is working his way across Europe, moving nation-to-nation to spread the good word of iPhone wherever his New Balance touch ground. Not content with just launching the device in London for the O2 network, the company is taking this show on the road, traveling to Berlin on Wednesday where Jobs and his turtleneck will supposedly announce a partnership for the iPhone with T-Mobile. Expect EDGE, lots of screen touching, and Steve saying, "OH-, eine weitere Sache." Then, as we hear, it's off to France for some sightseeing. Just kidding... about the sightseeing.[Thanks, Floris] Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsOffice Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
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I Want Dynamically Ordered iPhone Home Screen Icons
When the iPhone arrived in June, the interface was simple and quite remarkable. Why not have every program and utility visible in a nicely organized way? Why not do away with back buttons and create a navigation structure much like spokes on a wheel?…
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iPhone AutoSync
Filed under: Software, iPhoneiPhone AutoSync is a simple application that does one thing: it makes sure your iPhone's contact and calendar information is up to date by running a sync anytime you change data on your Mac. The application was prompted by the fact that your iPhone's contact and calendar are only updated when you sync it with iTunes. If you change something on your Mac and disconnect your iPhone without syncing it you won't have the latest data with you. iPhone AutoSync monitors the Address Book, iCal, and Safari for changes and initiates a sync whenever it detects a modification, so if you sometimes find yourself with an out-of-date iPhone this might be worth a look.iPhone AutoSync is $9.95 and a demo is available.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Switched On: Touched by a hacker
Filed under: FeaturesEach week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment: I glanced at the clock, 1:36 PM. Perhaps I should not have gotten my hopes up. For weeks I'd been exchanging e-mail with an elite hacker who promised to speak with me about the latest attempt to free hardware from the shackles of manufacturers that bind it, sticking it to such companies by making their products more desireable. Just then, Skype lit up like a flaming notebook battery. It was the notorious hacker 5m0kNcR4K. A shadowy figure in the videoconferencing window spoke in a disguised voice. "I'm in ur Skype, grantin' ur interview. Do not try to identify me. By using advanced digital video effects, I have pixelated my facial image, put myself in silhouette, and added a big blue dot in front of my face." "What video effect makes it look like you have bunny ears?" "Oh, that's just a mask I picked up at Party City." "We could have just spoken by phone, you know. Or just used VOIP. Besides, I thought we were set to talk at 1 PM." "I thought 13:37 would be more appropriate." Continue reading Switched On: Touched by a hacker Permalink | Email this | CommentsOffice Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
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New Photoshop Logo From Adobe
Only app I know of with a logo that isn’t used at all as part of its icon or about box. Sort of reminds me of the old PBS logo. (Thanks to Neven Mrgan.) ★
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iPod touch jailbreak still eluding hacking community
The iPod touch may run similar software to the iPhone, but so far it is proving harder than expected to hack.Read More...
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Community Activity:Â 09-18-2007
iPhone - just buy one, no questions asked? New EA games iLife across borders Software to track Roommate Expenses Simple Checklist? Not so Simple? Firefox Plugin Scanning No Tags
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Analysis: Adobe CS3 may not work with Leopard
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, AppleThis story is more interesting for what it doesn't say than what it does. Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen recently told Reuters that "CS3 hasn't fully been tested under Leopard" but that "If it doesn't work, we will make the necessary adjustments." He also apparently said that Adobe had not received a final copy of Leopard for testing purposes.Something doesn't smell right here. Why would Adobe's CEO go out of his way to tell a news agency that they can't guarantee CS3 will work properly with Leopard? I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume Adobe has an ADC membership and so has access to the so-called feature complete beta that Uncle Steve released at WWDC (or rather the subsequent builds). While it may be strictly true that Adobe hasn't received a gold master, neither has anybody else as far as we know. Nonetheless, can't they have "fully tested" CS3 with the builds that they presumably do have? In fact lots of people already have Leopard, so it can't be that big of a mystery whether CS3 is compatible.My guess is that this is another flare up of the increasingly tense relationship between Apple and Adobe, and that Adobe is just trying to publicly remind Apple that a lot of people will hold off on Leopard until they can be sure that Adobe's products are fully supported. In other words, this is a little bit of breast beating on Adobe's part and the implicit message to Apple is that for a lot of pro users our stuff (CS3) is more important than your stuff (OS X). Particularly given the rise of iWork '08 (and the implicit slight to Microsoft it represents), I'm sure Adobe wants to make sure Apple remembers what's important vis-a-vis third-party developers. Whether Apple will take kindly to the message is something else entirely. What do you think?[via MacNN]Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Double-Tap Home Button Preference in iPhone 1.1.1 OS
iPhones running the 1.1.1 release of the OS were on hand at today’s event in London; this screenshot from Engadget shows the new options available for double-tapping the Home button: Home, Phone Favorites, or iPod. (Plus, you can optionally set it to invoke heads-up display playback controls if audio is currently playing, which is what double-tapping Home does on the iPod Touch.) Good call by Steven Berlin Johnson back in July. ★
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iTunes to Be Exclusive Distributor of Ed Burns’s New Movie
This AP profile of filmmaker Ed Burns ends with an interesting nugget: Next month, Burns’ new romantic comedy, “Purple Violets,” will become the first featured film to be released and distributed by iTunes. I looked for more information about this, and found this excerpt of an interview with Burns from PremiumHollywood: Burns: So, we’re gambling and we’re gonna be the first film that is released exclusively through iTunes. It’ll be available for four weeks exclusively, and the idea is we’ll promote it the same as you would a theatrical release and we’ll see what the numbers are. If the attendance, if the downloads, which we expect to be a much higher numbers than the attendance, I think it’ll be the way I would go in the future for small movies like this. […] Reporter: When did you say it would be available? Burns: Um, October 9th. Reporter: Is iTunes promising you a huge amount of promotion for doing this? Burns: Huge is a relative term. We’ll have to see, but they’re promising promotion. I hope it’s huge. ★
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Apple Gazette Daily 120 - iPhone UK, iTunes 7.4.2 and much more
Apple UK Event News, iTunes 7.4.2, iPhone Credit Problems and more! You can subscribe via iTunes, or by RSS feed, or… you can directly download the episode right here. In addition to that, you should be able to play every episode of the podcast directly in your browser by using the widget which is now located in the side column of the site. Just click on the headphones to play the podcast inside the widget with full audio controls.
