3G iPhone Pics -- This Time It's White
New spy shots show up in Chinese-language forum.
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Dear Apple: What we want to see in iPhone 4.0, part 3
Filed under: iPhone This is the third in a series of letters from you, the TUAW reader, to Apple detailing what you want to see in the next iPhone. In the first letter, you told Apple what you want to from the next OS. In the second, you told them what you'd love in the next hardware. This final letter is all about Apple's built-in apps and how you think they can be improved. Even with rumors swirling that iPhone OS 4.0 will be previewed on Wednesday (along with some tablet thingy), chances are the OS won't be finalized until early summer, so there's still plenty of time for Apple to take your suggestions.In past letters I broke down what readers requested by percentages. Because of the sheer number of requests for app improvements, in this letter I just compiled feature requests by app. So, without further ado, here is your letter to Apple: Dear Apple, Who know what you have up your sleeves for Wednesday. Is it "only" a tablet, or will you be showing us a peak at the next iPhone OS? If so, here is some of what we hope to see: CALCULATOR: Yeah, what more can we really need, right? We've got one suggestion for you: some think graphing options ala Grapher app for Mac OS X would be nice. CALENDAR: Out of all the Apple-branded iPhone apps, this one (along with Mail) is one that can use the most work. Our wants: o. Landscape calendar. o. Week view. o. Selectable calendar display. Right now, you can either view one calendar, or all the calendars. If we have 4 calendars synced, we would like the ability to display contents from either one, two, three or all of the calendars. o. Tasks support! o. A way to set the "normal" day hours like in iCal...those hours when we're usually asleep or "off duty" can then be dimmed. o. The ability to dial phone numbers or add attendees from inside Calendar. o. Birthday calendar sync. o. "Go to specific date" button. Pressing backward/forward to view past/future events is somewhat tedious. o. In Month view, double-tapping on a day will allow us to edit/add events on that day. Likewise, a double tap on empty space in the Day view will add an event in that specific time. The Event Name and Location entry field will then automatically open. o. Alarm/badge reminders option for events. In fact, we'd like better notification options on the home screen overall. CAMERA: Most of us think the software here is pretty solid, but we would like to see a few things: o. A "self-portrait" mode that turns the whole screen into a button for easier shutter access. o. Timer mode. o. Image controls: White balance, scene modes, etc. o. Digital zoom. o. A movable shutter button. In its current, fixed position it's awkward for people with bigger hands. What would be awesome is if the user could drag the button around and position it where it works best for him or her (kind of like how you can drag toolbar icons around in apps). CLOCK: o. Give us the ability to play a song or entire playlist as the alarm tone. o. As you'll see in other app suggestions, we love dynamic icons (like iCal's, where it displays the day and date). Show the actual time on the clock icon. o. And please, let us set the length of the snooze alarm. COMPASS: Some of us feel this app is kind of pointless. Many think it should be integrated into the Maps app (see below). Other believe it could become a very powerful travel tool. Image you are wandering around a foreign city. You've designated a certain corner of a street as "the meeting place." Your group splits up, but because you've hit a "remember location" button in the Compass app, you can easily navigate your way back. This is especially useful for smaller cities... if many streets aren't sign-posted it makes Maps much more difficult to use. An improved Compass app would also help us find where we've parked our car in that mall parking garage (there the Maps app can't help at all). This can be done offline (without using Google Maps) only with the compass and the GPS, or online (using Google maps, compass and the GPS). CONTACTS: o. Coverflow landscape view. We could swipe through our beautiful friends and tap their pictures to call. o. Social network integration to grab latest contact details & pics from networks such as Facebook, Flickr, Myspace, and LinkedIn. o. Ability to create groups on the iPhone. o. Thumbnail pictures next to the names in the contacts menu. iPod: We covered our wishes to be able to turn off landscape mode system-wide in the first letter, but we'll repeat it here (because it's annoying to have landscape mode pop on and off while we're jogging). Here's what else we think can make the iPod app better: o. Sort songs in a playlist by name, artists, album, and date added. o. Ability to erase single songs. o. Using the Remote app is a much more pleasant experience than using the iPod app. Why? Because of the playlist icons. Please duplicate that here. o. Does shuffle ever seem not quite random enough to you? It does to us. o. Voice control improvement. "play/pause", "back", and "next." o. The ability to edit playlists. MAIL: Like Calendar, we feel Mail can use a lot of improvement. So here goes: o. Unified inbox! We aren't the first to mention this, and quite frankly we'll be shocked if this isn't in the next version. o. Junk mail filtering. o. Rules! It's annoying to see fifty messages in your iPhone inbox when, if we were at our Macs, we would see forty-five of those already separated into their rule folders. o. Multiple signatures, because we have some pretty annoying witty quotes we want to share with some people. o. Ability to create a to-do from a message. o. Ability to flag a message. o. Let us bounce a message back. o. UI tweak: When composing an email the cancel button should change to say "close" once the user has entered information. Right now, you have to remember that hitting "cancel" is going to prompt you to save. Simple change for a poor UI word choice. o. There needs to be a way to switch from inbox to inbox without going back up the chain. The standard iPhone UI black buttons representing different inboxes at the bottom of the screen could do this. MAPS: o. Integration with our Google Map profiles, My Maps, etc... o. Turn-by-turn GPS! o. Add a mini compass in the corner of the app (thus perhaps eliminating the need for the current Compass app?). o. Save maps directly to the iPhone so when we're out of cell and Wi-Fi range, we can still use the map we saved. o. Landscape mode. o. The ability to save routes. o. The ability to export routes to email. o. Street view with augmented reality option. MESSAGES: o. Group Texting. Sure it's nice to type out a name and add them, but when we want to text a group of people, we don't want to have to pick them one at a time.... we want to either be able to select a WHOLE contact "group", or select them as we scroll through. o. Give us different vibration settings for different types of messages. For example, two pulses means new text; one new email; a long beat means voicemail. Something like this would be helpful for when the phone is in our pocket during a meeting or while driving. o. Quick reply texts! (see video above) o. The ability to save sound clips we receive. o. New colors for the SMS boxes during chat. o. Delivery reports. o. Add character count to SMS edit box. NOTES: o. Let us choose the font and font size! o. MobileMe sync! It's a pain to have to plug in via USB for them to sync. o. Sorting options (date, tags, alphabetically). o. Check boxes so we can use it for grocery lists, etc. o. Voice recording in directly in notes. PHONE: Yeah, some of us actually use our iPhones to make calls. We'd like: o. The ability to forward voicemail. o. The ability to delete one call entry at a time in our recent call log. This potentially could save you from issues with the significant other. o. Ability to display contact pics added via Address Book in full screen, during an incoming call. PHOTOS: o. Ability to arrange photos into albums. Add passcode lock to albums that have sensitive photos. o. Faces & places view. o. Create email-able post cards. o. Sorting options (date, faces, tags, places, albums). o. Basic editing (cropping, etc). SAFARI: o. In Safari, when several pages are open, when you switch to one of the pages it reloads automatically rather than showing the cached version. This is slow and consumes more battery. Please give us a choice of turning this off. o. It would be great to have the ability to view MobileMe webmail via Safari for those times when a fellow Machead wants to check his email on our iPhone. o. Top Sites! It would free up home screen space if we could have easy visual access to our favorite sites directly in Safari. o. Private browsing. o. Search directly in a web page. STOCKS: o. Again, a dynamic icon would be cool. It could change according to a user-selectable market or particular stock. Green badge up, red badge down. VOICE MEMOS: o. Let a single click of the headphone's handsfree button be "pause recording" and a double click be "start recording." Also, there is currently no way to resume a recording if the screen is locked. WEATHER: One of the only iPhone apps that's not been updated since iPhone OS 1.0! Here's what to do: o. More than any other, this app needs a dynamic icon. o. Turn the app to landscape mode to see an hourly breakdown of the weather. o. Add a current location screen to the app, utilizing GPS, so no matter where we are instead of rolling down the window and sticking our hand out, we can reach into our pockets to see if it's raining. YOUTUBE: o. Ability to play our YouTube playlists. o. Allow commenting on videos from inside the app. o. Enable search for peoples' channels. So there you have it, Apple: three long letters about what we would love to see in the next iPhone and its OS. We know you're listening, and even though we know you would never admit to being influenced by this feedback, the people have spoken and we think you'll agree some of the ideas are pretty darn good. Whether you take them or leave them is up to you. Just know that despite our myriad suggestions, one thing is still certain on our end: we love our iPhones and we can't wait to see what the next version brings! Sincerely, The loyal readers and iPhone owners of TUAW. TUAW Readers: Thank you so much for your contributions. In total, I received over 3200 emails from you. I included as many of your suggestions as time, space, and feasibility allowed. If you guys want to see any of the lesser-suggested ideas that didn't make it into the letters, let me know in the comments and perhaps I'll compile them in a follow-up article! Maps and Notes mockup by reader Michael W.TUAWDear Apple: What we want to see in iPhone 4.0, part 3 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 24 Jan 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments iPhone - Apple - Facebook - Myspace - Google
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The Complete iMac History -- Bondi to Aluminum
It was perhaps the greatest gamble of Steve Jobsâ career. Barely 18 months into his second tour of duty with the company he founded, Appleâs interim CEO gathered a cadre of reporters at Cupertinoâs Flynt Auditorium on May 6, 1998, to showcase the newest member Mac family: a funny-looking, rebellious sibling with a flashy attitude and a remarkable sense of style. Dressed in blue plastic and built to harness the power of the Internet, the iMac was the first PC that actually felt personal. And it would forever change Apple, the industry, and virtually everyone who came into contact with it.    iMac G3Legend has it that Steve didnât warm to the iMac name until after it rolled off the assembly line, but itâs hard to imagine it being called anything else. With no less than five meanings attached to its little prefix--internet, individual, instruct, inform, inspire--the original Bondi Blue iMac was the personification of Appleâs think different campaign, an ingenious, incomparable, inimitable all-in-one machine designed to combine "the excitement of the Internet with the simplicity of Macintosh."While not quite the screamer it was billed to be, the first iMac was no slouch: $1,299 bought you a 233MHz G3 processor, 512MB L2 cache, 32MB RAM, ATI Rage IIc graphics, 4GB hard drive, tray-loading CD-ROM drive, 2 USB ports, stereo speakers, a funky mouse, garish keyboard and, of course, a 15-inch CRT display all built around a semi-translucent blue shell. Consumers immediately responded by ditching the boring, beige alternative, and soon iMacs were brightening desktops everywhere.But Bondi Blue didnât appeal to everyone, and in 1999 (following a minor graphics refresh to accommodate OS 8.5), Steve took the iMac to "a whole new level." Determined to let users "express themselves in a new way," the iMac picked up five fruit-inspired colors (Strawberry, Blueberry, Lime, Grape and Tangerine ) for its first major revision. To sweeten the deal, Apple added 33 extra megahertz and trimmed $100 off the price tag--and in April, a 333MHz processor sped things up even more--but it was the array of colors that consistently stole the show. (If youâre feeling nostalgic--or just looking for a unique aquarium--they can be had today for as cheap as a bag of fruit.)Steve didnât let the iMac rest on its palette, however. In October, the iMac DV brought the machineâs first FireWire ports, wireless support, slot-loading DVD-ROM drive and 400MHz processor, and added a RAM-stuffed, high-capacity special edition in the same Graphite color as its big brother Power Mac. At Macworld New York in July 2000, four new models made their appearance in an array of new colors, running up to 500MHz and ranging from $799 to $1,499: iMac (Indigo), iMac DV (Indigo, Ruby), iMac DV+ (Indigo, Ruby, Sage) and iMac DV SE (Graphite and Snow). A quiet update most notable for finally ditching the puck mouse, the sixth version of the iMac unofficially kicked off an 18-month waiting game for the next big thing, as the bubble-butt design began to show its age underneath the semi-annual paint job. But first, the iMac had to earn its spots.In February 2001, the iMac sunk to new depths with a gimmick that kicked the Reality Distortion Field into overdrive. Sensing the color wheel had run its course, Steve somehow convinced consumers that trippy, abstract patterns were the most logical way launch the "Rip, Mix, Burn" campaign. The Blue Dalmatian and Flower Power iMacs marked the beginning of the end of the original iMacâs cachet, and the CRT Wunderkind would see just one more update during the remainder of its reign, bumping the three surviving colors--Indigo, Graphite and Snow--to a top speed of 700MHz at Macworld New York 2001. (These days, $75 will get you one of the final models to roll off the assembly line, which still runs OS X, all the way up to Tiger.)A $799 600MHz Snow model would remain on shelves until March 2003, when its hipper cousin, the flat-panel, white-and-chrome eMac G4, picked up the CRT mantle.   iMac G4Time magazine might have stolen a bit of the thunder from Steveâs Macworld San Francisco 2003 keynote, but even a leaked cover story with pics could hardly prepare anyone for what emerged from beneath the Moscone Center stage that morning. A floating, flat screen attached to a chrome neck and a gleaming white base, the iMac G4 had personality to spare and looked more at home in an art museum than on a desktop. Or, to hear Time describe it, a patch of grass:As (Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive) walked through the 1,000-square-meter vegetable garden and apricot grove of Jobs' wife Laurene, Jobs sketched out the Platonic ideal for the new machine. "Each element has to be true to itself," Jobs told Ive. "Why have a flat display if you're going to glom all this stuff on its back? Why stand a computer on its side when it really wants to be horizontal and on the ground? Let each element be what it is, be true to itself." Instead of looking like the old iMac, the thing should look more like the flowers in the garden. Jobs said, "It should look like a sunflower."A testament to Steveâs relentless pursuit of perfection, the iMac G4 brought more to the table than a distinctive design and 800 MHz G4 processor. Sporting an optional SuperDrive, a plethora of professional ports and a brilliant, widescreen display that âusher(ed) in the age of flat-screen computing for everyone,â the iMac G4 didnât need a candy coating to turn heads and hardly felt like a consumer machine. With three identical models ranging from $1,299 (CD-RW, 700MHz G4, 128MB RAM, 40GB hard drive) to $1,799 (SuperDrive, 800MHz G4, 256MB RAM, 60GB hard drive), the iMac G4 began to blur the line between consumer and professional, and represented one of the greatest advancements in Appleâs history.Naturally, it was a sensation. More than 150,000 units were ordered in the first three weeks and not even a $100 price bump to offset "significant increases in component costs for memory and LCD flat-panel displays" could slow down the sunflower juggernaut.To keep the line fresh, the iMac G4 followed a unique upgrade path. At Macworld New York in July, a 17-inch flagship model topped off the popular trio of 15-inchers, which kept the same specs and pricing. The following February, the line was whittled down to just two models: a 1GHz 17-inch model (SuperDrive, 256MB RAM, 80GB hard drive) with internal Airport and Bluetooth support, and the same 800MHz 15-inch model (Combo drive), which saw its price drop back to the original $1,299. (Head over to eBay and pick one up--new and in the box--for just a tenth of its MSRP.) Six months later, both models were fitted with faster processors and graphics, DDR memory and USB 2.0, and wireless networking became standard.The final update came in the form of a "huge, gorgeous" 20-inch model (identical spec-wise to the 17-inch it supplanted) that joined the line in November for $2,199 (and still sells for more than $500 today), leaving three distinct models for the remainder of its reign.   iMac G5Unlike the iMac G3, which stuck around long after its successor arrived, Apple forced the iMac G4 into early retirement in July 2004 while it ironed out some last-minute issues with the upcoming model. Eventually introduced by Phil Schiller at the Paris Apple Expo on the final day of August, the iMac G5 was met with flurry of anticipation as Apple all but confirmed a dramatic overhaul for its next-generation iMac.The first Mac truly inspired by the halo effect, the iMac G5 was brought to us by "the makers of the iPod" and it looked every bit the part. Abandoning the each-element-should-remain-true-to-itself philosophy, the iMac G5 was dressed in glossy, white plastic with a brushed aluminum foot and gray Apple logo. Sporting a 2-inch-thick housing built around a 17- or 20-inch screen, powerful 1.6GHz or 1.8GHz processor, and "completely redesigned system architecture," the iMac G5 brought the clean simplicity of Appleâs popular music player to its desktop computers in a timeless marriage of form and function.The iMac G5âs upgrade path was anything but ordinary. The first, which didnât land until May 2005, kept the same lineup--but trimmed $100 from the top-shelf model--and brought the requisite 2.0GHz processors, faster SuperDrives, higher-capacity hard drives and built-in Airport and Bluetooth, but also added a new ambient light sensor that lessened the intensity of the pulsing sleep light in a dark room. But it was the second--and final--revision that really shook things up. Arriving just five months later at Appleâs "One More Thing" event, the iMac Rev. C was noticeably light on the speed boost, bringing just 100 extra megahertz to the table. The Combo drive model was squeezed out in favor of a robust, SuperDrive-equipped 17-inch unit priced at $1,299; and another $100 was shaved off the top model, bringing it down to $1,699 for a 20-inch screen, 2.1GHz processor, 512MB of 533MHz DDR2 SDRAM, 8x SuperDrive and 250GB 7200 RPM hard drive.Even more notable were the superficial changes to the all-in-one desktop machine. Designed to push the iMac closer to the living room, Apple pre-loaded all new iMac G5s with its "amazing Front Row experience" that included an infrared port and mini remote control that neatly attached to the right side. USB and FireWire ports were rightfully turned on their side and the case was trimmed by a half-inch, ushering in the first of the convex enclosures that would make their way into the MacBook Air and iPhone. An iSight camera was added to the top bezel for "out-of-the-box video conferencing," and Apple tossed a Mighty Mouse into the box, just for good measure. (If youâre still looking for one, scrape together $450 or so and head over to eBay.)A subtle, stunning update, the design that Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal dubbed "the gold standard of desktop PCs" would need very little tweaking to stay fresh through the years, up to and including the latest 27-inch behemoth. NEXT: The Intel Changeover    Intel iMac (Polycarbonate)On the heels of the surprising redesign of the iMac G5, Apple kicked off its Intel transition at Macworld San Francisco 2006 by adding Core Duo processors to its iMac lineup, "delivering performance that is up to twice that of its predecessor." Leaving the design, pricing and other features unchanged from its PowerPC counterpart, Apple was sending a clear message that the chip changeover would be clean, seamless and virtually unrecognizable to the untrained eye.Following the introduction of an $899 17-inch education configuration that brought back the CD-burning Combo drive, Apple upgraded the line in September with across-the-board Core 2 Duo processors ranging from 1.83GHz to 2.16GHz, and popped 802.11n Airport cards into the top three models. Once again, Apple made room in the lineup for a large-screen flagship model, this time in the form of an HD-ready 24-incher that sold for $1,999--and still sells for around $700. Heck, even the box can fetch $40 on eBay.   Intel iMac (Aluminum)The first iMac that wasnât wrapped in plastic was largely an incremental update--if not for its gorgeous aluminum-and-glass dressing. (Glass, of course, meant glossy, the first iMac to ditch the matte screen.) As if the new enclosures werenât attractive enough, Apple dumped the 17-inch model in August 2007 and trimmed 20 percent from the price of the 2.0GHz 20-inch, bringing the price down to $1,199, the cheapest entry-level iMac since the G3. A 2.8GHz option, healthy RAM boost and faster graphics all around finished off the update, which would remain largely unchanged for two years. The next two upgrades--in April 2008 and March 2009--were two of the quietest in the iMacâs illustrious reign. The first, a minor refresh that pushed the line above the psychological 3GHz barrier for the first time, upped the chip cache and frontside bus, and featured a custom, low-watt Intel processor that gave the metallic iMac a hefty push into the professional arena, what with its 24-inch screen, 500GB hard drive and NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS graphics BTO option. The early 2009 bump, essentially a lineup shuffle and price cut, was most notable for jettisoning the FireWire 400 port (a fourth USB 2.0 port made up the difference) and doubling the storage and memory; $1,499 now bought you a 24-inch model with a 640GB hard drive.  iMac Intel (Backlit)Which brings us to the current lineup, the culmination of more than a decade of research and development. Hailed as "jaw-dropping," "stunning" and "screenormous," the new incarnation of the iMac presents an LED-backlit 27-inch screen flagship model in true 16:9 widescreen (previous models had a 16:10 aspect ratio) and a resolution that rivals Appleâs premium Cinema HD Display. Sporting a lineup that starts at 3.06GHz and tops off at Mac Pro-worthy Core i5 and i7 quad-core processors, the new iMac is distinguishable from its predecessor by a new âedge-to-edge glass design and seamless all aluminum enclosureâ and represents the first mac to come bundled with the brand-new Multi-Touch Magic Mouse. An attention-grabbing force that raises the bar yet again, todayâs iMac shows virtually no resemblance to its candy-colored, bubble-butt ancestor that set the ball rolling so many years ago. But while every other Apple computer has undergone a post-Intel transition name change, the iMac, while certainly outgrowing its role as an Internet machine, has never strayed from its individual mission of instructing, informing and inspiring--and has never been shy about looking good while doing it. Â
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The Complete History of the Macworld Expo
For anyone who attended the very first Macworld San Francisco and then skipped the next 24, this yearâs event might seem awfully similar to that very first show. Hot on the heels of the runaway success of the Mac and its own successful launch, Macworld magazine tapped event coordinator Peggy Kilburn in 1985 to develop a conference that âwill bring (attendees) in contact with the people who best understand the far-reaching effects the Macintosh will have in business, schools and at home.â It was held in Feb. 21-23 and Steve Jobs didnât even step foot in Brooks Hall, let alone address the crowd. Similarly, this yearâs event wonât take place until February--abandoning its traditional January time slot held since 1986--and Jobs wonât be attending. But thereâs something fitting about Macworld returning to its roots for its 25th anniversary. Before Steve turned it into his personal showcase and the Apple booth had to be draped in black curtains, Macworld was a place for fans and professionals to share ideas free from the prying eyes of PC users, where product announcements were welcome but not necessary, and the keynote was the least interesting part of the show. Macworld Expo the 1980s - The decade of the Mac Macworld Expo San Francisco 1985: When the doors closed on the first Macworld, which shared exhibit space with a boat show double-booked for the same weekend, more than 10,000 attendees had walked through its doors, and the bad taste from the Super Bowl XIX âLemmingsâ ad was all but washed away. Hot items for the fledgling Macintosh included the Lotus Jazz office suite (but surprisingly, not Macintosh Office), MacPrompter for scrolling text, and a slew of video and imaging apps that leveraged the Macâs powerful graphics capabilities. Macworld Expo Boston 1985-86: While Apple kept a decidedly muted presence at the first two Macworld Boston Expos, the east-coast show quickly became cemented on the calendar of Apple fans and developers. With more than 500,000 Macs in circulation and the resignation of Steve Jobs fresh on their minds, attendees had more than enough to talk about at that first event, held Aug. 21-23, 1985, at the Bayside Exposition Center, and touted as a chance to see âall of the elements of the Macintosh Office. ... The 512K Macintosh, the LaserWriter, and AppleTalk, as well as Jazz from Lotus, are just a few of the products youâll get to see.â MWE SF 1986: After observing such a successful inaugural show, Apple CEO John Sculley--who reportedly credited Macworld for reinvigorating Apple after a disappointing end to 1984--took full advantage of the second annual expo, which expanded to the Civic Auditorium to accommodate larger crowds. While not quite worthy of Stevenote status, Appleâs less-than-charismatic leader unveiled the SCSI-equipped, 8MHz Macintosh Plus and pricey LaserWriter Plus during his keynote presentation. MWE SF 1987: A heavy focus on desktop communications and networking brought the long-awaited AppleShare file server software and AppleTalk PC Card, and delivered effortless, cross-platform file sharing long before IBM developed its own solution. A major component of the floundering Macintosh Office, AppleShare survived long after Appleâs desktop publishing suite was sent to the junkyard. MWE Boston 1987: Apple landed in Boston ready to show off HyperCard and script language HyperTalk, one of the first apps to utilize the hotlinking hypermedia concept that would become the cornerstone of the World Wide Web. Also making their debut were MultiFinder 5.0, the AppleFax modem and ImageWriter LQ. MWE SF 1988: With some 350 exhibitors and 25,000 attendees, MacWorld kicked off its fourth annual San Francisco show with an emphasis on the Macâs business capabilities. In his keynote speech, Sculley stressed Apple's commitment to networking and connectivity advancements, and introduced the zippy Laserwriter II family, with up to 8 pages per minute of printing power. MWE Boston 1988: Apple CEO John Sculley may have landed in Boston to show off the Apple Scanner, but the buzz on the trade floor was all about the Macintosh II, as developers showed off an array of drawing, writing and CAD tools to leverage the power of Appleâs newest Mac. MWE SF 1989: Breaking a pattern of adding an âXâ to Macs fitted with a Motorola 68030 processor (maybe Sculley didnât want to announce the Mac SEx to a raucous convention crowd), Apple used its biggest stage to release the SE/30 upgrade, a Mac that would be as popular as it was long-lasting. Among the show favorites was the streamlined Claris MacWrite II, one of the last times a Claris product would be among the show favorites. MWE Boston 1989: For the fifth anniversary of the Macworld Expo, Sculley opted to keep the anticipated Macintosh Portable (which would make its debut a month later, on Sept. 20) under wraps, and instead showcased the Macâs educational possibilities with the Visual Almanac, an interactive multimedia demonstration kit for the classroom that utilized Appleâs groundbreaking HyperCard. NEXT: Macworld Expo: The 1990's Macworld Expo the 1990's - On the brink MWE SF 1990: The 40MHz Macintosh IIfx made a big splash at the first Macworld of the 90s, despite its six-figure price tag. One of the reasons for all that speed was the launch of a Mac-only graphics-editing program by a little company named Adobe, which generated quite a bit of interest on its own. MWE Boston 1990: HyperCard 2.0 was all the rage at the subdued summer Macworld, but even Appleâs own booth had a hard time competing with the DTSâ dogcow buttons inscribed with her famous catchphrase, âMoof!â MWE SF 1991: Developed to optimize the 68000 line of Macs, the slick, streamlined System 7 was the co-star of Macworld, sharing the limelight with Appleâs new multimedia app. Sculleyâs keynote was its usual shade of dull, save the impressive QuickTime tour of Ben & Jerryâs Vermont factory, which roused the crowd from its slumber. Also unveiled were a series of networking products, including the Macintosh LC Ethernet card. MWE Boston 1991: While PowerBook rumors were flying and many Mac users were getting their first glimpse at System 7, the trade floor was still buzzing about a bombshell announcement just weeks earlier. Industry rivals Apple and IBM (and Motorola) put aside their differences and entered into a unique partnership that would eventually produce the microchip that would power the Mac for more than a decade. Macworld Expo Tokyo 1991-1992: Just because Apple didnât bother to release any new products (although CEO John Sculley did cut the ribbon on opening day) doesnât mean Macworld Tokyo had a hard time filling the Makuhari Messe convention center when it opened its doors on Feb. 13, 1991. A rabid overseas fanbase was eager to get their hands on the latest and greatest in Mac apps and accessories, and Apple embraced its new audience with open arms. MWE SF 1992: Continuing the theme of the prior yearâs conference, Macworld 1992 featured hundreds of new applications using QuickTime and an astute prediction from Sculley: âI believe pervasive networking will be the driving force of the information industry during the 1990s.â The Mac may have been this crowdâs âideal multimedia machine,â but an ex-Apple employeeâs latest OS was making some noise up the road as the NeXTWORLD Expo opened its doors to those who wanted to think slightly differenter. MWE Boston 1992: After a successful PowerBook launch the prior October, Apple used Macworld Boston to upgrade its best-selling model with more RAM and a lower price point, setting the stage for a series of dockable PowerBook Duos that would be released in the fall. MWE SF 1993: Held entirely at its now-permanent Moscone Center home, Sculley used his final Macworld San Francisco keynote to unveil a host of imaging products, including ColorSync, LaserWriter Pro workgroup printers, StyleWriter II personal printer, Apple Color Printer and Apple Color OneScanner. Making all those projects that much easier were the Apple Adjustable Keyboard and ADB Mouse II, Appleâs first teardrop-shaped clicker. MWE Boston 1993: The best product Steve Jobs didnât have a hand in, Sculley finally rolled out the Newton MessagePad at Macworld Boston, more than a year after publicly demonstrating its prototype. Unlike anything on the market, Newton was a bold device with a brilliant interface that ought to have been as popular as the iPhone. Instead, only a few hundred thousand were sold over its four-and-a-half-year reign. MWE Tokyo 1993: Appleâs first product launch outside the United States brought a slew of new hardware, including the Macintosh Color Classic, Macintosh LC III, Macintosh Centris 610 and 650, Macintosh Quadra 800, PowerBook 165c, and the LaserWriter Select 300 and 310 laser printers. All those new products paid off, as the expo attracted nearly 100,000 attendees in just its third year. MWE SF 1994: With more than 70,000 attendees on hand to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Mac, the sprawling Apple booth didnât disappoint. Visitors were met with a slew of new products, including a walking tour of its online service, eWorld, along with the recently released Macintosh TV and Powerbook Duo 270c. But buzz on the floor was mostly surrounding the upcoming PowerPC transition, which promised faster, more powerful Macs for the next decade. MWE Boston 1994: The critical, if not commercial, success of Newton brought some 70,000 attendees to the following yearâs Macworld Boston, forcing Apple to set up its booth across the street from the World Trade Center. It was worth the trip, as new Power Macs showed off the capabilities of the first PowerPC chips and System 7.5 introduced users to Stickies, WindowShade and the Control Strip. MWE Tokyo 1994: Instead of showing off OS 7.5 for umpteenth time or adding another PowerPC model to its Power Mac line, Apple took the wraps off the QuickTake 100 digital camera. Designed in association with Kodak, the QuickTake looked more like a pair of binoculars than a camera but made an instant splash with the expo crowd. Also introduced was Color StyleWriter printer, to make sure all those photos looked their best. MWE SF 1995: As expected, the chip transition was in full swing, with PowerPC Power Macs drawing attention at the expo, but the most excitement centered around Power Computing, the first company to take advantage of Appleâs licensing program. MWE Boston 1995: Trying to steal some of the thunder from the forthcoming Windows 95 release, Apple demoed Copland in all its buggy, crashy glory on brand-new AppleVision displays. Be thankful it failed; if not, Steve might never have come back. MWE Tokyo 1995: Apple welcomed a new clone manufacturer to its ranks, Japan-based Pioneer Electronic, and proudly took the wraps off the active-matrix PowerBook 5300c, which thankfully didnât explode on the stage. The same canât be said about the Singapore plant that was manufacturing them. MWE SF 1996: Sinking revenue and executive board shake-ups cast a dark shadow over Macworldâs 12th annual event, which saw a continued push away from Appleâs proprietary platform with the release of the PC compatibility card, capable of turning any Power Mac into a dual micro-processor system capable of running Windows 95. MWE Boston 1996: The first U.S. keynote by CEO Gil Amelio made some attendees long for John Sculley, but the 20 percent across-the-board price cut on the Performa line was certainly welcome, as was the Performa 6400âs new InstaTower case. Before dousing the Copland project with a giant bucket of cold water, Gil got the crowd riled up by declaring Apple was âtransitioning from a dialogue that has centered on survival to a dialogue thatâs going to center on excitement.â We think the excitement he was referring to had something to do with the imminent launch of the first issue of MacAddict magazine. That, or the return of Steve Jobs, weâre not sure. MWE Tokyo 1996: CEO Gil Amelio announced the fruits of its partnership with Bandai in the form of a gaming console based on Appleâs Pippin technology. Officially called Pippin Atmark, the device was supposed to combine the best parts of each company into a super-computer-video-game-machine, and if you had stopped by Appleâs booth, it certainly seemed that way. Sadly, we know how the story ended. MWE SF 1997: Steve Jobsâ first appearance on a Macworld stage was preceded by a lengthy, rambling Gil Amelio, whose three-hour, teleprompter-plagued speech may have inspired Jobs to take over speaking duties. Amelio was supposed to rev up the crowd by showing the stunning Twentieth Anniversary Mac and outlining Appleâs NeXT-based OS strategy, but botched the whole thing up, effectively ruining Steveâs big moment. MWE Boston 1997: As late as July 2, Amelio was planning to deliver the keynote address at Macworld Boston, so when he was abruptly forced out July 5, all eyes turned to the new kid on the block. The excitement was palpable when the lights finally dimmed, and when Steve stepped out on stage to a 30-second standing ovation, a new era in Apple had clearly begun. And then he announced a partnership with Microsoft, drawing boos. MWE Tokyo 1997: Before Steve killed the project later in the year, Apple teamed with Fujifim for its last attempt at a digital camera, the QuickTake 200, which used removable cards to store pictures but was lost in a sea of cheaper, smaller entries. Also introduced at the show were the Power Macintosh 4400, 7300, 8600 and 9600, and the Powerbook 3400c, which immediately assumed the short-lived position of the worldâs fastest laptop. MWE SF 1998: Just months before the iMac would turn the industry on its head, iCEO Steveâs first full Macworld San Francisco keynote brought no new products, but still had the crowd in awe with a surprise âone more thingâ announcement: Appleâs profitable again. Macworld Expo New York 1998: Making the move south to the Big Apple could have been disastrous for Macworld, but diehard Mac fans would have jumped a motorcycle onto a speeding train to catch a glimpse of the iMac. Attendance dipped noticeably from the prior yearâs Boston show, but enough shows up to give Macworld East a permanent new home in New York Cityâs Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. MWE Tokyo 1998: The Macworld Tokyo crowd cheered politely for the debut of the first Japanese-language Think Different ad, but went absolutely wild when Steve Jobs appeared on stage (via a taped message). He didnât show off any new products, but assured the audience that Apple wouldnât be leaving them out of their new OS strategy: âApple is committed to having the best kanji (Chinese characters) systems in the world, and we're pouring even more into R&D toward that end.