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Apple allegedly cuts costs with latest iPod nanos
Market research firm iSuppli has released production cost estimates for Apple's new iPod nano, which reflect somewhat significant savings over the second-generation model.Read More...
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Carbon Copy Cloner 3
Filed under: SoftwareIf you aren't using Carbon Copy Cloner, then you're missing out. This gem of an app is the easiest way to clone one Mac drive to another (you can even clone bootable volumes, so you can backup your main Mac drive to a stand by drive and boot right off of it). In addition to the clone ability, Carbon Copy Cloner makes backing up a breeze, and it is easier with Carbon Copy Cloner 3.The new version of CCC brings with it better data synchronization, block level copying, and some nice UI enhancements.Carbon Copy Cloner is donation-ware, so it is fully functional but if you use it you should really considering donating some cash to help with the development of the app.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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iPhone Says 'Allo to UK
Ending yet another round of intense speculation -- this time among Britons and Europeans anxious to get their hands on the iPhone -- Apple announced Tuesday that it has granted O2 the right to exclusively bring the iPhone to the British market. The handset maker also finally revealed the date for the release of the iPhone in the UK, set for Nov. 9, a little more than five months after its U.S. launch. "We're thrilled to be partnering with O2 to offer our revolutionary iPhone to UK customers," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO.
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Fix a cracked iPhone screen on the cheap
A Something Awful forum member has written up a nice how-to on fixing a cracked iPhone screen for very cheap, although it does involve a dremel, razor, and some old fashioned elbow grease.Read More...
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News: Apple: iPod game buyers, re-purchase for classic, 3G nano
iLounge has confirmed with Apple that past purchasers of iPod games will have to re-purchase the titles to play them on the recently-released iPod classic and iPod nano (with video). According to an Apple representative, the games will need to be repurchased because they were “reformatted” for the new iPods. Reformatted iPod games currently include EA's Tetris and Sudoku, as well as Namco Networks' Ms. Pac-Man. An additional…
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iPhone crosses the puddle. 3G missing in action.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPod Family, iPhoneThere are few things pundits agreed on but a 3G iPhone launch in the UK and Europe seemed a pretty sure move. This morning, the Steve announced the November 9th iPhone launch. And, as you may surmise from the title of this post, there was no 3G on offer. 8GB with EDGE--the same model sold in the US. Of course between now and 9 November there's plenty of room for change but count me among the disappointed who had hoped for something better east of the Atlantic. The costs seem incredibly high as well. The £269 iPhone clocks in at US$538.43 for today's exchange rate. The cheapest £35 plan is US $70 per month + "Special Roaming" rates--with no hint of prepaid/contract-free service. How do you British TUAW readers feel about the contract rates and the lack of 3G? Let us know in the comments.Permalink | Email this | Comments
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First Looks: Creative Aurvana X-Fi Noise-Canceling Headphones
As a competitor to Bose's popular QuietComfort 2, Creative's new Aurvana X-Fi Noise-Canceling Headphones ($300) are the first noise-canceling headphones to feature the company's X-Fi audio technologies. Discussed in our review of the company's Xdock, the X-Fi Crystallizer is an intelligent equalizer that enhances the highs and lows of songs to improve their sound, while X-Fi CMSS-3D creates virtual surround sound from flat…
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No 3G for the U.K. iPhone
Apple is holding fast to its declaration that 3G chips consume too much power, so the Brits are stuck with an EDGE iPhone just like the Americans.
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iPhone: How many Hackers?
Filed under: Odds and ends, iPhone The iPhone appears to have an installed base somewhere upwards of one million units according to Apple's official numbers. A majority of those units have been sold to early adopters; that is people with a certain adventurous spirit, not just those who got to the story early. Some have been hacked by hand, others through tools like AppTapp. Hard data on the number of hacked units is indirect. I haven't been able to get in touch with "lg", the man behind AppTapp/Installer.app but I was able to talk to other developers: there have been over 70,000 Open SSH downloads and upwards of 600,000 unique visits to the SMXY repository this month. Since only a portion of Installer.app users will install SSH, that hints at a much bigger base. What is my best guess? I'm thinking conservatively that between 10-20% of early adopters have hacked their iPhones for third party software and that a similar number are unlocking their iPhones for non-AT&T service; and, no, I'm not sure what the overlap might be. Either way, I expect the software-hacks to plunge as we enter the holiday season where most purchases will be from less adventurous customers and the unlock percentages to rise as the iPhone hits Europe. Thanks to Shaun Erickson and Nate True.Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Microsoft launches promotional Office 2008 site
Microsoft's Mac BU has launched a promotional site to show off Office 2008 to the Mac community. It's pretty and all, but doesn't tell us anything new. Read More...
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iTunes: Free Tuesday
Filed under: iTS, Features, Deals Welcome to this week's edition of iTunes: Free Tuesday featuring a new collection of free singles from around the world. Each week we send out our dealgnomes to the furthest corners of the Earth to find and retrieve iTunes freebies from all the International stores. Here's what's new today:Continue reading iTunes: Free TuesdayRead | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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News: Plantronics Voyager 855, 815 Bluetooth headsets coming in October
Plantronics has announced its Voyager 855 and 815 Bluetooth headsets, featuring the company's AudioIQ noise reduction and QuickPair technologies. The Voyager 855 features a removable stereo cable that clips to the headset to convert it into Bluetooth stereo headphones. Note this will not enable stereo on iPhone. The Voyager 815 lacks the 855's stereo features, but shares its three ear bud sizes and optional ear loops, multipoint technology,…
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Jisho: Japanese to English translator for the Mac
Filed under: Software, Cool tools, Education, Odds and endsI've watched as much anime as the next guy, but even I need a Japanese dictionary to figure out what those crazy robots are saying sometimes. Enter Jisho, a Japanese/English dictionary for Mac OS X 10.4 and higher. You can search in the Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana forms of Japanese, and also in English, German, Russian, and French, and it will translate not only the Japanese characters out for you (in a bright, clean interface), but the Romanization as well.And the latest version features a completely rewritten Romanization engine, as well as Kanji "zooming" and more OS X integration. If you ever need to regularly go from English to Japanese (or back again), Jisho's got what you need-- it's just $15 from Sugoisoft. And maybe you'll pick up enough to actually learn the language.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Microsoft offers “peak� at new features of Office 2008 for Mac
Microsoft's Mac Business Unit on Tuesday pointed customers to a "sneak peek" at a number of new features slated for Office 2008 for Mac. The site offers animated screen grabs of the new UI and significant changes to the suite and to most of the applications.
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iPhone update to add TV out?
Filed under: Software, iPhoneAstute TUAW reader Matt Nelson noticed something in Engadget's O2 iPhone hands on gallery that seem to portend some new features coming down the pike for us iPhone users. You may recall that Apple listed some TV out cables as being iPhone compatible, and then quickly fixed that 'error.' If you take a look at the shot above you'll see the O2 iPhone, which is running an unreleased version of the iPhone software, has a new 'TV Out' setting section. Looks like you'll be able to buy some iPhone ready video cables soon enough.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Microsoft launches Office 2008 sneak peek site
Filed under: SoftwareMicrosoft is letting out information in dribs and drabs about Microsoft Office: Mac 2008, the long awaited Universal version of the company's productivity suite. Today brings a new website that showcases some of the new functionality found in the Office apps, as well as shows off the new UI (which looks to be influenced, though not directly related to, Office 2007's UI).Sadly, this website doesn't have any information about Entourage, Office's email client which I know many people (including myself) are anxious to hear about. Still, it is worth a look to see what Word, Excel, and Powerpoint are going to look like in January.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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News: WaterField Designs announces two new cases for iPod touch, classic, 3G nano
WaterField Designs has announced two new cases for the iPod touch, iPod classic, and third-generation iPod nano. The iPod Smart Case ($29-$39) features a multi-layered padding system that combines a high-impact, rigid insert with a soft, scratch-free Ultrasuede liner. It comes in six colors, three different styles to offer various carrying options — attach it to a strap, clip it on a belt, or slip it in a pocket — and three custom sizes…
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This Day: September 15, 1990: NeXT Station Introduced
The original NeXT computer was elegant and powerful, but the machine also had some serious shortcomings--a monochrome monitor, a very high price and no floppy support. The second iteration of NeXT computers addressed these issues. The computers could be coupled with color monitors, came with a 2.88 MB floppy…
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Secure your Mac: Keychain on the move
Filed under: SecurityVictor's Mac 101 yesterday gave you the basics of the Keychain, so we all know what it's good for -- keeping your passwords and credentials in a convenient, automatic and protected file. Still, that's an awful lot of passwordy goodness to keep in one place, especially if some of those passwords are controlling access to your financial or professional information. Y'know, what would be really cool -- if you could do it -- take that keychain, and put it on a portable drive, and then you'd have physical control of your passwords even when you aren't with your computer... nice.Conveniently enough, there's a great walkthrough at nevali.net to accomplish this exact task. The basic steps: make a new keychain (with a secure, complex password) and save it to your removable media; once that's done, set your default keychain (where Mac OS X will put new password saves automatically) to the new, portable keychain. From that point on, you can take your passwords with you -- just don't forget to back up that USB drive somewhere safe.Thanks, Mo.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Is there any way to copy the CD to the hard drive so I don't have to load the CD in the drive to use a program?
Keep your kids from scratching your CD when they play Age of Empires.