â MWE SF 1999: A rainbow of iMacs greeted visitors to Appleâs booth, but all eyes were on âthe worldâs most open-minded personal computer,â a sleek tower dressed in blue and white with a hinged door for easy access to its G3 processor. And the color-coordinated Apple Studio Displays werenât too shabby either. MWE New York 1999: Say hello to the iBook. But first, say hello to Noah Wyle, star of âPirates of Silicon Valley,â who fooled the crowd momentarily with his nearly-spot-on Steve Jobs impersonation (though he forgot to unscrew the cap to his water bottle). After a demo of the imminent OS 9, the real Steve unveiled Appleâs newest laptop, a candy-colored clamshell book that had a handle and looked strangely like a potty seat. MWE Tokyo 1999: Steveâs first keynote at Macworld Toyko was basically a rewrite of Januaryâs Macworld San Francisco presentation, with the exception of an untimely crash of the Power Mac G3 during Microsoftâs Internet Explorer demo. But all anyone really cared about were iMacs. NEXT: Macworld Expo: The 2000's Macworld Expo the 2000's - Apple's return MWE SF 2000: With the renaissance in full swing, Steve announced Appleâs next-generation operating system in earnest at the first Macworld of the new millennium. With âstate-of-the-art plumbing,â âkiller graphicsâ and a 12-month, âgentle migration,â Steve introduced the masses to the blue-tinged world of Aqua of the Dock and kept his promise: A public beta was in our hands by September. MWE New York 2000: Indigo, Ruby, Sage and Snow iMacs, dual-processor Power Macs, optical mice, translucent keyboards, iMovie 2, and 15-, 17- and 22-inch displays. None stood a chance against the star-crossed star of the show, the jaw-dropping Power Mac G4 Cube. Everyone wanted to take one home, but strangely, few people actually did. MWE Tokyo 2000: After an quiet debut in 1999, Steve pulled out all the stops in 2000, unveiling brand-new portables and Power Macs, including the iBook Special Edition and Pismo PowerBook. Steve also made good on his â98 vow to include the highest-quality Japanese fonts in OS X. MWE SF 2001: One of Jobsâ shining moments (even by his standards), the 2001 Stevenote featured a shipping date for Mac OS X, two more pieces of the digital hub (iDVD and iTunes), SuperDrive-equipped graphite Power Mac G4s, and the piece de resistance, the âmega-wide,â one-inch thick Titanium Power Mac G4. Suddenly, all was right-side up with the world (including the Apple logo on the case). MWE New York 2001: A preview of Mac OS X Puma (and a few lengthy third-party demos) brought scarcely any new features, but faster iMacs and Quicksilver Power Macs promised an all-around zippier experience. MWE Tokyo 2001: The final aesthetic flourish for the iMac brought the trippy Flower Power and Blue Dalmatian patterns and added CD-RW drives to accompany iTunes 1.1 Joining the art-deco all-in-ones were new Power Mac G4 Cubes, which also added the elusive CD-RW drives. MWE SF 2002: A 14-inch iBook joined the wildly popular 12-inch âice-bookâ family and iPhoto rounded out Appleâs digital hub vision, but the show-stopper was the flat-panel iMac G4, an overdue update that was well worth the wait. Part-computer, part-sculpture, the âSunflowerâ iMac firmly cemented the Stevenote as the greatest show on earth. MWE New York 2002: A notably lackluster presentation eliminated Appleâs free e-mail in favor of a paid service and delivered a rehash of the Jaguar demo Steve gave two months earlier at WWDC. No killer new products to speak of, but iSync, iCal and iTunes 3 made their debut, along with solid-state iPods (with Windows support) and 17-inch iMacs, but attendees couldnât help but notice the spring was missing from Steveâs step. MWE Tokyo 2002: Steve crammed another 5 gigabytes into the diminutive iPod music player as the Macworld Tokyo expo was moved to the more spacious Big Sight convention center for Appleâs last overseas splash. Turned out the switch was prophetic, as Steve took the wraps off the stunning 23-inch Cinema HD display, Appleâs largest to date. MWE SF 2003: Final Cut Express, Airport Extreme, iLife, Keynote and Safari would have been enough for most companyâs trade shows, but not Apple. After nearly two hours of nonstop announcements, Steve saved the best for last: The largest (17-inch) and smallest (12-inch) PowerBooks ever, dressed to the nines in classy aluminum. MWE New York 2003: After Steve bailed on his annual keynote to protest IDGâs plan to move to the expo back to Boston the following year, the show, now known as Macworld CreativePro Conference & Expo, found itself in a tailspin. Apple fulfilled its commitment to exhibit--and even announced the availability of Soundtrack as a standalone product--but the thrill was most definitely gone. MWE Tokyo 2003: On the heels of the east-coast shake-up, Apple abruptly pulled out of the Japan show, too, and IDG cancelled the event altogether. MWE SF 2004: A somewhat disappointing keynote delivered Garageband and way too much John Mayer, but still finished on a high note as Steve unveiled the product no one knew they needed: a smaller iPod in a rainbow of flavors. MWE Boston 2004-2005: A pair of intimate Boston expos closed the book on Macworld East for good, as IDG vowed to focus its efforts on the sole remaining show in San Francisco. MWE SF 2005: Also known as the keynote that brought down ThinkSecret, Steve took to the Moscone stage in 1995 looking to capitalize on all the attention Apple was getting. Along with a new iLife and a surprise successor to the defunct AppleWorks, two low-priced products sought to dispel the notion of Apple as a high-priced niche company: the $99 iPod shuffle and $499 Mac mini. MWE SF 2006: Apple kicked off the Intel transition by fitting its two most popular Macs with Core Duo processors. Little was changed from the new iMac aside from its new brain, but the PowerBook underwent a series of tweaks and refinements, including the retirement of its famous name âbecause weâre kind of done with Power and we want Mac in the name of our products.â MWE SF 2007: The last great Macworld keynote ever. Nuff said. MWE SF 2008: With the near-impossible task of following the launch of the iPhone, Steve took the stage for his last Macworld San Francisco keynote with a bag full of assorted treats--cheaper Apple TVs, iTunes movie rentals, iPod touch and iPhone software updates, Time Capsule--and one big trick. Steveâs lasting image as the master of Macworld ceremonies: sliding the Macbook Air out its plain manila envelope. MWE SF 2009: Appleâs final Macworld appearance was preceded by letter from Steve explaining his ânutritional problemâ and âdecision to have Phil deliver the Macworld keynote,â so attendees were prepared for a lackluster event. Apple surprised some with the new 8-hour, 17-inch Mac Book Pro, iLife â09 and iWork â09, but it just wasnât the same without the man who made it all happen. Macworld Expo elsewhere Building off the success of U.S. shows, a number of expos around the globe tried to capitalize on the Macworld name, to limited success: 1989: Macworld Canada 1991: Macworld Mexico, Hong Kong, Stockholm and New Zealand 1992: Macworld Barcelona, Paris (cancelled due to popularity of Apple Expo) 1994: Macworld Expo Summit (Washington, D.C.) 1996: Macworld Taiwan 2004: Macworld UK 2005: Macworld on Tour (only schedule date, in Kissimmee, Fla., cancelled)
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Some things we may not see again from Apple
Filed under: Apple History Conan O'Brien once had a recurring segment on Late Night called "Guests We Won't Have Back," during which he would look back at guests (who were fake) that he regretted having on the show. There was bug expert Sara Wiggins, who ate a live beetle in front of the camera. And there was wine expert Charles Nance who, during his on-air wine tasting session, drank himself into a drunken stupor. Despite its fairly strong record over the last decade, Apple has not been without its lapses and major changes. And, in the spirt of Conan O'Brien's "Guests We'll Never Have Back," let's take a look at "Some Things We'll Never Have Back" on the Apple front. G4 Cube When it was introduced at Macworld 2000 in New York, the G4 Cube was unique. Its small form factor and elegant industrial design made it a wunderkind of sorts in the personal computer market at the time. But this wunderkind never lived up to its expectations. For despite its many virtues, it also contained many vices. While targeted at a more pro-oriented user, it lacked some standard features in its comparably-priced siblings: it lacked PCI slots and a full-length AGP slot, had fewer memory slots, and didn't have built-in audio in/out. The G4 Cube is a product we'll never have back. iPod HiFi The marketing copy for the iPod HiFi was that it was the "Home stereo. Reinvented." It was an effort by Apple to cash-in on the iPod speaker dock accessory market and align with changing listening habits. Consumers had eschewed traditional HiFi components -- such as receivers, subwoofers, and large speakers -- in favor of iPod speaker docks. During his introduction of the product, Steve Jobs, who counted himself as an audiophile that had forked out his fair share of beans on audio products, raved about the iPod HiFi's audio fidelity. Not taking El Jobso's words as the be-all and end-all of audio fidelity, reviewers subjected the iPod HiFi mixed reviews. And part of this was due to the level of scrutiny they applied to it. When compared to other iPod speaker docks, the unit received its fair share of favorable reviews for sound quality. Nonetheless, they noted that it lacked the quality to replace a traditional high-end stereo system. Motorola ROKR It wouldn't be too far-fetched for one to hint at the possibility of friction between Apple and AT&T. With the iPhone, Apple, notorious for its incredibly detailed control of user-experience, has left a large portion of defining the user-experience to a third party. So imagine what it must have been like for Apple to relent to both Motorola and Cingular (now AT&T Wireless). This was what happened with the Motorola ROKR. While the ROKR could sync with iTunes, one of its shortcomings was that it had a 100 song-limit, which according to then-Motorola CEO Ed Zander, was done on purpose to prevent cannibalization of the iPod nano, which was unveiled at the same time. The fact that the ROKR lacked the traditional fit, finish and ease-of-use of an Apple product didn't help things much either. The Fatboy iPod nano Just prior to the third generation iPod nano's release during Fall 2007, purported images of it circulated around the web. At first, many wondered (actually, hoped is the better word) whether these images were real, as they represented a departure from the narrow form factor of its predecessors. It wasn't until Apple legal had the images pulled, which was shortly followed by Steve Jobs's unveiling of the third generation iPod nano, that confirmed that the iPod nano had, in fact, gone fatboy. The fatboy's added girth provided support for video playback, a first for the nano at the time. Whether going fatboy was change just for the sake of change, the change was short-lived. The iPod nano would return to its traditional slim form factor for the fourth and fifth generation. Internet Explorer Macworld 1997 marked a pinnacle moment for Apple. In addition to Steve Jobs's return, the company also forged an alliance with Microsoft. A major component of this alliance was that Internet Explorer would be the default browser on the Mac. But, because Apple "believes in choice," other browsers would be available for users to choose from. Fast forward six years later to 2003. After learning that Apple would be building its own browser for the Mac, Microsoft higher-ups shortly after decided to cease development and support for Internet Explorer on the Mac. Free Once upon a time, "free" was a bit more common around Apple. For instance, for a while, iMovie was available as a free download -- which would later change, when it required a new Mac purchase or when it was bundled with iLife. Then there was iTools, the granddaddy of .Mac, which makes it the great granddaddy of MobileMe. iTools was free to Mac users, and provided free web publishing, storage through iDisk, and free @mac.com email address and publishing of e-cards though iCards. As costs rose, Apple began charging for the service and renamed the now fee-based service to .Mac, which we currently know as MobileMe. Macworld In a short press release in December 2008, Apple announced that Macworld 2009 would, in fact, mark Apple's last official year of exhibiting at Macworld. The company cited new and alternative means to reach consumers as its reasoning for bailing out of the trade show -- as well as its declining footprint in other trade shows. The "CES for Apple products" produced several milestones, such as the unveiling of the iPhone. If there was one thing that Macworld provided, it was a date to look forward to. Something would always be unveiled. And that was also another part of Apple's reasoning for pulling out, as it gave them a fixed, and sometimes unnatural, product release schedule. DRM In a February 2007 letter entitled "Thoughts on Music," Steve Jobs laid out his arguments for abolishing DRM. Almost two years later, at Macworld 2009, Apple announced that it had reached an agreement with the major record labels to remove DRM from iTunes music sales. Which meant sayonara to authorizing tracks on different computers, and changing or rearranging songs playlists after burning. IBM/PowerPC In a classic case of "the enemy of your enemy is your friend," Apple, together with once-nemesis IBM (and with some of help from Motorola), collaborated on the PowerPC-based chips that would live in Apple computers. This collaboration lasted until 2005 (Apple would continue to make PowerPC-based computers for a short time after), when Apple made the transition to Intel processors. Apple cited disappointment with the progress on notebook-based G5 chips and the future roadmap of the PowerPC architecture when compared to Intel. U2 It seems like it was just five years ago that U2's Bono and Edge joined Steve Jobs on stage to unveil the U2 iPod. Oh wait -- it was five years ago. Nowadays, Apple is no longer making U2 iPods, and U2 is 360'ing their way across the world with BlackBerry as the title sponsor of their tour. Apple, being Apple, has moved on from the relationship as well. However, it still needs to pick up its lava lamp and CDs, which are still at U2's apartment. The Color White Sometimes, white is the new black, and sometimes black is the new black. For Apple, aluminum is currently the new black. For the better part of the decade, the color white dominated Apple's design language -- from the iBook, the iMac G4 and G5 and some of Intel iMacs, and, of course, the original iPod and its then-unique white earbuds. However, the introduction of the iPhone marked a shift toward aluminum. And while aluminum has always had a presence (notably in the PowerBook/MacBook Pro and PowerMac G5/Mac Pro), this presence has increased even more in recent years. Among the notable white-to-aluminum converts are the iPod classic, iPod nano and the iMac. So while white is doesn't exactly fit into the "we'll never back" category, it's definitely taken a back seat to aluminum. And while we're on the topic of colors, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that we probably won't ever see the return the rainbow Apple logo for branding purposes. Readers, tell us what you'd like for Apple to bring back.TUAWSome things we may not see again from Apple originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments iPhone - Apple - Steve Job - Microsoft - iTunes
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20 Years of Image Editing: Photoshop from 1.0 to CS4
From its humble beginnings on a grad student's Mac Plus to its complete photo-editing domination, Photoshop has changed the world in 20 short years. Photoshop is everywhere. And while fundamentally it is the standard professional-quality image editor, itâs also a cultural touchstone with a reach that extends to advertising, fashion magazines, television, film, and the news. Lighter versions like Photoshop Elements, Photoshop.com, and even Photoshop Mobile on the iPhone have distilled its power for the masses, and sites like PhotoshopDisasters.blogspot.com chronicle painful misuses for everyone to point at and giggle about. âPhotoshopâ the verb was even added to Websterâs dictionary in 1992.In such a Photoshop-saturated society, itâs easy to forget that the software hasnât been around forever. Since February 2010 marks the 20th anniversary of Photoshop 1.0, now is the perfect time to revisit everything from Adobeâs systematic dismantling of its competition to the way the software was used to make Katie Couric âlose weight.â Two Decades of Photoshop We give you every single Photoshop release, plus the effects of Adobe's software on its competition and our culture. 1987 Release: Thomas Knoll, a PhD student at the University of Michigan, creates a program called Display for his Mac Plus. It can display 256-shade grayscale images on a 1-bit black-and-white screen with dithering. 1988 Release: Display is renamed Photoshop, and the Knoll brothers (Thomas and John, an effects expert at Industrial Light & Magic [ILM]) license the first version to Barneyscan, a slide-scanner manufacturer. Approximately 200 copies of version 0.87 ship bundled with the scanners.Cultural: The first working version of Photoshop appears at Apple, and the era of Photoshop piracy begins as engineers pass it around amongst themselves and gape in awe. 1989 Release: John Knoll demos Photoshop for Adobe's primary art director Russell Brown and founder John Warnock. Adobe signs a distribution deal with the Knoll brothers. 1990 Release: Photoshop 1.0 ships. It requires an 8MHz processor and 2MB of RAM. The software fits on a single 3.5-inch floppy disk. Key features include color correction, image optimization for output, Curves, Levels, and the Clone tool.Cultural: Photoshop is used extensively at ILM during postproduction work on The Abyss. 1991 Cultural: ILM continues to use Photoshop to create digital composite shots for movies like The Rocketeer, Hook, and Terminator 2: Judgment Day.Release: Photoshop 2.0 (code-named Fast Eddy) ships with CMYK support, Duotones, the Path tool, and rasterization of Illustrator files. But the HSB and HSL color modes in 1.0 are gone.Cultural: John Knoll covertly releases a program to revert Adobe Photoshop's "eye" application icons back to the original "1HR Photo Shop" icon.Release: Adobe releases an SDK for third-party plug-in development. Later in the year, Aldus (developer of PageMaker) releases the Gallery Effects plug-in package. 1992 Release: Kai Krause releases Kai's Power Tools, a popular plug-in set for Photoshop featuring graphically rich (and often bewildering) visual interfaces. 1993 Release: Photoshop 2.5 (code-named Merlin) ships with 16-bit image support, palettes, Quick Mask, Dodge and Burn tools, and the Variations visual color-correction tool. This is the first Photoshop version available on Windows as well as Mac. 1994 Cultural: Time magazine runs a cover photo of O.J. Simpson that was photoshopped with very dark color correction, creating controversy over how African Americans are portrayed by the media.Release: Photoshop 3.0 (code-named Tiger Mountain) introduces image layers, often considered the most important feature ever added to the program.Release: Alien Skin Software delivers the first drop-shadow effect plugin for Photoshop.Competition: Adobe acquires Aldus, keeping PageMaker on life support by burying Windows-only image editor PhotoStyler.Competition: HSC Software introduces Live Picture, billed as a next-generation nondestructive image editor, for a whopping introductory price of $3,995. 1995 Competition: HSC Software lowers Live Picture price to $995 in one fell swoop, angering early adopters who paid full price.Competition: Quark introduces XPosure image-editing software at the Seybold Seminars in Boston. Developed in conjunction with Japanese electronics giant JVC, the product boasts a nondestructive filter featuring "lenses"... but it never ships. 1996 Release: Photoshop 4.0 (code-named Big Electric cat) ships with nondestructive adjustment layers, Actions, macros, grids, guides, the Free Transform tool, and a radically redesigned user interface. Photoshop 4.0 LE (Limited Edition) is bundled with a wide range of image scanners.Competition: Macromedia ships its xRes image editor, which also features nondestructive image editing. Although it soon became another footnote in image editing hisotry, you can still see a bit of its DNA in Adobe Fireworks. Next Page: Photoshop Timeline continued >> 1997 Competition: Former Apple CEO John Sculley becomes chairman of Live Picture and tries to salvage Live Picture technology for web applications. 1998 Release: Photoshop 5.0 (code-named Strange Cargo) ships. New features include the History palette and its multiple undos, editable type, layer effects (now called Styles), spot colors, ICC color management, and the Magnetic Lasso tool. CMYK files go to 64-bit (16 bits/channel). The new 3D Transform plug-in is the forerunner to the 3D menu in the current Extended version, and this is also the first Photoshop that supported integrated online updating.Competition: Live Picture is spotted selling in mail-order catalogs for under $100. 1999 Release: Adobe ImageReady 2 becomes part of Photoshop 5.5, allowing animated GIFs and sliced JPEG images. This release also adds the Extract command (for isolating images from their backgrounds), the Art History Brush, and Save For Web. 2000 Release: Photoshop 6.0 (code-named Venus in Furs) includes vector-based shapes, content layers (solid, gradient, and texture fills), Layer Styles, the Liquefy filter, a tool options bar, layer-based slicing for HTML work, and an extensive interface overhaul. 2001 --- 2002 Release: Photoshop 7.0 (code-named Liquid Sky) ships with the Healing Brush tool, a revamped brush engine, integrated image browser, custom workspaces, and even a spell checker. It's the last version that runs under OS 9.Release: Adobe releases the consumer-oriented Photoshop Elements package, which replaces the earlier LE versions of Photoshop that were bundled with many third-party scanners and digitizers. 2003 Release: Photoshop 7.0.1 update includes support for RAW image formats via the Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in.Release: Photoshop CS (code-named Dark Matter), included in all Adobe Creative Suite editions, has layer groups, the Shadow/Highlight and Match Color tools, text on a path, the Lens Blur filter, custom keyboard shortcuts, and JavaScript support. CS is the first version to require activation, have Standard and Extended versions, and a PDF manual.Cultural: Photoshop CS also includes code to automatically detect attempts to scan currency banknotes, fueling many conspiracy theories. 2004 --- 2005 Release: Photoshop CS2 (code-named Space Monkey) ships with Bridge (which replaces integrated Browser), Smart Objects, Spot Healing tool, Vanishing Point and Red retouching tools, HDR (high dynamic range; 32 bits per channel) merging abilities, and the Lens Correction filter. A rather significant but subtle addition to CS2 is the ability to select more than one layer at a time. 2006 Release: Adobe releases a public beta of Photoshop Lightroom, an image-management database aimed at professional photographers.Cultural: Newswire service Reuters is caught in a scandal when it's busted using Photoshop to enhance smoke plumes in an image of Beirut.Cultural: CBS's official photo of news anchor Katie Couric is photoshopped to shave a few too many pounds off her frame. 