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Apple Announces iPhone On O2, Lukewarm Response For Crippled Use
Well, Apple’s “special� event in London, “Mum’s no longer the word� has revealed a long awaited but no crippled product: The iPhone. Unfortunately the price is a lot more than the US version, have limited (30 % Data coverage on EDGE and GPRS) coverage but will be on O2’s network. …
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State of the iTouch Jailbreak: Slow, forward progress
Filed under: iPod Family, Hacks Late last night, iTouch hacker Martyn gained access to many of the iTouch's ramdisk files. He did this by interrupting the restore process after about 82-88 seconds. This put the iTouch into a state where iTunes still saw it in "Restore" mode but iPhuc was able to read files. Behold "martynmode". Before I headed off to sleep, effort was being made to use gdb breakpoints to stop iTunes at the right spot. The big success last night was Martyn's recovery of the onboard asr file. However, Apple had zero'ed out the encryption key this time around. Attempts to edit then load the dmg files also failed. I believe that this morning, "Smiley" will attempt to mod iPhuc to read the XML sent back from the iTouch. Unfortunately, the effort goes slowly without a clear line of sight to the goal.Permalink | Email this | Comments
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CBS wants to stay out of the iTunes pricing battle
CBS CEO Les Moonves has stated that the company is happy with its relationship with iTunes, and that it's not interested in participating in the pricing catfight going on between Apple and other media companies.Read More...
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MarsEdit 2.0.2 fixes bugs
Filed under: Software, Cool tools, BlogsScott's favorite blogging software has gotten another update, hot on the heels of the big 2.0 release. MarsEdit 2.0.2 patches up the big release with a few "slightly urgent" fixes involving using external editors and Evaluation mode (including a bug that caused you to be nagged a little more often than expected). There are also a few other typo and bug fixes (including a small fix to 2.0.1, which was only up for a little bit, so you didn't miss anything).The update is available over on Red Sweater's site, and if you haven't started editing on Mars yet, the full program is available for $29.95.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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The Cloud Over the British iPhone
Apple will offer the iPhone in Britain with free access to 7,500 WiFi hotspots to compensate for a weak data network.
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Surprise: Adobe may not update CS3 in time for Leopard launch
Like a moth to a flame, it appears Adobe may not have a CS3 update ready for Mac OS X Leopard's release.Read More...
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Early iPhone Credit Doesn’t Work - Please Try Again
I only have 5 days left on my .Mac trial - so I decided it was time to upgrade (primarily because of the new and upcoming features). I went to the Apple Store (since I can't use my Apple credit on the .Mac website to upgrade the account - which seems kind of stupid, but whatever), added .Mac to my cart, and proceeded to check out. There was just one problem…my Apple Store credit was gone. According to the site, my card was empty. Slightly concerned - since I hadn't spent any of the store credit - I called Apple. “Greater than 5 minutes” later, I was speaking with a customer service rep. She explained to me that Apple was having some problems with the iPhone Credit on the day of the announcement. So if you claimed your Apple Store Credit before September 14th, 2007 at 4:50 pm (she didn't specify time zone, but I assume PST) you need to go check the balance of your Apple Store Credit…because it's probably empty. What do you have to do to get your credit back? According to the rep, all I had to do was go to the site (which you can find here) and go through the process of claiming my credit again. I did that, and it worked fine. My .Mac upgrade is now being shipped to my house (which - again - seems kind of stupid…since it's an online service), and everything worked fine. Just a word of warning to all of you that jumped in early and got your iPhone credit.
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News: Mix: Training wheels, CBS, iPDA
During a Q&A session following this morning's “Mum” press event, Apple CEO Steve Jobs made a statement regarding the iPod touch. When CEO of O2 UK Matthew Key was asked whether he knew the iPod touch was coming during iPhone negotiations, he dodged the question, leading Jobs to comment: “Well, one's a phone, and one's not. The iPod touch is training wheels for the iPhone.” CBS has said it does not plan…
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News: Mix: Training wheels, CBS, iPDA, Hoodie
During a Q&A session following this morning's “Mum” press event, Apple CEO Steve Jobs made a statement regarding the iPod touch. When CEO of O2 UK Matthew Key was asked whether he knew the iPod touch was coming during iPhone negotiations, he dodged the question, leading Jobs to comment: “Well, one's a phone, and one's not. The iPod touch is training wheels for the iPhone.” CBS has said it does not plan…
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The iPhone and vestigial Widgets
Filed under: iPhoneYesterday, I posted about Widget.app, a utility to run OS X widgets on your iPhone. Widgets and the iPhone share a closer relationship than that post suggests. When you create a folder at the root of your tree called /Widgets and populate it, the widgets actually show up in Springboard--the iPhone home screen. When you tap widgets, the iPhone attempts (and fails) to run /System/Library/CoreServices/Dashboard.app. This application does not actually exist or, at least, did not ship with the iPhone. It's clear that Apple designed expandable Widget support for iPhone but cut it out at some stage of the design/delivery process. Thanks to BloomFilterRead | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Article: iPhone and O2: NO4 Me
So the cat is finally out of the bag: Apple will partner with O2 for the launch of the iPhone in the UK. Am I excited? No. As a resident of the United Kingdom, my initial enthusiasm about the iPhone has waned quite a bit since its introduction in January. The iPhone will be priced at £269 —or actually £269.99, if you call an O2 store—and will be only available on one of three price plans, O2 iPhone £35/£45/£55. That's…
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Google Docs Gives It Advantage Against Microsoft and Apple
Google’s (GOOG) April announcement that it would be adding a hosted version of presentation software as part of Google Docs, Google’s nascent stab at a full productivity suite, was realized today with the search provider’s official announcement of Presentation as part of its hosted office solution.
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Feedback: Your iPhone Picks?
As with any new Apple product, the accessory market has exploded for the iPhone. With the new product and accessories come scores of websites, fan forums, and reviews of everything under the sun that may be related. But the resulting problem often times becomes a glut of information; And who do you really listen to at that point? So this post is aimed at all those iPhone carrying members of the Apple elite. For those already sporting the iPhone, tell us your favorite accessories. Hearing opinions from real people (rather than faceless blogs/forums/etc) tends to carry more weight with many consumers, so share you iPhone accessory experiences - good, bad, and ugly! For those either in the market for an iPhone, or newly cool (that would be, just bought an iPhone - no, I don't fit either category…) hopefully following the comments of this thread will bring you some good options to protect your latest geek-toy. No Tags
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iToner Still Works
So yesterday’s iTunes 7.4.2 update breaks all the known workarounds for freely adding custom iPhone ringtones via file-extension renaming and AAC metadata hacking. But Ambrosia’s $15 iToner still works like a charm. (iToner doesn’t go through iTunes, it communicates directly with your iPhone, so I think only an iPhone software update could affect iToner, not an iTunes update.) ★
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iPhone as Check on Police Brutality
How many of you have seen the tasering of University of Florida student Andrew Meyer on your iPhone? He was tasered by police after he was pulled away from the microphone by the same police, in the middle of asking John Kerry a series of questions about why he did…
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TUAW Tip: Myspace Music on the iPhone
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, TUAW Tips, iPhone Think getting music from the WiFi store on your iPhone would be cool, but frustrated that they haven't implemented it yet? Justin sent along a simple little tip that makes it easy to grab all the music you want off of Myspace band pages, even without Jobs' Starbucks integration.Lots of Myspace band pages offer little Flash-based widgets that will play music for you, but without Flash, MobileSafari won't let you at them. But with a web application like file2HD, getting at those music files is easy-- plug in the Myspace URL, choose Audio, agree to the Terms of Service, and boom, you get a list of URLs, that, like any other Quicktime-playable media online, will stream directly into the iPod's music player.There is, of course, a catch. According to the Terms of Service for file2HD (or any other service like it, I'd imagine), you can only access your own pages. Myspace, obviously, wants you visiting their page to hear that music. Listening to it on your iPhone will definitely violate the ToS that you agree to. Not that anyone should care-- most bands put this music on their Myspace page to promote themselves, and so it's likely that they want you listening to the music no matter how you hear it. So as long as you can justify your way past that little conundrum, you're home free. Listen on (at least until the iTMS WiFi store lets you get music cleanly and legally from wherever you are).Thanks, Justin!Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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One Day I Will Switch from Apple
I really like Apple's products. I love the iPod. It rocks. I have three. I love Macs. They rock too. I have two (working on a third). The iPhone is amazing, iTV shows great promise, and just about every piece of software they make is wonderful. And in spite of all…
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Nokia launches business-minded E51 handset
Filed under: Cellphones While Nokia didn't exactly choose the quietest day to launch its latest handset, the E51 is getting official, regardless. This candybar-styled device was designed with the suits in mind, as Nokia even touts its ability to "integrate tightly with corporate telephony systems (PBX) through Nokia Mobile Unified Communications solutions." Specs wise, you'll find a two-inch 320 x 240 resolution screen, two-megapixel camera, video streaming / playback with support for H.264 and Real codecs, video calling capability, integrated 802.11g, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, FM tuner, miniUSB, IrDA, GPRS / EGPRS and HSDPA compatibility, up to 130MB of memory, a microSD expansion slot, quad-band GSM and WCDMA 850/2100 support, and up to 4.4-hours of talk time (or 13 days in standby). The E51 is slated to ship globally in Q4 for €350 ($485) sans a contract, and if you're craving more pics, just hit up the gallery below.[Thanks, Nokie and James B.] Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsOffice Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
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Apple's iPhone Coming to the U.K. (UPDATE)
UPDATE: Britain's Carphone Warehouse, which had just won the coveted right to sell the iPhone in the U.K., is up sharply in midday trading on news that U.S. electronics retailing giant Best Buy (BBY) has purchased a 3% stake in the company. See here. Meanwhile, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster estimates that U.K. sales of iPhones will add 78,750 units to his previous projection of 2 million iPhone sold worldwide in the upcoming Christmas quarter. See iPhone in Britain: 3 weeks early, 34% more expensive. - - - - - - - With about 100 journalists assembled at Apple's (AAPL) big Regent Street store in London -- and after tea and cakes had been served -- Steve Jobs announced the terms under which the iPhone will be sold in the U.K., the first country outside the U.S. to get the device. The 8 GB model running on the EDGE network (not 3G) goes on sale Nov. 9 for £269 ($537), including VAT, and will be carried by O2. "We picked the best one, the most popular carrier," Jobs said, according to Thomas Ricker, who covered the event live for Engadget. "I've seen hundreds of devices every year, and within a few minutes of playing with the iPhone I knew it as a breakthrough product," said O2 UK CEO Matthew Key. According to a report in The Guardian yesterday, O2 may be paying Apple a kickback of as much as 40% of its iPhone revenue for the privilege of carrying the phone. Jobs declined to discuss the terms of its revenue-sharing plan. O2, which will be partnering with Carphone Warehouse to sell the iPhone, is offering three 18-month plans -- £35 ($70), £45 ($90) and £55 ($110) a month -- each with nearly unlimited data (although there is a limit of 1,400 Internet pages per day). In the Q&A, Jobs defended the decision to use the slower EDGE network and Wi-Fi Internet access where available rather than the 3G networks that are widely deployed in the U.K. and Europe. "The 3G chipsets are real power hogs" that cut into battery life, he said, repeating the rational he used in the U.S. But he held out the hope that 3G iPhones could arrive in 2008. "3G needs to get back up to 5+ hours, something we think well see later next year," he said. Key said O2 has been building out its EDGE network and now covers 30% of the U.K. He added that Wi-Fi access for the iPhone will be provided at some 7,500 hotspots by The Cloud, which bills itself as Europe's leading wireless broadband network. Based on earlier reports, it is expected that Orange will be providing iPhone service in France and T-Mobile in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Hungary and Croatia. (See Apple's iPhone Heads for Europe and European iPhone Update.) [Thanks to Engadget's Thomas Ricker for the on-scene reporting.] [Photo courtesy of netdog via MacRumors]