2007 Release: Photoshop Lightroom 1.0 ships.Release: Photoshop CS3 (code-named Red Pill) ships with native Intel processor support, Smart Filters, the ability to import and process video, significant interface revisions, the Black and White conversion tool, far more support for editing images with more than 8 bits/channel, and a seriously improved Clone tool. 2008 Release: Adobe launches the Flash-based Photoshop Express app on Photoshop.com, offering limited image-editing functionality and online storage.Cultural: Iran's state-run media agency releases a photo of a missile test, altered to add a fourth missile. (The third missile from the right is a clone of the second missile.)Release: Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 is released, adding 64-bit operation, multiple-monitor support, localized image corrections, and enhanced editing abilities.Release: Photoshop CS4 (code-named Stonehenge) ships with OpenGL acceleration, Content Aware Scaling, 64-bit support for Windows Vista (but not Mac!), improved RAW image processing, and auto layer-alignment tools. 2009 Release: Adobe makes Photoshop.com available for the iPhone as a free mobile edition, delivering limited image editing on the run.Release: Adobe launches a public beta of Lightroom 3.0, featuring better grain- and noise-management tools. 2010 Cultural: Photoshop turns 20! China is the traditional gift, but we'd prefer CS5. Next Page: The Evolution of Photoshop Splash Screens >> Making a Splash Weâre so used to seeing a splash screen every time we open Photoshop that we hardly pause to glance at it any more. But really, the wild, way-out splash screens on the beta versions of Photoshop over the years are a lot more eye-catching. Peep this gallery of the beta splash screens next to their official-release counterparts. (Click to enlarge) Version 2.5 Version 3.0 Version 4.0 Version 5.0 Version 6.0 Version 7.0 Version CS Version CS2 Version CS3 Version CS4 Next Page: Vintage Photoshop Toolbars >> Vintage Tools The photoshop toolbar has evolved over the years too--first to add more tools, then to streamline its appearance and take up less space. Next Page: Interview -- Photoshop Unmasked >> Photoshop Unmasked Two Adobe power players talk about Photoshop's birth, evolution, and future. Adobeâs Senior Creative Director Russell Brown and VP of Product Management for Professional Digital Imaging Kevin Connor are two of the brightest stars in the Photoshop galaxyâtheyâve rung up 38 years of Adobe experience between them. Brown even won an Emmy in 2008 for his Dr. Brownâs Photoshop Laboratory show on tv.adobe.com. We probed their giant, Photoshop-filled brains with these chin-scratching questions⊠Mac|Life: What are your first memories of seeing Photoshop?Russell Brown: My first viewing of it was when John Knoll gave me a demo in 1989. I recall that he created a soft-edge selection mask and painted into it with a soft-edge brush. Wow! This was downright amazing. Nothing like it was possible on the Macintosh or PC at the time. Technology like this was only available on high-end prepress systems. I knew that what I was seeing was a serious new tool that was going to change my life.Kevin Connor: Prior to joining Adobe, I was working at a small startup company. We had one copy of Photoshop installed on one of the Macs in the office, and I remember stepping through the menus and tools just to see what they could do. It was probably version 2.5. I also remember a freelance designer we worked with at the time marveling at all that could be accomplished by manipulating color channels. Mac|Life: Russell, is there a specific Photoshop feature that you can't live without?RB: That would most definitely have to be layers. Nothing can replace layers. Iâm sure that about 90 percent of our users might say the same thing. Mac|Life: Kevin, how do you see Photoshop evolving over the course of the next decade?KC: A number of trends will influence that. From a technology standpoint, the big trend is computational photography. Increasingly, software algorithms are being used to derive photographs that could not be directly captured using traditional optics and sensors. Today, this technology can give us seamless panorama photos or wide-angle shots with no distortion, but in the future, it may even give us the ability to manipulate a photograph in three dimensions, adjusting vantage point and focus after the capture. Ultimately, it can also lead to software that is smarter about understanding the contents of a photo and can manipulate it as more than just a collection of pixels.Another trend that will affect Photoshopâs future is the distribution of workflows across the web and mobile devices. It may not make sense to move all of Photoshop into a web-based application, but certain things may be done better on the web or on the road, and products will start to blur the line between the desktop, the web, and other devices. As we manage these big changes, we also need to continue to evolve the Photoshop interface so that these new capabilities can fit in naturally, while older capabilities can be refreshed and improved. Of course, itâs hard to say yet precisely what youâll see in five years or 10 years, but these are things weâre already working on today that we expect to influence the product for some time to come. Mac|Life: Russell, any particular online Photoshop resources you'd recommend to our readers?RB: Definitely. In fact, here's a list of my favorite websites for Photoshop information:>> blogs.adobe.com/jnack/>> www.photoshopuser.com/psuser.htm>> www.mogo-media.com/welcome-pst.php>> www.photoshopnews.com>> www.lynda.com>> www.russellbrown.com Mac|Life: Do you think there will ever be a viable competitor to Photoshop?KC: Thereâs always competition, but if we do our jobs right, people just donât notice! Iâm being a little facetious, but my point is that Photoshop is a very big target, and companies both big and small have continuously taken aim at it. They just havenât generally been successful.
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Customize Your Home with Your Mac
You already use your computer to make your own music, edit your own photos, and create your own movies--so why pay someone else to decorate your home? Your Mac is the perfect tool for giving your interior space a dash of 21st-century modernism. Follow along and we'll show you how.Photography by Mark Madeo Iâm not a thrifty man by nature, but after cobbling together enough money to buy my first single-family home, I wasnât about to take out a second mortgage just to get the place decorated. In fact, the very concept of hiring an interior designer or color consultant strikes me as frivolous on an intestinal level. Color theory and design inspiration is free online, and at the end of the day, what looks right is right--because perfection in home decor is in the eye of the beholder. That last thing I need is some woman named Astrid telling me my walls would look better in âButter CrĂšme.âBut that isnât to say that even I, in all my brazen hubris, couldnât do a better job with the help of my MacBook Pro. If the Mac can help me in other creative pursuits, why not put it to use in snazzing up Casa Philippe? I did my research, put in a bunch of nights at the keyboard, and came up with an interior design that suits me just perfectly. And now Iâm going to show you how you can do the same for your own home.First weâll look at how you can use Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to make informed color decisions--by painting Pantone swatches directly on your walls. Next, weâll explore photography. Iâll explain how inkjet technology can turn your shots into art prints and how to use photos to inspire digital illustration. From there, weâll run through my favorite iPhone apps and websites that can streamline, enhance, and inform your design process. Finally, we end our tour with a look at Mac-oriented tchotkes and accessories that are interior-design elements all on their own. So even if you donât want to use your Mac to create a living space with all the bold, iconographic simplicity that Apple is known for, you can still buy your way into Appleâs 21st-century modern aesthetic. Painting in Pantone Color You donât have to be a print designer to play with Pantone colors--and weâre not just talking about leafing through those swatch books for kicks and giggles. Pantoneâs Fashion+Home library contains 1,925 vibrant colors, and every color is available in different exterior and interior paints from Fine Paints of Europe (FPE). Whether youâre color-matching your walls to Pantone-specâd furniture or simply using the Pantone system to make informed color choices, your final results will have the designy flair that richly pigmented Pantone reproduction is known for. The paint from FPE--imported from Holland--is relatively expensive, but as my independent painting contractor said, âYou get what you pay for.â Completely unprompted, he said FPE paint lasts longer, requires fewer coats, and is probably the best paint available.To choose your Pantone paint, you can finger-swipe through the myPantone app (see page 4) or peruse a printed Fashion+Home swatch collection for absolute color accuracy. You can also create a close approximation of how your colors will look in (or on) your actual home by âpaintingâ them onto your walls using the Color Replacement Tool in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. This tool lets you reskin a surface, all while retaining the shadows and highlights of your original photo content. Hereâs how to do it:>> Load the Pantone swatches from Pantoneâs Fashion+Home Digital Color Library CD (it retails for $50 MSRP).>> Load a photo of your interior into Photoshop or Elements, and use the Polygonal Lasso Tool to define an area of your walls that you want to paint over. In Image A, my âbeforeâ photo, Iâve lassoed over the middle sawtooth wall panel. Creating a lassoed selection isnât absolutely necessary, but helps in confining your paint strokes to a specific area. Image A - Notice how the glass blocks shine natural light that's reflected on the walls. These highlights will be preserved by Photoshop's Color Replacement tool. >> Now choose a Pantone color from your Swatches palette, select the Color Replacement Tool, and begin painting the wall within your selected area. Create a new lassoed selection for every portion of wall you want to cover--itâs like using digital painters tape that keeps your brush strokes off of areas that shouldnât be painted.>> To paint on unadorned walls that arenât covered by any objects or obscured by furniture, I choose the largest brush diameter possible with the following tool settings: Mode: Color; Sampling: Continuous; Limits: Contiguous; Tolerance: 100%. Then I tap a single time inside the selected area, and the entire area becomes Pantonified.>> To paint in areas covered by other objects (like the sawtooth wall panel behind the tripod lamp in Image B), I use these settings: Mode: Color; Sampling: Continuous; Limits: Find Edges; Tolerance: 15%. With these settings and a small-diameter brush (about the size of the one pictured over the antique scale), you can paint between objects quite effectively, rarely painting over framed photos, furniture legs, or anything else that should remain unpainted. This process allows you to retain your original shadows and highlights--note the tripod shadow on the left sawtooth wall panel and the light shining through the glass blocks at the top of the middle panel. Image B - The Color Replacement tool does a very good job in automatically replacing only the color you've identified for substitution. Still, when painting over a wall with lots of objects on it, it helps to use a small brush diameter to prevent "paint" from going in the wrong places.Be aware that unless your monitor is perfectly calibrated, it wonât display the Pantone swatches with absolute accuracy. Also, it helps to use photos shot in flat lighting in order to reduce hot spots and reflections (in Image B, you can see how the white picture frames picked up a yellow cast from the original wall paint). Regardless, my Photoshop color replacement process, used in conjunction with real-world Pantone swatches, will give you a fantastic head start in making color choices.In Image C you can see my final color decisions. From left to right, I used 13-0002 (White Sand), 16-1406 (Atmosphere), 17-1506 (Cinder), 18-1306 (Iron) and 18-1434 (Etruscan Red). The hallway is also painted White Sand. The codes of my colors actually bear strong relevance to one another, and knowing the coding system can help you make color choices.Image C - Understanding Pantone's numerical codes helped me quickly choose warm gray tones based on reddish hues. The codes helped me choose three grays--Atmosphere, Cinder, and Iron--that would create a perfect graduated grayscale-branding effect.The two numbers before the hyphen refer to a colorâs relative lightness on a scale from 11 (lightest) to 19 (darkest). The second pair of numbers specify different hues on a 64-step color wheel; 01 is yellow-green, 64 is green-yellow, and all the other colors of the rainbow are represented in between. The third pair of numbers represent the colorâs chroma level--the intensity and saturation of the hue itself. The chroma scale is divided into 65 steps, with 00 being neutral and 64 being maximum saturation.Using Pantoneâs system, I was able to make some informed decisions on paint. Notice that Iron and Etruscan Red, the two colors separated by my hallway entrance, share nearly the same code--only the saturation levels of their chroma differ dramatically. Also notice that the hues of my four main accent colors range from 13 to 15, putting each one squarely in the red portion of the color wheel. Finally, I deliberately chose one-step lightness increments for my sawtooth wall panels, creating a very graphic-designy grayscale-banding effect.Thereâs a method to Pantoneâs numbering madness! So learn the system, and your paint choices will develop quickly and elegantly. The Pantone System Next Page: Fun with Photos >>Fun with Photos: Go Big, Go Historic, Go Pop Now that you have paint on your walls, itâs time to put down a third layer--in the form of dazzling art photography. Fine-art photo printing is within the reach of most consumer-grade inkjet photo printers, and it becomes absolutely spectacular when done by those printersâ professional-grade cousins. The key to art photography is, of course, your photoâs contents. Your shot of the Brooklyn Bridge in twilight is artsy; the photo of cousin Jerry holding his Budweiser up to the camera is not. In a previous Maclife.com article, we delved into the secrets to great shooting and photo editing, but here weâll focus on print media, which can unlock a photoâs final degree of finesse. For this article, I used Epson media, but Canon offers a comparable lineup in the prosumer desktop space. Image A - Printed on canvas, this 3-foot giclĂ©e print of a Mark Madeo photograph has tricked a lot of people into thinking it's a photorealistic painting in the style of Richard Estes and Ralph Goings.First off, throw glossy paper out the door. For most images, youâll want to be printing on softer, nonreflective matte paper and even stretchable canvas. Lately, Iâve been using the Epson R2880 printer, which supports the full range of Epsonâs fine art media in sheets up to 13 by 19 inches and rolls sized 13 inches by 20 feet. On the âlowâ end of Epsonâs lineup, I like Ultra Premium Presentation Paper Matte and Watercolor Paper Radiant White. The first one is bright white with a flat matte finish, providing great highlight and shadow detail without any reflections. I love it for black-and-white prints produced in the R2880âs special Advanced B&W Photo mode. The second option (despite its name) isnât quite as radiantly white, but it has a textured surface that imbues your photo with a more artistic, painterly appearance.On the ultra high end, you can opt for Epsonâs Velvet Fine Art Paper, which is 100 percent cotton rag, features a luxurious textured grain, and purports to offer the densest blacks of any cotton-based inkjet paper around. This is beautiful media, and I have found its blacks to be superior as advertised, so donât hide it behind a piece of glass unless longevity is a big concern. Finally, you might consider Premium Canvas Matte, a polyester/cotton blend with a pronounced woven texture. Because it can be stretched on wooden frames and has exactly the same canvas grain youâd see on hand-brushed paintings, this material is ideal for not just photos but also giclĂ©e prints of digital illustrations and painting reproductions (âgiclĂ©eâ is just a fancy term for inkjet-based fine-art printing).Image B - These three prints represent just a fraction of the wonderful (and insanely high-res) images I've downloaded from the Library of Congress. Once you start sifting through the archives, you won't be able to stop.The R2880 supports Premium Canvas Matte, but with a maximum roll width of 13 inches, you canât output anything of breathtaking size. You can, however, send your digital files to a production house that has one of Epsonâs (or Canonâs) wide-format inkjet printers. The photo you see in Image A (a piece by Mac|Life staff photographer Mark Madeo) was printed on the Epson Stylus Pro 9880, which supports media of widths up to 44 inches. Markâs photo is 36x24 inches wide, and a piece this size--printed and stretched on a wooden frame--would run you about $220. This isnât inexpensive, but the results are spectacular and elevate your photography hobby--and home decor--to a new level. For more info on pricing and how to prepare your digital files, check out www.photoworkssf.com.Image C - Unlike photographic images, vector-based art files are very, very small. The 54x36-inch print you see here was generated from a 1MB file--and could have been blown up to the size of a building if I had the printer to do that.If 13x19-inch prints suit you fine, a printer like the Epson R2880 or Canon Pro9500 Mark II is all you need to create wall-ready, museum-quality artwork at home. There are various ways to mount and display your prints, but one of the easiest (and most durable) methods is to use preassembled, UV-protected glass frames. All the photos shown in Image B were downloaded from the Library of Congress website (see page 3) and mounted in Artcare âarchival protection systemsâ (www.nielsen-bainbridge.com). These framing kits include 4-ply, precut beveled mats and UV-protected glass and come in a wide variety of sizes supporting print areas up to 10.5 by 13.5 inches. If you canât find prefab frames in the right sizes or donât want frames at all, you can mount your images on acid-free foam core with 3M Photo Mount spray, which is also acid free. Finish off these projects (especially canvas prints) with a protective spray like PremierArt Print Shield to protect against UV rays and scuffs.Image D - For a thorough explanation of using Illustrator's Pen tool, go to Youtube.com/watch?v=5DzpT8POAME.If you want to take your photography into another dimension entirely, you can use it as the source material for digital illustration. The Roy Lichtensteinâstyle pieces shown on page 32 and in Image C were created by tracing over photos of my living room using the Pen tool in Adobe Illustrator. After outlining all key elements using BĂ©zier curves (Image D), finishing the drawing is a simple matter of filling objects with solid colors, slanted lines, and Ben-Day dots, which can be found in Illustratorâs Swatch library under Patterns > Basic Graphics. I went the pop art Lichtenstein route, but remember that any digital illustration can be printed on fine-art media, and vector-based line art reproduces particularly well. And if you use Premium Canvas Matte, you can even paint directly on top of your inkjet prints with acrylics to create a mixed-media masterpiece (Image E).Image E - If you want to paint in colors yourself, make sure to use Canvas Matte, not Canvas Satin. (NOTE: That's Flo's hand--not Jon's!) Next Page: Design Online >>Design Online: Linking Your Way to a Stylish Home 18 websites for incredible high-res photos, supercool interior products, and daily design inspiration. Photography Your tax dollars help pay for maintaining the amazing bank of photo archives at the Library of Congress (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html), so consider making a few withdrawals. Many (if not most) of the photos in our national archive can be freely downloaded and printed out for display in your home. Just look for restrictions, if any, under âRights Informationâ in each photoâs bibliographic details. Youâll find B&W shots of cityscapes, rural life, historical figures, and other photographic expressions of the American experience. Many images are huge high-res TIFF files ranging from 20 to 150MB, and some date back to the very earliest days of photography--like the 1851 panoramic photo of San Francisco Bay shown here.