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Bowers & Wilkins' Zeppelin iPod dock hits Apple Stores
Filed under: Home Entertainment You've waited, you've watched, you taken Houses of the Holy out of rotation in anticipation... and now it's here. That's right folks, effective today, the Bowers & Wilkins totally wild Zeppelin iPod dock is available for mass consumption. If you'll recall, the bizarre looking conversation starter sports a five-inch woofer, glass fiber cones, a 100-watt amp, and video outputs (so you can also watch The Song Remains the Same or footage of the Hindenburg tragedy on your HDTV). You can hit your local (select) Apple Stores and grab one of these $599 beauties, or you can do it the old-fashioned way and buy it online. Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsOffice Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
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News: Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin iPod speaker system now available
Bowers & Wilkins has announced the immediate availability of its Zeppelin high-performance iPod speaker system. The $600 system features “Made For iPod” certification, a built-in iPod dock, a five-inch woofer, two pairs of aluminum-domed tweeter and midrange drivers, an included remote, and a total 100 watts of power. “The iPod deserves no less than the best audio reproduction possible,” says Evert Huizing, B&W Executive…
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Presentations Added to Google Docs
Doesn’t work with Safari (including version 3). Otherwise, seems like a reasonable web-based presentation editor. ★
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Why I Love NES on the iPhone
Boy, people have sure been ribbing me about being negative lately on my iPhone Matters posts. Not sure if they missed how psyched I was to review the Jawbone or how excited I was at the prospects of using an
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Mac 101: How to go Home
Filed under: Mac 101More Mac 101, the TUAW answer to the unasked questions of novice Mac users. You've certainly seen the little house in your windows, but do you know who lives there? You do -- at least, your stuff does, and if Carlin said it that's enough for me.Unlike Mac OS 9, which pretty much let you put your files and programs wherever you wanted as long as you left System and Finder inside the System Folder, Mac OS X has certain expectations regarding paths, the hierarchy of folders leading to a particular spot on your startup disk. The distinction between your personal files -- your documents, music, email, bookmarks, preferences & settings -- and everything else that helps your computer run can be stated simply: if it's in your Home folder, it's "your stuff," and if it's outside your Home folder, it's universal to the computer (or it belongs to your spouse/kids/etc.).To get to your Home folder quickly, you can click the house icon in the sidebar of any Finder window; choose "Home" from the Go menu in the Finder, or hit Cmd-Shift-H. Once there you'll notice a few folders, including Documents, Desktop and Library. You may think "I don't like books. Why do I need a whole folder for a Library?" and be tempted to tuck it away in a "Misc" or "Stuff To Throw Out" folder. Don't be surprised, if you do, that you can no longer log into your computer -- Library has to stay exactly where it is, since it contains all your preferences and application settings. Likewise, there are some folders in Documents that have to stay put, particularly (if you use Microsoft Office) the Microsoft User Data folder.Other than the preconfigured folders, your Home folder is pretty much yours to manage as you choose; you aren't limited to storing documents in Documents. Need a folder for Projects? Go ahead and make one (Cmd-Shift-N for a new folder), just don't get funky with the original items unless you know what you're doing.One more tip on home folders: sometimes you'll see the notation "~/Desktop" or something similar in documentation for software, telling you where files will be installed. That "~" (it's called a tilde) is UNIX shorthand for the active user's home folder -- it expands to "/Users/myname/" when used in the Terminal, and whenever you see it you should assume it's talking about the place for your stuff.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Apple Chooses O2 as Exclusive Carrier for iPhone in U.K.
Apple: iPhone is scheduled to go on sale on November 9 and will be sold exclusively in the UK through Apple’s retail and online stores, O2 and The Carphone Warehouse’s retail and online stores. iPhone will be available in an 8GB model for £269 (inc VAT) and will work with either a PC or Mac. Three new great value iPhone tariffs will be available from O2 starting at £35, which all include unlimited anytime, anywhere mobile data usage and, in a market first, free unlimited use of the UK’s largest single public Wi-Fi network, covering over 7,500 cafes, restaurants, airport lounges, pubs and other locations across the UK. The free access to a large network of Wi-Fi hotspots sounds great; I wish AT&T had something to offer like that. ★
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Finder Window Manager - Better window management
The macosxhints Rating: [Score: 8 out of 10] Developer: Jonathan Nathan/ Product page Price: $15 (60 minute usage limit shareware) During the Pick of the Week's long hiatus, my coworker Dan Frakes was busy as usual with his Mac Gems column over on macworld.com. He covered some interesting apps during the last six months or so, at least a few of which I found interesting enough to add to my list of Pick of the Week candidates. Dan wrote about Finder Window Manager (FWM) back in June, and I think it's an interesting enough program to merit its selection as a Pick of the Week her...
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10.4: Change the Tile Game widget's image
You know the Tile Game widget, with the picture of the tiger? I got tired of the tiger picture, so I attempted to change it to another picture. Turns out it was pretty easy. [robg aside: Temporarily changing the Tile Game's image is quite simple -- make sure the Tile Game widget is open, then start dragging an image in the Finder, activate Dashboard, and drop it on the Tile Game widget. Your image will replace the tiger, at least until the next time you close the widget. This hint explains how to permanently change the image on the widget.] First, create (if you don't have one already) a folder named Widgets in your user's Library folder. Now navigate to the top-level /Library » Widgets folder, and copy the Tile Game file to your user's Library » Widgets folder. OS X will first look for widgets in your user's folder, so we'll modify the copy of the w...
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A script to handle bundles within Subversion
I keep everything I can in Subversion; it's one of the practices of a successful programmer. The Mac, though, makes things a bit tricky: Mac OS X bundles are in an ambiguous space between files and directories. To Subversion, they are directories whose contents are individually managed. That means .svn folders everywhere. To Mac applications, they are single files, to be rewritten at will (wiping out all those critical .svn folders). My approach has been to archive the bundle and check in the archive, marking the bundle itself as svn:ignore. Doing this manually is a challenge, especially because you only want to re-archive a bundle if the contents of the bundle folder have changed. My solution uses a Ruby script to find bundles that need archiving and then invokes tar to do the actual work. More details are available in this entry o...
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Play DVDs automatically on insertion in VLC media player
Here's how to get VLC media player to play a DVD automatically on insertion in Mac OS X. First, create and save this AppleScript:tell application "VLC" OpenURL "dvdnav:///dev/rdisk1" playend tellNext, open System Preferences, and go to the CDs & DVDs tab. For the When you insert a video DVD option, in the drop down menu select Run Script, and then select the AppleScript you just saved. That's it!
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What's not on the iPod touch
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPod Family, Multimedia, Reviews, Apple, iPhoneBill Palmer sent along this list he put together of all the iPhone features you won't find on the iPod touch. When a lot of people, including myself, first saw the iPod touch, we called it the "iPhone without the phone," because it seemed to pretty much have everything the iPhone had without actually being able to call anyone-- MobileSafari was in there, as was YouTube, Gmail and Yahoo Mail (via the browser). But as Palmer notes, it's not as complete as we first thought.The EDGE network is probably the most obvious and biggest omission-- the iPhone will let you do what you want from anywhere, while an iPod touch only works where your laptop does (unless you have an EDGE hookup, obviously). The Mail application is missing, as is the Notes application (that one has raised a lot of hackles, too), and Bluetooth is gone as well. There's no camera, volume buttons, or dock. The screen isn't quite as good. And strangely enough, Google Maps, Weather, and Stocks are all missing, too. Those seem so easy to implement, and such big selling points, that you wonder what the story is there.Palmer doesn't mean to knock the iPod touch-- he says it's still the best iPod ever, and it really is. If someone did a list of features on the video iPod (or even the Classic) vs. the iPod touch, there'd be no contest. But if anyone was really worried that Apple might cannibalize their own iPhone sales by releasing the iPod touch, a feature list like this shows there's a lot less chance of that.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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What Makes Google Docs New Launch Better Than Microsoft and Apple?
Google’s (GOOG) April announcement that it would be adding a hosted version of presentation software as part of Google Docs, Google’s nascent stab at a full productivity suite, through an acquisition of Tonic Systems was realized today with the search provider’s official announcement of Presentation as part of its hosted office solution.
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iPhone in Britain: 3 Weeks Early, 34% More Expensive
The iPhone is coming to the U.K. earlier than expected and at a higher price point, which analysts say could give Apple's (AAPL) bottom line a nice bump. (For details on Steve Jobs' London press conference, see Apple's iPhone Coming to U.K. Nov. 9 for $537.) "The UK launch ... is essentially three weeks ahead of our expectations," writes Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster, who as a result has raised his iPhone unit sales assumptions for the December quarter by 4%. Munster estimates that O2, the carrier Apple has chosen to partner with in the U.K., has about 18 million subscribers, compared with AT&T's approximately 64 million. Given his previous estimate that Apple is selling 13,500 iPhones a day in the U.S., Munster projects sales of 3,750 iPhones in the U.K., or an additional 78,750 iPhones for the quarter. That's over and above the 2 million iPhone sales for the quarter that he had projected before today's announcement. Munster was also surprised by the £269 ($537) price point. "It's more expensive" than he anticipated, he told Apple 2.0. "Typically Apple products [in the U.K.] are 25-30% over the U.S. price, and the iPhone is 34% [more]. For Apple's official London press announcement, click here.