(click to enlarge) This 10MB TIFF from the Library of Congress is one of the archive's smaller files.To get a clear idea of the archiveâs best material, go to Shorpy.com, a vintage photography blog that seems to pull its finest entries from the Library of Congress. Also check out Stockvault.net and Morguefile.com, which keep searchable archives of modern high-res photography that can be used for personal, noncommercial use. Much of the material is quite wall-worthy. Products A storefront for some 800 antique and mid-century modern dealers, 1stdibs.com will blow your mind with its range of furniture, lighting, artwork, and curios. Itâs the first place to look if you need a George Nakashima end table, a Cold Warâera naval searchlight, or a circa-1920s beekeeperâs helmet. Prices on 1stdibs run quite steep, so if youâre looking for mid-century industrial chic at relatively affordable prices, go to AmericanFurnishings.com, which is where I picked up my antique red metal shop wheelbarrow (illustrated on the previous page). For much more contemporary (and Mac-y) design elements, check out the thoroughly groovy-modern Nova68.com, as well as lighting from Lumens.com and Ylighting.com.Captivating art or antique beekeeper's helmet? It's both, courtesy of Radio Guy, which sells its curios via 1stdibs.com. Daily Inspiration The web is lousy with blog-style sites that showcase slick interiors, hip new products, and one-of-a-kind curios. Hereâs a list of my favorites in alphabetical order:Apartmenttherapy.com: Aesthetic is thoroughly hip with a slant toward affordable and modern. Includes a technology section.ApartmentTherapy.com brought Matthew Borgatti's cosmonaut lamp to the attention of the hipster masses.Betterlivingthroughdesign.com: Lots of blogs showcase cool decor elements, but this one organizes better than most. Love the dropdown menus.Design-milk.com: Extends its savvy design eye from architecture to art to interiors to technology. Lots of cool stuff here.Dezeen.com: A bold, simple architecture and interiors blog with a well-trained eye for cool.Inhabitat.com: Neato architecture and products geared toward environmentally friendly lifestyles.Mocoloco.com: Confusing page interface, but whoever runs this blog has an eye for incredibly unique architecture, interiors, lighting, furniture, and more.If not for Mocoloco.com, we never would have discovered the decidedly Apple-like Andrea Air Purifier.Remodelista.com: The bloggers have a sophisticated eye for classic modernism. Nothing too wild here. They find stuff that would actually work in most homes.Trendir.com: New home products galore. Focuses on stuff you can buy and leaves all the art and architecture posts for the other blogs.Yankodesign.com: With the tagline âForm Beyond Function,â the folks at Yanko showcase some of the most modern, futuristic interiors and lifestyle products youâll ever find. A very slick and well-executed design site. Next Page: Pocket-Size Design Consultants >>Pocket-Size Design Consultants Six iPhone apps succeed in the world of design--but two Mac applications fail. When I began my research in Mac-assisted home design, I fully expected to review two applications that claim to help one quickly and easily create 3D models of home interiors--rooms, surface materials, furniture and all. But after three vexing hours spent with Microspot Interiors and Punch Home & Landscape Design Studio, I decided it would be a poor use of magazine pages to review either package. Both applications are extremely frustrating to use, particularly Home & Landscape Design Studio, which has an awful, non-intuitive interface (and Iâm someone who jumped right into Adobe Illustrator, an application that leaves many confused).If youâre already comfortable with 3D modeling software, these interior design apps might have something to offer. But if youâre looking for a genuinely easy-to-use room layout program, consider Home Interior Layout Designer, detailed below. Itâs one of six iPhone apps that has something worthwhile to offer the DIY decorator. Colorsnap This free app lets you grab an iPhone photo, extract color info from any portion of it and then find the closest Sherwin-Williams paint match, along with two complementary colors. Sadly, you canât see the full swatch collection in one fell swoop, but if youâre committed to the paints offered by Messrs. Sherwin and Williams, this app is an invaluable tool. Ben Color Capture Benjamin Mooreâs free app includes color extraction tools that trump Sherwin-Williamsâ, and you can also swipe your finger across a color wheel to view the full Benjamin Moore swatch collection. Pick a swatch to see harmony groupings and graded saturations of the color youâve chosen. Itâs a must-download pocket partner for anyone investing in Benjie Moore color. myPantone Pantoneâs app costs $9.99, but you get nine virtual Pantone swatch collections, nifty color-extraction tools, and the largest selection of color-harmony options weâve seen on the iPhone. The Fashion+Home collection maps directly to Pantone wall paint colors, and I used the app to email my final palette (see page 35, Image C EDIT THIS LINK) to friends. Search Maclife.com for âmyPantoneâ to read the full review. mySurface Message to all major paint, tile, countertop and window covering manufacturers: Distribute a free app that lets prospective customers quickly peel through your catalog. With mySurface, Dupont does just that for its Corian and Zodiaq lines of kitchen and bath countertops. Search via a color slider, tap a swatch for a larger image, then call an 800 number for a sample. Home Interior Layout Designer This $2.99 app may not let you design in 3D, but itâs easy to use, and provides most everything youâll need for deciding âwhat goes whereâ in an empty room. Just define your room size and shape, and then begin tapping to add furniture, appliances, and architectural elements from various menus. Includes nifty measuring tools for accurate room planning. Weâll do a full review in a future issue. Art Envi Deluxe This $3.99 app turns your iPhone into a handheld art gallery, helping you decide which reprints of timeless classics might look best in your home. Browse by periods or by specific artists in alphabetical order, then create a thumbnail gallery of their pieces. Works can be viewed individually or in slideshows. Includes biographical info, and images can be saved to your Camera Roll! Geek Chic When it's time to accessorize your home, think different with Mac-inspired decor and high-tech, high-style iPod docks.A. These iSteam Mac and iSteam iPhone posters ($15, www.isteammac.com) by artist Kevin Tong are inspired by Leonardo da Vinciâs drawings and HG Wellsâstyle steampunk. Also available as T-shirts! B. Graphic artist Susan Kare designed icons and interface elements for the early Macintosh, as well as these removable wall graphics from LTL Prints ($39.95 and up, www.ltlprints.com).C. The Icon Collection of pillows by Throwboy ($29 each, $149 for the set of six, www.throwboy.com) includes handcrafted, fleece pillows shaped like the icons for Photo Booth, the Finder, Dashboard, iChat, iTunes, and iPhoto (not pictured).D. These handmade fleece pillows by MySuiteStuff ($15 each, $80 for six, $130 for 10, www.mysuitestuff.com) are right out of an art directorâs Creative Suite dreams.E. Rothâs Music Cocoon MC4 tube amp (ÂŁ395, $629 at press time, www.rothaudio.co.uk) warms the sound from your iPod, iPhone, CD player, or other device, and looks good doing it. Just BYO speakers. F. The limited-edition Pantone Flight Stools ($549, www.pantone.com) were designed and made by London design team Barber Osgerby.G. The Multipot ($199, www.multipot.com/en/) is a multiuse charging station and lamp. You can plug up to five devices into sockets under the lid, and the cords are neatly hidden by the pot. H. Rotalianaâs Diva lamp (360 Euros, $515 at press time, www.rotaliana.it/en/) has an extendible iPod dock, a pop-up arm with LED lamp, built-in speakers, FM radio, audio inputs, and a remote.
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50 Killer Mac Apps For Under $50
Who doesn't need more for less? We present 50 Mac|Life-approved applications--many free, all under $50--that'll guarantee you get the most from your Mac without traumatizing your wallet. The Internet is full of noise--countless different applications for every occasion, with reviews everywhere that love and hate them at the same time. While thatâs hardly news, itâs still a hassle that isnât going away. Say you picked up a spiffy new MacBook Pro, and itâs time to kit it out with the leanest, meanest software. After all, Macs have that rich history of garage-roots development, of a few folks in a basement brewing up quality software that smokes the big-name stuff. So youâve got a feeling thereâs great, affordable software just waiting for you to find it--and youâre right. But how do you sift through the zillion calendar apps and jillion media players to find the gems worthy of your hard drive space? And more importantly, your time and money?Weâre here to help with a compendium of essential software. It didnât come easily--we debated, argued, haggled, and even pleaded to secure a prized position on this list for our favorite, most useful applications. But by limiting the software weâre highlighting to 50, weâve guaranteed you the best of the best--no Internet spew here. And by capping the cost of the software weâve selected at $50, weâve made sure you can reasonably buy what you need. You may love your Mac already, but youâre not gonna believe how much it can do once you load up even a few of these choice applications. Entertainment Sure, iPods and iTunes make music and movies easier to enjoy, but they're not without headaches of their own. That's where these awesome apps come in. They take the pain out of kicking back with your favorite flicks and tunes. Simplify Media Share & stream your iTunes library over the Internet.The iPod has made several portable music formats obsolete, and we sure donât miss schlepping around fragile cassette tapes or heavy wallets full of CDs. But even the mighty iPod has its limits--namely capacity. Thatâs where Simplify Media (free, Simplify Media, simplifymedia.com) comes in handy. It guarantees that the size of your music library doesnât matter by letting you stream music between computers via the Internet. Yup, this app will play your entire library on any computer (as long as the one that has your library is powered up and online).Stream your tunes from home or the next cube.Once installed, a simple login fires up your music. Simplify Media works with iTunes just like the built-in LAN sharing does, and the remote libraries appear under Shared, alongside any local shared libraries. Even better, you can add up to 30 friendsâ shared libraries, and an iPhone app ($5.99) lets you pipe your music to your iPhone or iPod touch. SuperSync SuperSync keeps multiple iTunes collections in sync. Speaking of iTunes libraries--streaming is great, but what if you want to sync libraries across multiple Macs? SuperSync ($22, SuperSync, supersync.com) makes it so. Sure, Apple introduced limited music-transfer capabilities with Home Sharing in iTunes 9, but that feature requires computers to be on the same local network. SuperSync one-ups iTunes by syncing iTunes libraries over the Internet. Itâs perfect for anyone who uses multiple Macs, and SuperSync also has a bunch of other tricked-out features. In deference to the record companies, Apple makes transferring music from an iPod to a computer unnecessarily difficult. SuperSync handles the task with ease, making it a bacon-saver when the hard drive in your Mac kicks the bucket. SuperSync will even allow you to sync libraries cross-platform.SuperSync's color-coded interface helps you synchronize your iTunes tracks across multiple Macs. VLC Media Player Never worry about video file types again. If most of your Mac video-watching happens in the form of DVDs or QuickTime movies, you probably donât think too much about player software. But move beyond the most basic video types, and youâre asking for trouble. With the myriad formats, containers, and encoding parameters available, the simple act of playing back a cat video can become incredibly frustrating. VLC Media Player (free, VideoLAN, www.videolan.org) is like a Swiss Army knife for digital media. Itâs open source and cross-platform, and the app will play back practically any audio or video file you throw at it. VLC also handles file conversions with ease, so you can use it to convert audio and video for use online or on portable devices.It plays, it converts, it makes toast (okay, maybe not that last one.) RipIt Backup & convert DVDs with RipIt.There are plenty of legit reasons to rip a DVD. Backup copies of kidsâ movies for the minivan, watching Glee on your iPod touch while youâre on the bus, or even just saving battery power on your laptop (playing back a file from a hard drive is much more efficient than spinning a DVD).RipIt's simple interface makes ripping DVDs seamless and easy.Once the domain of ĂŒbernerds, DVD ripping is a one-click affair thanks to RipIt ($19.95, The Little App Factory, ripitapp.com). And since it makes full rips, all of the menus, bonus features, and subtitles remain intact. You can play back the resulting files with DVD Player on your Mac or use a freeware tool like Handbrake to convert your rips into iPod-friendly formats. Delicious Library We love the iTunes Store, but we still end up accumulating books, DVDs, console games, and, yes, even CDs. Delicious Library ($40, Delicious Monster Software, www.delicious-monster.com) helps catalog your collections by--get this--taking snaps of UPCs via your webcam and then automatically organizing your meatspace content onto virtual shelves for easy sorting and browsing. You can track loans to friends, post items for sale on Amazon, and publish Web catalogs formatted for your iPhone. That way, you can avoid buying another copy of John Hodgmanâs More Information Than You Require. Connect360 Weâre Apple-faithful, but that doesnât stop us from engaging in a little Modern Warfare 2 on our Xbox 360. And since the 360 is much more than a simple gaming machine, we also use it to stream iTunes tracks to our entertainment center and view pictures from our iPhoto library on our HDTV--with the help of Connect360 ($20, Nullriver Inc, www.nullriver.com), that is. It works over wired or wireless networks, and it even streams H.264 video straight from our MacBook. Sweet! Peel Pack rats, beware: Peel ($14.95, Hjalti Jakobsson, www.getpeel.com) can get really overwhelming, really fast. But if youâre an avid follower of music blogs, Peel can automagically grab new tracks as theyâre posted. So forget all that pesky right-clicking and manually adding to iTunes. Just feed Peel a list of your favorite music blogs, and then kick back as tons of new, free tunes get downloaded straight to your Mac. You may never have to buy (or pirate) music again. CoverScout Cover Flow is one of those features that looks great in a demo but doesnât quite translate at home. iTunes can attempt to find the album art that makes Cover Flow actually useful, but itâs limited in scope and canât make fuzzy matches. CoverScout ($39.95, equinox USA, www.equinux.com) scours the Internet to find your missing album art and presents you with multiple options to let you choose the best images. Donât Cover Flow without it. TuneUp For all of those untitled and mistitled tracks in your music library, thereâs TuneUp ($19.95/one year, $29.95/lifetime; TuneUp Media; www.tuneupmedia.com). Like CoverScout, TuneUp can find and download missing album art, but its best trick is cleaning up your ID3 tags--the artist, title, and album info displayed in iTunes. A quick search is all it takes to clear up all those Track 1s and Unknown Artists in your library. It sure beats cleaning up metadata by hand. Next Page: Productivity Apps >> Productivity Takin' care of business, every day. Takin' care of business, every way. Workin' on a Mac, it's all right. This productivity software is workin' overtime. WriteRoom Blocks distractions so you can write in peace.Proving the tired adage that âless is more,â WriteRoom ($24.95, Hog Bay Software, www.hogbaysoftware.com) is a light text editor with a full-screen mode. Start a new document, and everything else fades away--your Dock, your menubar, and other windows on your Desktop. Youâre left with a black screen and friendly green text for a clutter- and distraction-free experience. The Escape key toggles between full-screen mode and windowed mode, which resembles TextEdit with a live word count.WriteRoom can save your work as plain text, rich text, or Microsoft Wordâs .doc format. The preferences offer tons of customization: auto-save, character counts, the appearance of text in full-screen mode, and more. But WriteRoomâs real magic is how it gets out of your way and lets you focus on what youâre doing. BusyCal One calendar application to rule them all.BusyCal ($40, BusyMac, www.busymac.com) is iCal on steroids. It dances circles around iCal, chanting, âEverything you can do, I can do better.â And itâs right. Sharing is a snap: You can set up two-way syncing with your Google Calendar or with other BusyCal calendars on your local network or the wide-open Internet. But even aside from sharing, BusyCal offers tons of calendaring bells and whistles: customizable views, sticky notes, weather forecasts, moon phases, graphical icons, a to-do list, notes, tags, and much more. And since it uses the Sync Services built into Mac OS X, your BusyCal calendars can sync with MobileMe and your iPhone. You can even switch back to iCal anytime without losing any of the events or to-dos you entered in BusyCal.So what if iCal is free? BusyCal is better. Things Flexible to-do list syncs with iCal and the iPhone. For busy people like us, a good to-do list is beyond essential. But some that weâve tried are so complicated that just managing your tasks becomes a chore in itself. So the light, easy-to-understand Things ($49.95, Cultured Code, www.culturedcode.com) is a breath of fresh air. You can go the full Getting Things Done route, adding contexts, priority levels, a tickler file, and so on. Or you can keep it simple, with one-off and repeating tasks and multistep projects. iCal syncing can get your deadlines on your calendar, and Things on the Mac can sync wirelessly with Things on the iPhone ($9.99 in the App Store). Weâve tried multiple task-managment systems, from Web-based ToodleDo to iPhone apps like ToDo to Mailâs built-in To-Do list to good old paper and pencil. Things is the cream of the crop for its good looks, quick entry, and easy syncing.Things uses tags to organize your projects in a million ways--or you can ignore the tags altogether and just work. Express Scribe Transcriptions made easy... well, easier.Transcribing an interview, lecture, or other recording is hard enough, just with the listening and typing. Toss in the extra arm movement as you frantically click from your text editor to your audio-playback application every time you want to pause the recording or rewind a few seconds, and your transcribing job just got tougher and more frustrating. Express Scribe (free, NCH Software, www.nch.com.au/scribe) lets you set system-wide hotkeys for audio playback so you can stay in your text editor, fully control the audio, and never need to reach for your mouse.Express Scribe can also slow down your audio without changing the pitch, supports video, works with lots of file types, loads recordings from analog or digital audio recorders, and more. Plus, itâs completely free. Wahoo! NoteBook The Mac is silly with note-taking applications (Evernote, Yojimbo, ShoveBox, MacJournalâŠshall we go on?), but Circus Poniesâ NoteBook ($49.95, Circus Ponies, www.circusponies.com) is a standout. If you subscribe to âa place for everything, and everything in its place,â NoteBook can be the place for notes, Web clippings, bookmarks, documents, voice memos, photos, and more. It struts its flexibility with ready-made templates for planning a trip, writing a research paper, collecting recipes, keeping a journal, and so on, while its fun spiral-notebook interface is a nice touch. TextExpander A thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters could produce Hamlet a lot faster if they knew how to use TextExpander ($29.95, SmileOnMyMac, www.smileonmymac.com). This wonder app installs as a System Preferences pane and lets you define shortcuts for your most commonly used words and phrases. Abbreviate long URLs, your email signoff, even your own photo or scanned signature file. Then as you type those shortcuts, theyâre automagically expanded to what you really wanted to say. Brilliant. iFinance 3 Sure, Quicken is popular and Mint.com is free, but iFinance 3 ($29, Synium Software GmbH, www.synium.de) was built from the ground up just for Macs, and it shows. The intuitive interface makes it a cinch--dare we say a pleasure?