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Lessons from my son's iPhone
My 14-year-old son has saved his allowances and earned money all summer to purchase an iPhone. And after the early Christmas present that Steve Jobs delivered on September 8 -- the $200 iPhone price cut -- he finally scrounged enough money to actually buy an 8 Gigabyte refurbished version for $349 from the Apple Store. And last night his long-awaited purchase arrived, as can be seen below.I'll spare readers the blow-by-blow, but I will touch on the highlights of iPhone unboxing night last night:1. Refurbished iPhones come in white boxes. We've bought refurbished products form Apple before, and they've traditionally arrived in brown cardboard boxes advertising their lower cost and refurbished status. But refurbished iPhones break that tradition by arriving in a clean white Apple box with the Apple logo on the top. This nicely sets them apart from new iPhones that come in black boxes. But even more intriguing, Apple appears to have optimized the packaging yet further -- the white boxes are, to my eyes, about two-thirds the size of the new iPhone boxes.[Robert enjoying the unboxing experience. "It's so small and shiny!"]2. Not all AT&T accounts are created equal. We've been AT&T wireless customers for about 10 years. That means we've been through the sale of AT&T wireless to Cingular, and Cingular's sale to SBC, and the subsequent rebranding of Cingular to AT&T. And our reward for 10 years of loyalty? We couldn't activate Robert's iPhone on our AT&T family plan because our account was "on the blue system" of Cingular instead of the good "Orange side." We called AT&T, and they literally said they couldn't help us over the phone; we'd have to go visit an AT&T retail store and trade in our old phones for new ones.So we trekked over to Small World in Acton, MA (an AT&T franchisee, not a corporate AT&T store), and a wonderful gentleman there made it all better with nearly an hour and a half of fussing with the AT&T systems. The bottom line: since I had an unlocked phone (my Nokia E61i), I only needed a new SIM card. But since my wife's ancient Nokia 3650 was locked to the old AT&T wireless, she'd need a new Nokia phone -- which they didn't have in stock. Now given we had a child who had just spent $350 that he saved for months and was dying to turn his iBrick into an iPhone, we asked if there was any way we could get this done today rather than waiting for a phone shipment. To Small World's credit, the agent electronically activated our new SIM cards, transferred a phone from another store, which the agent would personally pick up and deliver tomorrow, and got us up and running after only an hour and a half of customer service calls, computer entries, and activation hassles. We were pleased and astonished at the amount of work the agent was willing to do to help us, but we were similarly appalled by how customer-hostile the back-end systems were he was fighting with.3. Once our plan was right, the iPhone experience was flawless. Once we got home with our new plan activated and our wallets lighter for the experience, Robert fired up iTunes and activated his phone. Within five minutes, he had a phone number and a working phone on our family plan. The contrast with the AT&T store experience was like night and day; it was just click, click, click, and go.So now I have a son with an iPhone, a family AT&T plan "on the orange side", and a wife with a new Nokia. And even with less than a day's experience, I already have some takeaways from the transaction.Even with my recent vintage Nokia mobile, I'm jealous of my son's phone experience. As I've written before, the specs on my Nokia E61i far surpass those of the iPhone; it has 3G data, WiFi, video recording, zoom camera, installable software, and countless other whizzy features. Yet, I'd trade my phone for even a 4 Gig iPhone in a heartbeat. Why? Because I've spent nearly two months configuring my phone to do about half as much as my son could do within minutes of unboxing his phone. The experience of using my Nokia compared to the iPhone is comparable to using PC DOS compared to Mac OS X. The former is painfully functional but never helpful, while the latter is delightful and simple. The iPhone is going to undermine cellular carrier's business as usual The experiential difference between an hour and a half activation at a store and a five minute activation at home is huge. Add to that fact that iPhone purchasers are paying full retail prices and signing up for unlimited data plans, and you're seeing significant cream-skimming of the mobile phone market by Apple. Don't be surprised if Apple gains even more power over the mobile phone carriers simply because of the massive buying power that iPhone customers will come to represent. And in the process, manufacturers of "free" carrier-subsidized phones are going to be at a significant disadvantage competing with Apple's high customer satisfaction (and even higher margin) business model.AT&T still has significant work to do. The whole "blue versus orange" distinction, while understandable, is something AT&T has to fix and fix fast. The store agent said that they plan to require all customers to be "on the orange side" by March 2008. But the fact that we had to buy at least one new phone, spend $130, and commit to new service contracts just for the privilege of adding an iPhone after being 10-year loyal AT&T customers leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Somewhere in AT&T there must be a person in charge of customer experience who should be forced to go try to put an iPhone on a blue AT&T plan every day until he gets the service fixed. As it stands now, it's the biggest blemish in the iPhone experience.Bottom line: While the Nokia E61i is less than the sum of its specifications, the iPhone experience is more than the sum of its parts. Apple has raised the bar about six feet on what users should expect from a mobile phone. And when even a high-school kid can save his money and buy his own iPhone, that experience isn't just for a few well-heeled technophiles; it's going to affect everyone who owns a phone and every carrier who sells them.Full disclosure: the author owns Apple stock.Technorati Tags:Apple, ATT, Customer experience, iPhone, Marketing, Mobile phones
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3G iPhone coming early next year?
Filed under: CellphonesSteve's response to our question about the lack of 3G on the iPhone was kinda reasonable -- battery life is a major issue on current 3G chips -- but that doesn't mean the technology isn't improving rapidly. According to The Street, we could see an iPhone with a 3G capable chip by the first quarter of next year. Of course, Apple declined to comment -- they never talk about future products -- but we wouldn't be surprised if the company dumps a proper HSDPA / UMTS device onto the market around that time. We seriously hope they do: EDGE + WiFi is a horrible compromise these days, what with 7.2Mbps mobile connections starting to pop up around Europe. Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsOffice Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
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Freeverse sale! - 30% Off Everything!
Normally I don't write about a company giving discounts as news - but Freeverse is no ordinary company. From the great casual, and more hardcore, games they have created, to their great applications, Freeverse is one of the best developers for the Mac. My favorite product of theirs is Lineform. Lineform is a vector based image application ala Adobe Illustrator - only less expensive. I don't want to say “cheaper” because I don't think Lineform is - in any way - a cheaper version of Illustrator. It's not a clone - it's a fantastically more affordable alternative. You can read my review of it here. So how do you get your 30% off for your Freeverse buys? Just enter the code montyrules with any purchase before September 20th. BOOM. done.