--to track your accounts, keep an eye on your cash flow, set up a budget, and graph your expenses. It can also import from CSV and QIF files for easier data entry. Plus, a companion iPhone app lets you enter transactions on the go. FlexTime This charming timer app ($18.95, Red Sweater Software, www.red-sweater.com) lets you set up multistep routines that run once or repeat ad nauseam. Each step can be marked by a sound, spoken text, or even running a script. Once your routine is perfect, you can export the audio to iTunes--great for following a recipeâs carefully timed steps or taking your favorite yoga routines on the road. DEVONthink Personal Another great catch-all for storing, sorting, organizing, and searching information, DEVONthink ($49.95, DEVONtechnologies, www.devon-technologies.com) can take almost anything you can throw at it. Documents, PDFs, photos, multimedia files, bookmarks, webpages, iChat logs--all of those can be imported, sorted, and read right in DEVONthink. Searching is easy, and you can cobble together a brand-new document from items in your DEVONthink database and export it to your favorite text editor for printing or as HTML for posting. Next Page: Internet Apps >> Internet It's a wild place, that Interweb, so there's nothing like a few primo apps to tame everything from blogging to FTPs to Twitter and Flash banners. Transmit Traveling the two-lane FTP highway.FTP has been around forever. Social networking and cloud computing may come and go, but FTP is in it for the long hall. Fortunately, there are a wealth of great FTP clients for the Mac, and the best of those is Transmit ($29.95, Panic, www.panic.com/transmit). The client utilizes a split directory window that shows the path on your computer and the path on the FTP site. With in-app search and the ability to sync folders on your Mac and on the FTP site, Transmit helps alleviate the search and drag-and-drop blues of other clients. The sync feature is especially helpful for Web developers and designers. You can even create desktop droplets for quick uploads to heavily used sites.Two-window FTP FTW. Mac-Journal Web-based apps suck.Blogging about your life is a faux pas. Blogging about anything else that people actually care about is the proper way of utilizing of the blogging systems available out there. The ongoing problem is that most blogging platforms are bit of a pain to use because theyâre Web-based. Plus, if youâre somewhere without Internet access, you canât start laying out your blog posts for your site. MacJournal ($39.95, Mariner Software, www.marinersoftware.com) solves that problem with an easy-to-use multiplatform blogging client. Lay out your articles offline with images, video, and audio, then save them for later posting. The app includes the ability to both write in full-screen mode so you wonât be interrupted by your Twitter friends, and to record an audio podcast in the client.Create blog posts quickly and without browser issues. Tweetie Multi-account Twitter action.After wowing the world with its iPhone Twitter app, atebits decided to release a desktop version of Tweetie ($19.95, atebits, www.atebits.com/tweetie-mac/). The app can handle multiple Twitter accounts, compose tweets in a separate window, allow you to change the account youâre sending a tweet from on the fly, and let you drag and drop pics and videos right into the Compose window. Donât have the perfect media on your Mac for a tweet? Record a video or shoot a pic from your iSight camera directly in Tweetie. And since Twitter conversations can be difficult to follow, Tweetie displays the conversation youâre having in a timeline if you just double-click one of the pertinent tweets. The Tweetie bookmarklet in Safari also allows you to share links quickly from your browser.Have an actual conversation on Twitter with Tweetie. Dropbox Stop, drop, and roll on home.Transferring large files can be a huge pain. Where the hell did you leave that thumb drive? External hard drives leave an unsightly bulge in your pocket, and all those cables are always getting tangled in your shoes. Thatâs a safety hazard, son. Dropbox (2GB storage for free, 50GB for $9.99/month; Dropbox; www.dropbox.com) is a cloud-based storage drive that you can access from any computer or iPhone. Just pop files into the Dropbox folder on your Mac, and it automatically syncs up with the online disk (which you can view on Dropboxâs website) and with any other machines you have the application installed on. You can even share folders and files with other Dropbox users. If the free 2GB box doesnât cut it, you can upgrade to 50GB for $10 a month.Access your files from anywhere in the universe (with an Internet connection). LogMeIn If you need to remotely access a Mac or (gasp) a PC with Windows on it, LogMeIn (free, LogMeIn, logmein.com) allows you to peer into your remote computer from anywhere. You can launch apps, move files, and adjust your preferences via a Web-based interface, as if you were sitting at that computer. For $29.99, you can get your iPhone in on the action too. TweetDeck If youâre a Twitter power user, TweetDeck (free, TweetDeck, www.tweetdeck.com) should be in your arsenal of Twitter apps. The interface is a series of columns that displays info like your friendsâ feeds, saved searches, mentions, direct mentions, and Facebook updates. You can also keep up with trending topics with just a quick glance. If thereâs something you need to track on Twitter, TweetDeck can make a column for it. Vuze Allegedly, BitTorrent steals medication from senior citizens, but isnât it time to forget about all the evil things it supposedly does? Instead, focus on the greatness of Vuze (free, Vuze, www.vuze.com) and its ability to download legally available video files. After youâve done the downloading, Vuze can convert your files for use on the iPhone, Apple TV, iPod, Xbox 360, TiVo, and PlayStation 3. Itâll even stream videos to your set-top boxes. Nice! BannerZest Creating Flash banners is difficult, especially when you donât know or own Flash. BannerZest ($49, Aquafadas, www.aquafadas.com) takes the pain out the process and gives you a simple way to create quick, beautiful Flash banners. From a standard gallery to an interactive experience, BannerZest comes with a collection of themes for different uses, and it uploads your banners to your FTP or MobileMe disk. FileChute Sending large files over email can result in the dreaded bounced email. FileChute ($17.95, Yellow Mug Software, www.yellowmug.com) works with your MobileMe-, FTP-, or WebDAV-accessible Web server. Drop your file into the app, and it uploads it to your online server of choice and then creates a URL to add to your email. If you drop more than one file, you get an archive uploaded to your server. Adios, bounced emails! Next Page: Content Creation Apps >> Content Creation Sure, Adobe's stuff is the gold standard, but you don't want to have to count on a good night at the poker table to pay for it, right? Cue these killer applications, which let you effectively draw, edit photos, render, animate, and even scratch for a very fair price. djay 3 Budgeted beats to grow on.You want to spin phat beats, but your slim bank keeps you from purchasing the high-end DJ equipment and software. Thatâs okay, young DJ-in-training, djay 3 ($49.95, algoriddim, www.djay-software.com) gives you everything you need to rock the house without losing your shirt. This surprisingly robust audio-mixing software integrates with your iTunes library and puts all the usual mixing and scratching right on your desktop. The application supports multitouch trackpad scratching and fading between tracks, so itâs especially perfect for the last few generations of MacBooks. And as you grow as a DJ, the application will grow with you thanks to its support for MIDI controllers. That means when you get the cash for those fancy digital mixers and turntables, djay will be right there with you.With your iTunes catalog at your fingertips, you'll find some pretty interesting mashups. Audacity Free audio editor extraordinaire.Audio editing seems simple at first. Then suddenly, youâre knee-deep in samples, frequencies, and bitrates. Sound editing really is part science, part black magic, so weâre thankful that Audacity (free, SourceForge, audacity.sourceforge.net) removes one of the biggest obstacles: choosing a quality application and figuring out how youâre going to pay for it. Audacity is both terrific and free, which is kinda hard to beat. An audio-recording and -editing application, it captures up to 16 channels at once from multiple sources, features noise removal, includes a metadata editor, and supplies unlimited undos. It can handle most of the audio files out there, and itâll work with multiple files types in the same project. Audacity is also is cross-platform, so if youâre a recent Mac arrival, you may already know about its awesome power.So many features, you'll second-guess the price: free. SketchUp 3D for you and me.Maya, 3D Studio Max, and SketchUp--all of these will let you create magical 3D worlds. Only one will do it for free, and you probably nailed it in one--itâs Googleâs SketchUp software (free, Google, sketchup.google.com) that brings the world of 3D to the average Joe. You can create your own items or utilize Googleâs 3D warehouse to find models created by other SketchUp users. With all those models at your fingertips, you can create floor plans for your home, build a level for your favorite FPS, or export the files to animation software or Photoshop. The application includes tutorials thatâll get you up and rendering in no time at all⊠so now nothing stands between you and virtual-world domination!Build a virtual man-cave for you and your stuff. Ringer Wham-bam ringtone, ma'am.We get tons of people asking us, âHow do I make a ringtone for my iPhone?â Until recently, we told them to launch GarageBand, cut a ringtone, and export it to iTunes. Now we recommend Ringer ($15, Pixel Research Labs, pixelresearchlabs.com/ringer) as the quickest and easiest way to create ringtones from your favorite songs and audio files. Ringer has access to your entire iTunes library and works with MP3, AAC, MOV, MP4, M4V, and QuickTime files. Yeah, you can make a ringtone from a video file. A super-simple editor with waveform information makes it a snap to select the perfect section of audio, and you can fade in and out of the file and preview the ringtone before cropping it and sending it to iTunes for a sync with your iPhone. Acorn Using an image editor doesnât have to cost you hundreds of dollars. In fact, with Acorn ($49.95, Flying Meat, www.flyingmeat.com/acorn), youâll get features like layers, AppleScript support, 64-bit support, drawing, and filters in a package thatâs easy on the wallet. This easy-to-use software strips away most of the features most people donât use and gives you a clean image-editing tool. Inkscape While raster-based image editors like Photoshop are great at pushing pixels around, the vector-based drawing programs are where all the real action happens. The open-source application Inkscape (free, Inkscape, www.inkscape.org) is similar to powerhouses like Illustrator and CorelDraw, but with one important difference--itâs free. The app utilizes the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format and includes a nice 3D drawing tool that allows you to set your vanishing points. Screenflick With Snow Leopard, Apple introduced screen-capture into QuickTime, and itâs a nice feature if youâre looking to make a quick full-screen screencast. But if you want something that has features like fixed location output at up to 60 fps, Screenflick ($25, Araelium Group, www.araelium.com/screenflick) is an application you can get behind. Itâll highlight mouse clicks and keyboard events, adding a nifty visual cue into your screencasts that highlights what youâre doing. Bracketeer While your eye can take in an amazing range of light to dark, your camera cannot. In order to help create images that include a tonal range that the average camera canât capture, HDR applications and plug-ins have appeared on the market. These applications take a series of images that have been bracketed from dark to light and combine them to include the darkest darks to the lightest lights in one HDR image. Bracketeer ($29.95, Pangea Software, pangeasoft.net/pano/bracketeer) is a standalone application that does just that. Adjust the saturation, the contrast, and exposure from within the application. The application will even auto-align your images in case you got the hiccups while taking your pics. iStopMotion 2 Home Most animatorsâ first animation was probably a stop-motion piece with Star Wars action figures. And whether those childhood lightsaber battles have you hoping to become the next Brad Bird, or you just love the look of stop-motion, iStopMotion ($49, Boinx Software, www.boinx.com/istopmotion/overview) is a quick, easy way to create simple stop-motion animations. Use your iSight or connect a camera to your Mac and start making your own Wallace and Gromit short. Youâll feel the Force, Lu⊠sorry. Next Page: Utility Apps >> Utilities Slick utilities can add crucial functionality to your Mac, so we've selected the best options for everything from secure password managers and system-troubleshooting tools to an app that will let you play Windows games on your Mac... without Windows! AppZapper Completely trash applications.Unlike using Windoze, installing and uninstalling apps on a Mac is painless. Drag an applicationâs icon into your Applications folder, and youâre pretty much good to go. Deleting them is just as simple--just grab them and toss them into the Trash. But if youâve ever dug around Library or System folders on your Mac, youâll see that even after you Trash an app, many of them leave crumbs in different parts of your machine. For cleaning up those last little bits, AppZapper ($12.95, Austin Sarner and Brian Ball, www.appzapper.com) is a must-have utility thatâs also great for troubleshooting problems. Wiping out all of an applicationâs preferences and other random files can often turn a troublesome app into a perfectly behaved one after a clean reinstall. Completely remove unwanted applications with a simple drag and drop. Hazel Clean and organize your Mac--automatically.Hazel ($21.95, NoodleSoft, www.noodlesoft.com) is kind of like Rosie the Robot for your Mac. Or itâs like OS Xâs Folder Actions⊠if they were super-awesome, easy to use, and perfect for helping you keep your Macâs folders and files organized. Hazel installs as a pane in System Preferences, monitoring locations that you choose, and performs actions on files based on your criteria. By creating simple rules, you can delegate repetitive and annoying file-management tasks to Hazel--for example, automatically add downloaded MP3s to iTunes or move DMGs to an archive on an external drive. Hazel can delve deep into metadata for complex actions like copying images into subfolders by ISO settings or reorganizing music files according to bitrate. You can even set up simple rules for auto-deleting items that have been in the Trash longer than a certain amount of time. 1Password Keep all your confidential info on lockdown.Youâve heard it before--secure, unique passwords are the way to go. Yet there you are, still using the same password for everything from your maclife.com login to your Gmail and your bank account. Do we even have to tell you again why thatâs a colossally bad idea? 1Password ($39.95, Agile Web Solutions, agilewebsolutions.com) can help clean up your online act, creating and managing complex passwords for every online account and then logging you in with a keyboard shortcut. The app can also be used to securely store personal information like credit card numbers and addresses for use in Web forms. And since all of your passwords are unique, you wonât have to worry about your banking info being compromised because of a data breach at that sketchy Russian website you used to download MP3s for a penny.1Password securely stores Web passwords, logins, software licenses, and other important information. iPhone Explorer Store & browse files on your iPhone.Breaking tradition with the iPods of yore, Apple doesnât provide the ability to use your iPhone as a USB drive. iPhone Explorer (free, myPod Apps, www.mypodapps.com) is a simple app that will let you drag and drop files onto your phone for easy portability. The app itself is lightweight, and all it takes is a USB cable to view your iPhoneâs folder structure. In addition to storing files, iPhone Explorer can be used to restore iTunes tracks from your iPod to a Mac or to rescue photographs from the depths of your iPhoneâs memory. No jailbreaking is required, but more adventurous users with jailbroken phones can also recover contacts, messages, email, and other data. Itâs a powerful tool, but itâs simple to use for the careful novice. AppleJack AppleJack (free, The Apotek, applejack.sourceforge.net) is one of those things youâll install once and never think about againâif everything goes right. But if, god forbid, your Mac starts acting weird one day--or stops acting, period--itâll be AppleJack to the rescue. Itâs a command-line utility for diagnosing and repairing problems with your computer. Use the menu-driven system to repair permissions, validate preferences files, and remove screwy cache files. SuperDuper With Time Machine built into OS X, thereâs really no good reason not to have an automatic backup. But Time Machine has its limits--a big one being the lack of bootable backups. SuperDuper ($27.95, Shirt Pocket, www.shirt-pocket.com) easily handles creating and updating bootable clones of your Macâs hard drive so youâll be ready to go when disaster strikes. Just plug in your clone, restart, and youâre up and running again. CrossOver Games PC fanboys like to slag the Mac for having fewer games, but with CrossOver Games ($39.95, CodeWeavers, www.codeweavers.com), Mac users--and Linux fans too--can easily play games coded for Windows machines. The list of officially supported games is hundreds deep, and since CrossOver is based on Wine, you donât even need a copy of Windows just to play Team Fortress 2. Clean My Mac Hard drives are never big enough. Whether you have a MacBook Air or a Mac Pro, there always comes a point when thereâs just not enough space on your internal disks. Clean My Mac ($29.95, MacPaw, macpaw.com) can help with that problem, scouring your Macâs drive and tossing out all sorts of gunk you donât need. Use it to toss unneeded language files, scrub extraneous code from universal binaries, and thoroughly clean up after deleted applications. rooSwitch OS Xâs Fast User Switching is handy for juggling multiple user accounts and their corresponding settings, but rooSwitch ($19, Rocket, rooswitch.com) allows you to maintain different settings on a per-application basis. Use it to manage Home and Work browser profiles, for example, or to have different profiles in your word processor for writing or editing documents. rooSwitch works with nearly any application, and it supports Automator and AppleScript for the ultimate in customizability. Next Page: Wild Card Apps & Staff Picks >> Wild Cards Not all Mac apps fall into your neat little categories. These five break the mold and completely deserve a place on your hard drive. Bricksmith Virtual bricks you can't lose or step on? Sold!Legos are the official plastic brick of Mac|Life--weâve had many discussions about the empires we built in our childhood bedrooms and how much we miss âplaying Legosâ as the soulless adults we are today. Bricksmith (free, donations accepted; Allen Smith; bricksmith.sourceforge.net) lets you recapture the magic in a highly geeky way. Itâs a 3D Lego-model creator, offering drag-and-drop construction using thousands of parts in every color of Legoâs rainbow. Tutorials and the one finished model thatâs included show you the ropes, and once youâre done with your virtual creation, you can export step-by-step instructions to build it for real. Thereâs even a mini figure generator where you can design and outfit a matching Lego man and insert him into your model. This software couldnât be cooler.We can't believe an application this sweet is donationware. CameraBag Desktop Give your photos a new identity or some old-timey charm.We named the iPhone version of CameraBag one of our â101 Essential Apps for 2008,â and now the same fun can be had on your Mac, thanks to CameraBag Desktop ($19, Nevercenter, www.nevercenter.com). You drag in a digital image, and the app re-creates the look of a real film photograph--choose from Helga, Lolo, Mono, 1962, 1974, Instant, Magazine, Cinema, or Colorcross.For more variations, click the Reprocess button, and all the options will change their look and coloring just slightly. Or check the Multi-filter box and experiment with adding multiple filters to a single photo. Of course, you can export your altered images back to your hard drive without affecting the original file. The novelty of taking an everyday digital snapshot and making it look like a Polaroid image or washed-out 1974 photograph never gets old.Your digital photos, plus extra personality. SousChef Recipe database + shopping list + cooking assistant = one kitchen lifesaver.SousChef ($30, Acacia Tree Software, acaciatreesoftware.com) edges out MacGourmet ($49.95, www.marinersoftware.com) in the cooking-assistant category for its cloud database of recipes. Every time a SousChef user enters a recipe (133,000-plus at press time), itâs synced to the cloud, and you can search those and import them into your own library. You can also opt out of sharing your own recipes so Aunt Ermaâs secret matzo ball soup stays in the family.Once a recipeâs in your library, you can edit, print, email, or blog it--or even add its ingredients to your grocery list. Click the Cook button for a full-screen view of the instructions that you can read from across the room, keeping your Mac out of the splatter zone. The Macâs built-in speech recognition lets you advance the recipeâs steps with your own voice, or you can use the Apple Remote or a Keyspan Front Row Remote. Temporis Attractive, drag-and-drop timelines make it easy to "show, don't tell."Everyone loves a good infographic, or at least geeky types like us do. (And the geeks shall inherit the earth, donâcha know?) Temporis ($24.99, Bartas Technologies, www.bartastechnologies.com) makes it easy to create neat-looking timelines on your Mac, which you can then print or export as PDF or TIFF files that are ready for importing into your presentation software, word processor, or page-layout app.Adding new events is just a Command-click away, and itâs a snap to drag the start and end dates around on the timeline. The Arrange button will automatically stagger your timelineâs events into the most logical and easy-to-read order, and the Inspector lets you tweak fonts, colors, titles, labels, and your timelineâs span and intervals. You can even export the event data separately as an XML or CSV file. Manga Studio Debut 4 Create your own comics and manga, and even manga-fy your photos.Manga Studio Debut 4 ($49.99, Smith Micro, my.smithmicro.com) is a must-have for fans of Japanese manga or anyone who wants to make their own comic books. Its ingenious Beginnerâs Assistant groups together the tools by processes so you can intuitively wind your way through a typical manga workflow: sketch, panel, draw, tone, and add character dialogue.You can scan or draw your own art (graphics tablets supported, natch), play with the included samples, purchase manga content from www.contentparadise.com, or even import your own digital photos and watch Manga Studio make them all comicky-looking. Draw speed lines, add dialogue bubbles, move your pages around, and then print or export your finished comic book. Manga Studio Debut 4 is the younger brother to professional-level Manga Studio EX 4 ($299.99), but Debut has plenty of advanced features too, including layers, templates, customizable patterns, and more. Mac|Life Staff Picks Bass Tuner Iâm a beginning bass player--like, very beginning. So itâs a huge help that I donât have to worry about staying in key. This terrific, simple, and streamlined little app ($9, www.rustykat.com) lets me quickly get in tune in front of my MacBook using the built-in mic. With that necessity sorted, I can fire up some tracks and tablature and focus on struggling to play along. Multiwinia Multiwinia ($19, www.ambrosiasw.com) offers crazy replayability. You devise a strategy for your stick-figure army, then watch them take on up to four other teams in six game types on 40 vector-graphic maps. Online multiplayer against Mac and Windows players works flawlessly and keeps me coming back for more. No Napoleon complex necessary. MetaX If you need to tag a large amount of MP4 files, you could use iTunesâ painfully slow process. Instead I found MetaX (free, www.kerstetter.net) for all my tagging needs. The app will search the IMDB catalog and plug the information into the appropriate fields, then share that info via tagChimp. You can even scan DVD barcodes via iSight! Bean For a word dork like me, word processors are a big deal. Bean (free, www.bean-osx.com) is a lightweight, open-source word processor. Itâs missing many of the blinky lights and thingamajigs of the big boys, and thatâs exactly the point. Fewer distractions equals better writing, faster. And for anyone who needs to hit a certain length, the live word count rocks. Fluid I often find that Firefox has the tendency to crash when I have too many Web applications running. But Fluid (free, fluidapp.com) lets me create a site-specific browser out of my most essential websites, like Google Docs and Flickr. Simply plug in the URL, and voilĂ ! You have a separate application running that wonât go down if something else does. Next Page: More Gaming Bang for 50 Bucks >> More Bang for 50 Bucks Some of the Mac's best games are also its cheapest? Sweet!Fifty bones wonât buy you even one new Xbox 360 or PS3 game, but on the Mac, you can snap up a stack of premier games for less than that. Or at least, that was our theory when we gave Florence, our new associate online editor, 50 whole American dollars and asked her to max out her Mac with the best gaming that short stack of money could buy. Man, did she score--check out the results of her diligent âresearch.â Plants Vs. Zombies $16, amazon.comLine up perilous peashooters and sun-soaking sunflowers against an abominable horde of zombies in Plants vs. Zombies.This animated tower-defense favorite pits you against a horde of zombies with one thing on their (decaying) minds--invading your home for brains! Pit your arsenal of zombie-fighting plants, each with their own spectacular organic weaponry, against 26 zombies and 50 levels of adventure. Fair warning: Once you start playing this excellent game, itâs incredibly hard to stop. World of Goo $10, amazon.comStack up adorable globs of goo to build structures and watch them band together as you help transport them across various levels.World of Goo is another addictive and totally adorable puzzle game. Created around the idea that circular goo balls make adequate building materials (naturally), the game has you solving puzzles by dragging and dropping goo to create all kinds of crazy structures that enable you to transport your goo across the level. The oh-so-cute googly-eyed blobs pack the game with charm, and you can also connect online and play against other Goo architects around the world. Braid $15, playgreenhouse.comBraid's aesthetically appealing backdrop and profound storyline will keep you engrossed until the very end.Some games defy description, and Braid might be easy to pass over because it appears to be just a mix of platforming and time control set against a gorgeous backdrop. But it subverts and transcends those two well-worn clichĂ©s with brilliant design and an absorbing story that packs a twist that youâll never see coming. Watch the YouTube videos if you need help solving its puzzles, but just make sure you see this masterpiece through to the end. Balcassa $8, openplanetsoftware.comBalcassa has a mountain of exciting brainteasers for the puzzle fiend.Balcassa feeds off those nightmares you still have about attempting to master that archaic, rainbow-colored Rubikâs cube. And while most of you probably never cracked the damn thing (we didnât!), Balcassa gives you a second chance. The objective of the game is to slide the cubes into a specific sequence, pattern, or orientation. It may sound like a simple task, but much like fiddling with a Rubikâs cube, figuring it all out is the real reward. Freeware Fun If youâre interested in first-person shooters and MMORPGs, Quake Live and Second Life can give you hours of entertainment at our favorite price: $0.00. Both games perform smoothly on Mac OS 10.4 or later. Quake Live doesnât require beefy hardware because it runs through your Web browser. But that doesnât stop it from delivering all the fast-paced action of the classic first-person shooter. Second Life, while not as packed with storyline as World of Warcraft, offers a similar massively multiplayer world where you can meet people, customize your characterâs look, and participate in a virtual world thatâs just like our own. You donât even have to watch the clock to make sure youâre on time for a player-versus-player raid!You don't need fancy computer hardware to frag your way through this beloved shooter. Vital Statistics on Our 50 Killer Apps Total cost if you bought all 50 apps: $1219.83Number of apps that are free: 13Apps that have an iPhone counterpart: 15Whaddaya waiting for? (apps that have a free demo): 39Number of countries these apps were born in: 7Apps named "iSomething": shockingly... just 3!Apps that require Snow Leopard: 1Apps that require Leopard: 14Apps that promise "iLife integration!": 9
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50 Technologies that Rocked the Past Decade
Over the past decade, we've seen technology leap beyond our wildest dreams. The Noughties took us from kilobytes to terabytes, single-core processors to octo-core, and thin laptops to pocket-sized netbooks. And regardless if you're a member of the Apple faithful or simply a casual PC user, we can all agree that the innovations we've seen over the past ten years have revolutionized the way we go about our daily lives. Read on to see our 50 favorite gadgets and technologies of this modern era, and leave a comment with your favorite tech memory of the last decade! iPodWithout the iPod we'd still be lugging around crappy MP3 players or worse, CD Walkmen. The classic iPod may be losing the limelight to the iPhone and the iPod touch, but without that original white music player that promised to put 1000 songs in your pocket, the idea for an iPhone may have never been pitched. BroadbandIf you had broadband in the 90s, you were some sort of super nerd. These days, even our grandmothers have broadband. We refuse to comment on their ability to snipe us non-stop while playing CoD: MW2 online with them. KindleThis is a no-brainer, but being able to read books without needing to go to the library or bookstore is awesome. Though the Kindle still needs to work out some kinks--we miss used bookstores and loaning books to friends--eBook readers are obviously here to stay.TiVoThe dawn of Tivo and digitally recordable video meant you'd never miss a show and could skip over commercial breaks. Netflix The worst part about renting DVDs was having to leave the comforts of your warm, cozy bed to drive to the video store. Netflix took care of those inconveniences. And with the excellent streaming available on several different devices, you no longer have to wait for the mail man.Apple TVThanks to Apple TV, now we can have all of our favorite media streamed directly to our wall-mounted televisions. PandoraRemember all those cool Real Player radio stations in the 90s? Yeah, we can't remember any cool ones either. Now, we have Pandora to make Internet radio actually worth listening to. There are also other music streaming sites like Last.fm and Grooveshark. OS XThe switch from OS 9 to OS X wasn't just a an upgrade. It was the introduction of whole new Unix-based OS infused with Apple's powerful, yet easy-to-use philosophy. While OS X Server was released in 1999, the average Mac user got their first taste of OS X (Codenamed Cheetah) in 2002. Helmet CamerasOK, so helmet cameras weren't introduced in the '00s, but now that they're affordable, and movie-editing software is so much more user-friendly, anyone can attempt their own Warren Miller-style extreme sports action film. Flat-panel iMacsThe coolest form-factor in desktop computers, hands down. Not only did it save an incredible amount of desk space, but it also made buying and hooking up a computer a much simpler endeavor.Cloud storageIt's what lets you never delete a Gmail message. It's what keeps your Dropbox synced up. It's what sends your MobileMe contacts to your iPhone. It's like invisible technology that totally simplifies your life. GoogleAt the beginning of the decade, Google was the best search engine around. Now, it's pretty much the Borg, with its techy tentacles reaching for your mail, calendars, voicemail, documents, contacts and chats. Hey, they take photos of your house for crying out loud! But they also bring us lots of useful services for free. This is sure to be a company that will last well into the next decade. TwitterTwitter has completely revolutionized microblogging to the extreme. Gone are the day of 1,400 word blog posts, as the service has taught us there's nothing you can't say in 140 characters or less. This social platform has even caught on to celebrities, who insist on tweeting as often as they possibly can, without the filter of their PR rep.Backlit keyboardsBecause only true nerds compute in the dark. WikipediaThe birth of Wikipedia brought on an even greater resource for the Internet--the advent of the Wiki. Every wiki is customizable and available to any Internet user willing to lend a hand at citing and editing an article. Online Banking and Bill PayThough some of our favorite banks aren't joining us in the new decade, the wonderful invention of online banking has made it easier for us to pay our bills on time and ensure our finances are square, all without the long lines and hassle of walking inside a bank. Xbox LiveWith Xbox Live, PC gamers and LAN hoarders were no longer the only ones who could get online to play with their friends.HDTVWhatâs not to love about a crystal-clear, 16:9 HDTV in your house? Gone are the days of squinting at tiny letterboxed movies on 4:3 screens. And what could be better than watching the Mythbusters blow stuff up in high definition? DRM-free music storesDRM never stopped a music pirate from stealing the latest Britney Spears track. When Amazon MP3 and iTunes ditched DRM (for music at least) they did all of their paying customers a solid, making it easier to actually enjoy the music that weâve paid for. Letâs hope the movie studios wise up eventually and let them do the same for video content. The iPhoneItâs a computer that fits in your pocket. And if youâre lucky enough to live in a sparsely populated area, itâll occasionally allow you to make and receive phone calls, too!Nintendo WiiâSeriousâ gamers may scoff at the Wiiâs lack of hardcore titles, and weak sauce 480p resolution. But thereâs no doubt that the innovative controls, and newbie-friendly attitude, have turned tons of people (back) on to videogames, and thatâs good for everyone.USB 2.0USB 2.0 pumped up the speed of its predecessor by several orders of magnitude, up to 480 Mbit/s. Sure, itâs no FireWire speed-wise, but for sheer ubiquity, you gotta love USB.FacebookMySpace might have gotten to the social networking party earlier (actually, it was Friendster), but itâs Facebook that has captured the internetâs attention (for now). Weâre just happy to be able to keep up with friends and acquaintances so easily.Flash DrivesWhen Apple killed the floppy drive, people were horrified. But with a 32GB flash drive always in our pocket these days, that outrage seems comically short-sighted now. Not to mention, you can't carry around a floppy shaped like your favorite food.DropboxEven the most die-hard Apple fans have to admit that MobileMeâs iDisk is pretty much a bag of hurt, to borrow a phrase from The Steve. Dropbox, on the other hand, syncs to Macs, PCs and iPhones instantly and flawlessly. We have no idea how we ever lived without it.GmailAll your mail are belong to Gmail, or at least it should be. Anywhere access, and tons of useful features your desktop mail client doesnât have⊠all for the price of some unobtrusive text ads that weâve learned not to look at anyway.BitTorrentBitTorrent gets a bad rap as the preferred method for pirating music, movies, and TV on the internet. But itâs also a genius method for distributing any kind of digital goods, from Creative Commons films to free e-books and gigantic open-source software packages.Cell phones that fit in your pocketIn the olden days, cell phones were so big that they required a shoulder bag to contain the enormous hardwareâand they were super-expensive to use. The svelte phones of today are easier to carry, more convenient to use, and do way more than that giant Uniden handset could have ever dreamed of. Text messagingVoice calls R so 1999. Evn ur mom txts. LOLMulti-core Processors These days, itâs not hard to find a quadcore, or an octacore, fueling even the average computer build. Digital Point-and-shoot CamerasThough digital cameras were available to photographers and professionals before they hit the mainstream, the digital point-and-shoot made it easy for anyone to become a photographer and instantly share photos.3G The hype surrounding 3G only proves that this technology became an integral part of how we communicate today. Without it, we wouldnât be able to access websites on our mobile browsers at lightening speeds or download applications and widgets from various app stores. Streaming videoIt was in this last decade that start-up companies like YouTube took off with a new, more socially friendly way to stream video and instantly share it with the Internet. PDAWhere would we be without a Personal Digital Assistant? Well, we certainly wouldnât make appointments. Or check our email. Or be able to view emali attachments on the go. Though the PDA emerged in the early 90âs, it flourished into the mainstream thanks to the ever-evolving mobile operating systems, which eventually allowed even the average person to access Internet and Email from their one tiny device. If you think about it, smartphones are simply descendants of the ancient PDA.CSSAlso known as Cascading Style Sheets, this web language made the job easier for even the most hardcore of HTML programmers. The new CSS introduced the idea of streamlined, attractive webpages, which eventually helped the Internet crossover to web 2.0. Though development began in the mid-nineties, CSS became mainstream in 2000 when Internet Explorer 5 hit the market. LCD television and monitorsBelieve it or not, this technology has been around since 1888. However, it wasnât until the end of 2007 that LCDs eventually surpassed the sales of CRT monitors. LED displaysNow featured in a variety of Apple and major-brand monitors, LEDs are brighter, better and, allegedly, more energy efficient. Fiber Optic InternetThanks to Verizon and AT&T bringing fiber optic internet to the average consumer household, even Americans can have lightening fast download speeds like the Scandinavians!Touch screensThis was definitely the decade of the touch screens. Think of the Nintendo DS, the iPhone, the touch screen PC, and multi-touch touchpads on our own laptops.Internet AnywhereYou can have Internet in your pocket, in your car, on a bus, in a plane, on a boat, on a mountain, by the sea, in a train. Yeah, Internet everywhere is pretty much everywhere.Apple AirportApple didn't invent Wi-Fi, but like USB before it, Apple lead the industry to the new wireless networking. All you need is an Airport base station and an Airport card in your machine and you're golden. HDMIOkay, we'll admit that HDMI has some quirky issues, but it's one cable to rule them all. Instead of having up to five individual ports to plug stuff into to get sound and video, one cable does it all. Solid State DrivesFinally, a piece of hardware that didn't fall apart when you carried your laptop around wrong side up. Though they're still a bit pricey, SSDs have become second choice in the computer world today, and without their inception, we wouldn't have a way to keep our laptops moving with us without completely ruining our treasure trove of data--the drive. Online Shopping Next to online banking, shopping for everything and anything online has become one of our biggest vices in the past few years. Groceries, used books, antiques, and medications can all be purchased online from various retailers. The ability to simply buy something with a few clicks of a mouse button makes it difficult to avoid impulse purchases, and may be the reason some of us here at Mac|Life headquarters aren't saving as much as we hoped to this holiday season.BluetoothIf you've got a tendency to get completely turned on by the idea of wireless computing, than Bluetooth probably warmed up your socks this last decade. This seamless technology helps us sync up our mobile phones with our computers, and our cars, and we can't imagine a world where Bluetooth syncing isn't available. Photo TaggingThe fact that digital photos made a big play this decade wasn't enough. Facebook and various social networking sites implemented photo tagging so that everyone around the world wide web would know who was doing what and when. Though this kind of photo tagging has had in benefits in cases where, say, you needed an alibi, it can get annoying when that poorly taken photo of you surfaces the web. Open SourceOh, open source and it's enchanting ways have been around for decades. However, these last few years have shown an ever-increasing interest in the idea of free software for all and will definitely set the pace for how the software and Internet giants attempt to knock each other out of the ring. Apps and the App StoreWith a ton of applications, it's no wonder that businesses everywhere are scurrying to follow Apple in the App store trend. Android already had a pretty well established marketplace, and big time competitors like RIM and Palm aren't far behind. Pixar animationPixarâs first film came out 15 years ago, but their constant technological innovation, and emphasis on evocative storytelling continues to push the envelope for movies and other forms of digital entertainment. And their CGI animation style holds up remarkably well, compared to other movie special effects.PhotoshopYes, Photoshop hit the stores way before we even knew we would outlast Y2K. However, thereâs something to say for Adobeâs most versatile graphics editing program, as itâs undergone several incarnations since the turn of the decade, including 5, 7, and rebranded CS, which stands for Creative Suite.
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iTunes Power Tips Every Mac Owner Should Know
Your quick-and-dirty guide to the world's most popular digital media app. Itâs been more than eight years since Apple released the first version of iTunes. And although itâs expanded to incorporate many smart features since its January 2001 debut, it still looks remarkably similar to the way it did when it first appeared, running on OS 9. Back then it was just a jukebox, but over the years came enhancements like CD burning, the iPod, smart playlists, the iTunes Store, video support, and, most recently, the iPhone.Apple has gradually turned iTunes into a hub for managing and playing all the music and movies on your Mac and mobile devices, while continually adding support for new devices and services like the Apple TV, movie rentals, and much more. In 2003, Apple made the smart move of developing a Windows version of iTunes, opening up the iPod market and the iTunes Store to a much wider audience. iTunes remains one of Appleâs most important applications, and itâs capable of far more than just playing music.Whether itâs converting movies to watch on your iPod, building party playlists, getting album art online, buying music, renting movies, or backing up your iPhone, thereâs an awful lot under the surface--and even more than ever with the release of iTunes 9 in September. Many of the tips and tricks we show you throughout this feature will save you time and even reveal a few things you didnât know you could do. Master Your Music Take control of your music collection with these time-saving tips and tricks. Use smart playlists to manage music on the fly. Apple introduced smart playlists in iTunes 3, and itâs one of those features that, once you make using it a habit, youâll never go back to plain-vanilla âdumbâ playlists again.To create a smart playlist, go to File > Smart Playlists (or press Option-Command-N). Youâre presented with a dialog in which youâll set the ârulesâ for your smart playlist. When youâre first starting out, itâs best to keep it relatively simple. But once you have the hang of it, you can go bigger, creating much fancier smart playlists to capture only specific types of content, weed out other content types, and so on.Smart playlists take the manual drudgery out of creating dynamic playlists out of iTunes media libraries of any size--and they're not limited to music.If you specify that the playlist should show all songs with the Artist tag âRolling Stones,â for example, all tracks in your library by the Stones will appear in the playlist. You can go a step farther and add all Rolling Stones tracks that have certain star ratings. By using the Match Any Rule option plus other options, you can have playlists that display different sets of tracks--a playlist, for example, where the genre is both blues and rock, as well as a bit rate greater than 128kbps. Be sure to check Live Updating, so iTunes will watch the library and automatically add any new files that meet the criteria youâve specified. Use Genius to find new music--or rediscover music in your library. With more music than ever available in the iTunes Store, it can be time-consuming to find new artists and albums you might like. The Genius feature in iTunes sends information about your musical tastes to the iTunes Store and recommends new music based on similar artists and other peopleâs listening habits (if you havenât already, you need to turn Genius on by choosing Store > Turn on Genius). If you select a track from your library and click the Genius button in the lower-right corner, iTunes will create a list of recommended albums and tracks that you can buy from the iTunes Store to complement your chosen track. Then you can preview and buy these songs directly from the sidebar. Since it knows what music is already in your library, Genius wonât recommend anything you already have.By activating the Genius feature you can have iTunes recommend new music based on your listening habits.With iTunes 9, Apple expanded Genius to include mixes using songs already in your iTunes library. To get the Genius Mixes feature to appear in iTunes 9, turn on Genius if you havenât already, then update Genius by selecting Store > Update Genius. Now, to see what Genius Mixes iTunes recommends for you, click Genius Mixes in the left-hand pane (under Genius) in the iTunes window. Youâll see a grid view of album cover-style graphics. When you mouse over one, youâll see a name for the mix and a brief explanation of what itâs based on--for example, âRock/Pop Mix 6: based on: The White Stripes, Weezer, Red Hot Chili Peppers & others.â Mouse over each mix and click the Play button to hear the mix. We just wish that once the Genius Mixes are created you could do more with them than just sit and listen--once a mix starts playing, thereâs no way to tell what song is coming next. And, most frustrating of all, thereâs no way to capture the mix as a regular or smart playlist.Genius Mixes in iTunes 9 auto-create mixes using songs in your own library on the fly. Share iTunes libraries. You can duplicate an entire consolidated iTunes library by simply copying the Music folder on your Mac. But with libraries frequently running into many gigabytes in size, this is a slow, inefficient method. iTunes can share your library over a local network, so it can be accessed by anyone on your Ethernet or wireless network. Go to Preferences > Sharing and turn on sharing of the whole library or specific playlists. You can password-protect access and also tell iTunes to look for other shared libraries. Since the music is streamed--not copied--it takes up no disk space on the machines of those who tap into your library.iTunes can share selected playlists or your whole library, including videos, over a local network, with optional password protection. Automatically rip and import music CDs. Go to Preferences > General and select âWhen you Insert a CD, Import CD and Eject.â As long as this setting is active, whenever you insert an audio CD, it will capture track names, encode tracks based on your import settings, and your Mac will then eject the disc. Next click the Import Settings button and choose the quality setting you want iTunes to use to convert the CD tracks as it imports them (192kbps AAC or MP3 files will offer good sound quality at reasonable file sizes). When you insert an audio CD, iTunes will now retrieve all track names and artwork from the Internet and import the tracks using the quality settings you chose.To set the bit rate for the AAC encoder, in the Import Settings dialog, choose 192kbps, leave the other options on Auto, and click OK. Next Page: Video Tips: What You See is What You Get... Video Tips: What You See is What You Get iTunes is just as good with video as it is with music. Manage playback settings for the best viewing experience. iTunes can display videos from your library in many ways. If you go to Preferences > Playback, you can tell it to play back videos in the small artwork viewer, in iTunesâ main window, in a separate window, or in full-screen mode. You can have anything from a small, unobtrusive window to a full theater presentation, blanking out additional displays. When itâs in a floating window, video can be resized during playback, and if you right-click, you can select any preset size. If you have more than one screen, move the floating window onto the display you want to use as the main screen. This is handy if you have a digital TV connected as a second screen.Use the Playback settings to control how video screens are arranged on your main monitors or multiple displays. Convert video for playback in iTunes & on your iPod. iTunes is picky about what video file formats it can read and play back. It doesnât like AVIs, WMVs, or other non-Apple formats, for example. If you have a movie thatâs already been digitized into one of these incompatible formats, the best course of action is to convert it with QuickTime Pro ($29.99, www.apple.com/quicktime) into an MP4 or M4V file using the File > Export > MP4 or Apple TV options. You will also need to install Perian (free, www.perian.org) to enable QuickTime to open the videos in the first place. You should be able to drag the converted movies into your iTunes library, holding down the O key if necessary to override automatic copying of the file. Then choose Advanced > Create iPhone, iPod, or Apple TV version, and iTunes will convert the video using the optimum quality and screen-size settings for the device that you plan to view the video on.Combining QuickTime Pro and Perian, you can convert video formats that iTunes doesn't favor (such as .AVI) to .M4V files, so you can watch them on your Mac, iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV. Export your home movies to your iPod or iPhone. If you use iMovie â08 or â09, you can export a project directly into iTunes using the Share menu. Or, choose Media Browser and check the iPhone and iPod options. For each option you check, a different version will be compressed and exported.However, if youâre still using iMovie HD 6 or your movie has come from another source, such as straight from a camera, you can use a third-party compression tool like ffmpeg (homepage.mac.com/major4/) to convert most kinds of video files.If you have QuickTime Pro and Perian installed, you can opt to export directly for iPhone, iPod, or Apple TV within QuickTime Pro. Next Page: How to Digitize Your DVDs... How to Digitize Your DVDs There are, of course, legal issues with ripping a commercial DVD. To keep the feds off your back, only use this how-to for digitizing a commercial DVD movie or other content that you have purchased. This, according to the MPAA, is legal. Making 100 copies of I Love You, Man and selling them for $5 each at your cousinâs garage sale--not so much.Before you start, download and install Handbrake (free, handbrake.fr) and VLC (free, www.videolan.org/vlc). 1. Get to the source.Load the DVD into your Mac and launch HandBrake. The software needs you to select your video source. Navigate to your DVD and select it. Now it should appear under Source.2. Get inside the source.HandBrake doesnât make it easy to figure out which file on the DVD is the movie. In the Title section in the main interface, you get a pull-down menu showing the available files on the DVD. The files are identified by time length, so if youâre ripping a movie, youâll probably want to select the file with the longest running time. (It can get tricky if youâre ripping a DVD with a commentary track or extra features that run the same length as the featured video.) If youâre selecting a TV show, look for running lengths of about 24 to 45 minutes. Under Destination, pick a place where you want to save the converted file.We identified our Lawrence of Arabia movie file by its length of 2 hours, 19 minutes, 16 seconds.3. Output settings.If you want to convert a video for iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV, you can use one of HandBrakeâs presets. Click the Toggle Presets button at the upper-right to open the Presets window (if itâs not already open). To create a video to play on your Mac, select QuickTime.We're taking a cross-country plane trip and plan to watch Lawrence on our iPhone to while away the hours in flight.4. Tweak video and audio settings.The bottom half of HandBrakeâs main window lets you make adjustments to the video settings. For example, lowering the frame rate can help reduce the file size. The Quality settings also influence file size. If you select a target size, HandBrake will rip the video based on your setting; the smaller the setting, the lower the video quality. If you go with an average bit-rate setting, enter a setting between 400 and 600 (though you can go much higher or lower if you want). Constant quality reduces the quality based on a percentage. Click on the Picture Settings button to adjust the pixel size of the video.Selecting 2-pass encoding will improve video quality, but it takes longer to create the file.Click on Audio & Subtitles to tweak the audio settings. Make sure the language you want is selected in Track 1. You can also adjust the sample rate, bit rate, and activate subtitles.5. Hurry up and wait.When you have your settings settled, click on Start, and go do something else. It can take a while to rip a DVD. Fortunately, HandBrake is a Universal application, so Intel Mac folks will get much faster results. Lawrence of Arabia took 1 hour, 12 minutes to rip on a 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro with 4GB of RAM.6. Drop into iTunesWhen HandBrake is done, navigate to where you saved the file. Drag and drop the file into iTunes, then connect your iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV, and sync. iTunes will transfer the file to your device. Or, if the movie was converted for your Mac, just double-click the file to watch it. Next Page: Sync and Swim... Sync and Swim Better ways to manage music, video, and apps between your Mac and your iPod or iPhone. Manage apps on your iPhone or iPod touch. Hallelujah--iTunes 9 brought the option to more effectively manage which Home screenâs apps appear on your iPhone or iPod touch. Now when your device is connected and you select it in the sidebar, click the Applications tab to see a visual representation of where app icons will appear on the 10 possible Home screens. Although weâd love to see the option to name each screen rather than having them be numbered, the new management option is miles ahead of the old way of doing things.We created a screen just for the news apps we use most. Automatic syncing saves time and space. iPods and iTunes have always had the ability to automatically sync with each other--sharing exactly the same music files. For some this is great, as it maintains an exact copy of your music, photos, and contacts on your iPod or iPhone and on your Mac. Others, though, prefer more flexibility. With your iPod selected, go to its Summary tab and click Manually Manage Music and Videos. Then you can add or delete tracks from the iPodâs music library by hand. Just drag and drop tracks from your iTunes library to add them.In each subsequent tab you can choose to manually sync contacts, calendars, ringtones, videos, applications, and more. This is a great way of syncing some data without performing a full sync, which can be slow and puts you at risk of accidentally overwriting data. Use Senuti to get music from an iPod to your Mac. Being able to copy songs from an iPod to a Mac is incredibly useful, and no, weâre not talking about pirating. If you keep distinct iTunes libraries on more than one Mac, your iPod can carry them back and forth. If your hard drive crashes, or you get a new Mac, restoring iTunes tracks via an iPod is a great trick to have at hand.FadingRedâs Senuti ($18, www.fadingred.com) lets you do exactly this--a simple operation youâd think iTunes would allow but doesnât.You can drag not only songs and videos, but whole playlists, right to your iTunes library.Senuti supports the iPod touch and iPhone, as well as all the iPods. When you connect your device, its library and playlists appear at the top of the sidebar, while your iTunes library and playlists are listed on the bottom. Blue dots next to the tracks show you which songs on your iPod already exist in iTunes. Drag songs from your iPodâs library and drop them onto your iTunes library, or select songs and click the big green Transfer button. Senuti can copy the songs anywhere on your hard drive for you to back up, or it can even add the songs directly to iTunes--just choose iTunes Music Folder as the default download location in Senuti > Preferences.Senuti can also rebuild playlists from your iPod in iTunes. Smart playlists on your iPod become regular playlists in iTunes, however, preserving the list as it was on your iPod, without adding in more qualifying songs from your iTunes library, as a smart playlist would. To copy a playlist to iTunes, you drag the whole playlist name from the iPod area of the sidebar and drop it on top of the word iTunes in the bottom half of the sidebar. Pump up iTunes with AppleScripts We have long been fans of DougâsAppleScripts for iTunes, a huge--and we do mean huge--catalog of AppleScripts created by Doug Adams and available to the iTunes-loving masses for free at dougscripts.com/itunes.You can laugh, but we would never have taken the time to manually compare the similarities of these playlists. Thanks, Doug's Scripts!One particularly useful script--though itâs very hard to pick just one--is the Compare Two Playlists script, which compares the contents of two playlists and creates a text file on your Desktop listing the tracks they have in common and the ones that are exclusive to each. This comes in handy if you make a lot of playlists for parties and want to easily tell them apart. Download the script, unzip it, and copy the scripts to the your usernameLibraryiTunesScripts folder, creating the Scripts folder if necessary, as directed in the instructions.
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â The Airfoil Speakers Touch Situation
Regarding today’s aforelinked tale from Rogue Amoeba regarding the four-month-long process to get a minor bug-fix update to Airfoil Speakers Touch published on the App Store, several readers who insist upon defending Apple in this matter have pointed me to [Jeff LaMarche’s response]. LaMarche writes: I’m going to risk the ire of the maddening crowd once more, but I think somebody needs to come to Apple’s defense this time. I love a good mob scene as much as the next guy, and I keep my pitchfork nice and sharp just in case the need should arise. But⊠the picture that Rogue Amoeba has painted in their farewell post doesn’t look quite so black and white to me. Certainly, Apple could have handled many things about the situation better, but so could have Rogue Amoeba. Let’s strip it down to the basics. Airfoil Speakers Touch included pictures of Apple products; These were images owned by Apple; The iPhone SDK Agreement specifically prohibits the use of images, icons, and logos owned by Apple in iPhone applications; The first rejection clearly and unambiguously stated why the app was being rejected and how it could be fixed. There is much that is wrong with LaMarche’s synopsis. Point 1 is simply wrong; the Airfoil Speakers Touch iPhone app does not contain any of these images. It contains no pictures of Apple computers. It contains no icons of Apple applications. It displays these images after they are sent across the network by Airfoil for Mac. Airfoil for Mac reads these images using public official Mac OS X APIs. I.e. Airfoil Speakers Touch can only show a picture of the Mac it is connected to because the image is sent from the Mac it is connected to. Point 3, I disagree with. I’ve just re-read the entire iPhone SDK Agreement (again), and I find no clause that prohibits what Airfoil Speakers Touch was doing. Here’s section 3.2 (d), which is perhaps what LaMarche is referring to (bold emphasis added):1 (d) To the best of Your knowledge and belief, Your Application and Licensed Application Information do not and will not violate, misappropriate, or infringe any Apple or third party copyrights, trademarks, rights of privacy and publicity, trade secrets, patents, or other proprietary or legal rights (e.g. musical composition or performance rights, video rights, photography or image rights, logo rights, third party data rights, etc. for content and materials that may be included in Your Application); One can argue that Airfoil Speakers Touch is somehow “violating”, “misappropriating”, or “infringing” on Apple trademarks here. I would strongly disagree, and argue instead that Airfoil Speakers Touch was using these images very much appropriately. And note that the SDK agreement does not state you cannot “use” Apple trademarks. There’s also section 2.6: This Agreement does not grant You any rights to use any trademarks, logos or service marks belonging to Apple, including but not limited to the iPhone or iPod word marks. If You make reference to any Apple products or technology or use Appleâs trademarks, You agree to comply with the published guidelines at http://www.apple.com/legal/trademark/guidelinesfor3rdparties.html, as modified by Apple from time to time. This clearly suggests that iPhone apps can make use of Apple trademarks, if they comply with the terms of Apple’s guidelines. I’ve read that document, too, and see no clause therein which would suggest that what Airfoil Speakers Touch was doing was in violation of the guidelines. In his write-up regarding the situation, Rogue Amoeba’s Paul Kafasis includes this bit from their App Store rejection notice: Apple Logo and Apple-owned Graphic Symbols: You may not use the Apple Logo or any other Apple-owned graphic symbol, logo, or icon on or in connection with web sites, products, packaging, manuals, promotional/advertising materials, or for any other purpose except pursuant to an express written trademark license from Apple, such as a reseller agreement. That’s less ambiguous. However, note that this language is not contained within the SDK agreement itself. The only way Rogue Amoeba got this language was by designing, building, and submitting the application that did it. (And this gets to LaMarche’s fourth point, wherein he claims the notice was “unambiguous”. It was not. It did not state where Rogue Amoeba had violated this rule. Was it the Mac icons? The app icons? Both? Rogue Amoeba was left to guess — and, when they asked for clarification, left to wait.) Is Apple within their rights to reject this app for this reason? Sure. The bottom line is that they can reject apps for whatever reasons they want — that’s the rule that matters here. But was Rogue Amoeba foolish for designing their application this way? No. There’s nothing in the SDK agreement that they’ve violated. It’s just good design. In UI design, just as in cinema, it is almost always better to show rather than tell. How else can you show which computer the Airfoil iPhone client is connected to? Apple certainly agrees with the design — showing an icon of the machine is exactly how their own Remote app solves the same UI problem. Obviously, the iPhone Remote app is Apple’s own app, so they can’t be accused of violating/misappropriating/infringing their own trademark. But if the de facto rule is “Apple can show a representation of the computer its iPhone apps connect to, but third-party developers can’t”, that doesn’t exactly refute Rogue Amoeba’s conclusion that developing for this platform just isn’t worth it. I can’t link to the SDK agreement, as it resides behind the iPhone Developer Portal. ↩